# Defence of torture and torturers, really? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 12, 2014, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016 "2014-12-12T10:52:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/61 "2014-12-12T20:07:10Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > The partisan flavor of the debate is annoying, given how complicit the Dems are in advancing the security state’s goals on all levels. They’re more effective than the Republicans because so many so libs don’t criticize them. Would anyone be really surprised if it turns out Obama didn’t stop the program at all like he pinkie swore, just hid it better than the Bush administration? Just need the next Manning or Snowden to steal the torture files. On the one hand, I agree with you: there are a lot of Dems who have their hands dirty on this, and if I had my way, a lot of them would be in prison. (Bill Clinton, for starters, is IMO a war criminal, [for this attack among others](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_strikes_on_Iraq_%281993%29); it is only the incredibly pro-military jingoistic bias of our government that protects him from charges for killing civilians). On the other hand, I don’t think both sides are precisely equal. There’s a clear partisan breakdown in the Senate in how our gummint is responding to claims of torture. I wish there weren’t; how much better it would be if condemnation of torture were universal, and genuine. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/62 "2014-12-12T20:12:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I agree. Not to excuse anything, but the US isn’t the shining beacon of freedom we often like to think we are, and we never were, either. Listen to the stories soldiers and marines tell of what they did in WWII (which was the GOOD war) about shooting “Japs” instead of taking them prisoner. That is not a good example. Both sides must respect the sanctity of the surrender in order for it to work - this is why it is just as much a war crime to pretend to surrender to gain a tactical advantage as it is to reject unconditional surrender - because doing so destroys the ability of others to surrender. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/63 "2014-12-12T20:53:43Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I enjoy some good healthy cynicism as much as the next guy, but I don’t think you’re making sense at all. So all the torturing that was done, including waterboarding KSM 125 times, was NOT to extract information but purely to intimidate some unspecified subset of the Muslim world? And it was kinda sorta kept secret but kinda not? Or something? First, “kinda sorta kept secret” in what way? I knew about “enhanced interrogation techniques” in 2003; there were public discussions in the media. They just slapped clean sounding labels on it to make it a bit easier for the fearful public to support it, but it was clearly torture outside of the American post 9/11 fear-bubble. Second, I’m not claiming no one who carried out torture believed they were doing it to gain information. I’m claiming that \*state-sponsored \*torture’s historical use has been to subjugate and repress, and that this latest manifestation is no different. > [@](#): > > …but to claim that information gathering wasn’t relevant and all and it was purely motivated by some kind of sadism and racial intimidation just doesn’t seem plausible. Yes, that’s not plausible. It’s also not what I’m claiming. Look, if you don’t think there was an intended message behind the -and let me emphasize this phrase, because it’s both true and important- **very public endorsement** by the US Executive Branch of coercive techniques commonly recognized throughout the modern world as torture, then I’d like to know what you think the motivation was for the public endorsement. Remember, Cheney \*et al \*didn’t just defend the practices when some intrepid reporters uncovered them. The fact of their usage was never hidden in the first place; only the extent and degree to which they were being used. My thesis is also borne out, I believe, by the abuses of Latin American despotic regimes whose enforcers had been trained by our government. There’s a stark consistency to the employment by those regimes of torture as a weapon against dissidents and undesirables. You can scoff all you like, but there’s about the same relationship between our sponsorship of torture and our need for intelligence about al Qaeda as there was between our invasion of Iraq and the search for WMD’s. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/64 "2014-12-12T21:04:06Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > My thesis is also borne out, I believe, by the abuses of Latin American despotic regimes whose enforcers had been trained by our government. There’s a stark consistency to the employment by those regimes of torture as a weapon against dissidents and undesirables. I dunno… I think there’s a big difference between a situation in which a regime is torturing its own people, and letting everyone know they’re torturing their own people, in order to quash dissent, and what the US was doing. If we had invaded Iraq, conquered Iraq, and then intended to live in Iraq and occupy it forever and grow rich off its oil reserves, or something like that, and we were a country entirely without moral scruples, then it might make sense to make sure every one of our newly conquered subjects realized “hey, if you get arrested by the new US police, you won’t just be thrown in jail, you will be tortured” or something like that. But that’s hardly the situation. ---
**Author:** ![DETXL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/detxl/32/19366_2.png) [@DETXL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DETXL)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/65 "2014-12-12T21:17:14Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Torture is what governments do to repress a belief or practice they’ve deemed to be a threat to the state. The targets of torture are not the individual victims, but the class or subset of people they represent. Even when torture has been used to extract confessions, these are also targeted at the larger group. Torture and the products of torture send a message of mastery from the state to the target group: _you are subject to our will and any time we wish we can own your body and your mind_ Stipulating that it may be some comfort for the pro-torture camp to pretend they sincerely believe in ticking time bombs, haven’t you basically nailed why any American _does_ support torture? At least, the defenses I’ve seen raised invariably circle back to emotional statements about people jumping from burning skyscrapers that seem exactly targeted to produce just that kind of self-assured repression _of an ideal_, and just that kind of sadistic repression of people who follow it\* _Probably_\* \*\*Close enough, they deserved it anyway ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/66 "2014-12-12T21:43:50Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If we had invaded Iraq, conquered Iraq, and then intended to live in Iraq and occupy it forever… Do I have to point out this is very plausibly what _some elements_ of out government desired? In fact, isn’t this exactly the kind of imperial thinking characterized by the PNAC, of which [a few important members](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Associations_with_Bush_administration)of the US government were contributors and signatories? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/67 "2014-12-12T21:43:55Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Thanks, **Claverhouse**. Thanks back. However, I’d hate to give the impression this is just an American problem. Since WWII, there’s not just been the communist states etc., China, the French in Algeria, the Latin states and much of Africa, and really most places, but also my own fair land. Before that event the British rarely tortured, even in the Empire ( except for caning etc. Which I think is still carried on in places like Singapore ) ; after, with increasing democratic practises, they did, even in the Empire. Last year I bought a secondhand paperback, **[Cruel Britannia](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cruel-Britannia-Secret-History-Torture/dp/1846273331)** by Ian Cobain, which mentioned the only good thing I have heard about Lady Thatcher: she strictly forbade any evidence obtained by torture in the Falklands to be admissible. From a review by Clive Stafford Smith, the Human Rights lawyer, it started early: _In the British torture prison at Bad Nenndorf, when a prisoner complained that he was going to starve, Captain Smith replied with sang froid: “Yes, it looks like you are.” More than 60 years later, Cobain tracked down one German victim, a tough retired businessman, who began trembling with fear when he learned the subject of the proposed interview._ _What did this systematic abuse of Germans achieve? These “interrogations … proved, beyond doubt, that Hitler was dead.”_ ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/68 "2014-12-12T21:48:22Z")
\*\*Alex Osaki \*\*- but we love our pretexts. For some, they provide an invaluable shield against self examination. We’re advanced primates after all, it’s only natural we’d find a way to _have_ our primate behavior and at the same time rise above it (rhetorically any way). ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/69 "2014-12-12T21:54:14Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Do I have to point out this is very plausibly what _some elements_ of out government desired? In fact, isn’t this exactly the kind of imperial thinking characterized by the PNAC, of which [a few important members](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Associations_with_Bush_administration)of the US government were contributors and signatories? Well, looking at what happened with Abu Ghraib, it’s pretty clear that anyone who was deliberately encouraging torture with the hopes that it would cow and subdue the populace for purposes of eternal occupation was an idiot. Honestly, I think the correct explanation is the simple and obvious one: people genuinely wanted information (reasonable), they genuinely thought torture would get them that information (at best debatable), they were at some level racist, and they weren’t stopped by either moral or practical considerations (moronic and unforgivable). ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/70 "2014-12-12T23:11:43Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > That’s an odd thing to write. If you read the report it doesn’t seem ambiguous at all that they’re talking about the same guy. If there is ambiguity because of the redactions, it would be about whether the training was for who the CIA was also involved with. So there’s some inferences to be made but I don’t think it’s about the identity of the guy. [shrug] I don’t know; I didn’t write the article. Perhaps the author could shed light on why they wrote that. I was just pointing it out, since it seems to contradict what you said the article said. [/shrug] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/71 "2014-12-13T00:04:03Z")
It does pose something of a head-scratcher. The CIA version appears to be “We so completely shed our skin on ugly black-ops stuff, we didn’t know how to do this stuff any more. Not that we ever did, but we don’t anymore. We so totally forgot we had to hire some guys to come and tell us how!” (…“OK, now carefully open the alligator clip and secure it to the right testicle. Red wire right, blue wire left. Yes, question? Yes, be sure the power is off before you handle the clips. Also, once the clips are in place, do not cut the red wire, his nuts will explode. Ha ha, no, not really, just a little ‘black hood’ humor!”…) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/72 "2014-12-13T00:28:25Z")
> **[Supreme Court Justice Scalia: The Constitution doesn't prohibit torture](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/12/12/1351360/-Supreme-Court-Justice-Scalia-The-Constitution-doesn-t-prohibit-torture)** > > He's in charge of our laws, you know. And “Fat Tony” Scalia says…aw, shit, you already know what he said, even if you didn’t, you could fucking guess, couldn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/73 "2014-12-13T01:18:49Z")
Hey, he’s not wrong. He’s just an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/74 "2014-12-13T01:38:47Z")
What, specifically, is he wrong about? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/75 "2014-12-13T01:49:23Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > They are walking loud while carrying a very short stick. Their arguments really have nothing to do with whether or not torture can gain information and everything to do with reacting in fear over what they see. I get that, I really do. I get angry when I get scared. But the difference is that, once my anger calms down, I go “WTF? I was a colossal asshole and idiot.” I’m not seeing that. Either they don’t calm down, or, worse, when they do, they still don’t see the problem. It’s the difference between the guy who calls you an asshole when you accidentally wreck his car, and the guy who still calls you one 10 years later after you’ve done everything to make amends. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/76 "2014-12-13T01:52:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What, specifically, is he wrong about? He’s not, really. He has a wrongheaded perspective on the nature of the Constitution, IMNSHO. But whilst I disagree strongly with both his personal politics and his judicial and Constitutional philosophies, I can’t say he wrong. _He’s just not right._ . ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/77 "2014-12-13T01:57:06Z")
From the link: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’ Since the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture all expressly forbid torture in any form, and since those documents are treaties which the US signed and ratified in the Senate, … Article Six makes those treaties the Supreme Law of the Land.” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/78 "2014-12-13T01:57:24Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [shrug] > > I don’t know; I didn’t write the article. Perhaps the author could shed light on why they wrote that. I was just pointing it out, since it seems to contradict what you said the article said. > > [/shrug] Right. And I’m explaining why that comment doesn’t make a ton of sense. I was mostly citing the article because it includes the relevant language from the report. Interested readers can click through and decide for themselves whether the final sentence of the relevant paragraph might randomly be talking about a completely different person from the prior three sentences of that paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/79 "2014-12-13T02:01:34Z")
> [@CGav8r](#): > > From the link: > “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’ > Since the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture all expressly forbid torture in any form, and since those documents are treaties which the US signed and ratified in the Senate, … Article Six makes those treaties the Supreme Law of the Land.” Good point. But Scalia was talking about the Constitution, wasn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/80 "2014-12-13T02:14:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What, specifically, is he wrong about? I see at least two things in the link provided. “Listen, I think it’s very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible.’ You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it’s an easy question? You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?” Scalia said. Yes, it is indeed easy, because torturing them will not give you any information and will just waste your time you could be spending actually figuring out the problem. It’s been shown time and time again that torture doesn’t work. Scalia also said that while there are U.S. laws against torture, nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists. “I don’t know what article of the Constitution that would contravene,” he said. Scalia spent a college semester in Switzerland at the University of Fribourg. Okay, technically correct because it’s an Amendment. Specifically the Eighth. But it also means the punishment is coming before conviction, which violates Article 3 and the 14th Amendment. That’s what’s so repugnant about him. It’s there in the text which he worships. But he doesn’t care, because he thinks it’s reasonable to think torture might work in some situations. He specifically interprets the text so that it aligns with what he believes, something he says is the wrong way to do things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016.md?page=5)