A question for those who oppose torture.

Even if we were to say that torture is sometimes necessary and justified, once you start doing it without a trial you're allowing the Rule of Law to crumble. If a highly suspicious individual can be tortured when there's a bomb-threat, next thing you know "highly suspicious individuals" will be arrested and tortured all over the place because of longer-term threats as well. The second you allow punishment outside of the legal system, you're essentially allowing the authorities to punish whomever they want for whatever they want. Sure a vast majority of them are decent enough, by far, not to abuse their power, but it's all just a matter of the individual law enforcer's moral code. Remember - the SS thought it was doing really good positive things. Nazis had a moral code too. Almost everyone today agrees (as many back then would as well) that the SS was one of the most horrible, cruel, and evil law enforcement organizations in history, but who's to say that people who make accusations against the FBI today will not be proven right tomorrow?
The conecpt of Rule of Law in a democracy is there for a very, very good reason. We mustn't even forget that.
 
punkbass2000 said:
I don't know, can you imagine being tortured? I can, and I really don't want it to happen to me! :eek: It's more than just pain, IMO. I would certainly choose death over serious torture, any time.

Of course it's horrible, and I don't want it to happen to me either. But to choose death over torture doesn't make much sense unless you know they will do permanent damage to you, and that shouldn't be necessary with modern torture methods.

btw. Mental torture like putting headphones with extremely loud noise on peoples head, and blinding them with ski-glasses for a couple of hours in a freezing room, like is happening in Gitmo is just as worse, or maybe even more horrible than physical torture imho.
 
Truronian said:
Maybe we shouldn't interogate people at all either, because thats bound to do nothing. You excuse is a cop out. Torture can be effective, especially if the victim is not expecting it (and hense has not been trained to overcome it).
Well, the original thread question dictated that I had exhausted all other interrogating options, that's why I included it. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't choose to interrogate him at all, as I don't really believe interrogating would give the correct answers anyway.

And, yes torture might be effective on non-fanatical non-resilient victims, but that doesn't make it more ethically correct IMHO, especially when we aren't even sure if we got the right person.
 
Jawz II said:
nobody blew up, maybe not so bad after all? :D

im sure he will confirm all his friends and realtives are fine and that youre just buying into the right wing medias fear mongering.

there there, dont be affriad big fellow, if any bad guys show up uncle jaws will get them.

feel better now? :)

I can happily confirm that my family and friends are indeed quite all right. Although I admit that there are some that I haven't talked to in a number of days so something possibly could have happened to them since then.
 
Truronian said:
No, not nessecarily.
Similarly, were I tortured, I think I would be able to forgive the torturer if he followed the above (and he had reason to believe that I was withholding info that could save lives).

Are you for real? You'd forgive a person that decided to torture you on the incorrect belief that you were guilty (without at the very least a fair trial)?

I'd want to kill that person, every person that stood around and watched, any political figure that authorized it, and every single citizen that blindly voted for said administration. I guess you're just more forgiving then I would be.
 
Not only is torture unethical, but it frankly is not feasible.

If someone were torturing me, either physically or mentally, and I were innocent, then (and I hate to say it) I would probably lie and say that I planted the bomb at X street. So the truth of the matter is that the very premise of the question is flawed. How can we know that this person planted the bomb? How can we know that he isn't just pretending to be a cooperative terrorist because he fears torture? I personally would like to see how many legitimately guilty people were captured as a result of the 'interrogations' at Guantanamo.
 
Time is over, you haven't tortured the terrorist and the bomb exploded, killing 10000, your family included. Live with it.

would it be considered torture to rub pig's fat over his/her body? Pork is banned in muslin countries.
 
Urederra said:
Time is over, you haven't tortured the terrorist and the bomb exploded, killing 10000, your family included. Live with it.

would it be considered torture to rub pig's fat over his/her body? Pork is banned in muslin countries.

Time is over, you tortured the alleged terrorist only to find out that no bomb was planted in the first place. Alleged terrorist grows angry with the government, plants a bomb, and kills 10,000.

Simple cause and effect. Having to resort to torture displays a tragic failure on the part of the government.
 
Urederra said:
Time is over, you haven't tortured the terrorist and the bomb exploded, killing 10000, your family included. Live with it.

would it be considered torture to rub pig's fat over his/her body? Pork is banned in muslin countries.

Honestly - it's a price I'm willing to pay to live in a society that shuns extra-judicial torture (Assuming a scenario as ridiculous as the one proposed were to ever actually take place)
 
RedWolf said:
Honestly - it's a price I'm willing to pay to live in a society that shuns extra-judicial torture (Assuming a scenario as ridiculous as the one proposed were to ever actually take place)

Agreed. I simply think why bother fighting the religious radicals if we have to revert to the Dark Ages in the process? Canada and the US, at least, are nations that don't represent any particular ethnicity so much as they represent ideals. If we lose the ideals, we've already lost the driving principle behind our societies - it's just something that there's no compromise on. No bomb could do more damage than that.
 
jwijn said:
Time is over, you tortured the alleged terrorist only to find out that no bomb was planted in the first place. Alleged terrorist grows angry with the government, plants a bomb, and kills 10,000.

Simple cause and effect. Having to resort to torture displays a tragic failure on the part of the government.

I haven't tortured anybody, nor I say that I am in favour or torture. I just made the example a bit more tragic. :D
 
RedWolf said:
No... How do you know he's a terrorist without a trial?

What happens when you pull out all of his fingernails and burn his genitals and he hasn't told you a single thing because he doesn't KNOW a single thing.

We're not animals... all people are considered innocent until proven guilty in a courtroom regardless of how convenient an alternative approach may be... If we give that up then we have nothing.

This is an extremely difficult situation...if you don't actually know he's a terrorist and you torture him, and it turns out he never did anything in the first place, you have the whole "OMG TORTURE" mess on your hands. However, if you do the whole trial thing, and the bomb explodes, then you're attacked for being incompetent. Choose your poison.
 
No.

No, no and still no.

It's a fundamentally bad idea.

And please stop with the "boom your family and friends just blew up", it's a stupid, cheap shot. Boom, your family, your friends and you are being tortured in return because you've made it clear that torture is acceptable.
#2 If the USA ignores the Geneva Conventions, other nations and groups will ignore it.

US troops taken prisoner now face the prospect of torture, not just for information, but as payback. Even the Nazis during World War II generally adhered to the Geneva Conventions. At that time, allied planes were bombing German cities to rubble killing thousands of civilians weekly. Perhaps torturing downed Allied pilots might have provided information to save German lives, but the German military treated allied POWs well.

In your impossible, almost self-contradictory scenario of "torture the terrorist to find the bomb", sure, I'd use torture, because this situation is about one step removed from a computer game, where it's about scoring points, not moral standards.

This doesn't work in the real world,
 
Alpine Trooper said:
Hey, Dershowitz sounds German. What a surprise. ;)

actually he is jewish

for those of you that dont know, torture is legal in israel, and thats why i dont buy any israeli products
 
RedWolf said:
Are you for real? You'd forgive a person that decided to torture you on the incorrect belief that you were guilty (without at the very least a fair trial)?

If there was no time for a trial, and if other options had been exhausted. Bear in mind, this kind of situation is not going to be common (unless you live in the 24 universe).
 
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