verte76
Blue Crack Addict
Macfistowannabe said:I for one find it hard to believe that forcing prisoners to denounce their belief system will save millions of people.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Macfistowannabe said:I for one find it hard to believe that forcing prisoners to denounce their belief system will save millions of people.
tackleberry said:With all the reports/stories of how the White House tried to ease sanctions on Torture techniques, I wanted to ask if anyone on this forum actually supports torture as a means of getting information to help prevent a terrorist attack or to capture a well-known terrorist.
And if the White House did ease sanctions (someone in there does support torture, whether it be Gonzalez or Rumsfeld), did they actually think they could get away with this without anyone knowing? I mean come on...
So, whether your right or left, do you support this? And my god, why?
Irvine511 said:
i'm not saying much of anything, other than that we need to ask ourselves if the Geneva Convention is applicable to the 21st century.
drhark said:
Again, part a references torture, which can be broadly interptreted. Thus the debate. Also terms like outrages, humiliating, and cruel treatment can be broadly interpreted
Dreadsox said:
The geneva convention was designed when the poeple we were at war with wore uniforms and fought under the banner of a unified country.
that is not what we face today.
strannix said:
I agree, but what I don't understand is what difference it really makes. Granted, it might make a difference in a narrow legal sense - I stress "might" - but how that changes the moral calculus is difficult for me to understand. Do you think intelligence concerns weren't a factor when the Geneva Conventions were adopted? Do you think that you could automatically trust your enemies to follow the same guidelines just because they're a uniformed army? Are terrorists any more able to fight against you as prisoners than conventional soldiers?
Scarletwine said:I agree with Verte, I think Gonzales is totally wrong and it is out of my moral acceptablilty. Especially where torture must equal death or organ failure.
Uniforms have nothing to do with it. That is an outmoded way of conflict. In almost all conflicts occurring at this time one side or the other doesn't wear uniforms.
George Washington's army did not all wear them. Nor did the colonial troops in the French and Indian war.
(PS - My fourth grade teacher was my favorite. She was strict as hell and gave me my love of history, course growing up near Yorktown & Williamsburg helped bring it all to life.)
Headache in a Suitcase said:how about the fact that our enemy does not adhere to geneva? how come we don't have discussions about that?
strannix said:Was it really reasonable to expect that the Nazis were treating our guys well during World War II?
drhark said:Not condoning torture, but the point needs to be made that as long as our enemy is sawing off people's heads and intentionally killing it's own people, we'll always have the moral high ground.
Cruel and unusual punishment was unconstitutional last time I checked.Headache in a Suitcase said:should we grant the same dignity and respect to the captured barbarians who kill, maim, decapitate and, yes, torture innocent men, women and children as we do to soldiers of a soverign nation?
probably... but i won't shed a tear if we don't.
Macfistowannabe said:Cruel and unusual punishment was unconstitutional last time I checked.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
A_Wanderer said:Torture should not be conducted out of sadism or want of punishment, it should only be reserved for very specific cases of top operatives who simply refuse to give any information and all other means have been exausted or time is a factor. Any action must be non-lethal, non-maiming and can be stopped at any time. Medical records must alse be known to the interrogators or else the risk of the target dying makes any action untenable.
If a terrorist is captured then they can refuse to answer any questions whatsoever, it is the purpose of the interrogators to weaken the targets mind but not "crack" them. For this bright lights, change in tempreture, sleep modification (again NOT sleep deprivation, deprivation is torture but modification is disconcerting), loud music all seem to be legit. But if time is an issue and you have a captured individual who is definitely connected then pulling a finger backwards until they talk will happen and I happen think that that is a good thing. Is it not better to have a guilty individual suffer a brief period of pain that they may stop at any moment by giving out the information that could possibly save lives than to not act and allow people to die.
To those that argue torture never gives out any useful information I suggest that you consider the quality of information obtained by other means, if they will lie when under the threat of violence consider what will be given when there is no risk to their persons at all.
I would not justify such action in comparison to the deeds of the enemy, it is a matter where innocent lives are at risk and I would cite situations where paedophile murders who have locked up young children are made to feel very uncomfortable to get the information about where the child is. Not a massive well orchestrated campaign to inflict torture upon every individual suspected of terrorism offences, this would not be done to very many people, it would be reserved for those like Ramzi Yousef - established operatives who were in the process of planning attacks or the Khalid Sheik Mohammeds or Hambali's - the top leadership who posess a lot of relevent information about the actions of terror networks in the region, these men are mass murderers, the immorality of causing them pain must surely be outweighed by the number of lives that could be saved - and it would only be done as a last resort and with full oversight by government with records and accountability.
BonosSaint said:
1. Who gets to decide the torture and under what controls?
Who are the torturers and to whom are they accountable?
2. Exactly what tortures are allowable and what are not?
3. Would you sanction the same allowable tortures to be done
to American soldiers to obtain information?
4. Will there be full disclosure to Congress?
5. What justice will be given to those people wrongly imprisoned
and tortured?
drhark said:Not condoning torture, but the point needs to be made that as long as our enemy is sawing off people's heads and intentionally killing it's own people, we'll always have the moral high ground.
Irvine511 said:do we not need to rethink some aspects of the Geneva Conventions?
should Al-Qaeda soldiers/terrorists -- who are young men from a variety of Muslim nations from Chechnya to Yemen to Morocco and have no national loyalty, are not conscripts, and do not wear the uniform of any particular nation, and are not working to advance the military goals of a nation but the advancement of a rather apocalyptic worldview -- be treated to the same standards laid out to protect members of the German army during Wolrd War 2?
this is not to say that because someone is an Al-Qaeda member, you can do whatever you want -- no one should exist in a legal netherworld with no rules regarding their treatment (which, come to think of it, sounds like GITMO). but do we need to rethink these old rules to apply to 21st century threats?
just some food for thougth ....