First if you cant see how simulating drowning of a person 185 times does not equal torture...then really I don't know where to start. the so called "harmless insects" are used to make someone fear there life is in danger just the same, as they don't know if they are harmless. Basically most of these things are things done to make someone feel tough, and cool..not things that are actually found effective, or to get good Intel out of someone. Those who cry about, what if there is a bomb to go off in 24 hours, then we should be able to water board...Stop watching 24...news flash its not real. just looking at how many times they did it, and for how long...shows that guess what, its not going to save you. And I will guarantee I could make any single person in here, say what ever I wanted...if you let me do enough to them. Would that make it true? no. would it make the info usefull? no.
Most intel people, CIA and other will tell you that you get more, and better info with other methods that are no torture or anthing that would even have to be debated.
2. should suspects get constitutional rights? I am guessing you just mean those at Gitmo...and Yes they should. Also we have legal guidelines internationally that we have signed to, that we have to be held to. If you disagree with those, then you back out, you don't just ignore them. The reason behind the US constitution was a set of things we felt to be rights as people...these are no rights we though only people in these borders should have...we just happen to only have power within these borders. They are the goals and best ideals of our nation...and when we say, but for the rest of you...they don't apply...shows that we don't truly believe that those laws should be self evident. Also , one only has to look at the outrage over the woman convicted in Iran to see how we think our ideas and laws should apply to our people in the world outside the US. Iran using our own guidelines we have shown, could do everything we have just stated to her, and we would have zero moral grounds to be upset. Fact is she is a Spy and it was proven in court, and they have a security need to know what she may have told us, so they should water board her, strip her naked, throw her against the well, not let her sleep for days, keep her in freezing cells,and then stick her in a coffin....why not? Well because the trial was a sham and we cant see the evidence..well that's for national security.....Our treatment of detainees in the last 8 years, gives us about zero moral grounds to say anything to any other nation who could take a US Citizen and do this to them...so long as they just claim national security. The Party of the "Moral Majority" has taken a huge chunk of the little Moral Sway this nation had left in it.
3. what can we do? you know that's a really long list....put them on trial, jail them, play them against each other, "befriend them and get them to talk" there are many ways we have got people to talk...do you think cops just beat everyone they arrest to get info? Since when did tourture become the only way to make someone talk.
to sum it up, its against the law, its Morally wrong, it has been a great tool for the extremist to get more people to join them, it is a standard we would never stand for against our own people in some other nation, its saps our moral authority to speak in the world, the Info you get is other worthless as you have no idea if its true or not. And know of at least one case where we tortured someone, and the Military lawyers let them go because they knew that nothing they got would hold up anymore because of it...it wrecked the case. Much like the Cops planting evidence on OJ...even if he did do it...the planting made it hard to make the case...and set him free.
