Re: What About Mukasy\'s Position on Waterboarding?
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Whether or not waterboarding as practiced by US interrogators is or is not torture depends (IMO at least) heavily on the specifics of the process.
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Serious, non-sarcastic question: what kind of waterboarding procedure *isn't* torture? I mean, I don't think I need to tell you that if the process *didn't* cause extreme mental duress (regardless of the 'specifics of the process'), it probably wouldn't be used as a means for extracting information.
I posted the quote from McCain (someone who might have some first-hand knowledge of the brutality and inhumanity of such things) for a reason: the notion that waterboarding is "torture-lite" is pretty silly. If the "specifics of the process" are such that it *doesn't* produce severe pain or suffering (otherwise known as torture), then I'm not sure why we do it at all.
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It's all a political game.
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This quote is a bit odd, too. It makes it sound like this debate merely involves your typical partisan chicanery.
From my point of view, we have a group of people (who I'm certainly not claiming aren't necessarily Democrats) who disapprove of waterboarding, find torture barbaric, and are disgusted by the thought of the US utilizing torture, regardless of the justification. Let's call this group "Human Beings With Souls and a Functioning Conscience."
And on the other side, it appears as if we have people who will use any means necessary to gather information to stop the terrarists and their unholy agenda.
Is it really some kind of political game where people are just trying to score political points? Or is there actually a philosophical divide here of some kind? Because calling it "a political game" would make the debate seem a bit wonky, borne over frivolous details and shouldn't really be paid attention to -- Washington as usual and their trite debates over nothingness. I mean, does John McCain oppose torture because he's trolling for primary votes ("just a political game"), or because he has a personal conviction and this kind of thing matters to him?
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