US fails to ban waterboarding

jonny72

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336952,00.html

"We do not torture" - George Bush

Its one giant farce. As usual, the politicians know exactly whats happening, and the public is by and large too ignorant of that fact that innocent people are being thrown into secret holes and tortured for months or even years.

Russia, China, America.. all the same, one just has the world completely fooled.

biko

Unfortunately there is no limit they will not cross to protect their own internal interests. And being superpowers, no-one can really stand up to them.
If only they would come out and say "We don't give a **** because we have the bomb".
The use of patriotic rhetoric is getting a bit stretched and the self-censored or even state-censored media is not helping.

BostonFenian

jonny72 wrote: »

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336952,00.html

"We do not torture" - George Bush

Its one giant farce. As usual, the politicians know exactly whats happening, and the public is by and large too ignorant of that fact that innocent people are being thrown into secret holes and tortured for months or even years.

Russia, China, America.. all the same, one just has the world completely fooled.

First of all, it is a travesty that a nation at least rhetorically committed to ideals of liberty and justice engages in such a behavior.

That said, the gymnastics that Bush has been using to justify the above quote are almost humorous in their transparency.

They boil down to:

I've declared certain interrogation practices legal, but I'm not telling which.
Torture is illegal.

Hence, anything we're doing is clearly not torture.

It really is laughable, and reminds me of trying to convince a child that the short fat glass might actually hold more than the tall skinny glass.

Fratton Fred

It's a horrific practice, but do people care enough to speak out about this. The majority of people understand that the CIA/FBI often walk in very murky areas and do things that are pretty nasty, to help keep people safe from terrorists.

I would hazard a guess and say that people don't care as it does not affect them and they can sleep safer at night knowing these guys are out there gathering information.

wes

Fratton Fred wrote: »

It's a horrific practice, but do people care enough to speak out about this. The majority of people understand that the CIA/FBI often walk in very murky areas and do things that are pretty nasty, to help keep people safe from terrorists.

I would hazard a guess and say that people don't care as it does not affect them and they can sleep safer at night knowing these guys are out there gathering information.

Well its give the terrorists a bloody great propaganda boost. Especially as we know instances were some people were completely innocent when they were either tortured or renditioned (kidnapped to be accurate).

So instead of making people safer, like the Iraq war was suppose to do. Its give the terrorists more propaganda and recruiting material.

Also, there seems to be quite a few people who seem to be of the opinion that torture isn't the best way to get information. We all remember that KSM basically confessed to every crime under the sun, when he was tortured as an example.

Mr.Micro

No, I do not think people care really, as they may believe that valuable information is gained that prevents terrorist attacks. I think 9/11 changed everything and the patriotism ploy is used frequently. I wonder though if another country used this technique on US citizens accused of plotting terrorist attacks? There would be outrage I suspect. Arguably if the US can do it, can other countries as well?

BostonFenian

Fratton Fred wrote: »

It's a horrific practice, but do people care enough to speak out about this. The majority of people understand that the CIA/FBI often walk in very murky areas and do things that are pretty nasty, to help keep people safe from terrorists.

I would hazard a guess and say that people don't care as it does not affect them and they can sleep safer at night knowing these guys are out there gathering information.

Well, I suppose there's a section of the debate that believes that, but the truth is, there's no evidence that it does make us safer. In fact, people generally believe that anything Bush wants to do makes us *less* safe.

In general, though, America is believed to stand for certain things, and most Americans that I know would like to see it stand for those things again. We're tired of being branded stupid Americans because our country is held hostage by evangelicals who export bigotry and war. If you look at the proportions by which he's won elections, it's negligible, and this country is more polarized than it's been since the American Civil War.

The fact is that waterboarding is torture, and we're grappling with the question of how we demand our troops in whichever circumstances are treated humanely if it comes out that we've been waterboarding, sending prisoners to Egypt for their brand of interrogation, etc.

In general, most Americans don't consider themselves bad people, and do not want to see their country do things that they think bad people would do.