He doesn't know if it is torture...

[headscratcher4]

The reality is that sometimes torture works and helps win wars and our administration has to repackage and soft-peddle it to ineffectual Americans. It will [/I]

There are, it seems to me, three issues.

Is it torture. IMO, Yes. So it is over the line. It is illegal. It is against what we stand for. It puts our soldiers at even more danger. It undercuts our global authority. It makes us a smaller, meaner people and narrows the difference between who we are and those we fight...and not to our credit. If it is trotrure, we shouldn't engage in it.

2. If it isn't torture, how do you define torture...and shouldn't we do that. What check is there that we don't redefine torture in other convienient ways. What is the oversight? What are the rules...should there be rules...and if no rules, where does it stop, can it be used against an innocent man? If it isn't torture, could you use it against afamily member to get a bad guy to talk? The slippery slope is an ugly one.

3. Finally, Torture sometimes works. Bull. Most experts agree that torture rarely works...unless all you are looking for is a confession. Please provide proof that it sometimes wins wars...I note that the French are not still in Algeria or Vietnam. What torture does is terrorize opposition...both legitimate an illegitimate. And, because it doesn't work, because it is an instrument of coersion and terror rather than a good vehicle to get at truth, it also has a pernicious effect on the rule of law. Standards of evidence, proceedure as well as ethic, morality go out the door. The very things our country was supposedly found upon -- a rule that put no man above the law and respected the basic humanity of every man -- is whittled away by exceptions. Denile of habeus Corpus works. Not reading a prisoner their rights works. Not providing competent legal council works. Bills d' Cachet works....

Besides, given the competent level of oversight we have here...we only have the word of some people with a very bad history of being very wrong about things that it may be working and stopped attacks, etc. I mean, these are the same guys still looking for the WMDs. In fact, had we been able to waterboard people before we invaded Iraq, I'll bet they'd have got those locations...though doubtful there'd be any WMDs there.
F

 

[Suggestologist]

As does everyone we capture by now, unless they really did live in a cave. In fact, that's probably why it is so rarely (if ever) used any more - the cat's out of the bag.

I don't buy it. If you're captured by someone who you know thinks you're the enemy, you are not at all certain that you won't be drowned for real.

 

[steverino]

There are, it seems to me, three issues.

Is it torture. IMO, Yes. So it is over the line. It is illegal. It is against what we stand for. It puts our soldiers at even more danger. It undercuts our global authority. It makes us a smaller, meaner people and narrows the difference between who we are and those we fight...and not to our credit. If it is trotrure, we shouldn't engage in it.

2. If it isn't torture, how do you define torture...and shouldn't we do that. What check is there that we don't redefine torture in other convient ways. What is the oversight? What are the rules...should there be rules...and if no rules, where does it stop, can it be used against an innocent man? If it isn't torture, could you use it against afamily member to get a bad guy to talk? The slippery slope is an ugly one.

3. Finally, Torture sometimes works. Bull. Most experts agree that torture rarely works...unless all you are looking for is a confession. Please provide proof that it sometimes wins wars...I note that the French are not still in Algeria or Vietnam. What torture does is terrorize opposition...both legitimate an illegitimate. And, because it doesn't work, because it is an instrument of coersion and terror rather than a good vehicle to get at truth, it also has a pernicious effect on the rule of law. Standards of evidence, proceedure as well as ethic, morality go out the door. The very things our country was supposedly found upon -- a rule that put no man above the law and respected the basic humanity of every man -- is whittled away by exceptions. Denile of habeus Corpus works. Not reading a prisoner their rights works. Not providing competent legal council works. Bills d' Cachet works....

Besides, given the competent level of oversight we have here...we only have the word of some people with a very bad history of being right that it has worked and stopped attacks, etc. I mean, these are the same guys still looking for the WMDs. In fact, had we been able to waterboard people before we invaded Iraq, I'll bet they'd have got those locations...though doubtful there'd be any WMDs there.
F

Well thought out post, Headscratcher, and a difficult one to derail.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Cool, "If congress wanted it to be illegal to kill someone by beating them to death with a 15" black rubber dildo, they should pass a law explicitely defining it as so"

Hmm, why isn't anyone taking the position that as there is not a specific law against beating someone to death with a 15" black rubber dildo, that it silly for say congress to ask if they think that beating someone to death with a 15" black rubber dildo is legal or not, when they can simply outlaw beating someone to death with a 15" black rubber dildo.

It seems that it only needs to then be specifically named if it is torture, beating with various blunt objects not needing specific laws do deal with separate kinds of blunt objects.

 

[fishbob]

The topic is torture, not abuse. Is all abuse torture fishbob?

The distinction is meaningless.
Treat prisoners as humanely as possible, keep them secure and out of mischief, don't expect much from interrogations - others here have shown that answers obtained through torture are unreliable at best. "Pretty please with sugar on top" may work just as well.

So unless your goal is simply to bully and humiliate - which goes against American principles and laws - abuse, torture, whatever you want to call it is pointless. A commentater on NPR news this morning pointed out that US use of these tactics pretty much guarantees that our captured servicemen will get the same treatment.

Thanks for nothing Wildcat, and all the other Bushcabobs out there.

 

[steverino]

abuse, torture, whatever you want to call it is pointless. A commentater on NPR news this morning pointed out that US use of these tactics pretty much guarantees that our captured servicemen will get the same treatment.

So your logic here is that America has initiated the use of wartime torture, so now, our enemy, who has been higher in morals than we, will start torturing us back for the first time.

 

[fishbob]

So your logic here is that America has initiated the use of wartime torture, so now, our enemy, who has been higher in morals than we, will start torturing us back for the first time.

No.
Not even close - looks like another blatant derail (via strawman - no less).
When are you going to learn some subtlety?

 

[JoeEllison]

Here's an expert's take on waterboarding on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15844677

You don't have to listen long. They introduce him, they ask him flat out, "Is waterboarding torture?"

 

[steverino]

No.
Not even close - looks like another blatant derail (via strawman - no less).
When are you going to learn some subtlety?

Um, wrong, Fish. "The guy on NPR" says that NOW our soldiers are in harms way because we use water boarding against them. And they will now retaliate in kind.

I say our soldiers have always been vulnerable to capture and torture by our enemy regardless of our treatment of them.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Um, wrong, Fish. "The guy on NPR" says that NOW our soldiers are in harms way because we use water boarding against them. And they will now retaliate in kind.

I say our soldiers have always been vulnerable to capture and torture by our enemy regardless of our treatment of them.

Good to know that opinion of america has no effect on the number of people fighting america. Of course as they are doing the same thing as america they are doing nothing wrong. That is why there was nothing wrong with the U-boat attacks in the atlantic and the bombing of cities durring WWII after all.

 

[steverino]

Look. I listened to Nance's interview, which was fascinating, and I believe, sincere. I agree water boarding is torture. But he says at the end of the interview that now that we do this water boarding, our enemies will do this against us. But earlier in the tape he says that our enemies used this against us in WWII, while we did not use this against them.

I simply say that, according to his logic, our soldiers were, and are, subject to torture whether we use water boarding or not.

 

[headscratcher4]

Ultimately, what our enemies do doesn't matter. It is about us. What kind of people we are. WHat kind of country we have. What kind of civilization we want to build. Not doing it, ultimately, won't protect our soldiers, but it does give us a moral high-ground that contributes not only to their protection but to our ultimate strength as a people and a country.

Oscar Wilde, famously said of his prison cell (I paraphrase): if this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any.

 

[steverino]

Ultimately, what our enemies do doesn't matter. It is about us. What kind of people we are. WHat kind of country we have. What kind of civilization we want to build. Not doing it, ultimately, won't protect our soldiers, but it does give us a moral high-ground that contributes not only to their protection but to our ultimate strength as a people and a country.

Oscar Wilde, famously said of his prison cell (I paraphrase): if this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any.

I don't share your point of view, but I like the tenor of your perspective. It gives me a lot to consider.

 

[fishbob]

Um, wrong, Fish. "The guy on NPR" says that NOW our soldiers are in harms way because we use water boarding against them. And they will now retaliate in kind.

I say our soldiers have always been vulnerable to capture and torture by our enemy regardless of our treatment of them.

Retailiation in kind has always been a popular pastime in war.
Certainly our soldiers have always been vulnerable to torture, but the Bush policies have increased the probability.
Thanks a lot GWB.

 

[tsig]

The reality is that sometimes torture works and helps win wars and our administration has to repackage and soft-peddle it to ineffectual Americans. It will be interesting to see how Pres. Hillary repackages it in her own unique way while continuing the practices of torture-lite.

On a side note, aren't these Democrat war profiteers "torturing" civilians by making money off of misery?

http://www.metroactive.com/feinstein/





As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

Ok, prove that torture works.

Give me one case where information gained from torture won a battle much less a war.

If torture produces truth where all all the witches?

 

[Kopji]

The subject of torture is emotion laden.

It seems curious that we were asked to go to war riding the crest of emotions, yet when these same human emotions don't work in their favor, THEN they fall back on reasoning and analytical thinking about the detailed definitions of torture.

Emotions answer the complex questions of what should we do? with simpler questions like 'where do I stand?'. Rather than merely think we are called on to choose an action without knowing all the reasons.

So I find this to be one of those weird times that when we ask emotionally charged questions and expect to hear where they stand - we instead get careful reasoning; the reasoning sounds like untrustworthy waffling.

To be here discussing the details of what is torture or not, is not the moral high road we were led to believe we would be taking on this trip. We need to send more of these people packing, not putting more in positions of power.

 

[tsig]

The subject of torture is emotion laden.

It seems curious that we were asked to go to war riding the crest of emotions, yet when these same human emotions don't work in their favor, THEN they fall back on reasoning and analytical thinking about the detailed definitions of torture.

Emotions answer the complex questions of what should we do? with simpler questions like 'where do I stand?'. Rather than merely think we are called on to choose an action without knowing all the reasons.

So I find this to be one of those weird times that when we ask emotionally charged questions and expect to hear where they stand - we instead get careful reasoning; the reasoning sounds like untrustworthy waffling.

To be here discussing the details of what is torture or not, is not the moral high road we were led to believe we would be taking on this trip. We need to send more of these people packing, not putting more in positions of power.

And it's good god-fearing christians standing up for torture. Guess killing their god wasn't enough for them.

 

[headscratcher4]

I am reminded of the scene in Dr. Strangelove where Madrake (Sellers) is talking with Gen. Ripper. Ripper asks if Mandrake was tortured during the war and if he broke. Mandrake says something like he was tortured and did confessed, but thought, ultimately that the confession wasn't as important to his torturers as the process. That is my interpretation anyway. While a movie, there is a ring of truth to it. The tortures of the Concentration Camp and the Gulaug weren't,ultimately, about confessions or truth...truth didn't matter nor did legality, so confessions were a thin tissue of legality, it was the process of fear that was critical...and, of course, it was accomplished by men (and women) who were ultimately very corrupt themselves...they had to be to engage in the activity.

I think that there is an element within this Administration that sees themselves sort of like the Spanish Inquisition...from the Inquisitions point of view. The Inquisitors' ideal was that they were warriors for god, doing god's work and stamping out evil. Torture helped the individual being tortured be clear about distinctions...it was a focusing device, as it were. In short, the Inquisitors thought or wanted to believe that they were not only doing it for the good of the tortured, but they themselves were not corrupt because their motives were pure and godly, and that they had the spiritual power to resist the evil that can drive men/women to be cruel.

I fear this Administration thinks that it is good enough to know the difference. That it, perhaps alone in history, can pick the right people to torture, do it in such a way as to get useful information (dispite the indications that you can't), and emerge from the process pure warriors for our values, nation, security.

I think they have manifestly failed.

 

[fishbob]

That is one scary hypothesis.

While you think they have manifestly failed, I doubt that they realize it yet.

 

[Crossbow]

The reality is that sometimes torture works and helps win wars and our administration has to repackage and soft-peddle it to ineffectual Americans. It will be interesting to see how Pres. Hillary repackages it in her own unique way while continuing the practices of torture-lite.

On a side note, aren't these Democrat war profiteers "torturing" civilians by making money off of misery?

http://www.metroactive.com/feinstein/


As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

Actually, history shows that torture has a rather poor record when it comes to collecting good data that will actually be of any real use.

Occasionally, one can get a valuable bit of data from torture that was previously unknown and get the data in time for its use to do some good. However, one also gets vast amounts of unreliable data and out of date data that was simply provided in order to end the torture.

By the way, if torture is really so good at winning wars, then why did the Germans and Japanese loose World War II? After all, they engaged in plenty of torture and other war crimes.

Furthermore, there are plenty of Republicans who have financially benefited from this war such as the Congressman from San Diego, Halliburton, Blackwater, and so on. So you might want to consider these facts as well as your keen insight into the use of torture.