CIA and Waterboarding

One version (Americans used it in the Phillipines and I confess I do not know if this is the way it's done now) works like this: you're tied down on your back, your mouth is held open, and water is forced down your gullet. When your stomach fills (old reports from soldiers in the Phillipines described waterboarded detainees as looking like swollen toads), they step on your stomach to force the water back out so they can start again.

This is different than pouring water on someone's face. My guess is anyone who has experienced it (a CNN reporter tried it recently and was gasping hysterically after about 3 seconds) would call it torture.

Other nations may do things worse than this. We're better than those nations. If we don't hold ourselves to a higher standard, we're just as barbaric.

 

we do hold ourselves to a much higher standard... thats why when you look at the facts, waterboarding just pales in comparison to what other nations do

 

I wonder if you can really drown from it, or if you just "think" you're drowning. If you can't and it's just "simulated", wouldn't well-trained suspects (Al-Quaida, for instance) know this and not give in?

This might be a stupid question.

 

you can drown from it, you can damage your brain from it, you can break your own bones struggling to escape, you can have lung damage from it. these are all possible.

qualifying different torture methods with differing models of torture is idiotic...its comparing apples to oranges.

 

Thank you sir. I've never doubted it as "torture" but wasn't sure if it was just a particularly brutal form of psychological torture, or if you could die from it. Of course, not being able to die from it would never justify it anyway ...

 

has anyone ever suffered these effects? you are just talking about what would happen if you are oxygen starved or water gets in your lungs, but that won't happen because you are on a decline bench when they pour the water down your face so it comes back out your mouth not into your lungs

 

So funny how if this waterboarding happening to OUR soldiers everyone would be freaking out and nobody would hesitate to call it what it is: TORTURE.

 

no because what they do to our soldiers is beat them, stab them, humuliate them, then set them on fire and behead them and drag their mutilated bodies in the streets... i wish all did was waterboard them

 

no because what they do to our soldiers is beat them, stab them, humuliate them, then set them on fire and behead them and drag their mutilated bodies in the streets...

Blackwater's serial killers aren't "our" soldiers.

 

You can't justify something just because someone else does something worse. Not all the people having this done to them are even enemy combatants, some are just civilians who've been detained on incredibly flimsy grounds.

You could use your logic to say, well, Ghengis Khan pillaged and raped a lot, therefore I can justify raping and pillaging modern day Mongolia. Or well, the Nazis commited atrocities, therefore every German today deserves to have those atrocities commited against them. Or even, one black criminal commited a horrible act. Therefore all black people deserve that horrible act by association.

All information gained through torture is unreliable because if your in a situation of extreme pain and suffering you are going to say anything if it'll get you out of the painful situation. It's been proven. Torture does not work.

 

I was in Singapore one year and while there I would usually read 'The Streights Times'. The military uses this technique in their training and an officer almost died. He did not die but suffered permanent brain damage and was released from the army. The family normally sued the military for a large amount of money and won. It became very controversial and politicians were asking the Army to modify its training manuals. They announced they did.

 

"its been proven, torture doesn't work" thats a good one, they will keep on beating you until you give the right answer, if they think its wrong they do it 10x longer, I'm not sure if you've ever been tortured... but I don't think you could hold out too long, and I didnt say we should do those things to the enemy, I only said waterboarding pales in comparison to what other people have done and continue to do today. You don't even give a damn about some terrorist being waterboarded, so are you just arguing for the sake of argument?

 

one out of how many officers?

 

Some people do care about terrorists...

And here's my belief for what it's worth, though I know some people will disagree: It is torture, which is always wrong, but sometimes, the wrong thing to do can also be the right decision. In my opinion, it is awful and horrible and terrible, but justifiable ONLY IN THE MOST EXTREME CASES. It also should not be used as the SOLE SOURCE of information, because, like someone else said, sometimes it's unreliable.
To sum up: I hate it, it's disgusting, but sometimes it's warranted. It hurts to say, but that's the way it is. If there's a bomb set to go off somewhere in Los Angeles and you've got evidence to suggest that this is the person who planted it, it is warranted. The suspect will not be killed, and if it was him that set the bomb, it could save thousands of lives. As far as him NOT being the suspect, I don't have an answer for that... only that you should continue searching for leads outside of this one person.
We're not perfect. We can't know everything. But if we can do something to prevent bloodshed, I think we should. In my opinion, standing by while innocent lives are lost is worse than making someone believe they are drowning. There are people that live with pain every day, but at least they are alive. This situation is temporary. Death is not.

 

sometimes it's warranted.

It's never warranted, even according to the military's own interrogation experts. It's always wrong, and should always be dealt with as the worst crime that can be committed.

It's the Republican Party leadership that wants torture accepted as a political tool, not the military. And the only good Republican is a fuckin' dead one.

 

^seconded . Torture is purposefully causing someone extreme pain, not only does that fuck them up physically, it also does psychologically. It harms relationships between the army and civilians and always provides unreliable evidence.

 

Well said, Firefly. This is not a black-and-white world. I wouldn't want it to be, either. I'm just glad I don't have to make such decisions.

 

you just so ignorant is make me sick, do you know how many plans have been foiled through torture, not just terrorist plans but throughout the history of war... through much more extreme measures than pouring water on someone face...saying it always provides unreliable evidence is just idiotic, you aren't going to release someone after they tell you something you just stop torturing them, and they know if they lie and you find out its going to be ten times worse, the historical facts go against everything you have to say, we are not grabbing random iraqis and torturing them , this is about waterboarding the terrorists that we know have useful information but are not telling us, its not like they line everyone up at the prison camp to be waterboarded before they go in, its limited, and waterboarding does not cause "extreme physical pain",

also, the notion that we should be good role models for terrorists is just dumb, you seriously think they will not torture out soldiers if we stop waterboarding some of their detainees...and they dont torture our soldiers and keep them in a prison, they execute them, the same people that behead our soliders and drag their bodies in the streets are being fed by taxpayer dollars because we don't want to stoop to their level and just shoot every terrorist

 

I said it harms relationships between the army and CIVILIANS. You are the ignorant one if you believe that every iraqi civilian is a terrorist. May I ask you a question, have you been waterboarded? No? Then you can't say it doesn't, people's experiences with it seem to hint that it does.

 

How many persons were waterboarded in 2007?