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Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.

BlueHen86 wrote:So far I am the only 'no' vote. I wouldn't want someone to torture me, so I don't think I should torture anyone else.

93henfan wrote:

BlueHen86 wrote:So far I am the only 'no' vote. I wouldn't want someone to torture me, so I don't think I should torture anyone else.

I'm not of the opinion that this particular interrogation technique is torture when properly applied.

Doing it wrong, or doing it 200 times with the same result might be torture.

I support properly applied interrogation of suspected terrorists and enemy combatants with potential valuable information.

BlueHen86 wrote:So far I am the only 'no' vote. I wouldn't want someone to torture me, so I don't think I should torture anyone else.

93henfan wrote:

BlueHen86 wrote:So far I am the only 'no' vote. I wouldn't want someone to torture me, so I don't think I should torture anyone else.

I'm not of the opinion that this particular interrogation technique is torture when properly applied.

Doing it wrong, or doing it 200 times with the same result might be torture.

I support properly applied interrogation of suspected terrorists and enemy combatants with potential valuable information.

93henfan wrote:

BlueHen86 wrote:So far I am the only 'no' vote. I wouldn't want someone to torture me, so I don't think I should torture anyone else.

I'm not of the opinion that this particular interrogation technique is torture when properly applied.

Doing it wrong, or doing it 200 times with the same result might be torture.

I support properly applied interrogation of suspected terrorists and enemy combatants with potential valuable information.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

93henfan wrote:
I'm not of the opinion that this particular interrogation technique is torture when properly applied.

Doing it wrong, or doing it 200 times with the same result might be torture.

I support properly applied interrogation of suspected terrorists and enemy combatants with potential valuable information.

Christopher Hitchens was of the same opinion... until he agreed to be waterboarded.
[youtube][/youtube]

I'd like to hear y'all's reasoning that it's not torture.

griz37 wrote:They are the enemy! I am in favor of doing whatever it takes to defeat them.

BlueHen86 wrote:

griz37 wrote:They are the enemy! I am in favor of doing whatever it takes to defeat them.

Whatever you choose to do, you leave yourself open to the same thing. If you choose to torture, you can't complain when someone tortures you. If you okay the use of torture, you must be willing to accept the torture of our troops - or civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

native wrote:

BlueHen86 wrote:
Whatever you choose to do, you leave yourself open to the same thing. If you choose to torture, you can't complain when someone tortures you. If you okay the use of torture, you must be willing to accept the torture of our troops - or civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Your point is well taken, but in this case the enemy uses the barbarian methods you fear no matter what we do.

native wrote:

Been there and done that, along with thousands of other SERE graduates.

native wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
Christopher Hitchens was of the same opinion... until he agreed to be waterboarded.
[youtube][/youtube]

I'd like to hear y'all's reasoning that it's not torture.

Been there and done that, along with thousands of other SERE graduates.

Hitchens is a pussy.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

native wrote:

Been there and done that, along with thousands of other SERE graduates.

And wasn't the point of the SERE training to teach graduates how to cope with and resist TORTURE techniques?

native wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
And wasn't the point of the SERE training to teach graduates how to cope with and resist TORTURE techniques?

Cry me a fvcking river.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

native wrote:
Cry me a fvcking river.

Yes or no. Were they training you to cope with torture techniques?

93henfan wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
Yes or no. Were they training you to cope with torture techniques?

SERE is a classified course, in part. (particularly the part you're asking about)

93henfan wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
Yes or no. Were they training you to cope with torture techniques?

SERE is a classified course, in part. (particularly the part you're asking about)

Skjellyfetti wrote:

93henfan wrote:
SERE is a classified course, in part. (particularly the part you're asking about)

Ah, ok.

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.