Torture- Never Say Never?
I don't want to beat a dead horse but this just came up again today. I know it hasn't been in the media much lately, but I just want us all to be sure that our minds are made up- That we know where we stand. This is important!
Is it ALWAYS wrong to use "enhanced interrogation" techniques? If you knew using waterboarding against a known terrorist may well elicit information that would stop a massive attack on an American city, would you still insist it never be used? Do you oppose the use of waterboarding if it would save a thousand innocent lives? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? What exactly is the point, if any, at which you believe waterboarding might be justified? If there is a point at which it is justified, who should make the decision?
(Let's just all agree that waterboarding is torture during this discussion.)
Many of you already know how I feel on this subject.
Food for thought.... check it:
..and this:
...and this:
The FLN and the French in the 1950's:
...and lastly this:
Is it ALWAYS wrong to use "enhanced interrogation" techniques? If you knew using waterboarding against a known terrorist may well elicit information that would stop a massive attack on an American city, would you still insist it never be used? Do you oppose the use of waterboarding if it would save a thousand innocent lives? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? What exactly is the point, if any, at which you believe waterboarding might be justified? If there is a point at which it is justified, who should make the decision?
(Let's just all agree that waterboarding is torture during this discussion.)
Many of you already know how I feel on this subject.
Food for thought.... check it:
Cheney is barking up a storm on the efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture. He says he knows of two CIA memos that support his contention that the harsh interrogation methods worked and that many lives were saved. "That's what's in those memos," he told Schieffer. They talk "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped."
Cheney says he once had the memos in his files and has since asked that they be released. He's got a point. After all, this is not merely some political catfight conducted by bloggers, although it is a bit of that, too. Inescapably, it is about life and death -- not ideology, but people hurling themselves from the burning World Trade Center. If Cheney is right, then let the debate begin: What to do about enhanced interrogation methods? Should they be banned across the board, always and forever? Can we talk about what is and not just what ought to be?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051102668.html
..and this:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News on Monday that the Obama administration should release CIA memos that, he says, will show "the success" of the CIA's use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the Bush administration.
Cheney said he found the decision to release those memos – but not others that he says show the success of the use of the tactics – "a little bit disturbing." He said he has read classified memos "that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country," arguing that they should be made public so the country can have an "honest debate."
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/21/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4959587.shtml
...and this:
Morality also involves balancing ends and means. It is therefore relevant to take into account the possible benefits from the act of coercive interrogation techniques. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, during a 2004 hearing on the subject of torture, put it this way. “There are times when we all get into high dudgeon” on this matter, Schumer said, but that we “ought to be reasonable about this.” He then added this:
I think there are probably very few people in this [Congressional hearing] room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. Take the hypothetical: if we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believe that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most Senators, maybe all, would do what you have to do. So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the fox hole, it’s a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect the fact that the President’s in the fox-hole every day. So he can hardly be blamed for asking you, or his White House counsel or the Department of Defense, to figure out when it comes to torture, what the law allows and when the law allows it, and what there is permission to do.
Senator Schumer noted, “We certainly don’t want torture to be used willy-nilly… But we also don’t want the situation like I mentioned in Chicago to preclude it.”
Apropos of Schumer’s comments, critics of enhanced interrogation techniques need to wrestle with a set of questions they like to avoid: if you knew using waterboarding against a known terrorist may well elicit information that would stop a massive attack on an American city, would you still insist it never be used? Do you oppose the use of waterboarding if it would save a thousand innocent lives? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? What exactly is the point, if any, at which you believe waterboarding might be justified? I simply don’t accept that those who answer “never” are taking a morally superior stand to those who answer “sometimes, in extremely rare circumstances and in very limited cases.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/morality-and-enhanced-interrogation-techniques-15125
The FLN and the French in the 1950's:
Was torture effective? As Branche and Thenault both acknowledge, torture enabled the French to gather information about future terrorist strikes and to destroy the infrastructure of terror in Algiers. General Aussaresses is not wrong to claim that he won the "battle of the Casbah" precisely by abandoning any pretense of legal norms in dealing with the FLN.
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2009/04/23/did-enhanced-interrogations-work-do-we-need-an-investigation/
...and lastly this:
Even President Obama’s new director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, wrote in a memorandum to his staff last week that “high value information came from interrogations in which these methods were used,” an assertion left out when the memorandum was edited for public release....
...Four successive C.I.A. directors have made similar claims, and the most recent, Michael V. Hayden, said in January that he believed the methods “got the maximum amount of information” from prisoners, citing specifically Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief 9/11 plotter.
Many intelligence officials, including some opposed to the brutal methods, confirm that the program produced information of great value, including tips on early-stage schemes to attack tall buildings on the West Coast and buildings in New York’s financial district and Washington. Interrogation of one Qaeda operative led to tips on finding others, until the leadership of the organization was decimated. Removing from the scene such dedicated and skilled plotters as Mr. Mohammed, or the Indonesian terrorist known as Hambali, almost certainly prevented future attacks.
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2009/04/23/did-enhanced-interrogations-work-do-we-need-an-investigation/
41 Comments
blankfistWaterboarding carried out by the government is wrong in any circumstance, because they're representing all of us when they do it. To me it's an easy issue.
The arguments that say 'what if it can be used to stop a massive attack on the US' are a fallacy, because you don't know if those techniques would prevent an attack unless you use them. What if you do use them and you weren't able to stop an attack? What then?
gwiz665Yes. It is always wrong. Every time. Even in the 24 hours ticking clock scenario.
deedub81>> ^blankfist:
Waterboarding carried out by the government is wrong in any circumstance, because they're representing all of us when they do it. To me it's an easy issue.
The arguments that say 'what if it can be used to stop a massive attack on the US' are a fallacy, because you don't know if those techniques would prevent an attack unless you use them. What if you do use them and you weren't able to stop an attack? What then?
<Devil's Advocate> Well, some would say that you were morally justified under the circumstances. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that there is a 'ticking time-bomb' justifies the use of torture.
What if we were talking about executing somebody to save lives? If you could order the death of Osama Bin Laden knowing that it would thwart countless terrorist attacks in the future, would you do it? Most would say 'yes.' Now, what if you could save those same lives by torturing Bin Laden? </Devil's Advocate>
I don't think that torture is moral, but I don't think it's as black and white as some people believe it is.
gwiz665Killing someone would never, ever have that effect in real life.
deedub81^We have to discuss this hypothetically because we don't have a ticking time bomb scenario. This is all hypothetical.
How about this:
Your family has been kidnapped and the police say that they have a kidnapper in custody. They are 100% sure this guy is a kidnapper. He has a history of kidnapping and he lived next door to you, but they aren't sure if this is the actual perpetrator. You've received a ransom note that the real kidnapper (whoever he is) has your family hidden somewhere and they've been without food or water for 2 days. Would you torture him to find out where your family is?
Your family (country/nation) has been kidnapped (is under attack) and the police say that they have a kidnapper(known terrorist) in custody. They are 100% sure this guy is a kidnapper (Al Qaeda opperative). He has a history of kidnapping(terrorism) and he lived next door to you (in a terrorist cell), but they aren't sure if this is the actual perpetrator (they are only 98% sure that he knows details). You've received a ransom note that the real kidnapper (terrorist cell) has your family hidden somewhere (is planning an attack against the US) and they've been without food or water for 2 days (it's going to take place sometime this week).
gwiz665I would still not torture, because it would not help. I would have someone who is not me, because I'm emotionally invested, to get him to talk by "friendly" means. Getting a rapport, so he would want to tell the truth.
When people say, "well we've tried everything else, next on the list is torture" then they have failed. If they have tried all else, then torture will not get them anything useful. They failed.
blankfistdeedub81: Well, some would say that you were morally justified under the circumstances. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that there is a 'ticking time-bomb' justifies the use of torture.
What circumstances? That there are people who want to kill Americans because of Britney Spears and our foreign interventionist policies? And regardless of what outcome? Any outcome? As long as there's a ticking time bomb it's okay to torture anyone even on a hunch or via hearsay? Then the answer is always no, because those are bad arguments in favor of torture.
What if we were talking about executing somebody to save lives?
How can you prove that? The fact that you must use torture proves it's torture brought out of suspicion - you have no proof he knows anything, it's just suspicion. Even if the government said they knew he was hiding something, they were also the same government that told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
They are 100% sure this guy is a kidnapper. He has a history of kidnapping and he lived next door to you, but they aren't sure if this is the actual perpetrator.
Then they aren't 100% sure. This is the fallacy of all pro-torture arguments. "What if it's 100% absolutely true that this guy knows something, even though we can't be certain he does."
Ornthoron>> ^deedub81:
What if we were talking about executing somebody to save lives? If you could order the death of Osama Bin Laden knowing that it would thwart countless terrorist attacks in the future, would you do it? Most would say 'yes.' Now, what if you could save those same lives by torturing Bin Laden?
Let me turn the question around on you: What if you could thwart an imminent terrorist attack by torturing the terrorist's innocent daughter while he is watching? Would you do it?
Not everything has a price; we all have our uncrossable boundaries. The question is, where is yours?
berticusdumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
torture works!
dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
rottenseedMorality also involves balancing ends and means
This is probably one of the only real thought provoking ideas. The only problem with torture as a "means" is that once we accept it, we may be riding a slippery slope. Next thing you know it's ok to torture US citizens by the police to obtain the information they want. Because, you know, the "means justifies the ends".
The problem with torture is that it's uncivilized and inhumane. Once we lose sight of what we, as a society, have decided is and isn't humane, we don't have anything left to fight for. We're now on par with our enemy.
The strange thing is, as long as people are arguing that it's not ok to do, it's somewhat ok to do because we still have some sort of moral ground.
quantumushroomAG Eric Holder tried and failed to prosecute waterboarding as torture. It goes something like this: Navy SEALS are waterboarded as part of their training, with the goals of building resistance and familiarity with enemy forces that might do it. Navy SEALS were not waterboarded with the goal of inflicting permanent damage. The Sheikh subjected to waterboarding was ALSO not being injured with a goal of inflicting permanent damage; his waterboarding was done to gain valuable intelligence.
Is there a liberal with the nerve to tell the survivors and families of victims of a terrorist attack, "Sorry, since we don't torture captives, we had no way of knowing about the imminent attack."? Because that's the true result to which s/he should be held accountable.
Liberalism thrives on justifying anti-common sense from the darker edges of morally gray areas. It's preposterous to me that on this one issue (torture), the liberal movement, as it were, claims to be rocksteady, while at the same time unlawfully bestowing legal protections reserved for legitimate soldiers on savages fighting under no country's flag, who violate all the rules of warfare.
Despite what moral relativists claim, it is entirely possible for a human being to commit savage acts which forfeit all his rights to humane treatment, the protection of laws, and life itself.
NetRunnerI guess I'm not sure why people think the hypotheticals can happen, or why they think torture is a reliable or effective means of extracting accurate information.
Even if it was, I think people don't understand that torture by its very nature robs people of their most basic humanity. They can't control themselves, they'll do anything to escape what's being done to them.
Civilized people don't do it to anyone, because it's horrific, and there's nothing to be gained. At best you can make someone bend to your will, and make them do things or say things they would not have said or done otherwise.
It's useful if you want to force a religious "conversion" or get someone to confess to crimes they didn't commit, but there is no rationale for doing that to people, even in war.
I get the "morality also involves balancing ends and means" sort of thing. If the only way to save the world is for me to steal blankfist's car, I think I could make that trade pretty easily.
But most of those kinds of choices depend on stilted hypotheticals. I could easily say millions of people die of starvation every year, because people won't let me raise taxes to provide food for everyone who needs it.
If that was my only argument in favor, would you really take me seriously? Why should we take the pro-torture advocates any more seriously?
rottenseed>> ^quantumushroom:
AG Eric Holder tried and failed to prosecute waterboarding as torture. It goes something like this: Navy SEALS are waterboarded as part of their training, with the goals of building resistance and familiarity with enemy forces that might do it. Navy SEALS were not waterboarded with the goal of inflicting permanent damage. The Sheikh subjected to waterboarding was ALSO not being injured with a goal of inflicting permanent damage; his waterboarding was done to gain valuable intelligence.
Is there a liberal with the nerve to tell the survivors and families of victims of a terrorist attack, "Sorry, since we don't torture captives, we had no way of knowing about the imminent attack."? Because that's the true result to which s/he should be held accountable.
Liberalism thrives on justifying anti-common sense from the darker edges of morally gray areas. It's preposterous to me that on this one issue (torture), the liberal movement, as it were, claims to be rocksteady, while at the same time unlawfully bestowing legal protections reserved for legitimate soldiers on savages fighting under no country's flag, who violate all the rules of warfare.
Despite what moral relativists claim, it is entirely possible for a human being to commit savage acts which forfeit all his rights to humane treatment, the protection of laws, and life itself.
It's easy to understand why the "liberals" feel the way they do about torture when you take the number of innocent people that were tortured and you put yourself in their situation. You're minding your own business and you get picked up, without habeas corpus being extended to you, and are interrogated ruthlessly for information that you do not have. Not only is this wrong and archaic, it may "make" enemies that were indifferent before. If you were picked up by a bunch of Muslim extremists, would you not be willing to do whatever it took to get back at that group? Now imagine if your only education told you that every Muslim extremist represents the ideals of a certain country. You'd wanna want to be a part in hurting that country.
deedub81No. I wouldn't torture his innocent daughter. Absolutely not.
What do you mean when you say, "not everything has a price?"
>> ^Ornthoron:
Let me turn the question around on you: What if you could thwart an imminent terrorist attack by torturing the terrorist's innocent daughter while he is watching? Would you do it?
Not everything has a price; we all have our uncrossable boundaries. The question is, where is yours?
deedub81How do you figure it would not help? Building rapport often takes months.
We don't have months. That argument doesn't fly. Your options are to use "enhanced interrogation" to get the information out of him or say goodbye to your family. Waterboarding him isn't a guaranty, but it'll give you a chance at saving your family.
>> ^gwiz665:
I would still not torture, because it would not help. I would have someone who is not me, because I'm emotionally invested, to get him to talk by "friendly" means. Getting a rapport, so he would want to tell the truth.
When people say, "well we've tried everything else, next on the list is torture" then they have failed. If they have tried all else, then torture will not get them anything useful. They failed.
blankfistBy the way, did anyone see my penis? It's super tiny right now, so that's hilarious.
thepinkyYou asked us to think of how things are, not how they ought to be. Well, the fact is that there will probably never be a "ticking time bomb" scenario to the extent that we discuss it in our torture debates. Why don't we just make the decision never to use torture RIGHT NOW, and then we will never have to make the decision again however sorely we are tempted?
I have been using this idea for most of my life. A very mild example is my decision to never drive my car to school because I live close to campus. I made that decision once, and I never have to make it again. It may be raining out, I may be late for class, I may be tired that day, but those things don't tempt me because I already made my decision. However, I know that there are certain situations that are unlikely but which may force me to drive or to get a ride. If I injured myself, for instance.
What is we made the decision never to use torture so that we were never tempted to use it, even for a really good reason? That is what our government has been doing: Using torture for really good reasons.
We all agree that torture is wrong, but it isn't black and white (only Sith deal in absolutes). However, I think that we should make the decision NOW to never use torture. We know that torture works and that we have prevented tragedies by its use. But torture is wrong. We have to think about the precedence that we are setting, the example that we are to the rest of the world, and our moral obligation. In the long run, the lives that are immediately at stake are less valuable than the ideal. The ideal must be kept and the moral upheld.
One theory of Ethics is that human suffering determines whether something is moral or immoral. If it decreases the happiness in the world, it is right. If it increases the happiness in the world, it is wrong. I don't agree with this usually, but it is pertinent to our discussion. We don't like death because it causes great suffering, but is death really the worst thing that could ever happen to somebody? No, not at all. Torture also causes suffering. So, if we break a moral code and torture someone to save 10,000 lives, will we ultimately be causing more suffering by giving the world and ourselves permission to do it in the future? I think we might. If the United States of America tortures, what are we saying to the world? How much suffering are we causing by losing our high moral ground? Probably a lot more that we realize.
But there is still that big question: WHAT IF? The way that I see it is that we either need to set a very specific, very strict line at which torture is justified, or else we never, ever use it no matter what. If we use torture only for "really good reasons," the situation will deteriorate. We will continually be tempted by a lower standard each time we do it. But if we make the decision only to "use our car" when we are injured and have no choice, we'll never be tempted to use our car when it's raining.
But THEN you're faced with the dilemma of choosing the point at which torture could be justified. How do you determine that? I don't know that it can possibly be done. I have difficulty with the idea that the justification increases with the number of lives lost. 5 lives aren't worth the torture of one man, but 10,000 lives are? There is no way to come to a conclusion about that. I think that it is an impossible standard to set.
That is my long-winded way of saying that the worst-case scenario will probably never happen and that torture should never, ever, ever be legal. Perhaps morally, we could justify using torture in certain situations. Perhaps. But I don't think that a government purposely allowing torture is ever, ever okay. Maybe at some future day we will be faced with a situation where we have a man in custody and we are 100% sure that he has knowledge that can save 1 million lives. We tried being "friendly", but it didn't work. If that ever occurs, I hope that we will have a law in place that forbids torture. I also hope that I am there to break the law and torture the fool.
deedub81NetRunner:I guess I'm not sure why people think the hypotheticals can happen, or why they think torture is a reliable or effective means of extracting accurate information.
Oh, but these hypothetical situations can and do happen. We do have terrorists in custody, right this very minute, that know information that is important to the security of our country.
Torture isn't a 100% reliable means of extracting accurate information. I don't know any rational human being who believes that it is. It also is not 100% ineffective. Anybody who argues that torture is 100% ineffective is lying and twisting the truth to get their way. It's a noble motive, but not a noble tactic.
If you think it's wrong, talk about why you believe it's wrong. It's okay for something to work and still be wrong. Assassination could have been a very effective method of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung Il, and other evil dictators, but we've decided that crosses a line, so we don't do it.
rottenseed>> ^deedub81:
NetRunner:I guess I'm not sure why people think the hypotheticals can happen, or why they think torture is a reliable or effective means of extracting accurate information.
Oh, but these hypothetical situations can and do happen. We do have terrorists in custody, right this very minute, that know information that is important to the security of our country.
Torture isn't a 100% reliable means of extracting accurate information. I don't know any rational human being who believes that it is. It also is not 100% ineffective. Anybody who argues that torture is 100% ineffective is lying and twisting the truth to get their way. It's a noble motive, but not a noble tactic.
If you think it's wrong, talk about why you believe it's wrong. It's okay for something to work and still be wrong. Assassination could have been a very effective method of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung Il, and other evil dictators, but we've decided that it's immoral, so we don't do it.
Here's a couple of questions I pose to you. Do you believe that the torture of somebody innocent is morally right? How many innocent people's torture is worth how man lives of people? Is it 1:1, 2:1, 1000:1? I'm a numbers guy you're going to have to give me hard numbers, not wishy-washy fuzzy logic.
The point is, unless you set up this ridiculous guideline that everybody agrees with, you will have people fighting against torture. I mean if you could promise for every 1 innocent tortured, 100 people live, that might be a good bet for the acceptance of torture, but if you are not 100% about any type of figure like that, you're just f*ckin' with our heads.
blankfist>> ^NetRunner:
If the only way to save the world is for me to steal blankfist's car, I think I could make that trade pretty easily.
Fuck off. Don't steal my car.
These are retarded arguments. Every argument in favor of torture is this: "okay, seriously, what if the world would be shat upon by a giant with diarrhea if you didn't drink milk while standing on your head?"
It's just a stupid argument any way you slice it. The world is dangerous. Just don't fuck with people. And, don't steal my car.
Farhad2000Not this garbage again.
I have participated in such a discussion 5 times or so on this site alone.
Every time some one comes and says "WELL IF THEY HAD A NUKE AND U HAD 1 GUY U COULD GET INFO IF TORTURE WHAT THEN?!?!"
Never mind that shit never ever ever happened in the real world.
RE:Cheney and CIA memos. LOL! Please 2 memos? Explain why not a single intelligence apparatus of the US refuses to acknowledge Cheney's statements. Not to mention countless reports over the Bush years have shown that the Administration cherry picked CIA intelligence to support their cases. See Curveball intelligence re:Iraq and WMDS.
FAIL. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.
Ornthoron>> ^deedub81:
No. I wouldn't torture his innocent daughter. Absolutely not.
What do you mean when you say, "not everything has a price?"
My point is that morality is not a game of checks and balances as you claim. There are certain moral absolutes. As such, this whole discussion about means to an end is, to me at least, moot.
deedub81^I don't necessarily agree. I don't think the world is made up of black and white. Sure there are a FEW certain moral absolutes, but I don't think it's that simple.
Life is messy, war is messy, peace is messy.
Stealing is wrong. But would you steal bread to keep your family fed for a couple of days? You can pretty easily say no right now, but when you're really desperate a decision like that is not so cut and dry.
Was dropping 'The Bomb' on Japan the right thing to do? I don't know. Sure, it ended the war. I'm just glad I wasn't in the room when they came to the conclusion that it was.
Life is ALL about checks and balances. Justification is the whole point. If Japan hadn't been attacking us, then dropping the bomb would have been absolutely wrong. The aggression of Japan takes the absolute off the table.
Take abortion, for example. I think that using abortion as a form of birth control is morally wrong. I don't believe it is necessarily wrong to have an abortion under special circumstances, such as in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger. I don't believe that abortion is ALWAYS justified or ALWAYS wrong.
rottenseed: That would be really nice if the universe could guarantee us statistics like that. That would make things a lot easier.
gwiz665I'm not a moral absolutist, just for the record. I am very much a moral relativist, in that I believe that whatever we consider to be "absolute" is never that, and it is always adjustable to the circumstances. I do believe, however, that we ought to have principles to adhere to, and one such principle is: don't torture.
NetRunner>> ^deedub81:
Oh, but these hypothetical situations can and do happen. We do have terrorists in custody, right this very minute, that know information that is important to the security of our country.
To take a line from Dick Cheney, "So?" That's an argument for talking to them, not torturing them.
Setting aside the actual debate about whether torture should or should not be used in order to save the country, I still think it needs to be illegal.
If our interrogators think it's the only way to save lives, go ahead, break the law, and take the consequences afterward.
If they'd rather not torture than risk going to jail, clearly torture wasn't really necessary, even in their own opinion.
This whole debate isn't really about whether torture could hypothetically be justified in the future, it's about whether we should prosecute the people who've done it in the past.
Personally, I don't understand why there's any debate -- if what they did was legal, they'll win the battle in court. If not, they'll go to jail. History will later decide whether they heroically sacrificed their lives for their country, or whether they were monsters, or something in between.
dgandhi>> ^deedub81: It also is not 100% ineffective. Anybody who argues that torture is 100% ineffective is lying and twisting the truth to get their way.
You are just playing a numbers game here. If the victim tells you 10 false thing, and 1 true thing, then torture has been "effective", it has also been 100% unreliable. That's the point, even if forced confessions contain some truth, their is no way to tell what is true, and it does not take long until the victim does not even know what is true anymore.
Torture is only effective for one thing, to get people to say what you want them to say, nothing else.
I challenge you to provide ANY evidence to the contrary. Lots of psychological studies have been done on false confessions and truth telling under duress, please give us a reference that even suggests that your entire premise is not a load of bullshit.
This entire discussion is base on two, provably false, assumptions:
1) Torture can provide usable information.
2) It is possible to know the value of information which you do not yet have.
Since neither of these is ever true, torture is never justifiable.
quantumushroomIt's easy to understand why the "liberals" feel the way they do about torture when you take the number of innocent people that were tortured and you put yourself in their situation. You're minding your own business and you get picked up, without habeas corpus being extended to you, and are interrogated ruthlessly for information that you do not have. Not only is this wrong and archaic, it may "make" enemies that were indifferent before. If you were picked up by a bunch of Muslim extremists, would you not be willing to do whatever it took to get back at that group? Now imagine if your only education told you that every Muslim extremist represents the ideals of a certain country. You'd wanna want to be a part in hurting that country.
You (and Holder) forgot one small detail: only three of the Gitmo captives were waterboarded. If we were waterboarding for "our pleasure" in inflicting torture, we would've done it to every last one of them.
I accept the risk of picking up innocents in the pursuit of potentially saving the lives of millions. The recidivism rate of Gitmo scum who were scum before being captured and after is far higher than that of supposed innocents turned into extremists.
For those that think there will never be a suitcase nuke scenario: computers once took up the size of whole rooms, now they fit in a palm. It may take 80 years or more, but creation of a nuke even the size of tackle box is certainly viable. It's not a matter of 'if' but 'when'.
I challenge you to provide ANY evidence to the contrary. Lots of psychological studies have been done on false confessions and truth telling under duress, please give us a reference that even suggests that your entire premise is not a load of bullshit.
Sorry. I respectfully disagree. Can't hide a proposed moral stance behind secrets of national security. I could be wrong, but when the communocrats threatened to release sensitive info on Gitmo "torture", Cheney urged them on, possibly because there is evidence waterboarding works. When Obamarx was threatened with having to tell the whole story, he dropped the issue.
gwiz665In 80 years, we won't need to interrogate.. we'll just read their brain.
dgandhi>> ^quantumushroom: Sorry. I respectfully disagree. Can't hide a proposed moral stance behind secrets of national security.
So you are arguing that all scientific studies about truth telling under duress, and false confessions have been cooked by the Democrats?
I don't really care if the CIA thinks that torture is effective ( they seem to be taking the opposite position, but that is equally irrelevant ). I am asking for evidence that torture, studied under scientific controls, as a system of extracting usable information, works on humans. The evidence I have seen strongly suggests it does not.
deedub81Yesss! We should be able to do that BY THE YEAR 2000!
>> ^gwiz665:
In 80 years, we won't need to interrogate.. we'll just read their brain.
peggedbea>> ^deedub81:
^We have to discuss this hypothetically because we don't have a ticking time bomb scenario. This is all hypothetical.
How about this:
Your family has been kidnapped and the police say that they have a kidnapper in custody. They are 100% sure this guy is a kidnapper. He has a history of kidnapping and he lived next door to you, but they aren't sure if this is the actual perpetrator. You've received a ransom note that the real kidnapper (whoever he is) has your family hidden somewhere and they've been without food or water for 2 days. Would you torture him to find out where your family is?
this is an irrelevant hypothetical. i am a single person, not a head of state, or even head of an organization making decisions on behalf of the whole giving orders that others must carry out. i will accept the consequences of my own actions. someone steals my children and holds them without food or water and is doing god knows what else? well sure i will probably go balls out crazy on some bitches. but in the end, i alone accept the responsibility, culpability, and consequences for whatever immoral atrocities i may commit.
oh and nevermind that the evidence suggests torture is an ineffective means to extract truthful information from an individual.
and a nation, a military power has far more tools at its disposal and emotional detatchment.
now dear, you are a beating a dead horse. most people do not agree with your position. ever. under any circumstances. because 2 wrongs dont make something right. because the evidence suggests torture doesnt work. because there is no empirical data suggestive of its eficacy. because there are better ways to do this. because we see the difference between a single person trying to save their family and world leaders violating their own laws. because noone trusts the motives of the war on terror. because people are actually compassionate and dont want to watch others suffer. ever.
thepinky"Oh my gosh, guys. This discussion is beneath me. I've already given my opinion in such a discussion several times. That's why I'm only popping in to tell you that this argument isn't worth my attention. Oh and plus I just want to say this one thing..."
If you're disgusted by "this garbage," why did you even click, read, and comment? The rest of us are doing just fine and enjoying the discussion without you coming in here to congratulate yourself. I'll tell you what kind of garbage I'M tired of.
>> ^Farhad2000:
Not this garbage again.
I have participated in such a discussion 5 times or so on this site alone.
Every time some one comes and says "WELL IF THEY HAD A NUKE AND U HAD 1 GUY U COULD GET INFO IF TORTURE WHAT THEN?!?!"
Never mind that shit never ever ever happened in the real world.
RE:Cheney and CIA memos. LOL! Please 2 memos? Explain why not a single intelligence apparatus of the US refuses to acknowledge Cheney's statements. Not to mention countless reports over the Bush years have shown that the Administration cherry picked CIA intelligence to support their cases. See Curveball intelligence re:Iraq and WMDS.
FAIL. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.
berticus*puts on absurdly frilly glove
*backhands thepinky and deedub81 in one swift motion
*rollerskates furiously past peggedbea, giving the peace sign, neon pink pigtails flying in the wind
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !
*glances back to catch gwiz checking him out from behind and is confused by mutual feelings of disgust and arousal
berticusi might be high
berticusbut maybe i'm not
berticuswhich would be worse? oh for god's sake stop looking at me like that.
JUST STOP
quantumushroom>> ^quantumushroom: Sorry. I respectfully disagree. Can't hide a proposed moral stance behind secrets of national security.
So you are arguing that all scientific studies about truth telling under duress, and false confessions have been cooked by the Democrats?
Science is no longer apolitical, if it ever was. Lies about secondhand smoke killing 50,000 people per year and gloBULL warming scares have proved this well enough.
Obama can solidify your hypothesis about torture never providing valuable information by releasing all pertinent Gitmo waterboarding data. He hasn't. WHY? He only has a 1 in 3 chance of being proven wrong.
I don't really care if the CIA thinks that torture is effective ( they seem to be taking the opposite position, but that is equally irrelevant ). I am asking for evidence that torture, studied under scientific controls, as a system of extracting usable information, works on humans. The evidence I have seen strongly suggests it does not.
Well, as I've said many times, and probably will again, these captured folks are not enemy soldiers and therefore deserve no military/legal protection, possibly with the exception of those not caught outright fighting against US troops on the battlefield. I'd rather the ones still out there not be reassured that they won't be tortured if captured.
If you seriously believe torture "doesn't work" then you might find yourself agreeable to the idea that we not go through the trouble of bringing these clowns to "jail" for 3 hots and a cot, and instead simply kill the bastards where we find them, as brutally as possible. That might deter a few of the next "martyrs".
dgandhi>> ^quantumushroom:If you seriously believe torture "doesn't work" ... simply kill the bastards where we find them
The overwhelming evidence is that torture, in fact, does not work. Your assessment that in the absence of the ability to usefully torture, we must engage is whole sale murder seems, a bit strained.
Consider that many people were taken into custody on the basis of information provided by paid stool pidgins. Are you suggesting we just assassinate anybody we are told to by any ethically questionable character willing to take our money?
If somebody is willing to get paid to accuse you, should the US gov have a sniper put a 50cal round through your head on your way to church? Or should they...GASP...use due process to determine if you are actually guilty?
gwiz665Bert: I'm pretty sure you are high..
*pans down*
QM: Well, while they're not enemy soldiers they are still human. By torturing them we are debasing ourselves. For me the torturer is far "lower" that the tortured, pretty much no matter what the tortured has done. Of course we shouldn't just kill them.. REAL interrogation does still work.
Farhad2000QM is dealing in half truths again, the legal definition towards enemy combatants does apply to those currently held in Gitmo.
Pinky, yes this is a garbage conversation because the parallel can be drawn pretty easily just re title this post as "GOVERNMENT OPPRESSION - NEVER SAY NEVER?" you will see how fast the opinions change. Its the same thing. The torture programs were not voted in, they were not representative of the American people it was just enforced over night. The same thing can happen when the Government decides you as a citizen are a threat as well.
thepinkySorry for lowering the tone, everyone. I don't even know from whence that came.
Discuss...
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