Bandmaster wrote:Compared to what we and our allies did to prisoners during WWII, Korea and Vietnam, water boarding is nothing. It has now become nothing more than a tool to achieve a political end. At least be honest about that!
You are make a relativistic argument, I am not. You're also making a logical fallacy: that a lesser evil act is "okay" simply because it's not a greater evil act. What American POWs have suffered at the hands of the enemy IN NO WAY morally legitimizes the act of waterboarding.
Bandmaster wrote:OK, please explain in detail what makes water boarding torture? What about it crosses the line? Then please explain why other methods of coerst interogation are not torture?
An act is torture when it fulfills four definitive requirements:
1. The act causes severe physical and/or mental pain and suffering
2. The infliction of pain and suffering is intentional
3. The act is committed for specified purposes
4. There is involvement/endorsement of the act by a person of authority
Waterboarding fulfills all four requirements: it causes severe mental suffering, it's intentional, it's done to extract information, and it is state-sponsored.
Bandmaster wrote:Again, will you volunteer to be among the victims of the next attack just to prove that you are right and on the moral high ground?
What a nonsensical question. Will you volunteer to be among the victims of the next attack just to prove that torture is a necessary source of information in the war on terror?
The answer is no, and just because I'm not willing to sacrifice my life for every opinion I have does not render those opinions hollow.
JLGORMAN wrote:1. You capture an insurgent who you know has information as to where an ambush is being set up along with IED's that will be used to ambush "Your Soldiers" You are the unit commander. Do you send him back for normal interrogation and continue on, or do you threaten him in the attempt to locate the site and possibly save the lives of American soldiers, all of whom you command and lead and KNOW IN PERSON.
Normal interrogation.
JLGORMAN wrote:2. You are aware that a captured enemy combatant knows where an IED will be planted to maximize deaths of women and children. This IED will go off soon, what do you do?
Normal interrogation.
JLGORMAN wrote:3, You are in charge of finding us personnel captured by an enemy(guess what folks, the Taliban, Al Queda and other terrorists groups do not abide by any code of conduct such as the Geneva Convention). Do you attempt enhanced interrogation when the time americans being held hostage continues to slip away,or do you determine that the enemy combatant should be turned over to the rear area folks.
Normal interrogation.
In all three scenarios you make the unrealistic assumption of 100% certainty (the your POW has the info you need) and 100% success (that the torture will ALWAYS work and ALWAYS give you the answers you need). But this is silly: if we HAD all the information we needed, we wouldn't need to TORTURE someone for more information. Therefore, ALL torture is begun with a measure of doubt or uncertainty, and HIGHLY susceptible to error. It is not okay to torture nine innocent people even if you get the info you desire from the tenth. The ends do not justify the means.
It has been estimated that as few as two dozen of the 600 detainees at Guantanamo had any potential intelligence value even if it could be obtained from them. That's a maximum success rate of 4%. Thus, if we tortured 20 prisoners, 19 of them legitimately did not know the information we were pursuing.
I leave you with the words of the U.S. Military's senior interrogator in Iraq in 2006...
Major Matthew wrote:In my humble opinion, which is not always so humble, The Global War on Terrorism (a name I despise, by the way) will not be won by national policy or advanced weapons or economic might. It will be won, like all wars, by intellect (imagine that)...
Let me start off here with a quote, since that seems to be a very popular thing to do in today's culture: "It is a fundamental mistake to see the enemy as a set of targets. The enemy in war is a group of people. Some of them will have to be killed. Others will have to be captured or driven into hiding. The overwhelming majority, however, have to be persuaded." -- Frederick Kagan, "War and Aftermath"
...What's interesting to me is that the debate over torture in interrogations is morally important but pragmatically irrelevant. Politicians and bureaucrats supporting the current administration have put in Herculean efforts to legalize harsh techniques, labeled "enhanced interrogation techniques," and to keep them classified, but these methods are in complete contradiction to the standards that we expect our own troops, when captured, to be afforded. Enhanced interrogation techniques are torture by the standards of the Geneva Conventions which we proclaim to uphold, and what's more important is that they are neither the most efficient nor reliable methods of achieving cooperation. There are rare circumstances where force and threats would be more effective and timely than intellectual methods, but in those rare circumstances, if we resort to torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the actual harm done to us is greater than any benefit that we could obtain. Abu Ghraib is the perfect example.
If the Abu Ghraib abuses had occurred in the process of obtaining critical intelligence information that would have prevented a major terrorist attack, it still would have had an overall negative impact in The Global War on Terrorism for the United States. Working side by side with the chief of interrogations for foreign fighters in Iraq, my duties included monitoring their interrogations for compliance and offering advice on interrogation strategies.
The foreign fighters consistently cited Abu Ghraib as their number one reason for deciding to come to Iraq and it is al Qaeda's best recruitment tool. You heard that correctly. Abu Ghraib is al Qaeda's "Army of One" commercial. No, they didn't come because they drank the Caliphate Kool Aid. They came because, and you'll get this if you've ever watched Band of Brothers, they fight for the guy next to them, just like us, who just got tortured, shamed, and humiliated.
Torture or inhumane treatment, even in isolated cases, such as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, is not worth the price. The integrity of our country is more important than any singular terrorist attack, even if it costs American lives. We must come to understand that the measure of our country is not in lives or resources, it is in the validity of our ideas of liberty and justice. We cannot sacrifice those values, even to stop a terrorist attack because if we do, then we allow the Islamic extremists to achieve one of their major goals - to defeat the idea of freedom. Yes, I said the idea, because that's what's important.
In interrogation, what's more important than the methods is our own intellectual ability to outsmart the enemy within the rules. We will win the war by being smarter, not harsher. By yielding to harsh techniques we are displaying our lack of confidence in our ability to defeat the enemy on an intellectual level.
The use of torture is not a sign of strength or a show of will. It is a display of fear. Every time we torture a prisoner, we are saying to the world "we are so afraid of you we will do anything... ANYTHING... to try and stop you from hurting us."