Post Mumbai we have the following:

-Many dead and injured.
-One living terrorist captured.

Would it surprise anyone if the Indian government applied 'persuasion' of an extreme nature to this individual to ferret out every bit of information he can supply?

Given that the attack was of such a horrific nature, and this man is the one key to unlock where it all came from..... then surely it would be understandable if the Indian authorities used every means at their disposal to force this person to tell all?

The following should be kept in mind.

1/ What he tells.. can be verified before making it public.
Verification should not be too difficult.

2/ He might know of further attacks planned.

I'm not going to comment either way, and probably won't say much on this thread other than this, but I'm curious about how others might feel.

The usual complaints from some people is that it (torture) doesn't work:
a) 'torture produces the information the victim thinks the authorities want' which might not be true.

b) To do such a thing (Torture) is an infringement of his human rights.

c) Due process.. courts lawyers etc.. is the way to go.

What are your thoughts?

We had this discussion a year ago: forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6791

No torture.

"The healthy man does not torture others -- generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers." Carl Jung

We all know what you think about "human rights", boazycarp. The fact is, they are not there as an inconvenience to religions or common sense. They are there to help safeguard our freedoms from tyrants that would dispose of them at the slightest of opportunities.

Torture is not about them or what they will do to us or the "innocent" (the innocent are always invoked in these sorts of arguments). It's about us and what we turn ourselves into by consciously consenting to these acts (torture) continuing. As a society, we have a choice whether we want to allow torture to happen or not. To not allow it is protection against a systematic evil that will be used time and time again against people and solve nothing in the long run, as you may save a few lives tomorrow, but you'll still have the threat of being tortured by your own government long after todays threat has disappeared. Lastly, you don't make many friends by torturing their relatives, no matter what they did.

No torture, no exceptions.

Once without doubt you could expect a Christian to stand against torture.
Even if it meant swimming against the tide of public opinion.
Terrorism is wrong, in my view it is evil, but if the torture was being done by terrorists to Christian hostages would the question be answered in the same way?
I am concerned both about the increasing blind hate from terrorists, see no way around a true war some time soon.
But watching closely the evolution of some Christian groups into something far from the basis for their beliefs.
Can men, ordinary men, re write their own holly books? is it ever right to torture a human being?
Are some humans lessor men?
I have no love of terrorists, any of them, but torture? Polycarp, could your torture another human being?
Could you watch them scream in fear and pain?
Could you as Americans did take photos to brag on?
We, all who know the story, hold those who murdered the 6 million Jews in ww2 saying I was only following orders in contempt, so we should.

Folks....I raise the issue because I'll bet that bloke is getting a good serve of persuasion at the moment.

For all the self righteous ...consider this:

If part of this plan revealed an attempt to stage a Nuclear explosion....(remember, Pakistan had a rogue Islamist scientist who sold Nuclear technology to other rogue states) then... one might find it in the interests of errrr a whole city, to find out every bit of info one can about the source and capabilities of the group.

Torture might be too strong a word... but persuasion can take many forms.

For the 'Human Rights' crowd... ask yourselves this:

"Who's human rights take precedent"? those of the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who you might expose to a nuclear holocaust...... or those of the one man who can assist you in preventing it?

I serve utter ridicule on the thought that the rights of that one evil individual are greater than those of the 100s of 1000s.
I also hold up for utter scorn the idea that 'human rights' are some kind of absolute which defines us. They don't..we invented them, and they only apply when we use brute force to enforce them... they exist within a framework of power, which came to 'be' due to brutality and greed.

If police exercise some creativity in extracting information from an individual like this.. (my preferred approach is to use technology, and psychology, including brain wave analysis) for the sake of the many.... can we question this?

How utterly unsurprising that Porky would want to find a hypothetical situation where torture is justified.

Mind you, wouldn't that be a case of MIUAUG if it was?