Bush Is Right to Worry If Waterboarding Is Defined as Torture

Water boarding is illegal. We sentenced a Japanese officer to 15 years hard labor for water boarding Allied Prisoners of War.

It's clearly torture. It is outlawed by the US military and by international agreement. Eventually it will be seen as that. The clear evidence is when you ask a supporter of water boarding if our military should be subjected to it (not in training but by the enemy) and it becomes even more clear.
Any so called evidence gathered by water boarding is tainted and will be thrown out sooner or later in any prosecution. Those who order water boarding should be prosecuted as war criminals. Resorting to torture techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition is really stooping to a new low even for the Bush administration.

No. It is clearly torture. When you drown someone that is torture. The only thing that stops the victim from dying is if they discontinue the procedure. This is directly from the mouth of a Chief Petty Officer charged with training our troops in what to expect if they are water boarded. The victim will die within minutes if the torture is incorrectly done or not stopped in time. It is torture. A reasonable person does not need congress or a lawyer or a jackass politician to define torture.

No one, even the Bush admin, is in favor of torture, and they are on the record against torture.

The Bush administration is in favor of not calling torture, "torture". They like to use euphemisms like aggressive interrogation techniques. When a victim dies they like to say they died of "natural causes" such as from a weak heart. Read the post and link in #3. Do you think these high ranking military people might be able to recognize torture?

Well, you are certainly entitled to your view. Water boarding is controlled drowning.
If you water boarded an animal, say a dog and a cop saw you do you think he would perceive it as torture? You would find yourself in jail in a heartbeat and I don't think a judge would find your argument persuasive. Because some individuals wanted to see what it was like does not make it any less torture. Some individuals undergo voluntary amputations. I guess that's alright too in your view.
Physically restraining someone and pouring water on their face is torture. Water boarding has always been considered torture by the US and by international treaty until the Bush administration started playing word games. If it makes you feel better to refer to an ancient torture technique by some other name, knock yourself out, but a reasonable person can easily see that this is torture. http://waterboarding.org/torture excerpt:

* Part 1, Article 1 and the US Reservations of the UN Convention Against Torture:

The term "torture" means 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.

* The US Reservations for the UN Convention Against Torture:

In order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

* Article 32 of the Fourth Geneva Convention

any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.

* Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health

* Article 7(2)(e) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

"Torture" means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

* Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture

For the purposes of this Convention, torture shall be understood to be any act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article.

* 18 United States Code Title 18, §2340(2)

"torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control

So I gather your argument is that if it gets results then it's ok? And that a prisoner (oh, I'm sorry, to be politically correct these days a "detainee") if a detainee "knows that someone is not going to let him drown, that it is not torture?" I would sure like to know how someone who is "detained" is going to know that even if that supposed knowledge would define torture.
You keep talking about a signup sheet. I defy you to show me a signup sheet where detainees are volunteering to be tortured. YOUR logic is as tortured as this subject.
Every one of those articles of the Geneva convention I sited above prohibit acts such as water boarding. What do you not understand?

The subject is waterboarding not roller coasters flying off into space etc.

Tear gas is used to capture or compel people to surrender or move from one area to another. If you put a captive in an enclosed space and subject them to tear gas then yes that does fall under the definition of torture. I know of no police department that allows tear gas to be allowed in interogations. And again we are talking about waterboarding, not tear gas, etc.
You are setting up strawmen to avoid acknowledging the immutable fact that waterboarding is torture.

That you suppose that torture is defined by how useful it is, is proof to me that you will never understand the very basic concept that changing the name does not change the act. The Spanish inquisition used waterboarding as a torture technique, Pol Pot used waterboarding as a torture technique, the Vietnamese used waterboarding as a torture technique and now Americans use waterboarding as a torture technique. Your failure to understand changes nothing.

"Torture" means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

What is unclear about that? What is it that you do not understand?
Perhaps if you would follow the link in post #3 and read the letter from the distinguished military legal experts you might gain a tiny bit of insight into what makes your position fallacious.

You are not following what I wrote. I'll assume, for now, that it is not deliberate. For some reason, you believe that waterboarding inflicts severe pain and suffering. Is that correct? This is a pretty specific question. Do you have a specific answer? well, then you have to define severe.

Here is as specific an answer as I can give. Waterboarding deprives the body of oxygen. The victim will die if the torturer does not interrupt the procedure. The victim believes that they are dying and in fact they are unless the procedure is interrupted. If for no other reason than mock executions such as shooting a victim with a blank or an unloaded pistol to the head, those are definitions of torture under the Geneva convention.
Torturers do not normally provide statistics on procedures gone bad but I think it is safe to assume that people have died while being waterboarded.
Again, what a reporter chooses to do or not do is not the issue. The issue is what is being done to captives who do not have the option of choosing none of the above.

DOJ Official, Daniel Levine has the answer to whether waterboarding is torture or not.
Because he subjected himself to it so he could answer that question.
His answer was an agonized YES!

Yes they should JDL no question about. Nancy and Reid are now enablers unfortunately. Down with the Republicrats.

Thank you Ron. I have yet to hear one of these heroes say that it is just fine with them if our military men and woman and our citizens are subjected to waterboarding by our enemies. No qualifications, no weasel words, just clear outright clarification.