Edited: Now with less asshattery! Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much else.
Eating lobster for 40 hours straight would kill you AND be torture.
That said, everyone who buys the $299 360 should be tortured and sterilized.
Fair enough. But if it was crab, then it’d simply be a really kick-ass all you can eat buffet, and would therefore be okay! (Provided they include enough drawn butter for all that crab; if not it is indeed torture!)
Ed, the first thing Nick said in this thread was:
The he said:
Everyone that disagrees with you is not the same person.
We did something exactly like that. Then we packed him in ice and tried to pretend it didn’t happen.
They covered it in the New Yorker, but this is the best link I can find online:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0217-09.htm
An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA interrogation while suspended by his wrists, which had been handcuffed behind his back, according to investigative reports reviewed by The Associated Press.
The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that it had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances of the death were not disclosed at the time.
The prisoner died in a position known as “Palestinian hanging,” the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position — which human rights groups condemn as torture — was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations.
[quote=“Johan_O”]
Ed, the first thing Nick said in this thread was:
The he said:
Everyone that disagrees with you is not the same person.[/quote]
Point taken. I’ll remove the asshat and turn the vitriol down from eleven.
Are any of these techniques–or even anything like them–used by the US as a part of our everyday criminal justice system? No. Think about whay that is. Hint: because there’s a whole heap of Constitutional precedent that says that this sort of shit IS torture. It’s simply wrong to treat people like that, no matter what they have done, or what information you think you might get out of them. It is shameful that our country is sponsoring such policies.
All of you – with the possible exception of mouselock – are forgetting something very important:
WE DO NOT TORTURE.
That should clear this thread up nicely. You’re welcome.
Only if you want him to lie.
It turns out that the techniques now being used were borrowed from the Soviets - who explicitly used them to generate false confessions, not useful information.
And that’s generally the problem with examples like yours, mouselock. Complete certainty regarding outcome is rare even in carefully controlled cases. When it comes to interrogation, certainty regarding outcome is practically a contradiction. That’s why your example is pretty unconvincing - it’s about as nonsensical as going to a pro-lifer and saying, “Ok, but what if by aborting just one fetus we could convince 1,000,000 lost souls to accept Jesus!!! What then? Would you be cool with abortion in that case? Yes? Well, OK THEN!”
It’s the depressing but unsurprising truth that - in the real world - torture soon loses any utility in gathering information.
It could be a matter of restratints.
Just to add fun to the debate, I’ll point out that “restraining someone in an uncomfortable position” can not only be torture, it can be a method of execution. The Romans called it crucifixion.[/quote]
As I recall reading, it doesn’t take much longer than 40 hours before the crucifee asphixiates. I’d like to see some of the “that’s not torture” advocates try this one on for size and see how it feels.[/quote]
Takes even less time if the victim can’t hoist himself up a bit to breathe. Romans used to break the legs of crucified men if they were suffering too long. After that, they’d die pretty quickly.
I can’t believe anyone could actually claim that this insanity isn’t torture. This has to be one of the most shameful periods in US history.
Guardian/Amnesty Accounts from Guantanamo inmates
The use of torture has in the 21st century become a topic of debate. Should we or should we not. And I think that it’s just such a terrible statement … on the state of us as human beings on the planet today.
The people who claim to be the upholders and defenders of freedom are debating now whether it is legitimate to use torture. After all of what the world has been through arguing against the fact. And if it does in one way or another become legitimised, either mental torture or physical or psychological, which has been clearly used by several countries, then I think the world will spiral into something that nobody will be able to control.
The torture was basic. In order to cause discomfort they switched on the air conditioning and closed the door to the room. The chain was covered with frost. Before the investigation we were held in the isolation ward for ten days to a month. During this time continuous beatings and insults took place.
Concerning our transfer from Kandahar to Guantánamo: it was a very cruel journey. We were all chained, attached to the seats. We were wearing headphones, blacked out glasses and respirators, making breathing almost impossible. People were continually losing consciousness because of the respirators. The headphones caused high pressure on the head, almost causing a hole, and all of that caused a lot of pain.
We were put into an American detention centre at Kandahar air base. Every one of us suffered from torture and humiliation. The beatings became a routine. Isolation wards, unsanitary conditions and we were sleeping on the sand in the winter. This humiliation was bringing us to our knees.
The torture we were subjected to include beatings and systematic provocations to try and make the detainee break some instructions. And when that happens a special team is called - they would run into the cell, beat and chain him up…
During the interrogations they left you in a cold room for a few weeks. Isolation wards are a good example. We weren’t given anything to lie on - no carpet. All of us have problems with our kidneys because we slept on the iron with air conditioning on. It was freezing cold. The ceilings began to be covered with condensation from the cold. We were held like that for months. I was in the isolation ward for five months.
US blocks UN inspectors from unrestricted access
The UN’s special investigator on torture has turned down an offer to visit Guantánamo Bay after the US refused to grant the UN’s experts unfettered access to the prison.
The UN’s panel of experts said restrictions the US was insisting on would make it impossible to judge the conditions under which around 500 detainees in the so-called war on terror are being held at the camp.
“We deeply regret that the United States government did not accept the standard terms of reference for a credible, objective and fair assessment of the situation of the detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility,” they said in a statement. “These terms include the ability to conduct private interviews with detainees.”
Both Amnesty International and Reprieve, which supports those facing the death penalty in the US, called on Washington to provide “meaningful” access to all prisoners at the naval base in Cuba. As many as 200 of the 500 prisoners are believed to be on a hunger strike which is now in its 100th day. None have been allowed to starve themselves to death. Whenever they become ill, guards begin force feeding.
“There has been an alarming deterioration in the health and mental health of the inmates,” said Paul Hunt, one of the five UN special rapporteurs. “There’s been sleep deprivation, other coercive methods and suicide attempts. The best way to check on these allegations is to visit, to talk privately to detainees and to talk to military staff. International human rights do not stop at the gates of Guantánamo. The rule of law cannot be turned on and off like a tap.”
[/quote]
Wow. To think the US has regressed from a position that works, to one that’s just brutal.
What I’ve never understood is why anyone at all ever thought torture would result in useful information. It seems to me that if I was in a position where A) I didn’t want to betray something I believed in, and B) wanted to avoid pain, I’d just lie. On top of that, there’s the converse problem, which is the fact that a torturer never knows if the person is telling the truth or not, so by default, he has to assume the person is lying, which just makes things worse. And then, following that logic, if the person being tortured knows that even telling the truth doesn’t save his ass… why betray your ideals by giving it, if you are just going to be tortured anyway?
Not to mention the cases where they torture people who really don’t know anything.
Only if you want him to lie.
It turns out that the techniques now being used were borrowed from the Soviets - who explicitly used them to generate false confessions, not useful information.
And that’s generally the problem with examples like yours, mouselock. Complete certainty regarding outcome is rare even in carefully controlled cases. When it comes to interrogation, certainty regarding outcome is practically a contradiction. That’s why your example is pretty unconvincing - it’s about as nonsensical as going to a pro-lifer and saying, “Ok, but what if by aborting just one fetus we could convince 1,000,000 lost souls to accept Jesus!!! What then? Would you be cool with abortion in that case? Yes? Well, OK THEN!”[/quote]
So torture is torture because it’s ineffective? Sorry, I don’t buy that. (I mean, I buy that you don’t get good information, and I’m all over the “We shouldn’t do it.”, but I’m not getting the connection between “Torture is morally wrong” and “We shouldn’t do that because it doesn’t accomplish anything anyway.”) What if we had a hypothetical torture technique that was excruciating but worked. Call it a “Cranial Extractor” or what have you. The viewpoint I get here is that it would still be wrong, which means there’s no causal relation between the morality of the act and the veracity of the results.
What I’m (still) getting at is relativism. I think it’s insane to blindly proclaim that torture is always 100% wrong. Wrong in nearly 100% of the cases sure. But if you truly and honestly believed you had a substantial chance of saving 100,000 people’s lives through the torture of one, you wouldn’t even question it? You’d just let the 100,000 die? How is that any more moral than the alternative? That’s the viewpoint I don’t understand. The part where folks like to come in and say “Well, we never have that type of certainty about any of this, so what are the odds you’re doing good for more people than the evil you do?” I understand and agree with. It’s the “No situation can ever excuse torture.” thing that I have the disconnect with.
(And yes, I know it makes me a small, horrible, squalid little prick of a man bound straight for hell because I have the audacity to actually consider at one point the many outweigh the individual, so we can just assume I’m suitably shamed and skip the whole invective and name calling rigamarole if you please.)
Mouse, the ticking time bomb scenario is just as retarded as those “would you shoot your wife in the head and then fuck the hole - TO SAVE A BUS FULL OF BABIES!” hypotheticals. They’re contrived scenarios to force you into choosing between amoral options, designed to make the subject under discussion look reasonable. There’s no relevance to the real world and they tell you nothing useful about decision making.
However, going with it: if you have a ticking time bomb scenario the guy is just going to lie to you, right? How the hell would you know from torturing him that we wasn’t lying? It still wouldn’t work.
Even if it was the case that someone had to torture in a scenario like that, big deal - they’d torture the terrorist, the president would pardon them for saving the city, and it’d still be illegal for every other scenario on earth.
Not to mention that in a ticking time bomb scenario, the terrorist would only have to outlast the timer. And if he’s in it for ideological reasons… good luck getting the proper info out of him. On top of that, any good set of criminals are going to set up their stuff with enough blind one way communications that it’s unlikely you’d get any real info out of a random guy anyway.
No one said that. The ineffectiveness of torture versus the standard interrogation psychological techniques was just another strike against the use of torture.
If excruciatingly painful techniques had greater ability to compel truthtelling, they would be less wrong. Torture is wrong because it is cruel and degrading, and the fact it is not truly helpful is just gravy.
Torture is always wrong. It is more wrong or less wrong based on the circumstances, but it is always very, very, very, wrong. If you feel you have to torture someone to save lives, you should torture them. And afterwards, you pay the piper. If you feel the need to break the law to save lives, you don’t need to flaunt it twice. It will be the law that decides whether you were helpful. Remember, the lesser of two evils is evil.
Remember, Self-Defense is a defense that you claim in a court, not a reason for you to refuse to show up. And if you engage in torture, expect to lose the necessity defense, expect to be wrong about the secret plot. Expect to spend the rest of your life trying to convince yourself you tortured an innocent man for the good of the land, but don’t expect to succeed. The real world doesn’t work that way.
People acquire black marks on their souls every single day doing things to protect things that they love. We live in a difficult world where moral rectitude is hard to come by, that should not suprise you.
Correct. The effectiveness (or lack thereof) of torture has no bearing whatsoever on the morality of its use. However, the point still has relevance because it invalidates your next argument (the bomb scenario). The “what if we needed to torture someone to find the bomb” argument is inherently flawed because we know that torture does not provide reliable information, and therefor there is no compelling reason to use it in that (or any other) situation.
I think it’s insane to blindly proclaim that torture is always 100% wrong.
In that case, I don’t think we’re ever going to agree on this subject. Because I do think that torture is always 100% wrong. Even if it did work.
Wrong in nearly 100% of the cases sure. But if you truly and honestly believed you had a substantial chance of saving 100,000 people’s lives through the torture of one, you wouldn’t even question it?
Sure. It’s still wrong though. Let me put it another way–let’s say I take one of your loved ones hostage, and then give you a gun and tell you that unless you kill a stranger, I’m going to kill your loved one. Slowly, and painfully. I’m sure you believe that murder is wrong, but in that situation, wouldn’t you at least consider murdering the stranger?
I’m sure you would. Anyone would. But murdering the stranger would still be wrong.
You’d just let the 100,000 die? How is that any more moral than the alternative? That’s the viewpoint I don’t understand.
Because you didn’t plant the bomb. There is not a moral equivalency between willfully harming others and failing to prevent harm initiated by a third party. So it’s not only any more moral–it’s a lot more moral.
And understand, I’m not saying that wouldn’t be a really tough dilemma. I would certainly understand why someone might decide to try to save the 100,000 people anyway, even though it meant doing something they know is seriously wrong.
But what if it isn’t 100,000 people? What if only 10,000 are threatened? Would torture still be okay? How about 1000? Or 100? Or 10? How imminent does the threat have to be before you can torture someone? What if the bomb is going off next week instead of tomorrow? Or next month? Or next year? What if we don’t even know the timetable? And how certain do you have to be that the subject has useful information in the first place? The “ticking bomb” argument is really just a house of cards when you start examining it in a practical sense.
On top of that, the “ticking bomb” argument is really just a distraction, because we aren’t currently facing a ticking bomb scenario, and the White House is not asking for a “ticking bomb exemption.” They are asking, effectively, for carte blanche to use torture at their discretion. Or, to be more accurate, they are asing to be allowed to continue to do so. So the real question is, do we want to institutionalize the use of torture? I say very definitely not.
Agreed there. And the other discussion has convinced me that the behavior is probably torture (though I still don’t think I understand the waterboard thing well enough to really get why it’s torture). I appreciate your discussion (and yours as well, Flowers). Personally I’m still stuck back at the fact that we now have commensurate Iraq casualties all for ourselves as the victims of the 9/11 attack in the first place. I wholly believe the entire situation is a horrible mess we never should have been in. But I also wonder when these huge blanket pronouncements come out about “how could we” and “who could ever condone such behavior on our part” whether or not people ever really try to figure out how we came to the point where we’re asking the questions and why there are folks who do condone it. At least some of the folks here seem to have thought about it and have convincing arguments, for which I’m thankful.
The biggest issue with torture is its (lack of) effectiveness. I believe formal training in real world interrogation is the best solution to avoid the moral issues of torture and increase the strength of our human intel assets. You don’t fuck people up to get them to talk unless you just want them to tell you what they think you believe.
Second biggest.