Discussion: Torture

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I talked about interrogating a terror suspect to get information that could possibly save countless American lives. You then said well what about the wrongfully killed Iraq'is:dry:

Would you sit across from a guy laughing at you and talking about your country going to be attacked again? Would you have tortured Hitler to get information out of him to save countless lives? Kel made a good point. There are humans, and then there are subhumans.
 
Surprise Surprise.....British Gov't loves torture



Torture means the woman who was raped with a broken bottle, and died after 10 days of agony.

The Government has been arguing before the House of Lords for the right to act on intelligence obtained by torture abroad. It wants to be able to use such material to detain people without trial in the UK, and as evidence in the courts. Key to its case is a statement to the Law Lords by the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller. In effect she argues that torture works. It foiled the famous ricin plot.


She omits to mention that no more ricin was found than is the naturally occurring base level in your house or mine - or indeed that no poison of any kind was found. But let us leave that for now. She argues, in effect, that we need to get intelligence from foreign security services, to fight terrorism. And if they torture, so what? Her chief falsehood is our pretence that we don't know what happens in their dungeons. We do. And it is a dreadful story. Manningham-Buller is so fastidious she even avoids using the word "torture" in her evidence. Let alone the reality to which she turns such a carefully blind eye.

Manningham Buller also fails to mention that a large number of people have been tortured abroad to provide us with intelligence - because we sent them there to be tortured. The CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme has become notorious. Under it, detainees have been sent around the world to key torture destinations. There is evidence of British complicity - not only do these CIA flights regularly operate from UK airbases, but detainees have spoken of British intelligence personnel working with their tormentors.

So the UK receives this intelligence material not occasionally, not fortuitously, but in connection with a regular programme of torture with which we are intimately associated. Uzbekistan is one of those security services from whose "friendly liaison" services we obtained information.

And I will tell you what torture means.
It means the woman who was raped with a broken bottle in both vagina and anus, and who died after ten days of agony. It means the old man suspended by wrist shackles from the ceiling while his children were beaten to a pulp before his eyes. It means the man whose fingernails were pulled before his face was beaten and he was immersed to his armpits in boiling liquid.
It means the 18-year-old whose knees and elbows were smashed, his hand immersed in boiling liquid until the skin came away and the flesh started to peel from the bone, before the back of his skull was stove in.

These are all real cases from the Uzbek security services which we viewed as friendly liaison, and from which we obtained regular intelligence, in the Uzbek case via the CIA.

A month ago, that liaison relationship was stopped - not by us, but by the Uzbeks. But as Manningham-Buller sets out, we continue to maintain our position as customer to torturers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and many other places. The key point is that none of the these Uzbek victims were terrorists at all.
The great majority of those who suffer torture at the hands of these regimes are not terrorists, but political opponents. And the scale of this torture is vast. In Uzbekistan alone thousands, not hundreds, of innocent men, women and children suffer torture every year.

Across Manningham-Buller's web of friendly intelligence agencies, the number may reach tens of thousands. Can our security really be based on such widespread inhumanity, or is that not part of the grievance that feeds terrorism?
These other governments know that our security services lap up information from their torture chambers. This practical condoning more than cancels out any weasel words on human rights which the Foreign Office may issue.

In fact, the case for the efficacy of torture intelligence is not nearly as clear-cut as Manningham-Buller makes out. Much dross comes out of the torture chambers. History should tell us that under torture people would choke out an admission that they had joined their neighbours in flying on broomsticks with cats.

We do not receive torture intelligence from foreign liaison security services sometimes, or by chance. We receive it on a regular basis, through established channels. That plainly makes us complicit. It is worth considering, in this regard, Article 4 of the UN Convention Against Torture, which requires signatories to make complicity with torture a criminal offence.

When I protested about these practices within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I was told bluntly that Jack Straw and the head of MI6 had considered my objections, but had come to the conclusion that torture intelligence was important to the War on Terror, and the practice should continue. One day, the law must bring them to account.

A final thought. Manningham-Buller is arguing about the efficiency of torture in preventing a terrorist plot. If that argument is accepted, then in logic there is no reason to rely on foreign intermediaries. Why don't we do our own torturing at home? James VI and I abolished torture - New Labour is making the first attempt in English courts to justify government use of torture information. Why stop there? Why can't the agencies work over terrorist suspects?

The Security Services want us to be able to use information from torture. That should come as no surprise. From Sir Thomas Walsingham on, the profession attracts people not squeamish about the smell of seared flesh from the branding iron. That is why we have a judiciary to protect us. I pray the Law Lords do.

The writer was British ambassador to Uzbekistan 2002-2004

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...y-of-britains-reliance-on-torture-512690.html
 
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There are humans, and then there are subhumans.

But isn't that line crossed when you try to find truth in pain, fear, and blood though?

"Beware, those who fight monsters, that they do not become Monsters themselves". Real life isn't 24, actions have consequences. I think our previous leaders lost sight of that, and possibly damned us.

That is the point a lot of the soft left like to make. We may have made our Security and global reputation worse by torturing too many willful but uninformed people who see that their masters who said we were evil were right. And proving those terrorist Leaders right, is the worst damn thing we could do.

But you can't put the Genie back in the bottle now.
 
So...whatever happened to American exceptionalism?

The concept that we are great because we judge ourselves on our own ideals and virtues...and not by comparing and contrasting ourselves to other countries and say, "Well they do alot of torture, so we can do a little".

I think Shep was right when he dropped that F-bomb on Fox News.
 
I love Shep.....lol
 
I love Shep.....lol
 
Shepard Smith, Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart are my most trusted newsmen.

Not necessarily in that order.

I remember when Shepard Smith went on a tirade directed at some preacher who thought the world was going to end via an exploding nuclear baby. He not only ripped the nut, but attacked the producers on the show live for putting his insanity on tv. It was brilliant.
 
Congress will allow Pentagon to hide torture photos

WASHINGTON – Congress is set to allow the Pentagon to keep new pictures of foreign detainees abused by their U.S. captors from the public, a move intended to end a legal fight over the photographs' release that has reached the Supreme Court.
Federal courts have so far rejected the government's arguments against the release of 21 color photographs showing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq being abused by Americans.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091010/ap_on_go_co/us_abuse_photos_congress

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091010/ap_on_go_co/us_abuse_photos_congress
 
Canada: Time for truth about torture

After a whistleblower revealed Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan prisoners, a full public inquiry is vital

Colin Horgan

Colvin sat before the parliamentary committee and flatly stated: "According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured. For interrogators in Kandahar, it was a standard operating procedure." He alleged that the abuse included beatings and rape.....Colvin's allegations point to moral corruption - that's not what Canadians were told would be achieved in Afghanistan. As it does for Britain or the US, Canada's role in Afghanistan walks a fine line between defining who we want to be, and the kind of criminals we're supposed to be fighting against. We need to know which side we're walking on.

Read the rest of the report here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/20/colvin-afghanistan-canada-torture
 
Abu Ghraib was already leaked. What good would it do to put new torture pictures out ? I agree that they should be kept classified.
 
Shepard Smith, Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart are my most trusted newsmen.

Not necessarily in that order.

I remember when Shepard Smith went on a tirade directed at some preacher who thought the world was going to end via an exploding nuclear baby. He not only ripped the nut, but attacked the producers on the show live for putting his insanity on tv. It was brilliant.

I have loved Shepard Smith ever since his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. There was no one that covered that with more heart, soul, and respectfulness than he did. He's a good guy....
 
I just can't seem to understand people's love for a news pundits/reporters. Maybe S. Smith is a good guy you can have a beer with, but shouldn't news reporters just report the news?

24-7 cable news is so fast that news becomes utterly meaningless and pointless. 300 Die in Ecuador? One blip, One minute (if that), NEXT STORY. Nobody has the time to understand, cope, or deal with some of the madness that goes on in the world in the few minutes a reporter has to convey the news. News shouldn't be about ratings and 'incite' from reporters, just give it to us raw and objectively so we can form our own opinions.
 
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Abu Ghraib was already leaked. What good would it do to put new torture pictures out ? I agree that they should be kept classified.

I did at first agree they should be classified, but then I thought, how on Earth can policy's change if we are not allowed to know how the policy is performed? Vague descriptions don't do it. This policy can mean the life or death of some poor sap who could have just as easily been a non enemy combatant. Abu Ghraib is a good example.

Officially, the methods they used were not known and left to our imagination. Innocent people were tortured and some were even killed. Victims families were lied to when the body of their loved ones were brought battered and abused and the reason for death was 'heart attack' or "stroke."We know now how some poor saps were tortured, and we also know that this type of torture was first performed in Afghanistan un-monitored. Those pictures most likely SAVED lives and maybe saved the humanity of some of our troops fighting in those countries.

Ignorance may be bliss, but there is no way I'm going to agree to manufactured consent.
 
I just can't seem to understand people's love for a news pundits/reporters. Maybe S. Smith is a good guy you can have a beer with, but shouldn't news reporters just report the news?

24-7 cable news is so fast that news becomes utterly meaningless and pointless. 300 Die in Ecuador? One blip, One minute (if that), NEXT STORY. Nobody has the time to understand, cope, or deal with some of the madness that goes on in the world in the few minutes a reporter has to convey the news. News shouldn't be about ratings and 'incite' from reporters, just give it to us raw and objectively so we can form our own opinions.

:huh::huh: He did report, that's what he was doing...that was the reason why he was in New Orleans. To report on the Katrina aftermath...

I guess you would rather have just had drones fly over the Katrina aftermath so you could form your own opinion about what you were seeing...
 
:huh::huh: He did report, that's what he was doing...that was the reason why he was in New Orleans. To report on the Katrina aftermath...

I guess you would rather have just had drones fly over the Katrina aftermath so you could form your own opinion about what you were seeing...

I'm talking about news reporters in the media in general. I have a hard time believing any of them have an ounce of sincerity in 90% of the news they report.
 
So those idiots just want information. Whether that info is reliable is immaterial
 
Better than sitting their with your thumb up your ass hoping the suspect spills the beans through his own accord.
 
...but it's been proven that some terrorists will say ANYTHING just to stop the torture. (Whether it's true or not.)
 
...which is why it's ****ing ******** to torture someone in the first place.
 
Better than sitting their with your thumb up your ass hoping the suspect spills the beans through his own accord.
Yes, it's always better to go on wild goose chases and tracking down leads that dead end, simply because one has the delusion that torture will foil a terror plot.
 
Well like I said, it's better than nothing. It's better than sitting there going "Oh well we know this guy knows where the bomb is, but we can't do nothing, let's just sit here until it goes off".

At the end of the day these are terrorists, not soldiers. Therefore they should be treated differently than soldiers or obviously civilians. Why should a terrorist who is willing to blow himself up as long as he takes as many innocent lives with him be treated the same as a soldier or civilian?
 
Your hypothetical makes the assumptions 1) that the individual always has information, and 2) that torture is the only means of extracting information
 
Well yea what if he has? What if you catch him red handed, with a bomb is his bag. And through other information you know there is a similar plot. Would you not bother trying to extract information from the guy you caught red handed?

And if they lie about information? Well then, the torturing they just received is the punishment for not telling the truth.
 
There are means to extract information without resorting to torture. But then that requires hard work, diligence, and that the questioner is human
 
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