Gitmo is a purposely created "grey area." That's why it's immoral. People disappear into that place under various suspicions and pretenses, are tortured for information they might know, and held indefinitely. Whether they are guilty or not really doesn't matter, seeing as they are not tried as war criminals or as civilians, they are simply "detained."

Obama feels that is wrong and I agree. If they people did something wrong, judge them accordingly, whether civilian or not. DON'T hold them indefinitely under some ambiguous idea of "pre-emptive protection." That's just bullshit and very unjust and backwards.

 

I wont go into the meaning of assasinate because it has nothing to do with the point I was making.

Simply saying that we broke the laws is not true. The definition of tortue was left intentionally vague so that waterbording was an option. Also, members of congress were informed of the interogation techniques in 2002, including Pelosi, and no one came out against it then. The country wanted to be protected and didnt care whose toes we stepped on.

(On a side note, I am watching Oliver North on Glenn Beck right now and he is completely disagreeing with you I will find a clip of it if I can)

I am not saying that a scratch is worse than waterboarding, that is ridiculous and I dont beleive that you think that I thank that. I am saying that waterboarding is better than severe physical pain and possible death. It also provides valuable intelligence. The psychological impact is temporary. Consider a hypothetical choose you own adventure:

Your best friend is captured by a terrorist. A prisoner at Gitmo says that he knows how to save you friend bu he taunts you and provides no details. The prisoner has an intense fear of drowning. Do you waterboard the guy and save your friend? Do you let your friend die and take solace in your decency?

Lets separate the torture debate from the debate about prosecution. Obama made the case for BOTH sides of the prosecution debate. Two days before he opened the door on prosecutions he closed it and said he wanted to move forward. A fairly pure flip flop.
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/curre...-waterboarding

 

Obviously this isn't about being a medical expert so once again, fail. This is about principles and has always been about principles. That principle is that life is sacred and and that even a fetus deserves a chance to exist.

So, to simplify things, life begins with a sperm fertilizing an egg. If I don't give that sperm a chance to fertilize an egg, I am preventing that potential life from developing.

Is anybody crying when they pull their condom off? Or picketing IUD's? No. If they love children that much and if the whole point is to "defend their right to exist" then I say attack the people who make contraceptives too, because they're preventing lives everyday!

Those evil little *****.

 

^ it is still one of the dumbest arguments I have heard on this thread. Basically you are saying that anyone who thinks abortion should be illegal would have to logically consider a womans period to be immoral? I shouldnt dignify it with a proper response and the thread has moved on. But .... The issue is about what separates a fetus from a baby. Most people dont support abortions one day before the expected birth because they consider the fetus to be a living baby at this point. If you read my post that you quoted, you will see that the babies brain begins to develop 4 weeks after conception. After 9 weeks, the fetus has developed finger and toes and skeletal structure.

 

I should add that the principle that is important here concerns the mothers obligation to her unborn child. Like I said, in cases of rape I believe this obligation to be less important since the mother is a victim of a criminal act and the baby carries the genetic fingerprint of the attacker.

 

My point is much simpler than that. If creating and accepting the process of creating life is the most important thing, which is all this comes down to, then all forms of preventing life are immoral.

Of course, that's not a view you would adopt and neither would I, but how are the two really any different. The end goal is preventing that life from beginning. The life of the fetus hasn't truly begun because it isn't a complete human being, it's only parts of one, just like a tumor with teeth and hair to me. Not a human, just human genetic material.

 

Yes, we did.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

Check out Part 1, Article III para 1 (a) and (c) - we violated those.

Also...

Part II Articles 12, 13, 14 and possibly 16

Almost all articles of Part III

It's all there...


Ollie North is a good soldier - lousy commentator. lol

Once you're there only can that be answered. But if you break the law to get results don't be surprised of the consequences of your actions. Many men have taken that step and many were released from service - that's the price that paid.

Actually, I'm surprised you didn't catch the obvious. He was wrong in exposing it in the first place. Why do you think the Bush administration hid behind the "national security" cloak. They knew they were wrong.

Obama naively exposed something he could not take back and had his hand forced.

 

I agree that Obama has acted naively, especially with foriegn policy.

You make the assumption that waterboarding is torture, and I have heard from many credible sources that the definition of torture is simply too vague to say that with any certainty. Like I said before, these are really technical issues that I know little about. But to say that waterboarding is defined as torture is simply not true.

The issue of prosecution has been explained by Obama on both sides. But currently, the people that are open to prosecution are the lawyers who wrote the legal opinion that was used by the Bush administration to justify the interrogation techniques. It would be a terrible precident for a sitting President to prosecute the legal counsel of a previous administration. Obama has the right to disagree and change the policy, but he will achieve nothing except to strengthen partisanship by taking legal action.

The last issue that I think is interesting is the limits to which the US will go to extract information from a known terrorist mastermind. I think it would be foolish to draw the line too far away from techniques that are safe and effective such as waterboarding. It is even more foolish to make this knowledge public to all of our enemies.

If a wet rag on the face of a terrorist will save the life of my friend, I would not think twice about doing it. Protecting the life of a loved one at the cost of discomfort to a terrorist murderer is no cost at all. It worries me that so many seem to disagree with this simple statement.

 

Nothing simple about this.
It may not kill you or pose serious threat of death... but that is torture, in my eyes. The victim of waterboarding is in agony and terrified for the duration of the experience.
While the dictionary gives many definitions of torture, one is: extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
Waterboarding is torture... pulling somebody's fingernails out would never kill them, so is that not torture?
I just don't understand your argument.

You invent hypothetical situations about "what if your friend was..." in attempt to persuade somebody that at times it is okay to circumvent worldwide law to not torture? "But they did it first!!!" is bound to be your second argument.

 

No, that's incorrect. Waterboarding is torture and is recognized as such by many.

http://waterboarding.org/

To be honest with you, I might do that as well if I knew I could get information crucial at that moment.

But to waterboard a man almost 6 times a day... that's just ******* sadistic. Reminds me of a kid I knew when I was eight. They raised chickens and had some empty pens way out back. He would capture cats (dogs were no fun I guess) and throw them in a pen and mercilessly hose them down. Being 8 yrs old at the time I thought it was funny... but after the third time doing I never hung out with him again. He finally got caught after he drown a couple and the owners came looking for them.

Foolish or not, I'm certain there's still plenty more in our closet. We just don't ring up Al Jazeera to broadcast the video feeds.