so what exactly are you denying? are you denying that acts of terrorism happen? are you denying that they are carried out and planned by groups of people? are you denying that it is possible to capture the terrorists involved in planning and implementation? are you denying that torturing them for information that they do actual posses (elements of the plan) will work?
Cut the garbled garbled wire!!!
I’m not actually saying that a family memember is going to catch a would be terrorist before the act of terrorism. I am saying it is all fine and good to be moral in the hypothetical abstract but if it were YOUR loved ones who needed protecting you would not be so ethical. It is hypocritical, therefor, to maintain “morality” when it is a bunch of strangers who will be killed or maimed. Not when you would do whatever was necessary to protect your own.
If it were MY … etc., then I am the last person who should be asked to decide.
i doubt the families of the many victims of actual terrorist attacks over the past 15 years would find your sense of humor very appealing.
Right. But supposed we did ask you what to do. What would you say?
And, as I explained, you’d be wrong. Other methods of interrogation are more likely to work, so I’d rather put my hope in those methods than torture someone. Getting my family back is more important than being a Kiefer Sutherland wannabe.
Again, you’re living in a fantasy world where torture is more likely to work than other interrogation methods.
It’s not hypocritical at all.
We all recognize that our emotions trump our reasons, which is exactly why society establishes safeguards and limitations that (theoretically) prevent high emotions from influencing decisions and policies. There’s nothing “more honest” or “more moral” or even “what we really think deep down” about a stupid, emotionally fuelled decision overriding rational thought that would make the support of not_torture hypocritical. Shit, judeo-christian morality is entirely *about *trying to ignore or override one’s emotions and immediate impulses and self-negation. It never works but, you know, they try.
You also have to demonstrate that torture (or retribution, as the case may be) is “what is necessary” to protect one’s own. Necessary meaning “that which cannot be done without”. We can do efficient intelligence gathering without torture. We can do efficient counter-terrorism without torture. We can do hostile occupation without torture.* It even works better that way*.
And how, exactly, do you know that torture doesn’t work? I’m pretty sure if you broke my ribs or water boarded me I’d tell you who my co conspirators are. Do you have any actual data on people who were tortured, who had the information, and who held out and didn’t talk? Or, are you just living in a delusional fantasy land?
Yes but there is a difference between not allowing a judge to preside over the murder case of his own daughter and admitting that in order to save your daughter you would let a rouge cop break the ribs of an uncooperative kidnapper. You can see the difference, can’t you?
A rouge cop ? They let actual *commies *into the police now ?! The world’s going down the tubes, I tell ya.
Joke aside, no, I don’t really see the difference. Of course I’d want the kidnapper of my putative daughter to be latched on the rack. I also recognize I’d be a complete, useless idiot in that circumstance, and an evil person to boot. Which is why cops investigating my daughter’s kidnapping would, as a general rule, I think, disregard my input re:their investigative process.
Here’s a few scripts:
- Daughter missing. A hero personally comes out from behind the keyboard and nobly puts idealistic morality to one side and relentlessly tortures the suspect he has identified.
Under torture the suspect admits everything. But he was merely, desperately trying to appease and end the torture. He had no involvement in any crime. The daughter turns up later unharmed - her temporary absence a misunderstanding - but now her parent will be taken from her, jailed for the brutal torture, the brutal crime they committed.
- Daughter missing. A hero personally comes out from behind the keyboard and puts inconvenient morality to one side and relentlessly tortures the suspect he has identified.
After the delays as the hero increases his atrocities on his victim’s (sorry, the suspect’s) body, the suspect tells all he knows. Hey, he really, truly was involved but he doesn’t actually know where the daughter is right now, she’s been moved. She dies. Hero gets jailed for the useless torture.
Later an investigation reveals that had the hero contacted the authorities, with their additional resources they would have been able to save the daughter’s life in time.
- Daughter missing. A hero personally comes out from behind the keyboard and ignoring weak, moralistic posturing does what is necessary and goes after the suspect he has identified. Although a mighty keyboard warrior, when faced with a real world threat he is overpowered and the last thing the daughter will see is her heroic parent screaming as they are dismantled by professionals in front of her. The hero, in turn, through clouded vision, obscured by his tears, watches as she is raped repeatedly until she too is dead.
These are the “classy” Hollywood scripts. The later, Direct to Disc productions are slightly less classy and show a world permanently without morality where keyboard warriors no longer need to have a daughter or any actual personal loss or involvement.
Instead, pitchforks in hand they pro-actively go after “Clear and Present Dangers” such as people with odd skin colours, unusual ways of dressing or exotic religions. They manage to stop crime before it has taken place!
The world becomes a safer place? I think not.
TCMF-2L
Ok, lets be clear, if it took violence in order to return your kidnapped daughter to you, would you approve of it? I just want to confirm that you admit that you would.
That’s all true, of course, but it doesn’t invalidate the example. The police had reason to believe that the hostage was still alive and they resorted to the extreme measures they did only because standard interrogation techniques had failed. In this specific instance, the threat of torture proved to be more useful in gaining the suspect’s compliance than merely questioning him.
I’m not saying that torture is ethical, nor am I saying it’s an acceptable alternative to interrogation. I’m not even saying that it should be permitted whenever interrogation fails. I’m merely saying that if the mere threat of torture has been proven to be successful in the past (and, by successful, I mean it has elicited information that conventional interrogation simply couldn’t) then it seems unreasonable to argue, as some have, that actual torture can’t yield potentially lifesaving information.
Yes but what would YOU do if they actually caught one of the criminals who had you daughter and there we no rules applied. You’d do whatever was necessary to get her back, right?
Or are you simply saying there is NEVER a situation where a criminal has information that we can wrest from them by employing violence?
Yes, but how would your torturers know you’re telling them that ? The investigative problem with torture is not hard cases resisting it, it’s the torture process itself.
Say they crack your ribs and you tell them a name. Well, maybe you’re folding like a pussy, or maybe you’re a hard case. They have no way to know that if their investigative efforts are limited to cracking your ribs, do they ? So they keep on cracking just to be on the safe side. What now ? Tell the same name ? Demonstrably, that doesn’t stop the hurting. Tell another, then ? Maybe they stop, maybe they don’t. Maybe they crack you for lying to them before. Maybe they think you’re lying *now *and punish you for it. Maybe they think it’s still all a smokescreen for your real accomplice which you have yet to name. Etc…
Ultimately, torture only stops when the torturer has obtained the answer *he *thinks is correct. Which may or may not have anything to do with reality. Which goes back to the Napoleon quote : torture only achieves the torturee owning up to what they think the torturer wants to hear.
I didn’t say it didn’t work. I said it’s not more effective than other methods of interrogation. Police officers all over this country get confessions every day without resorting to torture. There is also this article (warning .pdf) which includes:
“The consensus of these military personnel who interrogated hundred of detainees is that traditional means of interrogation are most effective.”
and
“The Intelligence Science Board, after an extensive review of the scientific literature on interrogation, concluded in a 374 page report that there is little evidence that coercive interrogation techniques are effective and also that torture might be counterproductive to obtaining truthful statements.”
You have yet to demonstrate a situation where that would be the case. And again, of course the emotional wreck that I’d be in that situation would approve of it. Because I’m human. In other words, an immoral asshole. We strive for something better, though we stumble on that lofty path.
And if the name he gave up at first was the actual name of an actual terrorist?
so, in other words, if it was your daughter who was kidnapped, you’d be an immoral asshole, but if it was some strangers daughter in an abstract, unrelated to you case, you’d do what was “moral”.