Also, go read this essay by Malcolm Nance at the Small Wars Journal blog:
Waterboarding is Torture… Period
As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people.
4 comments:
The discussion on the "Waterboarding is torture" page is illuminating, and the arguments made by Jared Nuzzolillo on that page are particularly relevant: he insists that it's okay for Good People to torture Bad People, with both classes of people being objectively identifiable.
As much as this argument is apparently founded in cartoon-land, it seems to be being applied in the real world. At the end of the video, we're told that current legislation permits President George Bush to decide what's right when it comes to interrogations. President Bush believes and will insist that he's Good People. Therefore, under the law and the logic of torture apologists, torture is okay as long as he's in charge of it.
Eric - thanks for the comment.
One of the problems with the torture debate is that most of those that argue in favor of waterboarding, such as Bush, Giuliani, Romney, etc., do not admit that waterboarding is torture. Thus Nuzzolillo's logic wouldn't even apply that torture is OK when the good guys do it and not OK when the bad guys do it. Instead, the argument seems to be "it is not torture when the good guys do it, but it is torture when the bad guys do it." Thus, instead of "torture is okay as long as he's in charge of it", it really is "torture isn't torture as long as he's in charge of it."
Although I and almost everyone else on that comment thread disagree with Nuzzolillo, at least he and a few others (Dershowitz, etc.) have the honesty to admit that they are arguing in favor of torture. If the Republican candidates who favor torture at least admitted their position, then we could at least have a debate on whether the possibility of saving lives is worth the certain stain on our country's honor.
I came here from the waterboarding story article.
I really liked watching the videos of the midfield goals in one of your previous posts. I'll show those to my kids.
Cool - I hope to have more stupendous Revolution goals to post soon!
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