Bush: "Damn Right I Approved Waterboarding!"

[BlueHen86]

So by your calculus apples and oranges are the same thing. If I am attacked, I will defend myself. Similiarly, if I attacked someone else I would expect them to defend themselves. The question isn't "Should we defend ourselves?", it's "How do we defend ourselves?".

Try to keep up. I realize that you have an internet tough guy image to try and maintain (fortunately for you that doesn't require a lot of intellegence) but bad analogies are kind of boring.

A person has your family rigged up to a bomb. All he has to do is call your house and the phone will trigger the bomb. He laughs at your attempts to talk to him and reaches for the phone. You have a cannon pointed at him. You shoot, he dies...no injury, the cannon will obliterate him. You don't shoot, your family dies.

Thou shall not kill.

Good luck.

The situation described would be considered sefl defense (or the defense of your family). I would be okay with it. It is not torture and it is not capital punishment. Once again apples and oranges. I know you are the guy who thinks we should have no rules when times are desparate, but words do need to have their own unique defintions, otherwise we wouldn't be able to comunicate.

[BlueHen86]

Nope. I am against the death penalty. I think that it is nothing more than useless revenge. It doesn't solve any problems and I don't think it's the Christian thing to do.

As for torture, there is real debate as to it's effectiveness. You can get people to admit to almost everything if you put them under enough stress. You might be able to convice me that it is needed, but so far I haven't found any of the arguments on here to be all that compelling (just as I'm sure you haven't found mine to be compelling).

What you won't be able to convince me of is that we should be willing to forfeit all of our civil rights in an effort to win the war on terror. I think that at the very minimum there must be some due process, especially where American citizens are involved. There has to be rules, otherwise we might as well live under Taliban rule.

Due process? What kind of due process are we giving famlies who live next to a bomb factory that we decide to target for destruction? What kind of due process does an enemy soldier get when he gets cut in two by a cluster bomb? Maybe he was getting ready to defect...but we didn't ask him. The due process is through the military decision process...the same one that would be used to decide if the enemy combatant is worthy of torture.

You said you were OK with a courts decision of whether waterboarding is torture. That doesn't match your Christian philosophy. Which is it? And "Thou shall not kill" is pretty simple...we don't get to add amemdments to that. If you are a Christian, you shall not kill...period.

So much for consistency.

You are equating war with terrorism. That's fine. But then terrorists should get the same rights that we give enemy soldiers. You know, like Geneva convention stuff, etc. etc. Supposedly we don't torture enemy soldiers, but we argue that terrorsts aren't soldiers so the Geneva Convention doesn't not apply to them.

Spare me the thou shalt not kill crap. I don't think any true form of Christianity is okay with murder, however self defense and capital punishment are gray areas and different deniminations have different interpretations. I happen to think that self defense is reasonable, but murder in the name of revenge is not.

Funny how you don't think we should have rules when the going gets tough, but you are trying to hold me to them - and then calling me inconsistent.

[kalm]

Hen is rational and consistent with his philosophy and the ideals of the U.S.

Again, that's his opinion, as it is yours. I disagree.

See Chizzang's post above. Waterboarding is not inconsistent with the America has always done business. If you wish to strive for a higher plane of existence, then that's fine. But don't accuse the US of being peace love and puppy dogs, and now waterboarding is suddenly some kind of aberration.

Bad shit happens in war and some of it's neccessary. No one is arguing that. But that doesn't neccessarily make it right, legal, effective, or (as the title of the thread insinuates) something that should be offically "approved".

You hit the nail on the head concerning opinions. You and Cluck are hanging around because Hen's is more based in reason and, being in general a reasonable fellow, it drives you fucking nuts.

[YoUDeeMan]

Due process? What kind of due process are we giving famlies who live next to a bomb factory that we decide to target for destruction? What kind of due process does an enemy soldier get when he gets cut in two by a cluster bomb? Maybe he was getting ready to defect...but we didn't ask him. The due process is through the military decision process...the same one that would be used to decide if the enemy combatant is worthy of torture.

You said you were OK with a courts decision of whether waterboarding is torture. That doesn't match your Christian philosophy. Which is it? And "Thou shall not kill" is pretty simple...we don't get to add amemdments to that. If you are a Christian, you shall not kill...period.

So much for consistency.

You are equating war with terrorism. That's fine. But then terrorists should get the same rights that we give enemy soldiers. You know, like Geneva convention stuff, etc. etc. Supposedly we don't torture enemy soldiers, but we argue that terrorsts aren't soldiers so the Geneva Convention doesn't not apply to them.

Spare me the thou shalt not kill crap. I don't think any true form of Christianity is okay with murder, however self defense and capital punishment are gray areas and different deniminations have different interpretations. I happen to think that self defense is reasonable, but murder in the name of revenge is not.

Funny how you don't think we should have rules when the going gets tough, but you are trying to hold me to them - and then calling me inconsistent.

Nonsense. There is no gray area with, "Thou shall not kill." It does not say, Thou shall not kill except when YOU think it is OK." Of course, some Christians have decided that the Commandments didn't make a whole lot of sense...God must have had a poor stenographer. You've joined those folks in deciding that a very clear mandate is not convenient for you when things get tough.

You also miss the point...I don't give a crap what the Geneva convention says. Rules are made so that merchants and politicians don't get killed in the messes they start. Death and injury is terribly inconvenient for those folks.

If I am in a position to prevent my people from getting hurt, I will use whatever force is necessary. Apparently, many Presidents and other world leaders have come to the same conclusion. We dropped an atomic bomb on civilian targets to save our own folks. We fire bombed hundred of thousands of civilians in other cities. Napalm. Cluster bombs. Agent Orange. We target civilians in other countries on the "war" on drugs. Legally, we can make "attrocities" "acceptable" based upon interpretations from a few of our leaders. In another post, you said you were against torture and the death penalty...Christian values. But then you also posted that if the courts decided that waterboarding was not torture you would approve. Once again, which is it?

Your last sentance make little sense. Of course I don't care about rules during a war. But if you are going to care about rules, then yes, I will call out the hypocrisy of those rules.

[YoUDeeMan]

Again, that's his opinion, as it is yours. I disagree.

See Chizzang's post above. Waterboarding is not inconsistent with the America has always done business. If you wish to strive for a higher plane of existence, then that's fine. But don't accuse the US of being peace love and puppy dogs, and now waterboarding is suddenly some kind of aberration.

Bad **** happens in war and some of it's neccessary. No one is arguing that. But that doesn't neccessarily make it right, legal, effective, or (as the title of the thread insinuates) something that should be offically "approved".

You hit the nail on the head concerning opinions. You and Cluck are hanging around because Hen's is more based in reason and, being in general a reasonable fellow, it drives you **** nuts.

'86 is a funny guy...and usually has reasonable thoughts. But kalm, where is the "reason" that waterboarding is OK if the courts allow it versus his assertations that he has Christian values? Torturing a person surely would go against Christian values...no matter what the courts say.

[BlueHen86]

You are equating war with terrorism. That's fine. But then terrorists should get the same rights that we give enemy soldiers. You know, like Geneva convention stuff, etc. etc. Supposedly we don't torture enemy soldiers, but we argue that terrorsts aren't soldiers so the Geneva Convention doesn't not apply to them.

Spare me the thou shalt not kill crap. I don't think any true form of Christianity is okay with murder, however self defense and capital punishment are gray areas and different deniminations have different interpretations. I happen to think that self defense is reasonable, but murder in the name of revenge is not.

Funny how you don't think we should have rules when the going gets tough, but you are trying to hold me to them - and then calling me inconsistent.

Nonsense. There is no gray area with, "Thou shall not kill." It does not say, Thou shall not kill except when YOU think it is OK." Of course, some Christians have decided that the Commandments didn't make a whole lot of sense...God must have had a poor stenographer. You've joined those folks in deciding that a very clear mandate is not convenient for you when things get tough.

You also miss the point...I don't give a crap what the Geneva convention says. Rules are made so that merchants and politicians don't get killed in the messes they start. Death and injury is terribly inconvenient for those folks.

If I am in a position to prevent my people from getting hurt, I will use whatever force is necessary. Apparently, many Presidents and other world leaders have come to the same conclusion. We dropped an atomic bomb on civilian targets to save our own folks. We fire bombed hundred of thousands of civilians in other cities. Napalm. Cluster bombs. Agent Orange. We target civilians in other countries on the "war" on drugs. Legally, we can make "attrocities" "acceptable" based upon interpretations from a few of our leaders. In another post, you said you were against torture and the death penalty...Christian values. But then you also posted that if the courts decided that waterboarding was not torture you would approve. Once again, which is it?

Your last sentance make little sense. Of course I don't care about rules during a war. But if you are going to care about rules, then yes, I will call out the hypocrisy of those rules.

So, by your logic, every Christian that ever fought in a war is a hypocrite? I agree. I think that hypocrisy is part of the human condition. We are all capable of saying one thing and doing another when actually confronted with a given situation. So yeah, I am capable of being a hypocrite and probably am at times, that doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on any given subject or at least attempt to live by a certain set of rules.

Here's another news flash. I will save you the trouble of going off on another useless tangent - I am not perfect either.

So, now that we have established my hypocrisy and imperfection, please tell us more about your world where there are no rules in fighting the war on terror. You know, the one where the Bill of Rights and Constitution don't count when the going gets tough. It's great that you want to prevent people from getting hurt, except that you seem all to willing to hurt people in order to do it. Sometimes the treament can be worse that the illness, I hope that you are not a doctor.

Finally - if waterboarding is not torture, how is it hypocritical for an anti-torture advocate to be okay with it's use?

"Is waterboarding torture?" and "Is torture okay?" are two different arguments.

[BlueHen86]

Bad **** happens in war and some of it's neccessary. No one is arguing that. But that doesn't neccessarily make it right, legal, effective, or (as the title of the thread insinuates) something that should be offically "approved".

You hit the nail on the head concerning opinions. You and Cluck are hanging around because Hen's is more based in reason and, being in general a reasonable fellow, it drives you **** nuts.

'86 is a funny guy...and usually has reasonable thoughts. But kalm, where is the "reason" that waterboarding is OK if the courts allow it versus his assertations that he has Christian values? Torturing a person surely would go against Christian values...no matter what the courts say.

Agreed. But if the courts say it's not torture what is the problem? Someone has to draw the line when it comes to what is torture and what is an acceptable form of interrogation. I'd rather that line be drawn by a court as opposed to being done clandestinely the President, Vice-President and their advisors.

On a side note: I am really enjoying the discussion. We're aren't convincing anyone or solving anything but it's fun none the less.

[Wedgebuster]

I approve of waterboarding George W. Bush.

[kalm]

I approve of waterboarding George W. Bush.

Declare him an enemy combatant and you could skip all that pussified due process crap (according to some).

[CID1990]

Again, that's his opinion, as it is yours. I disagree.

See Chizzang's post above. Waterboarding is not inconsistent with the America has always done business. If you wish to strive for a higher plane of existence, then that's fine. But don't accuse the US of being peace love and puppy dogs, and now waterboarding is suddenly some kind of aberration.

Bad **** happens in war and some of it's neccessary. No one is arguing that. But that doesn't neccessarily make it right, legal, effective, or (as the title of the thread insinuates) something that should be offically "approved".

You hit the nail on the head concerning opinions. You and Cluck are hanging around because Hen's is more based in reason and, being in general a reasonable fellow, it drives you **** nuts.

Actually, I enjoy well reasoned opinions, and I do think that his opinion fits that bill. However, just because you or Hen disagree with my opinion does not mean that I have not also followed what is what I consider to be a well reasoned pathway, based on my own experiences.

[kalm]

Bad **** happens in war and some of it's neccessary. No one is arguing that. But that doesn't neccessarily make it right, legal, effective, or (as the title of the thread insinuates) something that should be offically "approved".

You hit the nail on the head concerning opinions. You and Cluck are hanging around because Hen's is more based in reason and, being in general a reasonable fellow, it drives you **** nuts.

Actually, I enjoy well reasoned opinions, and I do think that his opinion fits that bill. However, just because you or Hen disagree with my opinion does not mean that I have not also followed what is what I consider to be a well reasoned pathway, based on my own experiences.

I'll admit to over generalizing a bit. You're arguments are typically solid. I just thought Hen exposed some hypocrisy in the pro torture crowd - which, as you say, is nothing more than my opinion.