There is tons of documentation from "experts" that acknowledge that torture is not an effective means of gathering information. That is fact and undeniable.
I think people are having a hard time knowing what they are really talking about when they talk about torture, which i think is a very common given its subjective nature. That being said, i dont think anyone here wants to have dungeons of torture filled with iron maiden, racks and the nut cruncher. However, i do believe that there should be an option for highly suspected prisoners with strong, or known, ties to terrorism then certain pressures should be used on that person. Does this involve physical beatings? no. But it may involve some degree of humiliation, stress, scare tactics, or whatever, to break someones ego or pride so that they may be more likely to give some information. Now maybe some of those less direct tactics may be considered as torture to some...maybe not. So then do you approach the situation from the overly cautious side, where environmental stress on a prisoner is considered torture? or do you be a little more liberal and say that even though some disagree, overall it isnt clearly 'torture' (or overtly that horrendous) and so it will be used?
its funny, people trust the government when it supports their stance, then the gov't is an expert, when the gov't is doing something they don't like, then its how can you trust the gov't.
no, it is something that the experts of interrogations have stated and i have posted several quotes from in this very thread. you should actually try reading stuff people post in here. you might learn something. that is one theory.
actually, the experts told us the iraq war would be a huge disaster and they were ignored or called unpatriotic or terrorist-supporters.
not really. you seem to be the only one. donkey, you still have not answered my question - do you consider rape to be torture? do you consider beating people right up to the point where their organs fail torture? do you think republican senator lindsey graham was lying when he said there was rape and murder going on? are you still trying to deny that detainees have been raped and murdered by u.s. personnel? you say we shouldnt be beating people, but that is exactly what is happening and the bush administraton authorized beating people. by their definition it is only torture if it causes organ failure or death. do you agree with this definition or is that too "loaded" and "vague" for you? why do you continue to ignore the facts?
Yeah, but are these "experts" anyone who would actually practice torture? How can they know for sure? You know, let's say torture was effective - would anyone come out and say it? Of course not. No one in their right mind would. So of course you're only going to have people say it's ineffective. The key to effective torture is ensuring that the subject believes that the torture would truly end if they give the correct information and that the subject actually has the correct information. I would say in most cases that is not established and therefore torture doesn't work. But to say that torture does not work in any circumstance and that's some how as proven as fact is ridiculous to me because there's no iron-clad proof out there. None. It's all based on experts or interviews. Studies most often that are contrived in nature.
do you realize how foolish you sound? "its not proven b/c all we all we have are experts saying it." new yorker, do you enjoy being wrong all the time? pretty much everything you are saying goes against the word of admirals, military judges, jag officers, cia counter-terrorism experts, intelligence officers and the army's own field manual.
just trying to get you to think about your hypocrisy and double standards. i notice in other threads when you run out of steam you just run away from real arguments and start posting sarcastic comments, but its ok when you it, right?
Bob Baer, former CIA official "And torture -- I just don't think it really works. I think it works for the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Saudis, who want to scare the hell out of people. But you don't get the truth. What happens when you torture people is, they figure out what you want to hear and they tell you." (Interview with Slate, May 12, 2004) Lawrence Korb, former Naval Intelligence officer and Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration "The highest levels of the U.S. military, the Defense Department, and the White House must be held accountable for putting our troops at greater risk and diminishing America's moral authority across the globe." (Article co-written by John Halpin, Center for American Progress) Michael Scheuer, formerly a senior CIA official in the Counter-Terrorism Center "I personally think that any information gotten through extreme methods of torture would probably be pretty useless because it would be someone telling you what you wanted to hear." (60 minutes "CIA flying suspects to Torture?" March 6, 2005) Dan Coleman, retired FBI agent "It?s human nature. People don?t cooperate with you unless they have some reason to." He added, "Brutalization doesn?t work. We know that. Besides, you lose your soul." (The New Yorker "Outsourcing Torture" by Jane Mayer) Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 "The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear." Declassified FBI e-mail dated May 10, 2004, responding to the question of whether FBI in agents Guantanamo agents were instructed to "stand clear" due to interrogation techniques utilized by Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security "Our formal guidance has always been that all personnel conduct themselves in interviews in the manner that they would in the field. <redacted> along with the FBI advised that the LEA [Law Enforcement Agencies] at GTMO were not in the practice of the using <redacted> and were of the opinion results obtained from these interrogations were suspect at best. BAU explained to DoD, FBI has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques." http://www.amnestyusa.org/Reports_S...Torture/page.do?id=1031036&n1=3&n2=38&n3=1052
again, it is the theory of experts in the field of interrogation. im just repeating what they stated.
thanks for reposting - new yorker has me on ignore b/c he doesnt like being challenged. its funny b/c he likes to act like this really controversial dude who is out there pushing peoples buttons and challenging their core beliefs. he proudly admits that he will take positions he doesnt agree with - aruge just for the sake of arguing. even his signature shows his desire to try and set people off (if my posts rub you the wrong way put me on ignore), yet he is the one who gets all upset and puts people on ignore when their posts rub him the wrong way. its very funny.
i never saw you ask that. is rage torture? i guess i would agree with that. beating to organ failure...sure. but do you really think that common practice? i do not think that this is the policy, however. does it mean it never happens? of course not. personally i dont think its a common and widespread policy to rage and beat up to near death. happens in houston daily...im sure it happens everywhere. no im not, and i never have. Mistakes always happen but the debate isnt about mistakes and rouge soldier actions. I think the real thing being talked about is a overall policy for what is and isnt allowed. again, i dont think its in the "how to treat prisoners" handbook for the military. why do you continue to ignore the facts?[/QUOTE] again, we are talking about certain cases of abuse vs a policy to do such things. Torture, rape, murderss, etc have happened under every administration in that case. Do you truly believe its their policy and common practice to do such acts?
no you misunderstood, is it your theory that ineffective tactics are purposely used as a policy for interrogations?
once again, you are quite wrong. as i already said, the bush administration changed the definition of torture to interrogations leading to organ failure or death. and did you intentionally misspell rape twice? is this some little semantics game? i asked if you believe detainees are being raped, not raged. not that i think you will bother to read this, but here is an article which discusses how torture was authorized from the highest levels - specifically, the justice department at the request of bush. the "torture memos", as they came to be known basically tossed the geneva convention down the tubes. they changed the definition of torture to be anything short of organ failure or death. this is a clear violation of u.s. and international law. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26401-2004Jun8.html "An Aug. 1, 2002, memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, addressed to Gonzales, said that torturing suspected al Qaeda members abroad "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogation" conducted against suspected terrorists. The document provided legal guidance for the CIA, which crafted new, more aggressive techniques for its operatives in the field. In the view expressed by the Justice Department memo, which differs from the view of the Army, physical torture "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." For a cruel or inhuman psychological technique to rise to the level of mental torture, the Justice Department argued, the psychological harm must last "months or even years." and when it happens in houston they try to catch the person responsible and punish them. but we arent talking about houston or detroit or whatever. we are talking about prisoners in the custody of the u.s. government getting raped and murdered. so your contention is that it is just a few "rogue" soldiers? as i showed in the previous article the policy changed under the bush administration. do you disagree with republican senator lindsey graham, a former military judge, who said that it wasnt the actions of a few soldiers, but appeared to be "planned", as he put it? again, it is clearly the policy put in place by this administration and not the actions of a few rogue soldiers. this article discusses how private contractors were used in abu-graib, oftentimes working alongside and giving orders to the m.p.'s, who were not properly trained to be prison guards in the first place. also details some of the gross abuses, like interrogators raping teenage boys. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206725,00.html "In the report below we quote Gary Myers, a lawyer for one of the accused military policemen, as saying: "We know that CACI and Titan corporations have provided interrogators and that they have in fact conducted interrogations on behalf of the US and have interacted the military police guards at the prison." The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees. According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon. Lawyers for the soldiers argue they are being made scapegoats for a rogue military prison system in which mercenaries give orders without legal accountability. A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein. One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him. One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt Chip Frederick is accused of posing in a photograph sitting on top of a detainee, committing an indecent act and with assault for striking detainees - and ordering detainees to strike each other. He told CBS: "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations." His lawyer, Gary Myers, told the Guardian that Sgt Frederick had not had the opportunity to read the Geneva Conventions before being put on guard duty, a task he was not trained to perform. Mr Myers said the role of the private contractors in Abu Ghraib are central to the case. "I think it creates a laissez faire environment that is completely inappropriate. If these individuals engaged in crimes against an Iraq national - who has jurisdiction over such a crime?", Mr Myers asked. "It's insanity," said Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who has examined the case, and is concerned about the private contractors' free-ranging role. "These are rank amateurs and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/ this is another good one detailing the role of the bush administration and the pentagon with regards to the torture going on. Indeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal—that of a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires dangling from his fingers, toes and penis—may do a lot to undercut the administration's case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That's because the practice shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known only to veterans of the interrogation trade. "Was that something that [an MP] dreamed up by herself? Think again," says Darius Rejali, an expert on the use of torture by democracies. "That's a standard torture. It's called 'the Vietnam.' But it's not common knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did this, but someone taught them." Who might have taught them? Almost certainly it was their superiors up the line. Some of the images from Abu Ghraib, like those of naked prisoners terrified by attack dogs or humiliated before grinning female guards, actually portray "stress and duress" techniques officially approved at the highest levels of the government for use against terrorist suspects. It is unlikely that President George W. Bush or senior officials ever knew of these specific techniques, and late last —week Defense spokesman Larry DiRita said that "no responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses." But a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers—and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation—methods that the Red Cross concluded were "tantamount to torture." http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=10828 another article about how private contrators were directing military guards with regard to torture. once again, this is a report done by the army. very disturbing stuff. Two private military contractors are being investigated for their role in torture allegations at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq: CACI International, Inc. from Arlington, Virginia, and Titan of San Diego, California. CACI supplied at least one interrogator while Titan supplied at least two translators named in a 53-page classified internal Army report written by Major General Antonio Taguba that have dominated news coverage all over the world. (see box) A total of four men -- Steven Stephanowicz, John Israel, Torin Nelson and Adel Nakhla -- are named in the report. All of them were assigned to work with the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, a unit that is currently stationed in Germany and Italy in support of V Corps, under the command of Colonel Thomas Pappas. William Lawson, the uncle of Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, one of the soldiers named in the report who is currently facing a court martial, told CorpWatch that his nephew told the family that the company employees were partially responsible for the abuses. "He tried to complain and that he was told by superior officers to follow instructions from civilians, contract workers interrogating the Iraqi prisoners. They said go back down there. Do what the civilian contractors tell you to do and don't interfere with them and loosen these soldiers up for interrogation." Lawson says that the company employees should be investigated and prosecuted if necessary. "I've spent 23 years in the military including time in Vietnam. I love this country but I will not allow my nephew to be used as a scapegoat," he said in a phone interview from his home in Newburg, West Virginia. http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/08/09/abu_ghraib/index.html several thousand pages of classified military documents reveal that private contractors, hired as interrogators at Abu Ghraib, played a key role in the abuses. According to the testimony of one detainee, a male contract worker carried out one of the most heinous crimes at the prison, raping a boy while a female soldier took pictures. The use of civilian contractors is key to understanding Abu Ghraib. As the full Taguba report makes clear, private contractors held many sensitive positions at the prison. The wealth of classified documents suggests that once the administration decided to privatize military intelligence operations -- giving inexperienced contract workers nearly unlimited power over detainees -- with only a pretense of military oversight, the door to prisoner abuse was thrown open. The fact that the other half of the JIDC interrogators were active-duty military is not as reassuring as it may sound. Twelve of the 19 soldiers on interrogation teams at Abu Ghraib were at the bottom of the military ladder, specialists or privates first class. No one held a rank above sergeant. Military interrogations were conducted by inexperienced, low-ranking soldiers. Army Spc. Luciana Spencer is a good example of the problem. A military interrogator, Spencer was cited in the Taguba report for forcing a detainee to strip and walk back to his cell naked, in an effort to humiliate him. In a still-classified sworn statement, she also admits to hearing other interrogators instructing the military police to abuse prisoners, and once witnessed Spc. Charles Graner slapping a detainee. Asked why she didn't report Graner, Spencer told investigators that she didn't know that what he had done constituted abuse. That's not surprising given her level of experience. Spencer had graduated from "the schoolhouse," the military training ground for interrogators at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in the summer of 2003, just months before arriving at her first assignment, Abu Ghraib. "She didn't speak the language," says a friend of Spencer's who didn't want to be named for this article. "She didn't know the culture, didn't know the history. She didn't really know how to do the job." The friend blames the military for placing her in a situation for which she was not prepared. Given their inexperience, Nelson says, interrogators were easily influenced about how to do their jobs. He characterizes many of them as "cowboys" who "try the tactics they see on really bad TV shows." as an aside - i think it is absolutely disgusting on the part of many of you that we even have to have this argument. you people who support torture are the unamerican ones and you sincerly make me sick and ashamed to be an american. you are helping to destroy this country - thanks for nothing!
