So has anyone changed their thinking on Gitmo

[RJKarl]

You know it's not me Bro.

Only pussies don't sign reps.

 

[EatLeadCommie]

I know it wasn't you, RJ. It's stupid to neg rep political disagreements anyway. If you're going to neg rep me, do it for personal attacks like calling the person who neg repped me a d-bag.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

First, I never knew we rejected that as a society. If anything, I think most people embrace it.

Secondly, RJ said we cant be outraged if someone is beheaded since we waterboard people. That's a direct comparison. And, an absurd one at that. Let's assume waterboarding is torture. I think we can all agree there are levels of torture. Or, there are levels of pain one can inflict on another human being. To compare waterboarding (something we perform on our own troops) to beheading an innocent civilian is just beyond dumb.

We rejected it, legally speaking.

I don't disagree with the rest.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

To the douche who negative repped me for this comment saying "so you only apply the law when it's convenient," where do you see that said here? You apply the law when it applies. You don't charge a guy with murder if nobody died. You don't charge somebody with grand theft auto if they stole a pencil. The Bush admin's approach to dealing with terrorists was exactly what it needed to be. We treated 99.9% of the people we got in accordance with the GC and the 0.1% that we may have subjected to enhanced interrogations were all high value guys who were in a position to have knowledge which, if divulged, could save lives.

You pantywaste do-gooders just want to ream Bush for the sake of reaming Bush, much as people here now want to ream Obama for the sake of reaming Obama. If you all were put in a similar position where you are responsible for the safety of 300 million people and you did NOT consider and find the legal justification for dousing a couple fools with water if it potentially save lives, then you would be negligent at your job. Criminally negligent, actually. If we're going to talk about criminality, at least attempt to apply it to your own POV.

You seem to argue that we only water-boarded the right people -- high value targets, all -- which, of course, is not true. Some of the guys we tortured knew absolutely nothing, were of no value, and are eating Big Macs on the streets of Cairo right now. Which is and has always been the fatal flaw in the torture argument-- you don't know beforehand whether or not you'll get anything useful, and you don't know afterward whether you were simply told what you wanted to hear. Forensic interrogation techniques are more effective, on the whole, and have the pleasant side effect of not betraying our moral and legal core tenets in the process.

As to the end of your post, I'll just disagree. Stooping to the barbarous action of torture smacks of a level of executive moral cowardice that I couldn't abide as President. If you abandon a principled belief under strain, it was never a principled belief at all. Torture is an amoral shortcut that is ultimately self-defeating. Of one thing I'm certain- you wouldn't be guilty of "criminal negligence" by choosing not to reverse 50+ years of established American ethics.

 

[RJKarl]

"First, I never knew we rejected that as a society. If anything, I think most people embrace it.

Secondly, RJ said we cant be outraged if someone is beheaded since we waterboard people. That's a direct comparison. And, an absurd one at that. Let's assume waterboarding is torture. I think we can all agree there are levels of torture. Or, there are levels of pain one can inflict on another human being. To compare waterboarding (something we perform on our own troops) to beheading an innocent civilian is just beyond dumb."

I'm NOT talking about JUST waterboarding.

We TORTURED 100% INNOCENT civilians. If you do that like W's cabal did (and I gave t least four that have been identified), then when our people are tortured or beheaded, we don't have the moral high ground to be outraged.

You tell the family of al Masri that it was OK for the US to kidnap and torture their innocent son, father and husband for months and months. That they should just suck it up and it's OK.

You tell Brits who were TORTURED for EIGHT MONTHS AFTER we were told they were 100% innocent.

It was barbaric and unconscionable that Danny Pearl was beheaded and the GI, but we had systemic torture and cannot get around this fact.