Waterboarding Rocks!

[Upchurch]

Psssstttttt maybe they got it from someone besides Sheikh Mohammed??? Maybe?? Ya think???

Evidence?

 

[Brainster]

Personally, I applaud the Obama Administration's decision to risk political suicide for a principle. And I expect it to indeed turn out to be political suicide in the event of a serious terrorist attack in the USA.

But if this is a hill they're willing to die on, you gotta respect that. Even if they're only going to figuratively die while others will die quite literally.

 

[Upchurch]

Why is YOUR morality so inflexible as to allow a megamass murder to occur, when you could potentially stop it by simply applying a little pain and discomfort to one person? Because you think the evil in applying temporary pain and discomfort to one person is the same as the evil in allowing the murder of a 100,000 people?

Because I recognize that, in a complex reality such as ours, it never comes down to such a black and white dichotomy. You are so anxious to get to the torture that you falsely exclude all other possibilities.

 

[SezMe]

Psssstttttt maybe they got it from someone besides Sheikh Mohammed??? Maybe?? Ya think???

You're not too sharp today, Painter. Here is the quote that YOU put in YOUR post:

including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

You believe that the Library Tower plot was thwarted by the torture of KSM. You said so. And that is your justification for "pulling of nails".

Now your justification is shown to be wrong - horribly wrong.

Get a bigger rock.

 

[boloboffin]

I was getting there, too. I was just trying to figure out how to reword it.

It corresponds exactly. Heaven and hell = prevent a terrorist attack by torturing, don't prevent it by not torturing. If the terrorist attack doesn't exist actually, then you have either not tortured someone (lived your life the way you wanted) or tortured someone that deserves to be tortured anyway (led a moral life and gained the earthly benefit of that).

This, of course, put the terrorist attack in the place of God in BAC's argument. Perhaps we can refrain from using the terrorists as the center of our moral compass.

 

[Drysdale]

Valkyrie. Though based on real events, "good Nazis" were the exception, not the rule.

Havent seen the movie. I'm not a movie person really.
What's your point.

 

[Upchurch]

There recollections are their recollections. But they do not speak for the OSS agents who didn't pull out a chess board when interrogating their captives. It has nothing to do with me agreeing or disagreeing with them.

I call BS on the OSS claim. Put up or shut up.

Now, I realize Cicero is probably out living his life away from the board (as we must all do once in a while), but I would hate to think he might forget to back his claim just because several pages have zoomed by in his absence.

 

[The Painter]

Just because somebody did something evil to us, we have the right to be evil, maybe? I think not.

So are you saying we need to be governed by good fairies? You know. Like in a Disney movie. Tell me, what's it like in the fantasy land you live in????



Hmmm someone did something evil to us, Hmm.. oh yeah Pearl Harbor

We did something evil, Hmmmm Hiroshima, hey that worked. We won.

Lefty you lose again.

 

[Upchurch]

Havent seen the movie. I'm not a movie person really.
What's your point.

um...

Though based on real events, "good Nazis" were the exception, not the rule.

eta: in response to:

The Germans were following the orders of a dictator whom many did'nt like nor have faith in but to speak up was suicide.
Most had families and homes and wanted the war to end as much as we did.

 

[The Painter]

You believe that the Library Tower plot was thwarted by the torture of KSM. You said so. And that is your justification for "pulling of nails".

No {snip} this is justification;

Get it right.

Edited for Rule 12.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

 

[Upchurch]

Got it: Appeal to emotion is a sound reason for discarding principle.

Thanks for that lesson, Painter

 

[Drysdale]

um...


eta: in response to:

Where's your source for this? In the WWII book I read, I dont remember the author and granted it has been awhile, but it was'nt blind loyalty from what I remember. More like forced loyalty.

 

[Upchurch]

Incidentally, if this wasn't justification for torture:

Why should yours be?

 

[The Painter]

Got it: Appeal to emotion is a sound reason for discarding principle.

Thanks for that lesson, Painter

OK

Forget the past. Operate on fantasy. Turn the other cheek until you are dead. Got it.


Thanks for that lesson, Upchurch

 

[The Painter]

Incidentally, if this wasn't justification for torture:

[qimg]http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/std/images/Pearl_Harbor.jpg[/qimg]

Why should yours be?

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of Rule 12 removed.

 

[BeAChooser]

Yes, how dare I think that the Soviet Union with their vast armies and nuclear stockpiles and oft-expressed notion that their domination of the globe was an inevitability was a bigger threat than whatever "terrorist" boogeyman du jour that has you so terrified you're willing to construct insanely improbably hypotheticals so you can flail about uselessly in an attempt to rhetorically bludgeon anyone who feels differently than you do.

I see you see still don't want to listen to the points I actually made about the differences between the two situations.

The first use of nuclear weapons by the United States to stop a conventional assault into Europe was not a strategy that the European NATO allies liked very much

But never the less, it was the strategy that was in place.

The US government never explicitly declared a "no first use" policy

And why would they do that when they wanted the Soviets to know that we would use nuclear weapons to stop an invasion of Europe? Are you actually understanding anything I post?

but as a result of pressure from their allies they did remove the first strike options from their strategic nuclear plans.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Reagan especially boosted the conventional land forces of the US that were deployed in Europe.

Even so, there were no illusions that we would not need and use nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet invasion. For that reason, Reagan boosted and modernized the nuclear forces in Europe.

Quote:
And are you aware that Soviet doctrine at the time did not distinguish between tactical and strategic use of nuclear weapons? That when we used tactical nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet advance, they would respond with strategic weapons. ... snip ...

The Soviets had a number of plans which relied on US political unwillingness to use nuclear weapons in NATO territory before the "other side" used them.

Again, you aren't even trying to understand what I'm telling you. Your mental contortions to justify moral equivalence continue unabated.

They were threatening to vaporize the mainland US if their advancing armies in Germany were nuked, and therefore banking that the US government would accept conventional defeat in Europe rather than being burned to ashes.

So why didn't they invade if you think they had it all figured out and our nuclear weapons had nothing to do with their not invading?

Quote:
Also, are you aware of the concept of a trip wire? That's what the forces in Europe mostly were. They were there to buy time, in hopes of negotiating a ceasefire before all hell broke loose. They also provided the justification for forcing our involvement ... giving the Soviets a reason to believe we'd use those tactical weapons to defend our troops.

The same principle applies in Korea. Our conventional forces probably could not stop a Korean attack. Our forces there are a trip wire to show that we are serious about stopping any aggression, ... to give a reason for responding with the full might of our arsenal should the North Koreans be so foolish as to invade South Korea.

Yeah, and?

See what I mean, folks? Not even trying.

You still haven't explained why a potential modern terrorist attack is more of a threat (and thus requires more vicious interrogations) than a choice between either Soviet military domination and nuclear armageddon.

I did. You just didn't bother to try and understand what I said.

You're trying to find a way to diminish the threat the US Army knew they'd face on the battlefield and on the homefront during any Cold War-turned-Hot

I'm doing no such thing. Just unlike you, I actually understand what kept the world from blowing itself up for decades ... the notion of deterrence.

 

[Upchurch]

And you believe that??? No one was tortured in WWII right????? You're insane

As I said earlier, there was prisoner abuse but it was neither systemic nor policy. Do you have evidence that it was?

We're still waiting on Cicero's evidence concerning his claims about the OSS. What do you have?

eta: an article, fwiw.

 

[BeAChooser]

If something is torture, it's torture

So you think all torture is equivalent in terms of morality ... in terms of the degree of evil?

Pulling teeth, for example, in your mind is no different from applying some temporary pain and discomfort, ala, waterboarding.

I see.

Such is the insanity of people who have lost their moral clarity.

 

[leftysergeant]

So are you saying we need to be governed by good fairies? You know.

No. For eight years we were governed by three evil people.

We did something evil, Hmmmm Hiroshima, hey that worked. We won.

Lefty you lose again.

Back at you. We stopped to let them surrender before we hit them again.

 

[BeAChooser]

I finally figured out what BAC's argument was reminding me of.

So boloboffin, have you answered my question?