Red Cross: Torture at Gitmo

[Kuciwalker]

Is mental anguish caused if you threat to kill someone if they don't give you info?

[Gibsie]

Not the first time, but keep at it, day in, day out, I'm sure it would.

I read some tuff on interrogation in New Scientist the other week where an Israeli interrogator told how he'd threaten to kill the families of terrorist suspects and make it believable- going by the transcript of the interview with one of his subjects, that certainly did the trick (The trick being to cause life-lasting mental pain).

[Kuciwalker]

Then what if you regularly did the same the wrt escaping?

[laurentius]

No offense Kuciwalker, but i'm not going to waste anymore time arguing with you, since you have no idea about peoples basic rights.

www.un.org is a good place to start from. Good luck

[Gibsie]

If the process you're talking about has no other elements of torture in it, and is for example, a guard casually occasionally (or every day or whatever, or saying it over and over) telling a prisoner that if he tries to go over the wall he'll be shot, I can't imagine that ever upsetting someone.

If someone's being interrogated full-on, and the interrogator starts telling the prisoner that he thinks he's trying to escape, and starts going over every inch of his cell and the grounds with him, telling him that every piece of dirt or any sudden move is evidence that he's trying to escape and he'd get a bullet in him then I could envisage that being torture. But Isimply cannot imagine a situation where telling a prisoner they're at risk of being killed for trying to escape would hurt them that much [without already having elements of torture in it].

[Kuciwalker]

So if you just say "talk or I'll shoot you" once, and nicely, it's not torture?

[Gibsie]

As with most vague definitions, context is everything. Say it with a gun in the prisoner's mouth and it's torture. Say it after you've kept the prisoner awake for 3 days with regular beatings, and it's a part of the torture. Call a prisoner into an interrogation chamber and just say it to them in a way that the prisoner willnot seriously believe his life is in danger, and it's not torture.

Your quote indicated that threats of "imminent death" are only torture if part of a prcoess of abuse to the prisoner. You could work this all out yourself if you weren't working under the mindset of, "The US never tortures anyone and if anyone says otherwise they're mishuided or lying".

[Kuciwalker]

As with most vague definitions, context is everything. Say it with a gun in the prisoner's mouth and it's torture. Say it after you've kept the prisoner awake for 3 days with regular beatings, and it's a part of the torture. Call a prisoner into an interrogation chamber and just say it to them in a way that the prisoner willnot seriously believe his life is in danger, and it's not torture.

So as long as he doesn't believe it's a credible threat, it's OK?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Your quote indicated that threats of "imminent death" are only torture if part of a prcoess of abuse to the prisoner. You could work this all out yourself if you weren't working under the mindset of, "The US never tortures anyone and if anyone says otherwise they're mishuided or lying".

I've never said anything of the sort. I'm claiming that the particular definition of torture put forward is overbroad and absurd.

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
[q]So as long as he doesn't believe it's a credible threat, it's OK?

Since you're confused, I've gone back and read what you quoted, so, to clarify, the aim of the threat must be to cause "mental anguish". If the person subjected to torture isn't bothered by what's going on, he's not likely to suffer mental anguish, is he? Look at that, you've made me start asking patronisingly rhetorical questions. That doesn't make it okay to make death threats to such a subject though, however. The crux is, according to point (1), that the intent of the interrogator must be to cause the mental anguish. The subject might not be bothered by attempts, but if the intent is there, it is torture.

Think of it in terms of an abusive spouse: if a husband repeatedly threatens to kill his wife if she dares look at a man, doesn't let her leave the house, and has her in fear of her life, that's torture. If a wife jokingly threatens to kill her husband if he doesn't put the toilet seat down the next time, that's not torture. Do you understand the concept of "context" yet, or should unca gibsie start tawking wike a lil baby?

[Kuciwalker]

Well, then it goes the other way - if what I do isn't meant to cause mental anguish, but merely gain information, then I can do whatever I want.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Well, then it goes the other way - if what I do isn't meant to cause mental anguish, but merely gain information, then I can do whatever I want.

If it's gaining information by method of causing mental anguish, the goal is still to cause mental anguish.

[Gibsie]

Oh bloody semantics... Replace "intent to cause mental anguish" with "actions that in the eyes of an objective observer would be deemed to be likely to cause mental anguish". That was a bit of a flub on my part, I must admit, as I suppose successful interrogators are not there to cause pain but to extract information.

[Ramo]

That it's absurd.

It's not absurd. That's torture. And it doesn't matter if you find it absurd, this is the law.

And you're just assuming that the law implies certain things that don't clearly follow, and calling it absurd. Saying that there's prolonged mental harm due to threatening people who escape with death is in no way an obvious statement. In fact, I seriously doubt that is how the courts intepret the law.

And both of my links work fine, I just used them.

[Drake Tungsten]

And the pussification of Western society reaches a new low...