Torture

LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
edited June 2005 in Strut Central
America is starting to discuss torture. I think the discussion is a good thing.Here is the torture conundrum. Say we find out a nuclear device has been smuggled into the States and is going to be detonated soon. We have captured someone who knows where and when. What level of interigation should be allowed?This conundrum confronts our troops daily. You capture someone. He/she may know where/when the next IED is going to be placed that may kill you or your buddy. Or they may know where the explosives are hid, or where the bomber is hid. What should they do?I apoligise in advance to those who do not like seeing these questions played out here. I know for many of you politicstrut is torture.Peace Dan
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  Comments


  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    you don't think that they don't use that shit already?

  • Pull out a fingernail, save a life...? That strikes me as a good trade-off.

    The problem is the innocent people that get caught up in it... and I think it is the innocent people that render this technique un-usable.

    It's the same with the death sentence... Should some people be killed... Probably, yes. I know I would want to do it myself should someone ever harm one of my loved ones.

    But the fact is, lots of innocent people get convicted, and lots of innocent people get the death sentence... Most always the poor and/or minority who cannot afford a proper or competent defense. This should be enough, in my opinion, to put a hold on this practice.

    Peace...
    Fnm



  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    oh god, please do not start this

  • volumenvolumen 2,532 Posts
    Yea, it's just a circle. People will admit to anything when your schocking them. I have an idea how about all that freaking money we spend on "intellegance" acutally get put to that use. Torture is just a way to keep people afaid it has no logical basis in progress.

  • 33thirdcom33thirdcom 2,049 Posts
    nother 9 pager... I'm out.

  • twoplytwoply Only Built 4 Manzanita Links 2,917 Posts

    I have absolutely no interest in getting into an internet argument over this. Good try, though.

  • SooksSooks 714 Posts
    The biggest problem with torture, even if you've decided that it's ethical to do it, is that information obtained is rarely accurate. People will say anything to stop being tortured. So why bother?


  • I have absolutely no interest in getting into an internet argument over this. Good try, though.

    Good idea, let the facts of the Mumia case speak for themselves.

  • twoplytwoply Only Built 4 Manzanita Links 2,917 Posts

    I have absolutely no interest in getting into an internet argument over this. Good try, though.

    Good idea, let the facts of the Mumia case speak for themselves.

    I'ma let your avatar speak for itself.




  • I have absolutely no interest in getting into an internet argument over this. Good try, though.



    Good idea, let the facts of the Mumia case speak for themselves.



    I'ma let your avatar speak for itself.



    Thats a little home footage of what happened when me and my granny started debating the merits of the Mumia case.

  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    start your own thread if you want to debate about that shit

  • start your own thread if you want to debate about that shit



    Eazy there....I could really care less about Mumia. I just wanted to point out that there is another perspective out there on that case.

  • SexyBNyceSexyBNyce 371 Posts
    start your own thread if you want to debate about that shit

    Eazy there....I could really care less about Mumia. I just wanted to point out that there is another perspective out there on that case.

    I'm surprised mumia is still alive. Man, back in the mid 90s that was the cause that every white guilt ridden hardcore kid was taking up. That avatar made me laugh out loud.



































    FREE MUMIA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS. UHURU!

  • dayday 9,611 Posts

  • Danno3000Danno3000 2,851 Posts
    There's a really good discussion of the issue in last week's NYT magazine. I suggest checking it out if your curious.


  • Hey man, where'd you get this comic? I really want to read more of this. Who's the artist and writer?

  • dayday 9,611 Posts
    Man, I wish I could help you with the comic. The style looks very familliar but I can't place from where. Here's the general story behind it:



    In 1978, Standing Deer, a 65-year-old Oneida/Choctaw,

    exposed a government plot to assassinate American Indian

    Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier in Marion prison. This

    bizarre case has been documented in several books, including "In

    the Spirit of Crazy Horse" by Peter Matthiessen. In 1984,

    Standing Deer, Leonard Peltier, and Albert Garza fasted for 42

    days to draw worldwide attention to the deplorable conditions at

    USP Marion, the maximum security federal prison. In retaliation,

    the government held these three men in total solitary isolation for

    15 months with nothing in their cages except a steel bunk and a

    toilet. Standing Deer continues to fight for human dignity despite

    failing health and reprisals from his captors.






    Peltier and Mumia go hand in hand IMO and he's basically been forgotten about through the years.



    On a Native-related note (at least he says he is...) did anyone know Premier did a song on this album, complete with Madness and Pete Rock vocal cuts?

    Crazt shit. Dude is kind of silly on the vocals though.


  • youngEINSTEINyoungEINSTEIN 2,443 Posts
    yes i dont think it's accurate. i've heard stories of peoples being interrigated for 20 hours straight no sleep and confessing to things that never happened just so they could go to sleep. stein. . .

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    yes i dont think it's accurate. i've heard stories of peoples being interrigated for 20 hours straight no sleep and confessing to things that never happened just so they could go to sleep. stein. . .

    The original secenario I created is not Iraq, not Guantanamo. It is a specific person with specific knowledge and lives in the balance. It's hard to think about and can't be rejected with storys of innocent people confessing to crimes they did not do. That is not the scenirio.

    Let's make it personal. 3 guys come and snatch your momma. You grab one but the other 2 get away with mom. You want to know where are they going. Torture?

  • youngEINSTEINyoungEINSTEIN 2,443 Posts
    oh thats a tough one. you dont even know if the guy knows or not. i'm pretty sure i would kill him though. stein. . .

  • twoplytwoply Only Built 4 Manzanita Links 2,917 Posts
    i'm pretty sure i would kill him though. 2ply. . .

  • CosmoCosmo 9,768 Posts
    i'm pretty sure i would kill him though. 2ply. . .

    I would make him[/b] take me to my mom and then I would kill all three of them.

  • youngEINSTEINyoungEINSTEIN 2,443 Posts
    even better!

  • DubiousDubious 1,865 Posts
    well the classic case of the belfast bombers portrayed in the movie In The Name Of The Father is a perfect example of this.

    there's a huge drive to stop these bombers BEFORE the next bomb goes off... but cops / soldiers are rarely in the situation you're outlining above.. where its obvious who laid the bomb and you've managed to capture one of that group.

    in a situation that clear cut then yes torture could probably be justified as they already know of this persons involvment.

    but sadly what typically happens is that innocent people who fit the "profile" of the attackers are dragged in and that's when shit hits the fan.

    in the belfast case they were dragged in under the simple assumption that they were irish and they were sleeping in a park and had some money on them.

    i think the US is in a similar situation on a much larger scale.


  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I think it is important to think about these things. To think about the continuum from "I would kill him" to "just rounding up likely suspects".

    I think it was Paul Krugman who recently pointed out that Geneva Conventions do not only protect prisoners and the enemy. It also protects the soldier, intelligence agent, and our country, from immoral acts that dehumanize us.

    I feel very personally that I am responsible for any torture my government does.

    I would much rather see this discussion in the op-ed pages than "who called who a nazi".

    Dan

  • BamboucheBambouche 1,484 Posts
    Here is the torture conundrum.


    verily verily verily
    life is but a dream



    Robert Pape's recent database studying "suicide terrorism" is interesting. And significant to this discussion in some ways.


    "Compared with my present imprisonment the future holds no interest for me."

    I am always confused by the US denouncing terrorism and torture while practicing "counter" terrorism foreign policy that is, at times, uglier that terrorism...

    (File Under: Your New Attorney General Approved The Torture)

    Thus, a vague threat that someday the prisoner might be killed would not suffice...[/b]






    "That which produces the common good is always terrible."



    The same people who denounce police violence from the heights of their lofty ideals are urging us on toward a state based on polite violence. Humanism merely upholsters the machine of Kafka's "Penal Colony". Less grinding and shouting! Blood upsets you? Never mind: men will be bloodless. The promised land of survival will be the realm of peaceful death, and it is this peaceful death that the humanists are fighting for. No more Guernicas, no more Auschwitzes, no more Hiroshimas, no more Setifs. Hooray! But what about the impossibility of living, what about this stifling mediocrity and this absence of passion? What about the jealous fury in which the rankling of never being ourselves drives us to imagine that other people are happy? What about this feeling of never really being inside your own skin?




    "I shall not renounce my share of violence."



    Nobody dared to announce the end of colonialism for fear that it would spring up all over the place like a jack-in-the-box whose lid doesn't shut properly. In fact, from the moment when the collapse of colonial power revealed the colonialism inherent in all power over men, the problems of race and colour became about as important as crossword puzzles. What effect did the clowns of the left have as they trotted about on their anti-racialist and anti-anti-semitic hobbyhorses? In the last analysis, that of smothering the cries of tormented Jews and negroes which were uttered by all those who were not Jews or negroes, starting with the Jews and negroes themselves. Of course, I would not dream of questioning the spirit of generosity which has inspired recent anti-racialism. But I lose interest in the past as soon as I can no longer affect it. I am speaking here and now, and nobody can persuade me, in the name of Alabama or South Africa and their spectacular exploitation, to forget that the epicentres of such problems lies in me and in each being who is humiliated and scorned by every aspect of our own society.

  • ElectrodeElectrode Los Angeles 3,132 Posts
    Pull out a fingernail

    uuggggghhhh...that's one I cannot bear to think about. Why the hell do we have fingernails anyways?

  • volumenvolumen 2,532 Posts
    yes i dont think it's accurate. i've heard stories of peoples being interrigated for 20 hours straight no sleep and confessing to things that never happened just so they could go to sleep. stein. . .

    The original secenario I created is not Iraq, not Guantanamo. It is a specific person with specific knowledge and lives in the balance. It's hard to think about and can't be rejected with storys of innocent people confessing to crimes they did not do. That is not the scenirio.

    Let's make it personal. 3 guys come and snatch your momma. You grab one but the other 2 get away with mom. You want to know where are they going. Torture?



    I don't know how often this really happens. Sounds like movie material. If you actaully caught them and had one of the guys it wouldn't be that hard to put the rest together. (I'm talking bomb not mamma). In either case their would be a fresh trail of eveidence to follow. Plus, if the CIA/FBI is watching someone they have a decent idea on where to look. They are eaither hold up in a cave where they can't do anything, or ontheir way to a known location where they can be spotted en route. This is getting to complex, and in reality it is to complex to compare to the yo mamma story.
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