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Originally Posted by roachboy
funny aint it pan?
i said that it was unambiguous after cruising back and forth between the four treaties that dc linked to.
i dont see the ambiguity about the intentional inflicting of pain, threats of death, etc. as a device to extract information--if i were pushed on the question, i would probably err on the side of less rather than more latitude.
there is a kind of conceptual black hole in the center of this--defining exactly what pain is. i think there is a general agreement about it from the language of the agreements--and personally, i am not sure that i see the point of heading down the route of trying to work out where pain stops and starts in order to open up more space for inflicting it. because it seems to me that is the route travelled by the bush administration regarding practices like waterboarding---and it really is kind of a problem, determining an "objective" standard by means of which you can determine when pain of another stops and starts.
how would you do it?
see what i mean?
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That's my point, I think torture is rather subjective because what is painful or immoral or harmful to one may not be looked at the same from another's viewpoint.
I think gross physical torture or mental torture (i.e. pulling fingernails out, slicing people, cutting off limbs, things that happened at Abu Gharaib(sp), forcing one to watch reruns of Family Affair and Green Acres or reality television) is extreme and unneeded because the prisoner will give you only what he needs to (truth or not) just to end the torture.
Now, do I think Sean Connery shooting a dead man to get a live man to think he's nuts enough to kill someone so the guy gives up info is torture? No.
Do I think withholding a day's rations, exercise time, etc is torture? No.
But, there are people that think all of the above is torture.
I also have to agree with Crompsin above, none of us know what we are capable of or what we may do in a situation where we have someone who knows something that could save 100's or 1000's of lives and the man won't talk through non torturous means.
On the other hand, if his friends know he is caught and think he may give up info... chances are they would change their plans and the info he gives wold be worthless thus the torture would have been in vain.
I know I over analyze things but..... c'est la vie, n'est pas?