I get the point. You're right, it's wrong. But if someone were making bombs on my street and putting me and my loved ones lives at risk. I would want to know where those bombs were at any cost. McCain spilled the beans after being tortured. But I would spill'em too if they threatened to take my feather pillow away from me and replace it with a foam pillow. By the way.......... torture does work. I couldn't and wouldn't inflict pain on any human being. I don't know how or where "torture doesn't work" started? People say it doesn't work and in some cases they are right. But it does work, no matter what anyone says. Most people don't believe strongly enough about anything to endure pain or deat...

I get the point. You're right, it's wrong. But if someone were making bombs on my street and putting me and my loved ones lives at risk. I would want to know where those bombs were at any cost. McCain spilled the beans after being tortured. But I would spill'em too if they threatened to take my feather pillow away from me and replace it with a foam pillow. By the way.......... torture does work. I couldn't and wouldn't inflict pain on any human being. I don't know how or where "torture doesn't work" started? People say it doesn't work and in some cases they are right. But it does work, no matter what anyone says. Most people don't believe strongly enough about anything to endure pain or death because of it. It's a fact. A hard cold one but a fact nontheless.

@googleit
Please. This is your argument for torture? It is both naive and poorly thought out. This may work on the school yard but not in the world at large.

@tabsey
I don't have that info off the top of my head but I seem to recall that in certain areas Catholicism may be increasing, mostly rural and economically depressed regions. The most prolific seem to be Evangelicals. Again, I believe the biggest increases appear to be in the parts of the world with the widest disparity between the haves and the have nots. Throw in illiteracy and poverty and religion appears to be a good fit.

Another important point to keep in mind is that I'm not sure of the scope of the survey, whether it was co...

@googleit
Please. This is your argument for torture? It is both naive and poorly thought out. This may work on the school yard but not in the world at large.

@tabsey
I don't have that info off the top of my head but I seem to recall that in certain areas Catholicism may be increasing, mostly rural and economically depressed regions. The most prolific seem to be Evangelicals. Again, I believe the biggest increases appear to be in the parts of the world with the widest disparity between the haves and the have nots. Throw in illiteracy and poverty and religion appears to be a good fit.

Another important point to keep in mind is that I'm not sure of the scope of the survey, whether it was conducted only in the US, which I suspect, or had a larger sweep.

human nature is what it is at any age.

While it is evident that many adults do behave at times in a juvenile manner I think that broad proclamations that that's just the way human nature is are pointless and indefensible.

The fact remains is that while you may talk a blue streak when tortured the information you pass on has more to do with what you believe the torturer wants to hear so the torture will stop. Useful interrogation deals with establishing rapport.

A point could be used to say that torture is a worthwhile tool to use to bolster propaganda, to get people to make false claims for political advantage. There exists a long history of this tactic used in that regar...

human nature is what it is at any age.

While it is evident that many adults do behave at times in a juvenile manner I think that broad proclamations that that's just the way human nature is are pointless and indefensible.

The fact remains is that while you may talk a blue streak when tortured the information you pass on has more to do with what you believe the torturer wants to hear so the torture will stop. Useful interrogation deals with establishing rapport.

A point could be used to say that torture is a worthwhile tool to use to bolster propaganda, to get people to make false claims for political advantage. There exists a long history of this tactic used in that regard.

Someone wiser than I remarked that a society is judged by how it treats its least.

@googleit
Evidently you're adamant on defending your position regardless of the reality of the situation. It is true that people talk during torture. Is their major concern to give accurate, usable information? No. Their major concern is for the torture to stop and they'll say anything to accomplish that goal.

Establishing a human connection between interrogators and suspects is well established as an effective means to elicit useful information.

I'd suggest that you rethink your "24" mindset and examine the realities of the real world.

As for torture being used for a long time this is hardly an argument for the effectiveness of it being useful in getting solid information. Many ideas ...

@googleit
Evidently you're adamant on defending your position regardless of the reality of the situation. It is true that people talk during torture. Is their major concern to give accurate, usable information? No. Their major concern is for the torture to stop and they'll say anything to accomplish that goal.

Establishing a human connection between interrogators and suspects is well established as an effective means to elicit useful information.

I'd suggest that you rethink your "24" mindset and examine the realities of the real world.

As for torture being used for a long time this is hardly an argument for the effectiveness of it being useful in getting solid information. Many ideas have been around for a long time - the inferiority of certain classes of people, the belief that the world was flat, the idea that "ill humors" caused disease. The longevity of ideas is one of the poorer reasons to support a particular position.

During the heyday of torture it mostly was used to obtain confessions. Admissions of spying, heresy, and involvement with subversive organizations being commonplace. Truth was not a criteria. Getting people to say what was politically expedient to your own particular dogma was the reason.

But I can see that nothing is going to change your mind. You think it works because it causes people to talk. It doesn't seem to make any difference to you what is said.

@googleit
As I said before, it's evident that you're interested in making your case by inventing hypothetical situations that you believe justify torture. What doesn't appear to be evident is the empirical evidence that shows that in the real world, not just in your imagination, that torture doesn't work.

I am not an expert on the subject of torture. I do know that anecdotes and an individual's imagination are irrelevant when it comes to the rational of using torture to obtain usable information. It may satisfy one's appetite for revenge, for sadism, or for the primitive need for an "an eye for an eye". As a sad commentary on the cruelty of man it offers a disappointing view of how we are ...

@googleit
As I said before, it's evident that you're interested in making your case by inventing hypothetical situations that you believe justify torture. What doesn't appear to be evident is the empirical evidence that shows that in the real world, not just in your imagination, that torture doesn't work.

I am not an expert on the subject of torture. I do know that anecdotes and an individual's imagination are irrelevant when it comes to the rational of using torture to obtain usable information. It may satisfy one's appetite for revenge, for sadism, or for the primitive need for an "an eye for an eye". As a sad commentary on the cruelty of man it offers a disappointing view of how we are all too eager to control and coerce as opposed to understand and empathize. That the issue stirs such conversation I view as encouraging. That there are still many that regardless of evidence still wish to cling to the belief that it somehow works for the betterment of society is sad. But maybe one day we can grow beyond this tooth and claw mentality and begin to see our fellow humans as just that, fellow humans.

Remember, it does reflect on a society how we treat the poorest and the incarcerated. Objectifying and treating them as less than human tells more about the torturer than it does about the victim. It's not about finding out the truth but about exerting power.

Oh torture works, but not to get real intelligence. The key to real intelligence work is to create a steady stream of actionable information, torture cuts that off as someone who has being torture will not cooperate with you in the future, thus denying a valuable double agent. You can't set them loose (or at least in a leach of sorts, a.e. a controller) and have them give you fresh infomation.

You want to create a picture from multiple sources too, again hard to do if you can not build rapport with multiple subjects. There is also the matter of what questions you ask. Under torture the prisoner will try to answer whatever he thinks will please his captors, regardless of the truth. So if the...

Oh torture works, but not to get real intelligence. The key to real intelligence work is to create a steady stream of actionable information, torture cuts that off as someone who has being torture will not cooperate with you in the future, thus denying a valuable double agent. You can't set them loose (or at least in a leach of sorts, a.e. a controller) and have them give you fresh infomation.

You want to create a picture from multiple sources too, again hard to do if you can not build rapport with multiple subjects. There is also the matter of what questions you ask. Under torture the prisoner will try to answer whatever he thinks will please his captors, regardless of the truth. So if the captors are asking the wrong questions then they are going to get the wrong answers. Conventional interrogation techniques allow you to explore the length and breath of the subject's knowledge and the subject tends to clue in the interrogator on stuff he may not even know was known by the subject.

That again if you torture, do not expect the subject to be so forth coming, they will not take any risks and will keep their information strictly to what the torturer asks them.

What torture is really good at is instilling fear on the subject and the population at large. And getting people to say things that are false. That is what the Chinese Communist in Korea and the North Vietnamese really wanted, confessions to war crimes that the could then use as propaganda tools.

I don't know how old you are, ratilfar, but I came of age at the end of the Vietnam War era (the year they stopped drafting but were still picking lottery numbers my birthday came up #5), and all the war news was a strong influence on me and my peers.

One thing I do remember from that time is that all of the "confessions" that were signed by US POWs and publicized by the North Vietnamese government all attacked the US and were utterly discredited as false by the US government and press at all levels. The Korean War was the same.

It makes you wonder why anyone could have expected those same techniques to work now when they were so debunked through two wars as ineffective.

I have also been...

I don't know how old you are, ratilfar, but I came of age at the end of the Vietnam War era (the year they stopped drafting but were still picking lottery numbers my birthday came up #5), and all the war news was a strong influence on me and my peers.

One thing I do remember from that time is that all of the "confessions" that were signed by US POWs and publicized by the North Vietnamese government all attacked the US and were utterly discredited as false by the US government and press at all levels. The Korean War was the same.

It makes you wonder why anyone could have expected those same techniques to work now when they were so debunked through two wars as ineffective.

I have also been reading in the press (I'll post references if I run across them again) that the people in the US military who knew the most about coercive interrogation - the people who trained Americans to resist - refused to participate in the torture programs, leaving the job in the hands of amateurs.

The point is a googleit, that is there were in my street and my family was at risk during a home invasion, the law still says that they have to be captured alive and tried. There are no special considerations for you.

The law does not bend and what applies to this imaginary situation of home invasion applies to a threat at any level. Or then, we have to accept chaos and case by case special considerations.

Torture is wrong is wrong... Based purely in moral precepts, unless we one become real and accept that we can torture and will torture at will, which will put your right and mine to humane interrogation and a fair trial at in jeopardy. Remember, history ha sproved that the law is a...

The point is a googleit, that is there were in my street and my family was at risk during a home invasion, the law still says that they have to be captured alive and tried. There are no special considerations for you.

The law does not bend and what applies to this imaginary situation of home invasion applies to a threat at any level. Or then, we have to accept chaos and case by case special considerations.

Torture is wrong is wrong... Based purely in moral precepts, unless we one become real and accept that we can torture and will torture at will, which will put your right and mine to humane interrogation and a fair trial at in jeopardy. Remember, history ha sproved that the law is always serving the rich and powerful, the ones who can hire well paid lawyers, not the power and powerless citizen.So this policy would most likely be used at will by the powerful against the weak. The newcomer, the minority, the ignorant, the powerless. And maybe you if you are not liked by law enforncement or do not comfort to what is expected of you. No liberty of any kind here for you and me.

well the whole thing started with "do christians believe in torture?" There's a graph and everything to prove they do. So it must be true. Then we got off on "does torture work?" I say it does. Morally and socially wrong... it works. Are the police going to torture me for some reason in the near future? Well they won't have to because I will spill it before they begin the torture. That is my grounds for "torture works." I have yet another question. Why is it that this post has seen 140 views and has almost 40 comments since yesterday. I made 3 posts early this morning titled "DOES TORTURE WORK? I have no comments and 12 views. Whats that all about? I think ATLliberal has some kind of scheme ...

well the whole thing started with "do christians believe in torture?" There's a graph and everything to prove they do. So it must be true. Then we got off on "does torture work?" I say it does. Morally and socially wrong... it works. Are the police going to torture me for some reason in the near future? Well they won't have to because I will spill it before they begin the torture. That is my grounds for "torture works." I have yet another question. Why is it that this post has seen 140 views and has almost 40 comments since yesterday. I made 3 posts early this morning titled "DOES TORTURE WORK? I have no comments and 12 views. Whats that all about? I think ATLliberal has some kind of scheme going here. He's stopping clippers from seeing my posts. Watch him folks he's up to something. Something liberal I'm sure.

I will spill it before they begin the torture.

What happens when the people torturing you are convinced that you know something that you don't? They pull out the pliers and ask you questions like, "Why were you in East Moose Jaw, Ontario on the day before a bomb exploded on the road from Mosul to Arbil?"

Of course, you've never been to East Moose Jaw, but that doesn't make any difference. They'll keep after you until you tell them what you think they want to hear - and, of course, it will be WRONG. The next thing they'll ask you is why you gave large sums of money to Ali Mehabbah bin Aram, somebody you've never heard of, and again, you'll make something up to stop the pai...

I will spill it before they begin the torture.

What happens when the people torturing you are convinced that you know something that you don't? They pull out the pliers and ask you questions like, "Why were you in East Moose Jaw, Ontario on the day before a bomb exploded on the road from Mosul to Arbil?"

Of course, you've never been to East Moose Jaw, but that doesn't make any difference. They'll keep after you until you tell them what you think they want to hear - and, of course, it will be WRONG. The next thing they'll ask you is why you gave large sums of money to Ali Mehabbah bin Aram, somebody you've never heard of, and again, you'll make something up to stop the pain. Then they'll go on to "When did you stop beating your wife?"

THAT is why your notion of torture is wrong. It's not because it doesn't elicit information; it's no guarantee of eliciting correct information. Over the centuries, people have wrongly confessed to assorted herecies and atrocities, to having sex with Satan and other imaginary beings, all in the name of getting the pain to stop. The only thing satisfied is the twisted and monstrous notion of justice that exists in the minds of the people involved all up and down the line.

Lets say you really didn't want to be a part of hiding it but it was
your job as a soldier. Then someone proceeds to torture you to the
point of death, to find out where it is. Would you tell?

Let's say you knew something was hidden but you weren't high enough on the food chain to know what or where or why. You're a grunt. Your only weapons use is shouldering a rifle while doing gate guard duty. The enemy attacks, you're captured, and they're convinced, utterly convinced, that you do know the what and why and who and how and when and where. You'll say anything to make them stop, but they keep going because they don't believe you don't know. You'll tell them about the secre...

Lets say you really didn't want to be a part of hiding it but it was
your job as a soldier. Then someone proceeds to torture you to the
point of death, to find out where it is. Would you tell?

Let's say you knew something was hidden but you weren't high enough on the food chain to know what or where or why. You're a grunt. Your only weapons use is shouldering a rifle while doing gate guard duty. The enemy attacks, you're captured, and they're convinced, utterly convinced, that you do know the what and why and who and how and when and where. You'll say anything to make them stop, but they keep going because they don't believe you don't know. You'll tell them about the secret nuclear missile base on Planet Arous. You'll tell them that Osama Bin Laden was behind the shootings of JFK and RFK (at the ages of 6, and 11, respectively) and none of it's going to be worth a pile of crap.

Back home, the torturer's superiors will crow about all the vluable information they got from you and how safe it kept the country. Then they'll try to figure out how to invade Planet Arous.

Jorjor, your example of the grunt caught in battle who is believed to hold detailed information by the enemy should be the clincher for arguments against torture but something tells me it won't be. Maybe it's because many people make the assumption that anyone affiliated with the "enemy" is privy to their most top secret information and therefore poses a particular threat that must be eliminated at "any cost". We've seen how easy it was to get people to abandon their own right to privacy by just the hint of threatening them with injury by supposed terrorists.

It's difficult for some to imagine the mindset of another. Even more difficult, I guess, to imagine the mindset of a radical, driven...

Jorjor, your example of the grunt caught in battle who is believed to hold detailed information by the enemy should be the clincher for arguments against torture but something tells me it won't be. Maybe it's because many people make the assumption that anyone affiliated with the "enemy" is privy to their most top secret information and therefore poses a particular threat that must be eliminated at "any cost". We've seen how easy it was to get people to abandon their own right to privacy by just the hint of threatening them with injury by supposed terrorists.

It's difficult for some to imagine the mindset of another. Even more difficult, I guess, to imagine the mindset of a radical, driven by fanatical dogma and fully convinced that a better life awaits him in the afterlife. Some people then envision themselves in this person's position and using their own, perhaps calmer demeanor, come to the conclusion that they'd easily succumb to torture. Fear drives their conclusion and any thought of a different outcome seems ridiculous. You can pose all sorts of scenarios but it doesn't matter because they are incapable of not viewing this from anyone's perspective but their own.

Also, there is the lure of retribution that hasn't been touched on. We capture a member of the enemy tribe and they become representative of the face of evil. So, by proxy, we feel justified, and perhaps even noble, to be able to forgo viewing this person as an individual and he becomes a token that represents all the attributes we ascribe to the enemy. We are not torturing an individual but an idea.

Of course, this is just conjecture on my part and I have no way to know what the inner thinking is of people who endorse the usefulness of torture might be. But perhaps it might plant a seed of thought for some to think about.

That was just an iteration of the East Moose Jaw example, but with a military context. But it's not only the grunt on the battlefield. As we've seen, the Busheviks were eager to find enemies at home as well (is it only a mere mistake that Senator Ted Kennedy was on the no-fly list?). We heard things like "If you're not with us, you're against us" for seven years.

So we have an administration that's willing to torture its enemies and also willing to declare members of its own citizenry enemies as well. How far is that from using torture against its own people - [url=http://www.ask.com/bar?q=us+sheriff+prosecuted+for+waterboarding&page=1&qsrc=145&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthout.org%2F042...

That was just an iteration of the East Moose Jaw example, but with a military context. But it's not only the grunt on the battlefield. As we've seen, the Busheviks were eager to find enemies at home as well (is it only a mere mistake that Senator Ted Kennedy was on the no-fly list?). We heard things like "If you're not with us, you're against us" for seven years.

So we have an administration that's willing to torture its enemies and also willing to declare members of its own citizenry enemies as well. How far is that from using torture against its own people - something for which a Texas sheriff, James Parker, was tried, convicted and sentenced in the Reagan administration.?

This may be only a dramatization, but it could easily have happened.

The difference that I believe a lot of people miss is that of information vs confession. Sure you can get just about anyone to confess to anything. But when you extract information it is something that can then be verified or disproved. In a situation where you are looking for a confession torture is unreliable because most people will confess to anything to get the guy with the vice grips to stop pulling out your fingernails. However information is another story. If you extract information via torture then that information is found to be false the guy with the vice grips is going to come back so lying doesn't stop the pain as in a confession.

The whole thing is based on figuring out if the...

The difference that I believe a lot of people miss is that of information vs confession. Sure you can get just about anyone to confess to anything. But when you extract information it is something that can then be verified or disproved. In a situation where you are looking for a confession torture is unreliable because most people will confess to anything to get the guy with the vice grips to stop pulling out your fingernails. However information is another story. If you extract information via torture then that information is found to be false the guy with the vice grips is going to come back so lying doesn't stop the pain as in a confession.

The whole thing is based on figuring out if the people are telling you the truth. You start out by asking questions you already know the answers to but that you are fairly certain that they don't know that you know the answers to. When the person lies to you and you know its a lie you punish them, then you give them another chance. Its basic, you convince them through repeatedly catching them in lies that you already know EVERYTHING they are going to tell you and if they lie you will know and they will pay. Then you start slipping in the questions you don't know the answer to along side questions you do know the answer to and hopefully they will answer them all truthfully because they don't know whether you know the info or not. Its not just blindly ripping out fingernails hoping that you will get some intel out of it, there is a method.

I never commented on the morality, only the method. Lots of things are morally wrong but that doesn't stop people from doing them all the time. Hell I would shoot any random person on the planet in the face if I though it would save the life of my wife or children, is that morally right? Of course not, but it doesn't change the fact that if presented with the situation I would do it, as would most people. That is the issue that the armed forces deal with every day, do you shoot the terrorist in the face and be labeled a monster or do you allow them to continue and be blamed for not protecting your country if they attack.

I will bet anything that if in the future just one of those people fr...

I never commented on the morality, only the method. Lots of things are morally wrong but that doesn't stop people from doing them all the time. Hell I would shoot any random person on the planet in the face if I though it would save the life of my wife or children, is that morally right? Of course not, but it doesn't change the fact that if presented with the situation I would do it, as would most people. That is the issue that the armed forces deal with every day, do you shoot the terrorist in the face and be labeled a monster or do you allow them to continue and be blamed for not protecting your country if they attack.

I will bet anything that if in the future just one of those people from gitmo turns out to be responsible for some major atrocity in the US then the whole country will be pissed because we let them go or didn't interrogate them hard enough.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the people of this country have very short memories and are very wishy washy when it comes to the protection of our county and what is necessary to maintain our safety.

And yes, torture is very much about how clever the torturer is, thinking otherwise is retarded. The key is to inflict just enough pain (physically or mentally) to get good reliable information w/o destroying the person's will to live. Self preservation is a VERY strong instinct. Thats why they used water boarding, it is a very intense mental torture, you might think you are going to die but as soon as they stop you are physically just fine, no long term effects, but you damn sure don't want them to do it again.

That is the issue that the armed forces deal with every day

Well, actually it seems to me that you're engaging in a false analogy here. The soldier's situation has little to do with the hypothetical scenario you presented.

the whole country will be pissed because we let them go

So? Your solution is to abandon our core principles for a hypothetical situation? I simply can't go along with that. Life is dangerous. That's a given. We can't foresee every outcome. That is not a rationale to forget what real freedom means. I, for one, will refuse to be led around by fear. Make no mistake, fear was used quite blatantly by the previous administration to justify all m...

That is the issue that the armed forces deal with every day

Well, actually it seems to me that you're engaging in a false analogy here. The soldier's situation has little to do with the hypothetical scenario you presented.

the whole country will be pissed because we let them go

So? Your solution is to abandon our core principles for a hypothetical situation? I simply can't go along with that. Life is dangerous. That's a given. We can't foresee every outcome. That is not a rationale to forget what real freedom means. I, for one, will refuse to be led around by fear. Make no mistake, fear was used quite blatantly by the previous administration to justify all manner of erosion of our personal liberties. If others choose to governed by fear or the threat of fear all I can do is speak out against such thought and try to get others to do likewise.

Sorry, but all I hear is cowardice "Protect me! Oh please!"

We have become afraid of the world. Amber alerts, "play dates" for children, sex offender lists, food as poison, unsafe cars, and on and on and on. While I have no beef about monitoring our food supply (pun thrown in just for fun), alerting people of approaching storms, and taking reasonable precautions such as using common sense when dealing with strangers, there comes a point that we seem to have crossed a line as a nation. It seems more and more people are ruled by fear. They have become addicted to trying to Purel their life. It simply can't be done. Make a choice and focus on what is and enjoy your brief stay or make a choice and focus on what can go wrong and be miserable.

And torture simply cannot be justified if we are to live in a culture that is ethical and humane.