When is torture acceptable?

[Texas]

And, as the story points out, these men hold no relevant credentials. They are not doctors. They are in no position to make that determination.

The video contains a short segment of a pour; but I'm not sure why you consider this evidence of anything. For example:



Is this clip evidence of torture, or just one person's opinion? The same applies to the clip you provided.

I think we will agree: the experience is subjective, and opinions vary.



Friend, you have me all wrong. I'm as right-wing as they come. But Valerie Plame was an actual CIA employee; these men are private salesman who sold our government a technique they had no business selling. If they didn't want to assume that risk, they can choose to deal with other clients. An under-cover CIA agent has no such option.



This makes no sense to me.

Why should I have sympathy? They earned $1000 /day, despite a total lack of qualifications, and have faced no consequences besides some brief embarassment. I wish no harm on them, but I have no sympathy either. They are not undercover spooks, as you seem to believe.

And because I lack sympathy for some private contractors, this means I have sympathy for terror suspects? I don't follow.

This is bigger than partisanship, friend. I hope you will at least consider what I have to say.

So painting a target on both them and their families by broadcasting their names, pictures and location is OK since they were highly paid consultants? That is ridiculous.

 

[Texas]

BTW Hitch is an out of shape drunk that decided to play being tortured. I like the guy but KSM and the other 2 that were waterboarded were hardened combat vets. As to the 2 doctors, their background was both military and were heavily involved with training pilots to withstand real torture if captured.

 

[zaphod2016]

BTW Hitch is an out of shape drunk that decided to play being tortured. I like the guy but KSM and the other 2 that were waterboarded were hardened combat vets.

I agree, Hitchens is probably a wimp compared to KSM. Like I said, the experience is subjective.

As to the 2 doctors, their background was both military and were heavily involved with training pilots to withstand real torture if captured.

These men were not doctors. That's one of my major arguments- they lacked the qualifications they claimed they had. They misrepresented themselves to our government, potentially placing our troops at risk due to improper training. Doesn't that bother you at least as much as the breach of the contractor's privacy?

So painting a target on both them and their families by broadcasting their names, pictures and location is OK since they were highly paid consultants? That is ridiculous.

I don't see these men as noble patriots, I see them as profiteers who were motivated by cash, not any specific ideology.

The Constitution- you know, that piece of paper we are all fighting to protect- guarantees the rights of a free press. If these men wanted protection, they should have joined the agency, rather than sell to it.

I guarantee they are far more likely to be attacked by outraged Americans than by terrorists.

 

[Upchurch]

What was the status of these two guys, btw? Were they covert/covered/ something else?

 

[truethat]

Our society is one made of laws and reason. Decisions should not be made at a gut level based on emotional situations.

In another thread, I was asked what I would do if someone threatened or harmed my child. I replied that I would kill the and that's precisely why I should not be the one to make that decision in that case.

That is also why we should immediately discount these kinds of loaded hypothetical questions when making policy decisions.



And yet, somehow despite maintaining a very large margin and not having yet come to the point where desperation should have dominated all concerns, we reached that point anyway. There is no question that our policy makers let us down. The only thing left available to us is to hold the accountable for their actions or not.

Great post. I agree especially with the bolded.

 

[leftysergeant]

Okay, a hypothetical.

We let soldiers torture to gain intel in a hurry.

The war ends, the soldiers come home. Many of them join police departments.

There are a series of child abductions. The cops think they have a suspect, and, when a child goes missing, they grab him and start questioning him. He gives no information. A veteran steps in and tells his colleages, "Leave me alone with him. I'll get the information the same way we got battlefield intel from the Arabs." An hour later, the suspect is bruised and bloodied but has not provided any information. Is it because he is innocent or just resistant to torture?

You can probably see where this sort of thing might be a problem.

I do not want our soldiers learning skills that we do not want them to bring home.

 

[zaphod2016]

I do not want our soldiers learning skills that we do not want them to bring home.

This is an excellent, and ofter overlooked, point.

Am I correct in assuming Texas' special brand of conservatism is past the point of no return? Am I wasting time attempting to be rational?

 

[Lonewulf]

This is an excellent, and ofter overlooked, point.

Am I correct in assuming Texas' special brand of conservatism is past the point of no return? Am I wasting time attempting to be rational?

Texas supported the idea that Ike starved around a million German POWs, and then states that it, and Hiroshima/Nagasaki, were done purely to "show them up" and prevent Germany or Japan from ever ever doing anything at all (the nuclear bombs were not to bring an early end to a war and prevent further casualties, but just to "show them up" and teach those filthy warlike Japs a lesson)

Of course, all of this without any actual evidence (though he did pretend that "he didn't really mean it" after I demolished his claims).

You tell me.

 

[zaphod2016]

Texas supported the idea that Ike starved around a million German POWs,

Are we talking about the same Eisenhower? The one who warned against the military-industrial complex now supported so adamantly by Texas?

and then states that it, and Hiroshima/Nagasaki, were done purely to "show them up" and prevent Germany or Japan from ever ever doing anything at all (the nuclear bombs were not to bring an early end to a war and prevent further casualties, but just to "show them up" and teach those filthy warlike Japs a lesson)

This begs the question: why did we stop with Nagasaki?

Of course, all of this without any actual evidence (though he did pretend that "he didn't really mean it" after I demolished his claims).

You tell me.

Point taken. Another victim of poe's law, perhaps?

 

[Lonewulf]

Are we talking about the same Eisenhower? The one who warned against the military-industrial complex now supported so adamantly by Texas?

Yup.

This begs the question: why did we stop with Nagasaki?

I guess blowing up two civilian cities was enough. Those silly Japs finally got the message, after all, didn't they?

Point taken. Another victim of poe's law, perhaps?

Yeah, Texas seems like he's joking, and then you get the dawning cold realization that he isn't...

 

[leftysergeant]

As to "these 2 jokers" I wonder if you felt the same about Valerie Plame who was at best a desk jockey but her "outing" created calls for the heads of the entire Bush administration.

Pay attention. Valerie was the chief operative in a covert network of intelligence gatherers, some of whom are now in mortal danger, if not already dead because of some dirtbag's urge to punish her husband for not kissing the Shrub's butt. Stop swallowing the talking pointrs of the fat nazi who fed the Shrub's drive for power or the maunderings of the fat deaf eunuch on the hate radio.

Valerie was an intelligence operative engaged in something that actuallly benefitted America. She gathered intelligence. The dirtbags you are worried about taught people to commit war crimes. I do not, then, give a rat's if they are hunted down and burned alive in their homes, though I would prefer that they were made to explain what idiot gave them the orders to teach such evil.

You may have no sympathy for these two men BUT that makes you no different than those that have sympathy for 3 leaders of Al Qaeda that were "tortured" the same way a kid is "tortured in a YMCA swimming class.

Reeking bull flops piled to the rafters.

Swimming classes are traumatic to some people, but there is an out for the student. Learn to swim and be in control of your situation. Torture is conducted in such a way, and with the specific intent that the victim shall realize that he has no control over his situation, and that it is possible that he may die as a result of the evil intent of his torutrer, and the awareness that the torturer is inherently evil.

So what if an al Qaeda operative is inherently evil? We supposedly are not because we, supposedly, do not get our jollies torturing people. We lose that, and we become the moral equivalent of an al Qaeda terrorist.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Okay, a hypothetical.

We let soldiers torture to gain intel in a hurry.

The war ends, the soldiers come home. Many of them join police departments.

There are a series of child abductions. The cops think they have a suspect, and, when a child goes missing, they grab him and start questioning him. He gives no information. A veteran steps in and tells his colleages, "Leave me alone with him. I'll get the information the same way we got battlefield intel from the Arabs." An hour later, the suspect is bruised and bloodied but has not provided any information. Is it because he is innocent or just resistant to torture?

You can probably see where this sort of thing might be a problem.

I do not want our soldiers learning skills that we do not want them to bring home.

"An hour later, the suspect is bruised and bloodied but has not provided any information. Is it because he is innocent or just resistant to torture?" or better yet even more terrifying he says that a certain "Mr Texas" was involved or maybe knows who did it.

 

[leftysergeant]

"An hour later, the suspect is bruised and bloodied but has not provided any information. Is it because he is innocent or just resistant to torture?" or better yet even more terrifying he says that a certain "Mr Texas" was involved or maybe knows who did it.

Meanwhile, Mr Chooser is building another raised flower bed in his back yard.

That all works out really well for the dispensation of justice.