Here's a question guys.

At what point is physical torture justified ??

Before you say "Never, we are a civilized nation", lets take some examples.

Suppose we have a captive that we are absolutely certain has information regarding the imminent use of a weapon of mass destruction.

I would hope that in that case we would do whatever (!) it took to get the information out of him.

On the other hand what if we THOUGHT he might have information on an iminent WMD use...what do we do then ?? What if we felt certain that he knew the wearabouts of OBL or Husein ??

How often stuff like this already going on ??? How often do we let others do the dirty work and look the other way ? Do we ever do it ourselves ?

Should we be ashamed of this or should we grow some balls and do it more often ?

Your thoughts ???

Ed

Vee hav vays of making you talk.

Ahh, torture.

If we are certain that a person has info that we want, physical pain usually can bring it out.

Torture for the pleasure of it, is, ofcourse wrong.

We need to grow a set.
Nowadays, extracting information by function checking a pistol (oops, it was loaded!) is considered horrible and evil.

I'll be concise, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact!"

It's situational.  The same reason applies when you consider that people will eat dirt or become cannibals if the situation is desparate and exists for a sufficiently long time.

Israel was ready to glass over Cairo and Damascus in 73 if they were on the brink of losing.  Certainly would not have stopped their losing, just punished the survivors.  When you are faced with monumental decisions like these, torture seems a smaller and more irrelevant idea.

There was an outstanding article on this subject in the September or October issue of [url=www.theatlantic.com]The Atlantic Monthly[/url]. A few military interrogators were interviewed, as well as police officers who had had success in solely verbal questioning.

The author presents some scenarios and discusses outcomes.

If it means that the price of gas will to come down to being under a buck a gallon - I'd say our guv'ment should have free license to attach car batteries to the genitals of as many middle-easterners as it takes.

USA!  USA!  USA!

If you're a terrorist, and you find yourself being tortured.......well, then you deserve it.
Quit complaining.

If you consider shooting in the air torture than it is always justified to no end.  Real torture is justified for as long as good intel can be extracted.

When a combatant will tell you what you want to hear just to end the ordeal you've gone too far.

Lt Col. West should not be charged with any crime and deserves an apology.  Please sign petition. [url]http://www.millionsofamericans.com/clients/moa/current_project/index.cfm[/url]

Shok

When ever I want

If a loved one is in danger, and I [b]know[/b] someone has info that can help them, then whoever withholds that information is in for as much pain as necessary.  The fuzzy bit, of course, is when you don't really know whether the person has info or not.  At what point do you stop torturing them and say "gee, I guess they didn't really know anything"?

Just a thought, folks...

How do we feel when we see OUR guys being tortured by these barbarians?

I'm not saying don't do it, just to be prepared to see it coming the other way.

That being said, if he's got information that will save lives, anything short of disembowling his children before him is good for me.

you guy's are wrong.  if we turn American into Iraq why the hell fight them?  let's just elect Sad’lamb president.  if we allow it to be done to "terrorists", soon it will be done to citizens and we will be no better than all those "brutal" dictators we hate so much.  

let's pretend for a minute... I know you know something about a terrorist attack but you really know nothing.  let's start whipping you with a piece of electrical cable until you confess or go mad or make up a story about your next door neighbor.  then i grab neighbors and start whipping them.  ok, your a tough SOB so you don't talk. (even though you r innocent and have nothing to confess) next i rape your 12 year old daughter in front of your eyes.  murder your wife.  you see i know you know all you have to do is talk.  still refuse to confess?  how about i cut your boy with a dull box cutter?        

yea great f-cking country.  i am proud to be an American.

face it if you want liberty you have to understand you live in a dangerous place.  sometimes people will die and you can't protect everyone.

Have you been watching the news? Americans are already being tortured by Arabs/Muslims worldwide, whenever they can get their hands on some. Torture is a long-lived, accepted tradition in the middle east, and we have nothing to teach the Arabs/Muslims on the subject.

William Buckley
LtCol Higgins
POWs in the Persian Gulf war and in our more recent foray into Iraq
Mogadishu, 1993

Preaching to the choir, my friend. I'm simply rining the same alarm bell as 308wood: if we start doing this, with the best intentions to save lives, where do we stop? How can we ensure it never gets as bad as 308wood said?

That's all.

...and no, I expect nothing even resembling civilized behavior from these vermin. It's why I like the idea of nuking the entire region. Quick, effective, and spares our side all kinds of casualties. The fallout will likely fall in the ocean (harmless) or on target nations, so that doesn't worry me either...

i am not for torture, but we do need to be a bit more heavy handed about this, be sure of this, the intelligence groups have ways of making you talk without too much pain, it can be done mentally

People will say ANYTHING under torture.  THis has been known for centuries and In most educated places, torture is considered to be highly unreliable.

Chemical interrogation on the other hand, when used properly is HIGHLY reliable.

However, if time is of the essence and there isn't a trained doctor handy to administer the drugs, then the judicious use of pain incentives may be in order.

I like the way you think Dolomite. Your stock just went up a few points in my book. Cheap gas is an American birthright. Anyone who tries to f*ck with our birthright needs to feel the sting of our anger.
As far as torture goes, it is truely better to give than to receive.

Physical torture isn't really the most effective way to extract information in most instances. There are some unconventional torture methods currently in use by our CIA that are much more effective. For example, sensory deprivation in it'self can literally dstroy someones mind in a matter of days. There wouldn't be a mark on the body. The mind would be seriously damaged. Torture can work under certain circumstances. Some times as stated before in this thread, it is counter productive. All in all I don't think it's really necessary to do damage to someones body. The mind can be a much more effective target.
That said I don't see anything wrong with discharging your pistol near the head of a detainee to save the lives of your soldiers.  

Torture is rarely ever need, and is rarely ever even useful..

There are better interrogation methods now, and we use them. Some people might call them emotional or mental torture, but oh well. Torture is not a good method of getting information because they will tell you almost anything to get you to stop.

Ultimately, torture is never good. Threat of force/punishment/deprivation, fine. But physical torture is worthless as an interrogation method.

Look at the torture of US soldiers in vietnam or korea, and read the 'confessions' they gave. That is the kind of crap you get from torture usually. You very rarely get usable information, unless you know enough to ask a very specific question..

That Atlantic Monthly article was by Mark Bowden, (Blackhawk Down) and is pretty succinct.  Ban it cause it's a slippery slope and then use it as necessary with the practitioners being liable personally.  The best and most realistic solution.  There's always presidential pardons etc.  

This has a very basic liberal/conservative edge to it that revolves around the true nature of man.

At the same point I make the Decision to Kill/Maim, or be Killed/Maimed, for my cause....


No Quarter in War my friend... Otherwise, it ain't war, it's a Meatgrinder...[:|]

You take 4 guys up in a helicopter, start tossing them out one at a time.....


They talk.....[(:)]

Nor is it a document of convience that so many think it to be...  Don't like what it says, for utilitarian reason, just ignore it...  The constitution is at the cusp of being meaningless because politicans have taken similar attitudes.

A good reason I see to rule out torture is to keep the other side from torturing our guys. But that only works with a civilized enemy, which the barbarians we are currently fighting are not. They will torture our guys no matter what we do, just for their pleasure.

That's when I say the gloves come off. When they do something, we do it back ten times as worse. That way they may start to have second thoughts about torturing our guys and attacking our bases.

Torture is wrong when it's just for pure pleasure. But sometimes it is a necassary evil that should not be totally ruled out. The greater good should be considered.

Anytime you ask questions to the blonde headed bitch I was married to!!!!!!!!

We definitely need to reevaluate the circumstances and methods we will use in the future.

However, whitewashing an individual's actions by deliberately misrepresenting them ("function check" my ass!) won't help the debate.  What the LTC did was much more than an "oops" or a "function check" and I suspect you know that.

We seem to be concentrating on the military use of torture.

What it if were the same situation involving a US Citizen. Suppose the FBI does a raid on a house and find a guy with a complete bio lab and feel certain that he or an accomplice is on their way to deploy anthrax, ebola or whatever.

Does the fact that it involves nonmilitary police and a US citizen make any difference ?

As stated earlier, our people are routinely subjected to torture. Our adversaries only "say" they regret having done it after they are either caught or the war is over.

We are at war! No one else plays by our "rules" so clearly...there are no rules.

We need to grow some 'nads and do what is necessary.

They play the fact that we'll treat them nicely so they have no fear.

Our people over there keep paying the price with their lives while the US politicians play pussy games.  

Rant off...I feel better now.

TexasEd,
How would you feel if you had a teenage daughter who was kidnapped and buried alive by some psycho?

What if he was caught and he admitted to the deed but not to her location? Clock is ticking...I don't know about you but if I caught the guy I'd do EVERYTHING necessary to get her back alive. I'd consider that justification.

(Yes, it sounds like a Clint Eastwood movie...)

Just a couple of observations.

First, as to the "Constitution not being a suicide pact", uh, yes it is.  Either you follow it to the letter or we all are going to lose what we have here, and what we have here is worth some of us dieing to protect.

Usually it is politicians who are saying it is not a suicide pact, and to them, nothing is worth them or theirs dieing for.  Uh, fuck them.

Secondly.  Anything that you are willing to use on the evil terrorists will one day soon be used gleefully by your local cops.  You want them to be able to gouge out your eyes to extract a moving vehicle infraction confession?  I don't.

Better that a certain number of us die, and then we unleash our dogs of war on the perpetrators, than to torture one, single guilty as sin bad guy.

Now, it is taken for granted that once the rag-heads do do somethign that kills off a few more thousand of us, that our leaders have the stones to take off the gloves and make life unlivable for as large a percentage of the followers of the Religion of peace as possible.  That include carpet bombing anywhere there are moret han two of them, no matter if it is an orphanage or a terrorist training center.  Make it so that it is unfeasiable for something like that to happen again, either through fear of retaliation, or just a simple Not ehnough living muslims lef tin the world to organize a touch football team.  Either way it is good by me.

But in summation, if you are for torturing  terrorist suspects today, you had better realize and accept that your kids might be tortured tommorow for shoplifting or drinking underage.  It always happens and it will always be true that whatever tool we allow our attack dogs to use today, will be used on us tommorow.

Hielo,
I see your point.

Oh believe me...I WOULD get the information I needed. I guess a key point here is if you "KNOW FOR CERTAIN" that the person has the information which you need. Thousands of people have been tortured unfortunately who had no information to reveal.

If you start using torture to find of IF a person knows something, then you've got a real problem. As stated before, a tortured person will tell you what you want to hear whether it is useful or not.

The difference being, the governemnt should not be allowed the use of torture, what you do as a private citizen is completely different.

I know if it were my child, I would apply any and all tools to getting the info.  I would hope that I would get to the guy first, then I would hire professionals to extract the information, by any means neccessary.

If the LEO's have the guy, I would still follow my plan, but I would have to modify it to remove the suspect form their custody, again, a liberal use of the tools available would take care of that.

But would I want the governemnt to be able to use torutre to get any info, not even a small cahnce of that.

What was it that Goldfinger said to Bond as he's about to be bisected by the giant laser?

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE!"

I am in complete agreement with hielo.

A case with similar ramifications happened in Detroit (?) about a decade ago.  A crack hustler carjacked a mother with two [i]infants[/i].  He left the mother but took off with the kids.  They caught the crackhead shortly thereafter, but couldn't find the infants or their carseats.

The Detroit PD had this guy in a room for HOURS, begging and pleading with him to disclose the locations of the kids.  He wouldn't budge.

The kids were found, in their carseats, behind some bushes alongside the freeway.  Dead of heat exhaustion.

The police officers publicly stated that they had considered torture, but were prevented by their superiors.  A lot of columnists picked up on this and a month-long debate began.

In the end, torture will remain our "dirty" little secret, performed by non-uniformed agents of our country (guess who?) and/or friendly regimes.  Moving it into the armed forces would have a very detrimental impact upon a) our own prisoners and b) our own soldiers conduct in battle.

It's very easy to shake your finger at LtCol West, but what would you be willing to do when it's your ass with credible threats of assassination against you and a participant in front of you?

The solution seems to be to ban torture and then allow it to the extent it doesn't upset the political balance.  Sorta like rolling stop signs.  It's a good practice to stop at them but if no ones there.........  Running stops or red lights will of course never be OK....too dangerous.

Just look at what Israels supreme court has said.

They have accepted the "ticking bomb" defense for torture. That is if you have reasonable suspicion that a terrorist attack with the potential for large loss of life is already under way. And you need to find where the device is or where the operators are imediately, then torture or threats of summary execution are acceptable.

Under Israeli law what Lt. Colonel West did would be legal. Not that he might not be tried for it, but he would be able to use the "ticking bomb" as a acceptable defense.

I think there are situations where torture would be acceptable. The operative phrase is "when human life is in imminent danger and could be saved by the expedient gaining of knowledge from an individual". Yes, bleeding hearts will argue that we should be too civilized to use torture, but then let them have a close relative kidnapped and the kidnapper say that they are buried, and unless you release me (or pay me lots of money, or release some of my prison buddies, etc., etc.) they will slowly suffocate. The same situation has been played out on TV countless times. I would have no regrets about probing the bad guy with a few hundred volts or sticking a needle in some tender area with the chance of gaining intel that would save any person. The bad guy has already committed a horrible act and if it can be positively resolved by a few screams, let the screaming begin, I'll supply the batteries.

Send Paul Bremer home. Make LtCol West administrator of Iraq.

When the torture victim is muslim

Whenever one of our people is at great risk and the time is [perceived] to be short to prevent the death of that person or persons.

Some have said that torture is not effective.  I submit that is a false premise based on a lack of firsthand experience.

I can assure you all that none of us can withstand real torture, either physical or mental for ever.  Eventually all men break.  How the "torture" is applied and how long the victim lasts is dependent on lots of factors...all beyond the scope of this thread.  I have personally spoken with Vietnam POWs and they pretty much agree...given enough time and the will to do torture, the captors will win.

Here's a small example:  In 1966 a Marine friend of mine was returning to base camp in a Huey after going out into the bush to do some radio repairs.  With him in the helo were a squad of Recon grunts, an ARVN translator and two VC.  After they were airborne, the Recon boyz and the translator began interrogating the VC.  When the VC played hardball...the grunts tossed one of them out of the aircraft.  My bud was a bit surprised...but he didn't say a word.  The other VC began talking...a lot.

Torture?  Of a sort.  Effective?  Absolutely.  What did the VC have that the Marines wanted?  Clearly something important...but not worth dying over.

IF I had good INTEL that a terrorist in my custody had information critical to the United States, especially that which, if divulged, might permit us to prevent another attack on us, I would use ANY means at my disposal to gain the knowledge I was after...ANY means.

Lwilde, I would guess then that the use of judicous torture against frug dealers (to reveal their higher ups) would be ok then, (hey, 40k a year die from drug usage, 40k is a lot of Americans).

Or how about the guy coming home from the office christmas party, torturing him to get him to tell who served him the alcohol could possibly save an entire families lives, no?

Or what about the guy that lives downt the street from you, he just applied for a permit to buy an AR15, the LEO's could be saving the life of *your* family, those weapons have no rational use in modern society other than killing people, apply a bit of pain to find out what his true motives are.

Nope, there is no justification for a society to use torture, other than it is an expediancy.  Governemnts should never be allowed to be expediant as the only outcome to an expediant society is one where you and I are hustled right along, either into the gas chambers or onto the cattle cars.

Anyone who thinks that the government can control when and where torture woudl be used (for only really impoirtant cases, trust them!) is criminally stupid.

Government will swear to each one of us persoanlly that torture (RICO, Patriot Act) will never be used against us, only the really bad guys...

As to the crack head who carjacked the load of infants, why didn't some LEO with more than two neorons firing walk down to the evidence locker and grab up a pound or so of rock, then make a nice pile on the table in front of the perp?  I give his will power to be an ass about 10 seconds faced with that.

You all are falling into the old "Ends justify the means" arguments, unfortunately, no matter how it is argued, they never do.

As a political entity, we should never use torture. Individuals may use that as a tool. If their judgement is correct and information acquired by torture saves lives or costs the bag guys their lives, then they should be pardoned. If their judgment is faulty, then they should be prosecuted.

Since political entities such as nations, states, etc. have no physical manifestation, they are not subject to torture by conventional means. The torture of a political entity is usually called terrorism, which is the application of physical or mental force against its component members.

To condone torture while condemning terrorism is an example of intellectual and ethical defect.

To rule out any tool or tactic in defense of lives is stupidity.

It's a paradox that I truly hope I never have to face in real life.

Tachyon

I like the Dirty Harry method. .44 mag to the leg and step on the wound. "Where's the girl? Where's the girl, maggot?"

Its too bad the the LtCol didn't have some coalition forces from the Jordanian or Turkish special police with him.  He could have let them have some "quality" time with the prisoner.  They are extremely proficient at getting fellow muslims to become extemely talkative.

The discussion in this thread got me to thinking.  How about creating a "torture warrant."  In order to obtain the warrant, the government would have to establish "by clear and convincing evidence" that the individual to be tortured:

1. Has information that can prevent the imminent death of another.

2. Is at least partially responsible for the imminent threat of death.

3. The information cannot reasonably be obtained by other means in time to prevent the death.

The individual named in the warrant will have "use immunity" from any information obtained under torture.  The existence of the torture warrant will have to be made public within thirty days of its issuance.  This would help to prevent its misuse and give the individual a degree of due process.

I'm not advocating for or against this.  I'm just curious as to what you guys think.

I disagree.  Apparently, you are assuming that I would condone torture for any crime against the state or our citizens.  Not true.  You opened the bandwidth wide where I was focused on terrormism and the threat of a WMD.  Further, I have a problem with your drug analogy since I personally consider illicit drug usage to be, at least at the outset, totally an issue of choice by the user.  We provide the market...the drug industry merely provides for our needs and wants.

Here is my scenario where I would condone torture:  A team of terrorists has successfully smuggled a nuclear weapon into the United States.  We are in possession of very good information that this is a fact, but we are unable to locate the weapon because the trail was too cold when we found out about it.  The weapon is in a large cargo container that was last traced being offloaded onto a truck which promptly dissappeared shortly after it departed the terminal.  That was 72 hours ago, so the truck and its cargo could be in any corner of the country by now.

If detonated in an urban area, the DOE/DoD folks and NEST estimate that upwards of 500,000 people my die.

We just caught two terrorists on the team.  They had irrefutable evidence of their complicity in the consiracy to commit this hideous crime, including clear and unambiguous evidence that they have knowledge of the target, the type of bomb, the IDs of the remaining terrorists, the projected path of the bomb carrying truck to it's destination, and when it is scheduled to go off.  These boys are tough, totally dedicated Al Qaeda terror boys with a strong desire to die for Allah.  NOTHING you or I can do is going to make them talk...at least in the short run.  The two are gloating in the interregation room that we have but 18 hours to find the truck...which we never will...then...BOOM!

Now...given what I say above is an accurate scenario...do you STILL say torture has NO place in our search for information?

Oh...I also think that private citizen or the state argument is moot here.  No private dude is going to make a difference here...only some very dedicated and tough people working for out government...you and me and all the rest of us.

Frankly, this is a no brainer for me.  I would most definitely use whatever methods and tools I had at my disposal to coerce info from the two terrorists.  I would get the informaiont I sought and they would be very miserable of they resisited.  Sorry...but I happen to believe that 500,000 Americans are far more important that two terrorists.

There will never be permission for torture, however useful it can be, because no one really wants terrorism to stop right now.

A war between Islamic and Western world is deeply desired by too many on both sides. Its clear from how the 2900 dead of the World Trade Center have been forgotten already buy so many Americans- and nearly all of the rest of the developed world- that a much larger incident is both inevetable and needed to enable a actual, perminent end to hostilities. Untill a half million or a million Americans die in a single incident the far left and the quivvering lasy masses of the middle will not accept the methods needed to bring about a end game.