Torture
 

Is it ever justified? Should it be legal? If so, with what restrictions?

It's never justified and should never be legal. Fuck Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia.

Torture? It doesn't matter what we argue. For and against, it doesn't really, because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and other times its part of snuff pornography, so at times it has nothing to do with politics or the gathering of information.

It's those kind of stupid comments that encourage this shit. People really need to read Matthew Alexander's book. We didn't need torture to beat the Nazis or the Soviets and we don't need it now. We need to follow the international agreements we've made. All torture does is weaken the resolve of our allies and bring up their numbers. Torture is never the answer and to paraphrase John McCain you don't get anything out of it.

If John McCain doesn't like it, neither do I.

Yeah what does McCain know about torture?

As much as Lynndie England and Charles Graner Luckily he disagrees with them though.

Are you fucking serious? You're comparing a man who spent five years in a Vietnamese camp to two fucked up torturers?

I quote "Yeah what does McCain know about torture?"

Answer: Alot considering he was a POW.

And maybe its just me but who would know very well what torturing is than 2 people who were nationaly uncovered doing it. Fair comparison if you ask me. Sure there complete scumbags but doesnt change the fact. You need to take a deep breath and relax.

Do I need to spell out the differences between antonyms for you? There's a difference between torturing and victimization. Aside from the horrible logic you use you don't even have your facts straight. England and Graner were not even torturing information. You don't feed a Muslim pork and tell him to praise Jesus because you need information, you do it because you're a sick human being.

You do realize there was muchhh more than sexual assault on the prisoners there, such as beatings and a few which were batterd to death. Your "feed a Muslim pork and tell him to praise Jesus" is the last thing to be worried about, not to mention a terrible example of how they were treated.

And your completely missing the point. Of coarse there a difference between the captive and the people doing the torturing, any half wit can figure that out so Im not sure why your even mentioning that... Secondly I dissagree with your point of view. Both parties (the captive and torturer) are both well aware of how torture works and understand it. Just because it was happening to one doesnt make them understand it any better.

I'm fully aware of what happened, stop trying to play it off like you're on the intellectual high ground. You were the one who are suggesting that Graner and England know the benefits of torture but there's a fundamental flaw in that argument. THEY WEREN'T TORTURING FOR INFORMATION. There was no military motivation for what they did, they just did it. Torture is never the way to go. John McCain knows this and Matthew Alexander knows even more than McCain, Graner, England, Rumsfeld, Cheney or anyone else in the Bush Administration does.

Forget it... you have turned this into a joke.

I won't bother replying except for the fact that NOT ONCE did I say they knew the benefits of torture. I never even related to that statement in any post I had. I simply stated that they know ABOUT torture. The actual act of degrading and physically harming prisoners. NOTHING WAS SAID ABOUT KNOWING THE BENIFITS OF WHAT THEY WERE DOING OR GETTING ANY INFORMATION.

Forget it though, you seem to become rude and add in details while arguing a point.

Sorry, I honestly thought you were arguing that they were good examples and authorities on the subjects of torture justification/benefits.

Its fine. And no your right, they know absolutely nothing about the benefits. Of coarse though it sure is hard to feel bad for many of the ones tortured considering a lot of them were convicted rapists and such.

I'm pretty much against it kind of... I mean yeah its bad and almost never necessary but I will never be completely against it.

HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION: Someone is holding your loved ones hostage or whatever and you have some dude in your custody who knows the information. Are you saying you wouldn't be willing to hurt this man to get that information?

I dont think anybody could really give a definite yay or nay to torture, as Dac has surmised, its all relative to the circumstances. Given the example he has provided, i know what i'd do.

i'd try feeding him ten hits of lsd before i'd start cutting off fingers

McCain deserved it.

If you did that anything he said definitely wouldn't be the truth. ;)

If McCain had run on a "I drank my urine for a clusterfuck of a war in the name of America" platform I would've supported him.

I would be willing to cause harm, however I'd also know that what I did was wrong and that I should be jailed for it.

Oh i do, i do

To be fair, if a man had just murdered my wife and raped my children, imprisonment would be the least of my concerns.

well then you're a danger to society

Well, not really, im a danger to whoever did it, im not going to go around torturing any old Joe Bloggs i see

Vigilantism is a bit different than torture...

Torture can be a product of vigilantism

Always wrong, always.

I was just specifying that the scenario is flawed due to it containing vigilantism.

There are some cases where I honestly have no problem with it. Torturing for revenge etc.. is always wrong, but if there's a person holding information so dear to you and so important and they are clearly in the wrong, then there is nothing wrong with it.

There's too much grey area, there's very few times when one side in a military affair is absolutely in the moral right.

There was a guest on Stephen Colbert who wrote this book, looks like a good read: Amazon.com: How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq: Matthew Alexander, John Bruning: Books

Obama completes national security team - Yahoo! News

I got a crush on Obama.