To Torture or not to Torture

[kestra]

This is definitely a huge topic, and very complicated to say the least.
Just wanting to hear people's thoughts on the issue, as it ties into topics raised in other threads regarding the presidential debates/politics, etc....

This may come as a surprise to some, but I actually advocate torture in some circumstances. There are some badass, motherfuckers out there, who simply won't respond to anything less. At the same time, such acts will be inherently abused. So how do you watchdog this sort of thing? What's in place now? Is it effective? If torturing one person results in saving hundreds or thousands, I'd have a hard time saying "no, don't do it!!"

I found an interesting paragraph on the net tonight that made a good point:

Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its “recuperative power.”

I'll do my part and resist the urge to turn this into a leftist-rightist debate. I ask that other posters do the same.

[Khalid]

Most studies show that information revealed under torture is not inherently accurate. A further problem occurs with a well designed cell structure - no one know enough, usually, to make it worth while. It seems to me an inherently ineffective way of dealing with a networked, cell-based movement.

Certainly our results in Iraq to date would support that. It's not merely the question of legitimacy, but of the "moral dimension" of 4th generation warfare, as the late Col. John Boyd so eloquently wrote. Rumsfeld actually was briefed by Boyd, years ago - too bad the lessons didn't take.

[asgoth]

Originally posted by Khalid
Most studies show that information revealed under torture is not inherently accurate. A further problem occurs with a well designed cell structure - no one know enough, usually, to make it worth while. It seems to me an inherently ineffective way of dealing with a networked, cell-based movement.

These studies, for me, would show that torture in itself is no means to be used. And i strongly believe that to be true no matter the motive and reasoning behind it.

Four major reasons :
a) Torture in my eyes places those which use it on a similar level as terrorists. No state or society should fall that low.
b) Torture only makes sense if there is sufficient certainty that the individual to be tortured has the answers which are sought. But this often is what people try to find out through torture. Which in the end means that for every single "successful" torturing, there shall be a number of wrongful or insuccessful torturing. Currently, you can easily go to someone who was wrongfully imprisioned, and actually apologize, because their treatment is upholding certain standards. How do you go and apologize to someone who was wrongfully submitted to torture ?
c) The effectiveness of torture becomes limited when its use is to be anticipated. Cell structures, information management and other methods can be used to fragment the information so far that no torture can provide a full picture.
d) Once people can expect to be tortured, then it is a small step towards martyrdom. The thoughts are simple : If people can expect to be tortured, it is only a small step towards suicide.

So, what is the bottom line ?

The ends do not justify the means. Torture is not a means to be accepted.

A.

[Rosuav]

One can argue this way and that about whether some particular treatment is called "torture" or not, but anything that is called torture should not generally be used.

It is better that a guilty man go free than that an innocent man be punished. But if an innocent be punished, there must at least be some means of recompense, commensurate to the punishment. (I am assuming here that a man is believed guilty, punished, and subsequently proven innocent beyond all doubt. This has no bearing on cases where a man is imprisoned pending trial, and subsequently released for lack of conclusive evidence - he should not be recompensed for time in jail, as there WAS reasonable justification for incarceration.)

Someone wrongfully imprisoned overnight could simply be formally apologized to. A fine issued can be reversed/repayed. A year's imprisonment? Difficult, but possible. Physical and mental torture? How do you apologize/repay that?

[Savaric]

Well before you guys start debating this you need to lay down what kind of torture we're talking about here. Is this electric shocks to the balls torture or go for 5 days without sleep torture? What constitutes torture varies wildly from person to person. If you think sleep deprivation and isolation are torture then I'm not even going to debate with you.

Forget about well-structured cells and fragmented info because we catch high-ranking terrorists from time to time and they do have useful information.

[Katidyd]

Tie their feet to boulders and toss them into the river. If they survive they're a witch, if they drown they're not a witch.

[Gaviani]

Originally posted by kestra
This may come as a surprise to some, but I actually advocate torture in some circumstances. There are some badass, motherfuckers out there, who simply won't respond to anything less. At the same time, such acts will be inherently abused. So how do you watchdog this sort of thing? What's in place now? Is it effective? If torturing one person results in saving hundreds or thousands, I'd have a hard time saying "no, don't do it!!"

The largest reason why discussions of this sort - about torture - prove futile is somewhat simple: it is such an incredibly subjective distinction upon which even -reasonable- people can differ wildly, much less unreasonable ones, that there is at this time no functional definition of "torture" that clearly separates appropriate punishment in an imprisonment context from torture in a manner that can be objectively ascertained.

Individuals incarcerated already have forfeited the rights to their liberty and property; essentially, all they have left is their physical security. Accordingly, "punishing" someone in captivity inherently requires inducing some kind of direct mental or physical harm upon their person in the hopes of inducing compliant behavior. Problematically, almost every definition of "torture" basically sounds along these same lines - causing extreme physical or mental distress in order to compel otherwise unwilling behavior.

Guard hits a prisoner with a baton once - discipline. Hits him twice - punishment. Hits him four times - questionable. Was the fifth hit "torture?" The sixth? The eighth? How about one with a bat? How about a cinder block?

As much of an interesting exercise as the "ticking time bomb" problem is, it is largely masturbatory. Likewise, the idea of American agents with scalpels, IV's, and bricabrac seen only in macabre films or the lairs of the most dire James Bond villains is more or less never going to happen (or so I tell myself in earnest). What presently is dubbed torture so often resembles otherwise reasonable punishments simply taken to disproportionate levels that I can't conceive of how a line could ever be drawn so as to make it clear past what point it is unacceptable to proceed.

All that having been said, I think it is bad policy to ever advocate explicit torture; with what passes for torture now occupying such an ambiguous place, even a tacit, conditional, or occasional endorsement of torture pushes "the line" further back into brutality, which is unacceptable by-and-large for police and military forces. We throw the big T word around too liberally these days; sadly, because of it, some acts of ACTUAL torture (Abu Ghraib) have less impact because they're categorized with things as banal as sleep deprivation. That's my biggest problem nowadays with the "torture" debate: each side is trying to generalize the definition so as to include absolutely everything or absolutely nothing. Another side effect of the noxious political atmosphere we enjoy today, I suppose.

[Xar]

I'm torn on the subject. I agree with Gaviani in that torture should never be officially sanctioned for the same reasons cited, but I also can see where many, many lives may hinge on the need to have information *right now*. This should be rare of course. I suppose my opinion on the whole too-broad subject is that while I can see where torture may be desperate (Yes, sometimes I defer to my WWJBD motto), those who commit it should be held in some form accountable for invoking that desperate need. The action has to be something desperate and unsubjectively urgent enough so that even though those perpetrating it know they will be penalized for it in some way, "necessity" dictates they do it anyway.

[Rosuav]

See, Xar raises an interesting point. It's not appropriate to ask "WWJD" when it comes to information gathering... because Jesus already knows, He never needs to torture someone for information.

[Xar]

WWJBD is "What Would Jack Bauer Do?"

I use it often in life hehe.

Jesus I'm pretty sure wouldn't torture, well, yet.