The Observation Deck

Hi,
That was the question former Governor Jesse Ventura asked the other day on "The View". He is a great patriot and one people should listen to. I heard him raise similar points on Fox earlier this week.

[quote]“If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard [Timothy] McVeigh and [Terry] Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved? What’s your answer to that?â€

Hi,
Here's former Governor Ventura on Fox and Friends: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/19/ventura-schools-kilmeade/

Hi,
Don't think Ventura could get Cheney to confess to the Sharon Tate murders? Watch radio host Mancow get waterboarded. Second video shows entire happening. See: http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/conservative-radio-hosts-waterboarded/

6 seconds and 3/4 a gallon of water and this person switched to believing waterboarding is indeed torture.

Donald Farris wrote:Hi,
Don't think Ventura could get Cheney to confess to the Sharon Tate murders? Watch radio host Mancow get waterboarded. Second video shows entire happening. See: http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/conservative-radio-hosts-waterboarded/

6 seconds and 3/4 a gallon of water and this person switched to believing waterboarding is indeed torture.

I have never heard of "Mancow" but that was one of the funniest videos I have seen in a while. But I did not think waterboarding was torture... I thought it was an "enhanced interrogation technique".

Mancow is a conservative. It was nice to see him have to eat his words after the big slam dunk.

Hi,
Saw this: http://www.eandppub.com/2009/05/no-torture-neededcookies-did-the-job.html

Seems if we want info then there are many better ways to get it than torture. In the case mentioned above, sugar-free cookies worked.

I think we are squeezing together two functions that sometimes overlap, and sometimes don't.

Part of the police function is to gather evidence necessary to obtain a conviction. Another part is the protection of the general populace.

Assume that the police have obtained overwhelming and reliable evidence that a man has kidnapped a child, and has buried her alive with only enough air to survive for a few hours. Should the police be able to use some form of torture to obtain information as to the location of the buried child. Evidence obtained from this would obviously be inadmissible at trial, but a conviction could be obtained without this evidence. Perhaps the child could be saved by the "enhanced interrogation".

I would point out that if the police came upon the man during the kidnapping, and he was threatening the child, how many of us would criticize the use of violence if the police shot the man before he could do more violence?

As to the accuracy of information obtained by torture, I think it is not clear that such evidence is always reliable, or always unreliable. So I would exclude it in the context of obtaining a conviction. But in other situations, it can be reliable enough to be useful in conducting a protective or military operation. In the case I first posited, if information as to the location of the buried child was obtained, it could certainly be verified or refuted, and could lead to saving the child. In military operations, I don't see the value of torture once an enemy combatant has been removed to a rear area; it violates the Geneva convention, is a negative reflection on what we supposedly stand for, and is not likely to provide information of immediate value. By contrast, in a firefight where an enemy combatant can identify the location of an immediate threat, I think it would be difficult to refrain from doing whatever would obtain that information. And I have mixed feelings when the combat involves an enemy that has no state, and has demonstrated that they themselves have rejected the provisions of the Geneva convention

I don't see the value of torture once an enemy combatant has been removed to a rear area; it violates the Geneva convention, is a negative reflection on what we supposedly stand for, and is not likely to provide information of immediate value. By contrast, in a firefight where an enemy combatant can identify the location of an immediate threat, I think it would be difficult to refrain from doing whatever would obtain that information. And I have mixed feelings when the combat involves an enemy that has no state, and has demonstrated that they themselves have rejected the provisions of the Geneva convention

most of the Guantonimo detainees are, apparently, just grunts picked up in Afghanistan or Saudi grunts who invaded Iraq months after America liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein. If they haven't been charged, tried, and convicted yet you may as well let them go. Is that how World War II worked? When the war was over most prisoners went home.

Republican congressmen tend to be more vocal about keeping a prison in Cuba for prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq. These Congressmen should be moving hard to get prison camp moved to their states. that means a lot of jobs.

I don't know much about the Geneva Convention beyond what i learned on Hogan's Heroes and the film "The Great Escape". The Great Escape is a strange movie. It is the nicest prison camp I have scene. the inmates have tools, stainless steel mess kids, stoves, showers, running water. they keep their own clothes, and have a lot of privacy. World War II was the greatest opportunity warring industrial super-powers had to bomb the hell out of each other from the air for years at a time. Almost any prisoner would know the locations of vital air fields, hangars, refineries, factories, office buildings, etc. that would be information worth torturing for. the old movies indicate torture was not as fancy in the 1940s. they had the back-hand slap, the fore hand slap, and the punch to the ribs.