Waterboarding - Torture or not?

[tierk]

Playboy reporter takes a bet that he can stand waterboarding for 15 secs.

waterboarding

Now imagine this being setup aggressively with proper strapping and having it done repeatedly with someone holding your throat......

 

[Zenith]

I heard torture is ultimately playing on your fear of getting hurt/loose something rather than the actual pain, so I would rate waterboarding as torture any day.

 

[mycenae]

i found that quite interesting as its not something i would consider to be scary either...not in a controlled situation like that anyway...obviously as a hostage its completely different!

 

[Scouse]

It's fucking horrid. Stick a flannel over your face and lie down in the shower with the water hitting the flannel.

Now imagine someone doing it forcibly to you until you almost pass out from asphyxiation.

It's fucking horrid. "Simulated drowning" my arse...

 

[Rulke]

Believe Me, It's Torture | vanityfair.com

 

[ECA]

It's torture and if you believe in the rule of law then anyone involved should be prosecuted.

The US executed Japanese in WW2 for waterboarding.
Either hold a press conference, apologise and pay reparations or prosecute the idiots on your own side who did it.

You can't do neither.

 

[Yoni]

Depends on the context as to whether it is torture or not...

If you are a consenting adult and it is how you get your kicks, it can hardly be considered torture, the same can be said for other restraint techniques adopted during BDSM... the clue here being consenting combined with safe and fun.

If however the person is not consenting and it is being used in order to gain information or to punish or even to strengthen resolve (in terms of training) then of course it is torture.

Personally, as I suffer from claustrophobia I find the idea heinous in any situation but would not dream to judge two consenting adults in indulging in such an activity.

 

[Sparx]

Perhaps my mind is still brainwashed from being a soldier but the people they are doing it to dont follow any rules of the geneva convention, they blow up schools and innocent people. If waterboarding gets the results then so be it. If sticking splintered pieces of bamboo under fingernails work then go for it. Just at least have the balls to stand up to world media when questioned and say yeah we do but you know what, because we do it we managed to stop such and such from happening

 

[Rulke]

Perhaps my mind is still brainwashed from being a soldier but the people they are doing it to dont follow any rules of the geneva convention, they blow up schools and innocent people. If waterboarding gets the results then so be it. If sticking splintered pieces of bamboo under fingernails work then go for it. Just at least have the balls to stand up to world media when questioned and say yeah we do but you know what, because we do it we managed to stop such and such from happening

Waterboading (and torture in general) dont get results - they get the victim to tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to stop.

 

[nath]

I guess it's a matter of what you define as acceptable practice for the general safety of the population. There's countless 1984esque things we could do to make ourselves safer that we don't consider acceptable (and some that Labour thinks are fine). It's just a case of where you draw the line - personally I don't think torture is acceptable. I'm also willing to accept the increased risks to my general safety (being a Londoner 'n all) to have this particular wooly liberal mindset. Others may not. Some I guess expect to be able to have complete safety with their wooly mindset and have no clue that some things come at a price.

</ramble>

 

[ECA]

Perhaps my mind is still brainwashed from being a soldier but the people they are doing it to dont follow any rules of the geneva convention, they blow up schools and innocent people. If waterboarding gets the results then so be it. If sticking splintered pieces of bamboo under fingernails work then go for it. Just at least have the balls to stand up to world media when questioned and say yeah we do but you know what, because we do it we managed to stop such and such from happening

Isn't the point that torture is equivalent to those things, so the second we employ it as a tactic we lose any moral highground that they are the bad guys and we're the good guys and it's basically "we want your stuff" from one side to the other?

 

[tierk]

Perhaps my mind is still brainwashed from being a soldier but the people they are doing it to dont follow any rules of the geneva convention, they blow up schools and innocent people. If waterboarding gets the results then so be it. If sticking splintered pieces of bamboo under fingernails work then go for it. Just at least have the balls to stand up to world media when questioned and say yeah we do but you know what, because we do it we managed to stop such and such from happening

What then is the difference between us and them?

 

[Krazeh]

Isn't the point that torture is equivalent to those things, so the second we employ it as a tactic we lose any moral highground that they are the bad guys and we're the good guys and it's basically "we want your stuff" from one side to the other?

^^ this. The price of being the good guys is we have to be good. We can't decide that certain laws/conventions/rights don't apply to certain people because it'd be easier for us, otherwise as ECA says we end up heading down to the level of the people we're saying are the bad guys.

 

[Chilly]

Isn't the point that torture is equivalent to those things, so the second we employ it as a tactic we lose any moral highground that they are the bad guys and we're the good guys and it's basically "we want your stuff" from one side to the other?

Who cares about morals? I, as an Englishman, don't want some **** from abroad coming to my country and blowing stuff up. If idiots continue to take the piss, then they can expect to get fucked by big-dollar funtime weapons.

 

[Scouse]

Depends on the context as to whether it is torture or not...

It's still torture. You just like it

 

[rynnor]

Its used by serious cults because it promotes a strong psychological response that can be used to effectively brainwash people.

I'd question its value as an interrogation technique - its more useful if you want to plant beliefs or memories.

Edit - torture isnt very effective anyway - after a while people will tell you whatever they think u want to hear - informants are more usefull or surveillance.

 

[Cozak]

Nah that aint torture. The techniques employed by Saddam whilst he was still in power to make people talk, now that was torture.

What happened to him in his 24 hours in captivity was written across his body in chapters of pain, recorded by the camera. There are police-issue handcuffs still attached to one wrist, from which he was hanged long enough to cause his hands and wrists to swell. There are burn marks on his chest, as if someone has placed something very hot near his right nipple and moved it around.

A little lower are a series of horizontal welts, wrapping around his body and breaking the skin as they turn around his chest, as if he had been beaten with something flexible, perhaps a cable. There are other injuries: a broken nose and smaller wounds that look like cigarette burns.

An arm appears to have been broken and one of the higher vertebrae is pushed inwards. There is a cluster of small, neat circular wounds on both sides of his left knee. At some stage an-Ni'ami seems to have been efficiently knee-capped. It was not done with a gun - the exit wounds are identical in size to the entry wounds, which would not happen with a bullet. Instead it appears to have been done with something like a drill.

What actually killed him however were the bullets fired into his chest at close range, probably by someone standing over him as he lay on the ground. The last two hit him in the head.

 

[nath]

Nah that aint torture. The techniques employed by Saddam whilst he was still in power to make people talk, now that was torture.

So because Saddam allowed much more horrific torture, anything less sadistic is acceptable? If someone cuts off your legs, will you be OK with me cutting off a few of your fingers? After all, it's far less severe...

 

[Zenith]

Perhaps my mind is still brainwashed from being a soldier but the people they are doing it to dont follow any rules of the geneva convention, they blow up schools and innocent people. If waterboarding gets the results then so be it. If sticking splintered pieces of bamboo under fingernails work then go for it. Just at least have the balls to stand up to world media when questioned and say yeah we do but you know what, because we do it we managed to stop such and such from happening

To me personally, I believe in reality the "means is the end", meaning if you resort to mild violence to stop more agressive violence you have basicly opened up a pandoras box and you dont know where you'll stop.

 

[Cozak]

So because Saddam allowed much more horrific torture, anything less sadistic is acceptable? If someone cuts off your legs, will you be OK with me cutting off a few of your fingers? After all, it's far less severe...

Nah, I just dont view it as torture. Surely wouldnt like to be subjected to it, but as torture goes I dont think that waterboarding makes the cut.

 

[nath]

Well you're entitled to your opinion, but purely as a matter of semantics it *is* torture as far as I understand.

 

[Ctuchik]

I heard torture is ultimately playing on your fear of getting hurt/loose something rather than the actual pain, so I would rate waterboarding as torture any day.

read up on the chinese water torture theres nothing about that that hurt or make you lose something (well u'd go insane after a few days)

its just a random drippling of water, doesent sound bad but aparently its quite stressfull...

Chinese water torture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mycenae]

they investigated chinese water totrture on mytbusters once....subjected two of their human lab rats to it with their consent.....they both went crackers and demanded out after less than 10 mins!

 

[Sparx]

If you lot think we are better and the good guys you are seriously warped. We are no better than the people we fight against.

 

[nath]

Even if that were true, that doesn't mean we should give up trying to be better/good. It doesn't invalidate peoples objections to torture.

 

[kirennia]

Even if that were true, that doesn't mean we should give up trying to be better/good. It doesn't invalidate peoples objections to torture.

But there lies the problem. For a muslim extremist (as an example), do you think that they undertake suicide bombings with the intention of doing what they perceive as bad? They see it as the ultimate binding between them and their faith so really, there is no difference between the two; they are trying to become good.

Inducing any form of torture, no matter how large or small is to be no better or worse then others who use it in any mean, shape or form as the only way it's justifyable is to think it's the right thing to do... and then you come full circle again; where do you stop? If there haadn't of been a public outcry about this but instead the masses supported waterboarding, I'm not so sure it wouldn't go further. But then for that matter, I'm not so sure it hasn't gone further already.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, I personally just don't think there's any room for a moral high-ground from any government, slating one country for doing something and in turn, doing it themselves with the reasoning of 'but our's isn't so bad'...

 

[tierk]

I have a lot very strong feelings about many things, for example the way that we should deal with convicted criminals. Torture is another one of those subjects that i feel really strongly about and strangely enough they run quite contrary to what most people would expect coming from a person that thinks that we should kill all pedo's, murderers and rapists.

The USA has been a champion of human rights throughout much of the last century giving hope to many peoples oppressed and denied basic rights that we in the West (ok i am not in the West anymore but you get my drift) take for granted.

Up until GWB's term in office, this stance led it to be supported and cheered by millions of people around the globe. Off course there where small groups who were dissatified but then there always are.

By turning this whole policy on its head and carrying out tactics that have always been associated with people that we considered to be, for want of a better word, Evil, they have managed to undo 60 years of good work in under ten years.

When they now talk about Human Rights to anyone the first thing that comes to mind is Guantánamo Bay and all its associated evils followed swiftly by all the other issues that have since come to light.

Waterboarding is torture, it might not look painful in the video but that is carried out in a controlled situation and is by no means a reflection of how this was carried out on detainees at the various secret and not so secret camps dotted around the globe. The guy in video is allowed to stop the treatment at any time he chooses.

The real victims of this crime would be subjected to this much more intensely and i think that if people saw an actual session taking place with the victim thrashing about and get the full treatment that they would not be so quick to dismiss it as not being torture and would see it for what it is.

I could also imagine myself and probably anyone else on this planet admitting to anything if that was done to me enough times.

I dont believe and never have, that i should have to change the way that i live in order to fight people, that wish to spread their aims by underhand means. If someone wants to blow themselves up or just blow things up they will do so and no matter how many ID cards and biometric passports are issued. I detest the way that we have become a police state over the last few years with more cameras more security more police and all in aid of what?

The use of methods such as this to wring information from terror suspects is totally unacceptable and the perpetrators should be put on trial as well as every single person that was involved in trying to make this seem to be legit.

 

[Turamber]

It's torture and if you believe in the rule of law then anyone involved should be prosecuted.

Yes it is torture, but if Jack Bauer did it in 24 we'd be backing him to the hilt. Random thought, move along.

 

[nath]

But there lies the problem. For a muslim extremist (as an example), do you think that they undertake suicide bombings with the intention of doing what they perceive as bad? They see it as the ultimate binding between them and their faith so really, there is no difference between the two; they are trying to become good.

Inducing any form of torture, no matter how large or small is to be no better or worse then others who use it in any mean, shape or form as the only way it's justifyable is to think it's the right thing to do... and then you come full circle again; where do you stop? If there haadn't of been a public outcry about this but instead the masses supported waterboarding, I'm not so sure it wouldn't go further. But then for that matter, I'm not so sure it hasn't gone further already.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, I personally just don't think there's any room for a moral high-ground from any government, slating one country for doing something and in turn, doing it themselves with the reasoning of 'but our's isn't so bad'...

Not sure why you were replying to me as that's more or less what I was saying. My point was that even if we're accept that we're no better than others who do such nasty shit, that doesn't mean we shouldn't *try* to be better. Therefore if you accept that we're no better, that doesn't mean we can't have objections to torture.

Yes it is torture, but if Jack Bauer did it in 24 we'd be backing him to the hilt. Random thought, move along.

Quite right, and when I play Manhunt I take great pleasure in slicing people in half with a chainsaw. Fiction and real life, oddly they're not entirely connected.

Moving along.

 

[chipper]

yes its torture and frankly if i was interrogating some of these evil bastards id do hell of a lot worse than pour water over there heads.

its easy to sit back and say its wrong etc. if it provided the secret services with information that saves 100 lives, then was it worth it? you may say no, pretty sure the 100 ppl wouldnt give a shit, and be thankful they are alive. people who play by the rules against those who dont rarely win