Waterboarding

[pumpum]

Do you think it is torture??

I mean obviously it can be extremely discomforting and is definitely an extreme practice but i dont think it is "torture".

Please dont get me wrong and think i am taking a pro conservative view on this as in america, but when i think "torture" i think of nails pulled out with pliers, electrocution car battery style, whipping flogging, brutal beatings, limbs removed, beheadings etc.etc...

to me waterboarding doesnt fit in to this category, but it would be interesting to hear others views.

[MissMisa]

Even though it often isn't used as a form of physical torture, as in it is supposed to distress the person rather than mostly cause any lasting damage, I still think psychological torture is as valid as any other.

Though I think society views mental pain in a lot less regard than physical, for example if someone's mother had cancer and another mother had a severe mental illness, in most cases people would feel more sympathetic towards the one with cancer, even though they are both illnesses that can't be helped.

I don't really share that view because I believe that mental pain/illnesses can and sometimes is the equivalent to physical pain, so therefore torturing people in this way is also inflicting pain on them in other ways.

[rison]

Totally cosign what MisaMisa just said.

[solemnclockwork]

I'm starting to notice an trend in putting things that really don't qualify as them, in the same category. It's like political correctness, and zero tolerance policy (why in the world would you suspend an child for making an paper gun?). On that very simple methods (like water boarding) while may seem weird/hard to us, is that we over simplify everything and don't make the difference between the actual "things". Who here has gotten tired of the way children (ages 4ish to 12ish) are treated like "adults"?

Water boarding in sessions of minutes (like 12) does no damage to the body, but it sure can be shocking. Mental aspect, is more like fear in that you know it's coming and want to avoid it. We even train our own soldiers against it, so I believe there's no mental affect (other then fear) or physical harm. The question is though how much, and how long? I would say it's more of an physiological tool anyway.

If the presence arises where I may have an chance to experience it, I would really consider trying it to get an first hand experience on the matter ( If I go that far I can't consider it torture, who would do torture to there own bodies?).

[Troo]

Of course waterboarding is torture. Try imagining what it's like going through repeated sessions at the hands of your enemies, knowing damn well that this one might be the one in which they allow you to drown.

Torture is always intended to cause mental anguish to the victim. Simplistic methods rely on inflicting physical harm to achieve this, but psychological methods are actually far more effective.

[TalnSG]

Some of the worst tortures mankind ever devises are more psychological than physical. Waterboarding is torture when done to achieve the goal of breaking someone, which is what is under discussion.

The reason that this type of torture gains more attention in the media and the world courts is that unlike physical torture, such a Pumpum mentioned, when done correctly the damage is easy to hide from the public. That is why it is all the more necessary to enforce restrictions on the rare occassions it can be proven to have been used.

And as one who has come all too close to death by drowning twice, its effect on me could go either way. I might be driven insane by the fear, or perhaps just resign to it and accept that I am finally going to die this time by having my lungs filled with water instead of air.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by pumpum

Do you think it is torture??

I mean obviously it can be extremely discomforting and is definitely an extreme practice but i dont think it is "torture".

Please dont get me wrong and think i am taking a pro conservative view on this as in america, but when i think "torture" i think of nails pulled out with pliers, electrocution car battery style, whipping flogging, brutal beatings, limbs removed, beheadings etc.etc...

to me waterboarding doesnt fit in to this category, but it would be interesting to hear others views.

It may not be "physical torture" like pulling out nails, but it is "psychological torture" which is as if not more damaging in the long term.

[solemnclockwork]

Originally Posted by TalnSG

And as one who has come all too close to death by drowning twice, its effect on me could go either way. I might be driven insane by the fear, or perhaps just resign to it and accept that I am finally going to die this time by having my lungs filled with water instead of air.

It's very hard to drown by water boarding. For the most part waterboarding does not put water into the lungs, but the part of the throat and nose area takes on water, simulating and telling your brain that you may be drowning. On that even if you did drown, you have an 5 minute-ish window to get oxygen back into the longs before you suffer brain damage (still that harsh).

MMM, and everybody who mentions it as psychological trauma I don't disagree with, (it's got it be one mean experience) is there any proof yet of lasting psychological issues? I ask mainly because we would be damaging our own troops by training them against this method.

[MMM]

You are asking if there are lasting psychological repercussions from waterboarding torture?

This is part of the agreement Americans who have been subjected to waterboarding sign:

“ ‘Waterboarding’ is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body.”

An even more important point to consider is that torture is rarely an effective way to get information from a prisoner. Generally they tell nothing, or say whatever it takes to get the torture to stop.

In general, torture is not an interrogation device, but a terrorism device. "Look what we will do to your citizens if we capture them".

You know what the best way to get information from German Nazis in WWII was? Chess. Interrogators would play chess with captured prisoners, develop a relationship, and eventually they would start talking.

The idea that torture leads to reliable information is a delusion.

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by MMM

The idea that torture leads to reliable information is a delusion.

Torture is only a sadistic measure, not a informative or productive measure. Like this: