U.S. outsourced torture

[engineer151515]

I don't know about that.....

Wow.


I guess you refer to it as "The War of Northern Aggression" I hear that term a lot south of the Mason Dixon line even to this day.


I'll let Lincoln's legacy, as imperfect as it may be, speak for itself. As for Bush's legacy, I'm thinking his appearance and words at Ground Zero has set the mold. It's gonna take a real Monica Lewinski to change that. Don't think the telephone spy despute will be enough.

Kind Regards.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

Art, I have to disagree with you. MinScout's response was directly to the following comment (which is quoted in his response):

Originally Posted by ceetee
Many thousands of civilians have been killed in Iraq, because we chose that country to "fight terrorism". Were those civilians "vermin" too?

This explicitly refers to Iraqi civilians. Maybe MinScout misunderstood this, but we have no way of knowing that.

 

[progunner1957]

Don't ignore the solution to this problem

they can nail their plums to the floor and set the shack on fire if it gets the information to help win this war

People, come on - you're ignoring the obvious:
If captured terrorists/Al Qaeda scum do not wish to be tortured, they can always talk...

 

[Chris Rhines]

And captured innocent bystanders?

Shall we simply torture them until they talk? Because believe you me, using the proper stimuli you can get anyone to confess to anything...

Once again, torture is not used to get the guilty to confess to their crimes - it is used to get the innocent to confess to what they have not done.

- Chris

 

[R.H. Lee]

Once again, torture is not used to get the guilty to confess to their crimes - it is used to get the innocent to confess to what they have not done.

I don't think the purpose is to obtain a 'confession' of what anyone has or has not done, rather to extract relevant, and verifiable information for the purpose of preventing future acts.

Everybody throws around the word 'torture', but nobody says what it is. If it is comprised of detainment, threats, lies, solitary confinement, humiliation and sensory deprivation, I'd be hard pressed to call it 'torture'. These interrogation methods are used by domestic police agencies in criminal cases against U.S. citizens regularly.

'Torture' would be crossing the line to include infliction of intense physical pain with or without mutilation. That is something in which we should not be engaged, not only because it's wrong, but also because it's not productive against fanatics.

 

[ceetee]

R.H. Lee


There's no way you can take a rulebook out, point to opposing pages, and say, "Here: This is torture... this one isn't."

One of the tactics used against Iraqi men involved strapping them immobile and then raping their teenage children in front of them. Since the men themselves were not harmed, or even touched, were they then not tortured?

History has proven that torture itself is counter-productive. And it's definitely not what we Americans think of as the way we should choose to live our lives (or, by example, how we would have others live).

 

[lamazza]

ok so I guess we learn from the east on this one. Don't torture enemies, but you may cut their heads off on tv

 

[telomerase]

They haven't outsourced most of the spying on Americans yet....

 

[MechAg94]

R.H. Lee


There's no way you can take a rulebook out, point to opposing pages, and say, "Here: This is torture... this one isn't."

One of the tactics used against Iraqi men involved strapping them immobile and then raping their teenage children in front of them. Since the men themselves were not harmed, or even touched, were they then not tortured?

History has proven that torture itself is counter-productive. And it's definitely not what we Americans think of as the way we should choose to live our lives (or, by example, how we would have others live).

You can use a rule book. Gotta have something to go on.
Who is using those tactics of raping family memebers? The US isn't doing that. Was that Saddam?
I would agree that some forms of torture are counterproductive, but some of the milder forms of psychological manipulation can work. By some of our current rules, many of those are called torture as well.

 

[MechAg94]

Personally, I think a lot of the "moral high ground" comments sound arrogant and narrow minded. As that other quote said, you can sit here and say those things because there are a lot of rough men ready to do violence on your behalf. You should try to do the right thing in the right way, but don't go around inventing new ideas about what is right and wrong, and make sure you keep the proper viewpoint about what your goals are.

 

[telomerase]

there are a lot of rough men ready to do violence on your behalf.

There are a lot of men ready to do anything they are ordered, if if it will just save them from the agony of thinking for themselves. They will blow up worm-medicine factories in the Sudan, when a Democrat needs to get his affair off the front page for one day. They will "look for WMDs" that they know full well aren't there, when a Republican needs to "conquer his Gaul". They will literally do anything they are told to do, no matter how ludicrous.

I don't find this reassuring.