Court ruled what we already know - warrantless wiretapping is unconstitutional.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Allow me to paint a picture for you. There's going to be a nuclear attack, you have a terrorist who said he knows how it will take place but he's not talking. How far will you go to get that information? Or will you sacrifice the millions of lives the attack would take and uphold the terrorist's 'rights', such as they are?

The "ticking time-bomb scenario fallacy"?

 

Read When every second does not count. It sums up the arguments against the ticking time-bomb scenario.

[Nancy Allen``]

Twenty...huh? The show is quite obviously fiction, but I get your point as to why torture is frowned upon. There are right ways of going about it and wrong ways, same for reasons with there being right reasons to take action and wrong ones. Certainly the events of Abu Gharib should never be duplicated, but for some reason were I ever to be involved in such a scenario I think I would rather have doing what needed to be done to get the information I need on my concience than the blood of New York's or Los Angeles' population on my hands because I did not act.

 

Of course I'm a racist Nazi and a butcher to boot, but I just consider it to be the lesser of the two evils in such a situation.

[Jae Onasi]

The "ticking time-bomb scenario fallacy"?

 

Read When every second does not count. It sums up the arguments against the ticking time-bomb scenario.

 

Theories and reality don't always coincide, of course, and hopefully we'll never have to deal with such a thing. We can debate all the hypothetical situations we want, and say our policy is not to torture, but I don't know how any individual is going to act in any specific situation. I think we should have mechanisms in place to prevent torture. I also know that mechanisms can and do break down. It happens on every side in every war/conflict/nom du jour. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better or that we should turn a blind eye when it does happen.

 

There are very few people in any combat situation who know what's happening in the entire operation, and those usually are not the guys that get caught. Unless you have one of the generals who actually planned the whole operation, you're not going to get more than partial information anyway. The average grunt only knows his particular part of the operation, not the whole plan. In that case, aside from the obvious ethical problems, torture's not going to be much help anyway because the amount of information gained is going to be minimal.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Exactly, and in order to find them and stop them, should we or should we not use any means avalible in order to keep terrorists from further acts of mass murder?

With all due respect - no.

 

While terrorism is a phenomenon that must be dealt with, there's also the danger that, as we Norsemen (and doubtlessly a lot of other people, too) say, "the medicine will be worse than the cure".

 

It's a bit like my sleep problems, for which I take sleeping pills. Sure, they work great, but I can't take them too often or I'll develop an addiction to them (yes, it's those scary pills in programs on sleeping-pill addiction).

 

What does that mean? It means that while taking one pill every night at 10:30 (no worries, Jae, I won't) would arguably solve my sleep problems, it'd also cause a new issue, namely how to deal with my addiction.

 

Torture in this context is sleeping pills gone truly evil. It is such that if you allow it, even in only extreme conditions, you'll "get addicted" and apply it more often, and in less severe conditions.

 

The importance of dealing with your problem of torture spinning out of control may, or will eventually start rivalling your problem with terrorism.

 

There's also the problem of provoking your enemy once news of the torture spreads. While it might get across a "see, don't f**k with us or this is what we'll do to you"-attitude, shows of force are not always a good way to settle disputes. It certainly backfired in the face of the Japanese.

[Nancy Allen``]

That's a good point. What I'm saying is people who believe that we should do nothing and wait for terrorists to tell us the information we need to prevent attacks innocent people will die. Which is why I advocate doing whatever it takes to get that information, any and all means that would work. Don't forget that these mad bastards want murder on a scale that would make September 11 look like child's play.

 

Besides which, torture isn't really an effective means of getting information anyway. I'd advocate it if it was, but it's not. Not only for the reasons you pointed out with the people who'd done it, their government, country, all of it facing a **** storm of controversy by and large the way we see torture done is wrong, you won't get anywhere doing it like that. As I think it had been pointed out before whoever is being tortured will say anything to make it stop. The same however goes for criminals who give false information for payment or a reduction in sentance. No, the best way to carry out an interrogation is to get into the mind and use their morals, beliefs, their attitude whether it be passive or aggressive and use it against them.

[Q]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Bush administration probably started doing this (along with the torture of prisoners) with the foreknowledge that they were eventually going to be stopped. They got away with it while the constitutionality of their actions was being determined, though, which was probably their intention all along. Pretty crafty.

[Nancy Allen``]

Well you don't need to worry about torture. Abu Gharib has demonised it more than any activist could ever dream of. Private England and her cohorts are rightfully considered the lowest of the low, but in this day and age anyone who even thinks about contemplating torture for any reason joins them.

[Q]

Last I heard (from the mouth of the president himself, when he was interviewed a couple of weeks back), it's still going on. He just says, "It's not torture."

[Nancy Allen``]

Define torture. Jack Bauer getting information from a terrorist or Russia loose guidelines on criminal contact, okay. People who plot mass murder arn't to be treated like royalty. Something that is clearly torture, or really anything that is not done with a clear purpose, is verboten.

[Q]

^^^

Let's see: Applying severe discomfort (slapping and copius amounts of cold water poured over the head continuously are the ones I can remember from the interview) or any inhumane treatment in order to extract information from a prisoner. Hell, maybe I'm just a softy, but I consider sleep deprivation as inhumane as well, and therefore it also qualifies as torture in my book. Sure, it's child's play compared to what the North Vietnamese did to the US airmen that they shot down and captured, but it's still unethical, inhumane and barbaric. Ever wonder why one of the most outspoken opponents of these interrogation methods is US senator John McCain? He just happens to be one of those airmen I just mentioned.

 

This whole "Looky at all of the terrorists we've caught because of these methods" justification (rationalization) bull**** that the president is using just doesn't fly with me. How can we stay in the right and act like they do (even a little bit) at the same time? We can't.

 

Don't get me wrong: I believe that everyone responsible for 9/11 should be hunted down and brought to justice (and, most humanely, executed), but I don't think that we should sell our souls in the process. I lean towards the conservative side, but Bush has gone way too far. He's making us look bad, and he's not accomplishing enough to justify it. He's also urinating on the Constitution while blowing smoke up our collective asses, and I won't stand for that, and neither should any other US citizen.

[Nancy Allen``]

You'd be surprised at what the US Army allows for interrogation. Some of it, I'll get Time magazine and look it up if you like, I either doubt it's effectiveness or think goes too far. By the same token however I would advocate things far worse than that. I think one of the things Dagobah Eagle said, in how were we to use torture for the most severe things it would be used for often and for lesser crimes. The trick, as with anything, is to know when and how to use it. Not just torture, but when to be passive in interrogation, aggressive, and when to use techniques such as sodium pentathol and extract information from a terrorist as they sleep.

 

Of course one thing that should not be allowed is to go too far the other way, that terrorists are treated better than other criminals. Part of the reason, to be fair, is fear of how the Muslim world would retalliate, so I'm not blaming activists against terrorist abuse.

 

With John McCain, it's easy to get on a case when you had been affected by it. It's just as easy to turn a blind eye to the ones you haven't. Again there's a trick to that, to be mindful to...well most views, the 'death to the world' crowd excepted. I may come across as a torture for fun butcheress but I'm willing to listen to other sides and agree with them when they are right in what they say.