I waterboard!

[ElvisL1ves]

@Der Trihs

torture is so very good at making enemies and eliminating allies.

But … but … I thought they hated us for our freedoms. They hate us even more for the *lack * of them now?

[Mr.Duality]

@Mad Max

Actually, I think that’s a really valid point that deserves some thinking about. We certainly were in more danger then of being completely obliterated by nuclear war. But would interrogation of suspects in custody, if effective, be likely to make us directly safer? I doubt it. The USSR wasn’t looking to make individual strikes at US cities, for many reasons. So I’d say we’re safer now if you’re asking whether we’ll be destroyed and/or conquered. But safer now, in terms of likelihood that a given individual US citizen will be killed by the enemy? I’d argue no. What do you think?

I think that in 2001 a U.S. citizen was more likely to be struck by lightning than to die in a terrorist attack. In other years the probability has been even closer to zero. Their best efforts can do no more than sting us.

I’d like to think we are better than them. You aren’t helping.

[Squink]

@Mr. Duality

I think that in 2001 a U.S. citizen was more likely to be struck by lightning than to die in a terrorist attack.

That’s too low. Lightning runs about 62 deaths per year.
In 2001, your chances of being killed by a terrorist ran somewhere between that of choking on a ham sandwich, or drowning.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Der Trihs

No, because they are not innocent. They use torturers to enforce their will. And by doing so, you endanger others, because torture is so very good at making enemies and eliminating allies.

Buh? Are we talking about the same “they” here? Some of the folks who died in the WTC attack were cleaning staff, some of them very recent immigrants to the country. Are you including them among those who are not innocent because they’re using torturers to enforce their will? What about the three 11-year-olds who were on one of the planes?

Your logic looks very similar to that of some very bad people. Hamas doesn’t mind bombing Israeli children because these children are covered, so they say, in the blood of Palestinians. Clinton didn’t mind bombing Baghdad and killing civilians because, he claimed, those Iraqi civilians were complicit in the crimes of the Iraqi regime.

This sort of thinking results in a lot of killin, Der Trihs. I didn’t realize you subscribed to it.

Daniel

[Mad_Max]

@Mr. Duality

I think that in 2001 a U.S. citizen was more likely to be struck by lightning than to die in a terrorist attack. In other years the probability has been even closer to zero. Their best efforts can do no more than sting us.

I’d like to think we are better than them. You aren’t helping.

Well, I’m certainly glad to know I won’t be personally insulted on this board.

I certainly hope you aren’t suggesting I’m worse than a group of deluded zealots who consistently murder women and children under the banner of a hypocritical sham death cult. Because any American who claims that about another American would be utterly contemptible and worthless. Hope that’s not you.

Would you like to offer any argument about why comparisons to death rate via natural phenomena have any relevance whatsoever? I suppose Pearl Harbor should have been ignored as well? Or serial killers, they probably kill fewer people than lightning too, right?

[yojimbo]

@Mad Max

Or serial killers, they probably kill fewer people than lightning too, right?

Do you think that suspected serial killers should be tortured? If not why bring it up? It seems you like trying to use scare tactics to reinforce your arguments and then when called on it to say you didn’t.

You answered this question

You would prefer that men be tortured to purchase a tiny increase in your own safety?

with

Again – a completely unwarranted assumption, as I have never said I would prefer that.

Does this board actually engage in constructive dialogue, or is it all just mudslinging without any attempt to address one another’s actual points?

But what was your actual point? What do you actually believe?

So I’m waiting now for you to “simulate” having your wife, two children, and every one you care about that lives in your city murdered by a nuke set off by Islamofascists. How do you feel? Tell us.

Questions about appropriate interrogation techniques in a 9/12 world are complicated, and anyone who oversimplifies them for the sake of puffing themselves up as morally superior (I’m not necessarily referring to you, but certainly to the majority of posters whose comments I read) is…well…exceedingly stupid and self-obsessed come to mind.

and

So your argument is that knowing definitively that we have an enemy with the means and desire to kill thousands of civilians in one fell swoop, on our mainland, should not have ANY impact at all on how we think about interrogation? None at all? That’s what “no more” means.

It sure looks like you are scared and worried about the risk of death to you, your family and other innocents. It also looks like you don’t think waterboarding isn’t torture and that you are happy for it to be used as a interrogation technique. You imply this strongly but when people actually say that’s what you believe you back away from it and start asking them questions.

I believe that waterboarding is torture. I believe that the US and every western power should not use torture as an official tool. I live in a country where the risk of terrorism was there all my life (until the last ~5-10 years) and have seen my government and the UK government do terrible things to fight it e.g. shot to kill policies that killed innocent people and interned people in jail without trial but what they never did was make torture an offical tool of the state by just changing their definition of what torture was.

What do you believe?

[Cervaise]

@Mr. Svinlesha

Of course its morally wrong to torture, but is it not a greater wrong to let innocent people die when, through the torture of a single person, you could have saved them?

Personally, I would rather die than live with the knowledge that torture was involved in keeping me safe.

I concede, with some sadness, that this is a minority view.

[John_Mace]

@Richard Parker

Yes, there is. The 8th is used to challenge inhumane prison conditions, for example. Presumably torture is an inhumane condition. The better argument is the citizen-based scope argument you’re making, but even that is not as strong as you think.

But “prison” is punishment for people convicted of some crime.

The best interpretation, in my opinion, is that the BOR applies to the entire jurisdiction of the US, which includes Gitmo.

I think that is a reasonable argument-- it’s a stretch to call Gitmo non-US territory, even though it isn’t in a hyper-technical sense. But what about some detention facility in Romania or Pakistan? Or, as I actually wrote in my post: on the battlefield (presumably outside US territory).

[Squink]

@Cervaise

Personally, I would rather die than live with the knowledge that torture was involved in keeping me safe.

I concede, with some sadness, that this is a minority view.

Actually, most Americans reject torture.
The pro-torture crowd just screams louder, so it seems like there’s more of them.

[yojimbo]

@Squink

Actually, most Americans reject torture.

That’s actually really refreshing to read. From reading here and watching some American news and reading some US blogs I was beginning to doubt the national spirit of US. As you say though, they just make more noise. Something we all should remember.

[Richard_Parker]

@John Mace

But “prison” is punishment for people convicted of some crime.
I think that is a reasonable argument-- it’s a stretch to call Gitmo non-US territory, even though it isn’t in a hyper-technical sense. But what about some detention facility in Romania or Pakistan? Or, as I actually wrote in my post: on the battlefield (presumably outside US territory).

But the practices being challenged in prison are being challenged precisely because they aren’t part of the sentencing. In any case, it has been used to fight the conditions of people being held before trial as well.

I agree that the BOR doesn’t apply to the battlefield. I don’t think anyone argues otherwise, really. But the subject of this thread is not about battlefield torture–whatever that means–it is about torture at US facilities (which includes at least some government facilities abroad).

[nameless]

@CarnalK

So let’s get it straight: some complete moron thought that drowning wasn’t a big deal, then he drowned himself and realized that it was more disconcerting than a complete retard would have figured it. What a fucking hero.

Hey, how many people in here can say they’ve been waterboarded? I mean sure, you can go look up accounts of waterboarding online, but I think most of us “know” Scylla a little better than these other third parties. We have a body of his opinions and writings to look at, and that makes the story slightly more personal. His initial ambivalence about the procedure is hardly unique, and his political views make this scenario all the more interesting.

I’m not surprised this was received well, and I essentially agree with the endeavor. Possibly, we’re using Scylla as proxy; we’d all like Dick Cheney to get up on the waterboard and then tell us it’s enhanced interrogation, but we can’t have that. The Straight Dope also has a grand history of self-experimentation (Wine Club! Pan-Fried Semen!), and so it fits in well with that tradition. I approve of people performing experiments as a general rule, and if it affects people’s perceptions of a contentious issue, so much the better.

I can’t see what you find so objectionable about the whole thing. Maybe you should start a pit thread?

And I love Jackass. I could probably write a doctoral thesis on it.

[The_Hamster_King]

@Mad Max

Sometimes a less horrible outcome with a greatly increased likelihood is actually a greater threat. Would you rather take a one in a million shot at losing all the money you have, or a two in three shot at losing a thousand bucks right now?

That’s not a valid comparison. Assume I have a million dollars (which I don’t). In the first scenario my expected losses are 1 dollar. In the second my expected losses are 666 dollars. The second scenario is clearly the greater threat.

But if we’re comparing the Cold War to now the risks break down differently. Nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union would have killed tens of millions of Americans. Even in the extremely unlikely case of nuclear weapon being exploded by terrorists in a major city we’re probably looking at 200,000 to 300,000 deaths (extrapolating from Hiroshima).

The number of Americans threated by instant death during the Cold War was at least 100 times greater than the number of Americans threatened by terrorist attack right now. But the odds of those deaths occuring were not 100 times less. In fact at some points they were greater. During the Cuban Missile Crisis we were right at the brink of war. But the odds of Al Qaeda getting their hands on a nuclear weapon are relatively remote.

I think that question is far from settled. If it’s so ineffective, why do any agencies want to use it?

Ineptitude and sadism.

Consider the recent flap over the missing videotapes from CIA interrogation sessions. They didn’t videotape most sessions and the destroyed the videotapes of the few sessions they did record. That’s criminally stupid. How much intelligence did they throw away by not using proper interrogation techniques and creating a permanent record that could be reviewed later? Instead they beat some worthless information out of these guys, then compounded the screw-up by not leaving any records.

[Lemur866]

Well, Mad Max, how frightened have the terrorists made you? What would you give up in order to protect yourself from terrorists?

You’d give up freedom from torture. Anything else?

Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, the right to keep and bear arms, the right not to have soldiers quartered in your house during times of peace? The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures? The right that no person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury? The right that no person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb? How about that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law?

You recognize any those concepts? I would imagine a true American might recognize some of those words, and the principles behind them, and might even be prepared to endure some danger to uphold those principles.

If the choice were between abandoning the consititution and the extermination of the American people, well, I guess we abandon the constitution. But that’s not the choice we face. We face a choice between giving government bureaucrats the unreviewable power to torture people on the one hand, and occasionally not stopping a couple of terrorist bombings on the other.

You know, if it were just Khalid Sheik Muhammed and a couple of other high profile terrorists who were quietly tortured, I could live with that, just like I can live with a cop who smacks around a perp every now and then. But the trouble comes when torture and beatings become policy, when they are practiced openly, when torturers and brutal cops act with impunity.

So let’s ask this question. What should happen to the CIA agents who kidnapped and tortured Khaled El-Masri, then dumped him on the side of the road in Albania five months later when they discovered they’d grabbed the wrong guy? I mean, here was a terrorist, and terrorists aren’t entitled to the same rights as regular people. Except he wasn’t a terrorist, he was just a guy who happened to have the same name as a terrorist, and he was kidnapped and tortured for five months. So do we write it off as an innocent mistake? These things happen, and you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and a few innocent people beaten and tortured by CIA agents is a small price to pay for our freedoms?

Why don’t you see that granting government bureaucrats the power to torture means not just the power to torture bad guys, it means the power to torture anyone, including you?

I’m not naive enough to believe that simply enforcing our laws against torture will stop torture by American soldiers and agents and cops, the temptation to smack around a suspect to get him to talk will always be there. What I do believe is that vigorously enforcing the law will prevent the widespread use of torture on anyone who happens to fall into police custody. Simple common sense tells us that open tolerance of torture creates an environment where torture is commonplace. Is that the kind of society you want to live in? Would you give Hillary Clinton the power to kidnap and torture anyone she likes, all because you’re afraid of a couple guys in a cave on the border of Pakistan?

[Mr.Duality]

@Mad Max

Well, I’m certainly glad to know I won’t be personally insulted on this board.

I certainly hope you aren’t suggesting I’m worse than a group of deluded zealots who consistently murder women and children under the banner of a hypocritical sham death cult. Because any American who claims that about another American would be utterly contemptible and worthless. Hope that’s not you.

Would you like to offer any argument about why comparisons to death rate via natural phenomena have any relevance whatsoever? I suppose Pearl Harbor should have been ignored as well? Or serial killers, they probably kill fewer people than lightning too, right?

No, not worse. Supporters of torture rank slightly higher in my belief system than murderers of women and children. I might consider someone who supports torture, for whatever reason, to be a deluded zealot. Not you personally, of course. You just haven’t been enlightened yet.

People with actual interrogation experience think torture is a bad idea.

Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII

George Washington on maltreatment of prisoners:
“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any Canadian or Indian in his person or property, I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment, as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it shall not be disproportioned to its guilt, at such a time and in such a cause.”
Comparisons of death rates from various causes are decent measures of the relative danger of those causes.

The U.S. retaliated for Pearl Harbor, as it should have. AFAIK the U.S. tortured no one in the process. Same goes for serial killers.

Hey Squink- to be fair, I said “struck by lightning”, not “killed by lightning”. But I’ll concede that death rates are more valid for our purposes here.

[The_Hamster_King]

@Mad Max

I’d also be curious (honest-curious, not combative-curious) to know how you define torture?

I’m fine with how the United Nations defines torture: " … any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person … ".

So waterboarding is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture. Stress positions are torture.

[elucidator]

@Mr. Svinlesha

It’s easy to take the moral high road and reject torture as always wrong, no matter what…, through the torture of a single person, you could have saved them?

No, I don’t think it is, what is difficult is making choices without relying on a stark “binary” system, wherein any given choice has clear and unmistakeable lines. When I say torture is always wrong, I mean what I say, but I do not mean that no one can dream up a hypothetical scenario wherein that wrongitude would be overwhelmed by circumstance.

Have we rock-solid evidence that the prospective victim does, without doubt, possess the information that would save lives? (This is the trickiest part for me, because if we knew so much as this, it is unlikely that we would be so restricted in information that only torturing Abdul bin Camel-hump will answer…)

The issue must have a competent and accountable decider: someone who is willing to accept the responsibility for any such action, or, conversely, accept the responsibility for failing to take action. Torture is illegal for a very good reason, it is ghastly, savage, and repulsive. If the responsible decider can prove that his action, though normally reprehensible, saved lives I have no doubt that a means will be found to obviate the penalty of his actions without obviating the underlying rule of law. Presidential pardons, for instance, have been granted under much less compelling circumstances.

But if the responsible decider has failed to meet these daunting criteria, he should have the full force of the law applied to him.

[Mad_Max]

@yojimbo

Do you think that suspected serial killers should be tortured? If not why bring it up? It seems you like trying to use scare tactics to reinforce your arguments and then when called on it to say you didn’t.

No, my point was that comparing deaths due to natural phenomena to deaths due to terrorism is utterly irrelevant (or, at least, that the poster hadn’t even begun to make the case that the comparison is relevant).

@yojimbo

You answered this question with But what was your actual point? What do you actually believe? and It sure looks like you are scared and worried about the risk of death to you, your family and other innocents. It also looks like you don’t think waterboarding isn’t torture and that you are happy for it to be used as a interrogation technique. You imply this strongly but when people actually say that’s what you believe you back away from it and start asking them questions.

I believe that waterboarding is torture. I believe that the US and every western power should not use torture as an official tool. I live in a country where the risk of terrorism was there all my life (until the last ~5-10 years) and have seen my government and the UK government do terrible things to fight it e.g. shot to kill policies that killed innocent people and interned people in jail without trial but what they never did was make torture an offical tool of the state by just changing their definition of what torture was.

What do you believe?

I’m absolutely not “scared” about the risk of death to me, my family, or other innocents. Worried? In the sense that I think about it hourly and fret over it, no. In the sense that that very real possibility should influence policy decisions, absolutely. Are you not at all worried that Islamic fundamentalists will kill Americans again today, tomorrow, or whenever?

I don’t think I’ve been backing away from anything. In fact, there are very few things I’ve been trying to prove. I’ve just been pointing out that the logic of some posters here is very, very flawed.

Here are a couple of positions I have taken here in the last day or so:

1. This is a topic that is complicated and worthy of discussion, and people of goodwill can disagree and should share logical arguments and try to learn from one another on this topic.

2. Americans accusing other Americans with whom they disagree on policy of being worse than the scum that perpetrated 9/11 is inexcusable and contemptible.

3. Americans believing that their own culture deserves to be destroyed is inexcusable and contemptible.

4. “Islamofascist” is a completely valid term for Islamists.

I will add this one – I believe that either waterboarding is not torture, or it is only torture under a definition that is far too broad to cite public opinon responding to the concept of “torture.”

[nameless]

Did you guys know there’s a scientific journal called Torture? Can you imagine getting that in your mail? Anyway, I found this abstract, which may be germane to the discussion–

[

@Basoglu et al. 2007

CONTEXT: After the reports of human rights abuses by the US military in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, questions have been raised as to whether certain detention and interrogation procedures amount to torture.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the distinction between various forms of ill treatment and torture during captivity in terms of their relative psychological impact.

DESIGN AND SETTING: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a population-based sample of survivors of torture from Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Banja Luka in Republica Srpska, Rijeka in Croatia, and Belgrade in Serbia.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 279 survivors of torture accessed through linkage sampling in the community (Banja Luka, Sarajevo, and Rijeka) and among the members of 2 associations for war veterans and prisoners of war (Belgrade).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Scores on the Semi-structured Interview for Survivors of War, Exposure to Torture Scale, Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, and Clinician-Administered PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) Scale for DSM-IV.

RESULTS: Psychological manipulations, humiliating treatment, exposure to aversive environmental conditions, and forced stress positions showed considerable overlap with physical torture stressors in terms of associated distress and uncontrollability. In regression analyses, physical torture did not significantly relate to posttraumatic stress disorder (odds ratio, 1.41, 95% confidence interval, 0.89-2.25) or depression (odds ratio, 1.41, 95% confidence interval, 0.71-2.78). The traumatic stress impact of torture (physical or nonphysical torture and ill treatment) seemed to be determined by perceived uncontrollability and distress associated with the stressors.

CONCLUSIONS: Ill treatment during captivity, such as psychological manipulations, humiliating treatment, and forced stress positions, does not seem to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the severity of mental suffering they cause, the underlying mechanism of traumatic stress, and their long-term psychological outcome. Thus, these procedures do amount to torture, thereby lending support to their prohibition by international law.

](Torture vs other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment: is the distinction real or apparent? - PubMed)(bolding mine)

Anyway, there doesn’t seem to be much disagreement (at least in this thread) as to whether waterboarding (or potentially other enhanced interrogation techniques) is torture. If the goal of torture is to inflict psychological distress, this study argues that “enhanced interrogation” is de facto torture, as it produces similar effects. As for whether or not torture can ethically be applied is a less objective matter, but I throw in with those that say to give up our ideals in an effort to prevent terrorism is essentially to yield to terror.

[Lemur866]

So if waterboarding isn’t torture, why would any interrogator do it?

If it’s just uncomfortable and unpleasant, why would it cause hardened Islamofascist terrorists to suddenly break down and talk?

If it’s just uncomfortable and unpleasant, then it’s only going to be useful in breaking down 17 year old kids caught drinking, not death cultists willing to kill and die to enslave the rest of us.

You can’t have it both ways.