Waterboarding: Sounds Asian American to me

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I'm as liberal as they come on many things: pot - legalize it, prostitution - legalize it, abortion - you better keep that legal, separation of church and state - completely. But being liberal there, also means in many ways I have to be liberal in other areas.

Having guns? That's my right as a U.S. citizen.

Being able to carry that gun with a legal permit? If I should feel the urge that's my right as well.

Giving the U.S. Army and other government agencies the tools they need to get some information from prisoners we've captured?

You have to allow some leeway there.

I'm not talking about throwing tons of U.S. citizens in a camp because they look a certain way - obviously - or infringing upon my rights as a U.S. citizen and living in a Nazi militant state without any freedoms - or worse yet dropping an Atomic bomb - but if you're from a group like al Qaeda that wants to bomb the country I live in, and you have information on said bomb that's set to go off killing thousands of U.S. citizens - I say to the CIA and any other government agencies who have the responsibility of keeping us safe - you have carte blanche on using your own proven methods to get that information from those prisoners.

Does that mean that we can't and shouldn't treat prisoners with respect as much as possible?

Not at all - we should if we can.

But do some situations warrant certain tactics to be used if necessary?

Yes - and sometimes we have to utilize them.

It's like do people think that a U.S. prisoner of war is getting lattes and lap dances while they wait for their U.S. lawyer to be flown on in to make sure they get fair representation?

They're not.

So when I read these articles about how Ex-CIA agents think the technique of Waterboarding shouldn't be used anymore - it makes me cringe in the same way when people talk about making abortion illegal.

It's just wrong.