waterboarding, to do or not to do.

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

was asano a soldier interrogating soldiers?  until recently we distinguished between soldiers and terrorists.  torture works.  it is the tried and true method of getting needed info on the quick.  if you are going to source the un and amnesty inter with regard to the efficacy of torture there is nothing to discuss as both orgs have consistenly shown themselves to be partisans for third world thugs and front men for the most repressive regimes in the world.  but back to the subject, clearly we need another legal tool box in this new age of war.  as for treaties mentioned most countries apply these with repsect to there own laws, norms and customs. 

[SDML]

1) I did not ONLY source the UN & AI (I would tend to agree with you in regards to the UN).

2) There is a HUGE body of evidence that says torture does not, in fact, work at all. John McCain himself said it only strengthened his resolve.

3) Saying "it works" repeatedly does no make it true.

4) I absolutely agree with you that we need new tools. While the evidence says torture is a pretty blunt and not-so-reliable tool, there are other tools. Even Don Rumsfeld...well, I'm no fans of his, but he was certainly on the ball with regard to a light, fast, smart military capable of fighting modern wars (as opposed to our cold war model).

5) Another new tool might be to drop this compassionate conservative bullshit of winning hearts and minds. You wanna be compassionate, then don't go to war. You wanna go to war, then show them absolute hell - break their will to fight or you will fight them forever.

[conley]

torture works.  it is the tried and true method of getting needed info on the quick. 

Have you been watching too much "24"? Just because Jack Baur can torture people and get information out of them doesn't mean thats reality.

Even John McCain says torture doesn't work. If someone is drowning you, you'll say anything to get them to stop, including giving false information.

So no, torture doesn't work and it isnt the tried and true method of getting needed info on the quick.

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

24?? what intell did jm have??  what evidence??  does torture work in all circumstance of course not.  but given time everybody breaks.   

[SDML]

24?? what intell did jm have??  what evidence??  does torture work in all circumstance of course not.  but given time everybody breaks.   

"Given time everybody breaks"? Oh, I thought you only advocated torture for extreme "ticking time bomb' scenarios. No?

The problem with the discussion of torture is that it avoids reasonable & productive discussion. Bluntly, we wouldn't be discussing it at all if for 2 things:

1) We hadn't been acting as if our actions have no consequences, and

2) We had responded appropriately when in war.

With regards to the second assertion, which is not to argue for or against Iraq &/or Afghanistan but...if you're going to go to war, go to war, not a fucking tea party. What is this "hearts and minds" bullshit, anyway? So the Iraquis feared the US so much that they had graffiti depicting US forces as shades-wearing, no-sleeves sporting, bulging biceps bunch of baby rapers who kill everything that moves? Why is that a problem?

Further, why did we even look at Iraq until AFTER we had bin Laden's head on a stick? Wouldn't it have served the US better to find him, pull him out of the cave and have our horny US troops pass him around like a drunk prom date, and then strangle him to death with his own intestines (all caught on video for a more entertaining reality-TV show than anything currently on the air)?

If that had happened, old Saddam would've simmered down immediately and we would have saved, oh what's the current figure, roughly 4000 US lives, 10,000 US serious injuries, 20,000 US non-serious injuries,  1000 contractor deaths, 20,000 contractor injuries, 100,000+ Iraqui deaths, and more, and a cost of over $450 billion to US taxpayers alone (not to mention the ravaging to the US economy as a result, and the debt-burden we now owe primarily to Saudi Arabia and CHINA).

Man, that was just some stupid planning. Someone needs to be taken out and shot.

But I digress.....

Ah, the first item above. See the CIA's position regarding "blowback", a concept we all wan to dispute, but know intuitively is spot-on. That is fixed by rejecting our interventionist foreign policy and replacing it with a non-interventionist policy (both foreign and domestic, I might add).

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

hey sdml there is a page specificly for rants. 

[Gunit Hussein Sangh]

Here's a great example of what happens when you torture people.

Remember the accusation that Bush, Powell et al made about Saddam traing AQ on CBW handling?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/cia-rendition-t.html

Oops .. it looks like the cia notified the powers that be that the information was deemed unreliable because the dude had been tortured. Someone along the way with held that info and allowed the powers that be to lie to the american people about the link to AQ

Cha-Ching!

[conley]

thank you gunit for explaining what i was trying to say more intelligently than i was able to...this is a very practical reason why torture does not work!

i wish i had seen that episode of frontline that they talked about in the article you linked

[Kizzume]

I still think actual TORTURE, where fear of death is put into people, to get information, is silly when we can get the info without using those methods.  Using those methods are barbaric and shouldn't have anything to do with a civilized society.

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

amazing!!  a collective cry over the rights of terrorists and thug regimes.  its a new world children though evidently not a brave one.  our adversaries don't play nice.  terrorists are not soldiers as defined by the gc and the tactics they employ have been outlawed in all of those well meaning documents of kindness and understanding in battle.  half of this country doesn't remember 9-11 or is incapable of comprehending the import.  half of the remaining  might agree that we are in fact at war but want to fight according to rules existing only on playgrounds serving to provide the illusion of civility in combat.  why don't you shut the hell up, let the military and in fact demand that the military prosecute this war with extreme prejudice where ever the enemy may be.  feel free to give yourself a good spanking if it will assuage your guilt, just do it quietly.

[Gunit Hussein Sangh]

Opposing torture is not about who they are ... it's about who WE are. Maybe you want to sink to their level, but not me.

First -- tortue doesn't work. It might give you stuff you can use to get people so scared they pee their pants, but that's all.

Second -- As to your comment about terroists not being defined by the geneva convention, I would refer you to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29, 2006, decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which applied Common Article 3 to a global conflict with a non-state actor, al-Qaeda, taking place within the territory of a country that is a party to the Geneva Conventions, Afghanistan (http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=3661&from_page=../index.cfm).

Third -- What about the innocents? Are you so scared of the big, brown, boogie man that you don't care if innocent people are tortured? In Abu Ghraib, hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi's were tortured, not because they were terrorist's, but simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Heck there's reports of a video tape of a teenage boy being raped in front of his father. The act of torturing these innocents undoubtly created some "terrorists" who now hates so much they picked up arms and started attacking our troops.

There has also been at least a few cases (or at least a few that we knew of) of mistaken identities that led to innocent people being kidnapped, sent to secret prisons and tortured before being released and there's no way of telling how many innocent civilians were tortured and killed.

And last -- What moral authority can we use in the future if our troops are captured & tortured in future conflicts? All they have to say is -- you did it! As a vet -- that's somewhat important to me.

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

choosing to define torture in a manner that prevents you from effectively interrogating terrorists is naive at best.  proceed down this suicidal path on your own time. 
first--torture does work.  time tested but requires  methods match  circumstances.
second-- no honest reading of the gc could come to the conclusion that it is applicable to terrorists.  if you are saying that the hamdan ruling is an example of the judiciary run amok, well we agree.  the court has no be telling the executive branch how to prosecute any aspect of war beyond the tx of us citizens siezed on us soil.
third--very pretty dem talking points, if i didn't know better i'd swear i was reading the words of dick turbin.  so my problem is that the enemy is big? brown? mid east?  all and more?  at ag people were humiliated but not tortured.  as for innocents, that is why we call it war.  if you can cite a conflict in which innocents were not killed i'd like to know.  problematic is our practice of engaging in warfare in a restricted means rather than engaging in total war.  we attempt to sanatize i suspect to make war more palatable to ourselves.     

[Gunit Hussein Sangh]

We've managed to fight numerous wars without resorting to violating the Geneva Conventions. This ones no different.

It really doesn't matter if you agree with the SC decision. In our system of government, when the SC rules -- that's it. Period. End of conversation. I didn't agree with their decision to stop the counting of votes in FL in 2000, but I accepted it. You'll just have to do the same on their ruling on whether the Geneva Conventions apply to terrorists.

Go ahead and believe that torturing really work. It doesn't.

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

wow it really does always and in all ways come down to the 2000 election.  sad that so many in this country are so strident for defeat as a means to punish gw?  this is a new age of warfare yet you remain unwilling or unable to recognize reality.     

[Kizzume]

Wow--everyone who tries to defend their home must be a terrorist.  Everyone who was in the wrong spot is a terrorist.  Yep.  They're all terrorists, and they all must know something important.  Give me a break.  That's the attitude you seem to take about it.

If other methods work BETTER than torturing people, why torture?  Because they're suspected terrorists, and all suspected terrorists need to be needlessly tortured?  Coming from someone who thinks homosexuality is a mental illness, it's rather hard to take your generalizations about terrorists seriously.