Waterboarding - Torture?

[Nomrombom]

What are your opinions on waterboarding? I consider it torture, and based on the UN Convention against Torture:

 

...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions. --UN Convention Against Torture

 

Waterboarding usually causes longlasting psychological damage and can even kill you.

 

IMO, waterboarding shouldn't be used. It is a seriously horrible action. I can't even begin to imagine how terrified and paranoid I'd be after it.

 

Live demonstration of WB on Vanity Fair editer (?) Christopher Hitchens:[spoiler=Warning - very graphic and intense video]

 

 

Also general thoughts on torture and justification of it.

[KittyKat]

I can't see anyone arguing that waterboarding isn't torture or that torture as a method of interrogation works...

[obfuscator]

Is torture, questionable success rate, torture is sometimes (unfortunately) necessary. Sums up my feelings on it.

[Dizzle229]

I'm undecided whether its use should be legal, but yeah, definitely torture.

[Guest Rob]

Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive' date=' causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning. [/quote']

If wikipedia says it's torture, it must be true.

[Nomrombom]

Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive' date=' causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning. [/quote']

If wikipedia says it's torture, it must be true.

 

:lol:

[champion]

By definition, clearly it's torture.

[michel555555]

Being someone who has almost drowned I want to serverly harm people who say that it is not torture.

 

And didn't we learn from the inquisition that torture isn't about getting the truth? It's about getting hte other person to say whatever the hell you want.

[K4ylan]

I thought everyone knew it was torture?

[stevepole]

Is there an actual argument that waterboarding is not considered torture?

[The_Gabe]

Who said it wasn't torture? Or does it violate human rights too?

[The Observer]

I believe it is considered torture. The better question is, why is it allowed to happen? Well, quite simply, these are usually done on foreign lands or on "black sites" where people don't know what's happening. If we don't know what's happening or even where it's happening, then clearly no one will complain about it.

[sees_all1]

or that torture as a method of interrogation works...

The information that led to Bin Laden's death came from waterboarding. There is a very big misconception on how waterboarding people to obtain information works, someone with authority to speak on the subject was interviewed a few weeks back, and basically explained it:

 

1. Its decided that the subject has a high probability of knowing critical information, but is uncooperative during standard interrogation / questioning.

2. The subject undergoes waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other techniques to break their uncooperativeness.

3. Days after waterboarding (not immediately afterwards), the subject is asked questions the interrogators already know the answer to (ones that the subject wouldn't think they'd know). When the answers the subject give match the intelligence they already have, the subject is "broken," and further information from them is trustworthy. If the subject is uncooperative, rinse and repeat.

 

The explanation, and general understanding is that if you torture someone, and immediately ask questions during or afterwards, they'll tell you anything you want to hear. If you use the above technique, they'll eventually cooperate and tell you what they know.

 

If I can find a video of it (was probably on The O'Reilly Factor), I'll post it.

[obfuscator]

That's basically my feelings about it.

 

While it's obviously terrible to use, if it's used when there's a reasonable chance of success, and its usage will save lives, it's ok.

[Range_This11]

The information that led to Bin Laden's death came from waterboarding. There is a very big misconception on how waterboarding people to obtain information works, someone with authority to speak on the subject was interviewed a few weeks back, and basically explained it:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided false information about Bin Laden's courier...I don't know where you're getting that from.

[Nomrombom]

Is there an actual argument that waterboarding is not considered torture?

 

Yes, there is. Seemingly none of them are on Tip it :L

[sees_all1]

The information that led to Bin Laden's death came from waterboarding. There is a very big misconception on how waterboarding people to obtain information works, someone with authority to speak on the subject was interviewed a few weeks back, and basically explained it:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided false information about Bin Laden's courier...I don't know where you're getting that from.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4680664/aftermath-of-bin-laden-raid/

 

O'Reilly's six primary sources.

[Lenticular_J]

I see this torture as more justified than the torture of the past. I have ancestors, Apache and Texan; both sides did wrong. Generally just out of hate than with any purpose in mind. The Apaches might cut off the soles of a man's feet, and then set him free (in the rocky southwest and Plains regions, mind you). There were more creative methods. I've never tortured anyone or been tortured, I can't really say my thoughts.

[RpgGamer]

The whole time I was watching the OP video, I was thinking of the Eurotrip scene where the kid gets into a German sex shop and they give him that crazy safe word lol.

 

I understand water boarding sucks, but honestly, everytime I see it demonstrated I think like I could put up with it.

[Range_This11]

Ugh....I'm sorry but I don't believe anything Bill O'Reilly says. You can pin me to the wall for that, but in my opinion he is not a citeable source.

[sees_all1]

Ugh....I'm sorry but I don't believe anything Bill O'Reilly says. You can pin me to the wall for that, but in my opinion he is not a citeable source.

You pinhead. :shades:

[Range_This11]

HAHA! :P

[TrueBeaver]

I do not think waterboarding classifies as torture. To quote a previous post I made in a different thread on this forum:

 

 

What is torture? Let's take a walk. This is a great article about it, which I'll try to summarize: The Geneva Conventions allow torture in certain circumstances so human rights groups pushed for the ratification of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and U.N. Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatments (UNCAT), which were ratified by the U.S. in 1992 and 1994. However, in order to agree to ratify them the Senate added a caveat: CID was to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Section 2340 of the federal criminal code defines torture as a government act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering" (an exception is made for the execution of capital sentences). In 2004 the Justice Department reaffirmed that the designation torture is reserved for practices causing "intense, lasting and heinous agony" (deferring to a 2002 lower-court ruling) which are so abominable that they stand apart from other condemnable forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

 

Administered by someone who knows what they are doing and with a medical team standing by (as it was conducted), waterboarding does not endanger the life of the detainee. It is temporary, not lasting, lasting only 40 seconds (which we found out when it was revealed KSM would count to 40 on his fingers to keep track of how long he had to hold out for). It is clearly not heinous as Navy SEALs are subjected to it in their training. It is definitely intense, although it seems like it would be more of an intense fear than agony. But even conceding one of the three parts of the definition of torture it is not clear cut one way or the other which is certainly not enough for a war crimes trial, especially considering the value of the information gathered from its use.

 

 

As centuries of historical evidence shows, torture is not an efficient way of obtaining information. As Sees_all said, waterboarding is not conducted the way we traditionally think of torture (dude getting stretched on the rack has to write a confession or keep getting stretched, for example). Waterboarding has been used on something like 3 detainees. All were high-profile, uncooperative, and were holding onto vital information. It's not like we pick up some low-level operative off the streets of Baghdad and drown him.

 

The cited passage from the UN Conference on Torture can be read as condemning waterboarding, but lettuce be reality - you could read just about any intelligence-gathering method as torture from that passage. You could say we tried to torture Saddam into complying with UN Resolutions by threatening to invade.

 

(edited the example)

[TrueBeaver]

-snip-

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/03/972665/-Rumsfeld-confirms:-Waterboarding-did-not-net-intelligence-that-led-to-binLaden

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/03/torturous-evasions/

 

edit: and from Rumsfeld himself: "I think that anyone who suggests that the enhanced techniques, let's be blunt, waterboarding, did not produce an enormous amount of valuable intelligence, just isn't facing the truth. The facts are, General Mike Hayden came in, he had no connection with waterboarding anybody. He looked at all the evidence and concluded that a major fraction of the intelligence in our country on al Qaeda came from individuals, the three, only three people who were waterboarded."

 

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/transcript/rumsfeld-waterboarding-played-major-role-al-qaeda-intel

Edited May 20, 2011 by TrueBeaver

[Ginger_Warrior]

So you're not denying waterboarding is torture ('enhanced techniques' or whatever you want to call it), you're just saying it was OK to use it in this circumstance.

 

The end may justify the means but it doesn't change what the latter is. Let's call a spade a spade.