Greenspirit, where to begin?
"I think rape prisoners are routinely subjected to in just every prison in America, is a far more henious than waterboarding. And I don't see the left getting all exercised about it."
Which is it? Are you saying that putting detainees in non life threatening physical and mental discomfort is OK if it works to save American lives or not?
If you are, then why get picky about things like the degree of revulsion you feel for sleep deprivation, waterboarding, beatings, rape or any other means of "encouraging" cooperation?
Cause when it comes to protecting Americans from harm the ends justify the means, right?
But that's not the only problem I have with your analysis. If you had a mind that could handle more nuanced thinking we could discuss:
1. Distinctions like the difference between prisoner on prisoner violence versus mistreating helpless detainees with violence sanctioned by, most likely, the leader of our nation, his vice president and most members of his cabinet;
2. The need to look at the grander, long term, picture to determine if any potential short term advantages from gaining information by torture will be outweighed by the longer term costs, including the loss of moral authority in the world, the loss of cooperation from nations that will not cooperate in any arrests or detentions on behalf of a nation that tortures, the increased hatred and animosity for a torture-nation and the resulting recruitment benefits for our enemies, and, of course, the increased likelihood that our own soldiers will, if captured, be subjected to similar and enhanced methods of "interrogation."
Or we could discuss how foolish it is to put a detainee in such distress that he will, innocent or guilty, confess to anything and everything, making up more and more facts and plots in a frantic effort to make the torture stop. We could discuss how long it would take to run down every false, red herring, lead and how much critical manpower we'd have to tie up to cover all of our bases. And then we'd have to ask how we could have used that time and those resources to better use if we hadn't tortured so many lies out of our prisoners.
And the fact that there may have been an edible carrot in all the partially digested garbage that spewed out of their mouths may encourage Cheney to jump his fat little ass up and down but I'm not as impressed. Ed
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