What Interrogation Techniques are Acceptable?

[Mare Tranquillity]

Spot on... They all exhibit the Nirvana Fallacy. They don't know what the perfect solution is, but they won't support any specific measures that they don't think are perfect.

Care to guess whether any of them can, or will, attempt a delineation of "Morality"? I don't think they can... like the above fallacy, they cannot define what it is, they can only tell you what it is not.

If you have not watched the videos in my blog, you should check out Tyranny over the mind of men.

Part 3 & 4
"They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All of their identifications consist of negation... They proceed to demand you consider it as knowledge.... Their definitions are not acts of defining but of wiping out."

You write like a man who is very afraid, so afraid in fact that he is willing to do almost anything in an attempt to assuage that fear.

Daniel P. Mannix wrote a book called THE HISTORY OF TORTURE, an interesting read if your stomach is strong enough. From a historical perspective it's obvious that physical torture is not effective no matter how grotesque your methods are. People tell you what they think you want to hear, and how useful is that? The other problem that torture brings out is the damage done to the people who DO the torturing. If you get normal people and train them they tend to have severe emotional problems long-term. If you recruit sadists and psychopaths then you end up with seriously crazy people in places of power--and that tends to backfire as well.

Actually, one of the better techniques is to torture a person's loved ones. Make him watch while you rape his wife and children, then tear them apart or burn them slowly while doing nothing to him. Are you willing to do that?

Once you decide that torture is acceptable, then there can be no limits because you will always believe that if you could do just one more painful thing that the person might give in and tell you what you want. So every person has to be tortured till they die lest you miss even one chance to make them spill their secrets. Are you willing to do that, Gen?

George Washington decried torture and forbade his troops from torturing British troops or mercenaries even though the Brits tortured George's troops. Maybe he just wasn't as manly as you are, or maybe not as scared.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I am so tired and have to get up early, its take your child to work day so I have to get there early so I wont get behind. I will watch the video tomorrow when I get home.

It feels good to be right, I knew I would be right about this.


Now here is a scary thought... right now the people in charge are just like the bloggers here who only know what they dont want to do or what they thing is wrong but are not sure what they should do...and our safety and fate is in their hands

Sleep well, Pando, with the knowledge that the US lasted more than 200 years without sanctioning torture, we went through World Wars and never lowered ourselves to our enemie's level. I think that the world will not end because some of us actually pay attention to some of the stuff Jesus said.

 

[Bunz]

Bunz, PLC and Pocket,

1. Should suspects receive Miranda rights?

2. Should suspects receive constitutional rights?

I also notice that you guys, despite my request, prefer to talk about what we shouldn't do and why we shouldn't do it...

Well in a later post I answered your questions. You typed this as I was typing that one. Either way, the general answer is no.

Can you not yet see my point behind asking that you not bother with what not to do? Are you beginning to understand why I asked that you give specifics as to what we CAN do?

I pretty much did when I said we should not be doing anything we wouldnt do to our own citizens, and would expect other countries to treat Americans.

The Moral High Ground and Moral Authority... Who's morality? Is my morality the same as yours? Is the American morality the same morality other countries ascribe to? Can any of you define morality? I bet you guys can't give answers to those questions that the others would agree with but I bet you could all give me a laundry list of what you consider immoral...

In short, the moral authority provided in our constitution, and to the various treaties we are signators of.

Our Interrogation methods put our troops at risk of being treated the same way by the enemy... This line of thinking is just wrong on so many levels but if it were true, I'm quite confident our troops would rather be treated the way we treat detainees than the way our middle eastern enemies have always treated our troops and civilians.

I dont disagree, and that is the difference between America and other countries, especially those we take action against. This is part of the motivation to do so. Taking Iraq for example, when it was shown that Saddam didnt have anything to do with 9-11 and hardly anything to do with Al-Q, and the WMD programs were hardly what was claimed, then those in support justified it by saying Saddam was a bad guy who tortured and worse.

Additionally, this argument might hold some weight if we were fighting the European countries but I would not expect Communist or Islamic countries to hesitate using horrific forms of torture on our troops regardless of how we treated their captured fighters. Europeans have some western sense of human rights, Communist and Islamic countries do not share the same sense of human rights. We could use the 5 star hotel treatment on the people we capture and, if caught, our troops would still be tortured.

Because someone else does not share our level of humanity does not mean we should lower ours. In many places it is common to eat cockroaches and greasshoppers. Doesnt mean that Americans should give up salmon and steak because someone else eats bugs.

The information gained is rarely, if ever, useful in any way...
From the New York Times (of all places):
Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says

Whether it was worth it or not is another question. Since we don't know exactly what information was gained, any position you take on it would be based on your gut feeling and not an informed opinion based on the facts.

I would only consider two things to be remotely worth it, one is to prevent another major attack on the US, or the location of OBL. Which I highly doubt gained either. In the meantime, the news is out, and the AL-Q recruitment is made that much easier.

 

[Bunz]

Well according to the Geneva Conventions they certainly were not POW's. At best they would be considered "unprivileged combatants" which basically means we can do whatever we want to them according to our own domestic laws. Since what we did, at the time was perfectly acceptable under our domestic laws, I fail to see a problem with the way we treated them.

Not exactly considering the USSC shot pretty much all of this down.

Not saying that we should undertake that action, just pointing out an alternative path other nations take in response, and one that has worked mind you. I could not disagree more that America should "take the high ground." I think the manner that we conduct ourselves (even with the so called "torture") we have been leaps and bounds above anyone else in the moral department. I think we have taken and continue to take the moral high ground even with actions such as waterboarding.

I disagree, America throughout its history has been a leader in human rights and equal justitce. We have gone out of our way to ensure this. But the notion we are above anyone else is simply not true. The UK does torture, nor any of our major allies. Could you imagine the uproar if the French detained an American with very clear ties to a terror group, held them without any rights and then actually water boarded them? If you think the flap over Iraq and Americans pouring wine down the sewer was worth watching. Imagine the police presence that would be needed at the French embassy if this was the case.

No. Americans should be excluded because we are guaranteed certain rights under our Constitutional protections, such as a trial and a presumption of innocence etc. Foreigners (especially those we picked up fighting against us and with known ties to terrorism) do not have that protection under the Constitution in my view. This is the distinction in my view, even if you are treating them under domestic law, they will not be entitled to certain protections that US citizens would be.

Well this is interesting. What if an American citizen had direct knowledge of a plot to nuke NYC? I thought the whole argument here was about keeping Americans safe from terrorism, human rights and consequences be damned.
Much like the righties claim we are on slippery slope to socialism, or any other perceived negative notion, allowing foreign nationals be tortured for information could very well lead to Americans being given the same treatment.

 

[Bunz]

Nor should we be doing things that we prosecuted when the tables were turned.

Posted by Genseca:



They should have the same rights as POW. Inventing a new term that means that they have no rights at all is reprehensible.



What can we do? We can do anything that is within the scope of the Geneva Convention.

Here is the thing, there are really only two classifications, either we are in a war, or in a police action. If we are in a war, we need to treat detainees as POWs, and if we are in a police action we need to treat them as criminals.

All of a sudden creating this third and probably forth classification is questionable. I think the notion of turning these people into humans with zero rights, and the detainers with zero accountability was wrong.
Keep in mind that most of the people held in Gitmo, are in fact not firstly detained by Americans, but were turned over to the US by other countries, namely Afghanistan.

 

[Bunz]

Well there are released memos describing our tactics (which is hardly torture) and then there are leaked memos and statements from both sides that we got effective intelligence from it. So which side can you believe? It seems up in the air.

The vast majority, including those who have undergone waterboarding describe it as torture.

 

[The Scotsman]

no you evil liberal, all your suggesting is what most CIA and Military people have already said, and you fail to violate any laws. how dare you

......... yeah it does smack of being rather limp wristed. I think maybe the rightwing hawks should insist that the intelligence services and military revert to the techniques of the Spanish Inquision which as everyone knows were just effective........

 

[The Scotsman]

He was brought down because he bombed Amman and turned the people and government of Jordon against his cause in rapid succession. His supporters gave him up because it was either face real torture (in Jordon) and then die, or give him up.

I think you are doing the military intelligence team that de-briefed Zarqawi's cadre a massive disservice afterall it was they that told the team how and where to find him.

 

[The Scotsman]

Here is the thing, there are really only two classifications, either we are in a war, or in a police action. If we are in a war, we need to treat detainees as POWs, and if we are in a police action we need to treat them as criminals.

All of a sudden creating this third and probably forth classification is questionable. I think the notion of turning these people into humans with zero rights, and the detainers with zero accountability was wrong.
Keep in mind that most of the people held in Gitmo, are in fact not firstly detained by Americans, but were turned over to the US by other countries, namely Afghanistan.

............nice post Sir!

 

[Pandora]

Sleep well, Pando, with the knowledge that the US lasted more than 200 years without sanctioning torture, we went through World Wars and never lowered ourselves to our enemie's level. I think that the world will not end because some of us actually pay attention to some of the stuff Jesus said.

Define torture

And then tell me exactly what it is you are willing to do to get the information needed

Everyone is willing to say we should not torture but no one is willing to say what torture is or isn’t


I don’t think anything we have done was torture

had our government tore out their fingernails, broken bones, cut slashes in them or cut off fingers or starved them, that is torture and I am totally against it

We water board our own men in training to know what to prepare for incase they are captured. Water boarding is not torture

Yelling at them at the top of your lungs is not torture

Don’t let them sleep

Keep bright lights on them

Expose them to extreme hot and cold weather that makes them miserable

Isolate them so they can’t talk to others

Lie to them and trick them and tell them that others already gave up info

I love the box with the caterpillar, that sounded kind of fun really, but it is not torture

Slapping them is not torture but I think it can be dangerous, if you are slapping them and you are getting a adrenalin rush and you are getting frustrated they are not giving up info you might hit instead of slap you could do something that would become torture, if you hit them to hard in the wrong way... I would say we should not slap them even though slapping is not torture it could lead to something that is.

 

[BigRob]

Not exactly considering the USSC shot pretty much all of this down.

We stopped waterboarding when they ruled we were not to do it. Other than that, they really only ruled that we needed to charge the detainees with something, not that what we were doing was a violation of any treaty.

I disagree, America throughout its history has been a leader in human rights and equal justitce. We have gone out of our way to ensure this. But the notion we are above anyone else is simply not true. The UK does torture, nor any of our major allies. Could you imagine the uproar if the French detained an American with very clear ties to a terror group, held them without any rights and then actually water boarded them? If you think the flap over Iraq and Americans pouring wine down the sewer was worth watching. Imagine the police presence that would be needed at the French embassy if this was the case.

Europe is more than happy to let the US carry the load. What would the outcry be if a US citizen was picked up in the mountains fighting an insurgency after doing something like blowing up Parliament. I would wager there would be little outcry if they were being waterboarded.

Well this is interesting. What if an American citizen had direct knowledge of a plot to nuke NYC? I thought the whole argument here was about keeping Americans safe from terrorism, human rights and consequences be damned.
Much like the righties claim we are on slippery slope to socialism, or any other perceived negative notion, allowing foreign nationals be tortured for information could very well lead to Americans being given the same treatment.

I say we need to follow the law. Up until 2006 we were doing just that with the enhanced interrogation methods. Now that the law has changed, that is what will be followed. US citizens always were, and continue to be, entitled to all the same protections under the law they have always enjoyed.

 

[BigRob]

The vast majority, including those who have undergone waterboarding describe it as torture.

Like our own soldiers when we train them? We torture our soldiers during training... really?

 

[BigRob]

I think you are doing the military intelligence team that de-briefed Zarqawi's cadre a massive disservice afterall it was they that told the team how and where to find him.

It is no disservice to the military to admit when Jordon got on board with hunting him down, it made our lives a lot easier. I think most people involved in the actual action would agree.

 

[chestnut]

Whatever it takes to save American lives, I'm good with.
Just remember how Al Qaeda be-heads our citizens (not soldiers), but news reporters.


Do you think that type of person should be spared a little torture.? I do not.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

1. if water-boarding is listed in the 'Geneva Convention' as a form of torture why did we use this against others whom we deemed a terrorist, when they haven't had their due process for proving that they are/were a terrorist.
2. When I saw the '60 Minute' segment about the FBI/CIA {one or the other agency} fellow that was meeting with Saddam Hussein none of those tactics were used and the tactics that were used became very fruitful in the information that Saddam shared willingly.
3. Justification for physical/mental abuse can be said by any/both sides of the conflict...why, why, why would we think that it is 'allowed' when we have a knee jerk reaction to a terrorist attack on our soil. IT IS NOT NOR WILL IT EVER BE APPROPRIATE!!! IMO
4. We should never stoop to the rational thought that "well, they do worse things to our people" as justification for allowing water-boarding to be an OK method of interrogation. NOPE, NOT EVER...IMHO