Bush-era interrogation may have worked, Obama official says

just because it worked doesn't make it right

We already know that waterboarding The "Sheik" made him give up the information that stopped an attack in Calif.

Woiyo9 wrote:

We already know that waterboarding The "Sheik" made him give up the information that stopped an attack in Calif.

How do we know this? Feel free to share your sources.

(CNSNews.com) - The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion. . . .

I do not believe waterboarding is torture.

Quote:

I do not believe waterboarding is torture.

Would you believe it is torture if it was being done to our soldiers?

just because it worked doesn't make it right

Feel free to take as many grains of salt your feel necessary to support your bias.

Being objective, I assert that the CIA using these aggressive torture tactics, was able to gain information that help save American lives.

Obama will refuse to use these aggressive techniques and the result of his decision may cost American lives.

SELF DEFENSE IS MORALLY RIGHT

OmSigDAVID wrote:

SELF DEFENSE IS MORALLY RIGHT

Quote:

Torture is never done in self defense. It is the very antithesis of self defense.

Those statements are false.
We must defend ourselves from a war thrust upon us by the Moslems.





David

So you advocate using torture based on the assumption that it is effective. You seem to have no reservations about its morality or legality. Given that, I ask again, why do we not use it in law enforcement?

I never nor will I ever consider waterboarding to be torture. Nor is slapping or sleep deprivation torture in my opinion. Nor do I think waterboarding should be used in every circumstance. It is an aggressive form of interrogation and should be use only in extreme circumstances.

Since these prisoners are not American citizens, they are not entitled to any rights granted under the US Constitution.

Therefore, to argue that waterboarding be used in law enforcement is a false argument.

Feel free to take as many grains of salt your feel necessary to support your bias.

Being objective, I assert that the CIA using these aggressive torture tactics, was able to gain information that help save American lives.

Obama will refuse to use these aggressive techniques and the result of his decision may cost American lives.

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:

A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.

The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen's. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim:

Q: Was it painful?

A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water.

Q: Like you were drowning?

A: Drowning -- you could hardly breathe.

Here's the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese:

They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.

And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air. . . . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

I never nor will I ever consider waterboarding to be torture.

Being objective, I assert that the CIA using these aggressive torture tactics, was able to gain information that help save American lives.

Since these prisoners are not American citizens, they are not entitled to any rights granted under the US Constitution.

Therefore, to argue that waterboarding be used in law enforcement is a false argument.