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No that would cause greenhouse emissions...somehow. See you're destroying our planet.

Have you guys thought that MAYBE these guys are actually thirsty? Its the desert man, i'm just sayin'

Well then we should make more bullets so the can have water there quicker.

If waterboarding is torture (and I'm not saying it's not), then the US tortures every military pilot produced from the training pipeline. And we have for decades.

Just a note, if you didn't know.

Yeah, but that's training. There's no malicious intent there. At least I hope.

But my only point is the action is done.

Ideally, there is no malice in waterboarding terrorists for information. There should be perceived malice, but no actual intent to do anything but loosen tongues.

And the debate isn't over the intent of the torture, it's over the actual physical action. Which I am simply stating is done by trained members of the Armed Forces to prepare pilots for potential torture situations.

That said, do I trust the people getting information from the suspects, and do I trust the chain that is supporting and providing oversight? Not particularly. The definition of torture needs to be determined and adhered to - and aggressive actions taken to loosen tongues need to be done by, let's just say, professionals.

But I feel the media has overblown waterboarding to a massive extent. Just as I am certain the US probably allows it to be overused when something less severe would work just as well.

dienekes96 wrote:If waterboarding is torture (and I'm not saying it's not), then the US tortures every military pilot produced from the training pipeline. And we have for decades.

Just a note, if you didn't know.

Meh. There was also Tailhook and a couple dozen less reported scandals of military trainees being abused. (Maybe part of the reason why we have trouble later on when those same people are put in charge of running prisons?)

In other words, I accept your point as true, but I don't infer the same conclusion as you.

Tailhook wasn't a training event. It was a convention. And do you have a timeframe for couple dozen, Asmodai? I ask because I can think of less than a dozen over the last decade, and I hear about every reported one.

And pilots aren't military trainees...they are officers. You are mentioning basic training abuses. I am talking about SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) school. It's a bit more advanced than basic training.

Anyways, I am simply pointing out that the legality isn't as cut and dried and the media and many opponents are making it. Can we break the law to train the military? Because the military waterboards US pilots for training. So the question of it's legality (since we do it to our own citizens, who have committed no crimes) is there.

I drew no conclusion re: waterboarding.

dienekes96 wrote:If waterboarding is torture (and I'm not saying it's not), then the US tortures every military pilot produced from the training pipeline. And we have for decades.

Just a note, if you didn't know.

Chuck, this came up in a recent discussion.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/206521.page

http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/

According to people who’ve been through and taught SERE, it’s torture.

I understand that there are theoretically grey areas about whether it could be moral to torture someone if it saves the lives of innocents. Even if you concede that there are theoretical cases in which we might think choosing to torture was the lesser evil, a lot of folks (like Generals Krulak and Hoar and Colonel Herrington) have put together very strong and cogent arguments for why torture is a bad idea even aside from its pure moral offensiveness.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2931&highlight=waterboarding

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2695

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=1224

dienekes96 wrote:Anyways, I am simply pointing out that the legality isn't as cut and dried and the media and many opponents are making it. Can we break the law to train the military? Because the military waterboards US pilots for training. So the question of it's legality (since we do it to our own citizens, who have committed no crimes) is there.

Military officers are volunteers, and can always choose to walk away if they don't want to participate in the training. This is utterly different from doing something to a prisoner against their will.

jfrazell wrote:

Torture is not to be condoned for a panoply of reasons. Well, three main ones:

1. It's ineffective. Victims will say whatever they think the torturer wants to hear to make it stop, or won't say anything at all.
****Interesting that Tenet wrote that waterboarding was the single best method of procuring real information that helped thwart attacks.

A man who has ordered torute done justifying it. I bet Sadam thought it was justified too. Give me a break. The reason it's not acceptable anymore is a tortured person will say whatever his interregator wants to hear. Thwart real attacks my left butt cheek. The number of attacks world wide hasn't gone down since torture became legal.

jfrazell wrote:
2. It's immoral. At least by the social mores of our society today.
****It is? Inbuing in someone bent on killing lots of women and children that they may drown to get informaiton to save those women and children? Nah. This ain't ctriminal law. Its war.

And the slide from rightousness continues. You can't claim to be a bastion of truth and right if you don't act like it.

jfrazell wrote:
3. It undermines our credibility. "Hey, China, screw you and your human rights violations! But, uh, ignore ours."
****Same country that beats Falun Gong members to death and rolled over students with tanks?

If you do it, you lose your own ability to complain about it.

dienekes96 wrote:That said, do I trust the people getting information from the suspects, and do I trust the chain that is supporting and providing oversight? Not particularly. The definition of torture needs to be determined and adhered to - and aggressive actions taken to loosen tongues need to be done by, let's just say, professionals.

So far in Iraq and Afghanistan we have seen soldiers, CIA operatives, and others torture and kill prisoners, and we appear to be farming out torture work to Uzbekistan, among other places.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?pagewanted=print

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/01/MNGE5CI9MO1.DTL

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1245055,00.html

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/05/20/afghan10992.htm

http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen/21236prs20051024.html

dienekes96 wrote:Tailhook wasn't a training event. It was a convention. And do you have a timeframe for couple dozen, Asmodai? I ask because I can think of less than a dozen over the last decade, and I hear about every reported one.

And pilots aren't military trainees...they are officers. You are mentioning basic training abuses. I am talking about SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) school. It's a bit more advanced than basic training.

Anyways, I am simply pointing out that the legality isn't as cut and dried and the media and many opponents are making it. Can we break the law to train the military? Because the military waterboards US pilots for training. So the question of it's legality (since we do it to our own citizens, who have committed no crimes) is there.

I drew no conclusion re: waterboarding.

The guy who designed SERE is very aware it is torture and has indicated concerns regarding the staff used to do it.

I'm not sure having it done in highly controlled situations (SERE) really justifies using it for real on enemy combatants. That does not make it not torture, that just makes it a special condition. A cop speeding to chase someone is still breaking the law but they have what is called qualified immunity if the circumstances warrant it.

I'm not sure about the old myth that torture doesn't work, but I think we can be better then that. A plain old fashoined beating gets the job done eh?

jfrazell wrote: We have an absolute right to survival. They would end that by killing every man, woman, and child in this country. They will do that whether or not we are good or bad, nice or not, just because we exist. Hook up the wires.

I hate to come so close to Godwin’s law, but by that same logic, we should just murder every citizen of every country with Islamic extremists in it.

Have you ever met or talked to anyone from the Middle East?

A small number of crazy religious fanatics preach anything approximating what you are talking about. The vast majority of people over there who are opposed to us might disagree with our lifestyles, but would certainly never kill anyone over that alone. Human beings who aren’t clinically insane (which is most of us, including most people in the Middle East) need more tangible reasons to actually kill someone, though they need to be pretty desperate and their reasoning has to be twisted to justify killing innocents. Palestinians are a good example. Iraqis whose families have been killed by our bombs are another.

The 9/11 hijackers aren’t exactly a representative sample of Muslims, any more than Timothy McVeigh is representative of anti-government activists here, or Westboro Baptist is representative of Christians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_city_bombing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

jfrazell wrote:What if it saves the life of an American soldier? Thats somebody's kid, probably in a jam a lot worse off than us.

What if it doesn't save the life of an American but could save the lives of Iraqi citizens? Are they unworthy because they're not US citizens, and are in the wrong place at the wrong time?

And what if by raping and killing a small child on television we could placate a serial killer and get him to turn himself in? Would that be worth it? That’s the same kind of rationale you’re using. Justifying evil acts with a hypothetical and far from certain hope for a net positive outcome.

Ahtman wrote:I'm not sure having it done in highly controlled situations (SERE) really justifies using it for real on enemy combatants. That does not make it not torture, that just makes it a special condition. A cop speeding to chase someone is still breaking the law but they have what is called qualified immunity if the circumstances warrant it.

I'm not sure about the old myth that torture doesn't work, but I think we can be better then that. A plain old fashoined beating gets the job done eh?

The reason torture is said not to work is because (as many victims of torture in South America will attest) you will say whatever the torturer wants to hear. .

Anyone who supports the use of torture should read or hear what the victims say. It doesn't work because all you are doing is hurting someone until you hear what you want to hear.

My point about SERE is that the action is done to US citizens (volunteers, of course) in a controlled environment. And I'd love to see torture defined...everyone in this thread would give a different definition if asked, as would every inmate at Sing-Sing.

Would you condone "duress questioning" if a doctor was present and it also was a controlled environment?

What if your son was in the field, trying to track a known extremist, and you have a known accomplice in custody, available for questioning?

These are complex questions, because we live in a complex world.

It's not nearly as cut and dried as some in here (and certainly the politicians bucking for office) make it, simply because most of us/them having nothing on the line in case we are wrong. If you are wrong, you won't be in danger. It's very easy to take the moral high ground ("torture is defined as "this" and always wrong") when you don't have to challenge it.

So while Mannahin takes the argument (raping a killing a child to save a life or two) to an illogical extreme, it still does not negate jfrazell's comment.

My opinion is this: if we aren't willing to codify, train, and enforce methods of duress questioning (which should be non-lethal in all cases), we should never be willing to deploy citizens/soldiers in harm's way.

You bleeding heart conservatives and rabid liberals really are missing the essential point, the impact this would potentially have on the sock puppet industry. Seriously.

jfrazell wrote:
We have an absolute right to survival. They would end that by killing every man, woman, and child in this country. They will do that whether or not we are good or bad, nice or not, just because we exist. Hook up the wires.

Bull.

Do you still believe Saddam had WMDs as well?

Since wonderful people like Pat Robertson make similar suggestions from our side should they have the same responsibility to do unto us?

dienekes96 wrote:My point about SERE is that the action is done to US citizens (volunteers, of course) in a controlled environment.

Any my point is that it’s done to WILLING participants. Regardless of the level of control present (and we KNOW from military records that torture and death have been inflicted by our personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan under much less controlled circumstances and often with loose guidelines. Tony Lagouranis states that he was told to “get creative”.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060301121.html?hpid=topnews&sub=AR

dienekes96 wrote:And I'd love to see torture defined...everyone in this thread would give a different definition if asked, as would every inmate at Sing-Sing.

Torture is defined under US law, and within international treaties and conventions.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm

The Army Counterinsurgency manual (FM 3-24) is explicit in stating that torture and tolerating these types of "interrogation techniques" are unlawful and self-defeating:

FM 3-24 wrote: 1-132. Illegitimate actions are those involving the use of power without authority—whether committed by government officials, security forces, or counterinsurgents. Such actions include unjustified or excessive use of force, unlawful detention, torture, and punishment without trial. Efforts to build a legitimate government though illegitimate actions are self-defeating, even against insurgents who conceal themselves amid noncombatants and flout the law. Moreover, participation in COIN operations by U.S. forces must follow United States law, including domestic laws, treaties to which the United States is party, and certain HN laws. (See appendix D.) Any human rights abuses or legal violations committed by U.S. forces quickly become known throughout the local populace and eventually around the world. Illegitimate actions undermine both long- and short-term COIN efforts.
…According to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and DODD 2310.01E. No person in the custody or under the controlof DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with, and as defined in, U.S. law. (Appendix D provides more guidance on the legal issues concerning detention and interrogation.)…

…LIMITS ON INTERROGATION
7-42. Abuse of detained persons is immoral, illegal, and unprofessional. Those who engage in cruel or inhuman treatment of prisoners betray the standards of the profession of arms and U.S. laws. They are subject to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Geneva Conventions, as well as the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, agree on
unacceptable interrogating techniques. Torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is never a
morally permissible option, even if lives depend on gaining information. No exceptional circumstances
permit the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Only personnel trained and certified to interrogate can conduct interrogations. They use legal, approved methods of convincing enemy
prisoners of war and detainees to give their cooperation. Interrogation sources are detainees, including enemy prisoners of war. (FM 2-22.3 provides the authoritative doctrine and policy for interrogation. Chapter 3 and appendix D of this manual also address this subject.)

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf

dienekes96 wrote:What if your son was in the field, trying to track a known extremist, and you have a known accomplice in custody, available for questioning?.

Torture is morally wrong, and in the opinion of most(?) experts and authorities, unreliable to the point of not being useful.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07294/826876-35.stm

Col. Stuart Herrington wrote:When a professional interrogator sits across from a captured Iraqi general who possesses information about the Iraqi nuclear program, or who knows why Saddam did not toss nerve gas at our massed forces, the interrogator knows he is facing a formidable adversary, an educated, trained professional strongly inclined by his Iraqi patriotism and survival instincts to deny his interrogator such information. The interrogator's challenge in such situations is to assess and manipulate the situation, somehow persuading his captive to make disclosures in spite of the prisoner's visceral fear of the consequences if he helps the enemy. The role of the interrogator is, in essence, that of a recruiter. The prisoner must be convinced that if he reveals state secrets, his captor will handle his trust with discretion and take care of him.
Generations of professional interrogators have possessed such skills, and used them to obtain information vital to our country. Those who have not mastered these techniques fall back on the ultimate admission of incompetence and resort to brutality. Once this moral frontier is crossed, captives on the receiving end of such treatment respond to their survival instincts. Spurred by cunning and fueled by the hatred stoked by their tormentor's brutality, they respond as our American aviators responded in the Hanoi Hilton, showing their contempt by lying, invention, stalling -- anything to stop the abuse -- or by accepting death before dishonor.

dienekes96 wrote:It's not nearly as cut and dried as some in here (and certainly the politicians bucking for office) make it, simply because most of us/them having nothing on the line in case we are wrong. If you are wrong, you won't be in danger. It's very easy to take the moral high ground ("torture is defined as "this" and always wrong") when you don't have to challenge it.

I call BS. The repeated refrain of the torture apologists, and the scenario constantly revisited, is the “ticking time bomb” scenario where a prisoner in custody is believed to have information about a major attack on American soil. You can’t use this scenario to justify torture by claiming we’re all in danger and then claim we lack the perspective to judge because we’re not in danger. Even aside from this highly-unlikely and hypothetical scenario, 9/11 does demonstrate that there is at least some chance of a threat to civilians far from the direct conflict.

dienekes96 wrote:So while Mannahin takes the argument (raping a killing a child to save a life or two) to an illogical extreme, it still does not negate jfrazell's comment.

Most serial killers have killed a lot more than one or two people. We’re talking about different degrees of the same thing. Deliberately committing an evil act under the rationalization that the end justifies the means.

efarrer wrote:

jfrazell wrote:
We have an absolute right to survival. They would end that by killing every man, woman, and child in this country. They will do that whether or not we are good or bad, nice or not, just because we exist. Hook up the wires.

Bull.

Bull? Thats their stated goal. I'm sorry you can't accept that there are people out there, lots of people, who want to kill us just because we exist.

Since wonderful people like Pat Robertson make similar suggestions from our side should they have the same responsibility to do unto us?

You're revealing your bias. Please show me where Pat Robertson helped fund, plan, and execute the killing of anyone?

jfrazell wrote:

efarrer wrote:

jfrazell wrote:
We have an absolute right to survival. They would end that by killing every man, woman, and child in this country. They will do that whether or not we are good or bad, nice or not, just because we exist. Hook up the wires.

Bull.

Bull? Thats their stated goal. I'm sorry you can't accept that there are people out there, lots of people, who want to kill us just because we exist.

Show me some. Do "card-carrying" members of Al Qaeda and other actual terrorist organizations count as "lots of people"? And can you support your claim and demonstrate that even they want to kill us just because we exist?

Military records show that our soldiers and CIA operatives have tortured and killed prisoners who were not members of Al Qaeda or known to be terrorists.

jfrazell wrote:You bleeding heart conservatives and rabid liberals really are missing the essential point, the impact this would potentially have on the sock puppet industry. Seriously.

I was trying to have a rational discussion with you, but that's gone out the window. Any credibility you had on the topic is now shot to hell thanks to your knee-jerk insults. I know you feel strongly about this, but just like elsewhere on Dakka, irrational insults only undermine your position.

In a way, I feel sorry for you.

Iorek wrote:

jfrazell wrote:You bleeding heart conservatives and rabid liberals really are missing the essential point, the impact this would potentially have on the sock puppet industry. Seriously.

I was trying to have a rational discussion with you, but that's gone out the window. Any credibility you had on the topic is now shot to hell thanks to your knee-jerk insults. I know you feel strongly about this, but just like elsewhere on Dakka, irrational insults only undermine your position.

In a way, I feel sorry for you.

And I feel sorry for you too Iorek, but thats more for your constant press of mod duties (keep up the good work) and the unlikely odds that you're sipping a fine margarita while overlooking a sunlit beach. That would be good right now.

People get too serious like they can actually do anything about anything. I guess the play on words was missed.
bleeding heart usually goes with liberal when hurled at people.
rabid usually goes with conservative (actually its usually stated as rabid republicans).
But really "the importance of the sock puppet industry" should have kind of been a giveaway...

But you're right. I'm irrational-there's a duh moment-just ask my wife. But who's insulting whom now? I'll let you get back to your thread unimpeded by different viewpoints.

Why do we have Off Topic again?

Mannahnin wrote:Any my point is that it’s done to WILLING participants. Regardless of the level of control present (and we KNOW from military records that torture and death have been inflicted by our personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan under much less controlled circumstances and often with loose guidelines.

I see you have all of the quotes from other websites ready to go, Mann. In deference, you are not responding to what *I* said, you are responding to general arguments against your position. Not my arguments. My argument is that the act is performed iwht US knowledge and consent against it's own citizens, and the US does not tolerate illegal actions, even against volunteers. That a basic law itself. I can't let someone break the law against me.

Mannahnin wrote:Torture is defined under US law, and within international treaties and conventions.

It's not defined very well. That said, the law/treaties as written must be adhered to. I never said or implied otherwise. Please respond to my point (if you choose to respond, that is)...not approved website talking points that out words in my mouth.

Mannahnin wrote:The Army Counterinsurgency manual (FM 3-24) is explicit in stating that torture and tolerating these types of "interrogation techniques" are unlawful and self-defeating:

FM 3-24 wrote: 1-132. Illegitimate actions are those involving the use of power without authority—whether committed by government officials, security forces, or counterinsurgents. Such actions include unjustified or excessive use of force, unlawful detention, torture, and punishment without trial. Efforts to build a legitimate government though illegitimate actions are self-defeating, even against insurgents who conceal themselves amid noncombatants and flout the law. Moreover, participation in COIN operations by U.S. forces must follow United States law, including domestic laws, treaties to which the United States is party, and certain HN laws. (See appendix D.) Any human rights abuses or legal violations committed by U.S. forces quickly become known throughout the local populace and eventually around the world. Illegitimate actions undermine both long- and short-term COIN efforts.
…According to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and DODD 2310.01E. No person in the custody or under the controlof DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with, and as defined in, U.S. law. (Appendix D provides more guidance on the legal issues concerning detention and interrogation.)…

And we never had any arguments about the term "cruel and inhuman punishment" in the courts of law, have we? Define excessive. Define authority. Define degrading.

Mannahnin wrote:…LIMITS ON INTERROGATION
7-42. Abuse of detained persons is immoral, illegal, and unprofessional. Those who engage in cruel or inhuman treatment of prisoners betray the standards of the profession of arms and U.S. laws. They are subject to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Geneva Conventions, as well as the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, agree on
unacceptable interrogating techniques. Torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is never a
morally permissible option, even if lives depend on gaining information. No exceptional circumstances
permit the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Only personnel trained and certified to interrogate can conduct interrogations. They use legal, approved methods of convincing enemy
prisoners of war and detainees to give their cooperation. Interrogation sources are detainees, including enemy prisoners of war. (FM 2-22.3 provides the authoritative doctrine and policy for interrogation. Chapter 3 and appendix D of this manual also address this subject.)

Again, all of that is GENERAL. Effective laws are never general, they are specific. Unless you can define cruel and unusual (or degrading) treatment, that's boilerplate. Sorry. I know the UCMJ in general, and it's far more specific than that.

Mannahnin wrote:Torture is morally wrong, and in the opinion of most(?) experts and authorities, unreliable to the point of not being useful.

War is morally wrong. Always. But the world we live in does not allow us to always act morally right. Dropping bombs on Kosovo to try and stop ethnic cleansing was morally wrong. Should we have done it? Should we have fought the Civil War, killing 200 times the number of people who have died in Iraq, just to preserve the Union? At what point is "morally wrong" acceptable? You can say never, and that's valid, but I believe it's also unrealistic. I'll use a popular example on both political spectrums: Hiroshima. Truman dropped an atom bomb (not completely knowing it's actual measureable impact) on Hiroshima. That is a morally repugnant act (though, ironically, completely LEGAL at the time). Was he right or wrong to do so? His goal was to end the war with minimal threat to the citizens who elected him. Under no circumstances could his actions be anything other than morally wrong. But I'd argue they were his responsibility to do, at that time. Had he chosen to send hundreds of thousands of American lives onto native soil to finish the war, that would have been morally wrong as well.

I served in the military, attended a United States service academy, and even I know war is ALWAYS morally wrong. If the question were that easy (just do what is moral), we wouldn't be having this discussion. Sometimes you have to judge between two moral wrongs. That's why specific definitions are so important.

Back to your argument: what defines your morals? What is their basis? I highly doubt your morals are exactly my morals, so until we can come to some agreement, we are in a pickle, aren't we?

Now with regards to reliability, that is a different matter. Hypothetically, if actions defined as torture yielded actionable and life-saving information, under what circumstances would you employ them? Never? When it was one life? Ten lives? What probability of actionable life-saving data would you need to even consider it reliable? 50%? 75%? 99%?

I am more concerned about the reliability of the results, because that is concrete, unlike our much squishier moral debates. And I tend to agree. Any sort of acceptable duress questioning is unlikely to yield reliable or useful results. And under no realistic circumstances would I will be willing to devolve into potentially lethal or significantly hazardous questioning - any situations where those would be considered have more varaiables than could be reasonably assumed.

Mannahnin wrote:I call BS. The repeated refrain of the torture apologists, and the scenario constantly revisited, is the “ticking time bomb” scenario where a prisoner in custody is believed to have information about a major attack on American soil. You can’t use this scenario to justify torture by claiming we’re all in danger and then claim we lack the perspective to judge because we’re not in danger.

I specifically *DIDN'T* use that scenario, because I find it specious for reasons I'll list in a moment. I am also not an apologist, and I am insulted to be implied as such. I am approaching this clinically, and I have friends with BOOTS ON THE GROUND in Iraq. I am not responding to generic arguments with someone else's links. I am responding directly to you, and I'd like the same consideration.

I'll use a quote from one of the most famous president's of all time to frame my actual point:

Teddy Roosevelt wrote:It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It does not directly apply to this situation. I am not stating that only soldiers in the field have moral authority on this - which would be the cop-out use of this quote. I am pointing out that those of us in our first world countries have the leisure of debating these points like this...in peace, and utterly safe. When considering defining those terms and assessing what should and should not be right, we should judge the danger to the men in the field, not the affront to my (or your) personal morals. Neither you or I have earned the conviction or the moral high horse unless our well-being has been challenged and our morals still found resolute.

Mannahnin wrote:Most serial killers have killed a lot more than one or two people. We’re talking about different degrees of the same thing. Deliberately committing an evil act under the rationalization that the end justifies the means.

And now YOU are using the numbers game. The end never "justifies" the means. But sometimes, SOMETIMES, the end is worth the price of the means, which is drastically different than the word "justify". Peace is sometimes worth the war. Was our government worth the lives of so many dead in the Revolutionary War - lives were lost over ideals back then?

Lastly, part of this is me arguing to argue. But my clinical analysis stands. You paint the world in black and white from a position of complete safety, just as I argue for some level of duress in questioning without having to risk experiencing that duress or loss of humanity in the application. So I absolutely recognize my hypocrisy.

I'll be interested in your response.

Got quiet all of the sudden there dieneke.

jfrazell wrote:

Iorek wrote:Some angry stuff

But you're right. I'm irrational-there's a duh moment-just ask my wife. But who's insulting whom now? I'll let you get back to your thread unimpeded by different viewpoints.

Why do we have Off Topic again?

Gah. You got my goat, and I apologize. What I said was immature and not appropriate; I do apologize. I do still disagree with you, however...

What I was trying to say is that you've moved away from arguing points to arguing against people, or at least that's what it seemed. That's all. I do like a good argument, but it has to be "good". Like a debate, really.

I am sure Mann will reply when he gets the chance. I am trying to engage in a debate, not "win" the argument.

In short, I don't think my (or any single person's) moral compass is an acceptable reason to not "torture". Were I in the field, and you told me they had to torture a "possible" conspirator to save my life, I'd never allow it. But if it were someone else in the field in danger, I can't apply my moral decision to him. I would be bound to try and provide him/her every LEGAL aid I could. Hence my pursuit of the legal definitions.

So you are saying, you wouldn't torture someone to save your own life, but you would torture someone to save someone else's life. As long as the tortured person has critical information? The problem with that statement is how do you know the prisoner has the information? I would also do the same thing, but in places like Guantanamo don't they just torture everybody and not really worry who has the information?

I wonder if it would work to have torture be illegal, but in the incredibly rare 'Jack Bauer situation' where you have to torture to prevent a terrorist attack resolve it by giving a presidential pardon to the torturer if it was immediately necessary.

snorkle wrote:So you are saying, you wouldn't torture someone to save your own life, but you would torture someone to save someone else's life. As long as the tortured person has critical information? The problem with that statement is how do you know the prisoner has the information? I would also do the same thing, but in places like Guantanamo don't they just torture everybody and not really worry who has the information?

1) Have you defined torture?
2) How do you know the prisoner (suspect?) has that information? There is a key question. If you did KNOW, does that change the decisionmaking process?
3) Were it MY decision, and this is a hypothetical, I could then use my moral compass to make my decision. If it was YOUR worthless life, I could no longer use my moral compass - I would have to use the law. And I'd want that law focused on the "most right" for the "least wrong". That's the critical point. Too many people want to their apply their personal moral compass to a situation where someone else's life is at risk. I think that is hypocritical at best.
4) I don't think "everybody" at Gitmo was tortured, though I readily admit some were, and wrongly so.