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Originally Posted by Greg700
Willravel, torture whether it is morally justifiable or not, [it] can be very effective in certain situations such as field interrogations. I.E. where you have a particular piece of information you need to get and quickly (I.E. where did you bury the cache? or which building is the hostage in?).
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Sorry, in this case psychological training trumps military training and even experience. All of the most renowned and well respected minds in psychology and psychiatry agree 100% that the information gained from torture is, at best, completely unreliable. Even if it was legal (
which it absolutely is not), it is generally useless because the information cannot be trusted to any reasonable degree, especially if you and your men are going to risk your lives for it. Yes, it will occasionally produce some reliable information, but because the rate of reliable information is so inconsistent it would be foolhardy to act on the information.
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Originally Posted by Greg700
For long term stuff, confessions, etc. torture is less effective since, obviously, the person is likely to say whatever they think will make it stop.
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This is absolutely true, but it's also very true for even very short term torture. They're not quite the same, but the results are surprisingly similar.
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Originally Posted by Greg700
When you are warring against a country that is willing to extend to their POW's the same treatment we provide to ours, an absolute ban on torture makes perfect sense.
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This shouldn't be about vengeance. Vengeance has no place in war.
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Originally Posted by Greg700
Morally, I don't see how torture is any different than killing someone. If killing is justified in pursuit of a goal, then torture is too, in my mind. I think it is distastefull and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, but if it will save American lives then I have less than no sympathy for the poor bastard.
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Killing is usually pretty quick. As we've seen, torture can go on for years. That's a rather serious difference, wouldn't you agree?
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Originally Posted by Greg700
Don't take this to mean that I have any desire to torture someone, and I am not about to risk my career and freedom by taking it upon myself to do so, but I think we should, to a degree, adjust our methods to compliment those employed by our enemy.
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You really want to stoop to the level of our enemy? And where does "our enemy" have large military installations where hundreds of our POWs and innocent civilians are tortured long term?
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Originally Posted by Greg700
I have been to SERE (the army version) and it was miserable, degrading, and a real eye opener. We were treated far worse than any of the prisioners at Abu Ghraib. At least those guys got to eat and weren't borderline hypothermic. I couldn't care less whether they had their feelings hurt, or were embarrassed. I will however concede that the behavior of the guards was monumentally stupid, done without any clear purpose, and very damaging to our national reputation.
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Have you been to Abu or Gitmo? I've been waterboarded myself (makeshift waterboarding, intentionally, even knowing that I was in no danger). Anything more than maybe 35-40 seconds and it's fucking scary. And I am a swimmer.