Americans voted for Change

[Drake Tungsten]

Waterboarding is not on the edge.

Of course it is. Whether or not it's torture all comes down to how severe you think the mental suffering produced is.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Its not on the edge in terms of US's position before 2001 on the matter.

Unless you believe the US's position prior to the previous administration as well as other countries that labeled waterboarding as torture when it was being done by the Vietnamese or Maoists were incorrect.

[Drake Tungsten]

Its not on the edge in terms of US's position before 2001 on the matter.

The U.S. had been waterboarding its own servicemen for decades before 2001...

[Velociryx]

Why have we been prosecuting waterboarding as a war crime for over a hundred years again?

-=Vel=-

[Imran Siddiqui]

Its not on the edge in terms of US's position before 2001 on the matter.

The U.S. had been waterboarding its own servicemen for decades before 2001...

You mean in order to know what to expect if captured and tortured? We also gas our own servicemen for decades too.

[Drake Tungsten]

You mean in order to know what to expect if captured and tortured?

I think you're going to have a hard time convincing many people that a technique the U.S. government has approved for use on its own servicemen for decades and that is willingly engaged in by reporters looking for a story inflicts, without question, mental suffering severe enough to qualify it as "torture". It's on the edge.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So using chemical warfare is an on-the-edge war crime since we do it to our own troops?

[Drake Tungsten]

I don't know what you're talking about.

edit: Are you talking about mustard gas experiments that happened in WWII?

[KrazyHorse]

Drake, there's a difference between a technique used by people you know to be your friends and people whose intentions you may not understand. Particularly when the distress/discomfort caused by the technique has a large psychological component.

[KrazyHorse]

I agree that the chemical warfare comparison is over the top, but it technically IS a war crime to use teargas against enemy soldiers...

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake, there's a difference between a technique used by people you know to be your friends and people whose intentions you may not understand. Particularly when the distress/discomfort caused by the technique has a large psychological component.

I agree. I'm not definitively stating that waterboarding isn't torture; I think it can be depending on how it's used. I just disagree with Imran's contention that it isn't "on the edge" between torture and non-torture. The U.S. wouldn't be using it in training if it wasn't acceptable in some cases.

[KrazyHorse]

The US position has always been that its use against American soldiers by anybody other than the US government in a training setting constitutes torture.

I agree with that position. And I think that this clearly implies that its use against enemy combatants by the US constitutes torture.

[Theben]

Drake is arguing semantics again.

And my buddies who went into the service in the 80s were gassed as part of training. Of course it was weak pepper spray, but standing in a room full of it, waiting for your turn to shout name, rank, and # would still probably suck.

[KrazyHorse]

My father got CS(?) gassed in ~1970 during his short time in the RCAF

[Asher]

Did he fly?