This. Think about it this way: you’re an Iranian youth, who’s been taught that the US is The Great Satan and that Jews are manipulating the West to destroy Iran and so on for 15 years.
Since you know your leaders occasionally lie, you take it all with a grain of salt. Then you see the images from Abu Ghraib or Gitmo on TV and you “realize” that it was all true!
There’s nothing worse than an urban legend with a grain of truth to it.
It is morally repugnant and cannot be defended at all.
It does not work as a means to extract reliable information. We have done that discussion on these Boards in great detail and it just flat out fails on that count.
It makes us (the US) less safe. If you want I can find cites from US interrogation officers that were at Guantanamo who opined that if the people they were torturing weren’t terrorists before this they would be after it. There are historical examples of the use of torture being a primary reason to cause a population to stiffen its resolve in kicking out the government doing the torture. Most notably this occurred with the French in Algeria causing them to not only lose the war there but led to an attempted military coup by parts of the French military against the French government. Others have already noted how not torturing makes US soldiers safer.
So where is the compelling reason to torture? It fails on pretty much every count I can see unless just being punitive is your goal and there is a desire to hurt people just because.
There is also the whole ‘it’s illegal’ thingy…
-XT
You think the torture controversy is over a few guys that got slapped a couple of times?
Plenty of prisoners were tortured to death in American prisons. And the torture techniques used were those perfected in the Soviet Gulags, precisely because they typically didn’t leave marks. “Stress positions” don’t sound too bad…just uncomfortable, right? Except if I shackle you in an a position that is tolerable for a few minutes and uncomfortable after an hour, how are you going to feel after a few days?
Just hold your arm out straight. It’s nothing for a few minutes. But pretty soon your arm muscles tire, and it starts to hurt a bit. Then it hurts more and more and more and more, and pretty soon your arm is in agonizing pain. So you put your arm down.
This is the key. It is easy to induce agonizing pain in a prisoner simply by shackling them in an uncomfortable position, or in a place that is too cold, or too hot, or without food, or without water. It won’t cause agonizing pain to be in an uncomfortable position for a short time, or to not have water for a short time, or to be too cold for a short time, or to be too hot for a short time. And so people like you don’t see what the big deal is…you’ve gone hours and hours without taking drink of water, so what’s the big deal? You’ve stayed awake for hours and hours, so what’s the big deal? You’ve been in an uncomfortable airline seat for hours and hours, so what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that you simply continue the torture until it becomes a big deal. Thirst is no big deal, but surely you can see that after a few days with no water, thirst can become agonizing pain. The point is not the particular technique that causes agonizing pain, the point is that all these techniques are easily capable of causing agonizing pain if they are continued to the point of agony. What makes that so hard to understand?
And the reason we make it illegal for cops and soldiers to slap prisoners is because if we make it legal, then we have to define how hard, and how many times, and so on. At what point does a slap become a beating? And surely you know that if you give the cops the authority to strike prisoners, that authority will inevitably be abused. And so we have laws against it, because we don’t want to live in a society where a cop can give you a beating whenever he feels like it. And sometimes cops and soldiers beat up prisoners anyway, and sometimes they get away with it. But that’s not a reason to make it legal.
Seems to me that you’re speculating and can’t prove this point.
You keep saying that, but no, I’m not ashamed, I just think it’s a repugnant thing to do. It’s medieval punishment disguised as intelligence gathering and (lately) dressed up with legal terms.
It’s true that when a democracy does this kind of thing, it has an element of hypocrisy to it, but that’s incidental.
Based on what do you and I know this?
I’m not sure you DO know that much about the rules of war.
Does anyone really think we will no longer use torture? We’ve probably been torturing enemies since the French and Indian War. And you know what? The enemy has tortured our soldiers. Sure, everyone says, “No we don’t torture.” But c’mon, do you really believe it?
No one would think twice about this whole mess if those idiots at Abu Ghraib weren’t taking pictures and video. Stupid fucking morons. The pictures got out and the whole world saw the terrible things that had been done. And than we looked even worse than we already did; which goes back to not winning hearts and minds. So, we back peddle, close Guntanamo, make new laws, and apologize profusely to the rest of the world. But, were still fighting a war, and it won’t be the last. You think if we were to capture some more top Al-Qaida guys, they aren’t going to be tortured for information? You think asking nicely will get us the information we need.
The public at large certainly wouldn’t, but that’s not everyone. And of course, not to re-argue the war again, but Saddam’s use of torture was one of the reasons people said Iraq had to be invaded. So most people are against torture sometimes, depending on how frightened they are at that moment, on who is being tortured, and on how deluded they are about its effectiveness. But other people are flat-out against it.
Why does America make such a big deal about performing medical experiments on people without their consent? Shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to advance the field of medicine and save lives?
Historically, we have gained a lot of information through human experimentation without consent (1, 2, 3). Why can’t we just accept that medicine is a dirty affair and that things like this come out of it. It seems like we’re almost ashamed about it.
I just don’t see the big deal about it. Medicine saves lives, does protesting the source change that fact?
:rolleyes:
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?
Yes. That’s exactly what happens.
Eagerly awaiting your counterexample of information that was gained through torture and could not have been gained without it.
(Thanks to **Whack-a-Mole **for the post that originally cited this article over in the Torture Is Most Likely Very Effectivethread. Which we’ll probably just end up re-hashing here.)
Yes, I do. From the founding of our country in 1776 until the George W. Bush Administration, the United States government never tortured any enemy prisoner of war. Not one. Not in the Revolutionary War. Not in the War of 1812. Not in the Civil War. Not in the Mexican War. Not in the Spanish-American War. Not in WWI. Not in WWII. Not in the Korean War. Not in the Vietnam War. Not in the first Iraq War. George W. Bush was the first United States President in history to order anyone to torture anyone.
Back during previous wars, espeically WWII, the United States was legendary for its excellent treatment of prisoners. Thousands of German soldiers risked death by swimming across the Elbe River in mid-winter so that they could experience the joy of being a prisoner of the United States military. Several Italian divisions surrendered without firing a shot because they believe life would be better as prisoners of America than as Italian soldiers…and they were right.
When George W. Bush decided to make widescale torture and murder the policy of the United States, he turned his back on over 225 years of proud American history.
I’d also like to point out that the “Why make it illegal when we know it will still happen?” argument can be applied to almost any law.
Why do we have laws against stealing? It’s not like they stop people from stealing. And sometimes when someone steals something it’s the right thing to do. What if my kid is *dying *and the only way to get the medicine to save him is to steal it? If we make stealing illegal, then we won’t be able to steal when it’s necessary. And so on.
We make laws against stealing because stealing is wrong. We make those laws knowing full well they will often be violated. Laws don’t prevent bad behavior; they discourage it. And torture is a very bad behavior that deserves to be discouraged. If there is some peculiar circumstance where torturing someone is the lesser evil, we can deal with that at the trial of the torturer. Just the same way we’d deal with someone on trial for stealing insulin during a hurricane to keep his diabetic son alive.
I understand the OP’s other point, which I think is that if people are going to kill each other in all kinds of ways during a war, what does it matter if they torture each other too? What it comes down to, I think, is the idea that the war is necessary [or so everybody convinces himself], but additional acts like torture of captives, or destructution of towns or rape of female prisioners are cruelty for its own sake and thus its desirable to avoid them even during a war. It’s not a totally consistent attitude, but there’s a rationality to it.
The Geneva Conventions weren’t designed by a bunch of sissy pacifists who wanted to make the job of a soldier harder. They were designed by a bunch of generals and imperialists who wanted to win wars. And the rules of war they came up with make it easier to win wars, not harder. Even if the enemy does not abide by the same rules, we should abide by the Geneva Conventions because abiding by them make it more likely that we will win.
As for the notion that sweet reason and kindness won’t do a thing against the hard-core fanatics, it forgets a few things. Where do hard-core fanatics come from? What makes them fanatics, and why do they stay fanatics? If the definition of a fanatic is someone who will never change his mind no matter what, how many people are true fanatics? More than a handful?
There are guys shooting at American soldiers today in Iraq and Afghanistan. How many of them are true fanatics? How many are just dumb kids who think war is fun?
You know what makes someone a top-notch interrogator? Empathy. The ability to put yourself in the position of the person you are questioning, and figure out what makes them tick. And it is proven over and over again that the supposed hard cases are often the first ones to spill the beans when offered decent treatment. Sometimes they want to brag about what they’ve done. Sometimes they feel guilty. Sometimes they want to cut a deal. Sometimes they’re just bored, and talking with the interrogator is the only interesting thing they get to do.
Torture proves to the fanatic that his fanaticism was correct. Decent treatment confuses him. And confusion is the mental state the interrogator wants.
interrogators are the captors.
This sounds like the sort of nonsense Rush would spout.
Is that where you got it?
What does it mean?
Phillippine Insurrection. Not only did we apply the most brutal tactics, we applied those tactics against a nativist rebellion we had promised to recognize as the proper rulers of the Phillippines if they would ally with us to depose the Spanish.
See Mark Twain for the heartsick rage of a patriot. Most especially In Defense of General Funston.
As well, in the Viet Nam war and any of several Central American conflicts, we permitted ourselves a gossamer veil of deniability. But we knew.
So, I have no idea if this is the right forum to post it, and a quick search didn’t find me a topic on this.
But why does America make such a big deal over raping enemy civilians? And especially considering our soldiers are mostly males in the 18-21 age group and often unable to find proper sexual outlets, so if while we are engaged in combat with another party, and if we come across enemy civilians who may be able to provide a sexual outlet for our soldiers, what is wrong with raping them? I suppose its not sufficient to just ask please.
Rape probably has happened in every major conflict by every major party in human history. Why can’t we just accept that war is a dirty affair and that things like this come out of it? It seems like we’re almost ashamed about it.
I just don’t see the big deal about it. War is hell, does protesting about wartime rape change that fact?
Oh I see what you did there! 
But to be honest, we don’t make that big of a deal of combat rape do we? I haven’t heard of any major news about that, and I’m pretty sure it must happen (it always does). We all know about America’s history with Vietnam and their treatment of the people there.
What I think is shocking is that we make more of a deal of torture than the way we treat natives (at least from a media standpoint). Its much worse when it comes to civilians as they are not part of the combat, just caught in the crossfire. But when torture of confirmed enemy combatants come into play, then we get into a big fuss about it and the entire American government moves to condemn it.
In this forum, I can only say that your ideas are vile.
That’s pretty much what I’m getting at. Things happen during war, why the hell do we care about one or two things over everything else? Especially things that involve combatants?
Involving civilians (destruction of towns/rape/etc) of course is always a negative. They are not directly part of the fighting. But hey, you got to accept that its collateral damage.
But torture? Now we got to go on a witch hunt against every person involved.