I waterboard!

Great Debates
341

[QUOTE=Scylla]
This really pisses me off.

Carnalk makes all these undisguised insults and attacks and is repeatedly warned, and the implication is made that this is far from the first time.

What does he get?

Another warning, which he vehemently argues against.

Then he shows up with a sideways apology with another insult put into it. If I’m supposed to take the high road and not respond to this immature shit as it deserves, than the onus is on you guys as moderators to make sure that it doesn’t continue.

If you don’t, then the people who attempt to follow the rules suffer while the ones that break them just skate and ruin the experience for everybody else.
[/QUOTE]
Funny, when I got home from work, tonight, around 10 o’clock ET, I first checked my e-mail looking for reports and while that software opened, I came directly to this thread to see how it was going.
When the e-mail opened, one thing I did not see was any reported post from you. We Mods do not live on the SDMB and if you want to see us take action, it would make more sense to actually follow the procedures than to start whining in public before we have a chance to act while doing nothing to let us know there is an issue to which to respond.

I will note that the matter is already under discussion, but you are winning no friends with your behavior.

342

deleted

343

[QUOTE=tomndebb]

When the e-mail opened, one thing I did not see was any reported post from you. We Mods do not live on the SDMB and if you want to see us take action, it would make more sense to actually follow the procedures than to start whining in public before we have a chance to act while doing nothing to let us know there is an issue to which to respond.
[/quote]

In all fairness I did not email you as I saw you were already aware and had acted, and that would be redundant.

That may be true, and perhaps it’s my mistake for thinking so, but it seems more proper and upfront to say these things where an opposing party can read them and respond rather than to lobby or tattle behind someone’s back.

Every time I’ve reported a post without saying something to the poster I’ve felt like a bit of a bitch.

Anyway, you’re right, I guess. I’ll drop it.

::Plop::

344

[QUOTE=Scylla]

Last but not least, I kind of find myself in total agreement with Svin’s pov on this issue. It’s an adroit observation that given the circumstances one might not live up to one’s morals, and sell their personal ethics for expediency in protecting the lives of others.
Kind of depressing.
[/QUOTE]
Or, put another way, welcome to the damned human race.

I wonder, Scylla, whether Svin’s observations will have deeper meaning for you than the waterboarding experience itself, in the long run? The persona you present on this board is of a man who cares greatly about morals and personal ethics; who takes pride in striving to adhere to them in the face of temptation to take the easy way out; whose personal code of conduct informs much of what you write about here. Now you’re staring into the abyss of principles’ abandonment for expediency, an abyss I suspect you thought yourself immune to, and you’re confronting the reality that you, too, could tumble in. That’s not something that you, that any of us, would find comfortable to contemplate.

Scales falling from the eyes, eh?

::Plop::

345

[QUOTE=argexpat]
Since suddenly we can’t agree on what constitutes torture, how about this for a definition: It’s not torture if [a journalist/SD member /Fear Factor contestant] is willing to undergo it just to see what it’s like.

With so many people trying waterboarding, it’s become the radical new extreme sport of 2007!

I don’t see anyone trying bamboo splinters under the fingernails, or having ex-Nazis give them root canals without anesthesia. And Scylla says he would sooner have his “fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer” than try waterboarding again. Um, OK. I look forward to that post, which I suppose he’ll have to type with his nose.
[/QUOTE]

The torture techniques used today do not involve bamboo or root canals.

It doesn’t matter if torture is or is not prohibited in the Constitution because torture violates international law. Waterboarding is torture and the U.S. prosecuted the Japanese for this specific war crime.

Naomi Klein’s, *The Shock Doctrine *, offers in depth descriptions of torture techniques used by the CIA on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The prison has a network of black sites, not on the official Red Cross tour, that are used for Ewan Cameron style shock torture. The CIA funded Cameron’s research to develop mind control techniques known as MKUltra

Mamdouh Habib, an Australian incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, called it an experiment in brainwashing.

James Yee, a former Army Muslim Chaplin at Guantanamo, witnessed the torture of prisoners and claims the torture techniques on detainees caused extreme regression.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was kidnapped by CIA agents and taken to Egypt. He managed to keep a journal. He wrote that he was repeatedly tortured by electric shock, extended sensory deprivation, strapped to an iron rack, and shocked with stun guns.

Everyone has seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib. They are disturbing, so I will not post them. The photos are easy enough to find online.

The U.S. is torturing suspected terrorist detainees. People in Guantanamo have little or no actionable intelligence. The prison is one big experiment and probably more like an insane asylum than a detention center. It’s not just the CIA using torture but low ranking military soldiers as well. The entire war on terror has produced a brutal anything goes mentality.

346

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
MOST people in this country are morally superior to their own ancestors of a few hundred years ago. The conclusion that the people of the past were evil or crazy is a straightforward consequence of the belief that society has become more moral and/or enlightened. It’s just a conclusion that we aren’t supposed to draw; it’s taboo.
[/QUOTE]

Granted that this isn’t a conclusion that many people draw, could we have your reasons for drawing it in more detail, please? On what basis do you conclude that society is more moral/enlightened these days than it was fifty years ago, a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago?

Technology has advanced, true, but I don’t see the obvious link to a moral advancement. After all, nowadays we (the human race) still fight wars, enslave, lie, cheat, steal and destroy - on rather a larger scale as there are more of us and we have greater control of the world around us.

Torture is a case in point. As our understanding of pain and pain stimuli has increased, our ability to inflict torture has also increased. Our habit of torture has not, by any means, necessarily decreased.

347

[QUOTE=alfgifu]
Granted that this isn’t a conclusion that many people draw, could we have your reasons for drawing it in more detail, please? On what basis do you conclude that society is more moral/enlightened these days than it was fifty years ago, a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago?
[/quote]
The fact that slavery and genocide are no longer the norm. The fact that murder is no longer a top, if not the top cause of death. The fact that women have more rights than they ever have. Many, many others.

[QUOTE=alfgifu]
Technology has advanced, true, but I don’t see the obvious link to a moral advancement. After all, nowadays we (the human race) still fight wars, enslave, lie, cheat, steal and destroy - on rather a larger scale as there are more of us and we have greater control of the world around us.
[/quote]
But far less percentage-wise. Give modern technology to the people of a thousand or more years ago, and there wouldn’t be many people left. We are far less brutal than we used to be.

[QUOTE=alfgifu]
Torture is a case in point. As our understanding of pain and pain stimuli has increased, our ability to inflict torture has also increased.
[/quote]
No, it hasn’t. Nor is anyone likely to bother. They could torture you to insanity or death in the Stone Age; there’s no need for fancy techniques. It requires ruthlessness, not skill.

[QUOTE=alfgifu]
Our habit of torture has not, by any means, necessarily decreased.
[/QUOTE]
Of course it has, or we wouldn’t be having this argument because it would be the accepted norm.

348

I find myself disagreeing with Der Trish very much on the topic of our so-called improved humanity. For objectively speaking I don’t think man’s morality is much different than what it was since we became bipeds. Of course our overall knowledge of the world has increased – mainly or solely through scientific means – but at the same time, we only need look at the recently departed century and the beginning of this one to find that the bloodletting, cruelty, greed and class-divides have only increased. Ironically enough much of it due through said scientific ‘advancements,’ as man now – as again, in any one point in history prior to the other – is at the height of his killing prowess. IOW, seems to me we’ve only gotten more efficient at killing large number of people and we do not shy-away from doing so.

Matters little that we have no slaves – which we certainly do, we just don’t like to use the term. Any Third World country is visible living proof of same. And so are the underbellies of many a so-called First World nation. Just take a trip through your local friendly ghetto if you don’t believe me – nor that woman have reached some sort of parity or that secular thinking is for the most part, allowed. We are, as a species, as bloody and greedy as ever if not more.

Again I point at the numbers as depressing as they are. The class-divide is bigger today than it was a mere sixty years ago, the number of innocents killed in the past century – even when factoring the huge population increase – is likely the highest percentage-wise in history, and the size of the population living in abject poverty has never been higher. Sure, on the whole we certainly live much longer than did our predecessors, again due to all sorts of scientific advances but the bottom line for most of humanity is simply, for what? And the only real answer when viewed objectively on the whole, is for lives of quiet despair and prolonged suffering.

Seems to me that for all the hand-wringing we liberals do, we’re still hard-wired to place ourselves first and foremost – with a few notable exceptions. But they are so obscure you need look for them with a magnifying glass. For they inhabit the deserts, jungles – urban or natural – and remote towns where the real history of our times is being written. Voices in the wilderness whose shouts we are only too ready to ignore while we ourselves huff and puff and claim the moral highground.

Newsflash: what’s said or written here doesn’t amount to a drop of water in the ocean. Might get a lot of shit off of our liberal/conservative/whatever chests, but that is only helping us and not the ones that really need it. Which once again is the great majority of humanity. Same as it ever was.

Ask a woman whose child she can’t feed no matter what she tries if she gives a damn about voting. Listen to her response and then move on and find yourself the next Orwellian pseudo-free man laboring from dawn to dusk under subhuman conditions…

If that doesn’t answer your questions about the current state of affairs vis-a-vis or “improved” humanity, I don’t know what would.

Just a thought. Or ten.

349

I have an image in my mind of Torquemada, looking up, and startled, with a smoking pair of pincers held behind his back.

“No, the pincers are not red hot. A little warm, maybe, but not red hot.”

Yes, we’ve come a long way, baby.

Tris

350

[QUOTE=Triskadecamus]
I have an image in my mind of Torquemada, looking up, and startled, with a smoking pair of pincers held behind his back.

“No, the pincers are not red hot. A little warm, maybe, but not red hot.”

Yes, we’ve come a long way, baby.

Tris
[/QUOTE]

Digitized thermometers to be sure are an improvement.

351

The trouble is that some people seem to have trouble grasping the fact that torture can include many more techniques than knives, red hot irons, and electric shocks. They seem to believe that unless you’re cutting or burning or shocking or twisting someone it’s not torture.

But torture techniques like this are, well, medieval, and torture technology has improved just like everything else. If you think red hot irons are worse than sleep deprivation, you’ve never been kept awake for a week. Many of these techniques were pioneered by the Soviets, read Solzhenitsyn. And the advantage of these techniques is that they leave minimal physical traces, and they have the added psychological advantage that since the victim might not consider them torture, when the victim finally breaks they’ll break even harder. Most people know they’d break under knives and red hot irons, but if they break under something as simple as sleep deprivation, well, then the victim comes to believe that they’re particularly weak.

Of course, treating a prisoner well, offering them a cigarette, speaking their language, and sitting down and listening sympathetically to their story is a psychological trick as well. But the difference is that the interrogator isn’t torturing someone. An interrogator who pretends friendship with a prisoner to get information isn’t a monster, and doesn’t have to destroy videotapes of his interrogation work to avoid going to jail, and the results of his work can be used in later criminal prosecutions.

352

The problem I see with the legality of torture is the margin for error. No system is perfect, and there are always going to be individuals accused of terrorism that are later exonerated. Maher Arar springs to mind. Unfortunately, torture has lasting physical and psychological effects that cannot be undone.

While the ticking bomb scenario is a difficult moral dilemma, I do not think it’s the one that needs addressing. Rather, I think Americans need to ask themselves if torture is so integral to America’s safety that it’s worth the occasional torture of the wrongly accused.

353

[QUOTE=halcyon_flight]
I think Americans need to ask themselves if torture is so integral to America’s safety that it’s worth the occasional torture of the wrongly accused.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Above, I said that although most will “correctly” reject torture when presented in the abstract, many will abandon their principle and embrace torture if it’s presented in a different scenario: “Your choice, watch your child die in a plane crash, or put the screws to this oily brown guy.”

But that’s the wrong question to ask.

“Why are you taking my child?”

“Ma’am, we believe he has information about the ticking nuke.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Maybe. We don’t know for sure. Can we torture him?”

“He was with me all morning!”

“Really. Maybe we should torture you too.”

“But I don’t know anything either!”

“We don’t know that for sure. Please come with us.”

354

I have subscribed to this message board for one reason - And that is to compliment the bizzare person who waterboarded himself. I have never read anything like this, on such a hot topic, anywhere. Excellent stuff.

Disclaimer - I am English.

Please - You Americans - Do not allow your leaders to “re-brand” this disgusting practice - This should not be treated as a marketing exercise. Of course its torture, and America is (should be) way, way above that!

Yours is a truly great country - But is it on its way down? I worry.

355

[QUOTE=RedFury]
I find myself disagreeing with Der Trish very much on the topic of our so-called improved humanity. For objectively speaking I don’t think man’s morality is much different than what it was since we became bipeds. Of course our overall knowledge of the world has increased – mainly or solely through scientific means – but at the same time, we only need look at the recently departed century and the beginning of this one to find that the bloodletting, cruelty, greed and class-divides have only increased. Ironically enough much of it due through said scientific ‘advancements,’ as man now – as again, in any one point in history prior to the other – is at the height of his killing prowess. IOW, seems to me we’ve only gotten more efficient at killing large number of people and we do not shy-away from doing so.
[/QUOTE]

But not nearly to the extent that we used to. We haven’t nuked Iraq, for example, which we would have if you go back far enough. If we were the Americans of 200 years ago with modern technology, we would have already killed the entire population of Iraq and moved in our own people, just as those people did with the Indians. And then there’s the simple fact that most people in modern countries die of old age and not violence. And the fact that most married women here are married to a man because they like him, not because he’s the rapist who killed her last rapist. And then there’s the fact that not even someone like Bush keeps a harem of a few hundred sex slaves, that he casually has drowned so he can collect a new batch. And so on.

I think you romanticise the past. Yes, America is a bad country that is doing bad things; but compared to the past it’s an icon of righteousness. Not because America is some paragon, but because the past was so very horrible.

356

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
…I think you romanticise the past. Yes, America is a bad country that is doing bad things; but compared to the past it’s an icon of righteousness. Not because America is some paragon, but because the past was so very horrible.
[/QUOTE]

You are kidding, right? Because I’ve done no such thing. Quite the contrary, I’ve demonized both the past and the present as part of human nature. If anything I find you guilty of romanticizing the present – 'cept for the US of course.

As for all those factoids you throw my way, worthless. Unless, ironically enough, you’re speaking solely of the US and other industrialized nations, which you seem to be at the expense of most of humanity. For reality is not pretty at all. To wit:

The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics

– highlights mine.

Given that the current world census tells us there are roughly 6.6 billion people on earth I have no idea how you can come up with figures that say “most people die of old age” and all of the other sugary stuff.

Fact is an overwhelming majority of them don’t make it that far. No need to back too far looking for genocide either. Rwanda, East Timor, Congo, Sudan and the break-up of the former Yugoslavian Republic are recent if not on-going examples.

Simply put: Life today is as cruel as it ever was.

I agree with some of the things you write but you’re so far out in left field on this one you might as well leave the park.

357

[QUOTE=RedFury]
As for all those factoids you throw my way, worthless. Unless, ironically enough, you’re speaking solely of the US and other industrialized nations, which you seem to be at the expense of most of humanity.
[/QUOTE]
Um. I was of course. Thus the words “we” and “here”.

And even in most other places, over time it’s gotten somewhat better. Because if it hadn’t, they’d all be dead; ancient attitudes with modern weapons would see to that.

358

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I take it that you would agree that we need to destroy our civilization in order to save it?
[/QUOTE]
But western civilization throughout its history HASN’T been characterized by pacifism or ethical qualms about mistreating the enemy. Although I disagree with his assessment and conclusions, Der Trihs is right about how much of both American and world history has been filled with violence.

On the other hand, Der Trihs’s belief that modern culture has evolved beyond our past is naive. Human nature hasn’t changed, and it never will… and human nature is at its base a brutish and ugly thing.

This doesn’t mean that we should allow our violent tendencies to run rampant. It does mean that we need to keep those emotions in check in order for society to function, and this requires, IMO, strong and powerful leadership. Sometimes, world leaders need to employ ruthless tactics in order to prevent civil disorder from erupting, which would only lead to uncontrollable violence that everyone will suffer from (this necessity of course will vary from situation to situation–if a leader, like Hitler, inflicts cruel and arbitrary violence on society, then he’s clearly on the wrong side of the equation).

Now, people will say “oh, no, we can’t descend to the level of the terrorists, that makes us no better than them.” To that, I would say we have no other choice. Violence is the only language this enemy (Islamist fanatics) understands. And since violence is part of human nature, and because ethics really have no place in political policy (read Machiavelli if you don’t understand this yet), we shouldn’t be worried about any ethical equivalency between us and our enemy. We’ll be on a higher level than them when it comes to political and military power, and that’s what counts.

But then, people will say “oh, no, our tactics will only inflame the enemy and create more opposition.” Sorry, but we’re talking about an enemy who gets upset when a teacher names a teddy bear “Muhammed” and when some cartoonists in Denmark draw some funny pictures of their “Prophet.” There’s really very little that we can do that will NOT inflame them.

The more important issue, I think, is to keep our PR image intact (it isn’t anymore). Since most people aren’t comfortable with the inner workings of political power, they don’t like to hear about things like interrogation tactics (even though they realize it’s necessary for us to catch criminals or to stop terrorists). It’s like the slaughterhouse–we like to eat meat, but we don’t like to know how it’s made.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration hasn’t done a very good job with this. We (speaking for national policy as a whole here, not as a member of the administration) want the terrorists to believe that we use things like waterboarding, so that they’ll be more cooperative. But we don’t want the American people or our allies to think we do, because then they’ll raise a big stink about the (irrelevant) ethical issues. The administration has tried, not entirely successfully, to steer a middle course by declaring that “we don’t torture people” and at the same time refusing to say whether or not waterboarding qualifies as torture (if it is, then our declaration is a lie…but if it isn’t, it’s not a lie).

It would be beautiful if the president could one day say, “Hell, yes, we torture the scum who blow up innocent men, women, and children; that way, they and their little friends can’t blow up any more innocent civilians. You got a problem with that?” But until more people realize that we need to get our hands dirty to win this (like any other) war, this debate will go on and on.

359

[QUOTE=Chouan]
On the other hand, Der Trihs’s belief that modern culture has evolved beyond our past is naive. Human nature hasn’t changed, and it never will… and human nature is at its base a brutish and ugly thing.
[/quote]
Except that we don’t act according to ‘human nature’. Most of what we do it created or heavily influenced by civilization; it is artificial, not natural.

[QUOTE=Chouan]
Now, people will say “oh, no, we can’t descend to the level of the terrorists, that makes us no better than them.” To that, I would say we have no other choice.
[/quote]
Of course we do. These terrorists are weak. They are not some sort of massive threat that requires us to embrace evil for the sake of survival, assuming that is even defensible to begin with.

[QUOTE=Chouan]
And since violence is part of human nature, and because ethics really have no place in political policy (read Machiavelli if you don’t understand this yet), we shouldn’t be worried about any ethical equivalency between us and our enemy. We’ll be on a higher level than them when it comes to political and military power, and that’s what counts.
[/quote]
That’s the sort of attitude that gets you ruined, when all the world comes down on you. Ethics matter, if for no other reason than people think it matters and act on it. We’ve taken the attitude you promote to heart again and again, and we keep getting hurt by it again and again. It doesn’t work.

[QUOTE=Chouan]
But then, people will say “oh, no, our tactics will only inflame the enemy and create more opposition.” Sorry, but we’re talking about an enemy who gets upset when a teacher names a teddy bear “Muhammed” and when some cartoonists in Denmark draw some funny pictures of their “Prophet.” There’s really very little that we can do that will NOT inflame them.
[/quote]
The standard right wing lie that people only hate us because of their religion. No, a great many, probably most hate us for perfectly good reasons that have nothing to do with religion. They will hate us because we killed their friends, their family, ruined their economy, propped up dictators, tortured them or trained the torturers that did.

[QUOTE=Chouan]
Unfortunately, the Bush administration hasn’t done a very good job with this. We (speaking for national policy as a whole here, not as a member of the administration) want the terrorists to believe that we use things like waterboarding, so that they’ll be more cooperative.
[/quote]
Except that the exact opposite happens. We produce more recruits, fewer people are willing to surrender, and so on. And we create more enemies that aren’t terrorists, and more sympathy for our enemies.

[QUOTE=Chouan]
But we don’t want the American people or our allies to think we do, because then they’ll raise a big stink about the (irrelevant) ethical issues.
[/quote]
Ethics are always relevant.

[QUOTE=Chouan]
It would be beautiful if the president could one day say, “Hell, yes, we torture the scum who blow up innocent men, women, and children; that way, they and their little friends can’t blow up any more innocent civilians. You got a problem with that?” But until more people realize that we need to get our hands dirty to win this (like any other) war, this debate will go on and on.
[/QUOTE]
First, we torture people regardless of what they have done. Second, it doesn’t help the war on terror, even if there was one. Third, “getting our hands dirty” just helps our enemies.

And finally, if you are right why should I or anyone care in the slightest whether America wins or not ? If humanity is the race of demons you describe, if we and they are both equally brutal monsters, why should I care which monsters win ? If you are right, we should hope for a nuclear war that kills humanity, not victory from any particular faction of irredeemably evil demons.

360

[QUOTE=Chouan]
Now, people will say “oh, no, we can’t descend to the level of the terrorists, that makes us no better than them.” To that, I would say we have no other choice.
[/QUOTE]
And that is why the terrorists have already won, and the American experiment has begun its slow irreversible slide into oblivion.