# Why the big deal over torture? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 7, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663 "2009-05-07T16:10:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/181 "2009-05-09T05:02:30Z")
It may not have been vindictive as such. Seems more likely they genuinely believed that they had a major kingpin (well, he confessed, didn’t he?..) and were blind to the possibility that he had already told them what he knew, and probably quite a lot he didn’t. So they kept after him to get the information they believed he had since they flat couldn’t accept that they might have been wrong. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/182 "2009-05-09T08:09:25Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > Getting water poured on your face is I am sure unpleasant, but not torture. If waterboarding is merely unpleasant, then WHY do it ? It’s like saying our major interrogation techniques are giving prisoners wedgies and making them watch reruns of _Small Wonder_. You can’t have it both ways. If waterboarding is so traumatic that it will force even a hardened terrorist to spill the beans, how is that not torture? And if it’s not particularly traumatic, then what purpose is served by doing it? If you believe that America should be torturing its enemies, fine, argue for that. I think that that’s disgusting and a complete violation of everything this country stands for, but at least it’s intellectually honest. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/183 "2009-05-09T13:57:48Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > Getting water poured on your face is I am sure unpleasant, but not torture. Oh, never mind, you don’t actually know what waterboarding is. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/184 "2009-05-09T15:18:58Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Where to begin. For starters, this is the US Army field manual for interrogating prisoners of war, not the CIA manual for interrogating ‘enemy combatants’ which is what is really being discussed here. I haven’t seen anyone talking about the US Army torturing Iraqi Army POWs on the road to Baghdad before “Mission Accomplished.” Even so, I’ve bolded a part of it for you that you might want to peruse over again; it explains why the US Army thinks torture is a poor technique. Then there is your claim which you seem to think this supports:Why those devious democrats, they got into such an uproar that they invented time travel to go back to the Reagan era to prevent the insulting of captives. You might want to look at the publishing date of the manual. > > FM 34-52 > HEADQUARTERS > DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY > Washington, DC, 8 May 1987 Thanks to the uproar we are now using the army field manual techniques to interrogate prisoners. No insults…not even good cop/bad cop techniques. Personally I think this is a horrible idea that weakens our security. Also, I don’t care when the manual was written or who was president at the time. This is not a conservative vs liberal debate IMO. The liberals have merely used this to their political advantage. Where was the outrage during the Clinton administration for the use of rendition. We can be fairly certain that those captives were really tortured. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/185 "2009-05-09T15:26:11Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > The big deal is that it is a big part of what makes “us” better than “them”. Don’t you recall W’s going on about how Saddam was such a bad guy that he had torture chambers and rape rooms? He tortured _his own people_! That’s what’s so awful. His own people! Just imagine! While Americans torture Iraqis who are not Americans and are barely human anyway. Talk about squaring the circle. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/186 "2009-05-09T15:27:16Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > Thanks to the uproar we are now using the army field manual techniques to interrogate prisoners. No insults…not even good cop/bad cop techniques. Personally I think this is a horrible idea that weakens our security. I don’t suppose you’d like to prove this? ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/187 "2009-05-09T15:43:50Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I have no idea what you just said. > I _think_ this is supposed to be a half-assed “it’s only a few rotten apples” defence, while at the same time saying the apples might not have been rotten after all ? No, and I apologise for not being more clear. Some people stepped over the line but this was not the official policy of the US. These people should be prosecuted for their crimes. The other point I was trying to make is that reasonable people can disagree about whether official US interrogation techniques constitute torture. The memos released show that thought went into how long a certain procedure could be performed, etc. > [@Kobal2](#): > > As an intense creepy-crawly phobic, you’ll understand why to me this still seems like kind of a big deal to inflict on someone. > Oh, and you still have to provide examples of what you’d consider to be actual torture, and where torture starts on the scale of Doing Unpleasant Stuff To A Fellow Human Being. Again, this does not equal torture. It sounds like something your big brother would do to you as a kid. Can it scare the hell out of you and make you extremely uncomfortable? Absolutely! But does it constitute torture? No way. The definition of torture is vague. It is obvious that the techniques used by many countries are torture (cutting off limbs, rape, killing your family, medical experimentation etc.). The definition of torture leaves a huge gray area where reasonable people may disagree. This is just the nature of using such a vague definition…extreme and severe are words that do not exactly have clear definitions. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/188 "2009-05-09T15:51:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > I don’t suppose you’d like to prove this? Prove what? That we are using the army field manual? [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99790782](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99790782) I’ve already provided a link about insults. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/189 "2009-05-09T16:14:30Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > If you think they were just being tough guys, why in the world do you think KSM was waterboarded 183 times? Isn’t that pretty much proof that we weren’t torturing him for information, we were torturing him because he was a bad guy who deserved to be tortured? You know that he was only waterboarded about 5 times. The 183 number refers to the number of times water hit his face. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/190 "2009-05-09T16:17:02Z")
I do see the good cop/bad cop technique is being debated in the media. I retract that statement since it is unclear at this point ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/191 "2009-05-09T17:06:40Z")
Maniac Man, you’re tremendously uninformed about waterboarding. Please, check this out. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/4LPubUCJv58/maxresdefault.jpg "Christopher Hitchens Get Waterboarded | Vanity Fair") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58) It’s the video of Christopher Hitchens, a fan of the Iraq war, being waterboarded. In a safe non-threatening environment, full of fail-safes and controls, he still breaks in seconds. Seriously, watch it. It’s not dribbling water on someone to the point of annoyance. It’s the activation of a primitive, deep seated panic reflex at the core of the brain. Every person who has ever drowned while conscious has felt it, the utter reptilian panic of a terrified animal. If you don’t think waterboarding is torture, you’re [ignorant.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/sdmb_images/reader/ignorance2lines.gif) \<– sassy link. ---
**Author:** ![ManiacMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b782af/32.png) [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/192 "2009-05-09T17:33:48Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > If waterboarding is merely unpleasant, then WHY do it ? It’s like saying our major interrogation techniques are giving prisoners wedgies and making them watch reruns of _Small Wonder_. > > You can’t have it both ways. If waterboarding is so traumatic that it will force even a hardened terrorist to spill the beans, how is that not torture? And if it’s not particularly traumatic, then what purpose is served by doing it? > > If you believe that America should be torturing its enemies, fine, argue for that. I think that that’s disgusting and a complete violation of everything this country stands for, but at least it’s intellectually honest. What you say makes sense… I heard that special forces trainees undergo waterboarding though. I know they “know” they won’t die during the process, and that “bad” guys don’t have that luxury. But since our soldiers are subjected to this, and use that “training” to help resist the scary kinds of torture that they may be subjected to by our enemies made me think that waterboarding ain’t so bad. However, they say that anything can be used as torture, and that means WBing is too I supppose, but only if done with dog-piss and dirty underwear for hours and hours on end. Shit…tickling has been used as torture from what I have heard…guess we can’t even tickle our enemies… ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/193 "2009-05-09T18:10:09Z")
“You getting that morally reprehensible feeling? Can’t look at yourself in the mirror, but don’t want to quit shaving? Then you need our new! improved! Torture Lite. From CheneyCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of Moloch Industries, so you know its got to be good! Thoroughly vetted by our crack team of lawyers, Torture Lite is 100% legal and ethical!\* Its like a shot of Novocaine straight to the conscience. you’ll be as happy and carefree as Pinocchio when he found out that crickets make good bait!..” \*not valid in civilized world, may result in contempt, derision, shock, horror and dismay. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/194 "2009-05-09T18:11:21Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > Shit…tickling has been used as torture from what I have heard…guess we can’t even tickle our enemies… Here is your disconnect. > [@](#): > > Main Entry: > 1tor·ture > > Pronunciation: > \ˈtȯr-chər\ > > Function: > noun > > Etymology: > > Middle French, from Old French, from Late Latin tortura, from Latin tortus, past participle of torquēre to twist; probably akin to Old High German drāhsil turner, Greek atraktos spindle > Date: > 1540 > > 1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain Simple as that really. If tickling someone repeatedly for hours can do the above then it is torture literally by definition. Maybe you enjoy drinking beer. Bet if I poured beer down your throat endlessly however you’d find that good thing has become tortuous. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/195 "2009-05-09T18:22:45Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > What you say makes sense… > > I heard that special forces trainees undergo waterboarding though. I know they “know” they won’t die during the process, and that “bad” guys don’t have that luxury. But since our soldiers are subjected to this, and use that “training” to help resist the scary kinds of torture that they may be subjected to by our enemies made me think that waterboarding ain’t so bad. Your reasoning continues to make no sense. If waterboarding was not so bad, how would familiarising our soldiers with its effects do jack to help them resist torture? > [@](#): > > However, they say that anything can be used as torture, and that means WBing is too I supppose, but only if done with dog-piss and dirty underwear for hours and hours on end. Shit…tickling has been used as torture from what I have heard…guess we can’t even tickle our enemies… Here’s a simple guideline: if you are doing something _because_ it would make the prisoner uncomfortable, _it is bad_. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/196 "2009-05-09T18:25:24Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Here is your disconnect. > > Simple as that really. If tickling someone repeatedly for hours can do the above then it is torture literally by definition. > > Maybe you enjoy drinking beer. Bet if I poured beer down your throat endlessly however you’d find that good thing has become tortuous. By that definition life in prison could be considered torture. Hell, even a few years can cause anguish of the mind. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/197 "2009-05-09T18:52:49Z")
Why, that’s true! And if you cram Girl Scout Cookies down somebody’s throat, why, that could be torture! So, I guess we have to make Girl Scout Cookies illegal! And maybe waterboarding would be OK if we didn’t use ordinary dog pee but Evian water, from like France! Then it would be ok, huh? Boy, you guys sure make some dumb arguments! ---
**Author:** ![Rolken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df788c/32.png) [@Rolken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rolken)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/198 "2009-05-09T18:54:44Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > It’s the video of Christopher Hitchens, a fan of the Iraq war, being waterboarded. In a safe non-threatening environment, full of fail-safes and controls, he still breaks in seconds. Seriously, watch it. It’s not dribbling water on someone to the point of annoyance. It’s the activation of a primitive, deep seated panic reflex at the core of the brain. In the associated [Vanity Fair article](http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808), most of the content is echoed elsewhere from sources like Scylla’s topic, but this line was striking. > [@](#): > > As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/199 "2009-05-09T19:19:34Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Why, that’s true! And if you cram Girl Scout Cookies down somebody’s throat, why, that could be torture! So, I guess we have to make Girl Scout Cookies illegal! And maybe waterboarding would be OK if we didn’t use ordinary dog pee but Evian water, from like France! Then it would be ok, huh? Boy, you guys sure make some dumb arguments! My argument is that the definition of torture is vague. This is unfortunate but it is impossible to quantify. So while some things may upset your delicate sensibilities and you may call it torture, to others it may well just be a way of life. I, for one, would be in severe anguish if I were homeless but the bank that foreclosed on me would not be torturing me. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663/200 "2009-05-09T19:37:25Z")
The fact waterboarding was used 183 times on KSM, seems either indicative of a highly inefficient torture method, or very incompetent torturers. I wonder if they were getting paid by the number of waterboardings, or by the hour? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-big-deal-over-torture/495663.md?page=11)