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Is torture ever warranted?

Toke said:
In such a far out scenario I would help with the wirering.


The problem is that in cases like chile, torture were used to suppress dissidents. And any endorsment will lend credibility to dictatureships.

That is torture for informations versus torture for general terror against the population.
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I agree. Which is why I'm trying to figure out if and where a line can be drawn. Are there exceptions?

I've seen some others mention that it is not effective. I'm aware of it. But is it completely 100% ineffective? In the hypothetical "ticking time bomb" scenario would torture tactics be warranted?

I don't know. I believe it may have utility in such rare situations.
 
paximperium said:
I don't support is regular or even rare use. I believe it should be a last ditch tactic that may be used only in such scenarios. It may be an implausible scenario but if it does happen, would torture be a valid tactic?
True. I believe that it gives more false information than true information. But on the rare occasion they will tell you what you want to known.
True. However, you may on the rare occasion actually capture the mastermind or those in the know.
I believe that this is patently false. It may not be effective and it may waste resources but you can realistically state that it is completely 100% never ever works. That's just ridiculous.

To set things straight, I don't believe torture is all that use or even that effective. However, I believe there are rare occasions where it may be necessary to save the lives on innocents. In these situations, which should be exceedingly rare, torture may be the only valid way to get the information required. Any use of such a "tactic" should be properly vetted through legal, public and through appropriateness systems. I may even require that the President of the United States approve these rare events and bear responsibility for their outcomes.

And there are also a few rare events with several Al-queda leaders who did provide useful information under torture. I disapprove of such tactics. Like I said, I don't believe it is that useful but I believe it may and should be used in very circumstance such as the "ticking bomb" scenario.
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Give me one example where a tortured suspect gave significant and usable (or actionable, as the govt likes to say) intelligence.

So we should just torture them all, just in case they may be telling the truth, huh? In essence, I think that's what you're saying since, according to you, they may tell the truth (highly doubtful). Terrorists are committed and determined people and, besides, how are they to know that, should they tell the truth, the torture will stop? Because the torturer says so? If I'm a torturee, I have no reason to trust my captor.

The ticking time-bomb scenario, once again, is implausible. You're doing some serious mental gymnastics, propped up by media depictions of fictitious events, in order to justify the use of torture to "save lives."
 
Quad4_72 said:
I saw an interesting episode on American Dad about torture. A bomb was planted in a building full of people. They had the guy in custody who knew the code to defuse the bomb. But they could not get him to give up the code no matter how much they threatened him. Then finally the Dad was allowed to torture him and the guy gave up the code and all the people were saved. Would that situation warrant torture?
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Aside from the world of fiction, you can never know the future, so no, I don't think torture is ever warranted.

To elaborate: since you can't possibly know the future, you can never know that this one guy is the only way to avoid whatever extra loss of life or suffering you're trying to avoid. Since you can't know the future, you also can't possibly know that the guy will talk if you torture him. Since you can't know the future, you also can't know that if the guy talks when you torture him that what he says will be accurate or reliable.

The only thing you can know is that if you torture someone, you will have tortured someone.
 
What if the wrong code detonates the bomb?

Would you type the code given to you by the man who you were hurting beyond belief, and wanted to blow the city in the first place?
 
Skeptical Greg said:
What torture at Abu Ghraib , are you referring to ?
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From the Wiki article:

The New York Times, in a report on January 12, 2005,[14] reported testimony suggesting that the following events had taken place at Abu Ghraib:
  • Urinating on detainees
  • Jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly
  • Continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton
  • Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees
  • Sodomization of detainees with a baton
  • Tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.
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There's more. I think at least most of these allegations are credible enough to warrant further investigation.

ETA: Perhaps a prisoner being tortured to death during interrogation at Abu Ghraib is what he was talking about.
 
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themusicteacher said:
Give me one example where a tortured suspect gave significant and usable (or actionable, as the govt likes to say) intelligence.
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Don't know. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-us-does-torture-work,0,6487444.story
Most information shows it does not work all that well.
So we should just torture them all, just in case they may be telling the truth, huh?
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No. Not advocating that. If you want to argue with that straw figure you've created go ahead. It may make your arguments easier.
In essence, I think that's what you're saying since, according to you, they may tell the truth (highly doubtful).
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Yes they may.
Terrorists are committed and determined people and, besides, how are they to know that, should they tell the truth, the torture will stop? Because the torturer says so? If I'm a torturee, I have no reason to trust my captor.
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If they give me information I require, I don't care.
The ticking time-bomb scenario, once again, is implausible. You're doing some serious mental gymnastics, propped up by media depictions of fictitious events, in order to justify the use of torture to "save lives."
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You may want to stop projecting your biased nonsense onto others. This is a valid question and if you're unable to have a meaningful discussion, I suggest you take a step back and figure out why.

I'm open to having my mind changed and having someone run around claim things that I don't believe in is less than useless. Give me a good argument and I will listen. Rant and I will ignore your nonsense.
 
The ticking time bomb has never, to my knowledge, occurred.

Nobody at Baghram had the codes to a bomb. By the time they got to Gitmo,,,Oy! The stupid just burns!

Anybody offering a justification for torure should serve life imprisonment on a water board.
 
Is there evidence that a terrorist with information on a "ticking time bomb" would give accurate information when tortured?

A lot of experts seem pretty dubious that torture results in good info, so what if the terrorist, who is ready to die anyway still gives false info (either because he is delerious, or lying or he has nothing to do with the attack and wants to make the torture stop)

Isn't the ticking time bomb scenario giving a lot of power to that terrorist, by assuming that the answer he spits out when tortured is true, and then spending a big chunk of our manpower and resources responding to that info?

Let's say we have a list of five cities that may be targets for a biological weapon attack. The terrorist names one and we focus our efforts there?
 
leftysergeant said:
Nobody at Baghram had the codes to a bomb. By the time they got to Gitmo,,,Oy! The stupid just burns!
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Yeah--I always wondered what "useful information" they expected to get from someone who's been in their custody for 2 years or more.


ETA: Another point I don't think has been mentioned on this thread: when you assess the cost vs. very dubious benefit of torture, you've also got to take into account the fact that the more we torture, the more our operatives can expect to face the same kind of treatment in retaliation.
 
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leftysergeant said:
The ticking time bomb has never, to my knowledge, occurred.

Nobody at Baghram had the codes to a bomb. By the time they got to Gitmo,,,Oy! The stupid just burns!

Anybody offering a justification for torure should serve life imprisonment on a water board.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/world/kidnapping-has-germans-debating-police-torture.html

Try read this link.
The police did not know that the boy was long dead.

And no, it does not justify torture as rutine or as a way to cow a population.
But the question is not simple. even the romans allowed it in a few cases.
 
Look, I don't like the idea of torturing suspects either but this:

themusicteacher said:
torture never, ever works.
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Doesn't seem very likely.

What seems more likely is that folks differ. Some people will be most susceptable to physical pressure, some to moral pressures, some to the interrogator being a friendly face, etc etc.

Everyone will have a different 'room 101'. For some people - and I have no idea what percentage - their primary weakspot will be torture.

We can still (and IMHO should) say:

"we don't torture because that goes against all our civilised values (unless an extremely unlikely hypothetical situation comes up in which case we will page Jack Bauer and Fedex him some thumbscrews)"

but we should also acknowledge that doing so will make a proportion of interrogations less effective. i.e. don't make this seem like it's a no-cost concession, when there probably is a cost… but one that is worth paying (and survivable).
 
Giz said:
Doesn't seem very likely.
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I disagree. You can never know if the information you get as the result of torture is valid.

This is precisely the reason why we have rules of evidence on things like coerced testimony or confessions.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Aside from the world of fiction, you can never know the future, so no, I don't think torture is ever warranted.

To elaborate: since you can't possibly know the future, you can never know that this one guy is the only way to avoid whatever extra loss of life or suffering you're trying to avoid. Since you can't know the future, you also can't possibly know that the guy will talk if you torture him. Since you can't know the future, you also can't know that if the guy talks when you torture him that what he says will be accurate or reliable.

The only thing you can know is that if you torture someone, you will have tortured someone.
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And if it is a terrorist or a child molestor (or.....)it will not cause me a moment's pang of conscience. Some things need to be removed from this world - in enough agony that they wil never even think of trying to come back to it.
 
I would still like to know if the proponents of the ticking bomb scenario would trust the code given to them by a tortured man...
 
paximperium said:
No, but I'd investigate the location of the bomb the tortured man gave.
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I thought the point of the hypothetical was that there was no time (like, no time to evacuate the area, which would certainly be the best way to avoid people getting hurt or killed).
 
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