Graner guilty in Iraq prisoner abuse case

That is not what we are talking about either, even if I would call the practice you put forth quite unsavory as well.

Again, by your logic BTA, it is not torture if Iraqi insurgents capture a few US soldiers and keep them awake for weeks, force them to stand up for days on end, allow no toilets so they spend their entire time in their own waste and so forth and so forth. If it is not torture when you do it it is not torture when it is done to you. It is coercion, these soldiers may have vital information for the insurgency which could save the lives of many brave freedom fighters and their families.

I do not think it is ok but judging from what you have said in this post you think it is ok and just a little coercion, a little discomfort, no biggie.

 

False. According to the international law, prisoners are meant to be detained and not to be sources of information. There is also a difference between detaining someone and threatening him into an unnatural position for hours or days.

You seem to have lost the connection with my question and with the topic, as well. The questions are, "is that torture," and, "would you call it torture if it were done to US POWs by the enemies of the US?" I agree that the wording is harsh in the latter one, but that is the answer I want to get: would you still rush in claiming it's not torture if we considered, let's say, American pilots held captive and interrogated by the Vietnamese?

Dictionaries are many and in some of them one would surely find an explanation of uncomfortable as causing pain or suffering. Beating can also be construed as hitting with a hand or on object without a word about pain, as pain is not a necessary result of beating. Drawing upon what you said later in your post, mental pain qualifies. Annoyance of a large extent is nothing else than mental pain. What you also seem to be missing is that forcing someone into an uncomfortable position includes forcing someone to maintain one unnatural position for a prolonged period of time. This causes pain, which you can attest by kneeling on the floor for a couple of hours, let alone anything more complex than that. Therefore, the argument doesn't hold.

That goes in a circle. Application of a name does not change facts. That names used to describe reality do not give the existent status to anything which possesses the non-existent status (i.e. that words don't create physical reality) is a given and I doubt anyone is going to disagree.

There are many shades of meanings of words and there many contexts in which some words fit better than others, as well as fixed expressions. "Severely painful position" would hold grammatically but is ugly, "torturous position" makes no sense. Still, your argument rests on the false assumption that the problem is contained within the meaning of "uncomfortable". That is clearly not right, as the act of forcing someone into that position, as well as the length of the period, is vital.

Again, this verges on calling upon sentiments, but would you consider it legal for Saddam's boys to treat American POWs that way?

I would argue with that. Not the intensity but the species of the practice makes it torture. Locking prisoners in such conditions is an acceptable method of punishment in some cases, such as escape attempt, but refusing to disclose information which you are not obliged to disclose is not an offence and neither is the state of not yet being soft enough for fruitful interrogation by the CIA.

Preventing someone from eating for a couple of days causes major pain and risks permanent damage as well as facilitates the contraction and development of disease. That's torture.

Ultimately, you seem to make a difference between coercion and torture. In the light of international law, how are you going to justify what you call coercion and also how are you going precisely to describe the difference between acceptable coercion and torture for information?

Even this, however, doesn't remove the problem of torture (or coercion, if you prefer) not intended for the purpose of extracting information. This includes the general softening - humiliating, mobbing - of the prisoners in order, well, as the name suggests, to make them soft, break them. How do you justify this?

In some instances, victims are tortured in front of their fathers or husbands who are supposed to be holding information from the US boys, although themselves they aren't even supposed to know anything. How do you justify this practice? I tend to think you will actually concede that such practice is torture, but I'd rather make sure.

In some instances, sexual humiliation and abuse is involved. Again, I'm inclined to think you do consider this torture, but again, I'd rather make sure.

 

You don't need to be an expert here - who might that be I wonder, Idi Amin? Saddam?

IMHO common sense works just fine

 

This is such a problem. Here we have people who are speaking of the Constitution without knowing anything about what went into its crafting, nor about the men who crafted it. The Constitution itself is a framework for the workings of the government - the machinery of government. In its assorted articles it sets forth the powers of government and the limits of federal power.

The first person I know of to suggest the Bill of Rights - protection of the individual from the government - was Thomas Jefferson (I can hear HB groaning already, but this is so important). Jefferson wrote James Madison to suggest that "rights" be defined by the Constitution itself for protections from the government. At first Madison saw little use in the idea of a Bill of Rights.

Yet he came to see that it dovetailed with what Madison had been working towards as the chief architect of the document: The idea that governmental power could be shielded from undue influence of popular whim. It was one of Madison's aims even before he traveled to Philadelphia for the Convention in 1787, and he left feeling that he had not accomplished that aim in the finished document.

But by 1788 he had come to realize that it would protect the rights of those who would be subject to the "interests and passions" of an "artful and ambitious ruler" who may "subvert liberty" by gaining a popular following. But what is even more important in this is how Jefferson worded his letter to Madison: "A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general and particular, and what no just government should refuse or rest on inference."

Jefferson's letter indicates a stong belief that all mankind is entitled to these rights, not just those in America. Jefferson, Madison and Franklin saw that these were the "natural rights" of all men. If we believe in the due process of law, as it is stated in the final Bill of Rights, which was added after ratification of the Constitution, then how can we not extend such rights to men in other nations as well, knowing that it was the intent of the framers? This is one of the reasons why the original intent of the Founders is so important to us today; a time when the "parchment barriers" of the founding documents are being tested to their limits. And because it is so detrimental to the fate of men that they so easily forget.

[ January 20, 2005, 01:31: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Ok guys...lets try this arguement from the other direction...

U.S. soldiers capture a group of armed men following a roadside bombing. They were captured nearby, armed as previously said, and were fleeing the scene. In the split second decisions of war, guilt has been proven...

They are sent to the pen.

The U.S. soldier asks them questions. The first would be: do you know of any other bomb squads, and if so, where are they?

None of the men answer the question.

Now we are faced with three options.

Option #1: The soldiers place them in holding and that is that. No further questioning and no use of any tactics that would make a sideline observer uncomfortable at another man's discomfort. No useful information is obtained and a few more young kids will be dead shortly...but at least Roadside Bomb-boy didn't lose any beauty sleep.

Option #2: Savagely beat the men until they give answers. Since they will eventually give any answer...this method is not particulary useful... However, a few will answer accurately and provide valuable information that will save American lives. The option is prohibitively sadistic and will not be accepted back home with the families that provided the Army their son-turned-savage. Sideline observers will be up-in-arms, and understandably so...

Option #3: This option highlights two of the most remarkable abilities of humankind: moderation and the ability to make distinctions. Rather than savagely beat them, a lesser form of physical encouragement can be issued...perhaps something like making them sit in an uncomfortable position or whatever... Again, most will give any answer, but a few will give answers that SAVE LIVES...

The point is that there is something between a savage beating and no physical encouragement whatsoever...

The truly difficult part is finding that point...

To my own way of viewing the situation, that point is uncomfortable positions and sleep deprivation and the like...

Soldiers that go well beyond that deliniated point will be punished.

I just hope we are arguing about where that point is...because if you are arguing for Option #1...sorry, but I think you are just being childish and willfully obtuse.

 

Eerrr... you mean less drastic torture?

Less brutality employment at the cost of decreased efficacy of coercion... which simply means a trade-off, reducing the level of brutality, but not really making the method itself right and proper.

Perhaps the situation would be different if it really were an emergency case as you would have us believe. But as a method of softening the whole lot of prisoners employed by default to prepare prisoners, including civilians and potential by-standers, as well as women and children, for interrogation, it cannot find approval in the light of human rights and international law.

First, what if Bush's administration employed those methods on the US territory in the prosecution of potential criminals? Even against people caught red-handed or faced with visibly overwhelming evidence.

Next, if the police found you near the scene of murder. Carrying a gun. Known to have been in conflict with the victim. Caught speeding by pure accident when they were blocking the roads. You end up in a dirty room surrounding by educationally and etiquettaly challenged gentlemen (and ladies!) and forced into an uncomfortable position, followed by, let's say, five or six sleepless nights. Ultimately the court acquits you because of insufficient proof. What do you do: shake hands with the boys and hug the girls before finally heading home for some sleep, or do you sue the the authorities for a million or half?

 

Right. I forgot to add that part of the plot to the story. I didn't mean a confession. I was going to throw in a series of murders or a group of murders. I seem to have posted it before finishing it. Sorry for the confusion. Obviously, forcing some vital information is different from forcing a confession.

So, let's suppose I actually added the serial murder or crime organisation tie and wait for LNT's answer.

And one thing to point out:

The people tortured were not all insurgents. Many were Baas party members, some were people who were visiting them in their houses. Quite a lot of unlucky folks who were in the bad place in the wrong time, as well. They were tortured as a way of softening them a bit before interrogation and the practice was quite prolonged in time. There was obviously something more to that torture than extracting information of immediate importance. There are accounts of children or wives being tortured in nasty ways in order to force the men to speak.

In some cases of torture intended to extract information from a confirmed insurgent to save the lives of some Americans if there were a high enough chance that he had that information, I would probably abstain from judgement. But there's no way I could do anything else than condemn the torturing of children or women to make men talk, or the use of sex-related torture to make a woman talk.

 

I'm sorry Chev, but you in no way addressed (the very real) situation I put forth...

 

Hey! What's all the fuss. It's not like they're torturing someone you know. Our President says FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH!, and that should be good enough to unite the whole world in Peace and Harmony.

 

I'm sorry, but I consider that sort of a reply a convenient excuse to dodge my question and that question is, let me remind you again, if you would similarly approve of such practice exercised on the US territory with regard to the US citizens in general, and to you in particular.

 

If there were US citizens using car bombs and roadside explosives to kill police officers and military personnel...then yes, I would have no problem with applying option #3 towards those individuals.

 

So you have no problem witt applying option #3 against US citizens using car bombs and roadside explosives to kill police officers and military personel. This we know. How about mere suspects or people who were merely present at the scene of crime or the place of apprehension of a suspect (e.g. house guests of a suspect or potential suspect)?

 

Chev...I'm tired of this...

But to answer where you are going (I think...since you will not just make your point...if there is one), there are certainly people whom it is not appropriate to prevent from sleeping or other minor forms of physical encouragement.

However, these are not the people we are discussing...

Will there be mistakes and someone whom is not guilty be forced to endure hardships? Unfortunately, since we do not live a perfect universe, most likely so...

But they'll live Chev...

The soldiers facing future car bombs and IED's will not...

Now that I think I answered where you might be going in this rapidly degrading debate...unless you write something of importance, I'm not going to play with you anymore Chev.

Lets give this thread to someone else...

 

Late-Night-Thinker,
once again: I think the point is that in the US there seems to be the perception that this torture without thumbscrews is legitimate if it saves the lives of US troops.

The point is that it probably doesn't.

The people picked up in Iraq and thrown to jail, when they are not innocent, are at best foot soldiers who are kept in the dark on about everything important - just because they might be caught terror groups are smart enough to limit the details of an attack to only those who will carry it out - so the quality of intel gained from such a person would be quite limited.
And then: If one member of the group is arrested or is missing, they will abort the attack anyway.

The same would apply to a guy caught right after planting a bomb somewhere - in the week until abusive treatment would have softened him up for interrogation the bomb would have blown up already. Ticking time bombs are only in movies.

Intelligence can likely be produced as well, if not much better, with good detective work, something the military is notoriously poor at.

The only interesting folks with good intel to squeeze out would be leadership personnel - but once you got them you sort of have solved the problem anyway.

But here we are again: Among the allegedly "worst of the bad" in Gitmo there have been peasants and taxi drivers who have been denounced by their countrymen. This world is imperfect indeed, the US troops who do the arrests more often than not end up unwittingly settling old feuds - Abdullah's old feud with Ahmed is well dealt with now that Ahmed is in a US detention camp.

Most of the US troops, sure nice US kids from small US cities, who do the arrests don't even speak the local language and are oblivious to the local culture and history of anything beyond US borders, the handful of green berets being the exception from the rule. America doesn't even know what they eventually got themselves into.

You always hit the wrong guys, too. That alone should be reason enough not to torture.

When you imply that's worth it, probably only because YOU don't have to pay. Actually this silly frat boy mentality is making me furious.
The folks who have been tortured may be living, but as probably a psychical wreck with suicidal tendencies, depression or other psychical defects to haunt them for the rest of their days. You ignore that there is more to man that can be broken and hurt than flesh and bones.

Isn't it amazing that, despite torture in Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and somewhere else, the US still can't break the insurgency in Iraq, but that it is instead growing? Considering that, the quality of the intel gained by torture can't be all THAT good in the end ...
Or is that just because the US aren't tough enough ? Well, *I* don't think that's the reason.

Torture also further adds to the risk US troops see themselves exposed to when they fall in enemy hands. It's about reciprocity, too.
You want to tell the private from Idaho who has been tortured in the name of reciprocity ("Relax dude, Mr. Gonzales says what I'll do to you now is perfectly *legal* ") that his suffering was the price we (well, he, but not you) have to pay for gathering intel in thsi imperfect world? He'll likely and understandably will try and perhaps succeed in killing you.

Heck, not even against the nazis who did Auschwitz and other unspeakable horrors - who were really bad guys - the US used torture - but against Al Qaeda. Grotesque.

[ January 23, 2005, 15:14: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Certainly.

We're discussing, at least indirectly, all people tortured. Along with Baas members come their relatives and members of their households, even guests, and along with perpetrators of real crimes come by-standers and people denounced by their neighbours.

So is that a fair trade-off, especially in the light of the right to due process, proper defence, habeas corpus, non-application of torture and all related rights so cherished within our own civilisation?

We must bear in mind that Iraqis and third world citizens are not second rated citizens. They have the same human rights as you or I.

Pity. I hoped you would address the problem of detention without charge, softening the prisoners in case of a future need for interrogation, sexual torture or torturing wives and children to make men talk. Well, I'll have to wait patiently until someone comes up with arguments in defence of that.

That is correct. I believe that liability before international courts and proper monetary as well as non-monetary compensation would greatly reduce the problem.

 

So Ragusa and Chev...

When US soldiers arrest guilty men following an insurgent attack...they should apply no pain inducing interrogation techniques? Is that what you are saying?

Because neither of you has said that...

And I have not said we should torture women (unless they are guilty as well) and children...

Ragusa indirectly said we should treat them as our own when he implied they knew nothing of other operations...

But Ragusa, that is being willfully stupid...

Of course they know of other operations...they have fellow insurgents friends, they have leaders whom direct them that they know personally, they have suppliers of equipment, they have people who shelter them, they have numerous other contacts and comrades.

Here's the part that I think really bothers you and is causing an intelligent man to have cognitive dissonance...

Those people all have to be killed.

The people blowing up citizens on city streets have to be killed...

The people blowing up American soldiers on highways have to be killed...

The people supplying them with the means in order to carry out their murders have to be murdered themselves...

The people who shelter them while knowing what they are doing have to be killed...

It's all very ugly.

When you put things in perspective...keeping Roadside Bomb-boy up for a few days is really a drop in blood-filled bucket.


Edit...

Well, I was not sure if I should share this or not...but here goes (although I hope this doesn't cause people to stare at the messenger rather than hear the message)...

Ragusa shared some of his deep understanding of human pain with us...

Here is my personal understanding...

I have been tortured. Quite severly too... I'm not talking about being kept awake for a few days...

There are sadistic sociopaths in this world...Graner being one of them...

Here is the thing though...you get better. You heal. The inside takes a long, long time though. My teenage years could seriously be defined as emotional carnage for myself and my poor parents...but, you get better.

If I knew that what I went through prevented the death of another human being, I would go through it all over again. Dying is a whole other ballgame.

I have great friends now, a beautiful girlfriend, and the beginnings of what looks like a successful career. Dead people do not get better. To quote a favorite movie of mine..."The dead only know that it is better to be living."

The human spirit is the strongest force imaginable. It is what allows people like myself to get better after suffering terribly. It is also what allows men to strap bombs to themselves and destroy the lives of many. Not a force on this world could have stopped me from getting better...besides death. Not a force on this world is going to stop suicidal terrorists...other than death.

We have to kill them Ragusa. Deep down I think you know this...it just causes you intellectual distress to imagine we live in a world where it is necessary for us to kill one another.

Maybe one day humanity will reach that point...but today we are not there and if we do not kill those who would kill others...well, a lot of people are not going to get the chance to heal and pain will be their final memories.

[ January 23, 2005, 19:55: Message edited by: Late-Night Thinker ]

 

Oh really? Never heard of suicides? Well I've heard, and if you are raped by some guy I presume it feels horrible and suicide seems the the better choise than years of insecurity and outright psychological torment. You do not allways get better and such things are bound to leave eternal scras, which I might add might even lead to this guy blowing himself up in a mall taking some of the members of the society who chose to torture him with him. An life of psychological torment can be hell of a lot worse than a quick death.

I don't know what world you live in but your thinking scares me. [snip]

I believe that is what he is saying and I fully agree.

At first I thought that no one in the western world could agree with this kind of treatment. Apparently I am wrong and I'm shocked that I was wrong. Apparently some societies did not suffer the shock of WWII enough to learn the dangers of inhuman treatment and suffering. You will learn though evnetually but I'm afraid the learning might come the hard way.

I'm sorry if there is anything offencive in this post, I tried to keep myself from commenting to this thread but the way some people act casually and believe torture and infliction of pain is an acceptable method of interrogation shocks me, and I fear what will become if this is acutally a popular line of thinking within the US...

EDIT: Edited away any personal remarks which could and probably should be considered offensive. After reading the posts in the sorcerous sundries thread I realized being guilty of this so called "bullying" on the alley and if I've brought you any discomfort I'd like to apologize. I'll keep myself away from this thread and subject in the future.

[ January 25, 2005, 00:41: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]