Watch Christopher Hitchens Get Waterboarded

[thedominthehat]

It does not matter what the enemy does. We are fighting a few thousand illiterate thugs and a handful of rich brats of oil barons that have fashioned themselves as religious fanatics. Just as they believe that it is acceptable to bomb a school, to murder a child, to torture and steal and rape in order to further their political goals, we must be even more determined in our belief that none of those crimes is acceptable. We must be more determined in our pursuit of justice than our enemy is to implement injustice, more determined to practice liberty than our enemy is to implement tyranny.

To torture, to target innocents, to stoop to their level will not bring victory because it is surrender. The Constitution is not an acceptable loss in this war. The moral highground cannot be surrendered, no matter the cost. We cannot win this war with bombs and bullets and waterboarding but rather with strength of will, with the courage of our convictions, by honoring the ideas that made us strong. Our soldiers knew what they were signing on for. They volunteered to risk their lives. That cannot be said for the completely innocent man, Maher Arar, on his way back to Canada, seized at a stopover in NYC, and sent to Syria to be tortured for a year. Even his interrogators concluded he knew nothing. He was as innocent as any of the people in the twin towers. If we allow ourselves to dismiss his suffering as mere collateral damage in some great campaign, then what is left of us? We will have become all that we despise.

[VaAugusta]

I don't have the time to read through everyone's post, so sorry if it was already mentioned, but waterboarding can lead to severe mental problems in the future. People have claimed to wake up with the feeling of suffocation and similar experiences from waterboarding. I say this since some people seemed interested in having it done to them when it isn't a one time torture situation but can become a future problem as well.