It is a misperception to assume that torture must always have a causal intention, obtaining information for example. Most often, when considering global numbers, this is not the case.

Torture also can take place in contextxs of genocide, where genocide means not only physical annihilation of humans, but also the deleting of a group's chances to survive as a cultural entity and to pass on it's cultural tradition. The systematic mass-rapings that took place during the Balkan war is an example. The shattering of the dignity of women and trying to make them untouchable for their own ethnic group'S males as well as "infesting" their next generation with babies created by their enemies had the intention to disrupt the social cohesion of the target population and to make the mechanisms of their social-cultural survivability dysfunctional.

Another example are Dictatorships of the kind there have been in south and middle America, here torture of randomly picked civilians was not necessarily linked to the attempt to gain information from them, but to just shatter their souls and let them walk as living zombies in society again, as a moving warning to others in order to intimidate and to enforce fear and obedience.

Sadists and sick psychopaths may torture just because of their own enjoyment when seeing others suffering.

Torture can, but must not be a penalty. In modern days, it is not, at least in the west. In other cultures, stoning to death for example obviously includes rules to ensure that the victim not only gets killed, but is suffering as long as possible before (this penalty is regulated in that way that the size of the stones used shall not be too small as to not cause harm and injuries, but also not to be too big as that they would kill too early). The family-"honour" related crimes against family members, almost always women, also can include torture, whether it be in the way the victim gets mutilated with acid or with a knife, or gets intentionally raped in exchange for the sin it has committed. Such family crimes involve the desire to clean the cosmos of the victim'S existence (thus symbolically destroying her identity by burning her face), as well as pain as a disciplinary consequence for disobedience against claimed authority, and death as a precautionary measure that should prevent future violations of claimed "honour". And the perverted fanatics in Iran repeatedly were recorded for incidents that included the raping of jailed virgin girls before killing them, because as virgins they would not have been allowed to be executed.

Much discussion over the past years saw two extreme tendencies. On behalf of the US, there were attempts to talk down methods like waterboarding so that one would not be accused of using torture in the name of the US, which is nonsense (it is torture by method and intention, no doubt), on behalf of PC brigades and European activists there are intentions to widen the meaning of torture so that even acts of racism and discrimination get occasionally called "torture" and boosting the status of victimhood in order to overcome opposition to own political demands.

Torture for gaining information is a sword with two edges, it can work under some conditions, but must not under others. Somebody just wanting to escape the pain tells you everything, it is most often said in order to nullify any pro-argument. But I point at two things: in such a stressful situation, you cannot rule out (and shouldn'T) that the discipline of the victim in agony is already gone to hell and it indeed tells you the truth - you have to verify it, of course. Also, it makes a difference if the victim knows it bought itself lasting relief by giving an info, or just a delay before the procedure continues. In other words, torture can be effective, but the interrogator most ofteh depends on the opoortunity that what the victims says can be confimred to be false or correct, with the interrogation in case of the latter going on - and the victim knowing it.

Finally, there is the scenario of needing to get vital information under time pressure. A kidnapper has put his victim in a box, and oxygen running out. The box needs to be found in order to save his victim'S life. What weighs heavier - the life of the kidnapper or that of his victim? If you decide for the first , you demonstrate your lack of humanistic attitude for the victim'S interest and right to live. If you decide for the latter, you have to give up some self-views of our oh so civilised society we got so fond of. Even civilisational posture can be exaggerated - beyond existential survivability. Because at the end we remain to be creatures of a material, physical world. No philosophic idea can ever relieve us from this burden.

I had to deal with Balkan torture victims myself long time ago, civilians that became victim of genocide. some of what I was confronted with in personal fates always sits in one hidden back of mind, waiting to draw me down. But still, I cannot rule mout the use of toprture under very well-defined, explicit conditions. the problem I have with it is not that I value the interest of a criminal as so precious that I rule out doing harm to him, no matter what, but the problem is that I do not want to see torture being used by routine, as a tool of regular law enforcement, in every-day policework, by that lowering the acceptance levels and the inherent natural scruples to use it. The use of tazers is an example of the risk here. Since these devices get used, the reports on situations where they are used by routine as a just precautionary measure, or in order to discipline people who just were loud, not vio,ent, have coinstantly climnbed. This is not what tazers have been put into service, they were not meant to discipline people, but as a non-lethal weapon of self-defence in case of being attacked. We should not want to see something similiar happening again with torture. If your argument is "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" and "the law must be enforced no matter how", then you sooner or later end up with a totalitarian state again where the GeStaPo is runnig around.

Problem is, as soon there's a war going on where things hang in the balance, rules are thrown overboard and the worst is brought out in us.

HunterICX

Yes, and further problem also is that some of these rules are carried over into war, from peacetime conditions. But both are two different worlds. What makes sense in one world, must not necessarily make sense in the other.

I'm more concerned about torture in non war environment.

In China when a person is thought of committing crime against the state his family would also suffer for it.

In Singapore critics, dissidents and opposition figures are kicked out from their job and unable to find decent job. Nobody would give them any job for fear of the ruling government. The government would use libel suits to bankrupt genuine opposition leaders (since there are less than genuine opposition figures too). Funny thing they never file libel suit outside Singapore for obvious reason. And Harry Lee(Lee Kuan Yew) himself wrongfully slandered Dr Chee Soon Juan as liars and near psychopath and getting away with it! He wasn't sued because the court would win him anyway. Some critical bloggers are threatened with imprisonment in the mental institution. The police which represents law enforcement even made death threat to these kind of people. I myself had been starved for 3 days forcefully in their hospital and defamed schizophrenic which I AM MOST DEFINITELY NOT. My grades suffer unjustly too even here. They tried to put my spirit and confidence down repeatedly with insults, mocking, social isolation, cheating, false rumors to discredit me, and hostility to intimidate me.

These are tortures too!
These people would kill an innocent person and used their kangaroo court to deny justice from being served. The case of NTU student David Widjaja is an obvious example. I tried my best to give some sort of warning about this regime but it has taken another life which of David Widjaja's. I don't know who is the lucky one. Perhaps Mr David Widjaja is the luckier one because his torment ended when he died while I have to endure years of psychological abuse and torture that has taken toll on my physical health.

I'm convinced that these people enjoy abusing and tormenting other people. They are psychopaths and tyrants.
And some people would still not able to even accept the possibility that what I'm writing is true . . .and instead add to my injury. . .

I've begun thinking to seek asylum. But a nobody like me?! It would take a miracle.

I'm not whining or ranting I'm just trying to make people more aware that the condition of civil society in Asia especially ASEAN is concerning at best.
Human rights are not that respected in most Asian countries as it is considered to be western values and Asian tend to view their leaders as some sort of infallible deity to be feared and obeyed all the time. Democracy well most ASEAN countries are only trying to look like a democracy. Past the 1998 reform things have improved in my country only to deteriorate again nowadays. Things seem set for another authoritarian regime. It is disheartening.

I agree with treating them like POWs.

We catch them, then lock them up until their Islamist group unconditionally surrenders to us or ceases to exist. Since they don't wear uniforms, we assign them to a force (what choice do we have?).

We held German POWs until the war was over, for example. Had the war been mostly over, but a fraction of german forces holed up in the Alps—they'd have stayed POWs until that last bastion fell.

So asking for POW treatment is asking for lifetime jail for all of them. I'm fine with that.

Oh, and since we're treating them like "good" enemy forces, if they broke rules of war before they were caught (intentionally mixing with civilians, operating out of uniform, etc), before they are released they virtually all get tried with war crimes. Any that survive that gauntlet of firing squads gets released.

That isn't really true. Colonial militia made a point of wearing some identifying mark on the battlefield to distinguish themselves from civilians.

Can you also list which civilians they were killing? I suppose you can find isolated incidents for anything but afaik there was no officially ordered massacre of civilians by the Continental army.

Well then Americans aren't safe outside the US either, and given what a hostile nation the US is toward it's own citizens they might not be safe in US either.

We're hardly hostile to our own citizens. Regardless, people come here in droves—even illegally—clearly they know something you don't.

Anyway, if you think they should be treated as POWs, you must agree with what I posted above. An al Qaida POW would obviously have to be held until we were no longer fighting al Qaida. Since the only solution to AQ is unconditional surrender or kill every last one of them, that means POWs for life. Note that letting them go would then result in AQ being back in existence. I suppose we could release them with a 60 second head start to make a run for it, then start shooting?

BTW, Alan Deshowitz (a liberal lawyer here in the US) has suggested judicial warrants for certain levels of interrogation. basically the worst we'd ever do to people, but it would require judicial permission, and only then under very limited conditions. This was his take on the "ticking time bomb" scenario.

For example:

The cops luck into catching a guy. Say they pull him over for speeding (as they did Muhammad Atta), and catch his name on a watch list, and detain him. His car had an odd electronic part he had purchased in it, and it sets off red flags. Then it turns out his car sets off a geiger counter. Other agencies have chatter about a big attack, and now it's starting to look like this guy they grabbed by accident is involved in an a-bomb attack.

This is a ticking time bomb. He's one member of a cell, and now they know he's arrested, they are likely to try and blow the device up ASAP.

The guy doesn't say a word when asked nicely.

Now what? This could literally be the difference between hundreds of thousands hurt and killed or not.

Realistically, if the feds think this, they're going to do whatever they think will work, and worry about legality later. Why not have a legal system that has some oversight and control, instead?

It's worth considering, anyway.

Another great analysis by Andy McCarthy (prosecutor of the 1993 Trade Center bombers):

http://article.nationalreview.com/33...rew-c-mccarthy

Salient points are that the US Constitutional challenges to torture with which everyone (in the US) agrees are to the 5th, 8th, and 14th Amendments. They apply only to people within the US judicial system, basically. Cruel and unusual punishment applies to what is meted out after a trial.

Since waterboarding (what we are really discussing here, nothing else the US has done is even close to torture) does no real physical harm, we are limited to mental pain and suffering.

As McCarthy says:
Still unclear.

He goes on to point out that while WE, the public at large do not know the actual details of the exact techniques used (there are many slight variations of the technique), members of the US Congress do know, and while they've passed laws regarding treatment of detainees, they could have—and did not—mention this particular technique specifically. Knowing this was the worst we've done, had Congress meant to, they could easily have done so. Note that this are Democrat controlled Congresses, or Rep controlled, but Dems have filibuster, and therefore any bill must be acceptable to them (Bush didn't have a supermajority like the dems had until a couple months ago).

It's a complex issue.

Personally, I'd reserve the harshest techniques (with the caveat that they are demonstrably effective, and not merely punitive) for critical cases where it might reasonably result in actionable intelligence that could prevent a major attack—this is not to be taken lightly. Note that all the while, the technique in and of itself should still be legal according the vague laws already in place. If two reasonable people can disagree about where the line is, then it's still OK, in other words.

Well I know that even if they were treated as POW's the US would find some loopholes for torture etc. It's seems to be their modus operandi.

Majority of the people in, say, Guantanamo have been non-combatants, people like truck drivers from Kirgistan etc. who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Are you saying that I should sanction the US's treatment of folks like that as POW's held indefinitely and possibly even tortured?

Oh this is funny, Alan Dershowitz. I wrote a piece about Dershowitz's views a while back, he's a rabid zionist and, not surprisingly, as anti-muslim/pro-torture as they come. If you're in favour of separating religion from governing then Dershowitz might not be the right guy to turn to.

Oh yea, why have a trial because it will only tie your hands about torture. Might as well torture them without a trial, completely by the book.

How do you know nothing else is used? We're only now beginning to find out about what happened in the Vietnam war, and a lot of nasty stuff did happen there. Torture of every type was used in South America by the US and School of America's graduates right up until the present day. The US has exported it's knowledge of torture to many governments in the Middle-East, including such differing nations as Israel and Egypt. So...what am I supposed to think about all this?

Waterboarding IS torture. It is a procedure that not only mentally raises an involuntary fear of death by drowning, but also provokes physical reaction by the body being set into a condition of agony, and additonal painful, convulsive spasms throughout the body that during the procedure is tied down.

If agony and the ultimate physical experience of drowning, which is beyond conscious control by the subject'S mind, is not torture, then NOTHING is torture.

Whether or not noticable marks of physical damage are left on or in the body, is not the criterion of torture. You can electroshock people without leaving visible marks. You can torture without breaking bones, cutting flesh and blood flowing.

This discussion about laws and paragraphs going on here is alienating, and in a way: frightening. Because it demonstrates exactly the same bureaucratic mindset you have seen in Nazi bureaucrats who with perfidious pedantism kept note and written record of the medical experiments, the orders flowing down the command lines, the crimes and decisions and processes in the killing industry - and often thought that because everything was in order with the written records and evertyhing was taking place in accordance with some written rules and orders of duty, the horrifying results therefor were "okay", too. Many of them defended themselves with saying they were ordered to do this, and that the law was like that.

They were unable or unwilling or both to look beyond the law, and question the law itself.

Sometimes some people say they are wondering how the Third Reich, and the fanatism of Nazi vasalls, could happen. You must not necessarily look into history to examine that. Looking at events after that, or even the present people today, can provide answers, too.

Also, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment are not reserved for German people with Nazi mindsets, too.

Hold the discussion for a while. Take a breath. Get back in contact with reality - and realise what it actually is that you talk about and that you think you do justice to when describing it with bureaucratic formalities only.

Good points, Sky. I only sought to provide a legal definition of torture and a benchmark. I tend to agree with you, and I said as much:
Even in the face of a clear and present danger, I would not advocate torture. There are more effective and efficient ways to obtain truthful information.

Some of you may remember the SUBSIM werewolf hunt and were-fish hunt games we played a while back. I'm sure that most of those who particiapted will remember my role in those games. I died in both those games, and even failed to recognize a werewolf under my own nose in time (Oberon), but in both games I successfully identified an enemy before anyone else did. I did that through a combination of threats, deception, politics, and the old carrot-and-stick treatment.

Those games were, of course, not reality, and in reality the subject can't kill you, but the theory behind all of my reasoning is quite sound. I learned the theory from Sgt. Purdee, a brilliant but ironically ugly intel Marine. The key in humane interrogation is to divide and conquer, and to control the flow of information. It is a difficult concept to explain, and I can't really elaborate on it within the constraints of text limits, but what you essentially want to do is to pit everyone against everyone else and keep track of who should be thinking what and when, and then find inconsistencies during cross-examination and , for lack of a word "misinformed counter-cross-examination". Anyone remember the "feeler" messages I had them send? That's an example. And there were "false-feeler" messages as well.

This is why prisoners are segregated from officers and their fellows during interrogation. Even if they have a preconceived story, they will eventually fail under instense and properly structured questioning, and the truth will lie within the inconsistencies. There really isn't any need for torture if your threats and questioning are effective enough. One just has to be creative.

Physical torture is the resort of the stupid and the brutal. A good interrogator can extract any information from anyone without inflicting any physical or lasting mental duress whatsoever. The trick is in getting the right people to do the job.

Legalism is all that matters in this case, skybird, otherwise a "comfy chair" is torture, or being forced to listen to, I dunno, "metal" music (blech!) ;)

No matter where the bar is set, and I agree, waterboarding is as close to the edge possible. Note that it's still a matter of how much, and how far apart. Anything that people will have done to themselves voluntarily is not "clear" one way or another to me—but they volunteer to have it done just a few times, not many. So is twice OK, and 3 times torture? <shrug>

The US only did it to 3 people, FWIW, and hasn't for several years now.

Got it, "zionist."

nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

They are striped, and have horns, right?

tater,

1) give proof that supports that number of individuals waterboarded

2) proof that only waterboarding has been used

Hell, while you're at it, give us the insights into the US's torture 'regimen', I'm sure a lot of people would be interested.

No. They believe, among other things, that a mystical being gave them the divine right to steal a land that according to them belongs to them and only them. I guess you're ok with that while at the same time condemning other religions.

I have stayed out of this one fir as long as I could. But here is my take on the subject of torture.

If in uncivilized enemy, unbound by the Geneva convention captured one of our boys over there... There ain't any lawyers, there are no rights, there are no bleeding hearts liberals, no ACLU... our trooper is going to experience the unimaginable at the hands od sadistic men who wouldn't think twice about taking a hammer to your bound testicles.

So I don't want to hear a damned thing about what "is or isn't" torture.

Waterboard them until they die of cardiac arrest for all I care.

Line them up abrest. Ask them a question. You get no answer you slaughter a live pig, splash them with it's blood and blow their brains out and move to the next guy.

By guy #3... you have your information

they don't place any value on your lives... Why place value on theirs?

This couldn't possibly backfire.

Let it backfire.

It's how I feel, and in my opinion should be our official position.

To hell with them all.

If you look in to the southern campaign you'll see that there were small groups of militia on both sides (Rebels and Loyalists) went around settling old scores.

The executions after The Battle of Kings Mountain are one example. it could be said those men were killed for an act of treason which was that they were not committing treason.

I am a former soldier myself. What your grandfather believes or did is irrelevant to the discussion on hand.

Look, I an think of several situations where I would resort to methods which can be described as torture, and rightly so as they are just that, if that meant to save the lives of my men or civilians. BUT at the very same time I would expect to be tried and convicted for my crimes by the very same society that I have sworn an oath to protect and whose laws I follow, since doing so would put me at odds with them.
I can not condone torture as a practice by any government entity because that goes against the very foundation of the society I am to protect. I fully realize this position may seem strange to a lot of you, but that is my take on the mater, when ever I break any law, I already have accepted the potential punishment.
There are times when soldiers do things that are morally questionable or downright wrong, they pay the price to keep this somewhat free society alive. Do not cheapen our sacrifices by condoning disgressions against the very base rights we have fought to keep there.