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how to deal with things that suck.rmacqueen said:
Yet ANOTHER Discussion on Torture
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nope. But we aren't talking about POWs. And the point holds: it ain't torture.rmacqueen said:
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ethics be damned. There are far more tactically sound reasons not to do such things.rmacqueen said:
But it still ain't torture.
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paracowboy said:water-boarding and similar, nastier, techniques are used by several NATO militaries in regular training. It ain't torture. It sucks, but it ain't torture. :
I wanted to let this pass without comment, I'm think Paracoyboy said it just to annoy me. So I'll save everyone my surprisingly long essay on how things are different when you assign different meaning to them (The pain I choose for training/working out vs the pain from being stripped in front of strangers and forced to mimic sex acts on other men) I have my algolagnia accusations I could make but those are better saved for a bar setting.
lawofwar.org/what's_new.htm
"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.
In an editorial dated November 12, 2005 the Wall Street Journal denied that waterboarding was "...anything close to torture.""
So when the Americans do it it is "merely a stressful psychological technique"
But ... (later on the same link)
"The prosecutor in that case was vehement in arguing that the captured Doolittle fliers had been wrongfully convicted by the Japanese tribunal, in part because they were convicted based on evidence obtained through torture. "The untrustworthiness of any admissions or confessions made under torture," he said, "would clearly vitiate a conviction based thereon."
At the end of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of which the United States was a leading member (the Tribunal was established by Douglas MacArthur) convicted former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and numerous other generals and admirals of a panoply of war crimes. Among them was torture:
The practice of torturing prisoners of war and civilian internees prevailed at practically all places occupied by Japanese troops, both in the occupied territories and in Japan. The Japanese indulged in this practice during the entire period of the Pacific War. Methods of torture were employed in all areas so uniformly as to indicate policy both in training and execution. Among these tortures were the water treatment..."
Not only when it is done to them, it is torture but it also privides no real evidence because a person will say anything to end the suffering. It is counterproductive on every level, from troop moral, public relations all the way to socail security. (How safe would you feel if say MacAuthor was able to accuse you of being a communist and then give you a treatment or two or three or however many it takes untill the truth comes out. - Horrible argument I know, but I feel justified in making it)
http://hrw.org/doc/?t=usai_torture
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which is why I say:Zell_Dietrich said:
not to mention that such behaviour, while not torture, encourages your enemy to refuse surrender, to refuse to surrender, cast enormous doubt on you with the folks at home and in the eyes of the world, encourages your enemy to mistreat your troops wehn captured (although in this war, that's moot) and a few other reasons that I don't feel like typing out.paracowboy said:
It's counter-productive and distasteful. But it ain't torture.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005_pf.html
"Waterboarding Historically Controversial
In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation"
You can say it isn't torture, but it seemes legal precedent says otherwise.
A fun video about waterboarding - voluntary of course
http://www.current.tv/video/?id=13462474
"Waterboarding Historically Controversial
In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation"
You can say it isn't torture, but it seemes legal precedent says otherwise.
A fun video about waterboarding - voluntary of course
http://www.current.tv/video/?id=13462474
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Zell,
look at the dates. Japanese soldiers tortured prisoners. And sometimes ate them. The West was shocked and appalled. But considered that sort of thing an abberration.
In Vietnam, (as well as other parts of Asia and Africa) the West learned that sort of thing was a common occurence, and its' soldiers were unprepared in dealing with it. So they changed their definitions in the rules a bit, and prepared their soldiers better.
Now, we KNOW we will be tortured and murdered if captured, and our armies are trying very hard to prepare us for it. By using techniques that are extremely uncomfortable. But not torture. Those same techniques were/are used to solicit information.
It's counter-productive, but I have no control over it. Now, I know guys who can get you to tell you everything they want to know, without laying a finger on you, AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU TOLD THEM. Sometimes, they can cause you to lose bladder and bowel control. That is an interrogation.
My gripe is the use of the word. Many other terms can be applied, but torture is not one of them.
look at the dates. Japanese soldiers tortured prisoners. And sometimes ate them. The West was shocked and appalled. But considered that sort of thing an abberration.
In Vietnam, (as well as other parts of Asia and Africa) the West learned that sort of thing was a common occurence, and its' soldiers were unprepared in dealing with it. So they changed their definitions in the rules a bit, and prepared their soldiers better.
Now, we KNOW we will be tortured and murdered if captured, and our armies are trying very hard to prepare us for it. By using techniques that are extremely uncomfortable. But not torture. Those same techniques were/are used to solicit information.
It's counter-productive, but I have no control over it. Now, I know guys who can get you to tell you everything they want to know, without laying a finger on you, AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU TOLD THEM. Sometimes, they can cause you to lose bladder and bowel control. That is an interrogation.
My gripe is the use of the word. Many other terms can be applied, but torture is not one of them.
This is a crock of shit.
If our enemies have committed something we view as a crime, and there's enough evidence to show they did it, a confession should not be necessary. If there is not enough evidence without a coerced confession, something is fundamentally flawed with the arrest or detention. Whatever happened to simply treating enemies as prisoners of war? Coerced-compliant false confessions are a serious factor in false convictions in criminal law, and that's with merely high-pressure conventional police interrogations. Torture and extremely high-stress interrogation techniques simply get the suspect to tell you what they think you want to hear.
I cannot and will not condone torture or anything of the like. The moral high ground rests atop a slippery slope, and I AM willing to risk innocent lives, or my own, to stay on the safe side of that line.
That something is a common occurrence, that our culture may be an aberration in our condemnation, does not justify it, ever, and I will not be swayed from this opinion. We must be careful in how we fight for what is right, lest we lose the legitimacy of why we're fighting to begin with.
If our enemies have committed something we view as a crime, and there's enough evidence to show they did it, a confession should not be necessary. If there is not enough evidence without a coerced confession, something is fundamentally flawed with the arrest or detention. Whatever happened to simply treating enemies as prisoners of war? Coerced-compliant false confessions are a serious factor in false convictions in criminal law, and that's with merely high-pressure conventional police interrogations. Torture and extremely high-stress interrogation techniques simply get the suspect to tell you what they think you want to hear.
I cannot and will not condone torture or anything of the like. The moral high ground rests atop a slippery slope, and I AM willing to risk innocent lives, or my own, to stay on the safe side of that line.
That something is a common occurrence, that our culture may be an aberration in our condemnation, does not justify it, ever, and I will not be swayed from this opinion. We must be careful in how we fight for what is right, lest we lose the legitimacy of why we're fighting to begin with.
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good for you. Just don't call something by the wrong term.
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Troop Supporter said:
Just a quick note,
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/ <-- I don't strictly follow it, but you know you're running out of steam when you cross that line.
No we did not inturn the Germans. (Although there were many who were watched more closely)
Wow, so there is no hope. In order to preserve our society and way of life we have to destroy it. Fun. You'll just have to pardon me while I put my faith in the the institutions and laws that have kept us safe from far more dangerous things. Now I know I've posed on this before, I'll just provide a link
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/2527.210.html
Now Paracowboy, I understand your point on training to prepair. Yes, as horrible as it is, we do need to train against those techniques. (I didn't mean to imply otherwise) I am saying that we shouldn't indulge in this ineffective barberism ourselves.
I thought I made this point earlier in this thread, there is a huge difference between training and reality. In training you know that if you cave in no one that you know will die. In training, you know it will end, you wont be kept there for years getting tortured long after any information you ever might have had is useless. Also for the "trainers" they can firgive themselves for their actions because what they are doing is potentially helpfull. In reality, ... well I hope the best for everyone. I knew when I joined up that I could look forward to this (I know more than a few people in the CF) but I don't think that we should do it to others.
It has been suggested that in trenched systematic immorality is one of the leading reasons for dissent inside the general population and the armed forces http://www.sirnosir.com A documentary in which several soldiers expressed how they felt upon seeing torture being used and how it affected them. (Like it or not, humans are basically good and if exposed to that or put in a position where they have to tolerate it, it is damaging on many levels)
[quote author=Zell_Dietrich](Like it or not, humans are basically good and if exposed to that or put in a position where they have to tolerate it, it is damaging on many levels)
[/quote]
Incorrect. Human as amoral creatures with no inherent instinct with regards to morality. Everything 'moral' is a product of social learning- that which their upbringing has shown them to be a proper code of behaviour that allows them as individuals to succeed within culturally accepted means. When a person lives in a differentiated sub-culture with different goals and/or means of achieving them, or when they cannot meet personal goals within societally acceptable parameters and means, they may act in a way that we deem immoral.
That's not to devalue what we consider 'morality'- our collective cultural moral theories are what make our society worth protecting and fighting for. But the assumption of a moral instinct is the dangerous fallacy that leads to concepts such as negotiation with Jihadists, and other similar mindsets that assume a basic common ground as it pertains to moral principles.
Current cultural conflicts are not a clash over interpretation of morality, but instead of complete moral systems.
There is no basic 'good' or 'bad', as everything has to be put in a social context. I am culturally arrogant enough, however, to feel that the majority of what we deem to be 'good' is sufficiently defensible from an ethical standpoint that it ought to be universalizable, and defended through force or violence if situations are extreme enough to warrant it.
(For those who are interested, my standpoint is derived from a mix of utiliarian and liberalist principles that advance minimal harm, maximum freedom, but always a calculated approach thereto that acts to balance the needs of society with those of the individual.)
(Edit for clarity)
[/quote]
Incorrect. Human as amoral creatures with no inherent instinct with regards to morality. Everything 'moral' is a product of social learning- that which their upbringing has shown them to be a proper code of behaviour that allows them as individuals to succeed within culturally accepted means. When a person lives in a differentiated sub-culture with different goals and/or means of achieving them, or when they cannot meet personal goals within societally acceptable parameters and means, they may act in a way that we deem immoral.
That's not to devalue what we consider 'morality'- our collective cultural moral theories are what make our society worth protecting and fighting for. But the assumption of a moral instinct is the dangerous fallacy that leads to concepts such as negotiation with Jihadists, and other similar mindsets that assume a basic common ground as it pertains to moral principles.
Current cultural conflicts are not a clash over interpretation of morality, but instead of complete moral systems.
There is no basic 'good' or 'bad', as everything has to be put in a social context. I am culturally arrogant enough, however, to feel that the majority of what we deem to be 'good' is sufficiently defensible from an ethical standpoint that it ought to be universalizable, and defended through force or violence if situations are extreme enough to warrant it.
(For those who are interested, my standpoint is derived from a mix of utiliarian and liberalist principles that advance minimal harm, maximum freedom, but always a calculated approach thereto that acts to balance the needs of society with those of the individual.)
(Edit for clarity)
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precisely. Which is why any argument against torture, or similar methods, on moral grounds is a waste of time.Brihard said:
Use quantifiable reasons: loss of public support - domestic and foreign, untrustworthy info, enemy mistreats your soldiers, enemy refuses to surrender, etc. Think like a soldier, not a hippy. Soldiers achieve results.
And use the proper terms, in the proper context, or you're just going to get sunk.
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The practice of torturing prisoners is wrong, it just lowers us to there standers. Besides while torturing them they are going to say what you what to hear so you"ll stop. Interrogation is the way to go, you look after them,feed them,befriend them, ( you get more flys with honey then with s##t ) then lock them up & throw away the key !
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and then there's unintended consequences for your people ...
Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. Now we learn, thanks to a reporter's FOIA request, that one of the first women to die in Iraq shot and killed herself after objecting to harsh "interrogation techniques."
Link to article is here
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003345862
Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. Now we learn, thanks to a reporter's FOIA request, that one of the first women to die in Iraq shot and killed herself after objecting to harsh "interrogation techniques."
Link to article is here
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003345862
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Nothing in there said thats WHY she killed herself........I missed a breakaway this morning and bitched about to my buddies at lunch. Now this afternoon when I blow my head off will the story say thats why? OK everybody,..sttrrreeeetttccchhhh.
More bullshit required to sell advertising.........
More bullshit required to sell advertising.........
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From the Miriam Webster Dictionaryparacowboy said:water-boarding and similar, nastier, techniques are used by several NATO militaries in regular training. It ain't torture. It sucks, but it ain't torture. :
Main Entry: 1tor·ture
Pronunciation: 'tor-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, from Old French, from Late Latin tortura, from Latin tortus, past participle of torquEre to twist; probably akin to Old High German drAhsil turner, Greek atraktos spindle
1 a : anguish of body or mind : AGONY b : something that causes agony or pain2 : the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure
3 : distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument : STRAINING
Hmm ... could be this thread is heading in the direction of item 3
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sure :Kalatzi said:
Ya'll make sure you don't get too heavily involved in any Infantry stuff. Some of that "anguish of body or mind" sometimes "causes agony or pain" and can lead to you "STRAINING" past your limitations.
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Thanks for your kind words of concern.paracowboy said:sure :
Ya'll make sure you don't get too heavily involved in any Infantry stuff. Some of that "anguish of body or mind" sometimes "causes agony or pain" and can lead to you "STRAINING" past your limitations.
Hasn't been a problem to date
Cheers
