Torture vs. Interrogation

[manasecret]

Originally Posted by Professor S

My agenda is that there needs to be an answer to a real situtation, not simply a criticism. Getting rid of enhanced interrogation techniques does not sudden erase the problem that existing techniques were not working. So if you remove certain techniques, how then do you get the information you need if approved techniques don't work?

Proof? And I don't mean Dick Cheney's assertions.

Pretty much all that I've heard in recent reports, now that much of the Bush era people and memos are coming out and speaking up, are saying that torture wasn't needed, and that we were getting information without torture. Not to mention, much like regular physical torture, they all seem to say that "enhanced techniques" don't get you the facts, it just forces the one being abused to tell you what you want to hear.

[Professor S]

From what I understood from the memos was that there was an escalation of interrogation tactics. They didn't simply start out with waterboarding, but instead there were opinions asked for and received each time a enhanced technique was suggested. I did not read the memos word for word, so I may be incorrect in my extrapolation, though.

To say that there was not a escalation of tecniques used, does not follow the evidence in the memos as I understand them, and also makes the supposition that the CIA and other interrogator's aim was to be sadistic, and not to gain information through the simplest means posible (those means that did not require legal opinion) and then escalate the means depending on the results of previous techniques.

Also, we have to recognize that waterboarding was done to three people, who were all of a high level within the enemy organization, which increase the chances that they had sensitive informaation that they refused to share. If it was the CIA's normal methods, wouldn't far more detainees have been waterboarded?

Myself, I'm curious to see if and when the memos and evidence regarding the results of the interrogations are released, and what they say. I am conflicted over waterboarding as while it is without a doubt an extraordinarily unpleasant experience, it does not cause pain or mutilate. Also, the detainees were told ahead of time that they would not die as a resut. So to me when you say waterboarding is torture, its lumping it into the realm of castration, bone breaking, pulling out fingernails, etc. I think that diminishes the word. Is it legal or moral? That's another issue.

Personally, if the documents regarding waterboarding show it to be an affective means of extracting information (all evidence to this point for and against the technique has been completely anecdotal), I would still be tolerant of it's use in extreme situations, but not as a normal part of interrogating. If it proves to be ineffective (meaning in full transparency there is no evicence it supplied crucial intel) I see no reason the ever do it again.

[Ric]

I was going to say 'use whatever means necessary, smash their faces in, pull their teeth out, fuck the geneva convention, torture the basterd... in a war situation anyway' and I kind of think that sometimes if I am being honest.

But after taking a step back and thinking about it I remembered something, something very prominent in the U.K, November 5th. Bonfires and fireworks and shit in rememberance of 'The Gunpowder Plot' when a man named Guy Fawkes or Guido Fawkes allegedly tried to blow up the houses of parliament.

Check out his signature both before -

And after torture -

I researched this years ago as part of a school history project and it still leads me to think that a man would sign anything after being tortured and if he didn't then it was more than likely because, he was dead.

Now just to make some comments on some of the initial points.

Prolonged isolation - Not torture in my mind, some people like it.
Prolonged sleep deprivation - One of the ultimate and worst forms of mental torture known to Ric
Sensory deprivation - jedi training
Extremely painful "stress positions" - ouch... torture, the same as beating someone up
Sensory bombardment (such as prolonged loud noise and/or bright lights) - sounds like a nightclub not torture (torture really!)
Forced nakedness - can be embarassing but you can always embrace it not torture
Sexual humiliation - what you mean rape and shit? Torture man.
Cultural humiliation (such as desecration of holy scriptures) - not torture, take it like a man, you are in prison.
Being subjected to extreme cold that induces hypothermia - torture
Exploitation of phobias - not torture, some people do this to overcome their phobias, it's just mean, funny if you do it to someone though. Go on go and get a spider and take it to your mum
Simulation of the experience of drowning, i.e., waterboarding. - torture

In conclusion I dont know really, it depends what one considers torture. And in which situations it should be used but then as I said, is torture the best way or will a man succumb to anything after torture?

What are yout thoughts on using Sodium Penthanol (Truth Serum) and a lie detector, even at the same time?

EDIT: We all know the CIA are, to coin the phrase, 'as bent as a nine bob note anyway' (i.e a £9 or $9 note) so of course they have broken human rights treaties etc as I am sure many other organisations across the globe have done.