House votes to outlaw CIA waterboarding
Posted on December 13, 2007
Defying a White House veto threat, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to outlaw harsh interrogation methods, such as simulated drowning, that the CIA has used against suspected terrorists.
On a largely party line vote of 222-199, the Democratic-led House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which bans torture in compliance with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
The measure, part of a sweeping intelligence bill, passed amid a congressional probe into the recent disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotapes of al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, a simulated drowning.
Many countries, U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have accused the United States of torturing terror suspects since the September 11 attacks.
The ACLU cheered the bill, so its safe to say they’ll be cheering its passing soon. Will it pass the Senate? We will see.
So let me see. The technique works and has saved lives, its rarely even been used, Al Qaeda doesn’t give a crap about humane torture, and it wouldn’t encourage other countries to torture our soldiers because they already have and would anyway. The bottom line is would one rather have blood on their hands because they failed to get the information needed to save lives, or offend some moronic moral code and save lives. The ACLU would go with the moral absolutist idea. Looks like that is the way the House went too. Of course they were just following what was politically popular. Thats important too you know. 222 morons.
Thankfully it doesn’t matter. The fate of this will end at the point of a veto pen. I’m starting to think we will soon be missing President Bush.
Update: Hot Air finds something differently disturbing tucked into the bill.
» Filed Under ACLU, News, Politics As Usual, War On Terror
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22 Responses to “House votes to outlaw CIA waterboarding”
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Curious set of morals you must have if opposition to torture isn’t included. Remind me to quote you next time you whip out your righteousness over something relatively trivial.
It’s moronic to me because the morality of saving lives trumps that of torturing a bad guy.
A “bad guy”, huh? Are they all wearing black hats?
Jeff, don’t act stupid and condescending…you are smarter than that. Use some common sense.
Likewise, Jay. Who has the power to deem an individual “a bad guy”? Are there any meaningful criteria or can this person simply declare that the prisoner is such a bad guy that he can be tortured? I would love to hear your minister’s take on your position.
Dude, the bad guys are the ones trying to destroy and kill us. The ones on the opposing side of the U.S. Or do you think the U.S. is the bad guys?
Wait…I know…its all kinda grey to you?
And who are “the ones trying to destroy and kill us”? If you know who they all are, quit blogging and round them up.
But you can’t because you don’t know who they are. We are opposed by a stealthy and disparate enemy. They blend in with innocents and that makes things harder for us. Some of the people we kill were actually innocent. Some of the people we capture are actually innocent. Our moral justification of self-defense goes right out the window when we set a policy that ignores those facts.
Jeff Molby,
Waterboarding is not torture as it does not fit the definition. Waterboarding is just a scare tactic. Torture is when doctors perform a serious operation on you and forget to give you pain killers. Try them both and then you will know the difference.
Webster, Cambridge, and the U.S. House of Representatives disagree with your definition, kerwin. They all consider the intentional infliction of mental agony to be torture. It doesn’t take much imagination to think that an effective simulation of drowning would cause “mental agony”.
That is the point, right? At least Jay was honest enough to not to trot a weak Orwellian redefinition.
jeff molby for the deaths of thousands over saving them, CHECK.
*vomit*
otter for the use of pure emotional appeal over logic, CHECK.
*sigh*
I’m still not understanding all the sympathy for murdering terrorists. The bottom line is that if they withold info, and you can get that info out of them by roughing them up, and it will save lives…its justified.
Another thing, Jeff. We leave it to our military to determine who is and isn’t the enemy. Do you have a better idea? Is there someone else you would trust more with that decision.
Jeff, if it makes you feel better about yourself to stand on a principle so unflexible even to save hundreds, then go ahead…no one is trying to change your opinion. Mine is just going to be different.
Oh, and the rare times we used this were on the worst of the worst to get info we needed. Of course you would be an absolutist moralists on this, and argue a slipperly slope…or just spout that I can’t prove it, and believe whatever the government tells me. Of course, you can’t prove anything the other way around, are so inflexible on your moral standing that it is sickening the consequences you could watch happen. You can’t prove any percentage of how many innocent we capture, etc.
I have no sympathy for terrorists; I have endless sympathy for those wrongly believed to be terrorists and in the absence of a rigorous process, you can’t tell the two apart with a high degree of certainty.
Like a gambler who only mentions his successes, you keep focusing on the time where all of your assumptions are right. What about the times where you rough him up and he still doesn’t speak? When he doesn’t speak in time to avert the tragedy? When he doesn’t actually know enough to help you avert the tragedy? When he isn’t even guilty of the allegations? When there is impending tragedy?
Don’t even get me started on when we start wars using the same faulty logic.
You brazenly label our enemy “evil”, but the truth is that you’ve made the exact same deal with the devil. They too claim they’re acting in self-defense. Everything is justified once you’ve demonized the opposition, right?
You even go so far as to imply that we might have a perfect track-record just because I don’t have access to highly classified information. Do we have a government full of Jesuses all of a sudden? I can’t possibly know what the actual percentage is, but you and I both know damn well it’s above zero.
You’re willingly commit such sins yet I’m going to hell because I haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as my savior?
I certainly don’t always live up to my morals, but I’m not going to sit here and try to rationalize my sins away. So yeah, my morals are inflexible. Aren’t they supposed to be?
I have endless sympathy for those wrongly believed to be terrorists and in the absence of a rigorous process, you can’t tell the two apart with a high degree of certainty.
I’m having difficulty determining exactly where you are coming from, Jeff.
Maybe it would help if you would define “rigorous process” and then explain how, in the absence of such a process, you have determined that individuals have been wrongly believed to be terrorists.
Jeff, I assume you are referring to the folks at Club Gitmo. Just in case you missed it, they were caught fighting in Afghanistan against us, wearing nor uniform. They are members of Al Qaeda.
When you catch someone planning a terrorist attack, guess what? They are a terrorist.
One that at least remotely resembles our criminal system. I’m not saying it has to be the criminal system, but it damn sure has to have many of the same characteristics: competent counsel, independent arbitrator, face accusers and (except in rare cases) evidence, meaningful appeals, etc.
The law of large numbers. Are you really asserting that our troops have been and continue to be perfect?
I don’t believe the legislation is specific to any particular people or location, but Gitmo certainly comes to mind. It wouldn’t surprise me if most of the dirty work was done in the secret locations, though.
Oh, it’s that simple? I take it all back.
No, IIRC, we relied heavily on proxies to fight that war. In fact, I think we actually paid them per arrest. Nooo, no incentive to settle old scores there. I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to assume the everyone was detained on a battlefield. (As if those were clearly defined either)
Let’s try to have some respect for the English language. A person who attacks our military is not a terrorist. An enemy combatant? Of course. An insurgent? sure. An illegal combatant? Probably. A terrorist? No.
The law of large numbers.
Couple that with theory of probability and you may be able to wager that the system you envision will be more perfect than the system we have operated under throughout our history.
Regardless, you would fair no better. You seem to think it is the system that is lacking when it is the person controlling the system on the one end, and people who think the system is broken on the other.
Are you really asserting that our troops have been and continue to be perfect?
No. But they are as close as we are going to get and infinitely better than you and many others give them credit for.
Are you asserting that in any group, with the volume of troops our military has, is capable of perfection? If you are shooting for perfection, you surely wouldn’t want to model it after our criminal justice system.
I’m not sure what you mean by this, but I place the blame on the people who, over the past few years, created the system and those that cheer it on. I would be thrilled to have “the system we have operated under throughout our history.”
No, I don’t expect perfection. Just a fair process with adequate checks and balances.
“Webster, Cambridge, and the U.S. House of Representatives disagree with your definition, kerwin. They all consider the intentional infliction of mental agony to be torture.” Jeff Molby.
Please! Stress is mental agony so I guess the police can arrest my employer for torturing me. Someone is being foolish. I have undergone a near drowning experience and I can testify that I was fully terrorized but not in pain. I supposed we should also arrest those who say boo when I do not expect it.
I concede that the House is foolish on a regular basis, but I’m pretty sure we can trust the guys at the dictionary. If you think it’s some sort of conspiracy, go the library and look it up in a pre-2000 dictionary.
That would prove your point if we accepted your definition. If we accept a credible definition, it proves mine.