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| Topic: Torture; An intellectual debate.. | |
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Edited by
Fanta46
on
Sun 01/25/09 06:34 PM
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So the psychological damage from one of these cases of a sociopathic rapist types who locks up his victim, isn't necessarily part of the problem? The constant torment by some group of horribly raised children that leads to the suicide of another child, thats not a problem, suicide kid's just weak? However you want to "define" something, like what the definition of the word "is" is, happens to just be a loophole, whether legal or moral. If you damage a person, be that physical, mental or sexual, I see no definitive place between those to things draw the line. We are supposed to be the "Light of the World", but instead we act more like the Nazi's and other aspiring global empires than we do a beacon of freedom. Torture does have one consistent side effect. It creates MORE terrorists. Two ex-Guantanamo inmates appear in Al-Qaeda video AFP Sunday, Jan 25, 2009 Two men released from the US “war on terror” prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website, the SITE monitoring service reported. One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP. Three other men appear in the video, including Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an Al-Qaeda field commander. SITE later said he was prisoner No. 333. A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, on Saturday declined to confirm the SITE information. “We remain concerned about ex-Guantanamo detainees who have re-affiliated with terrorist organizations after their departure,” said Gordon. “We will continue to work with the international community to mitigate the threat they pose,” he said. Full article here http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZfIcWnHqBz4kQR90lC_pXaHeW4Q You know you just broke a lot of hearts war since these men were obviously released under the Bush Administration's policies and watch. Since this is a fact it just shows that Bush did not make us safer and his techniques were not only illegal but also ineffective. Gitmo should be closed! |
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Warmachine the HeartBreaker.
Sounds like a bad 80's video game bad guy. |
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We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than anyone who considers torture a valid or necessary treatment of prisoners.
Violence is the method of the unintelligent. War in general is almost always avoidable but warmongering people will continue to try to use it as a show of superior power when really superior power is always intellectual not brute. |
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Paraphrasing: "How quickly would all of our differences evaporate, if we on this planet faced a threat from space"
Ronald Reagan. |
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Well, this is without a doubt, a topic for with heavy moral and ethical considerations. All of you are no doubt familiar with the old hypothetical that goes something like: "If your daughter was being held by a group of murderers and rapists and one of their co-conspirators was captured, would you be comfortable (relatively speaking) with the idea and practice of torture in order to obtain information about her location, possibly resulting in her life being saved?" It is a hypothetical and as such, there are issues with it. It is the perfect scenario and here again, we are talking about someone captured who we have strong reason to believe knows enough to possibly spare her life. What would you do? Would you, if this situation presented itself, allow for torture? If you are opposed to such treatment of people (on any and all grounds) would you be willing to run the risk of losing your daughter? Would you be able to handle looking in the mirror again, or looking at your wife, friends, family, etc...? This isn't a "trick" question and to be honest, the moral and ethical ramifications are severe, leading me to question how I would react. Still, I think it would be very hard for me to argue against any and all methods of information gathering, including torture. One could also argue a slightly different scenario: Let's say that my daughter (I don't have one but follow me here) was being held and YOU had to make the decision regarding how far to push the captured individual. You don't know me and you don't know my daughter. Would this change your mind or alter your willingness to apply such techniques? It is a fascinating topic. I know that the answers are not easy and that even the questions are tough but sometimes it's good to apply a practical (if unlikely) situation out there for people to debate. And to that end, I hope that all of you will engage in such a debate. Thanks for reading, Drew While you are at it, how about you telling us what this has to do with torturing POW's. Then follow your own hypothetical scenario. Suppose you torture the man and they give give you information about the where abouts of your daughter, only when you get there you find out he lied. Before you get back to practice your torture on him again he dies. Now you have no way to find your daughter and no hope of ever finding her. Also the guy you just killed turns out to be the brother of the one who has your daughter. Now he gets angry and revengefully kills your daughter. How do you feel now??? Ain't this ridiculous? First of all, I did not claim that my scenario had anything at all to do with the torture of POWs. What I was attempting to do and discuss was whether there was a scenario that you would feel comfortable allowing for torture? My hypothetical is not Hollywood nor is it without a point. The point here is only whether or not torture is EVER acceptable and judging by your rather defensive response, I'm gathering that you don't believe it is. That's fine and I'm not here to tell anyone how to self-dictate their own morals in regards to this issue. Still, I think the point is a fair one and so, thanks for reading. -Drew |
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Edited by
Fanta46
on
Sun 01/25/09 07:54 PM
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Drew,
There are rules within every police force in the world that prevent interrogation of suspects by people (officers) who are too close to the case. The reasons for this are very obvious and your scenario points to why these rules are necessary. People (Law enforcement, military, etc.) who are too personally close to the case are more likely than not to act out of emotion rather than make intelligent decisions. They are more likely than not to hamper interrogations and contaminate the case. Most parents would not hesitate to torture and kill the suspect being in custody! They would act out their emotions rather than make an intelligent decision. |
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They would more than likely do more harm to their child's welfare and safe recovery than good.
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Drew, There are rules within every police force in the world that prevent interrogation of suspects by people (officers) who are too close to the case. The reasons for this are very obvious and your scenario points to why these rules are necessary. People (Law enforcement, military, etc.) who are too personally close to the case are more likely than not to act out of emotion rather than make intelligent decisions. They are more likely than not to hamper interrogations and contaminate the case. Most parents would not hesitate to torture and kill the suspect being in custody! They would act out their emotions rather than make an intelligent decision. Fanta, I swear that I'm not trying to be purposefully indifferent to your very well stated points but your answers don't answer the question from a moral standpoint. I don't disagree that the parent in the case I gave is acting out of emotion. In fact, I'll concede that they are acting on little more than pure emotion. And let us assume and take your point, to say that the child is killed regardless, that the torture does nothing to save the child. Does that fact make the torture morally wrong? Isn't the child pretty much doomed to begin with and if so, how then do we argue that the risk taken (that he will provide information leading to her rescue) isn't worth taking? -Drew |
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All I have to say about torture is this: If you torture somebody long enough, harsh enough, they are going to tell you that they are the goodship lollypop, who landed on the grassy knoll and Al Qaeda is ran by Zygloop the Grey Alien from Nibiru. Think about what you said, bud. This answers a lot of questions, and proves a particular "non-Theory" you and I happen to entertain. This is why there is the camp in question. |
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Drew, There are rules within every police force in the world that prevent interrogation of suspects by people (officers) who are too close to the case. The reasons for this are very obvious and your scenario points to why these rules are necessary. People (Law enforcement, military, etc.) who are too personally close to the case are more likely than not to act out of emotion rather than make intelligent decisions. They are more likely than not to hamper interrogations and contaminate the case. Most parents would not hesitate to torture and kill the suspect being in custody! They would act out their emotions rather than make an intelligent decision. Fanta, I swear that I'm not trying to be purposefully indifferent to your very well stated points but your answers don't answer the question from a moral standpoint. I don't disagree that the parent in the case I gave is acting out of emotion. In fact, I'll concede that they are acting on little more than pure emotion. And let us assume and take your point, to say that the child is killed regardless, that the torture does nothing to save the child. Does that fact make the torture morally wrong? Isn't the child pretty much doomed to begin with and if so, how then do we argue that the risk taken (that he will provide information leading to her rescue) isn't worth taking? -Drew I say it is morally wrong to torture, and that by doing so makes one no better than those he tortures. Two wrongs do not make a right, but then we each must live with our own conscience, and if you believe a particular way then we shall each be judged according to our deeds here on earth and our treatment of our fellow men one day. Personally, I would like to be classified as having higher morals than the terrorists when that time comes! |
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Accodring to all the briefings I've had coming from a whole swath of interrogators, intelligence officers and agents in military and federal agencies, torture as a method for intelligence gathering has proven to be rather counter productive, especially in the current conflicts we face today.
Assume we use torture, or at least, there's the perception we use torture, and we gain some credible information about a terrorist training camp, weapons cache, or attack on coalition forces. We manage to shut those down, but in the process we shifted public opinion in the "front lines" against us. That is, less of the populace is willing to cooperate with us, or provide us with information for fear that we might take them into custody and torture them for more information (like Saddam Hussein did during his time in power), or for fear that we might do that to their cousin (who happens to be a member of a questionable organization). It's important to note that this "war" is "war among the people", not between two nation/states or large centralized organizations. Meaning that we're more likely to get good, credible information from the people (who hide, protect and supply our "enemy organizations") than hardcore members of the organization. And considering the decentralized structure of the terrorist organizations, even if we capture the head of one cell, there's very little chance that person will know what the other cells are up to. |
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Torture has been used since the beginning of time.
Have information I need to help keep my family safe. No problem, I will get the info I want & it will be the truth. Interrigation techniques (sorry about the spelling, not enough coffee yet) have been perfected for centuries. Live in your safe little world & I am happy for you. Let things go to the devil & your outlooks change. Ask the vets of WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, read history of any country. REALITY |
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Edited by
adj4u
on
Mon 01/26/09 05:23 AM
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Torture has been used since the beginning of time. Have information I need to help keep my family safe. No problem, I will get the info I want & it will be the truth. Interrigation techniques (sorry about the spelling, not enough coffee yet) have been perfected for centuries. Live in your safe little world & I am happy for you. Let things go to the devil & your outlooks change. Ask the vets of WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, read history of any country. REALITY  when the others quit using torture then so should we after all if they have no fear of repercussion upon capture they will become emboldened from no fear of consequences torture is not so much a info obtaining directive as it is a deterrent to action so what would you do to protect your children because after all is it not about the future and is not the future the children |
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Let's ask a hero of many.
A Veitnam Vet. A man who really knows about torture. Republican presidential candidate John McCain reminded people Thursday that some Japanese were tried and hanged for torturing American prisoners during World War II with techniques that included waterboarding. "There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that as torture otherwise we wouldn't have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans," McCain said during a news conference. He said he forgot to mention that piece of history during Wednesday night's Republican debate, during which he criticized former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney after Romney declined to publicly say what interrogation techniques he would rule out. "I would also hope that he would not want to be associated with a technique which was invented in the Spanish Inquisition, was used by Pol Pot in one of the great eras of genocide in history and is being used on Burmese monks as we speak," the Arizona senator said. "America is a better nation than that." McCain was a prisoner of war for more than five years during the Vietnam War. He was tortured during that time, but said he wasn't subjected to waterboarding. "If the United States was in another conflict, which could easily happen, with another country, and we have allowed that kind of torture to be inflicted on people we hold captive, then there's nothing to prevent that enemy from also torturing American prisoners," McCain said. On the use of torture: "Anyone who says they don't know if waterboarding is torture or not has no experience in the conduct of warfare and national security…. It isn't about an interrogation technique. It isn't about whether someone is really harmed or not. It's about what kind of a nation we are." |
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i understand it is about the kind of nation we are
and we should live by the golden rule """"""do unto others as you would have them do unto you"""""""" so if they do it, do unto there's cause they did unto our's do two wrongs make a right -- no --but it may stop the third wrong` till it is known then don't do it if they do then go for it and if they execute someone the gloves come off make their members know they screwed up and make them wish they were never a member |
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Tit for Tat aye?
That's a cycle every child learns has no ending. |
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yep
and the only way to end it is to annihilate one of the children no problem |
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Edited by
ianminty2
on
Mon 01/26/09 08:11 AM
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what if those guys caught us? would be given the time of day to have a torture session? would be able to write letters to our family back home. would we be able to see sunlight again.
those prisoners are sitting in there right now. saying "cheers easy America" those "torture" methods that are being adopted are nothing, the water method one i mean come on its probably classed as his daily shower, and thats a lot better than what they had at home. there sitting in there knowing that they'll probably never receive the death penalty. which is wrong good thread |
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what if those guys caught us? would be given the time of day to have a torture session? would be able to write letters to our family back home. would we be able to see sunlight again. those prisoners are sitting in there right now. saying "cheers easy America" those "torture" methods that are being adopted are nothing, the water method one i mean come on its probably classed as his daily shower, and thats a lot better than what they had at home. there sitting in there knowing that they'll probably never receive the death penalty. which is wrong good thread |
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