Dubb-Ya and waterboarding

[Friedmann]

Originally Posted by August

Quite the selective memory you have there. Have you already forgot how in 2000, Iraq shielded Abu Musab al—Zarqawi.

Shielded? According to whom?

Originally Posted by August

As for "unconfirmed intel regarding WMD's" What, 12 years of intelligence reports, commissioned by both parties and Saddams own statements, let alone his history of using chemical weapons isn't good enough for you?

Wouldn't be good enough for me especially considering what the weapons inspectors were saying.

Originally Posted by August

Oh that's right. This is about making Bush look bad, not about discussing the truth right?

And you're on the flipside of the coin, tyring to make a cluster**** look rational and measured.

Originally Posted by August

Right, keeping the murderous dictator and his henchmen in power is always preferable to taking a chance by liberating an oppressed people. Is that what you're saying?

It was such a selfess act, it had nothing to do with an ocean of oil.

[Skybird]

Not commenting on wether torture can be justified or not, just on the procedure of weaterboarding itself: if waterboarding really is so harmless and not torture - I wonder why it is said to have such a high efficiency. anyone here believing that suspects or offenders all of a sudden are in a mood to talk, maybe because they wish to express their thankfulness for getting a wet shave for free? Waterboarding inflicts physical and psychological fear of death, and fear of death is terror in it's purest form. That is what torture is about.

PERIOD.

One really needs to be a blind lying hypocrite to talk it down and say it is harmless. Man, even McCain admitted that it is, and compared it to holding a loaded weapon to your head - i think he knows what he talks about. If it would all be harmless, nobody would tell anything when being exposed to this procedure.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by August

So you think 9-11 caused the Iraq war? Not 12 years of violated cease fire agreements, not Saddams own declarations that he had wmd and intended to use it, not correcting the wrong done to the Shiites and Kurds when we encouraged them to to revolt against Saddam in '91 and subsequently abandoned them?

K, none of those are in any way irrelevant, but you can't deny that the guys in the White House were itching to attack Iraq from day one. And 9/11 provided a major boost - public support for overseas military action.
Remember what Rumsfeld said on the day?

Originally Posted by Donald Rumsfeld

Is there any way we can pin this on Iraq?

9/11 did not cause the 2003 war, but I doubt the war would have gone ahead otherwise.

You can play the blame America game all you want but you cannot ignore the fact that the great majority of violent Iraqi deaths before AND during this war have been at the hands of other Iraqis.

It's very easy to blame America for the deaths during and after the war. It's just not very helpful.
Oh look

[mrbeast]

I can't help thinking that if we accept the use of torture as a tool then we simply place ourselves on a par with people like Stalin or Pol Pot; that is accepting that the ends always justify the means whatever they may be.

[Platapus]

Mr. Beast brings up the core of the original discussion.

It is a conflict between two essential elements of human ethics:

Consequentialism and Deontological ethics. Both these concepts have strengths and weaknesses and have been debated for many years by people way smarter than I am.

To drill down through the philosophical mumbo-jumbo, it boils down to this:

Do you believe the end justifies the means?

Consequentialists believe that if the end is "good" it can compensate if the means are "bad". Some Consequentialists forgo the evaluation whether something is "good enough" or "bad enough".

Deontologists believe that the means need to be evaluated morally/ethically independent of the anticipated ends. Deontologists believe that the argument "the ends justify the means" can only be evaluated post facto and in that case it is too late, the deed is done! The Argument of the Deontologist is that "will the uncertain anticipated end justify the certain means?".

For further information, consider researching "Principle of Permissible Harm"
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=9763. It is complex and complicated concept.

No one can say whether Consequentialism and Deontological ethics are either correct or both incorrect. There is much academic debate on these concepts.

Emotional responses abound when Consequentialism and Deontological ethics are debated. Especially more when the concept of ethical torture come up.

This is one of the many reasons why this and other administrations (foreign and domestic) used to shy away from "torture is allowed" and instead redirect the debate to "This technique is not torture". This way a specific technique could be ethically justified because it was "not-torture".

One thing that is known is that Consequentialists and Deontologists will probably never agree nor convert the other. But each sure does like to try

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

If this only were the case, just look at bible literalists, or tohra literalists or qur'an literalists or white supremacists or blak supremacists or any other ****ing retarded extremist movement. They havent gone anywhere in the past centuries and some have grown at an alarming rate in the past few decades. Stupidity is not going anywhere.

I didn't say it was perfect, but even if it doesn't get one early, it will at least hamper ones ability to reproduce.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

Well, what seems to be in question here as I read these threads is the idea of the 'perfect world'. Last I checked, we live in a greedy self motivated for personal profit world. It would be worse if we were all pure Darwanists since any helping of the sick or poor would be right out the window and it would be worse, though Darwanist theories are under attack right now anyway since there are little snails that defy Darwins logic, but thats another story.

Anyway - we live in a world that has disease, people die, people get whacked out, people want to kill other people over crazed ideas, and crazed personal profit motivations. We live in a world where guns are neccesary, torture is ill defined, and a world where one needs to defend their values and life.

Is sitting there thinking you are going to die in a jail cell any different than thinking that physical harm is going to come to you via water boarding? Come on! Only the time line is changed! The phych factor the same. Even the hope of survival is the same.

The only way to get to the world that you utopians dream of is to re-program the human mind physically. So go home and deal with the world you are in already, or start destroying parts of your brain and become a robot. Any other talk of such minor things is pointless and pathetic.

-S

[DeepIron]

Anyway - we live in a world that has disease, people die, people get whacked out, people want to kill other people over crazed ideas, and crazed personal profit motivations. We live in a world where guns are neccesary, torture is ill defined, and a world where one needs to defend their values and life.

So... when I defend my values by not condoning torture... what? An exercise in futility because "the world is the way it is" and my personal values don't mean squat? Well, you might as well throw out stuff like "human rights" then because it's the individual that makes THAT happen.

Any other talk of such minor things is pointless and pathetic.

I'm confused... If I DO defend my personal sense of values it's "pointless and pathetic"?
If so, then there really isn't any point to living because we're always going to find ourselves failing to improve and our efforts to do so, pointless...

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Anyway - we live in a world that has disease, people die, people get whacked out, people want to kill other people over crazed ideas, and crazed personal profit motivations. We live in a world where guns are neccesary, torture is ill defined, and a world where one needs to defend their values and life.

Is sitting there thinking you are going to die in a jail cell any different than thinking that physical harm is going to come to you via water boarding? Come on! Only the time line is changed! The phych factor the same. Even the hope of survival is the same.

The only way to get to the world that you utopians dream of is to re-program the human mind physically. So go home and deal with the world you are in already, or start destroying parts of your brain and become a robot. Any other talk of such minor things is pointless and pathetic.

-S

Can't argue with that. Torture is torture but i see your point.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Well, what seems to be in question here as I read these threads is the idea of the 'perfect world'. Last I checked, we live in a greedy self motivated for personal profit world. It would be worse if we were all pure Darwanists since any helping of the sick or poor would be right out the window and it would be worse, though Darwanist theories are under attack right now anyway since there are little snails that defy Darwins logic, but thats another story.

While this is going grossly off topic social darwinism has nothing to do with the theory of evolution and so far i have yet to hear any coherent challenge of said theory. Other than that I agree, the world is far from perfect, but then again, what isnt.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

a world where one needs to defend their values and life.

Any comment to make on your hope that Letum has his head cut off?

Is sitting there thinking you are going to die in a jail cell any different than thinking that physical harm is going to come to you via water boarding? Come on! Only the time line is changed! The phych factor the same. Even the hope of survival is the same.

Are you having a laugh?
Fear of death != Fear of immediate death.
I can only refer you to Skybird's post on the matter.

The only way to get to the world that you utopians dream of is to re-program the human mind physically. So go home and deal with the world you are in already, or start destroying parts of your brain and become a robot. Any other talk of such minor things is pointless and pathetic.

Disliking torture is not a utopian ideal. You know that.
Gotta love the transition, though. You started off with decent arguments (founded on a false notion of torture, mind, but well argued), then after calling for Letum's head to be cut off you went away for a while.
Now you're back, calling everyone stupid cattle/sheep, and now a treatise on how nasty the world is, and any argument against torture is some sort of utopian daydreaming.
Bleh.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

While this is going grossly off topic social darwinism has nothing to do with the theory of evolution and so far i have yet to hear any coherent challenge of said theory....

You can start here - http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/0...-magazine.html

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Any comment to make on your hope that Letum has his head cut off?

Are you having a laugh?
Fear of death != Fear of immediate death.
I can only refer you to Skybird's post on the matter.

Disliking torture is not a utopian ideal. You know that.
Gotta love the transition, though. You started off with decent arguments (founded on a false notion of torture, mind, but well argued), then after calling for Letum's head to be cut off you went away for a while.
Now you're back, calling everyone stupid cattle/sheep, and now a treatise on how nasty the world is, and any argument against torture is some sort of utopian daydreaming.
Bleh.

Did you say something?

-S

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Did you say something?

-S

Another telling contribution, not.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

You can start here - http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/0...-magazine.html

Where exactly was the challenge to the theory of evolution?