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no, it is simple recognition that britain run's an activist foriegn policy heavily bent around global special forces operations.
we are busting into huts in remote places on a daily basis, and i have no doubt a few fingers get broken here and there.
i simply draw the line between this and a state sanctioned program of internment and interrogation that includes torture.
but let me be clear; i do not want to live in a society that condones its government doing this.
Uhhh... So if I read you right, you are OK as long as the population just recognize the torture their nation commit, as long as they don't condone it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
I don't even know where to begin. C'mon, you yourself must see the glaring holes in this line of thought.
The government doesn't have to tell the people.
The British can just trust their king/queen to do it only to filthy foreigners and everything will be fine.
Never beaten someone up? Never throwed a single punch?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
All right: My aunt, from my father’s side, was tortured by the Milice, the French Gestapo. No need for details. The fact is she was not, repeat not, involve in the Resistance. Never. She didn’t know my father was, or the neighbour’s family (my grand-father -mother’s side-) was.
The Nazi had good reason to torture as some were blowing-up their trains, helped Allies pilots to escape and gave a lot of knowledge about their move, numbers and units, cutting their communication lines, and killing German Occupiers, time to time.
But it was completely useless.
The Gestapo did torture resistant with local success, but the greatest success against French Resistance was achieved by infiltration of the Abwehr (Admiral Canaris), not by Heinrich Gestapo, which was much more successful in deporting children.
The only time torture worked was against political militants (i.e. students) to tell they were socialist/communists, or unionists, and done. Indonesia did it. What a great success, indeed, to torture teenagers/young adults to confess. Same can be said for Chile, Argentina and others democratic states under Pinochet, Videla, or Franco’s Spain.
I don't believe torture actually works, but it's a moral dillema worthy of consideration. I am not convinced that it's always wrong. I can totally see how it can be the lesser of two evils sometimes.
Too much knicker twistage, looking for black and white moral certainties in a muddy world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
I do not want to reach this point:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...iers-told.html
If it negatively affects our foreign policy.
As noted previously; i do not believe it is generally effective, or more effective than alternative methods given time and space.
It is healthy that society at large should reject torture, and be outraged if their government is caught doing it.
I approve wholeheartedly of this attitude, and remain delighted that government fears being caught engaged in immoral acts... even if i am more tolerant of them myself.
It's a muddy world, i don't expect cleanly polarised moral choices. That purity of soul is an option for nations that make the best of the world as they see it, and decidedly not for nations who seek to change the world around them.
^ what he says
This is internally illogical.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
If it is not more efficacious on some level -- then it should not be done as the costs, moral and physical, are known to be higher. Would you spend 5 Euros for an Ice-Cream that you could purchase across the street for 3.50 Euros?
Unless it is demonstrably better at extracting information than are other methods -- and the best that can be said is the it works equally well, not better -- than how can it be rational to endure the greater moral cost to yourself and your personnel (ignore the victim as a presumed "bad guy" if you wish)?
And if you and/or your personnel would NOT endure a greater moral cost in implementing "enhanced interrogation methods," than you would be PRECISELY the kinds of persons who should not be entrusted with that power as you would both enjoy it too much (and therefore do it improperly and denigrate the information validity) and be inclined to make it normal practice.
I bear no love for the persons who engineered the butchery of 9-11-01 or who believe that beheading a journalist somehow constitutes valid political action.
However, as R.G.H. Siu once wrote, "cruelty is the tantrum of frustrated power." Throwing tantrums is not adult behavior.
Weren't several of the tortured people innocent?
Not if you are as cynical as I am, cynism gots a logic of it's own. I don't believe in our goodness, men is wolf to men, decency is an illusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
If you were a character in The Walking Dead, what type of character would you be?
(I am really not that cyninal, just making a case)
Sorry Frags, being cynical just don't cut it as a defense for the ideas you put forth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
You are defending what is the most vile thing a human can do to another...
You seriously have to make an EXTREMELY good case for why it would be needed to torture someone... All you have contributed with is Hollywood fantasies.
Shame on you.
Convince me why it's always wrong without it just being wrong taken as a given. The Dutch resistance tortured nazi's to get info for the allies. Probably saved a lot of lives. Your whole argument is that it is unacceptable, but you never say why; it's unaccetable, basta. Need a little bit more to chew on.
There are worse things then terrorism, police states are one of those.
Torture by the state is many steps worse then a police state.
Easy way out, I am not pleading for that, I just say that there are scenarios where I can be comfortable with someone being tortured. You on the other hand would be comfortable with the comfortable bliss that is the moral higher ground, knowing that thousands could die, but at least you are morally superior? That's not being moral, that is being narcist, inherently egocentric to not do what should be done when it's the only option left, no matter how much you would hate doing it.
Torture outside of TV and movies is notoriously volatile (short life span of useful information if any), and is inaccurate. Might as well stick to burning witches at stakes for all the benefit and justice it achieves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Standard police work has been shown to be far as or more effective then torture as far as information gathering is concerned. Police work also beats torture hands down for hearts and minds. So police work not only resolves the issue more effectively it doesn't create a new or larger generation of fanatics.
The idea of torture to gain freedom is a dumb tautology. It is counter productive and ineffective. It also relies on the premise that the person somehow has ongoing useful operational knowledge when most terrorist groups act in semi independent cells. It just lowers us to their level and like most laws and law enforcement techniques it tends to bleed out into the wider law enforcement apparatus.
I don't think it works either, I am just interested in the higher moral ground that people who are absolutily against it take. I get no answer when asking for it.
I was originally going to go on a swear filled rant but life got in the way and by the time I got back to this the rage had cooled into despair and I didnt feel like it. After a while I decided that saying anything in opposition to torture would be a waste of time as the only people who would ever even attempt to defend it are either psychopaths like chenye or the worst eschelons of Republican die hards, of which this forum is thankfully devoid of.
Instead I think I shall merely rip off a comment I saw on fark and leave it at that.: "It's disturbingly consistent how conservatives support the government hurting and killing people, and are deeply offended by the government doing anything to promote their health and longevity."
It's a moral dillema, derveres introspection of what you are capable yourself, think the Milgram or Asch experiments
The really frightening thing is that I have found most of the police officers I know or have met on line favor torture.
People are so far removed from unpleasant experiences, they have no intuitive sense of what it means to be tortured.
i grew up in a country where my fathers colleague was murdered by the state, dumped on his wifes doorstep in a hessian sack, and her told if she made a fuss her children would never get an education. this was a state where [that] could be done, without any fear of public opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
likewise, my mother had lunch with the presidents wife, herself reputed to have knocked off nearly as many people as the big man himself.