Wait a minunte? NPR has an ombudsman to represent the listeners? The bastards!! An unbiased news organization wouldn’t need an ombudsman because none of the listeners would ever disagree with them.
Much like you’re a thieving entity if you only occasionally steal in a highly targeted manner, I think many would argue that using torture in ANY amount is morally reprehensible and taints one’s entire national image.
Personally, I think this is a slippery slope I don’t want to be anywhere near–as I said above, where we part ways is that in my opinion, ANY use of torture/enhanced interrogation/whatever you want to call it, basically anything that causes specific physical discomfort for the purposes of discomfort (or put the other way, anything beyond confinement in a reasonably-sized space and ordinary physical labor) demeans us as a nation, and I don’t believe it should be done. I think the America I love is better than that, and I’d happily stand up to be the first to die in a terrorist attack that was theoretically preventable if only we used those tactics in interrogation, because I think an America that doesn’t do such things is much more worth dying for.
Your mileage obviously does vary.
–Z, literal flag-flying patriot, military brat, registered Independent. 
Yeah, all these checks just prove that the balances are broken. A lack of oversight is the hallmark of a truly fair system.
Wait, what?
You know, I read this post, and thought “that’s pretty reasonable!” Then I read it again, and realized it wasn’t.
Anyone could be a “key prisoner”. Remember how “selective” they were about sending people to Guantanamo? Cab driver goes to the wrong checkpoint? He’s a terrorist! Lock him up for five years!
Is the US gleefully torturing anyone and everyone? Of course not. Does that make it alright? Equally surely, of course not. The moment we tortured Khalid Mohammed, the terrorists won, based on the goalposts as emplaced by the Bush Administration.
“They hate our freedoms,” said Bush, and promptly raised a white flag and started taking those freedoms away.
The soldiers in some of the Abu Ghraib pictures looked rather gleeful. Of course other people may have made more appropriate and respectful faces at the time, so it wasn’t so much a breach of Emily Post.
Thank you for the link there, Starv. It is always good to expand one’s sources of news, and I was previously unaware of the estimable CNSNews - “The Right News. Right Now” - if ever there was a motto to inspire faith in objectivity and strict, non-partisan truth, that would be it! Why, “Fair and Balanced” doesn’t compare.
Please note the date. Ponder it carefully.
Dated, you will note, Saturday, March 1, 2003. See the problem? Perhaps not. Well, 2003 is later than 2002. A bit sticky, don’t you think? Or don’t you?
But what about putting somebody in a box with a caterpillar. Is that unquestionably torture?
Waterboarding is the sexy argument, but it’s only 1 of a variety of enhanced interrogation techniques used, most of which are debatable.
No, but it’s hilarious that anyone would want to bring that up as a possible questionable case, even though it is a questionable case*, considering its associations.
*Of torture, that is. I think it would probably be “cruel and unusual punishment”, however.
That is, of course, if you believe that the CIA has revealed all the methods it used. Guantanamo prisoners have alleged much worse stuff than waterboarding and the (at least) 41 suicide attempts by prisoners suggest that there’s some truth to the claims.
Correct. Remember that Republicans pretty much universally agreed with the American consensus that waterboarding is torture through numerous administrations. The idea that waterboarding might not be torture is a brand-new one to the public conversation, introduced solely by one administration.
Why don’t they just say “alleged torture techniques” or “disputed torture techniques”?
I don’t think you guys are paying enough attention to Sinaijon’s point. No doubt the stunning revelation that the CIA has a time machine has wobbled your minds…
One of the techniques is “debatable”. Which means its entirely possible that one of the techniques was not, in fact, torture. Which would lead inexorably to the conclusion that not all of the techniques applied to these terrorists masterminds (well, of course they are! They confessed!..) was torture!
Those of you who have insisted that all of the techniques applied were torture should immediately come forth with retractions and abject apologies. You know who you are!
Upon preview: I see that RNATB has made a first, faltering step towards just such an mea fuckup.
It is not whether the US tortured one or one thousand people. It is that the US worked to redefine things so the use of torture is tolerable.
That should scare the crap out of you if you bothered to think about it for a moment rather than wrapping yourself in the flag and sticking your fingers in your ears.
We have shown on this Board, through numerous cites from actual interrogators (both US and other countries), that torture as a means to extract actionable intelligence is deeply flawed and nearly worthless for that purpose. Note these guys are not peacenik hippy love freaks. These are guys who, in many cases, were literally at the pointy end of the sword dealing with near literal ticking time bomb scenarios and personally knew the people who would die if they failed. Patriots in all senses of the word and I have no doubt they’d have hooked a car battery to some guy’s nutsack if they thought it’d save their troops. They didn’t and for good reason. There were better means available to gain intelligence.
You want to save American lives? Great! Unfortunately using torture to achieve that goal works completely against you. By advocating torture you make this country less safe. Not only because it produces terrible information that is more often misleading than helpful but also because you embolden our enemies by its use.
With friends like you who needs enemies?
EDIT: Oh yeah…and waterboarding is torture. It is torture as defined by the United States in the past. It is deemed torture by people who torture. Unless of course you think the Gestapo and Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition were a bunch of pussies putting people into comfy chairs before asking them questions.
Without what we like to think of as our American ideals, the only reason for Americans to wish to protect their country amounts to tribalism.
Tribalism as a stand-alone motivator is pretty much the quintessential UnAmerican ideal.
Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. -Groucho Marx
The above quote is funny. What you are doing is pathetic. You’re like the UFO conspiracy theorist making fun of the JFK conspiracy theorist. “NPR doesn’t have a liberal bias. It has a conservative bias. My proof is so much more proofier than your proof.”
Can’t help but wonder why, if NPR was such a potent part of President Bush’s propaganda program (loves me some alliteration), they continue to do so after Dubya has left the building. I betcha that the republicans have fallen back on the journalistative branch after losing control of the legislative and the executive. :eek: One can only hope that the democrats can ferret them all out.
In closing, you’re a nut. You have a rubber butt, and when you turn around it goes putt putt.
The point here is that it is debatable, since we’re currently debating it- although I would argue that the people who think it isn’t torture are toeing an almost laughably obvious party line.
And, for the record, it wasn’t a faltering step. I step with authority, dammit.
Uh huh… I see. You seem quite pissy, and it can’t be all in defense of NPR. I wonder if there’s something that’s making you particularly butthurt… hmmm. Anything happen recently? Some kind of ass-kicking that you had been mouthing off about that left you embarrassed?
…firstly Starving Artist, I must remind you that you still owe me a beer. I cannot for the life of me remember why you owe me a beer, but I am looking thirstily forward to it! 
I agree with all of these things, and I am glad to hear that you do to.
Is it only Americans and their allies who should be allowed to use torture?
Consider Iraq. An estimated 9000 Iraqi soldiers died defending Iraq from coalition forces.
Cite.
In defense of country and their fellow man, would you excuse an Iraqi military officer from waterboarding a captured US soldier to find out information that may save Iraqi lives?
I am not American, and since the ANZUS relationship was suspended United States representatives have described our relationship as: “a friend, but not an ally”. This is despite the fact that the NZSAS was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their work during Operation Enduring Freedom.
So as a “non-US ally”, would it be right to torture someone to protect our nation?
In 1985 French Secret Service Agents planted a bomb on the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour and it exploded, killing one man in it’s aftermath. France is an ally of the United States, NZ is (arguably) not. Who, in your opinion, would have the right to waterboard to protect its interest in this case?
Would you only be willing to use torture that doesn’t leave a mark?
With respect: if America engages in torture, it is a torturing entity. The US has only used waterboarding three times, but has routinely used stress positions, sleep deprevation and other techniques that cause extreme pain and stress but do not leave marks. The FBI witnessed a detainee chained to the floor in the fetal position, left to defecate himself and without food and water for 24 hours. These are not civilised actions.
Sorry my friend, but I cannot agree that waterboarding is more humane and less harmful. The only difference between waterboarding and the methods of torture you talk about are that one method will leave physical damage to the body, and the other will not. They both will cause agonising pain and long lasting mental after-affects.
Do you conceede that waterboarding is torture?
I wouldn’t portray the US as gleefully torturing everyone it can, and I do not believe that is the intent of the majority of posters here.
But what we don’t want to happen is all of this to be swept under the carpet.
The United States is the only real world superpower now. There is nothing to stop your nation from literally doing anything: since the start of the war on terror the US has snatched people from the streets of Italy, the airports of Bosnia and Hotels in Gambia. And in almost all cases after being held in detention for years at places like Guantanemo Bay these people have been released with no charge, with it being revealed later on that they had no real evidence anyway.
There are two things that stop the US from turning into an absolute rouge superpower: your constitution and the will of your people. And when the US steps over the mark the people make noises, and so they should, and loudly.
Sweep these incidents under the carpet: ignore them or redefine them: these are your rights. But it won’t change reality.
And you be safe too. 
The recession is hitting us hard over here in NZ, but we are doing well to keep our heads above water.
…and finally…
If you ever make it this far down this far, I look forward to shouting you Tui all night!
Really? You think this is because of the hockey thread? And you still think I was “mouthing off?” That space between your ears must be a magical world, full of Keebler elves riding My Little Ponies all the way to Rainbrow Brites castle.
Oh my Hentor. This has nothing to do with the hockey thread. You see, my tone is farther from “pissy” and closer to mildly amused. Think Joel McHale from The Soup. I’m mocking you because you’re dumb. That you still think this comes back to the stanley cup thread is even more comical.
Keep on rockin’ there brah.
Harborwolf, you use a word like “brah”, and I’m supposed to be the dumb one?
Come off it - the butthurt is coming off you in waves. People standing in your proximity are getting contact butthurt.
As to NPR and their politics, I think we can safely discard the myth that they are liberal. Are they conservative? Well, I offer NPR’s Cokie Roberts, NPR’s Mara Liasson, and NPR’s Juan Williams as evidence. Their practices have certainly helped the Republicans efforts to muddy the political discussion in the country. Don’t forget - they were one of the few media outlets to report finding WMDs in Iraq.
And now, in an effort not to take sides on an issue, they take the side of Dick Cheney in using double-speak and obfuscation rather than calling torture torture.
If it looks like a duck and does all those other duckly things…