Torture poll

[Pure]

Some clarifications:

In response to the excellent "fine points" raised by 3113 and Verdad, i've included further clarifications in the original post, and these are given below. as well, i added examples. thanks for your insightful comments!

ADDED 4-20. "Torture" as being discussed here is that occurring in, or officially carried out in, institutions of the State; local, regional and nationwide [including military] authorities detain suspects, captives, and prisoners, and it's these, along with convicted prisoners who are the subjects that 'torture' legislation and international conventions address.

ADDED: 4-20. Individual instances of torture, recognized as crimes in the various criminal codes, are NOT object of this thread, e.g. measures some kidnappers and rapists have employed for sadistic ends. Various laws address such acts: battery, infliction of bodily harm, threats, torture, mayhem and so on. "Abuse" e.g. of children, elders, e.g. extreme maltreatment, is also the subject of criminal and family law. None of these are the main topics of the thread.

ADDED: most bdsm measures do not fit the above descriptions. but in any case, torture, as being discussed here, is almost by definition, NON-consensual and applies to someone arrested and or held against his or her will, {deleted->} [[and often without 'due process' , e.g. being brought before a judge]]. hence, bdsm 'torture' does not fit the specs.

 

[SimonBrooke]

Reason for my choice: Nothing is black and white. I've been reading a lot about anti-porn feminists and the Meese Commission recently, and while it may not speak to your current issue, it is political. Certainly, I do not think that BDSM is bad, even if it does involve torture in different forms.

Charley, I don't think you can equate BDSM where the 'sub' or 'bottom' is a voluntary participant, and torture by the state of an involuntary participant.

I know BDSM is a wide and complex field. I have participated in acts where the sub voluntarily chose in advance to forego a safeword, and to be pushed beyond the point at which she might otherwise have used a safeword. But that's in the context of an established relationship - if she hadn't trusted me to ultimately take care of her and protect her from actual harm she would not have done so. Obviously this is risky. Obviously this involves trust. And obviously that trust could be misplaced and things could go wrong. In fact, in any situation where you allow someone else to bind you securely you're in this situation, because you trust them to honour the safeword, and if they don't honour it then you're in trouble.

But none of these things is in any way like state torture. In state torture (or torture by terrorist groups, or criminal gangs, or whatever - I'm not being anti-state here, specifically), the victim had no opportunity to give unforced consent.

This is, in a sense, the difference between sex and rape. It is absolutely wrong to deliberately cause another person pain, fear or suffering without their consent, just as it is absolutely wrong for to have sex with someone without their consent, and for the same reasons. But I believe that adults do have the right to freely choose to consent to being frightened, to being hurt, even to being pushed beyond their limits.

Consent is the issue that makes the difference.

And yes, of course I know that consent isn't simply black and white as rape campaigners often try to claim. I'm aware that consent is complex, nuanced, mutable. I'm aware that the circumstances in which choice is free or not free and always clear. But nevertheless, for me, consent is the touchstone of the difference between acceptable acts and torture.

And that torture is always, absolutely and without question, wrong.

 

[SimonBrooke]

My position on this is not shared by most of the world. I know that. But wise men have been taking my position since the words of wise men were recorded. Jesus said the same thing, I guess we have to suppose, since it is central to being a Jew as well. I could cite the passages in the Gospels where Jesus reportedly spars with the legal scholar and is prodded into the parable of the Samaritan. Or Micah. On and on.

But you yourself very likely don't share this view. Most people are egoistic, morally, with the two moral classes Me and Them, or else group-centered, with Us and Them. All I'm saying, all Gandhi is saying, all Jesus is saying on this subject is that there really is no Them. All those Thems are You, man. Put it into your head.

Cantdog, I think you're wrong. I think it is actually the people who see torture of 'others' as acceptable (or perhaps as 'the lesser of two evils') who are in the minority. Most people develop an understanding that other people are essentially like them by the age of about five. People who have matured to this level understand that pain caused to themselves is unpleasant and can generalise this to understand that pain caused to others is unpleasant to them. By the age of about eight most children have a clear understanding that deliberately causing pain to others is just morally wrong.

In short, I think the haters of this world are a minority, and a minority characterised by arrested emotional development; more to be pitied than despised.

 

[Verdad]

Well, now that the context is clear, I can only say amen to what Cant and Simon said. It seems to me we still have a bit of a problem with what is torture, though? Which specific actions, I mean.

I'm not being facetious here; as I've already said, I'm poorly informed on the regulations, so I don't know how we come up with a standard that says waterboarding is a no-no, but big hairy spiders are fine.

To make myself absolutely clear, I'm as absolutely against torture as one can be, but I would still like to know how it's defined. What makes an interrogatory technique just that, and another interrogatory technique, torture?

 

[xssve]

Along the same lines - when is "terrorism" terrorism?

What is the legal difference between hiring a helicopter for use in a coup against a west African government and sending supplies to the Chechen rebels? If there isn't one, why isn't Mark Thatcher in Belmarsh? Conversely, why aren't the "foreign terrorist suspects" in Belmarsh prison free and, like Thatcher, at large in London? Why is an alleged engagement in foreign military operations called terrorism one moment and business the next?

The question is an important one, for mercenaries are becoming respectable again. On Thursday Tim Spicer, Britain's most notorious soldier of fortune, will speak at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Last month he addressed a conference at the Royal United Services Institute. Last year one of the companies he runs won a $300m contract from the US government for security work in Iraq. He moves through the establishment like the boss of any other corporation.

Guardian UK: Pedigree dogs of war, by George Monbiot

 

[SimonBrooke]

Well, now that the context is clear, I can only say amen to what Cant and Simon said. It seems to me we still have a bit of a problem with what is torture, though? Which specific actions, I mean.

I'm not being facetious here; as I've already said, I'm poorly informed on the regulations, so I don't know how we come up with a standard that says waterboarding is a no-no, but big hairy spiders are fine.

To make myself absolutely clear, I'm as absolutely against torture as one can be, but I would still like to know how it's defined. What makes an interrogatory technique just that, and another interrogatory technique, torture?

I think (and others may disagree) that the defining characteristic of torture is that it is

the deliberate infliction of pain or suffering on individual who cannot escape it and who has not freely consented to it

It seems to me that callous neglect of a prisoner leading to pain or suffering (e.g. from an untreated wound) is a qualitatively different, but not necessarily less heinous, act.

But we do have a right to consent to having pain inflicted on us. We may consent to it to allow a dentist to repair a damaged tooth; we may consent to it because we want to wear a beautiful (or tasteless) tattoo. If it is not morally wrong for the dentist to repair the tooth or for the tattooist to ink the design, I do not see that it can be morally wrong for a dominant to inflict pain on a consenting submissive.

 

[Pure]

small note.

'torture' of prisoners by authorities is usually defined, in part, as involving extreme pain and/or suffering.

however, many of the laws and conventions mention adjacent and nearly equivalent areas, also prohibited, under "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". e.g. keeping prisoners naked in their cells with just a pot to pee and shit in.

 

[oggbashan]

The torture memos: As reported in The Times

Og

 

[wmrs2]

I can't answer the poll.

My view is that it is against international conventions and that any country using torture diminishes its stature in the world.

It is wrong because it gets the answers the interrogator wants rather than the truth and isn't worth the damage it does to international relations.

How can we criticise other nations for abuse of human rights if we use torture?

Og

What amazes me is that several people state that the interrogator does not get the truth through torture. This may be true but it is not proven fact that this is true. Torture has worked before and does work on many people. This does not justify torture but such unproven statements that torture is ineffective does not refute that torture should not be used.

 

[sr71plt]

Torture (like poligraphy) is unreliable. It's not that either never reach the truth, but that the responses are so dependent on other factors than ability to reach truth that you're stuck with about the same 50/50 "truth" meter as you had to start with. People will, in fact, sometimes give the sought information up (along with a ton of unrelated garbage you have to try to filter out) under torture. Most of these who would give it up will do so in the face of lesser means also--anticipation of torture, withdrawal of amentities/necessities, psychological manipulation--or just because they basically are blabbermouths and see having the information as some sort of status symbol and want to impress.

 

[cantdog]

If you support this statement:
Then it must follow that Gandhi believed in a universal truth that does not change with the maturation of thinking. Truth is like this, truth does not change but is reveled throgh mature thinking.

Well, certainly. I have every reason to suppose that my morals are superior to those I had as a child. I also imagine that the teachings of the wisdom traditions are there for good reason. I am thoroughly convinced that I can and have bettered my morality through experience, through spiritual maturation, through the teachings of wise people who have gone before me, and of those wise people whom I encounter now.

If I were making the statement Gandhi made, myself, the one you quoted:

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

I would be referring to what I have seen as I made my way here from childhood. I mean the rule the higher, the fewer.

That is, there are more egoists than people who will sacrifice their own lives and well-being for the good of a group, and there are more group-centered people than people who have internalized the idea that all of Them are the same as they themselves are. The further you progress, the smaller your group of peers. The very wisest are few, but the wisdom they have is no less true because the mass of egoists and nationalists and religionists can't yet see it.

Cantdog, I think you're wrong. I think it is actually the people who see torture of 'others' as acceptable (or perhaps as 'the lesser of two evils') who are in the minority. Most people develop an understanding that other people are essentially like them by the age of about five. People who have matured to this level understand that pain caused to themselves is unpleasant and can generalise this to understand that pain caused to others is unpleasant to them. By the age of about eight most children have a clear understanding that deliberately causing pain to others is just morally wrong.

Well, SimonBrooke, what you say here is true enough, except in the case of enemies. Egoists and group-centered people can have enemies. Let's sketch out what I mean when I say this: Make me a nationalist, for instance.

As a nationalist, I am capable of noble acts of self sacrifice for my country. I believe that what's good for it is good, and what's bad for it is bad, in general, and I am also willing to support things that are bad for me in order to further my country's interests. Those things happen once in a while, and I call myself Patriot when I make those choices.

Ordinarily, what's good for Germany, say, or bad for Germany (assuming I am not German) doesn't concern me, morally, so very much, unless I see that it also bears on my own group's future or present circs. But then, for whatever reason, Germany becomes an enemy of my country. (My country's leader has decided it and that's what he was elected to decide, just ask him!) Now, what's good for Germany is bad, and bad for her, good, because Germany is the enemy. I sacrifice and strive to do harm to Germany because Germany is my country's enemy.

The five-year-old, the eight-year-old who realizes causing pain to others is morally questionable will wholeheartedly firebomb, slay, sink, flay, burn, steal, despoil Germany and Germans. What's more, his country will decorate him and praise him for it, people will cheer and wave flags when he does it.

That's what makes an enemy an enemy, this moral exception that is made for him.

[/example]

In short, I think the haters of this world are a minority, and a minority characterised by arrested emotional development; more to be pitied than despised.

People who live their lives immersed in hate, yes. But there's a different distinction that I am making here.

I no longer can have enemies, because I have truly come to a new place. I don't make the moral exception for enemies that the nationalist does, even if he does so dispassionately, without hate. There is no group anywhere which is not human, and I can't make enemies of them in consequence. I may as well make an enemy of myself. The good of my country is fine, and i support it, right up until you go choosing enemies. Then, I'm out. I think this makes me in a smaller group than the general run of people over eight.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Although torture has been practiced by every culture/country on the earth at one time or another...the only use is, as others have stated, to extract that information the torturer whats. It will not get you the truth, only what you the torturer perceives as the truth.

Therefore, torture as a tool, is of no use by anyone.

Why then torture?

In most cases it's a means to an end...a political end. A means to validate the process.

Morality is also up to the individual, it cannot be dictated by law. Although most believe murder is morally wrong, a soldier in the course of battle kills any number of people. Therefore a contradiction in morality has risen. Only those on the loosing side are usually accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity. All other murder in the name of war is forgiven by the population.

What I believe is morally objectionable is quite different from what you would see as morally wrong. There in lies the conundrum.

 

[Pure]

//The five-year-old, the eight-year-old who realizes causing pain to others is morally questionable//

our friend's six year old, when angry at being punished, will try to scratch the parent, and looks--i imagine-- hopefully at their face for a sign of pain.

IOW, delight in another's pain is not uncommon. for example, during a conflict or fight.

too, children can often be quite detached from the suffering of other children, or of animals. it's as if the exercize of imagination has to be cultivated.

that said, i think our moral sentiments about torture stem from our feelings, e.g. revulsion, esp. if we have to see it.

i suppose jbj will point out that most of us 'just want the job done,' and that it's no different from, say, killing cattle, in slaughter houses, to obtain steaks. we wussie folks want the end result-- public safety, or our meat-- but would rather NOT hear about how it happens. we want *our* hands, at least, to be clean. and we'd rather NOT read the details in the memos Ogg has posted.

there is a wonderful speech in "A Few Good Men", by Jack Nicholson, playing the base commander at Gauntanamo (who is a witness at a trial); he mentions the folks back home that want to sleep under a warm blanket of security, yet fuss about what measures a commander might order, when the enemy is a few hundred yards away.

 

[Belegon]

No, I don't think torture is appropriate unless you're a pedophile/rapist/child molester. Then I think on all accounts such torture IS appropriate. That being said, I don't think there is a way to justify torture or an argument to convince me that it's acceptable.

I still stand by the fact that it is wrong and that evil done in the name of good is still evil.

In the case of an unrepentant child molester, I may be convinced that it is acceptable to end their life.

It is not acceptable to torture them first. If the individual is that evil, remove their existence. Do not make yourself more similar to them in the process.

 

[shereads]

there is a wonderful speech in "A Few Good Men", by Jack Nicholson, playing the base commander at Gauntanamo (who is a witness at a trial); he mentions the folks back home that want to sleep under a warm blanket of security, yet fuss about what measures a commander might order, when the enemy is a few hundred yards away.

A great speech based on an erroneous premise: that torture can make us safer.

Even if torture "worked" as other than a tool of terror - and the preponderance of evidence says it does not - a society that condones torture leaves itself vulnerable to the likelihood that the torturers and their bosses will not always target the 'right' victims.

 

[sr71plt]

The most reliable way to get good information, by the way, is not physical torture--it's giving the one harboring the information something they really, really want and then requiring that they give increasingly more/better information to get more of what they really, really want.

 

[wmrs2]

I'm afraid you're not following me.

So skip it. Let's go with a less interior view. You have a Golden Rule somewhere in your kit, I daresay? Good enough, then. Nobody has the right to do this shit with impunity. There are not two classes of mankind, one of which can be tortured and one of which has the right to torture the other class of people.

Because that's what's going on here. The torturees, as it were, have been reclassified in such a way that it is okay. Well, I call bullshit; it's not okay, because all humans occupy the same moral level.

My position on this is not shared by most of the world. I know that. But wise men have been taking my position since the words of wise men were recorded. Jesus said the same thing, I guess we have to suppose, since it is central to being a Jew as well. I could cite the passages in the Gospels where Jesus reportedly spars with the legal scholar and is prodded into the parable of the Samaritan. Or Micah. On and on.

But you yourself very likely don't share this view. Most people are egoistic, morally, with the two moral classes Me and Them, or else group-centered, with Us and Them. All I'm saying, all Gandhi is saying, all Jesus is saying on this subject is that there really is no Them. All those Thems are You, man. Put it into your head.

Once it's in your head, who can you make an enemy of? That's part one.

Your statement is not rational or empirical enough for me. At the present moment we are dealing with the terrorist world and the non-terrorist world. The US A fits the non-terrorist world and all those mid eastern countries seem to fit the terrorist world very well.

The USA is responsible for less terrorism than all the rest of the world effort (to fight terrorism and torture). That is the pragmatic statement that should be analyzed, which you do ignore.

Take Iran for example, it is responsible for more torture than all the rest of the world combined. This was once true of Iraq. This is also true of Hamus and the Palestinians even now. The Muslim world has always championed torture as a main tool in the spreading of Islam whereas the Western World and the USA in particular has never used torture as a national policy. It is not in the USA where the need is to take a stand against torture but really and truly it is in most of the rest of the world. It is only a few European countries where torture is not used. It is an exaggeration to say that the USA has lost the respect of the world by using the small amount of torture it has used.

Unfortunately, it is the liberals and moral relativist who love to make such claims about USA torture and loss of respect around the world. The liberals and moral relativist side with the terrorist on this point of view and against the great history of the USA in terms of human rights. Can you name another country in the world that has defended human rights more than the USA? You certainly will not find that country in the Middle East, in the Muslim world, or in the communist countries.

As you rationally think about it, it does seem that it is an issue between "us and them" and I am willing to keep it that way. Your are correct, no one has the right to do this shit with impunity and the USA is the main force in the world that does not allow nations to escape responsibility for human rights violations or do you agree with the president of Iran that he dreams of a time when there will be neither an Israel or a USA?

 

[shereads]

The most reliable way to get good information, by the way, is not physical torture--it's giving the one harboring the information something they really, really want and then requiring that they give increasingly more/better information to get more of what they really, really want.

bump.

 

[sr71plt]

"The USA is responsible for less terrorism than all the rest of the world effort to fight terrorism and torture. That is the pragmatic statement that should be analyzed, which you do ignor."

This is a "hey what?" non sequitor statement that is ignored because it doesn't make sense.

"Take Iran for example, they are responsible for more torture than all the rest of the world combined. This was once true of Iraq. This is also true of Hamus and the Palestinians even now."

This adds up to 200 percent responsibility. I had to stop reading here, because I was laughing too hard.

 

[SimonBrooke]

i suppose jbj will point out that most of us 'just want the job done,' and that it's no different from, say, killing cattle, in slaughter houses, to obtain steaks.

When younger (and poorer) I've worked in a slaughterhouse - as cleaner, not as slaughterman. But I've witnessed the job done at first hand. The slaughtermen I watched took considerable care to cause the animals as little distress as possible - if only because if you've thirty or forty cattle to kill, you don't want the death of the first one spooking the rest. But honestly I think the men I worked with genuinely cared about the animals.

I think to liken a slaughterman to a torturer is grossly unfair. You may not like what they do - you may think eating meat and wearing leather shoes is immoral - but it isn't even remotely in the same league as people who use torture.

 

[cantdog]

A great speech based on an erroneous premise: that torture can make us safer.

Even if torture "worked" as other than a tool of terror - and the preponderance of evidence says it does not - a society that condones torture leaves itself vulnerable to the likelihood that the torturers and their bosses will not always target the 'right' victims.

Completely so.

There is always more to it than merely torture, as well, these days. One is spirited off the street and whisked away far from help, and so on. Systematically, the selected target is treated as if she were outside the moral realm, beyond the reach of simple human rights. States who torture nowadays seldom bother, as the Romans did, to place that fact into law. That's done, I figure, to increase the terror.

 

[wmrs2]

And it doesn't matter about the group you choose. Racists don't get to enslave blacks, beat up niggers, lynch people they don't have any use for, open up concentration camps and gas Jews, none of that. Nationalists don't get to nuke whole countries. Religionists don't get to stage pogroms and St. Batholomew's day massacres and Inquisitions. No. That's part of the scene here. You do that shit, you are fucking up.

Any ass can love his friends. Loving his enemies is what the ass is being told to start doing, by all these wise men.

Torture the same way. It's not rocket science, once you get it into your head that Love Your Neighbor doesn't just refer to the other people in the pews.

No we do not do this shit here! There is less intolerance in the USA than any place in the world, especially in the Middle East and Muslim counties.It does not take a rocket science to look at the world and see that the USA is its crown jewel. There are more so called wise men from the USA than the rest of the world combined. These are the real reasons that you dragged your ass over here, not because the rest of the world was so good but because the USA was that good.

 

[sr71plt]

Even if torture "worked" as other than a tool of terror - and the preponderance of evidence says it does not - a society that condones torture leaves itself vulnerable to the likelihood that the torturers and their bosses will not always target the 'right' victims.

Not to mention leaving yourself open to escalation of it being used against you and yours (which is why the Geneva Accords were established--they don't end it altogether, but they certainly mitigate it. The Accords just were established before there was a recognized insurgent category).

 

[sr71plt]

"No we do not do this shit here! There is less intolerance in the USA than any place in the world, especially in the Middle East and Muslim counties. It does not take a rocket science to look at the world and see that the USA is its crown jewel. There are more so called wise men from the USA than the rest of the world combined. These are the real reasons that you dragged your ass over here, not because the rest of the world was so good but because the USA was that good."

Haven't been to Denmark, Thailand, India, Bhutan, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Iceland . . . and on and on, I take it (or outside of Iowa, I would suppose).

 

[wmrs2]

And of all the crapola to want to do to someone, why in the great overland cluck would you pick torture? 'Cause it doesn't get you anywhere for the purposes of intelligence gathering or other investigation, it creates a bunch of twisted people in the torture crews, it raises righteous wrath and recruits more people who will take great risks to bring you and your torturing pricks down, thus increasing your enemies' numbers and resolve. So why do it? Power. Power pure and simple.

People setting policy may be group centered, acting for a greater good than themselves, and all that yadda yadda, but the people you put on the torture squad are egoists. Give 'em impunity and authorize targets, and they will show you the difference between Me and Them. Look at the Abu Ghraib pictures, man. Open your eyes and look at them. See that wide wide grin and the thumbs up? Impunity and power, they are wallowing in it. That grin is the wide, horny, excited grin of sheer power.

This is what you are sponsoring, what you want your government to be doing all over the world? (In your name, too, but that's another argument.) I don't fuckin think so, but that's for a couple of reasons. One is, I like my free speech and i know that I could be the next designated target. Political prisoners are tortured quite consistently, in the places around the world where they set up a state apparatus which exists to torture people. But even without that I have it in my head that we are all on the same moral level, and so, nobody gets to torture anybody.

In the first place the USA has not picked torture as its national policy and you have far less chance of being tortured here than in the country you came from, right on brother!

It may be true that those on torture squad are egoists but there fewer of these squads in the USA than in the country you came from, right?

Political prisoners are tortured quite consistently, in the places around the world where they set up a state apparatus which exists to torture people.

You gat that right! It happens around the world as everyday practice. It is a fluke when it happens in the USA. Why can you not see this?
Statements like you are making is likely to bring the power of democracy down on your head as your opinions are very suspicious, especially if you are not a naturalized citizen.