President Bush Vetoes Legislation to Ban Waterboarding!!

[Jefepato]

Waterboarding works, that's been established.

Waterboarding works when you have the right guy and he's too stupid to lie.  That's been established.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/69363/

HeretiKat, what makes your life and the lives of others more important the the well-being of people who want to do you harm?  If we consider torture an acceptable way to deal with our enemies, the answer is nothing.

The bigger picture, i think, is NOT whether or not people approve of torture...but whether waterboarding is torture..

It really isn't.  Anyone who denies that waterboarding is torture is either unaware of the details or willfully blind.

[Elven Sex Goddess]

Actually instead of debating whether or not water boarding is torture or not.  We should be asking why this President has not been impeached. I mean we impeached a president for getting his Willy wanker played with.   It seems to me this President has a long list of betrayal to the American public.  Far more serious then if a president is been unfaithful to his spouse. 

[Schwarzepard]

In the cases we're discussing, the US had the right guy, the guy who planned the 9-11 attacks, a guy smart enough lie. 
Waterboarding got very useful information out of him, details enough to keep other members of his organization from killing people.  I read your link and it doesn't support your statement since waterboarding works.

What makes my life and the lives of others more important than the wellbeing of those who want to harm said lives is their  relentless efforts  to force me and others to obey them on pain of death.  If they value my life, wellbeing, and personal autonomy so little, then I don't value theirs at all.  It's prevention of harm to myself and others.  Is your life worth nothing?  I don't think so.  I'd waterboard some asshole to keep his friends from harming you or most other people.

One thing I never do is claim any sort of moral high ground.  I don't have any emotional stake in claiming I'm better than anybody, so I don't play that game.  I don't need to justify preventing someone from harming me or others, especially when they are trying to harm me for their own religious or ideological reasons.

Sher, in my opinion, waterboarding absolutely is torture.  The claims that it isn't come from the legalese of definitions, but that aside, its torture.  I also think that sending someone to prison for stealing cars or some other non-violent offense and them getting raped and beaten repeatedly is torture.  Letting someone linger in suffering because the law won't allow physician assisted suicide is torture.  Putting so much dowry pressure on East Indian girls that they commit suicide is torture.  Most societies torture in these and other ways.  Since they do, I really don't have a problem with torturing terrorists to prevent their organizations from hurting and killing people. 

As for the ends justifying the means, a great many people in the world hold that opinion, not just my enemies.  Maybe that's because it has some merit.

The article mentioning Maher Arar offers no evidence of his torture beyond his own claims, which or may not be true.  The article doesn't address what reason the US had for deporting him to Syria.  It's not a good support for the statement.

[Sherona]

Actually instead of debating whether or not water boarding is torture or not.  We should be asking why this President has not been impeached. I mean we impeached a president for getting his Willy wanker played with.   It seems to me this President has a long list of betrayal to the American public.  Far more serious then if a president is been unfaithful to his spouse. 

again this is nto realy the issue of this thread. Not a bush fan here...actually..now that I think about it I am not a fan of ANY politician *shrugs*

[Hunter]

Actually instead of debating whether or not water boarding is torture or not.  We should be asking why this President has not been impeached. I mean we impeached a president for getting his Willy wanker played with.

Out of curiousity (I already know what the majority of the board thinks), shouldn't someone who's lied about having sex with a subordainte (yeah, my spelling sucks) shouldn't be disciplined?  Just because he was president he should get special treatment for breaking the same rules that the rest of us have to follow?

[Swedish Steel]

It only cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, and it was totally worth it to! Who does he think he is, it is our right to know who he is screwing, damn it!

[Schwarzepard]

Out of curiousity (I already know what the majority of the board thinks), shouldn't someone who's lied about having sex with a subordainte (yeah, my spelling sucks) shouldn't be disciplined?  Just because he was president he should get special treatment for breaking the same rules that the rest of us have to follow?

There's no law that I know of against his having an affair, unless he committed sexual harrassment.
In his particular case, President Clinton lied under oath to the grand jury.  He broke American law, no doubt about it.  He was disbarred in his home state of Arkansas because of it, and now he is no longer allowed to practice law (he was a qualified lawyer before he was a politician).  As president, his popularity was very strong.  I think it was strong enough that he could have stated that he had made a mistake in his marriage, and that he and his wife were dealing with it.  That way people could have criticized his character for cheating on his wife, but no one would have been able to criticize him for breaking the law.  Further attacks would have made his opponents look even worse.  Unfortunately he lied about it and that gave his opponents something more effective to use against him.

I'm not sure he got treatment that was so special.  Plenty of people commit perjury and get away with it.   

[Hunter]

There's no law that I know of against his having an affair, unless he committed sexual harrassment.
In his particular case, President Clinton lied under oath to the grand jury.  He broke American law, no doubt about it.  He was disbarred in his home state of Arkansas because of it, and now he is no longer allowed to practice law (he was a qualified lawyer before he was a politician).  As president, his popularity was very strong.  I think it was strong enough that he could have stated that he had made a mistake in his marriage, and that he and his wife were dealing with it.  That way people could have criticized his character for cheating on his wife, but no one would have been able to criticize him for breaking the law.  Further attacks would have made his opponents look even worse.  Unfortunately he lied about it and that gave his opponents something more effective to use against him.

I'm not sure he got treatment that was so special.  Plenty of people commit perjury and get away with it.   

Actually my point was more that if an executive of a company is caught doing similiar, you'd expect them to be at least demoted, maybe even fired.

[Swedish Steel]

Yeah. Clinton should just have started a war under false pretenses, there'd be no end to the crack pots climbing over eachother to defend him then!

[kongming]

Swede: I'd laugh, but it's sad because it's true.

Hunter: generally, they're expected to resign. Presumably they can be an ass and not resign though. Unless that's code for "You're fired. But resign first and it doesn't show up on your record as being fired."

Heretikat: If it was in Australia, he could have completely gotten away with it if he had just come out and said "Yeah, I had an affair." Although it was generally considered amusing that Americans all declared "What? Huh? Our President LIED to us!!!" and were shocked. We just accept the fact that, as politicians, our prime ministers will always be liars.

It makes it a lot easier (and a lot less surprising) if you just assume from the start that your prime minister/president/whatever hates you and lies to you.

[Jefepato]

Don't be silly, KM.  Very few Americans were genuinely shocked (although it is surprising that someone as smart as Bill Clinton would say something verifiably false under oath); most were just seizing on an opportunity to try and get rid of him.

[Hunter]

Hunter: generally, they're expected to resign. Presumably they can be an ass and not resign though. Unless that's code for "You're fired. But resign first and it doesn't show up on your record as being fired."

And yet people seem to think that he shouldn't have suffered an impeachment trial for it.  What's the difference?

[Schwarzepard]

He was popular.

[kongming]

You'd be amazed at what you can get away with when you're president. After all, let us assume that it wasn't the lying they cared about with the impeachment - otherwise no president would ever make the full term, and Bush has done that every time he's opened his mouth. But if you can get away with crimes against humanity, one would think a little oral sex is forgiveable.

Just looking through my "latest news from the BBC" (that is to say, a much more reliable site than Faux News, CNN etc. but still with a Pro-England/America/Australia/Europe/Israel leaning) list: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7292974.stm

That wasn't even by searching for anything. It's just the latest in Bush allowing his agents to kidnap and torture people.