The Logic of Torture

[ImaginalDisc]

I don't think it's fake. I think it has been fabricated (created) by society. In other words it's a social construct rather than a natural biological reaction. That's not to say those experiencing PTSD are not experiencing the psychological trauma - I believe absolutely they are. But I also believe the reason they're experiencing it is because society has conditioned victims to experience it.

The reason I argue this is that the presumed cause of the first cases of PTSD - shell shock from soldiers in WWI - was incorrect. The cause was not the threat of harm, but being forced into a situation where one was expected to kill other human beings. This is carried over into psychological trauma cases in World War Two - where only those expected to personally kill fellow humans suffered rises in psychological trauma (WW2 is especially valuable due to the large exposure of non combatants to extremely traumatic experiences). It's finally played out in Vietnam where combatants were almost five times more likely to have killed an enemy, with a resulting psychological trauma rate that reflected that.

-Gumboot

There are confounding factors. I won't dispute that the type of training and type of combat soldiers endure has an effect on PTSD, but disaster survivors, emergency first responders, and the survivings victims of violent crime also express the same symptoms, which respond to the same treatment. Therefore, PTSD cannot be sufficiently explained by a military environment. And, it isn't sufficently explained by "dwelling on" the event, when a large number of people with PTSD claim not to have thought about the event at all, and often do not link the trauma to their symptoms until they get professional help.

 

[steverino]

2) The prisoner begins spouting an endless stream of information, false and otherwise, in the hope that the interrogators believe some of it and stop.

Not if you tape the evil-doer's pie-hole shut.

 

[Elind]

Hey right winger -

Do labels make you feel warm and fuzzy? I was a Democrat all my voting life, until the Deaniacs' spittle hit my screen and I decided that was not me.

Check out the Geneva Convention as a starting point for the definition of torture.

This is old hat. People trot out the Geneva Conventions like Huckabee trots out the 10 commandments. The concept there was to give some civil structure to war between nations. It also allows the execution of non uniformed saboteurs and the like, if I am not mistaken. In reality there are circumstances (which you dismiss with TV analogies) when serious discomfort to known enemies could save lives. I don't think much of attitudes that would rather risk those than take what you call are are violations of your bible called Geneva.

And never forget this: I am NOT against the USA. The official position of the United States of America is that torture is UNACCEPTABLE. Therefore if you are condoning torture, it is YOU who are against the USA. Why do you hate America?

Ooh, that is as silly as saying turkeys have two legs, so all people are turkeys.

 

[ConspiRaider]

This is old hat. People trot out the Geneva Conventions like Huckabee trots out the 10 commandments. The concept there was to give some civil structure to war between nations. It also allows the execution of non uniformed saboteurs and the like, if I am not mistaken. In reality there are circumstances (which you dismiss with TV analogies) when serious discomfort to known enemies could save lives. I don't think much of attitudes that would rather risk those than take what you call are are violations of your bible called Geneva.

THANK YOU for not voting Democratic in the last election. We don't want you, based on the display of ignorance in your above statements on torture.

World: If we sane Americans didn't take this extremely silly person to task on his endorsement of barbarism, you'd think maybe all us Yanks were like him. We're not. So we have to point it out. Sorry.

So you, Elind, are saying: Laws have no meaning. Agreements between nations have no meaning. Treaties have no meaning. George Bush stating that "this nation does not torture" has no meaning. (Wait, that was a bad example). The U.S. Constitution has no meaning. Contracts have no meaning. Property rights - carry no weight.

What - you live out in the Everglades there in Florida, in a little hunter's blind, all by yourself?

The Government of the USA, the Geneva Convention, the United Nations and other associations and organizations agree that cruel treatment, torture, degrading or humiliating treatment of a prisoner is NEVER allowed, under any circumstances. Yet - you think it's just ducky. Why? What great and tremendous knowledge do you have that convinced you all those organizations are wrong - and you are correct? Or - is this just how you "feel"?

Or else, please post verifiable proof that states your experience as a professional prisoner interrogator, where conducted, who employed you, and for how long. Papers you have written on the subject of prisoners and torture. Testimony you have given in court, as an expert witness, on this subject.

 

[steverino]

Hey Conspi. Long time.

If a guy buried Al Gore in a hiding place with only 24 hours worth of oxygen, and you got a hold of the guy, his wife, his 80 year-old mother, and his 12 year-old daughter, oh, and his golden retriever, how exactly would you propose to save Al Gore without threatening the bad guy and/or his loved ones?

 

[ConspiRaider]

Hey Conspi. Long time.

If a guy buried Al Gore in a hiding place with only 24 hours worth of oxygen, and you got a hold of the guy, his wife, his 80 year-old mother, and his 12 year-old daughter, oh, and his golden retriever, how exactly would you propose to save Al Gore without threatening the bad guy and/or his loved ones?

Hey Steve -

Hope yer well.

If I get into my vehicle and drive 20 miles north on Interstate 5, then another mile on surface streets to my intended destination: What are the odds I'll arrive safely?

I have a greater chance of getting into a fatal wreck on that 21-mile drive, than of your above scenario ever occurring. MUCH greater. What you are describing is melodrama - something you saw on TV or a movie, or read in a book. Or, you are repeating what you heard another proponent of torture say. It makes for exciting, nailbiting fiction. Yet it has as much to do with reality than does the chance you'll find a Denebian slime devil in your deep freezer.

Where do you stop, with torture? If you capture a serial killer such as Ted Bundy, are you going to torture him to force revelation of burial sites of his victims? If you capture a Mafia boss, are you going to torture him to force revelation of all upcoming hits, who he's extorting, which cops and public officials he's paying off? If you capture a woman with safecracking tools in her car, blueprints of a bank in the glove box: Are you going to torture her to dime her partners?

Once you start with this barbarism, it's tough to flip a switch and shut it down. It will proliferate. You'll end up with a society of scared, snitching people because of the FEAR of torture. We'll be back to witch-hunting. We CANNOT backslide, cannot regress. We are required to move FORWARD, if we fancy referring to ourselves as civilized.

And despite the prohibition against torture, the moral slide: It turns out that torture does not work. What works is the opposite. If you want that Mob boss to reveal pending crimes? You DEAL with him. Same with the serial killer. The potential armed robber. The rules of human interaction remain the same regardless: You do something for me, I do something for you. Everyone wants something. The weapons of a prisoner interrogator are psychology; ability to discover a prisoner's strengths, weaknesses, wants, needs (based on character); guile; high intelligence. And more. You GET the prisoner to cooperate with you. You do NOT kick it out of him. Because kicking information out of a prisoner results in no information, or false information.

 

[Elind]

THANK YOU for not voting Democratic in the last election. We don't want you, based on the display of ignorance in your above statements on torture.

Actually I did, which is not to say I feel proud of having done so, given the choices available; so you can retract the thanks, along with most of your other asinine assumptions, along with the others of your royal "WE".

 

[gumboot]

There are confounding factors. I won't dispute that the type of training and type of combat soldiers endure has an effect on PTSD, but disaster survivors, emergency first responders, and the survivings victims of violent crime also express the same symptoms, which respond to the same treatment.

Except that prior to the application of PTSD to the civilian world, this didn't happen.

Consistently, exposure of non combatants to traumatic situations in World War Two resulted in no noticeable increase in either short term of long term psychological trauma.

It's not logical that a WW2-era citizen of a city bombed repeatedly for years on end, or the citizen of a city subject to widespread looting, rape and murder, or a civilian subject to starvation and mistreatment, not to mention exposure to mass murder in a death camp would not suffer PTSD, while the victim of a brief sexual assault in a modern otherwise peaceful city, receiving comprehensive support and assistance afterwards, would.

(That is to say, it's logical on an individual level because obviously you get variation, but it's not logical as a trend, which is what we have).

It seems to me either:
1) Victims of traumatic experiences are experiencing something other than PTSD
or
2) Victims of traumatic experiences experience PTSD due to a sort of unintended and subconscious mass social conditioning

-Gumboot

 

[ConspiRaider]

Actually I did, which is not to say I feel proud of having done so, given the choices available; so you can retract the thanks, along with most of your other asinine assumptions, along with the others of your royal "WE".

If you do not want to be tagged as a fanatical right winger, then stop posting like one. Right wingers, to a man and woman, favor torture. You want to come off the support of this barbarism, and quickly. And instead - reverse course and denounce it. It's what normal people do. Be normal.

 

[Elind]

Once you start with this barbarism, it's tough to flip a switch and shut it down. It will proliferate. You'll end up with a society of scared, snitching people because of the FEAR of torture. We'll be back to witch-hunting. We CANNOT backslide, cannot regress. We are required to move FORWARD, if we fancy referring to ourselves as civilized.

The slippery slope argument, as usual.

How come you haven't used it against dropping bombs on people? Next thing you know your government will drop a bomb on your house because of what you posted on Jref; after all they do that elsewhere, when then they could just as easily have tried to be nice.

 

[Elind]

If you do not want to be tagged as a fanatical right winger, then stop posting like one. Right wingers, to a man and woman, favor torture. You want to come off the support of this barbarism, and quickly. And instead - reverse course and denounce it. It's what normal people do. Be normal.

Stop being a robotic labeler and comprehend that the universe isn't composed of the teeny weeny pigeon holes you see it through.

 

[gumboot]

If you do not want to be tagged as a fanatical right winger, then stop posting like one. Right wingers, to a man and woman, favor torture. You want to come off the support of this barbarism, and quickly. And instead - reverse course and denounce it. It's what normal people do. Be normal.

Do you realise you just called right wingers abnormal?

Wait a moment, of course you do.

-Gumboot

 

[TX50]

I don't think it's fake. I think it has been fabricated (created) by society. In other words it's a social construct rather than a natural biological reaction. That's not to say those experiencing PTSD are not experiencing the psychological trauma - I believe absolutely they are. But I also believe the reason they're experiencing it is because society has conditioned victims to experience it.

It is apparent that the concept of psychiatric trauma underwent a paradigm
shift when PTSD was formally recognised (in 1980). Before then, any long
term psychiatric effects after a traumatic event were thought to have been
because of a constitutional predisposition to mental illness on the part of the
victim. Received wisdom among psychiatric professionals was that any
psychiatric effects would only be of short duration in a normal person. This
was the interpretation that consolidated during the two World Wars (the
entire concept of psychiatric trauma among victims of terrifying events was
not recognised until after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871).

PTSD (originally termed "post-Vietnam syndrome", or "delayed stress
syndrome"), when it became accepted, shifted the emphasis from the
victim's predispositions to the external event itself. The trauma itself, rather
than any predisposition of the victim became essential in determining any
long term effects.

PTSD is intriguing because there was a strong connection between those
proposing its formal acceptance and the anti-Vietnam-war movement. PTSD
has been called one of the few politically motivated psychiatric diagnoses.

[Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist but I have researched this for some time
as part of an attempt to understand why there seemed so little evidence of
such traumatic neuroses among the soldiers of earlier periods, when they
seem so prevalent today.]

 

[gumboot]

PTSD (originally termed "post-Vietnam syndrome", or "delayed stress
syndrome"), when it became accepted, shifted the emphasis from the
victim's predispositions to the external event itself. The trauma itself, rather
than any predisposition of the victim became essential in determining any
long term effects.

The problem is that the assumption about what specific events were causing "post-Vietnam syndrome" (and before that "Combat fatigue", and before that "shell shock") appears to have been wrong, and more important the likely actual cause precludes most victims of traumatic experiences from experiencing it.

Which in itself is a rather interesting idea, I think.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

[Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist but I have researched this for some time
as part of an attempt to understand why there seemed so little evidence of
such traumatic neuroses among the soldiers of earlier periods, when they
seem so prevalent today.]

The two key reasons would be:

1) Soldiers of earlier periods did less killing, which is the act which produces the trauma
2) Societies of earlier periods were more broadly supportive/accepting of their soldiers and their actions in warfare, an important factor in mitigating the impact of psychological trauma in those soldiers that had killed

If we take the example of Vietnam, 98% of soldiers engaged in combat fired at the enemy (as opposed to 10% in World War Two), representing a large body of soldiers who either did or attempted to kill - that means a large body of soldiers vulnerable to psychological trauma, which can only be averted by being vindicated by broader society, and assured that what they did was right and good. But while WW2 soldiers were universally praised as heroes of the free world, granted utmost respect and admiration, given parades and medals, and ultimately vindicated by their society, Vietnam War veterans were more often abused, spurned, attacked, accused of being murderers and baby killers, and rejected by their society.

Thus the more vulnerable generation of soldiers were less likely to receive the vindication from society which was their only salvation. Hence a drastic rise in cases of psychological trauma in Vietnam War veterans (which, ironically, was used by anti-war types to "prove" their claims that Vietnam Vets were baby killers, thus increasing their mistreatment of vets, thus increasing rates of psychological trauma).

-Gumboot

 

[steverino]

Hey Steve -
If you capture a serial killer such as Ted Bundy, are you going to torture him to force revelation of burial sites of his victims?

No because he already killed his victims. It is too late. In my "melodramatic" scenario Al Gore is still alive. Had the captured killer stated that he had already killed Al Gore and isn't saying where the body is, then there is urgency and therefore plenty of time to negotiate with the killer if the goal is simply to find the body.

 

[ConspiRaider]

No because he already killed his victims. It is too late. In my "melodramatic" scenario Al Gore is still alive. Had the captured killer stated that he had already killed Al Gore and isn't saying where the body is, then there is no urgency and therefore plenty of time to negotiate with the killer if the goal is simply to find the body.

(my edit)

My point is that dozens of families out there, victimized by Bundy, will be denied "peace" or "closure" because he knew where he buried their loved ones - but refuses to tell. For their peace - shouldn't that info be kicked out of a serial killer such as Bundy? Isn't there a "greater good" concept in the works here?

My contention is that there is NOT - EVER. Once you break that egg of Torture as Approved Policy - you're going to have one helluva time putting that egg back together again. Therefore it is a door you NEVER OPEN. In fact you barricade it even more, when temptation to employ this barbarism rears its head during crises, real and perceived.

It's a tough choice. But it is always the CORRECT choice - if we contend that we are moving away from barbarism and progressing towards civility in all aspects of human life.

I'm not sure if you were in the military, Steve, cannot recall. Anyway, you know that I was. I wasn't under fire in my service, but let's say that I had been. In that scenario, capture by the enemy is a possibility. The knowledge that you won't be tortured while detained by the enemy - this mutual agreement on subscribing to a level of decency even in time of war - makes a difference. Because the FEAR OF TORTURE is definitely going to modify a society's behavior, in very tangible ways. Negatively - in the direction of backsliding, regressing.

Simplistic example: Pilot of fighter jet gets hit by missile, plane afire, he or she is over enemy territory. Knows he or she will be captured after ejecting. If the enemy is a Torture Nation? The pilot may decide not to put himself or herself through that, and deliberately crash the plane. Choose death over torture. If the enemy does NOT torture? Probably will eject, face detention, hope for the best.

 

[fishbob]

Not if you tape the evil-doer's pie-hole shut.

The evil-doer?
Would that the be torturer or the torturee?

Wait, I forgot.
Being the helpless guy strapped to a board makes you the evil-doer.

 

[steverino]

I'm not sure if you were in the military, Steve, cannot recall. Anyway, you know that I was.

I know you were. We ALL know you were. I was not. And if I, a civilian who had done wrong, was tortured, I'd tell everything. It would work on me. Thin skin and all that.

 

[steverino]

The evil-doer?
Would that the be torturer or the torturee?

Wait, I forgot.
Being the helpless guy strapped to a board makes you the evil-doer.

The helpless guy strapped to a board helped another guy rape fishbob's daughter.