No Charges Against CIA Officials for Waterboarding

[moderate democrat]

then why are you upset when Obama says no one requires prosecution?.......

I am not really upset, I just think a court needs to determine guilt in this matter. It seems clear to me that the supreme law of the land was broken.

[sgtdmski]

Once again this all goes back to the argument regarding what is torture.

Is waterboarding torture? Some would argue yes, while others like myself would say no. Waterboarding does not kill, it does not inflict physical pain, what it does it causes a person to break because they have the feeling that they could drown. It is as simple as that. Considering that once upon a time college fraternities used the dunking of a persons head in water as an initiation prank, I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever consider it torture.

Then there are a serious of other techniques that are used, including keeping hoods over a prisoner. Again where is the physical pain, where is the possibility of death. All this does is deprives the individual of the ability to sense the time of day. The same could be said of keeping the lights on, switching them off, and them back on, all this to mentally confuse and challenge an individual.

The same is true with the tricks of the temperature manipulation, keeping a room cold, or keeping a room hot. All it does is mentally confuses a prisoner, resulting in their inability to concentrate and often times it causes them to make mental mistakes in answering questions where an interrogator can find if they are lying or not.

What about loud music? Is this really torture. Why not test it out, the next time your neighbor plays the music too loud next door, call the police and tell them that your neighbor is torturing you because they are playing the music too loud, and then tell me if the 911 dispatcher laughed their ass off or not.

In a perfect world none of these techniques would be required. But therein lies the problem we do not live in a perfect world. We do not videotape the beheading of any of the prisoners, btw did we behead anyone?? I don't think so. I think Daniel Pearl would have loved to have been waterboarded, or forced to listen to loud music, or face extreme temperatures. But are enemies do not interrogate, they kill plain and simple. Daniel Pearl was a newsreporter, the men and women who died in the World Trade Center were civilians.

I am sorry, but the country was pissed after September 11th and wondered why our intelligence failed. Since that time these techniques have been successfully used to make sure they would not fail again, and they have not.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

dmk

[Kathianne]

Well whether for good or ill, the US is now tethered to the Army Field Manual, which is being studied by al queda. http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-i...aida-suspects/

With the release of the memos, Obama has left only the Manual on the table, along with the list of 'techniques previously used' along with the limitations by lawyers. To think that they aren't emboldened would be underestimating their intelligence. Hopefully they are so in awe of Obama himself, they won't try to harm us again.