It's not torture.

 

 

 

Yeah, please post a reason for your opinions or you'll end up with the reputation of Robert.

 

 

 

Anyway, you say torture is torture, but you still haven't proven to me that it's torture. There's no harm being done to the person it's happening to.

 

 

 

Because I say it's not, that's why. And, yes, that's a perfectly valid reason.

 

 

 

The problem with the "It's torture!" crowd is that, by following the logic that any physical, mental or emotional pain inflicted on someone solely to obtain information is torture, then any way used to glean information from someone which isn't, "Would you be so kind as to tell me what you know?" would have to be, by it's very definition, also torture. Ergo, there would be no legal was to find out what someone knows, as anything involving any means of coercion would have to be wrong and the CIA, FBI and pretty much ever intelligence agency would be out of a job.

 

 

 

*shrugs*

 

 

 

So, to avoid all of this, let's just say its not torture.

 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me how asking someone questions inflicts pain and lasting effects

 

 

 

I believe I said that the only thing which couldn't be deemed torture to be asking someone to kindly tell you anything they know.

 

 

 

Of course, that has about a .0000000% chance of actually working, which is infinitely less than torture's success rate.

It's not torture.

 

 

 

Yeah, please post a reason for your opinions or you'll end up with the reputation of Robert.

 

 

 

Anyway, you say torture is torture, but you still haven't proven to me that it's torture. There's no harm being done to the person it's happening to.

 

 

 

Because I say it's not, that's why. And, yes, that's a perfectly valid reason.

 

 

 

The problem with the "It's torture!" crowd is that, by following the logic that any physical, mental or emotional pain inflicted on someone solely to obtain information is torture, then any way used to glean information from someone which isn't, "Would you be so kind as to tell me what you know?" would have to be, by it's very definition, also torture. Ergo, there would be no legal was to find out what someone knows, as anything involving any means of coercion would have to be wrong and the CIA, FBI and pretty much ever intelligence agency would be out of a job.

 

 

 

*shrugs*

 

 

 

So, to avoid all of this, let's just say its not torture.

 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me how asking someone questions inflicts pain and lasting effects

 

He's saying if all three of those things happen. Which would be wrong to say that's what torture is anyway. Did the Nazis want any information out of the Jews?

 

I believe I said that the only thing which couldn't be deemed torture to be asking someone to kindly tell you anything they know.

 

 

 

Of course, that has about a .0000000% chance of actually working, which is infinitely less than torture's success rate.

 

 

 

Misunderstood that. And no, switch those success rates around. We're almost 5 pages in and there hasn't been one source where torture actually worked, and rapport building IS effective. Did you by any chance read the thread?

This thread rocks :thumbup:

 

By all these posts, I'm starting to think inbetween my beliefs bout waterboardin'

Oh, and even more evidence for the anti torture side:

 

 

Abu Zusab al Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, became the U.S. militarys top immediate target, eclipsing Osama bin Laden. But the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, what Matthew Alexander, former Air Force interrogator, calls force on force techniques yielded nothing. In the wake of those failures, Alexander was deployed to Iraq as part of a handpicked team of interrogators, who employed non-coercive interrogation techniques and eventually broke the case.

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

In the event, part of International Security Studies ongoing Terrorism and Homeland Security Forum, Alexander stated emphatically that torture is both immoral and ineffective. Using rapport-building techniques, the success rate of getting people to cooperate rose from 20 percent to 70 to 80 percent.

 

 

 

 

 

Through a series of arrests and successful interrogations, employing rapport-building techniques rather than coercion, Alexander and his team were able to obtain the intelligence that led to the successful airstrike on Zarqawis safehouse in June 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

There is no scientific data that torture works faster and is more effective. Experience points to the exact opposite. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Alexander stated, became recruiting tools for Al Qaeda that directly led to the loss of U.S. lives in Iraq.

 

 

 

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?f ... _id=510315

 

 

 

Damn, what a low success rate for rapport building!

 

And torture of middle easterners led to more joining terrorist organizations?! No way!

I believe I said that the only thing which couldn't be deemed torture to be asking someone to kindly tell you anything they know.

 

 

 

Of course, that has about a .0000000% chance of actually working, which is infinitely less than torture's success rate.

 

 

 

Strawman much? Dear lord.

Because I say it's not, that's why. And, yes, that's a perfectly valid reason.

 

 

 

The problem with the "It's torture!" crowd is that, by following the logic that any physical, mental or emotional pain inflicted on someone solely to obtain information is torture, then any way used to glean information from someone which isn't, "Would you be so kind as to tell me what you know?" would have to be, by it's very definition, also torture. Ergo, there would be no legal was to find out what someone knows, as anything involving any means of coercion would have to be wrong and the CIA, FBI and pretty much ever intelligence agency would be out of a job.

 

 

 

*shrugs*

 

 

 

So, to avoid all of this, let's just say its not torture.

 

 

 

You're so full of it. It's like you have to build the biggest strawman to knock down in order to stay at all relevant.

 

 

 

It would be reassuring to think that somebody close to Obama had handed him a copy of a little-known book called Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi Spies. This was published by the British Public Record Office in 2000 and describes the workings of Latchmere House, an extraordinary British prison on Ham Common in the London suburb of Richmond, which housed as many as 400 of Hitler's operatives during World War II. Its commanding officer was a man named Col. Robin Stephens, and though he wore a monocle and presented every aspect of a frigid military martinet (and was known and feared by the nickname "Tin-Eye"), he was a dedicated advocate of the nonviolent approach to his long-term guests. To phrase it crisplyas he didhis view was and remained: "Violence is taboo, for not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information."

 

 

 

To give you some of the flavor of this prohibition, I ask you to consider the case of the German agent codenamed "TATE," who was parachuted into England in September 1940, at a time when almost all of continental Europe was under Hitler's control and when neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had entered the war against Germany.* Taken to Camp 020, TATE stubbornly maintained that he was a Danish refugee. An external interrogator unused to the rules of Ham Common was exasperated by this initial stubbornness and "followed TATE to his cell at the close of that first interrogation and, in flagrant violation of the Commandant's rigid rule that no physical violence should ever be used at Ham, struck the agent on the head. The incident led, on immediate representations by the Commandant, to the instant recall of [the offending officer] from the camp." One blow to the head at a time when undefended British cities were being blitzed every night, and the brute was out of there for good.

 

 

 

Nor is this all. TATE was then put to the inconvenience of intensive questioning, which included the distinct suggestion that he had been betrayed by a close Nazi friend. He ended up making a full confession, leading his captors to the place where he had concealed his transmitter, and then using it to send false intelligence back to Germany. The British wartime records conclude that "skilful direction of his activities and reports provided not only opportunity for deception of the enemy, but gained advance information leading to the detection of other agents and their neutralization."

 

 

 

The parallels here are not always as exact as one might like. Espionage agents were not protected by the Geneva Conventions, and the existence of the camp did not even have to be reported to the Red Cross (which of course in some ways makes the restraint more remarkable). But by the same token, espionage agents were not usually responsible for "ticking bomb" scenarios. Still, the need for timely information and intelligence was then a matter of national survival, and the temptation to cut corners must have been intense.

 

 

 

Spies, unlike prisoners of war, were liable to the death penalty, and the knowledge that they could be executed (only after a trial, of course) was sometimes used to break down recalcitrant Nazis. A grand total of 16 of Hitler's agents were actually sentenced to capital punishment during the course of the war, most of them at the end of a rope but one rather grandly shot in the Tower of London. Fourteen of the victims came from Camp 020, where the book records that there was a considerable debate among the officers over the usefulness of the death penalty. (A glance at some of the mug shots of the Hitlerites in these pages tempts one, no doubt quite irrationally, to wish there had been slightly less clemency.)

 

 

 

I noticed that one of the CIA torture memos mentioned the denial of solid food as a tactic against our prisoners. At Camp 020, not even this was used as a means of interrogation, but it was once employed to break a hunger strike organized by a certain Herr Krag, "a Nazi fanatic from Schleswig-Holstein." Participants in this camp revolt were "confined to their cells and provided with glucose and milk. Frustration set in within seventy-two hours." I think one could face the jury of world opinion with a reasonably clear conscience on that.

 

As Col. Stephens wrote, following the words quoted above about how "violence is taboo" and that it "lowers the standard of information":

 

There is no room for a percentage assessment of reliability. If information is correct, it is accepted and recorded; if it is doubtful, it should be rejected in toto.

 

 

 

In other words, it is precisely because the situation was so urgent, so desperate, and so grave that no amateurish or stupid methods could be permitted to taint the source. Col. Stephens, who was entirely devoted to breaking his prisoners and destroying the Nazis, eventually persuaded many important detainees to work for him and began to receive interested inquiries "from the FBI and the North West Mounted Police, from the Director of Security in India to the Resistance Movements of de Gaulle, the Belgians and the Dutch." It would be nice to think that even now, American intelligence might take a leaf from his ruthless and yet humane book.

 

 

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2217583/

 

 

 

You're so irrelevant on every issue; evolution, the age of the Universe, your obsession with zygotes at conception, and now torture. It's amazing how any Christian person could support torture, but it seems they're the biggest advocates; especially if the people being tortured are Muslims.

 

 

 

Go be waterboarded, Sly, and tell us it's not torture. Put your water where your mouth is.

Put your water where your mouth is.

 

 

 

That was a terrible joke

 

 

 

You're so irrelevant on every issue; evolution, the age of the Universe, your obsession with zygotes at conception, and now torture. It's amazing how any Christian person could support torture, but it seems they're the biggest advocates; especially if the people being tortured are Muslims.

 

 

 

That is odd, I find it equally amazing that the same people demanding abortion be legalized demand oppose torture because its an abuse of human rights to harm a person.

 

 

 

I always love your tactic of dismissing everyone elses opinion as wrong just because you say so, its refreshing after the slew of interesting debate that stirs intellectual discussion.

 

I always love your tactic of dismissing everyone elses opinion as wrong just because you say so, its refreshing after the slew of interesting debate that stirs intellectual discussion.

 

 

 

That's because on this topic it is wrong.

Magekillr, how often do you make posts that are your own thoughts?

 

I can't remember the last time I saw you make a post without 60% of it being a copy-pasted article.

Magekillr, how often do you make posts that are your own thoughts?

 

I can't remember the last time I saw you make a post without 60% of it being a copy-pasted article.

 

 

 

They do support his arguements however, so he is using his own thoughts, yet providing good evidence to support them.

I could produce identical results by searching "arguments in favor of torture" on Google.

Why don't you, instead of appearing as the idiot you do now.

 

 

 

Good luck finding a good source however.

You're unbelievably immature, do you know that? You think I'm an idiot because you don't agree with me.

You're unbelievably immature, do you know that? You think I'm an idiot because you don't agree with me.

 

 

 

Please post those results then, troll/flame baiter. Until you can I'm just going to ignore you rather then get roped into your flaming

Please post those results then, troll/flame baiter. Until you can I'm just going to ignore you rather then get roped into your flaming.

 

Please do so. It's much better to ignore someone rather to get stuck up in the flaming too. You too, Sworddude.

 

 

 

Although I concede, Robert (and Sly) could have seen this coming. I still have yet to see well backed arguments favouring torture.

Ask yourself this:

 

[hide=If you're squeamish, DO NOT open these hide tags.]If you were captured by an American agent and threatened to be tortured, what would you do? Well, let's say you try to hold out. Waterboarding can't be that bad if some idiot talk show host can manage it for six seconds, right? I mean, you're a trained member or Al-Qaeda's elite. You could do it for ages. Right? Wrong. Alright, that didn't go so well, did it? You gave them some false information. You're in trouble now aren't you? Because the Americans come back, having checked up on this information, and have realized that you were lying. Great. What will they do now? The interrogator takes out a knife and says "Buddy, you're going to tell me the truth right now or I am cutting off one of your testicles." (Kudos to whoever figures out what book this is from). What now? Well, obviously you don't want that to happen, right? But you can't tell them the truth... So you lie. "Live a lie" Well, what do the Americans do? They go and check up on it. An hour or two later, and you're missing something that's kind of important and you're in some VERY serious pain. So now the American asks you again: "Want that to happen again? Lie to me. Want to avoid it? Tell me the truth."[/hide]

 

Do you honestly think there is anyone alive who can withstand torture completely? I can tell you there isn't. The CIA instructs their operatives that if they are captured by a terrorist group not to attempt to withstand the torture, because it's impossible. They instead ask that the agent merely stall. The terrorists can stall all they like, but eventually, they, like everyone else, will crack.

Thats completely from the point.

 

 

 

We're asking for arguements which support torture. Quite frankly, I could torture you, and by the end, you'd be willing to do, and say anything just to get it to stop.

 

 

 

Torture gets people to confess to what you want them to say, not to the truth.

Ask yourself this:

 

[hide=If you're squeamish, DO NOT open these hide tags.]If you were captured by an American agent and threatened to be tortured, what would you do? Well, let's say you try to hold out. Waterboarding can't be that bad if some idiot talk show host can manage it for six seconds, right? I mean, you're a trained member or Al-Qaeda's elite. You could do it for ages. Right? Wrong. Alright, that didn't go so well, did it? You gave them some false information. You're in trouble now aren't you? Because the Americans come back, having checked up on this information, and have realized that you were lying. Great. What will they do now? The interrogator takes out a knife and says "Buddy, you're going to tell me the truth right now or I am cutting off one of your testicles." (Kudos to whoever figures out what book this is from). What now? Well, obviously you don't want that to happen, right? But you can't tell them the truth... So you lie. "Live a lie" Well, what do the Americans do? They go and check up on it. An hour or two later, and you're missing something that's kind of important and you're in some VERY serious pain. So now the American asks you again: "Want that to happen again? Lie to me. Want to avoid it? Tell me the truth."[/hide]

 

Do you honestly think there is anyone alive who can withstand torture completely? I can tell you there isn't. The CIA instructs their operatives that if they are captured by a terrorist group not to attempt to withstand the torture, because it's impossible. They instead ask that the agent merely stall. The terrorists can stall all they like, but eventually, they, like everyone else, will crack.

 

 

 

 

 

Close to 6 pages and still no evidence what so ever. Also, source to something that states Americans cut off body parts as a part of torture, and that they do it regularly. You are a horrible troll

Ask yourself this:

 

[hide=If you're squeamish, DO NOT open these hide tags.]If you were captured by an American agent and threatened to be tortured, what would you do? Well, let's say you try to hold out. Waterboarding can't be that bad if some idiot talk show host can manage it for six seconds, right? I mean, you're a trained member or Al-Qaeda's elite. You could do it for ages. Right? Wrong. Alright, that didn't go so well, did it? You gave them some false information. You're in trouble now aren't you? Because the Americans come back, having checked up on this information, and have realized that you were lying. Great. What will they do now? The interrogator takes out a knife and says "Buddy, you're going to tell me the truth right now or I am cutting off one of your testicles." (Kudos to whoever figures out what book this is from). What now? Well, obviously you don't want that to happen, right? But you can't tell them the truth... So you lie. "Live a lie" Well, what do the Americans do? They go and check up on it. An hour or two later, and you're missing something that's kind of important and you're in some VERY serious pain. So now the American asks you again: "Want that to happen again? Lie to me. Want to avoid it? Tell me the truth."[/hide]

 

Do you honestly think there is anyone alive who can withstand torture completely? I can tell you there isn't. The CIA instructs their operatives that if they are captured by a terrorist group not to attempt to withstand the torture, because it's impossible. They instead ask that the agent merely stall. The terrorists can stall all they like, but eventually, they, like everyone else, will crack.

 

 

 

Yes, thats what we need. We should become more evil then the terrorists because as long as we get results the means dont matter. Why bother with human rights or even considering the ethics of a situation when we can be assured of results. Why dont you wake up and realize were in a civilized society already, your totalitarian bs is way past the expiration date.

Waterboarding is no big dea---mmmmfgh... gobgobuchghcntichgnclsjgughghughthchghg.

Ask yourself this:

 

[hide=If you're squeamish, DO NOT open these hide tags.]If you were captured by an American agent and threatened to be tortured, what would you do? Well, let's say you try to hold out. Waterboarding can't be that bad if some idiot talk show host can manage it for six seconds, right? I mean, you're a trained member or Al-Qaeda's elite. You could do it for ages. Right? Wrong. Alright, that didn't go so well, did it? You gave them some false information. You're in trouble now aren't you? Because the Americans come back, having checked up on this information, and have realized that you were lying. Great. What will they do now? The interrogator takes out a knife and says "Buddy, you're going to tell me the truth right now or I am cutting off one of your testicles." (Kudos to whoever figures out what book this is from). What now? Well, obviously you don't want that to happen, right? But you can't tell them the truth... So you lie. "Live a lie" Well, what do the Americans do? They go and check up on it. An hour or two later, and you're missing something that's kind of important and you're in some VERY serious pain. So now the American asks you again: "Want that to happen again? Lie to me. Want to avoid it? Tell me the truth."[/hide]

 

Do you honestly think there is anyone alive who can withstand torture completely? I can tell you there isn't. The CIA instructs their operatives that if they are captured by a terrorist group not to attempt to withstand the torture, because it's impossible. They instead ask that the agent merely stall. The terrorists can stall all they like, but eventually, they, like everyone else, will crack.

 

 

 

Yes, thats what we need. We should become more evil then the terrorists because as long as we get results the means dont matter. Why bother with human rights or even considering the ethics of a situation when we can be assured of results. Why dont you wake up and realize were in a civilized society already, your totalitarian bs is way past the expiration date.

 

Humans will never live in a civilized society because they are just like the animals around them. Humans haven't changed at all. Killing each other with a rock, killing each other with a sword, killing each other with a gun, it's all the same.

Ask yourself this:

 

[hide=If you're squeamish, DO NOT open these hide tags.]If you were captured by an American agent and threatened to be tortured, what would you do? Well, let's say you try to hold out. Waterboarding can't be that bad if some idiot talk show host can manage it for six seconds, right? I mean, you're a trained member or Al-Qaeda's elite. You could do it for ages. Right? Wrong. Alright, that didn't go so well, did it? You gave them some false information. You're in trouble now aren't you? Because the Americans come back, having checked up on this information, and have realized that you were lying. Great. What will they do now? The interrogator takes out a knife and says "Buddy, you're going to tell me the truth right now or I am cutting off one of your testicles." (Kudos to whoever figures out what book this is from). What now? Well, obviously you don't want that to happen, right? But you can't tell them the truth... So you lie. "Live a lie" Well, what do the Americans do? They go and check up on it. An hour or two later, and you're missing something that's kind of important and you're in some VERY serious pain. So now the American asks you again: "Want that to happen again? Lie to me. Want to avoid it? Tell me the truth."[/hide]

 

Do you honestly think there is anyone alive who can withstand torture completely? I can tell you there isn't. The CIA instructs their operatives that if they are captured by a terrorist group not to attempt to withstand the torture, because it's impossible. They instead ask that the agent merely stall. The terrorists can stall all they like, but eventually, they, like everyone else, will crack.

 

 

 

Yes, thats what we need. We should become more evil then the terrorists because as long as we get results the means dont matter. Why bother with human rights or even considering the ethics of a situation when we can be assured of results. Why dont you wake up and realize were in a civilized society already, your totalitarian bs is way past the expiration date.

 

I ask lefties that question every day.

 

 

 

Waterboarding is no big dea---mmmmfgh... gobgobuchghcntichgnclsjgughghughthchghg.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Robert, there is nothing wrong with posting articles to prove your point. In fact, I like it when someone posts factual evidence rather than just stating their opinion.

 

 

 

I am a conservative by nature and a lot of your posts I agree with. What I don't understand is why you have to be so angry about stuff. People have opinions, and yes, debate is healthy, but insults don't help healthy debate. I'm sure the angry insults and flame baiting don't help people to change their mind or at least accept your point of view.

Good that another person sees that it's torture. Ridiculous for people to think it's not.

 

 

 

Erm, it's not torture. It produces the feeling of torture, which sucks for the person being tortured,but really if the government is doing it it's for a damn good reason, and besides, there's no risk.

 

 

 

Still, good to see this guy actually went and did it instead of just being an armchair politician.

 

 

 

Wait.. wait..

 

 

 

if the government is doing it it's for a damn good reason,

 

 

 

Possibly the most worrying thing I've ever heard.