Waterboarding Rebirth?

[Yip]

This weekend I rented the 1999 movie 'Jakob the liar' with Robin Williams.
It shows some of the cruelty people are capable of.
In one of the scenes, (this is 1999!) they are showing waterboarding, the old-fashioned way.
Afterwards I realized how ironic it is that the Israelis perfected the technique, and the Americans (the liberators) adopted it and made it world infamous.
This question now haunts me: Are we the new Nazis?

[Hotspring 44]

I think it's closer to being like the Roman Empire was than Hitler's Nazis.:2cents:


This weekend I rented the 1999 movie 'Jakob the liar' with Robin Williams.
It shows some of the cruelty people are capable of.
In one of the scenes, (this is 1999!) they are showing waterboarding, the old-fashioned way.
Afterwards I realized how ironic it is that the Israelis perfected the technique, and the Americans (the liberators) adopted it and made it world infamous.
This question now haunts me: Are we the new Nazis?

[Yip]

I'm not understanding you.
Even though both Hitler and the Romans expanded their original 'homeland', my question was about cruelty.
Do you feel we torture like the Romans?



I think it's closer to being like the Roman Empire was than Hitler's Nazis.:2cents:

["Mad" Miles]

Water Boarding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding)was first extensively used by the U.S. Army in the Philippines after the Spanish American War during the brutal and near genocidal suppression of the Philippino national revolt for independence. Although as a torture method it has a much longer and older history. (See the wikipedia link I've provided above for more detail, particularly in the History section of the article.)

As for America (U.S.) being a nazi nation. Well that's an old accusation, often coming from the Left. I am not sympathetic to it since it waters down the significance of the term.

I see no industrialized, intentional mass slaughter in death camp / factories and justified by racial purity goals. The U.S. has tortured in its jails and prisons, and in the field by our military, for pretty much the entire history of the country.

Nazism is a much more specific phenomenon.

Although I was told by a neighbor today that her severely meth addicted brother has recently had swastikas tatooed all over his back because, while he's "not a racist", if he ends up in prison (which given his procilivities appears to be quite likely at some future date) he'll be able to display "white pride" and will be protected by the Aryan Nation gang(s).

So yes, there are Nazi Americans, but I don't think that it follows that America (U.S.) is a nazi country, yet....

Authoritarian? An oligarchy (https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/oligarchy)? I've no problem with those descriptors.

For a detailed report on Americans (U.S.) who are nazi's I recommend the Southern Poverty Law Center (https://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp), and their Stand Strong Against Hate map (https://www.splcenter.org/center/petitions/standstrong/).

"Mad" Miles

:burngrnbounce:

[Hotspring 44]

I may have been be a bit off topic, I was thinking about the political structures behind the abuses such as water boarding that are cruel enough so as to be defined as torture.

America is not overtly in a wholesale manor or in anyway near exterminating like the Nazis did.

The Roman Empire on the other hand; Used allies and extracted taxes, resources, and indentured servitude into it"s army and labor force.

Although America has similarities it is still quite different than either the Nazis or Roman Empire in the respect of the citizens in USA having more choices of how to conduct their own individual life's and not having a single, absolute, autocratic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocracy) leader.

Although the attitude of the Bush, Cheney, administration did remind me of the Nazis and the congress reminded me of the Equestrian order (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_order) of Rome... ...Still allot different because of the political structures comparatively to USA now.

The Water Boarding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Boarding), Stressed Position (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_positions), Psychotropic drugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotropic_drugs#Military), and psychological torture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_torture) still are most likely being utilized "in our name" weather we know or approve of it or not.

Oh yeah, other indirect consequences to things that have happened in the past and still happen today that in my way of thinking that equate to cruelty includes, for example:
As a result of covert actions that support a Coup d'état (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup); the ousted elected president of Haiti Jean Bertrand Aristide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Bertrand_Aristide) to name one.

Weather Water Boarding or any other means of torture were ever used in that whole escapade in Haiti in my mind is still a reasonable question to have answered some day. But I won't hold my breath for that to happen any time soon.

Then there is the Contra support during the Regan Administration using the now re-named [to] (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/Western%20Hemisphere%20Institute%20for%20Security%20Cooperation)) School of the Americas that occurred in in El Salvador (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador) which is known to have trained using U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals).

I tend to agree with the gist of what "Mad" Miles said.

Yip, I hope that this sheds some light onto what I said for you to understand better where I was coming from.:):


I'm not understanding you.
Even though both Hitler and the Romans expanded their original 'homeland', my question was about cruelty.
Do you feel we torture like the Romans?

[Yip]

Thank you Hotspring for your clarification. It has spurned me to clarify my question.
What I equate with Nazis/Gestapo and the like is that the cruelty is committed with a certain callousness. The end justifies the means.
This kind of twisted consequentialism leads to a populace that doesn't care, caus they don't have to.
Obama the candidate was against waterboarding, Obama the president hasn't said we are NOT going to use it.
In January 2009 President (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_President) Barack Obama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama) banned the use of waterboarding. In April 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense) refused to say whether waterboarding is still used for training (SERE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival,_Evasion,_Resistance_and_Escape)) purposes.

It's a thin line.