Obama the war criminal?

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

So, in the spirit of this debate, I'll pose the age old question Jay Severin uses all the time. A child is kidnapped and buried in a box. There is one hour supply of air and you have the kidnapper in custody. The kidnapper refuses to tell you where the child is. WHat do you do? I say you do every single thing imaginable to get that kidnapper to talk. So I suppose that means I support torture. Johnny, what would you do?

Jim,
this raises an interesting debate.

Are you certain the kidnapper is actually the kidnapper?
it is a fine line between getting information from someone who has information and getting it from someone who doesn't have it. I worry this is too slippery of a slope to stand on.
The next question is who gets to 'do it'. If it is my kid, maybe I could, but could you walk into a room and start cutting or beating on a hand-cuffed suspect, no matter what someone told you they might have or did? I don't know if I could.

I'm not naive enough to think that no matter how strictly worded anti-torture laws are or become, that those in the need to do business will still do, and maybe just a very few will actually know about it!

[buckman]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Jim,
this raises an interesting debate.

Are you certain the kidnapper is actually the kidnapper?
it is a fine line between getting information from someone who has information and getting it from someone who doesn't have it. I worry this is too slippery of a slope to stand on.
The next question is who gets to 'do it'. If it is my kid, maybe I could, but could you walk into a room and start cutting or beating on a hand-cuffed suspect, no matter what someone told you they might have or did? I don't know if I could.

I'm not naive enough to think that no matter how strictly worded anti-torture laws are or become, that those in the need to do business will still do, and maybe just a very few will actually know about it!

I think if it was my child, I could beat the hell out of anyone who I thought might know who might know where the box was. Let me rephrase that to" if it was any child". A beating will heal, but the death of a child?

[Bronko]

This is all just a stage to prove that we are on the moral high ground. It is just a talking point that allows for politicians and pundits to pontificate. Do you really think for a second its going to stop? Every night as we sleep our special-ops and all our players in the shadow game around the globe are doing this. We are constantly snatching people and torturing them for information. State sanctioned... no. But, the people doing it can be linked to us and the information flows upward and ultimately into the hands of the president who has "condemned" it. We don't hear about 1/1000th of the credible threats against out country and our leaders.

Let me give you a hypo:

25 year old Algerian para-military a proficient sniper with a background in bomb making and chemical weapons trained in Iran. A known terrorist suspect. Our intel shows his cousin currently residing in Baltimore bought a 50 cal rifle w/ laser scope. He recently attempted to hack into the President's March 15th itinerary in Boulder. That same day from an internet cafe in Belgium he bought a plane ticket to Boulder for the 14th and sent 5 emails to accounts with IP addresses in the US that were subsequently cancelled, all of the emails were cryptic and in code with the signature line Allah Akbar.

So he walks out the door of his flat in Belgium heading to his favorite falafel stand and we snatch him. He gets taken to warehouse ala Jack Bauer and what do you think happens? Do you really care what happens, deep down? It is along the same lines as the "Dershowitz Hypothetical" mentioned above. I really would like people answering this to speak from the heart and not along party lines, would torturing these individuals really offend you. And yes I am acknowledging there is a margin of error in this line of work.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Bronko

This is all just a stage to prove that we are on the moral high ground. It is just a talking point that allows for politicians and pundits to pontificate. Do you really think for a second its going to stop? Every night as we sleep our special-ops and all our players in the shadow game around the globe are doing this. We are constantly snatching people and torturing them for information. State sanctioned... no. But, the people doing it can be linked to us and the information flows upward and ultimately into the hands of the president who has "condemned" it. We don't hear about 1/1000th of the credible threats against out country and our leaders.

Let me give you a hypo:

25 year old Algerian para-military a proficient sniper with a background in bomb making and chemical weapons trained in Iran. A known terrorist suspect. Our intel shows his cousin currently residing in Baltimore bought a 50 cal rifle w/ laser scope. He recently attempted to hack into the President's March 15th itinerary in Boulder. That same day from an internet cafe in Belgium he bought a plane ticket to Boulder for the 14th and sent 5 emails to accounts with IP addresses in the US that were subsequently cancelled, all of the emails were cryptic and in code with the signature line Allah Akbar.

So he walks out the door of his flat in Belgium heading to his favorite falafel stand and we snatch him. He gets taken to warehouse ala Jack Bauer and what do you think happens? Do you really care what happens, deep down? It is along the same lines as the "Dershowitz Hypothetical" mentioned above. I really would like people answering this to speak from the heart and not along party lines, would torturing these individuals really offend you. And yes I am acknowledging there is a margin of error in this line of work.

It's pretty scary to know you think this way.

Moral high ground has allowed the United States to act with near impunity for the past century. People around the world look up to the USA because more than perhaps any other nation we respect the rule of law as applied to every man.

Or at least we thought we did.

Waterboarding is torture under the law and by the admission of our own VP we've done it. There can be no argument that we've not tortured.

The ticking time bomb scenario is full of holes, and most torture experts will tell you that it's not reliable enough to be of much use anyway. There are numerous insiders who have stated absolutely that the Administration's claims of gaining valuable intel from waterboarding are pure BS.

Perhaps one of the worst things the Bush Administration did to our country was claim the lesson of 9/11 gave justification to cast away our own adherance to the rule of laws we agreed to uphold.

Who we believe in America if we don't believe in ourselves?

-spence

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by spence

Perhaps one of the worst things the Bush Administration did to our country was claim the lesson of 9/11 gave justification to cast away our own adherance to the rule of laws we agreed to uphold.

This is one comment I could not agree with more.

[Bronko]

Originally Posted by spence

It's pretty scary to know you think this way.

Moral high ground has allowed the United States to act with near impunity for the past century. People around the world look up to the USA because more than perhaps any other nation we respect the rule of law as applied to every man.

Or at least we thought we did.

Waterboarding is torture under the law and by the admission of our own VP we've done it. There can be no argument that we've not tortured.

The ticking time bomb scenario is full of holes, and most torture experts will tell you that it's not reliable enough to be of much use anyway. There are numerous insiders who have stated absolutely that the Administration's claims of gaining valuable intel from waterboarding are pure BS.

Perhaps one of the worst things the Bush Administration did to our country was claim the lesson of 9/11 gave justification to cast away our own adherance to the rule of laws we agreed to uphold.

Who we believe in America if we don't believe in ourselves?

-spence

You are more of a moonbat then originally thought.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Bronko

You are more of a moonbat then originally thought.

Please be more explicit. Using silly names picked up from listening to talk radio isn't very compelling.

-spence