wtf, summarize it please

my problem with this whole water boarding issue:

the left wing media wants us to believe that torture is NEVER justified. that it is a morally wrong thing. people in the government are faced with not only this pressure from the public and media, but also to have results in the war on terror. unfortuantely, torture is often required to create these results.

so if a candidate doesn't want to say they agree with it or that's it's torture, it's not neccesaarily a bad thing imo. it's that they are trying to walk the tight rope of public appeal. if they say it is, then everyone is at their throats saying 'you shouldnt torture, you shouldnt torture' meanwhile saying 'show us results against terrorists'.

they dodge the question because they believe that capturing, and sometimes toturing terrorists to get information about potential attacks, is MORE important that what the public thinks about them!

if you want clarification on what i meant let me know.

but you missed an important detail. Torture does not produce reliable intelligence. See the first link I provided. This is the opinion shared by the majority of the intelligence and military community.

Secondly, not only does torture provide unreliable information, it is also cruel and inhumane.

The problem is, how can you conduct a war on terror that diminishes the very things it's supposed to protect? That is, civil liberties, human rights and other important facets of liberal democracy.

Let's leave the criticisms of the "left wing media" at the door for this discussion please.

here it is

see.. i believe torture is wrong. i completely agree with what you said. but i should clarify sometihng i said.

torture CAN produce reliable intelligence. many people (citizens, not experts) believe that torture is good in the grand scheme of things if it can prevent one life from being lost to terrorism.

oddly enough im not one of those people. thats tied very closely to my views on captial punishment (which is for another discussion).

but it's about how general people lookat it. maybe im not describing myself well, but i dont think it's fair to criticize candidates for not being able to say "waterboarding is torture" since they face opposition on every side and see things in a more balanced way than we do; specifically, they have people telling them that torture is needed in ORDER to provide SOME intelligence, even if for the most part it's unreliable

13 months ago SunTzu wrote

here it is

"Their message strongly endorses the view of former judge advocates general that waterboarding is inhumane, is torture, is illegal. The intelligence veterans added it is also a notoriously unreliable way to acquire accurate information"

I don't disagree with it, but the candidates/president have people telling them that some techniques can (not will, can) produce reliable information.

i honestly don't know. i like to think that enoguh information can be produced just by wire taps, etc etc., but i don't know, and I like to think that torture is used only when other research methods have failed.

of the Geneva Conventions and United States law is to explicitly ban the use of torture. We don't elect politicians to hold popular opinions despite the facts and laws. We elect them to uphold our principles and values.

Just because Joe Blow from Texas and Mary Lou from Louisiana think we should torture enemy combatants doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't make it a legit position to hold for a politician that takes an oath to uphold the constitution and the laws.

Essentially, you are arguing that it's okay for Republican candidates to say water boarding is a legitimate technique for interrogation because their constituency believes it to be so.

what im saying is that i can understand WHY a candidate wouldn't want to commit themselves to it. they'd rather dodge than lie.

anyone can say 'yes, its torture, and we dont condone torture, so we dont do it', but they know it'll be done, and don't want to lie. it's comendable in a sick and twisted way imo.

you are giving them too much credit. The reason why Michael Mukasey refused to say it's torture is because he didn't want to implicate the administration in the obvious abuses that took place. If he says it's torture than that's the Attorney General saying the administration broke the law by sanctioning it. He was just protecting his bosses.

The reason why, I think, the Republicans except Ron Paul and John McCain are saying it's not torture or dodging the question is because a majority of their base believe it's not torture. They are just trying to win votes.

We may disagree as to why they are doing it, but that's not a major issue.

To me, there's nothing commendable about dodging a question on torture to win votes. And I don't think they dodge it for any other reason.

i really do think that they are smart, and know what they are saying.

ya, alot of the time i think they may be wanting to just win votes, because their audience for the most part (huge generalization coming up) doesn't care too much about the rights of 'terrorists' or anyone labeled so, especially arabs. but i think they're trying to protect themselves from contradicting themselves later on.

as long as we agree on the main topic at hand.

:)

Why does Moe have a hard on for Torture?

!!!!!

theres a lot of white area in this thread, can you minimze it a bit pnas, make it more compact.

this is what the demonstration looks like, pretty scare!

videos

13 months ago haris wrote

theres a lot of white area in this thread, can you​ minimze it a bit pnas, make it more compact.

stop yelling!