3DHS on Torture

[Mr_Perceptive]

Been doing that, you ain't listening. Oh well.

My patience has ended...

I now know why Gary gave up.

Carry on, laddies.

[Xavier_Onassis]

However, I did my duty to protect EVERYONE, including you, for what it is worth.

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It is worthless. We didn't ask to to "defend" us, we don't need your "ptotection" we need your "duty" about as much as we need your doody.

Torture could easily be very loud music, constant honking of Nathan Airchime train horns, babybies screaming, chipmonks in their death throes, cats being impaled. It could also be constant slapping around, painful positions, sleep deprivation, whatever.

Torture will generally extract whatever answers the torturer expects. People will admit anything just to make it stop. I killed JFK, I flew flight 57 into Pennsylvania, I ate babies with a garnish of faba beans, whatever, just make it stop.

That is why it is worthless. It also guarantees that if our people are captured by their people, they will be tortured as bad or worse. Long ago, ex-CIA agent Phillip Agee wrote of how a creep named Dan Mitrione taught torture techniques to the Uruguayan Secret police in their battles with the Tupamaros. The Tupas were eventually wiped out, but they got Mitrione first, and very good riddance to exceptionally foul rubbish. Even if he was supposedly a good buddy for Frank Sinatra.

So if you want to do your "duty", go work for the government of Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan or Mynanmar. We don;t need your ugly ass here.

[Lanya]

sigh...sometimes, I wonder why I bother with you liberal types. So much effort to educate you with so little results. And, increasingly, at my age, I find I have even less patience...

However, I did my duty to protect EVERYONE, including you, for what it is worth.

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You know, "Mr. Perceptive,"  we had a member who is the wife of a Marine.   I admire her very much. 
We disagreed on this war.   (The Iraq war. Not the Afghanistan war.)
But when Abu Ghraib photos surfaced, she was, if I remember right, horrified.  She heard that one of the perpetrators of the torture there had children, and she was disgusted that he or she  had "spawned."  She took the UCMJ seriously.  She took honor and duty to country seriously.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"Torture will generally extract whatever answers the torturer expects. People will admit anything just to make it stop.
I killed JFK, I flew flight 57 into Pennsylvania, I ate babies with a garnish of faba beans, whatever, just make it stop"

not really
the person being tortured is warned
if the prisoner being tortured fabricates
then that could mean even worse consequences
you seem to be assuming it's a one time deal
lie and the "say anything to make it stop" works
it's not nearly that easy

does it always work?
obviously not
can it work?
absolutely

[Xavier_Onassis]

If the torturee is clever, he will be able to fabricate something that his torturers will accept. He knows that they don't know something, already, or they would not be wasting their time on him.

Torture is inhuman. It is also ineffective.

You should endorse it only if you want to be known as being from an inhuman country, and are willing to accept that your soldiers, spies or whatever are also to be treated inhumanely.

Nearly all the time, the situation in which we must torture a "bad guy" to save someone's life is bogus. We do not normally know with any certainty that the prospective torturee actually knows enough to save anyone from anything.

It's rather like the death penalty as practiced in the US as a deterrent to crime.
Knowing that after you commit the crime they will catch you and hold you for 40 years of appeals and finally give you a lethal injection at the age of retirement is hardly a deterrent to anyone.

It is better not to do it. It does not stop crime.

Torture does not prevent terrorism. Israel has been torturing Palestinians for decades. If it were effective, there would be no terrorism in Israel.

Did the Gestapo torturing the Resistence result in a victory for the Reich?  Use your head.

[Plane]

Gosh, what a bunch of panty-waists and do-gooders! Grow up, folks!

If natonal security is at stake, you do what is necessary to extract the information. This is defined by the CA and his designees. If you personally do not wantto participate in the process ,then back off.

I have done this a few times in order to extract valuable information. I remember in 'Nam, I extracted information on where the Cong were waiting in ambush for our troops. Without this information, probably 20 guys would have been slaughtered. Do I regret this? Hell no, I would willingly do it again!

When you get all high and mighty, just remember that sometimes people lives are at stake!

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on this one.

I wouldn't , If I were leading a patroll in combat and had reson to think that a prisoner I had just captured knew where the mines were buried I might want to encourage him to tell me about it. I can't imagine not trying.

Not long ago an American officer in this ituation used trickery rather than pain to get such information and he was fired.

Further back in time ,General Sherman when faced with Georgian ingenuity (we invented land mines) marched captured Georgians on the road ahead of his troop to discover the mines .


Have we improved since General Sherman ,or just lost sight of reality?

[Christians4LessGvt]

xavier i see your points
but i do not agree
i think in rare instances it is an option

[sirs]

Tee appears to want to debate "torture", and even though it's been discussed adnauseum, I started a thread for those that may wish to chime in

Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?  Being made to wear panties on one's head is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  If we can't even agree to the above, I really see no reason to continue.  Can we all agree to that?

Sleep deprivation can most certainly be defined as torture.  The Romans did not play semantics with sleep deprivation, they called it tormentum vigilae or "waking torture." It is a tactic that the Imperial Japanese and KGB used thoroughly. The British used it on IRA prisoners as well. South Africa was infamous for their use of sleep deprivation on ANC prisoners during apartheid.

You're problem here Js, is that ANYTHING prolonged over an extended period of time, that is even remotely unpleasant, can be construed as "torture",  Being locked ina room listneing to rap would be torture.  My attempt here was to try and provide a foundation of what we can agree is and isn't torture.  Meaning the ACT itself, not simply a repetition of an act.  I thought that was explained in my 1st response to Prince, where we went from simple head slapping --> prolonged slappping and literally being beaten up.  The act isn't torture, it's the repetion that could cause physical harm to the person.  But since no one wants to really come to a concensus on even the trite stuff, such as head slapping, humiliation, and loud music, again, there's no reason to even attempt to discuss ACTUAL ACTS of supposed torture.

[Michael Tee]

I believe that torture totally dehumanizes the torturer, who is no longer a human being, and the victim, who is also no longer human since he sacrifices whatever ideals he believed in simply to avoid the pain.  He's been reduced to animal level, but so was the person who could do such things to him.

My personal opinion is very simple:  anyone who tortures, orders torture or tolerates torture that he could prevent,  is deserving of the death penalty. 

Any commander who allowed torture to take place under his watch, whether he knew of it or not, is deserving of the death penalty.  Why?  Because it's all too easy for a commander to say "How could I know?"  He has the manpower and the authority to  know if he wants to know.  He has the disciplinary power to make life hell for any recruit who even thinks of torture.  He has the duty to take all steps necessary to know what's going on in his bailiwick and if he really doesn't know, he's a useless fuck-up who doesn't deserve to be in command in the first place.  Just as his service puts him at risk of his life in battle, so he should accept the risk of being punished for torture in his ranks as just one more of the risks of his post.  If he doesn't like the risk, let him take up schoolteaching or baking as his chosen work.  Command responsibility is command responsibility.  In the Red Army, commanders could be shot for fucking up, for losing battles, for wasting resources.  Let torture be one more thing for which they can be shot.  It would ensure that torture would be the rarest of occurrences in any such army.

[sirs]

My personal opinion is very simple:  anyone who tortures, orders torture or tolerates torture that he could prevent,  is deserving of the death penalty. 

The problem of course there is the subjectivity of the said complainer designating what is and isn't torture.  Someone who is pulling out the tongues and dislocating body pars indeed is deserving of death.  Someone that throws in an occasional head slap or heaven forbid makes them wear women's underwear on their head, is hardly deserving more than a scowl

[Christians4LessGvt]

"My personal opinion is very simple: anyone who tortures, orders torture or tolerates torture that he could prevent, is deserving of the death penalty"


Human Rights Watch: 1999
This report shows that Cuba's treatment of political prisoners in some cases rises to the level of torture, violating Cuba's obligations under the Convention against Torture and under the Universal Declaration.7 The convention bars torture and "acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" and the Universal Declaration states that "no one shall be subjected to torture." 8 Cuba's imposition of prolonged periods of incommunicado pretrial and post-conviction detention, beatings, and prosecutions of previously-tried political prisoners?where those practices result in severe physical or psychological pain orsuffering?constitute torture under the convention.9 Cuba also has failed to comply with its obligations under the convention to "take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction" and to "ensure that all acts of torture are offenses under its criminal law."10

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-02.htm





Amnesty International -Report on Cuba - January-December 1997
Hundreds of political prisoners detained in previous years and convicted after unfair trials remained imprisoned. Many were prisoners of conscience. Scores of dissidents suffered short-term detention and harassment and several were forced into exile. There were frequent reports of ill-treatment, in some cases amounting to torture, resulting in at least one death. Prison conditions sometimes constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar98/amr25.htm

[Amianthus]

Coming to this thread soon: an explanation of how these actions to "support the revolution" are ok.

[yellow_crane]

After reading many good posts here, I clarify my position;  I am not FOR torture, and think that military torturing SHOULD be permitted.

Obviously, it is inhumane.

I do not think torture is going to stop, even though it is on the front page. 

My point is the duration.  Dies anybody know how long torture has been in mankind's history.

My guess, from the jump.

Right through to today.

My perspective is one of cynicism--as the poet said:--"Oh, I do not think that they will sing to me."

It doesn't make it right, just makes it predicable.



Some suggest that those who torture in war are worthy of the death sentence, and in sentiment I agree, but I think many would be surprised at how many actually that would be, out of any war.   Especially during political periods where inches are gaine by parsing the exact meaning of the term.

Given time, any war will demonstrate just how evil evil can be, and still there is no evidence of any extrahuman daemons manning the cannons.   

(Well, not that Ronny and Hachet beachchair war that failed to rage at any time during its hours long duration, or the military might of America massing down on a Carribean medical school.  Nor even Noriega taken down by that sinister new superweapon, din of Rock.)

Truth is, war makes animals of us.  There is a thin bold line that we think we need to draw inorder to save ourselves--draw to separte those who passed a trace litmus for torture and those who fell just short.  It is like pretending that those pathetic husbands showing up at the have-a-seat kitchen because they have been lured by a purring sixteen-year-old are pedophiles--they are by a highly useful fascist legal definition, but certainly not by a sound psychological diagnosis.   In just the same way, those who do commit heinous crimes are people who found themselves in an indescribable horror called war, and stepped one step beyond their  brothers to initiate a portal for their commonly-shared, insanely induced rage.

That is to say, who can say Who?

I would, in a systemic, designed structure of torture, kill the top of the pyramid, but common sense regarding the high number would counsel against making them all pay for the irreparable damage done to their hearts and minds.  After all, we allowed Germans to live and mend themselves.  How many Germans lives should be damanded for six million lives wasted?   

I am against this war, and was from the beginning.

It is the war that is the real evil, and not the people it twists.

[BT]

good post crane

[Plane]

After reading many good posts here, I clarify my position;  I am not FOR torture, and think that military torturing SHOULD be permitted.

...............................................................................

I would, in a systemic, designed structure of torture, kill the top of the pyramid, but common sense regarding the high number would counsel against making them all pay for the irreparable damage done to their hearts and minds.  After all, we allowed Germans to live and mend themselves.  How many Germans lives should be damanded for six million lives wasted?   

Would you be for guidelines that would be given to those responsible for keeping prisoners and interrogateing anyone?

Perhaps exact limits for each approved procedure.