A few days ago I heard on the radio that conservative radio dj, Erich "Mancow" Muller, decided he was going to prove that waterboarding is not torture by having it done to himself. lol, He lasted about 7 seconds and afterward he said that it is definitly torture.

Here's a nice link where you can watch the torture. WaterBoarded

Now I know some of you may say, 'oh we have to torture terroists so we can keep America safe.' Well, you know what, we are the best country in the world, so doesn't that mean we should be setting an example to other nations? What does it say about us that we, land of the free, home of the brave, choke our pow's? Let's leave that to crappier countries.

lol, Sean Hannity continues to rant on and on about how waterboarding isn't torture. I say we waterboard him.

www.waterboardseanhannity.net

'what if they had your family'?

that's what someone once said to me when i said i don't believe we should torture people.

i said it is stupid to use 'what if' scenarios that will never happen.

even if somehow they did 'have my family' i would still say torture is wrong. if they tortured or killed my family i wouldn't want the same to happen to someone else. it is wrong to solve torture, war and violence with more torture, war and violence.

there really is no need ever for war. people can talk. it is a precious gift that we take for granted and avoid using.

well yea, of course torturing is wrong for moral reasons too. Even if i did think torture was useful i would still think it was morally wrong. U can't just decide to torture somebody and almost kill them just because u think they might have some information. They might honestly not know anything and then ur just harming a another human being for no reason. That's morally wrong.

LetsStop's post is exactly what im talking about. The desensitization i refered to earlier. You believe that torture is wrong because it does not accomplish anything. Because its useless. Not because of any other moral reasons. The fault with this is, first your not apprehending torture in its full sense, and second is that this view on torture can easily be changed. What if torture was useful? By your reasoning than there's nothing wrong with it. This was the general view of torture during the Bush administration, because people were made to believe their security lied in the screams of each prisoner.

The point isnt whether its useful or not. Torture is wrong and has been banned by international laws and conventions. Like i said before, nobody will torture for the sake of it, but when they believe its for the greater good. It is for exactly these cases that torture has been banned.

quote:

they can take the low road and we can choose to take the high road.

Hate to sound like a broken record but, The US no longer has a choise. It must take the high road. If the US government came out and said we want to wage a war on radicals living in this area, or on the taliban, or jihadists, or on a large extremist underground organization, than they could have taken any road they want but instead they came out claiming to be saviors bringing an end to all that is wrong. Good against Evil. The "war on terror" is an abstart war whose "enemy" is no a sole physcical being but encompasses all that could be deemed WRONG at anytime needed. Good cant fight Evil with Evil because if it does, than it is no longer Good.

yes. it is wrong to stoop to their level.

they can take the low road and we can choose to take the high road.

haha. well u both just succeeded in talking about ur own problems by saying that all people do on here is bitch. lolz i believe bitching is what u just did Wolfie. haha anyway, i agree with u that we should set an example by not torturing. i personally do not think torturing accomplishes anything. well with torture, many times it could result in death and then what have they acheived? absolutely nothing. many terrorists will go to their graves to keep secrets so why waste time and effort on torture when u might not gain any information anyway

either that or endlessly arguing over abortion.

i doubt it. people care more about bitching on this site and talking about their 'problems' than about the world's problems.

I've posted a lot about Guantanamo Bay and the torture used there in the debate section. This is one post about the harmful and violence aspect of the issue that i copied over.:

Here's how I see it. People are not apprehending the harm the victims felt, nor the whole concept of torture, because they have been desensitized by the "war on terror" and its propaganda. People are not concerned with the harm caused to the victim because they do not believe the victims to be a normal person. Instead they completely alienate any "human" feelings to or from the victim by labeling the victim a terrorist. Torture becomes undoubtedly justified because "we are torturing a terrorist". Also, to some, torture is justified because the US is going through difficult times, safety wise. In other words, tough times call for tough measures. These justification, in my opinion (if you haven’t picked up my tone yet), are inadequate simply because there will never be a justification adequate to validate torture. Torture was banned specifically for such desperate times and especially to protect “enemies”. Nobody will torture a drunk driver (or any felon of minor degree) or a fellow citizen (except in a civil war where the citizen belongs to the “wrong” side and so is an enemy). Nor will torture be used in times of peace. Another primitive justification, which I purposely put aside from the other justifications, is the claim that “the enemy is cruel and vicious so why shouldn’t we be just as barbaric and use torture”. As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. To stoop to the level of terrorists shatters the already shaking moral basis of the “war on terror”. I find it frightening that the people of the world leading nation, the model nation which so many aspire to become like, have become so numb to the inflictions of torture. (Calling torture an "interrogation technique" is itself an example of this desensitization).

And this is a brief take of the moral justifacion for the "war on terror" and the price torture took on it.:

The "war on terror" is unique because it is a war on an ideology. That ideology being terrorism. Terrorism itself is an idea and cannot be killed with bullets. The only way to justifiably engage the morally wrong is with the morally right. This is done by upholding and emphasizing your morals above the enemy, meaning you do not torture prisoners. You do not succumb and stoop to the level of those deemed morally wrong. Ofcourse, the only other real way to defeat terrorism, which is slightly off topic, is through education and a "war on poverty".

Hopefully these 2 posts will get the debate going.