Would Democrats Waterboard Atta?

War On Terror: The question above, assuming we had 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta in custody on 9/10, is what those grilling the director of the CIA on interrogation techniques ought to be required to answer.

Democrats have created a climate where investigators are to follow some kind of Robert's Rules of Order and the interrogators are to be more fearful than those they interrogate. The next Khalid Sheik Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah can rest easy: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is looking out for you.

Director Hayden outlawed the technique in 2006. But we didn't necessarily want the terrorists to know that or what other techniques, like being forced to listen to Rosie O'Donnell, might be employed. If we do not torture, we would still want captured jihadists to think we do, that we will do more than read them their Miranda rights and ask if they want an attorney.

Pilate was threatening Christs life. As Christs life belonged to Christ, he was free to allow himself to be murdered.

What you're advocating is that the US Government deliberately stand by and let other people who have not agreed to be murdered, be murdered.

You're position is immoral, unethical, and decidedly un-Christian.

I notice you haven't responded to the terms of my little wager. What's the problem?

Personally I think I know what it is. If I were married to some moral reprobate who would allow me or my children to be tortured and murdered in order to prove some wrong headed and morally bankrupt 'principle' I'd be packing my bags, filing for divorce, and looking for someone who held rational views.

What you're advocating is that the US Government deliberately stand by and let other people who have not agreed to be murdered, be murdered.

You're position is immoral, unethical, and decidedly un-Christian.

I notice you haven't responded to the terms of my little wager. What's the problem?

D**n well said.

No, think of all the other people Pilat condemned - the better of the two thieves that day, for example. Wasn't it Christ's duty to torture Pilat to prevent him from hurting anyone? And the mob. And the centurions. And...

Somehow, it was apparently not the maxim governing the affair, that one should rush to embrace the devil out of a remote hope some future evil might be averted by it. Unless, say, you are talking about how Pilat was right to torture Christ to death in order to ensure order and save all the people who might die in a new Jewish war (like say the one that broke out around 70 AD). No wait, that wouldn't help your cause, would it?

And what I am advocating is that the US government deliberately wage war on our enemies, instead of deciding to become our enemy.

I have not given my consent to them, to torture anyone supposedly for my safety's sake. I really don't care that much about my safety. I'm not such a coward as that, and I know I am mortal anyway. There are higher things - liberty for one, moral principle for another, our souls for a third, etc.

You don't know anything higher. I understand. You live in a world in which the worst possible thing is death, and actively embracing evil seems a minor inconvenience (heck, it might wash off with a little Ivory) if there is even a remote chance it might spare you that for oh, about twenty minutes. You think the most powerful thing in the world is evil and pain, and you want it in your corner. But you are in its corner already, lost.

Everyone I know and care about agrees with me on this. Not everyone thinks safety a sufficient slogan to justify perfidy and murder and torture. Not everyone considers a mere allegation of expediency to be actual expediency, or rates either one higher than moral principle.

But I wouldn't care if everyone on earth had already sided with hell in the matter. It wouldn't move me one inch. I know what torture does to men's souls, I know what men's souls are worth, and the game is not worth the candle.

Wasn't it Christ's duty to torture Pilat to prevent him from hurting anyone?

Christ wasn't in a position to do so.

Unless, say, you are talking about how Pilat was right to torture Christ to death in order to ensure order

Christ wasn't attempting to murder innocents so your point isn't valid. It's a false argument. Besides, Christ himself advocated a hideous act of violence against those who would harm children. "better to have a millstone hung around their neck and be cast into the sea". Forget that one, didn't you.

I really don't care that much about my safety.

Nor about anyone elses apparently. Not even your own wife and kids. Pretty pathetic.

You live in a world in which the worst possible thing is death, and actively embracing evil seems a minor inconvenience (heck, it might wash off with a little Ivory)

You don't know jack about me. There are worse things than death. I've had the mud of foreign lands on my boots and blood on my uniform. I've taken lives so you could sit in your easy chair and pontificate on subjects you don't know a thing about.

Everyone I know and care about agrees with me on this.

You need to run with a better class of people. Surrounding yourself with moral reprobates is nothing to be proud of.

I know what torture does to men's souls,

You know nothing.

One number 1, sure he was. On number 2, Pilat thought he was appeasing away a violent rebellion, and if all you care about it consequences and who doesn't die (for a while), then... On number 3, bringing up the consequences of destroying one's soul is poor salesmanship in your position. On number four, the whole point is that safety is less important that morality, not more, and only cowards think otherwise. On five, men of all qualities have served, including me, I'm not sitting in an easy chair, and I notice you restrict your statements about your own actions to honorable ones. Or do you want to tell us that you've deliberately tortured men and pretend it was for my sake?

As for what your soul is worth, you decide such things. If your answer is "not a heck of a lot", it is your funeral.

"He who would harm a child, better a millstone be hung around his neck and be cast into the sea" Mr. Jesus Christ.

And you've got your panties in a wad over waterboarding?

On number four, the whole point is that safety is less important that morality,

Once again, you completely miss the point. Allowing innocents to be slaughtered when you have the power to stop it is what's immoral.

BTW...have you told your wife that you'd let her be killed before you'd muss some AQ thugs hair?

Get back to me after you have that conversation.

You don't have the power to stop it. You have the power to sell your soul for a hint of a gleam in your imagination that maybe something up to someone else might happen differently in a way that might conceivably help someone who might deserve it - which is obviously another matter entirely. Especially when the actual likely consequence (see Algeria) is instead to lose the whole war, by splitting any possible political support for continuing to fight it.

You can fight dangerous men, and those guilty of murder you can try and execute for it. You can even offer clemency for those who cooperate with you instead. But you may not torture anyone. The tiny relation between your hoped for results from doing so and any actual result, is so tenuous it would justify torturing nearly anybody, and neither you nor anybody else can be trusted with that. The direct result is instead to pollute everyone connected with it,or even supporting it, and to make any measures against them morally justified. Which helps our enemies far more than any info you get hurts them.

Wars are not won in torture chambers. There is no power there, only damnation and failure. Are the French running Algeria, if you think it works so well? For that matter, has Algeria been a paradise since the domestic torturers there took over? Was Saddam's Iraq a model of safety, from sufficient use of torture? Are the countries where torture is a routine practice of the government, richer or more powerful than civilized countries, let alone juster?

I've told you what mine think on the matter. Now are you going to tell us whether you are a torturer, or just wish you were? Has the devil enlisted you, or are you still banging on the door of hell trying to get in?

You can fight dangerous men, and those guilty of murder you can try and execute for it.

Explain that to the parents of the dead children in Beslan.

The tiny relation between your hoped for results from doing so and any actual result, is so tenuous

Bullsh**. The results are demonstrable as this case proves. 35 seconds of discomfort resulted in hundreds of innocent lives being saved. You'd rather they were dead.

Worse, you're willing to chalk it up to "Gods will" which is an attitude identical to Osama Bin Laden.

Was Saddam's Iraq a model of safety, from sufficient use of torture?

Saddam was using it as an instrument of oppression. We're using it to save innocent lives. You're making the inane 'moral equivalency' argument. It's illogical and downright stupid.

But you've made your position abundantly clear. You're willing to trade the lives of my family in order to maintain your false sense of moral superiority. Having done such you've shown yourself unworthy of being trusted with a sharp object much less the security of a Nation.

You've also shown yourself to be unworthy of a shred of my respect.

Therefore I'm done with you.

"Explain that to the parents of the dead children in Beslan."

The purest possible non-sequitur, since the Russians torture routinely and were unable to stop any of it thereby, torture of any kind would not have prevented it, while more successful war might.

"The results are demonstrable as this case proves."

Horsefeathers. First, if this case were supposed to mean Atta, of course he died in the attacks and was never tortured. If instead you mean the exactly 3 people ever waterboarded according to the article, there is nothing demonstrable about any consequence of it. The article itself - an editorial - merely says it "probably" "disrupted" some terrorist activities. Because they have no idea whether it actually saved anyone from anything. It probably helped capture two men in this specific case. Whether they would have been captured by other methods, we have no way of knowing. Whether others carried out exactly similar attacks, we have no idea. Whether others were recruited to the enemy, same, we know nothing. Then there is the lost political support wasted on all of 3 interrogations - a far more critical front in this war than the torture chamber.

"You'd rather they were dead."

I'd rather we got whatever we could get threatening just sentence or offering clemency, and for the rest that the terrorists fail and we fight them, and do so united. You'd rather throw away half the western world's support and court political defeat.

"an attitude identical to Osama Bin Laden."

Actually, the other person in the affair who routinely sanctions torture of his enemies for the supposed expediency of it, is guess who? The terrorists don't have a moral concern in their bodies.

"Saddam was using it as an instrument of oppression. We're using it to save innocent lives."

Did no one that Saddam had tortured fit the same profile as those we have? I'll bet some did. If we tortured routinely, as e.g. the French did in Algeria, would everyone that passed through the cells be a guilty terrorist? You know the answer is "no". To individuals in either case, there is indeed no difference.

But granted we are not Saddam, and our cause is essentially just. The reason is, precisely, that our enemies attack innocents and we behave in a civilized fashion. Change that and there would be nothing wrong with their tactics, and nothing to choose between you and Saddam.

"You're willing to trade the lives of my family"

Actually, a more accurate statement would be that I am willing to trade your life for a straw because I consider you already damnable. I'd prefer you repent of course.

And my morality is not in question either way - you can't touch it. My purity is simply not on the table. Only yours is. I forbid you to pretend to act in my name or for my sake, or for the sake of anyone else I know or care about, and I tell you to your face that it is sheer pretence, and you are acting on your own sick passions.

I look forward to you acting on your repeated statements and shutting up on the matter, instead of endlessly posting your inane replies as though I require your approval for anything. But I am not holding my breath.

As the article explains, since 2006 at the latest, it has been US policy not to torture captives. You've lost this debate, and you deserved to lose it.

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