Bush administration: 'We tortured Qahtani'

Originally posted by Uniceft17
reply to post by sos37

 

What does this have to do with the OP anyways??

We have lost our moral athourity with this one, How are we going to tell anyone not to torture our soldiers if we sit back and do the same thing.

I guarantee our soldiers get far worse treatment than stress positions, loud music, sleep deprivation, and even water boarding(which has only been used 3x). Our soldiers get treated worse in SERE school, than these prisoners.

reply to post by sos37


I don't think it's literal...

It's just the worst person of the day. It's more of a joke than anything, but all jokes have some hint of reality in them.

[edit on 1/15/2009 by Irish M1ck]

Torture usually just gives the torturer bad information.

CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described

Sources Say Agency's Tactics Lead to Questionable Confessions, Sometimes to Death
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The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention," the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.

It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer.

FBI Agents Contradict White House Insistence that Torture Yielded Valuable Information from Abu Zubaida

The Washington Post has reported that the FBI did not view the torture of Abu Zubaida as yielding valuable information — one of the principle arguments for embracing an official torture program.
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While this supports the common view that torture generally yields unreliable information, it is important to note that this debate has been framed in terms appealing to the White House: whether torture is beneficial. In a demonstration of the ultimate moral relativity of this Administration, the primary argument in the torture debate is whether it has produced useful information.

Experts: National Security Not Ensured By Torture

Retired high-ranking military officers and national security experts at a national summit on torture Sept. 11 agreed: A policy that permits torture does not make the United States or its troops safer.
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-- Un-American. George Washington set the standard during the American Revolution by insisting on the humane treatment of prisoners during wartime.

-- Ineffective. Information obtained through extreme coercive physical and mental abuse is notoriously unreliable.

-- Unnecessary. Skilled interrogators know more effective ways to obtain reliable actionable intelligence.

-- Damaging. “The person who is tortured is damaged. But so is the torturer, the nation and the military,” Xenakis concluded. Torture creates “increasing risk of retaliatory measures” that endangers military personnel on the front lines.

Fear, anger and politics all contributed to the climate that allowed the torture of detainees to become national policy, said Don Guter, retired rear admiral and a former Navy Judge Advocate General.

And I think all you pro-torture fans should pay special attention to this little tid-bit!

“I do not think that torture makes us safer as a country,” Greenburg said.

Information gained through interrogation is less reliable than data obtained by the established intelligence community, she said, pointing to the experience of Arizona Sen. John McCain as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. For the first 3 1/2 years of his captivity, McCain was regularly subjected to torture -- and regularly gave false information to his captors.

Greenburg also noted McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has said his love for country, family and faith grew much deeper as a result of his brutal treatment by those who interrogated him.

She asked if the United States wants to support a policy that makes suspected terrorists more committed to their nations, tribes and religions.

And some more articles for your reading pleasure about how ineffective and counterproductive torture is.

Talk, not torture, gets the information - Los Angeles Times

Top Interrogators Declare Torture Ineffective in Intelligence Gathering

Torture To Get Information Doesn't Work

Torture Is Illegal, Immoral and Ineffective

Why Is Torture Ineffective?

Torture isn't just morally sick -- it's also ineffective and counterproductive

[edit on 1/16/2009 by Keyhole]

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by sos37
Let's say a terrorist has kidnapped your daughter and officials have the terrorist in custody. The terrorist says your daughter is tied up and sitting next to a bomb that will go off in 3 hours if his demands aren't met. His demands are completely unreasonable but officials note this terrorist has shown a lack of tolerance to pain and torture.

Oy! The ticking time-bomb scenario?

The terrorist would be able to resist for 3 hours. Boom!
He could lie and waste precious time while we check out the information.

Torture is NOT reliable AT ALL.

I guarantee that the majority of you would give the OK in a heartbeat to have the man tortured, violently if necessary, to retrieve the location of your daughter.

Maybe, but it wouldn't save the daughter.

No kidding, you'd bet your daughters life on that, would ya?
So what's your suggestion on how to get your daughter back?

Originally posted by sos37
reply to post by 44soulslayer

 

So you're saying torture justifies terrorism? If that's true, then the converse is also true is it not? Terrorism justifies torture.

We know these men are terrorists and have acted in terrorist acts against the U.S., therefore torture is justified, according to your argument.

Its not even a question of justification. I don't believe in absolutisms of wrong/ right.

Its just that the victim of torture will be likely to become a terrorist- and given the previous events I wouldn't be surprised.

I don't really care about words like "justification" and "condoning". I stand in my camp, the terrorists stand in theirs. But I can acknowledge that if I were a muslim, and I were tortured unduly, then I would be more inclined to become an extremist (its a protection response, they know they won't be tortured by other muslims at any cost).

Originally posted by sos37
And before you post, flaming me, consider the following:

Let's say a terrorist has kidnapped your daughter and officials have the terrorist in custody. The terrorist says your daughter is tied up and sitting next to a bomb that will go off in 3 hours if his demands aren't met. His demands are completely unreasonable but officials note this terrorist has shown a lack of tolerance to pain and torture.

My question to you, if you haven't already figured it out: How long would you be staying on your high horse of morals if that was YOUR daughter in imminent danger? If officials asked you if you would approve of torturing the terrorist to get the location of your daughter do you really think you would sit back and say "No, I don't believe in torture. My daughter will just have to die unless you can find out some other way to get the info."

I guarantee that the majority of you would give the OK in a heartbeat to have the man tortured, violently if necessary, to retrieve the location of your daughter.

Oh don't get me wrong, I would torture the crap out of him. But I would later still understand if he then went over to the "dark side"... and for that I wouldn't be surprised.

I would have to be pretty sure of myself that the man captured is definitely a terrorist and not some average joe who was just in the same mosque at the wrong time.

Originally posted by paxnatus
No kidding, you'd bet your daughters life on that, would ya?

You know, I understand that you're trying to make me out to be the "bad guy" because I would refuse to torture someone, even if they had information about my daughter, but I am not going to buy it. To me, torture is very much like rape. If someone had my daughter, I would feel very powerless and angry and torture would be a way to feel like I was powerful over this person, "forcing" them to give me what I wanted... and it would at least seem like I was doing something to make the situation better. But it's a fantasy. Torture doesn't work. That's why evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible in court. Because it's unreliable.

Torture is like rape. And I would not do it to anyone for any reason.

So what's your suggestion on how to get your daughter back?

I don't believe in these scenarios. But I would try everything I thought would be effective. I would not, however, torture them. It's just not something I could do. It would be as effective as doing a jig. I wouldn't do that, either.

Torture for the most part is wrong. I am just a SGT in the Army and if I was caught and tortured for info I would only be able to give a small portion of what I would probably be asked. So I would have to give false info to please my torturers.

So yes in that essence, the torturer would not get valid information.

Now if we capture a known high ranking official, say the equivalent to a MAJ or higher. Then he would have valuable information. If we know for certain that the info he had would save hundreds or more lives, then I am all for getting that info at all costs.

I am against torture just for the sake of torture. I am for torture when there is no doubt that the individual holds information that is critical in saving lives.


There are a few people here who say that torture would not get valid information. In my first example that would be true, in the second you would get the info you need.

Don't believe me? Next time you injure yourself, say a compound fractured arm, try and tell the doctor you broke your leg. It is very, very hard, if not impossible, to lie when you are under severe distress. The part of your brain that lies all but shuts down because the pain is so bad.

The problem with using various scenarios to justify torture is that for every scenario constructed to justify it, one can be constructed to demonstrate it is not justified.

The problem is that torture degrades the torturer, even without regard to what it does to the tortured person.

One of the biggest dangers in fighting evil is for the tendancy to become what one fights.

We have to examine why this is even under discussion in the US. And it brings us back to why so many people around the world have the desire to do us harm. And the old 'they hate us for our freedoms' hokum is purely garbage.

Various people around the world hate us and want to do us harm because the US has for years imposed our way of life on people who don't want it, has based our military on their lands, has supported extremely repressive governments that torture and kill their populations, has enforced commercial situations that impoverish local populations, and more.

The US has done this for years, and it is going to take years to undo the damage done to us by this behavior.

So in the meantime, engaging in torture just takes us lower... it does not help. If for no other reason, as is the subject of this thread, once someone has been totured, they cannot be prosecuted under US law. So now what?

For torture to be an accepted national policy is never right, and in the long run will do us immeasurably more harm, by increasing the number of people who hate us.