I don't really see where "moral compass" comes in to play when you are dealing with terrorists. We were attacked in NYC. Not a US territory thousands of miles from the mainland. But attacked in the center of our greatest city. Therefore I feel this our greatest fight and will be for years to come. I would do much worse than waterboarding if I felt I could gain information to save mine or my families life.

 

Just my opinion.

 

We have to ask ourselves where do we draw the line.

Would Christ water board and torture??

We have to ask ourselves where do we draw the line.

Would Christ water board and torture??

Christ let his enemies kill him.

We have to ask ourselves where do we draw the line.

Would Christ water board and torture??

 

 

I would draw the line at survival of myself and my family.

I can't say that lynks is wrong or right on his belief. I can't say anyone else is.

 

All I can say is that my faith does not allow me to respond in such ways. I can not view this world as America versus the world. I see us as humanity. Some of that humanity is evil and I don't believe you can determine evil actions by the place on the globe, the color of the uniform or the design of the flag.

 

Just my opinion.

We shouldn't base our non use of torture on what others are doing. We've lost the war then without having been in a battle.

 

It's ironic to me that the one candidate who KNOWS exactly what torture is about and to what ends says NO to waterboarding. That's McCain.

 

As to what we gain if we stop: We gain the Moral Compass of the situation. For me and my faith, that is more than enough. It's interesting that this nation could have tortured numerous German and Japanese officials to get information that would have saved thousands of lives (troop movements, U-Boat designs and tactics, etc) but we chose not to against an even more threatening enemy.

 

My question is why do we think it's okay in this fight but we chose not to in the greatest one?

 

We did use torture in WWII, it just wasn't on the front pages of the NY Times.

I believe Bill Orielly once told McCain that Torture was a good thing and he (McCain) didn't know what he was talking about.

On the daily show, John Stewart responded by saying:

 

"And next O'Reilly will school Stephen Hawking in a debate on quantum physics and wheelchair ramps.

 

That is not correct. It is funny if it had been.

We did use torture in WWII, it just wasn't on the front pages of the NY Times.

 

We also dropped two atomic bombs that killed thousands and thousands of innocent civilians, and left many, many more with horrible injuries...the effects are probably still being felt.

 

I'm not sure our "moral compass" in WWII was any better or worse than it is now...

We did use torture in WWII, it just wasn't on the front pages of the NY Times.

 

Can you give me a link to that one? I honestly don't remember ever having read about that.

When you're talking about actions that may save many (thousands?) of lives, it puts a whole new parameter into the equation. That's where I struggle with it.

 

 

I agree with your point and I can see in that scenario where you could very reasonably say, "use waterboarding to save those lives." The gray area for me occurs when we don't know if the people we have in custody truly have any terrorist ties and we use this interrogation method. If we could somehow KNOW with absolute certainty that person A had information necessary to prevent the deaths of our citizens, you could make an argument that torturing that individual would be not much different than killing someone in self defense. However, you could also make the argument that if a high-ranking uniformed military officer were captured, torturing that individual to obtain intelligence on troop movements and concentrations could save lives too. The only difference is that the Geneva convention clearly prohibits this and I don't think we'd do it as a matter of official policy.

 

In my mind, we have to be careful about the message we send to the rest of the world (including the Muslim world). If we are not careful about managing that message, we will create more would-be terrorists than we can possibly deal with.

Can you give me a link to that one? I honestly don't remember ever having read about that.

 

I don't know of any links but you could probably do a search and find information. There was a book I read a while back but can't remember the name. I'll see if my brother does as that is who recommended it to me.

I agree with your point and I can see in that scenario where you could very reasonably say, "use waterboarding to save those lives." The gray area for me occurs when we don't know if the people we have in custody truly have any terrorist ties and we use this interrogation method. In my mind, we have to be careful about the message we send to the rest of the world (including the Muslim world). If we are not careful about managing that message, we will create more would-be terrorists than we can possibly deal with.

 

There are just so many things to think about that makes this a very troubling topic. What is the cost of doing it? What is the cost if we miss something we could have learned?

^ I thought about this a bit more and updated my earlier post. I agree--it's not a very cut-and-dried issue.