Waterboarding is a justified method of interrogation

I am going to start by addressing his responses, and then just do an overview and voters. 1) "Lives HAVE been saved. Of course the CIA will not release all of the information, as interrogation is a classified operation. That is ridiculous to think they would tell us everything. They HAVE told us that because of waterboarding, American lives have been saved." You completely ignored the point of my argument, which is that the CIA is a biased source. They have a definite reason for lying, or at least twisting the truth, because it means that they won't be prosecuted. As such, I am not going to accept this on their statement alone. 2) "You are missing the key point here. The terrorist TOLD US that there would be an attack. He said there would be an attack, but would not tell us where. What do you want to do? Put him in solitary confinement until he MIGHT crack someday later, or get that bastard to tell us when his buddies are going to kill our citizens?" First, cross-apply my argument about confirmation. Why would you accept the word of someone you just tortured at face-value? And second, there is the possibility, though I know it seems outrageous, that he might not know anything more than that. For example, I know Obama wants to move more troops into Afghanistan. I don't know when, or how or by what route. I just know he wants it to occur. Not every terrorist is privy to every secret of their organization. 3) "What do you want as confirmation? He told us that there would be an attack. Please read the article." I have read the article. And what I want as confirmation is someone OTHER than someone who has been tortured to confirm information. Otherwise, we have no reason whatsoever to believe that we were not just lied to. 4) "The same applies to interrogation. If it doesn't deprive them or hurt them, they don't say anything. That KILLS our citizens." This is completely non-responsive. I was talking about the cycle of violence, and how using brutal methods on terrorists simply gives them better propaganda with which to recruit new terrorists, and how the same does not apply to internal punishments. This does not in any way address that. 5) "Once again, you are mistaken. The terrorists I have brought up (and most all of the middle-eastern ones for that matter) are radical Muslims. In case you didn't know, it is in their religion to kill all Christians (Americans). They have a "moral duty" to hunt us. So are we going to treat them nicely, and kindly ask them for the information on the next attack? No, the only way to get information is to make them give it to us, OR ELSE OUR CITIZENS DIE." First of all, you have yet to show that any attacks would occur if waterboarding had not been used. And second, this too is non-responsive. I was still discussing the cycle of violence argument. Whether or not we have to treat them nicely in order to get information is irrelevant to that argument. 6) "You have shown nothing! Where in this debate have you offered an alternative?" I don't have to. It is my burden to show that waterboarding is not a justified method of interrogation, and yours to prove that it is. I don't need to provide an alternative way to get information. 7) "As of now, there is none. My opponent has offered no other PROVEN method of interrogation. Therefore, we MUST protect the citizens using the available resources, however brutal they may be. Let us not forget our priorities here. We agreed that it is the FIRST duty to protect the citizens, NOT the terrorists who tried to kill our citizens. By logic, we must use waterboarding to maintain our priorities." I concur that it is the first duty to protect the citizens. But you have yet to show how waterboarding protects the citizens. I have already pointed out that I do not have to provide an alternative. But at the point where the resource my opponent advocates using has NOT been shown to work, and using it is an extremely horrific act, then no, we are not obligated to use it. 8) "What?! Are you saying that by interrogating terrorists with waterboarding ENCOURAGES them to be terrorists, so that they might have the privilege of being waterboarded too? Think about rewards and punishments. If we wanted to promote terrorism, we would offer them money to kill us. If we wanted to deter terrorism, we would waterboard them so they would stop. Clear?" You are completely misunderstanding the argument. I am not saying that waterboarding encourages the terrorists who were waterboarded. I am saying it provides extremely effective propaganda that is used to recruit more terrorists, because it is used as a demonstration of the evil the West is capable of. Clear? To conclude, my opponent has never shown that waterboarding is at all effective or provides useful information. By contrast I have shown that in order for information gained by waterboarding to be useful, it would have to be confirmed by an outside source, which makes waterboarding unnecessary. I have shown that waterboarding merely spawns more terrorists and perpetuates the problem. The only option is a Con ballot. Thank you.