Torture always wrong?

[Texas_Roofer]

A tortured prisoner may lie just to spite you for torturing him. Lead you on a goose chase to nowhere.

Torture allows leads some place at least on moral journeys. I guess you were referring to physical journeys?

 

[estesbob]

Bob those headlines were flashed around the world. Forbes, CNN, etc these are not anti US publishers. Additionally you can look at boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/05/20/monitors_of_torture_treaty_rebuke_us/?page=2
State Department legal adviser John Bellinger III, who led the US delegation to Geneva, yesterday expressed disappointment in the panel’s results. He said the committee went beyond its mandate in calling for Guantanamo to be shut down, and complained that the panel had discounted much of the arguments the US presented during the hearings.

’'We acknowledge that there were very serious incidents of abuse," Bellinger said. ''We’ve all seen Abu Ghraib. There have been numerous other allegations. There have been other incidents. We have investigated those. We’ve held people accountable. But as I said at the time, you know, clearly our record has improved over the last few years."

or one of the Guantanamo reports ccrjustice.org/files/Report_ReportOnTorture.pdf

or other Guantanamo reports at ccrjustice.org/search/node/Guantanamo+report

Not one of the links you provided back up your allegation that the United admited to using torture. The Unites States has long admited that a small group of guards at Abu Ghabi did abuse prisioners. These gurads and their superiors were punished.

 

[estesbob]

A tortured prisoner may lie just to spite you for torturing him. Lead you on a goose chase to nowhere.

The information obtained from the three terrorists water boarded was accurate and in one case saved American lives.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

There is no proof that there was. The fact you don’t like George Bush and don’t believe him does not mean that we were torturing people st GITMO or any place else. The leadership of the Senate was told about this interrogation technique in 1992 and had no problem with it. But then I guess you don’t believe them either.

No of course not, it is not proof, in the same way that entering a room with a raincoat on and carrying a dripping umbrella doesn’t PROVE that its raining outside, but I can sure make a educated guess. As I suspected only a trueBushite could possibly ignore the truth and still profess the big lie. I guess you discount the CIA operative who just said not only did they waterboard, he did it. And I guess you ignore the “missing” tapes of that as well. I guess you think that Abu Greb was just about a few silly kids who got carried away and not the result of a culture of hate engendered into the military? Oh i guess you can ignore a whole lot.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Hating Bush is not a sufficient basis for believing the U.S. engages in torture. Nor have you, or anyone else in here drawn a bright line as to what torture is and what it isn’t.

**Far from it. There are like 7 differerent things I cited from which any rational person could easily conclude this country has tortured and wishes to continue to do so. **

My problem in this discussion is that some seem to define it so widely (implicitly, though none has attempted to define it directly) that it would prevent the authorities from applying any kind of unpleasantness at all to some murderous person, no matter what. I think that’s a cultural, not a moral stance.

I think most people are quite satisfied with the definitions now on record. Obviously waterboarding is on the torture list, otherwise nobody would be making such a fuss. I fail to see why you believe pain or discomfort leads to good information. Those who have reason to know say otherwise.

It seems to me innocent lives are worth protecting. Genocide, if that’s what might be attempted one of these times (Well, I guess it is attempted regularly against Jews, but most of the Western moralists don’t seem to care.) And it seems to me, when innocent lives are in the balance, it’s way oversensitive to object to, say, sleep deprivation or even waterboarding, in order to save those lives.

**That’s just an unfair statement. Nobody is favoring the bad guy. But in a truly critical situation if someone feels so sure that they must torture to save lives, then the system has plenty of ways of letting the person off the hook. Adding exceptions always creates a desire by some to push them as far as possible. It’s not necessary to legislate in exceptions. **

Abu Ghraib was out of order. No question about it. The worst part of it was that it appears to have been useless, as well as just silly. But if putting panties on the heads of half the male population of Iraq would have saved one beheading or one murder of children, I would be for it

Well thank goodness, clearer heads have no prevailed. Insulting an entire religion would not be a good way to engender help and cooperation…
. I value those innocent lives more than I value the stupid pride of those jihadists that were locked up there. Remember, those people were not in uniform and were caught in conflicts.

**They remain human beings and many were untimately released anyway as posing no threat. Please stop trying to justify what was done there. It remains another shameful mark on this country. **

I am simply awestruck that some people in here seem to be saying they would spare the panties and let the innocents die. It takes my breath away. Do you hold human life so cheaply?

**Your remarks are unfair and insulting. There are only two of you arguing this for goodness sakes. And it would appear at least that the Church is rather firm in its condemnation. So you seem to be outside the Church on this one. **

And world opinion? A U.N. that would put Cuba and Libya on the Human Rights commission, is worthy of no consideration or respect. This a lot like the Cold War, where all these righteous people could purchase a smug feeling of virtue by condemning U.S. weaponry while sitting secure under the umbrella of that very weaponry.
**Since the world is increasingly global in nature, it behooves us not to denigrate the UN which so far is the only worldwide group that we have. We need to do all we can to support and uplift the UN. No one can afford to go it alone in a cold war mentality any longer. I dare say multi-corps will not allow it. **

I feel the same way about all this “world is against us” stuff. First of all, the world is not against us. There are lots of nations with presence in Iraq, for example, besides the U.S., and lots more supporters who are afraid to be out in the open about it. And there are lots of people in the world who are for us. And, of course, the whole world knows who the real torturers of the world are.

**They used to …Unfortunately its not so clear any more thanks to our president and his band of criminals. **

I’m sure Castro, the Chinese, North Korean and Russian oligarchs (not to mention every Muslim nation on earth) got a good laugh over the childish antics at Abu Ghraib, and the discomfort of the U.S. over all the moral posturing of the commentators who sit comfortably protected by the U.S. armed forces. Those folks REALLY torture, but none of those who are so quick to condemn the U.S. go after the real torturers of the world. No, that could be dangerous. Safer to get into a high moral dudgeon about sleep deprivation and panties on the head.

**Can you explain why the fact that others torture makes us any cleaner? **

I’m sorry, but to me, that’s all just gaining a sense of moral superiority on the cheap.

**We like to think we are being Christians. **

 

[estesbob]

No of course not, it is not proof, in the same way that entering a room with a raincoat on and carrying a dripping umbrella doesn’t PROVE that its raining outside, but I can sure make a educated guess. As I suspected only a trueBushite could possibly ignore the truth and still profess the big lie. I guess you discount the CIA operative who just said not only did they waterboard, he did it. And I guess you ignore the “missing” tapes of that as well. I guess you think that Abu Greb was just about a few silly kids who got carried away and not the result of a culture of hate engendered into the military? Oh i guess you can ignore a whole lot.

Let me see if I can summarize your post:

Bush is Evil
The Military is Evil

And the reason you know this is becuase:

Bush if Evil
The Military is evil.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

There is no statment form the US there What we have is the usual suspects saying the United States is going to make such a statement. Of course you haven’t provided a copy of the statement the US allegedly made so we dont know if they use the word torture or not. The US has admitted using waterboarding which the UN claims is torture but which the US claims is perfectly acceptable as does evidently the Senate. Waterboarding has been an interrogation technique since at least 1952 for both the United States military and fo rU S intelligence agencies. Accordingly it has been allowed by every administration since Eisenhower. So tell me why has it become an issue now?

I dunno…seems the Bush admin. is determined that we understand that it doesnt waterboard though. You would agree that they have claimed this over and over would you not? And would you not agree that they have attempted to broaden the definition of torture ? They seem to be the ones who think waterboarding is torture. I repeat why on earth would you want a broader definition?

 

[SpiritMeadow]

From the Cathecism
**2308 **All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.

Those who were waterboarded had information crucial to the ddefense of the citizens of the US. Self defense is allowed so i see no confilct with Christian Morality.

Who do you think you are kidding. We are not stupid here. You may not have read the opening posts but we did. You cannot try to graft on a statement about the right of a nation to defend itself onto what is clearly the applicable &2297 and 2298. I am simply dumbfounded that you are trying to argue this. Are you not a Christian? To now try to twist Church teaching so that you can achieve some ulterior purpose of favoring more torture is utterly reprehensible.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

To people like you from setting up a kangaroo court to try these people to score political points.

LOL…Loving Bush is also no evidence that we haven’t tortured. We will get to the bottom of the destruction of evidence, you can be sure. But congrats I hear that the lovefest for Bush is down to laura the girls, barney and mrs beasley, and I guess you.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Bob those headlines were flashed around the world. Forbes, CNN, etc these are not anti US publishers. Additionally you can look at boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/05/20/monitors_of_torture_treaty_rebuke_us/?page=2
*State Department legal adviser John Bellinger III, who led the US delegation to Geneva, yesterday expressed disappointment in the panel’s results. He said the committee went beyond its mandate in calling for Guantanamo to be shut down, and complained that the panel had discounted much of the arguments the US presented during the hearings.

’'We acknowledge that there were very serious incidents of abuse*," Bellinger said. ''We’ve all seen Abu Ghraib. There have been numerous other allegations. There have been other incidents. We have investigated those. We’ve held people accountable. But as I said at the time, you know, clearly our record has improved over the last few years."

or one of the Guantanamo reports ccrjustice.org/files/Report_ReportOnTorture.pdf

or other Guantanamo reports at ccrjustice.org/search/node/Guantanamo+report

I suspect you are playing to a deaf audience insofar as bob is concerned. Given he’s the only real challenger to Church teaching on this, I believe he has some other agenda to pursue. The collection of both direct and circumstantial evidence is more than enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. It may be one thing to argue that our laws on torture are too strict (although how a Christian in good conscience could I do not know), its quite another to claim the US has not tortured. That would be only from the perspective of teh Bush admin. which has always operated on the belief that a lie repeated enough times will be heard eventually as fact.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Let me see if I can summarize your post:

Bush is Evil
The Military is Evil

And the reason you know this is becuase:

Bush if Evil
The Military is evil.

Now we have your problem…You just can’t interpret what you read very well. Since you are a force of one, I think its a waste of time for the rest of us to engage. You have some personal agenda here, which has zero to do with what the church teaches. You obviously don’t care.

 

[Ella]

I’m not a McCain campaigner, but I have to say, his response into the waterboarding debate on CNN is Right On Target.
youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjtFNktPLA

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Bob
This is below your usual standards

Not one of the links you provided back up your allegation

I made no allegation those were published quotes with the sources attached. one was a US State department offical

that the United admited to using torture.

I think the sources quoted a UN official on that?

The Unites States has long admited that a small group of guards at Abu Ghabi

Bob some moral person went public at Abu Ghabi. And as a person who lived on military bases and had years of military interaction I will tell you it is a second crime you do not know that person’s name! The government personnel spend more efforts finding, neutralizing, and reaping revenge on him than was spent on cleaning up the evidence which could not be denied.

 did abuse prisioners. These gurads and their superiors were punished.

Bob the source were designed to point to GITMO because the US was involving immoral actions in multiple location it is only proper any report show that as collaborating evidence. Additionally it is widely reported that the US was sending diplomats to many countries to secure promise US officials could travel there without fear of arrest for international crimes. It is disappointing to see patriotism placed before morals.

 

[bobzills]

The US has admitted using waterboarding which the UN claims is torture but which the US claims is perfectly acceptable as does evidently the Senate. Waterboarding has been an interrogation technique since at least 1952 for both the United States military and fo rU S intelligence agencies. Accordingly it has been allowed by every administration since Eisenhower. So tell me why has it become an issue now?

I noticed that bobestes said the US has been allowing waterboarding since Eisenhower, which is not true. As late as 40 years ago, during the Vietnam conflict waterboarding was illegal:

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier’s severe punishment.

“The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army,” recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.
cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/01/national/main3441363.shtml

 

[stevegravy]

So we are now at the crux of the issue; what is the legal definition of torture. If you can not tell me what torture is how do I know I am torturing somebody. It seems to me that the principles expressed by the catechism are good and just but may be legally vague. Like the legal definition of harassment. The harassed person only has to claim they are harassed and the defendant has the burden of proof to demonstrate that they were not harassing: remember Anita Hill vs. Clarence Thomas. She said she was harassed so she had to have been harassed.

Seems to me it is like the same problem the US Supremes had to deal with in defining minimal risk… Are people here aware that no US corporation employing over 50 people or it may be 25 are not allowed to let any worker commit an unsafe act, or expose them to an intolerable risk, especially if there are high hazard chemicals involved. The problem is there is risk in ever action a person takes, What constitutes an unacceptable risk that an employer has to prevent? What work place actions are safe enough to permit a worker to preform? These are not dumb questions because a large amount of time and money and legal talent has gone into the debate. I believe the Supremes have brought the definition of safe and acceptable risk to activities that may result in death to be higher than1 in a 1000 but 1 in a billion is far to great a burden to impose on an employer. This particular issue is not my expertise and a presenter at an AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Conference in Houston this year was mentioning the legal ramifications of classifying risk that as engineers we need to address to comply with OSHA process safety rules. Now the folks who are absolutely livid by this are the trial lawyers because they want more leeway to sue so they are always wanting to define intolerable risk to 1 in 10,000 or greater.

It seems to me that a similar definition of torture is required but then that will take the fun out of it for Bush-bashers and anti-american propaganda. So, if that is where the fun is for these folks so be it and they will have to be dismissed as shills or just being illogical. What is needed is a firm definition of torture? Or are we left it to the arbitrariness of the supreme court judge who could not say what pornography was he only knew it when he saw it. And as uncharitable as this may sound, it was posted in another forum, so I can not claim it as my own, but it went something like more people have drowned in Ted Kennedy’s back seat then drowned being wateboarded.

Regarding the treatment of prisoners in Vietnam I remember seeing pictures of prisoners being pushed out of helicopters when they didn’t talk fast enough. Why does anybody believe we never tortured anybody before Bush showed up? It is only my suspicion but I believe our government would do whatever it had to for its own survival. So, lets not wonder too far of the subject by trashing the current occupant of the white house. Deserved or not it is immaterial like Kennedy’s backseat.

Since torture is an intrinsic evil, then can or will anyone say to what extent a prisoner can be roughed up, if it is strongly believed they may posses information that might save innocent lives or preserve the survival of a nation.

Is sleep deprivation depriving one of there human dignity? How about being made to stand for hours on end. So, what is permissible? Where do you draw the line?

 

[Texas_Roofer]

So we are now at the crux of the issue; what is the legal definition of torture…

Not at all immoral acts are not defined by government law

If you cannot tell me what torture is how do I know I am torturing somebody.

torture is mistreating someone when they cannot leave and the mistreatment is intentual, and the process continues for extended period or periods of time .

…
It seems to me that a similar definition of torture is required but then that will take the fun out of it for Bush-bashers and anti-american propaganda. So, if that is where the fun is for these folks so be it and they will have to be dismissed as shills or just being illogical. What is needed is a firm definition of torture? Or are we left it to the arbitrariness of the supreme court judge who could not say what pornography was he only knew it when he saw it. And as uncharitable as this may sound, it was posted in another forum, so I can not claim it as my own, but it went something like more people have drowned in Ted Kennedy’s back seat then drowned being wateboarded.

funny but how do you know it is true?

Regarding the treatment of prisoners in Vietnam I remember seeing pictures of prisoners being pushed out of helicopters when they didn’t talk fast enough. Why does anybody believe we never tortured anybody before Bush showed up?

So if Bush is close but short of Hitler’s action is that okay too?

 It is only my suspicion but I believe our government would do whatever it had to for its own survival.

exactly, morals are in their decision

So, lets not wonder too far of the subject by trashing the current occupant of the white house. Deserved or not it is immaterial like Kennedy’s backseat.

That maybe your opinion however you seem to compare an accident to a plan which involved transporting people to a unique legal position for the sole purpose of dening them legal rights. It does appears to be a completely immoral plan

Since torture is an intrinsic evil, then can or will anyone say to what extent a prisoner can be roughed up, if it is strongly believed they may posses information that might save innocent lives or preserve the survival of a nation.

'um I believe you are holding such information so simply answer how you think you should be handled, that will give you your answer? Maybe water boarding you in front of your wife and daughters? Oh better yet let’s let your son take your place, how do you want him treated? See it is simple answer your own question. Of course feel free to substitute your own daughter, niece, etc.

Is sleep deprivation depriving one of there human dignity? How about being made to stand for hours on end. So, what is permissible? Where do you draw the line?

When you post the answers of how you and your family should be treated we may have your answer.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When you post the answers of how you and your family should be treated we may have your answer.

So there it is. If the U.S. captures a known terrorist whom it has good reason to believe is involved in a plot to kill innocent people; a plot that may be prevented if the details are known, the U.S. must treat that murdererous person as one would treat a family member. That’s the standard some would impose.

 

[estesbob]

I noticed that bobestes said the US has been allowing waterboarding since Eisenhower, which is not true. As late as 40 years ago, during the Vietnam conflict waterboarding was illegal:

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier’s severe punishment.

“The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army,” recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.
cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/01/national/main3441363.shtml

A lot of misinformation in that article but then when CBS depends on Amnesty International-as a source it is not a surprise

As far the most egregious claim in this article.;. That is a Japanese soldiers were convicted of waterboarding prisoners . The soldier in question, Yukio Asano, was convicted, among other things, of beatings, burning people with cigarettes, and stealing the Red Cross rations of CIVILIANS. In fact the waterboarding was a relatively small part of the indictment and he had allegealy used it only once. In that case he participated with Japanese soldiers in brutally beating a civilian woman, making her kneel on wooden blocks on a concrete floor, stripping her to waist and applying elecrical shocks all while her husband was forced to watch.

I suspect there is more to the story about the Vietnam soldier allegedly convicted of waterboarding but since you only gave as one line out of the story it’s hard to tell.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

So there it is. If the U.S. captures a known terrorist whom it has good reason to believe is involved in a plot to kill innocent people; a plot that may be prevented if the details are known, the U.S. must treat that murdererous person as one would treat a family member. That’s the standard some would impose.

And that is what Jesus said " love your neighbor as yourself "

 

[estesbob]

And that is what Jesus said " love your neighbor as yourself "

And the point is.?