I don't care if people "think" anything was "off the reservation." I care about what is legal.
International standards that we agreed to? Like what? The Geneva Conventions that clearly state these people are not POW's? That international standard?
International standards are not as cut and dry as "we agreed so we follow." There is a lot more to them than that.
What is it to claim that "maybe" we could have gotten the information another way? It is just a back and forth unprovable statement.
When did I say it was good? What I did say was that it was needed and legal.
Is FDR a war criminal then? How about Truman? How about Obama? The nuclear posture of Obama is to have nuclear weapons target cities, same as every other President. Who lives in cities? Civilians.
I am not sure how this proves that Congress was lied to about enhanced interrogation.
In order to abide by the Geneva Convention, we could not call them POW's. It would have been a violation of the Convention to call them such.
What other international standards are you talking about? And further, in this case US domestic policy trumps is what governs these detainees, not some non-binding GA feel good resolution.
Not sure where I ever said that. That said the international standard is that in this case our domestic policy dictates how we treat them. With Congressional approval, we deemed waterboarding was OK.
It is not arguing semantics to read the text of the Geneva Conventions and easily determine that these people are not entitled to POW protection.
Now, as for other cases of torture, those responsible have already been tried. But in the case of GITMO, we did nothing wrong there.
Well I just think that shows a naivety in terms of international politics.
It is not criminal to obey the law.
How did waterboarding 3 people get turned into "America running around black bagging detainees and torturing them? And what relevance does this have on nations nuclear posture?
Sure there will always be blowback, but predicting blowback is nearly impossible. I have no illusion that our "superior power" is going to protect us from all harm, but it is crazy to think waterboarding will result in a nuclear attack on the United States.
America will eventually fall, I give you that. I just think while we are the hegemon we ought to use it to our advantage.
