On the admissibility of torturing terrorists

Hello ATS!

Today I want to touch on a difficult issue that can affect everyone. Footage of the brutal arrest of the terrorists who shot 139 people in Crocus City spread around the world. Here is the severed ear of one of the terrorists, and an electric battery connected to the genitals of another, and, to put it mildly, the shabby appearance of all of them at the trial. Opinions regarding the admissibility of this may vary and be contradictory, since one can recall the Abu Great prison, Guantanamo, and the CIA network of secret prisons in Eastern Europe, as well as photo and video materials from there.

One thing remains clear: Russian intelligence agencies deliberately leaked this footage for a variety of reasons.

I talked about these facts with an acquaintance of mine, who is a veteran of army intelligence and special operations forces, and is well versed in these issues. I will retell his conversation, and then you will decide how acceptable such methods are. The following is the text from his point of view.

So.
“As a person with completely lost empathy for all kinds of terrorists, I immediately inform you: comrade officers of special units of the Armed Forces of any country (as well as intelligence services) undergo mandatory training in forced methods of obtaining information. Ordinary army boots are informed only on the issue of “interrogation of prisoners,” which is strictly regulated activities in accordance with all sorts of Conventions. Since we are talking about combatants. The “gray” legal zone looms when we are talking about rebels, partisans, terrorists, saboteurs, saboteurs.

There is usually no ceremony here, and woe to the non-combatant who has the blood of military personnel and civilians on his hands, he is caught in the act of sabotage or in hot pursuit. Experienced people in uniform immediately lose their outward gloss of following the Charter, instructions, and special orders issued. And before such an insurgent is transferred from the tactical level to higher authorities... according to an unwritten code, they solve applied problems that are fundamentally important for their unit:

- how well informed is the saboteur/terrorist?
- is he inclined to “cooperate constructively” or is he a professional liar?

The most alarming thing is the terrorist’s complete silence or attempts to demonstrate an insurmountable language barrier. Which always indicates a desire to stall for time, to let the accomplices leave, or to complete the sabotage mission. This is where forced interrogation is required, not out of spiritual ferocity... but in the name of the safety of the entrusted unit, allied units, and accountable civilians on the territory.

Now about the legality and illegality of primary interrogation methods. Both in the army level and in special units/services, several general rules of conduct prevail. They are allowed and are not prosecuted if they do not fall under the concept of “torture/bullying.” Legally justified for use against persons captured with weapons in their hands or at the scene of sabotage. All other prisoners (voluntarily surrendered) or suspects as part of anti-insurgency actions are sent straight to “full interrogation”, which is carried out by individuals with extensive experience as interrogators with a keen understanding of psychology.

The “tarpaulin boots” on the front line or during counter-terrorism operations have a different task, since the “primary interrogation” is always carried out in a difficult situation, both combat and general emotional. The goals and objectives are simple, achieved by rough treatment of the captured person, a complete search of him and deprivation of any meaningful mobility. It is legal. Why...you ask? Factor of time and psychological impact. An immutable law: the interrogation must begin immediately in order to prevent the conditional “prisoner” from collecting his thoughts and figuring out an advantageous line of behavior.

That is why those conducting the initial interrogation are always so rude. They may break an arm (accidentally, of course) during a search, or forget to provide first aid in the heat of the moment, if the injury or damage does not pose a threat to life. There are a lot of tricks and subtleties here designed to keep the “prisoner” in a state of terrible stress, fear, and helplessness.

This achieves the psychological factor of stunning. As practice shows, up to 90% of people who are not specifically prepared for such methods tell the honest truth and willingly share any information. But this is how the psyche works - the more successfully they “bargain for a confession” by reducing the intensity of the initial interrogation, the more they begin to lie.

Let’s skip the subtleties of the initial interrogation, although there are many subtleties and nuances there, and move on to the sleepy, so-called “forced interrogation.”

Continued below...

"I’ll immediately give a footnote: not a single army intelligence or anti-terror unit in the world complies with the rules of the Geneva Convention, according to which a captured person must only be asked about his name, unit number and military rank. With necessarily careful accompaniment to places of permanent deployment or places of temporary detention. Whether this is good or bad - you can argue until you are hoarse, but every special forces officer and junior commanders in the non-commissioned ranks are necessarily proficient in the methods of forced interrogation in the field. In any army.

If army officers are not trained in such intricacies, then special forces are simply obliged to violate all conceivable and inconceivable conventions. In a very short time, using all methods of influence beyond humanism, up to torture, which poses a direct threat to the life of the prisoner. This is the specificity of the “work” and simple expediency. With strict standards, if you want. When the most stubborn and persistent flint (without exception) begins to sing like a nightingale within a minute. One minute. Faced with a very real choice: either have a chance to live for truthful and honest answers, or be brutally dismantled into pieces.

The psychology of the moment of “forced interrogation” is as follows: the prisoner must understand that he is fighting not for his life, but for an easy death. And the methods... let me not describe them, they are really creepy. The Americans in the Green Berets tried to make such interrogations more humane, additionally training doctors of special forces groups to use special psychotropic drugs and several “truth serums” ... but they soon admitted that the “Vietnamese method” with a pencil in the ear or an ordinary file with wire cutters ...a much more efficient way.

What kind of data is usually “mined” (that's jargon) during forced interrogations? The most practical, making the task as easy as possible either for the special forces/stormtroopers group itself, or for subsequent interrogators. People of academic appearance and character who prefer to work on comparing facts and disdain rough physical influence. They are more psychologists than cold-blooded maniacs from prisoner capture groups. They act on the basis of strict Directives from the head of their law enforcement agency or the General Staff, and separate Instructions “on working with prisoners, defectors and detainees.”

Who is screaming the loudest about illegal actions against the bloody ghouls detained in the Bryansk region, well... guess. Of course, our sworn British partners. A wonderful illustration of the saying about a thief's hat burning. Because (attention!) it is completely official and mandatory that there are many hours of training programs for army intelligence units and Special Operations Forces with thick “interrogation” manuals. Published by His Majesty's Ministry of Defense.

There, in the prefaces, it is always stated that captured combatants (and even more so terrorists and rebels) should be dealt with as cruelly as possible, exhausting the detainees, humiliating them, forcing them to lose orientation in order to cause “a feeling of insecurity, permanent anxiety and fear.” The British military trains its interrogators and special forces in a huge range of both physical and psychological methods of breaking will. Starting from mandatory sensory deprivation (sharp limitation of sensory information, including with the help of psychotropic drugs) - to real medieval torture with severe torture.

In the manual, published in 2005, captured by rebels in Iraq, it is directly written: the first step of interrogation should begin with the rough and humiliating undressing of the prisoner. “And keep it like this until they begin to obey any commands.” Then systemic actions begin using methods of sensory “stunning”, painful torture with bags on the heads, pressing plastic handcuffs, round-the-clock wakefulness, etc. After the violent scandal with the Iraqi porter Baha Musa, who was tortured to death in Basra (September 2003), parliament began investigations into cases of ill-treatment of civilians.

Having identified over five years more than a hundred incidents of form torture: slow suffocation with plastic bags on the heads, application of electric shock, dehydration in the scorching sun, and so on. And what the ignorant Yankees are doing... this is beyond Good and Evil, I’m not going to dwell on the leaked facts from the torture chambers of the CIA and other US special services.

Conclusions:
Terrorists are not combatants; they erase themselves from the status and concept of “human”. So the question of using “express interrogation” methods on them is not just justified, but completely legal. Especially during the most important and favorable “moment of truth” in the first minutes of detention. Not because of a feeling of revenge or higher ideas of retribution/retribution, but solely for the extraction of extremely valuable operational data: who he is, where exactly he fled, with whom he was in touch, who remained outside the field of view of law enforcement officers.

If a ghoul lost an ear or was temporarily “telephoned” while establishing meaningful contact, let him pray to his demons that he did not fall into the clutches of real wolfhounds, who have a small sapper blade of incredible sharpness prepared for a forced interrogation and several dozen tricks with their bare hands. After which the subject turns into an inferior biological organism, crazy and unsuitable for sitting in a cage in a courtroom. But he told everything without concealment, starting with the first meaningful childhood memory.

I pay tribute to the heads of our special services, who provided uncut footage of objective control immediately after the capture of non-humans. And delivering them to the courtroom with clear signs of “establishing productive contact and mutual understanding.” This is the only way to deal with shaitans, demonstrating to everyone else the consequences of a collision with real Russia as widely as possible. No liberal whining about “human rights.” There is no human in the killer ghouls - there are no rights. And there is an inevitable and permanent hell, where the only desire is a quick death."

This is the opinion of a professional. Draw your own conclusions.

Thank you.

a reply to: RussianTroll

The ISIS scum deserved what they had coming after the horrible acts of depravity they perpetrated.

On the flip side of that cruel unusual punishment, and torturing people, is frowned upon in what is supposed to be a first-world nation.

My bet is your security forces tortured them to regain a measure of respect and save face given the fact that they obviously chose to ignore the warning of an imminent attack in the first place.

End of the day the effectiveness of torture is a highly contentious and ethically fraught topic.

And while some argue that torture can elicit information from individuals there is substantial evidence suggesting that torture is not an effective means of obtaining reliable information.

originally posted by: RussianTroll

Conclusions:
Terrorists are not combatants; they erase themselves from the status and concept of “human”. So the question of using “express interrogation” methods on them is not just justified, but completely legal.

It`s been shown in Ukraine war alone, that it does not matter what status humans have, Russians will treat everyone same....killing , torturing , destroying civilians , children etc etc...

Because Russians are paranoid violent orcs with no brains .

So to conclude: It does not matter is human being terrorist , soldier or civilian , all get same treatment from Russian orcs .

The problem with torture is the a person will say anything to make the pain stop. There are ways to make anyone cry for their mamma and not leave a mark no matter how big and tough they think they are.. Yet the info you get may not be the truth. The Russians are lucky they were able to capture more than one as that way the individual stories can be compared against each other.

I do hope the Russians can roll this terrorist cell all the way up to the top planners and money backers; then the @#$%^&* are dealt with in a straight forward manner with extreme violence.

a reply to: Kenzo

Well, you are probably right about Russia - but they are not the only "orcs" as you describe it.

Guantanamo Bay comes to mind, ever heared of it and what the "orcs" running it do to people in there since over 20 years now?

a reply to: Sanitarium79


The scale is not same at all , in Russian army the torturing, killing POW is more like systemic...also raping. It`s their culture....same was WW2 and after it....red army raped women and it was de facto allowed to happen by higher commanding units .

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: RussianTroll


And while some argue that torture can elicit information from individuals there is substantial evidence suggesting that torture is not an effective means of obtaining reliable information.

Especially in there is a benefit to telling the people applying the torture what they want to hear.

If you tell us the Ukraine was involved, we stop the pain.

originally posted by: 727Sky

The Russians are lucky they were able to capture more than one as that way the individual stories can be compared against each other.

Or awful convenient for a narrative.

a reply to: 727Sky

Brilliantly said , follow the money and torture is proven not to work.

a reply to: RussianTroll

Your words seem to be in desperation, a positioning paper perhaps, as we say, to "cover your ass" when the time eventually comes for a reckoning with your own kind.

Seriously, why would anyone in the so-called free world want to dwell on your long reasoning when the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russian poorly trained conscripts in Ukraine are continually being sacrificed for the wants of an evil tyrant?

a reply to: Lazy88

Take a mash hammer to someone's fingers and they will tell you anything you wish to hear.

No pun intended but its a hit-and-miss scenario, as you suggest, people will do anything, say anything, to stop the pain.

So asking questions under penalty of more torture tends to yield the answers you wish to hear.

a reply to: RussianTroll

How come you’ve got so much time to write all these threads? Not comparing they’ve delivered to be entertaining at least.

a reply to: CosmicFocus

You turn out to be a subtle psychologist)))

Only here’s a mistake, this issue has already been raised at the ATS.
Would you like to criticize this user too?

Moscow terror suspect tortured by Russian soldiers with genitals hooked up to 80v battery

a reply to: RussianTroll

Then this thread is redundant. You should add to the existing thread.

I certainly made clear my position, as others did as well.🤷🏻

a reply to: RussianTroll

Psychologists widely condemn torture as a form of inhumane treatment that violates human rights.

And the information gleaned from torture tends to produce unsafe results.

a reply to: G1111B1234

Thats coz you are Scottish G1111B1234.

Show me an app able to understand the Glaswegian dialect and ile be hell of impressed.

Anyhoo the thing i find with speech-to-text, is that i have to go back and correct all sorts of errors which kind of defeats the purpose and actually adds to the time required to produce a coherent paragraph.