Newt Gingrich For President?

They don't call it torture because it causes temporary discomfort. Shame of your temporary morals.

 

Well, when you talk about torture, you're really talking about waterboarding, right? I mean we aren't using bamboo slivers or dismemberment, right? What effects does one have from waterboarding once it's over?

 

Since the Geneva Conventions define water boarding as torture and let's face it here, it IS simulated drowning, don't fool yourself into believing it is some sort of kind torture. Sure there are worse kinds of torture but that doesn't change the fact that water boarding is still torture. I don't know if you've ever come close to death but the psychological effects can be far worse than scares. Just keep saying to yourself torture is torture is torture. You’ll get it sooner or later.

 

You wouldn't care to show us just where the Geneva conventions even mention waterboarding, would you?

 

It seems you're ignorant of what rendition (or "extraordinary rendition", if you prefer) is. Rendition is the policy of taking captured suspected terrorists to other countries where TORTURE is legal and then TORTURING them. If you're going to discuss a topic, please know something about it before you comment, please.

 

I admitted that I really hadn't looked into the Obama Administration's policies on rendition so you belittle me for being honest and then proceed to lecture me about knowing something before I post. So I do a little easy web research and come up with this:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight - NYTimes.com

Now who should know what he is talking about before he posts? That would YOU sunny Jim!

 

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. In an interview for The New Yorker, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience', he said". Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that "water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse".

A memo written in 2003 by the CIA's Office of Medical Services noted that "for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness."

In an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch asserted that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.

 

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions

 

Boo Hoo...causing a terrorist to be afraid to shower vs saving innocent US lives? Doesn't seem like a hard choice to make especially when you consider we actually just killed one...not tortured, killed.

 

I didn't belittle you for being honest and admitting that you didn't know what you were talking about; I admonished you for being ignorant. Now, if you think Obama is continuing the practice of rendition (which GW Bush AND Bill Clinton used) only to take terrorist suspects to Egypt or Syria to play tiddly-winks, well, you're more naive than I thought, Charlie.

John V. Santore: What is Obama's Rendition Policy?

The typically sterile term "rendition" is now inextricably linked with torture in the public mind, as well it should be. While there may unfortunately be a legal difference, there is no moral or practical difference between the United States directly torturing an individual under American control, and the US transferring an individual to another nation where they will be tortured by a foreign government.
An article in today's Los Angeles Times claims that despite President Obama's well-publicized revocation of Bush's policies regarding torture, he has left the door open to future renditions of prisoners under American custody:


Reporting from Washington -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba. But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool. Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street...
...the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard..."Obviously you need to preserve some tools -- you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing the legal reasoning. "The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice."

 

So that's what you call it? Then I see why you think it's ok. But IMO (and the World's in general), we tortured those people. I guess I'll have to leave it at that.

 

A definition from Wikipedia: (I know, not definitive, but accurate nonetheless)

"Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning."

"Although a variety of specific techniques are used in waterboarding, the captive's face is usually covered with cloth or some other thin material, and the subject is immobilized on his/her back. Water is then poured onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating the sensation that the captive is drowning. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage and, if uninterrupted, death. Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years."

 

Then consider that it doesn't work anyway. What's the point?

 

The idea that torture = accurate information is at best misguided. The information gathered is in bits and pieces and is overwhelmingly inaccurate or outright lies. This is the nature of torture, it isn't a single event where you waterboard someone for a few hours and they say "Osama is at such and such". It takes place over years, the entire time a person is in custody. Sleep deprivation is the major (and easiest) tool, keep someone awake for a week (with extremely short naps in between) and they become extremely agitated and susceptible to multiple interrogations. 99% of what these tortured people say is insignificant, with 1% of truth. (No, I do not have stats on this, creative license so shut it). How anyone can sort through all that and get any credible information is amazing to me. Does it work? I'd have to say yes, if the person even had any information to start with, but most times they'll say whatever they think their interrogators want to hear, whether it's true or not, in order to stop the torture. And most of them are not privy to the information their interrogators want, any info they have is usually insignificant.

 

Care to try again. It is not there.

 

Are you trying to say that because the term "waterboarding" isn't specifically cited, it isn't considered torture by the Geneva Conventions? Really?

Read this:UN Convention Against Torture

 

That is the usual definition of "mention". You say "Since the Geneva Conventions define water boarding.....". Just how can you define a word without using the word? You can say the conventions some have interpreted it to mean, but you cannot say it has been defined as such.

 

That's a lie and you know it. It is torture dummy. It's just that you don't mind it being done. If its ok for us it should ok for the enemy to do it. They want information too. What a GD liar you are.

 

You can go ahead and nitpick asinine points if that satiates your need to be seen as right on a minor point or if it makes you feel better about supporting a party that condones torture. It's just sad and telling that you don't have anything of substance to contribute.

 

Sorry, I just don't regard waterboarding as "torture". It may a little mean but hardly should be considered torture.
Beyond that point, how much more cruel can the terrorists be than they are already? Are they going to get upset & start killing innocent civilians or cutting off our people's heads (they are already!)? I mean, really. You guys want us to alter our actions so we don't disturb the terrorist's sensibilities?