The Jack Bauer question.

[techs]

With Jack Bauer in the Republican debates, and in Justice Scalias mind as examples of why torture is necessary I think its time to ask 3 questions:

1)Do you think there has ever been a situation where it was necessary to coerce info from a terrorist immeditatly or a large number of people would die? If so, how often?

2)If the Jack Bauer type situation has never or only occurred one or two times, why couldn't a President just pardon the Federal agent/Military Personell who saved countless lives? Seems if it ever came out and the President didn't pardon the people he would be in the toilet with the public. So couldn't the President just issue a statement that under extrordinary circumstances he would consider a pardon for anyone who tortured a suspect in an emergency, life and death situation?

3)If the Jack Bauer situation has never occurred or has ony happened one or two times, than isn't the whole Jack Bauer thing an excuse to torture hundreds or thousands?


For those who don't know who Jack Bauer is, he is a fictional character on the Fox Network(surprise) who is a counter terrorist agent who is put in fictional situations at least 10 times a day where if a suspect doesn't give him info immediately thousands, millions of people will die.
And in the course of day he routinely breaks suspects fingers, shoots them in non life threatening parts of the body, electrocutes, them, etc.

 

[blackangst1]

As you're pondering this, keep in mind you and I see a glass of water either half full or half empty. Jack sees a weapon of mass destruction!

On topic, IMHO if a Jack situation HAS ever happened, I seriously doubt the general public would EVER know about it. There's still a TON of stuff sealed away from the cold war.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: techs
With Jack Bauer in the Republican debates, and in Justice Scalias mind as examples of why torture is necessary I think its time to ask 3 questions:

1)Do you think there has ever been a situation where it was necessary to coerce info from a terrorist immeditatly or a large number of people would die? If so, how often?

2)If the Jack Bauer type situation has never or only occurred one or two times, why couldn't a President just pardon the Federal agent/Military Personell who saved countless lives? Seems if it ever came out and the President didn't pardon the people he would be in the toilet with the public. So couldn't the President just issue a statement that under extrordinary circumstances he would consider a pardon for anyone who tortured a suspect in an emergency, life and death situation?

3)If the Jack Bauer situation has never occurred or has ony happened one or two times, than isn't the whole Jack Bauer thing an excuse to torture hundreds or thousands?


For those who don't know who Jack Bauer is, he is a fictional character on the Fox Network(surprise) who is a counter terrorist agent who is put in fictional situations at least 10 times a day where if a suspect doesn't give him info immediately thousands, millions of people will die.
And in the course of day he routinely breaks suspects fingers, shoots them in non life threatening parts of the body, electrocutes, them, etc.

HOW ABOUT REALITY, RUBY RIDGE- FBI SNIPER CARRIES OUT ORDER TO EXECUTE RESISTER'S WIFE. Shoots her while holding child in doorway. Now in real life, how many people would you torture to find one who knows about terrorist activities, just on suspicion, thousands?

 

[Biturbo]

1) I doubt it.

2) It becomes a slippery slope. If you KNEW some terrorist had information about a plot that WOULD kill millions, you can justify it easily. But in the real world, it is never that clear-cut. What about some random dude you picked up because his neighbors claim he is Al Qaeda? Al Qaeda is, after all, constantly looking for ways to attack us, so in theory, torturing him for information could save an unkown number of lives. Unless he isn't really Al Qaeda. Or is, but doesn't know anything. Where do you draw the line?

24 is one of my favorite television shows on right now, but even I know that it doesn't depict real life. If people are really using it to justify or lend credence to torture, that is just plain sad.

 

[ProfJohn]

Reality is not as clean and neat as a TV show. We have virtually no warning prior to 9-11. We had all this noise about an attack and stuff, but no one had any clue where, when or how it was going to take place.
Same with the London bombing and the Madrid bombing, essentially took everyone by surprise.

We don?t know when the next big attack is going to take place or what kind of attack it is going to be. So we are in a tight spot.

When we capture a high value target, such as the 9-11 mastermind, we don?t know if this guy knows the name and places of 5 guys ready to drive a truck bomb into the capital or if he knows nothing at all.
How do you decide which is more likely to be the truth?

Also think of the consequences of failure if you make the wrong choice. Prior to 9-11 we had in our custody a guy training to fly planes into buildings. Had we connected the dots we could have prevented 9-11. You know that the people making the decision to waterboard, loud music etc have to be thinking about that in the back of their minds.

 

[miketheidiot]

tortune is a bad way to get useful accurate information. End of story.

 

[Craig234]

Torture is wrong, end of story; it also happens to be a bad way to get accurate information.

 

[tw1164]

We should just ask the suspects nicely.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn


Also think of the consequences of failure if you make the wrong choice. Prior to 9-11 we had in our custody a guy training to fly planes into buildings. Had we connected the dots we could have prevented 9-11. You know that the people making the decision to waterboard, loud music etc have to be thinking about that in the back of their minds.

You're right but torturing wouldn't have helped us connect the dots, it was our bloated intelligence bureaucracy that prevented us from doing so.

Since then we've adding thousands of layers to that bureaucracy, and if we manage to get attacked again, I bet you it'll be caused by the same failures that allowed it to happen on 9/11.

Not because we didn't have the intelligence we needed.

 

[Genx87]

I really can believe the douchbags on the left would take that bloggers word on what Scalia said. The blogger presents a link to a story with a little more context and information. You should have clicked on it instead of opening your mouth and asking for more.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I really can believe the douchbags on the left would take that bloggers word on what Scalia said. The blogger presents a link to a story with a little more context and information. You should have clicked on it instead of opening your mouth and asking for more.

As I am sure everyone is aware of, Scalia FORBIDS anyone to record or take notes at his speeches.
In fact he once had the Secret Service grab a reporter and destroy her recording.
So if Scalia is not accurately quoted, who's to blame?
And in this case, unless Scalia denies it, I'm going with the blogger.



http://www.infowars.com/print/ps/scalia_apology.htm

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: Genx87
I really can believe the douchbags on the left would take that bloggers word on what Scalia said. The blogger presents a link to a story with a little more context and information. You should have clicked on it instead of opening your mouth and asking for more.

As I am sure everyone is aware of, Scalia FORBIDS anyone to record or take notes at his speeches.
In fact he once had the Secret Service grab a reporter and destroy her recording.
So if Scalia is not accurately quoted, who's to blame?
And in this case, unless Scalia denies it, I'm going with the blogger.



http://www.infowars.com/print/ps/scalia_apology.htm

Of course will go with the blogger because it is easier for that pea sized brain of yours to be spoon fed what you should think and say instead of reading the link he provides that gives a better context of the discussion and other quotes from him that are clearly contradictory to what you and the blogger implies.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
tortune is a bad way to get useful accurate information. End of story.

unfortunately its not when its done right as such it will never leave this world till we grow up

 

[Ldir]

Originally posted by: Shivetya

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
tortune is a bad way to get useful accurate information. End of story.

unfortunately its not when its done right as such it will never leave this world till we grow up

Did you get that from some movie? It is awfully arrogant of you to dismiss what the experts say about torture.

 

[GoPackGo]

This is how effective torture works...


Sir...we will not torture you or hurt you in any way...


**torture proceeds to pull back curtain**

(whole family is in full view)

However if you do not tell us what we want to know we will torture and murder your family one by one in the most horrific ways possible. In your full view. We will record their screams for you to hear over and over again.

Again, no matter what happens, we will not hurt you and you will be allowed to live.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Ldir

Originally posted by: Shivetya

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
tortune is a bad way to get useful accurate information. End of story.

unfortunately its not when its done right as such it will never leave this world till we grow up

Did you get that from some movie? It is awfully arrogant of you to dismiss what the experts say about torture.

He may have got it from George Tenet (former CIA Director) who recently said that some "debated" methods were very effective in obtaining quality info.

Fern

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
This is how effective torture works...


Sir...we will not torture you or hurt you in any way...


**torture proceeds to pull back curtain**

(whole family is in full view)

However if you do not tell us what we want to know we will torture and murder your family one by one in the most horrific ways possible. In your full view. We will record their screams for you to hear over and over again.

Again, no matter what happens, we will not hurt you and you will be allowed to live.

You people really are a sick bunch.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: techs
With Jack Bauer in the Republican debates, and in Justice Scalias mind as examples of why torture is necessary ........

If your assertion that Scalia said torture is necessary stems from your other thread (or maybe it was Phocus's?), your premise is wrong (panel discussion, article by Andrew Sulivan IIRC). I contend he did no such thing.

Otherwise, you got a link showing Scalia said that? Please, I'd like to see it.

TIA,

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Fern
He may have got it from George Tenet (former CIA Director) who recently said that some "debated" methods were very effective in obtaining quality info.

Fern

Well while I'm no expert, everything I've read... even things coming from the Russians (who I feel were probably no slouches on the torture thing) always come back to the quality of information. Also, I looked for it and couldn't find this quote on how torture was effective at getting quality info?

I guess this is sort of a nebulous thing to measure, but it does stand up to logic that if you're waterboarding someone, their only care is to get you to stop, and that will include telling you many things that are true... and many things that are not. If you want to Jack Bauerize the scenario, this would seem to be a particularly large problem as erroneous info would spread your resources around in a lot of places that weren't needed... to no good end. Oh that, and torture is evil and we should remember what America is supposed to stand for. You're either the beacon of hope to the world, or you aren't.

Finally, GoPackGo I sincerely doubt that the reason torture isn't effective is because we haven't found hideous enough things to do to people.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Fern
He may have got it from George Tenet (former CIA Director) who recently said that some "debated" methods were very effective in obtaining quality info.

Fern

Well while I'm no expert, everything I've read... even things coming from the Russians (who I feel were probably no slouches on the torture thing) always come back to the quality of information. Also, I looked for it and couldn't find this quote on how torture was effective at getting quality info?

He made that comment while on his "book selling" tour around various TV shows.

I'm pretty sure the comment was picked up on in some op-ed peices ran in the newspapers etc. When I get some time later I'l google for it.

Fern

 

[WHAMPOM]

If they are using Jack Bauer in "24" to bolster their "torture is good" agenda can I use "West Wing" or "Commander In Chief" to contradict it? "Fiction Vrs. Fiction".

 

[Fern]

Ahh geez. As far as torture goes, let's quite being pvssies about it and just move to using stuff from SAW III.