Exploiting "Religious Sensitivities" = OK by me

[Luke T.]

Rightness or wrongness of the war aside, it is wrong to violate the religious/cultural beliefs of a whole people when interrogating prisoners who happen to be members of that people. Imagine the uproar if a NYPD detective defiled a crucifix or the flag in front of a suspect here in America.

 

[Leif Roar]

Re: Re: Umm...

Sorry - I missed a qualifier = MILITANT. Better now?

Seriously, though, you realize you are incredibly naive if you think that these people are not at war against the West. And you calling me a bigot and a racist really doesn't change the reality of the situation.

Barkhorn.

Better now? Not really - you generalize so broadly and group so many different and internally strifing groups together that there's no way you can say anything at all about them. There is a lot more factors involved than just the Islamic religion, and there's a lot of different types of militants in Iraq and elsewhere in the middle east, who all fight for different reasons and have different goals.

No, I don't believe that the majority of the people who fight against the coalition forces in Iraq considers themselves to be "at war with the west," and I don't believe I am particular naive about things either.

I didn't mean to call you a racist or bigot, and I appologize that my earlier post could be read that way. I only meant to say that your statement was racist and bigoted.

 

[Tony]

Re: Re: Re: Umm...

I didn't mean to call you a racist or bigot, and I appologize that my earlier post could be read that way. I only meant to say that your statement was racist and bigoted.

Islam isn't a race so his statement is not racist. As far as his statement being "bigoted", can you explain how?

 

[Earthborn]

Earthborn, are you arguing to protect the sanctity of "religious sensitivities", or are you just making practical arguments against exploiting them in some cases?

As usual, I am using practical arguments to because I believe that using practical arguments for or against things is a moral principle in it self.

I believe that if it can be showed that under specific circumstances, you can do things like that, not do them to an excessive number of people and because of that get reliable information that can save many lives, it can be argued that it should be permissible.

The problem is, that in practice these actions don't get reliable information, will not save many lives and will be hurt an excessive number of people. History has shown this many times.

There is another argument that can be made, I haven't mentioned yet. Using religious, cultural or personal sensitivities make it much more difficult to differentiate between 'unorthodox interrogation techniques' and psychological torture. This is because the impact it has on someone may differ from person to person, and thus whether it is torture differs from person to person. In some cases doing something to a person that most people will not recognize as torture can become absolutely terrifying for the person involved.

Using such personalized interrogation can quickly lead to a sort of Room 101 type torture: give someone what he fears most. I don't consider that a very admirable way of dealing with people.

 

[Exposer]

As usual, I am using practical arguments to because I believe that using practical arguments for or against things is a moral principle in it self.

I believe that if it can be showed that under specific circumstances, you can do things like that, not do them to an excessive number of people and because of that get reliable information that can save many lives, it can be argued that it should be permissible.

The problem is, that in practice these actions don't get reliable information, will not save many lives and will be hurt an excessive number of people. History has shown this many times.

There is another argument that can be made, I haven't mentioned yet. Using religious, cultural or personal sensitivities make it much more difficult to differentiate between 'unorthodox interrogation techniques' and psychological torture. This is because the impact it has on someone may differ from person to person, and thus whether it is torture differs from person to person. In some cases doing something to a person that most people will not recognize as torture can become absolutely terrifying for the person involved.

Using such personalized interrogation can quickly lead to a sort of Room 101 type torture: give someone what he fears most. I don't consider that a very admirable way of dealing with people.

To be honest with you, I have zero sympathy for any interrogatee who feels "torture-like" anguish because his "religious sensitivities" have been offended. Sorry, buddy, all religions are a total fraud. Like this a**hole in the article above, who claims he would rather be beaten to a bloody pulp than "made to feel like a woman."

I say dress him up in a miniskirt and pumps.

 

[Leif Roar]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Umm...

Islam isn't a race so his statement is not racist. As far as his statement being "bigoted", can you explain how?

I found the word "racist" to be the best word to convey what I thought about his statement, despite it not being technically correct. While the meaning of the word "racist" isn't accurate in this case, it carries with it that connotations that I wanted to ascribe to his statement, and I don't know of any word with the same connotations and a meaning closer to "prejudice or discrimination based on socio-economic or religious factors."

On further thought, I'll agree that it becomes rather silly to call a statement for "bigoted", so I'll withdraw that.

 

[Leif Roar]

Like this a**hole in the article above, who claims he would rather be beaten to a bloody pulp than "made to feel like a woman."

Again, I can't see what this has to do with religious sensitivities.

 

[Exposer]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Umm...

I found the word "racist" to be the best word to convey what I thought about his statement, despite it not being technically correct. While the meaning of the word "racist" isn't accurate in this case, it carries with it that connotations that I wanted to ascribe to his statement, and I don't know of any word with the same connotations and a meaning closer to "prejudice or discrimination based on socio-economic or religious factors."

On further thought, I'll agree that it becomes rather silly to call a statement for "bigoted", so I'll withdraw that.

Well done, lief. Words like "racist" and "torture" have real meaning, and should not be tossed around lightly.

 

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

To be honest with you, I have zero sympathy for any interrogatee who feels "torture-like" anguish because his "religious sensitivities" have been offended. Sorry, buddy, all religions are a total fraud. Like this a**hole in the article above, who claims he would rather be beaten to a bloody pulp than "made to feel like a woman."

I say dress him up in a miniskirt and pumps.

Why stop there?
Why not sodomize him?
Why not hit him in the throat, kidneys, groin, and abdomen repeatedly over a period of three months?
Why not put him in a body bag, and fill the body bag full of ice until he succumbs and dies?
And when he dies,, or after three months of hitting and beating a detainee to find out he knows nothing about Islamist organisations or WMDs or small arms caches, send out soldiers to round up more "usual suspects from their homes, kick open doors and drag men away from their families, as replacements for those released and start the process all over again.

 

[Earthborn]

Sorry, buddy, all religions are a total fraud.

Well, that's exactly the kind of attitude that is wrong if you want to want the Iraqis to love you:

Originally posted by me
... the people who are not being interogated might get the impression that the US has no respect for their culture or religion.

If it indeed has no respect for their culture and religion and can't even fake respect, then it will fail at winning peoples' hearts over there. You can't make friends by saying "Everything you believe in is nonsense".

 

[Barkhorn1x]

Why stop there?
Why not sodomize him?
Why not hit him in the throat, kidneys, groin, and abdomen repeatedly over a period of three months?
Why not put him in a body bag, and fill the body bag full of ice until he succumbs and dies?
And when he dies,, or after three months of hitting and beating a detainee to find out he knows nothing about Islamist organisations or WMDs or small arms caches, send out soldiers to round up more "usual suspects from their homes, kick open doors and drag men away from their families, as replacements for those released and start the process all over again.

Hey, Saddam Hussien is no longer in power! Don't you read the papers??



Barkhorn.

 

[Earthborn]

Why stop there?
Why not sodomize him?
Why not hit him in the throat, kidneys, groin, and abdomen repeatedly over a period of three months?
Why not put him in a body bag, and fill the body bag full of ice until he succumbs and dies?
And when he dies,, or after three months of hitting and beating a detainee to find out he knows nothing about Islamist organisations or WMDs or small arms caches, send out soldiers to round up more "usual suspects from their homes, kick open doors and drag men away from their families, as replacements for those released and start the process all over again.

Don't give him ideas, PygmyPlaidGiraffe... You don't have to tell what other things can be done in order to find arguments against doing a certain thing. And it would prevent you from being accused of using a slippery slope fallacy.

 

[epepke]

This scandal of prisoner abuse in Iraq has brought forward an interesting issue. Aside from allegations of actual, wanton abuse, something I have noticed, and have no problem with, is that the U.S. seems to be quite clever and ruthless in exploiting Islamic sensitivities during interrogations.

I'm not ready to conclude this, because there's so much evidence that the US leadership is not clever at all.

It is amusing, if the notion that for an Islamic man to be treated like a woman is the worst possible insult is true. I have known many people whom I have, in person, seen jumping up and down and cheering Andrea Dworkin also claiming that Islam is the province of all things Right-Thinking™

However, if they were that clever, I would congratulate them on that. I once saw a movie. Maybe it was Gandhi. Maybe something else. In any event, some people had lain down on the tracks in front of a train. Rather than kill them, the British instead chose to dump some latrine juice on them, on the grounds that they would have to go off and perform three days of ritual cleansing.

The scene was clearly shot to show how culturally insensitive the British were, but I think it was a great solution. Nobody died. Nobody was injured. At worst, they smelled French for a few days. The very idea that this should provoke outrage seems to me (the people mentioned in the penultimate paragraph would probably go all hissy) to indicate how cheap people consider life, especially those who make careers talking about how it's horrible to take it.

Given that there exist people who are using their unique and always-respectable cultural differences to harm people, I don't see any problem whatsoever in using such people's cultural differences against them. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Forget depleted uranium. I want to see aerosol pig-lard grenades.

 

[Barkhorn1x]

Re: Re: Exploiting "Religious Sensitivities" = OK by me

...jumping up and down and cheering Andrea Dworkin...

HaH, Andrea Dworkin - that is some funny ◊◊◊◊!



Barkhorn.

 

[epepke]

Re: Re: Re: Exploiting "Religious Sensitivities" = OK by me

HaH, Andrea Dworkin - that is some funny ◊◊◊◊!

Yeah, it is. But I was there.

 

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by Earthborn
This is because the impact it has on someone may differ from person to person, and thus whether it is torture differs from person to person. In some cases doing something to a person that most people will not recognize as torture can become absolutely terrifying for the person involved.

The problem with this argument is that it can apply to any action at all. To a claustrophobic, the very act of being incarcerated may be seen as "torture".

On a very fundamental level we recognize that people who are incarcerated, be they criminals, POWs or anyone else, have less rights than people who are not. This implies from the very beginning that we will be less sensitive to their needs and sensitivities than to other people, the only real question is what limits are set before hand.

In setting those limits, I don’t think it’s reasonable to try to consider every persons individual sensitivities. The only practical solution is to come up with a single standard applicable to everyone.

 

[epepke]

The problem with this argument is that it can apply to any action at all. To a claustrophobic, the very act of being incarcerated may be seen as "torture".

Help! I'm being tortured by being on a board with stupid people! The very existence of stupidity deeply offends my cultural sensibilities! Amnesty International, please help me!

 

[Earthborn]

The problem with this argument is that it can apply to any action at all. To a claustrophobic, the very act of being incarcerated may be seen as "torture".

And depending on how claustrophobic the person is, it may very well be. Putting someone who is known to be claustrophic in a very small space, is most likely meant as a form of torture.

On a very fundamental level we recognize that people who are incarcerated, be they criminals, POWs or anyone else, have less rights than people who are not.

You maybe. But I don't accept that as a given.

In setting those limits, I don’t think it’s reasonable to try to consider every persons individual sensitivities.

Apperently some people seem to think it is reasonable to consider every person's indivivual sensitivities when 'interrogating' them.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Help! I'm being tortured by being on a board with stupid people! The very existence of stupidity deeply offends my cultural sensibilities! Amnesty International, please help me!

You aren't being restricted from leaving this board.

 

[a_unique_person]

One major problem, as is patently clear, is that when you offend the prisoners, you offend all the people of that culture. You might not see much in it, but the Arabs are getting this story 24*7, and the US may as well pack up and go home and save itself the money and embarrassment.

As I said before, Osama is giving thanks to Allah overtime at the moment.