The last bastion of the left, when losing an argument, change subjects or attack the person on a personal level, demean them, ridicule them.
I hardly find myself in my last bastion when people brings up stupid examples like this. It's like me saying "you should not cut them 1 inch of limb every time they refuse to answer". It's ludicrous to suggest such absurdity.
And it's the last bastion of every side to resorting to such attacks, MM. desperation is not carried only by the lefties.
And would you believe me that in my country, I am considered a somewhat strong conservative?
I AM still waiting for you to define what is ok to use to interrogate terrorists to gather important information, I already know what you do not approve of, but how about telling us what you think is alright to do to break a hardened terrorists?
regular and legal ways of interrogation. Simply get them uncomfortable conditions - caused by the lack of comfort, such as nice food, or nice beds, etc.. -, and interrogate them for hours every day.
Strong music can be considered as psychological torture, be damaging for the ears.
Too cold/hot rooms can cause health problem, which should not be allowed.
Outside of that, I don't know much about interrogation. But I know what should not be allowed. You owe it to your country to uphold it's ideals.
our nation and each of the states specifically prohibits police from coercing confessions.
The trick for a nation to use such means is simply to lay blame to "rogue" elements, but until they are found out, they put a blind eye to their activities. Section 31 in Star Trek is the perfect example of questionnable organisation working for a so-called "Good" governement.
If you truly believed in the ideals of no-torture, you would not resort to loopholes argument such as "they are not citizens, they are unlawful combattant, i would not call "this" torture". You find reason to uphold an ideal you believe in, not reasons to bypass it.
And on the long run, these activities are doing much more harm to America in it's WoT efforts than anything else. The idea is: terrorist organisations are like bacteria. They grow, and when you use a special drug to cure it, you rarely manage to get rid of them all forever. The strongest, smartest elements will survivre, learn from it's previous defeat, and attack even stronger than before.
Al-Qaeda was "crippled" (by the words of the US Gov last year), but now, it seems it's stronger than ever. It learned from it's past defeats.
You should not try to "kill" Al-Qaeda, but beat it by attrition, by relieving it of it's growing base.. or its "food-source" (if you compare it to a living organism). Make all the lands unfertile to it's developpement, and the threat will become trivial over time.
Torture them, attack countries, you will simply create more recruits for them.
