I think that the two principal objections to torture are the following:

(1) Torture does not work.

(2) The risk is too great that a government would abuse a right to torture.

The first objection assumes an absolute (torture never works).

The second objection assumes that the risk to civil liberties, whatever the magnitude of that risk may be, always outweighs any benefits torture may produce (assuming torture even works).

Torture does not work.

I have a hard time believing that torture never works (or that it only works in the very rarest of circumstances).

To quote Briguy:

quote:

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Originally posted by Briguy:
Investigators have many other tools at their disposal: trickery, bargaining, intimidation, appeals to decency, etc.

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If those tools can work and convince a “bad guy” to spill out valuable information, why would a pressure that is more intense never (or very rarely) work? One would think it would be quite the opposite. If I was willing to ‘fess up to something in the face of “intimidation”, I would think I would be just that much more willing to do so if I faced something stronger. Even if I was not willing to release information in the face of “intimidation”, it seems logical that I might be convinced to do so if the pressure was more severe.

I am ready to be convinced otherwise but, logically, I can’t accept an assertion that torture will never (or very rarely) work.

By the way, I recognize the relevance of M. Spector’s questions (I believe it was M.S., any way) that asked about what is “torture” and what does torture “working” mean. I think those are valid questions and need to be answered to fully explore this issue. But, for the moment I’m just trying to look at this from a 30,000 foot view, as it were.

The risk is too great that a government would abuse a right to torture.

Personally, I think this is a far more compelling concern regarding torture. There are too many instances of abuse of state power with the tools law enforcement has now to believe that there wouldn’t be abuse of a right to torture. That is why — assuming for the moment that torture can elicit useful information that is vital to averting a mass catastrophe — it would be critical to have a significant and meaningful check on the use of that power to make sure that it would be used only when there is a high probability that the torture of an individual(s) will lead to critical information that would play a significant role in averting a mass disaster.

The question is: Can those probabilities be assessed objectively and can a check to that power be created that would minimize, if not eliminate, its abuse?

I think it would be necessary for the power to reside in the hands of the executive branch but have the power to check that executive power in the hands of the judiciary, with the guidelines for when the exercise of that executive power established legislatively.

From a moral perspective, it seems that if an individual would be likely to divulge critical information that would play an essential role in averting mass casualties if that individual was subjected to torture, then the individual could morally be tortured. The converse strikes me as immoral (accepting a high probability of mass casualties in order to avoid inflicting pain on an individual who would be likely to divulge critical information that could prevent those casualties).

Even with the best safeguards that could be humanly designed, there would necessarily be a risk of torturing an innocent person. And, that is a risk that is obviously very concerning.

That all being said, it seems to me that it is worth at least discussing possible means of using torture in critical circumstances that minimizes risk to innocent people. Or, to put it another way, I guess I’m not ready to reject out of hand the use of torture at this point but, at the same time, not ready to sanction it, either. But, I do think we need an open discussion about the issue where the participants avoid preconceived notions that torture should be used or that torture should never be used.

ETA: Changed thread title from "Morality of Torture" to "Morality and Torture" (thanks Fidel)...

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
That all being said, it seems to me that it is worth at least discussing possible means of using torture in critical circumstances that minimizes risk to innocent people. Or, to put it another way, I guess I’m not ready to reject out of hand the use of torture at this point but, at the same time, not ready to sanction it, either. But, I do think we need an open discussion about the issue where the participants avoid preconceived notions that torture should be used or that torture should never be used.

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quote:

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I think that the two principal objections to torture are the following:

(1) Torture does not work.

(2) The risk is too great that a government would abuse a right to torture.

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quote:

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Originally posted by clandestiny:
the mindlessness of the right is a torture - too many examples of it around...(maybe there is a deathwish?)

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quote:

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Originally posted by remind:

You are actually closer than you know with the last comment, after all they are going to be swept up in the rapture, after they destroy the earth, so they can watch Jesus rip our guts out.

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Interesting that Jesus gets mentioned in a torture thread.

I was at a craft store yesterday with Snarfy the Wonder Girl, buying small wooden boxes for her burgeoning animal collection, when that religiously unintructed five year old pulled a wooden cross off the shelf where it had been resting with many others.

I cringed, waiting for her to ask (she asks a lot-- the one soul on this planet not yet wary or tired of my didactic streak) what the wooden thing was. I wondered if I was going to tell her it was the ultimate Roman torture/terror device. What else was I to tell her? I dunno. I'm hung up on the truth.

Thankfully, she just said it was funny, and put it back on the shelf.

quote:

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Originally posted by Coyote:
There is nothing to "debate" about torture, except how to stamp it out in our lifetimes.

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It would be nice if we lived in a black and white world like that, where truth was absolute and indisputable. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Let me ask you a hypothetical question:

A group is about to launch an attack that, if successful, would kill tens of thousands of people. If a key individual of the group was apprehended who possessed vital information that would, if revealed, result in the attack being prevented, would it be moral to not do whatever possible to elicit that information to avoid the attack?

Or, is the stronger moral argument that it’s better to avoid torturing an individual even if the consequences of avoiding torture is the death of thousands?

I would like you to explain your moral calculus.

Now, what I was presenting were two key reasons why torture would not be appropriate even in that hypothetical. If torture never works in eliciting critical information, then obviously torture should not be used. Likewise, if it was not possible to limit the power to torture so that there wasn’t widespread abuse, then even if torturing an individual could save thousands of people, it may not be worth the cost to civil liberties.

quote:

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:
Odd that in a thread titled "morality of torture" you've simply dismissed the moral argument against torture in favour of a pragmatic concern and one which begs the actual moral question.

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The moral question is whether is would be immoral to torture an individual if torture was highly likely to elicit critical information that, if revealed, could prevent an attack that would otherwise kill thousands.

quote:

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Originally posted by remind:
Ok, I will just say it, only sociopaths IMV would even consider torture as viable, let alone a "moral" thing to do.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

The moral question is whether is would be immoral to torture an individual if torture was highly likely to elicit critical information that, if revealed, could prevent an attack that would otherwise kill thousands?

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A lawyer for five Cuban anti-terrorists has described a similar scenario to a court in Miami, Florida, and the very government claiming to be leading the fight against global terrorism refuses to believe it.

[ 03 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

A lawyer for five Cuban anti-terrorists has explained this exact same scenario to a court in Miami, Florida, and the very government claiming to be leading the fight against global terrorism refuses to believe it.

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quote:

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As happens with mind-numbing regularity every week on Fox Television’s hit show 24, torture has once again worked to save us all from the terror of a ticking bomb, affirming for millions of loyal viewers that torture is a necessary weapon in George Bush’s war on terror.
....

With torture now a key weapon in the war on terror, the time has come to interrogate the logic of the ticking time bomb with a six-point critique. For this scenario embodies our deepest fears and makes most of us quietly — unwittingly — complicit in the Bush Administration’s recourse to torture.

Number one: In the real world, the probability that a terrorist might be captured after concealing a ticking nuclear bomb in Times Square and that his captors would somehow recognize his significance is phenomenally slender. The scenario assumes a highly improbable array of variables that runs something like this:

—First, FBI or CIA agents apprehend a terrorist at the precise moment between timer’s first tick and bomb’s burst.

—Second, the interrogators somehow have sufficiently detailed foreknowledge of the plot to know they must interrogate this very person and do it right now.

—Third, these same officers, for some unexplained reason, are missing just a few critical details that only this captive can divulge.

—Fourth, the biggest leap of all, these officers with just one shot to get the information that only this captive can divulge are best advised to try torture, as if beating him is the way to assure his wholehearted cooperation.
....

Number two: This scenario still rests on the critical, utterly unexamined assumption that torture can get useful intelligence quickly from this or any hardened terrorist.
....

Number three: Once we agree to torture the one terrorist with his hypothetical ticking bomb, then we admit a possibility, even an imperative, for torturing hundreds who might have ticking bombs or thousands who just might have some knowledge about those bombs. “You can’t know whether a person knows where the bomb is,” explains Georgetown University Law Professor David Cole, “or even if they’re telling the truth. Because of this, you end up going down a slippery slope and sanctioning torture in general.”

Most of those rounded up by military sweeps in Iraq and Afghanistan for imprisonment at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo had nothing to do with terrorism. A recent analysis of the Pentagon listing of Guantánamo’s 517 detainees reveals that 86 percent were arrested not by U.S. forces but by Northern Alliance and Pakistani warlords eager to collect a $5,000 bounty for every “terrorist” captured.

Ironically, though, torture of the many can produce results, albeit at a surprisingly high political price.

The CIA tortured tens of thousands in Vietnam and the French tortured hundreds of thousands in Algeria. During the Battle of Algiers in 1957, French soldiers arrested 30 percent to 40 percent of all males in the city’s Casbah and subjected most of these to what one French officer called “beatings, electric shocks, and, in particular, water torture, which was always the most dangerous technique for the prisoner.” Though many resisted to the point of death, mass torture gained sufficient intelligence to break the rebel underground. The CIA’s Phoenix program no doubt damaged the Viet Cong’s communist infrastructure by torture-interrogation of countless South Vietnamese civilians.

So the choices are clear. Major success from limited, surgical torture is a fable, a fiction. But mass torture of thousands of suspects, some guilty, most innocent, can produce some useful intelligence.

Number four: Useful intelligence perhaps, but at what cost? The price of torture is unacceptably high because it disgraces and then undermines the country that countenances it. For the French in Algeria, for the Americans in Vietnam, and now for the Americans in Iraq, the costs have been astronomical and have outweighed any gains gathered by torture.
....

Even the comparatively limited torture at Abu Ghraib has done incalculable damage to America’s international prestige.

In short, the intelligence gains are soon overwhelmed by political costs as friends and enemies recoil in revulsion at such calculated savagery.
....

Number five: These dismal conclusions lead to a last, uncomfortable question: If torture produces limited gains at such high political cost, why does any rational American leader condone interrogation practices “tantamount to torture”?

One answer to this question seems to lie with a prescient CIA Cold War observation about Soviet leaders in times of stress. “When feelings of insecurity develop within those holding power,” reads an agency analysis of Kremlin leadership applicable to the post-9/11 White House, “they become increasingly suspicious and put great pressures upon the secret police to obtain arrests and confessions. At such times, police officials are inclined to condone anything which produces a speedy ‘confession,’ and brutality may become widespread.” In sum, the powerful often turn to torture in times of crisis, not because it works but because it salves their fears and insecurities with the psychic balm of empowerment.

As we slide down the slippery slope to torture in general, we should also realize that there is a chasm at the bottom called extrajudicial execution. With the agency’s multinational gulag full of dozens, even hundreds, of detainees of dwindling utility, CIA agents, active and retired, have been vocal in their complaints about the costs and inconvenience of limitless, even lifetime, incarceration for these tortured terrorists. The ideal solution to this conundrum from an agency perspective is pump and dump, as in Vietnam—pump the terrorists for information, and then dump the bodies. After all, the systematic French torture of thousands from the Casbah of Algiers in 1957 also entailed more than 3,000 “summary executions” as “an inseparable part” of this campaign, largely, as one French general put it, to ensure that “the machine of justice” not be “clogged with cases.” For similar reasons, the CIA’s Phoenix program produced, by the agency’s own count, over 20,000 extrajudicial killings.

Number six: The use of torture to stop ticking bombs leads ultimately to a cruel choice—either legalize this brutality, à la Dershowitz and Bush, or accept that the logical corollary to state-sanctioned torture is state-sponsored murder, à la Vietnam.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

What do you think of the Cubans' lawyer's argument?

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McCoy makes a very compelling argument regarding my second question (whether torture can ever be practiced without significant damage to civil liberties and the rule of law). And, again, I think that is probably the strongest argument against torture.

I'm less convinced regarding McCoy's discussion that relates to my first question and I need to read more about that.

One entry found for viable.

Main Entry: vi·a·ble
Pronunciation: 'vI-&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from vie life, from Latin vita -- more at VITAL
1 : capable of living; especially : having attained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother's womb
2 : capable of growing or developing
3 a : capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately b : capable of existence and development as an independent unit c (1) : having a reasonable chance of succeeding

quote:

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Sven wrote
I'm less convinced regarding McCoy's discussion that relates to my first question and I need to read more about that.

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I really wish you would, as well as about the topic more generally.

You show no evidence, Sven, in any of your posts in this thread, of having done even basic reading on this subject, whether we're talking about international instruments like the UN Convention Against Torture; or the writings of people like Michael "Coercive Interrogation" Ignatieff, Alan "Torture Warrant" Dershowitz, and Jean Bethke "Dirty Hands" Elshtain; or the public positions taken by NGO representatives like Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

In short, Sven, you give your fellow babblers no reason to believe that you've done any serious thinking at all on this topic before issuing your call for an "open discussion about the issue," in terms that suggest you think you're the first person to address the relevant issues in a serious way.

Sorry, Sven, but you're not.

M. Spector has been good enough to provide you with one refutation of your "ticking bomb" scenario: other such responses exist, and have for some years.

You might have found answers to your other questions, too, if you had bothered to look.

http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm

Bush 43 in a jail cell with nothing but the Tarpley Chaitkin book, a sofa, and maybe a TV. oh, and some pretzels.

quote:

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Originally posted by sgm:
... and torture, in my opinion, is no more defensible than slavery.

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ETA: I just thought I'd ask that before Sven did.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

quote:

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Yeah, but can you prove for certain that slavery doesn't work?

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quote:

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Let me ask you a hypothetical question:

A group is about to launch an attack that, if successful, would kill tens of thousands of people. If a key individual of the group was apprehended who possessed vital information that would, if revealed, result in the attack being prevented, would it be moral to not do whatever possible to elicit that information to avoid the attack?

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In order to know that the information a person possesses might save lives, you first need to know what they know. If you already know what they know, there is no need for torture. What you are asking us to do is to degrade and annihilate the value of an individual life (and in so doing ALL individual lives) based on conjecture that it may save other individual lives.

You are trying to constrain the argument into moral “calculus” (a holdover from the Utilitarians) such that the sum value of individual lives potentially lost is greater than the value of any particular individual life composing that sum – such as that of the victim of torture. Without knowing that they possess information that will actually save lives, they remain “innocent” or at least in the realm of the undecided. In such a condition, there is actually nothing to seperate them from those who may be killed in a future attack (for those future victims may also have the potential of changing the course of events, should we torture everyone just in case they know something?) As such your “calculus” assumes the guilt of the torture victim before the punishment is handed out. All of us are potentially guilty, how to choose who to torture?

What is at stake is our fidelity to the principles of human rights embodied in our civil and legal traditions. Those principles and the actions which brought them into being and sustain them are what Alain Badiou would call the “Event” for our society. Loyalty to this Event is paramount if we are actually to protect our “civilisation” as the Straussians might say. It is the maintainance of those principles that consitutes the praxis of our lofty theoretical principles. We have a choice whether to remain loyal to those principles, or to turn our backs on them out of fear and paranoia. Rumsfield said that the Geneva Conventions are “out of date”. Are we to believe that? To borrow from The Right's phrasebook, “is that how we keep our promises?” In balancing the rights of the individual versus the “greater good” we need to tilt cautiously in favour of the individual, because that is the fundamental factor on which the rest of the “calculus” is built. To borrow another phrase from The War on Terror, “no one said it was going to be easy.” That is, the protection of the revolutionary principles that support our ban on torture involves risk and sacrifice. In our case the individual good IS the collective good – or as Arendt put it – there is no “human rights” without “civil rights”. Once we've degraded the individual life (many times multiplied) comprising it, the “collective good” becomes nothing but whatever “truth” is asserted and enforced willy-nilly by the strongest among us. The person thought to be the “ticking time bomb” is placed outside the legal order, i.e. becomes homo sacer and we've effectively created two levels of political life – some being more equal than others. In so doing, we've compromised everything we say we stand for.

Here's a moral question (not of the hypothetical kind, I'm afraid): would you rather die for a principle or live torturing people knowing it would keep you alive a few more days, weeks, or even years? Every person who potentially survives because of an act of torture they have condoned directly or through political process is complicit in the act of torture. How could we pretend otherwise? Do we only believe in democracy and individual conscience/responsibility when the results are pleasant?

Are you a torturer, Sven? How could you not want to be? In the scenario you propose the torturer is the ultimate saviour of human life. Are we to be a society of torturers, or of those who resist torture, even unto death? What would you rather be?

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

quote:

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:
You are trying to constrain the argument into moral “calculus” (a holdover from the Utilitarians) such that the sum value of individual lives potentially lost is greater than the value of any particular individual life composing that sum – such as that of the victim of torture.

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At the risk of sgm lecturing me about not having read enough philosophy, I do look at morality from a utilitarian perspective as I’m not sure how humans can otherwise (democratically) determine what is “right” and “wrong” for society. In other words, if the majority of people do not determine what is “right” and what is “wrong” for society, then what minority subset of the population is to be given the authority to establish what is “right” and what is “wrong” for all people? I understand the serious problem presented by the concept of “tyranny of the majority” but I’ve yet to hear of a non-democratic way to determine “right” and “wrong” that is, on balance, better than a determination that is subject to majority consensus.

quote:

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:
In order to know that the information a person possesses might save lives, you first need to know what they know. If you already know what they know, there is no need for torture. What you are asking us to do is to degrade and annihilate the value of an individual life (and in so doing ALL individual lives) based on conjecture that it may save other individual lives.

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I think you are looking at an inherently subjective issue by trying to squeeze it into a binary formula: We either (1) know what the individual knows already, so torture would not be necessary or (2) we don’t have any idea what anyone knows so that torturing one individual and not another individual is inherently unjust.

But, the law is full of subjective determinations based on probability.

For example, in a binary sense, we can, in a murder case, never know with certainty that Individual A killed Individual B. We convict Individual A if it is “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the evidence shows Individual A killed Individual B. As such, it is inevitable that innocent individuals will be convicted of murder (and other crimes) and sent to spend the remainder of their lives living in a concrete and steel cage. But, we are perfectly ready to accept that risk because the alternative is to not convict anyone and to leave unrestrained those who have in fact murdered others.

As another example, the law permits, under certain circumstances, invading a person’s civil right to privacy through a police search of a suspect’s home, the wire tapping the person’s conversations, the arrest and confinement of the person (often for months), and other violations of a person’s privacy. The violation of such an individual’s civil right to privacy is based on a standard that is far less rigorous than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard: The police, with the approval of the courts, are permitted to engage in that conduct if there is merely “probable cause” that the individual has committed, or is planning to commit, a crime.

The same is true of torture (or of coercive means that are short of torture). The issue is: What is the probability that the individual possesses vital information that is not known and which, if known, would likely prevent a mass catastrophe?

Obviously, to minimize the probability of torturing an innocent individual, the probability that an individual possesses vital and unknown information that, if known, would likely prevent a mass catastrophe would have to be extremely high.

The point that I’m trying to explore is: Can such a legal mechanism be created, just like we have done for dealing with other types of harmful behavior?

An Aside:

Is this a kind of campaign to make torture palpable on the heels of the recent exposure of Israeli torture of Palestinians in a Chicago court ?

If torture does indeed work and governments would not abuse it. Does that make it acceptable ?

quote:

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The Chicago trial was the most devastating defeat for Israel because during the trial Israeli torture was documented in detail. For that we have to thank the hapless former N. Y. Times reporter Judith Miller, who calmly watched torture-in-progress in Israel and testified at the trial.

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Full article by Andy Martin here:

http://tinyurl.com/ytcn2d

Martin covers American and world politics with forty years of personal experience; he is America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analyst.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: sidra ]

Perhaps you could change the thread title to "immorality of" or "amorality of torture.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Perhaps you could change the thread title to "immorality of" or "amorality of torture.

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quote:

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Originally posted by sidra:
If torture does indeed work and governments would not abuse it. Does that make it acceptable?

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quote:

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But it is a controversial and thought-provoking topic, jts. Thanks Sven Fidel

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I respect your view, Fidel, but I am astonished. Debating torture and whether it is necessary, moral, effective !?

Sven had 2 "objections" to torture.

1. Does not work

2. Could be abused by governments.

He is discussing "efficiency" and "danger of abuse". Therefore, if it is proven as "working" and governments "do not abuse it", torture, as I infer from Sven's logic, is OK.

Thought-provoking ? The only thing that is provoked is my lunch in my stomach.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: sidra ]

quote:

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If one can assume both of those factors to be as you stated them, torture would still only be acceptable if, in a particular instance, the torture was likely to produce otherwise unknown information that would likely prevent mass casualties. Otherwise, the risk to civil liberties would be too great. Sven

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No, Sven, YOU stated them. See the first post in this thread. It is YOU who wrote that, no?

There are a whole host of ojections to using torture (the most obvious being if torture doesn't work, it clearly shouldn't be used...ever).

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I thought I read where crime stats say one in seven on death row in Texas and Florida will be innocent.

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I'm not sure what the percentage is or what the "one in seven" is based on. But, there are, without doubt, many people on death row who are innocent.

I helped represent one of those people (Albert Burrell) who was on death row in Louisiana's Angola prison for about thirteen years before he was finally freed in 2000.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

I propose we expropriate all assets from the richest 1% of the population, leaving them completely destitute. Those assets will then be distributed equally among the poorest 50% of the population.

Is this morally justified? Let's apply utilitarian principles. The number who benefit is 50 times greater than the number who suffer. Thus, it's all good.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dogbert:
Here's a hypothetical for you, Sven.

I propose we expropriate all assets from the richest 1% of the population, leaving them completely destitute. Those assets will then be distributed equally among the poorest 50% of the population.

Is this morally justified? Let's apply utilitarian principles. The number who benefit is 50 times greater than the number who suffer. Thus, it's all good.

Any flaws in my logic?

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
How about the similar hypothetical I raised in the 24 thread?

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Are you asking whether it would be moral, from a majoritarian/utilitarian perspective, to torture Bush to avoid the deaths of thousands?

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
So it's morality by majority vote, then.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

I helped represent one of those people (Albert Burrell) who was on death row in Louisiana's Angola prison for about thirteen years before he was finally freed in 2000.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
If not from the majority, then what group of people (a minority of the population) determines what is "right" and "wrong" for all people?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Well I'm impressed, Sven. By what I know about it, Angola is a terrible prison. There have been Canadians wrongly convicted and lives wasted in prison.

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Not much of a moral code you've got there, Sven.

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Torture is a great way to reinforce whatever false beliefs the torturers hold. Under torture, the victims will tell them whatever it is they most desperately want to hear. In the process, the torturers drift off into their own fantasy world. A good example is the strange confusion of the US about the nature of the insurgents. Are they Baathists? Al-Qaeda? Shiites? The Americans have been told by their victims everything except the truth - because that is something they don't want to hear, and thus, the kind of information torture will only obscure.

quote:

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Originally posted by Coyote:
Good question, Sven.

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So, what is the source of moral "right" and "wrong", Coyote? If it's not the majority, then what group of people get to decide for everyone?

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

Note: I am not trying to butt religion into the “debate” rather the quotation above directly influence my opinion and a center point of my argument.

This verse emphasizes -in my opinion- that to quantify the value of human beings lives and to use math operators to determine the importance of one innocent life over another is invalid That is to say that lives of 2000 people > 1 person (is bigger than implying more important than) is an invalid comparison.

“Do not kill one innocent person for whatever higher reason you think it might be” Is the message I believe in. The word “human being” here came with no attachment to race, colour, and religious affinity.

And mere suspicion is not enough grounds to make the person not innocent. In other words without due process of law the only math statement you can use is: a person’s life, body, freedom, honor etc... = (or == for programmers) the life, body, freedom, honor of all mankind.

Torture kills, maims the body, and takes the most important freedom of all, the one of your own soul and well being.

So the answer to your question Sven is “No, even if there is a ticking bomb!” but that’s just me.

[ 04 February 2007: Message edited by: ConcernedCanadian ]

There is evidence that sexual mutilation and abuse can be more effective than traditional forms of torture. So I assume Sven and his intellectual leaders could find reason or rationale to also sanction rape, abuse, and genital mutilation, no?

Or, what about the kidnapping and abuse of a suspect's family as the US and its allies are now employing, lawfully, in Iraq? This appears to be very efficient. I assume Sven would welcome seeing his children abused in custody if it would make him talk and divulge the location of the ticking bomb.

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

A trend that the Israelo-American Axis would welcome. Why, it would be nice if torture is accepted as a legitimate tool so we would spare ourselves a red face here and a criticism there. We are known as 'democracies' after all, and democraties should not be engaged in torture.

Nice job, Sven. Perhaps you could even apply for some fundinf for your study, from the US or Israel or both.

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: sidra ]

By the time the drill has made its way through your suspect's knee cap, he breaks. "It's in the under ground garage at the Upstate Mall, level 2," he says between pants and cries and uncontrollable weeping while drifting in and out of shock but kept from unconsciousness by a dedicated member of the medical profession who has taken an oath to cause no harm to another (what's an oath? This is America!).

Anyway, a SWAT team is dispatched to the Upstate Mall and it is soon evacuated. No sooner does the explosives team conclude, after a full search, that the suspect was only confessing to end the torture, when the real bomb detonates in a tunnel beneath the river. Ironically, teams were about to search the tunnel just as they were being called off because the torture victim "confessed".

How do we manage a scenario like that Sven?

And in the process of locating the ticking time bomb, can random persons be tortured just in case they might know something?

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

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Originally posted by sidra:
Sven is seeking some intellectual rationalization for torture and it is legitimation would come next.

A trend that the Israelo-American Axis would welcome. Why, it would be nice if torture is accepted as a legitimate tool

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Actually,seeing them building and marketing campaign based upon responses given is this type of question around other forums and blogs, is not very hard. They are looking for wriggle room and a way to frame the debate, and then change the laws.

That we are seeing this type of thing occuring is disturbing.

quote:

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so we would spare ourselves a red face here and a criticism there.

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Maybe it is more to do with sparing some crimes against humanity charges at the end of this all, by changing the laws retroactively?

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We are known as 'democracies' after all, and democraties should not be engaged in torture.

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There is no democracy in the type of thinking that thinks torture is fine. Having said that what can be done to discredit, or circumvent, those of the population that say these types of things, who do not want a democracy?

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
By the time the drill has made its way through your suspect's knee cap....

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I am surprised that no one has mentioned shoving a red-hot poker up a person’s arse (as was once done to an English King several centuries ago).

The immorality of treating someone like that is, under almost all circumstances, abundantly clear.

What most people posting on this thread (with a few notable exceptions) are not addressing is the issue of avoiding an even greater evil.

If, immediately prior to WWII, Hitler had been accessible to a German assassin but an attempt on his life would have certainly resulted in the painful death of several innocent people, I would argue that it would have made sense to proceed with the assassination in order to kill the most important driving force leading Germany to war. Those innocent people would have suffered and died, unwillingly, for a greater good.

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I am surprised that no one has mentioned shoving a red-hot poker up a person’s arse (as was once done to an English King several centuries ago).

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You notice that came out of your head. Once the door is open to torture, it is open to a red hot coal up someone's arse or Guantanamo or Abu Gharib. There is no risk of a red hot poker up someone's arse when pulling a finger nail is already a crime that demands prison terms.

What you and apologists for torture are demanding is the slippery slope. How many senior military or civilian personnel have been charged in respect to Abu Gharib? How many independent investigations have been conducted into Guantanamo?

You also failed to answer my questions with respect to your hypothetical ticking time bomb.

The video linked below shows an Egyptian woman confessing to murder through a means of interrogation probably tame compared to that which those who have been rendered by America, the once brave, have suffered.

You can hear her interrogators laughing.

Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhQRFz65M6s
Part II:
Sven's brave new world

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

Please review your links. They do lead to youtube but not to the video you mentioned.

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Originally posted by sidra:
I find the whole topic immoral, in that Sven is seeking some intellectual rationalization for torture and it is legitimation would come next.

A trend that the Israelo-American Axis would welcome. Why, it would be nice if torture is accepted as a legitimate tool so we would spare ourselves a red face here and a criticism there. We are known as 'democracies' after all, and democraties should not be engaged in torture.

Nice job, Sven. Perhaps you could even apply for some fundinf for your study, from the US or Israel or both.

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: sidra ]

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A suggestion: if you want a legitimate discussion on a philosophical topic, then the avoidance of terms like "Israelo-American Axis" etc would be constructive and less baiting.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
You also failed to answer my questions with respect to your hypothetical ticking time bomb.

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You mean this one?

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
I assume Sven would welcome seeing his children abused in custody if it would make him talk and divulge the location of the ticking bomb.

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Of course I wouldn't enjoy seeing my children (if I had any) abused in custody.

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If, immediately prior to WWII, Hitler had been accessible to a German assassin but an attempt on his life would have certainly resulted in the painful death of several innocent people

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The Restless Conscience

... a film documenting the resistance to Hitler inside Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. It is a powerful and provocative documentary feature that explores the motivations of the anti-Nazi resisters whose actions also included numerous attempts on Hitler's life.

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In 1938 Elser was alarmed by the Munich agreements and terrified by the prospect of a second World War, having experienced the first W.W. as a teenager. Elser, a reserved, slow-spoken individual, in the autumn of the same year of 1938, decided to assassinate Hitler ...

The bomb exploded at 9.20 destroying half the hall, killing seven people and wounding sixty-three. Next day Hitler claimed that an "inner voice" had told him to get out and on the same day he decided to launch a western offensive! ZMag

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Hitler plot 'heroes' commemorated

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1944: Hitler survives assassination attempt:

"The German people must consider the failure of the attempt on Hitler's life as a sign that Hitler will complete his tasks under the protection of a divine power."

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[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: writer ]

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You mean this one?

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No, I mean this one:

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Anyway, a SWAT team is dispatched to the Upstate Mall and it is soon evacuated. No sooner does the explosives team conclude, after a full search, that the suspect was only confessing to end the torture, when the real bomb detonates in a tunnel beneath the river. Ironically, teams were about to search the tunnel just as they were being called off because the torture victim "confessed".

How do we manage a scenario like that Sven?

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And this one:

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And in the process of locating the ticking time bomb, can random persons be tortured just in case they might know something?

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Likewise, I wouldn't enjoy my friends and siblings (to put them in my Hitler hypothetical) suffer a painful death in order that Hitler could be assassinated. And, I wouldn't want to see that happen. But, I would hope that I could understand how their (and my) sacrifice may have been necessary to kill Hitler and avoid much, much greater horrors.

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That is a resort to the absurd. What if in your effort to kill the next Hitler, you killed the next Ghandi? Or Jesus Christ? And what supernatural powers do you possess in order to recognize the next Hitler or, for that matter, the last Hitler? And, more importantly, what does any of this have to do with torturing people to discover the location of the hypothetical ticking time bomb? Or are you imagining a ticking time bomb that burns the Reichstag, invokes hate, and goes on to detonate again and again?

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by Coyote:
Actually, I've had enough. I think the entire premise of this thread is counter to babble policy, and I'm sending an email to the moderators stating that.

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Of course, you've not read most of what I've written (or, if you have, you haven't thought about it).

This thread brached out from a discussion on '24'. I think that torture is not acceptable if (1) it doesn't work and (2) couldn't be exercised without significant risk to civil liberties. And, even then, would only be appropriate in the much-maligned hypothetical of a "ticking bomb", where there "greater good" would be saving thousands from mass death and pain.

But, some of the detractors to that discussion simply say: "No. It doesn't matter if the torture of an individual saves 10,000 lives, it's wrong."

I question the morality of that conclusion. You simply choose to ignore it...and the most recent hypothetical that I posed that creates an analogy (the killing of Hitler and the necessary killing of innocent bystanders and whether it would make sense to still kill Hitler to avoid a far greater harm). Presumably, under those circumstances you would say, "Don't kill Hitler", although you've never addressed it, so I would only be speculating.

This is as much of a philosophical and moral debate as it is a policy debate. But, because it raises questions that are extremely difficult and, admittedly, go against the preconceived conclusion that you no doubt held that "Torture is wrong", you can't even entertain extreme circumstances where the morality of that position is questionable.

In essence, you are saying with absolute moral certainty that to torture one individual in order to save thousands is wrong. End of discussion.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
That is a resort to the absurd. What if in your effort to kill the next Hitler, you killed the next Ghandi? Or Jesus Christ? And what supernatural powers do you possess in order to recognize the next Hitler or, for that matter, the last Hitler?

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Originally posted by Sven:

By the mid- to late-1930s, it was clear to all but the most unrealistically-hopeful (ala Chamberlain) that Hitler presented a very serious threat to world peace.

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Originally posted by Coyote:
My grandpa used to tell me "Just because you talk alot donna mean you're saying a thing at all."

And if you can't figure out the simple equation that debating the acceptability of torture is anethema to a board dedicated to Human Rights, then you've a lot to learn.

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But, that ignores the human rights of innocents killed in a hypothetical ticking bomb scenario.

By your own definition, then, presumably your postings are against the policy of a board that supports human rights.

I'm not advocating torture as a mere police tool to be used for any crime. I'm talking about the uniquely difficult question of a "ticking bomb" scenario where there is a balance of a single human life against thousands of human lives.

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Originally posted by Coyote:

I think looking for ways to justify torture is a threat to world peace.

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Originally posted by Coyote:
Are you writing a first-year philosophy essay? Is that what this is about?

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