EXTRACTING INFORMATION: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Let us imagine, for the sake of argument, that the FBI has captured a radical Christianist abortion clinic bomber who knows of where a nuclear bomb has been built or smuggled somewhere in an American abortion clinic to go off on the 4th of July, and imagine that the FBI is curious about that, but the radical Christianist is less than forthcoming with it. What to do....?

Is your answer to the first scenario the same as your answer to the second? Why or why not?

Why would one have any confidence
there would be any reliability to the intelligence gathered, whatever the means?

Torture does not produce reliable information.

I would like to experiment as to how long we would have to water board David
before we got him to renounce the second amendment.

Green Witch wrote:

I would like to experiment as to how long we would have to water board David
before we got him to renounce the second amendment.

I got a good laff out of that; best all day.
David

The reason that one 'd have CONFIDENCE in the intelligence gathered is that the bom squad woud be sent to confirm it.

In that scenario,
I most fervently hope that the captured anti-abortion bomer
is an alien on alien territory so that he has no constitutional rights
(specificly, no 8th Amendment rights).

The way u wrote that,
I suspect that u think that I am anti-freedom of abortion.
That is certainly NOT the case; I take a pure laissez faire point of vu
toward any woman's or girl's unlimited right of self defense from all intruders.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

In that scenario,
I most fervently hope that the captured anti-abortion bomer
is an alien on alien territory so that he has no constitutional rights
(specificly, no 8th Amendment rights).

Quote:

Ok, but lets assume that he isn't. What's your answer then?

The controlling principle is that
self defense outranks ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

Quote:

Here's the deal, David. You have two arguments going on here.
Well, maybe more than that, but I'll deal with two.
One is that it's ok to torture people who aren't US citizens.
The answer to that is that no, it's not, because the US
is a signatory to the Geneva conventions which don't allow it

I am not an expert on the Geneva Convention.
However, I am cognizant of an argument that by its terms,
it is confined in its application to military or naval forces
of a government, as distinct from private individuals.
If u have anything to offer on this point,
I will be interested to listen.

Quote:

and because it is against US law.

If u claim that something is against "US law" then u shud cite
the specific law and quote the operative language
that allegedly establishes the point that u seek to make,
so that we can evaluate the merit of your legal analysis.

WHICH law ?

Quote:

So in that sense my scenario and yours are identical though referencing different laws.

(Unless u r referring to my assertion that aliens on alien territory
have no rights under the US Constitution), I have not referred to any laws.

Quote:

The other is that, regardless of the law, torture is required because the threat
to a significant number of Americans weighs more than the rights of the one individual.
My scenario is identical to yours in that respect too.

Please take note of my denial that the alien prisoner has any rights
of which we take cognizance. As to moral rights, I have not yet
made the point that from the standpoint of a victim
(e.g., residents of an American city that has been blessed with
a clandestine Moslem nuclear bom) their predator or tormentor has no rights.

Quote:

Leaving aside the thorough body of evidence that suggests
that torture would not give you the information you seek,

I believe that is conspicuously in error.
I challenge your factual allegations that it does not work.
Even if we assume that some prisoner somewhere
woud hold out recalcitrantly, I believe that many
of the Moslem prisoners have successfully been successfully persuaded to co-operate.
Admittedly, I have no statistical facts to support my position,
so if u counterchallenge me on that u can win by default.

Quote:

and the persistent questions as to how you could have so much information
about the plot except for the most significant piece,

It is perfectly logical and of very common experience
that one can receive incomplete information.
I am sure that u don 't need ME to tell u that.

Quote:

and whether you got that information itself through torture, making it tainted,
why would you have a different answer to your scenario versus mine? Or do you?

Tainted HOW? As to veracity?
If u r impugning its truth, the answer is to send the bom squad
wherever he claims the bom to be and have them see if thay find a nuclear bom there.
If thay find one, then the information is UNtainted,
regardless of how it was obtained.

Quote:

The way u wrote that,
I suspect that u think that I am anti-freedom of abortion.
That is certainly NOT the case; I take a pure laissez faire point of vu
toward any woman's or girl's unlimited right of self defense from all intruders.

Quote:

I don't assume anything about your stance on abortion.
I am interested mainly in whether your "moslem" qualifier
has anything to do with your stance on the question and whether
it would change with a different face on it. Maybe I should have
used a second amendment militant arms dealer to Mexican drug
lords who planted a nuclear bomb under a federal building
somewhere in America. Would that change your answer?

I am a little skeptical as to how much the 2nd Amendment says
about selling weapons to Mexicans.

Anyway, as I posted hereinabove, self defense trumps EVERYTHING.
Not even your own mother gets a free pass on wiping u out.
For instance, if one of Andrea Yates' children had succeeded
in grabbing a gun, a knife or any weapon, if he had taken her out,
that woud have been better than finding his end in her bathtub.





David

The controlling principle is that
self defense outranks ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

I am not an expert on the Geneva Convention.
However, I am cognizant of an argument that by its terms,
it is confined in its application to military or naval forces
of a government, as distinct from private individuals.
If u have anything to offer on this point,
I will be interested to listen.

WHICH law ?

Please take note of my denial that the alien prisoner has any rights
of which we take cognizance.

I challenge your factual allegations that it does not work.

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."

I believe that many
of the Moslem prisoners have successfully been successfully persuaded to co-operate.
Admittedly, I have no statistical facts to support my position,
so if u counterchallenge me on that u can win by default.

Quote:

and whether you got that information itself through torture, making it tainted,
why would you have a different answer to your scenario versus mine? Or do you?

Tainted HOW? As to veracity?

If u r impugning its truth, the answer is to send the bom squad
wherever he claims the bom to be and have them see if thay find a nuclear bom there.

Anyway, as I posted hereinabove, self defense trumps EVERYTHING.
Not even your own mother gets a free pass on wiping u out.
For instance, if one of Andrea Yates' children had succeeded
in grabbing a gun, a knife or any weapon, if he had taken her out,
that woud have been better than finding his end in her bathtub.