SubJeff on 13/10/2012 at 16:05

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demagogue - you're confusing my "harmless". I mean the misinformation would be harmless. I certainly don't mean that torturing someone, as an act, is harmless (though I admit I was tempted to play devils advocate for while just to see how much more wound-up you'd get :p ).

And I'm not talking about a potential innocent, but someone who you know has information that they won't freely give. Misinformation is only harmful to resources if it diverts them from a potentially fruitful task. If there is potential to resolve the situation without resorting to torture that is what you should be doing anyway. In fact the possibility of achieving your goal without torture should be an absolute contraindication to using torture. I'm talking about situations where going without any info at all would be fruitless.

Tocky on 14/10/2012 at 03:11

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I haven't anything to add to this discussion, I think physical torture should never be codified in societal laws, but I can't let dema keep thinking this-



Unfortunately? It WAS an interrogation technique. The very way they were caught was in handing out pictures of those naked human piles and staged torture photos to new inmates to soften them up for CIA interrogation. Defacating on Korans is something misappropriated from another instance or some like mistake. I can't recall that in that instance. Water boarding is physical torture. Showing pictures is psychological. Abu Ghraib was psychological except perhaps for the person on the bottom of the pile as it is hard to breath on the bottom of a dog pile. Psychological torture should be kept a seperate subject IMO.

Psychological torture can be practised in many ways and is allowable in all but the most extreme cases in both society and forum boards (needling sorespots). In my youth physical torture was allowed in paddlings and running belt gauntlets (belt lines) alternately for discipline and initiation purposes. It could be argued there is a fair amount of the psychological in those tortures as well. One can become inured to both readily however once subjected to it themselves (the bullied bullies). When one is inured to those it produces a state of mind whereby light torture is more acceptable. Those incapable of induring it are thought of as weak. Football can be another instance. It is the manly hu rah that questions the association of fear with actual pain. I've done it and if you can't you are a puss. I understand how some consider Abu Ghraib overblown even though it's very intent was fear. An eh, I've had worse sort of thing.

Really though I just want to tell a story. An epiphany in the midst of torture. Future Farmers of America got to go to all the cool things like the Mid South Fair and various exhibitions during school hours so every boy wanted to join. It required initiation. Most of it benign, drink a raw egg, get blindfolded and your face shoved in cow shit, spell Rottenberry backwards while in a 55 gallon drum of icewater and such. The belt line, a holdover concept from Indian days of stick lines, produced the fear though. It was two lines of boys with belts, one on either side, stretching for about 100 yards. Get through that and all was gravy.

There was a way to keep from getting hit too much and if you listened to the instructions you only got hit maybe six or seven licks. I listened. Some were so freaked they quit right then. Some were absolutely blinded by fear. I was scared but I ran. I kept close enough to one side to jam the near licks and far enough away from the other to make them miss. At the end you think it wasn't so bad after all. You have had worse. What you did not want to do EVER was break line in the middle because you were beaten back into it. That was bad.

It happened when I was one of the initiators. A kid blind with fear broke line and four of us chased him trying to beat him back in line. It usually worked. This kid was gone with fear. He cowered against a chain link fence and would not move. He took warning licks as we berrated him and pointed the way to go and would not move. He could not be pulled by the arm in that direction. I was lost as to what to do. Others were rushing to beat him in line. It looked hopeless. One kid stepped forward to put his arm around his shoulder amidst the yelling and made everyone stop. He escorted him the rest of the way unmolested. That kid should have been me. It wasn't. I was too tough to be swayed by fear and weakness until I saw a black kid being led away from a group of white kids with belts and finally saw our color.

I saw some of myself in those Abu Ghraib soldiers. They had come through battle where bullets had missed them (a kind of torture in itself) and were asked to psychologically torture to keep their fellows from having to go through it. I understood that. It would be nice to be able to be nice, even in war, but those so psychologically tortured had shot at people you know. Some didn't miss. Most would do it again gladly. We all would like to be the kid who led the beaten kid away. Most of us aren't. And that was no school yard. But most of all you don't know yourself outside of a situation, one where the very rules say to act a certain way. I don't want it in the rules that physical torture is okay.

I will still do whatever I have to to protect my kids and take whatever punishment society chooses but I want those rules in place.

SubJeff on 14/10/2012 at 08:00

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No it's not.

DDL on 14/10/2012 at 09:23

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So people in pakistan protesting about drones are really protesting about the fact that the US can kill its own citizens?

That seems odd.

SubJeff on 14/10/2012 at 11:50

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Stop trying to make the issue into something you want to discuss CCC. No one cares. Go start your own thread on drone strike wankery.