You know, if one really suggested such training purpose, they probably will find themselves in a Cuban prison cell sooner than later… and be given as many demonstrations of why it isn’t torture as the military can get away with… er show…
From someone who was waterboarded and concluded it wasn’t torture. Not that this settles the argument of why its okay in training and not in interrogation. But it does answer Katerina’s comment.
“Then it was time for the dreaded waterboard. What I didn’t know then, but I do now, is that as in all interrogations, both for real world hostile terrorists (non-uniformed combatants) and in S.E.R.E. a highly trained group of doctors, psychologists, interrogators, and strap-in and strap-out rescue teams are always present. My first experience on the “waterboard” was to be laying on my back, on a board with my body at a 30 degree slope, feet in the air, head down, face-up. The straps are all-confining, with the only movement of your body that of the ability to move your head. Slowly water is poured in your face, up your nose, and some in your mouth. The questions from interrogators and amounts of water increase with each unsuccessful response. Soon they have your complete attention as you begin to believe you are going to drown.
Scared, alone, cold and in total lack of control, you learn to “cooperate” to the best of your ability to protect your life. For each person that level of cooperation or resistance is different. You must be tested and trained to know how to respond in the real combat world. Escape was the key to freedom and reward.
Those students escaping would be rewarded with a meal (apple, and PB&J sandwich) was what we had been told by our instructors. On my next journey to interrogation I saw an opportunity to escape. I fled into the woods, naked and cold, and hid. My captors came searching with AK-47’s blazing, and calls to “kill the American War Criminal” in broken English. After an hour of successfully evading, the voices called out in perfect English. “O.K., problem’s over…you escaped, come in for your sandwich.” When I stood up and revealed my position I was met by a crowd of angry enemy guards, “stupid American Criminal”! Back to the Waterboard I went.
This time we went right to the water hose in the face, and a wet towel held tightly on my forehead so that I could not move my head. I had embarrassed my captors and they would now show me that they had total control. The most agonizing and frightful moments are when the wet towel is placed over your nose and mouth and the water hose is placed directly over your mouth. Holding your breath, bucking at the straps, straining to remain conscious, you believe with all your heart that, that, you are going to die.
S.E.R.E. training is not pleasant, but it is critical to properly prepare our most endangered combat forces for the reality of enemy capture. Was I “tortured” by the US military? No. Was I trained in an effort to protect my life and the lives of other American fighting men? Yes!”
I predict that the day will come when Bush or Cheney, on a trip to Europe, will be arrested like Pinochet was, on charges of “war crimes,” and held for trial in the Hague.
That will be a good day–a day when a more civilized society than ours responds forcefully to maintain the standards of international law and justice.
if one really suggested such training purpose, they probably will find themselves in a Cuban prison cell sooner than later
How many of the prisoners do you think in Guantanamo Bay are there strictly for their exercise of freedom of speech? This is just misguided crap. According to reliable news reports, a stunning total of 3 (yes, three) terrorists have been waterboard by the US, and none since 2003 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119422521756782035.html). Waterboarding is not currently authorized for use.
Don’t you see that this war against jihad is real? That these people are actually killing Americans and other? Or are you under some illusion that it’s just some fantasy?
You don’t realize you can’t use your speech to threaten the President, right?
Ummm, Henry, yes… but it won’t get you thrown into Guantanamo Bay, unless perhaps you plan on doing it on his next visit to Iraq while charge towards im with an explosive vest, mind you, you’d probably never make it to Guantanamo.
My point (which you not so deftly ignored) was that you made a statement borne out of ignorance or something more malevolent.
Of course some of the people there are terrorists. Who would be stupid enough to say otherwise? Who would be stupid enough, after 9-11, to deny that the need to fight terrorists is real? That is obvious.
The question is whether Guantanamo Bay is an institution that Christians can support.
For it is also obvious, according to the testimony of many of their defense attorneys (who are US military personnel) that many Guantanamo prisoners were just kids (when they were captured) more or less, picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan–perhaps associated with the Taliban, perhaps not. Such people are not terrorists who were planning to attack the US. Many kids join the Taliban because in that hellish country, it is the only thing going and they don’t know better.
Do they deserve to spend the rest of their lives held without trial, incommunicado, in a single-person cell?
Wait–I know, this is an unfortunate side-consequence of a necessary “prudential” decision.
Better that a few suffer for the duration of their lives so that many may live.
Of course they don’t “recognize” it. Eichmann never “recognized” what he had done. But whether they “recognize” it or not, they have, objectively speaking–from the standpoint of the logic the Allies used at Nuremberg (and which numerous “conservatives” of that epoch labeled “victor’s justice”–committed war crimes, and are liable for the punishment that is deemed appropriate under international law.
It may be a “crime” under American law to wish that a President be “waterboarded” or assassinated. However, it is NOT a crime to wish that the moral idiot occupying that office presently be eventually apprehended by forces acting in conjunction with international law, given a fair trial in the Hague and dealt an appropriate punishment, which, according to precedent, would be at the end of a rope.
the taliban is still actively opposing the legitimate government of Afghanistan and it’s US and NATO allies. Those “kids” were captured on the battlefield, and can justly be held until such time as hostilities cease. Now, the US has released a vast majority of them, and pray it will any more who no longer pose a threat. That doesn’t make it the number one moral fault of the US, by a longshot, the murder of the unborn is unquestionally the gravest evil. Unfortionately liberal Catholics do not see things right, and so I must correct them.
You know, if one really suggested such training purpose, they probably will find themselves in a Cuban prison cell sooner than later… and be given as many demonstrations of why it isn’t torture as the military can get away with… er show…
From someone who was waterboarded and concluded it wasn’t torture. Not that this settles the argument of why its okay in training and not in interrogation. But it does answer Katerina’s comment.
“Then it was time for the dreaded waterboard. What I didn’t know then, but I do now, is that as in all interrogations, both for real world hostile terrorists (non-uniformed combatants) and in S.E.R.E. a highly trained group of doctors, psychologists, interrogators, and strap-in and strap-out rescue teams are always present. My first experience on the “waterboard” was to be laying on my back, on a board with my body at a 30 degree slope, feet in the air, head down, face-up. The straps are all-confining, with the only movement of your body that of the ability to move your head. Slowly water is poured in your face, up your nose, and some in your mouth. The questions from interrogators and amounts of water increase with each unsuccessful response. Soon they have your complete attention as you begin to believe you are going to drown.
Scared, alone, cold and in total lack of control, you learn to “cooperate” to the best of your ability to protect your life. For each person that level of cooperation or resistance is different. You must be tested and trained to know how to respond in the real combat world. Escape was the key to freedom and reward.
Those students escaping would be rewarded with a meal (apple, and PB&J sandwich) was what we had been told by our instructors. On my next journey to interrogation I saw an opportunity to escape. I fled into the woods, naked and cold, and hid. My captors came searching with AK-47’s blazing, and calls to “kill the American War Criminal” in broken English. After an hour of successfully evading, the voices called out in perfect English. “O.K., problem’s over…you escaped, come in for your sandwich.” When I stood up and revealed my position I was met by a crowd of angry enemy guards, “stupid American Criminal”! Back to the Waterboard I went.
This time we went right to the water hose in the face, and a wet towel held tightly on my forehead so that I could not move my head. I had embarrassed my captors and they would now show me that they had total control. The most agonizing and frightful moments are when the wet towel is placed over your nose and mouth and the water hose is placed directly over your mouth. Holding your breath, bucking at the straps, straining to remain conscious, you believe with all your heart that, that, you are going to die.
S.E.R.E. training is not pleasant, but it is critical to properly prepare our most endangered combat forces for the reality of enemy capture. Was I “tortured” by the US military? No. Was I trained in an effort to protect my life and the lives of other American fighting men? Yes!”
I predict that the day will come when Bush or Cheney, on a trip to Europe, will be arrested like Pinochet was, on charges of “war crimes,” and held for trial in the Hague.
That will be a good day–a day when a more civilized society than ours responds forcefully to maintain the standards of international law and justice.
Gee…didn’t see that coming.
It would be interesting if someone reports this post to the Secret Service as a threat to the safety of the President.
I’m not going to, but I hear they take any threat seriously…
Henry,
if one really suggested such training purpose, they probably will find themselves in a Cuban prison cell sooner than later
How many of the prisoners do you think in Guantanamo Bay are there strictly for their exercise of freedom of speech? This is just misguided crap. According to reliable news reports, a stunning total of 3 (yes, three) terrorists have been waterboard by the US, and none since 2003 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119422521756782035.html). Waterboarding is not currently authorized for use.
Don’t you see that this war against jihad is real? That these people are actually killing Americans and other? Or are you under some illusion that it’s just some fantasy?
God Bless,
Matt
Matt
You don’t realize you can’t use your speech to threaten the President, right?
Henry,
You don’t realize you can’t use your speech to threaten the President, right?
Ummm, Henry, yes… but it won’t get you thrown into Guantanamo Bay, unless perhaps you plan on doing it on his next visit to Iraq while charge towards im with an explosive vest, mind you, you’d probably never make it to Guantanamo.
My point (which you not so deftly ignored) was that you made a statement borne out of ignorance or something more malevolent.
God Bless
Matt
Of course some of the people there are terrorists. Who would be stupid enough to say otherwise? Who would be stupid enough, after 9-11, to deny that the need to fight terrorists is real? That is obvious.
The question is whether Guantanamo Bay is an institution that Christians can support.
For it is also obvious, according to the testimony of many of their defense attorneys (who are US military personnel) that many Guantanamo prisoners were just kids (when they were captured) more or less, picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan–perhaps associated with the Taliban, perhaps not. Such people are not terrorists who were planning to attack the US. Many kids join the Taliban because in that hellish country, it is the only thing going and they don’t know better.
Do they deserve to spend the rest of their lives held without trial, incommunicado, in a single-person cell?
Wait–I know, this is an unfortunate side-consequence of a necessary “prudential” decision.
Better that a few suffer for the duration of their lives so that many may live.
Do you recognize that logic?
Do you recognize that logic?
Of course they don’t “recognize” it. Eichmann never “recognized” what he had done. But whether they “recognize” it or not, they have, objectively speaking–from the standpoint of the logic the Allies used at Nuremberg (and which numerous “conservatives” of that epoch labeled “victor’s justice”–committed war crimes, and are liable for the punishment that is deemed appropriate under international law.
It may be a “crime” under American law to wish that a President be “waterboarded” or assassinated. However, it is NOT a crime to wish that the moral idiot occupying that office presently be eventually apprehended by forces acting in conjunction with international law, given a fair trial in the Hague and dealt an appropriate punishment, which, according to precedent, would be at the end of a rope.
G. Alkon,
the taliban is still actively opposing the legitimate government of Afghanistan and it’s US and NATO allies. Those “kids” were captured on the battlefield, and can justly be held until such time as hostilities cease. Now, the US has released a vast majority of them, and pray it will any more who no longer pose a threat. That doesn’t make it the number one moral fault of the US, by a longshot, the murder of the unborn is unquestionally the gravest evil. Unfortionately liberal Catholics do not see things right, and so I must correct them.
God Bless,
Matt