Interrogation Tactics Weren't Torture, American Officials Shouldn't Be Prosecuted

prosecution

?? - Since you are part of America I believe that you should be prosecuted or should we just prosecute everyone that voted for the previous administration?

??

Well.. honestly.. I find it pathetic when you have to tell a little story just to persuade someone that your right, and you still didn't persuade me.

First off...

They torture to protect the Americans?

Yea, maybe so...

BUT

So did some other countries that were prosecuted!

It was torture and it is a violation of international law,

and even if we ARE America...

It's breaking international law and someone needs to be punished.

Robert

You see the things I don't understand is how ANY of you can say that torture doesn't work! Were you there? Did you see it? No just like the people who think it DOES work! You know I don't see how in anybody's mind that the government "tricked" us into going over to Iraq. At least I hope that people aren't dumb enough to believe we had a right to go over there. Just in case some of you think we should have, we shouldn't have, Bush has his wallet dipped in oil, so now that we "liberated" Iraq, he just sits back on retirement as his pockets fill up, and someone else cleans up HIS mess! Either way, personally, I believe if there is a proven link between a certain individual and a piece of information needed, then some harsh interrogation tactics would be justified. But to do it to someone who "might" know the answer is just bogus! If you are going to do it, you better damn well know he knows what you want to know. And none of this bull-crap suggestion stuff where we basically make someone confess to something despite the fact that he may not even know what the HELL they were doing just like Cheney's organization did (as stated in the comment above). And to one of the comments above, You bet your ass if my family was in trouble id be stomping ALL over the Geneva Convention to get some answers!

Jim H of Omaha

The ends do not justify the means. If we believe they do, then we should not only torture people we believe or even certainly know are terrorists, but we should also allow police to torture alleged criminals who rape and murder. I am a 26-year military veteran who has served in Iraq, among other places. If we abandon our belief in the rule of law, we have lost our moral credibility. If the torture, degradation, and abuse of John McCain and his fellow prisoners was illegal and immoral (and it was), it is illegal and immoral for us to engage in these practices. The North Vietnamese had convinced themselves that their cause was just, but that did not make it so. All that said, I do agree on one point: there is nothing to be gained by the current administration dragging the previous administration into court over this. We need to move on, but we need to reaffirm our values as Americans. We believe in international law, we believe in the Geneva Conventions, and we believe in justice. As a veteran, I will not allow people who have not served to tell me that it is OK for us to torture and abuse prisoners, because I know the same could happen to our service members.

RE: Interrogation Tactics

"You are a liar.You would let your son or daughter die a horrible death because you don'n believe in torture. "

Very few people would be able to follow the law if it injures someone in their family. That's why we don't allow families to dispense justice, and why we generally don't allow family members to be in positions of authority over other family members in the military. Because we know how difficult an objective decision would be when you love one of the parties.

So the question 'what would you do if it was your child' is moot. Just as the question about whether or not you would send your child to certain death in battle to save others is moot. We wouldn't ask that of you. That decision belongs to someone else, someone who is less personally involved.

It is someone's job to say 'we do not torture' And if they fail to do that they should be held accountable. If they aren't willing to face jail to save lives, then how dire can the situation be.

Torture Debate torture logic

It seems that every defense of torture starts with, Imagine you…..are Jack Bauer, or Imagine you’re a CIA…or Imagine your caught Osama.

Ok here you go imagine you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and circumstance is not your friend, you are taken, held and tortured to gain information that you do not have. No matter how much you protest they only get more brutal and with fear , sleep deprivation and stress you begin to agree with all that they seem to want you to say..….Now you ARE what they say you are. Imagine that….

Torture is illegal and immoral.

As a conservative I oppose the government from torturing because it gives them too much power.

As a human being I oppose torture because it is evil.

If anyone tortured, or approved torture, or justified torture, or passed on the order to torture they should be tried and if found guilty hung from the neck until they were dead.

Torture and lies whitewashed

The Bush/Neocon torture advocates conceived and proposed a flawless situation above to present as the model used by the Bush camp for interrogations practiced. Their model is itself a bold lie! Have we forgotten the photos from Abu Ghraib prison and the photos of wounded and bleeding prisoners released recently by the Austrailian newspaper? Have we ignored the fact that children were tortured and killed while being "interrogated" by our "Information Specialists"? There is more! You do not have to be a bleeding heart Liberal to understand what was going on. You need only realize that there are vicious people in our society who appreciate the opportunity to control and brutalize other people. The Bush team certainly would not recruit bleeding hearts to implement their information gathering project! Don't send a boy to do a man's job! And think of their purpose: to defend and protect US citizens ! Unbelievable Lies! Far from the proposed angelic model suggested, their objectives were not to rescue captured Americans, but to obtain false confessions that would justify their war in Iraq. Fellow readers please do not buy into the Neocon propaganda sewage.

Interrogation Tactics

Imagine you are an average human being in 2002, when your son is being held captive by terrorists in Pakistan. You have an al Qaeda leader in custody. He knows who is holding your son and where your son is being held. But when you ask him to give you that information, he says: "You'll soon see your son. You'll see his head. You'll see his body. Of course, they will no longer be attached."

And then he smiles, pleased by his defiance, amused by your impotence.

Your chief interrogator tells you: "I think we can get the information out of this guy."

You say: "No, we can't torture him."

You are a liar.You would let your son or daughter die a horrible death because you don'n believe in torture.

What kind of person are you?

Why areen't questions like these being asked to all of the "anti torture" liberal idiots in Washington.

Mr.May. You say that you can "understand how some people would disagree with you"Have you lost your mind? I will NEVER understand how some people would let their own family members die because of a belief.

Tortued truth

My May claims"The most controversial of these methods is "waterboarding." This method was not used to punish or force confessions. It was used against only three individuals, all of them al Qaeda leaders, all of them believed to be in possession of information that, if revealed, could prevent terrorist plots against Americans from succeeding. The CIA has not used waterboarding on anyone, anywhere, since 2003."

We know all of this to be untrue. Waterboarding (which has been defined as torture under American law since at least the days of Teddy Roosevelt, who had generals court-martialed for authorizing its use) was used against more than those three subjects, and it was used, not to save lives but to generate false intelligence about the non-existent link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Either we respect the law or we don't. If we respect the law we must not only follow the law, we must hold those who break it accountable, no matter who they are.