Americans voted for Change

[Guynemer]

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(C) the threat of imminent death;


To say nothing of the people we prosecuted for war crimes in the past for doing the exact same thing...

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm not sure waterboarding really counts as a "threat of imminent death". I think you actually have to...

1. Threaten the prisoner with imminent death.

2. Bring the prisoner to the point of imminent death.

Waterboarding involves neither, as far as I know. It just sets off a instinctual response that causes the prisoner to panic. There's no need to threaten the prisoner with death while waterboarding (it's equally unpleasant even if you know you'll be safe afterward) and the prisoner shouldn't be in danger of death if it's done properly.

The "severe mental suffering" is where I think waterboarding might cross the line, but how far can you go before the line is crossed? It's not clear.

[Ramo]

What exactly do you think sets off the instinctual panic?

[Guynemer]

Dude.

The prisoner thinks he is going to drown. That is a threat of imminent death.


The ****, dude?


x-post

[Drake Tungsten]

The prisoner thinks he is going to drown. That is a threat of imminent death.

It's not nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think. "Threat of imminent death" is meant to prevent things like putting a gun to a prisoner's head and telling him to talk or you'll pull the trigger. It's focused on the behavior of the interrogators, not the physical response of the prisoner, hence the use of the word "threat".

It's also not clear that the prisoner "thinks" he's going to drown. It seems like you can know full well that you're going to be safe, but the physical reaction to the waterboarding sets off an unconscious reaction anyway. I don't really want to get into some philosophical bull**** about whether its the conscious or unconscious brain that really matters in this case, but feel free...

[chequita guevara]

People can die from being water boarded, so fear of death isn't unreasonable.

[Drake Tungsten]

Fear of death != threat of death.

[Theben]

Time for a missed talking point: Is waterboarding/torture a superior method at garnering good intel than more traditional methods?

[chequita guevara]

Fear of death != threat of death.

fear of death comes from a threat of death

stop being obtuse

[Theben]

Anyone who thinks actionable intel can not be obtained from torture needs to be tortured until they give up their ATM pin code... The left saying force (torture is force) is not effective in compelling testimony is STUPID.

Intel? Sure. Actionable? Maybe... I'm sure if I was tortured I'd tell you what you want to hear.

It's nothing new. Everytime someone trots out the "good intel" line, I'm reminded of a quote:

Later, in an anti-Inquisition work, [the Jesuit Friedrich von Spee] declared: "Often I have thought that the only reason why we are not all wizards is due to the fact that we have not all been tortured. And there is truth in what an inquisitor dared to boast, that if he could reach the Pope, he would make him confess that he was a wizard."

[Guynemer]

Time for a missed talking point: Is waterboarding/torture a superior method at garnering good intel than more traditional methods?

Who cares?

It's ****ing torture!

[Guynemer]

Drake, you know I love you, you crazy bastard, but if we can't even agree on the fact that waterboarding obviously fits the US and International Red Cross definitions of torture, there is no ****ing point to this.

It's like you're arguing the sky is orange with a purple plaid pattern.

[TCO]

the UN Convention on Torture

I do agree with this definition, though, for the most part...

torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession...

It's not clear that waterboarding is torture under this definition. It really depends on what you consider "mental suffering" and how severe it has to be before it crosses the torture threshold. I'm inclined to think that a practice that journalists will willingly subject themselves to for a story isn't torture on its face, but it could become so if done enough.

It's ****ing torture man. It may not be disfiguring. But it's torture.

[TCO]

Intel? Sure. Actionable? Maybe... I'm sure if I was tortured I'd tell you what you want to hear.

It's nothing new. Everytime someone trots out the "good intel" line, I'm reminded of a quote:

Later, in an anti-Inquisition work, [the Jesuit Friedrich von Spee] declared: "Often I have thought that the only reason why we are not all wizards is due to the fact that we have not all been tortured. And there is truth in what an inquisitor dared to boast, that if he could reach the Pope, he would make him confess that he was a wizard."

Yer stoopid.

[Ming]

Tone it down folks...