When to torture?

Post #155,406 by tablizer 5/16/04 6:56:04 PM Reply	When to torture? I don't think very many agree that our intelligence branch should never torture to get information, but it is best to have clearer rules about when and when not to. A high-ranking official with a good likelyhood of having key knowledge is probably going to get tough interrigation of some sort. No nation is going to pass up key info. Here are my draft guidelines: 1. No kinky sex crap 2. Make sure the film does not leak out 3. Limit it to only those who are a likely source 4. No permanent physical damage. 5. Let well-trained professionals do it, not amatures and contractors 6. Try softer "mind game" approaches before resorting to physical measures ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #155,407 by inthane-chan 5/16/04 7:01:33 PM Reply	The problem with torture... ...is that the victim is most likely to tell the interrogator what the victim thinks the interrogator wants to hear. What the interrogator wants to hear isn't always the truth. Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
Post #155,629 by Nightowl 5/17/04 10:30:04 PM Reply	This is the truth and it's worst failing. When under torture, the only thing the person can imagine is making it stop, so they say anything, do anything to make it stop. That's why psychological mind games work much better than anything physical, although they can fall into the same trap of the person saying anything to stop the mind games. This is one of torture's worst failures, and why it is rarely used when truly seeking the truth, because you rarely get that by it's use. Nightowl >8# "AHHHHH! Relatives coming out of the woodwork!!!!!!"
Post #155,408 by dmarker 5/16/04 7:09:24 PM Reply	There is a real dichotomy re this issue Ceratinly for me. If someone was known to have participated in a plot to do harm on a large scale and the person gets captured, I can't bring myself to oppose him being tortured to gain information. I am totally opposed to torture for revenge or just for torture's sake. I would prefer techniques that force the victim to give information without having to mutilate of physically attack them. That of course is possible but not all the time. The dichotomy is that once we accept the right to torture, someone has to make the call & sadly, not everyone given that power seems to get it right & thus we have the spectacle in Iraq of citizenry caught in sweeps, being subjected to forms of torture then being released because there was never any charge or issue against them, just a need to milk information. I have no easy answer to this problem & can see the difficulty faced by the US military in Afghanistan & Iraq. But, can't condone what was being done to people who were merely swept rather than known targets for questioning. Doug M
Post #155,422 by deSitter 5/16/04 10:29:40 PM Reply	CIA's policy ..before 9/11 was - torture not only strictly prohibited by operatives, but even association with it tangentially was grounds for termination (job-loss). This from Bob Bahr, in a Salon article. Torture as policy is the work of Rumsfeld and his brownshirts (Hersch, NewYorker.com). The man is a scum stain on the toilet bowl of history. Torture is not only morally reprehensible, it doesn't work. This has been known for a long time. Torture is used not to gain information, but to terrorize and spread fear by tyrants (such as the Rumperor). There is never any context in which it is justified. Even shooting prisoners for logistical reasons is more moral. Once again the CIA is being scapegoated for the sins of this administration. How long will they allow themselves to be sodomized by Bush and his swinging dicks? -drl
Post #155,428 by JayMehaffey 5/16/04 11:47:44 PM Reply	Re: CIA's policy CIA's policy ..before 9/11 was - torture not only strictly prohibited by operatives, but even association with it tangentially was grounds for termination (job-loss). That is rather optimistic, it would be better to say that publicity of any connection with torture was grounds for termination. And in theory the rules still say no torture. Still, evidence suggests that somebody in the PNAC crowd is responsible for markedly lowering the regulations and enforcement of torture rules. It seems to have become a "don't ask, don't tell" situation where the lower level intelligence officers produced intelligence and nobody talked about how they got it. Torture is not only morally reprehensible, it doesn't work. Depends on how you are using it. If your goal is to extract information through fear of more torture, then no. But the goal in this case was to mentally disorient the victems and prepare them for interrogation sessions. Disorient them and make them willing to talk. My understanding is that the CIA intelligence officers feel that if they can get you talking they can get information out of you, one way or another. But they need something to get you talking, and preferably in a state where you are not real coherent. Jay
Post #155,412 by rcareaga 5/16/04 7:27:40 PM Reply	Re: When to torture? tablizer asserts I don't think very many agree that our intelligence branch should never torture to get information... Count me among the Not Very Many, then. And of course, someone will trot out the old "Terrorist X, in custody, has planted a thermonuclear device somewhere in Manhattan, and it'll blow in just one hour unless we sweat 'im..." chestnut. So let's make it a little more interesting. You've rounded up ten suspects, one of whom is Terrorist X and the other nine of whom know nothing about the plot: wrong place, wrong time. Do we torture them too? Did I mention that we don't know T. X's age, gender, race or nationality? OK, a hundred suspects? A thousand? See, you can get as silly as you want to with these hypotheticals. The best reason for saying "never" is that if you say "sometimes," the special circumstances proliferate and pretty soon, well, hell, it's SOP. Only please to call it—oh, what's that nice Israeli euphemism (I honestly can't bring it to mind, but it sounds so much cleaner than torture, something we know the heroic kibbutzniks who made the desert bloom and who have that very convenient moral blank check with no expiration date from the beastly Hun, would never, never do)—and not "torture"...such an ugly word... cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #155,413 by boxley 5/16/04 7:39:34 PM Reply	any time torture is used the full consequences of the law should be imposed, torture the 10 if you wish, save the day and get 20 years in the cage for doing so. There should be consequences for such acts, serious and always imposed otherwise as you said, SOP. thanx, bill Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #155,431 by JayMehaffey 5/16/04 11:55:04 PM Reply	Better to say never Better to say never, if nothing else simply because oversight of a secret intelligence group is inherantly weak. As soon as we allow any torture the rules will be abused. Jay

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