So, Just What *Is* Torture?
POSTED BY: perfessergee
UPDATED: Monday, August 29, 2005 10:55
VIEWED: 11212
PAGE 8 of 10
You asked where legitimate coercion stopped, and torture began. As far as the Geneva convention is concerned, at least as I have read it, all you are allowed to do *is* ask questions.
You cannot administer Sodium Penathol to force an answer, you can't put someone in a little metal box and beat on it until they submit.
And yes, employed in the right way more or less anything could be torture.
Consider a police interrogation, peoples live can be at stake but all they can do is ask questions. Not necessarilly politely, but they can't employ methods other than asking questions.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
GEEZER wrote:
"My problem with this whole "torture" issue the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (thanks HKC) that reads: Some American troops have committed acts of "torture", ergo the American military and government approve of torture. It's
a leap from A to Z with no train of logic in the middle, just self-serving supposition."
What I don't see anywhere is anyone taking responsibility for the improper actions of the people under their command. Has anyone with a rank higher than sergeant ever been charged?
The people in charge of any facility where people cannot get up and leave of their own free will are responsible for the health and well being of those confined. This includes prisons, jails, hospitals and nursing homes.
Suppose the staff of a hospital took no responsibility for evacuating the patients when the fire alarm went off?
Suppose the janitors were torturing the patients of a hospital? Would that not ultimately be the responsibility of the hospital administration for allowing conditions to exist where that torture was possible?
Even if the camp administration did not know that improper activities were going on, they were guilty of not knowing what their subordinates were doing.
I am responsible to my superiors for the actions, proper or im, of my subordinates. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said, "The Buck Stops Here". Too bad he didn't leave it for George W. Bush.
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by R1Z:
GEEZER wrote:
"My problem with this whole "torture" issue the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (thanks HKC) that reads: Some American troops have committed acts of "torture", ergo the American military and government approve of torture. It's
a leap from A to Z with no train of logic in the middle, just self-serving supposition."
What I don't see anywhere is anyone taking responsibility for the improper actions of the people under their command. Has anyone with a rank higher than sergeant ever been charged?
The people in charge of any facility where people cannot get up and leave of their own free will are responsible for the health and well being of those confined. This includes prisons, jails, hospitals and nursing homes.
Suppose the staff of a hospital took no responsibility for evacuating the patients when the fire alarm went off?
Suppose the janitors were torturing the patients of a hospital? Would that not ultimately be the responsibility of the hospital administration for allowing conditions to exist where that torture was possible?
Even if the camp administration did not know that improper activities were going on, they were guilty of not knowing what their subordinates were doing.
I am responsible to my superiors for the actions, proper or im, of my subordinates. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said, "The Buck Stops Here". Too bad he didn't leave it for George W. Bush.
Good point, R1Z. One concept that has been consistently missing from these debates about US treatment of prisoners (I'm hijacking my own thread here for a minute) is the concept of command responsibility. I'm not sure if it's codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or if it's just tradition, but commanders are supposed to be responsible for the actions of every single person under their command. The Navy certainly follows it. If you are the skipper of a ship, and your steersman runs it aground even when you are off-watch and asleep in your bunk, you can say goodbye to any future blue-water command. And it should be pointed out that the policies in control of US operations in Iraq came from the highest levels of the Administration. For heaven's sake, one of the guys who formulated them is now Attorney General (though he wasn't at the time). Unfortunately, the buck stopped at the level of the NCO's.
So how about it all you folk who argue that the higher-ranking officers didn't know what was going on - what are your thoughts on command resposibility?
perfessergee
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by perfessergee:
...And it should be pointed out that the policies in control of US operations in Iraq came from the highest levels of the Administration. For heaven's sake, the one of the guys who formulated them is now Attorney General (though he wasn't at the time). Unfortunately, the buck stopped at the level of the NCO's.
So how about it all you folk who argue that the higher-ranking officers didn't know what was going on - what are your thoughts on command resposibility?
I brought this up several times, but no one seemed interested. To me, it's the single most important issue of the debate. If there are systemic, policy-level problems leading to abuse, and I think there are, they need to be dealt with. Instead we're debating the meaning of the word 'torture'.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Actually, we're debating the meaning of the word torture because the title of this thread is, "So, Just What *Is* Torture?" :>)
But the whole "command responsibility" thing is a good discussion, too.
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by R1Z:
Actually, we're debating the meaning of the word torture because the title of this thread is, "So, Just What *Is* Torture?" :>)
OH... so you're going to play the old 'that was the whole point of the thread' card eh?
Ok, fine. Be that way.
Point taken.
(SanctimoniousAsshole)SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:Quote:
Originally posted by perfessergee:
...And it should be pointed out that the policies in control of US operations in Iraq came from the highest levels of the Administration. For heaven's sake, the one of the guys who formulated them is now Attorney General (though he wasn't at the time). Unfortunately, the buck stopped at the level of the NCO's.
So how about it all you folk who argue that the higher-ranking officers didn't know what was going on - what are your thoughts on command resposibility?
I brought this up several times, but no one seemed interested. To me, it's the single most important issue of the debate. If there are systemic, policy-level problems leading to abuse, and I think there are, they need to be dealt with. Instead we're debating the meaning of the word 'torture'.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
Sarge, I don't disagree with you at all, I just see "what actually occurred(and whether that constitutes torture)" and "who bears the responsibility for it" as two separate issues, though both are important. That's why I mentioned that I was hijacking the thread. Your posts about high-level responsibility on these various threads have been admirably clear and I'm in complete agreement. But we've all seen a lot of posts that ignore or dance around command responsibility, and when they agree that there's been abuse at all, they blame it on rogue elements. Seems to me that the only excuse that can be used at the upper levels of the command structure belongs to the President himself. He can claim that he's not actually a member of the military himself, and therefore command responsibility may not apply, though this would creat some cognitive dissonance with the concept of "Commander in Chief". Every level below that involves military commanders. It's harder to get at civilian accountability (though I personally think the same principles ought to apply). And while I'm hijacking, I think the principles ought to apply to the command structure that led to the (apparently unprovoked) police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in
England.
The whole thing boils down to the following: Not knowing what the people under your command are doing is functionally the same as ordering them to do it. That is to say, the outcomes are the same.
perfessergee
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by perfessergee:
The whole thing boils down to the following: Not knowing what the people under your command are doing is functionally the same as ordering them to do it. That is to say, the outcomes are the same.
I can't help feeling that the men in power are laughing all the way to the bank on this one. They, and their admirers, are just playing our game as a stall, as a macguffin; anything to slow down the simple realization that of course they authorized these policies. Hello? Of course commanders are held accountable for the bad behavior of their subordinants--the thing is, from the commanders' point of view nothing is wrong with this stuff. So they have to sacrifice a few grunts to public oppinion; hell, they're used to sacrificing grunts in much more perminent ways, aren't they? What part of "Such things happen in war," don't you understand?
And besides, they think they're right to do so. The top brass and half the country tacitly support the torture. Hell, openly in some cases. We know this. We read it every day on this board, and in the news, and at the bus stop and in the lunchroom.
You know, there are military regulations against raping female officers, but does that stop it from happening, and until very recently, happening systematically across the board? There's official policy, and then there's what really gets done. Torture is nothing new, it's not unique to this administration. Before this administration, they were just a hell of a lot better at keeping a lid on it. Kept the number of people involved small and highly trained. Then Rumsfeld got jealous of the C.I.A. and thought he could do better and screwed things up for the future of statecraft as we know it.
In some ways the folks that support torture are just being realistic and acknowledging what we've been doing all along. They are supporting their country. To them, we who oppose the torture look like a lot of sissy tattle-tales trying to get George Bush "in trouble." Or worse, we are undermining the security of the entire nation by trying to remove torture from our international bag of tricks which would put us at a serious disadvantage.
Our country is going through a very dark period in her history. People across this land are still enraged by and terrified by the terrorist attacks. Rage is never a good starting point for making policy--can I even say that nowadays? Or will somebody come back with, "It's that kind of soft-headed, defeatist, pacifist, blinkered, pie-in-the-sky liberalism that got us into this mess in the first place! Rage is what this country needs to deal with the changing political realities of the post 9/11 era! Rage is the only moral choice in an age of terror! Etc.?"
Seriously, what are we gonna do about torture really? Can it really be stopped? Do enough people believe that this country can survive without it? Or is the best case senario that we get George Bush impeached and hand the reigns back over to the professionals in the C.I.A and call it good?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Seriously, what are we gonna do about torture really? Can it really be stopped? Do enough people believe that this country can survive without it? Or is the best case senario that we get George Bush impeached and hand the reigns back over to the professionals in the C.I.A and call it good?
When enough grunts realize that they have a right and an obligation to decline an order that violates all civilized standards of military conduct, then we will have a start.
Until then, we can expect the rest of the world to call for war crimes tribunals to look into what happened on our watch.
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by R1Z:
When enough grunts realize that they have a right and an obligation to decline an order that violates all civilized standards of military conduct, then we will have a start.
A friend of mine, who fought in the first Iraq war, made this point to me in no uncertain terms. A soldier is duty bound to disobey insane orders, and remove the negligent officer from any position of authority. The problem is, you have to prove your action was justified, or the repurcussions are very severe.
In other words, if at least someone up the chain of command doesn't agree with your actions, you're screwed. Especially if it's the Commander in Chief giving the orders.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME