Pentagon explicitly approves Torture

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jan 21 2007, 07:16 AM) [snapback]378626[/snapback]</div>

Do you believe Jesus Christ would condone abu graib pseudo torture?

 

Until someone gets on here and says that Iraqis, or al Queada, or Muslims, or Palestinians, or neo-Nazis can subject U.S. troops or citizens to all the things now being called "non-torture," the argument that such things are not torture is a fraud. It's that simple, boys and girls. If done to you or yours you'd consider it torture, it's torture.

Had that prisoner perched atop a box with wires clipped to his arms been a U.S. Marine put there by our enemy of the month, the airwaves would be reverberating still in high sanctimonius dudgeon about how that poor U.S. marine had been tortured. I doubt anyone here would say, well, it was a harmless stunt, and the Marine wasn't injured, and since all's fair in love and war, it shouldn't be any big deal - which is what is being claimed now when it's the U.S. doing the torturing.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jan 21 2007, 01:39 PM) [snapback]378777[/snapback]</div>

As always, well stated, intelligent, cogent, and without a hint of personal attack! You do this very well!

Very persuasive, and I almost agree ... but I do hold out the exception, a la Dershowitz, of special, presidential approved torture for a specific reason in specific cases (certainly not the general mode of torture we have been engaging in during the period after 9/11, where only one case seems somewhat justified.)

There are times when personal human rights can be violated, such as when you have a person with a knife to the throat of another person; body slamming him so he drops the knife is an affront to his rights, but necessary if he would ... in the uncertain future ... slash the person's throat.

And the ticking bomb exception, which is rare indeed, does suffer form the fact that you do not absolutely know that the person has the information. So you have to weigh the pros and cons ... is slamming into that guy with the knife really necessary if he is not going to cut her throat? How do you know his real intent? You gage that by his actions, and while you do not know positively that the person will cut her throat, you feel that the likelihood is there. Likewise, there has to be some kind of evidence that the ticking bomb exists, and that the person knows where it is. To make this system work, as Dershowitz has said, requires a certain amount of openness for review after-the-fact, with it well known who made the decision, and who is responsible for it.

That is not the scenario we use currently; we even have sub-contractors who perform interrogations, and who are not subject to the UCMJ.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jan 21 2007, 01:31 AM) [snapback]378525[/snapback]</div>

Some were, some were not.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 21 2007, 02:06 AM) [snapback]378541[/snapback]</div>

OK, some muslims are not permitted to touch a woman, or their wives must be veiled. SO, it is torture if I make that person touch a woman or take off his wifes veil to check for ID. Be careful of this "anyone's definition" statement.

Oh, BTW, whenever I look at your name, I think naked woman and it is tortuous to me. Please stop!!!!!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 21 2007, 02:15 AM) [snapback]378550[/snapback]</div>

Who said laugh it off as a practical joke. WHY do you go to extremes. Torture is way HIGH on the scale, there are midle grounds of behaviours. By calling some of this torture, you are minimizing some of the REAL torture going on.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jan 21 2007, 12:56 PM) [snapback]378641[/snapback]</div>

Hahahahaha!- Officer- Sir, if you do not drop that knife I will shoot you"
Suspect- "I'm sorry, I do not believe you"
Officer- BANG!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 22 2007, 12:26 AM) [snapback]378869[/snapback]</div>

Very well said.

The bad guys dress in civilian clothes - our POW's have been murdered, in fact our civilians over there have been beheaded - is that allowable - and how do we respond to an enemy that has no military dress code or national origen. This is why we must allow our forces/agents room to operate and trust their abilities to know and do right from wrong. Mistakes will happen, but you cannot protect yourself (ouselves) by holding us to a higher standards than the enemy is willing to take. Combat and all the stuff inbetween seeks the lowest common denominator - it is immportant that that be able to be true today. The American public has to understand that. If we do not, we will empower our enemies to continue to do so.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Jan 22 2007, 01:06 PM) [snapback]379038[/snapback]</div>

Which ones?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 21 2007, 09:26 PM) [snapback]378869[/snapback]</div>

Thank you.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 21 2007, 09:26 PM) [snapback]378869[/snapback]</div>

I have no faith in the president to be more capable of making such a decision than a corporal on the ground. And given the intellect and religious fanaticism of the present president, I think he is even less capable.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 21 2007, 09:26 PM) [snapback]378869[/snapback]</div>

The right to protect yourself or someone else from an attack in progress is widely recognized. But the standard is always to use the minimum force necessary. And body-slamming a person who has a knife is not torture. Further, in this case you can see the knife, and you have no need or reason to torture someone to discover where the knife is.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 21 2007, 09:26 PM) [snapback]378869[/snapback]</div>

In fact, in the real world, you are always just guessing that there might be a bomb, and you are guessing that maybe this guy knows something about it.

Torturers, historically, have been willing to torture innocent people just in case they might have some information, and willing to follow a long trail of accusations made under torture, to try to get to the person who presumably has actual information. I refer you again to the Brits in Ireland. Torture never actually got them any useful information. In Central and South America as well, where torture was used to try to identify people who opposed (often peacefully) the government.

What torture actually accomplishes is to kill, scare away, or radicalize the middle, creating a polarized society. This is often precisely what the extremists on both sides want, but should never be what rational people want.

(See the link in the first post of Beryl's thread.)

You create a scenario where it sounds as though torture should be justified: a genuinely evil man must be tortured in order to find out where his bomb is planted, before it kills a lot of innocent people. But in real life you are only guessing that your man is a bomber, guessing that he has planted a bomb, and hoping that he'll give you more accurate information under torture than he will give you under conventional interrogation.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Jan 22 2007, 10:06 AM) [snapback]379038[/snapback]</div>

More like:

Officer: Just be straight with me and I'll see you get off light.
LIE! The more you talk, the worse it will go for you.

Officer: If you don't give me permission to search your car, I'll have to take you in.
LIE! He cannot take you in without cause. But if you let him search, he can always find some excuse to take you in if that's what he wants to do.

(This one happened to me, after a court arraignment
U.S. marshal: If you don't give me the names of your friends, the judge's order to release you on your own recognizance will be reversed and you'll be held in jail.
LIE! I refused (politely) to give any names, the marshal phoned the judge, and the judge ordered that I be released anyway.

(This one happened to my mother
F.B.I. agent: If you don't stop what you are doing (legal agitation for equal rights for Mexican-Americans) we can have you deported.
LIE! An American citizen cannot be deported, and certainly not for legal political activity.

 

Daniel, YOU said everything is a lie.....you are now changing your story. And SOME of the things you brought up I have said, and they were actually true. You do a lot of absolutes for a liberal thinker.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 22 2007, 03:15 PM) [snapback]379049[/snapback]</div>

For the start, any one w/o blood.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Jan 23 2007, 02:14 PM) [snapback]379732[/snapback]</div>

I never said that everything a cop says is a lie. What I said was that you should never believe anything a cop says, because they are allowed to lie and they do lie any time it will serve their interests. Therefore a citizen can never know whether a cop is telling the truth or lying.

You have admitted to lying in the course of your job. And I gave two examples of law-enforcement officials lying, to my personal knowlege because they happened to me (in one example) and to my mother (in another). In my mother's case, law-enforcement officials lied to try to intimidate her into quitting her legal and peaceful political activity. Fortunately, my mother is not easily intimidated, and she went to the library and did some research and found out that they were lying. Years later, when she got her FBI file through the FOIA, she learned that the agents knew they were lying. But i really don't have to convince anyone of that, because you've said that cops lie, and that you consider it right and proper that they do so.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jan 24 2007, 02:48 AM) [snapback]379919[/snapback]</div>

A distinction w/o a difference.