Poll to FREEP: Is waterboarding torture?

Libertarian Party ^ | January 22, 2009 | the eagle has landed

[ought-six]

“I can’t imagine how many wannabe muslim terrorists are sitting in Trenton state prison right now. Or all the other prisons. What bothers me is that we are not fighting normal people. How do you fight animals that will cut off your head? Or kill school girls? Use children to shield themselves? IMHO you can’t fight fairly. They don’t understand it. Or care if they die. They want to die & get those virgins. So why is there all this concern over water boarding? I don’t want to be nice, I want to stay alive & be able to live the life I have. ( or hope my life stays a bit the same in the next 4 yrs).”

My sentiments exactly.

[ought-six]

I look at it this way: If, say, some gang of pukes holds a member of my family hostage, and I just happen to catch one of those gangmembers, he would talk or he would die.

[shorty_harris]

I don’t think so. I seem to remember waterboarding being used on guys as part of U.S. Navy SAR training.

[ripley]

it’s not torture. it’s effective interrogation.
(liberals don’t like effective interrogation of their allies. wo, they call it torture.)

IMHO

[hjaze]

Torture isn’t black and white, it isn’t just NOT torture if it’s less painful than other obvious ways of torture.

I think it is torture, just a low profile way.

[USS Alaska]

Of course it's not torture. FReepers would be perfectly fine with it if we were involved in a war with lawful combatants and American troops were subjected to it, I'm sure.

It's hard to waterboard an American troop, after he's been beheaded.

I'm positive that any captured American troop would prefer waterboarding compared to the actual torture that the islamic terrorists use.

[a fool in paradise]

Should our military no longer put our own troops through waterboarding (so they can be prepared to handle it if they are captured) since clearly no other country would ever waterboard or otherwise we’d be hearing about it?

[a fool in paradise]

I have yet to ever hear John Fragging Kerry ever declare that Al Qaeda or other jihadists use techniques befitting of Genghis Khan.

[Dead Corpse]

I can say as a libertarian... No. The terrorists initiated force against us. I don’t give a flip what happens to ‘em after that.

[TigersEye]

I see no one has given you the reply you were looking for
so I guess it's up to me to show you a little compassion.

"Waterboarding would save American servicemen's lives, gare-own-teed." - TigersEye

[Yaelle]

Well, I really wouldn’t like it. But I wouldn’t really like having panties on my head or listening all night to Barney singing (Frank OR the dinosaur...) or sleeping on a cold cement floor.

Are we going to get the information from these terrorists or not? I stop at severe violence like cutting off parts or electrifying the genitalia.

But I think we have all seen in “24” and movies how psyops are our best friend. To legally call waterboarding and other methods illegal for our military to perform, we will HELP the guys out there get the info they need. They will FREAK OUT when they realize that we are still allowed TOTAL DEATH as a method... :)

“Talk or I ‘didn’t capture you,’ if you know what I mean, sahib...”

[Gondring]

I think it’s sick that you consider Islamic terrorists “lawful combatants”...or perhaps you were just making a response that was irrelevant to my comment?

[Gondring]

What bothers me is that we are not fighting normal people. How do you fight animals that will cut off your head?

You follow the Constitution and international conventions.

That is...

1) Declare War, officially, making the Congress live up to their Constitutional responsibility. Recall that President Thomas Jefferson dealt with an Islamic foe and did not take offensive actions against them as long as Congress hesitated.

2) When the enemy violates the Conventions on being lawful combatants or treating civilians legally, you declare that fact, and declare that the war is being considered outside of the Conventions based on their actions and that we will prosecute it thus.

Of course, this would take a federal government that had a backbone and gave a hoot about the Rule of Law. But it's all there in black and white and can't understand why it's such a difficult question.

[Gondring]

False dichotomy.

[ought-six]

“False dichotomy.”

Uh, no. A false dichotomy deals with two distinct absolutes that are usually anti-polar, with no alternatives introduced or considered. My premise was not posited as such.

[BIGLOOK]

Standard training exercise at SERE.

Works and the victim walks away.

[Gondring]

Fair enough...I misunderstood the point you were making.

I read it that you believe that waterboarding is legitimate for lawful combatants to use against American troops, and for police to use in interrogations?

[ought-six]

“I read it that you believe that waterboarding is legitimate for lawful combatants to use against American troops, and for police to use in interrogations?”

No, my point was that irregulars (i.e., those not protected by the Geneva Convention) should not enjoy the benefits of those agreements. Perhaps I my my point inarticulately. The bottom line is that lawful combatants are protected and should only be expected to give their name, rank, serial number, and date of birth, and no harm shall befall them if that is all the information they volunteer. Irregulars or unlawful combatants have no such legal protections aside from, perhaps, the new Human Rights protocols that the UN and the NGOs keep trying to introduce.