Enhanched Interrogation vs. Torture?

[Aurielius]

I find it difficult to accept that we as a nation (as do I) that takes (an almost inordinate pride) in our ideals and principles should compromise those ideals on the altar of expediency. Yes I would like to enable all our terrorist foes to meet their maker asap. No, I do not want to be a party to descending to their level, we are better than that (or should be). Honor is something that a nation or a man can only lose by their own volition.

[kvnchrist]

Honor is as beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Some people in this world think killing their own famly members is honorable. Some mutilate their own daughters privates to keep them honorable. Honor is a word used when a person upholds his own standards, but that doesn't mean those standards are in any way beneficial to the situaion at hand.

 

If someone kidnapped my daughter and I cought him, there is nothing I would not do to get her back. That might not be the honorable thing to do, but I'm not all that into honor anyway. That is for people who have enough insolation to seperate themselves from the dark realities of the world. I have no delusions on this, since I was born and raised in poverty and know desperation like the back of my hand.

 

I think as a country we are only as strong and what we allow to be done to us, since it is our ability to stand up for ourselves that truly impresses others. It is that impression in which other countries gauge how far they will push us, and believe you me, every other country thinks of their own spremacy over all others.

 

We are the ones who have created and nurtured this idea of moral standards and have patted ourselves on our own backs for keeping up the myth, when all along those that beat back all the insanity humanity has to offer stand in the darkness allowing us to have the space to continue this fantasy. It was 9/11 that pierced this bubble America has been surrounded itself with and openned up a window into a world we either didn't know existed or didn't want to know existed.

[Vagrant0]

Am I in the minority here when I say that I don't actually care what is being done behind closed doors, or even out in the open, against enemy combatants who would willfully and personally harm civilians? Torture or "enhanced interrogation" will go on, just as it always has gone on, no matter what we call it simply because it is human nature to lash out at those who would cause harm. And yes, this also accepts and recognizes the right of enemy combatants to torture or kill members of our own millitary... For the same reason. As much as politicians would like to think that everything can be resolved with words and kindness, our outlook in how we deal with other cultures, other ideals, has not changed since the Middle Ages (and that's only because the Roman Empire ceased to be a thing and diverse groups started having to exist in close proximity to eachother). The time for peaceful diplomatic solutions stopped once civilians started becoming targets.

[xENJAJVEx]

"Enhanced Interrogation" isn't enough. I think there needs to be harsher methods of "interrogation" if it's a matter of national security. When a human attacks/is planning to attack, sabotage or disrupt the efforts of humanity,
his government or the government of a said nation, he is no longer a human and thus, should not be treated as one - he or she should be stripped of his/her rights and then be dealt with as the authorities see fit, in order to
extract whatever information necessary to prevent an act of terrorism. I will just say it how it is... If they must torture someone in order to protect a people, then I would accept that as the government doing their duty.

My opinion.

Edited December 9, 2014 by xENJAJVEx

[Aurielius]

There have been many post WW2 attempts to understand how the civilized peoples of the Wiemar Republic descended into the horrors of the Third Reich. They manged it one step at a time, in bites small enough to be palatable while under a Sate of Emergency. National acceptance of expedient nullification of the rights of 'others' was one of the precursors of that slide. The irony is that we ( the US ) help create the Nuremberg Trials to institute personal and governmental accountability for conduct in wartime.

 

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."...'if those ideals were worth fighting for then, it's still worth fighting for them now'...Senator John McCain on the Senate floor today.

[RGMage2]

In this world the true strength of America does not come from it’s military, it comes from the perceptions of America that many people around this world hold to be true. Those perceptions include America’s ideals, it’s acknowledgement and respect for human rights, it’s sense of justice, it’s moral leadership. When those perceptions change you will loose more than you can imagine.

John Kerry

“I want to underscore that while it’s uncomfortable and unpleasant to re-examine this period, it’s important that this period not define the intelligence community in anyone’s minds,” .

If I were Kerry I would be a lot more concerned about how this defines your country in the eyes of the world.

Looking at this from a purely Canadian perspective, it all seems very un-American.

 

[Vagrant0]

"Enhanced Interrogation" isn't enough. I think there needs to be harsher methods of "interrogation" if it's a matter of national security. When a human attacks/is planning to attack, sabotage or disrupt the efforts of humanity,

his government or the government of a said nation, he is no longer a human and thus, should not be treated as one - he or she should be stripped of his/her rights and then be dealt with as the authorities see fit, in order to

extract whatever information necessary to prevent an act of terrorism. I will just say it how it is... If they must torture someone in order to protect a people, then I would accept that as the government doing their duty.

 

My opinion.

Except that torture has time, and time again been proven to be extremely bad at getting useful information. Surprise, surprise, people will say just about anything to make you stop ripping out their fingernails or a great number of more painful or horrific acts. In practice, subjecting people to kindness or even some level of indoctrination tends to be more useful... It's just not nearly as fun.

 

Funny, most of the perceptions of American "ideals" I see lean closer to the "Gun-crazy, fast food bloated, heavily religious racist self-important idiot" basis than ones toward justice and moral leadership.

[xENJAJVEx]

 

"Enhanced Interrogation" isn't enough. I think there needs to be harsher methods of "interrogation" if it's a matter of national security. When a human attacks/is planning to attack, sabotage or disrupt the efforts of humanity,

his government or the government of a said nation, he is no longer a human and thus, should not be treated as one - he or she should be stripped of his/her rights and then be dealt with as the authorities see fit, in order to

extract whatever information necessary to prevent an act of terrorism. I will just say it how it is... If they must torture someone in order to protect a people, then I would accept that as the government doing their duty.

 

My opinion.

Except that torture has time, and time again been proven to be extremely bad at getting useful information. Surprise, surprise, people will say just about anything to make you stop ripping out their fingernails or a great number of more painful or horrific acts. In practice, subjecting people to kindness or even some level of indoctrination tends to be more useful... It's just not nearly as fun.

 

Funny, most of the perceptions of American "ideals" I see lean closer to the "Gun-crazy, fast food bloated, heavily religious racist self-important idiot" basis than ones toward justice and moral leadership.

 

Excuse me for not looking at it that way (they could just say anything to make the pain stop) you're right in saying so - kudos for using your logic. However, those such as terrorists who're 9/10 of ethnic minority would still have to;

when caught in the act or more preferably, prior to the said individual attempting to commit an act of terrorism (or whatever crime it is that threatens said country, its government or people), or whenever caught, be kept under strict

surveillance, preferably in an institute like the Guantanamo Bay Dentention Camp where security is high. There they could easily, as opposed to enhanced interrogation, be indoctrinated for purposes of extracting information.

 

In response to your last sentence; I am not American, I am British though. Perhaps that explains everything. I do however, love America and our special relationship. :wub: We can't deny the fact that Americans are 'out of the womb'

revolutionaries and freedom fighters, whilst we British will never lose our sense of superiority and 'all for the law' attitude. That is one reason why you have "gun-crazy" people and we do not. Both America and Britain have different

ways of life, different histories and moments to be proud of; a lot that separates us from one another, yet at the very same time as we have many similarities. We have been allies for a very long time, have been through two World

Wars together and still our bonds of brotherhood have never been broken. And it never will be! For the one thing that keeps us together is Democracy: and that my friend is non-negotiable. I think I'm finished now.

[kvnchrist]

The thing about terrorist are they intensionaly attack the weakest of society. This is cowardly and contemptable, but not as cowardly and contemptable as they think we are. What people have to understand is what they see when they look at us. All of us, even those who share their own deity. his is how they can behead people, blow up buildings and take down aircraft. They are ridding the world of what they call uncleaness. This is iradication and must be dealt with as harshly as posible.

 

They don't see anything when they see us other than a dead body that hasn't fallen over yet. They are ready, willing and able to help us do that for their own version of the common good. In other words, We are in the way of their own progressive movement.

 

 

As for our image I would ask you to look back in our past and see what we have done and ask yourself, can we actually claim to be better than anyone.

 

Look at the use of diseased blackets, given t the indians to kill them off with Smallpox.

 

Look at how we butchered hundreds of indians, both the elderly, the women and the children.

 

Look at how we treated the Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.

 

 

We have no claim to fame about being better than anyone and few other counties can claim they haven't done the same or worst in their past.

 

If we want to be better than our own actions in the past, well that's a goal that we can acheive by learning from our mistakes and moving forword, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking that we are better than others. We are all human beings and we all can stoop to the lowest level of humanity when we are terrified.

 

Fear is only as great as it was the last time we had it. No one cn say what they will do the next time it strikes.

 

The reason we've acted the way we have is because we never thought we would be attacked the way we did and we thought so highly of ourselves that we were appauled that we were attecked. Is this not exactly what happen Dec 2 1941.

 

This moral superiority we seem to cloak ourselves in is a delustion and we need to stop thinking of ourselves so highly that we can't do what human beings have always been able to do and have left example after example of this in the pages of history.

 

Get real and then get right!

[Vagrant0]

It's times like this that those at the head of the US military are probably wishing for something as clean-cut as WWII was. It was simple back then, bomb the hell out of them, kill them on all fronts, fight the good fight, and go home heroes. Civilian buildings were bombed then too, just it never hit the papers till months after anyone cared. It also didn't matter as much since most of the civilians who didn't get the hell out of the country or move away from urban centers were understood as acceptable casualties, by both sides. Between the press coverage surrounding Hamas and ISIS, you can't help but feel like the media is trying their damnedest to paint the picture of an organized enemy militant group that poses enough of a threat to stability to justify the bombing of schools and hospitals. It used to be easier to fight a war, and is likely why most of the modern conflicts we've been involved in over the last 70 years have been complete messes.