Matthew S

I recognise that "torture of the mind" may produce twisted posts.

Slow "Torture of the mind" is not what the article is about. Its about quickly inflicted physical torture.

But you might find it inconvenient that Australian law is "colour blind" or "religion blind". That is, a law permitting Australian "Christians" to torture "Muslim terrorists" would also apply to white Christian "terrorists".

Of course no trial or burden of proof that anyone is a terrorist would be required.

Torture will produce "answers" (useful or not - maybe just screams) in proportion to its brutality.

Which types of physical torture for Australians would you prefer Matt?

Plantagenet,

All torture, whether 'quick' or predominantly 'slow' (I presume you mean mental?), has a correspondent mental affect, upon both the individual and their aquaintances, and upon the wider community. What the ultimate outcome of such long-term, widespread mental torture and stress will produce is as yet unknown. Perhaps it could in fact lead to the formation of US style 'militia' groups, which are in fact clandestine movements, often with illegal or semi-legal weaponary.

It is never a good idea to place the population of a country in such a position that they only obey the government through fear of reprisal, detention or torture. This is the climate which could possibly result from use of such methods, and if it does democracy cannot survive - the average person would not take an active part in th eprocess if the y can be jailed / tortured for having done so.

The other major issue is that when people (individuals / groups) feel afraid of their government, or disenfranchised by its actions, they have a tendency to strike at the source of their fear/frustration. WHile much of this aggression would be passive it is inevitable that at some point, somewhere it would become physically violent. The use of armed forces to put down such uprisings has, historically, backfired many times.

Aaron

I can see that you picked up on the fact that I, like you, are completely opposed to torture.

I'm a little concerned that you seem to have adopted a new concept of the exteme right "world government conspiracy" crowd. That is (what they call) "slow mental torture" refers to an intergovernmental conspiracy to impose "draconian policies" (on subjects like security, workplace relations and child support payments) on a defenceless citizenry. They call this "torture of a communnity". No its not Stalin's Russia or the Inquisition. Yes in your mind its Howard's democratic society of Australia. Shock! Horror!

We can always vote the bugger out.

I'll let you guess which religion/race the extreme right see as imposing this new international order of "mental torture". A predictable update of "Gnomes of..."

While the average person rightly concludes that politicians are bastards you get an unholy alliance of the extreme right and left who see government policy as a calculated act of "mental torture". The true extremists (almost always on the right) see this as justifying terrorist acts against government buildings. Hence the Oklahoma city bombing - wiped out a large childcare center.

Wikipedia defines torture as "...the infliction of severe physical or psychological pain or grief as an expression of cruelty, a means of intimidation, deterrent, revenge or punishment, or as a tool for the extraction of information or confessions."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture

If apply the term "torture" to a community it loses all meaning. Manderson may not have known it but he was refering to "State terror" (eg. Israel's policies on its Palestinian community) which of course is worse than organisational terror (eg Hamas).

Australian security laws are fairly moderate compared to other democracies (Britain, France, US, Israel, Iran, Russia etc).

If you are saying that our (soon to be passed) anti terror laws constitute "mental torture of a community" or "State torture" then you are giving in to the rightwing conspiracy theorists.

It seems as though some of the posts here are mentioning torture as practised by the United States. This is sad, although, for westerners, who aren't used to barbarity, underpants on heads or a light beating, as what happened in Abu Graib, this would be torture.

In reality though, torture is a mis-applied word. The US doesn't torture anybody by playing loud music for 24hrs while the detainee can't sleep. Torture is what Iraqi police just found, under government offices by the way (although apparently the Shi'ite government didn't know!), where people have had their skin peeled off with chemicals, or been strung up by their wrists for so long they've dislocated from their sockets.

Those victims would be happy to be in Abu Graib with Americans who simply make them undress and have a dog bark at them!

It seems as though not many here are on the same wavelength. Go and ask a WWII digger who was imprisoned by the Japanese what torture is, don't dare try to compare "undies on heads" to the cruel practices of barbaric cultures.

<All torture, whether 'quick' or predominantly 'slow' (I presume you mean mental?), has a correspondent mental affect, upon both the individual and their aquaintances, and upon the wider community. What the ultimate outcome of such long-term, widespread mental torture and stress will produce is as yet unknown. ….

It is never a good idea to place the population of a country in such a position that they only obey the government through fear of reprisal, detention or torture. …>

It is interesting whether the New Guard of the thirties activities had place in the same environment as ones recently established by appreciated the family values…

Aaron

It looks like I overstepped the mark in my response to you.

I assumed you had accepted the rightwing’s “mental torture conspiracy” concept while all you were doing was describing it.

Then I assumed you had a particular position on our government policies (but you had not even mentioned them on my string)

Most of my post deals with Australian extreme right thought. Then with “US style 'militia' groups” which you rightly point to.

Benjamin

Yes torture is in fact much more widespread than the US. China, much of Southeast Asia , Israel, the Arab countries and much of Latin America also practice it. Russia also does it in Chechnya.

However, the US goes far further than “underpants”. Unofficial “battlefield” interrogation, involves torture. The prisoner tortured is almost always killed immediately afterward and soldiers don’t talk about it.

The US has resolved the alleged “limitation past underpants” problem by sponsoring torture offshore in Jordon and Syria (as is becoming increasingly debated in the UK and Germany). The propaganda benefits of sponsoring torture of Muslims by Muslims is obvious.

The US’ fortuitous uncovering of an Iraqi Government torture center is odd in that the Iraqi forces involved are ultimately paid for by the US. Iraq is dominated by the US and if the US DIA and CIA were doing their job they already knew about this Iraqi torture.

While Russia and China are no doubt the (largely unreported) No.1 offenders regarding torture in the past and probably the present we hear more about the US activities regarding torture (and every other US activity from Hollywood to tennis) than about other countries’ activities.

People who are concerned about torture (usually of the left) appreciate that they can only act on information available. Also the US has a political system that is genuinely beneficial to the extent that it is responsive to criticism about human rights abuses unlike most countries that torture.

By the way having had a career in very conservative parts of government I'm no leftist student type, just concerned about human rights.