Isn't it bizarre to be against torture if we aren't against collateral damage

Great Debates
101

Sure, but we aren’t speaking in mights. We are speaking in statistical inevitability when you decide to use various military tactics.

Now, take another hypothetical situation. You’re again driving your car, and you see a maniac at the side of the road, holding a gun to a woman’s head. He points to a child on the other side of the street and says, “If you don’t run your car over that kid, I’ll shoot my wife.” In this case, you know for a fact that you will be attempting to kill an innocent person, but that you could save another life in the process.

Are the two situations the same? By your reasoning, they are, since in both cases you know that innocents might be killed. But I say they are different, because in the first case, your intention was not to kill.
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Spur of the moment recklessness is not the same thing as a calculated choice. And single instance act in which there is a chance of killing someone is not the same thing as a policy in which killing people is inevitable.

He provided a link to amnesty’s website with no direction as to where this evidence lies, which, in keeping with his usual contributions, is characteristically bizarre. But there is obviously a huge difference between what some random thug in a Chinese prison does just to be evil and a calculated use of torture against one or two key Al Qaeda insurgents in the middle of a war against them.

Maybe, if you could provide some actual info that it CAN’T be useful when used correctly.

Yep. Of course, Hiroshima and Dresden were pretty extreme cases.

Again, I don’t see the point of this example. It didn’t hinge on the use of a guass gun either. What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?

Nonsense: I presented the very common ticking bomb scenario, one that is frighteningly and increasingly likely as it gets easier and easier for smaller and smaller groups to create WMDs on their own.

And sometimes soldiers murder civilians for kicks: part of the risk of arming immature people so heavily, putting them under massive stress, and giving them wide discretion on the fog of war. But this isn’t what we are discussing and you know it full well.

102

Here is a quote taken from the Air War College on interrogation techniques.

"The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. However, the use of force is not to be confused with psychological ploys, verbal trickery, or other nonviolent and noncoercive ruses used by the interrogator in questioning hesitant or uncooperative sources.

The psychological techniques and principles outlined should neither be confused with, nor construed to be synonymous with, unauthorized techniques such as brainwashing, mental torture, or any other form of mental coercion to include drugs. These techniques and principles are intended to serve as guides in obtaining the willing cooperation of a source. The absence of threats in interrogation is intentional, as their enforcement and use normally constitute violations of international law and may result in prosecution under the UCMJ.

Additionally, the inability to carry out a threat of violence or force renders an interrogator ineffective should the source challenge the threat. Consequently, from both legal and moral viewpoints, the restrictions established by international law, agreements, and customs render threats of force, violence, and deprivation useless as interrogation techniques."

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-comm.htm#interrogation

103

Let me help you, my child. Go the “Library” link, pull up the “Torture/Ill treatment” listing under “themes” and you’ll get over 3,000 documents on the topic, all of them full of excruciating details of torture committed by various governments, rebel groups and so forth for no good reason. Here’s a direct link.

I can understand that it’s a lot easier to dismiss my point by characterizing it as “bizarre” than to go up against that mountain of data, but I’m afraid the data is real, the data is there, and you lose – you lose big time. Problem is, governments have been using torture to terrify citizens for most of human history, and Amnesty has been documenting it for several decades. There’s just no way you can win this point.

As for your point about “random thugs in Chinese prison” vs. American heroes going after Al-Qaeda – I think events at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo clearly document the tendency of torture to be misused once it’s an allowed technique. Some of the people in Gitmo and some of the people in Abu Ghraib may have been terrorists with useful information, but most of them weren’t and aren’t.

Ball’s in your court, Apos.

104

Not necessarily. There are situations where one might, in an attempt to fight an attacking army, accidentally kill civilians, and didn’t plan on that happening. Why is it when you talk about C.D., you want to refer to real-world statistics, but when you talk about torture, you want to use the nebulous, “Well maybe this could happen” reasoning, while ignoring the fact that 99.9% of the time, torture isn’t used to accomplish such objectives.

Yes, and I agree with you that a policy in which killing innocent people ought to be examined. But that’s not the point we’re arguing. The point we’re arguing is the notion that “If you allow any CD, ever, then it is hypocritical to be absolutely against torture.” We aren’t arguing whether one can be against CD in certain instances and be against torture.

Funny though, as much as you try to impugn his evidence, it’s still more than you have provided to back up your claims.

So you want to assume that torture is useful until it’s disproven? Seems like an odd stance.

But that’s not really what we’re discussing.

Oh, I see. Not only do you expect me to prove that torture is ineffective, but apparently you expect me to prove a negative for all possible situations, real and hypothetical. I’ve got a better idea. You’re making the claim; you back it up.

I know why you’re framing the debate this way. It’s commonly understood throughout the international community that torture is ineffective as a military strategy, and is almost exclusively used simply as sadism. You don’t want to try to prove otherwise, but rather want to wait until I post some information supporting what is a commonly-known fact, so that you can nitpick the sources and try to put me on the defensive and shift the burden of proof. I’m not playing that game. Give us the proof that torture is effective first.

No, it’s NOT very common. In fact, I submit that it has never happened.

Huh? YOU brought it up. You said, and I quote:

Then when I refute that statement, you accuse me of deliberately changing the topic. And just a few posts back, you said I was being “pointlessly abusive”. I like you, Apos, but get a grip here.

105

A timely twist to the debate: US decides it is allowed to use evidence gathered through torture

106

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. We’re not using torture to reveal some great truths that will allow us to win the war and save civilian lives, we’re using it to force prisoners to incriminate themselves. Torture happens to be a pretty good method of making people admit they did something, whether they actually did or not.

107

Actually, we’re not using torture at all. The Red Cross merely accuses the US of using methods “tantamount to torture.” (That quote is from the article linked by marky33) Presumably, they’re talking about sleep deprivation and shouting and covering people’s eyes and poking them with fluffy pillows and making them watch Brook Sheilds sitcoms and all that. And while I appreciate the Red Cross’s role, “tantamount to torture” ain’t torture.

In fact, the only specific allegation of torture from the article is this (again, from marky33’s article. emphasis added):

Oh, the humanity!

I agree that torture is a bad way of getting reliable information. But using stress techniques happens to be a pretty good way of getting reliable information. Saying “pretty please” and making sure all your prisoners have comfortable chairs and adequate reading light is a ridiculously bad way of getting any information.

Obviously, the $10,000 question is “Where is the line between stress techniques and torture?” And while I’m happy that the Red Cross draws that line so that it encompasses an awful lot of fairly innocuous stuff, I don’t want them in charge of prisoner interrogations.

108

How so? I see your point that the title of the article is misleading, because it actually hardly mentions torture at all. But going with this “stress techniques” sidetrack, we’re still talking mainly about coercing the prisoners into incriminating themselves in order to justify detaining them indefinitely. What “information” have we gotten that’s winning the war for us and saving civilian lives?

That was rather pointless.

Yeah, that is a good question, but I don’t think I have the energy to start a whole new avenue of discussion here.

Interrogations shouldn’t be taking place at all, so the question of who’s in charge of them should be moot.

109

And why will captives give up information to incriminate themselves under duress but in no way, ever, give up information that could be useful in a battlefield situation, again?

110

fuck thenm, kill em all

111

Well, we’ve covered this already, but the jist is that you don’t tend to get any reliable information through torture. You might get a prisoner to say something, but you’d have no idea if it’s a lie or the truth. In fact, innocent people are as likely to falsely confess under torture as guilty people are to legitimately confess. I wouldn’t really call a false confession “giving up information”. If your objective is to get someone to tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear, then torture might be effective. But if your objective is to learn the truth, it’s not so good.

112

Another good question is, under what circumstances is torture justified? As I’ve already stated, I think it’s about 1 hundredth of a percent or less of all torture committed. Most of it’s done under circumstances where there’s absolutely no chance of getting info that might save lives.

If there was ANY evidence that governments were capable of imposing serious limits on the use of torture, I’d be a lot more disposed to allow it, but all the evidence shows that they can’t. They’re like a bunch of 14-year-old hellions who want the keys to the car, claiming they can run errands for you, when their whole history shows that as soon as they get those keys, they’ll be out drag racing while drunk as skunks.

113

So why is it used? Is it sadism alone?

114

This isn’t even remotely what was asked for. Of course it’s bad and unproductive to torture people for no good reason, and Amnesty is definately and obviously against that. But handing me a list of cases where people have been tortured would be like a pacifist handing me a list of cases where militaries had attacked civilians outright.

Your smack talk aside, I’m not sure you quite comprehend what you are being asked to provide. The data we need is about the effectiveness of torture in getting information: not when used indescriminately or in part simply out of a desire for cruelty, but when that information is time-sensitive and reasonably predictably vital to national security. A list of governments that indescriminately use torture on a populace simply to intimidate them is basically irrelevant.

Actually, I would more say it clearly demonstrates the tendancy of torture to be misused when it’s part of a gray area of foggy, poorly explained and thoughtout policy with no oversight. Lots of tactics are inappropriate unless under very strict conditions. But in the case of torture, our squeamishness seems to leave us with a) the government willing to countenance torture in certain key situations, but also b) people being unwilling to lay out what those strict conditions should be. The result is a morass.

Yes, so? No one has ever argued that the general mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo was a legitimate or discriminate use of torture.

The ball’s pretty much been in my court and the court of people like blowero the whole time. You’ve been cheering on the sidelines.

115

Actually, I shouldn’t say that no one has argued that. Rather, I should say that I have not argued that.

116

I see I haven’t been clear. The remainder of my statement (which you called “pointless”) was intended to demonstrate that we’re not talking about an either/or situation here. We’re talking about a continuum. On one extreme is torture, in which an interrogee is subjected to such radical methods and pain that he’ll say anything to get the pain to stop. The problem with torture, as you’ve so ably pointed out, is that the interrogee often does say anything to get the pain to stop, even if what the person says is totally false.

On the other extreme is doing nothing and hoping the interrogee will talk on his own. The problem with doing nothing is that it is rarely, if ever, successful in revealing useful information.

And somewhere in the middle are “stress techniques.” Stress techniques work under the realization that if you do nothing, nobody will talk, and if you do too much, you’ll get bad information. So you try to provide just enough pressure to get the interrogee to talk, but not so much that he’ll be willing to provide bad information.

No, we’re not. We’re talking about coercing prisoners into giving us useful information in the war on terror. If that information proves to be valuable in fighting the war on terror, and also incriminates the speaker, then why can’t it be used for both?

We’re getting information about who the terrorists are, the nature of their operations, how they operate, and their specific plans and operations.

As I’m sure you know, most of the information revealed in interrogations is top secret. Obviously, the useful information that we get typically relates to ongoing operations. The government isn’t going to put this information on the front pages of newspapers or send out press releases about that information because publicizing it would render that information useless. Here’s a cite for that proposition.

So if you’re looking for specific information, I doubt I can be of too much help. But here is a link to information allegedly revealed through interrogation about a planned attack. Here is another that alleges useful information has come from an al Quaeda operative’s interrogations. Here is a link to some useful information revealed from the interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, one of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s top deputies. Here is another relating to information from the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Here is another link that alleges useful information was revealed through interrogation by Pakistanis. And here is a link to a blurb wherein Isreal alleges that it has used information gathered through interrogation to thwart terrorist attempts to kidnap Israeli dignitaries.

Fair enough. I don’t know that I’d have any answers anyways.

Why not? Do you think the interrogees’ rights are being violated merely by being interrogated? Or do you think that the interrogations are necessarily unable to reveal any useful information? Or do you think that the information and resultant lives saved isn’t important enough?

117

Most stress techniques are pretty much tortures that don’t leave any physical marks or require constant hands-on maitenence or application of the pain. For those that are keeping score: that means that morally they are just as bad, but because they are less hands of, and much like the random/unintended but predictable nature choosing CD-prone military policies, they allow us to feel better about it! For some reason I don’t understand.

118

Hence my amused confusion. If this is so, then why on earth would would you cite all those instances where there is no chance of it accomplishing anything? That’s like arguing against CD by citing all the examples where soldiers fired indescriminately into a civilian crowd for no reason.

119

You’re asking him to prove a negative. He’s saying that torture is never used as a controlled method of extracting crucial information, and you’re asking him for examples of it never being used that way.

120

No. Stress techniques can be as light as saying “you have to answer our questions,” or putting a blindfold on the interrogee, or shining a light in his eyes. In fact, stress techniques don’t involve the use of physical pain. So the reason we don’t feel as bad about stress techniques is that they’re not as brutal or hard on the interrogee.