Not to be rude, but c'mon people read the thread before asking for a definition of waterboarding again.
On the first page of this thread, it was detailed in posts by sixofnine and eclipse.
What's Your Opinion of Waterboarding?
by minimus 112 Replies latest jw friends
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eclipse
Don't you think that we have been getting info for decades illegally (for the good of the country)?
Are you refering to phone tapping, other forms of technology hijacking, spying, etc?
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5go
1st of all, nothing is more embarassing than Congress' current approval rating, nothing.
Which is due to the Republican party's stone walling reforms.
There's plenty of time for attitudes to change before the election, of course, but the current landscape is the sort that in the past has prompted political upheaval and third-party candidacies. The last time the national mood was so gloomy was in 1992, when the first President Bush was ousted from the White House and H. Ross Perot received the highest percentage of the vote of any third-party candidate in 80 years. Bill Clinton was elected amid economic angst.
And the likely impact of the downbeat mood on next year's election?
"I'd rather be the Democratic candidate," says Joel Aberbach, director of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at UCLA. Democratic presidential contenders are tapping desire for change. Now 53% of Americans surveyed have a favorable view of the Democratic Party; just 38% have a favorable view of the GOP.
"It looks a lot like 1952," says David Mayhew, a political scientist at Yale and author of Electoral Realignments, though he cautions it's too early to predict election results. "The Korean War was very unpopular, the Truman administration was very unpopular, and people wanted to throw rocks at D.C." Democrats lost the White House and control of Congress that year.
Now, as then, a divisive war casts a shadow over the nation's mood.
Iraq dominates the political agenda. In the poll, four in 10 Americans volunteer that the Iraq war will be one of the most important issues determining their vote in 2008. That's more than twice as many who cite the second-ranking issue: health care.
Six in 10 call the invasion of Iraq a mistake, equal to the highest levels of anti-war feeling during the Vietnam conflict. Despite reports of progress after this year's rise in U.S. force levels, a majority say the situation in Iraq is getting worse for the United States. Only 16% say it's getting better.
In conversations at four locales across the nation — at a farmer's market in Salem, Ore., outside a public library in Phoenix, at a shopping mall and bus stop in downtown Milwaukee and in a roundtable at the New Jersey shore — Americans struggled over what to do next in Iraq.
Not one of several dozen people interviewed expressed optimism that the next president, whoever is elected, will be able to turn things around militarily or to extricate U.S. troops without significant complications, even chaos.
"The next person coming in, it's going to take him at least eight years to clean up," predicts Geraldine Buie, 49, a food-service worker in Milwaukee who wants U.S. troops withdrawn now.
"On the one hand, people say we should pull out, but if we just pull out, everything will collapse and we'll have done nothing," says Antonio Carlos, 24, a student in Phoenix. "We've been committed for six years. Are we going to give up already? But at the same time, do we have the money (to continue)? And do we want our people over there dying left and right?"
Good signs for Democrats
When it comes to the presidential race, the nation's gloomy mood is boosting the Democrats.
Americans who are dissatisfied with the country's direction — nearly three-fourths of the population — are twice as likely to support a Democratic candidate. Those who are satisfied are twice as likely to support a Republican one.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who leads the Republican field, is backed by one in four of those satisfied with the country's direction but only one in 10 of those who are dissatisfied. His overall support is divided roughly between the two sides.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton is backed by one-third of those dissatisfied with the country's direction. By a lopsided 5 to 1 ratio, her supporters are unhappy with how things are going.
History indicates that the downbeat mood is likely to present a persistent challenge for Bush's successor, whoever it is. Electing a new president, even from an opposition party, doesn't automatically lift the nation's spirits.
Satisfaction with the country's direction dipped to an all-time low of 12% in 1979, contributing to President Carter's defeat and Ronald Reagan's election the next year. But not until December 1984 did a majority of Americans express satisfaction again.
Similarly, satisfaction dropped to historic lows in 1992, contributing to the elder Bush's ouster and Bill Clinton's election. Not until January 1998 did the percentage of those satisfied top 50% again.
Ask what's going right in the USA, and New Jersey residents sitting around a table to talk about the country's direction have to stop and think. The group met one recent evening at the offices of the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, N.J. (The Press is owned by Gannett, as is USA TODAY.)
"Among young people, there is a tremendous amount of support for equality before the law, for tolerance," says George Zilbergeld, 66, a political scientist at Montclair State University.
"Since 9/11, we haven't had a terrorist attack on this country," says Eugene Kelsey, a retired restaurant owner from Freehold.
Ask what's going wrong, however, and everyone seems ready to speak at once.
The war. The gap between rich and poor. Political corruption. Only one person at the table raises a hand when the question is whether the next generation will have better lives than the current one — the classic promise of America.
"We have people doing very, very well and people doing very, very poorly," says Tom Loughran, 66, a data processor from Brick, N.J. "I would rather see the vast majority of the people … at least able to have a reasonable standard of living in the middle."
The others express little optimism that a new president can turn around the problems they see. Paula Cohen, 61, a human resources director for a nutrition company, says she is approaching the election with "trepidation."
"The divisiveness and the pettiness and the vitriol in our political culture" seems sure to continue after the election is over, says her husband, Bob Cohen.
"The next day," he predicts to general agreement, "the opposing party will start a campaign for the next presidential election."
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wanderlustguy
Take your shirt off, wrap one layer of the shirt around your head and pull it tight, then step in the shower with the water on and spraying it.
Post back and say it's not torture if you weren't doing it to yourself.
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minimus
Eclipse, I was referring to torture. And yes, I think the CIA and groups that are similar have been clandestinely torturing people for many many years.
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eclipse
That's standing up.
Not nearly as bad as laying down, with your feet at a higher elevation than your head, so the water runs towards your nose/mouth.
But scary enough!
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dogisgod
No doubts, it is torture. Yes, Illegal under Geneva Convention but the majority of soldiers over there are mercenary (i.e. black water) and since they are not US soldiers but a private army for hire they are not under any laws. The whole Abugrabbass prison thing was run by mercenaries but it was the US privates that got hung out to dry.
Aren't there any drugs you can safely give that will make you tell everything you know and then some?
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minimus
What you describe, wanderlust, is showercapping.
I think waterboarding is "torture" but I'm not against certain types of torture if an extremist were to have information that would ultimately result in the deaths of many thousands of innocent victims. The end justifies the means.
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eclipse
Oh, thanks for the clarification, mini. I was not disputing you at all.
(Just was not sure to which form of information extraction you were refering to.)
I don't have any reason to believe that the American gov't agencies haven't been torturing subjects for years.
Even the police are known to use excessive force during interrogations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum
-It states that some people that truth serum was used on, freely mixed facts with fiction...
As we all know, it is easy to fool oneself into believing a faslehood is the truth and vise-versa.
I don't think torture works as well as bribery into getting information.
Both forms are not reliable ways to get the TRUTH out of someone though, - just a CONFESSION.
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VoidEater
Anything that puts a person into actual peril of losing their life (as waterboarding does - it's not as benevolent as it's advertised), or that convinces the victim that they are in immediate peril of lsoing their life (as waterboarding clearly does) is wrong.
So, it's wrong, and from what little I know is considered torture by Internationally accepted standards. The US, like the JWs, will often overlook such things when they interfere with their goals - or, as in the case of "Theocratic warfare", will excuse it when desired.