CIA: Waterboarding used on 3 suspects

[Furunculus]

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.

[Kadagar_AV]

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...

I don't even know where to begin. C'mon, you yourself must see the glaring holes in this line of thought.

[Husar]

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.

[Brenus]

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.

[Fragony]

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.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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.

This is internally illogical.

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.

[Husar]

Weren't several of the tortured people innocent?

[Fragony]

This is internally illogica

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.

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)

[Furunculus]

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...

I don't even know where to begin. C'mon, you yourself must see the glaring holes in this line of thought.

Too much knicker twistage, looking for black and white moral certainties in a muddy world.

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.

[Fragony]

^ what he says