Does evil justify this?

[David Gould]

Today at 02:25 PM Hank said this in Post #39

You got some good questions, I got some for you here as well. I got to go. Back Wednesday, pending weather.


1) Annalists
2) No. The idea is to win. You are reprimanded in the military for making stupid mistakes as well. Capturing the wrong people is wasted time plus the real culprid are still out there. Loosing is no option!
3) Why would evidence point to an innocent?
4) Why would they do that? Except sadists, no one actually enjoys it.
5) In a fighting situation one really does not have time to go for coffee, or to be civil. There I would say, if I give my soldier permission to kill I do not see the logic hindering him to find out where more enemies are before killing the enemy.
6) What limits would you like?

2.) People make errors.

3.) Innocent people have been arrested, tried, convicted and even executed in the past - and this happens even with many layers of checks and balances. Why would this be any different?

4.) Torture can be used for many purposes. Extortion is one of them; sexual gratification is another. The military contains human beings, some of whom are not pleasant individuals. And a legal right to torture would attract some not so pleasant individuals ...

5.) So you would not try your enemy for torture, as you see it as a legitimate tool of war?

6.) I would like there to be no torture allowed at all and criminal penalties in place for those who are caught using it. I would like guaranteed legal representation for all suspected terrorists, as well as media access to at least have visual confirmation that things are okay.

But we are talking about the situation if torture is allowed. What kinds of torture would you permit? What kinds of torture would you not permit? How would you make sure that the kinds of torture you did not permit did not occur?

 

[David Gould]

Today at 02:29 PM Hank said this in Post #40

No, they are not. I got to get my lawyer, but I know it is not acceptable to be interrogated, period. Some potential psych damage.

But I do got to go for tonight.

Umm, suspects are interrogated all the time. They are allowed to have a lawyer present but the people conducting the interviews are police officers trained in psych, as well as formally qualified psychologists.

Perhaps you and I have a different idea of what 'interrogation' means.

 

[JohnR7]

Yesterday at 02:13 PM coastie said this in Post #23 However, there are other more mind numbing ways of getting a suspect to talk such as asking them the same questions over and over, not allowing them to see a clock and keeping them in a well-lighted room, waking them up every couple of hours while they sleep in hopes to catch them unprepared and mentally vulnerable, and other mental games.

These methods have proven (especially after vietnam and Cold War games) to be much more effective than physical torture and, believe it or not, less time consuming, and less stressful on the interviewers.

James 3:7-8
    For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. [8] But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

No unredeemed person can control their tongue. In America we protect people from themselves. Because the natural human inclination is to tell all, when they get caught. Some because of guilt, some like to brag. You just need to understand fallen human nature. Torture was done way with at the inquistion almost 500 years ago, because as you say, it simply does not work. If someone admits their guilt, because they were tortured, then later on, when the threat is gone they claim they are innocent, but only lied to avoid more torture. How can that be considered an admission of guilt. It does more harm then good to get a conviction.

 

[Hank]

Yesterday at 10:32 PM David Gould said this in Post #41

2.) People make errors.

3.) Innocent people have been arrested, tried, convicted and even executed in the past - and this happens even with many layers of checks and balances. Why would this be any different?

4.) Torture can be used for many purposes. Extortion is one of them; sexual gratification is another. The military contains human beings, some of whom are not pleasant individuals. And a legal right to torture would attract some not so pleasant individuals ...

5.) So you would not try your enemy for torture, as you see it as a legitimate tool of war?

6.) I would like there to be no torture allowed at all and criminal penalties in place for those who are caught using it. I would like guaranteed legal representation for all suspected terrorists, as well as media access to at least have visual confirmation that things are okay.

But we are talking about the situation if torture is allowed. What kinds of torture would you permit? What kinds of torture would you not permit? How would you make sure that the kinds of torture you did not permit did not occur?

3) Here we deal with a terrorist group. The one's captured are either captured during combat or through association. I will not deny the possibility for wrong people to get mixed up in this. Yet, they do get a chance to speak up though. As I said before, the other side is for terrorists to roam free and be killing more bystanders, those bystanders do not get to speak up.

4) Those unpleasant individuals are in general not effective in accomplishing the goal, getting valid information. Their focus is to torture as a hobby not to use it as a tool.

5) No, unless it was done out of enjoyment. - In combat, if you captured an enemy and you are alone with him; limiting the risk for your own life takes precedence. This goes for a platoon or regiment. It's not like the movies. This is why the military should judge the military.

6) I think you'll get your wish CNN will not pass up on it. I said before what I think about the media circus. I can see already the long drawn out circus where the terrorists get off because they are to be felt sorry for. Can you hear it already? 'Oh look, this poor guy, and all he did was provide passports. Didn't do nothing, really' 'Well the pilots are already dead, so let's be reasonable (soft) with the rest' etc.

 

[Hank]

Yesterday at 10:37 PM David Gould said this in Post #42

Umm, suspects are interrogated all the time. They are allowed to have a lawyer present but the people conducting the interviews are police officers trained in psych, as well as formally qualified psychologists.

Perhaps you and I have a different idea of what 'interrogation' means.

In the US you have the right to say nothing at all.

 

[David Gould]

Today at 09:35 AM Hank said this in Post #45

In the US you have the right to say nothing at all.

Yes, in Australia you do too.

However, the use of trained psychologists and police trained in psych is partly to get round this and make people want to talk.

A terrorist might say nothing at all - psychologists would try to ensure they did.

 

[Annabel Lee]

The CIA, in its "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983" (reprinted in the April 1997 issue of Harper's Magazine), summed up the theory of coercion thus:

"The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioral level. As the subject regresses, his learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. He begins to lose the capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated frustrations."

Inevitably, in the aftermath of torture, its victims feel helpless and powerless. This loss of control over one's life and body is manifested physically in impotence, attention deficits, and insomnia. This is often exacerbated by the disbelief many torture victims encounter, especially if they are unable to produce scars, or other "objective" proof of their ordeal. Language cannot communicate such an intensely private experience as pain.

Spitz makes the following observation:

"Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language ... All our interior states of consciousness: emotional, perceptual, cognitive and somatic can be described as having an object in the external world ... This affirms our capacity to move beyond the boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. This is the space in which we interact and communicate with our environment. But when we explore the interior state of physical pain we find that there is no object "out there" - no external, referential content. Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards. It draws us into the boundaries of our body."

Bystanders resent the tortured because they make them feel guilty and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. The victims threaten their sense of security and their much-needed belief in predictability, justice, and rule of law. The victims, on their part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate to "outsiders" what they have been through. The torture chambers are "another galaxy". This is how Auschwitz was described by the author K. Zetnik in his testimony in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.

Kenneth Pope in "Torture", a chapter he wrote for the "Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender", quotes Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman:

"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering."

But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The victim wishes to forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life threatening abuse and to shield his human environment from the horrors. In conjunction with the victim's pervasive distrust, this is frequently interpreted as hypervigilance, or even paranoia. It seems that the victims can't win.

Torture is forever.


http://samvak.tripod.com/torturepsychology.html

 

[Annabel Lee]

“I realised that pain can increase without end. That feeling is devastating to the mind. The desperation is hard to describe. Suddenly an entire culture collapses. Nothing is possible in such a universe. It is hard to be a survivor.”

“The pain is not like ordinary pain. With this, something happens in your heart.”

Torture is a power instrument. The most horrible, the most efficient and the most destructive power instrument. Everybody gives up under torture. We are all afraid of torture. I am afraid of being tortured, of course I am. And ... this should be known much more broadly than it is known. That is what we are working for -- breaking the silence.
"—Dr. Inge Genefke

"Silence is itself a prerequisite for the continuation of suppression and terror, and by choosing silence we become accomplices."
"Tausheten er selve forutsetningen for at undertrykkelse og terror skal fortsette, og velger vi taushet, betyr det at vi blir medskyldige."
—From Amnesty International Gruppe 163, Lyngen i Troms, Norway

http://www.origami.no/stoptorture/


_______________________________________________


There is no such thing as exceptional circumstances
Police and armed forces facing terrorism or guerrilla warfare justify the use of violence in interrogation of suspects. They say it is a 'lesser evil' than the killings the guerillas would otherwise perpetrate if vital information was not obtained.Inevitably, however, the links between the torture victims and the terrorists become more and more tenuous until it becomes the torture of a random selection of innocent people. They just happen to live in a certain area or work in a particular place. No useful information is obtained but the people become terrorized and alienated. People, particularly young men, who were undecided or indifferent may become sworn enemies. Instead of a small number of bombers or gunmen, the forces of law and order will face hundreds. Free societies must defend themselves vigorously and terrorist acts must be punished according to the law; this must not, however, be done at the cost of those rights and freedoms and the moral stand which are at the heart of a free society.

http://www.fiacat.org/GB/Cadre1.htm