Viewing 40 posts - 4,921 through 4,960 (of 22,966 total)
  • Donald! Trump!
  • mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Lovely bloke who wrote that one there

    SO IS WATERBOARDING TORTURE? Again, we do not know the details of waterboarding as practiced (if, as reported, it is or has been practiced) by the CIA. Yet, we know generally that waterboarding is very rough stuff. It is not especially painful physically and causes no lasting bodily injury; yet, it is intended to create the sensation of drowning in a person who is bound and temporarily suffocated. Administered by someone who knows what he is doing, there is presumably no actual threat of drowning or suffocation; for the victim, though, there is clearly fear of imminent death and he could pass out from the deprivation of oxygen. The sensation is temporary, not prolonged. There shouldn’t be much debate that subjecting someone to it repeatedly would cause the type of mental anguish required for torture. But what about doing it once, twice, or some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive? Reasonable minds can and do differ on this. Personally, I don’t believe it qualifies. It is not in the nature of the barbarous sadism universally condemned as torture, an ignominy the law, as we’ve seen, has been patently careful not to trivialize or conflate with lesser evils.

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222661/waterboarding-and-torture-andrew-c-mccarthy

    Political views[edit]
    Victor Davis Hanson, a regular contributor since 2001, sees a broad spectrum of conservative, anti-liberal and pro-western contributors:

    In other words, a wide conservative spectrum—paleo-conservatives, neo-conservatives, tea-party enthusiasts, the deeply religious and the agnostic, both libertarians and social conservatives, free-marketeers and the more protectionist—characterizes National Review. The common requisite is that they present their views as a critique of prevailing liberal orthodoxy but do so analytically and with decency and respect.[23]
    The magazine has been described as “the bible of American conservatism”.[24]
    Nice little summary of where your source material is from and your reading lists though
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review

    ninfan
    Free Member

    So, no more biased than CNN you mean?

    You may wish to review the CV of the author:

    Andrew C. McCarthy III served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. he is most notable for leading the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks. He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He resigned from the Justice Department in 2003.

    Yep, obviously knows nothing about the law does he 🙄

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    He knows about the law and is writing a very heavily slanted guide to jumping through loopholes to support his opinion. Like you he seems to want to stick to the semantics and technicalities more than the real issues. First and foremost torture doesn’t work and it’s not reliable. Water boarding is seen as some grey area by some (minority) but the principle is the same – we will do things to you in order to get you to tell us what we want to hear. If you don’t tell us what we want to hear we will of course assume you are holding out on us.
    And yes probably a lot more biased than CNN as it sets out it’s standpoint to be a voice for the right side of the conservative movement all the way over to the tea party side and beyond.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

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    ninfan
    Free Member

    More opinion spouted as fact

    Like you he seems to want to stick to the semantics and technicalities

    Yes, when people are jumping up and down making allegations about war crimes and illegality, how dare someone stick to the technicalities?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    There shouldn’t be much debate that subjecting someone to it repeatedly would cause the type of mental anguish required for torture. But what about doing it once, twice, ..

    Basically saying it’s okay to torture them a bit – as long as we don’t do it too often. Watch the Hitchens video and read what he wrote about it. He only lasted seconds, in a controlled scenario and it still caused “mental anguish”. In a real scenario they could be doing that for hours.

    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 guy, was reportedly waterboarded 183 times by the CIA, as well as other fun stuff like Rectal Hydration. He provided false information.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    jumping up

    [quote]crimes[/quote]

    stick

    To illustrate a point, the first part of my post was talking about the way he was trying to establish a way to navigate through enough legal tricks to probably come out on the side that you can’t be convicted. It’s not the same.

    There is a phrase used a lot in Aussie politics, it’s called the pub test.
    If you walk into a pub and tell them what you had done does it seem right?
    It’s no alternative to law but it is good at answering moral questions such as you may be able to technically say you were not wrong and didn’t break any laws (can’t be proved you did) but did you do something wrong.

    Anyway didn’t somebody say there were cobinet members using private email servers and the president is using his own insecure personal phone? Are all his calls being logged as per the rules? are his tweets, deletions and edits being tracked and checked? Might be handy to be using another phone when telling your kids that you are about to approve an oil pipeline you all invested in.

    Pigface
    Free Member

    More opinion spouted as fact

    Ha ha ha ha that is what you and Jamba do all the time, your hypocrisy is something to behold.

    Alpha1653
    Full Member

    Actually, I was taking issue with the fact that you accused me of “knee jerk mouthing off about something using phrases that you’ve head of but don’t understand”.

    you usefully point us to examples where combatants from Afghanistan etc were judged to be combatants, but that’s in the past and does not necessarily bear relation to the cases where it may be used in the future

    The Supreme Court’s ruling was not that they were lawful combatants (in contrary to the US administrations claims of being unlawful) but that as unlawful combatants (your domestic/international terrorists) they were covered, at the very least, by the common Article 3.

    And as for your claim that what’s happened in the past doesn’t necessarily bear relation to the future, you’re right: it doesn’t ‘necessarily’ but I’d argue that legal precedence is a pretty solid basis for informing any prediction.

    Anyway, as fun as it’s been, I’m tapping out as I’ve better things to do than argue with you.

    Major Alpha

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    Even with all the loopholes and vagueness he can drag out, I note that a lawyer for one of the most rabidly hawkish organisations in the US concedes that waterboarding is illegal in almost all situations.

    And he can only do that by conveniently ignoring the traumatising after-effects of being brought to and from the point of drowning while held in captivity by a foreign state. Hey, it isn’t prolonged – we’re just drowning him for a few minutes at a time. He’ll be fine and dandy once we get the cloth off his mouth and send him back to his cell.

    People who want to use waterboarding need to first justify it morally before they start looking for loopholes to keep them out of prison.

    kimbers
    Full Member

    Not been a week and trumps already starting a trade war over his bonkers wall!

    So much for the smart business guy,

    May must be walking on eggshells, still she’s white and non Muslim, so that must help and they can bond over her history of I’ll advised anti immigrant policies.

    Its a shame that his team can’t spell her name, but considering the basket of deplorables he’s assembled I’m not surprised.

    Jamie
    Free Member
    akira
    Full Member

    So the Mexicans are paying for the wall, or we could put an extra tax on products coming in from Mexico so the American public pay for the wall. Same thing isn’t it?

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    How long before the Chinese offer the Mexicans a bilateral trade deal?

    And what happens if he manages to alienate all of the US allies?

    MrWoppit
    Free Member

    bond over her history of I’ll advised anti immigrant policies.

    Its a shame that his team can’t spell her name

    Oh yes?

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    How long before the Chinese offer the Mexicans a bilateral trade deal?

    Why would that be a problem for any other countries?

    Klunk
    Free Member

    I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

    The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

    sobriety
    Free Member

    Anyway, as fun as it’s been, I’m tapping out as I’ve better things to do than argue with you.

    Major Alpha

    Persistence wins out against actual knowledge and fact again. Unfortunatley, it’s people like ninfan and jamba that people like Alpha wind up getting killed for.

    aracer
    Free Member

    The question for any of these suggestions is why aren’t they doing them already, and spending the money on something more useful <Republican> cutting taxes </Republican>?

    Ultimately either such measures are a good thing for the US in general and in reality the wall is still being paid for by the US, or they are detrimental to the US and the US will pay in other ways. But then it’s all smoke and mirrors.

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Well it sounds as though Mrs May is going to be first in line for toadying duties. I sure a quaich and damson jam will bend him to our will.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    That’s not a quaich, that’s a very small begging bowl

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    no, his hands are so, so, extraordinarily tiny it just looks that way

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    How long before the Chinese offer the Mexicans a bilateral trade deal?

    Chinese have huge barriers for people wishing to trade and invest into their country. I think their deal with Switzerland was it would be 10 years after the Chinese get access to Switzerland the Swiss would get access to China.

    Trump wants to renegotiate NAFTA, stating he’ll place a 20% import tax on goods is tantamount to saying he’ll just cancel it. Remember Clinton said in the election it’s a bad deal and must change.

    The Mexican who is the largest shareholder of the New York Times has called a press conference today, will be interesting what he says.

    Klunk
    Free Member

    interesting that we’ve given a boozing cup to a teetotaller. 😕 😯

    mikey74
    Free Member

    Chinese have huge barriers for people wishing to trade and invest into their country. I think their deal with Switzerland was it would be 10 years after the Chinese get access to Switzerland the Swiss would get access to China.

    And yet China are one of the major countries you want the UK to do business with after Brexit.

    slowoldman
    Full Member

    People who want to use waterboarding need to first justify it morally before they start looking for loopholes to keep them out of prison.

    People who want to use waterboarding need to first be subjected to it.

    MrWoppit
    Free Member

    mikey74 – Member
    Chinese have huge barriers for people wishing to trade and invest into their country. I think their deal with Switzerland was it would be 10 years after the Chinese get access to Switzerland the Swiss would get access to China.
    And yet China are one of the major countries you want the UK to do business with after Brexit.

    😆

    180!

    MSP
    Full Member

    Yeah but no but yeah….

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    somafunk – Member
    Bad Lip reading does Donald Trump, quite funny

    hahah! 😆

    Northwind
    Full Member

    slowoldman – Member

    People who want to use waterboarding need to first be subjected to it.

    Well. I think anyone who understands it’s a pretty horrendous torture and still wants to go with it, that’s one thing, at least it’s honest.

    But I think it’s pretty reasonable to ask people who pretend it’s no big deal to a) explain why in that case they still think it can be useful, and b) put their money where their mouth is. Just 1 waterboarding session… Well, in the case of that chap up the page, let’s do 2 or 3 because it’s only torture when you do it a lot.

    I think we’d soon see either a lot less support for waterboarding, or a lot of people who’re still up for it, unexpectedly confessing to being terrorists.

    edenvalleyboy
    Free Member

    ninfan
    Free Member

    Unfortunatley, it’s people like ninfan and jamba that people like Alpha wind up getting killed for.

    Yep, me and Jamba, nowt to do with Tony Blair and his Labour Party chums like Jack Straw.

    colournoise
    Full Member

    ninfan – Member
    Unfortunatley, it’s people like ninfan and jamba that people like Alpha wind up getting killed for.
    Yep, me and Jamba, nowt to do with Tony Blair and his Labour Party chums like Jack Straw.

    Pointless rebuke. As far as I can see, it was in no way a partisan observation but one about attitude and ‘debating’ technique.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    Yep, me and Jamba,

    I was a bit puzzled by that too.

    The insane bloodshed of the last 15 years or so was entirely down to a tiny handful of nutters driving aircraft into towers and then the West overreacting to that by starting un-winnable and counter productive Guerrila wars.

    George ‘W’ is a keen mountain biker but despite that I’m not sure you and Jamba fit into either of those parties really.

    kimbers
    Full Member

    is Teresa [sic] trying to upset Donald by showing off her big hands?

    edenvalleyboy
    Free Member

    gofasterstripes
    Free Member

    Oooh, she does have big hands.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    live stream trump and may

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb.

    Sorry, was I thinking out loud there?

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    😆

    vinnyeh
    Full Member

    A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb. A bomb.

    Which reminds me, for those of a certain age…

Viewing 40 posts - 4,921 through 4,960 (of 22,966 total)

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