1. Terrorists have no rights under the Geneva Convention which is reserved for uniformed soldiers of signatory countries. We have no treaties regarding treatment of prisoners with terrorist organizations. UN treaties do not apply to ISIS or other terrorists because they do not belong to the UN. If they have no reciprocating responsibility in the treaty then they are not covered under the treaty.

2. Once you have killed my fellow-citizens, strap bombs to and/or otherwise hurt children, or take up arms against my countrymen in a terrorist campaign you have lost the independent claim on your life and comfort. If you as a terrorist don’t like what happens next that is on you. If you fit the above description should you automatically be put into enhanced interrogation? No, but if you are deemed to know information that could save American lives or degrade the terrorist organization that you work for we would be fools not to do everything in our power to elicit that information.

“I have long believed some of these practices amounted to torture, as a reasonable person would define it, especially, but not only the practice of waterboarding, which is a mock execution and an exquisite form of torture. Its use was shameful and unnecessary; and, contrary to assertions made by some of its defenders and as the Committee’s report makes clear, it produced little useful intelligence to help us track down the perpetrators of 9/11 or prevent new attacks and atrocities.”

Full transcript here:

http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1a15e343-66b0-473f-b0c1-a58f984db996

KSM confessed, after being tortured, to planning a number of attacks. It’s not at all clear to me how this confession saved countless American lives. Can you elaborate?

“which btw, is NOT a Senate Report but a report put together by a bunch of DNC Staffers”

Not true. The report was issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee, though the Republican members dropped out early in the process. Staffers no doubt played a large part in its authorship, just like all research projects of this magnitude, but that doesn’t make it somehow “not a Senate Report”. The foreword begins with the sentence: “The full Committee Study, which totals more than 6700 pages, remains classified but is now an official Senate report.”

Not necessarily. Barbarous and murderous sure, but not necessarily “torture” depending on how the beheading was performed.

“I think the quote here that is applicable is a quote from one of the “Hangover” movie.. “but did you die?””

“Resulting in death” isn’t a necessary criterion for something to constitute “torture”. I could yank all your teeth out without anesthesia and you wouldn’t die. I could burn out your eyeballs with hot pokers. I could crush the bones in your fingers and toes with a hammer, then amputate them, and you wouldn’t die. Hopefully we agree all those things would constitute “torture” despite their not resulting in your death.

“You guys do realize the rules of war do not apply here since these guys are not soldiers, right?”

The U.N. Convention on Torture, of which President Reagan made the U.S. a signatory, doesn’t only prohibit the torture of combatants. It prohibits all torture by a nation within its borders as well as the transport of individuals elsewhere to torture them there.

“There is a time to put away childish things…and trying to treat these evil animals as human is childish.”

Evil? Yes. But still abundantly human. Imago Dei. See Gen. 1:27.