Information without torture?

IDBC

Posts: 4,088

Howdy

What I want to ask is what if any are the differences between

a. Tough interrogation

b. Enhanced interrogation

c. Torture

It is a fact that torture is illegal according to international law.

Is waterboarding, though interrogation, enhanced interrogation or torture?

Please expain the reasoning for your choice.

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mountain_man

Posts: 34,105

May 14, 2011 -- 10:18PM, mainecaptain wrote:
repeated, since so many do not seem to get it.

They can't get it. Recent studies confirmed that Conservative thought is emotional, fear based. Torture fits into their fear based thought patterns. Something that cannot cause fear or other such emotions just isn't within their understanding.

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I am a Humanist. I believe in a rational philosophy of life, informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by a desire to do good for its own sake and not by an expectation of a reward or fear of punishment in an afterlife.

Ebon

Posts: 7,637

May 14, 2011 -- 10:36PM, IDBC wrote:
Is waterboarding, though interrogation, enhanced interrogation or torture?

Please expain the reasoning for your choice.

"Enhanced interrogation", as far as I can tell, was only ever the euphemism the Bush admin invented so they could claim they didn't torture. Torture was and is illegal, immoral and evil. The Bush admin wanted to torture, was hellbent on torture, but wanted to be able to claim they didn't. So they redefined it, legislated it out of existence. Like Orwell's dystopia, they modified the language to modify the debate. They said they didn't torture so, by definition, anything they did wasn't torture, no matter what history said.

When the Spanish Inquisition invented waterboarding, they called it "the drowning torture". For over five hundred years, it has been considered torture. When the Japanese did it, it was called "torture". It has always been considered torture, it always will be torture. It doesn't stop being torture just because the USA did it.

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MysticWanderer

Posts: 1,224

Clearly until G. W. Bush and his cabinet (and not even all of them) water-boarding and even "stress positions WERE torture to America.

Bill Maher has an interesting "new rule" for Christians who advocate or apologize for torture, or assassination.

videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bil...

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Tpaine

Posts: 8,189

May 14, 2011 -- 10:36PM, IDBC wrote:

Howdy

What I want to ask is what if any are the differences between

a. Tough interrogation

b. Enhanced interrogation

c. Torture

It is a fact that torture is illegal according to international law.

Is waterboarding, though interrogation, enhanced interrogation or torture?

Please expain the reasoning for your choice.

Is waterboarding torture? Ask conservative talk show host Eric "Mancow" Muller or Christopher Hitchens who allowed themself to be waterboarded to "prove" it isn't torture. My reasoning is in the linked videos. Link 1 Link 2

"When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, then may the country boast its constitution and its government." -- Thomas Paine: The Rights Of Man (1791)

mecdukebec

Posts: 13,281

The Gestapo also waterboarded/tortured. To the Wingnuts who say, 'Oh, but the military does it, so it's different": Please to explain why the Army and USMC Field Manual on Counter-insurgency forbids waterboarding.

*******

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REteach

Posts: 13,195

Geneva Conventions on torture.

Part of the problem, I think, of trying to be a moral person is that morality is not placing one's own good at the center of the universe. It is not sinking to the lowest common denominator. It is realizing that the ends may not justify the means.

Another reason for the US to avoid torture, quite apart from moral considerations, is that we have soldiers who may be captured. If we set the bar at torturing our prisoners, we cannot reasonably complain when others torture our parents, children, brothers and sisters.

BTW the Bill Maher video rocks.

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize what you heard was not what I meant...

mainecaptain

Posts: 20,467

May 15, 2011 -- 10:54AM, REteach wrote:

Geneva Conventions on torture.

Part of the problem, I think, of trying to be a moral person is that morality is not placing one's own good at the center of the universe. It is not sinking to the lowest common denominator. It is realizing that the ends may not justify the means.

Another reason for the US to avoid torture, quite apart from moral considerations, is that we have soldiers who may be captured. If we set the bar at torturing our prisoners, we cannot reasonably complain when others torture our parents, children, brothers and sisters.

BTW the Bill Maher video rocks.

I agree with everything you stated here.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. Aristotle
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Merope

Posts: 8,212

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IDBC

Posts: 4,088

Howdy Ebon

May 15, 2011 -- 1:38AM, Ebon wrote:

May 14, 2011 -- 10:36PM, IDBC wrote:
Is waterboarding, though interrogation, enhanced interrogation or torture?

Please expain the reasoning for your choice.

"Enhanced interrogation", as far as I can tell, was only ever the euphemism the Bush admin invented so they could claim they didn't torture.

I would tend to agree but then I am not a conservative republican and I don't like Bush.

May 15, 2011 -- 1:38AM, Ebon wrote:

Torture was and is illegal, immoral and evil.

Torture was not always "illegal".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture

I would defintely agree that in the vast majority of cases torture is immoral and evil. But I am less certain that it is "absolutely" immoral and evil.

May 15, 2011 -- 1:38AM, Ebon wrote:

The Bush admin wanted to torture, was hellbent on torture, but wanted to be able to claim they didn't. So they redefined it, legislated it out of existence.

Why did the Bush admin want to torture? As much as I dislike Bush I don't think that he wanted to use waterboarding just for the....fun of it. He wanted to use waterboarding in order to extract information that he thought would save lives. He sought make waterboarding not torture "legally". The lawyers and legal authorities he consulted did make the distinction. Do I think it was wrong? Yes.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interroga...

"In fact, the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding and as recently as 1983."

Please read entire link for details.

May 15, 2011 -- 1:38AM, Ebon wrote:

Like Orwell's dystopia, they modified the language to modify the debate. They said they didn't torture so, by definition, anything they did wasn't torture, no matter what history said.

Doublespeak.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

"War is Peace"

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May 15, 2011 -- 1:38AM, Ebon wrote:

When the Spanish Inquisition invented waterboarding, they called it "the drowning torture". For over five hundred years, it has been considered torture. When the Japanese did it, it was called "torture". It has always been considered torture, it always will be torture. It doesn't stop being torture just use the USA did it.

It doesn't stop being torture because the Sock Puppet found some hacks to re-define, re-classify waterboarding and other techniques as enhanced interogation.

It is interesting that the Sock Puppet being Conservative Christian who believes in black and white morality got a little gray.

As to the claim that if "we" don't do it, then "they" won't do it, that is absolutely, positively, without any doubt totally and completly bullshit.

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