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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (382563)	5/5/2008 10:43:14 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574680

It is people like you that I would like to see used as a demo case.... Ha. I'm sure I'd be giving it up in 5 seconds. There are definitions of torture all over the place. Here is the UN Convention Against Torture language: 1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. I do not believe this covers waterboarding as no severe pain or suffering is inflicted. You just cannot call it suffering when it only lasts a few seconds (or in the most extreme circumstances, a couple of minutes). Others, obviously, disagree, and I respect those views, I just happen to believe they are wrong. I do not favor any kind of abuse or mistreatment -- waterboarding or otherwise -- as a matter of course. When you're dealing with these amoeba that will kill American babies given the chance to do so, you have to play hardball and this technique should be on the table if the professionals involved in the process believe it would be useful. And frankly, nobody here has shown (a) why a technique that involves no intense pain or suffering should be classified as "torture", and (b) why any such technique or torture SHOULD be excluded when American lives are at stake. The problem with these definitions is that they hold us to a higher standard than they do the rest of the world. A more reasonable standard would be to consider waterboarding as torture, but that Americans could use any technique that is less brutal than the techniques the enemy applies (such as beheading).