I suggest we give Dayton3 a waterboarding session, and leave him at it for, oh dunno, say 30 minutes? Than let him revoice his opinion again.
If they are really terrorists... Nah, in respect of his disrespect, we give him the ole' Gestapo treatment. First, as a warmup, we pull out his fingernails. All of them. Any screams or promises of giving up any kind of information, will be ignored. Than the real work starts.
:wtf: which part of sleep depravation and psychological torture both causing permenant psychological damage, both discussed in this very thread whizzed past you eh?
you think that everybody arrested, detained and 'interrogated' for terrorism are in fact terrorists? shall we quote percentages at each other - say for Guantanamo?
No KGB-style treatment with the insitutionalization and all the free lobomaties and electro-shock a person could want?
Only tangentially related to this topic, I was reading an article in Time this morning at the dentist's office about how Saudi Arabia (or maybe it was Jordan, I forget) was reforming Al-Quada supporters- rather than torture them, they put them up at a relatively large estate outside the capitol, let them play pingpong and chess and whatever, basically they can do what they like, but they bring in Islamic theology scholars to talk with them and to attempt to explain to them how what they're doing is really unislamic. Apparently, from the article, it works like a charm and a bunch of other places are coming over to study it to see how they can implement their own version. When the reformed supporters leave, they're given a little bit of money to settle down with, and if they get married they're given a little more (apparently statistics show that married men are less likely to be swayed to extremism) and that's that.
You know I want to believe that, but the back of my mind is saying "let me guess all the sources that this is working are coming from the Sauds. " Do you remember what magazine it was in?
Yeah, Time. I said so in the first sentence. Edit: Found the article. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673270,00.html
You know I totally missed that part and just read Dentist office, that should have been enough to narrow it down to the three. EDIT: I still stand by the rest of my post.
If you ask me, torture (any kind of torture) is acceptable only when 2 of the following conditions are fulfilled: 1. The target is a confirmed terrorist 2. The torture will result in helpful information When people actually in the business of interrogating bad guys say that pulling out fingernails or electroshocking peoples balls produce bad intel, I'm inclined to believe them. However, when the CIA says that tactics like sleep deprivation or playing loud music can weaken suspects' mental defenses and resolve, I'm inclined to believe that, too. I can't say I support the (simulated) drowning of a random Canadian guy we bagged at the airport. But a jihadi leader nabbed in Afghanistan? Fill the water bucket, sharpen the bamboo rods, and fire up 'ol sparky!
While the US undoubtedly attempts to minimize it, they're not exactly 'accidentally' bombing civilians either.
Saddly I'd be more shocked and horrified if I didn't already know that this is how "surgical strikes" are conducted. Seriously. }p
Not having the protection/membership of a state sure as hell don't mean that state have any right to harm or punish me, it means that state have the right to deny me services. As for criminals the state claims the right to detain and isolate them so their actions can not harm the state or its citisens while they are hopefully being reformed/treated/helped. waterboarding is very clearly torture, and so is sleep deprivation, and using it leads to many many bad things with minimal positive results. Another example of its effects are a record attempt made by a radio person I do not remember right now. Afterwards he was a changed man, the kindness he had had before seemed gone, and he in time lost everything including his wife. Not exactly scientific, but there are plenty of that to prove that sleep deprivation is a really bad thing. Sure I would be ok with keeping someone awake for a day or so to make them tired and their mind a bit less alert for questioning, but that is a bit dangerous, for can you trust your interrogators not to take it too far?
The topic of torture is always good for revealing the abject moral catastrophes. Optimus declaring that half the board aren't people, Es Arkajae defining moral theory in terms of invisible lines on the map, and Dayton3 declaring that hooking electrodes up to someone's pain receptors and letting the coulombs fly is merely 'discomfort'? It's like Christmas, Easter and my birthday all came at once!
A veritable barometer of public humanism. Of course anyone who thought Es had measurably more milk of human kindness than a Rand-reading rock is delusional anyhow.
As long as you inflicted no permanent physical injury to me and you were an agent of our country authorized to take such action.
Bullshit. Torture is nothing more then vengeance. You do not get reliable information from people through torture. Torture has nothing to do with justice. And torture is counter productive to rehabilitation. Meaning torture is vengeance pure and simple. It has no redeeming quality. Causing significant harm to somehow is not justifiable.
