Here is an article that I got the idea from. It is incredibly short, but I felt it gave me enough to talk about. Plus, it has a video.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/13/obama-calls-waterboarding_0_n_1091711.html
Sunday, November 13, 2011
It's Just Water....... boarding.....
This post is coming a bit late, but I post this due to President Obama's speech in Hawaii today. During the Republican debate on Saturday, the subject of waterboarding came up and received many different answers. It ranged from Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann calling it enhanced interrogation techniques to Ron Paul acknowledging that it is indeed torture. My stance is this, I agree with Ron Paul (for once). Waterboarding is torture period end of story. It is a way of trying to make people talk by simulating what would happen to you when you drown. Now we all know that drowning is not a pleasant feeling since it involves suffocating to death underwater. To me, when people call it an enhanced interrogation technique it sends shivers down my spine. Have we become so heartless as to force a fellow human to experience their own death via suffocation just to get information (that will probably be wrong. I highly doubt people subjected to torture are actually going to give the right information). It is wrong and inhumane. I personally can find no way to justify it. So, when I watched the Republican debate on Saturday, I was disgusted by the nominees, to an even larger extent, by the audience. Cheering for waterboarding? I just want to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they don't know what waterboarding is, so that way I can go to bed thinking that they weren't actually cheering on torture. If McCain and Obama could agree that it was torture during the 2008 presidential race, then I think we should all be able to come to the same conclusion as well. Now, I find myself having to include Ron Paul in that category too, and that is something I am glad for. I may not like the man (at all) but at least he knows what is torture or what is not (although I guess it is really none of his business).
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10 comments:
I completely agree with P.J. I think water boarding is irrationally hostile and immoral, therefore the ban on it should not be lifted. It's currently illegal under international law and under our law, so if we allow it where does that leave us? The only country that is outwardly uncivilized-the goal is to obtain information, not to torture the people we capture. Water boarding can cause physical, emotional and psychological injuries and even death; in addition it's un-american, we have values, and if we decide to utilize this technique, we destroy them.
I agree with both Kimi and Patrick. Water boarding is an inhumane way of extracting information from people. But didn't the US use even worse means to get information such as in Guantanamo Bay? Prisoners were completely stripped of their rights, held, and tortured. Many of the people may have been terrorists, but not all of them were and it is completely unconstitutional to treat an American citizen, or anyone else this way. I think both of these show the hypocrisy of American society. We put down other nations who suppress and torture thier citizens when we do the exact same thing and just try to hide it.
I agree with the moral issues of water boarding stated by Kimi, Raquel and P.J. However, to play devil's advocate, there is some merit to the technique because it does provide information. Whether or not the information proves to be useful, the technique itself is effective. Though most decidedly not humane, water boarding has resulted in confessions. Additionally, I'm sure there are other more inhumane torture techniques used by the United States government of which citizens are unaware. I think that the real question at hand is whether we are willing to discard our morals in favor of information that may or may not be critical to our national security.
I totally agree with Sophia, yes it is morally wrong to torture but it can also do a lot of good in solving investigations. I think in only very extreme cases, torture techniques such as water boarding should be allowed.For example, if the situation involves the lives of thousands of innocent people and one person who has the information that could prevent the deaths of these thousands of people (sounds like the plot of a movie =D) then in this case I believe torture is in fact necessary if people's lives are at risk. I also think that torture should be handled delicately and not used for every non-talking criminal or terrorist, it all depends on the situation.
I must agree with Sammy and Sophia on this point. While it is "heartless" to "force a fellow human to experience their own death," we must realize that many of the people subjected to water-boarding are in fact Jihadist terrorist or otherwise people who more often than not harbor ill feelings towards the U.S. and its citizens.
While we should respect the humanity of their lives, we must also recognize that they do not respect the humanity of the lives of American citizens.
Now I'm not saying fight fire with fire; I'm not saying that inhumane acts are excusable in the name of fighting inhumane acts.
I'm just trying to put into perspective the situation at hand. When water-boarding, we are doing torturing terrorists. But in the same sense, given the chance, these same terrorists would commit the same acts to USA operatives.
It is easy to say that water-boarding is inhumane in general. But are there specific cases where some ill action is necessary for a greater good?
Was it wrong for NATO to bomb Libya in the name of humanitarian relief?
Was it wrong to firebomb Dresden following the holocaust? (Perhaps Dresden is not the best example.)
I am not insinuating that these are equal actions, but rather I am suggesting that sometimes, an evil must be done to accomplish a greater good.
I'm going both ways on this as well. Personally I don't believe that torture of any form is humane nor credible. When under torture people will say whatever information they think you want in order for the torture to stop. Yet, when faced with the choice of receiving critical information that could save innocent lives within a certain amount of time, the only quick way of receieving that information could be through torture. But waterboarding tricks the tortured into believing they are about to suffocate or drown. I didn't exactly know what waterboarding looked like until I saw this disturbing video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58
I honestly cannot agree with any statement that says torture is okay. I realize that it is being justified as a way to win this "war," but I still cannot find a good justification for it. I totally agree with Patrick. Water-boaring IS torture, and torture is wrong any way you slice it.
And as for the crowd cheering, there is clearly something going on with the crowd at GOP debates, because cheering for water-boarding and Rick Perry killing people with the Death Penalty in Texas is not a good sign. It (unfortunately) gives me a negative view of the Republican party, and I hate to generalize, but it's getting harder and harder not to when these things come up time and time again.
I have to disagree with Maya. Although I do not condone behavior that violates human rights, I feel the need to stress that the means for torture usage in the U.S. are reserved for criminals, people who have harmed other humans and pose a continuous threat to the safety of our citizens. Yes, the use of water boarding as a torture method does sound a lot like "cruel and unusual punishment", a violation of our Constitution. However, a primary responsibility of our government is to protect the American people from danger, even if the threats seem suspicious. If torturing one criminal will result in the access to information that will save thousands, I believe that it can therefore be justified.
P.J. makes an excellent argument: the definition of water boarding is a form of torture. Framed the Republican way as Cain says it, "an enhanced investigation technique", makes it seem quite docile, don't you think? The resulting trauma may not be worth it, but someone's got to pay.
Well, as far as Kimi is concerned, and of which I completely agree with, it can cause physical, emotional and psychological injuries and even death. Andrew does put it into perspective as we all might have considered that these effects are most likely happening to the terrorists in U.S. custody, and they have not respected the lives of U.S. citizens. Yet, I would not want to waste time on confessions of a hysterical prisoner nor make him hysterical enough to confess.
Further down the line, some have insinuated that some torture=information to save the nation. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I would have to insert here an allusion to the police response to the protest at UC Davis. Like Andrew, this is not a case of equal damage, but it is an example of how we prioritize between morals and getting what we want and some mysterious third option that lets people have their cake and eat it too (keeping morals AND getting what they want).
Comparatively, yes there are worse means to extract information. No, it is not entirely relevant to water boarding per se, but entirely relevant to the war on terrorism. People have been questioning and been on a standstill to the choice: morals or action? Or, phrased in a not necessarily equivalent manner: morals or torture? No one really wants to answer the question because they probably fear the double-edged sword of an opinion. I, on the other hand, welcome yours.
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