Waterboarding Options

[Robert]

In the last few years there have been dozens of stories about waterboarding.
For those who don't know what waterboarding is an Interrogation technique which has been around for 100's of years.
By no means is it anything new.

What really surprised me was how over hyped this whole story has been since it initially broke in 2005.
The news stories did their best to politicize this and make it sound as a wide on-going practice.
I would agree in a perfect world we all wish we lived in, something as repugnant as this wouldn't exist.
The question of whether or not it should be done is for a different day.
My interest is in the fact there have been dozens of stories about this in the last few years making it sound like an ongoing issue when it hasn't been done since 2003.
If you don't find that strange, then how about they way most of the news stories were written.
After reading these news stories, most people will have the impression it's a common practice.

So let's play a game.
Seeing as how there have been dozens of news stories about this in the last 3 years,
How many terror suspects do you think have been waterboarded.
A) More Than 100
B) 50-100
C) 25-50
D) 10-25
E) 5-10
F) less Than 5

If you guessed anything besides F you would be wrong.
Wrong but understandably so, after how publicized this issue has been in the last two years.
The actual number would be 3.
Why is it most news stories left out that fact or buried it at the end of the story?
Probably because that simple fact would minimize the story right down to being so insignificant it wouldn't be seen as news worthy.

We even know exactly who was interrogated this way.
1) The person who helped plan 9-11
2) The person who planned the attack on the U.S. Cole, he even rented the boat used in the attack killing 17 sailors
3) The person who beheaded Daniel Pearl.
Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I'm not going to shed a tear for whatever might be done to any of those 3.

Another point I found to be very interesting, is how outspoken some people have been.
Very quick to say how terrible the whole idea of waterboarding is, "No one should have to endure that"
Cry a river, how wrong it was to do it to those 3 people when there have been 1000's of Americana's who have had the same thing done to them.
Every Navy SEAL until recently was waterboarded as part of their SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training.
Dozens of CIA interrogators had to go through that as part of their training.
Dozens of Navy Pilots went thru a training program similar to SERE which included waterbaording.
So I really have to wonder how some people can condemn waterboarding the likes of the 3 killers above but then there is no outcry over 1000's of Americans going thru the same thing.

Just something to keep it in perspective.

[Genocide Junkie]

I'm on both sides of this to some degree I guess. Does it really matter if it was 1 or 1000? If it's wrong then it's wrong. For 1 or a million. Does it violate any of the current laws anywhere that we are bound by? I for one don't know. If so then there should be unrest to some degree I guess. Is using it warranted? Not for me to decide I guess. Some think this makes us just as bad as them. I don't think it's a good thing but neither is dropping bombs on people. We do it because we "have" to. It's part of war and although we try to play by the rules I can see where there are situations where we have to remember this is WAR. To think we didn't do these things before every soldiers action was broadcast on youtube, myspace, or ihatebush.org is crazy. The fact we even know it happened is almost scary to me. If in fact it was for those 3 guys and that's it. I'm guessing we did things in vietnam and WWII that would sicken most anyone. But we didn't know it. Never will. So I think we have to keep that in consideration as well. How much do we really want and NEED to know about this? Just somethings I think about with this...

If I were the judge we'd probably have a continent sized glass parking lot with an oil rig in the middle of it. My first nuke on Mecca probly wouldn't fly well with the rest of the world. But luckily for everyone else I'm not the decision maker. I've got some great ideas for our illegal alien problem as well... Stay tuned for that