If 9/11 2.0 happens, would you say Torture is ok?

[Mackie2k]

Inspired by all the Torture threads....

I'm wondering if all the people saying Torture is wrong, would still think that if say Terroritsts attacked and killed 10,000 Americans?

I'm not saying Torture is right or wrong, just a necessary evil when you are dealing with people who'd rather die than let you live.

---

I've fucking had it with this thread. Discussing the implications of torture committed by the Bush adminstration and/or the implications of what was known and when by others in Congress or any other position of public responsiblity of either party is reasonable for this forum.

Posting to advocate the merits of the abstract act committing torture for any reason is advocating the commission of felony violations of U.S. and international law.

I know I've been posting in this thread. I don't give a damn. If you don't like it, take your complaints to the powers that be.

Harvey
Senior AnandTech Moderator

 

[JS80]

What city?

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k
Inspired by all the Torture threads....

I'm wondering if all the people saying Torture is wrong, would still think that if say Terroritsts attacked and killed 10,000 Americans?

I'm not saying Torture is right or wrong, just a necessary evil when you are dealing with people who'd rather die than let you live.

This hypothetical has been asked and answered in all the torture threads. If you have a nuclear bomb about to go off and the guy who planted it in your custody, go to town. Short of that, no. And I live in NYC, but it's nice all the folks in nebraska are so concerned about future terrorist attacks that won't affect them.

Originally posted by: JS80
What city?

i lold

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: JS80
What city?

LOL.. Great quesiton.

 

[soccerballtux]

Most people's problem with current torture is the lack of oversight; not necessarily public, even internal; there doesn't seem to be much of that.

 

[dullard]

The problem is that you'd just get false information from torture. Heck, under your scenario, we've been torturing for a decade and STILL had 9/11 2.0. What "safety" that brought us. :roll: You are trying to get us to say "Well we tortured and it didn't prevent 9/11 2.0; therefore, we should torture more."

Originally posted by: jonks
but it's nice all the folks in nebraska are so concerned about future terrorist attacks that won't affect them.

20% of America lives within 500 miles of Nebraska's capital. We have the headquarters for most forms of transportation, telecommunications, and weather; strategic air command; one of the major river routes; one of the few east-west interstates; the transcontinental railroad; two of the three Canada/US oil pipelines run under or near Nebraska (almost all 3); natural gas pipelines; missile silos; etc. As a terrorist, you'd be an idiot NOT to attack Nebraska assuming you can get ahold of a large scale weapon (nuclear for example).

 

[alien42]

Originally posted by: JS80
What city?

that is sick.

 

[Tab3076]

No, I don't think it's ever justifiable. In works on tv but not in the real world.

 

[Lemon law]

If we have a repeat of 911, I for one will blame GWB torture policies for helping to cause it.

So to answer the question, NO, NO, and NO, TORTURE IS NEVER JUSTIFIED.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k
Inspired by all the Torture threads....

I'm wondering if all the people saying Torture is wrong, would still think that if say Terroritsts attacked and killed 10,000 Americans?

I'm not saying Torture is right or wrong, just a necessary evil when you are dealing with people who'd rather die than let you live.

If terrorists want to die so much, why would they give up information from torture?

 

[PrinceofWands]

Copied from one of the other umpteen torture posts:

There's a BIG difference between torture as an individual decision, and as a national policy. IF some individual has managed to get a hold of a high value suspect, and CHOOSES to sacrifice his own soul and legal standing in order to attempt to extract information to save people, based on his own personal moral scale, that's his choice. I think it's possible to respect his choice while simultaneously bringing him up on charges for his actions.

It is NEVER permissible to have such actions be policy however, or there is NOTHING left worth defending from the terrorists anyway. If that costs me my life, the life of my family, or 1,000,000 other people, then it was a cheaply won ethical victory.

 

[Uhtrinity]

NO

 

[Xellos2099]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: Mackie2k
Inspired by all the Torture threads....

I'm wondering if all the people saying Torture is wrong, would still think that if say Terroritsts attacked and killed 10,000 Americans?

I'm not saying Torture is right or wrong, just a necessary evil when you are dealing with people who'd rather die than let you live.

If terrorists want to die so much, why would they give up information from torture?

So it is ok for us to just kill them but no some torture for info extraction? I think this school of thinking is created from people watching too much TV and Hollywood movie where there is always some kind of evil general who will torture and some righteous people who can get things done without such method. Unfortunately, this is not how real world work.

 

[Mackie2k]

Originally posted by: dullard
The problem is that you'd just get false information from torture. Heck, under your scenario, we've been torturing for a decade and STILL had 9/11 2.0. What "safety" that brought us. :roll: You are trying to get us to say "Well we tortured and it didn't prevent 9/11 2.0; therefore, we should torture more."

I disagree. We haven't had another 9/11. Does it mean we are safer? Not sure. Guess we'll have to wait 10 years and see.

I for one, have no trouble sleeping at night knowing we've tortured people who will stop at nothing to murder Americans.

We can try to play nice, but it won't work and eventually we'll be hit again.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Xellos2099
So it is ok for us to just kill them but no some torture for info extraction? I think this school of thinking is created from people watching too much TV and Hollywood movie where there is always some kind of evil general who will torture and some righteous people who can get things done without such method. Unfortunately, this is not how real world work.

Yes, it's ok to kill an enemy on a battlefield. Yes, it's ok to try, convict and execute a prisoner for crimes/murder (assuming you're pro-capital punishment.) No, it's no ok once captured and defenseless to treat them like a piece of meat. Sorry you're worldview doesn't allow you to understand this difference.

And how many interrogators have to come and tell you that torture is counterproductive and just as likely to produce unreliable info for you to understand why we don't torture "in the real world?" I think you're living in 24land where there's always a ticking bomb and every captured hired hand knows just where and when.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: JS80
What city?

republicans.txt

 

[theeedude]

Then let's have a debate and a vote and say torture is OK. What I don't like is using tortured logic to have it both ways, that we don't torture, but we have "enhanced interrogation techniques, wink wink, nod nod."

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k

Originally posted by: dullard
The problem is that you'd just get false information from torture. Heck, under your scenario, we've been torturing for a decade and STILL had 9/11 2.0. What "safety" that brought us. :roll: You are trying to get us to say "Well we tortured and it didn't prevent 9/11 2.0; therefore, we should torture more."

I disagree. We haven't had another 9/11. Does it mean we are safer? Not sure. Guess we'll have to wait 10 years and see.

I for one, have no trouble sleeping at night knowing we've tortured people who will stop at nothing to murder Americans.

We can try to play nice, but it won't work and eventually we'll be hit again.

Germans had no problems sleeping at night during the Holocaust. White Americans had no trouble sleeping at night during the genocide of Native Americans, slavery, segregation, and the internment of the Japanese. Men had no trouble sleeping when married women couldn't get jobs or own anything in their own names.

I'm not making a moral equivalency, just demonstrating that your ability to sleep at night means jack shit.

 

[Mackie2k]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: Mackie2k

Originally posted by: dullard
The problem is that you'd just get false information from torture. Heck, under your scenario, we've been torturing for a decade and STILL had 9/11 2.0. What "safety" that brought us. :roll: You are trying to get us to say "Well we tortured and it didn't prevent 9/11 2.0; therefore, we should torture more."

I disagree. We haven't had another 9/11. Does it mean we are safer? Not sure. Guess we'll have to wait 10 years and see.

I for one, have no trouble sleeping at night knowing we've tortured people who will stop at nothing to murder Americans.

We can try to play nice, but it won't work and eventually we'll be hit again.

Germans had no problems sleeping at night during the Holocaust. White Americans had no trouble sleeping at night during the genocide of Native Americans, slavery, segregation, and the internment of the Japanese. Men had no trouble sleeping when married women couldn't get jobs or own anything in their own names.

I'm not making a moral equivalency, just demonstrating that your ability to sleep at night means jack shit.

Who said they all slept well at night? Were you there?

I'm here, and I'm saying I sleep well at night, so that means SOMETHING, not shit. Fuck Terrorists and the pussy liberals who support treating them with anything less than utter brutality.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k

Topic Title: If 9/11 2.0 happens, would you say Torture is ok?

NO! As soon as we do, we've lost.

If we don't prosecute the criminals who ordered the last time, we've lost.

If you don't already know that, YOU are already a lost cause.

Any other dumbass questions?

 

[Mackie2k]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: Mackie2k

Topic Title: If 9/11 2.0 happens, would you say Torture is ok?

NO! As soon as we do, we've lost.

If we don't prosecute the criminals who ordered the last time, we've lost.

If you don't already know that, YOU are already a lost cause.

Any other dumbass questions?

Yes, giving them 30 years in a safe, secure facility with 3 meals a day and phone calls to the home land is a great idea.

 

[Craig234]

No.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: Mackie2k

Topic Title: If 9/11 2.0 happens, would you say Torture is ok?

NO! As soon as we do, we've lost.

If we don't prosecute the criminals who ordered the last time, we've lost.

If you don't already know that, YOU are already a lost cause.

Any other dumbass questions?

Yes, giving them 30 years in a safe, secure facility with 3 meals a day and phone calls to the home land is a great idea.

No, but that's a good start for anyone who authorizes or commits torture, especially the traitorous turds that already did it and claimed it was done in our name. :|

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k
I'm here, and I'm saying I sleep well at night, so that means SOMETHING, not shit. Fuck Terrorists and the pussy liberals who support treating them with anything less than utter brutality.

You condemn terrorists for their evil and want to perpetrate evil in order to fight them.

Maggie Gallagher is an arch conservative. Here's her take:

"torture is wrong. We shouldn't do it. Even if it means me, my husband, and my two sons get blown up. Seriously, if I had to choose I'd say: Death is common to us all; torture is a choice"

And that's what it comes down to. You want to turn our country into a torture state in the name of "saving lives." You ignore everything else that follows from such a declaration.

As to your blathering about liberals, consult the life long interrogators who have said torture is counterproductive and produced unreliable intel. I'm sure they'd be interested in your opinion of them as liberal wussies.

We survived over 200 years as a nation without dictating a policy of torture. We survived and won the cold war against a nuclear USSR without becoming a torture state; in fact precisely because we didn't become a torture state. We won because the world viewed us as the free country and the USSR as a place where citizens were constantly asked for "their papers", guarded with machine gun wielding military gov't stormtroopers, and disappeared for dissenting.

And you want a bunch of dirty guys in turbans who crashed a few planes into some buildings to dictate the terms of our detention policies that have survived over two centuries without succumbing to humanities worst instincts? You want us to allow them to pervert our values and make the US some dystopian Orwellian nightmare? Screw you buddy. Quit thumping your chest so hard about America and maybe you'll be able to hear its screams as you kill it.

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k
Inspired by all the Torture threads....

I'm wondering if all the people saying Torture is wrong, would still think that if say Terroritsts attacked and killed 10,000 Americans?

I'm not saying Torture is right or wrong, just a necessary evil when you are dealing with people who'd rather die than let you live.

So it was OK for Japan to waterboard US POWs to get info about a potential US nuke attack?