Legality of torture

[TBoone]

Look my Grandfather Fought in Vietnam and he made Sergeant E6 in 2 years and is a good friend and mentore of mine He Believes the same as I do because I learned that from him. Oh and by the way if you think he was just one of those drugies who sat behind the lines. He was in the 101st Airborne Division 506th Paratroop Ifantry Regiment He was a Hero him and his men were the front line from Cambodia to the DMZ. And My Greatgrandfather drove General Patton around for 3 months in WW2 Normandy. I also happen to study history do you???

[Happy Times]

One of the things we train a lot in the army recon is taking prisoners when ordered to.

When the capture goes right the ones that we leave alive get a sack in their head and roughed up, we are the bad guys and they should feel scared.

Usually they get moved to the analysts/ interrogators that we have in the command platoon. They will first speak to them in their native language and they are the good guys.

Im not sure how far they will go but we are shown the basics of stress positions, sleep deprivation and ways of inflicting pain if we need to interrogate the prisoner ourselfs.

None of this is something the defence forces would confirm officially so you will have to take my word for it.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by TBoone

Look my Grandfather Fought in Vietnam and he made Sergeant E6 in 2 years and is a good friend and mentore of mine He Believes the same as I do because I learned that from him. Oh and by the way if you think he was just one of those drugies who sat behind the lines. He was in the 101st Airborne Division 506th Paratroop Ifantry Regiment He was a Hero him and his men were the front line from Cambodia to the DMZ. And My Greatgrandfather drove General Patton around for 3 months in WW2 Normandy. I also happen to study history do you???

That still doesn't make the world black and white. Actually that explains nothing. Soldiers have all my genuine respect for seeing the hell that is war and for being put into positions noone would normally want to be in. But that doesn't make the world black and white. Soldiers are in fact "colourblind" on the job by training, because they have to be - this doesn't make them right, even if it makes their sacrifices something to be honourably respected.
But they are not someone to learn ethics from. They're not the ones who make decisions. In a democracy, it's civil people that have to make them, and civil people need to abide by civil norms of life and ideally make decisions in light of its complexity and ambiguity, and that's the way it must be - if normal, civil people in daily walks of life see the world in the same black and white that soldiers have to, then I fear this world will never see real freedom and democracy. Instead it will always choose to side with dictatorship, which is the army's natural way of working.

How do you "diagnose" a terrorist? Most of them don't walk around with "shoot me I'm a terrorist" sign on them. They don't wear their hatreds on their sleeve. And they mostly belong to "groups" that could hardly be called organized or ideologically unified, or with obvious signs of membership. So how do you know? What use is what you learned from history or your grandfather? Did your grandfather happen to have psychic powers that he taught you? Did Patton? I don't think so. It's possible to make informed, hard, necessary decisions about these things, but only by being critical and accepting the complexity and non-black-and-whiteness of the matter. Along with responsibility for grave mistakes, some of which are necessary.

Things are complicated. Soldiers have to have jobs done. YOUR job in civil life is not to blindly adapt their voluntary state of moral stupidity (i.e. unquestioning following of orders without a military would never, ever work), but to be a critical, thinking, deliberating person who sees things clearly and guide your government to make the right decisions for your troops, to not waste their lives, to make sure they don't needlessly waste lives of other people, and respect what they do and not use them for causes that are vain. To deliberate and act like a civilian when fighting a war is criminal, and to obey and follow like a soldier in civilian life is just as criminal for someone in a democratic state. So in that sense, your "qualifications" are moot - yes, soldiers have plenty to teach us about personal qualities and morals, but only if we are able to take their experience critically, not stupidly worshipping them. Soldiers obey and kill, period. Is that what you want to do all day?

And like others have said, it's always tricky. Personally, I don't believe torture or even some of these "high pressure" methods are justified or necessary. I think most people don't realize how easy it is to break an average person with something like torture - but the problem is that once you do break them, what are you really getting? Real information or confessions of a sniveling wreck who wants the pain to stop? The truth is that it's both. And making executive decisions without knowing which is which is almost as bad as making them based on no information at all. Being a prisoner under interrogation should never be a pleasant experience, but the cruelty beyond a certain point is senseless and goes against the values on which this democracy you fight for is built on.

As for US and "enemy combatants", I think it just needs to cut the charade and treat them like POWs. They're people too, and they're not any more dangerous than the average indoctrinated enemy soldier. This whole thing is not doing anyone any good, and makes everyone look bad - so cut the crap and give them due process. Show them what actual democracy and freedom is made of - if you believe in them, of course. Reading posts like this makes me wonder about it sometimes...

"Us vs. them" thinking is not freedom vs. evil. It IS the ultimate evil. It is a necessary evil in a firefight, or any situation of urgent danger. It's a blind, stupid, senseless evil pretty well everywhere else. Learn the difference. Think critically. Stop living in siege mentality while you have a choice. And boy there are plenty of humane, rational, non-violent choices to be made here before everything goes to hell. I respect your relatives - but you are not your relatives. You're not in Cambodia and you're not fighting with Patton in Normandy. Stop trying to pretend you are, before we all live in Cambodia with Patton every minute of our daily lives.

[TBoone]

Those were some pretty words that were actauly just some democratic propaganda but realy the U.S. was formed as a republic somthing good were people had rights and now its called a democracy but if you look at the history of democratic governments allot of them have turned into that thing you hate so much a dictatorship. Did you know that Nazi Germany was a democracy at one point in time before Hitler came in and had people replaced in politics that thought the same way as he did and that he was able to get the constitution of his country voted out and then it became a dictatorship. A Republic is a government were everybody gets a say in things a democracy is a government were only politicians get a say in things. And through democracy The Great Republic of The Uninted States is becoming a country were it has to compare itself to weaker world players like Canada to win. But thank God that this democratic government in the U.S. is becomeing weak because the people are fighting it. Maybe I was a little harsh on the terorists in my first post but the thing I was not harsh on was democracy and if the U.S. democrats keep it up this country will be a 3rd world bankrupt dictatorship were nobody has rights in oh I'd say 10 to 30 years!!!

Thanks Platapus for that point by point - examination of the laws. And yes I suppose there are ways for countries to claim they have a right to use torture in a war or some other similar conflict.

Maybe we're in the situation we were before WW 2 when the League of nations was too weak to stop the big war. Maybe the UN and it's conventions has just become too weak to actually matter globally.

[Skybird]

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.

[HunterICX]

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

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

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.

[Castout]

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.

[tater]

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.

[August]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

There was a time not so long ago when in this country men without uniforms when around killing both uniformed military troops and civilians. They violated the rules of war and were in fact committing treason against their country.

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.

Originally Posted by tater

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.

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.

[tater]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

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.

[tater]

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.

TORTURE AND “CID” UNDER OTHER AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
Still, torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are prohibited under international law — in particular, under several human-rights treaties ratified by the United States. Under the supremacy clause, treaties are “the supreme Law of the Land.” With that understanding, it might be said that the Constitution speaks to torture. Nevertheless, had the unadorned Constitution prohibited torture, these treaties, as well as various anti-torture statutes enacted since 1994, would have been superfluous.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit torture but not in all circumstances. Recognizing that, human-rights activists pushed for the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatments (UNCAT), which were ratified by the U.S. in 1992 and 1994, respectively. Both forbid torture, and the UNCAT called for the passage of anti-torture legislation, which Congress promptly enacted.

Further, both the ICCPR and the UNCAT prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (CID). Here, however, there is an important qualification. In consenting to both treaties, the Senate added a caveat: CID was to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. That is, CID would be controlled by governing American constitutional law — not what activist NGOs, international law professors, and foreign regimes decided terms like “degrading treatment” might mean.

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:

With respect to mental pain or suffering, Section 2340 does tell us that severe “means prolonged mental harm” (emphasis added). It also provides examples of the type of prolonged behavior that is prohibited: inflicting or threatening to inflict severe pain or suffering; using or threatening to use mind-altering drugs; threatening imminent death; or threatening that a third person (say, a family member) of the victim will be subjected to equivalent cruelties.

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.

Originally Posted by tater

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.

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.

Originally Posted by tater

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.

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.

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.

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?