Bush vetoes anti torture bill

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Like the sergeant who fired several shots from his pistol next to a terrorist's head, causing him to reveal where his friends were, and then later was court-marshaled for it?

How is a mock execution by a military man with a pistol any different than waterboarding?

No matter what method is used to extract information, we end up attacking those that got the information, not matter how many lives were saved. So make a choice... either accept terrorism, or accept interrogation methods. One or the other.

He was a Colonel. He was not a trained interrogator and he was acting by the seat of his pants.

Real trained army interrogators don't need to torture anyone to get information.
 
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Do you have a link to that, or do we have to take the word of an unknown British MP?

I've been looking in vain for a real example of how torture has saved the lives of innocent people, as is being claimed by the pro torture side.

I'd also like to see some examples of how torture has alienated allies and made the war on terror more difficult.

Zubaydah fingered Jose Padilla, who had pitched to AQ the plan of detonating a nuclear bomb in the US. AQ convinced him that a dirty bomb was more tenable. It was due to Zubaydah's information, gained through 'interrogation' that helped capture this future wannabe terrorist.

Zubaydah also gave information about the guy in Canada, who has now been detained. A number of other AQ members have been arrested in Pakistan due to the information by 'interrogated' terrorists.

As for alienated allies, none in the middle east have been, but then their methods of information gathering, make waterboarding look like a day at the water park. The closest thing to what you want is Canada. After they found the information we provided them was from waterboarding, they no longer admitted to getting the information from the CIA. Ironically they still captured the guy, the just ignored they got the info from us. So it didn't stop the from using the information, just from saying where it came from. A bit screwy if you ask me.
 
Let's say it is, and let's say that the ban on waterboarding is specifically what Bush does not want banned. This is no big deal. There are 3 democrats running for office, and all of them will ban information gathering technics against terrorist. So undoubtedly, waterboarding will be banned.

I'm just curious, since everyone seems against waterboarding, how do you purpose we get terrorists, who plan to commit suicide while killing us, to tell us the information we need to stop their attacks? Offer a plea bargain?

If he plans to kill himself, what exactly do you suggest we do to make him talk? Or do you suggest we just let it go and hope some Islamic defector warns us before every attack? I'm just curious how you suggest we handle this.

I would very much like to debate you on the ethics of torture, Andy, if you're interested let me know and I'll start a thread.
 
We probably need to set some boundary conditions. Is the philosophy of MIGHT IS RIGHT correct in your opinion?

How about THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS?

Sometimes the laws of unintended consequences get us to ends we never expected. The result of torturing prisoners is likely to be pretty negative, even if some useful information is obtained.
 
Sometimes the laws of unintended consequences get us to ends we never expected. The result of torturing prisoners is likely to be pretty negative, even if some useful information is obtained.

An excellent point, and one that should be considered before we let our emotions run away with us and start doing things that we will regret.
 
How do you define what is wrong or right?

Nope, won't work, Andy, you can't have a "discussion" if you won't discuss. I ask you questions and you answer them, you ask me questions and I answer them. Quid pro quo. If you are not going to play by the rules then we have nothing else to say to one another.

But to give you the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume that you didn't know that you had to answer the questions, so I'll start by answering yours and you can return by answering mine.

Since "right" and "wrong" are very broad terms and cover such a wide variety of activities I'll have to make more than one pass over the subject. On the smallest scale, my personal philosophy is "harm none", this is somewhat subjective in that I have to define "harm" in some fashion, so I usually go with coercion.

Ultimately, in a free-will Universe (I am assuming we live in such a Universe since I have no evidence to the contrary, but my position is open to revision on the basis of new information) I think the only wrong is coercion because it abrogates the free-will of another. From the lowest level of coercion such as managing a person's sources of information in order to manipulate them, to the most grievous forms of coercion such as murder, genocide, or torture, all of these things are wrong on an a priori basis because they take away the free-will of another. There are complexities to this when one looks at groups of people, is it wrong to abrogate the free-will of one person for the perceived safety of the group? For instance a murderer. Yes, I think so, one needs to look for the answer/position that produces the least harm when in a situation where there are conflicting interests.

Another way to approach this would be to say that anything that increases the love in the Universe is good and anything that decreases it is bad. For the sake of the discussion it might be better to use terms that have less cultural baggage than "good" and "bad", I prefer the terms "positive" and "negative" instead.

With all those things said, I think that there are limits beyond which a person should never go, not because of putative "right or wrong" concepts, but rather because there are actions that will harm you no matter how "good" your intentions maybe. Torture is one of these things, I think it does far more damage to the person doing the torture than to the poor bugger being tortured. But we can get to that after you have answered my questions as completely and thoughtfully as I have answered yours. Fair enough?
 
On the smallest scale, my personal philosophy is "harm none", this is somewhat subjective in that I have to define "harm" in some fashion, so I usually go with coercion.

From the lowest level of coercion such as managing a person's sources of information in order to manipulate them, to the most grievous forms of coercion such as murder, genocide, or torture, all of these things are wrong on an a priori basis because they take away the free-will of another. There are complexities to this when one looks at groups of people, is it wrong to abrogate the free-will of one person for the perceived safety of the group? For instance a murderer. Yes, I think so, one needs to look for the answer/position that produces the least harm when in a situation where there are conflicting interests.

Another way to approach this would be to say that anything that increases the love in the Universe is good and anything that decreases it is bad. For the sake of the discussion it might be better to use terms that have less cultural baggage than "good" and "bad", I prefer the terms "positive" and "negative" instead.

With all those things said, I think that there are limits beyond which a person should never go, not because of putative "right or wrong" concepts, but rather because there are actions that will harm you no matter how "good" your intentions maybe. Torture is one of these things, I think it does far more damage to the person doing the torture than to the poor bugger being tortured. But we can get to that after you have answered my questions as completely and thoughtfully as I have answered yours. Fair enough?

I agree with neither of the statements given in the prior post. But I was more concerned with how you perceived the statements yourself, given that whether you are for them, or against them, in either case you would have to have a position on right or wrong in order to make that determination.

Yet even in your reply, there was moral relativism that is antithetical to taking a position.

If coercion is 'wrong' or as you put 'negative', then what difference is there between the coercion to talk about terrorist plans, and being coerced to furnish funds to pay a speeding ticket?

Is it any less of a violation of free-will to coerce me into relinquishing my money? And if I chose to exercise my free-will to not deliver the funds I will be arrested and jailed, and held in court, to coerce me. If I use my free-will to resist arrest, I could be beaten, hog tied, tazzed and possibly depending on how forceful I resist, be shot and maybe killed. Is this not torture?

If we are willing to play games with how much coercion is too much based on a sliding scale of the benefit to 'the greater good' in order to justify coercion of a murderer who has killed only a few... how much more coercion is justified to those who killed thousands?

Moreover, those who murdered, what can be done to them, does little for the damage already done. Unlike a terrorist who's acts are future tense. A life sentence doesn't bring back the innocent murdered. A terrorist coerced into telling of future plans, saves the lives of thousands.

So based on your system of 'positive' and 'negative', the greater positive balanced by the conflict of interest, would be in favor or torturing terrorists to save millions of lives globally.
 
I agree with neither of the statements given in the prior post. But I was more concerned with how you perceived the statements yourself, given that whether you are for them, or against them, in either case you would have to have a position on right or wrong in order to make that determination.

Yet even in your reply, there was moral relativism that is antithetical to taking a position.

If coercion is 'wrong' or as you put 'negative', then what difference is there between the coercion to talk about terrorist plans, and being coerced to furnish funds to pay a speeding ticket?

Is it any less of a violation of free-will to coerce me into relinquishing my money? And if I chose to exercise my free-will to not deliver the funds I will be arrested and jailed, and held in court, to coerce me. If I use my free-will to resist arrest, I could be beaten, hog tied, tazzed and possibly depending on how forceful I resist, be shot and maybe killed. Is this not torture?

If we are willing to play games with how much coercion is too much based on a sliding scale of the benefit to 'the greater good' in order to justify coercion of a murderer who has killed only a few... how much more coercion is justified to those who killed thousands?

Moreover, those who murdered, what can be done to them, does little for the damage already done. Unlike a terrorist who's acts are future tense. A life sentence doesn't bring back the innocent murdered. A terrorist coerced into telling of future plans, saves the lives of thousands.

So based on your system of 'positive' and 'negative', the greater positive balanced by the conflict of interest, would be in favor or torturing terrorists to save millions of lives globally.

Before I write a response to this post I need to ask if "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong", and "positive" and "negative" all mean basically the same thing within the context of our discussion.
 
Not having received a respons to my previous post, I am going to assume that we can use right, good, and positive more or less interchangeably, the same for wrong, bad, and negative.

I agree with neither of the statements given in the prior post. But I was more concerned with how you perceived the statements yourself, given that whether you are for them, or against them, in either case you would have to have a position on right or wrong in order to make that determination.

Yet even in your reply, there was moral relativism that is antithetical to taking a position.
I don't think that what I see as moral relativism is antithetical to taking a position. One's position would tend to be flexible depending on the circumstances. An example would be Jesus not allowing the men to stone the "fallen woman", He could have been hardcore and followed the letter of the law, but instead he looked at the intent of the law and tempered the law with mercy. That is a perfect example of moral relativism, it doesn't prevent a person from making a decision, it just requires that a person THINK and decide for themselves rather than look it up in an old book and follow whatever is written there.

If coercion is 'wrong' or as you put 'negative', then what difference is there between the coercion to talk about terrorist plans, and being coerced to furnish funds to pay a speeding ticket?

Is it any less of a violation of free-will to coerce me into relinquishing my money? And if I chose to exercise my free-will to not deliver the funds I will be arrested and jailed, and held in court, to coerce me. If I use my free-will to resist arrest, I could be beaten, hog tied, tazzed and possibly depending on how forceful I resist, be shot and maybe killed. Is this not torture?
Are you familiar with the concept of a "social contract"? The idea that if one agrees to participate in the game, then one agrees to obey the rules of the game. When you studied, practiced, and took a test to get a driver's license you were signing up to play a social game, you studied and memorized the rules and took a test to prove that you had learned them. Implicit in playing the game is acceptance of the coercion that the rules of the game apply to you. You cannot sign-up for the game, pay your money, enjoy the fun of the game, and then shout "FOUL!" when the rules of the game are applied to you.

As far as you being tased and beaten and gang raped, well, we live in an imperfect world and some people break the rules but justify it with the MIGHT IS RIGHT argument. Is it wrong? Yes, is it my fault? No, I play by the rules.

If we are willing to play games with how much coercion is too much based on a sliding scale of the benefit to 'the greater good' in order to justify coercion of a murderer who has killed only a few... how much more coercion is justified to those who killed thousands?
Assuming that we know for certain that the person is guilty, then death, or better yet placing that person on an island along with all the others of their kind and allowing them to prey on each other--great learing experience that.

Moreover, those who murdered, what can be done to them, does little for the damage already done.
No revenge will bring back the dead, that's true (see, we agree on something!).

Unlike a terrorist who's acts are future tense. A life sentence doesn't bring back the innocent murdered. A terrorist coerced into telling of future plans, saves the lives of thousands.
You have gone from "knowing" to "not knowing" and therein lies the problem. The person has not done what YOU suspect they intend to do. So you are torturing that person in the hope that they really intend to do what you think they intend to do, you hope that they have made definite enough plans that they can tell you what the plan is, and you hope that if all your other hopes are fruitful that this person actually knows the plans so they can tell you about them, and finally you hope that by suspending your humanity you can hurt this person enough to make them tell you what you hope they know. That's a lot of hoping, Andy.

So based on your system of 'positive' and 'negative', the greater positive balanced by the conflict of interest, would be in favor or torturing terrorists to save millions of lives globally.
False choice, as far as we know there has never been a case like this in human history. What would it take to convince you that the poor bastard you have chained to the table really is guilty, really knows what you wish to find out? It's already been fairly clearly established that you are willing to believe some pretty unbelievable things on the basis of little or no evidence: walking on water, rising from the dead, God demanding blood payment, etc.

Now you are setting up this scenario where MILLIONS of lives hang in the balance if we don't resort to torture. Are you willing to go two different directions with this? We can look at it from two perspectives if you are willing and this should be fun for you because you get the chance to make me look like a fool both ways. Sound fun?

1. Let's look at the evidence/justification for torturing someone (or more than one) on the basis of our susicion that they are going to kill millions of people.

2. Let's look at what you, Andy, are willing to do to get the information from these people.
 
I don't think that what I see as moral relativism is antithetical to taking a position. One's position would tend to be flexible depending on the circumstances. An example would be Jesus not allowing the men to stone the "fallen woman", He could have been hardcore and followed the letter of the law, but instead he looked at the intent of the law and tempered the law with mercy. That is a perfect example of moral relativism, it doesn't prevent a person from making a decision, it just requires that a person THINK and decide for themselves rather than look it up in an old book and follow whatever is written there.

Do me a favor and don't use non-existent people in fabricated tales as examples. Of course I don't hold that view, but since you do, it sets up a situation where I need to respond to a basis you don't believe in to begin with. Which makes the discussion pointless.

For example, the teaching of Christ was turn to repentance. Repentance is the changing away from immoral activity. Jesus never suggested what the woman did was not wrong, which is why he said to go and sin no more, indicating she had sinned. In a Biblical view, adultery and fornication is wrong, all the time, every time, without exception. This is no where near moral relativism that would say she didn't do anything wrong.

Are you familiar with the concept of a "social contract"? The idea that if one agrees to participate in the game, then one agrees to obey the rules of the game. When you studied, practiced, and took a test to get a driver's license you were signing up to play a social game, you studied and memorized the rules and took a test to prove that you had learned them. Implicit in playing the game is acceptance of the coercion that the rules of the game apply to you. You cannot sign-up for the game, pay your money, enjoy the fun of the game, and then shout "FOUL!" when the rules of the game are applied to you.

As far as you being tased and beaten and gang raped, well, we live in an imperfect world and some people break the rules but justify it with the MIGHT IS RIGHT argument. Is it wrong? Yes, is it my fault? No, I play by the rules.

I never agreed to any social contract. Even if it is implied, I can change my mind. Isn't that free-will? For example, I never agreed to not steal from the guy next door, or not to sleep with some ones 15-year old daughter. So why should my free-will be abridged, and be coerced into following these man-made social rules?

Wrong? Based on what? How do you know that "might is right" is wrong? In fact, what makes the social contract morally binding? Isn't it because the government has might, and therefore is right? It still boils down to a group of people making up man made morals that are no more valid than any other man's morals. It's just that the government can enforce their morals... so might is right, is it not?

Assuming that we know for certain that the person is guilty, then death, or better yet placing that person on an island along with all the others of their kind and allowing them to prey on each other--great learing experience that.

File that under "cruel and unusual punishment". I see little difference between your suggestion and waterboarding. In fact, waterboarding is a mercy compared to what you suggest.

You have gone from "knowing" to "not knowing" and therein lies the problem. The person has not done what YOU suspect they intend to do. So you are torturing that person in the hope that they really intend to do what you think they intend to do, you hope that they have made definite enough plans that they can tell you what the plan is, and you hope that if all your other hopes are fruitful that this person actually knows the plans so they can tell you about them, and finally you hope that by suspending your humanity you can hurt this person enough to make them tell you what you hope they know. That's a lot of hoping, Andy.

If that was the case, then I would not support waterboarding for this purpose. But that is not the case. There is none of the 'hoping' that you claim.

For example, Zubaydah. Zubaydah already has the death penalty in Jordan. Zubaydah was fingered a number of times by other Al Qaeda members captured before 9/11. He was said to be the attack planner for a terrorist attack that was supposed to happen in LA during the New Years eve party. Zubaydah was an Afganistan AQ recruiter that ran terrorist training camps. He has over 37 different aliases in a dozen countries. His resume boasts 15 years of experience in AQ, and his honors and accomplishments includes over 30 different terrorist events, not including those that failed. Finely the CIA captured him after taping a phone call in which he himself directly relayed a newly planned attack. He was captured in the very process of setting up a terrorist attack.

We waterboarded a person we knew intended to do what we heard them openly say they were going to do, and knew he had done other plans before, and knew he had explicit knowledge of other plans and other people. After getting the information we knew he had, we captured a few more AQ people, and stopped several other terrorist attacks.

False choice, as far as we know there has never been a case like this in human history. What would it take to convince you that the poor bastard you have chained to the table really is guilty, really knows what you wish to find out? It's already been fairly clearly established that you are willing to believe some pretty unbelievable things on the basis of little or no evidence: walking on water, rising from the dead, God demanding blood payment, etc.

You are wasting my time, and yours. If you want to talk about God, that's fine, but why bring it here? Are we talking about 'torture' or walking on the water? Stick to one subject. You would expect no less from me, yes?

Interrogation of any kind is not supportable for the purpose of determining guilt. You can break anyone in order to agree to confess to anything given enough time and discomfort. So it's pointless here. Making someone talk only works when you know for certain that they have the required information.

Like Zubaydah, that I detailed above. Is it possible a guy can be a key member of AQ for 15 years, have 30 terrorist attacks in his belt, already have the death penalty in another country, and somehow not have any information of any kind that we could find useful??

Of course that is ridiculous. Which is why when he refused to talk, we convinced him otherwise, and it did save lives. Many lives.

Now you are setting up this scenario where MILLIONS of lives hang in the balance if we don't resort to torture. Are you willing to go two different directions with this? We can look at it from two perspectives if you are willing and this should be fun for you because you get the chance to make me look like a fool both ways. Sound fun?

1. Let's look at the evidence/justification for torturing someone (or more than one) on the basis of our susicion that they are going to kill millions of people.

2. Let's look at what you, Andy, are willing to do to get the information from these people.

No one can make someone else look like a fool. They either are, or are not. I'm just responding to the points made with whatever information I have. If it's wrong I'll change my mind. If it's right, I'll keep it.

If not millions of lives.. how about 3000 lives? Not including the dozens of terror attacks world wide.

Ok... someone kills hundreds of people in terrorist attacks. Plans more. Is caught planning an attack. Has a 15 year history in a terrorist network. Has terrorist recruiter in his resume. Knows the whole network of terrorist inside and out. Is recorded in a phone conversation directing a terrorist event. Has 37 different aliases in a dozen countries and already managed to get the death penalty in Jordan.

Based on this, as irrational as it sounds... I do in fact suspect him of being a terrorist, and oddly, I actually suspect he does have information about other terrorists and terror plots.

Now thankfully I am not in the position to make the choice of how to get him to talk. But I can see why someone might be willing to strap him down on a flat board and pour water over his head to make him talk, in order to save (thousands) of lives. A better question is, would be happy to sacrifice 3000 of our fellow citizens to feel better about not doing anything? Or what would you suggest we do? Serve him bacon every day till he talks?

See I'm open to being against waterboarding. I'd be first in line to vote against it... but there has to be an alternative. Right now the other options I'm getting is... do nothing and watch people die.
 
Do me a favor and don't use non-existent people in fabricated tales as examples. Of course I don't hold that view, but since you do, it sets up a situation where I need to respond to a basis you don't believe in to begin with. Which makes the discussion pointless.
It does not make the discussion pointless, Jesus taught with parables the same as many people have down through the ages. I have played fair with you, Andy, I have explained very carefully that the existence or not of Jesus does in no way change the value of the good things He is credited with saying. If you are going to continue this sniping approach, then let's quit now and save ourselves some heartache.

For example, the teaching of Christ was turn to repentance. Repentance is the changing away from immoral activity. Jesus never suggested what the woman did was not wrong, which is why he said to go and sin no more, indicating she had sinned. In a Biblical view, adultery and fornication is wrong, all the time, every time, without exception. This is no where near moral relativism that would say she didn't do anything wrong.
I will use real or imaginary people as I see fit, you are poking at me in an attempt to annoy or anger me, if you wish to stop the discussion just say so, but one way or the other stop with the sophomoric behavior, it makes you look foolish.

I never stated nor even implied that Jesus said what she did was not wrong, my point was that moral relativism can allow a person to think for themselves (as Jesus did) and apply the law with some flexibility or mercy rather than just the monkey see, monkey do process of obeying someone else's determination of right or wrong without thought. I never made any reference to the rightness or wrongness of her actions, I try to write carefully so please read closely.

In a Biblical view, adultery and fornication is wrong, all the time, every time, without exception. This is no where near moral relativism that would say she didn't do anything wrong.
So, with this hardcore, right is right and wrong is wrong all the time with no exceptions, how is it that Lot got a free-pass for getting drunk and raping/fornicating with his daughters AND IMPREGNATING both of them?
 
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I never agreed to any social contract. Even if it is implied, I can change my mind. Isn't that free-will? For example, I never agreed to not steal from the guy next door, or not to sleep with some ones 15-year old daughter. So why should my free-will be abridged, and be coerced into following these man-made social rules?
You did agree to the social contract whether you realize it or not as I explained very carefully in my previous post. If you are going to now maintain that you did not, then you need to explain how it is that you (for instance) studied the traffic laws, passed the test, and accepted a government permit that allows you to operate a motor vehicle.

Of course you can change your mind, are you now arguing for anarchy? Up until now you haven't been, but if you wish to do that now, then I'll be happy to address the issue with you. Theft, rape, violence and the coercion of others is part of the social contract that we live under, again, if you wish to throw that over, deny that you have any obligation to that social contract, then you are advocating a form of anarchy and we can discuss that, but you need to decide. I'm alright discussing your anarchist drives, Andy, it's just a completely different tack than you've used before and throws into a cocked hat some of the things you have already posted. Make up your mind.

Wrong? Based on what? How do you know that "might is right" is wrong? In fact, what makes the social contract morally binding? Isn't it because the government has might, and therefore is right? It still boils down to a group of people making up man made morals that are no more valid than any other man's morals. It's just that the government can enforce their morals... so might is right, is it not?
One of the reasons that I asked you right at the start whether you accepted the philosophies of MIGHT IS RIGHT and the ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS was so that we would not have to stop in the middle of our discussion to fight out these issues. In your post #40 you said, "I agree with neither of the statements..." so once again it appears that you are changing horses in the middle of the stream in order to argue rather than having an honest discussion with me.

You're behaving like a troll, Andy, because (I assume) you're angry with me. You aren't discussing honestly, and even though I understand that you're a young man without a wide base of life experience, it's still pretty disappointing. I've got better things to do than spar with petulant children, I'm outa' here until you stop being angry and start using the brain God gave you.
 
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