The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

In my opinion, it is far worse to believe it is torture and do nothing when they know it is happening than to vocally express that it is not torture.

I personally know two members of the armed forces who have been subjected to it and do not consider it torture.....and in fact, find it somewhat ridiculous that it is categorized as such. There are people who have been subjected to it who do not consider it to be. What is torture to me may not be torture to someone else. I am deathly afraid of the dentist, do not go willingly, dread it, and want it to be over immediately. It literally takes every ounce of will power I have not to bolt from the chair. Is that to be considered torture? I don't think I'd like water boarding, but someone like Michael Phelps might not mind at all. Hell, I'd like to sue my son's 4th grade music teacher for making him practice his recorder for 3 hours/month. THAT is torture.

I'm with you all the way about the dentist.

It seems to me that the majority of democrats have been railing against it for years now. I'd want evidence that they knew and stayed silent back in '02. And if that is so, then I'd be interested in knowing when they changed their minds and why. And then, yes, I'd agree that said weasliness is worse than simply having the opinion that the practice isn't torture. But neither of these things are high crimes - they are pretty small potatoes compared to actually authorizing and carrying out torture. (Or even enhanced unpleasantness.)

I don't doubt that there are people who can take it and shrug it off. How much did your armed forces acquaintances undergo? Were they subjected for hours at a time, over a hundred times in one month? (That is definitely going into the torture category for me.) Would they feel the same way if they underwent the procedure after being imprisoned for a few years, less fit, confined and not knowing what was happening to them? I can't answer that, of course.

I'm convinced that waterboarding doesn't belong in our bag of interrogation tricks. It seems obvious to me just as its relative harmlessness seems obvious to you. But whether or not it deserves the name torture is just semantics. Until someone convinces me with evidence, I call the practice needless, ugly and ineffective. It makes us look desperate and scared, and I'm not convinced it bought us anything useful.