Torture

[Khalessi]

Once again, apologies if this topic has already been posted prior to this..

Has anyone else eva seen the movie 'Torture' starring Lawrence Fishburne?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029167/

Is torture eva acceptable?

For those who answer no .. what about in the case of a known and captured terrorist, where thousands of lives might hang in the balance ..is it okay then to retrieve information at any cost to avoid a tragedy??

In the case of those who choose to answer in the affirmative .. where does the line get drawn?

How much is too much?

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Is torture eva acceptable?

Not sure what possible situations it would be acceptable in.

Maybe if someone was going to blow up the world and the only way to extract the bomb disarm code was to torture the bomber? I mean, I'd rather have that guy get tortured than see the whole world blow up and we all die.

 

[Fatal Dawn]

I don't think it's a good idea. Have you heard of some of the torture methods used on people? Water boarding, deprivation of the senses, force feeding. That can cause long-term mental damage and even psychosis to the point that you can't even trust that what the person says is true. If they're not made crazy by the torture already, then it's possible they're just telling you what you want to hear to end the torture. Studies have shown that the brain usually doesn't process relevant information and recall facts accurately under such extreme pressure. (It's the reason why trauma victims are notoriously unreliable witnesses).


The only assured thing that torture will accomplish is to incite even further hatred against you by the opposition. I think it makes only in an extreme situation like what Nebulous presented, but at that point you could pretty much justify anything.

 

[Bluezone777]

The problem with torture is the one doing the torturing already walks in with a preconceived notion of what the truth is and will only stop when he hears what he wants to hear even if it ends up not being the truth. The person being tortured will say and do whatever ends the pain even if it means lying because he knows it's only about pleasing the one doing the torturing and not about telling the truth. Torture is NOT a means of getting the truth only what you want to hear out of someone and when did that serve anyone?

Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCKe_EpJJk

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

I will post everything I posted the last time this was discussed here with the same title.


people trained at getting info by Torture works. Its not even up for debate it works and has saved lives and helped get people like Bin Laden. One side of me wants the bad guys tortured and tortured often. But another side of me has no trust in the government to get anything right and not spread this to the American citizens. So im very conflicted.
Oh im confident it works. And I have no problem with the torture of terrorists. I have no moral conflict within me on if its right or wrong. But at this point I no longer trust anything about our government. And I mean not a single thing. I constantly tell our youth its a huge mistake to join our military in todays America. But Restore the decades of freedoms we have lost so it cant happen to Americans and my conflict to make torture a way of getting info returns.
And there are intelligence people who would disagree about it being not effective. Since this subject is so taboo were never going to get a accurate idea of a success rate from America using it secretly since WW2 or most countries for that manner. But there was a study done by the CIA in the 1980s about torture being used in South America. They found torture alone was not effective. Long term isolation meaning months and longer followed by torture was very effective. That kind of means to extract information is a art and of course takes a person who has a talent for hurting others. And also is not just in it for the pleasure of hurting someone.

Plus the people who are trained to torture for extracting information and not for the pleasure of it are not going to come out with stats saying out of 1000 test subjects my conclusion is.................. So were working on a fallacy saying it does not work.










From a article.

More Proof Waterboarding Works; Former CIA Agent says it was Necessary Torture

ABC reported yesterday that John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who interrogated al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, claims that subjecting Zubaydah to 35 seconds of waterboarding produced valuable information that thwarted terrorist attacks … and it was necessary torture:

“A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary. In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.

“The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate,” said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News With Charles Gibson” and “Nightline.”

“From that day on, he answered every question,” Kiriakou said. “The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”

Kiriakou said the feeling in the months after the 9/11 attacks was that interrogators did not have the time to delve into the agency’s bag of other interrogation tricks. “Those tricks of the trade require a great deal of time — much of the time — and we didn’t have that luxury. We were afraid that there was another major attack coming,” he said.”

The use of waterboarding and other techniques were directed by CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and were always a “last resort:”
http://patterico.com/2007/12/11/more-pro...e-torture/

But you can guarantee the info is correct or not fairly quickly if you have a team.

So maybe some cookies and milk will make him talk. Or some sweet talk about how misunderstood he is.

If the guy is a sicko then torture or not he is going to have pleasure knowing the kidnapped person is going to die. You have a better chance of getting correct info from producing pain then trying nice talk. And I still say its a fallacy saying torture does not work effectively with no real empirical evidence. Hell most people give up when the pain gets to bad from just simply enduring something like navy seal training or much less. You start ripping out toe nails or sticking bamboo shoots into a penis while the person is forced to watch in a mirror I think after one or two false trails 99% are going to fold knowing full well more pain is going to keep coming and keep coming and keep coming as bit by bit he loses body parts as the days drag on.


If the person is a killer and by some 1 in 200 million that enjoys having there fingernails ripped off and then eventually fingers and so on then I am still sleeping like a baby afterwards knowing that person is done from doing any more harm by my hands.

If its my family or someone else's I dont care about my humanity at the moment. Plus I am a atheist so im not fearing judgment about meeting a maker.

Of course this is all just big talk and im not even sure I could do something like this to another person.

But then I think of not to long ago five or ten years I think it was a guy here in Florida kidnapped a beautiful little giirl. I cant remember the age 6 or 7? First he raped her repeatedly. And during or after the rape choked her with a plastic bag over her head and didnt stop until just before she died. Tied her up and put her in a little closet naked. And then repeated the process over and over again for several days. Until eventually finishing the job with that plastic bag and burying her in a shallow grave. It all happened walking distance from the fathers home and still remember the very emotional interviews from the father just outside of his home. Then I think I would be more then happy to be given the chance and duty so one else would have to and be the one to rip apart very slowly his body until the parents can at least find that grave and properly bury that little girl and say goodbye. Again not sure if I could actually do it myself but would have loved to be given the chance to find out.

So in conclusion that person is no longer my fellow human being as you put it. Maybe the torturer isnt anymore either. But i still think its one of those things most would not mind being done but keep it very hush, hush from polite society kinda thing.

 

[Fatal Dawn]

There is a saying that people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. In a sense it might seem to be a case of ends justifying any means. But even this is ethically dubious, as any means can be justified if the ends is strong enough. The fatal flaw is that morality becomes a consequentialist end product and not a guiding principle. If no information is gained, you've effectively scarred another human being for life.

The cases where torture produces satiable outcomes are highly romanticized and are not the norm. Numerous studies have shown that the human psyche is not designed to handle those levels of stress: http://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interrogation.pdf How well will your brain function when you've been deprived of sleep for days? How accurately will you remember facts when your body is shutting down to compensate for the physical trauma? How well does a coerced confession hold up in criminal court?

If you read the narratives of prisoners of war who were tortured -- James Stockdale, Dieter Dengler, James N. Rowe --- the illustration is much bleaker. People lose their minds, die from the stress, or become suicidal (as even death seems like the better alternative).

If a person were to inflict this kind of suffering on another person, they'd be labeled criminally insane. When it is endorsed by the state, it's not called torture but "enhanced interrogation techniques" or "special methods of questioning."

 

[DrLeftover]

And then there is this:

24 July

A Christian man in Iran has been sentenced to have his lips burnt with a cigarette for eating during the day in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The punishment was carried out in public in the city of Kermanshah.

Five Muslim men were also publicly flogged, each receiving 70 lashes for not fasting during the holy month, when Muslims are required to not eat or drink between sunrise and sunset.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/24/Iran-Sentences-Christian-Man-to-Have-Lips-Burnt-with-Cigarette-for-Not-Observing-Ramadan