'Tase me Bro...I deserve it...' by Hero

I've already said that I don't believe Mr. Meyer shouldn't have been tasered, but that I also generally reserve my stronger emotions for more deserving miscarriages of justice. I only have so much anger to go around, so I save it for the big stuff.

"So forcing women to run naked in the cold in front of guards - a la Nazis camps - would not be torture to you."

Torture? Nope. Humiliating, degrading, and pointless except to be cruel? Yep. Plus I happen to be one of those sexist old fashioned types that doesn't take kindly to even minor mistreatment of women, so I wouldn't do any of what you described, nor would I tolerate it. Plus shouldn't we be a bit angrier about the Nazis, you know, gassing prisoners to death with cyanide? Or shooting them because it's Tuesday?

And to be clear, fear inducing acts(bluffing) I have ZERO problem with. For instance, this guy:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E3DF133EF934A15756C
0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
... he deserves a medal. He did something abhorrent to protect his people. That's hardly a new thing in human history, and especially in war. What is significant is that the man imposed limits in how far he would take things. The enemy in question would not.

Summary execution, mutilation, etc. I have SERIOUS issues with. Mild injuries that do not require any sort of medical care are hardly good, but perhaps we should be more concerned about the injuries that DO require medical care.

"Neither would slow starvation (before actual death)"

If the guy is kept hydrated and then properly brought back to health I'm not quite okay with it, but I'll tolerate it if the person in question probably has useful intel that could prevent Americans from suffering. Again, it's permanent injury and death that I have the biggest issue with.

"Do you really want to be there ?"

I've also already said that I await the day when these things ARE being done to AMERICANS. I can't stress that enough. I will not live in such a bastardization of everything that I hold dear.

For my response to your latest message:

My position on tasers are that they are the better alternative to what the cops would otherwise do. You take their tasers and they will start doing real damage when none is called for. Coming up with "more restrictive guidelines" won't help, because it didn't help before they had tasers. Hell, the use of ANY force is supposed to be restricted already.

I’m never serious. Serious means something bad is about to happen.

98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature

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Thursday, November 1, 2007 8:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by jarhead:
My position on tasers are that they are the better alternative to what the cops would otherwise do. You take their tasers and they will start doing real damage when none is called for. Coming up with "more restrictive guidelines" won't help, because it didn't help before they had tasers. Hell, the use of ANY force is supposed to be restricted already.

I've heard this argument a few times now and I think there's a couple of key issues we're not talking about.

The tradition approach is to physically bind the suspect. The idea is to prevent them from hurting anyone or escaping once they've been arrested. If the suspect continues to be violent things may escalate and the officer might have to resort to deadly force. I want this to be a difficult decision. I want it to represent an element of risk, both for the suspect and for the officer. I DON'T want it to be simply a matter of turning the pain knob to the next highest setting.

The other issue involves a subtle difference in the purpose of tasing as opposed to traditional apprehension methods. The difference lies in the fact that tasing is specifically designed to break the will of the suspect. This is why I call it torture. The point isn't to restrict the ability of the suspect to fight back (The devicce doesn't actually restrict them physically in any direct way) The point is to make sure they don't want to. This is what I've seen in every video of a tasing incident that I've seen, and it's at the core of what makes them so disgusting. The police officers use the tasers to establish complete dominance over the suspects. And they generally aren't satisfied with physical cooperation. A suspect who is scowling and 'talking back' is as likely to get tased again as if they started throwing fists around.

Also, Jarhead, where did you arrive at the notion that torture necessarily involves physical injury? I've never read a definition that limited it to acts that produce physical injury.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, November 2, 2007 1:50 AM

Quote:
"Neither would slow starvation (before actual death)"
If the guy is kept hydrated and then properly brought back to health I'm not quite okay with it, but I'll tolerate it if the person in question probably has useful intel that could prevent Americans from suffering. Again, it's permanent injury and death that I have the biggest issue with.

Key word 'slow'. Starvation can cause permanent damage to key organs, such as the heart.

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Friday, November 2, 2007 3:16 AM

So, is this notion that it isn't really torture unless there is physical damage, really part of the debate? If so, then we've already taken an giant step into the abyss. I can think of all kinds of things that are cruel and painful beyond measure that don't result in physical injury. It sounds like we're playing games with the terminology to rationalize away the fact that we've become what we've always despised.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, November 2, 2007 3:33 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Second, real torture involves actually injury, something that leaves scars and/or permanent disability.

Erm. no. Remember, pain is a response to injury, but you can get the nerves to send the same signal w/o causing injury. There are ways of causing excruciating pain... pain that could kill someone... without leaving a mark.

I've heard that one of the favorite ways to get information in Africa is to seek out the head man and then waterboard his oldest grandson. But while using someone as an "example" to get intel may not be considered torture for the mark, it is certainly torture for the victim.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Friday, November 2, 2007 7:02 AM

FREMDFIRMA

"I've also already said that I await the day when these things ARE being done to AMERICANS. I can't stress that enough. I will not live in such a bastardization of everything that I hold dear."

Don't you realise that your very argument is greasing the slippery slope that's gonna allow that to happen ?

It's not that far a jump from 'enemy combatant' to 'crime suspect' in a legal sense - and if/when that comes to pass, you yourself could wind up waterboarded for naught more than simply being a witness in the wrong place and time.

A point that's also lost on much is the permanent psychological damage involved, hell, look at what's left of padilla, you might as well have just shot him as that.

There's also that the reliability of information extracted this way is about nil, cause just like the inquisition, past a certain point they'll tell you anything you wanna hear, even if they have to make it up - just to make it stop.

So you torture one guy who doesn't know shit, who points you to some other guy who doesn't know shit just to make it stop, and so grab that guy and torture him, and so on and so forth, and soon you're torturin everybody and never learning a goddamned thing of any use, meanwhile you're creating enemies by the truckload.

Look at coerced confessions via the police dept and consider how often when DNA evidence overturns them when it is available.

They'll tell ya anything you wanna hear, but ain't none of it worth a damn.

A proper interrogation, a GOOD one, the target can be psychologically manipulated by exploiting his pride, beliefs and human frailties without ever laying a finger on him, and done RIGHT, never even knows he spilled useful info to a guy HE thinks is on his side.

You never intro that guy as an interrogator, send him in as the janitor, or a medical professional, or some other uninvolved party, and a frightened, lonely human being seeking some point of non-hostile social contact will almost without fail spill his guts to him, believe it.

Physical interrogation is the method of rank, incompetent amateurs, the least useful method, and directly counterproductive because it floods the system with bullshit information cooked up just to stop the torture - which leads to a cataclysmic failure of the process by leading to more bullshit until it's all you have to go on.

I'm not gonna get into semantics about it, the minute you go hands-on with the target, you've screwed up, cause the further you go with that, the less reliable the info you're gonna get is.

Damned incompetents.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Friday, November 2, 2007 8:17 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Jarhead

I think torture is inducing pain and fear to gain compliance (and compliance sometimes comes in the form of information).

As was pointed out above there are MANY ways to induce pain and fear. Electric shock is one of the better know and more often used methods of regimes around the world.

If you saw a video of Iraqi prisoners being repeatedly shocked during questioning would you not consider it to be torture ? So why would you discount tasers otherwise ?

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Friday, November 2, 2007 11:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
So, is this notion that it isn't really torture unless there is physical damage, really part of the debate? If so, then we've already taken an giant step into the abyss. I can think of all kinds of things that are cruel and painful beyond measure that don't result in physical injury. It sounds like we're playing games with the terminology to rationalize away the fact that we've become what we've always despised.

Not sure if your post was 'aimed' at mine, or just happened to come after it. If you were 'aimed' at mine: I wish to be clear, I was not -condoning- anything; I was merely pointing that starvation can result in permanent damage.

For the record, I don't believe that torture is necessarily the fastest and most effective way to get accurate intel. As a consequence, I don't condone it's use.

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Friday, November 2, 2007 12:09 PM

Not 'aimed'

Just sayin' is all. It just seems creepy that we're trying to find all these loopholes that allow us to 'torture but not'.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, November 2, 2007 1:10 PM

Agreed.

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Friday, November 2, 2007 4:25 PM

HKCAVALIER

Torture is never about information, that's just the cover. Torture is about the torturer, about his or her rage, about his or her desire for dominance. Torture is about torturing, it's an end in itself, and all the justification the torturer needs is the utterly subjective decision that his victim deserves it--that his victim is the appropriate object of his hate and rage.

Moral human beings avoid torturing other human beings, not because of the harm it does to the ones who are tortured, but because of the harm it does to themselves.

There are always vastly less expensive, vastly more effective ways to get information if that's what you're after. That's not why people endorse torture. They do it because their "they" du jour "deserve whatever they get."

Who knew there was so much rage in America desperate to find an outlet?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, November 2, 2007 5:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Not 'aimed'

Just sayin' is all. It just seems creepy that we're trying to find all these loopholes that allow us to 'torture but not'.

It's for a lot more practical reason than you would think. You have to know where the line is before you can determine if you've crossed it or not. It really isn't any more complicated than that.

And sorry, but torture really is about information. If there is information to get, it can be gotten. Otherwise there really isn't a need to expend the effort, listen to the endless debate, go through inspections and file the reports and the red tape that never ends. In a war zone, if the person really needs to extract revenge, express hostility, {insert catchy psychobabble}, there are ways available with much higher body counts that actually draw less attention.

I’m never serious. Serious means something bad is about to happen.

98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature

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Friday, November 2, 2007 5:56 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

In your view that's what torture is about. Let me offer the opinion that your view of torture is limited. Worldwide torture is mostly used to instill fear and keep people in line.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Friday, November 2, 2007 6:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by jarhead:
It's for a lot more practical reason than you would think. You have to know where the line is before you can determine if you've crossed it or not. It really isn't any more complicated than that.

But isn't this is a subtle acknowledgment that our intent is to push up as close to that line as we can get away with? This sort of logic has become our replacement for ethics.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, November 2, 2007 8:11 PM

HKCAVALIER

Quote:
Originally posted by jarhead:
And sorry, but torture really is about information.

You know if you say something often enough it comes true!

Quote:
If there is information to get, it can be gotten.

More cheaply and more reliably by other means. The information gained from torture is mostly useless. So why are we using torture, again?

Quote:
Otherwise there really isn't a need to expend the effort,

Torture is an end in itself.

Quote:
listen to the endless debate,

They don't listen to the debate: "I'm not going to make decisions based on focus groups!"

Quote:
go through inspections and file the reports and the red tape that never ends.

Who's filing the reports on our torture activities? Where are these reports?Quote:
In a war zone, if the person really needs to extract revenge, express hostility, {insert catchy psychobabble}, there are ways available with much higher body counts that actually draw less attention.

Your contempt for the study of human motivation and psychology is noted. Have a nice day.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, November 2, 2007 10:03 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Hey Rue ?

Found some stats for ya.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

Puts a bit of perspective on the so-called risk that the bluesuits milk every drop of public sympathy for - and nobody but the dispatcher, cussing the hole in his roster, gives much of a damn when a cabbie caps it.

Remind me not to go fishin anytime soon tho...

-F

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Friday, November 2, 2007 10:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
Originally posted by jarhead:
And sorry, but torture really is about information.
You know if you say something often enough it comes true!

You call that a retort? You're not even trying.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
If there is information to get, it can be gotten.
More cheaply and more reliably by other means. The information gained from torture is mostly useless. So why are we using torture, again?

Because despite the mantra you just typed out it actually has produced results when they had nothing else to go on.... yeah I'm gonna go with that. Final answer.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
Otherwise there really isn't a need to expend the effort,
Torture is an end in itself.

Wait a second, just what kinda sick twisted sort are you?

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
listen to the endless debate,
They don't listen to the debate: "I'm not going to make decisions based on focus groups!"

Not true. For you to have that paraphrase, somebody had to use it as a response. And before they could dismiss it out of hand, they first had to listen to it.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
go through inspections and file the reports and the red tape that never ends.
Who's filing the reports on our torture activities? Where are these reports?

Remember that word "information"? It turns out that once you obtain it, often times you have to write it down so that it can appropriately disseminated. And then they have to give an accounting of just how the info was obtained, and either they can tell how or they can't. And in either case they have to write up something. Who'da thunk it?

And if you honestly think that the general public(or even the Oversight Committees) will ever know exactly what the intelligence community has done over the years, well lets just say that's rather optimistic of you.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
In a war zone, if the person really needs to extract revenge, express hostility, {insert catchy psychobabble}, there are ways available with much higher body counts that actually draw less attention.

Your contempt for the study of human motivation and psychology is noted. Have a nice day.

HKCavalier

Oh believe me, my contempt hardly stops there.

And for anyone interested in much more entertaining of this thread, go here:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/

I recommend "The Strife Aquatic."

I’m never serious. Serious means something bad is about to happen.

98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature

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Saturday, November 3, 2007 3:50 AM

Ok, I think what I see here is a disconnect between the two sides; I believe one of the core disconnects is the question: Is torture the most effective interrogation technique?

Jarhead is clear on at least a 'sufficiently effective to be used' position; there's other who feel torture is sufficiently ineffective it should be taken 'off the table' (eg: me).

I have no personal experience with torture. Everything I know about it is second hand. I did a quick search for reference; and this page sums up my efficiency issues fairly well in points 1 & 2:
http://www.cvt.org/main.php/Advocacy/TheCampaigntoStopTorture/WhatCVTk
nowsaboutTorture
(quick note: if you read the full page please leave points 3 and above for future discussion)
1. Torture does not yield reliable information

Well-trained interrogators, within the military, the FBI, and the police have testified that torture does not work, is unreliable and distracting from the hard work of interrogation. Nearly every client at the Center for Victims of Torture, when subjected to torture, confessed to a crime they did not commit, gave up extraneous information, or supplied names of innocent friends or colleagues to their torturers. It is a great source of shame for our clients, who tell us they would have said anything their tormentors wanted them to say in order to get the pain to stop. Such extraneous information distracts, rather than supports, valid investigations.

2. Torture does not yield information quickly

Although eventually everyone will confess to something, it takes a lot of time. We know that many militaries and radical groups train their members to resist torture and to pass along false pieces of information during the process. And those with strong religious or political beliefs that help them understand the purposes of torture used against them are most able to resist and to recover from its impact.

Jarhead; would you care to cite references regarding how the 'effectiveness' of torture is superior to other methods to obtain intelligence?

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Saturday, November 3, 2007 5:45 AM

HKCAVALIER

But leadb, that's not how it worked on 24!

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, November 3, 2007 6:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:

I have no personal experience with torture.

Me neither, and because of that, like you I only "know" what others have told me. You have yourstudies, I have personal acquaintances. I tend to doubt the reliability of both to a certain extent, because I know how unreliable people are.

I can tell you what I believe personally - pain is the lazy way because it's expedient(moreso than getting to know the captive), and requires much less mental energy on part of the torturer. I also believe that it incredibly shameful that we hand it off to other countries to do. Handing it off to other countries to do for us is only different from doing it ourselves in one way -- now in addition to doing something evil, we are adding the element of being underhanded and disingenuous.

Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:

2. Torture does not yield information quickly

What method does? No seriously, if you know one would you please tell someone so that they could stop with the torture?

Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:

Although eventually everyone will confess to something, it takes a lot of time. We know that many militaries and radical groups train their members to resist torture and to pass along false pieces of information during the process. And those with strong religious or political beliefs that help them understand the purposes of torture used against them are most able to resist and to recover from its impact.

In Vietnam our boys went off to war with the name, rank, and serial number mantra. Here's how well it worked:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=25312
This is one of the better ways it went. The NVA probably got just as much bad intel out of this guy as good, but that means they still got GOOD intel from him.

Never said that I thought it the SUPERIOR way to do things, just that, again, that if they was nothing better to go on, it would get done and we all live to hate ourselves. I also seriously doubt that there is a single government on planet earth that wouldn't stupe that low given the right circumstances.

//I've never watched even a single episode of 24. The only thing by Joel Surnow that I've ever started was one episode of the 1/2 Hour News Hour. THAT was torture.

I’m never serious. Serious means something bad is about to happen.

98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature

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Saturday, November 3, 2007 7:24 AM

Thanks for the follow up. I guess my point, about it not being fast, is that given the moral ambiguities, if there's a way to get as good intel as quickly using means which folks will agree is -not- torture, I would think we would chose the other methods.

Edit:
Some discussion of effective interrogation techniques... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5042750
Another item...
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/06/2e76a343-98be-47aa-a840-3
0ca6d86e3b0.html

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Saturday, November 3, 2007 7:39 AM

I think John McCain has it right. With torture, the issue isn't if it's effective, or how efficient it is. The issue is what the acceptance of such a practice does to us as a nation.

I don't think we should be looking for guidelines and rules that tell us just how much torture we can 'get away with'. The practice should be abhorrent to us. But that doesn't mean I think it should never happen.

People often bring up extreme circumstances to test our notion of what is acceptable. We might concoct a scenario where torturing one person could get information that would save thousands of lives. What do you do in that case?

I think torture should be treated in much the same way that we treat murder. Murder is universally condemned and against the law. That said, there are exceptions. Killing in self-defense is generally accepted and we even have the concept of "Justifiable Homicide". But the law still stands and isn't considered debatable. We don't compile guidelines explicating just how you can kill someone and get away with it.

So, what I'm saying is that we should maintain that any form of torture is illegal and not to be tolerated. Military personnel, or anyone for that matter, will be held accountable if they're caught doing it. It might be the case that a court will find them not guilty through some concept like 'justifiable torture'. But anyone who chooses torture as a solution must be ready to defend their choice in a court of law, and suffer the consequences of it's judgment.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, November 3, 2007 7:50 AM