Not only is waterboarding torturous to detainees and not an effective method of gathering reliable intelligence, it is corrosive to United States foreign policy and national security, as it is making other countries less likely to support us in future endeavors.
International polls show that it already has had an effect on some of our biggest allies. In Germany, 85 percent of the population think we are violating international law; in Great Britain, 65 percent think the same way.
With as many international missteps as we’ve had over the past few years, we could stand to keep a few friends.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
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13 Comments
Ironic that two countries (Germany and England) with the longest histories of human rights violations would complain.
Without getting into the argument of waterboarding, the U.S. should probably do away with it.
What the U.S. should do is what has been done all along that non one in Congress or the other countries complain about.
That is, send captured terrorists to other countries that have less than human prison conditions and treatment, then see if the terrorists want to “talk” in exchange for better conditions.
Long term inhumane incarcerations appear to be more acceptable to the ‘branding iron’ mentality of the International Law crowd.
It’s funny though, having lived in both Germany and England what people say when questioned in a poll. Then, once you get to a Pub or a Gasthaus after a few pints/liters of beer/bier the attitude changes and all sorts of medieval ideas come up on how situations should be handled.
In this case, sobriety inhibits their ‘true’ feelings about the situation.
“Waterboarding” has become a rallying point for us gentle folks, who objected to anything remotely cruel. Even for our sworn enemies.
Well, except for abortion. That’s still OK.
So I agree with Kansas. Stop with the waterboarding. Just ask them. They are probably really nice guys and if you just treat them well and make sure that their coffee is just the way they like it, information will come pouring out.
right, kristin, thanks for your opinion.
isn’t brittany springs doing something right now?
See http://www.wen2k.com/tell.php?Id=1771 It shows a video of “WaterBoarding”. What people seem to forget is, any policy or Technique used against a POW or Iraqi can be used against an American POW by Iraq or Al Queda. The “WaterBoarding” policy and use is a equal use policy. Our Troops, the American Soldiers, are also subject too this Technique. Demand better. Demand the universal restrictions and dismissal of this Terroristic Inhumane Technique. Stop the torture of Iraq and American Soldiers. Herbert West III, Publisher/Journalist west.herb@yahoo.com, http://www.wen2k.com
If you want to make the terrorist talk– just make them spend a few hours with “Kansas”.
Talk about your inhuman treatment!
Barring the 12 year old logic that drives the intense desire to want not so much to get information as it does to want to see them hurting. Once again this is not about what they do as it is about what we do, in the end this is a war of ideology. Wouldn’t it be a cool idea for a reality show? Two child molesters having a televised knife fight? The viewers, seeing no difference between the combatants could just set back and enjoy the gore. To them it would not matter who won as both are equally evil and deserving of their fate.Now should we being going out and violating our core principals just to be one of the combatant’s on that show?
For the most part, the perceived justification of the terrorists in the beginning was purely in their minds.
AS to our part in this struggle in the beginning we were hurt and filled with blood lust. But what has always set us a part from them has been we return to sanity. The “on the face of it” evidence shows that torture does not work. “our Enemy is smart enough to work in “cells” so unless we happen to hit on a true mastermind which short of Bin Laden. Who’s role is more money man and others come to him to pitch their ideas to, no one person has an idea what the rest are doing. We could dust of the rack and thumb screws and it would still do no good. But it does do bad, we fulfill the role given to us by the enemy as a soulless devil.If I were to say that we should given in to Al-Qaeda and depart the middle east and convert to Islam. The response would be that “I do not want to give them anything they want!”. So why are so many willing to fill the role that Al-Qaeda has set upon us as a soulless Devil? We can claim to not be, pointing to all the good works we do, saying we mean no ill will to the innocent. But in a war of ideology where we back slide on one of our core principals. Such claims are as meaningless as the claim of the child molester. As he walks into the arena knife in hand. “I give a gentle kiss to the ten years old before I rape him“.
It is mindboggling that Americans have allowed a Vice-President to have is hand up the back of the President as if he is a marionette and work him to singlhandedly accomplish his 30 year mantra of molding the executive branch of the Americann government into to a single entity completely separate from the rest of the branches of government into an untouchable autocracy nad to completely reduce the Constitution to nothing more than a cheappiece of paper. It is simply beyond comprehension.
“What people seem to forget is, any policy or Technique used against a POW or Iraqi can be used against an American POW by Iraq or Al Queda.”Posted by: Herbert West III | November 10, 2007 at 07:35 AM—————-After all the history of other countries torturing and beheading our POWs that anyone would still believe that if we are humane to their POWs they would be humane to our POWs. Have they forgotten what the Germans and the Japanese did to our POWs during WWII. Can they not even remember the torturing and beheadings the past few years in the Middle East? Is their memory that short or is their reasoning that poor. If we should stop water boarding it should not be based on the expectations that our POWs will be treated humanly because they won’t.
No, Right Angle, we remember it very well.
And furthermore we remember how we rightly condemned and punished what they did (the same thing we do now) as a war crime.
If we do it too, then we have no moral position to punish them for doing it.
I think pulling of fingernails or insertin glass rods into their penis and the using a mallet works faster
Get your own nic gmc.
My, my, my.
Kristin is clearly of a right wing bent. When some of us on the left noted it and took her to task, why we were accused of being odious mean bullies!
Now she says something they don’t like and the same folks who defended her before pull out the knives!
If my memory as to poster political persuasion serves, this seems to be a wedge issue with the right. Many oppose torture. THEY give good rationale.
Those who SUPPORT torture go into a lingual gymnastic routine. Is it torture? Who is protected from toture? “You say you are aganst torture? Well what if (insert carefully constructed unlikely hypothetical here)
I guess they’ll have to enhance their performances to win back some of “their own”?
Torture is just not a reliable method of getting information.
Waterboarding does NOT hurt our relationship or national security.
Look at China, Vietnam, Saudi, Eygpt, or any of the many countries who torture!!
What hurts American’s security are crybaby liberals whining about torture as if it the defining world event.
The bad guys are laughing at you.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks killed about 3000 Americans.
Car wrecks kill that many Americans EVERY MONTH.
Many countries have found that heavy taxation of gasoline drastically cuts the traffic death rate.
High gas taxes would allow other taxes to be cut, encourage development of “walker-friendly” neighborhoods, increase public-transit usage, provide funds for fighting terrorists, and directly hit the terrorists in the pocketbook.
The big question, then, isn’t: “is waterboarding torture?” but: “why haven’t we increased gasoline taxes even a little bit? Do our leaders really thing we American voters are that selfish and short-sighted?”