Should torture be Top Secret?

[Dancing David]

Glad to know you're not actually serious about the issue, since what you describe was not part of any interogation technique, and was not used on any intelligence targets either, but was instead punishment devised by the guards themselves to get back at ordinary criminals for causing a fight.

Yeah, too bad about waterboarding and other fraternity pranks.

What does 'induced hypothermia' count as 'almost freezing"?

 

[joe1347]

Should Torture be Top Secret. Maybe I missed it - but did you specify the country or the time period in history?

If you're talking about a Soviet Gulag - then I would think that the old Soviet leadership would like to have keep their methods suppressed.

If you're talking about the USA - don't you know that we (the USA) don't torture. I seem to remember the President and Vice President stating that we (the USA) don't torture our prisoners. So the issue is certainly moot as far as the courts are concerned. Hence, I'm surprised that there even are any legal restrictions preventing detainees from talking about their treatment while incarcerated.

 

[ghost707]

We have become the enemy, just as bad if not worse than the beheaders and floggers of the world.

Ah yes, because putting underwear on a prisoner's head and blasting the Red Hot Chilipeppers at high volume is so much worse than sawing off someone's head with a dull knife.

Thanks for the moral lesson.

 

[steverino]

Sometimes, alas, politicians use torture as a tool to further their political ambitions...Take John McCain...please.

 

[steverino]

We have lost our moral compass...

Dude, you're torturing me with your bumper sticker cliches. By "WE" I assume you mean Bush the evil-doer, not Ted Kennedy the woman-killer. Hey, THAT ONE ain't a bad bumper sticker.

 

[fishbob]

Ah yes, because putting underwear on a prisoner's head and blasting the Red Hot Chilipeppers at high volume is so much worse than sawing off someone's head with a dull knife.

Thanks for the moral lesson.

Wrong is wrong.
Your use of the old "He did it first, mommy" argument means that you really need a moral lesson. Maybe a whole semester of them.

 

[Huntster]

Isn't this the forum of folks who like to demand "evidence" and "proof"?

Will he who has evidence of torture being performed by the U.S. please present it?

 

[Dancing David]

Ah yes, because putting underwear on a prisoner's head and blasting the Red Hot Chilipeppers at high volume is so much worse than sawing off someone's head with a dull knife.

Thanks for the moral lesson.

So when US soldiers get chained in stress positions and waterboarded, you will say what? The torture allegations are much deeper than the underwear on the head.

That it was okay to contravene the conventions, or that it is okay to torture people because it makes us feel better, or gives us unreliable evidence. There is no emergent problem to be solved through torture, the actionable intelligence argument is very weak, it sure has helped us combat all the insurgent in Iraq.

There are two good reasons for not torturing people, the intelligence is of questionable value, it gives your future enemies very good reason to abuse your soldiers. (Not that warfare is faught by rules.)

The american racism and treatment of japanese soldiers was not justified, understandable but not justified. Nor is the summary execution of snipers in europe during WWII. Understandable but not justifiable.

 

[Dancing David]

Isn't this the forum of folks who like to demand "evidence" and "proof"?

Will he who has evidence of torture being performed by the U.S. please present it?

Allegations solely at this point, some from within the government. Currently the only people who would be able to see the proof would be constrained to not discuss it. There are these pesky FOIA requests floating around and the president did admit to using unorthodox means to get some information.

But when we can't discuss the evidence, it is hard to prove iether way. I am not saying that there is torture, but there are allegations of waterboarding coming from within our own government investigations. i assume they are discussing this behind the doors in congress and other oversight areas.

here is the page of alleged FOIA requests concerning events in 2004, most of a minor nature, they do not cover the alleged secret CIA prisons but mainly the less severe abuse at Abu G and GITMO; http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI.html

But I doubt the 'where is the evidence" argument has much wieght at this time, and is likely to be unasnwered for a very long time, except by those with the clearance.

 

[varwoche]

Isn't this the forum of folks who like to demand "evidence" and "proof"?

Will he who has evidence of torture being performed by the U.S. please present it?

There are numerous documented incidents that you can easily google. As a starter, there's the incident of two prisoners -- supposedly they weren't even combatants -- who were beaten to death at Bagram, Afghanistan in 2002. wiki

(Several soldiers had their wrists slapped as a result, the most severe punishment being a 5 month sentence.)

 

[steverino]

Wrong is wrong.
Your use of the old "He did it first, mommy" argument means that you really need a moral lesson. Maybe a whole semester of them.

Wrong is wrong, but some wrongs are wronger than others. If I pull my sister's braides and she reacts by drowning my puppy, I hope Mommy slaps me on the wrist for my wrong, and then grounds Sis for a couple of months for her wrong.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I haven't read or checked into the details of the story closely enough to venture an informed opinion, but my suspicion is that this is aimed at journalists and the news media. If information about how detainees are interrogated is Top Secret, then anyone who obtains this information and attempts to disseminate it is facing serious criminal charges.

ANd top secret has been used to cover up politicaly unwanted information for a long time, and it looks like it is being use even more for that now. That is to be expected really. Labeling something secret is a much better way to cover up than deny that it happened.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Should Torture be Top Secret. Maybe I missed it - but did you specify the country or the time period in history?

If you're talking about a Soviet Gulag - then I would think that the old Soviet leadership would like to have keep their methods suppressed.

If you're talking about the USA - don't you know that we (the USA) don't torture. I seem to remember the President and Vice President stating that we (the USA) don't torture our prisoners. So the issue is certainly moot as far as the courts are concerned. Hence, I'm surprised that there even are any legal restrictions preventing detainees from talking about their treatment while incarcerated.

Right, and remember that a few sevear beatings and playing with electrodes do not constitute torture by the definitions they are advocateing. What other than maiming, death and rape are out of bounds?

So with a the right defintion of torture of course we don't torture people. All you have to do is define torture correctly

 

[ponderingturtle]

Wrong is wrong, but some wrongs are wronger than others. If I pull my sister's braides and she reacts by drowning my puppy, I hope Mommy slaps me on the wrist for my wrong, and then grounds Sis for a couple of months for her wrong.

You are so right, remember all the things that america does to others it is just fine to do to americans as well.

As for definite torture, well the administration is putting a lot of effort into being able to torture people, makes you think they might have a reason for that.

 

[Glen.Nogami]

Isn't this the forum of folks who like to demand "evidence" and "proof"?

Will he who has evidence of torture being performed by the U.S. please present it?

Wasn't the whole Abu Ghraib business torture-esque, at least? Fairly close to torture, anyway. I thought the pictures of U.S. soldiers engaged in or finished with torturing the various prisoners there were fairly widely published, hence the scandal.

 

[fishbob]

Wrong is wrong, but some wrongs are wronger than others. If I pull my sister's braides and she reacts by drowning my puppy, I hope Mommy slaps me on the wrist for my wrong, and then grounds Sis for a couple of months for her wrong.

What your sister does is irrelevant to your morals.

You and ghost707 can be classmates!!!

 

[Darth Rotor]

We have lost our moral compass...

Who is the "we," paleface?

DR

 

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
Isn't this the forum of folks who like to demand "evidence" and "proof"?

Will he who has evidence of torture being performed by the U.S. please present it?

There are numerous documented incidents that you can easily google. As a starter, there's the incident of two prisoners -- supposedly they weren't even combatants -- who were beaten to death at Bagram, Afghanistan in 2002. wiki

(Several soldiers had their wrists slapped as a result, the most severe punishment being a 5 month sentence.)

The Bagram events were crimes committed by U.S. personnel, not U.S. policy. There were prosecutions of 15 soldiers in accordance with the UCMJ. Just like in domestic criminal courts, the evidence determines whether or not there are convictions. I saw in your link there were no convictions of murder, manslaughter, or any deadly act, but there were several assault convictions.

I'm currently serving on a grand jury. A series of homicide indictments were brought against a man who stabbed someone who died of the wound. Included were assault charges. Go figure.

If you'd like to argue (despite not being a participant of the court-martials) that the proceedings were fraudulent, please continue. I'll read it and comment.

 

[varwoche]

The Bagram events were crimes committed by U.S. personnel, not U.S. policy.

If you'd like to argue (despite not being a participant of the court-martials) that the proceedings were fraudulent, please continue. I'll read it and comment.

You asked for evidence of torture, I provided it, and now you're adding two qualifications the second of which is unclear. It would circumvent unnecessary back and forth if you would clarify your request to begin with.

 

[King of the Americas]

We, are Americans. Americans vote in free and fair elections, Representatives to speak and decide issues for them. So, when elected leaders send troops off to fight, kill, capture, and torture enemies, whatever is done TO those enemies has been done by "Us."

Therefore, either willingly or through complacancy, "We" are indeed torturing people. Our soliders or C.I.A. agents are "dipping witches", i.e. "waterboarding" and stockading prisoners i.e. bound uncomfortable positions on a VERY regular basis. The V.P. has made no bones about these procedures, and their willingness to continue the practices.

Beyond that, "We" have stripped prisoners and subjected them to hypothermic conditions, denied food and water to prisoners, taken pictures of them naked and stacked into human piles, and even dog collared them to be pictured in inhumane positions. "We" would claim that OUR soliders were indeed 'tortured' if we saw and or heard from their lips that they were subject to these conditions.

I KNOW "We" have done these because I have either heard first hand accounts of these things within congressional oversight committee hearings, or seen the pictures myself. The soliders who committed these atrocities may very well have been punished, but the damage they did to our reputation and global standing has already been done.

I would hold, that receeding the defination as to what is torture is a step backwards. AND that such actions insure that enemies will fight to the death, rather than surrender to capture. A WWII vet told me that close to the end of the War, that German troops would surrender more easily than they did at the War's onset BECAUSE they heard how 'good' we treated POW's. I know the evidence is anecdotal, but I think it makes a good point. When your enemy KNOWS that surrendering will result in torture, fighting to the death makes more sense...

Steverino & ghost707, you guys are as wrong as hail.

"We" aren't just putting underware on people's head. Although I can't prove it, I heard that U.S. Intelligence officers have actually electricuted a man's testicles until one them blew up. And that no less than a dozen 'enemy combatants' died at Abu Girab, while under U.S. control. Redefining the Geneva Conventions to allow waterboarding isn't a step forward...

Do the two of you believe that the End DOES justify the Means?

Moreover, do the two of you believe that 'some people', be they terrorists or enemy combatants, are NOT Equal to other Men and endowed with certain inalienable rights?