Dear Graham,

Torture is never OK.

To me it represents military
forces, police forces and other groups and public
authorities using torture illegally to punish and
control people and to gain information about civil,
military and political matters. To me it means placing
political beliefs above human rights.

I totally oppose it.

I would be interested to know whether the Red Cross, during the course of the interviews, showed the interviewees a common definition of torture –or, was it assumed everyone had the same understanding of what torture was?

(I couldn’t see THEIR definition recorded, in any of the links –but, maybe I missed it!)

An initial response only. Hope to come back to the issue.

The critical questions are:

1. Is it justifiable to cause suffering, or to use the threat of this as persuasion, in circumstances where to do so is assessed as a means of saving lives and/or achieving lawful objectives (in a warlike situation or in relation to terrorism)? I think the answer must be "yes".

2. What actually constitutes torture? There is huge ground for debate on this issue.

3. What are the reasonable limits of "torture" (however defined)? I think these limits exist at the point where it is plain no valuable information will be gained from continuing "persuasion". This requires very careful judgment and the limits must also be lawful and within rules of engagement.

4. A general point: It is not true that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", a consistent theme of much criticism. Someone (whoever that is and whatever the cause) planning indiscriminate mass murder has placed themselves beyond the protection of the law insofar as the law applies to situations in which they refuse to surrender to or to recognise lawful authority.

GY “torture impulse might not be that far below some people's skins,”

Observation to those who endure hours of “workouts” on the differing devices found in gymnasiums

For those gymnasts with a well developed sense of the Masochistic, torture might be perceived as a positive opportunity

And so too those who are sadistically minded.

In fact put one of each of those together and you have the basis of a successful, albeit torturous, union.

Proving once again:

That it is a strange world indeed in which we live!

GY
I think you are, if taken at word value confusing two separate issues.
"Torture impulse" as in our animalistic impulse to inflict pain on others as in delight in bullying, revenge etc. In which case I think you're right it is very close to the surface.

Secondly the Milgram test tests our willingness to follow orders.
As I learned remember it was originally designed with "National guardspersons" to test the effect of authority (orders) to supersede our personal inclinations.

This was also investigated in the prisoners and warders tests.
One of the conclusions I read suggested that humans are still largely hierarchical and will therefore submit to the 'greater power'.

On repeats of these tests there are some subjects who simply refused to administer the pain once it was clear that the person being tortured was beyond 'reasonable' levels. I don't recall reading detailed analysis of the failed subjects.

I think there is a correlation between your question and that of the KS and Jackie O program.

While it may be instinctual I have to believe that humans are more than the sum . If not then the logical conclusion is that 40k years of civilization is for naught.

It is interesting to note that it could be argued that there is an inverse ratio between morality and the number of people involved. entropy? or are we designed to be in groups 50 or less

Torture has all kinds of meanings, albeit many merely associate it with inflicting some form of pain upon body parts that can be seen.
I am assisting a person in his case where the torture might be less evident but still to him it was torture and he nearly croaked with an heart attack because of having been terrorised by a judge telling him she could imprison him for several years. Well, on the 6 contempt hearing I was called in to assist this man and I pointed out to the trial judge she had no such powers whatsoever. Long story to explain but after a lot of submissions by me she ordered a PERMANENT STAY to stop the case. Thereafter I discovered she never even had formally charged him either!
More over, as I presented to the judge he had been innocent of any legal wrongdoing just that the entire case was fictional.
As such, to this man it was a form of torture and nearly cost him his life.
When however we refer to torture such as the US perpetrated against prisoners, then no matter the end result it never should be accepted. After all, once you accept torture upon anyone then where is the dividing line when to use it. Torturing innocent people for the purported avoidance of harm isn’t going to do it. Because those doing the torturing haven’t got a clue who knows something or not it means that they torture anyone no matter how innocent the person might be.
All forms of torture should be prohibited as if you allow one side to use it then the other side quickly will adopt the same of more gruesome and then you cannot complain because one side is more exposed then the other.
We have no right to retaliate with torture against anyone and the so called Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction (WMD) should have taught us a lesson that politicians will whip up the feelings to get anything done no matter how wrong by their spin doctors.
We should never consent to the use of any form of torture.