Torture doesn't work. Film at 11.

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Chandos, as I have said before, I am really still cementing my position. I certainly don't agree with what has happened under Bush and Cheney, but I'm not sure if my objection is simply to the complete incompetence and lack of care with which it was done, or the idea that it was done at all.

As to Bush/Cheney vs Washington/Jefferson, if you are trying to paint them as the only options, then this is a false alternative. If you are simply trying to contrast them, then I think I fall somewhere in the spectrum between the two.

T2, my problem with the Inquisition arguement is that it's one that has already been addressed. I have already said that I would not allow any information gathered through torture into courts of law, so no confessions of any kind. If care is taken to properly identify the subjects as individuals with high probabilities of knowing things, then the 'anything' they will say to make it stop includes the truth. It's like shooting at a target. If you fire enough times, you'll hit no matter how bad your aim is (what has happened recently), but if you actually take time to aim, you can hit the target almost every time (what I am proposing). The comparison to the Inquisition was a blanket statement stereotyping anyone who supports the use of torture under any conditions as supporting the Inquisition, thus stereotyping all torture as the Inquisition. You said you have a problem with wide stereotypes, but not that one?

I am talking in a hypothetical sense. In this sense, what I am proposing would be amendments to current laws forbidding torture. I am not advocating breaking the law, I am just questioning whether or not that law is sound.

 

It's the leaders of our country who determine the policy. They are not going to ask either of us personally. The only option we have will be a general consensus that will evertually become policy. And as evidenced by Bush/Cheney, even public opinion and a general consensus mattered little.

 

The fact that you need to ask and need explanations why torture is wrong is something I find quite a bit distubring NOG.

 

That is an opinion that has not been validated yet. In fact, the military has shown it is quite possible to mislead the captors with partial information or irrevelvant parts of information which will not jeopardize the mission -- for long enough to invalidate the information the subject has. This is part of some very advanced training military members going into hostile environments are required to complete. The interogator is limited in both what he believes the captive knows and his ability to validate that information in a timely manner. There are also some people who never break -- they will endure all punishments and die before giving any valuable information (once again, history can prove this).

On a military level, once a person with critical information goes missing plans change. Immediately. It takes time to institute the changes which is why delay tactics are used by the captive.

Not if the target is moving. That's a significant hole in your argument. You assume the other people in the organization of the captive will not change any plans after their comrade goes missing -- a bad assumption in my experience. By the time valid information is obtained, it is no longer relevant.

Article 3 was sound in 1949 and it's still sound today. Changing it would be detrimental to the military.

 

Two things, really:

1: The use of the word "cruel" in legal documents always makes me nervous because it could be argued that solitary confinement is cruel, or that long incarceration is cruel, or that denying color TVs is cruel. IMHO the word is too vague and there needs to be firm lines drawn about what constitutes torture and what is merely severe punishment.

2: GITMO is a joke, no question, but there are circumstances, contrived though they may be (I believe that 24 and Tom Clancy were mentioned) when I wouldn't give a rat's hind end about decency, morals, or whatever. If I were in such a situation and I believed that time was of the essence to save the lives of my loved ones, I would not hesitate, armchair philosophizing be damned. I'd pay the price later (especially if I were wrong) but I'd do just about anything to safeguard my children, my other family, and my friends. Such situations are stunningly rare. However, I do not think they are non-existent.

3: (I lied) There are some days I have no problem with torture as a punishment. The fellow I mentioned in an earlier thread who tore a baby's penis and later shot a cop in the head. Paul Bernardo, who videotaped himself raping and torturing teenage girls. Jeffrey Dahmer. Pol Pot. I don't buy into that whole argument about "descending to their level" -- they deserve to suffer for what they did. But then on more sane days I realize that perpetuating the cycle doesn't end it. But let me tell you, some days . . .

 

Which is exactly why torture should remain explicitly illegal, so that in the all-or-nothing, all-bets-are-off scenario you highlight here, the person doing the torturing is made to account for his actions. That he be made to stand before a judge, recount everything he did and why he did it, and face the music accordingly. The thing that many advocates of torture who use 24-like "what ifs" as justification seem to forget is, in 24, Jack Bauer is always breaking the rules, disobeying orders, taking matters into his own hands...knowing full well he'll be held to account later. 24, great show that it is, is one big "all bets are off" fantasy scenario.

Also - while I agree with your 1) point on the grounds that "cruel" is an emotionally charged word, and I too agree it should not be used in any legal language (as it is highly subjective), your point 3) is, quite strikingly, an entirely emotional and revenge-driven sentiment which, though I agree with entirely on a human level, isn't a logical response by any means. I find the two points rather contradictory. That was more an observation than a critique.

 

Laws are laws and should be very carefully worded. However, slime is slime, and call me emotional if you will (I wear the name proudly) slime needs to be dealt with appropriately. DR, I appreciate your observations AND critiques!

 

Theoretically, yes. In practice, no. Your "rules" are much too general. To wit:

1. How and who is going to determine what the definition of "highly likely" is?
2. How do you verify information other than in the most superficial way before acting on it? If you're told location X is a safehouse, how do you verify that without sending police/soldiers to see if it is actually a safehouse, and then to deal with that appropriately? Once you send in the police/soldiers though, you are in fact acting on that informaiton...
3. Are you suggesting that they have college degrees in these subjects, or that we train professional torturers?
4. What if those overseeing it are the very ones who crafted the policy in the first place? Like, oh I don't know... the Department of Defense?

As we have been shown numerous times over the past few years, When you have a policy that says it's OK to torture in some circumstances, people will try to bend the rules. I don't think it is possible to effectively implement a policy like the one you describe. That's why I say it could only work on a theoretical level.

Which is why this comment...

... makes so little sense to me. Given the extremely remote chance that your vision can ever be effectively implemented, I do not see where the gray area is on this topic.

 

That's true LKD, but then dealing with slime in a manner that makes you no better than they are is not what I would call "appropriate," and has never proven to be much of a deterrent. I believe all punishments should be sharp, ethical, fast, and above all, not based on revenge. It's taken me a long time to see the error in that manner of thinking, and I still struggle with it (i.e., a rapist should be raped himself, etc.), but it's folly just the same.

 

Revenge as in people going outside the law to inflict pain on a criminal is usually a bad idea. But if we expect the state to act as our proxy (and a neutral proxy at that, so as to take the heat and lack of emotional distance out of the equation) then we also have the right to expect the state to punish appropriately. As I said before, for some criminals (some days, anyhow) I see torture as a valid tactic for the state to use so that the criminal understands a portion of the pain and suffering he caused to others. Some may call it vengeance, I call it justice. I don't see it as inappropriate at all for the state to do something drastic. But of course, that would be uncivilized and so I can totally see why the most political entities today don't want to go down that road.

 

Wow, so much to unpack here...

But how do you determine "appropriately?" From what I'm hearing, you feel that exacting the same kind of physical pain and suffering on a person as they inflicted on others is "appropriate," but there are few modern legal bodies who wouldn't consider that entirely retributive (i.e., revenge, not justice). Inflicting barbarism as a response to barbarism isn't much of a solution, not to mention a stretch morally and ethically.

No, it is not - and I really am a little surprised I'm hearing this from you. If making the criminal understand his crime is the purpose for torture, then it is by no means justice, and certainly isn't going to teach the criminal anything other than not to respect the authoritative body who is issuing his punishment. It is vengeance, plain and simple. It serves a purely emotional end. It may satisfy your personal sense of justice - in the same way keying the car of a guy who takes your parking space does - but it isn't actually justice.

 

I know all of that -- it's just that 5 years in prison and then 2 years of probation don't seem to me to be justice for a rape and murder charge (I am exaggerating here, but not as much as I wish I were -- the sentences handed down by some judges for heinous crimes are stunning)

Appropriately doesn't necessarily mean doing the same thing to the criminal that he did to his victims -- I'm not seriously advocating that -- but the punishment must fit the crime, and if that means a good caning followed by medical care, well, I don't feel all that sorry for the rapist / murderer who is so punished. Such a drastic [unishment doesn't approach the heinousness of the crime, but it does inflict some pain and gives some comfort to the victims and their families. Using my own children as an example, if some sicko violated them, I would want to know that the state is going to give them a serious punishment, not send them to "Club Fed" and give them hours and hours of expensive counselling at taxpayer expense. Nothing could undo the pain my daughters suffered, but it would give me some comfort to know that the crook involved suffered something extreme. I know that's vengeance, I know it's not very Christian of me, I know that it probably strays into barbarism, but I just don't care about the nebulous rights of the convicted criminals. The natural, normal feelings of the victims should be factored into the equation much more fairly than they presently are.

And to reiterate, I don't care about the fact that it doesn't deter crime -- I know that, but I would still want the crook to suffer SOMETHING for his offenses.

I have to disagree there, my friend -- it would teach the criminal that there are real, undesirable and painful consequences for his actions. Too many criminals laugh up their sleeves at the weak willed justice system that merely slaps their wrists.

Remember, though, that this is an extremely emotional issue, and I know that -- on my more lucid days I am more civilized and would probably just argue for longer prison terms.

 

How much general consensus matters entirely depends on the leaders in question. Some payed close attention to the popular winds, while others ignored them entirely. All in all, though, this has little impact on this discussion except to show that it is entirely moot to begin with. In that case, we may as well shut down the entire AoDA and AoLS.

What worries you, Joac? The fact that I don't blindly follow someone else's ideas of right and wrong? Or is it that I expect there to be reasons X is right and Y is wrong? Hmm, odd, this feels like something of a reversal to me. Have we stood on opposite sides of this arguement in the past?

Now THIS is a good point. It's not absolute, as some information is, well, harder to change than others, such as organizational structures, deployment strategies, names of leaders, etc; but I imagine it is a relevant issue in most cases.

I would take this more seriously if you justified the statement.

Basically, he said he believes torture is justified in some cases, and you are either saying:
1.) they should be punished anyway, even though they did something right, or
2.) they should be punished because I believe it to be wrong.

The problem with your statement is that it is only justified if the action itself is inherrantly wrong. Otherwise, you are arguing for a blanket ruling that may punish the good along with the evil.

I agree with you here. I do not believe torture as a method of punishment should ever be used, and the very fact that it can be tempting on an emotional level is all the more reason to ban it legally.

Unfortunately, some things simply can't be layed out in detail, though I would think some cursory details may be able to be set in stone. All in all, though, this has to come down to a judgement call. In such cases, oversight is the best safety mechanism.

Well, you could watch the safehouse. Get satelite photography of it. Monitor that phone specifically (assuming it's somewhere you can do that). Yes, this would also have to be handled on a case-by-case basis, but I think it is largely possible.

I would suggest college degrees in psychology and medicine, augmented by special training courses, like they have for interrogations.

The DoD is accountable to higher agencies, like Congress, and ultimately much of it's actions are accountable to the public. Whether an entirely seperate agency needs to be set up, or whether simply assigning a group of Congress to oversee it is enough, largely depends on the size of the program.

I think the problem in the past few years has not been a change in rules or policy causing people to bend it, so much as an overall breakdown in oversight and discipline. What was seen at GITMO was not simply people 'bending the rules', it was a complete corruption. Any undergrad psychology student (and many who aren't) could have told you the set-up there was a recipe for trouble.

What I was talking about is the lumping of all torture as morally wrong, identifying the tool itself as evil, instead of the actions commited by it. That is where I may disagree with others.

Actually, for many millenia, and I have heard a recent resurgence of this idea, retribution was considered the legal and just version of revenge. Literally, it is the 'paying back' of damages done. While the modern system seems focused on reformation, I think there is a very strong arguement to be made for retribution in the legal system as well.

DR, I think at this point, defining justice would be the best option. Why is this different from justice?

 

Justify it?!? What part of allowing torture of prisoners of war do you think would be good for the military and recruitment? Do you really think having no legal rights is better than having some protection under law? Members of the military know full well there are some regimes that do not follow the Geneva Convention, but the majority of nations do follow the Codes of Conduct. Take that away and we have Bataan all over again, in every conflict.

 

Hmmm.. More Gitmo problems...

 

@ NOG,

Since I believe the action itself - torture - to be inherently wrong, and self-evidently so, I can say this. I also believe murder to be inherently wrong and always punishable, always illegal. There are certain cases, however - self defense being the most obvious - where after careful consideration of the facts of that incident, it can be determined that killing a man to prevent him from killing you was justified. That does not mean killing someone should ever be legal just because in extreme cases it is necessary to the survival of the one doing the killing. Torture is the same way. Torture should always be illegal and never official policy. If in an extreme case torture is used and does indeed produce results that save lives, that can be taken into consideration when holding the torturer to account for what he has done. But that does not mean it should ever be legal, let alone considered a viable option, or that the torturer should be let off the hook. In an 'all-bets-are-off' scenario, what is legal and not tend to go out the window, anyway - so a person would only resort to torture in a situation where he knew full well the consequences of his actions, and decided that the results produced from engaging in torture outweighed the peril the torturer was putting himself in. Making torture legal only encourages a more cavalier attitude toward torture and its ethical implications, leading to the needless torture of the wrong people - as demonstrated by the article I linked to originally.

But again - this goes back to the 'ticking time bomb' scenario as justification and, again, is so unlikely that you could apply it to just about anything.

For many millennia, people also believed in witches, and that burning those they suspected of being witches at the stake was the best method for determining if one was a witch or not. I'd like to think we've moved on as a species since then. I've also heard that this form of justice is seeing a resurgance. You know who with? The Taliban. Not my first stop for examples of modernity, but I'm a weirdo.

I would also think that, since the "retribution as punishment" philosophy has demonstrated itself historically to be counterproductive, it would be obvious that it isn't the best way to go. While the philosophy of rehabilitative incarceration is by no means foolproof and is often implemented poorly, it has a much better track record of 'reforming' prisoners than do more extreme, retributive forms of 'eye for an eye' punishment. The goal of punishment is to result in a person less likely to commit a crime when they re-enter society; to have truly learned a lesson from their punishment. Retribution does not seek to rehabilitate, only to cause equivalent harm as a means of making the criminal suffer as he made others suffer. If that is all that matters in your version of "punishment," you may as well just execute all criminals, since there is no hope of them rejoining productive society anyway.

It depends on the crime. If justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, and equity, then I fail to see how punishing barbarism by inflicting further barbarism solves anything. Beating someone to near-death is a senseless, barbaric crime. You would take the person who did that and have that person beaten to near-death to prove, what, exactly? That the person passing judgment on a criminal is capable of the very barbarism he's condemning the criminal for? How does this show the criminal that he has done wrong?

I'm not arguing that criminals should not be punished or that they deserve to be protected from pain and suffering - far from it. All I'm saying is punishing a criminal in this manner does not serve justice, it serves vengeance. Justice is about maintaining safety, security and balance in a society; revenge is about making yourself feel better for being wronged. And again, not to knock your biblical credentials, but I seem to remember revenge being one of the 7 deadlies...

@ LKD,

But, again - this does not teach the criminal that what he did was wrong, or give him a meaningful reason not to do it again. You may think "fear" is a good enough reason, I don't. All it does is teach him that the state can be just as brutal as he is. The motivation in the future for this person would not be to not commit crime, just to put more effort into not getting caught. A hardened criminal - who's likely been kicked around all his life - it not going to see the error in his ways if you inflict upon him the very brutality he's received all his life. That's the kind of justice they laugh at. Like I said, if that's how you see justice, you may as well just kill him.

To put it another way: let's say I'm a rough-and-tumble bar brawler who's been kicked around all my life. I walk up to you in a bar, spit in your face and kick the crap out of you. You press charges, I get arrested. My punishment is: I'm taken out back, someone spits in my face and proceeds to kick the crap out of me. While yes, this would be unpleasant for me, in a few days my bruises would heal and I wouldn't care anymore about what I'd done. I'd be free to do it all over again, and would likely not care if I got beat up as a result. And then you know what I'd do? I'd follow you to your house and beat the hell out of you again for tattling on me. Feel safer?

However - throw me in jail for 2-3 years – take away my freedom, my dignity, 2-3 years of my life I will never get back – THEN you've punished me. THEN I realize I did something I shouldn't have. Furthermore, you've spared society 2-3 years of me walking around and beating people up for no reason. Yeah, some criminals laugh at a prison term. But give any assault convict a choice: a prison sentence, or a beatdown. Which one do you think they'd pick? They'd line up around the block, take their licks and be home in time for Monday Night Raw. Every last scumbag one of 'em.

 

Yes, it was moot because both candidates opposed using torture -- Mac for obvious reasons. But one part of leadership is to build a consesus upon which to craft policy. Bush/Cheney tried to build that consensus and failed. In fact Cheney is still trying, even though it is clearly not in his favor. The real question is does torture "generally" work and is it worth it. As has been pointed out, in some rare instances it may work, but not in most cases. Which makes it hardly worth it. We can certainly argue if it is moral or not, but again, it seems the consensus here at least, is still opposed to it.

 

That's why the punishment should be severe enough -- and brutal enough -- to ensure that the fear is ingrained into these people -- no prison term will make a hardened criminal realize he's done something wrong any more than a session of torture, but at least he's suffered a taste of what he inflicted on others.

I also didn't mean to use it on common assault crimes -- only in cases of vicious, 1st degree murder or violent rape was my thought, and in conjunction with 20-30 year jail terms, not as a replacement.

But you are right -- and I'm feeling a little more relaxed today -- so I'll reiterate my belief that a civilized country shouldn't use torture as a legally sanctioned punishment. It's just that some days I really wish we could, that's all.

 

Oh believe me, I hear you. Some days I do too. I see on the news about a man who beats up an old lady for her purse and think to myself somebody should just kill that son of a b**ch. This is a natural response (which explains why it was the preferred form of punishment in ancient civilizations). It just means we have to be better than our impulses.

 

T2, the potential good is the same as is being discussed in the general conversation of torture. Also, there would still be protection under the law, simply different laws than we have now.

DR, you've made a bad comparison here. The person who kills in self-defense is not aquited because he had cause to break the law, he's aquited because he didn't break the law. Killing in self defence is not murder. What you are suggesting for torture is the equivalent of making all killings illegal, even if there was just cause. The law regularly has exceptions for extenuating circumstances, such as a justified killing, mental disability, accidents not due to neglicence, etc. What would happen if the same were provided for torture?

No, you apply the 'ticking time-bomb' scenario to it, but it doesn't require that scenario.

This arguement only works if you believe EVERY SINGLE change since then has been for the positive. Was the advent of fascism or communism positive? Would you like to 'turn the clock back' on those movements? You can't reject something just because it is old.

Actually, I heard it from American psychologists. As I understand it, in the past ~60 years, the western world's concept of the penal system has moved almost entirely from retribution to rehabilitation. Early on, this ran into the problem of psychological disorders, and so the criminal population was split into those in need of rehabilitation and those in need of psychological treatment. The problem we are seeing now, however, is that not all those who are offered rehabilitation take advantage of it. In fact, there appears to be a sizable population for whom crime is simply the easiest way, and they don't care who they hurt on the way. For these individuals, rehabilitation won't work, and society needs to manifest some form of corporate retribution. What form this should take, be it simple prison without frills, prison with hard labor, or something more severe, is up to society to decide.

This is entirely wrong, and appears to be based on a poor understanding of the history of retributive punishment. It worked quite well for thousands of years in just about every culture in the world. Yes, some cultures took it to abusive extremes, and others simply didn't care about the potential innocent victims, while still others sought to use it as a form of free labor, but in many cultures throughout history, it has been shown to be quite effective. As I see it, the current breakdown of criminal elements into two groups (the mentaly infirm and those in need of rehabilitation) needs to have a third group added: those in need of retribution.

So I suppose you advocate killing all children who misbehave, too? Or all dogs who are not born well trained? The fact of the matter is that negative reinforcement (punishing wrongdoings with displeasure, be it physical, emotional, or psychological) is well proven to be an effective means of training. This works as well for humans as for other animals.

Generally, the idea of justice is based more on the common good, and the idea of punishment, then, is to deter future similar crimes. If those crimes were committed out of preference instead of desperation, it works. If the crimes are committed out of desperation instead of preference, then it only serves to punish people for (usually) being poor, which is bad.

Ah, I think I see a problem we're having. The concept of rehabilitation, in behavioral psychology as I have seen it, generally excludes the idea of punishment. The idea of rehabilitation in our penal system was introduced with the idea that our criminals were not committing crimes because they were lazy, but because they were desperate (which was usually true at the time), and so those in prison are in need of re-education more than punishment. Retribution, then, is grouped in with punishment, and need not be a 1-1, eye-for-an-eye kind of system, but rather simply a proportional one. Those who cause more suffering are caused to suffer more, generally by longer sentences.

I don't know about deadly sins, those are a Catholic thing, but the Lord says, "Vengence is mine." This means that revenge is not wrong, so much as God is the one to judge what is proper revenge and what is improper. In those days, that meant the government.

There is a huge distinction between a prison term that includes hard labor, however, and one that includes HBO. What most criminals who laugh at time laugh at isn't the length of the term, but the severity of the punishment. If you're giving them 2-5 years to hang out with their friends, play basket ball, watch TV, and maybe occasionally get beaten up (but like you said, they're used to that), then you're basically giving them free room and board for 2-5 years. That's not punishment. If you give them 2-5 years of doing hard manual labor, with limited contact with others, little entertainment, and strict discipline, then you're right, they will work to avoid that. The problem is, the guy who just robbed a 7-11 so he could feed his kids doesn't need that harsh punishment, he needs rehabilitation.

Also, as to 'teaching the criminal right from wrong', that's not the job of the penal system. In fact, if he doesn't know what he did was wrong, he's not going to prison, he's found 'not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect'. That's the definition of the legal term 'insane': that the person did not know what he/she was doing was wrong. Prison isn't meant to teach right from wrong, but to discourage wrong. Mind you, I'm not advocating torture as a means of punishment. I'm just saying that the idea of retributive punishment was tossed out too quickly.

The problem with this statement is that 'most cases' haven't even been looked at, certainly not most cases where care was taken to get good results. This is what I mean by a rush to judgement. You haven't looked at everything, just what is most readily available.