Who said anything about killing him? I merely maintain that modern prison conditions with their color TVs and regular meals are a luxury compared to what this man has been thru. We just finished chasing this man from Afghanistan to Pakistan, hes been looking over his shoulder every day and now that we caught him we punish him with peace and tranquility?
** Revtim **
Dont try to bait me. If a serial murderer buried his last victim alive with only 3 days of oxygen and he wont reveal the location, I’d stick the cowprod up his ass with no regrets or second thoughts.
I don’t think the CIA is asking us for permission. And, God help me, I’m not sure I would try to stop it were I in a position to do so.
I mean, rule #1 of any ruler, be he a despot or a democratically elected President, is protecting your land and people from attack, isn’t it? Mohammend, et al, murdered a few thousand of our fellow citizens and caused a few billions dollars worth of damage to our property. He very well could have planned another attack or two while he was running around Pakistan. So wouldn’t the CIA be FAILING us if they didn’t use any means necessary to determine whether another attack is imminent?
I mean, we’re playing with a completely different set of rules than our enemies. Playing civilized is great if you both agree on the ground rules. It isn’t so great when one party feels that releasing the small pox virus onto a helpless civilian population is morally justified.
Assuming for the sake of argument that torture can be an effective means of gaining truthful information, then of course there are situations in which it would be justified. For example, if the CIA learned with 100% certainty that al-Qaeda plans to detonate a nuclear device in Times Square on Friday morning, then torture of KSM would, IMHO, absolutely be justified to stop that from happening.
Is it justified now? No. (By the way, what exactly do we mean by “torture”? Does that include sleep deprivation, psychological “warfare”, etc.?).
I can’t work up any sympathy for this asshole whatsoever. He’s admitted to planning 9/11, he was behind the '93 bombing and the U.S.S. Cole attack and supposedly is the son-of-a-bitch who cut off Daniel Pearl’s head. He has no soul. Given the opportunity, I believe he would happily slaughter Americans (and other Westerners) in the streets. He is as evil as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ceaucescu, Amin, Mugabe, Hussein, et al. Humanity will be well-served when this man no longer walks the earth.
My suggestion is that once the CIA is through with him, he gets dropped off at a firehouse in lower Manhattan.
I’m sorry if you see this as “baiting”, I’m just curious what conditions people find torture acceptable. In other words, I’m asking your humble opinion (hence the name of the forum). Would it be accurate to say that it’s OK with you as long as lives are saved?
Of course they’re going to torture him; I loved the NY Times equivalent of “sequential thread titles.” It went more or less like this, today:
PAGE A17: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed detained in undisclosed country, US officers deny torture plans.
PAGE A18: Detainee in Camp X-Ray victim of what is officially labeled a “homicide” after being beaten, kicked, shackled and sleep-deprived. No further info forthcoming.
I’m probably going to get my butt kicked for this, much like Bill Mahr did, but I’ve always wondered about why we label the terrorists “cowards.” Seems like to me that it would take a bit of personal bravery to volunteer for a suicide mission, for two reasons: One, you might be caught before you can put your plan into motion, and imprisoned and/or tortured for further information, and secondly, you’ll potentially have a painful death. The act was reprehensible, there’s no doubt about it, but cowardly? Do we say that it was because “coward” is such a insulting word to use?
I, too, object to the use of torture, on moral grounds. We have always condemned nations which use such tactics, and to sink to their level, no matter what the provocation, speaks badly of us. I also see it as pitifully lame to let others do the “dirty” work for us to preserve the illusion of righteousness. (If I hire a hitman, it makes me no less guilty in someone’s murder.) It makes us into the “monsters” he thinks we are. To treat him humanely would dissapoint and anger him, and remove (in his mind) the rewards of suffering for Allah.
I have my doubts that he has much useful information anyway. Being on the run is not conducive to intensive planning.
X~Slayer(ALE) said “Let his spirit be broken so he kills no more.” Well, even without a broken spirit, there’s little danger he’ll ever be able to kill anyone. We’ve got him. He’ll be locked way for the rest of his life, his mail (if allowed) carefully censored, his phone calls closely monitored, etc. He is now as useless to Al-Qaeda as if he were dead.
I bet I could get some info out of them without harming them. Put lots of LSD in their food, then about 45 minutes later tell them that you are going to inject lye or something into their veins, and give them a shot of saline solution. When they start thinking they are burning up from the inside, offer them an antidote if they talk.
BTW, I believe they are right when they say torture is not always the best way to get information out of them. Sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, chemical interrogation, and psychological tricks would probably be better. Torturing loved ones might work better, too, especially if you make it clear that if the information they give isn’t useful, they get to watch someone apply a cheese grater to their children or parents for a few hours.
Without meaning to diminish Mahr’s point, I suppose suicide attacks are “cowardly” in that the perpetrator knows he won’t be around to face the consequences of his actions.
[caveman lawyer] Torture bad precedent. Torture bad behavior. Torture violate basic principles of international law and human decency. Torture backfire and produce worthless information. Torture make Beagle angry.
Do you realize that those tactics would get anyone, including you, to confess to just about anything???
The only way to justify the torture is to have enough evidence to have absolute certainty that he IS the guy. Of course, if you have that much evidence, why would you need to torture him?
IMO, the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario is a load of crap to be used by people who enjoy torturing people.
They had an extremely interesting interview on BBC World with an expert in interrogation/“legal” torture methods.
The gist of it was that you don’t want to break the subject down too much, or what he says will be useless. You need to break him down a bit, so he starts talking, and sleep deprivation is one of the best methods for this, according to the expert.
So real, gruesome torture just isn’t appropriate for practical reasons, because you put your subject beyond usefulness if he really cracks up.
Lissa, you raise an interesting point regarding bravery of the terrorists. I still label them as cowardly because what they did was a sucker punch, if you’re going to fight someone, you don’t start the fight when their back is turned. Also, if you have no fear of death and believe that you will enter paradise by dying in battle, then facing death doesn’t require a lot of courage.
If you recall the Vietnam War, we were horrified by the torture used by the North on our POWs. Why would we want to lower ourselves to their level?
I’d be interested to read how Christians in favor of torture reconcile this desire with their faith. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and that “whatsoever you do the least of my people, so you do unto me.” Khalid certainly qualifies as the least of the people. Or to put it another way, is causing physical pain to Khalid important enough to you that you are willing to go to hell to get it?
And Jesus was never recorded as saying that if we cause physical pain to our enemies we’ll go to hell. The fire and brimstone is largely found in the OT.
Several people in this thread said something about killing him. I don’t think punishment is a useful option here: I don’t think that vengeance is a valid goal of a judicial system. I don’t think we need to torture him to prevent him from inflcting further harm on the world, and I don’t think that other would-be terrorists are likely to be deterred by torturing or executing this fellow.
OTOH, keeping him off the streets is a laudable goal. I’m all in favor of locking him away where he can do no harm. This may mean keeping him in solitary confinement for the rest of his life; I’m not an expert on such matters, but if there’s a legitimate danger that he might continue to direct terrorist operations from within prison, then solitary confinement sounds very reasonable to me.
And if we can show ourselves to be decent, civilized folk, and if that makes it that much harder for terrorists to recruit people to murder us, well ain’t that just icing on the cake?
That’s a fucking morally reprehensible statement. If we’re so evil as to torture innocent children, then we know the answer to “where are the other terrorists?”
The techniques of torture is more advanced than the old thumbscrews and the rack. Physical torture in and of itself is crude and unrefined. The US military, in knowing how to counteract severe interrogations thru torture know how to inflict them. Psychological torture is much more effective in extracting information altho it will include physical torture as well.
To verify a fact, one must know what that fact is first. If that fact is obtained thru some form of torture, I would not object to it in this case, for a multitude of reasons.
a) To obtain information about Al Qaeda and its operatives and prevent any more terrorist plots
b) To personally humiliate this man in front of his followers in such a way that he will not be percieved as a hero, martyr or leader and thus prevent any inspiration of terror on his behalf.
c) To mentally detach him from any inclination of rejoining Al Qaeda or similar organization and forcibly rehabilitate him from acting as a terrorist.
d) and lastly to hold him disconnected from any links, communication or news about the outside world. Solitary confinement is a form of torture. I see no reason to update this person with any information, now that we have him. The outside world does not have the right to know about his condition other than he is alive and secure. I believe Spandau is empty now.