3 pages of hooksaw being in favor or torture!

11/8/2007 9:22:10 AM

Sometimes I think hooksaw is actually someone on the whitehouse staff that gets bored and posts on TWW for shits n giggles

11/8/2007 12:17:52 PM

Another Taser-related death adds to the toll

Quote :

"A 20-year-old Maryland man died on Sunday, after being stunned with a Taser by police breaking up a fight. Police deputies in Frederick, Maryland, responding to reports of a fight, found four people fighting. A Taser was used on one of the the men who fell unconscious, was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. The man has not been identified. The deputy involved has been placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation. The death follows in the wake of international outrage over the filmed death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport, following a shock from a Taser by the RCMP. Amnesty International has reported that, since June 2001, more than 150 people have died in the United States after being subdued with a stun gun. The organization has called for police departments to suspend use of the devices pending study of their possible risks [emphasis added]. Few have done so, said Amnesty, which added that more than 7,000 of the nation's 18,000 law enforcement agencies use the devices."

http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/posted/archive/2007/11/19/another-taser-related-death-adds-to-the-toll.aspx

Reported deaths from waterboarding in the last couple of months as a result of US or Canadian actions: 0

11/19/2007 3:58:00 PM

how many times has the taser been used on people?

11/19/2007 4:02:11 PM

^^ you are comparing apples and oranges.

Tasers are used in order to disable potentially dangerous suspects or to control someone resisting police authority.

Water boarding is used against someone in custody in a controlled environment for the sake of torture and information extraction.

What you are saying is like arguing paddling pledges should be ok b.c so far this school year 30 frat guys have died from alcohol poisoning from binge drinking; however, paddling pledges is not hazing since 0 deaths have occurred.

[Edited on November 19, 2007 at 5:07 PM. Reason : l]

11/19/2007 5:05:39 PM

^ You're out of step with a leading international human rights organization.

USA: Renewed call for suspension as taser-related deaths pass 150 mark

Quote :

"Amnesty International today called on law enforcement agencies in the US to suspend the use of electro-shock taser weapons pending an independent, rigorous and impartial inquiry into their use. The organization published a report, 'USA: Amnesty International's continuing concerns about taser use', that details the organisation's research on taser use in the US and expresses serious concern over: the significant year-on-year increase in taser related deaths; the lack of any independent and rigorous study into the health effects of the electro-shock devices; the fact that despite these safety concerns, tasers continue to be used in the US as a routine force tool rather than as weapon of last resort; continued reports of excessive use of tasers, in some cases amounting to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGAMR510392006

11/21/2007 12:56:15 AM

Why are tasers being discussed? They have no bearing on the issue of torture.

11/21/2007 2:27:31 AM

Quote :

"theDuke866 Anyone who thinks we shouldn't get valuable intel from extremely dangerous terrorists by any means necessary is "full of shit and/or retarded." And don't dish out the insults unless you can't take them, Duke. I would put jumper cables on a terrorist's fucking balls--positive and negative, of course--and hook them to a redlining dragster if that's what it took. Then, after I got the information, I'd take him in a room with a drain in the middle of it and put two bullets in his fucking brain. But just before he died I would whisper in his ear, "You could have died on the battlefield with honor, motherfucker. Now look at you." In case some of you have forgotten, our enemies, the Islamofascists, don't just pour water on your head--they cut the motherfucker off. "

Ahahahaha

11/21/2007 2:33:53 AM

^^ Try actually reading my posts instead of spasmodically objecting to them. In any event, Amnesty International holds a different position:

Quote :

"continued reports of excessive use of tasers, in some cases amounting to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

11/21/2007 2:56:48 AM

^ Not a single person in this thread has argued that tasers couldn't be used for torture.

You are just reasserting the same argument from the first page, that no one is arguing, and then claim you are making a point. You're not.

11/21/2007 3:10:17 AM

^ Not "couldn't be used for torture," are being used for torture, according to Amnesty International. People are dying--where's the outrage?

11/21/2007 3:14:02 AM

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

11/21/2007 9:37:36 AM

Quote :

"^ Not "couldn't be used for torture," are being used for torture, according to Amnesty International. People are dying--where's the outrage?"

People are outraged about that too. There have been threads about it. This just isn't that thread.

11/21/2007 11:11:56 AM

hooksaw gets another gold star for deliberately misconstruing the content of an article.

Amnesty International is not calling for a complete ban of tasers. They are asking for a temporary suspension while usage policies are reviewed and the medical effects are better understood.

AI's concern includes things like

Quote :

"most who died after being shocked with tasers were unarmed men who did not appear to pose a threat of death or serious injury at the time that they were electro-shocked. The use of the taser was often accompanied by the use of restraints and chemical incapacitant sprays."

and

Quote :

"In some law-enforcement agencies, the use of tasers is allowed if a person simply does not comply with an officer's demands."

AI is concerned that taser's are being increasingly used in situations that do not call for it, such as on people who are already detained or on people who do not pose a physical risk to others. I agree that this is a legitimate concern. In fact, I've posted in the past that such use of tasers can constitute torture.

11/21/2007 1:04:18 PM

^ If the use of tasers and the numerous related deaths are such a "legitimate concern," why are liberals not nearly as worked up about tasers as they are about waterboarding terrorists? Could it be. . .politics? GASP!

11/23/2007 8:41:06 PM

There have been a handful of threads regarding tasering just in the past month or so. There have been multiple occasions in the past few weeks where I've seen articles and considered making threads, but didn't because I didn't have the time to do so.

What I'm saying is this: stop trolling my thread.

11/23/2007 11:58:26 PM

Yeah, that's got to be one of the dumbest arguments I've seen on TWW.

Liberals don't care enough about taser abuse? Come on.

11/24/2007 12:04:21 AM

i haven't read all the way through the latest posts in this thread, but i don't see why that's totally a dumb argument.

while i think that waterboarding (and torture in general) is quite rightly a hot issue, and there are certainly some other distinctions between it and the Taser debate, I think it's pretty reasonable to believe that the torture debate is amplified by virtue of being connected to a hot-button issue (the unpopular Iraq war).

11/24/2007 2:56:38 AM

Quote :

"Could it be. . .politics? GASP! "

11/24/2007 4:56:01 PM

Quote :

"the torture debate is amplified by virtue of being connected to a hot-button issue"

No doubt.

But to pretend that there's no concern/coverage/outrage/whatever concerning taser use is asinine.

11/24/2007 7:14:53 PM

Quote :

"Reported deaths from waterboarding in the last couple of months as a result of US or Canadian actions: 0 "

Because it won't kill you, it won't harm you either

Would you like to volunteer for some waterboarding, nail-pulling, knee-capping, or naked pyramid building with other men? None of those would kill you.

How about sodomy with a broom stick? That doesn't kill either.

11/24/2007 7:19:28 PM

<stupidity>Waterboarding is not bad because I don't hear about people complaining about tasers.</stupidity>

[Edited on November 24, 2007 at 11:45 PM. Reason : .]

11/24/2007 11:44:42 PM

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/24/2324212&from=rss

That should put the taser/waterboarding comparison argument to rest for good. [/sarcasm]

11/25/2007 1:19:26 AM

Quote :

"while i think that waterboarding (and torture in general) is quite rightly a hot issue, and there are certainly some other distinctions between it and the Taser debate, I think it's pretty reasonable to believe that the torture debate is amplified by virtue of being connected to a hot-button issue (the unpopular Iraq war). "

IIRC, the prison in Guantanamo Bay only started getting attention after the invasion of Afghanistan when we started dumping prisoners there, and then also after the subsequent invasion of Iraq.

People have been bitching about the conditions there literally since we have started using Guantanamo, especially considering what happened with the whole abu ghraib thing.

So I would say it's blatantly obvious that it's connected to Iraq, but only because if it weren't for Iraq, and the whole feigned "war on terror" we wouldn't even be using Guantanamo. But, this doesn't really prove in any way that the issue is purely or only political. It's only because bush co. tried to revise geneva conventions to implicitly allow torture, which officially allowing torture is unprecedented for any first world country, that brought the whole issue to the forefront. And gov. officials not outright and completely rejecting the idea that they support torture is what allowed fuel to be added to the fire.

I still can't get why a certain person thinks tasers are relevant though, because the issue is not waterboarding, it's torture in general that people are against, but waterboarding is one technique that they seem to have a lot of evidence for. Water is not illegal, making people sit in tilting chairs is not illegal, but put them together, and make it against someone's will, and you have torture. Context is pretty significant to the issue.

Not to mention that we have had our share of taser discussion, and that not a single person in this thread said that tasers couldn't be used for torture. But the issue with torture is not one particular technique, it's the general idea of it, and how it reflects on Americans to the rest of the world, and also our own moral/ethical imperatives that we've defined for ourselves.

11/25/2007 1:36:31 AM

Quote :

"i haven't read all the way through the latest posts in this thread, but i don't see why that's totally a dumb argument."

My liberal friends and I talk about Taser abuse all the time. More than we talk about waterboarding, I suspect. Of course, most of them are rather radical. Perhaps establishment liberals only talk about waterboarding. I don't know.

But even if it's main contention were true, the argument remain fairly stupid.

11/25/2007 2:34:49 AM

Quote :

"But to pretend that there's no concern/coverage/outrage/whatever concerning taser use is asinine. "

I'm not pretending that (although I DON'T think it has matched waterboarding in terms of the attention receieved).

However, waterboarding has been made into much more of a political issue than has police Taser use.

Quote :

"How about sodomy with a broom stick? That doesn't kill either."

Unless you're Jeffrey Dahmer.

Quote :

"Waterboarding is not bad because I don't hear about people complaining about tasers."

That's certainly not what I'm saying, and I don't think that's what hooksaw is saying (although we differ on our positions on waterboarding).

Quote :

" the issue is not waterboarding, it's torture in general that people are against"

true

Quote :

"But even if it's main contention were true, the argument remain fairly stupid."

What I get out of it is that he's just pointing out hypocrisy and maybe a tiny bit of political opportunism.

11/25/2007 5:30:38 AM

Quote :

"What I get out of it is that he's just pointing out hypocrisy and maybe a tiny bit of political opportunism."

Whose hypocrisy? I know I've talked with spöokyjon, the thread starter, about Taser abuse many times. If doesn't include the people here, how relevant is this supposed hypocrisy?

11/25/2007 11:03:54 AM

^It's not relevant. It's an ad hominem tu quoque fallacy, and the baby is using it to kill the thread.

11/25/2007 12:43:27 PM

Quote :

"What I get out of it is that he's just pointing out hypocrisy and maybe a tiny bit of political opportunism. "

It would only be hypocritical if the tasers were used to torture, and people were saying that's okay, which no one is saying.

I don't know if it's possible for a political issue not to be culpable to some level of political opportunism, but assuming that it is (which I think it's demonstrable that it's not), what does that affect? Does that change the logic of the positions that different people have put forth?

11/25/2007 10:58:21 PM

i dont see how Taser use/abuse by law enforcement is in any way related to the various and sundry forms of torture, including waterboarding.

where was this subject last at before it got off topic? i lost track.

11/25/2007 11:20:20 PM

Quote :

"What I get out of it is that he's just pointing out hypocrisy and maybe a tiny bit of political opportunism."

I couldn't have posted it better, Duke.

Quote :

"The debate, of course, is about more than just one technique. At base is the smoldering question of whether the United States can devise a system to extract valuable information from suspected terrorists without abandoning its basic values. Since 9/11, the Bush White House has planted itself on one side of that debate, pushing no-holds-barred, 'enhanced' interrogation methods, including waterboarding, against prime terror suspects. Congress has been on the other side, sort of. It has deplored torture but never explicitly outlawed waterboarding. Many lawmakers wanted to have it both ways: To be on record against torture, but to avoid blame if there's a terror attack that conceivably might have been averted [emphasis added]."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/11/our-view-on-tor.html

11/26/2007 12:54:07 AM

Coming in From the Cold: CIA Spy Calls Waterboarding Necessary But Torture
Former Agent Says the Enhanced Technique Was Used on Al Qaeda Chief Abu Zubaydah

Quote :

"A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary. In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds. 'The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate,' said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' 'World News With Charles Gibson' and 'Nightline.' 'From that day on, he answered every question,' Kiriakou said. 'The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks' [emphasis added]. Kiriakou said the feeling in the months after the 9/11 attacks was that interrogators did not have the time to delve into the agency's bag of other interrogation tricks. 'Those tricks of the trade require a great deal of time -- much of the time -- and we didn't have that luxury. We were afraid that there was another major attack coming,' he said. Kiriakou says he did not know that the interrogation of Zubaydah was being secretly recorded by the CIA and had no idea the tapes had been destroyed."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3978231&page=1

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3979409

Just like I said.

12/12/2007 5:15:20 AM

Quote :

"'The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks' [emphasis added]."

I don't trust these people any farther than I can throw them. I think it's pretty sad we have to resort to simulated executions to prevent a number of attacks (how many was it, 2, 3?). I highly doubt this would work in your planted nuclear device scenario. But you can keep living in a Jack Bauer world.

12/12/2007 8:25:13 AM

WaterBoarding IS torcher. There may be some Machiavellian justification in its use in some circumstances but I do not want to assert either way. Whoever says it isn't is a fucking liar. Bush just needs to stop beating around the bush and admit its torture used for National Security.

Quote :

"Torture, according to international law, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions"

hmmm.....
I guess the CIA operatives are just being friendly and trying to give the guy a bath right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture



[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 10:28 AM. Reason : a]

12/12/2007 10:26:22 AM

In lieu of the drought, we need to find a more environmentally sustainable way of torturing our prisoners

12/12/2007 10:43:37 AM

U.S. Labeled Waterboarding a War Crime in 1947

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html

The article's a year old, but relevant to this thread

12/17/2007 2:34:03 PM

the problem i have with this issue is Bush just needs to admit its torture. If the CIA finds it necessary in some cases to use the technique that is up to world leaders to evalute. However, claiming it is not touture just makes bush look like a pos kinda like claiming Iraq was all about helping the iraqi citizens

12/17/2007 3:14:17 PM

Quote :

"If the use of tasers and the numerous related deaths are such a "legitimate concern," why are liberals not nearly as worked up about tasers as they are about waterboarding terrorists? Could it be. . .politics? GASP!"

diane rehm from the liberal claptrap of NPR did an hour about tasers in the past couple weeks.

12/17/2007 3:18:28 PM

I guess when the N. Vietnamese stuffed McCain into a 3x3 bamboo cage during the war it wasn't torcher. They were providing shelter and humanitarian sensitivity as demaned via geneva conventions.

12/17/2007 3:40:07 PM

Quote :

"stuffed McCain into a 3x3 bamboo cage "

that suuuuuuuucks BIG TIME

Quote :

"the problem i have with this issue is Bush just needs to admit its torture. "

exactly.

i'd accept it a little better if they just said "Hey, we wanna torture people" instead of trying to sneak a spoonful of shit to us by claiming it's peanut butter. At least then we could have an honest debate about it without the other side saying "What's there to argue about? We aren't torturing anyone!"

12/17/2007 11:13:29 PM

i see mccain making a surge on the torture thing in the next few weeks before new hampshire for sure

12/18/2007 12:04:32 AM

god, hooksaw is worse than randy was

12/18/2007 12:07:18 AM

hey guys Iraq post Sadaam was not having internal revolts against the interim government they were having Sectarian Violence. doesn't this sound a lot nicer!

Waterboarding isn't torture it is Creative Persuassion to help out our CIA friends.

Don Corleone did not "extort" anyone he simply made them an offer they can not refuse

12/18/2007 12:53:43 AM

^ well, some of it is definitely sectarian violence

12/18/2007 1:14:26 AM

Duke where you stationed at these days???

i'm guessing you wouldn't have a online work station chillin in a tent in Iraq.

are you still in navigator school?

12/18/2007 1:15:56 AM

i'm at Whidbey Island, WA now (between Seattle and Vancouver)

not flight school, but training up in my specific jet

12/18/2007 11:16:50 AM

Quote :

"god, hooksaw is worse than randy was"

ben94gt

Oh bullshit, hippie.

12/19/2007 2:03:30 PM

White House Slams New York Times Piece on Destroyed CIA Tapes

Quote :

"WASHINGTON — The White House called for a correction Wednesday after a New York Times story said top White House lawyers were more involved than previously acknowledged in discussions over whether to destroy classified CIA tapes showing harsh interrogation methods of two Al Qaeda terrorists. But it was one of the headlines over the story that drew the ire of the White House communications staff. It read: 'White House Role Was Wider Than It Said' White Hosue press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement calling for the correction to the story subheadline, seen in Times print editions. Later she told reporters why. 'Well, it says, "The White House role was wider than it said," implying that I had either changed my story, or I or somebody else at the White House had misled the public. And that is not true,' Perino said during Wednesday's press briefing. She appeared to get her way, adding: 'I have heard now from the New York Times that they will retract that headline, and they are going to run a correction tomorrow' [emphasis added]. The Times story — published Tuesday night on its Web site and in Wednesday's print editions — says that the lawyers involved in the CIA tape discussions included Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, David Addington and John Bellinger, some of the Bush administration's most powerful current and former legal advisers."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317445,00.html

Ha-ha!

12/19/2007 2:51:55 PM

everything that hooksaw says is complete garbage because hooksaw says it

that's pure logic right there folks

12/19/2007 3:01:28 PM

^ More like illogic--aka circulus in demonstrando.

12/19/2007 3:11:51 PM