THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

Are we being a bit obtuse Fox?

This should bring you up to par ....... I hope

Accusations of use of torture by United States

CIA agents have anonymously confirmed to the Washington Post in a December 26, 2002 report that the CIA routinely uses so-called "stress and duress" interrogation techniques, which are claimed by human rights activists to be acts of torture, in the US-led war on terrorism. These sources state that CIA and military personnel beat up uncooperative suspects, confine them in cramped quarters, duct tape them to stretchers, and use other restraints which maintain the subject in an awkward and painful position for long periods of time. The phrase 'torture light' has been reported in the media and has been taken to mean acts that would not be legally defined as torture but where the intent of the person committing the act is the same.

The Post article continues that sensory deprivation, through the use of hoods and spraypainted goggles, sleep deprivation, and selective use of painkillers for at least one captive who was shot in the groin during his apprehension are also used. The agents also indicate in the report that the CIA as a matter of course hands suspects over to foreign intelligence services with far fewer qualms about torture for more intensive interrogation. The mere act of handing somebody to another organisation or country where it is foreseeable that torture would occur is regarded as a violation of the Torture Convention. The Post reported that one US official said, "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job." The US Government denies that torture is being conducted in the detention camps.

In June 2004, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times obtained copies of legal analyses prepared for the CIA and the Justice Department in 2002 which developed a theoretical legal basis for the use of torture by US interrogators if acting under the directive of the President of the United States. The legal definition of torture by the Justice Department narrowed to actions which "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death", and argued that actions that inflict moderate or fleeting pain do not necessarily constitute torture. Based on these legal analyses, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later approved in 2003 the use of 24 classified interrogation techniques for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay which after use on one prisoner were withdrawn. It is the position of the United States government that the legal memoranda consitute only permissible legal research and do not signify the intent of the United States to use torture which it opposes.

Lotza links here

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You give a clear, well defined definition of torture and then we can discuss if it is wrong or not.

It should not be able to be confused as abuse, or punishment, or discipline, oppression or persecution. It should mean something when you say "X was tortured!" To me that means the rack, whips, burning, gouging, amputation, chained to a wall, etc... To me, being humiliation Not Equal

torture.

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I don't think they can define it McG. So far they've come up with every trick in the book to avoid that question. I don't think it's hard but for liberals it must be.

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The knowledge of what would be abhorant to their religion was exploited. It's not whether Christians would consider it torture if it were done to them.

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What's your definition?

Foxfyre is posing a tough question, it is indeed a complicated and hard question to answer.

Foxfyre is denigrating those who do not take up her challenge.

Unless she can take up the challenge herself, said denigration is hypocritical.

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Seems like good interogation methods if you ask some people. Not quite torture though.

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Cyclops writes:

Quote:

The amount of lives at stake don't matter.

It's not okay to bend your morals for potential problems in the future. What you are talking about is the beginning of a very slippery slope.

The amount of lives at stake don't matter? But the comfort of a terrorist does matter? What kind of rationale is that?

I agree it is okay not to bend your morals for potential problems in the future. I specifically asked what is moral when it comes to interrogation of a terrorist? I have my point of view and stated it clearly.

What is your point of view about that?

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And Craven I already gave my definition of what is and what is not acceptable. Did you miss that?

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Yes, I must have. Gimme a few seconds to address my idiocy. BRB

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Foxfyre wrote:

nimh, I think I said my peace about Abu Ghraib. The issue of Abu Ghraib has been settled. We ALL seem to be in agreement on that.

My last post wasnt about Abu G. - if you think so you might have missed the point.

It was about your submission that "Innocent people tell what they know", so nothing "more than questioning would be necessary", is in any way an answer to Cyclop's question: "Is it okay to do the things you said to innocent people?".

Because the thing is - how do you know whether they're innocent? How do you know they're "telling all they know"? If you believe them to have some kind of vital information about, say, Iraqi WMD, you'll just believe they're lying when they say they're already "telling you all they know". And if (any kind of) torture is an authorized next step to revert to when you think they're not telling all they know on something that concerns WMD (i.e., the "safety and security of millions of your countrymen") - then that's what you'll resort to, next. But if they're right and you're wrong, then you've just started torturing an innocent. And if all of your apparatus is hell-bent on finding WMD that aren't, in fact, there - to name just a random example - then the chance is significant that your troops end up doing exactly that on a regular scale.

Am I being alarmist? I dont know. But its to prevent exactly such stuff that those rules were made up. The Geneva Conventions and all that, I mean. We have the choice to rationalise how those don't exactly apply in this specific case - and go down the slippery slope - or stay true to our values. Thats the choice imho.

Foxfyre wrote:

Now I can accept that you or anyone else is unable to deal with the question: [..] What is acceptable to force someone to give information that could save hundreds or thousands of lives? What isn't acceptable?

But changing that question to something else isn't helpful. And I think I'm going to give up as so far nobody but me has been inclined to deal with it.

Now, now, no need to whine ... Razz

Cyclop answered your question. And I did answer your question as well, even if its not specific enough to your taste (hint: its in the second half of that post I'll just link in again). Nobody's 'ducking' your question, even if you might not like the answers.

Meanwhile, I think Cyclop still had a question for you that I noticed you have chosen to just skip and skip again.

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I think a key peice of the the puzzle lies in the interogator. Most have been trained for years, they can read body language, they know how to ask questions and read the answers. They know psychology and they know people. After an initial questioning, 9 times out of 10, a trained interogator knows if someone is hiding more than they appear to be. That's why not evry person taken in by US troops ends up in Abu Ghraib and why most are released after questioning.

I think there are some that think just average soldiers are doing the questioning of these prisoners. I don't believe that to be the case. We have trained, experienced interrogators in Iraq and Afghanistan and Cuba.

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I did answer Cyclop's question when I said I didn't consider asking a question an answer to a question. And no, you haven't said what would be acceptable. You have only said what would not be acceptable.

I will answer the question however. If it was my loved one who was arrested I would hope that he or she would be treated humanely and released quickly. I would also expect that if she was a known terrorist or terrorist sympathizer bent on committing mayhem, s/he would be interrogated strenuously including sleep deprivation, unpleasant noises, intimidation, etc. etc. etc.

Now a question for those of you who think I'm being unreasonable here. If there is any chance a person is innocent, there should be no interrogation other than just asking him if he is guilty or not?

What I'm shooting for here is some kind of consensus on what is acceptable for those to do to ensure the life/safety/security of you and me and all those we care about. Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable and what is not?

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I believe this is what you meant. Whether it was or was not, I think you adequately do what I had accused you of not doing necessitating an immediate retraction of my earlier claim that you hadn't.

Efforts toward making less convoluted sentences are shelved with this new priority.

Foxfyre wrote:

If I was in charge of interrogating a hostile prisoner who might have information that could save hundreds or thousands of American lives, I would not inflict pain or mutilation or put his life or health in danger.

I would have no reservations whatsoever to otherwise subject him to sleep deprivation, unpleasant noise, the world's most boring diet, intimidation, abject terror or whatever it took to convince him it was better to talk than to remain silent. When the choice has to be compassion for the guilty or the innocent, to me it is no contest.

Now there are some who suggest that what I would do is 'torture'. I don't believe it is.

That's where I think the debate should be.

Now as to your criteria I largely agree.

Here are the main agreements:

1) Certain "soft" tactics can be necessary.

2) This does not constitute torture (by my definition).

Here are some reservations:

1) You forgot drugs, I'd not hesitate to use safe drugs except that their accuracy is dubious.

2) You invoke the "save thousands" scenario. I caution against it because in reality it is more likely just going to be people who raise suspicions and the salvation of mankind, while frequently invoked, is almost never at stake.

This is a significant, if minor, disagreement. See, it's a cinematographically constructed scenario that is probably not going to accurately depict the real-world applications.

In any torture debate it's important to realize that most cases will be ambiguous and not involve the clear cut weighing of lives taht make the questions easier.

Recognition of these abiguities is important because they will invariably exist and we are inevitably discussing more of those abiguous cases than the clear cut save-lives-through-math cases.

3) "Intimidation" has a broad spectrum. Some intimidation is imposible to disabuse, other intimidation would fall outside of my lines. Of course, many of the really bad means of intimidation violate other criteria so this is another minor disagreement.

4) Lastly there's the "innocent vs guilty" moviedom stuff again. In real life, there are rarely such clear delienations. Let's remember that we are discussing a broad spectrum of reality and our definitions must be suited to them all, and not to extreme cases of clarity.

See, if it were just the clear cases we were talking about I'd not mind most tortures. I think it would be wrong but it'd not bother me much. The reservations of the objective (as opposed to emotionally visceral reactions) usually center on the ambiguity of application.

This must be recognized, we aren't discussing rules for a movie but rules for a more complex reality.

------------

But as an aside, some US soldiers violated your proposed rules and did, in fact torture.

I'm not talking about humilliation either, I'm talking about torture to death, torture that results in shattered skulls and such.

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McGentrix wrote:

Tell me Blatham, what is the difference between tortue and abuse and when does one stop and become the other?

I gave one answer to this question here.

Summarizing myself:

Quote:

In the recent Senate hearings, Rumsfeld kept trying to make a distinction between "abuse" of prisoners and "torture" of prisoners. In much of the subsequent commentary, it was as if people were interpreting this to be a matter of severity or degree. That is, if you "hurt someone a little bit" or "embarrass" them, we call that "abuse" as opposed to "hurting someone a lot", which we call "torture."

But that really isn't the conceptual or legal distinction between torture and abuse (and I'm not at all sure if "prisoner abuse" has a real legal definition). The distinction between torture and abuse is one of intent.

If I'm a prison guard and for no good reason I beat the crap out of a prisoner, then no matter what the severity of the beating I would not be guilty of "torture." If anyone cares and there happens to be videotape and the prisoner's lawyer gets his/her hands on it, I might find myself getting charged with assault.

What would make that beating torture is if I were doing it to elicit information. From my reading of the various statutes, treaties, etc., even fairly mild forms of "abuse" are considered to be torture, if the purpose of the activity is to elicit information.

There are a couple of reasons the United States takes (or at least we did until Bush was selected) such a strong legal stand against torture. The first is one people regularly discuss: the basic Geneva Convention principle which is in place to protect our own soldiers from the same treatment. The Golden Rule.

But aside from that it also gets at the heart of our entire system of justice: the right against self-incrimination, innocent until proven guilty, no cruel and unusual punishment.

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Craven, the 'whatever it took' clause in my list of ethical interrogation techniques can cover the drugs and a lot of other issues.

The difference between the innocent and the guilty is a huge factor for me; the difference beween degrees of guilt is a huge factor for me. There is no way in hell anyone can convince me that all those people in those airplanes or all those people in the World Trade Center or all those people at the Pentagon were anything but innocent victims on 9/11 or that the terrorists who orchestrated and carried out that atrocity were anything but guilty.

Not what if we had clear knowledge something was being planned and had apprehended one of those guy during the summer of 2001. Just what criteria should be applied in the interrogation process if it could have saved all those lives?

Does anybody reading this thread honestly believe Al Qaida doesn't have it in mind to do something just as bad given a chance?

(And Craven you have a propensity to pluck one or two comments out of a thread and use that to level criticism when if you considered the sum of a person's argument you can't make your case as well. Smile

)

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Foxfyre wrote:

I will answer the question however. If it was my loved one who was arrested I would hope that he or she would be treated humanely and released quickly. I would also expect that if she was a known terrorist or terrorist sympathizer bent on committing mayhem, s/he would be interrogated strenuously including sleep deprivation, unpleasant noises, intimidation, etc. etc. etc.

Now what about if he wasnt a KNOWN terrorist but a SUSPECTED terrorist? Suspected by the Iranians that is - you might not agree, at all?

(How hard a distinction is this to grasp? Am I really trying to ask that obscure a question?)

Foxfyre wrote:

Now a question for those of you who think I'm being unreasonable here. If there is any chance a person is innocent, there should be no interrogation other than just asking him if he is guilty or not?

I've already answered this one - I didnt only say "what would not be acceptable".

I.e.: All interrogation methods allowed by international law are OK by me. That's including stuff like the fourth convention, which from what I've understood does go beyond only uniformed enemies, but is not ratified by the US.

A straightforward answer, I would think. I would refuse to enter your invitation to define and improvise new laws, here - and instead go by the nearest thing I'd find applicable in existing international law. If there is no specific law applicable to ununiformed enemies, then I'd use the law on uniformed enemies - instead of using the gap as an excuse to put these suspects in a legal vacuum.

I bet you still have some convincing interrogation techniques left even if you do just adhere to the international conventions. Seems to work for enough other Western countries.

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Nimh, the only thing a the captor is allowed to require and the only thing a captive is required to give via the Geneva Convention is name, rank, and serial number. I just don't think that will cut it getting necessary information from terrorists.

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Foxfyre wrote:

There is no way in hell anyone can convince me that all those people in those airplanes or all those people in the World Trade Center or all those people at the Pentagon were anything but innocent victims on 9/11 or that the terrorists who orchestrated and carried out that atrocity were anything but guilty.

Well, Foxfyre I must say that at this point torture is of little use. At the point at which it would have had potential upsides you would not have such clarity.

Quote:

(And Craven you have a propensity to pluck one or two comments out of a thread and use that to level criticism when if you considered the sum of a person's argument you can't make your case as well. )

This is a "propensity" that you claim but that you can't support. Unless, of course, you mean that I, like everyone else, have a tendency not to quote every single spoken work on a thread in my every reply. That has to do with time, and not selective arguments.

But the whole selective argument whine is silly, I do not distort claims through selection and your complaint is tantamount to saying I have a knack for finding brainfarts and that you prefer than the focus remain elsewhere.

That is understandable.

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And if my loved one is a suspected terrorist but innocent, I would expect that he or she would give whatever information she would have and her captors would check it out. It has happened that the innocent have been convicted, but it is relatively rare.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Nimh, the only thing a the captor is allowed to require and the only thing a captive is required to give via the Geneva Convention is name, rank, and serial number. I just don't think that will cut it getting necessary information from terrorists.

Fair enough. Embarrassed

<my ignorance showing>

Then I would use national law. Not: since these suspects are not Dutch, we can do what we want with them, really, since they're not covered by either Dutch law or the Geneva conventions. But instead: since we have to apply some kind of law in order to be able to work properly, we'll apply our law. And interrogate these foreign suspected terrorists according to the same parameters as we would interrogate a suspected terrorist with a Dutch passport by.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

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