The United States' Military Code of Conduct:
1. I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
2. I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command I will never surrender those under my command while they still have the means to resist.
3. If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
4. If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information nor take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.
5. When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.
6. I will never forget that I am an American, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.
What with all of this complete & utter bullshit surrounding the Democrat-led crusade to crucify those who either performed waterboarding or knew of it or authorized it or can spell it or use it it a sentence, this letter came to my attention via a caller to my favorite radio talk show (The Schnitt Show, on from 3PM to 6PM Eastern, on XM Channel 152 and several channels nationwide. Go to www.schnittshow.com for details)
The caller was a former U.S. Navy aviator who had been waterboarded during his pilot training, specifically during a very intense program called SERE School (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). The retired officer in question, named William, started SERE school late in 1980 and finished up on the same date of President Reagan's Inauguration.
All you Liberal assclowns are sniveling about extracting information from proven terrorist scumbags, information that has prevented acts of terrorism against us and saved American lives (as the lives of other nations' citizens), but could care less that we've done the same thing in training to our own people. I guess the logic is that we military types are all war-mongering knuckle-draggers who got what we deserved for serving our nation, while the peace-loving innocent freedom fighters of Islam were tortured for the benign activities lumped under Man-Caused Disasters....
Blow the pictures up to read William's letter to President Obama,and see how a real American patriot feels about being waterboarded...
10 comments:
Really? The best arguments you have in defense of torture is that it worked or that we do it to our own service members?
It seems like it would be unnecessary to have to explain this to someone but just to help out....
1. Arguing that something worked is not a valid legal defense.
2. The training that members of the service undergo is designed to prepare them for the worst case should they find themselves in captivity. They are not trained in how to apply torture, but rather to endure it. You know, that's why they call it Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Get it?
Oh, and guess what? They also train how to survive things like plane crashes, but -- gasp! -- that's not training in HOW TO crash a plane.
Your argument fails on every level, especially the laughable strawmen you set up for an easy knock-down. Way to go, tough dude!
Anyone involved in this anti-American behavior of torture should be held accountable and that includes those who knew about it and did nothing to stop it.
Another drive-by. I love it.
I don't need a legal defense, since I'm not on trial here. Y'know, shooting an enemy combatant works, so I guess you wanna put people on trial for shooting at the enemy too, huh?
Dropping bombs on enemy positions works, so let's get a jury together for bomber pilots.
Those Navy SEAL snipers should be put on trial for killing those defenseless patriotic Somali maritime entrepenuers.
Again, I ask you Libs this question: we have a guy in custody who has the information needed to stop a bomb from going off in your kid's classroom. The only way to get the info is to pour water up his nose for a few seconds. Would you rather pour the water, or let your kid get blown up?
I kind of figured you'd ignore the legal issues, even though you were the one who touched on them in your post.
And of course you ignored the issue of why service members are trained and why that, too, is an invalid defense.
Nice dodging.
I won't ignore your latest attempt to justify the torture, though. Here is my answer - The scenario you raised is not implausible, I'll give you that. In fact, things like that do happen and are quite effectively dealt with by local, state and federal law enforcement, and they do it through good old fashioned police work, investigation and interrogation. They don't torture and they solve crimes. They don't torture and they are also effective at foiling plots. Not all, of course, but then that's true of intel agencies, isn't it. So your scenario does nothing to advance your argument.
And while I'm at it, it seems that you are among those who diminish the impact of waterboarding on subjects ("pour water up his nose for a few seconds"). So let me ask you - if it's really not that big of a deal, if it's a minor technique that isn't threatening to the subject...why do it? You and others who support waterboarding seem to want it both ways in saying that it's not that big of a deal but at the same time it's far more effective than normal investigations and interrogations.
So which is it?
Do you have any good arguments here? Seriously.
P.S. I notice the use of "drive by". LOL. Another ditto-head, huh?
I forgot to address your other questions (putting people on trial for shooting the enemy, etc.)
No. First, it's not illegal. Secondly, there's a huge difference between, say, a soldier on a battlefield engaged in a firefight and interrogations of a captive person.
You do see the difference, don't you? I would hope so, otherwise you would be stuck advocating the employment of any and all battlefield measures against a prisoner (yes, even if you bother yourself with that pesky little thing called rule of law). That is, if you're being logically consistent and intellectually honest here.
first off, this guy jim is giving guys with similar names, a bad name.
second, i'm guessing this is a wanna be lawyer who has never had to defend himself or his property. mom and dad and the family attorney have always been there to kiss his boo-boos better. that's why he's for the lincoln of our times and all his lofty rhetoric. tell me what law we, as a sovereign nation, have violated? geneva convention? al quada and the taliban never signed it. it applies to uniformed troops of nations we are at war with upon their capture. had jim ever been in the military, he would know this, as he would have received a class called "the geneva convention and the code of conduct."
third, as someone with a better working knowledge of criminal investigation than jim, i can assure him that cases rarely are turned by criminal confessions, which, as a wanna be lawyer, he should know. these are routinely attacked in criminal court, i.e.: my client didn't understand his rights, his statement was not freely and voluntarily given, the questioning was adversarial and not information gathering in nature.
this argument shows us some of jim's true motivation. jim wants terrorists tried in the same court room that the neighbor kid who caught a dui last weekend is tried in, with all the same protections. jim would rather be well-liked than respected or, worse yet, feared-for anything other than his intellect. jim wants to be thought of as urbane. the knife wielding is left to whoever he has on retainer. he wants this for the country, just like his hero, super b, with the UN being our lawyer.
i haven't let jim off the rusty hook yet. TORTURE, as defined by WEBSTER's is; the infliction of severe physical pain, mental anguish.
ANGUISH, agonizing physical or mental pain.
AGONIZING, to be in extreme physical or emotional pain: suffer intensely.
in jim's second comment he states that you ignored the legal issues. which ones? read his first comment, he raises no legal issues, or court rulings, or findings. jim's comments are based on emotion and whatever some educator told him.
perhaps jim would like to tell us when the last time was that the police arrested, charged, put on trial and convicted a murderer or rapist, before they committed the crime. without any physical evidence or witnesses, based only on his statement. which case is that?
you see jim, the police are mostly reactionary. that means they work on most shit after it happens. intelligence gathering is done to find out what your enemies are doing or trying to do so that you can act to preempt it. cops don't preempt too many rapes. they might interrupt them, but they don't arrest the bad guy as he's drying off from his shower, before getting dressed and into the car, and heading over to the victims.
that's why we waterboard, jim, to stop the bad guy before he gets to the victims.
Don't lump me in with Limbaugh's cronies. I can only take him in tiny doses. To me, a drive-by is a commenter with a no-reply/no-link comment. At least you weren't anonymous.
I'm okay with waterboarding as it leaves no lasting physical harm, and it's exceptionally effective. I met Special Forces guys years ago who had it done to them and offered to let me have it done to me to see first-hand but my tour was up before the logistics could be worked out. Being an MP didn't afford me much opportunity to participate in the more exotic training regimens.
We're obviously never gonna agree on this and I ain't got the time or energy to debate you every couple hours.
we are going to test jim's intellect and intellectual honesty here. can you shoot someone (an enemy combatant), with a 50 cal. machine gun, according to the rule of law, as you put it? does "held accountable" also apply to nancy pelosi?
can you explain, in detail, how giving someone the impression that they are going to drown, imparts severe or agonizing physical pain or intense suffering? could you also explain, how cutting off someones head, who is still alive, does not? that's one of al quadas signature moves. should we, in your learned opinion, also train our troops in how to resist this?
that would be a worst case scenario they should be taught to endure right? perhaps we could talk you into going first, seeing how you know soooo much about it. set the good example tough dude. get it?
We can agree to disagree. I respect that. If you would allow me to respond to "j summ" though....
With regard to the issue of law enforcement foiling plots before they are carried out, yes it happens. You changed my point to read as though I said those crimes were foiled through confessions, when I clearly stated that I was referring to good old fashioned investigative work as well as interrogation without torture. So it would have been helpful to address my actual point.
To give some examples of what I'm talking about:
"Anatomy of a Foiled Terrorist Plot" - http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/10559/
"School Shooting Plot Foiled" - http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1870204&page=1
Another shooting plot foiled - http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/06/nj.school.plot/index.html
There are countless stories like this. Surely you can't be denying the fact that this occurs.
To your point about torturing uniform officers: Waterboarding was conducted on an Iraqi intelligence official. - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-13/cheneys-role-deepens/
I won't bother with all of your "Jim wants..." strawmen. Those comments say far more about you than they do me. It points up the fact that you have no legal or logical foundation for your position.
Thanks for letting me have my say. I'll leave this to others now.
Cheers.
Okay.....I'm shutting off comments for this post. It's gonna be a long week at work and I'm not gonna have the time or patience to moderate the thread.
We'll all play nice & part ways, knowing that we have differing opinions on the matter but respecting that in our free society we can respectfully disagree.
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