# Torture as Policy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345 "2004-05-03T21:18:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/1 "2004-05-03T21:18:41Z")
The problem with ceding to the government the right to keep people detained without any recourse is that anything can happen to the detained, and that can lead to this: > [@](#): > > …in a federal lawsuit to be filed today and in telephone interviews from Pakistan and Egypt, the former cable technician and the former restaurateur have provided the most detailed personal accounts yet of the unit’s brutality and the first to accuse specific corrections officers and wardens of abuse. The accusations are similar to those now being made against military officers guarding prisoners in Iraq. > The lawsuit charges that the men were repeatedly slammed into walls and dragged across the floor while shackled and manacled, kicked and punched until they bled, cursed as “terrorists” and “Muslim bastards,” and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one during which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby’s rectum, making him bleed. > … > Instead of a lawyer, he found more than a dozen federal officers waiting for him. As he and the lawsuit tell it, several officers picked him up and threw him against the wall. He said he heard one ask a senior person, “He’s the one?” and when the reply was affirmative, an officer pressing Mr. Iqbal’s head into the wall turned it around, looked him in the face and said, “Welcome to hell, buddy.” > At that, he was dragged to the floor, kicked in the stomach with steel-toed shoes and punched in the face, he said, and the officers screamed death threats and curses as they beat him up. "Then the senior person said, ‘Just take him out of my sight.’ " > Hatred seemed to determine the rules on the unit in ways large and small, the men said. On cold days when it rained, Mr. Iqbal was left outside for hours without jacket or shoes. When he was returned to his cell drenched, officers turned on the air-conditioning, he said. At one point, the lawsuit said, Mr. Elmaghraby was mockingly displayed naked to a female staff member. Unlike the soldiers who are being held for the incidents at Abu Ghraib, the officers in this incident face no prosecution: > [@](#): > > Ms. Billingsley, the Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, said it had taken no disciplinary action while it waited for a decision about prosecution to be made by the Department of Justice’s civil rights division and the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “We were recently advised of the decision not to prosecute,” she said. So, given that it was a Federal decision to hold people caught in the post-9/11 sweeps without right of habeas corpus, and that it was a Federal decision not to prosecute the perpetrators of the above torture, we can all rest comfortably now in the knowledge that it is Federal policy to torture when it can where it can, as long as the fig leaf of the war on terror can be used to justify the action. Full text here: [Two Men Charge Abuse in Arrests After 9/11 Terror Attack](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/nyregion/03brooklyn.html?pagewanted=1) ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/2 "2004-05-03T21:40:41Z")
Careful now, we wouldn’t want to suggest that radical leftists like Amnesty International are right or anything. ---
**Author:** ![EsotericEnigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e274bd/32.png) [@EsotericEnigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EsotericEnigma)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/3 "2004-05-03T23:37:21Z")
I don’t know about the rest of you, but there are a few people in this world I wouldn’t mind slamming against walls, humiliating, kicking, and dragging across a prison floor, bleeding from the head. On a different note though…could it be that the decision not to prosecute was based on the fact that there wasn’t a shred of evidence except for the words of the prisoners that it ever happened at all? There weren’t any graphic photos for them, like there are now. You can describe in graphic detail all of the horrible, humiliating abuse you can imagine, but simply describing it doesn’t prove that it actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/4 "2004-05-04T00:50:55Z")
Let’s go to the videotape: > [@](#): > > When the inspector general’s investigators interviewed corrections officers, all but one or two denied that any detainees were abused. But according to a supplemental report issued in December, investigators later recovered videotapes that showed some of the same officers engaging in abuse. From the above-cited article. We’ll see what comes out from the lawsuits. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/5 "2004-05-04T02:54:45Z")
> [@EsotericEnigma](#): > > I don’t know about > > On a different note though…could it be that the decision not to prosecute was based on the fact that there wasn’t a shred of evidence except for the words of the prisoners that it ever happened at all? > You can describe in graphic detail all of the horrible, humiliating abuse you can imagine, but simply describing it doesn’t prove that it actually happened. This is out of my area of expertise, but I’m going to go out on a limb and venture that a flashlight up your ass leaves a sign or two of its vist, even after its gone… That aside, I don’t really think it wise for us to draw up our defensive position on the “prove it really happened” line. I think we will do better to try the “a few rotten apples” line, followed by “a commission is investigating” followed by “reforms are being undertaken”… followed by “progress is being made…” ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/6 "2004-05-04T03:16:41Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > This is out of my area of expertise, but I’m going to go out on a limb and venture that a flashlight up your ass leaves a sign or two of its vist, even after its gone… Do not underestimate the ability of the human body to take in sizable objects without permanent damage. Frankly, people are more afraid of things going up their asses than they really need to be. You can actually take fairly large objects without much trouble (though maybe some discomfort). But that is willingly. A rough-handled flashlight without lubrication, however, would still be very painful at the time. Additionally, in rape situations, there is usually bruising to the surrounding muscle tissue, which may be what you are referring to. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/7 "2004-05-04T04:42:24Z")
As I mentioned elsewhere, as practical policy goes, I’ve read torture isn’t all the effective, for the simple reason that it generates false confessions. Though it seems, in this case, nobody was trying to get a confession, which is perverse on many levels. Reminds me of a movie… “What did they tell you?” “They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.” “Are my methods unsound?” “I don’t see any method…at all, sir.” ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/8 "2004-05-04T04:59:52Z")
> [@EsotericEnigma](#): > > I don’t know about the rest of you, but there are a few people in this world I wouldn’t mind slamming against walls, humiliating, kicking, and dragging across a prison floor, bleeding from the head. No further explanation is required. ---
**Author:** ![Linear\_Crack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Linear\_Crack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linear_Crack)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/9 "2004-05-04T06:02:28Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > Frankly, people are more afraid of things going up their asses than they really need to be. I was going to ask for a link, but I’ll just take your word for it. 😃 -LC ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/10 "2004-05-04T10:11:46Z")
Here’s an interesting link (from Info Clearinghouse daily newsletter): > [@](#): > > Why Are We Shocked?: > > US military torture is old history: Buried Secrets [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6127.htm](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6127.htm) ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/11 "2004-05-04T10:37:50Z")
[QUOTE=Zagadka] Do not underestimate the ability of the human body to take in sizable objects without permanent damage. Frankly, people are more afraid of things going up their asses than they really need to be. You can actually take fairly large objects without much trouble (though maybe some discomfort). [QUOTE] Well, I, for one, am certainly relieved on that score… ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/12 "2004-05-04T15:11:44Z")
I wish to take a moment to thank friend **Zad** , on behalf of the SDMB in general, for his efforts in the cause of combatting ignorance. I freely admit that I was entirely unaware of the capacity of the human anus for expansion, and subsequent capacity to withstand the introduction of any number of foreign objects. I feel quite advanced on the subject, however, and hasten to note that I do not feel any further education on the subject is desireable or neccesary. That will do nicely, thank you. No, no, that’s quite enough. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/13 "2004-05-04T15:17:39Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I wish to take a moment to thank friend **Zad** , on behalf of the SDMB in general, for his efforts in the cause of combatting ignorance. I freely admit that I was entirely unaware of the capacity of the human anus for expansion, and subsequent capacity to withstand the introduction of any number of foreign objects. Sorry for the Threadnapping … Where did you learn this stuff Zagadka ? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/14 "2004-06-19T04:52:58Z")
html[So Torture is Legal?](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44874-2004Jun15.html) Remember this next time you see Cheney foaming at the mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-as-policy/243345/15 "2004-06-19T05:25:24Z")
> [@](#): > > **EsotericEnigma** : I don’t know about the rest of you, but there are a few people in this world I wouldn’t mind slamming against walls, humiliating, kicking, and dragging across a prison floor, bleeding from the head. You bleeding heart liberals are all alike.