To: greenspirit who wrote (109843 ) 4/26/2009 10:02:18 PM From: Win Smith Respond to What a ridiculously self-serving summary you came up with. The author believes water boarding is torture and we should now step up our efforts and do it more often to our soldiers to prepare them for battle. The assumptions seems to be that only he and is school are capable of humanely caring out the torture. A bit arrogant I would say. I don't know who at the CIA performed the water boarding, but my assumption is they are also well trained to carry it out humanely. . It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique. The article also points that by publicizing the event on such a grand scale, as the left and team Obama have done, we've put our troops at a much greater risk. I agree. One of the other ugly bi-products of why playing politics with the way prisoners are treated has consequences. The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only “shock the conscience” as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American. I have stated publicly and repeatedly that I would personally cut Bin Laden’s heart out with a plastic MRE spoon if we per chance meet on the battlefield. Yet, once captive I believe that the better angels of our nature and our nation’s core values would eventually convince any terrorist that they indeed have erred in their murderous ways. Once convicted in a fair, public tribunal, they would have the rest of their lives, however short the law makes it, to come to terms with their God and their acts. smallwarsjournal.com
