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archiving, the RFC link call appears to be long down, if you want a new open, open one please.
What has been disputed is the first line of the article: "Waterboarding is a form of torture[1] also known as water torture." The source for this is: letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez., more than 100 U.S. law professors stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and is a criminal felony punishable under the U.S. federal criminal code. See also the definition given by the United Nations Convention Against Torture.06:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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help) Please stop repeatedly misrepresenting the facts. Dick Cheney has NOT said this. Bush has refused to even mention the topic, Sources please?. Anonymous sources, claiming to be CIA that may be the CIA, or may be
Donald Duck are claimed to have stated is not torture. As the very people accused this has about as much weight as Marilyn Manson saying extrajudicial homicide is not murder, but a form of
jaywalking. Stop claiming that people are saying it is not torture when they have not done so. SOURCES, CITATIONS, not speculation and supposition please. The very fact that they have avoided all mention of the topic is highly suspicious given the future legal jeopardy they are in, facing potential war crimes action by the
International Criminal Court. They have not said it is not torture; I'm sure they know such a suggestion would be ridiculed, besides they probably are perfectly well aware that it is torture - but condone it anyway, in fact about the only information trickling out of the small number of apologists, such as a former New York mayor is that whether or not it is torture it is ok to do in some cases. Not liking something does not make it untrue. There are plenty of people out there who think it is acceptable in certain extreme cases - however this does not mean they do not consider it torture. It just means they consider it acceptable in some cases. IMHO Bellowed is misrepresenting people who agree it is acceptable as people who have stated it is not torture - there is a very big difference, he is manipulating the facts as consensus achieved in a difficult environment, in difficult times, is solidly against him. It's not a question of minority views - no one can even show existence of this claimed minority.
24.7.91.244
19:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)I'm closing this tread and sectioning off the bits about other things. People have managed to respond to the RFC based on two different editor's views of the issue in the thread above. I don't think the introductory description has been preventing us from getting good views on this issue, and any more heated discussion of such a trivial matter as the RFC summary is likely to cause more harm than good.-- Chaser - T 06:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
This is not meant to be a continuation of the POV dispute which has lead to a RfC. Please read and edit in the above appropriate sections. Please see the base of this section for proposals to at least get this matter ironed out 24.7.91.244 00:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Bellowed wrote in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics Is it a violation of WP:NPOV to have "waterboarding equals torture" stated as fact, when many conservatives hold an opinion that it is not?. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics says List newer entries on top, stating briefly and neutrally what the debate is about. This is a completely inaccurate, grossly misleading claim by Bellowed, and is not neutral as no one has been able to find any notable conservative, or anyone else of note for that matter who holds this opinion. Bellowed is, as usual, misrepresenting the facts to push a personal POV in violation of consensus.24.7.91.244 08:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
DO NOT REMOVE MY CONTENT FROM TALK. If you want to discuss it elsewhere, copy it - but it was HIGHLY relevant there IN THAT POSITION as a rebuttal of your gross misuse of RfC in placing a highly biased statement here: [ | Original waterboarding RfC ]. It is meant to be neutral - NOT a place to make a statement which only you agree with. 24.7.91.244 21:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Please calm down. For the record, you are the only person who has removed content from talk; namely, my rebuttal to you. I did move the response you placed in an inappropriate position--we cannot argue back and forth within the RfC statement. If you want to place a rebuttal to it and not allow me room to respond, that's not fair. I never deleted anything or moved something you wrote to an inappropriate position; I'm not trying to silence you. However, I don't feel that your response is even appropriate in small font because it appears that I have not responded to it (which I did above.) I am not going to copy my rebuttal in small font to add to the end of your small font--we might as well just add a note saying "please see criticism of this statement below." That's the only fair way of going about this. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 21:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Go through the diffs, you removed content as well as moving it. I had to hunt around diffs to find it to restore. I am addressing your complaint with a link - however that small belongs there, unless you would rather I removed or revised the offending biased statement in the Project page itself? 24.7.91.244 21:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Please stop trying to relocate readers away from the correct POV dispute texts further up on this talk page. This is about one singular matter. I say you violated the RfC project rules by placing a biased statement where it clearly asks for a neutral statement of what the dispute is about. You disagree. That is all that this section should be about. 24.7.91.244 21:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Bmedley, since your question wasn't a statement by an editor in dispute, I moved it here. I added the Giuliani quotes awhile back on the talk page. Here's some links for starters. I'm sure you could find alot more in no time. Tony Snow/Dick Cheney [4] Dennis Miller [5] Bill O'Reilly [6]
And I just pulled up the US Justice Dept's view on what constitutes torture here [7] |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 23:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
We recraft the RfC (which I agree on doing!) to a statement we both agree on - and then declutter by mutually agreeing to wipe this entire category (which is just us arguing alone) from talk. There's very little we can agree on, but I suspect that is one thing. I can't create a new consensus on the article with you and the other editors as teh views are wildly divergent with yours - but we can have a consensus on just this RfC matter. 24.7.91.244 00:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
-- 143.166.226.58 17:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC) ( BiTMAP, too lazy to log in)
Easy. Place the blessed editors on a Waterboard and see how long it takes them to agree it's torture.... Not very long at all I suspect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.37.96.11 ( talk) 22:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your attempting for us to both engage in a more civil discussion. However, I do not believe that we should rephrase the RfC statement because we disagree on whether or not conservatives view waterboarding as torture. I provided those links and you debated them. An outside editor also provided a source for the claim. As I said before, I think you are in the minority in believing that Cheney and O'Reilly believe waterboarding to be torture. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 02:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I have changed the first sentence to become more balanced as suggested by both outsiders who've responded from the RfC. Also, I removed the refrence from the Tunisia incident since it was never done in the context of extracting information--only dunking people's heads under water for the fun of it. That's clearly torture, but since it was done without any interrogation it wouldn't be waterboarding by the CIA's definition so it would be un-neutral to allow it as a source. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 02:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Whatever the merits of the various complaints above, this situation has significantly cooled, at least for the IP (Bellowed hasn't been editing for a few hours). Anyway, I would hope that we can restrain from calling each other names on this very controversial article. Commenting on other editors does not advance the discussion. Commenting on the article and the issues editors raise does advance that discussion. As to the issues raised above, lets just try to drop the whole matter and get down to business. And I do mean business. No more calling people anything apologists, no more accusing each other of lying and all that. If anyone wants to edit others' comments on this talk page, I suggest they read Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages and try to follow that guide.-- Chaser - T 06:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Belated comment to User:Bellowed: One other possibility is that waterboarding is a torture used in interrogations. The reason I say this is that in the military I heard stories from other soldiers about ways of "making prisoners talk" - to get urgently needed tactical information, like where is the prisoner's unit and what are they planning. Punching, scrotum crushing, cigarette burns, mock executions, even killing another prisoner in front of the interrogated man were reported (informally) to me. The purpose was not to vent US soldier's frustration (that would be covered under war crimes) but to elicit " military intelligence".
So the question is either (1) whether torture is ethically valid as an interrogation technique or (2) how severe may the interrogators make the discomfort or pain or fear when trying to make prisoner talk? I submit that these are not only legal questions but also ethical questions. -- Uncle Ed 13:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Though the Bush administration has never formally acknowledged its use, Vice President Dick Cheney told an interviewer that he did not believe "a dunk in water" to be a form of torture but rather a "very important tool" for use in interrogations, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[11]
Bush bans torture from CIA questioning
US prez puts end to CIA torture
"Officials would not provide any details on specific interrogation techniques that the CIA may use under the new order. In the past, its methods are believed to have included sleep deprivation and disorientation, exposing prisoners to uncomfortable cold or heat for long periods, stress positions and - most controversially - the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding." Bmedley Sutler 08:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm just starting to read it now:
"America's coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. The spread of these tactics was fueled by a myth about a critical "black site" operation." by Katherine Eban VF.COM EXCLUSIVE July 17, 20 Bmedley Sutler 20:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
An indirect sidebar - As a very active Scuba diver, I suspect I have an idea what it is like (at a much lower intensity), if you are very low on air - but not out - or if you are overexerting at significant depth, your regulator appears not be delivering enough air flow (overexerting) or isn't (low pressure) - it is a terrifying experience. Not the implications (no air), but the feeling of panic and the physical pain as you try and pull more. In the case of overexertion, this panic causes the body to try and pull a vastly faster air flow rate, which makes the situation worse and worse in a vicious circle. In a low air situation, obviously it depletes to zero far faster than otherwise. Divers are thought to STOP. THINK. SLOWDOWN. I encourage you to speak to any diver friends you have... it is horrific. I don't state this for the article's use, just as an interesting aside for editors trying to understand why people refer to a wet rag as torture. Non divers don't really have much exposure to the concept of consumption rates - and how wildly they vary with exertion, stress, panic etc, they can alter many fold. 24.7.91.244 06:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
This page is even slowing Firefox, an experienced archivist who knows how to archive correctly, without starting a row, is needed here. Thx 24.7.91.244 10:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Since Bellowed asked, I want to discuss this here. I actually really like User:ArnoldReinhold's new intro. Instead of getting bogged down in subjective definitions, we open the article with indisputable fact. -- Eyrian 23:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Despite my sincere efforts to de-escalate, after I went to far in the fighting - Pipe Three E Pipe Underscore Pipe Underscore V V E PIPE Bracket has shown no interest in either the olive branch, nor my suggestion of a time out for both of us. The reason for my ANI proposal was simple, should just one of us bow out it will further POV. Accordingly I have reverted the edits of Bellowed, which I do not agree with. The fact that this article is again drifting back to its pre-Bellowed status, with zero involvement from me, tends to show that consensus remains strongly against the direction Bellowed keeps trying to take it. I do appreciate and welcome other views - which is why we have an RfC, and have I been trying to take them on board in my editing behaviour - and not editing at times for the same reason - rational and helpful direction from outsiders, and Chaser; however I feel I had to revert Bellowed as the use of politically correct doublespeak and weasel words were coming back in. This really proves my point about consensus.. Even 2 days ago when I was grudgingly editing away from the established article trying to build consensus, I was being reverted back to straight torture by multiple hit and run edits (US and Germany). 24.7.91.244 02:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed the Cheney 'dunking' part from the intro. The WH specifically denied that Cheney was talking about Waterboarding, so it doesn't belong in the intro. I think there should be a whole section on this interview, what he said, and then the WH 'spin' trying to claim he meant otherwise. Bmedley Sutler 19:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Can the RFC be closed now? Eiler7 17:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
First, stating that it "IS USED" is inaccurate...it's not always used for punishment, for instance. Therefore, phrasing it that way is a weasel word. Second, let's back off all the adjectives, like severe, and merely express the facts. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 14:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
(de-indent) I think I need to clarify some things here. First, no one has, as of yet, made more than three reverts in 24 hours. That said, the three-revert rule guides against edit-warring, and in favor of discussing changes on talk pages as above. Far better is to revert once or not at all and leave a talk page message about the change to start or continue a dialog and leave the page in whatever version it happens to be in until the dispute is resolved. As to my role, my twin goals are to write quality articles (as an editor) and to create and keep a productive editing environment (as an editor and an administrator). Sometimes, I have to do ugly things like block people or protect articles to do that, but it is generally a last resort. As to this article, I'm involved enough in the content dispute that I would prefer to pass any blocks onto another sysop (though I will report people for policy violations if they create a non-productive editing environment here). Wikipedia sysops sometimes block and so forth to prevent disruption, but we don't have the power to resolve content disputes in that capacity, and we aren't, or at least try not to be, wiki-policemen.-- Chaser - T 17:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Currently this section reads like the gag reflex makes the subject believe death is comming. I think we need to reword this (preferably keeping its tone the same so as not to start a row)
It produces a gag reflex, making the subject believe his or her death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.
Can we find a better way to say that?
How about just dropping the gag reflex bit completely (or using it lower down), also - and dropping ideally and doing something like:?
It makes the subject believe his or her death is imminent while not causing permanent physical damage.
Actually, I'd also like to drop not causing permanent physical damage, as that is a bit suspect (lung damage is possible), and seems to be a bit weasely trying to justify it. so:
It makes the subject believe his or her death is imminent.
? 24.7.91.244 14:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
It makes the subject believe his or her death is imminent.
Can we go with that for now as that short line represents the only way I can write it in a form that is not disputed here? I know I can source permanent damage (maybe not specifically lung), but for now I'd just like to revise to the above and move on. 24.7.91.244 03:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Why is this example nothing like waterboarding? — Kanodin 16:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The text in question:
It doesn't seem to me that this is anything like waterboarding as described in the article. According to the first paragraph, the simplest definition of "waterboarding" is "immobilizing an individual and pouring water over his or her face to simulate drowning." But the DEIC's torture doesn't seem to have been geared towards simulating drowning; while it involved pouring water over the victim's head, this seems to have been primarily a way of forcing the water into his body. Slightly more in-depth, waterboarding "produces a gag reflex, making the subject believe his or her death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage." Again, the DEIC's torture doesn't seem to have endeavored to do either one of those. It forced (painfully) water into the victim's body, which is much different than just simulating drowning. Moreover, this was actual physical damage, not just psychological: the victim would become bloated (horrifically), which I'm certain caused either lasting damage or death. No? Korossyl 05:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it seems to me that the DEIC method is just a form of the generic water cure. Korossyl 05:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
In light of all the good info on waterboarding and KSM in this month's New Yorker, I added it in, but created a KSM section to contain it. I also moved the Cheney interview to that section. We will probably need to upgrade the ref tags to fact tags...I'll do that whenever I have some more time. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 16:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
This statement has been inserted in the description of KSM's treatment, and the VP's approval of said treatment: "Captured along with Mohammed, was a letter from bin Laden,[34] which led officials to think that he knew where the Al Qaeda founder was hiding.[35]" This seems to be nothing more than a statment inserted as if to say 'so it's ok, because we might have found ObL.' Yes, a letter does seem to have been found, and duly footnoted. But this is a statement of fact that has no bearing at all on waterboarding per se; the statement has been inserted to argue that waterboarding KSL was ok. Not the same thing. In other words, how does this sentence further the description of waterboarding in this article? I'm removing it unless there is a good NPOV reason to keep it. I'll give it a few days. Morgaledh 19:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
An editor recently added an uncited paragraph claiming that Navy Seals used waterboarding during training to teach how to handle drowning. There is no citation, so it is impossible to check whether this claim is true. And it certainly does not belong in the lead section. Furthermore, a search to try to confirm it turned up the exact opposite from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html:
In other words, they tried "a form of waterboarding" as training to try to prepare the Seals for torture at the hands of the enemy. Clearly the trainees knew that they were not going to be hurt by their fellow officers, so the comparison to its use as torture is ridiculous to begin with. But even when the trainees knew with absolute certainty that they were not going to be injured, waterboarding was so successful at "breaking their will" that they stopped doing it. I hope that the editor that added this will remember the importance of using Reliable Sources and not Original Research in the future, and will try to add properly-cited accurate text. Thank you, Jgui 20:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me, just from this discussion, that ONLY those who are politically minded and have a political stake in torture refer to water-boarding as NOT torture. Those that actually study it think otherwise. It's as if George Bush, Alberto Gonzalez, Rush Limbaugh and try-as-he-might conservatie comedian Dennis Miller are somehowe legitimate and partial obvservers...ha! EVERY human rights organization in the world, including the various UN agencies, correctly understand you don't need beatings, choppings or burning to constitute "Torture". If the US gov't wanted to use red-hot pokers to torture, I can see the same above figures crying "well, it's not REALLY torutre...". Yeah. DavidMIA 17:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I have halted the recent move to try and delouse the topic by progressively moving the description of torture downwards, and subtle attempts to make it seems that only some authorities consider it torture. Look through the history and archives of this discussion page two things are clear.
Yet another round of secret US government memos have emerged further verifying the ongoing torture committed by the United States of America which has no resorted to hiding behind secrecy laws when caught out kidnapping and torturing. The facts are overwhelming, The United States are torturers, the United States is waterboarding, and waterboarding is torture. There is nothing on this earth that supports a claim otherwise, so we should not be sanitizing this article and misleading people with US propaganda. Wiki is not Fox Corporation, its mission is not to protect war criminals in the administration, army and intelligence services from prosecution abroad. Its an encyclopaedia of the truth - not twisted facts designed to support criminals. Inertia Tensor 11:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
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I know that someone would think so with like 20 refrences (9 but my point is there is alot), but by definition it is not torutre because it is strictly a psychological technique and causes no more damage to the subject than when a toddler holds his breath as an act of defiance.
I think that this article is biased on that reason. I put the NNPOV tag up untill it is more evenly covered <--(unsigned comment by User: Teamcoltra 15:13, 16 October 2007)
If the new AG is unwilling to state whether he thinks it is or is not torture we can safely assume he doesn't want to tie his hands. Clearly if he says it is torture many people within the Bush administration will protest on account of possible criminal liability, should he state it is not torture he is sure he won't get the job. Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 14:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
While I have a hard time seeing how this is NOT torture, I think the fact that this is so controversial is evidence of NPOV. The controversy is being discussed everywhere from CNN to Congress. Why not just leave out the word torture (perhaps replacing it with "coercion" for lack of a better word) and let people make up their own minds that it's torture (as I'm sure most people will by the end of the first sentence). I really don't understand the insistence on using the word torture here. To me personally, that insistence makes as much sense as insisting the Abortion article start out "Abortion is the murder of a fetus by. . . ." I can't understand how people don't see abortion as murder, like I can't understand how people don't see this as torture, but those are highly emotional POV words and should probably not appear in Wikipedia in those contexts. And finding thousands of people to back up your POV does not change that it's POV. Not to mention that ten citations immediately following a controversial emotionally-based word just plain looks bad. If you want the assertion regarding it being torture in the article, why not make a separate section ("Controversy" or something like that) rather than following the word "torture" with ten citations? Also note, as someone who came here just to find out exactly what Waterboarding is (and determine for myself if it was in fact "torture"), I kind of wondered about the credibility of the article based on the first phrase and the ten references following the word torture (which gives the feeling of a childish assertion "see, it is too torture cuz all these people agree with me"). I'm sure others feel the same. Sorry that some of this repeated what others have said, but I felt it was relevant to my point. Xsadar 07:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to make a few points on this matter. First, I don't think the word torture is inherently controversial. If we say "The rack is a torture instrument" or "The Nazis practiced torture," then these are factual statements with well-understood interpretation. Unlike, say, "Stealing is wrong." Second, whether waterboarding is torture has never been controversial until recently, as far as I know. If the article were written ten years ago, and it used the word torture, I think everyone could agree that it would be correct. The only sticking point is this recent stuff from the USA. So my final point is that I don't think the statements I have seen by various politicians constitute a verifiable source for any claim that waterboarding is not torture. They seem to project an attitude that it is not torture, but no one has actually made the claim as far as I know. If we read into their statements a specific claim which they have not made, then we are performing original research. For example, we could easily say how John Yoo's arguments might be applied to waterboarding, but absent verifiable evidence that he did apply his arguments to waterboarding in that way, it's OR.
So my reading of this situation is that, while NPOV requires that we include any notable opinion that waterboarding is not torture, OR and V mean that we can not interpret the weaselly statements of various US politicians to constitute such an opinion. Worldworld 16:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
archiving, the RFC link call appears to be long down, if you want a new open, open one please.
What has been disputed is the first line of the article: "Waterboarding is a form of torture[1] also known as water torture." The source for this is: letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez., more than 100 U.S. law professors stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and is a criminal felony punishable under the U.S. federal criminal code. See also the definition given by the United Nations Convention Against Torture.06:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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help) Please stop repeatedly misrepresenting the facts. Dick Cheney has NOT said this. Bush has refused to even mention the topic, Sources please?. Anonymous sources, claiming to be CIA that may be the CIA, or may be
Donald Duck are claimed to have stated is not torture. As the very people accused this has about as much weight as Marilyn Manson saying extrajudicial homicide is not murder, but a form of
jaywalking. Stop claiming that people are saying it is not torture when they have not done so. SOURCES, CITATIONS, not speculation and supposition please. The very fact that they have avoided all mention of the topic is highly suspicious given the future legal jeopardy they are in, facing potential war crimes action by the
International Criminal Court. They have not said it is not torture; I'm sure they know such a suggestion would be ridiculed, besides they probably are perfectly well aware that it is torture - but condone it anyway, in fact about the only information trickling out of the small number of apologists, such as a former New York mayor is that whether or not it is torture it is ok to do in some cases. Not liking something does not make it untrue. There are plenty of people out there who think it is acceptable in certain extreme cases - however this does not mean they do not consider it torture. It just means they consider it acceptable in some cases. IMHO Bellowed is misrepresenting people who agree it is acceptable as people who have stated it is not torture - there is a very big difference, he is manipulating the facts as consensus achieved in a difficult environment, in difficult times, is solidly against him. It's not a question of minority views - no one can even show existence of this claimed minority.
24.7.91.244
19:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)I'm closing this tread and sectioning off the bits about other things. People have managed to respond to the RFC based on two different editor's views of the issue in the thread above. I don't think the introductory description has been preventing us from getting good views on this issue, and any more heated discussion of such a trivial matter as the RFC summary is likely to cause more harm than good.-- Chaser - T 06:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
This is not meant to be a continuation of the POV dispute which has lead to a RfC. Please read and edit in the above appropriate sections. Please see the base of this section for proposals to at least get this matter ironed out 24.7.91.244 00:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Bellowed wrote in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics Is it a violation of WP:NPOV to have "waterboarding equals torture" stated as fact, when many conservatives hold an opinion that it is not?. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics says List newer entries on top, stating briefly and neutrally what the debate is about. This is a completely inaccurate, grossly misleading claim by Bellowed, and is not neutral as no one has been able to find any notable conservative, or anyone else of note for that matter who holds this opinion. Bellowed is, as usual, misrepresenting the facts to push a personal POV in violation of consensus.24.7.91.244 08:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
DO NOT REMOVE MY CONTENT FROM TALK. If you want to discuss it elsewhere, copy it - but it was HIGHLY relevant there IN THAT POSITION as a rebuttal of your gross misuse of RfC in placing a highly biased statement here: [ | Original waterboarding RfC ]. It is meant to be neutral - NOT a place to make a statement which only you agree with. 24.7.91.244 21:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Please calm down. For the record, you are the only person who has removed content from talk; namely, my rebuttal to you. I did move the response you placed in an inappropriate position--we cannot argue back and forth within the RfC statement. If you want to place a rebuttal to it and not allow me room to respond, that's not fair. I never deleted anything or moved something you wrote to an inappropriate position; I'm not trying to silence you. However, I don't feel that your response is even appropriate in small font because it appears that I have not responded to it (which I did above.) I am not going to copy my rebuttal in small font to add to the end of your small font--we might as well just add a note saying "please see criticism of this statement below." That's the only fair way of going about this. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 21:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Go through the diffs, you removed content as well as moving it. I had to hunt around diffs to find it to restore. I am addressing your complaint with a link - however that small belongs there, unless you would rather I removed or revised the offending biased statement in the Project page itself? 24.7.91.244 21:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Please stop trying to relocate readers away from the correct POV dispute texts further up on this talk page. This is about one singular matter. I say you violated the RfC project rules by placing a biased statement where it clearly asks for a neutral statement of what the dispute is about. You disagree. That is all that this section should be about. 24.7.91.244 21:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Bmedley, since your question wasn't a statement by an editor in dispute, I moved it here. I added the Giuliani quotes awhile back on the talk page. Here's some links for starters. I'm sure you could find alot more in no time. Tony Snow/Dick Cheney [4] Dennis Miller [5] Bill O'Reilly [6]
And I just pulled up the US Justice Dept's view on what constitutes torture here [7] |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 23:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
We recraft the RfC (which I agree on doing!) to a statement we both agree on - and then declutter by mutually agreeing to wipe this entire category (which is just us arguing alone) from talk. There's very little we can agree on, but I suspect that is one thing. I can't create a new consensus on the article with you and the other editors as teh views are wildly divergent with yours - but we can have a consensus on just this RfC matter. 24.7.91.244 00:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
-- 143.166.226.58 17:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC) ( BiTMAP, too lazy to log in)
Easy. Place the blessed editors on a Waterboard and see how long it takes them to agree it's torture.... Not very long at all I suspect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.37.96.11 ( talk) 22:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your attempting for us to both engage in a more civil discussion. However, I do not believe that we should rephrase the RfC statement because we disagree on whether or not conservatives view waterboarding as torture. I provided those links and you debated them. An outside editor also provided a source for the claim. As I said before, I think you are in the minority in believing that Cheney and O'Reilly believe waterboarding to be torture. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 02:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I have changed the first sentence to become more balanced as suggested by both outsiders who've responded from the RfC. Also, I removed the refrence from the Tunisia incident since it was never done in the context of extracting information--only dunking people's heads under water for the fun of it. That's clearly torture, but since it was done without any interrogation it wouldn't be waterboarding by the CIA's definition so it would be un-neutral to allow it as a source. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 02:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Whatever the merits of the various complaints above, this situation has significantly cooled, at least for the IP (Bellowed hasn't been editing for a few hours). Anyway, I would hope that we can restrain from calling each other names on this very controversial article. Commenting on other editors does not advance the discussion. Commenting on the article and the issues editors raise does advance that discussion. As to the issues raised above, lets just try to drop the whole matter and get down to business. And I do mean business. No more calling people anything apologists, no more accusing each other of lying and all that. If anyone wants to edit others' comments on this talk page, I suggest they read Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages and try to follow that guide.-- Chaser - T 06:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Belated comment to User:Bellowed: One other possibility is that waterboarding is a torture used in interrogations. The reason I say this is that in the military I heard stories from other soldiers about ways of "making prisoners talk" - to get urgently needed tactical information, like where is the prisoner's unit and what are they planning. Punching, scrotum crushing, cigarette burns, mock executions, even killing another prisoner in front of the interrogated man were reported (informally) to me. The purpose was not to vent US soldier's frustration (that would be covered under war crimes) but to elicit " military intelligence".
So the question is either (1) whether torture is ethically valid as an interrogation technique or (2) how severe may the interrogators make the discomfort or pain or fear when trying to make prisoner talk? I submit that these are not only legal questions but also ethical questions. -- Uncle Ed 13:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Though the Bush administration has never formally acknowledged its use, Vice President Dick Cheney told an interviewer that he did not believe "a dunk in water" to be a form of torture but rather a "very important tool" for use in interrogations, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[11]
Bush bans torture from CIA questioning
US prez puts end to CIA torture
"Officials would not provide any details on specific interrogation techniques that the CIA may use under the new order. In the past, its methods are believed to have included sleep deprivation and disorientation, exposing prisoners to uncomfortable cold or heat for long periods, stress positions and - most controversially - the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding." Bmedley Sutler 08:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm just starting to read it now:
"America's coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. The spread of these tactics was fueled by a myth about a critical "black site" operation." by Katherine Eban VF.COM EXCLUSIVE July 17, 20 Bmedley Sutler 20:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
An indirect sidebar - As a very active Scuba diver, I suspect I have an idea what it is like (at a much lower intensity), if you are very low on air - but not out - or if you are overexerting at significant depth, your regulator appears not be delivering enough air flow (overexerting) or isn't (low pressure) - it is a terrifying experience. Not the implications (no air), but the feeling of panic and the physical pain as you try and pull more. In the case of overexertion, this panic causes the body to try and pull a vastly faster air flow rate, which makes the situation worse and worse in a vicious circle. In a low air situation, obviously it depletes to zero far faster than otherwise. Divers are thought to STOP. THINK. SLOWDOWN. I encourage you to speak to any diver friends you have... it is horrific. I don't state this for the article's use, just as an interesting aside for editors trying to understand why people refer to a wet rag as torture. Non divers don't really have much exposure to the concept of consumption rates - and how wildly they vary with exertion, stress, panic etc, they can alter many fold. 24.7.91.244 06:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
This page is even slowing Firefox, an experienced archivist who knows how to archive correctly, without starting a row, is needed here. Thx 24.7.91.244 10:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Since Bellowed asked, I want to discuss this here. I actually really like User:ArnoldReinhold's new intro. Instead of getting bogged down in subjective definitions, we open the article with indisputable fact. -- Eyrian 23:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Despite my sincere efforts to de-escalate, after I went to far in the fighting - Pipe Three E Pipe Underscore Pipe Underscore V V E PIPE Bracket has shown no interest in either the olive branch, nor my suggestion of a time out for both of us. The reason for my ANI proposal was simple, should just one of us bow out it will further POV. Accordingly I have reverted the edits of Bellowed, which I do not agree with. The fact that this article is again drifting back to its pre-Bellowed status, with zero involvement from me, tends to show that consensus remains strongly against the direction Bellowed keeps trying to take it. I do appreciate and welcome other views - which is why we have an RfC, and have I been trying to take them on board in my editing behaviour - and not editing at times for the same reason - rational and helpful direction from outsiders, and Chaser; however I feel I had to revert Bellowed as the use of politically correct doublespeak and weasel words were coming back in. This really proves my point about consensus.. Even 2 days ago when I was grudgingly editing away from the established article trying to build consensus, I was being reverted back to straight torture by multiple hit and run edits (US and Germany). 24.7.91.244 02:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed the Cheney 'dunking' part from the intro. The WH specifically denied that Cheney was talking about Waterboarding, so it doesn't belong in the intro. I think there should be a whole section on this interview, what he said, and then the WH 'spin' trying to claim he meant otherwise. Bmedley Sutler 19:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Can the RFC be closed now? Eiler7 17:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
First, stating that it "IS USED" is inaccurate...it's not always used for punishment, for instance. Therefore, phrasing it that way is a weasel word. Second, let's back off all the adjectives, like severe, and merely express the facts. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 14:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
(de-indent) I think I need to clarify some things here. First, no one has, as of yet, made more than three reverts in 24 hours. That said, the three-revert rule guides against edit-warring, and in favor of discussing changes on talk pages as above. Far better is to revert once or not at all and leave a talk page message about the change to start or continue a dialog and leave the page in whatever version it happens to be in until the dispute is resolved. As to my role, my twin goals are to write quality articles (as an editor) and to create and keep a productive editing environment (as an editor and an administrator). Sometimes, I have to do ugly things like block people or protect articles to do that, but it is generally a last resort. As to this article, I'm involved enough in the content dispute that I would prefer to pass any blocks onto another sysop (though I will report people for policy violations if they create a non-productive editing environment here). Wikipedia sysops sometimes block and so forth to prevent disruption, but we don't have the power to resolve content disputes in that capacity, and we aren't, or at least try not to be, wiki-policemen.-- Chaser - T 17:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Currently this section reads like the gag reflex makes the subject believe death is comming. I think we need to reword this (preferably keeping its tone the same so as not to start a row)
It produces a gag reflex, making the subject believe his or her death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.
Can we find a better way to say that?
How about just dropping the gag reflex bit completely (or using it lower down), also - and dropping ideally and doing something like:?
It makes the subject believe his or her death is imminent while not causing permanent physical damage.
Actually, I'd also like to drop not causing permanent physical damage, as that is a bit suspect (lung damage is possible), and seems to be a bit weasely trying to justify it. so:
It makes the subject believe his or her death is imminent.
? 24.7.91.244 14:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
It makes the subject believe his or her death is imminent.
Can we go with that for now as that short line represents the only way I can write it in a form that is not disputed here? I know I can source permanent damage (maybe not specifically lung), but for now I'd just like to revise to the above and move on. 24.7.91.244 03:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Why is this example nothing like waterboarding? — Kanodin 16:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The text in question:
It doesn't seem to me that this is anything like waterboarding as described in the article. According to the first paragraph, the simplest definition of "waterboarding" is "immobilizing an individual and pouring water over his or her face to simulate drowning." But the DEIC's torture doesn't seem to have been geared towards simulating drowning; while it involved pouring water over the victim's head, this seems to have been primarily a way of forcing the water into his body. Slightly more in-depth, waterboarding "produces a gag reflex, making the subject believe his or her death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage." Again, the DEIC's torture doesn't seem to have endeavored to do either one of those. It forced (painfully) water into the victim's body, which is much different than just simulating drowning. Moreover, this was actual physical damage, not just psychological: the victim would become bloated (horrifically), which I'm certain caused either lasting damage or death. No? Korossyl 05:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it seems to me that the DEIC method is just a form of the generic water cure. Korossyl 05:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
In light of all the good info on waterboarding and KSM in this month's New Yorker, I added it in, but created a KSM section to contain it. I also moved the Cheney interview to that section. We will probably need to upgrade the ref tags to fact tags...I'll do that whenever I have some more time. |3 E |_ |_ 0 VV E |) 16:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
This statement has been inserted in the description of KSM's treatment, and the VP's approval of said treatment: "Captured along with Mohammed, was a letter from bin Laden,[34] which led officials to think that he knew where the Al Qaeda founder was hiding.[35]" This seems to be nothing more than a statment inserted as if to say 'so it's ok, because we might have found ObL.' Yes, a letter does seem to have been found, and duly footnoted. But this is a statement of fact that has no bearing at all on waterboarding per se; the statement has been inserted to argue that waterboarding KSL was ok. Not the same thing. In other words, how does this sentence further the description of waterboarding in this article? I'm removing it unless there is a good NPOV reason to keep it. I'll give it a few days. Morgaledh 19:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
An editor recently added an uncited paragraph claiming that Navy Seals used waterboarding during training to teach how to handle drowning. There is no citation, so it is impossible to check whether this claim is true. And it certainly does not belong in the lead section. Furthermore, a search to try to confirm it turned up the exact opposite from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html:
In other words, they tried "a form of waterboarding" as training to try to prepare the Seals for torture at the hands of the enemy. Clearly the trainees knew that they were not going to be hurt by their fellow officers, so the comparison to its use as torture is ridiculous to begin with. But even when the trainees knew with absolute certainty that they were not going to be injured, waterboarding was so successful at "breaking their will" that they stopped doing it. I hope that the editor that added this will remember the importance of using Reliable Sources and not Original Research in the future, and will try to add properly-cited accurate text. Thank you, Jgui 20:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me, just from this discussion, that ONLY those who are politically minded and have a political stake in torture refer to water-boarding as NOT torture. Those that actually study it think otherwise. It's as if George Bush, Alberto Gonzalez, Rush Limbaugh and try-as-he-might conservatie comedian Dennis Miller are somehowe legitimate and partial obvservers...ha! EVERY human rights organization in the world, including the various UN agencies, correctly understand you don't need beatings, choppings or burning to constitute "Torture". If the US gov't wanted to use red-hot pokers to torture, I can see the same above figures crying "well, it's not REALLY torutre...". Yeah. DavidMIA 17:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I have halted the recent move to try and delouse the topic by progressively moving the description of torture downwards, and subtle attempts to make it seems that only some authorities consider it torture. Look through the history and archives of this discussion page two things are clear.
Yet another round of secret US government memos have emerged further verifying the ongoing torture committed by the United States of America which has no resorted to hiding behind secrecy laws when caught out kidnapping and torturing. The facts are overwhelming, The United States are torturers, the United States is waterboarding, and waterboarding is torture. There is nothing on this earth that supports a claim otherwise, so we should not be sanitizing this article and misleading people with US propaganda. Wiki is not Fox Corporation, its mission is not to protect war criminals in the administration, army and intelligence services from prosecution abroad. Its an encyclopaedia of the truth - not twisted facts designed to support criminals. Inertia Tensor 11:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
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I know that someone would think so with like 20 refrences (9 but my point is there is alot), but by definition it is not torutre because it is strictly a psychological technique and causes no more damage to the subject than when a toddler holds his breath as an act of defiance.
I think that this article is biased on that reason. I put the NNPOV tag up untill it is more evenly covered <--(unsigned comment by User: Teamcoltra 15:13, 16 October 2007)
If the new AG is unwilling to state whether he thinks it is or is not torture we can safely assume he doesn't want to tie his hands. Clearly if he says it is torture many people within the Bush administration will protest on account of possible criminal liability, should he state it is not torture he is sure he won't get the job. Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 14:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
While I have a hard time seeing how this is NOT torture, I think the fact that this is so controversial is evidence of NPOV. The controversy is being discussed everywhere from CNN to Congress. Why not just leave out the word torture (perhaps replacing it with "coercion" for lack of a better word) and let people make up their own minds that it's torture (as I'm sure most people will by the end of the first sentence). I really don't understand the insistence on using the word torture here. To me personally, that insistence makes as much sense as insisting the Abortion article start out "Abortion is the murder of a fetus by. . . ." I can't understand how people don't see abortion as murder, like I can't understand how people don't see this as torture, but those are highly emotional POV words and should probably not appear in Wikipedia in those contexts. And finding thousands of people to back up your POV does not change that it's POV. Not to mention that ten citations immediately following a controversial emotionally-based word just plain looks bad. If you want the assertion regarding it being torture in the article, why not make a separate section ("Controversy" or something like that) rather than following the word "torture" with ten citations? Also note, as someone who came here just to find out exactly what Waterboarding is (and determine for myself if it was in fact "torture"), I kind of wondered about the credibility of the article based on the first phrase and the ten references following the word torture (which gives the feeling of a childish assertion "see, it is too torture cuz all these people agree with me"). I'm sure others feel the same. Sorry that some of this repeated what others have said, but I felt it was relevant to my point. Xsadar 07:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to make a few points on this matter. First, I don't think the word torture is inherently controversial. If we say "The rack is a torture instrument" or "The Nazis practiced torture," then these are factual statements with well-understood interpretation. Unlike, say, "Stealing is wrong." Second, whether waterboarding is torture has never been controversial until recently, as far as I know. If the article were written ten years ago, and it used the word torture, I think everyone could agree that it would be correct. The only sticking point is this recent stuff from the USA. So my final point is that I don't think the statements I have seen by various politicians constitute a verifiable source for any claim that waterboarding is not torture. They seem to project an attitude that it is not torture, but no one has actually made the claim as far as I know. If we read into their statements a specific claim which they have not made, then we are performing original research. For example, we could easily say how John Yoo's arguments might be applied to waterboarding, but absent verifiable evidence that he did apply his arguments to waterboarding in that way, it's OR.
So my reading of this situation is that, while NPOV requires that we include any notable opinion that waterboarding is not torture, OR and V mean that we can not interpret the weaselly statements of various US politicians to constitute such an opinion. Worldworld 16:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)