Notice: This is the official website of the All Empires History Community (Reg. 10 Feb 2002)
Is Torture Effective? |
Post Reply 
|
Page <123> |
| Author |
 Share Topic Printable Version Google Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Windows Live Yahoo Bookmarks reddit Facebook MySpace Newsvine Furl Topic Search  Topic Options
|
|||
Thegeneral 
Chieftain 
Joined: 05-Mar-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 1117 |
 Quote Reply
 Topic: Is Torture Effective?Posted: 24-Jun-2005 at 21:13 |
|||
|
What bugs me is that we aren't fighting one organized group here. The problem with that is they do not follow the Geneva Convention, and, because they are not a true country or really a recognized group, I don't believe they should have the pleasure of those same standards. But than there is the whole thing of being the "better people" |
||||
 |
||||
|
hugoestr
Tsar 
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 24-Jun-2005 at 22:30 |
|||
Yours is a good argument for the thesis that states that this is not a real war. 
More seriously, the spirit of the thread is to find out if torture is actually useful. I think that most agree that it isn't, and most of us agree that valid interrogation techniques are acceptable. This means that even if we go ahead and torture people, it is not in our best interests to do so, either using torture as intelligence gathering or to terrorize a population. Your comment, even though it is tangentially relevant in this thread, is a good topic to discuss on its own right. I will start a thread. I will take the liberty to use your last post to start the thread. 
|
||||
|
||||
|
Genghis
Caliph 
Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2656 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 25-Jun-2005 at 01:32 |
|||
|
The side that wins is invariably the "better people". Secure victory and you don't have to worry about that. |
||||
|
Member of IAEA
|
||||
|
||||
|
Thegeneral
Chieftain
Joined: 05-Mar-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 1117 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 25-Jun-2005 at 11:25 |
|||
|
^^Good point, for the victors wright history. But until then, Bush and Gitmo are going to come under heavy fire for any interrogation techniques people find wrong. |
||||
|
||||
|
hugoestr
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 00:16 |
|||
Misleading, but clever comments. Thegeneral: I think of the U.S. of being ethically good people. But maybe I am just old-fashion. If the modern U.S. is a brutal human rights violator, our government may as well declare us so, instead of insisting that we have moral authority based on our laws and our character. Genghis: Stalin, Ho Chi Ming, Pinochet, and Fidel Castro were all victors, but most people wouldn't call them "better people." Victory by any means confirms the rule of strength, not the moral superiority of the winner. |
||||
|
||||
|
Genghis
Caliph
Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2656 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 00:31 |
|||
|
Fidel and Ho Chi Minh are still considered heroes by many. Stalin and Pinochet were heroes in their nations as long as their systems of government lasted. Like Churchill said "History is written by the victors." |
||||
|
Member of IAEA
|
||||
|
||||
|
hugoestr
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 11:35 |
|||
|
Genghis,
The fact that some people like these dictators doesn't mean that they are remembered as "better people" in general. After all, there are people who admire Hitler, and he was victorious for a while too. Chileans are constantly trying to bring Pinochet to trial, and the Soviet admission of the Stalin's crimes was a key moment in world wide rejection of Stalinist communism. Many socialist parties rejected Marxism-Leninism due to Stalin's record. Finally, and the biggest proof that the unqualified version of the maxim is false, is the American Civil War. To this day, the Southern version of the events is still strong in the South. Popular culture has made more successful movies told from the point of view of the South. For many in the U.S., "Gone with the Wind" iss the only version of the Civil War that they have. |
||||
|
||||
|
Thegeneral
Chieftain
Joined: 05-Mar-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 1117 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 11:58 |
|||
|
Hugo, I would like for the US to be morally correct in everything it does, but it depends on your view of morally correct. I do not consider the torture of terrorists lack of morals. Remeber, they were the ones that flew planes into our skyscrapers.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
Genghis
Caliph
Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2656 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 12:18 |
|||
|
Exactly, I couldn't care less what happens to them either. |
||||
|
Member of IAEA
|
||||
|
||||
|
hugoestr
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 20:51 |
|||
Could both explain why? What if the person in custody is not a terrorist? |
||||
|
||||
|
Genghis
Caliph
Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2656 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 22:44 |
|||
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. |
||||
|
Member of IAEA
|
||||
|
||||
|
hugoestr
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 10:47 |
|||
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. |
||||
|
||||
|
Jalisco Lancer
Sultan 
Retired AE Moderator Joined: 07-Aug-2004 Location: Mexico Online Status: Offline Posts: 2112 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 11:26 |
|||
|
Terrorist are not subject of the Geneva convention due they are not regular soldiers or combatants. However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, were saudis the ones whom kidnaped the planes and performed the attacks. Were saudies and yemenis the one's who attacked the USS Cole, not afghans
|
||||
|
||||
|
Thegeneral
Chieftain
Joined: 05-Mar-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 1117 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 11:30 |
|||
|
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? |
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
Guests
Guest 
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 11:36 |
|||
|
Two things: Firstly why should you lower yourself to the level of terrorist by torturing other people and secondly torturing captives will only make the US less popular, causing more terrorist attacks.
Does that matter? Why would you make an exeption in ethical rules if your opponent has no central government. Besides, this would also justify the torturing and killing of resistance fighters by Nazi-Germany.
Do you realy think torturing is going to change that? Torturing makes their surrender even less likely. No-one is willing to surrender if he knows he will be tortured. Don't forget that in WW2 many German soldiers gladly surrendered to the Americans, because they knew they would be treated better in American than in Soviet hands.
Does it really matter if a plane drops bombs or if the plane itself is used as a weapon? |
||||
|
||||
|
hugoestr
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 12:14 |
|||
|
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. |
||||
|
||||
|
Thegeneral
Chieftain
Joined: 05-Mar-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 1117 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 13:02 |
|||
|
You know what? If you don't want to call it a war, fine. Does it really matter what you call it? And why should we give the terrorists the pleasure of knowing that while they are just sitting in a jail, their comrades are torturing Americans? Granted I do not want to stoop to their level we should have some kind of interogation techniques that could be considered torture. The thing is, I have no tolerance what so ever for those terrorists. I couldn't care less what happens to them!
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
Guests
Guest
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 13:08 |
|||
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." |
||||
|
||||
|
aknc
Chieftain
Joined: 12-Mar-2005 Location: Turkey Online Status: Offline Posts: 1449 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 13:28 |
|||
|
in guatemala maybe? |
||||
|
"I am the scourage of god appointed to chastise you,since no one knows the remedy for your iniquity exept me.You are wicked,but I am more wicked than you,so be silent!"
|
||||
|
||||
|
Tobodai
Tsar
Retired AE Moderator Joined: 03-Aug-2004 Location: Antarctica Online Status: Offline Posts: 4310 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 15:07 |
|||
|
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. |
||||
|
"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value." -Alexander Hamilton |
||||
|
||||
|
Post Reply
|
Page <123> |
| Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
Copyright ©2001-2009 Web Wiz
This page was generated in 0.063 seconds.
