Waterboarding is torture
April 23, 2008
12:06 pm
Waterboarding is an interrogation method in which the subject is strapped down, sometimes inclined backwards, and water is poured into their nose and mouth. At first, it isn’t so bad — you can hold your breath. But you need to breathe eventually, and when you do… hello water. Water is drawn in, which induces a sense of overwhelming fear. You feel like you’re dying. And you are — you’re experiencing a controlled drowning that, if not stopped at the right time, would certainly kill you. It’s very effective. You’ll say anything when your body has you convinced that you’re about to die.
It’s an extremely cruel form of torture, and can cause lasting psychological damage. The CIA reserves the right to waterboard detainees, and the Bush Administration has rebuffed requests to ban the method.
If it is a choice between a nuclear bomb going off in a US city and worrying about scaring the terrorist that planted it, I choose waterboarding the terrorist, and I am not the least bit ashamed of that stance, nor should anyone that believes the same.
That scenario only exists in 24 scripts. But let’s pretend. Yeah, I’d want them to do what it takes to get the information needed to stop the nuclear threat. I’d also want them to face jail time for doing it. If Jack Bauer existed in real life, he’d be in prison, and rightfully so.
But that’s not the scenario that CIA interrogators are facing. So back in the real world where people are innocent until proven guilty and there are never millions of lives on the line, we shouldn’t torture detainees.
You and Thomas Jefferson have a lot in common, but not all the good things sometimes - like his complete lack of pragmatism.
Love you lots Mark, but we’ll just have to disagree on this one.
I used to be a lot more pragmatic. I was spending a lot of time arguing why Capitalism (in the overarching philosophical sense) is good because of its results (a pragmatic approach). What I found was that for every piece of pragmatic evidence in favor or it, there was one opposed, and one in favor of a more collectivist or authoritarian approach. Defending Capitalism with pragmatism is like playing Missile Command… having to constantly shoot things down. When it comes down to it, I don’t really care if Capitalism is pragmatically superior. It is morally superior and biologically superior. So that’s how I look at things. e.g. I don’t give a damn that eliminating public education would result in a less intelligent populace (i.e. it is pragmatically undesirable)… it’s a morally superior position. Plus, I sleep better now. Don’t worry about how socialist health care in country X is better than free market health care in county Y — it doesn’t matter.
Fair enough - btw, have you did you happen to watch John Adams on HBO? That is what made me think of how much you are like Thomas Jefferson.
Didn’t catch that. Worth a watch?
Oh yes. Normally I am loathe to watch any HBO produced mini-series, but Tom Hanks’ company, Playtone, was at the helm.
Historically factual, even with some poetic license here and there, and it didn’t sugarcoat anything. I even learned a few things I didn’t know.
6 parts though - so kinda long.
Didn’t we collectively HATE Sadam Hussein for the acts of torture he carried out? Isn’t this exactly the kind of behavior that we are supposedly too advanced to stoop to? I honestly don’t understand what’s happening here..
I heard that most of Congress still hasn’t read the Patriot Act thoroughly.
I believe panic severly hindered their judgement and the higher ups fully took advantage of that.