Torture

[Berzerker]

1. the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.

2. a method of inflicting such pain.

3. Often, tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.

4. extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.

5. a cause of severe pain or anguish.

6. to subject to torture.

7. to afflict with severe pain of body or mind: My back is torturing me.

8. to force or extort by torture: We'll torture the truth from his lips!

9. to twist, force, or bring into some unnatural position or form: trees tortured by storms.

10. to distort or pervert (language, meaning, etc.).



Is waterboarding torture? I understand its effective but is it comparable to mock executions? Some guy puts a gun to your head and says its time to die and they pull the trigger - torture. But waterboarding seems to be a bit different even though the goal is to make the suspect think they're drowning, the procedure relies on the body's instincts rather than mental anguish.

If we know we have a terrorist, I have no problem torturing them and I'd do more than waterboard them. The problem is identifying actual terrorists as opposed to people we rounded up in some country because they had a gun or because we're paying out bounties. Is waterboarding too much when we aren't sure?

[Dinner]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/05/04/otis_cary_his_sly_interrogations_of_japanese_pows_helped_bridge_cultures/

I once felt as you did and to some extent I still feel that pushing the line defining torture might be necessary in some cases but mostly I have changed my mind. It's inspiring to know that during WW2 they were able to coax a great deal of information out of German and Japanese prisoners without ever laying a hand on anyone and instead by engaging in a battle of wits.

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

[Dinner]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/05/04/otis_cary_his_sly_interrogations_of_japanese_pows_helped_bridge_cultures/

That is another article but this one is about how Japanese POWs were interrogated.

[Patroklos]

by engaging in a battle of wits.

I am sure most of what they did would be considered pychological torture by todays pundits.

[BeBMan]

Re: Torture

Originally posted by Berzerker
If we know we have a terrorist, I have no problem torturing them and I'd do more than waterboard them.

Why not extend this to murderers, rapists, drug dealers....etc.etc.?

[Patroklos]

extend this to murderers, rapists, drug dealers....etc.etc.?

Then again, once we know they are rapists/murderers/drug dealers what else would we need from them using torture?

[Proteus_MST]

I agree with Oerdin.

At the moment there are only 3 people I would like to see tortured.
Those are the inmates of a certain prison cell in a prison in Siegburg, germany.
Last year when they shared the cell with a fourth inmate (Hermann H.) during one weekend they tortured him for 11 hours with the cruelst methods, including rape ("just for fun"), and finally forced him to commit suicide by hanging (because for one they thought this would cover up the things they did to him, for second they wanted to see how a human dies and for third they thought they would be released earlier from prison because of the psychological stress of being witness to a suicide in their cell).
(I´ll spare you further details of the 11 hours martyrium of Hermann H., which btw. are available but only in german)

I would love to see if these creatures experience the things they did to Hermann H. on themselves.

But this would be torture as a punishment and not torture for gaining knowledge out of them.

[Patroklos]

Out of curiosity, what were those guys in prison for?

[Proteus_MST]

The one that was murdered was only there because of robbery,
obviously he was homeless and he was repeatedly caught because he stole to survive (despite there were ways he could have gotten food and other things without stealing).

His murders were in prison because of drugs and burglary.

[MosesPresley]

Waterboarding made an early appearance during the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition, as we all know, was known for its gentle and humane interrogation techniques.

[DinoDoc]

11 hours? WTF were the guards doing during this time?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
11 hours? WTF were the guards doing during this time?

As it was weekend and evening there were less guards than usually.

There were however 2 occasions where Hermann H. could have been saved.
At one time during these 11 hours Hermann H. managed to press the panic button, but his tortures pulled him away and convinced the guards via intercom that they just pressed the panic button by accident. So the guards didn´t even come to the cel and the result for hermann H was just, that afterwards they beat him even more as punishment for this action.

Some hours later there were really guards entering the cell, which had been alarmed by neighboring inmates because of the loud noise coming out of the cell.
The torturers of Hermann H. heard the guards coming, beat Hermann H. unconscious and then placed him into his bed as if he were sleeping and once again were successful in convincing the guards that nothing has happened (and that they shouldn´t wake up Hermann H. because he wasn´t feeling well) and that the loud noise only came because they were moving furniture within the cell.

[Pekka]

Waterboarding is torture.

Just like making people stand or sit or be in uncomfortable position for long enough periods of time. Many people who like to trivialize things and not see that there's a world outside their best case scenarios usually don't take into account that the idea isn't the best case scenario.

I can't think of a bigger insult than someone saying, "I've had to stand for 2 hours straight, it sucked but it's not torture". Of course that wasn't torture. Static pain is quite effective and it is very common and old torture technique, and it isn't done by you standing up 2 hours. That's not the idea, even though it involves a lot of standing or similar things.

It's this simple to call out hypocricy: if it was China who did it to bunch of our citizens, would we consider it torture? **** yes! And that's because we'd be right.

The pain isn't the only factor. I don't know how difficult this is for people to understand but gather the facts WE KNOW:

1) torture isn't the best way to extract information since it calls for lots of false confessions.

2) Well, it kind of is inhumane, plus it doesn't really work that great

So.... how do we go from that to "is waterboarding torture?". Point 1 and 2 already should give us the easy decision of "not a good idea", period. People are gullible, if you believe all this new torture spin, you believe anything given that some dude tells you.

[Patroklos]

So was I tortured by being in the front leaning rest for extended periods of time in OCS?

Air chair at the Citadel?

Running with my rifle over my head in training?

[Pekka]

If that's a reply to my post, read the biggest insult part.

You are either extremely stupid, which I don't believe you are, or trying to defend your position by making ridiculous comparison, which I do believe you're doing.

But hey, you're FOR torture, so you know... good luck with that.