Prisoner Abuse News, Commentary & Discussion, 11/2004 - 10/2005 - Volume One Options

[Just Thinking]

Oh yes, I forgot. They are not too far removed from the "Burn the witches at the stake, then they will confess and tell all."

[Sapphire]

My gut reaction is "Torture is never ok."

But then I start thinking like a Hollywood script-writer with an over-active imagination -

What if terrorists had a nuclear bomb planted in downtown Los Angeles - would I be ok with someone being tortured in order to locate that bomb? The truth, much as I hate to admit it, is "Yes, I would be ok with it."

What if terrorists had hidden Anthrax or Ebola in 10 schools somewhere in America, and we didn't know where - and a la Hollywood - they said that if any attempt was made to send kids home from school, they'd release the virus - would I be ok with someone being tortured in order to locate the virus? Same answer as above.

I've always considered myself to be a woman of principles - I was disgusted by what our troops did to those men in Abu Ghraib prison. I know what kind of martyrs we've created in the families of those men who were so heinously humiliated - the torture was bad enough, but in their culture, the added insult of having a woman involved in sexually humiliating them is visited upon every generation in their family. Instead of getting useful information, we've created hundreds of thousands of terrorists by what we did to those few men. There is no excuse, no justification, for what we did there.

But if saving the life of my children had to come at the cost of torturing information about a virus out of someone? I not only think I would give my permission - but I think I'd be willing to help.

Acknowledging that potential within myself saddens me.

[savemefrombush]

good god, torture is NEVER acceptable. America's founding fathers sought to found the country on freedom and equality, freedom etc - we have tyranny in our present government!

This post has been edited by savemefrombush: Jan 8 2005, 09:14 PM

[heart]

good god, torture is NEVER acceptable. America's founding fathers sought to found the country on freedom and equality, freedom etc - we have tyranny in our present government!

THEY DID NOT!! And they tortured people too!

Are you a father?

Saphire, thanks for staying real!

[heart]

Misere.....I am already scared to read that some people did not vote NEVER: I thought better of this forum: some few Barbars with us
Did you remember (or what it presented too, in the USA?) this TV serie where they put people in some kind of electric device and in front of them, somebody had the trigger to send electric shocks....stronger and stronger. The "patient" faked pain, more and more suffering, but the other guy continued giving stronger shocks, even after hesitating and feeling bad about it.
Most people just obeyed, even when they felt terrible, seeing the result of the tortur and justified that they got the order to do it.
Sorry for my english explaining this...hope you heard about it?

Yes. The "Milgram Experiments" replicated on tv?

But, that's not the same thing. No one is saying that we should electric shock a bunch of people for no reason. What some say is if there were a nuclear bomb on a timer and YOU KNEW this guy in front of you knew where it was? What then?

I don't think ANYONE is saying this is standard operating procedure. I do not agree with that at all. Only if the "ticking bomb" scenario was in play.

[Chris]

You are mixing up the concept of interrogation with the use of torture. They are not the same.

I would suggest the best example of interrogation is when a mother sets a child down to find out if he/she actually DID know who done the dirty deed.

Torture is if that same mother started beating the bottom of the child's feet while asking the questions.

Biiiiig difference.....biiig difference in the outcome of the process too.

I'll tell you why torture is NEVER an option - the person doing the torture ALSO is effected, and THAT is passed on to every person they come into contact with after doing the deed by CHOICE or BY ORDER.

War is an easy environment to lapse into the lowest common denominator of humanity. That's why it is evil and a bane to humanity. It is INhuman.

I can empathize with what you are saying, but I disagree. A country has a right-a duty-and an obligation to its people to defend its sovereignty no matter what the cost. Whether it is the US, Iran, Iraq, N. Korea, China, Cuba, etc. does not change that. The rest of the world is what supposedly determines whether what that country did was right or wrong. When the existence of a state is even somewhat in question anyone who should withhold the necessary force to defend it is just as guilty as the person who would use any means to uphold that state's sovereignty. In other words, in that case there would be no difference in each counterpart's degree of responsibility. So in the case in which other factors mitigate, the sovereignty of the state must reign supreme. Of course these are all the extreme cases that I am referring to. Torture outside of this category is of course unacceptable.

[ThomPaine]

My gut reaction is "Torture is never ok."

But then I start thinking like a Hollywood script-writer with an over-active imagination -

What if terrorists had a nuclear bomb planted in downtown Los Angeles - would I be ok with someone being tortured in order to locate that bomb?  The truth, much as I hate to admit it, is "Yes, I would be ok with it."

....

But if saving the life of my children had to come at the cost of torturing information about a virus out of someone?  I not only think I would give my permission - but I think I'd be willing to help.

Acknowledging that potential within myself saddens me.

Well, Sapphire, you are being honest... but your thinking seems fuzzy... The people being tortured with excrement & sex perversions are not the people who know anything about WMD. Many of them were apparently 'sold' by warlords and at least some are innocent of anything.

There are two people -Saddam Hussein and A.Q. Khan- who do know about terrorist WMDs. Both are being treated with exceptional kindness. Khan in particular may turn out to be the greatest mass murder in all history, if your Hollywood scenario comes true. Yet Bush didn't even demand Pakistan turn him over...

Also missing from the discussion is that there are proven methods of interogation that work quickly and reliably- sensory deprivation being one. It at least doesn't involve sadism...

You said torture 'somebody' - that is exactly what is happening, torturing one person for the deeds of another. Any old somebody... are you willing to do that? Even the KGB didn't find that necessary

I'm not saying we should treat these people with kid gloves, but there is a line where our own cause is lost if we become the terrorists, and the end of this WOT moves imponderably into the future.

Somebody said we all die, it is not how you die that is important, it is how you live... it is how we live and act that will determine if we ultimately win or lose this struggle, which has now become one for the 'hearts and minds' of the whole planet.

[heart]

Yeah, but Thom, you didn't define torture as that which occured at Abu Ghraib. So, that's kind of unfair. I too, condemn that. If you want to know the answer to a question, then put the qualifiers in otherwise no one knows what you mean.

[heart]

In fact, you did qualify it: "unfortunately acceptable in certain urgent cases"

Now, how does that include Abu Graib?

[ThomPaine]

THEY DID NOT!!  And they tortured people too!

Are you a father?

Saphire, thanks for staying real!

Heart- sometimes it is hard to tell you from the badguys, even your avatar is violent. I can't hardly believe even you said that.

[heart]

Sorry you don't like my avatar. Do you like cyberlina's. Don't you consider "Trinity" from the Matrix violent....or was she just on the side you supported and therefore ok? People running around here with Nazi signs, against Bush, so that's ok, because they're on YOUR side. Yes, I like the people who are on my side too. I'm on your side and I have "certificates" to prove it, polls to prove it, and everything test I take makes me a Liberal. It's not such a bad thing to have some good soldiers on your side. If every Democrat disarms then I fear even more for us all.

However, if you know history, can you tell me that they did not hang Royalists and torture them during the Revolutionary war? They did. Nor did they found this country with any ideas of what we would see as equality, yeah, equal among the elite, property owners MEN, but no one else was included and you can't deny that. What I am saying is that we hold too tightly to our myths.

I'm also saying that when you have a child, you understand what Sapphire said, in a way that no one ever can, unless maybe you think about your mother, or wife, being buried alive someplace and you have the person that knows where she is....then maybe you understand. That's what I mean, not anything like random, or regularized torture, and you would see that in my answer to the question.

[Sapphire]

Well, Sapphire, you are being honest... but your thinking seems fuzzy... The people being tortured with excrement & sex perversions are not the people who know anything about WMD. Many of them were apparently 'sold' by warlords and at least some are innocent of anything.

There are two people -Saddam Hussein and A.Q. Khan- who do know about  terrorist WMDs. Both are being treated with exceptional kindness. Khan in particular may turn out to be the greatest mass murder in all history, if your Hollywood scenario comes true. Yet Bush didn't even demand Pakistan turn him over...

Also missing from the discussion is that there are proven methods of interogation that work quickly and reliably- sensory deprivation being one. It at least doesn't involve sadism...

You said torture 'somebody' - that is exactly what is happening, torturing one person for the deeds of another.  Any old somebody... are you willing to do that? Even the KGB didn't find that necessary

I'm not saying we should treat these people with kid gloves, but there is a line where our own cause is lost if we become the terrorists, and the end of this WOT moves imponderably into the future.

Somebody said we all die, it is not how you die that is important, it is how you live... it is how we live and act that  will determine if we ultimately win or lose this struggle, which has now become one for the 'hearts and minds' of the whole planet.

Thom -

I thought my post was very clear that I was only referring to an individual who could actually provide the information necessary to stop the bomb from going off or the virus from being released.

My Uncle was a POW during the Vietnam war - I witnessed first-hand as a child what kind of destruction and life-long pain it causes in an individual. I saw how an image on the TV screen could set him off into screaming, crying fits. I saw how certain sounds - like a faucet dripping onto an aluminum pan - would send him scurrying for the nearest corner where he would curl in a fetal position for hours, sobbing and begging. And I remember that it drove him to suicide - and what kind of effect that had on his wife, his family, his friends.

But you know what? I would still be willing to inflict that kind of pain on someone else to save the lives of millions in the scenarios I presented in my first post - and before you jump to more conclusions about me or my position, I'll spell it out for you - ONLY in a situation where I knew that the individual actually possessed the knowledge needed to stop that kind of horror from happening.

I'm not proud of feeling this way - I'd Love to be able to say I'm incapable of harming another human being. But in a situation like I presented above - I recognize within myself the capacity to harm someone, especially to protect my children. I would die for my children - and yes, I would even torture or kill to protect them. It is certainly not the best aspect of my character - perhaps it is even a flaw - but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't there.

[ThomPaine]

I don't believe they stripped people, played with their sex organs, made them lie in excrement, etc. And I believe my child's life has the same priceless value as the child of a Palestinian or Iraqi or an Afghani...

What I find similar in your posts to our darker history is the zealot calls for the extermination of the Native American; you've come very close to saying 'the only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian' many times in your previous posts...

One thing I'm sure of, you aren't on my side... and you will never make peace from the barrel of your gun, only more deaths.

[Chris]

But you know what?  I would still be willing to inflict that kind of pain on someone else to save the lives of millions in the scenarios I presented in my first post - and before you jump to more conclusions about me or my position, I'll spell it out for you - ONLY in a situation where I knew that the individual actually possessed the knowledge needed to stop that kind of horror from happening.

But what about the situation in which you could not tell whether the person possessed that information or not? I'd personally err on the side of defending the country. You can never know for sure. We have to be right 100%; they only have to be right once. Not that I'm a neocon but those statements are still nonetheless true. Therefore, I think widespread torture is what is wrong because in advance you KNOW it is wrong. The other kinds of torture (on a single person) you might not know whether you should have done it until it was too late. So that is the exception that I also believe in. Just in the more conservative interpretation of it.

[heart]

Thom: That's fine if you don't think I'm on your side, but logically, could you please tell me where you described all of that in your question?

What you asked all of us is whether there was EVER an instance where we would sanction 'do what is urgently needed". If you ask it, then I assume you thought there would be some answers different from yours. Why you have to attack MY answer has to do with Kerry/Edwards fights that you have not gotten over. I have said no such thing and you know that I haven't said that. I do not believe that every other child is as important as my child...because I'm human I will grab for my child before I will grab someone elses. That's in a pinch, and as far as I could tell that's what you were talking about.

If you define people who are on your side as only those that agree with you on every issue, then I'm sure you will find very few who fit that. I can't stop that narrow definition you have, but I can tell you that I am on the side of the Democrats in this country and you can't disown me just because you think I don't fit your personal description of a Dem, otherwise you just lost a good 30% of your Party.

There is no need to attack ME, without backing up your statements and doing so in a proper forum subcategory. If you wish to discuss my views on Israel, then we can take that there. If you want to discuss my views of what the Taliban did to women, then we can discuss that too. But where were YOU while they suffered? Where were YOU when the Kurds were being gassed and genocide was committed against them? Because I was sending aid packages through backchannels and trying to help those MUSLIM children across the planet, but I guess you would rather NOT lose any of our OWN sons and daughters for some Afghan girl huh?

[ThomPaine]

Thom -

I thought my post was very clear that I was only referring to an individual who could actually provide the information necessary to stop the bomb from going off or the virus from being released.

My Uncle was a POW during the Vietnam war - I witnessed first-hand as a child what kind of destruction and life-long pain it causes in an individual.  I saw how an image on the TV screen could set him off into screaming, crying fits.  I saw how certain sounds - like a faucet dripping onto an aluminum pan - would send him scurrying for the nearest corner where he would curl in a fetal position for hours, sobbing and begging.  And I remember that it drove him to suicide - and what kind of effect that had on his wife, his family, his friends.

But you know what?  I would still be willing to inflict that kind of pain on someone else to save the lives of millions in the scenarios I presented in my first post - and before you jump to more conclusions about me or my position, I'll spell it out for you - ONLY in a situation where I knew that the individual actually possessed the knowledge needed to stop that kind of horror from happening.

I'm not proud of feeling this way - I'd Love to be able to say I'm incapable of harming another human being.  But in a situation like I presented above - I recognize within myself the capacity to harm someone, especially to protect my children.  I would die for my children - and yes, I would even torture or kill to protect them.  It is certainly not the best aspect of my character - perhaps it is even a flaw - but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't there.

I have someone very close to me; we went to an Air Show... She was fine until a WWII fighter flew over. Then she suddenly collapsed in hysterics and I had to carry her away.

She was born in a Japanese prison camp, she survived by eating grasshoppers and such. Her mother was also there, and I've heard a lot about what happened, and I see the dead places in their souls, and what that does to their lives, and to a small extent to mine- and it just keeps reverberating.

So there you are in that room, but you are leaving something important out... do you try the sodium pentathol first, or do you attach wires to their privates? That is what this issue is about...

[Chris]

Civility...what happened to it?

Although I do have to commend your retort, heart. One does not have to agree with you personally to agree with what you are saying.

[chi_girl_88]

When it comes to the mind-set of the terrorists, you have to bear in mind that martyrdom is their goal, torture won't yield anything worthwhile (the weak ones they'd expect to cave,won't have information worth knowing).

I have to say, that is by far THE MOST common-sense argument I've ever heard against the use of torture against terrorists. My gosh, the "common sense" is just overflowing today at CGCS.

I was watching Capital Gang today, and Kate O'Beirne (the righty sourpuss) brushed off the left's arguments (I think she actually did wave her hand for the "brushoff") by saying that torture is a necessary evil you have to use to get information from those kinds of people.

But your argument just blows that out of the water - if someone is prepared to die for their cause, how can we expect torture to break them?

[heart]

Nor, should "I" personally be singled out for answering the same way you or Sapphire did.

[heart]

And Thom, you do know that many Native American tribes practiced torture don't you? This is another myth that we cling to these days, that the Native Americans NEVER did anything bad, and they were so peaceful. They most certainly were NOT peaceful, either to the White man or to each other.

The situation of enslaved Indians varied among the tribes. In many cases, enslaved captives were adopted into the tribes to replace warriors killed during a raid. Enslaved warriors sometimes endured mutilation or torture that could end in death as part of a grief ritual for relatives slain in battle. Some Indians cut off one foot of their captives to keep them from running away

Sometimes this grief related torture lasted for days, and body parts were cut off one by one.

I don't care about answering an honest question, but I really resent having historical revisionism inserted into the debate.