Are we OK with torture now?

[thesightless]

yeah, but you will be condemning them for at least trying to do what it takes. who do you condemn if something like mentioned previously happens>? do you condemn them for allowing it to happen because they had to be civil and fair?

circumstances dictate whats neccessary. that is what it comes down to in the end.

[thefncrow]

yeah, but you will be condemning them for at least trying to do what it takes. who do you condemn if something like mentioned previously happens>? do you condemn them for allowing it to happen because they had to be civil and fair?

circumstances dictate whats neccessary. that is what it comes down to in the end.

If they couldn't get the information out of the guy, so be it. Its not like they had a whole ton of time. The question at that point, hell, at any point after a major attack, should be when the authorities found out about it, and why they hadn't picked up on anything earlier.

I'm not going to condemn people for acting like civilized human beings, even in the face of inhumanity and incivility. We're better than them, and lets never forget that, and, more importantly, lets never sink to their level. We're above this sort of this sort of shit.

Being up against a bunch of savages does not necessitate that we turn ourselves into savages to catch them, though that's certainly the easy way out.

[manboy]

Yeah of course. If you want to dance with the Devil you have to be prepared to meet him on his terms. We can't expect soldiers who are trained to kill, wound and pschologically haunt their enemies to act any other way when those enemies are in custody. To suggest as much is tantamount to lunacy.

[Yao]

No, it's called sticking to your own set of values.

[Localizer]

I'm not better than them. If I saw anyone of those terrorists that had slit and cut any of those innocent people's throats, I'd probably be one of the first to savagely slice them to pieces with a slow death. The fact that they know that we are too mighty to sink to their level gives them all the more reason to do it.

[asdf_admin]

we only know 1/10 of what really goes on. Trust me, there is some shit going down as we speak, behind locked doors, in some remote place, and people are getting the "fuck" pushed out of them.

kinda goes along with the saying "if a tree falls down in the forest, and no one is around to hear it ... does it make a sound?"

[face]

torture is a crime against the innocent and futile against the guilty.

[thesightless]

what about the article from the NY times about how iraqi police are using the videos of the captured insurgents after thier ""interrogations"", where they are wimpering and crying...

they are trying to use them as deterrents....

article was in NY times on this past saturday.

[Mauricio]

I saw on TV yesterday that a new report is coming next week on the "weird" torture practises in Guantanamo bay. They were telling that they use insult as a interrogation technique. In one case a person did not want to talk, the next minute three woman in lingerie came in and started touching the dude. I wouldn't mind personally if they looked alright but for a Muslim man it is. What they also do is taking away the orange pant of prisoners for weeks, months. The reason for this is that they cannot pray if they are not covered, again a very insulting technique.

These are just two of the many techniques which are used besides the beating etc. I do not know what the government's policy is, but this does not seem to be too normal to me. If these people are Muslim and suspected of something it does not mean that interrogators can disrespect their values. There is nothing wrong with being a Muslim (I am not one myself tho). It are just those people who are very selective readers and very extreme with their opinions who are a pain. But is I recall correctly, weren't there anti abortion groups (Christians) who were doing bomb attacks at clinics and killing doctors during the 90's. I don't hear anything of them being in Guantanamo bay even though they are also regarded as terrorists. Most of all, they were not interrogated with these techniques.

The American government is going way too far with their current policies and regard themselves as superiors to anybody with a different believe

[thesightless]

embarrisng and making others uncomfortable is not torture. breaking someones spirit is nothing compared to what should be done to get the info that may save a few hundred lives. its not like we are doing what we actually should be doing to get it done quickly. the coalition is doing its best without actually physically harming these ppl. if i was in charge i would be going a lot farther to prevent the daily deaths that are occuring. im not gonig to be a moralist and let people die when i can save em. ill do what it takes. when are people gonna put some of them blame on the insurgents who kill, bomb, behead, kidnap, torture, rape, etc???

too many fucking people with something to say. maybe this would all be avoided it we gave the US and UK military forces carte blanche. every day that mroe inncocents die, i feel this is mroe neccessary, and i was against the war early on.

[face]

as i said before: these people won't talk. they have nothing to lose. if they know anything, they will take it to the grave; if they don't we are wasting our time.

the reason we have insurgents is because they are afraid of being dominated by the shi'a community politically, and possibly persecuted thereafter. the US courted the shi'a community specifically because they were the ones persecuted under saddam's regime. plus, if you consider the late manfred halpern's theory of polarities, it is clear that iraq is in a stage of incoherence right now (or as huntington would call it, part of modernization)--incoherence being a semi-anarchical phase that will pass eventually.

on the other hand, it seems as though people forgot about a town called fallujah. remember...the one we wiped off the face of the earth? it's not that fallujah was a hot bed for terrorists or insurgents (not any more than other cities like it). fallujah was an example--a lesson. it reminds me (and i'm sure many others as well) too much of what happened during the crusades when the entire city of acre (syria) was massacred (the same happened in jerusalem as well--where they say the streets were flowing knee-deep with blood).

ok enough...time to finish my paper--on the crusades of all things =)

[thesightless]

one thing i learned from this thread is that i can no longer spell "more"

[face]

lol yeah once is a typo, twice or more means you have a problem!

[sammwalk]

The problem with disasterous consequences like a nuclear attack justifying torture is that any time the FBI, CIA, or the local police want to get information by torture, they will claim that it was to save far more lives, even if there was really only a minimal threat- this is one reason why certain governmental practices are restricted or outlawed. Remember: give them an inch, they'll take a mile. Well, really, we don't give them anything, and they still take miles, don't they?

The things we've heard about Abu Ghraib aren't so medieval; I wouldn't really call it torture so much as extreme discomfort. And those photos were taken because they were going to be used to humiliate the prisoner by being sent to his family, friends, etc. I'm sure everyone from Bushie down knew about it. Plausible deniability at its best.

[manboy]

Oh come on guys they just want to torture a few people, there's nothing wrong with that is there? Pop a few eyeballs, do a couple of humiliations, with or without hookers, maybe break an arm, an eye socket, a knee cap with the butt of a riffle. I really don't see the issue here.