Until some court with appropriate jurisdiction says that those acts were torture under applicable law, they weren’t torture, even if you think they were.
This might be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen on the Internet.
I suspect it would take about two seconds of waterboarding for you to change your tune on this and to enthusiastically confess that you’re actually a min-wage tray-scraper at Fuddrucker’s.
Sounds like an interrogator had just watched American History X followed by Death Wish and decided to weave them.
I assume you meant to add “except for an entire message board that is a low-budget no-traffic copy-out of another message board.”
Also, when considering what to do with that prehensile tongue of yours, please remember that I prefer syrup.
People who support torture are scumbags. People who pretend it isn’t torture so they don’t have to admit they support torture are really, really stupid scumbags who might possibly be fooling their fellow scumbags, but no one else.
/a/ was never good.
It ain’t torture if it’s planned and scripted? Great, you’ve just invented the Nuremberg-Plus defense: “We were only following beautifully detailed written orders!” I can, and I mean this, hardly wait to see it tried.
There are times when I’ve suspected a poster of hypocrisy, but I think that this description of your conclusion followed by a characterization of your method is spot-on.
And anyone who thinks an action is torture just because they say so is a complete imbecile.
And if it hadn’t been for torture, we never would have uncovered all those witches who were sending their spirits out to kill Christian babies.
For some people thinking about* anything *is a fruitless endeavour.
Not until some court with the appropriate jurisdiction says so, to paraphrase an imbecile.
Give it up RR. You got called on your lie, and bluster won’t get you out of that.
Torture doesn’t count if it’s planned out in advance?
Not really, no. For much of my life (all of it really), I’ve seen the US reviled abroad, called every name in the book, etc etc. I grew up during the Vietnam war, saw the perennial protests throughout Europe and Korea against the foul US and our evil ways, seen American’s put down in every way under the sun (even, or perhaps especially by ourselves).
So…when was America the ‘good guys’? Perhaps it was in the 50’s, which was before my time. Or, perhaps in the 50’s we simply didn’t care what others thought, being self absorbed with our own goodness and light…
What I tell my kids is that reality happens, and no country is inherently ‘good’, or can always be the ‘good guys’…especially when they are a super power. The US, on the whole and with some remarkably horrible exceptions, has always TRIED to be good or do the right things, but they do so in the context of the perceived or real needs of the citizens and in the reality of being a nation state, who sometime has to (or chooses to) do what is expedient over what is ‘right’. Countries who do no harm, who are the ‘good guys’ are probably countries that are bit players on the worlds stage…they can AFFORD to be the ‘good guys’ because their actions don’t really matter, when all is said and done. As they become more powerful, however, they have to make choices, some of which are bound to piss off some non-zero percentage of The World™’s population. And as they become super powers this only magnifies.
That said, I’m pretty unhappy (to say the least) about some of the things that were done in our collective names in the last decade. I’m just realistic enough to know that the only difference is that these things have come to light this time, and this alone doesn’t make us suddenly the bad guys, or that prior to this we were considered to be the good guys by any but those who had their heads buried in the sand.
-XT
Well we were in an official war with Nazi Germany when we did the bombing. It’s not like we fire-bombed Shangri-La.
Just for record, Rand Rover, you support Water Boarding? Congratulations, you’re in agreement with Japanese war criminal Yukio Asano.
(bolding mine)
Was his conviction for water torture unjust? Was he okay for subjecting American service personal to:
So Rand Rover are you calling this man a lair when he says he was tortured?
What was my “lie,” exactly?
I don’t have a big problem with the waterboarding of terrorism suspects under the Bush admin protocols as revealed in the disclosed memos.
I don’t understand the question. All I’m saying is that “torture” is a legal concept. You can decide that an action is “torture,” but that doesn’t mean you’re right. It doesn’t meant that someone who thinks it’s OK to do that action “supports torture.”
Well, I have my personal doubts that you ever go roving anywhere.
Why does the suspected crime matter? Not to seem naive or anything, but how far down the scale of suspicion can someone be for you start having a problem with waterboarding? Suspected killer? Rapist? Kidnapper? Armed robber?
Is waterboarding (that is to say, repeatedly giving someone the experience of drowning) torture or not? Do you really need to wait for a judge to weigh in on the subject? Are all your opinions subject to judicial review?
That’s not true.
Some countries look out for their rulers to the detriment of their people.
That was in Gravity’s Rainbow, wasn’t it? Schwarzkommando or something like.