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Originally Posted by samcol
For me it is kind of irrelevant to get involved in what the law is in the US and the UN law and this and that. Torture is wrong, the nazi tortured, vietnamese tortured, Saddam tortured, now we torture. I don't need a law to tell me what they are doing is wrong. Americans have long been against torture now we are being sold on it.
Torture is either good or bad. If it's bad when past regimes did it, then it's bad what the CIA is doing now. I'm tired of the atempts by the white house and pentagon at sidestepping and doublespeaking their way out of this mess.
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Exactly, I coulnd't have put it better myself. In addition to the moral implications, there are logistical implications as well.
As a student of psychology, I have always been taught that torture is not a reliable source of extracting information (taught by people who have enough know how of p[sychology that I trust them and what they taught me). I've seen tapes in my old classes of tortured prisoners giving false testimony simply in order to alleviate the torture for a little while. The intel on Saddams WMDs is supposedly from a tortured former Iraqi official. The only logical reason to torture is to create fear within a populace, and that is the very definition of terrorism. I'll say it again:
Torture does not extract reliable information.