Torture

teagar

dmclite wrote:

The day I try and explain that to you Teagar, is the day you stand up for what you say on these forums. next time you see taxi drivers abusing asian counterparts and you are aware of it, and you walk away with your tail between your legs (morality still intact ?) instead of putting actions where your mouth and indulged intellect is.

We're done here.

Are you serious?


I try to avoid violent situations.

Last time I stood up to a taxi driver I got assaulted. It's something I don't particularly want to repeat.

I can deal with all the issues without having to expose myself to violence, or indeed resort to violence. If you find that difficult to understand, that says an awful lot more about you than me.


Regardless, that has little bearing on the validity of the argument. Why get personal?

I can't see how you decide what you feel states are entitled to do, and what they aren't?

The arguments for torture are full of holes - I'm trying to point them out. That's why all developed states, the states you've fought for, have outlawed such practices. The proliferation of torture by some states is part of the reason you've ended up fighting those states in the first place.

"They'd do it to us" simply doesn't add up, since, often for those exact reasons that they DO do it, is why the conflict exists in the first place. To protect people from such practices.

In the case of the current war, where a particular accute and extreme hatred of the west and the forces in Iraq and Afganistan is one of the main recruitment drives for the Taliban and whoever else is fighting the Western forces, surely the practices which you think are legitimate are only serving to worsen the issue? If the locals there feel that the Western forces are happy to torture people, no wonder they're fearful and want to stop it! It's hardly the hearts & minds effort is it?


All these arguments pale into insignificance when you start looking at torture as a way of gaining information - since you have no idea whether the information you are going to get is reliable or not. Say the person actually doesn't know, then what? You've tortured someone for nothing.

You heard that guy in the news recently? Who had his genitalia butchered by torturers? He's now a free man as far as I am aware. Certainly not a terrorist. How d'ya square that up? You've butchered a man, and for what?

As for Dennis; what else do they have to lose if they lie? Their life? That's a war crime right?

clanton

Crankmeister wrote:

YOUR touchy CLANTON
please mr moderator ban mr crankmeister for having an opinion.
Now thats TOUCHY or is your memory as short as your C*ck.
With your perfect typing and political views... yes i know right where i would shove those opinions of yours if i crossed you on a ride out ....right in ya front spokes cocka.
yes my typing is sh1t but who are you? to be impressing eh? no one thats who


go on get back on your over opinionated horse again..you wouldnt last 5 minutes in this neck of the woods mucker.my daddies a geologist tehehe well that just says it all to me.



tick tock tick tock

My memory is ok thanks Crankmeister. The memory on the computer of course is faultless. You can edit your original post but it doesn't make it go away.

Crankmeister

argh you like me really i can telll..no doubt if we met we would get on really well. im just baiting you.ive had to put up with racsist sh1t most of my life here in england and now after all this time well erm i think i get their humour!! and because im happy within myself and my Brown skin i takes the piss likes the rest of them.its charactor building
I ve found that if you laugh along with them they gets feed up quite quickly and leave you alone.so chins up mucker keep pushing the pedals hard.

And of course supporting the heroes that are out there fighting to secure our freedom

Anonymous

teagar wrote:

dmclite wrote:

The day I try and explain that to you Teagar, is the day you stand up for what you say on these forums. next time you see taxi drivers abusing asian counterparts and you are aware of it, and you walk away with your tail between your legs (morality still intact ?) instead of putting actions where your mouth and indulged intellect is.

We're done here.

Are you serious?


I try to avoid violent situations.

Last time I stood up to a taxi driver I got assaulted. It's something I don't particularly want to repeat.

I can deal with all the issues without having to expose myself to violence, or indeed resort to violence. If you find that difficult to understand, that says an awful lot more about you than me.


Regardless, that has little bearing on the validity of the argument. Why get personal?

I can't see how you decide what you feel states are entitled to do, and what they aren't?

The arguments for torture are full of holes - I'm trying to point them out. That's why all developed states, the states you've fought for, have outlawed such practices. The proliferation of torture by some states is part of the reason you've ended up fighting those states in the first place.

"They'd do it to us" simply doesn't add up, since, often for those exact reasons that they DO do it, is why the conflict exists in the first place. To protect people from such practices.

In the case of the current war, where a particular accute and extreme hatred of the west and the forces in Iraq and Afganistan is one of the main recruitment drives for the Taliban and whoever else is fighting the Western forces, surely the practices which you think are legitimate are only serving to worsen the issue? If the locals there feel that the Western forces are happy to torture people, no wonder they're fearful and want to stop it! It's hardly the hearts & minds effort is it?


All these arguments pale into insignificance when you start looking at torture as a way of gaining information - since you have no idea whether the information you are going to get is reliable or not. Say the person actually doesn't know, then what? You've tortured someone for nothing.

You heard that guy in the news recently? Who had his genitalia butchered by torturers? He's now a free man as far as I am aware. Certainly not a terrorist. How d'ya square that up? You've butchered a man, and for what?

As for Dennis; what else do they have to lose if they lie? Their life? That's a war crime right?

I wish I had your innocence.

Crankmeister

clanton wrote:

Crankmeister wrote:

YOUR touchy CLANTON
please mr moderator ban mr crankmeister for having an opinion.
Now thats TOUCHY or is your memory as short as your C*ck.
With your perfect typing and political views... yes i know right where i would shove those opinions of yours if i crossed you on a ride out ....right in ya front spokes cocka.
yes my typing is sh1t but who are you? to be impressing eh? no one thats who


go on get back on your over opinionated horse again..you wouldnt last 5 minutes in this neck of the woods mucker.my daddies a geologist tehehe well that just says it all to me.



tick tock tick tock

And your point is you arse wipe?

My memory is ok thanks Crankmeister. The memory on the computer of course is faultless. You can edit your original post but it doesn't make it go away.

Limburger

Might I suggest you all go and have a look and the Amnesty International website for a whole plethora of reasons why torture is no good.

To all you heroes out there who seem to be willing to put a blowtorch to someone need to have a long chat with the psychiatrist about your morale standings.

Also, I challenge you to find a country why you can freely live that practices torture.

Old East Germany?
Iran?
Burma?

I tell you what, you can have as much torture as you like. Soon as you are arrested for being at your English Defence League I'll come and step on you skin-head. OK?

Crankmeister

And?

Westerberg

Crankmeister - do us all a favour and sod off back down the pub to finish off those last few braincells. No-one here could possibly be insulted by someone of such obvious low intellect so leave off the insults - you're wasting your time old boy.

downfader

andrewjoseph wrote:

Information gained by torture is not reliable. Ask the witches.... oh you can't, they were all killed because they confessed during torture that they were witches so that the torture would stop.

Bit of a myth I'm afraid. My old history teacher told us only two women ever got burned during Cromwell's era for being "witches".

verloren

downfader wrote:

andrewjoseph wrote:

Information gained by torture is not reliable. Ask the witches.... oh you can't, they were all killed because they confessed during torture that they were witches so that the torture would stop.

Bit of a myth I'm afraid. My old history teacher told us only two women ever got burned during Cromwell's era for being "witches".

But only a bit, given that you've artificially limited it to (alleged) witches that were burned, and during Cromwell's era. See the Salem witch trials, for example.

downfader

verloren wrote:

downfader wrote:

andrewjoseph wrote:

Information gained by torture is not reliable. Ask the witches.... oh you can't, they were all killed because they confessed during torture that they were witches so that the torture would stop.

Bit of a myth I'm afraid. My old history teacher told us only two women ever got burned during Cromwell's era for being "witches".

But only a bit, given that you've artificially limited it to (alleged) witches that were burned, and during Cromwell's era. See the Salem witch trials, for example.

Ahh Salem. In a league of its own, its true. Even during medievel times here in these isles it was very rare for someone to die for it. Blasphemy, adultery, etc yes. But a witch can be converted.

dennisn

teagar wrote:

dmclite wrote:

We're done here.

As for Dennis; what else do they have to lose if they lie? Their life? That's a war crime right?

Not sure what you're asking or saying with that last statement?????
As for your idea that torture doesn't yield any useful info???? Don't kid yourself.
Your sentiments are noble but not based on reality, I think. I remember once telling someone that THEY wouldn't have to torture me to get me to talk. Just tell me what you're
going to do. If it sounds bad enough, I'll talk(if I actually know anything of value). Save us both time, effort, energy, and my blood.

markwalker

Interesting views today, as i see it there is some concensus

1 Torture is a very unpalatable activitiy

2 Nobody wants their family to die

3 real life isnt black and white

Torture has always happenend and probably always will its unpleasent and unwelcome. Im glad i dont have to do it but im glad that we dont ignore any routes to securing my familys security.

nolf

dennisn wrote:

teagar wrote:

It's never the case that torturing one man will save lots of lives.

I diagree. I've seen a man tortured to give up infomation about enemy positions, weapons placement, weapons storage, and it all turned out to be true.
How did that NOT save lives?????

You're admitting to a war crime on an internet forum.

Thats not a comment on how morally correct it is, or whether it should be a war crime, as far as I'm aware, it's a statement of fact.

Anonymous

nolf wrote:

dennisn wrote:

teagar wrote:

It's never the case that torturing one man will save lots of lives.

I diagree. I've seen a man tortured to give up infomation about enemy positions, weapons placement, weapons storage, and it all turned out to be true.
How did that NOT save lives?????

You're admitting to a war crime on an internet forum.

Thats not a comment on how morally correct it is, or whether it should be a war crime, as far as I'm aware, it's a statement of fact.

He isn't admitting to anything. He is telling us he witnessed a war crime. Read the post properly please, then apply brain and type relevant response, it would be very helpful, thank you.

nolf

Committing evil to prevent evil is a logical paradox.

You cannot both expect others to act morally towards you, while acting perceptably immorally towards others.

Ignoring the more pragmatic issue of how useful/accurate it is, is a side issue, and to be honest, irrelevant.

Whats important is that, others committing an evil action, does not justify you from doing so. Each man or woman is responsible for their own actions, and should always be thought of in that way. With this idea of individual accountability, you cannot justify comitting evil by comparing with those of another, or atttempting to find context, as the only context is what you have done, in comparison to the universal rules of what is and isn't wrong.

Having first hand experience of evil does not give you a better understanding of morality. Indeed, traumatic memories of the event are far more likely to impair your jugement, than make you a dispassionate observer and analyst.

nolf

dmclite wrote:

nolf wrote:

dennisn wrote:

teagar wrote:

It's never the case that torturing one man will save lots of lives.

I diagree. I've seen a man tortured to give up infomation about enemy positions, weapons placement, weapons storage, and it all turned out to be true.
How did that NOT save lives?????

You're admitting to a war crime on an internet forum.

Thats not a comment on how morally correct it is, or whether it should be a war crime, as far as I'm aware, it's a statement of fact.

He isn't admitting to anything. He is telling us he witnessed a war crime. Read the post properly please, then apply brain and type relevant response, it would be very helpful, thank you.

Isn't willful co-operation joint venture?
Did he report this afterwards to the appropriate authorities? Did he voice an objection?
As I understand UK law (would need to check geneva convention), doesn't implicitly agreeing with a course of action (not protesting), and being present, make you partly responsible?

Anonymous

clanton wrote:

dmclite wrote:

clanton wrote:

IIRC the UN were famed for never leaving their compound in Angola ;-)

FFS, first you think I'm a mercenary, now you "remember" a fact about the UN in Angola.
OK.

Where were the british Army contingent based ?
what was our ORBAT ?
Where was the RFA ship Sir Galahad harboured ?
Who were the main 2 other forces out there under the UN mandate ?

See if you can "remember" any of that without googling.......maybe you were too busy cycle touring at the time to "remember" correctly.

Bit touchy aren't you mate? As it happens my father is an exploration geologist and did lot of work in Angola in the 90's. He has some very hairy stories to tell. Amongst them though was the fact that the situation was so bad that even the heavily armed UN forces didn't dare venture outside of their compound and they became the butt of a joke as a result.

We're not mates.
I'm not touchy, just putting you straight about my units role in Angola. I "did lot of work" as you succinctly put it out there too, but it wasn't geology I'm afraid.

You still haven't answered the questions yet, just swerved them, nice. 8)

dennisn

nolf wrote:

dmclite wrote:

nolf wrote:

dennisn wrote:

teagar wrote:

It's never the case that torturing one man will save lots of lives.

I diagree. I've seen a man tortured to give up infomation about enemy positions, weapons placement, weapons storage, and it all turned out to be true.
How did that NOT save lives?????

You're admitting to a war crime on an internet forum.

Thats not a comment on how morally correct it is, or whether it should be a war crime, as far as I'm aware, it's a statement of fact.

He isn't admitting to anything. He is telling us he witnessed a war crime. Read the post properly please, then apply brain and type relevant response, it would be very helpful, thank you.

Isn't willful co-operation joint venture?
Did he report this afterwards to the appropriate authorities? Did he voice an objection?
As I understand UK law (would need to check geneva convention), doesn't implicitly agreeing with a course of action (not protesting), and being present, make you partly responsible?

You're assuming an awful lot. Don't make more or less of it than what I said. I made that statement to voice an opinion that torture does work. Maybe not all the time but, at the very least, some of the time. Nothing more than that.

shouldbeinbed

another namby pamby internet opinion coming up.

if you take this torture or kill a few to potentially save many more to another level, why aren't we carpet bombing Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, sections of Pakistan and Iraq etc to kill off the theats of Taleban, Al-Qaeda, Nuclear Proliferation etc

sure we'd be killing lots of innocent people as well but in terms of a global population that would be safer (so we're told) it'd be a drop in the ocean.

It's a moot point anyway, it'll never be officially recognised cos of the desensitisation and escalation of common usage. Start with terrorists and their friends and family who may know something at times of immediate threat, and soon it'll be torture to find out about possible threats, then it'd be torturing a paedophile for names of his fellow abusers, then kidnappers and murderers for the wherebouts of the victim for the families benefit then....... as with anything, someone will always want to push the boundary or break the next taboo, we will always be able to find a slightly lesser case that 'needs' torture until your boss is sending people with pliers and thumbscrews round to make sure that you really do have a sore throat and the sniffles.

liberal wimpyism over

markwalker

nolf wrote:

Committing evil to prevent evil is a logical paradox.

You cannot both expect others to act morally towards you, while acting perceptably immorally towards others.

Ignoring the more pragmatic issue of how useful/accurate it is, is a side issue, and to be honest, irrelevant.

.

Sorry Rolfe, that statement whilst laudable, belies a certain ignorance of the facts.

The UK and every other sovereign state has always had a public persona and behind that is going like mad to find information or hide information to ensure whatever agenda they’re pursuing has more chance of success. We spy, manipulate and at times even torture in the pursuit of our defence and position, even against our “allies” and they do the same to us.

this isnt internet conjecture, its documented fact. there is never going to be a unilateral niceness.

Anonymous

Whilst I accept your point, does the fact that there's never going to be unilateral niceness excuse torture?

It's illegal for a reason - mostly because we're all trying to *act* civilised. Condoning its use is possibly going too far.

markwalker

shouldbeinbed wrote:

It's a moot point anyway, it'll never be officially recognised cos of the desensitisation and escalation of common usage. Start with terrorists and their friends and family who may know something at times of immediate threat, and soon it'll be torture to find out about possible threats, then it'd be torturing a paedophile for names of his fellow abusers, then kidnappers and murderers for the wherebouts of the victim for the families benefit then....... as with anything, someone will always want to push the boundary or break the next taboo, we will always be able to find a slightly lesser case that 'needs' torture until your boss is sending people with pliers and thumbscrews round to make sure that you really do have a sore throat and the sniffles.

liberal wimpyism over

well there comes a point where your own actions must remove your own rights and those groups in bold above would get my vote.

PBo

markwalker wrote:

The UK and every other sovereign state has always had a public persona and behind that is going like mad to find information or hide information to ensure whatever agenda they’re pursuing has more chance of success. We spy, manipulate and at times even torture in the pursuit of our defence and position, even against our “allies” and they do the same to us.

this isnt internet conjecture, its documented fact. there is never going to be a unilateral niceness.

this is true - i have the "spooks" box sets....

markwalker

PBo wrote:

markwalker wrote:

The UK and every other sovereign state has always had a public persona and behind that is going like mad to find information or hide information to ensure whatever agenda they’re pursuing has more chance of success. We spy, manipulate and at times even torture in the pursuit of our defence and position, even against our “allies” and they do the same to us.

this isnt internet conjecture, its documented fact. there is never going to be a unilateral niceness.

this is true - i have the "spooks" box sets....

yes and 24 shows the yanks are at it too

shouldbeinbed

markwalker wrote:

shouldbeinbed wrote:

It's a moot point anyway, it'll never be officially recognised cos of the desensitisation and escalation of common usage. Start with terrorists and their friends and family who may know something at times of immediate threat, and soon it'll be torture to find out about possible threats, then it'd be torturing a paedophile for names of his fellow abusers, then kidnappers and murderers for the wherebouts of the victim for the families benefit then....... as with anything, someone will always want to push the boundary or break the next taboo, we will always be able to find a slightly lesser case that 'needs' torture until your boss is sending people with pliers and thumbscrews round to make sure that you really do have a sore throat and the sniffles.

liberal wimpyism over

well there comes a point where your own actions must remove your own rights and those groups in bold above would get my vote.

wheres that point MW?

if we catch some young kid running drugs at street level should we torture them to name their contact and then torture that contact for the name of their contact and so on until we've got to the Mr Big?

Take that level of criminal out and you'dd make for a whole lot nicer society & relatively speaking its only a few children you'd need to torture to get the ball rolling, how about it?

Dgh

1 Torture is recognised as a crime against humanity, like genocide. Does anyone think genocide is justified?

2 What about if it's to save your family? Hard to see thes situation in which torture will certainly save your family ever arising,but ok. What if the price of saving one of your loved ones was murdering an innocent person (i.e. not someone about to kill them). To answer yes is to say that you're willing to commit murder if the price is right.

3 In the context of warfare/anti-terrorism, what are we defending? Civilisation? Rule of Law? Freedom? Democracy? OK, if we start to commit crimes against humanity in the defence of those things, are they worth defending any more?

Porgy

It's true that the British and US police (and all police I suspect) have been practicing "mild" forms of torture for decades and It's why we have so many innocent people in prison. a friend of mine brought charges against the police for torture back in the 90s.

I think the main argument aginst torture is that it doesn't work. Many within the intellgence agencies in the US oppose its use because they have developed much more effective methods for obtaining intelligence (which happen to be humane) that were being compromised by the Bush administration's condoned methods.

BTW - I have never believed in the "rithless and fanatical" steretype of terrorists - my remarks earlier were toungue in cheek - a mild sending up of others who believe such media driven rubbish.

But the kernel of truth in that comment is that "terrorists" are pretty driven people - usually willing to die for their cause, and unlikely to crack under use of violence. However most "innocents" would sell their own grandmother out to stop the pain.

Porgy

Dgh wrote:

2 What about if it's to save your family? Hard to see thes situation in which torture will certainly save your family ever arising,but ok. What if the price of saving one of your loved ones was murdering an innocent person (i.e. not someone about to kill them). To answer yes is to say that you're willing to commit murder if the price is right.

Hollywood has planted this idea into everyone's heads. I can't thinkof any realistic circumstances where this could happen - only in a convoluted Hollywood plot.

Anonymous

Porgy wrote:

It's true that the British and US police (and all police I suspect) have been practicing "mild" forms of torture for decades and It's why we have so many innocent people in prison. a friend of mine brought charges against the police for torture back in the 90s.

I think the main argument aginst torture is that it doesn't work. Many within the intellgence agencies in the US oppose its use because they have developed much more effective methods for obtaining intelligence (which happen to be humane) that were being compromised by the Bush administration's condoned methods.

BTW - I have never believed in the "rithless and fanatical" steretype of terrorists - my remarks earlier were toungue in cheek - a mild sending up of others who believe such media driven rubbish.

But the kernel of truth in that comment is that "terrorists" are pretty driven people - usually willing to die for their cause, and unlikely to crack under use of violence. However most "innocents" would sell their own grandmother out to stop the pain.

You are right in what you say, although torture in some forms works, I believe.
I also believe that the most ruthless and fanatical would never be caught as they use lesser ranks from their organisations for the ops themselves, there would also be a lot of cut-outs and need to know fail-safes. The Organ-grinder and monkey analogy is apt here. So, would it be worth torturing a caught bomber, for example with the highly likleyood that he knows no-one else in his cell, could not identify anyone higher in the organisation and has only a limited knowledge of detail, probably not.