I don't like torture

by pyrrho

President Jimmy Carter on Larry King live made an argument about torture. Jimmy pointed out America never believed in torture... and King said something like, "well, they didn't have 9/11" and Jimmy said, but we had WWII and it was much worse. He relayed the story of a WWII POW that had been severely tortured and abused, he talked about the Geneva Conventions being necessary to protect our own boys, that you can create standards against torture, and you do this by living by those standards.

I am so sad for my nation that this is a debate.

This is obvious stuff.

I don't want to have to discuss "but what if you could torture someone to find out about a nuclear bomb that is in a New York subway!" Such hypotheticals are not illustrative... such an example would have to be factual... and I know of no such situations that have been solved by torture, and given that, I DO know that torture makes other problems even worse.

If your brother is building IUDs against people that won't torture you... you might advise him to stop, you might even tell the occupying force, having some confidence they will not torture your brother. But if you think they WOULD torture your brother, then you are sympathetic to his rage, you understand, he is fighting something really bad, something very cruel and mean.

Is this something that should be worth blogging about?  Torture is wrong? Proper treatment of criminals is right? This is in dispute?

These are dark days for the American Tradition, and the American Conscience...

Comments

[G-Do]

...and I know of know such situations that have been solved by torture, and given that, I DO know that torture makes other problems even worse.

pyrrho, could you please elaborate on this?

[pyrrho]

it's an error... missing negation.

I'll correct it.

[Averroes]

I'll stop trying the alternqtive bolds for now. apologies again.

pyrho:

"I know of no such situations that have been solved by torture,"

but you don't know that there aren't any. i would find it odd that torture has been continued for all these millenia and never yielded any information that was useful.

the real argument seems to be that it doesn't reliablyyield useful; information.

This topic always reminds me of one of Tom Lehrer's grat songs, with this lyric:

Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers,
Lurid, liscentious, and vile, . . .
Make me smile.

more serious answer later.

[G-Do]

Well, as a big brother, I can attest that torture sometimes does yield reliable information:

B: Where's my Transformer, retard?

L: Ow! OWWW! In the toolbox under Dad's workbench!

It was where he said it was. However, this was probably due not so much to that specific act of torture as to the threat of further tortures until I got my action figure back.

i would find it odd that torture has been continued for all these millenia and never yielded any information that was useful.

If I'm parsing this correctly, you are saying that torture's survival across many thousands of years is an indicator of its utility in information extraction. I don't think that this is necessarily correct:

It seems to me that a society could implement a policy of torturing its citizens (or non-citizens) for reasons other than the extraction of information. Nazi Germany, right? Daschau and Auschwitz? Those Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, and gypsies weren't being tortured for information, as far as I know.

So if there are (historically validated) reasons for torture other than the extraction of information, it is feasible that torture could survive as a social institution despite its utility in information extraction. Yes? And if that is so, the survival of torture does not necessarily serve as an adequate indicator of its utility in information extraction.

On the other hand, if you're saying that so much torture has happened, some of it was bound to yield reliable information, I guess I can't argue with that :p

Some people argue that there is some kind of innate human compulsion to torture, independent of any actual reason, which lays dormant until environmental cues activate it. But I don't know about that.

[pyrrho]

the effect of torture is not to get information.

the brother analogy doesn't hold in society of course.

the problem is that you get a lot of bad information as well.

the purpose of torture isn't to get information, I don't think, if you look at societies that regularly employ torture, it's because it puts a blanket of fear on the populace... you don't need information because people are too scared to act against you.

torturing the "wrong" person is a part of that... everyone must fear.

It's about showing the person you have total control, and then you get their submissive cooperation as a result... it's not about the instance of information.

the brother gives you the information because yes, he is in a situation subject to brotherly oppression... it is the future he's thinking about.

what does the man with no information give you? what does the man with enemies he'd like you to hunt as criminals say... etc. etc...

frankly, I don't give a rats ass if it does work... it's wrong. America has done much better without it. In WWII there are many stories of surrender to American troops because of our reputation not to torture... that saved American lives.

what a terribly embarrasing debate to have.

[G-Do]

Heh. Well, pyrrho:

frankly, I don't give a rats ass if it does work... it's wrong.

That's right (the tone is spot-on, too), and even though that argument is superficially very simple, I think that it's more compelling than talking on and on about the poor utility of torture. I suspect that you'll find it difficult to convince naysayers on the strength of the utilitarian arguments alone, because they are tangential to the real reason for the disagreement, and dancing around these "real reasons" tends to cause unnecessary friction in political discussions.

Does that jive with your own experiences?

Anyway, I was only picking at nits. I don't think that torture should be national policy, and as for torture in general, it may comfort you to read my considerably strong personal opinion of it:

Torture is a moral evil so heinous that necessity can neither excuse nor justify it. So monstrous is a single act of torture that any good it effects is immediately vitiated by the enormous evil it effects. To don the mantle of the torturer is to make a terrible and lasting contribution to the concretion of human ugliness, and if human society is to advance, it must do away with that mantle forever.

Big brothers withstanding, of course :P

>>Does that jive with your own experiences?<<

yes.

however it's also important to point out this is a Lethal Weapon 2005 scenario... these are not common scenarios where the doomseday defusing depends on torturing someone in the last hour, or any of these scenarios.

I listened to Rush Limbaugh talk about the example in the TV show 24 and said, "see!" and used it as an example why we need to torture.

ridiculous. That's all just a macho fantasy... Averroes says "it must work for something", and on that I agree, just nothing good.

[Winston Smith]

It turns out http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001434737> the guy whose tales of al-Qaeda-Iraq cooperation the White House touted months after they knew they were suspect, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197853/site/newsweek/> was tortured.

Maybe the info you get, is just the info they think you want?

[Averroes]

G-Do, let me parse it.

What i am saying is that torture has been used to extract information for millenia. Of course, it also has been used for other purposes. For instance, it has famnously been used to induce heretics to recant theirinfidel ideas and embrace the true belief. pyrrho and Mark have used toture on me here for that purpose. In fact, it iw probably more useful for this than for extracting reliable information.

It is also used to terrorze, as was stated.

And, as someone suggested, the utilitarian arguments are tangential to the moral arguments. That being said, it always intereting to find those making moral arguments latch on to utilitarian arguments that suit their moral stance. A moral stance, of course, is held despite any utilitarian argument.

In fact, using utilitarian artguments to help the moral cause is in itself, and example of low moral values.

So, to parse what i said, which I purposely wrote rather-passively, try this:

It is inconceivable to me that torture would still be used to extract information if it had never yielded useful information. As we know from slot machines, there is no need for torture to yield such information a major portion of the time for the behaviour to be reinforced.

[Averroes]

It happens that I was involved in a long debate on another board a few months ago, which resulted in both sides more or less asking me to get out of the exchange. I called them on their game. Y'll hate it when i do that.

On this board, the Europeans and some Americans loved to cut and paste a5ticles damning America for torture. The Abu Ghraib picture figured prominently. The current AttGen's correctly callihng the quaint Geneva conventins 'quaint' was often thrown up.

The righties on the board argued that what was being described wasn't torture, or, if it was, it was minor and necessary to get information to save lives.

I know you've seen these arguments, which can go on forever and lead to nasty words.

The problem, of course, comes with the word 'torture,' and oits use in bad faith by each side. The German on the board had the starkest definition, following the IRC: torture is anything that causes discomfort in a prisoner. The righties basically argued that it's npt torture if it is necessary or it works.

Of course, the answer is to stop using that word, which is indefinite and loaded. Of course, this is exactly why those who argue in bad faith want to use it.

Now, let me take a little side step, as I did there to actually discuss the term and its use in the argument.

Let's say that we can agree on the extremes. Thewre are some things that we know are torture upon whioch both sides agree. And there are some things done to prisoners that nobody but the IRC would call torture. The problem is deciding where to draw the line. of course, those who argue in bad faith will draw the line where it is convenient to meet the ends of their argument, either to damn the US, or to excuse it.

My dictionary provides two relevant definitions.

1) the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounbding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure;

2) a: anguish of body or mind: AGONY
b: something that causes agony or pain.

The second definition includes the notion of suffering over and above mere pain. This and continued loss of control are imbeded inour normal use of the word to describe what we classically call torture. Remember, the tortures of the Inquisition were designed to extract true belief without doing bodily damage, which was not allowed by the church.

The problem here is the fool's errand of trying to outlaw "torture." There is no agreement on what actually is torture. The rack? of course. Speaking in a harsh tone to a prisoner? Only if you are in the IRC. Where is the line drawn?

A slap of the face is not torture. Slapping the prisoner's face 100 times a day for a month is torture. When did it become torture?

I proposed that we should drop the word, and define just what is and is not allowed. the problem with banning torture is that it demands that the point person or his supervisors have to decide whether any particular act is torture, whether the ban applies. At the time i wrote this, McCain had just begun campaigning to define what is persmissable. he had proposed that if it wasn't allowed in the field manual, it shouldn't be done. Noi questions. No attempt to apply an amorphous label.

[I've heard some arguments against this notion, that if we do this, it will aid al-Qaida in preparing for captivity, things like that. I don't think these are serious arguments. Some of the manuals could be classified, for interrogators only, for example.]

At this point, in my usual way, i suggested that those who wanted to insist on arguing torture were doing so to feed their moral outrage, not to find a solution to the problem.

I was hit then with epithets which questioned my moral integrity and accused me of probably having my own torture chamber and a wall dedicated to Abu Ghraib pictures.

The debate went on without me. Were the Abu Ghraib pictures depictions of torture? One of the righties thought they were NOT torture, but humiliation. The German thought maybe he could accept that IF the righties agreed that humiliation was always wrong. i chimed in to point out that incarceration itself is inherently humiliating, and that if we followed the German, we would have no POWs inthe first place. he didn't think that was necessarily a bad idea.

The argument raged on, ignoring my suggestion, for a month, and died down. they got stuck on whether humiliation was a kind orff torture. Someone cut and pasted a little piece where an iraqi woman said that the humiliation of having those pictures shown worldwide, the naked men subservient to a woman, had ruined their lives. She said that they could never face their village or family again, and would be tortured for the rest of their lives. It would have been better, she said, to actually physically harm them. She accused the Americans of publishing the pictures in an attempt to heap ultimate humiliation on the men. She was quite clear that it was the publishing of the pictures that made the humiliation which happened into a life-long torture.

Of course we had no way to tell her that some Americans are trying to torture even more of the Abu Ghraib inmates by publishing more pictures.

There it lay, until I repeated a bit from Adam Carrolla's show. I told the board that on a comedy show, Corrolla had shown the picture of Lynde Englund, cigarette hanging from her smiling mouth, one hand pointing to a man's genitals, the other giving a thumb up. corrolla remarked that this was NOT torture. He noted that no woman had ever given him a thumbs up when he exposed his genitals, and that he would never think it was tporture if it happened. In fact, he would feel quite good about it.

The German is not known for a sense of humour, and neither are the Englishmen on the board. The German's reaction s[poke for them all.

He said that I was "excusing" this humiliating behaviour, and making a joke where none should be made. Some things, it seems, are sacred.

Then he made an argument similar to the kind i get here. He accused me of arguing that becasue some men have sexual fantasies of wearing a dog collar and being led around on a leash by a woman, that therefore this wasn't torture!!!

I tried to tell him that i wasn't even talking about that picture, but he refused to talk with my immoral asds after that!@! I asked him where he had heard such an argument, but he wouldn't respond.

And that's where it lay. the righ5ties thought that the Abu Ghraib pictures dep[icted abuse and ahumiliation of prisoners, but no necessarily torture. In any case, they said, it should be prosecuted. The Europeans and the lefties could not accept this, becasue it didn't sound as bad as "torture."

My suggestion that we have a field manual whcih says exactly what can and cannot be done was ignored. Now, our congress can choose either to grandstand by passing reolutions against torture (and against cancer, say) or they can accept something like McCain's approach. Give the interrogators and incacerators a clear line of what they can and cannot do. Ths also makes prosecution of wrongdoing easier. In addition, this will give the soldier the ability to decide clearly what is a legal or illegal order.

So, I suggest that we pay less attention to moral outrage about torture, and act on the consensus that we should be involved in torture. We should realize that we can't define torture exactly, and even if we could, there are other things wcih might not be torture that also should be banned.

We should put the decision about what should and should not be allowed on the writers of the field manual, with oversight by the administration and the Congress.

If we do this, we can sidestep the interminable arguments from moral outrage to concentrate on fixzing the problem.

Unless, of course, you want to have the opportuinity for moral outrage to continue.

On the other board, Abu Ghraib remains an open sore, which festers occassionally. This is NOT because anyone on the board thinks that what was done their was ok. it festers because of the ongoin arguments as to whether this or that is "torture."

To me, it doesn't matter. it is obviously wrong, criminal. let's fix it.

Of course, how this approach is extended to the CIA and other intelligence arms is another question. Part of the problem in Abu Ghraib was that the soldiers in question were receiving orders from MI people not in their chain of command. Tpo make it worse, some of these wemed to be civilian contractors, outside even military justice.

[G-Do]

Hmm. A couple of thoughts:

The idea of an "interrogator's field manual" is a good one, but doesn't something like that already exist? I don't know - it seems that surely, surely there must be a policy book that defines appropriate behavior for military police and interrogators somewhere, but then again, I am uneducated on this particular issue. Maybe you learned something about this in your previous discussions, Averroes? Anyone else? Hubris? Or am I missing the point here? What, exactly, was Senator McCain trying to change?

Part of the problem in Abu Ghraib was that the soldiers in question were receiving orders from MI people not in their chain of command. Tpo make it worse, some of these wemed to be civilian contractors, outside even military justice.

Yes. The Taguba Report painted a fairly scandalous picture, and the first thought I had upon reading it was "we need some kind of watchdog unit to make sure this doesn't happen again - some in-house Army group to survey the MPs, the interrogators, the prisons, and the officers in charge, reporting directly to the SecDef, or as I like to call him, RumDiddy." But I'm not sure whether we could easily implement a thing like that.

The Taguba Report, for anyone interested who hasn't read it yet.

Anyone watch the "live" West Wing debate?

Yes, there is such a manual. it is my understanding that it is now used as a guide to techniques that might work, rather than as the extent of techniques that can be used. McCain's amendment seeks to prohibit anything whichis not in the manual.

It also closes the "CIA loophole," which allows the CIA to escape the provisions of american laws when working with foreign prisoners outside the United States. This is what Cheney is trying to get changed.

It's rather short, and contains one of those blanket statements, with definitions, as well. But the meat is in the first paragraph.

McCain Amendment in the final version of the FY 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill

SEC. __. UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR THE INTERROGATION OF PERSONS UNDER THE DETENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

(a) IN GENERAL.--No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

(b) APPLICABILITY.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to with respect to any person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense pursuant to a criminal law or immigration law of the United States.

(c) CONSTRUCTION.--Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the rights under the United States Constitution of any person in the custody or under the physical jurisdiction of the United States.

(THe second half closes the "CIA loophole," and is the subject of the campaign by Cheney and the CIA to douse it. It aims at the ruling that the broad prohibition on "Cruel, inhumn, or degrading treatment or punishment of p[risoners" does not apply to foreigners held outside the US. It explicitely extends already existent laws to these people.)

SEC. __. PROHIBITION ON CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT OF PERSONS UNDER CUSTODY OR CONTROL OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

(a) IN GENERAL.--No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

(b) CONSTRUCTION.--Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose any geographical limitation on the applicability of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under this section.

(c) LIMITATION OF SUPERSEDER.--The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this section.

(d) CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT DEFINED.--In this section, the term ''cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment'' means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.

I must say that when one reaches a certain age, one sees these things less as items for settling than as oscillations. For much of the two and a half decades after wWII, th34 CIA had free rein. We didn't want to know, and simply assumed that the cruel techniques of the dirty communists may require something in kind. As we all know, this little government unto itself got out of control.

Then we had two and a half decades of tying the hands of the CIA by people like Toricelli. this has resulted in a largely ineffective CIA. Lately, the thyrust is that the new war on terror (likethey just discovered it) requires a freer hand for the CIA, and this is true. But, ineveitably, this will aslo lead to abuses. And, one supposes, more strictures on intelligence.

Some uyounger idealists might think that there is a happy medium which gets it just right. But anold realist knows that there is no "just right." The bet se can hope for is damping the amplitude.

McCain has vowed to add this amendment to every important bill until it is passed.

[Averroes]

And I need to correct something i said above. the Inquisition was not allowed to shed blood. obviously dislocating a bone or two was not problem.

And besides, we didn't sant any bloody people being burned at the stake at those public executions.

The people shouldn't have to see that.
\
btw, mcCain has collected statements of support from a lot of retired generals, including Powell, whichhe has read into the record.

maybe Bush should actaully ask Dad about this one. it would be interesting to be a flea on the ball for that conversation.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander ?

[pyrrho]

pathetic claim, at best.

Of course we have to define torture... we don't let it be defined in the field... that's not the question, the idea that people opposed to torture shouldn't use the word, because of negative connotations, is ludicrous... akin to not using the word crime because a more neutral term is available.

By all means, invent prettier words... define torture from the "allowed stress" angle... and still, the one does lead toward the other, as you say there is no hard line between the two... which to some of us shows an inherent danger.

NOTE: that guy that Englund was pointing at... they interviewed him on CNN, he was let go without punishment, he'd only been picked up because he was caught bearing a pistol! (! (!!!))

That is the face of torture... gee, wasn't he supposed to know the combination lock on a million megaton bomb hidden in New York?

[pyrrho]

Averroes,

Ok, so you have left a conversation where they were trying to draw the line between allowed and disallowed practices (those called torture will be disallowed).

Where would YOU draw the line.

Is it OK that Englund et al stripped and humiliated that guy, who was not proved of any serious wrongdoing... just being armed in a war zone? Is it?

What about the guy with the hood standing on a box with electrical wires attached to his genetalia?

You love to talk documents... I've looked through hundred and hundreds of primary documents the ACLU has obtained via FOIA on the treatment of prisoners... have you? Which events were OK according to you? What about shocking PUCs using the batteries used for detonating explosives... allowable or not?

[Averroes]

pyrrho:

pyrrho and Mark have used toture on me here for that purpose.

pathetic claim, at best.

What is REALLY pathetic is that even with the context here you couldn't recognize this as facetious. Although, there is a certain truth to it. For insatnce, both you and Mark have consistently misrepresented what i have said and have extended a simple discussion into a nyumber of side issues, etc.

Of course we have to define torture

Oddlky, i had held out hope that you wouldn't fall into this form of idiocy. the point was that it can't be defined. We could define it legally, to be sure, but that wouldn't stop it from being abused by those with ulterior motives. in fact, such ulterior motives can be the only reason to focus on this woird, rather than on the actual acts which should be prohibited.

the idea that people opposed to torture shouldn't use the word, because of negative connotations, is ludicrous.

Show me someone who makes such an argument and I will call them an idiot. We do have freedom of speech, and i support it.

What i said is that focusing on the word 'torture' is not helpful for defining exactly what our armed forces and CIA should be allowed to do in interrogation. Are you saying that you oppose the McCain amendment becasue it doesn't contain the word 'torture?'

akin to not using the word crime because a more neutral term is available.

In fact, it isexactly NOT akin to 'crime.' This latter word is well defined, and we know exactly what we have to have to use the word. The neutrality of the word is not the issue. the issue is the exactness of definition. We could use the word torture, IF w3e defined it in the law. but my prediction is that because this term is not as neutral as 'crime,' it would do nothing to stop[ the debate.

Nor would mcCainb's amendment. One could still object to specific procedures in the manual, for instance. But it would have the virture of actually focusing the debate on the specific procedures, not some ill-defined blankoet term.

In a way, using 'torture' is an attempt to push the debate AWAY form the particular procedure. it's a eway of co-opting the debate by saying, in effect, "you're against p[utting people on the rack until their backbone bereaks, aren't you? Then you must be against American torture." it doesn't matter for this bad faith argument what the ctual procedure is. The dishonest argument is to conflate any procedure woth torture, and then to argue against the general term.

By all means, invent prettier words... define torture from the "allowed stress" angle...

I have argued specifically against either approach. on this thread. Strawman rides again.

and still, the one does lead toward the other, as you say there is no hard line between the two... which to some of us shows an inherent danger.

Now THAT is my argument. I have offered a way to avoid the danger, and so has McCain. It's quite simple. There is no defense to "You've done something which isn't sanctioned in the manual." While "what you have done is torture" is very hard to prosecute.

Just now, they repeated Bush in panama saying "We do not torture." Well, you say, what about....? Well, we did it, so it's not torture. Wouldn't you rather have the president having to face a procedure that was done that wasn't in the manual? You have to realize that using the word 'torture' cuts both ways. i'm saying that i want to end the practices. You, apparently, could care less about that.

NOTE: that guy that Englund was pointing at... they interviewed him on CNN, he was let go without punishment, he'd only been picked up because he was caught bearing a pistol! (! (!!!))

And this is relevant to...what? Are you going to argue that if he had been detained for killing his wife, and had been convicted and punished by a long sentence, that it would have all been ok?

That is the face of torture... gee, wasn't he supposed to know the combination lock on a million megaton bomb hidden in New York?

And this is the face of dishonesty!

[Averroes]

so you have left a conversation where they were trying to draw the line between allowed and disallowed practices (those called torture will be disallowed).

NO. read more carefully. I left the conversation when they asked me to, just because they WEREN"T discussing what practices would be allowed and which wouldn't. instead, they were involved in never-ending discussions of what tortue is, and why America is so bad (on the one side) and why America is without sin (on the other side).

The toruble with your proposal in thsi quote is that it is impossible. The list of things unam,biguously called torture is NOT the same as the list of prohibited practices in anyone's imagination. To make it so, ojne must drain the word 'torture' of all meaning. As the IRC has done, for instance.

In fact, some people now use the word 'torture' to mean, "Any technique used by the US to get information from detainees."

Where would YOU draw the line.

It is so unlike you to ask. Why don't you make a guess based ONLY on what i've written on this thread, ignoring your dogmatic "model" of what I should think.

In fact, i don't know. i think drawing a line is not the issue. What IS the issue is to examine each procedure, and put it in the allowed bin, the disallowed bin, or the "yet to be determined" bin. In McCain's amendment, only those in the allowed bin (that is, in the field manual) could be used. Those in the yet to be determined bin could be put in either of the other two bvins after review, as McCain has argued. In other words, the manua is not set in cement.

Is it OK that Englund et al stripped and humiliated that guy, who was not proved of any serious wrongdoing... just being armed in a war zone? Is it?

No. for any reason. But you didn't have to ask me. It should've been clear.

btw, this is a clear issue of whether those outraged by Abu Ghraib are merely out to get the Bush administration (knowing, of course, that he was called and asked about each thing--or, more stupidly, he "created the atmosphere) or are actually concerned with the treatment of those detained. The pictures themselves are the worst thing for these men. Do you want more of them? Do you wish that this could have been taken care of without the pictures released. or do you feel a certain giddiness deep in your abdomen at the prospect of more pictures?

Those who want more pictures, or who have focused on those already published, are as guuilty as Lyndee herself of abusing those detainees. they are using them for their own ends.

What about the guy with the hood standing on a box with electrical wires attached to his genetalia?

I don't know. what doyou think? They weren't hooked up to an electrical source.

Generally, i think that interrogators whouldn't lie. They shouldn't break any laws, nor be any less than beacons of morality. But the law is against me on this. So, under our nor,al understanding of the law, not my own view, do you think that such a "fake" should be allowed? Should an interrogator say that if you don't goive up the informatin, you'll be comnvicted of ths or that and face the fitring squad, but if you give it uyp, the kindly interrogator will put in a good word for you? Should an interrogator be able to say that the guy he was captured with has already given him up, and this is his oonlyy chance to cooperate or else he'll face dire consequences?

It's the question of what is allowed in the manual.

What about shocking PUCs using the batteries used for detonating explosives... allowable or not?

Npope. Only car or truck batteries should be allowed.

I can be silly, too.

[pyrrho]

Averroes,

don't be too shocked... we are agreeing... No, I don't want the word "torture" to appear in the law, I want it to appear in this conversation, and the law to prohibit it.

>>>NOTE: that guy that Englund was pointing at... they interviewed him on CNN, he was let go without punishment, he'd only been picked up because he was caught bearing a pistol! (! (!!!))

And this is relevant to...what? Are you going to argue that if he had been detained for killing his wife, and had been convicted and punished by a long sentence, that it would have all been ok?

um... because I was commenting on the idea that this sort of thing is done at the last minute to save humanity from some great loss... no, they are used to humiliate people that may be guilty of practically nothing at all.

And I notice you use this detail to ignore my substantive question... WHAT WOULD AVERROES PROHIBIT?

and would you prohibit what Englund was involved with?

[Averroes]

btw, your question about the lyndee incident illustrates myy point. it would be hard to argue (without ulterior motives) that stripping someone and poiinting to their genitals is torture. yet we might agree that it should not be an allowable practice. if we got hung up on the 'torture' word, we might never get to that point.

[pyrrho]

ah, my mistake, you were about to answer.

"In fact, i don't know. i think drawing a line is not the issue. What IS the issue is to examine each procedure, and put it in the allowed bin, the disallowed bin, or the "yet to be determined" bin."

um, I'm just asking which acts that we have seen recently go in which bin.

Actually... it's not out of character, mostly I ask for people's opinions... being interested in them as I am.

I'm glad to see you think Englund's act should be in the "don't allow" bin... but I'm not sure why "not really being hooked to live power" is any defense of the infamous hooded man.

another problem I have with these practices is that I hear people say "oh, it's terrorists... we have to be tough"... even McCain said this and I of course very much appreciate his work to ensure we DON'T torture, but he used the line about people in the secret prisons being criminals.

We don't know that. Crimes have to be ejudicated, otherwise you have Abu Grhaib and people making excuses for it based on "they're just terrorists... these guys are beheading Americans"... when really they are just people rounded up an accused, and not 100% guilty people.

However, I agree with you... when you imply that even the guilty should not be tortured.

You did imply that, yes?

[pyrrho]

btw, your question about the lyndee incident illustrates myy point. it would be hard to argue (without ulterior motives) that stripping someone and poiinting to their genitals is torture. yet we might agree that it should not be an allowable practice. if we got hung up on the 'torture' word, we might never get to that point.

Averroes, it is my pleasure to agree with you here, that is a VERY good point. In fact, I tend to agree... we should prohibit behavior directly, when discussing the law, rather than go for an absolute definition of torture and prohibit that.

I like McCain's idea about modifying the field manual, including the classified sections.

[Averroes]

No, I don't want the word "torture" to appear in the law, I want it to appear in this conversation, and the law to prohibit it.

You want it prohibited by a law that does not name it. Perhaps we could call it "that infamous crime against nature." Oops. that one's taken.

Secondly, I wold not prohibit it in conversation. What i am arguing is that such conversation is unproductive for the aim of actually protecting detainees from procedures we don't want. It is used for other, less honest, resaons.

Like we write on the blackboard in the ADD classroom: stay on task. the task is to create rules for interrogation of detainees which allow only things which we deem to be proper, and exclude what we think is improper. conversation about torture is used for some other reason.

[Averroes]

However, I agree with you... when you imply that even the guilty should not be tortured.

You did imply that, yes?

To be more exact, I don't think guilt or innocence, even when resolved by a proper legal methid, has anything to deo with the question of what techniques can be used. except, of course, for those techniques legally deemed the consequences for the act involved.

What do you think was the crime for the hooded man?

Hooded?
Made to stand on a box?
Having non-electrified wires attached?
Being told they were electrified?

I think we should acknowledge here that when a field manual is made, there will still be disagreement about specifics. this is called "democracy." It would be fine for the discussion to continue. But injecting that discussin with the word 'torture' won't help make anythng clearer, and would, on the contrary, impede rational discusiion.

[pyrrho]

>You want it prohibited by a law that does not name it. Perhaps we could call it "that infamous crime against nature." Oops. that one's taken.<

no, I'm accepting your points about the word in law... but I use this word in the title of this post... I cannot replace it with a list of procedures that I don't like, can I?

Hooded?
Made to stand on a box?
Having non-electrified wires attached?
Being told they were electrified?

Hooded... no, not in itself.

Standing on the box... depends how long... is it necessary?

Non-elecrified wires attached to scrotum... yeah, that's too much... and that they were "non-electrified" is not proven, but hearsay, as far as I know. Do you have any corroboration it was not electrified... that's the -claim-... but there are lots of "claims"... including ones of really even more heinious things on the unreleased tapes and photos. EVEN un-electrified, I do think that's too much, but we don't really know they were not electrified.

Being told they were electrified... I'm not sure. I tend to think you can talk whatever talk you want... but he especially would have reason to think they were electrified because of the other parts of the interrogation (being hooded, stress position, someone hooking things to your genitals)...

btw, are you saying that if NO one count is criminal that the amalgam can't be? Is that what you think? Just curious... because this goes to the relationships between detail-facts and broad-facts.