robot_parade

A simple question.

Here's an article discussing torture:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...1.torture.html

BTW, if it isn't clear, the 'Jack Bauer' option means that we have someone in custody, we know to a reasonable degree of certainty that he or she has information about a bomb that will kill people, and won't talk. If you think this sort of situation never happens outside of Hollywood, feel free to vote 'No'.

Willravel

No one should ever torture anyone for any reason. It doesn't produce reliable information, and it's the ultimate in inhumane behavior.

Jack Bauer is a fictional character.

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Crompsin

Don't underestimate the power of fictional characters.

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C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

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onesnowyowl

As will said, torture is unacceptable, always.

I read something in the NYTimes today that caught my eye. They were talking to the Dalai Lama about the violence in Tibet, and he commented on China. Specifically, he outlined what his idea of a superpower is.

If we're supposed to be a superpower, we severely compromise our moral authority (if we had it to begin with) when we torture. It's an enormous violation of human rights (not that the United States has ever respected human rights).

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Baraka_Guru

I don't think anyone should torture people.

Moreover, I think that the use of torture is indicative of fear and impotence. It is one of the most forthright failures of humanity.

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Hain

Isn't anyone going to argue against this? Who voted "I don't see anything wrong with torture"?

What is the OP's opinion?

ratbastid

Beautifully said.

Look: let's say you have an actual Jack Bauer situation. The one way to make SURE you don't get reliable information would be to torture the guy. All moral arguments aside--not that there aren't great moral arguments against it--torture doesn't produce good information.

Crompsin

Maybe torture itself isn't the main problem. The erosion of morality scares me more.

If it's okay to torture somebody BUT ONLY IF... then the BUT ONLY IF becomes less and less severe over time as torture becomes more commonplace and more "accepted" by the people in the public eye. "Oh, I don't care. It's not me. I'm a good citizen of East Asia." This isn't to suggest that covert torture will change and we'd be foolish to assume that Uncle Sam hasn't shoved a few bamboo slivers up some fingernails to get a few names in the last 20 years.

Once you let known torture become acceptable for one specific reason... say terrorism... human nature takes over and suddenly you've got 120V nipple clamps and are gettin' sweated out downtown about those parking violations from last year... and all in the name of stopping "traffic terrorism."

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Hain

I knew I did the right thing by taking that driver's ed class to get out of those speeding tickets.

Crompsin

... and so is the large-scale torture that is war.

I wouldn't call torture a failure of humanity. I like to think of it as something we all carry with us as an option in the back of our heads... an evil red button we tease as a response to crazy stuff like mass murder and cheating spouses, et al. I'd call it getting in touch with the Mr. Hyde side.

Such cruelty is a very human trait.

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Hain

I know you are not saying that as if, "We practice one evil, this other one is justified."

Crompsin

My response to torture was listed above. We can't condone it because even a little bit will eventually become more.

I'm saying we practice one evil because it involves pretty uniforms.

Physical torture? Riding around in a humvee for hours a day and waiting for a roadside bomb to take your legs off. You are a captive of the situation and the situation has the potential to kill you, but if it does anything other than the scare the shit outta you... it'll just cripple you with dismemberment thanks to the high tech body armor that turns your body into a six-segment sausage. We call that war because it's less personal than a sweaty guy putting cigarettes out on your neck in a damp basement.

/threadjack

Yeah, I'm a dumbass. I shouldn't be posting on this.

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fresnelly

If we do it then it's OK for "Them" to do it.

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Tully Mars

Torture is a great tool... in movie and TV plot lines. In the real world I don't think it works very well. People tell us what we want to hear. Or at least what they think we want to hear.

Plus it's kind of hard to hold the morale high ground when torturing people.

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Ustwo

This was a very valid concept in WWII when it came to US/UK prisoners and German POW's. I read that the US did have a secret facility that did in fact use psychological type of torture on key German POW's and the greatest fear was Germany would find out and do the same. I don't know if this is true, but over all this gentileman's agreement held true. US prisoners were as a whole very well kept by the Germans, and we kept the German prisoners well too. Now when it came to the German/Russian prisoners or the Japanese/US ones, thats a different story.

Sadly this has absolutely no baring on the current conflict.

On the one side we have beheading, maimings (I think fingers were mailed recently), that sort of thing, on the other side we have water boarding which incidentally was/is part of airforce SERE training.

This whole torture is wrong is easy when you are sitting at your computer desk, drinking your caffeinated beverage of choice, but then its not really your life on the line.

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ratbastid

So you're saying torture is valid as a form of revenge?

Tully Mars

Regardless of your beverage of choice it seems the issue is a little more complex then they behead people, we water board people. First there's a very real question as to whether or not it works?:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan11.html

It works great for Jack on "24." But that's TV and not real life. Many US veterans, including John McCain, who have suffered torture at the hands of the enemy have said not only that we shouldn't be doing it, but that it's not effective.

Then there's the question of is it legal?:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...201170_pf.html

Kind of hard to claim what we're doing is legal when we executed several Japanese soldiers for this very behavior.

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Greg700

Ok, here goes:

Willravel, torture whether it is morally justifiable or not, can be very effective in certain situations such as field interrogations. I.E. where you have a particular piece of information you need to get and quickly (I.E. where did you bury the cache? or which building is the hostage in?).

For long term stuff, confessions, etc. torture is less effective since, obviously, the person is likely to say whatever they think will make it stop.

When you are warring against a country that is willing to extend to their POW's the same treatment we provide to ours, an absolute ban on torture makes perfect sense.

But when your enemy is going to torture and murder any prisioner they get regardless of how the US treats it's prisioners, there really isn't any reason (other than a moral argument) to abstain from use of torture when it would be effective. I.E. if you catch one of the guys who kidnapped a CBS news crew and want him to tell you where they are...I guarantee he isn't likely to tell you unless he is coerced, at least not quickly enough to help them.

Morally, I don't see how torture is any different than killing someone. If killing is justified in pursuit of a goal, then torture is too, in my mind. I think it is distastefull and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, but if it will save American lives then I have less than no sympathy for the poor bastard.

Don't take this to mean that I have any desire to torture someone, and I am not about to risk my career and freedom by taking it upon myself to do so, but I think we should, to a degree, adjust our methods to compliment those employed by our enemy.

I have been to SERE (the army version) and it was miserable, degrading, and a real eye opener. We were treated far worse than any of the prisioners at Abu Ghraib. At least those guys got to eat and weren't borderline hypothermic. I couldn't care less whether they had their feelings hurt, or were embarrassed. I will however concede that the behavior of the guards was monumentally stupid, done without any clear purpose, and very damaging to our national reputation.

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Ustwo

No I never said that, or even implied it in the slightest.

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Willravel

Sorry, in this case psychological training trumps military training and even experience. All of the most renowned and well respected minds in psychology and psychiatry agree 100% that the information gained from torture is, at best, completely unreliable. Even if it was legal (which it absolutely is not), it is generally useless because the information cannot be trusted to any reasonable degree, especially if you and your men are going to risk your lives for it. Yes, it will occasionally produce some reliable information, but because the rate of reliable information is so inconsistent it would be foolhardy to act on the information.
This is absolutely true, but it's also very true for even very short term torture. They're not quite the same, but the results are surprisingly similar.
This shouldn't be about vengeance. Vengeance has no place in war.
Killing is usually pretty quick. As we've seen, torture can go on for years. That's a rather serious difference, wouldn't you agree?
You really want to stoop to the level of our enemy? And where does "our enemy" have large military installations where hundreds of our POWs and innocent civilians are tortured long term?
Have you been to Abu or Gitmo? I've been waterboarded myself (makeshift waterboarding, intentionally, even knowing that I was in no danger). Anything more than maybe 35-40 seconds and it's fucking scary. And I am a swimmer.

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Bear Cub

Are we going to limit this particular discussion to military torture? How about in the context of capital punishment and our criminal justice system?

Greg700

Ok, I will try to respond.

I agree with Will that torture should not be used for vengance. I am saying that torture should not be used if both sides can avoid doing so, like nuclear or chemical weapons. We choose not to use them only so long as our enemies do not use them against us. We are not 'stooping,' but rather simply being pragmatic.

When I said "long term" I was not referring to the length of a torture session but rather the timeline over which information is going to be gathered.

During WW2 the Germans (and us as well) had the most luck with interrogators who used nonviolent approaches. However, it is absolutely possible to coerce people under the right circumstances. Additionally, the fear of torture as an option is a useful tool. When we capture someone, they are almost always absolutely terrified, and out of fear will tell us most of what we ask, particularly if we phrase the question right. After some time goes by and they realize that nothing is going to happen to them if they don't cooperate, they stop talking.

No, I don't see much of a distinction between killing and torture. The latter is more distasteful than the former, but the end result is no worse.

We don't have institutions where "hundreds" of POW's and "Innocent Civilians" are tortured long term. I am reasonably familiar with our actual interrogation techniques, and none of them involve torture, withholding food, extreme discomfort, etc. If it happens it is way outside the norm. Abu Ghraib was an embarrasment rather than an official policy.

Even to get a prisioner sent to the Bagram Detention facility, the quantity of evidence collected against them is overwhelming, and is reviewed several times before they are accepted into the detention facility. They are then periodically reviewed by another panel to determine whether they are still worth keeping. The bar is very high just to get them in an internment camp in Afghanistan. Only the worst of those will go to GITMO, etc. and believe me when I say that the evidence has to be overwhelming.

So your argument against waterboarding is that it is scary? Again, if waterboarding still takes place (and I am pretty sure that it doesn't, even for high value guys) I am only able to cry crocodile tears for them.

These are just my thoughts, and bear in mind that I am not someone who has first hand experience (outside of training) with this stuff, either giving or receiving, and I am not claiming to be an expert.

Chassis Welder: I dont' think torture has a place in our criminal justice system. It would absolutely be about simple vengance and I don't support that. I can see offering someone some form of corporal punishment over a jail sentance (they can always turn it down) as it would give them the option and would drastically reduce expenses. However, to torture someone just for shits and giggles is not right. If they have done something so horrible that they must be discarded, then kill them quickly and be done with it.

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"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence