FYI

[BallHawk]

They'd rather die than share there secrets and in that case you need to do what it takes to get it out of them.

And what? You torture them, they give in, they tell you where the bomb is and the day is saved? What incentive does the "terrorist" have to tell you the correct information. He could just say whatever the hell he wants. If it's a time-sensitive situation you don't have time to look into his claim. You've gotta act. And you'd be acting on the word of a desperate man in a desperate situation.

OK, and you could say that about any torture technique. Torturing is a good thing nancy boy. Someday you'll grow up and realize that things never will be as rosy pink as Barack has led people like you to believe it can be. Waterboarding and torturing will never stop illegal or not. That right there is the truth. I am so sick and tired of people exploiting the freedom given to them and using it to bitch about the techniques the people who provide the freedom use. Sadly, Jack Nicholson hit it right on the head in that movie.

Partial, you do know that I'm 100% for using torture, right?

[Partial]

Certainly doesn't sound like it. Waterboarding isn't immoral and actually safer than breaking a major limb.

[BallHawk]

Certainly doesn't sound like it. Waterboarding isn't immoral and actually safer than breaking a major limb.

I'm not against waterboarding. What annoys me is when people are so naive that the think waterboarding will come in and save the day. It's not going to work if you're using it as your main source of intel in a pressure situation. Hell, if you want to detain some "terrorists" and torture them on a daily basis to get some information out of them, go for it. They do it in other places around the world, why not make it a level playing field?

[Partial]

It isn't guaranteed to work. It's the best technique they have, though.

[Iron Mike]

Hmmm.....I don't know when you both went to 97E school, but when I did, nothing like that was instructed.

http://www.us-army-info.com/pages/mos/intelligence/97e.html

[Freak Out]

It isn't guaranteed to work. It's the best technique they have, though.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Besides being immoral and putting us on the level of the terrorists it reduces our standing in the world. THis country was supposed to be a beacon on the hill for the rest of the world to aspire to be.

Clearly it doesn't help us when we tell other countries about human rights. You can't be a hypocrite.

But, forget that...it clearly violates due process for those U.S. citizens that are tortured..ie, brown vs. miss. Not to mention violiating international law.

Torture is unreliable. There hasn't been one example of someone being tortured that led to lives being saved in this current war.

Good intel is what has helped us, not torture.

Mark Ritz, Ceo of Team Delta..and former u.s. interrogator:
"Short-term, it can be an effective technique to use physical [pain]. It can be. But it's never reliable -- ever. See, this is the issue."

Dinah PoKempner, the general counsel for the watchdog group Human Rights Watch in New York, stresses that information provided under duress is inherently unreliable.

"The problem is that torture is not only morally reprehensible, it's also extremely ineffective. The body adjusts to pain. You often have to really ratchet up the treatment in order to get someone to talk to you. And then when they talk to you, they are talking to stop the treatment and not necessarily to tell you the truth," PoKempner says.

But, can we get valuable info from torture...let's let the guys in the field tell us.

In Iraq where interrogators saw an increase of 50 percent more high-value intelligence after coercive practices were banned. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations, stated "a rapport-based interrogation that recognizes respect and dignity, and having very well-trained interrogators, is the basis by which you develop intelligence rapidly and increase the validity of that intelligence."

Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway.

Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones.

You guys can talk about torture and I recognize your bloodlust, but the fact is that it is an almost completely worthless technique.

[Deputy Nutz]

You want to know what fucking tourture is? How about paying 4.00 dollars for a gallon of gasioline this spring and summer? How about that? I guess I am going to shit can any automobile trips this summer with the family, we have to eat ya know.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

You want to know what fucking tourture is? How about paying 4.00 dollars for a gallon of gasioline this spring and summer? How about that? I guess I am going to shit can any automobile trips this summer with the family, we have to eat ya know.

In the words of my dad, "it ain't no vacation being in the car with you kids."

[hoosier]

Besides being immoral and putting us on the level of the terrorists it reduces our standing in the world. THis country was supposed to be a beacon on the hill for the rest of the world to aspire to be.

Clearly it doesn't help us when we tell other countries about human rights. You can't be a hypocrite.

But, forget that...it clearly violates due process for those U.S. citizens that are tortured..ie, brown vs. miss. Not to mention violiating international law.

Torture is unreliable. There hasn't been one example of someone being tortured that led to lives being saved in this current war.

Good intel is what has helped us, not torture.

Mark Ritz, Ceo of Team Delta..and former u.s. interrogator:
"Short-term, it can be an effective technique to use physical [pain]. It can be. But it's never reliable -- ever. See, this is the issue."

Dinah PoKempner, the general counsel for the watchdog group Human Rights Watch in New York, stresses that information provided under duress is inherently unreliable.

"The problem is that torture is not only morally reprehensible, it's also extremely ineffective. The body adjusts to pain. You often have to really ratchet up the treatment in order to get someone to talk to you. And then when they talk to you, they are talking to stop the treatment and not necessarily to tell you the truth," PoKempner says.

But, can we get valuable info from torture...let's let the guys in the field tell us.

In Iraq where interrogators saw an increase of 50 percent more high-value intelligence after coercive practices were banned. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations, stated "a rapport-based interrogation that recognizes respect and dignity, and having very well-trained interrogators, is the basis by which you develop intelligence rapidly and increase the validity of that intelligence."

Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway.

Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones.

You guys can talk about torture and I recognize your bloodlust, but the fact is that it is an almost completely worthless technique.

I have the feeling you're trying to convince someone who is impervious to reason. It's like putting water in the mixer and trying to make whipped cream.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Besides being immoral and putting us on the level of the terrorists it reduces our standing in the world. THis country was supposed to be a beacon on the hill for the rest of the world to aspire to be.

Clearly it doesn't help us when we tell other countries about human rights. You can't be a hypocrite.

But, forget that...it clearly violates due process for those U.S. citizens that are tortured..ie, brown vs. miss. Not to mention violiating international law.

Torture is unreliable. There hasn't been one example of someone being tortured that led to lives being saved in this current war.

Good intel is what has helped us, not torture.

Mark Ritz, Ceo of Team Delta..and former u.s. interrogator:
"Short-term, it can be an effective technique to use physical [pain]. It can be. But it's never reliable -- ever. See, this is the issue."

Dinah PoKempner, the general counsel for the watchdog group Human Rights Watch in New York, stresses that information provided under duress is inherently unreliable.

"The problem is that torture is not only morally reprehensible, it's also extremely ineffective. The body adjusts to pain. You often have to really ratchet up the treatment in order to get someone to talk to you. And then when they talk to you, they are talking to stop the treatment and not necessarily to tell you the truth," PoKempner says.

But, can we get valuable info from torture...let's let the guys in the field tell us.

In Iraq where interrogators saw an increase of 50 percent more high-value intelligence after coercive practices were banned. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations, stated "a rapport-based interrogation that recognizes respect and dignity, and having very well-trained interrogators, is the basis by which you develop intelligence rapidly and increase the validity of that intelligence."

Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway.

Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones.

You guys can talk about torture and I recognize your bloodlust, but the fact is that it is an almost completely worthless technique.

I have the feeling you're trying to convince someone who is impervious to reason. It's like putting water in the mixer and trying to make whipped cream.

Touche.

[swede]

I agree Tyrone.

This country has to be better than that and rise above the inclination to use torture against bad people.

Even if a person is a terrorist it is cruel to make them kneel on a board and drag them behind a fast-moving boat.

[Deputy Nutz]

I agree Tyrone.

This country has to be better than that and rise above the inclination to use torture against bad people.

Even if a person is a terrorist it is cruel to make them kneel on a board and drag them behind a fast-moving boat.

I like tourture. I especially like to take bad guys to the Happy Acres Dog Kenels and sick the dogs on their asses for about 5 minutes. If that don't get them talking a hammer and a chisel will work just fine.

[The Leaper]

Personally, I don't like the option of torture...however, at the same time, dealing with radical Islamic terrorists is quite different than dealing with most other POW situations.

To think that rational, respectful dialog is going to reap any benefits from radical terrorists is looney IMO. The entire point of rational, respectful dialog is that BOTH sides have the respect.

Clearly, al Qaeda has zero respect for any Americans...and never will. So, how do you build a rational, respectful working relationship with that blantant fact staring you in the face?

Options like waterboarding should not be our first option...but I do not agree with the notion that they should be taken off the table. The only elements I feel are off-limits are ones that actually put the life of the prisoner at risk.

By most accounts, waterboarding is a MENTAL TORTURE technique...no different than bombarding Noreiga's compound with 130 decibel rock music 24-7.

IMO, the use of tazers in this nation by our police is a much greater torture actually exhibited against US citizens. Can you cite an example where a prisoner we held has died because of waterboarding? I can cite dozens of examples of people dying due to being tazered by police.

Where is your outrage for that?

[swede]

This country has to be better than that and rise above the inclination to use torture against bad people.

Even if a person is a terrorist it is cruel to make them kneel on a board and drag them behind a fast-moving boat.

I just got a pm informing me that I had confused waterboarding with kneeboarding.

Never mind.