Is Torture Effective?

Who should form the international committee? How could the public be sure that they are doing a good job if we do not know what is going on?

Also, if 911 people have no intelligence that matters now, many detainees are in the same situation: many were captured at the beginning of the Afghan war.

Unless, of course, the reason why they don't want to bring them to trial is because the U.S. government is trying to hide their methods from a legal tribunal. This is what dictatorship traditionally do. Is this the point that the U.S. has reached today?

Originally posted by Thegeneral Under what jurisdiction should they come under? I say a totally different one to handl these people. One thing I recently saw was that it was very hard to bring a terrorist to trial because to do so would mean disclosing information that may be crucial to capture others. And I agree that torture is not a good thing, but possibly nessecary. If we need something out of a top terrorists that is crucial, than I say by all means, get it!

I believe the rest of the thread addressed the issue if torture was effective or not. Most people agreed that it wasn't effective for intelligence gathering or for terrorizing the population.

If you want to claim that torture is "necessary," please address the counter-arguments.

Now, on the answer of our question. I asked if you terrorists should be tried under the jurisdiction of a country or international humanitarian law. From your answer, I understand that you say niether.

We need to try terrorist because we do not want to punish innocent people. Unless they have a conviction, we may be holding the wrong people.

And The one 911 hijacker is currently being tried in Washington, under U.S. civil law. This doesn't seem to be putting our nation in danger.

You did provide an interesting answer. You say that we need a new legal system to try people accussed of terrorism.

Could you please explain how, where, and who should create this knew legal system for trying people accussed of terrorism?

I never said which type of torture.  I too would prefer mental torture.

Under what jurisdiction should they come under?  I say a totally different one to handl these people. 

One thing I recently saw was that it was very hard to bring a terrorist to trial because to do so would mean disclosing information that may be crucial to capture others. 

And I agree that torture is not a good thing, but possibly nessecary.  If we need something out of a top terrorists that is crucial, than I say by all means, get it!

Once again, US army studies show that the best method for extracting information is to befriend your prisoners and make them trust you.  This tactic was used in WW2 with great sucess and army studies endorse it.  Most people when put under pressure will either get more resolve or tell you anything true or not to get out.  Be a double corssing ally and not a torturer and youll go far.

Also its worth mentioning that its estimated by the US government itself that 75% of prisoners in Abu Ghirab are innocent.  You torture an innocent person and you have at least a whole new community of enemies, you find out their innocent through more subtle means and no harm is done to you.

Does it really matter what you call it?

Indeed it doesn't. War or no war, torture is never justified.
"Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

I agree with Mixcoalt.

Thegeneral, you have to explain under what jurisdiction people accused of terrorism would fall under.

If it is not the Geneva Conventions, they should be treaty as regular criminals, with access to the rights that common criminals have.

The U.S. should also stop pretending that they are fighting a war if they are not going to follow war codes.

If this is a war, they should follow all of the Geneva Convetions parts that apply. There are a number of differences from a terrorist to a regular soldier, but they should adapt making sure that no U.S. law or International law that protects human rights are violated.

I don't see why we should give these terrorists comfort while they torture and kill without mercy our fellow citizens. 

 This is not a war like any other we have had to fight.  These people do not have an organized central governemt.  If we killed their leader, they would get a new one with ease.  They can't even surrender beucase most of them are radicals or they just can't.  They don't get orders from supiriors like our troops do.  They just don't surrender. 

The Genevia Convention was made for conventional wars.  This is by no means a "conventional war".  When is the last time, during a conventional war, that our enemies flew planes into our buildings?

Originally posted by Genghis Originally posted by hugoestr Originally posted by Genghis Originally posted by Thegeneral I do not consider the torture of terrorists lack of morals. Exactly, I couldn't care less what happens to them either. Could both explain why? What if the person in custody is not a terrorist? They are our enemies, they have murdered my fellow citizens and their relatives. They don't even have the reason of fighting for their country as in a intrastate war, their reason for fighting us is because they want to. They have beheaded my fellow countrymen on camera, and in my opinion they should be payed back in kind. As always, the military should be sure we don't keep people on a whim, no one's arguing about that.

So would you argue that the U.S. should just give up on the Geneva Conventions all together? After all, many of the same reasons why you want to deny due process to these prisoners apply to wars in general.

Originally posted by Genghis Originally posted by Thegeneral I do not consider the torture of terrorists lack of morals. Exactly, I couldn't care less what happens to them either.

Could both explain why? What if the person in custody is not a terrorist?