Telling It Like It Is

[Foxfyre]

jesus christ... what part of

I ANSWERED THE QUESTION ALREADY

THE ANSWER IS NO

are you not comprehending? I'm not avoiding your question. I've answered it AGAIN for you. Indeed, tell me about how normal people answer the question "does anyone know you beat your wife?" too.

in fact, was ignoring the BOLD print easier than givng me one example of this Jack Bauer scenerio actually happening?

Okay, you've finally, for the first time answered the question. You have a terrorist in your custody. He knows where your child or wife or other love one is. You'll allow that person to be tortured and brutally murdered rather than get rough with the person in your custody.

He knows where the bomb is that will kill, maim, and sick tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children and time is running out to find and disarm it. You will allow the bomb to explode rather than get rough with the person that can tell you where it is.

I accept that. I sure don't want you in charge of protecting me or mine, however.

 

[CorpMediaSux]

Originally Posted by Foxfyre View Post
We are talking about what somebody does know. We aren't talking about roughing up somebody to find out what he might know. We are talking about somebody we know has the information that will allow us to save our loved one and/or tens of thousands of people.

You are wrong in so many ways.
1. Stop watching 24. The problem with that show is that it creates this entirely FALSE notion that U.S. leaders are in the kinds of decision making processes that you describe. Unfortunately your justification of torture as an interrogation technique is built upon this idea of an ever decreasing timer and a threat that's linked to it. That's a scenario created by people who need to create suspense within a television show it has ZERO to do with reality and there isn't a moment in human history where leaders have been in that kind of situation. I know 24 seems like "real time" but that doesnt mean it's a refection of reality.

And I know you are going to just say "hypothetically" but cut that off immediately. Hypotheticals are an interesting device to test the limits of our morality, but the problem with hypotheticals is that they allow you to really sidestep talking about the ACTUAL issue. Which is how can a Christian nation claim to be spreading freedom and tolerance as it legally sanctions torture. Don't Christians believe in absolute morality? Don't they believe in right and wrong?

2. Torture doesn't WORK. How many studies have to come out that say, unequivocally, when you torture you only get the responses that will END the torture, you do NOT get truth.You get what the interrogator wants to hear, which is evidence of your guilt. When you engage water boarding or other forms of torture you do so on the presumption that the person you're drowning/beating/tasering/burning etc. is guilty. Thus even if they aren't, no matter what they tell you, the torture HAS to continue until they give you evidence that they are guilty in some way or shape.

3. Think, think, think! Even in a world where the 24 scenario happens. U.S. officials have in custory an individual who has knowledge of an approaching threat. No matter what methods of torture you use on that person there's no way of stopping them from giving you misleadig evidence. If they say the bomb is in L.A. and it's actually in N.Y. you'll spend a hell of alot of time pursuing the L.A. bomb while the NY bomb goes off. Why would someone whose hate of the U.S. is so powerful they want to kill thousands of people be persuaded to ASSIST U.S. officials just because of torture. Don't you think these people have thought of that and are prepared for that?


You can not think of ONE productive way torture can be used that doesnt' have massive logical holes in it. Jack Bauer doesn't exist. For real.

Originally Posted by Foxfyre View Post
But anybody who is unwilling to do what must be done to protect the innocent has no business being in charge of national security or defense. And we are gravely in error if we force them to state a position that could make it impossible for them to be able to do that

Any elected official who is unwilling to say that it should be illegal for the U.S. government to torture ANYONE is a miserable excuse for a human being. I have never been more disgusted with the Senate. I have never been more disgusted with the Democrats. I've never been more repulsed by Republicans who claim to be Christians. If you ask the Nazis they will say they did what "needed to be done" to stop the Jewish threat.

 

[Foxfyre]

You are wrong in so many ways.
1. Stop watching 24. The problem with that show is that it creates this entirely FALSE notion that U.S. leaders are in the kinds of decision making processes that you describe. Unfortunately your justification of torture as an interrogation technique is built upon this idea of an ever decreasing timer and a threat that's linked to it. That's a scenario created by people who need to create suspense within a television show it has ZERO to do with reality and there isn't a moment in human history where leaders have been in that kind of situation. I know 24 seems like "real time" but that doesnt mean it's a refection of reality.

And I know you are going to just say "hypothetically" but cut that off immediately. Hypotheticals are an interesting device to test the limits of our morality, but the problem with hypotheticals is that they allow you to really sidestep talking about the ACTUAL issue. Which is how can a Christian nation claim to be spreading freedom and tolerance as it legally sanctions torture. Don't Christians believe in absolute morality? Don't they believe in right and wrong?

2. Torture doesn't WORK. How many studies have to come out that say, unequivocally, when you torture you only get the responses that will END the torture, you do NOT get truth.You get what the interrogator wants to hear, which is evidence of your guilt. When you engage water boarding or other forms of torture you do so on the presumption that the person you're drowning/beating/tasering/burning etc. is guilty. Thus even if they aren't, no matter what they tell you, the torture HAS to continue until they give you evidence that they are guilty in some way or shape.

3. Think, think, think! Even in a world where the 24 scenario happens. U.S. officials have in custory an individual who has knowledge of an approaching threat. No matter what methods of torture you use on that person there's no way of stopping them from giving you misleadig evidence. If they say the bomb is in L.A. and it's actually in N.Y. you'll spend a hell of alot of time pursuing the L.A. bomb while the NY bomb goes off. Why would someone whose hate of the U.S. is so powerful they want to kill thousands of people be persuaded to ASSIST U.S. officials just because of torture. Don't you think these people have thought of that and are prepared for that?


You can not think of ONE productive way torture can be used that doesnt' have massive logical holes in it. Jack Bauer doesn't exist. For real.



Any elected official who is unwilling to say that it should be illegal for the U.S. government to torture ANYONE is a miserable excuse for a human being. I have never been more disgusted with the Senate. I have never been more disgusted with the Democrats. I've never been more repulsed by Republicans who claim to be Christians. If you ask the Nazis they will say they did what "needed to be done" to stop the Jewish threat.

I have never watched a complete episode of 24. I have only attempted to watch one. I found it far too violent and speculative for my tastes.

Otherwise I will put you in the same category as Shogun who puts high minded principles above the lives and safety of innocent people. That is your prerogative.

It is also my prerogative to believe in the principle that the life of my loved one and/or the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people are worth more than the comfort of one person who has the information we need to save them.

 

[Shogun]

Okay, you've finally, for the first time answered the question. You have a terrorist in your custody. He knows where your child or wife or other love one is. You'll allow that person to be tortured and brutally murdered rather than get rough with the person in your custody.

He knows where the bomb is that will kill, maim, and sick tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children and time is running out to find and disarm it. You will allow the bomb to explode rather than get rough with the person that can tell you where it is.

I accept that. I sure don't want you in charge of protecting me or mine, however.

scroll up to see how I answered your hypothetical the first time you asked the question, dude. It's what Jack Bauer would do.

Indeed, because we are a nation of LAWS I would not torture a suspect because I THINK he knows what I want to hear.

Trust me, your condemnation about my answer isn't the raging bull that you might think it should be. If you can recall we were also SURE that saddam had phantom WMDs too. Unfortunatly, the Jack Bauer hypothetical is fiction too (even if you think it is a good excuse to torture people like saddam)

 

[Shogun]

"I found it far too violent and speculative for my tastes."

.. you don't say...


indeed, preserving the moral highground of our position and not becoming what we claim to hate about "the enemy" sure is a high minded principal...

 

[CorpMediaSux]

Otherwise I will put you in the same category as Shogun who puts high minded principles above the lives and safety of innocent people. That is your prerogative.

You accused Shogun of sidestepping your arguments. Now who's doing that. Why have you chosen to ignore the three points I made in my post outside of the morality issue and my jokes about Jack Bauer. Here they are in a shorter version:
1. Torture doesn't give you accurate information, it's been proven by study after study after study.
2. There is ZERO evidence of the kind of scenario you are describing ever happening in human history. Seriously, you can't pull one example.
3. Why wouldnt a terrorist stall with false information? You'd have to investigate every claim they made. The torture would actually HURT you because he would be in pain, crying and screaming out for mercy. But nothing about that compels truth telling he could tell you false place after false place until the bomb went off.

You have NO responses to these arguments, which is why you've attempted to dismiss me as someone who doesn't care about protecting Americans. It's a good ploy, but not so effective. Not responding to this post would only prove how right I am.

 

[Foxfyre]

scroll up to see how I answered your hypothetical the first time you asked the question, dude. It's what Jack Bauer would do.

Indeed, because we are a nation of LAWS I would not torture a suspect because I THINK he knows what I want to hear.

Trust me, your condemnation about my answer isn't the raging bull that you might think it should be. If you can recall we were also SURE that saddam had phantom WMDs too. Unfortunatly, the Jack Bauer hypothetical is fiction too (even if you think it is a good excuse to torture people like saddam)

I can at least read and respond to what a person says instead of what I want them to have said. I don't answer a different question or bring in an unrelated issue and comment on that instead of the question posed. If I don't want to answer a question, I say so. I don't pretend that I did when I don't.

Nor can you quote any statement I've made that condemned you. I have said that you initially refused to answer the specific question. You kept changing the parameters of it and changing it into a different question or introducing unrelated matters. And I have now acknowledged that you in fact did answer it. Your answer was that you would in fact put the comfort of the terrorist ahead of a loved one in terrible peril and/or tens of thousands of people in imminent peril. I did not comment on the morality of that in any way.

If you do not like the way your answer comes out, then maybe you would like to rethink it.

 

[ReillyT]

2. Torture doesn't WORK. How many studies have to come out that say, unequivocally, when you torture you only get the responses that will END the torture, you do NOT get truth.You get what the interrogator wants to hear, which is evidence of your guilt. When you engage water boarding or other forms of torture you do so on the presumption that the person you're drowning/beating/tasering/burning etc. is guilty. Thus even if they aren't, no matter what they tell you, the torture HAS to continue until they give you evidence that they are guilty in some way or shape.

I am not so sure that you are right that tortue doesn't work. It generally doesn't work because the tortured person will eventually tell you anything to prevent further torture, and you can never know if what you are being told is true.

However, in the Jack Bauer scenario (which I think is kind of silly, but is a hypothetical, so what the hell) where you are looking for a discrete piece of quickly verifiable evidence (i.e., the location of a bomb), I don't see why torture wouldn't be effective.

 

[ReillyT]

1. Torture doesn't give you accurate information, it's been proven by study after study after study.

The problem primarily rests in the fact that the information being sought is generally unverifiable.

2. There is ZERO evidence of the kind of scenario you are describing ever happening in human history. Seriously, you can't pull one example.

True, but it is only a hypothetical, and weapons of mass destruction are a relatively new phenomenon, so it is more likely a scenario today than at any other time in history.

3. Why wouldnt a terrorist stall with false information? You'd have to investigate every claim they made. The torture would actually HURT you because he would be in pain, crying and screaming out for mercy. But nothing about that compels truth telling he could tell you false place after false place until the bomb went off.

True, stalling would certainly occur. However, in the scenario we are talking about, there would be plenty of resources to verify information obtained, and if the pain were severe enough, the torture might be effective. It very well depend on the time scale involved. One hour won't suffice, but several days might.

 

[CorpMediaSux]

However, in the Jack Bauer scenario (which I think is kind of silly, but is a hypothetical, so what the hell) where you are looking for a discrete piece of quickly verifiable evidence (i.e., the location of a bomb), I don't see why torture wouldn't be effective.

Right but the problem is that people like Foxfyre think U.S. law and policy should be goverened by scenarios that are silly, fictional and have no basis in historical evidence. It's all well and good to think these things out hypothetically. But we're talking about the ACTUAL Attorney General and the ACTUAL state of U.S. law. And the fact that we have shown the world we ACTUALLY torture. It's horrid.

 

[Shogun]

I can at least read and respond to what a person says instead of what I want them to have said. I don't answer a different question or bring in an unrelated issue and comment on that instead of the question posed. If I don't want to answer a question, I say so. I don't pretend that I did when I don't.

Nor can you quote any statement I've made that condemned you. I have said that you initially refused to answer the specific question. You kept changing the parameters of it and changing it into a different question or introducing unrelated matters. And I have now acknowledged that you in fact did answer it. Your answer was that you would in fact put the comfort of the terrorist ahead of a loved one in terrible peril and/or tens of thousands of people in imminent peril. I did not comment on the morality of that in any way.

If you do not like the way your answer comes out, then maybe you would like to rethink it.

SCROLL UP. You'll see me answer your question the first, second, third and fourth time you asked it. Like I said, it's what Jack Bauer would do.

Hurry! the clocks ticking!



Your answer was that you would in fact put the comfort of the terrorist ahead of a loved one in terrible peril and/or tens of thousands of people in imminent peril.


I'll make sure the next cop who is not busy kicking the shit out of a suspected kidnapper knows how soft he is being on crime... Indeed, by NOT turturing the suspect he is COMFORTING a kidnapper putting kids' lives in harms way!




Should I assume as much about your answer to 500K children too?

After all.. now that you've had your moment in the sun with this 24 episode maybe I can condemn your disregard for 500K innocent lives since passive-aggressive is the game today... It's not about how my answer looks.. It's about your narrow scope of consideration and the lack of cognitive function necessary to get to your Jack Bauer answer.

 

[Shogun]

I am not so sure that you are right that tortue doesn't work. It generally doesn't work because the tortured person will eventually tell you anything to prevent further torture, and you can never know if what you are being told is true.

However, in the Jack Bauer scenario (which I think is kind of silly, but is a hypothetical, so what the hell) where you are looking for a discrete piece of quickly verifiable evidence (i.e., the location of a bomb), I don't see why torture wouldn't be effective.

If I had you locked in an interogation chamber and was water boarding you do you think I could make you admit to being a terrorist? Gay? A witch?

torture wasn't effective during the salem witch trials, was it? Can you EVER be SURE that the torturee know what you want to hear? Is behaving like the same reason we demonize saddam worth your integrity? the integrity of our entire nation?

 

[ReillyT]

Right but the problem is that people like Foxfyre think U.S. law and policy should be goverened by scenarios that are silly, fictional and have no basis in historical evidence. It's all well and good to think these things out hypothetically. But we're talking about the ACTUAL Attorney General and the ACTUAL state of U.S. law. And the fact that we have shown the world we ACTUALLY torture. It's horrid.

I agree with your opinion about what the law on torture should be.

 

[ReillyT]

If I had you locked in an interogation chamber and was water boarding you do you think I could make you admit to being a terrorist? Gay? A witch?

Sure.

torture wasn't effective during the salem witch trials, was it? Can you EVER be SURE that the torturee know what you want to hear?

In the Jack Bauer scenario (by the way, I hate that show), you could presumably verify the information. If you were looking for the password to my bank account and had the Citibank website up, torture would be an easy way to obtain that information.

 

[Shogun]

OR it would be an easy way to create a whole lot of victims.


Are you familiar with the term Witch Hunt? Why do you think the term has its specific connotation?

 

[ReillyT]

OR it would be an easy way to create a whole lot of victims.

What are you talking about?

 

[Foxfyre]

Right but the problem is that people like Foxfyre think U.S. law and policy should be goverened by scenarios that are silly, fictional and have no basis in historical evidence. It's all well and good to think these things out hypothetically. But we're talking about the ACTUAL Attorney General and the ACTUAL state of U.S. law. And the fact that we have shown the world we ACTUALLY torture. It's horrid.

A silly scenario like a bunch of guys armed with box cutters simultaneously boarding four separate passenger airliners departing three separate East Coast airports, killing or disabling the crews, and flying them into three large U.S. buildings filled with innocent men, women, and children ensuring that thousands would be killed or injured, our economy would be wounded, and the confidence of the country in our collective security would be shaken to the core?

I hope to hell after that wake up call, somebody is thinking this stuff out hypothetically.

But my point in all this, is that we can keep destructively throwing rocks, spouting unsupported and mostly untrue accusations at people we don't like, and dishonestly contribute to the politics of personal destruction to further fuzzy ideological and/or partisan notions. Or we can choose to not do that.

There is a very good, very reasonable, very intellectually honest purpose in not requiring somebody in high office or in positions of national security to state in advance how any situation involving national security will be handled. And there is much to say for allowing those charged to protect us to do that no matter who happens to be in the White House at any given time.

A policy and practice of treating people humanely is sufficient. We have that policy.

 

[ReillyT]

A policy and practice of treating people humanely is sufficient. We have that policy.

That somewhat begs the question. Many don't feel that torture can exist within a policy and practice of treating people humanely.

 

[CorpMediaSux]

FoxFyre
A silly scenario like a bunch of guys armed with box cutters simultaneously boarding four separate passenger airliners departing three separate East Coast airports, killing or disabling the crews, and flying them into three large U.S. buildings filled with innocent men, women, and children ensuring that thousands would be killed or injured, our economy would be wounded, and the confidence of the country in our collective security would be shaken to the core?

1. The savagry and unpredictability of of 9/11 proves MY point, not your point. The unpredictability of 9/11 suggests that it's extremely unlikely the U.S. would ever be able to capture someone BEFORE a 9/11 style attack, because it would be equally off the radar as 9/11.

2. But let's pretend that before 9/11 the government had in custody someone they KNEW was intimately involved with the planning of 9/11. For one thing, having the evidence that he/she was involved would indicate that the U.S. had ALOT of knowledge about the plot itself, wouldn't it. Even if it was as little as "something with planes was gonna happen" and they had in custody someone who knew the info. Would you need torture to save American lives? NO! Because you'd immediately put in procedures that checked for weapons on planes, you'd add extra security to planes, you'd lock cockpit doors (as the Green party had been lobbying for years) etc. etc. You could torture the guy until kingdom come and you'd never be sure he was telling the truth about the time/date or location, so it's not like you'd stop those emergency protocols. In fact, those emergency protocols probably would work. And, most importantly, you couldnt just stop all domestic air flights indefinitely. Ultimately you'd have to rely on the defensive protocols you put in place. Any tortured information wouldn't change that. So again, RESPOND! How does torture help anyone?

A policy and practice of treating people humanely is sufficient. We have that policy

.
Do you honestly believe waterboarding is "humane." Because a definition of humane that include waterboarding is one that strips the word "humane" of any regulatory power. How can you not understand that? No matter how you semantically word it, you are still saying torture should be legal.

I notice you STILL have not responded to my arguments about the ineffectiveness of torture. I suspect there's a good reason for that, but since I don't want to assume, will you clue me in?

 

[Foxfyre]

That somewhat begs the question. Many don't feel that torture can exist within a policy and practice of treating people humanely.

Under normal circumstances it can't. Which is why all the sound and fury about the current administration 'condoning torture' is all whistling in the wind. I am guessing that the USA treats its prisoners, both those on the mainland and those being held at Guatanemo and elsewhere, more humanely and in better royal fashion than many countries treat their honored guests. We do not have a policy of mistreating anybody.

Nobody is suggesting that we change that policy. All I am saying is that those charged to protect us and ours know that sometimes the circumstances are such that the prescribed M.O. can't be followed and still get the job done. Anybody who is intellectually honest knows that. A policeman has a split second to determine whether the gun aimed at his partner is real or a fake, loaded or unloaded, will be fire or will not be fired. Those of us who would never harm a fly might inflict serous pain on somebody who can tell us how we can save our loved one from a fate worse than mere death. That has in fact happened. And it is not beyond probability that our national security people could have to get rough with somebody in order to save hundreds or thousands of us. Each of these incidents should be reviewed of course to verify the circumstances. And then there should be no criminality involved.

I am so horrified and repulsed at the thought of torturing anything, much less another human being, that I cannot watch it on TV or in the movies. I get up and leave. I am certainly not advocating a policy of torture. I am advocating a policy that sets aside hate rhetoric and embraces reality, reason, and common sense.