The Forum > General Discussion > Terrorism and Torture.
Terrorism and Torture.
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Posted by Ludwig, Saturday, 6 December 2008 10:29:14 AM
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The following is extracted from an article by Clive Stafford Smith, human rights lawyer evaluating whether torture achieves its goals.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-terrorism/torture_2749.jsp "Torture: an idea for our time The renewed attempt to normalise and justify torture is ethically wrong and practically dangerous, says the leading human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith. He draws on his experience with Guantánamo prisoners to advocate a better way. he bomb is ticking somewhere in central London. The evacuation cannot be completed in time, and hundreds or thousands may die. Scotland Yard has a man in custody. His name is Yusuf. His interrogators think he knows where the bomb is and how to defuse it, but they have read him his rights and he’s not talking. He wants his lawyer. “Surely it’s time to ask the prime minister for permission to use a little torture to save a lot of lives”, someone exclaims. The British prime minister has called an urgent cabinet meeting. As the second hand flows around the dial, will it be thumbs up for the thumbscrew, or will the city be condemned to certain death and destruction? “We’re about to be lynched with our own liberties”, cries David Blunkett, once more in charge of homeland security; “our first priority has to be to protect innocent people.” With the vote for a possible fourth term around the corner, most of his cabinet colleagues voice instant agreement. The prime minister will refer to “enhanced interrogation methods” – with a nod to the Americans’ talent for euphemism – but will make the call without hesitation: “Make him talk. Whatever it takes.” So Yusuf won’t have a nice day, but you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs. “Once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases”, continues Professor Levin, “you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them.” His argument provokes three questions that many of us thought we would never be debating this side of the Dark Ages: Cont'd Posted by Fractelle, Saturday, 6 December 2008 11:09:59 AM
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Cont'd
....The ticking-bomb scenario is a seductive inducement to torture, but herein lies the deception: the situation simply does not exist. Many people would vote for a single turn of the screw if it would save millions. The same folk would probably vote for the death penalty if every execution swept away a guilty killer and saved a thousand innocent lives. Yet many of us oppose capital punishment because we fear the execution of the innocent, and we sincerely doubt the deterrent effect of the rope, the chair or the needle. ..... It is sad to think that the question of whether we should use torture is one of the moral issues of our time. The real issue is not whether torture should be used, but why we are talking about it in the 21st century. Tempting though it is to toss out civil liberties each time the phantom Fear is resurrected before us, this is another false premise of the torture debate.... Bill Cowan is more realistic about the consequences of violence than his commander-in-chief: “We need to find Muslims who will support us, who will do things for us – and if we cause civilian casualties, we lose that”, he says. “We may win tactical victories like Fallujah but they are not helping us win the larger war for the support of the Iraqis. Not one city in Iraq had drinkable water eighteen months after we arrived. We should stop using contractors and just get a decent US Army Construction Battalion in there, do a show city, indicate how it can be done.” Decency is genuinely a good idea. When we treat others with decency, they become far less likely to wish us harm, and far more likely to tell us what they know about the extreme plans of others. Torture is indeed uncivilised; it is also unwise." I can only conclude to Smith's report that not only is torture unreliable but violence still begets violence. Posted by Fractelle, Saturday, 6 December 2008 11:17:27 AM
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Ok, let's try another tack.
Answer yourself honestly: -Do you personally support the UN Convention Against Torture? -Do you think Australia should support the Convention? -Do you think India should support the Convention? -Should there even be a convention? If an officer tortured a person using the reason "I had reason to believe that this person was a terrorist and had information on an imminent attack", and it turned out that this person did not have any information- should the officer be prosecuted? Personally, I believe all incidences of torture should be prosecuted and then the value of the information can be assessed. This is only possible if laws are passed outlawing torture without exception. Put another way, many people would say they respect the law, laws are necessary but some laws cannot be enforced all the time. In fact, 'in the real world' some laws possibly should not be observed under certain circumstances. But noone says that we should not have the law. Determination of the circumstances the law was broken can be made during the prosecution. One can fully support violators of a law to be prosecuted without exception without being labelled a hypocrite. All would-be torturers need to know that they will be held accountable for their actions. A court can decide (not the 'rough men' themselves) whether a greater social good was served, and this may reflect in a mitigation of sentence. But make no mistake, ALL instances of torture must be prosecuted with no exception. This is a war FOR hearts and minds as much as against them. Yes, we may seem to fight with one hand behind our back, but there's more than one way to gather information, and there's reasonable evidence to suggest that it may actually hinder the gathering of information. After all, would someone be more or less likely to give his friend or even acquaintance away, knowing that there's a good chance that they will be tortured? More likely or less likely knowing that they won't be tortured and possibly killed a la Jayb's pig-entrail-grave technique. Posted by Bugsy, Saturday, 6 December 2008 1:07:02 PM
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Gee's all you simple bleeding heart folk, [australians mostly I think] Typical, going on about torture,the rights and the wrongs,WHO cares!
If you can save "one" innocent life,you are justified. The scum and cowards that perpertrate these terrorist bombings,rely on your civilised upbringings,your softness, and reliance on the so called law of civilised folk. And you will always be the loser. Wake up Australia! Just put another prawn on the barbie. DUHHHHHHHHH!! Posted by fun-guy, Saturday, 6 December 2008 7:05:29 PM
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Hokay, seeing as we're indulging in outlandish hypotheticals, I have one for you, polycarp:
We're in a world where Islam has done what you fear and now dominates the world, however with the spread of Islamic government to previously western countries, a degree of moderacy exists in these Islamic governments. There are still horrendous regimes, but such regimes aren't practical for larger, more educated populations. Of course, there are skirmishes between Christian rebels and the controlling Islamic forces. Some Christian sects believe that violence is a necessary evil in defeating the muslim threat, in the same way the IRA launched attacks for many years. In this case, the Christians tell themselves they are more noble than previous muslim terrorists, because they attempt to target Islamic bastions of power rather than citizens. In this scenario, I have some questions for you polycarp: 1) would you sanction bombings by these Christian groups? If so, I'd like to know what you consider to be fair game. Is it purely 'military' targets? What happens when the military is integrated into religious groups? Would you sanction the bombings of mosques, if a majority of inhabitants are powerful figures? Are only military figures valid? What of political and religious figures, such as ayatollahs or clerics? Humanity being humanity, there are likely to be mistakes. What level of collateral damage is acceptable? What if there are deaths of christians? what about peaceful muslims? 2) Would these Christian groups be allowed to use torture, and how bad must the regime they are working under be? For example, what if the controlling regime holds Christian prisoners and is torturing them. Are the Christian rebels warranted in torturing a captured Islamic captain in order to extract information, even if there's no 'ticking time bomb' as it were? Genuinely interested in your thoughts here polycarp. Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Saturday, 6 December 2008 7:26:05 PM
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Good to hear. Thanks Bugsy.
I agree that the use of torture would have all sorts of difficulties. But what about my point;
‘we can’t have a situation whereby a captured terrorist can rest assured that if he doesn’t reveal information upon request, he won’t be harmed or won’t suffer anything worse than a reasonably comfortable long prison term. Obviously if that was the case most people of that sort wouldn’t tell us anything, would they?’
Can you imagine the scenario of having one or more known terrorists that have confidently been linked to an attack:
We know that they have a lot of information that we desperately need, but we are powerless to make them reveal it. We know that further loss of life is very likely indeed if we don’t find out more about their operations. It would just be crackers not to put our best efforts into extracting the necessary information.
What sort of a principle would we be upholding if we were to just not really bother interrogating those we capture who were involved in atrocities with the vigour that was necessary to gain that information?
Let’s face it, with people like this, in the absence of the threat to do them real physical harm or cause them great pain, no other method is likely to work. Vital information will stay in their heads and the activities of their organisations will continue unabated.
Throughout the history of warfare, captives have been subjected to strong methods of information extraction. It just goes with the turf. We should be doing our damnedest to refine the hard methodology and make it uniform across the planet...and make all those who use it accountable. But again, it would just be quite absurd IMHO to try to ban it outright, or to uphold the principle of its complete non-use.