Waterboarding Rocks!

[leftysergeant]

Good. At least you are willing to admit that torture might be moral in some instances. That's progress. But I see you still suffer from the liberal belief that all wrongs and all evils are morally equivalent. We don't have to accept the view of evil people that their torture is justified. And as history has shown, even if you take the high ground, the evil people may still claim their use of torture (and beheading) is justified. As is happening right now in this war.

If we are the same kinds of dirtbags as the dirtbags we are fighting, have we even a right to exist anymore?

(I know. Dumb move asking an amoral person such a question.)

Not true. There are many historical cases (I pointed the way to some earlier in this thread) where the intelligence gathered by torture was quite reliable and saved many lives.

You have to porove that. As far as any of us know, especially those of us who are the least bit aware of the history of warfare, it came out of the back of your pants.

As to training bad guys to resist torture, you'll no doubt help them do that if you foolishly publish the tortures that you dream up to inflict on them ... as Obama's Administration just did. In other cases, no amount of preparation is really going to help. And you forget that the good guys can also react by devising new methods.

Learn sopme history. Dirtbag Rummy learned this stuff from the bad guys. He had his thugs reverse-engineer the S.E.R.E. program, which was based on resisting the actual tactics that the Chinese used on priosoners in the Korean War, to squeeze what they wanted out of POWs.

The dirtbags learned from dirtbags and al Qaeda already has that info. Learn your bloody history before you lecture those of us who have.

 

[leftysergeant]

Really? How about if we had captured Atta on Sept. 10th, 2001 along with his martyr video and he told us that "tomorrow" will be very interesting but then he clammed up? That is far from being an absurd hypothetical. What would YOU have done to get him talking?

Forget the hypotheticals. The Millenium Bombing stands as the Gold Standard here.

 

[Texas]

Forget the hypotheticals. The Millenium Bombing stands as the Gold Standard here.

Oh get real. It was a lowly border guard that opened a trunk and found explosives. That is the entire extent of it. It was blind luck.

 

[leftysergeant]

What were the Communist Vietnamese doing in 1975, when they controlled the entire country, when Pol Pot executed 2 million Cambodians after the U.S. forces left Southeast Asia in 1973? By 1979, the mass killing was long over. Had the U.S. forces been in Southeast Asia, Pot would not have had his killing fields.

Had we never invaded Cambodia and installed a dirtbag named Lon Nol, Noradomh Sihanouk would have remained the head of state and Pol Pot would probably never have been seen a more than the pipsqueek he was.

Best not try to bring in historical precedent like that. You might get in shoved into your ear, or some other opening.

 

[Texas]

If we are the same kinds of dirtbags as the dirtbags we are fighting, have we even a right to exist anymore?

(I know. Dumb move asking an amoral person such a question.)







Learn sopme history. Dirtbag Rummy learned this stuff from the bad guys. He had his thugs reverse-engineer the S.E.R.E. program, which was based on resisting the actual tactics that the Chinese used on priosoners in the Korean War, to squeeze what they wanted out of POWs.

The dirtbags learned from dirtbags and al Qaeda already has that info. Learn your bloody history before you lecture those of us who have.

I wonder what the hell your problem is other than hating with a white hot passion every person that is to the right of Karl Marx.

 

[leftysergeant]

Oh get real. It was a lowly border guard that opened a trunk and found explosives. That is the entire extent of it. It was blind luck.

No, it was good law enforcement response. This is, of course, beyond the sorts of people someone like the Shrub would appoint.

Choosing to do what failed in the past and rejectibng what has worked recently is braindead

 

[leftysergeant]

I wonder what the hell your problem is other than hating with a white hot passion every person that is to the right of Karl Marx.

It is the natural disposition of a good soldier to hate bad ones, and to hate those who would spill the blood of soldiers for an immoral cause.

Rummy, Gonzo, Yoo, Cherney and the Shrub introduced a barbaric element into our military and, as far as I am concerned, earned themselves a berth in the bottom of the latrines of hell.

 

[Texas]

Had we never invaded Cambodia and installed a dirtbag named Lon Nol, Noradomh Sihanouk would have remained the head of state and Pol Pot would probably never have been seen a more than the pipsqueek he was.

Best not try to bring in historical precedent like that. You might get in shoved into your ear, or some other opening.

Please provide evidence that the US installed Lon Nol.

 

[BeAChooser]

The thing is, when you build an argument using an hypothetical scenario, it's best to use an hypothetical scenario that is remotely plausible. Otherwise you are just mouthing off at nothing at all.

Thing is, that's a judgement call. I'm not willing to accept your view of what's plausible or not. Nor have I even begun to list the scenarios that are possible. Could we agree that I probably could come up with scenarios that are plausible? If so, then skip to my question and answer it.

If not, we know, for example, that the Israelis warned us that something big was going to happen in the US around 9/11. Had we been just a tad more vigilant, we might have detained one of those involved in the plot before 9/11. Knowing that they'd planned mass hijackings in the past, that they'd planned hitting buildings with planes, that they'd blown up large bombs against buildings, that there were numerous other things they could have done to kill thousands, and that they had already declared war on us, is it so implausible that we might have faced a situation where to save thousands of lives we would have had to hurt this captured member of the plot in order to learn what was to occur before it happened?

And beside, as I said, irregardless of plausibility, are you willing to hurt one person to save the lives of thousands or even hundreds of thousands? Yes or no? Do you really see a moral equivalence between the two? Because if you do, I don't think you really understand morality or evil.

You watch far too much TV.

And you don't live in the real world. In the real world there really are people trying to acquire nuclear materials for dirty bombs ... trying to acquire nuclear and other WMD weapons ... so they can use them against us or our allies in dramatic terrorist attacks. There really are people willing to commit suicide in order to kill thousands of innocent people. And there are no end to the ways they could do it. There really are people who have sworn to destroy our civilization and way of life.

There's no way such a scenario could ever occur, and you know it.

No, I don't know it. Do you know that just the other day the Russians caught people trying to smuggle out nuclear materials for a dirty bomb. It is time YOU woke up to the real world.

I'd add that on the off-chance that a sadistic wizard with proven powers threatened to destroy the planet unless I commit some egregious crime that goes against my moral compass, I'd probably do it if I thought there was no other way.

See? You see moral equivalence in a hurting single person and his destroying the planet. Your moral compass is broken. And I bet you are a liberal.

 

[BeAChooser]

But no, your comic book doomsday scenario still does not warrant the use of torture.

Ah ... so we have another who sees moral equivalence in hurting one person and killing hundreds of thousands.

 

[BeAChooser]

BeaChooser I noticed you skipped Morrigan's scenario.

I notice you didn't even give me a chance to respond.

And although at first I decided not to respond to any comment that involved raping a child, I've changed my mind. Do you actually see moral equivalence between that act and killing everyone in a building ... or killing hundreds of thousands with a nuclear weapon? Really? If so, I can only

It is a fact that torture of an individual is notoriously inefficient and would be very unlikely to produce any results in the short time of your scenario.

You say that's a fact but I've seen sources that would suggest otherwise. And if don't like the timeframe of that scenario just alter it to fit. Regardless of the scenario, would you let a hundred thousand people die just to avoid inflicting some non-lethal pain on one person? If you say yes, I think your moral compass is broken. You think all evil is the same.

 

[leftysergeant]

Ah ... so we have another who sees moral equivalence in hurting one person and killing hundreds of thousands.

What we have actually is a person trying to justify a sociopathic behavior on the basis of what is not even remotely likely to happen.

 

[leftysergeant]

Please provide evidence that the US installed Lon Nol.

You didn't think the Cambodian people did, did you?

 

[Prometheus]

But that's precisely what I'm dealing with Prometheus. I'm trying to find out how much you folks REALLY value a human life. So irregardless of how it came about, would YOU apply non-lethal pain to someone if you thought (for whatever reason) they could provide information in a timely manner that might save hundreds of thousands of people from a violent death? How much do you REALLY value human life, Prometheus? Or is it all an ivory tower, abstract concept to you? That's what I'm beginning to think.

Rule of Law is an abstract concept. It has to be, or else it doesn't exist. The important point, that you just don't seem to get, is that it doesn't matter in the slightest what I or you or anyone else thinks they would do under some arbitrary set of hypothetical conditions. The law has to be generally applicable even though it's always possible that it won't be able to adequately handle some specific set of circumstances.

Since you don't seem to want to yank this stick out of your own butt, though, I'll answer your useless hypothetical: Were I to find myself in the position you described I would attempt anything and everything I could think of in order to get the information I thought was being withheld. In doing so, I would be acting illegally, and I would expect to face a judge and jury and accept punishment as a result. Under no circumstances whatsoever, would I claim that the law should be changed to allow me not to face trial. That I would be punished for committing a crime in the belief that I was saving lives (regardless of whether or not I was correct, or my attempt was successful) is just my bad luck to have gotten stuck in such a morally intractable situation.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

You keep using civil laws to make some silly point that the end does not justify the means in interrogation procedures involving detainees.

You are mistaken. The C.A.T. covers any government agent--CIA operative etc.

I commented a while ago (on one or more of these torture threads) on the other meaning of "torture" when applied to criminal law by people other than government agents. In those cases, it's a matter of state law (state in the sense of each of the state in the Union, not as nations). The states differ somewhat in their approach to torture, but by and large torture itself is not a crime but is an aggravating factor in other crimes (like murder, kidnap, etc.). Here's a good summary of that sort of law.

The laws I've been citing are indeed the ones that CIA agents, military personnel and the like are subject to. The CAT and the U.S. Code also spell out their jurisdiction, so I'm 100% certain about this.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

You seem willing to commit suicide rather than inflict a little non-lethal pain.

Once again, the torture laws specifically talk about the intentional infliction of severe pain.

We are NOT discussing "a little" pain. I've told you this before, and yet you continue to mischaracterize torture as "a little" pain.

 

[gdnp]

Better leave satire, as well as analogies, to the professionals.

Nah, I'll just leave the interpretation to those capable of understanding them.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

You can sit back, do nothing and let a hundred thousand people die or you can understand there isn't a moral equivalence between letting a hundred thousand die and hurting one person, and do something.

This is the fallacy of a false dichotomy. You claim the only choices are to commit torture or to sit back and do nothing.

That's absurd. You think AOJ majors learn torture and nothing else? (In fact, I'm pretty sure torture isn't even in the curriculum of most programs anymore.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Good. At least you are willing to admit that torture might be moral in some instances.

Not at all, I was listing several reasons other than the argument that torture is immoral to refute your claim that "The only reason torture is deemed illegal is because it is deemed immoral."

I gave 5 practical reasons why torture should be illegal that didn't depend on the belief that torture is always immoral.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Talk to Obama about that. He has stated that none of the interrogators will be investigated or prosecuted so he must feel that they all followed the letter of the legal opinions.

I joined the hue and cry against this outrageous statement by Obama and Holder. (So as best I could, I did "talk to Obama" about it.)

Obama has since retracted that statement and said he is not closing the door on such prosecutions. Then he passed the buck to Holder saying it's his call. I'll continue letter writing and phoning my dissatisfaction with this position (and Obama's position on extraordinary rendition).