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Why not torture?

dtugg said:
Frankly, I have no problem torturing people like KSM. I would do it myself. Maybe you get good information. If you not, so what. He is a piece of crap responsible for three thousand murders and deserves the suffering.
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Then you're the exact moral equivalent of KSM.
 
My humble and barely lucid anti torture argument

A long time ago I was watching a program on ethics on PBS. It was a moderated discussion on ethical military action. I think one of the panelists was Gen. Westmoreland. Another was a U.S. Marine officer and another was a decorated Viet Nam platoon commander.

The platoon commander said that he would torture to get information if it might save the lives of his comrades. The other panelists (as I recall) politely tore him into pieces. They referenced the standards of the U.S. Military and the rules of combat we agree to follow. To be honest, they were not above a little rough treatment (as in a little pushing around, threatening language etc.) but they were clear on the fact that torture is out of bounds when it comes to the U.S. Military. I think that was in 1987.

Today we seem to have "24" syndrome. A subset of the population believes that all we need to combat terrorism or anything else is a Kiefer Sutherland type charachter bulldozing his way through the bad guys (gun drawn, of course) and applying negative reinforcement here and there.

In the pro torture argument we have the terrorist in custody and he knows, for example, where a bomb is hidden that will kill innocent people. He won't talk so we need to apply appropriate discomfort. However, I can't help but wonder; if we know who the terrorist is and we know that he planted a bomb, would we really not know where he planted it? Would we not know who his confederates are, who funded him, who he reports to? If not, then how did we capture him? Did Sylvia Browne get his identity from one of her guardian angels?

The arguments in favor of torture are usually linear. Bad guy has information that will save lives and since he is evil he won't tell us without persuasion. I wonder if it is that simple. Usually you don't have the bad guy "chief" in custody, but a supporter or maybe just a suspect. Maybe he knows something, maybe he doesn't. Maybe someone else fingered him because he was tortured for information on his confederates.

I am no expert in military intelligence. In fact, most people argue that I lack any intelligence whatsoever. But doesn't real intelligence gathering come from observation and correlation of information?

There is only one possible argument pro torture. That is that torture will cause the suspect to relate information that saves lives.

On the other side there are moral arguments against torture, but that isn't what we are after. This forum is after arguments based on empirical evidence, so here are a few:

  • Information acquired through torture is suspect and will mirror whatever the interrogator wants to hear. (Witch hunt victims admitted to consorting with The Devil, for example.)
  • States that authorize torture tend to use it beyond the scope of critical information gathering (Iraq for example)
  • Torture alienates the local population from the authorities.
  • Information acquired through torture is likely available through other forms of surveillance and interrogation

Seems that most of the people that responded don't find torture to be a useful alternative, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir.
 
UNLoVedRebel said:
I am all for human rights, but as for being human, this man reneged on his membership card.
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The trouble is, I'm not aware of any human with the authority to decide who is worthy of human rights and who isn't. You have your opinions on the matter, of course, but what makes them more important than mine?
 
Mirrorglass said:
The trouble is, I'm not aware of any human with the authority to decide who is worthy of human rights and who isn't. You have your opinions on the matter, of course, but what makes them more important than mine?
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I never said they were.
 
UNLoVedRebel said:
I never said they were.
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Not directly, but you did say torturing or killing a person can be justified, without qualifying the statement as your personal view. I can agree to disagree on such a point, but it bothers me when people state their opinions as fact.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
With the news that Bush is justifying Waterboarding again, the question will inevitably rise again.

Why not torture someone if the information will save lives?
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That's a big "if".

Lovers of torture delight in fantasising about "ticking time bomb" scenarios where we somehow know with absolute certainty that a terrorist is hiding the location of a bomb in some fanciful fashion such that the only possible way we can save the lives of innocent people is to torture the "bad guy". Hey, we hate torture as much as anybody else, but we've got no other option, right? We are totally not motivated by a sick lust to dominate and torture another human being. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts him.

The problem is that such scenarios have never happened.

So the torture lovers make it up and use it as a stalking horse. They say "Look, in this situation you'd have to let me torture him, right? So torture is okay, right? So we should be allowed to torture whoever we like as much as we like, right, to death if we feel like it, and get away with it as we did in Abu Ghraib, right?".

Have they not shed their rights by committing crime?
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No. Absolutely not. At the very least you don't shed any such rights until you are convicted of said crime.

Now I'm a utilitarian at heart, within limits, and if by some bizarre mischance a real ticking time bomb scenario arose I'd be the first to get out the bamboo splinters and the car battery. However I'm sure as hell not comfortable about giving anyone the power to decide for themselves with no real oversight or culpability that a given person needs to be tortured, which is what the torture lovers are always angling for.

As such I am very much of the opinion that torture advocates are vicious authoritarians with nothing resembling a functioning moral compass.
 
Great circular logic:



We have the right to torture a terrorist, but to know if he is really a terrorist, we need to torture him.
 
nimzov said:
Great circular logic:



We have the right to torture a terrorist, but to know if he is really a terrorist, we need to torture him.
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Do you plan on identifying who said that? Or was it just a giant strawman?

There was no doubt that KSM, for example, was a terrorist before they tortured him.
 
nimzov said:
Great circular logic:



We have the right to torture a terrorist, but to know if he is really a terrorist, we need to torture him.
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I thought that if he sank in the pond, he was not a terrorist.
 
Mirrorglass said:
Nonsense. There are situations where torture and murder are understandable, but they are never justified.
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Never justified to whom? Never justified to god? There's no such thing as god.

Never justified to you? Well, that's just your opinion, man.

All else is either appeal to popularity (of the mob), or appeal to authority (of this or that government). Both of which are irrelevant anyway, because we both know that at the end of the day, it's not the mob or the government that matters: you sleep soundly at night knowing that when it comes right down to it, yours is the only opinion that matters... to you.

When you say it's never justified, what you mean is, you would never justify it. Why should what you would or would not justify matter at all?
 
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I just don't feel it is useful. Beyond questions of right and wrong, moral and immoral, I just don't believe you would get anything useful.

An innocent man will make up stories until he hits upon one you like and then elaborate on that one. He will say whatever it takes to make the pain stop because that is all he has, he has nothing to hide.

A guilty man will send you on wild goose chases. He will give you false information because if you are willing to torture him then you are willing to kill him and there is no advantage in giving you anything. The information is the only piece of control he has and he will not give it up.

In either case torture will not solve your "ticking time bomb". It will in fact make it worse by sending you running around to follow up on false leads. Does anyone actually have any example of a case where torture has actually helped at all?
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Why not torture someone if the information will save lives? Have they not shed their rights by committing crime?
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Big unknown factors:

- if the information will save lives
Indeed, will it?

- Have they not (...) committing crime?
Indeed, are the _suspects_ guilty for what they are suspected for? Bizarre to torture anyone without a fair trial, but the Guantanamo inmates never had a trial or even charges of any kind.
 
theprestige said:
Never justified to whom? Never justified to god? There's no such thing as god.

Never justified to you? Well, that's just your opinion, man.

All else is either appeal to popularity (of the mob), or appeal to authority (of this or that government). Both of which are irrelevant anyway, because we both know that at the end of the day, it's not the mob or the government that matters: you sleep soundly at night knowing that when it comes right down to it, yours is the only opinion that matters... to you.

When you say it's never justified, what you mean is, you would never justify it. Why should what you would or would not justify matter at all?
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Precisely. And when someone says it is justified to torture someone, the exact same criticism applies. So the entire "justice" part of the argument can be thrown out of the window.

That leaves subjective opinion and utilitarian benefit analysis. I think it's obvious why torturing people because someone subjective said they "deserve" it is not a feasible basis for law, but if we can be fairly certain that the good that can be gained from torture is greater than the harm that is torture, there is a good, solid argument for it.
 
Big discussion on Radio 5 about this yesterday:

Pro torture:

- Strictly speaking what we do is not torture (for different values of we)
- It's quick (nuclear bomb in London etc. etc)
- It's effective, other techniques don't work against zealots
- It's no more than they deserve

Anti torture:

- The results are unreliable
- Many people you torture are the wrong people
- Do we really want to sink to their level (for different values of them)
- It's simply barbaric

Various hypotheticals were thrown around to support each case.

Those with a military and or intelligence background tended to side on the pro which indicates that their inside knowledge leads them to truly understand what needs to be done (or just that they self-select).

IMO the inaccuracy of the results shows that torture isn't appropriate but I can appreciate that it's a tempting way to break down an intransigent detainee.

Would I support torture if:

- We could be 100% sure that we had the right person
- The results of torture were 100% reliable
- We were preventing the deaths of thousands as a result

Well, that's just another useless hypothetical innit ?
 
Torture as much as you want and for as little/much utilitarian justification you can give it.

All I ask is that afterwards you turn yourself in to the justice system and accept your prosecution.

Oh wait, the US can torture as much as they like, and destroy evidence as much as they like, and none be prosecuted. Well, in that case don't torture, because you don't have the balls (read: subsequent jailtime) to justify it (read: the amazingly important reason you're torturing someone against all law).

Torture free for all! No consequences! Any state can do this for any reason!
 
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