Bush to Veto Waterboarding Ban

If I'm not mistaken, the constitution was designed so there would be a checks and balance between the three branches, and not grant special, or worse, absolute power to any one branch. That is what Chaney has been doing with their special executive memo (don't recall exact term). He is sneaking these powers to the president.

I think Chaney sees the constitution as an annoyance and an inefficient way of getting "things done" that certain people want.

Did you watch the entire Frontline episode?

 

Not sure why, but after I read your post I finally realized something. I keep getting this strange feeling of Deja vu and not knowing where it is coming from. Some things happening in our government today remind me of an old spy movie I must have seen. I finally figured it out, somehow Cheney has taken us back in time to the McCarthy era! I know that sounds really weird, but there are strong similarities.

 

There is checks and balances and its called Elections which the president faces every 4 years, I'm not saying that members of congress aren't elected but they have the ability to spread/point blame to others.

For example members of congress were told of how we were listing to terrorist over our communication network way before it was published in the NY Times and no one objected, yet when it was released what we were doing, who do these members of congress blame, that's right the president.

 

I love waterboarding.

It's got to be better than flying planes into buildings, blowing yourself up or beheading some.

 

No. A bullet in the head will suffice...
Police officers do that in the shadow and it is OK...

 

These are the people that were subjected to waterboarding. I won't be outraged for them, I'll save that for the innocent people who died on 911.

On the other hand, waterboarding should not be taken lightly. As it is described, you feel as though you are being executed and you believe you will die. You try to hold air in your lungs, but can only hold out for so long. It is possible person getting waterboarded can get large amounts of water in their lungs and even suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen. Usually they cannot hold out for more than 2 minutes, and then become completely cooperative.

 

Let's imagine that USA gets involved in another war like Vietnam and American soldiers are captured. The enemy knows that U.S army is going to attack them, so they decide in order to save their soldeirs, they should start torturing the captured soldiers, will you be OK with that?
Once you start to do these things, you lose all moral authority to condemn or protest against such actions and you start putting the life of American in danger too.
That was the reason many top ranking officers in millitary protested agianst such methods from the beginning.

 

Great post, it's a shame so many people have a hard time putting themselves in another person's shoes...

 

If the opposing army wants to waterboard our soldiers, that's fine its much better then cutting off their heads or burning them

 

1. I think it's disgusting to say that "it's fine" to waterboard our soldiers; have you ever seen, firsthand, what it really is?

2. Do you honestly believe that an increase in our use of torture wouldn't lead to an increase in brutal actions from the enemy?

 

How about if they decide to cut off an arm or a leg? How about if they decide to play russian rullet with them or rape them or make them blind? Are you going to tell the enemy that they should torture American soldiers according to USA's manual on how torture should be done?

You either accept torture or you don't, so simple it is. Once you start accepting torture as acceptable then all the rule books are out of the window and it is free for all.

Torture should never be accepted and it is against all international laws and treaties, no matter what you call it.

 

The reality of it is that we are not waterboarding regular soldiers. We have waterboarded 3 terrorists that are responsible for killing many Americans. Let's say that American soldiers are captured by Al-Qaeda. What do you think they would do to them?

 

Let's say this happens, obviously you can't be outraged what ever they do or ask other countries for help since your own governemnt is no better than them.
This will be a great future moto:

"America is as good as any terrorist organization in being savage and torturing people."

 

Let's say what happens? That Al-qaeda captures American soldiers? That because we waterboarded 3 terrorists that killed thousands of Americans... then we are not allowed to be outraged or ask for help if Al-Qaeda burns are soldiers to death or beheads them? Because we deserve it? Is that what you are saying?

 

If you had a choice, either be waterboarded or have your head cut off, which one would you pick.

Maybe you didn't know this but the US as part of training waterboards it air force pilots.

Two. In war, the meanest, baddest, SOB wins, to win wars you have to break the will of the people. War is not for nice guys.

 

And I bet that you have never been in Uniform, you have no plan to join any branch of military and you won't even fight if one day enemy soldiers are U.S. ground. The only thing you know about war is through video games or watching war movies.

 

An enemy that flies planes full of innocent people into building full of more innocent people is not going to follow the rules of war. Therefore why should we be in a disadvantage when it comes to war by following a different set of standards.

 

Exactly and this is not a number game. If you start using the numbers to justify the torture then they can say; well how many people were killed in Vietnam by American bombs? How many civilans were killed in Iraq?
Any justification of torture is wrong since this is a pandora box and once you open it, all the rule books are out of the window and it is free for all.

 

Al-Qaeda committed 911 before we waterboarded the 3 terrorists.

 

That we know about.

Rendition and other covert acts have been going on before 9/11. I'd say waterboarding probably has been used before then too. Only now you've got reporters digging into it, Congressional hearings, and a whole bunch of corroborated reports.

I agree that war doesn't have its niceties. However, WWI is what brought about the Geneva Convention. Cerated blades, chemical weapons, and others were agreed upon to be too bad, even for war. I believe the idea is to not make the enemy suffer unnecessarily.

Then again, Bush has stated that these "terrorists" don't qualify for the Geneva Convention, nor do they qualify for US laws, such as due process. I think its all conveniently ambiguous.