And UNCAT (UN Convention Against Torture) signed by Reagan and US law...AND, the very moral foundation on which this country was built.

From Redux's link
Exactly what doesn't that include?

Either they are prisoners of war - in which case we hold them until the war is over according to the rules of the Geneva convention.

Or they are (accused) criminals in which case they should get a speedy and fair trial. Punishment according to law if/when they are proven guilty.

You are looking for an excuse for torture. If we stoop to that level, how are we better than any third world dictatorship?

No I'm not. I'm trying to figure out what forms of interrogation are allowed in your opinion. The description from the link is very ambiguous.

In general I'd say: No pain. No killing. No pushing to the brink of death.

So are we talking your basic POW captured in battle or some guy accused of working for al qaeda? If the latter has a trial occurred?

I dunno what interrogation tactics are allowed. Sounds like none.

Laws against torture are not codified to the level of specific individual acts, but to standards of behavior.

Much like "assault" is not codified by individual acts. but by standards..."causing serious physical or bodily harm." Hundreds of years of common law understand what that means...just as common law understand what is meant by "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental"

And no. I am not suggesting any correlation between torture and assault...just an example of how such acts are codified.

Legal interrogation tactics are more psychological... like building a sense of trust, exploiting a detainee’s self-love or allegiance to or resentment of the persons with whom he was aligned, or convincing the person off the futility of his position, etc.

These techniques are not only legal, but also, according to many interrogation experts, more effective. Applied in the right combination, they will work on nearly all detainees...and the US military identifies these techniques as the best way to induce detainees to divulge information.

When you are a nation of laws, you live by those laws.

gotcha. I was wondering if there were specific things that could be done physically that were determined to be torture vs others that were not. I was trying to determine where that "line" was/is.

What is the purpose? Interrogation or punishment? Torture does not result in useful information. That was even understood in WWII. And demonstrated by Indonesia by taking prisoners out for dinner while keeping torture crazy Americans away. As a result, the entire Jemaah Islamiya terrorist organization was disassembled.

What is the purpose? Interrogation or inflicting pain. These are mutually exclusive objectives.

Thanks for not helping. Please feel free to not reply to my posts, especially any not directed specifically at you, in the future. Have a blessed day.

I thought it was a helpful contribution to the discussion....clear and succinct, with no animosity directed towards anyone.

"What is the purpose? Interrogation or inflicting pain. These are mutually exclusive objectives."

Classic...what specifically do you find pointless or not helpful?

I guess I am not communicating clearly. Perhaps it is my fault.

We weren't discussing "punishment?" Nor rehashing the "Torture does not result in useful information." argument.

But again that is just my opinion and its worth what you paid for it.

Your post applies to every decent person in the world. Which do you want advocate? Inflict pain or interrogate them? These are mutually exclusive options - except when Cheney and others promoted hate, fear and lies. Which one do you advocate? Do we punish them with pain. Or do we extract useful information - as Indonesia did to completely subvert Jemaah Islamiya? The Bali bombings that killed hundreds of Australians? Solved by not using torture and by overtly denying Cheney's people access.

What part do you not understand? Do we inflict pain as Americans did in Guantanamo, Abu Ghriad and secret prisons elsewhere in the world? Or do we do what decent people - ie Indonesians - throughout the world did to stop terrorism? Decent people even talk to our enemies. Which do you advocate? It’s a simple and logical question. Torture or interrogation? Mutually exclusive concepts. Political spin does not negate the question. Which one do you advocate?

From The Washington Post of 6 Oct 2007:
Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII
Interrogators Fought 'Battle of Wits'

Torture was very effective at rooting out witches in the salem witch trials. People confessed to being witches and told their interrogators who else was a witch in response to torture. Those they'd accused of being witches were then also tortured and they also confessed and gave information about other witches.


Torture makes people say anything to stop the pain and distress. Sometimes what they say is true; if for example they really do know something, they may well give that information. But unless you can say with 100% certainty that the people who are being tortured, know useful information, then you cannot trust that the information they inevitably give will be useful. Consequently alll information becomes suspect. Unless of course you are using their information to confirm what you already know...in which case why is there a need to drag it out of them with torture?

I can assure you, that if I were to find myself dragged into some situation through being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and accused of being part of some underground organisation; torture would have me naming names and detailing plans, regardless of whether any of that was valid.

Even if you do know for sure that someone is 'guilty' or involved in plots; you may get answers to your questions, but you may not get everything they could tell you. Psychological techniques to bring them to you, rather than traumatise them may well gain you more information, whilst also opening up new questions to ask as you dig deeper.

That and....it's fucking wrong. Just wrong. There is such a thing as 'right and wrong' and this is wrong. Totally, completely, morally wrong. It's also dangerous. If a government is prepared to sanction torture to protect its people from external threats; then it is not such a giant step for them to use it to protect from internal threats: for the police force to deem it acceptable to use toture to protect the 'law abiding' from the law breaker; or for an administration to use it to protect itself from 'dissent'. There is no sliding scale. It is either an acceptable tool or it is an unacceptable tool.

BUT, what the fuck is mental pain and suffering?

Presumably, something like making someone think they're about to be executed. Less relevant to this particular situastion, but in a wider context, something like exposing somebody to the screams of their family members whilst they are tortured.

OMFG - thank you bruce.

tw - shortly put - As usual you don't understand what I'm saying. Just stop trying.

It is defined in the US Code:

:thumb:

Just to step aside from the main thrust of this debate for a moment; I think it's also worth considering the effect of torture on those who perform the interrogations. We expect our soldiers to cope with all kinds of nasty and brutalising realities; often without truly understanding the effects of such experiences on their psyches; or without providing proper and effective methods of lessening the impact.

Those who torture suspects on 'our' behalf,* do so according to their orders; and are therefore exposed, by us, to something potentially even more brutalising than violent death.

*ostensibly, the British state neither condones torture (of any kind) nor accepts information derived from torture. In reality our intelligence services have been fundamentally implicated in both condoning and then utilising information gathered through the torture of suspects: most particularly those subject to the 'extraordinary renditon' system.

Thumbs up to the qeustion? Good, good. Now recognise that a clear answer has been offered.

A clear answer based on subjectivity is not a clear answer. Intent is very difficult to measure as well.

I wasn't referring to my answerr; I was referring to the one posted by Redux. The one that explains how it is defined in the US law code. Seems pretty fucking clear to me.

As was I, it states in the part that he did not post:

You can't measure intent, unless a person tells you what it was, and severe mental pain is a completely subjective thing.

Every time Redux posts he tortures.

The US Army Field Manual also provides the 18 acceptable and legal approaches to interrogation and they are all psychological in nature.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell...4-52/app-h.htm

And these were extended by law several years ago to apply beyond just the Army...to any US personnel (including CIA).

Y'know, thids is bizarre to me. If someone had said to me when i was younger, that in a decade or so, I would be having a conversation in which Americans were attempting to justify the use of torture on detainees, I'd never have believed it. I'd have believed it of my own country before I'd have believed it of yours.

All these new definitions are post Abu Ghraib.

@ Merc: I was referring to this.


How is that not clear?

I fail to see how prohibiting death threats or threats to bodily harm (talk or I'll start pulling off your finger nails) or mind-altering drugs or threats to family members...has anything to do with "intent" or is ambiguous.

Oh, I am not trying to justify it. Merely pointing out that there are holes in it. If I was innocently caught and sent to Gitmo I certainly, along with my lawyers would be quick to say that I was being tortured. Wouldn't you?

You have to be able to prove it in a court, that the individual said those things. The prisoner is not a very strong witness in many of these cases. Unless I confess you have no idea what my intent is or what was said.

If you were innocently caught and sent to Gitmo, you probably would have been tortured.

The lads from manchester and Tipton were innocent. They were also tortured. The medical evidence for that torture is very hard to ignore.

Besides: there's no reason to turn to such accusations. We know that waterboarding (which puts a suspect into a state similar to that of drowning and induces a fear of death) has been used. That is torture. We know that prisoners have been sent elsewhere to be interrogated by states in which torture is legal. We know that other 'enhanced interrogation' techniques have been used. The question is not whether those techniques were used, but whether or not they constitute torture.

And you have absolutely been justifying their use.

False. There is no proof that every person sent there was tortured. Period.

There are some really good experts out there that specialize in that type of research. I believe that is the information that is out there about those guys. I doubt anyone will ever know the complete truth.

True.

True.

True.

For those cases where it can be proven, true.

False.

[quote=TheMercenary;631002]False. There is no proof that every person sent there was tortured. Period.
QUOTE]


I didn't say you would have been tortured, i said you wouold probably have been tortured. There is no evidence to say that every prisoner was tortured, hence the lack of an absolute in my post. There is plenty of evidence to suggest it was widely used, however, which is why i believe you 'probably' would have been.


There is equally no evidence to suggest that those inmates who claim to have been tortured were lying. Especially given they were not contained within due process. So, why assume that an accusation from them is just a lie?

And I say that is completely and utterly false and there is no way you can support that premise. Period.


But you choose to believe whatever they say about the subject is true because you want to believe it.
Yea, it was not a police process it was a combat process.

My assumption is that there is no way to really prove every accusation without a complete evaluation based on subject matter experts who deal with people like this. I am not saying they have lied only that until they are examined by said experts that we will never know.

From earlier in this debate: Therefore we shouldn't have them 'looking over their shoulders'. That's a recipe for them continuing to use methods that are illegal and immoral. This in itself is a justification. I realise that you were arguing against them being held accountable retrospectively and the damage that might do to the organisation in the future. But you are arguing here for complicity in the actions they took. The actions they took included torture.

I don't by the way mean you have advocated the use of torture\; you've been very clear that 'torture' is illegal and should not be used. You have however shown remarkable unwillingness to accept that commonly used methods of interrogation during this period constitute tporture. Even where you have (after much diagreement over definitions) accepted something as a method of 'torture'you have then suggested that the inmates who suffered it are the least reliable witnesses. This is a catch 22. The only people who can make an accusation of torture in individual cases are those who were present\: the interrogator and the victim. The fact that they are claiming they have been tortured is taken by you, seemingly as evidence that they have not. The only people who can be trusted are those who were not involved. Therefore nobody can be trusted and therefore no evidence is secure.

I was perhaps unfair to say you have justified the use of torture. But you have advocated an attitude which is inherently complicit in that crime, and which inherently removes all possibility of truly illuminating it.

It is not really an issue of proving anything.

These are the accepted legal approaches to interrogation by US personnel..and they involve little, if any, subjective analysis of whether they inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell...4-52/app-h.htm


added:

And one of Obama's first Executive Orders was to put an end to the previous administration's approval of "enhanced interrogation techniques" that go above and beyond these procedures.

Period.

C'mon, do you think Americans (or anyone else) don't abuse spouses, beat children, or kick puppies? People is people, but I digress.

Except for Dick Cheney and UG, I think most Americans don't approve of torturing detainees, foreign or domestic. But the wrinkle is, what constitutes torture? The Department of Justice, Army Field Manual and Geneva Convention, outlines are open to interpretation, especially when it applies to mental torture.

For example; Certainly the threat of rooming with Horny Bubba would cause me mental anguish, but it's not torture because it's "incidental to lawful sanctions".

Except where the interrogator,(or just a guard), is following a script, it remains up to the individuals sense of right/wrong. That becomes pretty subjective, especially in retrospect.

Some people would say puting milk in their tea, is torture. ;)

And back to the beginning we go. This was exactly my point. Its all up to interpretation.

That is the point exactly. And all of these recently posted "new" definitions have come about after the fact after a specific event was uncovered.

But I think everyone is real clear about waterboarding, especially after we convicted our enemies for it.

Yes, physical torture is more easily defined, although people will still be split on it, than mental torture.

Do you mean the Japanese version, where part of the procedure is getting kicked in the stomach during it?

So the choking is ok, just not the kicking?

I don't disagree with that fact.

When you said "we convicted our enemies for it," did you mean the Japanese version?

That is the only one I know of. But obviously I didn't know there was a difference between the two.

http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_1997/yax-057.htm

According to wackos, pealing someone's skin off is not torture because that skin will grow back. Why are so many arguing silly semantics?

Same question remains unanswered. Do interrogate them or just inflict pain? Why do those who love torture not answer that question? Why do they even love choking - as if that does anything useful?

Five plus years ago, a warning to all Cellar dwellers described how confrontational America had become. Widespread is hate, fear, and 'big dic' thinking promoted by Limbaugh, Fox News, etc. Europeans would have little appreciation for the hate routinely broadcast daily on radio and TV.

How many non-Americans in The Cellar did not know five plus years ago and now appreciate how extremist some Americans are? That is not a rhetorical question. How many outside America now understand why the United States did a Pearl Harbor to Iraq? And now understand the source of hate even expressed against the French, Turks, Germans, etc.

Its interpretation? No. A question that American extremists will not answer. Do we interrogate them or just want to implement painful revenge? Other than DanaC, I am shocked how few outside America endorse torture by their silence.

thanks UT.

I don't know what we did or did not do.

And no one else can say for sure either.

So the pictures from Abu Ghriad never existed?

Were those also ideal interrogation techiques?

NY Times
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: April 13, 2013

Attachment 43645

David Addington, left, John Yoo, center, and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller are among those whom Russia has barred.

Russia Bars 18 Americans After Sanctions by U.S.
Now the US government should follow suite,
and the Univ of California should move John Yoo's office to Begg Rock.

If Russia is barring Americans for anything torture-related, it must be for copyright violations of their own methods.

http://terrorism.about.com/od/humanr...siaTorture.htm

OK, but regardless of whatever happens in other governments,
we are responsible for what happens in ours.

Yoo and Additon sold out ours for legal expendiency.

I think I'd prefer us measuring ourselves against the best that the world has to offer rather than justifying ourselves against the worst.

Look at that filthy, pitch-black kettle! Just look at it!!

Read the original story. This barring is in response to a US barring of Russian officials who falsely prosecuted, jailed, beat, and killed a guy, for exposing Russian corruption.

The Russians didn't like the US getting all up in their business

So they stopped US parents adopting Russian orphans. Too bad for the fucking orphans, who are the modern cannon fodder of diplomacy now

"Stop or we'll shoot our kids!"

But Lamp took the bait and praised the Russians for beating his own favorite dead horses...

The Russian government is corrupt but OOH LOOK SHINY THINGS I HATE JOHN YOO TOO!! WE SHOULD BE MORE LIKE THE RUSSIANS!!