CIA Torturers Hide Report, But That's Not The Worst Part

Wrabbit2000

Getting back to the idea of never as a REALLY big word to use in this topic...what if it's not a fishing trip or hunt for evidence? What if we can put faces...and very specific ones to it.

How about they capture a combatant and within the car, a meter pegs the red lines for gamma radiation in the now empty trunk. How about, to add to the scene, there are other signatures not quite as well known for absolutely confirming the presence of a sophisticated nuclear core, likely within a weapon, and it had been there very recently? Now....figure the capture is in a major city. US...European..doesn't matter.

Now, far from professing ignorance and innocence....your capture is smirking and telling you to go look up minimum safe distances you're not quite in yet and then laughs a bit while telling you to get him an attorney and a deal to learn more...very quickly.

Tell me...what do you do? What should society permit be done, vs. what men WILL do anyway and then be put down for as a violation of law while doing it, later? This is where anything outside the absolute of no, I believe, would require a Court review and approval, on the record. These ought to be so rare, write the law so it's no less than the Super's themselves and they *MUST* drop whatever they are doing and teleconference if necessary, to determine the request.

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Take one last example...and it's a hard one, but this is a hard topic and it's a damn hard world where straight blacks and whites of morality rarely fit outside theory. Lets say you're a parent. The worst happens and your small child is abducted. They guy is captured and come to find out, is someone with a history of violence that shouldn't have been out, and has made it clear....his freedom for your kid's life. He walks...or they die and his history shows he honestly doesn't care either way for how it turns out. Lets even say he's a smart criminal, understands things like Proof of Life, and no one doubts the child is still alive but won't be, indefinitely.

What do you do? What should society allow and again, if cops or others do what it takes to recover the child ANYWAY, how far should it be taken in ending their productive lives for the actions?

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Nothing in life is ever 100% black and white, IMO. Even this. Some things get VERY close......but this doesn't. It's just exceptionally dangerous to handle poorly both for individuals and ultimately, for society as I see it.

edit on 11-3-2014 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

It was late/early when I last posted so I didn't get to this.

The nuke in a city/imminent threat scenario is often used to justify torture but it's a totally unrealistic scenario. IF (and that's a huge if) it did happen, then yes we should use any method at our disposal to get that information but even this torture scenario is critically flawed. People can withstand torture for a given amount of time, if it's an extremist that knows he's going to be killed by a nuke within 24 hours if he simply keeps quiet he'll be able to withstand the torture for that time. Torture usually needs weeks and months to work... sometimes even years. Especially when someone knows that simply by being quiet, they will win. The other aspect of this that's flawed is that any group that's willing to take such measures, is also going to have an understanding with the rest of their group that none of them will be taken alive just to be sure info doesn't get out.

In your second scenario, again the guy doesn't care. If he stays quiet for 12 hours, then time is up and that kid is dead. He's out his freedom, but everyone knows he wasn't getting that anyways and suddenly you're on the hook for torture.

Because people can hold out for a time, the whole imminent threat justification for torture simply doesn't work.

The best thing you can do in these types of situations is to try and give the people involved a reason to want to live. They're already willing to die, and they want to take you with them. A bit of pain just makes their cause feel all the more justified.

The world wide network of prisons I strongly believe to have existed...or still does, is a whole different matter. The movie 'Rendition' attempted to capture a piece of that with interviews at the end to give light on real first hand experiences from within the black network. Those were still people who came back out and are known after that. I doubt many if not most who went that route DID come back out. Torture has been widespread, IMO...and part of why I think absolute accountability, not a denial of it being a tool in war and extreme circumstance, is more realistic.

There's a natural organizational defense against torture and that's independent cells. Terrorists have already adopted this, they have ties to each other for funding, training, and overall objectives but the execution of those objectives is done by individual bodies so that if one is compromised the rest don't fall. This also prevents that critical mass of torture victims. A national military by design doesn't function this way however so torture will be effective against it.