Sorry Mr. Vice President, there needs to be a line. Anything does not go in the name of keeping America safe. As hopefully everyone knows, I don’t have Bush/Cheney derangement syndrome, but they are simply wrong about this. Immoral things made to look like virtue are even more immoral. I post it simply for the record.
ht to Gateway Pundit
December 17, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“Hitchens did consent to be waterboarded a second time, immediately after the first. He wanted to see if he could last longer knowing what he was going to face.”
This may prove Hitchens is a glutton for punishment, but what matters is what happened, and we have his description of what happened as a basis for determining whether or not waterboarding consistutes torture.
Of course, maybe we can stop shouting long enough to dispense a definition of what torture is. Then we can determine whether or not waterboarding meets the criteria.
We don’t need Hitchens for that.
December 17, 2008 at 3:20 pm
This may prove Hitchens is a glutton for punishment, but what matters is what happened, and we have his description of what happened as a basis for determining whether or not waterboarding consistutes torture.
Exactly my point. Maybe he was wondering what would happen if someone were prepared for waterboarding. It sounds like he did even worse the second time – that is, knowledge didn’t help him at all. The claim that Hitchens did it a second time because “waterboarding is not torture” is just false. Was he scarred for life? I don’t know – but I don’t think that “scarred for life” is the standard by which something is determined to be torture.
December 18, 2008 at 3:52 am
I can say that on a personal level, I support torture in cases of the likes of Khalid Mohammed et al. But I am wrong and the church is right. And I have the moral fortitude to admit this, unlike many of the other posters who have tried to rationalise their errors away. I can only pray that under such circumstances I would have the courage to do what the church asks of me and not what my own opinion on the subject dictates.
December 19, 2008 at 10:10 am
Of course, maybe we can stop shouting long enough to dispense a definition of what torture is. Then we can determine whether or not waterboarding meets the criteria.
Good question. Any takers?
Q: The discussion seems to focus upon waterboarding — a procedure which was in fact rejected by Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003, along with threatening the detainee with death (or members of his family) and exposure to extreme temperature conditions.
However, the present debate over torture (such as the recently-released Levin McCain Report) tends to focus on tactics which are considered “torture lite” — the playing of loud music, “stress positions,” standing for long periods of time. Do these constitute torture and if so, what is the criteria?