"Anti-Torture Amendment"; Bush disapproves

[Cloud No.9]

but is it not my morals. it is the morals of the men who sat down at geneva, the judges at the nuremburg trials and the world leaders who signed the human rights act.

it is not fine and it is not necessary but it is evil. but it is not new for america to say the least. the arrogance of the american army when it comes to human rights is well documented.

why does torture need to leave permanant effects? electrocution doesn't leave permanat effects if performed correctly? is that a walk in the park? sleep depravation is extremely painful. exposure to extremes of temperature can be totally crushing. humiliation which is well documented as the american army's greatest enjoyment when it comes to foreign prisoners. water torture wouldn't count either. fake executions.

and when they want something real bad and don't want to get into the mess themselves. they ship the folk out. to countries like uzbekistan, lybia, syria, egypt. where things can get even worse.

what we are talking about is the morality of america. is it any more moral now than korea? is it any less deserving of being bombed the crap out of than afghanistan? is a torturous aggressive regime fit to think of itself as a world leader? or is it more fit to think of itself as in danger of being brought to it's knees like similar regimes?

torture is not allowable in any situation. this was recognised years and years ago. it was in the rules of war, the geneva convetion and the human rights act. under no circumstances no matter what the cost must torture be used.

what is more important? a few more casualties in a war scenario or being able at the end of all this to say that we are just and moral and above our enemies?

[udsuna]

No.... torture is NOT against the "morals" of most people. At least not most people at war. I defy you to name a country, any country, in human history, that has engaged in a military conflict without "interogating" (aka- torture) captured enemy prisoners. You can't, because they've all done it. Except the ones that have had other countries do the interogation for them.... that is exactly the same thing.

[Cloud No.9]

udsuna would you like to be drageed from your home at night? taken around the world and kept for 4 years? tortured? without legal representation? without being told on what grounds you are being held? is that just and moral to you? is this part of the idea of the american constitution? what people died for? the right to torture?

because all countries have done it does not make it right. most countries in war killed innocents deliberately. is this moral? do you agree with it? all the countries have done it. so why is it immoral?

[Gnostic Yevon]

I dont want to get to involved in this argument because it dosnt affect me personoly. my opinion is my own as is everyones. but i must question this. how can killing be less or more wrong? does killing an enemy in defence make them any less dead? killing is killing in my opinion. and i dont mean to belittle your opinion, on the contrary i respect you for your arguing what you belive in. but it is my belife that you could justify almost anything, but when it comes down to it, its either right ir wrong. and most all people can tell the difference.

Let me if I can explain this a bit better. It isn't just the act itself that you look at. It's also the situation. So you could have a situation like Columbine HS, where people went in and shot others essentially for fun. Then there's a situation where a person is pointing a gun at you, ready to take your life. Or perhaps a situation where you come upon a person about to murder someone else. Then there are the situations where this person is a mass murderer, someone like a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. where every day hundreds of thousands die simply because the person ordered their deaths.

Now to me killing a person is wrong because it takes away something extremely valuable, that being a human life. So you'd have mitigating circumstances depending on whether the person was about to take someone's life, or several lives.

The first one is pretty obviously wrong. No one would say that killing for fun could ever have any possible justification. No good comes from it.

But on the second and third case (defending yourself, and defending someone else's life), there is a major difference. If you don't shoot the man with the gun, someone will die anyway. The only question in the matter is who will die. So in my view, this would be more or less a wash, unless you wish to consider the worthiness of that life, which would be hard to do.

The third case would be obvious as well, but going in the opposite direction. Since the reason for the commandment (and other forms of the moral law) "Thou shalt not kill", is that it preserves a valuable thing called human life, I think it would be far better to take a single life and thus save thousands than it would be to take 1000 lives because I was unwilling to take the single life that was causing it all. Not to say that taking the single life would be a morally good action in itself, but that the result of not doing so is by far worse than doing so.

and to be on topic, I'll show you how this relates to the whole torture thing.

Why is torture immoral to start with? It's immoral because it causes the other person to suffer and lose his dignity. But the same reasoning holds here, too. Excepting for one thing, suffering is more desirable than death. One can recover from suffering, any suffering. It may take years, but it is possible. Until pheonix-down technology is perfected, there is no cure for death. Once your life is taken, there is no going back.

But just like above, there are different situations in which the torture could happen. First, would be torture for the sake of hatred or because the other person likes to. Second would be the reason C#9 brought up a while back, which is getting a confession. The third would be getting intelligence. The fourth would be that in some totalitarian systems, torture is used to get obediance, or to punish disobediance.

The only torture situation that has any mitigating circumstances is #3. But it would depend on what type of information you could expect to get. It could be the "where is the rebel base" type of intelligence (yes I stole from Star Wars, get over it). That isn't going to save lives, or at least it doesn't seem that it would. The second would be "Where is the ambush", which is better because if you know where the ambush is, you can save the lives of your own soldiers. The third would be "Where is the terrorist attack", which could save many civillian lives.

On the "Rebel Base" scenario, you don't really save lives, because you still have to take the base. That will cost just as many lives if you find it by using an aircraft. It doesn't change the situation, except maybe saving time. So it isn't counterbalanced by any moral good in the results. Therefore, it is immoral.

On the "Ambush" scenario, there is a moral good. You save people in your own army. I would compare this to self defense, except in this case, instead of killing to protect your own people, you are torturing to save your own people, so it is actually more moral than the case of killing for self defense, because you don't even kill the person that you torture.

The "Terrorist Attack" scenario also has a moral good. You save the lives of noncombatants. This would be like shooting the person about to kill someone else, except that again, the person being tortured doesn't die.

Torture would still be wrong in all of those situations, it's just that it can in certain instances be less wrong than allowing the bomb to go off and kill scores of people when you had the ability to stop it.

[Cloud No.9]

the accepted rules of war, engagement, the geneva convention, the nuremburg principles and human rights act are as follows.

in a war scenario you are allowed to kill any combatant on the opposing force, unless he has surrendered. at the point you have him prisoner he is out of the game. he is now bound by the geneva convention. at the point before that he was bound by the rules of war which allow you to shoot him. but under both points of war here he is bound by the human rights act. given the fact that he is human and all.

the geneva convention says that once you have a POW certain rules come into play. some of which are beyond the normal human rights act. because as a prisoner he is dependant on his captors so now instead of being allowed to have certain things like food and shelter these must be provided. there are even more rules surrounding the geneva conventions they are worth reading into.

but the point is at this point they are out of the game. that is it. they are totally out of the war. they are no longer soldiers but prisoners. they have no part in the war now.

war is a bloody mess were people will die. but prisoners are no longer part of the war. the bomb they set maybe. the soldier about to walk into maybe. but the prisoner who want to torture is not. he is now under the geneva convention.

and the question is where does this end? what does torture give? the truth? if so we better start buring witches again as they obviously exist look how many confessed before. they'll be plague of them nowadays.

if i'm a hard enough terrorist i'm not going to given into certain instruments of torture. you're gonna need electrocution, beatings, taking my nails off, cutting my lips, burnings to get me to talk. and even then i might just tell you random crap.

and if i'm not a terrorist at all i'm gonna tell you the first thing that comes into my head.

it doesn't work. it gives dumbass soldiers like lindy england work of their aggression on some iraqi.

the one thing that would have prevented the holocaust is if the soldiers had just refused orders. that is what caused the nurmeburg principles to be established.

[DarkLadyNyara]

On principle, I think torture is wrong, but I've never been in combat. There are times where it could conceivably be the lesser of two evils.

[Cloud No.9]

only if dropping to the level of your enemy is right. if breaking the geneva convention and human rights which we fought so hard for.

being on the other side doesn't make you any less human. the rules continue to apply. in war certain rules change. torture being wrong doesn't. you accept the concequences of war. you do not reduce your morals for it.

being in combat does not change anything. just because i've not been in combat does not mean i cannot judge. it isn't some mystical world were everything changes. the basic fundamental rules apply. and those who break them should be treated in the same way we treated those we found guilty in nuremburg and the hague.

[War Angel]

in it they had a ex cia, mossad and mi5 and asked them if the ticking bomb scenario (where torturing someone had given information about an imminent threat) had ever happened. they all replied, no.

I call 'bull$hit' on this argument. The Mossad doesn't interrogate anyone - it's not an internal security mechanism or organisation. It doesn't handle 'ticking bombs', or anything of the sort. It operates outside of Israel. The 'ticking bomb' scenario has happened a lot of times - and only in the few times we actually managed to capture friends and collaborators of the terrorist, PRIOR to his\hersuntimely demise, along with many Israeli citizens.

I feel the same way about the Israeli fence around Palestine. I think it's a bad idea to fence off your minorities and treat them all as guilty.

The Palestinian Arabs are not a minority within Israel, and they are not Israeli citizens or inhabitants. Having said that, I don't think there's anything wrong with building a wall between you and your neighbour, especially when said neighbour doesn't like you very much and has made a habit of sending off its people to blow up in your streets.

Having made these corrections...

Torture is a necessary evil. I support torture under very specific conditions:
1) When there's an urgency (i.e, a ticking bomb)
2) During war, when one side wishes to acquire information that would make it triumph, or at least make things a bit easier for it.

It seems a bit stupid, at least to me, that during war, when many soldiers are killed and wounded in terrible ways, that torture wouldn't be allowed. Torture often eliminates the need for battles. Having rules for war is also a rather futile attempt.

However, pointless torture for no reason, for lengthy periods of time is not a good, moral or even needed thing, by any standard. It shouldn't be commited.

It's usually hard to care for one's enemy... we should try to, though.

[Cloud No.9]

i just quote the program.

and palestine is within israel. it is under occupation after the wars. it is not it's own country. it is a stateless nation.

the geneva convention sets down in writing and has been for ages now that torture is forbidden. under any circumstances. the human rights act echoed it. the rules of war predate it. torture is not acceptable as you are not torturing soldiers. you are torturing prisoners. people who are wholly dependant on you.

back in nuremburg we hung people for crimes of torture. in my eyes there should be no difference between a nazi soldier who commits the act and an american. tried and given punishment.

torture is altogether pointless. it does not work. unless you believe that the the with hunts were good and proper.

that is the level of intelligence we are dealing with that comes from torture. put enough suffering on a person and they will do what it takes to stop it. an innocent person will confess to stop the pain. a guilty person will confess as well. but if he is waiting for something then he is going to lie. he will hold two thoughts in his mind. one that he will need his suffering to end. but he has a mission as well. and will do what it takes to succeed. no you need to make the pain so great that that doesn't matter.

and that is when you need to start electrocuting him, beating him, burning him, using acid. and i believe those we the exact same methods used under sadamme's government.

are we so much better now?

[War Angel]

and palestine is within israel. it is under occupation after the wars. it is not it's own country. it is a stateless nation.

Yes, historically-sppeaking, the territories that are now reffered to as 'Palestine' are an integral part of the land of Israel. It has been re-occupied now, as you've said, and so the people living in those areas are not Israelis, and their land isn't part of the new state of Israel. Building a wall between them and the Israelis is just like establishing a border between any two countries.

Now, don't talk to me about humane values. Those are precious and dear to me - but not more than the value of protecting human lives, especially on my own side. I'd rather have a thousand screaming but very-much-alive enemy terrorists, then one dead innocent.

There's a saying in Hebrew, that could be translated like this: "One that shows mercy for the cruel, will end up being cruel to the merciful." Being kind and righteous is all perfectly well - but there are times when you have to show your darker side. Necessary evils to protect the most precious thing of all - human life.

[Cloud No.9]

necessary evils are what the ashamed put on their immorality and evil.

humane values should come above saving lives. nuremburg principle.

you let your comrades and innocents die. and then you can stand up and say "look what they are doing and what have we done?" otherwise the everyone else will stand up and say "look what they are doing but are just as evil."

[War Angel]

humane values should come above saving lives.

Without humans, there would be no humane values. I cannot understand or accept this statement of yours. Human life is the most important, precious and worthy-of-protection thing in existence.

I am sad to say that, at times, I feel that human life isn't that important... but I feel so with shame, and it's not a joyful perspective on things.

That being said, I'd say going to great lengths to save the lives of those close to you (friends, family, people...) is the right thing to do. I don't care for my enemy - he's better off dead, and he would be dead, if I hasn't some use for him - to extract life-saving information from him.

Information that could win battles, wars, or thwart the enemy's attempts at killing innocents on my side. His pain is nothing, compared to that. This is my stance.

[Cloud No.9]

"Without humans, there would be no humane values." what is human without humanity?

and when it comes down to it the world has decided that humanity is more important than victory. and this has been true for a long time. other people's total and absolute lack of humanity has been punished on countless occassions. the idea that once you have a man totally dependant on you for survival you can torture him is absurd.

and it doesn't even work. we know that. the only reason to perform is for the sick deprived pleasure of a dumbass soldier.

[War Angel]

and it doesn't even work. we know that.

Now, you see, you don't know that, because you can't know something that isn't in-fact true.

No-body's torturing anyone for fun. It takes time, it has a severe mental toll on the interrogator, and believe it or not, most interrogators are honest men who serve their country and people.

the world has decided

There is something very fundamentally wrong with this statement... so deep and wrong, I can't even decide how to address it. Who's 'the world'? What difference does it make to those whose lives are at risk, what 'the world' has decided?

humanity is more important than victory.

We're not talking about victory here, but about saving lives.

[Cloud No.9]

okay a quote now from the un human rights act "‘no exceptional circumstances whatsoever’ justify torture. that is the ruling.

and justifiable reasons brings up a funny little piece of information. egypt declared a state of emergency in 1981. that allowed the police and army to do whatever necessary to save lives. it in fact did nothing and allowed the police torture who they wanted. and do we want to know when this emergency act from 1981 was ended? it wasn't.

you can only tell me that torture works when you tell me that they were real witches in the middle ages. and theur confessions were true.

and if it doesn't work it's for only one reason. it's for sick deprived people to do what they want with defenceless people. like lindy england, like mengel.