Have We Softened Up On Torture?

judge the result's, if you libreal's would for once stack up thousands of amercia live;s as against one sumbag terrorists , what do you think they do to our men. if someone told you your famly would all die in an hour, i would guess you your self would stick the sumbag head in a bucket of water. get a real life jerk.

Ohhh, pooor muslim murderers!!! Did the water hurt you that bad? Better yet, is our country full of pathetic, weak minded, politically correct wimps, that are more concerned with attacking our own interests than protecting our own well-being. These prisoners were killling our people. If we leave it up to these Muslim nations to make the rules, they would be perfectly happy committing genocide on everyone else like in Turkey (1915). Think about what your fighting for! The artists, homosexuals, feee-thinkers, and media would be the 1st people to die.

The planner of 911 was waterboarded 300 some times, by my casual math thats about 3000 short of the number of ppl he killed. Why soft liberals think we should coddle and bottle feed cold heartless maniacal killers is beyond me. The kind of terrorist animals that we tortured would slit the throat of any of the "infidel" cry baby liberals, who are campaigning for more PC interogation methods, in a second if they were face to face with the milk fed soft liberal veel calves that alternate their weekends between pro pot and anti torture rallies.

waterboarding is not torture, period. Staying awake for 11 days is not torture, period. Getting slammed against a wall is not torture, period. Getting your head slowly cut off is torture. Having to jump out of a burning building is torture. Cutting off fingers one at a time is torture. Hooking up elctrical current to the genitals is torture. If you can;'t see the difference between these examples, you never will.and this topci can never be debated with you. The fundemental difference is night and day with no hope of reconciliation. This is the reason that this country is divided. It all started when one President in our recent pass tried to redefine the word "is". Whenever definitions of basic words get rewritten (similar to the way our history is being rewritten) then you will always have opposing sides. Not unlike the debates leading up to the revolutionary war. Definitions of right and wrong, States rights, etc.

As an avid fan of Jack Bauer in the fantasy 24 hours, and often minutes leading to disaster, torture seems entertaining. However, in truth, torture is most definitely an abhorrent practice that should be stopped regardless of the circumstances. The worldwide network that espouses torture as a solution to intelligence gathering should be exposed, and all its supporters and perpetrators should be outed to face criminal charges for violations of law.

A sobering piece about US citizens who feel that they are "targeted individuals" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/10/AR2007011001399.html) certainly gains some plausibility in light of the fact that anyone can be labelled, targeted, or deemed an enemy of the State because of social, cultural, and religious differences or even a hint that they might not like the Good O'l USA and the current estabilishment. of a power hungry intelligence elites.

deusXmchna is dead right - only the self rightrous, couch riding, babykillerobama supporting, ignorant imps would ever question how the professionals keep this country and its people safe.

This is yet another example of situational ethics and excuses for the Bush administration to project a sense that they were and still are above both federal and international law. Most of the legislators who now call for the forgetting of the violations of human decency and international standards of conduct are chicken hawks that never served a day in the military defending their country. Dick Cheney was ???too busy??? to serve in the military. The justification and obtuse arguments are all drivel. The men who pushed and continue to push the torture techniques did not act out of love of country, but rather love of power. There are absolutes in life and banning torture is one of them.

Are you kidding? This country isn't going soft. It is going insane if you think this can be justified on any level. If pictures of our soldiers and airmen were shown as POWs in these conditions we would be outraged. By allowing this to happen we have emboldened the Muslim fringe like never before. They hate us because of our freedom? Get real, we compromised our standards of treatment of prisoners, started an unjust war in Iraq, Bin Laden was never captured. Looks like we have taken the bait and now it is eroding us from the inside out. Good job of protecting our freedom Dick. Oh yeah, Virginia Tech.,Oakland, Pittsburgh, Binghamton....these guys were Americans.

When the other side quits showing beheading an American on the internet I guess we could tone it down a bit. Why do we always have to be the guys wearing the whitec hats.

"Torture gets results."

Yes. It does. Here they are:

It justifies the torture of Americans.

Causes America to be reviled by the world community.

Makes American human rights demands a hypocritical joke.

Compromises American justice.

Compromises American honor.

Betrays the American revolution.

Betrays every soldier who died for American principles.

Those are the results.

The moment a country compromises humanity for the sake of safety, they have lost their integrity and any possible claim to moral ground. Anything can be excused if we twist words hard and long enough - but it is a truly hollow justification. We need to be honest, admit the wrong, and move forward. Anything less is cowardice.

Ms. Lithwick, please speak only for yourself. I still find those pictures repulsive in the same way I continue to find the pictures taken at the liberation of Auschwitz repulsive - more so in fact because this time there were U.S. armed forces doing this instead of Nazis or Imperial Japanese soldiers.

Those responsible for this breach of humanity and the rule of law-both Republican AND Democrat - must be brought to justice. This has been going on for so long that we must take this opportunity to clean house now before this country descends into the lowest common denominator of swill that the conservative movement in this country has brought us. At this point we have no more credibility to chastize North Korea or anyone else about human rights abuses than the Japanese or the Germans did in 1945.