Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

I'll content to the fact that you beleive that Iron beds arn't enough to be considered torture, and you beleive it's a straw man argument; so i will forget the fact that it is torture.

However, you have continued to rely on the fact that i used this straw man argument, to forget to explain to me the significance of torture.

How much is too much?

Why is this important? Consider the fact that the united states has a constitution which defines the powers of governmental bodies... This is done so that people couldn't 'Expand on the definition' of a governmental body based on a perception of degree [Example of Perception, the fact that a dictator doesn't have enough power, or that a mayor has too much power, or all perception of degree, or simply, making subjective judgements on how much is too much] Defining torture as 'acts of discomfort against a prisoner' or something that vague gives way to a great deal of questions concerning existing prison practices of prison protocol.

I want to know the limits of torture before the united states and other nations begins to agree to 'not doing' whatever the UN deems is illegal.

You call the fact that i have made an exaggeration as to the possibility of torture based the definition provided, but refuse to state what should be, [in your opinion] the limits of ilegalization on interrogation techniques. If you have a criteria of how much discomfort is too much, and want to tell me, you can do this, this this, but not this, this and this, i would prefer hearing it than simply continuing to poke at the fact that torture is a subjective term.

Justice itself, which you desire for these individuals [i assume] is based on a series of written principals that must be adhered to. The powers of the judge, lawyer, defendant, and jury are all written down in a manner which serves as the basis of the most fair and optimal trial.

i Assume that these things exist with torture, but no one has the desire to point them out to me.

I don't consider water boarding extreme enough to be considered torture, tazering, dunking, whipping, punching, etc. are bad in my book. Unfortunately, since i can't find any existing clear cut parameters for torture, i could argue that any form of interrogation is acceptable, or, [what i fear] no form of interrogation is acceptable.

If you don't want interrogationa at all, and wish to remove the ability of being able to extract information from prisoners, this is all fine and well. But i expect on the grounds that you are smarter than i am, that there is a reason why this works better than getting the information and acting upon it to try and solve the problem. [And i know you are right]

At 12/14/07 12:43 PM, Elfer wrote: But let's just ignore the fact that the US used to consider it a war crime and sentenced people to fifteen years of hard labour for doing it.

I like how you supplied the evidence that was being ignored and in return your post was pretty much.....ignored......

No worries, I saw it Elfer. :)

I don't know if this comes as any help to this argument, but if Wikipedia's definition is correct, then I'm pretty sure that my uncle admitted to have been subjected to waterboarding along with a hefty list of more conventional tortures, y'know, back in the day.

While experiences on torture camps aren't exactly dinner talk, I do recall part of his description. Coincidentally enough, he mentioned a highly uncomfortable bed or bunk, not sure if it was an iron bed but it did cause him back problems for a long while. Then again, he mentioned that for couple of years after spending some months in that lovely place he was terified of bathtubs, swimming pools and beaches. I mean, in practice, he didn't describe it as "kind of like drowning" - it was drowning. He didn't mention anything about being terrified of unconfortable beds, though.
All in all he rated the water thing, along with sleep deprivation (actually preventing him from sleeping), as "definitely worse than the beatings. Except when the beatings involved dogs. Fuck, I hated those dogs."
All in all he said that most things were rendered as "pretty tame" if compared to the electrical shocks and the mock execution, but if you ask me for my two cents, anything that counts as "definitely worse" than a beating can and should be considered as torture.

At 12/14/07 08:07 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: someone tell me now the most effective legal form of interrogation.

Do it, now.

Give them a cup of coffee.

but if you ask me for my two cents, anything that counts as "definitely worse" than a beating can and should be considered as torture.

Agreed. It's one of the more amicable traits I find in McCain too. Why people don't just trust the victims of the practice is beyond me. I think any of those candidates who are in support of it should have to undergo at least a week's worth before making that comment.

If police have to get shocked by their tasers then candidates should have to undergo waterboarding. I think that's fair.....

Look at the people who are in support of waterboarding. Gung-ho neocon nobodies who probably haven't even been in a fistfight before.

Memorize, Wolven Bear, and he who shall not be named. Neocon nutjobs.

On the other side: Victims, the UN, and "pussy liberals".

Yeah.....I think we "win" this one boys......

legal definition

Torture - "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

source

I refuse to rally to the cause of prisoner rights until the idea of torture is capped.

A sky-is the limit policy is un-agreeable

If someone can't please tell me why there is a dead silence on appropriate form of interrogation i have no choice but to assume you don't beleive the 2 are compatible.

At 12/14/07 09:11 PM, Imperator wrote: Yeah.....I think we "win" this one boys......

Agreed. there really is no argument for this. We've said in the past that we don't condone or tolerate torture. Apparently that was a lie.

At 12/14/07 09:14 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: If someone can't please tell me why there is a dead silence on appropriate form of interrogation i have no choice but to assume you don't beleive the 2 are compatible.

See your local police station for interrogation tactics.

End thread.

At 12/14/07 09:14 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I refuse to rally to the cause of prisoner rights until the idea of torture is capped.

A sky-is the limit policy is un-agreeable

If someone can't please tell me why there is a dead silence on appropriate form of interrogation i have no choice but to assume you don't beleive the 2 are compatible.

Find it yourself. we're not debating where the line is right now, because although that may be blurred, waterboarding is undoubtedly over the line.

.... Your non responsiveness is making me want to bite smash my computer.

I'll say this one last time
Primarily, it is the duty of a body of those who wish to establish righteousness and justice to establish a stonger definition of the word torture.

If you refuse to define torture because you are afraid of calling something legitimate that a future generation might deem as immoral, then you fail as hard as the neo-cons to learn from past mistakes.

I want to know NOW what the government is able to do. Because 'no water boarding' is meaningless.
It's no different from telling a child a single think that they can't do, and expect them to follow every other rule which they expect on the basis of the fact that 'everyone agree's with my ideas on morality'. If you tell a child 'Stop fooling around with the chair' are they going to stop sit down, and subliminally obey every order that exists in your mind? no, more likely than not, they'll move to something else.

Save yourselfs the burden of having to properly enlighten the neo-cons from abusing the innocent by establishing a set of SPECIFIC codes on what they can or can't do. If you can't do this, i will agree with you that water boarding is torture, but i will have to disagree, and argue that prison detainment is torture; because there is no ESTABLISHED DISCREPANCY between something that is uncomfortable and necessary, and what is uncomfortable and cruel.

Unless, you garner the effort to write a few sentences on what you think is acceptable.

[Mattresses for Club Gitmo plz]

.... Your non responsiveness is making me want to bite smash my computer.

I responded. I don't know what the police's exact specifications are, but what they do is lawful and proper interrogation tactics.

There are your boundary marks.

I've already posted the definition of torture under the Geneva Conventions.

Torture - "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

^ That's not allowed. clear enough?

At 12/14/07 09:17 PM, Musician wrote:

At 12/14/07 09:11 PM, Imperator wrote: Yeah.....I think we "win" this one boys......

Agreed. there really is no argument for this. We've said in the past that we don't condone or tolerate torture.

You've also said in the past that waterboarding is a war crime, but people don't really want to bother paying attention to that. Oh well.

I don't think the Geneva Convention should even apply if both sides aren't obeying it. The terrorists and insurgents want to lob off heads and rape people? We should do the same damn thing.

At 12/14/07 10:33 PM, PhoenixTails wrote: I don't think the Geneva Convention should even apply if both sides aren't obeying it. The terrorists and insurgents want to lob off heads and rape people? We should do the same damn thing.

Yeah! Fight terorism WITH terrorism, so we can finally rid the world of terrorism!

Thats another reason why George Bush n Cheny should be impeached.

How long do you guys think shaggy will last under the Chinese Water Torture?

Would it be appropriate for the terrorists to kidnap a US general and waterboard him to get key information? We can't say 'we're allowed to use this tactic, but you're not'.

I would grant that if you have caught someone who knows where a bomb is and when it's going off, then it is acceptable to torture them, to whatever extreme is necessary. Waterboarding should only be allowed when there is a clear and present danger to the populace - maybe every circumstance should be seen by the Supreme Court.

The 'pussy liberals' in this thread seem to have comprehensively shat all over the skinny white middle class torture-and-Bible loving conservatives. Because if you disagree with torture, you must be a pussy liberal.

At 12/15/07 12:50 AM, Earfetish wrote: Would it be appropriate for the terrorists to kidnap a US general and waterboard him to get key information? We can't say 'we're allowed to use this tactic, but you're not'.

We definitely can, and should.

I would grant that if you have caught someone who knows where a bomb is and when it's going off, then it is acceptable to torture them, to whatever extreme is necessary. Waterboarding should only be allowed when there is a clear and present danger to the populace - maybe every circumstance should be seen by the Supreme Court.

I disagree entirely. Doing bad things in "extreme" situations is never a good idea. See: Genocide/ethnic cleansing.

The 'pussy liberals' in this thread seem to have comprehensively shat all over the skinny white middle class torture-and-Bible loving conservatives. Because if you disagree with torture, you must be a pussy liberal.

The pussy liberals in this thread ARE the skinny white middle class idiot.

The tough bible loving conservatives you speak of probably aren't even old enough to drive.

At 12/15/07 01:01 AM, Imperator wrote: We definitely can, and should.

If there was a news report of 'US General waterboarded by insurgents' I'm sure there'd be mass public outcry about how monstrous and evil the insurgents were for doing it.

I disagree entirely. Doing bad things in "extreme" situations is never a good idea. See: Genocide/ethnic cleansing.

I don't think it's comparable. I think it is morally correct to torture one person to save the life of hundreds. However, this is such a hypothetical scenario, it'd never happen. Which is why, when the CIA want to waterboard someone, they should have to prove that this person knows where the bomb is.

The pussy liberals in this thread ARE the skinny white middle class idiot.

Everyone in this thread is skinny, white and middle class. I'm not an, idiot though.

So, my opinions are, if a terrorist has definite knowledge of an imminent catastrophe, then pull their toenails out for all I care; the pain of the one terrorist pales in comparison to the pain caused by not torturing them.

If you've arrested a key Al Qaeda player, he shouldn't be waterboarded. Waterboarding should be used for '24'-style situations only. And such situations are never going to happen.

At 12/15/07 01:11 AM, Earfetish wrote: If you've arrested a key Al Qaeda player, he shouldn't be waterboarded. Waterboarding should be used for '24'-style situations only. And such situations are never going to happen.

And there should be total accountability when it happens; it should never happen secretly or without the consent of some reasonable judges.

It's like, if someone kidnapped my kid, and we caught the kidnapper but couldn't find my kid, I'd quite happily torture the fucker until he spilled the beans. However, if we caught the head of the kiddie porn ring, I wouldn't torture him, because no-one's life is in imminent danger if we don't.

Al Qaeda is a loose association of terror networks joined by nothing more than ideology and there is little point to waterboarding anyone, unless people are going to die if you don't; you're not going to get much information that couldn't be gained in a bit more time with less violent methods.

At 12/15/07 01:08 AM, Earfetish wrote: If there was a news report of 'US General waterboarded by insurgents' I'm sure there'd be mass public outcry about how monstrous and evil the insurgents were for doing it.

The opposite also holds true.

I don't think it's comparable. I think it is morally correct to torture one person to save the life of hundreds. However, this is such a hypothetical scenario, it'd never happen. Which is why, when the CIA want to waterboard someone, they should have to prove that this person knows where the bomb is.

Unfortunately the chances of that are very rare. One, they work in cells, so the chances of them knowing much of anything are slim. Two, when torture reaches a certain point there's no guarantee the victim isn't just saying whatever the interrogator wants to hear to get him to stop. Three, and this is simply personal opinion,

The pussy liberals in this thread ARE the skinny white middle class idiot.

Everyone in this thread is skinny, white and middle class. I'm not an, idiot though.

That's a bad typo on my part.
I meant to say "idiots", as well as some other stuff so that would make sense.......
Like "the liberals are the idiots whom frequent NG".

Meh....too much Latin....I'm starting to gap clauses in English.....

Torture is unAmerican, to do it and support it states that you clearly are no better than the terrorists or criminals who do it as well.
Be known as a torture supporter try to walk around like that, stores closing as you walk by, women shielding their kid's eyes as you approach, you want that kind of rep?

Here's a question. how do you know that we're not practicing much worse forms of torture? We've already been lied to, I doubt this is where the trail ends.

Well duhhh, we are in a war! The government has kept secrets in wars (and has succeeded in doing so) in every war its ever been in. I reassure you that we weren't giving the SS members we captured in WWII fair trials. You just have to deal with the fact that the government will lie to you sometimes.

I don't think it's a slippery slope, I think we've lost the moral superiority.

You thought wrong. We will keep that until bomb vests become standard-issue equipment.

Torture is against international law, the CIA under Bush has broken international law.

The international law created by a court without a body?

At 12/14/07 08:43 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I want to know the limits of torture before the united states and other nations begins to agree to 'not doing' whatever the UN deems is illegal.

No sort of torture is allowed. It is 100% forbidden, as seen in this document. Although it is a bit vague, one thing that can clearly be seen is the 3rd article, which quite clearly makes the US renditions illegal (when suspected criminals are flown (bad grammar?) to for example egypt). My own country has even been critizised by EU and UN (as well as by HRW and AI) for handing out people to these renditions.

"No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. "

At 12/14/07 10:33 PM, PhoenixTails wrote: I don't think the Geneva Convention should even apply if both sides aren't obeying it. The terrorists and insurgents want to lob off heads and rape people? We should do the same damn thing.

First off, this on the other hand means that it's fully okay for the terrorists to fly airplanes into buildings as you don't care for the Convention. Also, it would make it okay for for example China (if they wanted) to say "Hey, we're with the opposition, taste our nukes!".
Second, when fighting a moral war, you really have to act better than those you are fighting.

At 12/15/07 01:08 AM, Earfetish wrote: I don't think it's comparable. I think it is morally correct to torture one person to save the life of hundreds. However, this is such a hypothetical scenario, it'd never happen. Which is why, when the CIA want to waterboard someone, they should have to prove that this person knows where the bomb is.

Although I wouldn't say it's morally correct, I can see the dilemma if you caught a person and you knew beyond all doubt that he knew how to disarm a bomb, but how far can you go? Is it okay to torture his child to get him to say how to disarm it? If you only was quite sure that he knew how to disarm it, would it be okay?
And those situations aren't happening. Having it as a possibility to use torture would probably kill more than prohibiting it totally.

This whole discussion is stupid, because we don't live in 24.

Terrorists in real life don't set the timer for an unnecessarily long amount of time that allows for their capture and interrogation.

For this scenario to happen, you'd not only have to catch the terrorist in the act you'd need to know:
A) That the terrorist has planted a bomb, or knows the exact location of the bomb
B) Know that it is a timed bomb
C) Miraculously somehow know what the timer on the bomb reads

But somehow you'd need to not actually know the location of the bomb. THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.