450 posts IS a worse crime than wanting to kill us .
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Friday, May 22, 2009 14:59
VIEWED: 29463
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Quote:So you claim, but I’m still waiting to hear upon what you base this belief. Because in fact, I can conceive of situations in which the options are painfully small and bad in a case in which a captured individual is your only source of information. Killing in self-defense is just as inaccurate, you don’t know if the person you killed was actually going to kill you, the best you can know is that is what you believed at the time.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
This is the very argument I imagine advocates of torture to be making.
Incidentally, if I ever have to end someone, I expect to suffer psychic damage because of it. I expect it will bother me always.
The answer to your question, of course, is no. When someone is literally about to kill you or someone else, your panoply of options are shrunk to a precious few. All of them bad. You are left only to choose the least possible evil to prevent harm to yourself and others.
However, when you have a captured individual, your options are no longer painfully shrunk to a handful of bad choices. Torture would be a bad choice, not only for its dehumanizing effect, but also for its potential inaccuracy. There is no immediate death you are going to prevent with torture. The Jack Bauer model is a fallacy.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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I always wonder how anyone can look at the European witch "trials" and come away as pro-torture.
People admitted to having sex with the devil and riding around flying on broomsticks, they admitted to brewing magical potions from the flesh of dead children and causing bad weather. They admitted to causing sickness in other people by the mere power of their evil eye.
All this knowing they would be burned at the stake - or beheaded if lucky.
How can anyone consider torture an effective method of coercing truthful information??
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Hello,
In the case of self-defense, you have a person who is capable of doing harm, indicating that they are going to do harm, right there in front of you. It's true that they might be giving a false impression. Bravura for the sake of coercion. This is why I say all options at this point are bad options.
In the case of torture, it is an intelligence operation. All intelligence is analyzed and compared with other intelligence. One blurted statement can't be trusted enough to be used to save anybody. That's the Jack Bauer fallacy: That one quick piece of torture will result in one quick piece of information that will unilaterally be acted upon to save the day at the crucial hour.
That's simply not how intelligence agencies do things.
You repeatedly ask how I come to this belief, and I've continuously explained my thinking to you. On what basis do you demur?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:If I get at the fruit of an orange with a sledgehammer, there’s a good chance there won’t be much orange left. It is true that the sledgehammer is not the best orange peeler, but that doesn’t mean that other ways of peeling an orange won’t be effective. One of the problems with the issue of torture is that so few people have the courage to discussion it with any sort of intellectual honesty. When we talk about coercive interrogation we aren’t talking about boiling people in oil.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I always wonder how anyone can look at the European witch "trials" and come away as pro-torture.
People admitted to having sex with the devil and riding around flying on broomsticks, they admitted to brewing magical potions from the flesh of dead children and causing bad weather. They admitted to causing sickness in other people by the mere power of their evil eye.
All this knowing they would be burned at the stake - or beheaded if lucky.
How can anyone consider torture an effective method of coercing truthful information??
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Hello Finn,
Considering that people under harsh police interrogation have been known to sign confessions to crimes they did not commit...
Do you really think boiling in oil is the magic infliction that gets unreliable information?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:Sometimes intel is gotten the Jack bauer way. In fact, intel gathered from individual sources has been some of the most crucial. In any case, if intel can be corroborated it is. Much of the time it is not and it can’t be. The accuracy of intel is sometimes a fuzzy subject when the need to act is deemed imperative. That’s just the way the world is. The crucial difference between killing in self defense and the use of coercive interrogation is perhaps that the interrogator is not himself in danger. That doesn’t change the fact that a single piece of intel gathered from a single source could in fact save the lives of innocent people.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
In the case of self-defense, you have a person who is capable of doing harm, indicating that they are going to do harm, right there in front of you. It's true that they might be giving a false impression. Bravura for the sake of coercion. This is why I say all options at this point are bad options.
In the case of torture, it is an intelligence operation. All intelligence is analyzed and compared with other intelligence. One blurted statement can't be trusted enough to be used to save anybody. That's the Jack Bauer fallacy: That one quick piece of torture will result in one quick piece of information that will unilaterally be acted upon to save the day at the crucial hour.
That's simply not how intelligence agencies do things.
You repeatedly ask how I come to this belief, and I've continuously explained my thinking to you. On what basis do you demur?
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Hello,
Finn, you seem to have more information than me on this issue.
Perhaps if you shared some examples where this was the case, I'd better understand why torture was the critical option.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:I think it is intellectually dishonest to compare coercive interrogation to torturing witches. It is intellectually dishonest to insist that there is no continuum in the degree of coercion that can be applied in interrogation. There are few witch trials in which anyone expected the witch to live. That’s not really in general an accurate description of people detained for interrogation in this country, nor is it what I’m talking about. People have confessed to crimes they didn’t commit under police interrogation that wasn’t harsh. So it’s not always the method of interrogation, sometimes the source is just not reliable.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello Finn,
Considering that people under harsh police interrogation have been known to sign confessions to crimes they did not commit...
Do you really think boiling in oil is the magic infliction that gets unreliable information?
--Anthony
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:I don’t know that there are any real world examples that can be really discussed in much detail. And I’m not really trying to bring up the real world. I’m not trying to convince you to accept any administrations’ policies, whatever they may be. I would simply like you to consider that the issue is much greyer then it is described. Too often people go to extremes on this subject in an attempt to avoid dealing with the subject at all.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
Finn, you seem to have more information than me on this issue.
Perhaps if you shared some examples where this was the case, I'd better understand why torture was the critical option.
Maybe it would be a good idea to find some real world examples. They would necessarily have to be historical examples that are at least 25 years old, because no current events could be discussed on the internet.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Hello,
Do you believe that information is more reliable when obtained under torture?
Do you believe that reliable information is more quickly acquired under torture?
I'm trying to understand the critical factor of torture that you feel justifies torture, making it superior to other interrogation techniques. What about torture makes it justified as a means of defense? What makes it the better option?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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