To add to this, there is always the possibility that the person doesn’t have any information but will say anything to stop the torture. The person will say whatever he thinks the interrogators want to hear.
Well I think it is torture. You are an inhuman monster. Why do you support torture? Hitler used to tap people on the shoulder on buses, so you are no better than Hitler.
Initially I agreed with you.
Tell you what, when America has the balls to do what’s right and put the war criminals behind bars, then I’ll agree with you again.
Till then we do need international oversight over our international activities. Since we can’t even put away despotic torturers.
We’re that incompetent thanks to Bush supporters. Otherwise you tell me how these war criminals will be brought to justice.
Yes. It’s an opinion.
So, following your logic, it would be “idiotic and ignorant” for someone to say that the Alabama legislators in my hypothetical are authorizing violations of the 15th Amendment?
Or do only some diversities of opinion prevent others from forming judgments without being idiots and ignoramuses? If so, how do we tell one from the other?
(Shouldn’t that be “I am an inhuman monster”, since you were the one doing the poking?) 
Continuing the hypothetical, let’s say that you successfully prosecuted someone 30 years ago for torture, for carrying out this exact same action (poking someone repeatedly on a bus). Do you think you should be prosecuted likewise?
How about if I beat beat your daughter’s head against a wall once every minute. Let’s say I thought I could get useful intel this way. Would that be kosher?
Remember when you answer you need to explain why your daughter is deserving of more protection then say, other innocent people like Maher Arar.
Are we helpless, then, without it? Doomed to collapse without the salvation offered by torture?
Between decency and evil? Torture Lite?
Der can be tiresome, but he has a point. There’s a lot of it available, try Googling “interrogation” and “empathy”, should get you well started on the theory and practice.
I suppose, if a Vulcan mind meld isn’t available…
You’re “witnessing”. You do realize that, yes? You’re welcome to your faith.
You probably recall a couple months back when the Bushiviks did exactly that, crowed publicly about all the smashing successes they’ve had in combating terror and thwarting evil schemes. A sorry spectacle it was, you may recall.
No, it isn’t. We have tacity condoned this sort of behavior, for generations. From the Phillipines through Viet Nam and Central America we have let them get away with this, to cover it up under a thin cover of “national security”, like a sheer negligee on a hag. There was nothing done at Abu Ghraib Americans were innocent of until then, the techniques change, the evil persists.
Enough! We’re the Americans, and we don’t do that. It wasn’t true yesterday, but it can be true tomorrow, and that’s what counts. And it will be so if we will insist on it.
According to actual professional interrogators, yes. That’s why they don’t torture; torture is for amateurs and sadists. Torture has a NEGATIVE value; when the torturers got sent in is when the flow of useful information stopped.
It might suprise you to know that the United States Army as well as many other people have thought about this problem. And the experts have come up with some ideas, and written them down in a book. This book is known as a “Field Manual” because it can be issued to soldiers in the field and used as a reference material. The writers of this manual have taken care that the techniques described therein follow both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.
Would it also suprise you to learn that this manual of interrogation techniques is available to us, the general public? Would you be further suprised to know that this manual is available on the US Army website? Would you like to know where, exactly? Should I tell you?
Yes, I should. The document is at http://www.army.mil/institution/armypublicaffairs/pdf/fm2-22-3.pdf. Read the whole thing, and you’ll find out all sorts of things, including that we don’t have to choose between slamming someone’s head against the wall until they die, and sitting on our hands and praying.
And do you know who the main author of this book is? Probably some lawyer who wants to tie the hands of our brave soldiers, right? No, it turns out the main author is General David Petraeus. The guy who ran the war in Iraq and turned things around after the initial debacles. Would you like to know more?
This is just wrong and ignorant and wrong. And also ignorant. In reality, there’s a range of opinion on what constitutes an opinion. The posters in this thread simply have a difference of opinion with you over whether there’s a difference of opinion on what constitutes torture, and that’s just an opinion, so saying they’re wrong is wrong. And ignorant. And sort of… wrignorant. Also wrong.
I could be wrong, but I think I am being patronised…
Were this a lesser forum I’d likely tell you to go somewhere. I am aware of the Army field manual, I was in the Army, so were both my grandfathers in WWII and Korea, and so was my Dad and his brother (USMA grads) in Vietnam.
Following family tradition as I am brainwashed to do, I served in what is now known as “Gulf Wars I: The Prequel” in 1991-92.
The problem is that government-sanctioned torturers aren’t, ah, following the manual, dear chap.
That’s not the problem, that’s the point.
And you certainly looked to be creating a false dichotomy between “torture” and “sit with our thumbs up our butts”.
Yes.
Nasty Goose Liver, a bit of a primer before you continue to spout jingoistic bullshit – which, I’d reckon, would be far more vile on a cracker than the French delicacy you apparently abhor.
PROHIBITION AGAINST USE OF FORCE
– bolding mine.
Meantime, you are welcome to take your American flag lapel pin and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Fuckin’ sick of excuses such as this one:
No, it certainly isn’t. If your IQ is above room temperature that is.
I am still at a loss as to why so many SDMB posters whom I hold in high esteem continue to enlarge (if that’s possible) a certain person’s ego.
Meantime, Keith has it right:
As does Garzón despite Carville’s surprising whitewashing of the events:
Spanish Judge Keeps Bush Torture Prosecutions Alive
Idialists? Maybe. Likely even. But so was the Jesus that is so highly revered in your nation. And rightly so, for fictional or not, he was certainly no friend of unbridled greed and selfishness. Which remain to this day the largest obstacles facing mankind.
:::with a nod to you know who:::
Great. So when you capture a prisoner and you ask your Seargant what to do, what does he tell you? “Follow the field manual.”
You want to know the main trick that interrogators use to get criminals to confess, and bad guys to blab? Pretend to be friendly. Empathize with the prisoner. Tell him that you see his side of things. Speak his language, understand his background, understand what makes him tick. Engage him in small talk. Be his friend, and he’ll WANT to tell you the truth. He’ll even brag about it to you, because you’re just like him and you understand.
This is a proven technique, and it works.
But it requires seeing the enemy as a human being. It’s more satisfying to imagine your enemy is an inhuman monster. It’s more satisfying to slam his head against the wall until he dies than it is to share a cigarette with him and chitchat. But are you trying to get revenge or are you trying to get information? Which is more important?
And since you were a soldier in the first Gulf War, you know for a fact that the reputation of American soldiers for good treatment of prisoners saved American lives. How many Iraqi soldiers surrendered during the Gulf War, or during the initial invasion of Iraq, because they believed that if they surrendered they’d be treated pretty good, and would be sent home safe and sound?
And the next time American soldiers have to fight in some gawdawful sandpile, some of them are going to die because the guys they are fighting won’t believe they’ll get decent treatment from American soldiers. They’ll believe they’re likely to end up in a hole forever, they’ll believe they could end up tortured to death. And so rather than surrender, they’ll fight.
And so good treatment of enemy prisoners is a war-winning strategy. It wasn’t dreamed up by some dipshit hippie lawyer who wants to make your work harder, it was dreamed up by professional soldiers who wanted to win wars.
And Cognitive Dissonance. You forgot about CD. In first century Palestine, the number one threat was either Romans or demonic possession, but these days its CD.
Would that you’d stop trying to make sense, Lemur866. Not much of a thread if it prevailed. 
’luc, hate to tell you bud, but it’s no longer about CD. After all, Obama did win on a platform based on fighting said notion (though by a disappointingly slim, from an outsiders perspective, margin) so a new prognosis needs be brought forth in cases such as the one that occupies us here.
Torture, for or against it no matter how or who does it – as I do think the answer need be definitive.
Mayhap worth its own thread? Then again it’d be like preaching to the converted if past ones are to be considered.
Right. Off to the saner world of F1. And believe you me that’s as offensive a comparison as it gets.
Not really. Since my military experience does decidedly NOT include detention and treatment of prisoners, I was merely wondering what the middle ground was in this morass. Thanks for knee-jerking all over me and assuming you know my position, though.
You can go fuck yourself three ways from Sunday with your bullshit. You don’t know me nor my politics fuckface, so why don’t you suck a fat one and gargle on the jizz? Seriously, dickhead, I was asking a serious question as to the alternatives to what defines torture and where the middle ground lies. You just took your assumptions and ran with them. Fuck you.
That’s nice. Mayhap they’d like a steak dinner. Seriously, I know that this particular tactic is useful, but…then what? You cozy up to someone only to have them agree with your position? What is gained?
Folks, I DO NOT CONDONE torture. I was trying to have an honest debate as to the alternatives, and where the middle ground lies, and the usual knee-jerk suspects with their less than pithy and more than frothy responses come climbing out of the woodwork.
I mean seriously, guys…what the fuck? Attacking me like that? Screw you. Waterboard yourself. Something.