I cant seem to look at this as a political issue and wring my hands over it costing us an election.

To steal a theme from John McCain, I would rather loose and election than loose our national moral compass.

Squid Shark on March 10, 2008 at 7:03 PM

Yes, I understand the moral dimension of the problem. But you’ve been throwing that at these guys since post one, and it hasn’t even made a dent in their thought processes. I thought a different angle might force them to stop the “they hate us, waterboarding isn’t THAT bad, and it’ll save us all!” mantra. If I add the moral dimension, they would jump all over that and ignore the rest of what I said. You may notice, though, that my closing thought was that it’s most likely better to keep our morals than to keep our interrogation techniques. My argument isn’t that we should throw the morality out of the equation, but rather that EVEN IF WE DO, a pragmatic person would take the moral high ground.

a capella on March 10, 2008 at 10:39 AM

More distortion of my position to construct a silly straw man…

Math_Mage on March 10, 2008 at 1:16 PM

I cant seem to look at this as a political issue and wring my hands over it costing us an election.

To steal a theme from John McCain, I would rather loose and election than loose our national moral compass.

Your showing sympathy to the terrorists.

I belive in the rule of law, and the morals of our society. Waterboarding is legal, however I will not say it is moral.

We are in a war! These people are plotting attacks against our country RIGHT NOW!

Thanks I am pretty sure I figured that out with all of the multiple deployments and everything…

It’s a little hard to believe that you served in the military.

Do I need to provide you with a list of my deployments and photos. We are not a monolith of thought in the military, we have a fair diversity of opinions, particularly in the officer corps.

The purpose of the military is to protect the country. From what you have been saying here, it doesn’t seem that protecting the country is a priority for you.

Soul, I have lived every day of my adult life making the defense of my country a priority. How I conduct myself in the execution of my duties is what defines me as an officer. I dont see the evidence that waterboarding is an effective technique that is worth the national credibility we squander every time we use it.

Please spare me the “they will hate us anyways” speech. When we get into a conventional war someday, say with China, I would bet dollars to doughnuts all some will be less inclined to follow the “letter of the law” with regard to our downed pilots and sailors in the oil-slicked water.

KSM had successfully resisted everything else they tried, and once he broke, he provided info which allowed other bad guys to be caught and other plans to be disrupted. I haven’t noticed a black eye due to the waterboarding, but we might have a couple for giving money and weapons to the PLO offshoots. Speaking of international credibility, how are those EU/Iranian nuclear negotiations going and when does Pelosi’s lap dance for Assad start to pay off?

a capella on March 10, 2008 at 12:19 PM

Hey, I don’t like it that we give money to the PLO, or that we shot ourself in the foot negotiating with the Iranians, or that Pelosi is appeasing Assad (though really, was all the brouhaha about the burka really necessary? It makes intelligent people sound like Turkish secularists who are afraid of burkas being anywhere near a public office). On all those, I think we agree. It’s just the (potential) difference on waterboarding that bears discussion. Squiddie and I are both from Captain Ed’s crew, so we’re new here, but that doesn’t make us lefties (though I am left-handed, hehe).

As for not noticing a black eye, it seems a little difficult to believe that more justification for the Bush = Hitler crowd is a GOOD thing. And if the whole waterboarding/torture issue produces enough bad press to get a Democrat into the White House, we lose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan just as quickly as Obama or Hillary can march into office, which would cost perhaps millions of Iraqi lives as well as any hope for stability in the region. If we get attacked domestically, it would be tragic, but it would also provide enough domestic morale to win the war (assuming more look at it from the “you bastards!” viewpoint than the “well, Republicans couldn’t keep us safe” viewpoint). So perhaps it would be better for the war effort to keep our morals than to keep our interrogation techniques, in order to manage the home front. Lastly, you make the claim about KSM again, but a link would be nice.

Still, what did waterboarding KSM provide that other techniques didn’t or couldn’t do? Was it worth the black eye for our international credibility and domestic morale now?

Math_Mage on March 10, 2008 at 12:04 PM

KSM had successfully resisted everything else they tried, and once he broke, he provided info which allowed other bad guys to be caught and other plans to be disrupted. I haven’t noticed a black eye due to the waterboarding, but we might have a couple for giving money and weapons to the PLO offshoots. Speaking of international credibility, how are those EU/Iranian nuclear negotiations going and when does Pelosi’s lap dance for Assad start to pay off?

moxie_neanderthal on March 10, 2008 at 7:20 AM

I suppose prolonged navel contemplation might yield the opinion that execution of terrorists intending us harm, in this fashion, was an inmoral act and to cleanse ourselves we should avoid interrogating future suspects using psychological stress to help detemine guilt. I’m sure there is some logic in there somewhere.

Standard field techniques have worked fine for us for years. We have received information just fine without waterboarding for hundreds of years using the AFM. Seems like a good track record of efficacy to me.

Squid Shark

You should know that we have executed spies and saboteurs for simply plotting to commit acts of terrorism. I suppose one can make a distinction between a method of interogation and a form of punishment (interogations are not forms of punishment, per se).

It is popular for the left to point to European left who denounce Gitmo and what they perceive to be heavy handed treatment of illegal combatants. Curiously the press never does a retrospective of European actions in post WWII Africa, or previous colonies where heavy handedness was more often than not the rule, not the exception.

But more on point, the US has previously executed folks who wished us harm.

1942 case of Nazis on U.S. soil gives administration the authority for terrorist trials, but leaves room for doubt.

Only a month earlier, the FBI had arrested eight German saboteurs intent on blowing upAmerican factories, bridges, and department stores.

Now, on July 23, 1942, the lawyers for the Germans and U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle found themselves at the Pennsylvania summer farm of Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts. They pleaded with Roberts and Justice Hugo Black, also on hand, to convince the Supreme Court to return from its summer recess immediately to weigh the constitutionality of the military commission created to try the Germans.

The justices agreed and soon announced a special session of the Court-before the trial was over and before a habeas corpus petition was filed in the case. After a breakneck briefing schedule and nine hours of oral argument on July 29 and 30, the Court almost immediately upheld the procedure in a brief per curiam decision. The full ruling came nearly three months later. Meanwhile the defendants had been found guilty. On Aug. 8, six of the Germans were electrocuted and the other two were sentenced to long prison terms, by order of President Franklin Roosevelt.

Ultimately, the outflow from this decision was mixed. It is my understadning that it also provided the framework for military tribunals. You can read more by googling the Milligan precedent

philwynk on March 9, 2008 at 10:32 PM

I love how, if we oppose waterboarding, we must be lily-livered Democrats….

I hope you spit of me Philly. If you do, in the words of the immortal WFB, I’ll “sock you in your g-ddamn mouth and you’ll stay plastered.”

Have a lovely Monday.

Is your yardstick or measuring tool the Geneva Conventions, Law of Land Warfare or some assumed sense of holding a moral high ground vs an Enemy that has zero morals?

Get real! None of the Enemies that I faced over better than 28 years of service gave a fat rats rump about any Conventions or Laws!

Wars are ugly business and I never saw a Lawyer standing next to me with a rifle in hand or under fire in any bad place to be. I have been to three wars and observed rules where the Enemy observed absolutely none.

Have your debate here. It is very entertaining.
Don’t try it when seconds count.
Waterboarding is a waste of potable water.
Sodium Pentathol works far better and more reliably than waterboarding. Sleep deprivation is worthless, after 72 hours the subject has halucinations and you have wasted that time.

High minded debates on this subject are amusing but not practical in the real world. Nuff said.

Hat tip: MacRanger, who has seen enough.

They don’t call him the Maverick for nothing. Its not inconsistent with what he has believed in the past. Its certainly in opposition to President Bush’s statement that the U.S. does not torture. …

We want to destroy their will to fight, not work them up into a lather. It doesn’t matter if the motivation is real or percieved, the motivation can still work against us. And that’s my only objection to real or percieved torture of terrorist prisoners.

So, you’ll join us in condemning the New York Times for publishing 40 front-page stories about that sick little sex play ring at Abu Graib, right? Because we don’t want to provide reasons for the enemy to get worked up into a lather.

And, you’ll join us in condemning those Democrats who have been demagoguing “torture” for the past 4 years, even though they knew PERFECTLY DAMNED WELL what the CIA was doing (because the CIA told them THIRTY FIVE GOD DAMNED TIMES, and the only question they asked was “Is that tough enough?”) but it’s to their political advantage to make a lot of noise about “torture.” Because we don’t want to supply the enemy with reasons to get worked up, right?

Hypocrites. You don’t give a good goddam about destroying their will to fight. You just want to win elections.

I’m going to spit on the next Democrat I see. Hope it’s you. You guys make me puke.

We want to destroy their will to fight, not work them up into a lather. It doesn’t matter if the motivation is real or percieved, the motivation can still work against us. And that’s my only objection to real or percieved torture of terrorist prisoners.

So, you’ll join us in wholeheartedly and completely condemning the New York Times for making such a huge issue of that insanely silly little sex ring’s escapades at Abu Graib, right? Because we don’t want to provide our enemies with reasons to get worked up into a lather.

And you’ll join us in PROSECUTING TO THE GOD DAMED FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW

DfDeportation on March 9, 2008 at 7:02 PM

Insightful

STAY HOME ’08

So if a person does indeed care for those in uniform and deployed into harm’s way, supporting something that whips up support for those who confront our servicemembers is strategically a mistake. We want to destroy their will to fight, not work them up into a lather. It doesn’t matter if the motivation is real or percieved, the motivation can still work against us.

I think that this is a key point, if we sit here and are having a debate about whether or not torture is ok, then we have nearly lost this battle I think. It is not the Jihadis but the “Arab Street” we are talking about. If this were strictly a religious conflict, It would not be winnable with this type of thinking alone. However, I have seen this through the prism of a cultural and economic conflict as well. If we can keep the Arab Street from replenishing the ranks of AQ (through security, economic, and political assistance), we will be able to win this thing.

This is my last response to you.
Squid Shark on March 9, 2008 at 6:22 PM

We’ll see how long that lasts.

Your wasteful and selfish debate is beaten and now you know it. You and your “debate” have been deservedly marginalized because you made it that way.

You have only yourself to blame.

Now deal with it.

for hundreds a hundred years

Sorry.

This is my last response to you. I will continue to people who don’t operate from a false sense of superior intellect.

Hog, I thought you were bringing up clear and relevant points.
Squid Shark on March 9, 2008 at 5:58 PM

You also thought wrong. First it was Hog. Then you.

Now that makes two of you on the wrong side.

This is a clear indication that your debate has been reduced to a pathetic ploy of seeking anyone with a common view (as you’ve been trying since yesterday when you finally realized that your position is porous and indefensible, and consequentially, pure garbage), however wrong or misinformed, in an effort to find a safe harbor from the continual assault of reasoned criticism and scrutiny of your admitted emotionally based rhetoric from members of this board.

Yours is now the desperate gambit of someone who has lost the fight and prays for any way to redeem some sense of pride.

BZZT! I’ll take “Failed Torture Debates” for $500, Alex.

Yet, you are unable to offer me those equally effective or superior alternatives. I’m basing my conclusion on historical observation of efficacy; it appears your conclusion is not based on the same.

Standard field techniques have worked fine for us for years. We have received information just fine without waterboarding for hundreds of years using the AFM. Seems like a good track record of efficacy to me.