Waterboarding

[schwaky18]

Originally Posted by Blue Tile Spook

The military is bound by the Geneva Convention. There can be honor in war.

Sorry but war is war there should be no Geneva Convention or rules. Honor in war is winning. No one gives a rat's a$$ about the loser that was honorable.

Just my opinion and people will probably scrutinize me for this. But I think its stupid to have rules to war. If I try to take over the world and break all these rules and I succeed in taking over the world who is going to enforce these rules on me. Further, will we look honorably on our country because they didn't break the rules or be pissed that we lost.

[BloodEclipse]

Originally Posted by Blue Tile Spook

The military is bound by the Geneva Convention. There can be honor in war.

So are the terrorists playing by this set of rules?
Show me where the military is bound to the Geneva Convention for the treatment of armed combatants who wear no uniform and is not the fighting force for any Country.

[techres]

Originally Posted by BloodEclipse

So are the terrorists playing by this set of rules?
Show me where the military is bound to the Geneva Convention for the treatment of armed combatants who wear no uniform and is not the fighting force for any Country.

The UCMJ clearly defines mistreatment of prisoners. If the CIA and other bodies of the government came into line with the UCMJ, we would not be having this conversation.

[Blue Tile Spook]

Think back to the Persian Gulf War I - MY war.

Iraqi troops, not in uniform, surrendering to Apache and Cobra helicopters. Did they blast them to hell just for being an enemy? NO. They called for ground reinforcements to come collect them, search them for intel and start a debriefing process.

Were we legally bound to do that? Not to kill them? No, we could have done it and gotten away with it unless our government or the Iraqi government found out about it and pressed for charges of murder. That, to me, is honor in a war zone. Doing what is right, not what we are legally bound to do.

Rules in war exist to keep us from becoming murderers and pillagers. They exist to provide boundaries to our troops for what they are allowed or not allowed to do. And no, Bloodeclipse, the Taliban have not signed the Geneva convention to fight the way that we have said that we are going to fight. So what? If we choose to limit what activities we allow in war, that, in my mind, makes us the more honorable of the two, and especially so when we kick their collective asses while fighting honorably.

[schwaky18]

Originally Posted by Blue Tile Spook

Think back to the Persian Gulf War I - MY war.

Iraqi troops, not in uniform, surrendering to Apache and Cobra helicopters. Did they blast them to hell just for being an enemy? NO. They called for ground reinforcements to come collect them, search them for intel and start a debriefing process.

Were we legally bound to do that? Not to kill them? No, we could have done it and gotten away with it unless our government or the Iraqi government found out about it and pressed for charges of murder. That, to me, is honor in a war zone. Doing what is right, not what we are legally bound to do.

Rules in war exist to keep us from becoming murderers and pillagers. They exist to provide boundaries to our troops for what they are allowed or not allowed to do. And no, Bloodeclipse, the Taliban have not signed the Geneva convention to fight the way that we have said that we are going to fight. So what? If we choose to limit what activities we allow in war, that, in my mind, makes us the more honorable of the two, and especially so when we kick their collective asses while fighting honorably.

Is that honor or just being smart. You got intel out of them. To me this isn't honor this is just being war smart and doing everything you can to stop the enemy. It would be dumb to kill them for no reason when you can get intel out of them. I still don't believe in rules for war, but I do believe in out smarting our enemy

[techres]

Originally Posted by BloodEclipse

We know this enemy uses fear and terror as tactics. We have to know the enemy before we can defeat them. They know force and not much else.
I'm pretty sure if my squad was attacked and we captured an enemy, I would be inclined to use whatever means for the info that could save lives.

And if your squad was attacked and some minutes later captured someone you "though" was "likely" terrorist?

I would have two questions:

1. Would she be given any protections as an enemy soldier?
2. Would your soldiers be given free reign to do anything to extract any useful info? Rape? Killing her family members in front of her? Taking off her body parts?

And would you or your soldiers be accountable for these acts, because if not, you just agreed to be a Nigerian UN Peacekeepter in Africa or a Saudi Cop and act as they do. You also just agreed to break the UCMJ and put yourself in the face of a court marshal. All because you think they may have useful info. Forget ever convincing me that we need to save another nation from a despot if this is our way of doing business.


And that is the rub.

[schwaky18]

So for you that say Terrorist are entitled to Con Rights and therefore we should not torture them, wouldn't shooting/bombing them be a violation of DP? Therefore, we should not take guns to battle. Also, if we capture any one they should stand trial and be able to post bail? Also, lets ship some lawyers out there so the have counsel. Don't forget judges too. And Juries, jury of their peers. How would you like to get jury duty in Iraq

You can't give them some rights and not give them all the rights. So lets throw out the rules of war because they don't matter in this context.

[Turtle]

This country was founded by tough people making tough choices and thats one of those tough choices.

[techres]

Originally Posted by space turtle

This country was founded by tough people making tough choices and thats one of those tough choices.

And yet for some reason we seem to think our times are so hard in comparason. I mean, really, we do. We are in a long term struggle, but not a fight that could have us each hanging from a tree next to the street tomorrow morning. We act as if we are with our fear jacked up so high that we think the founding principles of this country are quaint and irrelevant due to the "dangers we face".

We sit in our comfortable homes, warm in front of a screen, typing away at the horrors and dangers we face at the hands of people so vile and crafty that our only solution is to take them apart piece by piece, etc.

People, we are not there yet. REALLY.

But we in our self generated fears, conveniently fueled by the very hollywood we despise (yet use as viceral proof that Jack Bauer could make waterboarding give up the location of the bomb), and we are ready to give away our own freedoms and self respect.

Back down to earth.

Here's another question:

Which do you really find more likely -
1. That we will have a situation where a nuclear bomb will be in a city and we will have the mastermind in our hands, and waterboarding will save us all.

or

2. That our government will find a way to backfire yet another poorly thought out, feel good, piece of legislation and in the end we will all get bitten by yet again trusting a bumbling government bureaucracy led by an person bent on making his vision of the future come to pass.

I am more inclined to expect #2 over #1 personally!

[schwaky18]

Originally Posted by techres

And yet for some reason we seem to think our times are so hard in comparason. I mean, really, we do. We are in a long term struggle, but not a fight that could have us each hanging from a tree next to the street tomorrow morning. We act as if we are with our fear jacked up so high that we think the founding principles of this country are quaint and irrelevant due to the "dangers we face".

We sit in our comfortable homes, warm in front of a screen, typing away at the horrors and dangers we face at the hands of people so vile and crafty that our only solution is to take them apart piece by piece, etc.

People, we are not there yet. REALLY.

But we in our self generated fears, conveniently fueled by the very hollywood we despise (yet use as viceral proof that Jack Bauer could make waterboarding give up the location of the bomb), and we are ready to give away our own freedoms and self respect.

Back down to earth.

Here's another question:

Which do you really find more likely -
1. That we will have a situation where a nuclear bomb will be in a city and we will have the mastermind in our hands, and waterboarding will save us all.

or

2. That our government will find a way to backfire yet another poorly thought out, feel good, piece of legislation and in the end we will all get bitten by yet again trusting a bumbling government bureaucracy led by an person bent on making his vision of the future come to pass.

I am more inclined to expect #2 over #1 personally!

I'll go with #2 too.

It sounds to me that you are not per se against waterboarding but are against it because of the effect it will have here at home. If that's the case, I don't see how anyone can disagree with you.