can a kinder gentler nation survive?

[geronimotwo]

i started a different thread that quickly turned into a discussion of waterboarding, and the legality of torture.

here, i would like to discuss whether a nation who does not use methods of torture would be able to maintain national security?

would it be worth maintaining that high road if it meant more troops or civilians died from lack of intelligence?

[HankB]

. . . would it be worth maintaining that high road if it meant more troops or civilians died from lack of intelligence? . . .

People who insist that we follow the high road without deviation, at any cost . . . are seldom the ones who will be paying that cost.

Clearly, people who like torture are twisted . . . but there's something really wrong with the mindset of the person who is willing to let Americans die because they insist on good treatment for captured jihadis.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

. . . would it be worth maintaining that high road if it meant more troops or civilians died from lack of intelligence? . . .

People who insist that we follow the high road without deviation, at any cost . . . are seldom the ones who will be paying that cost.

Clearly, people who like torture are twisted . . . but there's something really wrong with the mindset of the person who is willing to let Americans die because they insist on good treatment for captured jihadis.

Whoa.  That's gonna stir 'em up right quick.

Cue the caterwauling in three...  two...

 

[Jamisjockey]

i started a different thread that quickly turned into a discussion of waterboarding, and the legality of torture.

here, i would like to discuss whether a nation who does not use methods of torture would be able to maintain national security?

would it be worth maintaining that high road if it meant more troops or civilians died from lack of intelligence?

Yes.  We are not them.  We are not animals.  We don't kill women and children intentionally, nor do we pull people's fingernails out or execute prisoners.
IF WE SELL OUT THE MORAL FABRIC OF OUR SOCIETY, THEN WHAT IN THE HELL ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

[Paddy]

but there's something really wrong with the mindset of the person who is willing to let Americans die because they insist on good treatment for captured jihadis.

Give it up.  That tired old fearmongering isn't selling anymore.

IF WE SELL OUT THE MORAL FABRIC OF OUR SOCIETY, THEN WHAT IN THE HELL ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

Exactly right.  We don't defeat the enemy by becoming just like him.

[HankB]

. . . We don't defeat the enemy by becoming just like him.

I don't recall anyone suggesting we saw people's heads off with a dull knife and make the videos public, so we would not become ". . . just like him."

[Len Budney]

I don't recall anyone suggesting we saw people's heads off with a dull knife and make the videos public, so we would not become ". . . just like him."

Yup. We may torture the innocent along with the guilty--but there are still superficial differences between us and those guys who also torture innocents. So we're nothing like them. 

--Len.

[roo_ster]

Len, maybe YOU think the difference between sawing someone's head off and waterboarding (or other vigorous interrogation techniques) is superficial.  Most rational folks think otherwise.*

How many folks think Nick Berg would have preferred the latter to the former?


* But, then, those folks are not anarcho-whateverists and actually have a love of country...something that would be non-existent in the anarcho-loquatious utopia to come.

[Len Budney]

Len, maybe YOU think the difference between sawing someone's head off and waterboarding (or other vigorous interrogation techniques) is superficial.  Most rational folks think otherwise.

Of course not. But you seem to think that torturing innocent people until they've lost their marbles is OK, because it's not <insert something "they" do here>. The argument is completely bogus. I can rob your house, because at least I'm not beheading you with a rusty machete? I can beat up your kids and shave your cats, because at least I'm not beheading you with a rusty machete? Indeed, I can do anything I want to to you and yours, as long as (1) nobody dies and (2) I don't use a rusty machete?

Your morality bar is set incredibly low. I can think of a hell of a lot of things that don't cause death or involve rusty machetes. By your standard, that makes me a good and moral person.

--Len.

[HankB]

. . . you seem to think that torturing innocent people until they've lost their marbles is OK, because it's not <insert something "they" do here>. The argument is completely bogus.

Captured Al-Qaeda jihadis like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah are not innocent people, nor have I seen anyone advocate waterboarding innocent people, making this line of argument completely bogus.

As to the circumstances . . . war is hell . . . and if anyone can provide information on how a country - any country - ever WON a major shooting war without doing some bad things, I'd like to hear it.

[grampster]

I don't recollect anyone promoting the torture of innocents.  Just because there is a slope, does not always mean it will become slippery.  Comments like that are like the comments of small minded people who use the prohibitory excuse that if a thing is done for one person, one must then do that thing for everyone. 

Some of you act as if our nation has throughout our history never had to resort to extraordinary techniques under extraordinary circumstances.  The difference between them and us is that we have never made a practice in continuing those techniques when they became unnecessary.  The classic example of the lame slippery slope thinking is the use of nuclear weapons against Japan.  Extraordinary circumstance called for an extraordinary act.  Seems like we haven't exactly used that technique again.

[Len Budney]

I don't recollect anyone promoting the torture of innocents.  Just because there is a slope, does not always mean it will become slippery.

I'm NOT making a slippery slope argument. I'm specifically saying that some of the detainees at Gitmo are completely innocent, but nevertheless are subject to "aggressive interrogation methods." The US tortures accused and suspected terrorists, not convicted terrorists, and they aren't all guilty. They're doing that TODAY.

--Len.

[Paddy]

. . . We don't defeat the enemy by becoming just like him.

I don't recall anyone suggesting we saw people's heads off with a dull knife and make the videos public, so we would not become ". . . just like him."

So you're saying our moral standards of what we will and will not do, are set by someone else's actions?  IOW, as long as our actions aren't as egregious as theirs, everything's a-ok?  This kind of 'sliding-scale relative morality makes sense to you?

[Jamisjockey]

. . . you seem to think that torturing innocent people until they've lost their marbles is OK, because it's not <insert something "they" do here>. The argument is completely bogus.

Captured Al-Qaeda jihadis like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah are not innocent people, nor have I seen anyone advocate waterboarding innocent people, making this line of argument completely bogus.

As to the circumstances . . . war is hell . . . and if anyone can provide information on how a country - any country - ever WON a major shooting war without doing some bad things, I'd like to hear it.

Again...do you trust the Government that gives you such fine Organizations as the BATFE, TSA, ICE, and the like to make such fine distinctions between a few known terrorists and suspected terrorists?  How long until they decide anyone questioning the government is siding with the Terrorists....oh, thats right...GWB already used such language.  YOU'RE EITHER WITH US OR AGAINST US
Is what he said. 
You're operating under the assumption that the government, the same government that coldn't see 9/11 coming, that couldn't catch a 6'9" raghead, that screwed up the occupation of Iraq, that can't seem to shut down the Taliban....the assumption that that same, inept government will never arrest any innocent people.  Nor that they will ever torture innocent people.
Even if we caught OBL in the flesh, I'd demand that he not be tortured.  He should be tried for his crimes.

Alot of people agreed with Stalin, Hitler, PolPot, Lenin, Hussein, and Bin Laden.  That doesn't make them right, nor does it make you right.

So you're saying our moral standards of what we will and will not do, are set by someone else's actions?  IOW, as long as our actions aren't as egregious as theirs, everything's a-ok?  This kind of 'sliding-scale relative morality makes sense to you?

Its the slippery slope.  First we only torture them a little bit.  Then we miss the warning signs of another attack, so we torture a little more.  But hey, nobody got beheaded with a rusty Machette......

[Manedwolf]

The one, biggest problem with torture is that it just doesn't yield good results. If someone is experiencing duress, they're likely to tell you anything you want to make you stop doing that to them.

I've always felt it'd be wiser to use psychology, to just mess them up a bit with varied false day/night cycles and all that sort of thing till they lose control of their own judgment and babble the facts, or to trick people into saying too much by inserting double agents among the population.

Cell with glass ceiling and people taking notes and making the "sun" rise and set every time they doze off for five minutes, that sort of psyops, maybe get them to babble in their sleep from lack of REM. Even mess up their judgment, then put them in a recreation of their homeland and try to convince them they're free and had a flashback, get them to talk. Whatever. Not waterboarding so much.

Eh.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The one, biggest problem with torture is that it just doesn't yield good results. If someone is experiencing duress, they're likely to tell you anything you want to make you stop doing that to them.

I've always felt it'd be wiser to use psychology, to just mess them up a bit with varied false day/night cycles and all that sort of thing till they lose control of their own judgment and babble the facts, or to trick people into saying too much by inserting double agents among the population.

Cell with glass ceiling and people taking notes and making the "sun" rise and set every time they doze off for five minutes, that sort of psyops, maybe get them to babble in their sleep from lack of REM. Even mess up their judgment, then put them in a recreation of their homeland and try to convince them they're free and had a flashback, get them to talk. Whatever. Not waterboarding so much.

Eh.

First, waterboarding has proven extremely effective the few times its been employed.  A skilled interrogator isn't going to be fed a bill of goods and believe it's true, regardless of what technique he's using. 

Second, screwing with peoples' heads as you suggest seems every bit as "mean" as waterboarding.  Warping someone's reality until they can't tell what continent they're on actually seems worse than 10 minutes of safe and temporary discomfort.  Depending upon how you define "torture", your suggestion might actually be more torturous than waterboarding.

[Manedwolf]

How about playing Barry Manilow records 24/7 until they talk?

Or does that violate Geneva? 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I don't recollect anyone promoting the torture of innocents.  Just because there is a slope, does not always mean it will become slippery.

I'm NOT making a slippery slope argument. I'm specifically saying that some of the detainees at Gitmo are completely innocent, but nevertheless are subject to "aggressive interrogation methods." The US tortures accused and suspected terrorists, not convicted terrorists, and they aren't all guilty. They're doing that TODAY.

--Len.

The United States isn't torturing random innocent people as you suggest.  Everyone held at Gitmo has had their case throughly reviewed by multiple judges.  If there isn't ample evidence of terrorist activities, they aren't held. 

They are all guilty.  Provably guilty.  Else they wouldn't be there.  Your fantasy notion that people are randomly rounded up and thrown into Gitmo and tortured for no reason, with no court sanction or oversight or or legal basis, is flat out wrong.

[grampster]

I don't recollect anyone promoting the torture of innocents.  Just because there is a slope, does not always mean it will become slippery.

I'm NOT making a slippery slope argument. I'm specifically saying that some of the detainees at Gitmo are completely innocent, but nevertheless are subject to "aggressive interrogation methods." The US tortures accused and suspected terrorists, not convicted terrorists, and they aren't all guilty. They're doing that TODAY.

--Len.

"are completely innocent..."  and you know that, how?

It's real easy for us to sit here and prejudge, second guess, or conclude that because of one thing, another will surely follow.   The rules have changed and we didn't change them.  Our national security is much harder to secure today because of technology and transportation.  We are not threatened so much by a competing nation than a competing barbarian that worships death.  It also doesn't help that both political parties see that porous borders are a pathway to money and power rather than the key to our security.

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

They are all guilty.  Provably guilty.  Else they wouldn't be there.  Your fantasy notion that people are randomly rounded up and thrown into Gitmo and tortured for no reason, with no court sanction or oversight or or legal basis, is flat out wrong.

They aren't guilty until proven so, in a court of law.  I think that comes from one of our founding documents. 

[roo_ster]

dasmi:

So, you think we ought to change the rifle platoon MTOE to include a defense lawyer to read enemy combatants (lawful & otherwise) their Miranda rights and to be their advocate from the minute we snatch the RPG from their hand?

The lawyerization of our society is near complete when you can't wage war without a lawyer on your back and the folks back home so clueless as to think it is the proper way to do things.

Len:

Your response belongs in a work of hysterical fiction.  Poor, old Kalid Sheik Mohammed was an innocent bystander just caught up in the merciless grip of OD-wearing JBTs.

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

dasmi:

So, you think we ought to change the rifle platoon MTOE to include a defense lawyer to read enemy combatants (lawful & otherwise) their Miranda rights and to be their advocate from the minute we snatch the RPG from their hand?

The lawyerization of our society is near complete when you can't wage war without a lawyer on your back and the folks back home so clueless as to think it is the proper way to do things.

No, of course not.   But I do think once a person has been detained, they deserve a trial.  Especially if they are to be detained indefinitely. 

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

Let me clarify, I worded that poorly.
I realize, and I'm ok with, people being detained on the battlefield.  It's war, people are going to get scooped up and checked out.
But, when someone is taken to a place like Guantanamo and held against their will, they ought to have a trial. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

We don't kill women and children intentionally


you miss ww2 history?!



"But, when someone is taken to a place like Guantanamo and held against their will, they ought to have a trial"

why?  do we have a prededent for trials for prisoners of war?

[ilbob]

I don't recollect anyone promoting the torture of innocents.  Just because there is a slope, does not always mean it will become slippery.

I'm NOT making a slippery slope argument. I'm specifically saying that some of the detainees at Gitmo are completely innocent, but nevertheless are subject to "aggressive interrogation methods." The US tortures accused and suspected terrorists, not convicted terrorists, and they aren't all guilty. They're doing that TODAY.

--Len.

Innocent of what? Just because they have not been convicted of anything does not make them innocent.