Ex-President admits allowing waterboarding

[Calimachon]

In light of the above  how do colleagues on this forum view  Ex-President's disclosure in his new book regarding "Waterboarding" ?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/concoughlin/100062973/george-bush-is-right-water-boarding-terrorists-saves-innocent-lives/

Cali

[Dylan]

If its like snowboarding, or wakeboarding, I'm sure its a great sport- all for it. Even more if it saves lives.

[David Rotherham]

Two things wrong with torture from the information gathering angle: If somebody is so desperate to make you stop that they will say anything, there is no guarantee that they will choose the truth as the thing to say, and if the victim doesn't really know anyway, then they are certainly going to make something up that gives a false lead.
There are also some powerful arguments against torture from moral and ethical angles, that I hope don't need repeating here.

[imacrappaud]

I think it all comes down to what you think is acceptable in order to extract information and on which side you are on. If you were a Taliban or Al Queda then you would do probably do a lot more to extract information and then once it is obtained most likely kill the person you obtained it from. In fact, in their case even if the person had no information then they would most likely kill them anyway.

On the other side the US is at least letting them live, they arent maiming the suspects with methods such as driving things under the nails, electric shock, snipping off fingers the list goes on and I am sure if it can be thought of it would be used by the terrorist side.

There is a war going on, whereby one side does not give a shit about what they do or who they harm, although I suppose the same could be said in some ways about both sides.

The question is do you think it is better to just politely ask if a suspect knows anything and hope for the best whilst they are involved in planning an attack or does the means justify the end. What do you think David, should the west just hope for the best whilst they plan another attack? Do you have  a better plan to stop them plotting to bomb the streets? Simply pulling all troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan wont bring it to an end as their, well at least Al Quiadas, beleifs in their holy Jihad goes way beyond those two options providing an end.

[Fritz]

According to our security services, hundreds of terrorist plots have been thwarted over the last few years.

If its down to watersports of any sort I,m all for it.

[imacrappaud]

probably not the same watersports you are referring to

[Calimachon]

probably not the same watersports you are referring to

And what is this all about then 

I am not in favour of using torture or violence to gain information but how do you gain the necessary intelligence in order to allay terrorist attacks.  The world is saturated with secret cells that can become active at any moment which means that any defensive inflitration must surely be at the centre of the information hub.  The men and women who retrieve this intelligence ln our nations behalf are surely brave and makes the program 'Spooks' entirely believable.

Here I refer to  'Trident' although this project is designed for violent means and the money could be far better spent for peaceful ends I do believe the fact that we have this project is a deterrent and stop pre-emptive attacks on our nation by rogue countries.  Sadly they would deter a madman (or woman)!

Cali

[imacrappaud]

It strikes me as quite funny that the guy David rotheram has not yet responded to the responses to his post. He could be away on hols so it is no big deal, however if he is not then I am going to hazzard a guess that he either thinks he is completely in the right or cannot give a decent response as to why we westerners are resorting to allowing our government to waterboard rather than chop off limbs etc when it comes to gaining information from the filth that are happy to bomb us.

Just think if you or me were in Iraq, before the yanks came along, and Sadams secret police decided you were, lets say for an example, an adulteress. What would you hope for. Well, the first thing you would hope for is to survive what is about to come, you are about to be whipped to death, or almost to death because the stoning is on its way. Got to keep you allive for that or it will ruin the public show.

I am fed up with people like Rotheram giving it the old human rights shite, in my world if you take a life you have taken someones Human roseing right away so therefore you lose your own rights. Fook pc britain and flipping Jersey joining in, if you do the crime you pay the penalty. Not do the the crime do the time. If you want to join in in the filth that wants to bomb innocent people then tough shit. Waterboarding is the least you deserve.

[Dundee]

If the prisoner was cooperative then water boarding would be unnecessary.

A pretty harmless bit of persuasion is acceptable, most police forces do it so why not the military.

[Rob Kent]

According to our security services, hundreds of terrorist plots have been thwarted over the last few years.

Well, they would say that wouldn't they. They told us there was a ricin plot and it turns out the guy had been cooking broccoli. They told us Saddam had WMD. There is no evidence for anything Bush has said about information received from waterboarding. And you would probably get a lot more false positives as a result of people just saying anything to stop being tortured.

Pace the previous correspondent, we are not at war. And in any case, the use of torture is the mark of a failed state, despite the fact that is illegal.

I like the fact that it is now too risky for Bush to travel outside of America in case he gets arrested for war crimes, a la Pinochet. I hope someone arrests Blair soon too and they both end up in the International Criminal Court. Obviously it aint gonna happen because the US don't recognise it, for the obvious reason that they flaunt international law on a daily basis.

[David Rotherham]

I visit this site when I feel like it, thank you. A quite different slant on it, that did not feature in the initial coverage, but was mentioned later, is that relatively mild torture can be a face saver for somebody tempted to talk, but reluctant to voluntarily betray their own side. Even so, if that is not the tacit game, then torturing somebody with a genuine commitment to a cause is likely to get you lied to. Compared to being shot or blown up, waterboarding is not a very big deal really, and there are a lot of shootings and blowings up in a war, but it still falls short of the standards I thought the war was about protecting. And human rights do matter, certainly big stuff like forbidding killing and torturing people, and even little stuff like being able to sit at our computers discussing this on a public website. $#!7 happens, and wars are all about making lots of it happen to the other guys, but there is a need to make the end justify the  means. Commit war crimes in the pursuit of a failure, and there is no tenable defence.

[imacrappaud]

I visit this site when I feel like it, thank you.

Yeah, sorry about that it was uncalled for, dont know what prompet me to say it but it just makes me angry when all of these human rights are spouted and yes, it started out as a good thing yet in my opinion it has gone to far. Human rights is used so often to help criminals, terrorists etc have a get out clause for being punished to the point the punishment no longer fits the crime and I think it ihas gone to the point that it is making society worse off for it now. There needs to be some point at which you say enough is enough and you have lost your right to human rights excuses.

I see the point about mild torture being a face saver, especially when dealing with people from the east as saving face is undoubtadly a major factor in many cultures.

[Fritz]

If you catch one of the ,"Baddies", do whatever they would quite happily do to you.

Rather than do a ,"Pretend drowning simulation". Cut their heads off, video it and stick it on youtube.

"Simples".

[David Rotherham]

Fritz, one of the strongest reasons for not committing acts of extreme violence against suspects is that it is so easy to catch innocents in the wrong time and place, and butchering them puts you in the wrong, in a big way. So they sometimes behead aid workers as spies, and who knows how many honest men have suffered from our own boys' bloodlust?