The Truth Will Out

Everything is considered to be "torture" and "cruel and unusual" by somebody, somewhere.

Eventually, it will get to the point where calling the enemy names is "cruel and unusual" and punishable by prison time.

Maybe we should start tickling captured terrorists or making them run with scissors until they snap. Waterboarding is not torture. It is an interrogation technique that may be a bit uncomfortable, just like waiting in a police interrogation room for a couple of hours without being granted a potty break.

We've become way too liberal and sympathetic in the US to making anyone feel the slightest bit of discomfort. This notion of making everyone happy and comfortable all the time is absurd.

I'd like to see a large number of americans go to another country and live for a while, then we'd see how much they complain about how terrible it is to live in the US. You don't know what you have until you see it through the eyes of those who don't have it. I recommend you visit another country for a while, and then decide where you'd prefer to live.

Sgt. Jones, USMC - Washington, DC

What the U S is dealing with is not the conventional soldiers in uniform who deserve the protection of the Geneva Convention. We are dealing with terrorists who would laugh at the Geneva or other conventions. They would kidnap and kill without a second thought. We have wasted a lot of money and sleep over semantics. Time and again these bad guys have proved to us and the rest of the world that they live and die by their own rules. We should just as easily kill them without a second thought.

I thought this childish plaint about waterboarding being torture was over but here it is again and it comes with the comment that the truth is now out, some Newsweek gloating so to speak. It isn't exactly the same as medieval torture racks or even filmed Muslim beheadings, it's more like that infernal water device dentists use to cool their drill while grinding your teeth, a little bit of the water that escapes the suction device gives you the feeling you are about to drown. We should stop waterboarding, a more devious torture would be to force prisoners to listen to Hillary Clinton and that terrible flinty voice rising to a crescendo every few minutes,. Now, that would be cruel but we have to hear it around the clock, why not those SOBs.

Let us also remember what the terrorists that people are so upset about being mistreated have done to innocent Americans and others around the world forever adding fear to daily life and a real and unknown threat of further murderous actions.

Moral high ground? Say anything? where are you people from? I have spent the last years of my life chasing these people with at least 4 somewhere else. The beleive it is perfetly acceptable to kill you, your family, and anyone else who may be near as long as they get you. They will kill you solely because you beleive in a god which is differnet than theirs. The difference can be as slight as eye or hair color, they don't care. As long as your god is different in any way shape or form than theirs you are an Infidel and killing you is acceptable in the eyes of their god. They believe driving a truck full of explosives into an elementary school is justified if even one person in that school is an infidel. The others are only matyrs to the cause. You obviously do not comprehend the fanaticism of these people. Given the opportunity they will kill your child openly on the street for reason such they are Shia you are Sunni. Imagine if the Amercian people condoned the open killing of baptist by catholics. This terror is coming it is only a matter of time. Then you will begging the US government to do anything, anything at all to stop it before your family is killed in a car bomb outside of Walmart.
Waterboard them, electricute them, what ever I dont care they are a plague on the whole world. Spain, Britian, Pakistan, Phillipines, Thailand, all are suffering these attacks. Why are there none on US soil?
I have seen their work with my own eyes and the devastation it causes, I pray my son will never have to live the way they do.
And yes I went to SERE too, so what? The Hague and even the Geneva Conventions were written in a world where they beleived in you could fight a war and still play like gentlemen. And the earth is flat.
On soldiers opinion, not that the US congress gives two sh**s about the soldiers, just steroids and halloween costumes.
I would line up B52s wing tip to wing tip if that what it would take to eradicate this disease from the earth

My Question is....What do you think the CIA should do if they suspect there is a plot to smuggle a nuclear weapon into NYC and they suspect someone in custody has information that might help? Maybe we should ask nicely? Appeal to their sense of reason? Seriously, if you have a better idea let's hear it.

Let's be honest here. We're not talking about lead pipes to the knee caps or power drills to the head. No one was killed. No one was permanently injured. If there is even a CHANCE this could save the lives of American servicemen or American citizens, I say dunk'em. One man's right not to be tortured does not outweight many people's right to live.

And for all you people who like to feel morally superior by saying things like "It's the pricipal of the thing and what does this say about our country, etc..." I say principles are all well and good until you start pulling the bodies of women and children out of buildings that were deliberatly attacked to cause.......the deaths of women and children.

We are fighting people who purposely attack our civilians because they know that will hurt us the most, and they hide behind their civilians because they know we will do everything in our power not to harm them. If you can't figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in that situation you need serious help.

As long as there is war there will be torture. There is the world we would like to see and the world that is. Living in denile of that fact will get you killed.

Why is everyone so upset about waterboarding ?

Rarely-used it worked against stubborn 9/11 conspirators Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Their revelations helped capture at least 10 hardened terrorists ??? including the architects of the deadly U.S.S. Cole and Bali nightclub bombings ??? who collectively had murdered 3,216 and wounded 8,795.

In Dec.2007 CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed an ex-Navy Seal Larsen about waterboarding. Says it was a terrible thing truely torture.
Strange though... this guy has volunteered TWICE to be waterboarded !

In 2006, he agreed to be videotaped and on UTUBE you can watch him endure 24 MINUTES yes 24 MINUTES of waterboarding ! But get this... it was the Producer of the video who finally said enough is enough and stopped it... not Larsen...

Anyways... I know our guys are tough but 24 minutes ? Abu Z. apparently cracked after 35 SECONDS and the famous KSM (AQ #3) lasted a brutal 90 SECONDS. Where does Bin Laden find these WIMPS ?

Look, what everyone needs to understand is that this is happening all over the world. It's not like the US is the only country on the face of the earth using this and many other techniques that can be considered torture. This is much like the debate over the hundreds of treaties so many countries have signed limiting types of weapons, the number of weapons, whom you can sell/buy weapons from/to, so on and so forth. Of course, other treaties focus on other things, but these are the most easily understood. Most well known, and relevant to this situation, is the Geneva Convention which contained restrictions on how to treat enemy prisoners.

The big problem with these treaties is... the countries that should be signing them aren't! The US has signed treaties saying we won't torture enemies of war, but what do you think happened to our POWs in Iraq? Do you think the females captured were treated with respect? No. They were sexually abused. No one in Iraq signed this treaty, which means they can still do whatever they want to our captured military.

Of course in the US, being a more civilized country we respect individual's rights and honor them to the best of our abilities. But what do you do when someone you know was shot down and you see his battered, and obviously tortured, face on the television saying he hates his country and military because they are murderers? Would you not be willing to pour water down another man's throat so he'll tell you where your relative/friend/fellow citizen is being held?

All in all, there are certain levels of force needed. Now, to distinguish between those levels is nearly impossible. It is a huge gray area that will never be resolved. The most we can do is trust that the levels only increase as deemed necessary. Regardless of how these people are treated, they are enemies trying to harm our way of life, and they are criminals trying to, essentially, take away the rights of innocent people.

Sgt. Jones, USMC - Washington, DC