It is really torture, 'do it to me again'. Let me bring a half inch hammer drill and some bits and show them what torture is. Bet they won't want a do over. We now have the most stupid population in the history of the world. Hey folks, it was designed as a training tactic and never harmed anyone. Get a life and don't let any politician that opposes using the tactic to get information that will save thousands of lives near the white house. Goodbye McCain, you whimpering, back stabing POS. The NVA broke him bad.

You can't make up shit like this. Unbelievable.

No logic, no rationality, no thought with that crowd.

Al Quedain Iraq are known to use: Blowtorches, pliers on teeth, fingers, and toes; electric shock to the nads, scourging, garden variety beatdowns with fists/feet, drills to the knees/shoulders; hammers, etc.

When the person getting tortured pleads he will tell the secrets to what the torturers are seeking, they (the torturers) look at each other like "Secrets?... what secrerts? Nobody said anyting about trying to get secrets out of these mopes"

"Do we really need to explain to this guy that waterboarding isn't torture if he kept voluntarily going back..."

That was a rhetorical question wasn't it?

There are people having done to themselves or doing to others exactly the things y'all have listed, and oh so much more, just for sexual gratification. Does that mean none of it can be considered torture, just because insane assholes keep coming back for more? I would think that this kind of "fun" can still be torture to a sensibly rational human being.

ijosha:

"...because insane assholes keep coming back for more? I would think that this kind of "fun" can still be torture to a sensibly rational human being."

And of course we know all jihadist-cut-throats all fall under the category of "sensibly rational human beings."

OH WAIT! They're not.

Did they also bring in some chicken wire to prove fire can't melt steel?

Sorry for the double post, your hat tip to HotAir brings you to the DU.

I-josh-ya. I get it.

The "torture" aspect for moonbats is that it is too close to bathing....

A better man than I might tell them that waterboarding was recently made illegal.

Well, I'd hate to spoil their fun.

Quick, somebody call Lindsey Graham's office and tell him we've got some domestic torturin' goin' on. Shamesful, absolutely shmaeful. What will the rest of the world think of us. /sarc off

"The first time, he lasted 9 seconds and he said it was terrifying. But then he went back three more times to see if he could last longer and longer. In his fourth final go around he lasted 20 seconds. His brother lasted even longer."

My brother and I had the same experience on a tilt-a-whirl in 1960.

Try underwater egress training. Much more scary and you really are deep underwater and risk drowning. 20 Seconds - HA! Baby times.

Wimps.

I'd like to prove that electric shock is torture. First, I'll need a few volunteers from the DU.

What I consider torture is listening to lefties justify their positions. Maybe we should send about 3 of the trolls on this board to Guantanimo Bay to explain their political and life positions. The terrorists will be yelling for us to stop them. They will tell us all. ww

"...waterboarding was recently made illegal."

You just can't make this stuff up, Eric.

Abuse of prisoners by any nation or organization to get information is both immoral, unethical and unreliable. A prisoner will often say anything to stop the abuse, leading to useless information. And abuse of prisoners reflects poorly on a society and only encourages abuse by other ruthless rival nations or organizations.

I know that many Palestinian prisoners began to feel some empathy with their Israeli captors, and this mutual respect often results in an open dialogue of information. In hostage situations, captives often began to feel some empathy with their captors known as "The Stockholm Syndrome" and begin to share their feeling once fear leveles have decreased. Many of these examples give better clues into gaining more information in more humanitarian ways that is more likely accurate than information gained under prisoner abuse where any answer to avoid more pain is often the rule.

Scrap,

I agree. Maybe next time, in an effort to illustrate the "we're no better than they are" moral equivalence argument, they'll decide to try burning the skin off each other's back with a blowtorch, or gouging each other's eyeballs out with a rusty screwdriver. Or at least the tried-and-true car battery to the genitals. I wonder how many times they would subject themselves to that one.

The accuracy of information obtained from terrorist prisoners can be evaluated as reliable or not. However, as shown in Iraq, it has produced a lot of useful and actionable information that has lead to many terrorist deaths.

Morality is an intangible point that should not be used in regards to interrogation techniques that could be considered abusive, but not meet the definition of torture. There is a hell of a lot the USA allows that many consider immoral and unethical, but that is not stopping liberals from allowing it and doing it. Think of abortion, the ultimate immoral/unethical abuse of unborn American life. If that is ok, water boarding terrorist prisoners is sure ok.

What the USA does or does not do with regards to prisoners makes no difference in what its enemies have done for the last 50 years with American prisoners. Water boarding terrorists has little if no impact on the treatment of American prisoners.

We could only pray that jihadists would waterboard our guys.

It would be a step up.

Abuse of prisoners by any nation or organization to get information is both immoral, unethical and unreliable. A prisoner will often say anything to stop the abuse, leading to useless information. And abuse of prisoners reflects poorly on a society and only encourages abuse by other ruthless rival nations or organizations.

Yeah, well, you'd be able to figure that out soon enough, would you not? The info you get is either good or no good. I cannot imagine that this practice would continue if it did not yield useful results.

OK, so here it is again- if some badass has information that could save your kid's life and waterboarding was the only way you would get it from him, would you or would you not condone it?

That is the only question one need ask.

Abuse of prisoners by any nation or organization to get information is both immoral, unethical and unreliable.

Without any kind of definition of "abuse", this statement is just sanctimonious blather.

A prisoner will often say anything to stop the abuse, leading to useless information.

Perhaps. On the other hand, we waterboarded KSM for about 2 minutes and he coughed a royal boatload of actionable intelligence. So this is another empty statement.

And abuse of prisoners reflects poorly on a society and only encourages abuse by other ruthless rival nations or organizations.

What an utterly incompetent claim. Newsflash: A-Q and its allies already torture its enemies and in far worse ways than we would ever dream of doing. And that's not anything they started because of Gitmo, that's just who they are. In fact, outside of the US, Europe, and Australia, that's just about all who anybody is.

You have a silly and naive view of the world.

Kim, you don't get to decide when to stop when you're being waterboarded.

Anyway, I think I'll defer to an expert of the subject:

In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school's interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.

The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner - it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only "shock the conscience" as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.....

There is No Debate Except for Torture Apologists

1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one's duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor....

Read it all, as they say.

The problem is defining torture and what's acceptable. The point I believe Kim was driving at is where waterboarding falls in the range of things you're lumping in with 'torture'. I'd lump waterboarding in the same range as the treatment of nerdy, pimple faced middle school kids by their peers... or stupid college hazing stunts (i.e. inducing mental stress). Although, I'd guess that more have died or suffered permanent injury as result of the latter two. A drill through the knee cap or shoulder or beheading would fall at the other end of the range.

Whether water boarding is or is not defined as torture is irrelevant. It is an ok method to get terrorists to divulge useful information. What is a good reason not to use it on terrorists?

read it, mantis. A real expert would be able to define why waterboarding, which is disorienting and short-term in effect, is equivalent to actual torture, i.e severely painful and potentially long-term in effect. Instead we get a bunch of appeal to emotion, ad hominem, and flag-waving.

If that's all you got for a real expert, I suggest you don't use the same technique to pick your family doctor or mechanic. The shady ones are always better at making an emotional case, but likely to leave you in the lurch, much as this guy did.

The people against water boarding are the same that thinks it is cruel and unusual punishment not to mention very painful to inject a needle to a person (ask any 3 year old who has had a shot) that has hacked, raped, tortured and murdered innocent people.

In both instances it is a measure to help right a wrong and is only used in extreme cases.

Foreigner, I'm predicting that either your vowels or you will be gone soon, so I'll make this a general observation.

Torture is not identified as something no typical person would undergo voluntarily. Then interrogation, imprisonment, paying taxes, or getting a speeding ticket would all be thereby defined as torture.

However, the converse isn't necessarily false. If even a sufficient minority of rational people are willing to undergo an ordeal, it should not, if it does not otherwise impinge on the narrowest definition of torture as physical harm with long-term effects, be considered torture.

There are websites dedicated to people who play with water bondage, which often includes scenes similar to waterboarding. The difference is only in the consensuality, as any interrogation of a prisoner would lack, but continues to carry the safety and rationality, as the technique is used to disorient to extract actionable intelligence, something you cannot obtain from a deceased prisoner.

Madame, you're an idiot.

It's good to have a discussion on just what defines torture, but people like Foreigner and Bruce quash such discussion. It's pretty sad, since I'm sure they'll also claim in Orwellian ways to be the ones who wish to ~promote~ discussion.

On one hand, Kim's point is clear: With torture, you don't go back for seconds. You don't say, "Hey, pulling that tooth hurt like hell -- do it three more times so I can make sure."

On the other hand, Chinese water torture may seem innocuous at first, but (I understand) eventually becomes maddening.

Debate is something we should have. Misogyny and name calling are not.

I actually enjoy the name-calling. It's our electronic version of "don't taze me, bro!"

Right, so the foremost expert on waterboarding in America writes a detailed, reasoned plea to classify waterboarding as torture, and none of you even seem to read it. You just hand wave away that A. It is torture. And B. It is the US surrendering the moral high ground, so we can get questionable intelligence and expose our troops to greater risk.

Waterboarding is torture. If the guy in charge of teaching SERE, says waterboarding is torture, IT IS!!!!! No amount of handwaving from armchair, chickenhawk, keyboard commandos will change that.

You people make me ashamed to be an American.
Sincerely,
ashamed

Sorry folks but waterboarding is torture. I saw the video and had to turn it off even before they really got going. Paying someone to do this in a completely controlled setting is not even vaguely close to the real thing. Any nation that claims to aspire to some higher calling, some greater good would never do this.

Having the moral high ground got us bombed in Pearl Harbor. Having the moral high ground had us lose Vietnam. Having the moral high ground got the World Trade Center, Beirut Marines, the USS Cole, Somalia and the like killed. So, where did having the moral high ground achieve anything? HOw about beheading our citizens? Did we cause that? No, but in the Middle East, they have the "moral" high ground. Seems like a relative term to me.

Paul Hooson, the Stockholm Syndrome has more to do with the complete helplessness of the victim and the total power the person has over the victim that effects the victim. You putz. How could you use that for an example? ww

Irving, you are an insult to your namesake.