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View Poll Results: Should the United States of America Torture people? | |||
No. Never for any reason. | 49 | 71.01% | |
Yes, but only in 'ticking bomb' Jack Bauer situations. | 11 | 15.94% | |
Yes, but only for intelligence gathering, never for punishment. | 6 | 8.70% | |
Yes. I don't see anything wrong with torture. | 3 | 4.35% | |
Voters: 69. You may not vote on this poll |
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03-27-2008, 11:39 AM | #121 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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is this a fictional scenario?
if it isn't, i don't think you have the full story. if it is a fictional scenario, then it gets derailed almost immediately because you introduce more information about the wife's politics than you provide about the action of your character in iraq, and by doing that turn this into a version of the old rightwing canard about the evil anti-war activists being mean to the returning vet, not understanding the realities of war, etc. in other words, if this is a fictional scenario, the way you write it makes it clear what you're really on about in this thread: you object to the imaginary actions of a straw man you've fashioned about people who oppose the war in iraq and are using the notion of torture to attempt to pose some question that may be deep and important to you, but which to me is neither. if it's not a fictional scenario, then like i said you obviously don't have the whole story or chose not to include important information that explains the situation. commission or omission, it's hard to tell. either way, if you'd spent as much attention setting up the situation in iraq as you did the red herring plotline about the poor victimized misunderstood but entirely abstract guy-who-comes-back-from-iraq as you did the wife's politics, maybe you'd get a better answer.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-27-2008, 11:42 AM | #122 (permalink) | |
warrior bodhisattva
Super Moderator
Location: East-central Canada
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It is not that physiologically damaging, but it is a psychological assault. It is degrading and it raises the question of basic human rights. Though it might seem mild, withholding a day or more worth of rations would be a form of torture as this is the starvation threshold. Even if we would be reluctant to call it outright torture, it isn't a practice one should do if they wish to avoid violating human rights.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot |
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03-27-2008, 07:57 PM | #123 (permalink) |
Wehret Den Anfängen!
Location: Ontario, Canada
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No, for three reasons. Any one of which is sufficient.
Torture is ridiculously ineffective. There are effective interrogation techniques, but torture really isn't one of them. Torture corrupts the torturer and the tortured. People who torture become damaged, and if we have those with power becoming damaged, it fucks everyone. It is evil.
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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest. |
03-27-2008, 09:14 PM | #124 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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This thread is really quite silly. If I knew innocent people were going to die and we had the said terrorist in custody I'd dip him in acid until he talked. No one deserves to die for YOUR morals when it can be prevented. What you are saying is their lives are worth less to you then your own precious sense of self importance. Life isn't a movie, its worse then any movie. In the last 100 years over 100 million people have been murdered by their own governments, and somewhere around that in wars. Your esthetic sense will have little impact in making it better.
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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. Last edited by Ustwo; 03-27-2008 at 09:22 PM.. |
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03-27-2008, 10:21 PM | #125 (permalink) | ||||||
Lennonite Priest
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
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True story. And no here is no more to the story as I knew of him and I personally knew the wife (from some classes and such) before all this. It wasn't she had another guy. It wasn't that something over there affected his life negatively like oooo seeing people killed or maimed. She simply believed that he was some monster simply because he withheld 1 day's rations on a POW. Even she has stated that she can understand why and that he was ordered to but it is torture and she cannot forgive him no matter how hard she tried. What more of the story is here? (BTW..... You can look from day 1 my views on he war have not changed at all.... I have been and continue to be against it. I do however support the troops and believe that if they are going to be there, then we need to do all we can for them to support them. I also believe that we need to support veterans here better. But then again I am a vet.) Quote:
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I agree with this, as I have stated numerous times.... even if effective, chances are the others have changed the plans once that person was captured. I just don't see the extreme on the low end. I can understand physical or psychological to the point where normal people would say, "That is just wrong".... Bu to make a punishment much like an a parent does to some kids (Go to bed without supper) is ridiculous and cheapens the argument against torture, to those it is ok with. Quote:
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I have a feeling as one poster said before, none of us truly know how we would react. It's great and feel good to say you would react what you deem moralistically correct. It's great and feel good to say what your friends want to hear so that you have their "respect" for not speaking your own mind. But if put in the circumstance at the right time.... I doubt anyone except Jesus Christ (if he were to post here) would be able to truly answer that question the same as they do here.
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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?" Last edited by pan6467; 03-27-2008 at 10:32 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost |
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03-28-2008, 03:39 AM | #126 (permalink) | |
warrior bodhisattva
Super Moderator
Location: East-central Canada
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Silly is right.
__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot |
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03-28-2008, 04:22 AM | #127 (permalink) | |||
Junkie
Location: In the land of ice and snow.
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While I think a lot of people would agree with you on this (except for wanting to do it themselves) I don't think that it is really all that relevant in the context of discussion on torture as a general policy. Abu Ghraib looked nothing like any episode of 24 I'd ever seen and extraordinary rendition isn't really something you do when a nuclear bomb blast is imminent. Quote:
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03-28-2008, 04:46 AM | #128 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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pan:
you have this story from the guy, i assume. it reads to me like a rationalization of the breakdown of his marriage than a story about what happened in iraq. i am agnostic about this, btw---i haven't the faintest idea what the situation might have been, what this guy might have done or not done. but there must be more to it---either in iraq in terms of context, way it was told, something---or something about that relationship. fundamentally, the story makes no sense. it may be that these folk are not the chandelier's brightest bulbs and that the marriage broke down over a sustained bout of projection and name-calling, i dont know. but the story is about the relationship between these two people, really. the "torture" question arises in that context and seems to refer to that context. for example, was he on duty at abu ghraib? not everyone who did a turn there did interrogations, but at least if that was the location, the story would make more sense..
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-29-2008, 05:29 AM | #130 (permalink) | |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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I can say never to torture. And if you mean the current administration in regards to "people in the know" I do not (and will not) trust them in any way or in any form. Too many lies for too long.
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
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03-29-2008, 09:14 PM | #131 (permalink) | |
Lennonite Priest
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
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That's the story man. There's nothing more to add. Sometimes life doesn't make sense but it's still life. I just asked a question, because I can't believe any one would think withholding 1 day's rations or exercise would even be close to torture. But obviously people do. To me to call something like that torture, minimizes real torture in people's minds so that when you eventually say "torture" people will minimize the actions and not pay attention. You have to set standards so that all people have some idea what is meant. People, including myself, have talked to her but in her mind, that was and is torture and no one or nothing will change her mind. It's truly sad and irrational, but that is what some vets are coming home to.
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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?" |
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03-31-2008, 06:01 AM | #132 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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Sounds like she was looking as much for an excuse as anything else, and life is too short to deal with the crazy ones.
__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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03-31-2008, 06:13 AM | #133 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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uh---yeah.
i can't even pretend to understand what's up with that story, pan. and i can't even really tell who it's about. i am even unclear about the question you posed based on it: it doesn't seem to me that the boundary torture/brutality/ordinary activity is relevant to it--because the operative problem is what the ex understood these to mean and what understood was therefore appropriate for her--i guess. ustwo's crazy theory seems as plausible as any other to fill in the blanks there. but i probably wouldn't have taken it in the direction you did--"this is what some vets are coming home to"--simply because that generalization rests on a pile of other generalizations that i don't think anything warrants. all i would have said on the basis of the story is what is obvious: this is what this particular cat ran into. and that is must have sucked for everyone involved. but i just don't think full disclosure has been at work--not via you, pan, but via the story sources. it doesn't make sense.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-31-2008 at 06:16 AM.. |
03-31-2008, 07:28 AM | #134 (permalink) | |
Lennonite Priest
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
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Well, UsTwo, I'm sure you remember my wife from here....... fiery one she is.
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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?" |
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03-31-2008, 08:01 AM | #135 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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Well at any rate then HE is lucky, you too, remember you can date the crazy ones but don't marry them :P
__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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03-31-2008, 11:55 AM | #136 (permalink) |
Oh dear God he breeded
Location: Arizona
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ONly if it's between two consenting adults in the privicy of their own home. Or just for shits and giggles.
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Bad spellers of the world untie!!! I am the one you warned me of I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant. |
03-31-2008, 12:04 PM | #137 (permalink) | |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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03-31-2008, 03:09 PM | #138 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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starvation n 1: a state of extreme hunger resulting from lack of essential nutrients over a prolonged period [syn: famishment] 2: the act of starving; "they were charged with the starvation of children in their care" [syn: starving]
__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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03-31-2008, 03:29 PM | #139 (permalink) |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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During World War 2, interred Jews had to survive on 300-600 calories a day. Thousands died within months of being interred. As a result of said torture, it was included in the Geneva Conventions that the use of starvation on a civilian population is strictly and without exception illegal.
I myself have fasted quite a few times, surviving on less than 600 calories a day. Even with that caloric intake, I felt hunger pains in the first 7 hours, which only got worse throughout the day. By 24 hours the pain is quite serious and can't be ignored or quelled by liquid. Without those 600 calories, the pain is much, much worse. What would you call causing continuing pain to a prisoner? Not torture? |
03-31-2008, 03:59 PM | #140 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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Seriously.
__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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03-31-2008, 04:57 PM | #141 (permalink) | |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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In all seriousness, starvation is torture. Torture is the intentional infliction of suffering, be it physical, mental or emotional. The withholding of necessary food causes physical and emotional suffering. This is completely obvious and self evident. Prima facie. |
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03-31-2008, 05:06 PM | #142 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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Quote:
__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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03-31-2008, 09:24 PM | #144 (permalink) |
Oh dear God he breeded
Location: Arizona
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Torture is like assassination. A useful tool, but one that should never be stated as part of a countries doctrine. Leave it for the black op guys. To declare it as a part of your normal doctrine sets a dangerous pressidence. Use it in sparing situations in which you can claim total ignorance.
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Bad spellers of the world untie!!! I am the one you warned me of I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant. |
03-31-2008, 10:09 PM | #145 (permalink) |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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The black op guys aren't going to see any reasonable success rate with it, so no, not even black ops gets a free pass.
Torture. Doesn't. Work. It just doesn't. Even if you get the right answer, it's not dependable. It's useless from an intelligence standpoint, and it's reprehensible from a moral and human rights standpoint. There's simply no excuse. |
03-31-2008, 10:11 PM | #146 (permalink) | |
Lennonite Priest
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
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I have gone a day without food a few times and it hasn't killed me, never once made me sick, except for a few hunger pangs, I didn't feel in bad shape at all. 2) This was a POW, NOT a civilian. There is a difference. Also this man was being punished because of behavior problems. I look at it much like a parent sending a child to bed without dinner. If this is your definition of torture, then we are in trouble and I thank God you are not in power.
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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?" |
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03-31-2008, 10:34 PM | #147 (permalink) | |
Oh dear God he breeded
Location: Arizona
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Bad spellers of the world untie!!! I am the one you warned me of I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant. |
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03-31-2008, 10:42 PM | #148 (permalink) | |||
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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Also, if I were in power we wouldn't be at war so the conversation would be moot. Quote:
Last edited by Willravel; 03-31-2008 at 10:44 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost |
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04-01-2008, 05:47 AM | #149 (permalink) |
Location: Washington DC
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If withholding food is done for psychological reasons as much as physical. ..if the person has no idea if or when he will be fed again...its torture.
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"The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 04-01-2008 at 06:01 AM.. |
04-01-2008, 06:08 AM | #150 (permalink) | |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
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04-01-2008, 06:08 AM | #151 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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like i keep saying, pan, there is alot of information missing from the story.
personally, i don't have a judgment because i don't feel like i know basic stuff about the situation. the distinction would turn on what dc said, but there's no way to know anything about that from the info we have to work with.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
04-01-2008, 06:19 AM | #152 (permalink) | ||
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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Of the many, many problems I have with this logic- who gets to decide what situations require using it sparingly may be the biggest. Quote:
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club Last edited by Tully Mars; 04-01-2008 at 06:23 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost |
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04-02-2008, 04:09 PM | #153 (permalink) | |
Oh dear God he breeded
Location: Arizona
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A ruler doesn't always have the option of acting honorably. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be an issue at all. But it's not a perfect world. Really, let's have a show of hands here. Who is losing sleep because someone is being tortured in a prison camp right now? There are things that go on behind the scenes that make torture seem like a walk in the park, all done to keep what ever country is doing it safe and to keep them men in power where they are. I happen to have a pretty comfortable life over all, and I'm not going to shed a few tears because some guy who wants to kill me simply because I was born here is being beat to a pulp or robbed of some food. Not to mention that many of the people saying we are torturing them are saying so just to make us look bad in the public eye, not because we are. It's part of Al-Qaeda's freaking hand book to claim tortured if they are captured to make us look bad for Gods sake.
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Bad spellers of the world untie!!! I am the one you warned me of I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant. |
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04-03-2008, 08:02 AM | #154 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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