This Distrurbs Me

[Tim Gratz]

Okay, guys (and Dawn) let me ask you a hard question. In asking it please understand that I am not yet ready to condone any form of torture contrary to international law, but the question needs to be asked.

After 9-11 Alan Dershowitz proposed there should be a judicial mechanism to allow torture to be used in exigent circumstances if necessary to save human lives.

Let us assume the CIA and FBI had not failed prior to 9-11 but had picked up a reliable report of an imminent attack on America. Further assume that we had captured one of the participants in the 9-11 matter (in fact let's say Atta) and were pretty sure he knew the location of the attack.

Should we have observed international law and treated Atta with the Marquis of Queensbery rules, thus permitting the deaths of 3,000 or so innocent people? Does that comport with morality?

I read in the New York Times the small obituaries it ran on many of the people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and I must confess many of them brought tears to my eyes. There were of course stories of men and women engaged to be married; fathers of young children; parents of grown children,etc. While death may of come instantly to many of these people, the horror and anguish will live on in the lives of the loved ones they left behind for years. Indeed, it will never go away.

Would it be morally acceptible to subject Atta to extreme pain, but pain insufficient to cause death, to make him reveal the plot? Should Atta endure extreme but passing pain to save lifetimes of anguish for literally thousands of people? What about removing his fingers one by one until he exposed the plot? Is it outrageous to suggest that the life of even one innocent parent of young children would be worth one or more of Atta's digits?

It is an extremely difficult moral question but I think it needs to be addressed.

Edited December 13, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Dawn Meredith]

Okay, guys (and Dawn) let me ask you a hard question. In asking it please understand that I am not yet ready to condone any form of torture contrary to international law, but the question needs to be asked.

After 9-11 Alan Dershowitz proposed there should be a judicial mechanism to allow torture to be used in exigent circumstances if necessary to save human lives.

Let us assume the CIA and FBI had not failed prior to 9-11 but had picked up a reliable report of an imminent attack on America. Further assume that we had captured one of the participants in the 9-11 matter (in fact let's say Atta) and were pretty sure he knew the location of the attack

I am no expert in interrogation but I disagree with Dershowitz. Surely there are better ways of obtaining information than removing someone's fingers one at a time. How barbaric. Then we become them.

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read in the New York Times the small obituaries it ran on many of the people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and I must confess many of them brought tears to my eyes. There were of course stories of men and women engaged to be married; fathers of young children; parents of grown children,etc. While death may of come instantly to many of these people, the horror and anguish will live on in the lives of the loved ones they left behind for years. Indeed, it will never go away.

I read thse obits too and they ALL made me cry. However the course taken by W has not made the world more safe, but more dangerous. Evil begets evil.

We have people trained in psychological testing that is designed to produce real results. Torture does not work. The victim will say anything to make the pain stop, but such words may not be TRUE. Think back Tim to why the law outlawed coerced confessions. ANd what THAT took.

So you want to go back to that do you??

Dawn

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Torture simply produces what the torturer, or their sponsor, wishes to hear. Quite apart from the moral dimension, its simply one of the most unproductive methods of information gathering you could think of. The thumb screw, rack and iron maiden could make Elizabethian prisoners confess to cavorting with the devil, or what ever, what they could not do was make the confession true. If you mimic the methods of your enemy, what then are you protecting?

[Robert Howard]

Torture simply produces what the torturer, or their sponsor, wishes to hear. Quite apart from the moral dimension, its simply one of the most unproductive methods of information gathering you could think of. The thumb screw, rack and iron maiden could make Elizabethian prisoners confess to cavorting with the devil, or what ever, what they could not do was make the confession true. If you mimic the methods of your enemy, what then are you protecting?

Or to put it another way, once a individual (or a nation) adopts 'the ends justifies the means' as their 'credo' a pandora's box of potentialities arrive at the door to the great unknown, commonly referred to as 'the future' none of which, in my opinion are 'choices' at all, but merely the equivalent to entering a room full of the most sordid characters imaginable, beckoning "Come on In."

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Okay, guys (and Dawn) let me ask you a hard question. In asking it please understand that I am not yet ready to condone any form of torture contrary to international law, but the question needs to be asked.

After 9-11 Alan Dershowitz proposed there should be a judicial mechanism to allow torture to be used in exigent circumstances if necessary to save human lives.

Dershowitz and your current AG can parse legalisms to find loopholes that might allow torture, believing it to be a constructive tool, but they have no real world experience in the actual subject they seek to legalize. If torture is so effective a method of procuring information, why did it not work in Viet Nam? Brutal interrogations were employed there, but it didn't alter the outcome. How many of "Charlie" were dropped from choppers? How many times did the lights dim when the voltage meters flew into the red? It didn't get you where you wanted to go then, and the indiscriminate use of these techniques is proving no more reliable today.

After all, your initial post in this thread proved that the subject will merely invent whatever it is he thinks his inquisitors wish to hear. As for the lasting effects on the populace, certain parties are still pissed about the Spanish Inquisition. How long ago was that?

Let us assume the CIA and FBI had not failed prior to 9-11 but had picked up a reliable report of an imminent attack on America. Further assume that we had captured one of the participants in the 9-11 matter (in fact let's say Atta) and were pretty sure he knew the location of the attack.

Should we have observed international law and treated Atta with the Marquis of Queensbery rules, thus permitting the deaths of 3,000 or so innocent people? Does that comport with morality?

Once the Able Danger hearings get under way, we'll have a better idea of who knew what about Atta and the others, and what actually transpired. With any luck, we'll learn who stifled the pre-9-1-1 investigations undertaken of these alleged perps by FBI and MI at every turn, and why.

I read in the New York Times the small obituaries it ran on many of the people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and I must confess many of them brought tears to my eyes. There were of course stories of men and women engaged to be married; fathers of young children; parents of grown children,etc. While death may of come instantly to many of these people, the horror and anguish will live on in the lives of the loved ones they left behind for years. Indeed, it will never go away.

Then perhaps you were among those who supported the family members when they demanded an investigation that Bush initially refused to sanction? Perhaps you now support the family members who still are not satisfied with the slipshod Kean report and its many glaring errors of omission and commission? By comparison, the WC Report is a beacon of truth and integrity. Tears are nice, Tim, but tears are not enough. If you really have concern for those who died, and those who continue to suffer from those senseless deaths, you must militate to ensure that they get all the answers to which they are entitled. Kean's report hasn't done that.

Would it be morally acceptible to subject Atta to extreme pain, but pain insufficient to cause death, to make him reveal the plot? Should Atta endure extreme but passing pain to save lifetimes of anguish for literally thousands of people? What about removing his fingers one by one until he exposed the plot? Is it outrageous to suggest that the life of even one innocent parent of young children would be worth one or more of Atta's digits?

It is an extremely difficult moral question but I think it needs to be addressed.

Rather than dwell on this reactionary defensive posture, perhaps and you and your country would profit more from a proactive and soul-searching approach. Who are these people and why do they despise you so? Is Bush correct when he says "They hate our freedom?" Or does their animus run far deeper, for reasons that they know all too well, but you know nothing about because your own government has failed to inform you of its decades-long practice of suppression and exploitation in the region? Who made Saddam the butcher of Baghdad, Tim, if not the US of A? Who provided Osama with his lethal expertise, Tim, if not the US of A? Both men once served your short-term strategic interests, Tim. Have they served your long-terms interests? Apparently not. Sever all the digits you like, Tim, but it will not endear anyone to your cause. It will only exacerbate a situation already wildly out of control.

Likewise, your current habit of extra-judicial rendition, originally conceived to bring fugitives to justice, has now been usurped into a means to kidnap and torture those whom you think might have vital information. Based upon your initial post in this thread, how's that working out for you, Tim?

More troubling to you should be what kind of treatment the average US citizen might come to expect when he or she travels in that region, or elsewhere. When your own fellow citizens are scooped off the street to undergo torture - to reveal what they might know that is considered useful to your enemies - will you still be such a big torture fan? Remember well the lesson that you and your country have yet to learn: Payback's a bitch. But turnabout is fair play, they say.

[Len Colby]

Torture simply produces what the torturer, or their sponsor, wishes to hear. Quite apart from the moral dimension, its simply one of the most unproductive methods of information gathering you could think of. The thumb screw, rack and iron maiden could make Elizabethian prisoners confess to cavorting with the devil, or what ever, what they could not do was make the confession true. If you mimic the methods of your enemy, what then are you protecting?

This not just a touchy feely, politically correct, I am a lefty - liberal member of the Ed. Forum position. According to the New Yorker article cited by Robert

Perhaps surprisingly, the fiercest internal resistance to this thinking has come from people who have been directly involved in interrogation, including veteran F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents. Their concerns are as much practical as ideological. Years of experience in interrogation have led them to doubt the effectiveness of physical coercion as a means of extracting reliable information. They also warn that the Bush Administration, having taken so many prisoners outside the realm of the law, may not be able to bring them back in. By holding detainees indefinitely, without counsel, without charges of wrongdoing, and under circumstances that could, in legal parlance, “shock the conscience” of a court, the Administration has jeopardized its chances of convicting hundreds of suspected terrorists, or even of using them as witnesses in almost any court in the world.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

So not only do they produce information of dubious quality, torture suspects can't be used as witness or brought to trial. Upon their release of course their stores provide incredibly bad PR for the US and only help groups like Al-Queda.

To answer Tim's question. If there is solid evidence that a suspect has pertinent information about an up coming attack I would swallow liberal pricipals and say do what it takes to make him talk.

[Ron Ecker]

If 9/11 was an inside job, as seems evident (see books by Griffin and Marrs among others), then the whole war on terror is bogus, it's smoke and mirrors, terrorist v. terrorist, we don't know who's who (though it's clear that the party-loving Atta was no Muslim fundamentalist), so what infernal right does the US government have to torture anybody?

[John Simkin]

The Guardian newspaper asked six Americans for their views on George Bush's five years as president. Add your comments here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5617