GY
Fair point. If you can be shown to have the capacity hence the common man test. I am as always,uncomfortable with the legalese transposition to "knowledgeable man justification" (aka caveat emptor)
Your comparison with the word Genocide is in my mind a poor one.
Genocide has a clear meaning the word has been appropriated as a quasi adjective for emotional effect.
I don't believe torture has the same connotations/ common usage.

I don't wish to centre the argument on specific instances and circumstances neither of us can objectively know. my point was to high light that "one size fits no one".
Specificity in definitions tends to exclude more than it covers and is open to the US style legalistic manipulation.
i.e. 'black letter' law versus the meaning/purpose.

The key is the framing and *application* of the law if it is to any real meaning. Issues like rendition need to be dealt with it's still torture no matter where it takes place.By that definition the US is a torturing nation.

Horus makes a point of the futility or such conversations. On one level there is some merit in what he says. Being a Humanist I have to believe that rational discussions add to the internal pressure of the current moral paradigm. I submit that such growing pressure changes public perceptions and dragging laws and self interested groups with them. Albeit kicking and screaming.

I think torture comes in all shapes and sizes. The form of torture recently associated with the yanks with extraordinary rendition is generally considered useless in gaining consistently reliable intel. But is the torture on the battlefield of a recently captured enemy combatant for info regarding enemy numbers, equipment, location, and intent equally useless?.

Why is it considered inhumanity to torture for whatever reason but not inhuman to send our youth into a battlefront where quite possibly the battle could go to something resembling Hannibal and the Romans in the blink of an eye?.

IS the horror of torture merely a hangover from the 'battle in daylight' only philosophy of British in the past?.

Torture can be used for many reasons and gaining information isn't the most common. Consider sieges. Less than ten years ago in northern Afghanistan there was a siege of a fort that Taliban prisoners revolted and captured. After a bloody drawn out massacre, water was poured down the interior of the inner fort to freeze out the rest in the harsh winter. They also fired rockets point blank down the old style air vents. That was the fight that the young American was found fighting with the Taliban.

I'm glad it's a crime, but given the right circumstances we're all capable of it.

their were rapes and torture in our states and territories institutions, orphanages , girls homes, boys homes, remand centres, state ward homes , church run homes , out of home care and many more institutions dating back many years yet their has been little justice given to many victims of which are forgotten australians , and their are many out their who would agrre with me ,

all i want is justice ,

an apology

and yes componsation

why because i was abused raped and tortured like many other victims who have not got justice from our courts and goverment

i wonder how the perpertrators would like the same treatment they gave u

While huffnpuff speaks of a different torture it still is torture.
It took place, it happened, those who did it went home at night to wife and kids.
They had respectable lives away from work, no one would ever suspect they could be so very evil.
We can indeed do dreadful things, and I am sure the pain huffnpuff tells us of is cemented in place, never to go away, because crys for help always got the answer it can not be true.
That senate inquiry a great deal of exposure, even promises , but nothing, my country must one day say sorry, must one day say never again.
While reluctant to divert this interesting thread ,to narrow discussion, for me the cloak of respectability given to priests, police and prison wardens, used to hide true torture, shouts at us all, we are in part responsible for some of them.
No torture ever ,no feather bedding but torture is inhuman, again do we say as the thread asks its ok if we do it but not if others do??

A number of poster to my mind seem to almost ferociously cling to humanity's lesser side claiming that it's inevitable it's natural.
Perhaps it is but it seems to me as humans we should TRY and raise ourselves from our bestial origins rather than wallowing in them.
Some mistake my posts as 'idealistic pontification'. They simply miss the point....Nothing is inevitable unless by indifference etc, we let it be so.
I just wonder what is the rational/psychological point of such thinking pointlessness of the great wallowing.
Surely we are wiser to take the management 101 line "tell me the problem concisely but offer me detail solutions"
Horus is right in context when saying that there is little point in doing the other.

The same goes with topics like AGW etc. all the whips, sack cloth and ashes won't amount to a hill of beans what we need is actions. Imperfect perhaps, but non the less responsibility our actions and sustained involvement... THAT LEADS TO SOLUTIONS. The one thing we're light on.

StG makes the excellent point >> generally considered useless in gaining consistently reliable intel.<< so why do it?
Torture shouldn't be an option period because in reality it is often fear or revenge driven.
The Abugrade incidents are points in fact the only rational explanation for that was ultimately fear and revenge driven 'we'll show them who's boss' etc.

War is another human failure of what differentiates us from animals and therefore is a dubious justification at best. One should consider it a fruit from a poison tree.

I on the other hand believe that humanity can do just about anything they have a mind to.

A = Ally

F = Foe

A Tortures F

Result:
A + F = F