Originally Posted By gadzuux But that's okay - american lives were at stake! That means we can do anything we want.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 But that's okay - american lives were at stake! That means we can do anything we want. << Yeah, because we know our enemy treats their prisoners with so much more respect than we do... i mean it's not like they chop off soldiers heads or something like that...or blow up a bus full of school girls who did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In order to protect American interests sometimes you have to get your hands a little dirty... screw what is politically correct.... What that moron did to his daughter is inexcusible, but to even think about comparing what he did to enemies in a foreign conflict is ludicrous.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< .or blow up a bus full of school girls who did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. >>> Now you want to talk about the Catholics in Northern Ireland?
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 <<< .or blow up a bus full of school girls who did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. >>> Now you want to talk about the Catholics in Northern Ireland?<< Or any other terrorist organization that commits such crimes.. If the U.S. military purposely went after innocents I'd be complaining about them too.... By comparing this incident to torturing adult individuals who are fighting a "Holy War" against the U,S., you are taking the easy way out.... 1+1 does not always equal 2 when it comes to real life events... Just because this man tortured his daughter doesn't mean that he learned this while serving in the military, hell he could have picked this up watching 24....
Originally Posted By andyll <<Yeah, because we know our enemy treats their prisoners with so much more respect than we do... i mean it's not like they chop off soldiers heads or something like that...or blow up a bus full of school girls who did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In order to protect American interests sometimes you have to get your hands a little dirty... screw what is politically correct....>> Conservative's love to wave the flag and claim American exceptionalism but have no clue what it means.
Originally Posted By barboy If I knew, absolutely knew(as in basically a 100% chance), that one--- be it a a nun, a 7 year old, a nut case or a decorated war hero--- was harboring information that **WOULD** save lives and torture would bear fruit, then I'd apply the electrodes and not think twice; excluding family/friends(I would likely recuse myself)I wouldn't care who the unlucky soul was before me. ((but that's the trick now isn't it.....how in God's name could we ever know with certainty that the person is indeed harboring vital info???))
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Better yet, how do we know what we're told by prisoners under duress is accurate? I'm always curious to know how someone decides any one torture session concludes. After they get one bit of information? After 30 minutes, no matter how much they've gotten out of a prisoner? Certainly, it can't be like televison or the movies where there's a scripted AHA! moment after Ahmed or Farook tells "our guy" "ok ok ok, Osama's hiding out Dorkistan, pretending to be a sheepherder!" I've said it before. I've done hundreds of interrogations and the principles remain the same, whether you're talking to a 22 year old kid who just handed off a dozen TVs to his buddies or a terrorist- you get much more reliable information when you treat them respectfully and gain their confidence, not yelling or screaming or torturing them.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Better yet, how do we know what we're told by prisoners under duress is accurate?*** Yup. Methinks our William has either watched too many episodes of 24, or else has been drinking the right wing cool-aid (maybe both). And Passholder, being the only expert on interrogation on LP as far as I know, would be the guy to listen to about this stuff (forgive me William if you, too, are experienced in this field but from your comments I would find that hard to believe). What torture DOES accomplish, and everyone seems to ignore, is to get people to KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT. That, I do believe, is a very effective use of torture. Seriously, if you truly believed that your tormentors were powerful when they told you "if you ever talk about ANY of this, it will be 10 times worse the next time, and we're the CIA so you can bet there WILL be a next time", would you flap your gums to the press? Which makes one wonder why it was so favored by the Bush crew.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***torturing adult individuals who are fighting a "Holy War" against the U.S.*** Again, you seem to be okay with this. So, for what purpose, William?
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Be nice to terrorists and they'll be nice to us, got it.*** Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant, DAR, since you endorse torturing people just for the fun of it (or, more appropriately, as punishment). No government (not even Amurka) has deigned take things to your personal extreme. So having a discussion about interrogation techniques or treatment of prisoners as it pertains to obtaining information or international norms or using a trust relationship in order to elicit actionable intelligence or frankly ANYTHING else we could talk about is beyond your ability to participate in. Your quip is meaningless.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Two wrongs do not make a right. Otherwise we might as well chuck it all in. a real F U SoB.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Better yet, how do we know what we're told by prisoners under duress is accurate? I'm always curious to know how someone decides any one torture session concludes. After they get one bit of information? After 30 minutes, no matter how much they've gotten out of a prisoner? Certainly, it can't be like televison or the movies where there's a scripted AHA! moment after Ahmed or Farook tells "our guy" "ok ok ok, Osama's hiding out Dorkistan, pretending to be a sheepherder!" > Exactly. Even the "ticking time bomb" scenario, usually the one given by torture apologists (i.e. "if there was a ticking time bomb and you KNEW beyond question that your prisoner was involved and knew something, THEN you'd torture him, wouldn't you?") falls apart on closer examination. The reason that torture was against American law and custom - aside from moral considerations - is that it almost never WORKS, and other methods have proven more effective, as counter-intuitive as that may seem to some people. Let's say that your prisoner is 100% without doubt a terrorist. And there's a ticking time bomb. We know that most people will say anything just to get the torture to stop. And if this guy really is a terrorist - a man who would think nothing of killing hundreds of innocents and would be willing to die in the effort, as suicide bombers are by definition - what makes you think he wouldn't just give his interrogators bogus information? What makes you think he wouldn't have a plausible but bogus story (or two, or three, or four) all ready to go in case he WAS captured and tortured? He would just then tell the bogus story. And watch as we spent hours tracking down those leads and meanwhile...the time bomb goes off. If there even is a time bomb. What are we going to do to him, after all? Kill him? He's willing to die for his cause. Torture him more? He's already willing to die, and we just prove to him we're people worthy of his hatred. The most useful information we've gotten has not been gotten through torture, but through efforts such as SPP (and CIA agents who have detailed them more recently) have described. They not only represent who we want to be as a country, but they're more effective.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>***Be nice to terrorists and they'll be nice to us, got it.*** Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant, DAR, since you endorse torturing people just for the fun of it (or, more appropriately, as punishment).<< Worked like a charm I was gettin' my wish Cause he was swallowin' the bait Like a hungry fish. - The Angels, Smash Records, 1963
Originally Posted By Mr X Like I said, the reason they tortured so many people was NO for gathering information (that's for certain...only an idiot would believe otherwise). I do believe it might have been partially designed to shut people up (I wonder if any would agree that such an application would be more effective compared to intelligence gathering), OR, simply as a show of strength, a power trip deal, as a means of revenge/punishment, or simple racism. Anyone have any idea why we REALLY did it? (do any of my conjectures seem plausible?)
Originally Posted By skinnerbox My favorite pet theory is that torture helps to keep the war raging, which is profitable for Cheney's buddies at Halliburton/KBR. War takes participation from at least two sides. And when the flames of war begin to die down, i.e., the anger begins to reside, if you want to keep the war going, you need to do something fairly horrific to piss off your enemy even more. Seems like the pervasive anti-Islam rhetoric in our conservative media and the torturing of Muslim detainees is a really good way to keep the jihad thriving. If your business is war and the bulk of your profits are tied to military support services, then naturally, you don't want to see the war end. Remember... Halliburton before Afghanistan and Iraq was in massive debt from the asbestos litigation they inherited. You don't have to look very far to figure out why the Bush administration lied us into the Iraqi war and then handed out outrageously expensive no-bid contracts to Halliburton to help conduct it. Doing the math is really simple on this one.
Originally Posted By barboy ///Let's say that your prisoner is 100% without doubt a terrorist. And there's a ticking time bomb.........what makes you think he wouldn't just give his interrogators bogus information? What makes you think he wouldn't have a plausible but bogus story (or two, or three, or four) all ready to go in case he WAS captured and tortured? /// But in some scenarios the one being tortured would know that if he/she spits out a bogus story then the captors would realize fast it is bogus and restart the treatment. Also, just because one would blow himself up doesn't for a second necessarily mean that he could handle some genital electrodes and stick to a ready to go story.(I am not sure if that was what you were arguing--- it looked like it though) I am not at all disregarding what you got going in #33 as your points have merit but I feel that there is no one size fits all on this stuff...... luck of the draw, if you ask me. One terrorist could pull a "Brave Heart William Wallace" and never succumb to the pain, thus not giving captors what they want while others would start yapping up a truthful storm just by verbal threat and/or the sight of blades, blowtorches and saws alone.
Originally Posted By barboy ///I've said it before. I've done hundreds of interrogations/// ///And Passholder, being the only expert on interrogation on LP as far as I know, would be the guy to listen to about this stuff/// I am really sorry but I just can not accept that as an kind of credible authority on interrogations of terrorists. Let's get serious here: working on US street criminals may very well be entirely different than dealing with terrorists, especially those from a completely different culture. Look, I mean no disrespect as I am sure your techniques worked well on US street thugs, purse snatchers, sex abusers or credit card scammers but unless you have dealt with the likes of some Abu Sayaf members I just can't accept the authority angle when it comes to terrorism. Now, that doesn't at all mean that I don't believe your "you get much more reliable information when you treat them respectfully and gain their confidence" as I am uncertain either way.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 I'd say it would be pretty imppossible to win the trust of someone who wants to blow you or anyone from your country to hell and back...
