John Stewart and Cliff May duke it out on the torture issue. I got to say, whatever your position may be on the issue, this is the best conversation about torture I’ve ever heard.
Here’s the link:
http://blog.indecisionforever.com/2009/04/29/jon-stewarts-extended-interview-with-cliff-may/
Great stuff, seriously! Even May says himself, “Literally, this is the best conversation I have had on this subject anywhere.”
Alex, I think waterboarding someone 183 times is quite a many time and I believe will break the threshold of discomfort for anyone…
I still think you don’t understand mine, Jin Woo’s, or for that matter Jon Stewart’s stance. You promote the legality of the waterboarding too much. The point is that when we stand by these rules, and would prosecute other nations for waterboarding our own soldiers for not following the International code of conduct. And now you will say, ‘well Al-Qaeda is not a nation, and thus does not abide by the Geneva Convention,’ and although that is the case, that is not what we are debating.
We are debating, on how torture reflects on America’s own values. When we preach moral superiority and don’t abide by it, it reflects extremely poorly on us as a society. And sure the captured members of Al-Qaeda are not subject to the Geneva convention, but we are subject to our own convention. If someone did this to an American soldier we would want to rip that nation or militia apart, so I think we best be careful on how far we trudge along the torture path.
On a side note about waterboarding, I don’t think if it matters if you experience simulated drowning for a minute, or 30 seconds, it still feels like drowning, and thus would break the threshold of discomfort for anyone.