Why does stuff like this keep happening? To a lot of people, it seems mild, no big deal, maybe even funny, but to the people going through it it is as bad as being raped. It is a violation. What the hell do these people hope to accomplish with these tactics? Are they TRYING to create an environment for terrorism to thrive in? This makes me so angry, and there's not even a thing I can do about it or against the sort of people who would allow things like this to happen.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
And this is a bad form of interrogation compared to? Beating the prisoners? How about the Chinese water torture? The iron maiden? The rack? Burning their feet?
Oh, how about how these men treat women in their home countries? A burkha anyone? It's the latest fashion! How about how they beat their wives or just women in general who tried to work outside the home or were caught exposing even the tiniest parts of their bodies? How about taking a look at how the Taliban treated women? How about how many women were executed for their transgressions of just trying to be women in control of their own lives?
So, some interrogators decided to use these people's aversion to women and their bodies, against them. They used them to say, "Hey, here's a woman who is superior to you" because that would bother these ultra-chauvinists deeply.
This is pretty minor compared to what they would and have done to our people who have been captured. Remember the lady from CARE who was beheaded?
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Please. No one said they were right to think and behave this way. But they are still human beings, for God's sake ! What these women do is called sexual harrassment, and would be bad even if that wasn't against people they knew would be horrified by such behavious ! It is torture, of course !
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
I argue that it's not really torture, it's just turning the tables on them and using an advantage that is hard-wired into these people.
But hey, they'd rather keep their information to themselves and shield people who willingly kill innocents. Might I point you to an opera house in Russia or a small elementary school in southern Russia.
Perhaps I can point you to some tapes of the World Trade Center towers collapsing?
Oh but we aren't showing respect for their religion? How about some footage of the Taliban destroying the giant buddha statues carved into the Afghan mountainside?
Or how about their treatment of the American Christian women who were arrested by the Taliban while the women were provided aid work before the war?
Yeah, this kind of "torture" isn't getting them any sympathy from me.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Are the people tortured proven guilty ? I don't think so. And, I'm sorry, but you can't justify violence you do to someone by the fact that he has been violent himself, or if not him, his brother ! They are human beings ! They have rights ! Or do you want to throw away the human rights declaration too ?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"This is pretty minor compared to what they would and have done to our people who have been captured."
Leaving aside the automatic presumption of guilt, I should point out that justifying evil by saying that it's less evil than what other evil people would do is hardly a compelling argument.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
*nods*
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Well, hey, let's just ask nicely and I'll bet they'll tell us everything they know... and that will likely fix all those issues we've had with gathering good intelligence, too.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Yes, irony, that's an answer, yes ? I'm just asking a little reflexion about ethic and human rights before torturing anyone, but that seems too much. Do you think that someone innocent wouldn't tell anything he's asked to tell under torture ? I know I would ! That attitude makes me sick, especially - and it's often - when it come for religious people who say life is sacred, but are willing to do anything to someone as long as they don't identify him as human - foreigner, for exemple, people from other religions, or someone suspected - and I underline suspected - of terrorism !
[ January 28, 2005, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
Oh for crying out loud...whether terrorists or not, whether they're wrong and we're right, aren't we supposed to be the good guys here? Wasn't the US orignally one of the countries that supported the Geneva Convention? Didn't we help write the damn thing? But now we get to break it 'cause it's convienient. Sometimes I wonder that anyone is surprised that they hate us.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You see, its okay, since we're the good guys. If the evil bad guys had done something of rough cross cultural moral equivalence, like raping (men and women) prisoners, they would be evil, because they're the bad guys.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Jim-Me: Because the answers from people being tortured are known to be oh so much more useful to the intelligence community. One reason torture's gone out of style is because, as an interrogation technique, it just doesn't work very well.
These things were done for sadistic purposes, and I am ashamed.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Thanks, Human and Fugu. I had started to desesperate about Americans. *is relieved*
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Oh, please. While not defending the actions specified in the link, equating this with rape is ridiculous. Go spend some time at a rape crisis center before making such comparisons.
Dagonee
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Dag, as usual, beat me to it.
So I'll simply add that I know people who went through worse than this in survival training... I went through worse than some of it myself.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
EDIT : to Dag : You are right, I don't think it equals rape. Which doesn't mean it's morally OK to act this way.
[ January 28, 2005, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Of course not.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
It doesn't equal rape to us. To them, rape is likely considered not as bad (edit: not necessarily, but likely, based on where they are from and their cultural backgrounds. further edit: and that's not necessarily even saying rape is good to them, just that this is really, really bad), at least rape of women.
Not saying they're right, but if we're talking about emotional impact (and thus emotional stress), we're probably talking on the level of rape.
[ January 28, 2005, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Jim-Me: people voluntarily throw themselves on grenades. Does this mean it would be okay to blow these prisoners up?
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
I wonder if there'd be such an uproar if the interrogaters were, say, putting them in bacon body wraps or something. That would make them ritually unclean and "unable to go before their God for help" too, wouldn't it?
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
If their emotional reaction was as violent, and the people who make this aware of the violence of the reaction, then yes, it would be the same.
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
Well, you have to admit, even the mention of 'bacon body wraps' is slightly, um...amusing. However, what's being done to them is hardly amusing to anyone, I would hope.
*EDIT* For phrasing.
[ January 28, 2005, 10:11 AM: Message edited by: Human ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:It doesn't equal rape to us. To them, rape is likely considered not as bad (edit: not necessarily, but likely, based on where they are from and their cultural backgrounds), at least rape of women.
Well then, your comparison wasn't very accurate. In trying to relate their perception of the event to ours, as "rough cross cultural moral equivalence" indicates, then we should be using our standards of rape and their standards of the behavior described in the link. If they have a lesser view of rape, and view this as the equivalent of rape, then they view it as less than how we view rape.
Dagonee
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.
The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.
The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.
Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.
"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret."
The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.
"She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.
"She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" — so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.
"He began to cry like a baby," the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."
Even in the US this would be termed extreme emotional abuse, and his reaction is remarkably like that of some women I know who have been raped.
And yes, we should be using our conception of rape and their conception of this. Which is why I would put them at rough equivalence. Rape in this country is shoved under the seat, and there is intense cultural pressure for women who are raped to feel ashamed of it and not reveal it. As a country as a whole, we unfortunately don't think much of rape. I bet I could take an anonymous survey and find large percentages of people who thought that if someone was raped it was partially his or her, particularly her, fault.
Compared to how this country thinks of rape and how awful it is, what happened to this man is awful in just about the same way.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I said this in their culture would be about the equivalent of rape in our culture, and then later said that in their culture this would probably be worse than rape. Nothing inconsistent, Dag.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Is it sexual and religious harassment? sure. Is it disrespectful? absolutely. Against the Geneva Convention? possibly... but not being members of a flagged army, they don't qualify... sorry, but it's a fact... specifically there to discourage terrorist activity.
Is it torture? not so much.
Perhaps one of the reasons I feel so little pity for this is that I am one of the few people who has here defended some of the "misogyny" of Islam. These men are tortured, not by our interrogators, but by their own hateful twisting of a belief system intended to protect and value women, not subjugate them. They are hoist on their own petard and those who live by a thing often die by it, too.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
As a woman and a human being, I feel frustrated, offended and angry that a culture/part of a culture views menstruation as inherently unclean.
As a woman and a human being I also feel that such actions as were taken were immoral, cruel and akin to, if not equivalent to torture.
It's not the same as rape. I don't even agree with the perception that sees such blood as unclean. But it still isn't right. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
It seems like one of their main interrogation tactics is to make the prisoners ritually unclean, and otherwise exploit powerful religious and cultural taboos to psychologically weaken them. I think most people agreed, when the Abu Ghraib (sp?) scandal broke, that sexual humiliation of the prisoners is wrong, and many people seem to think that what these female interrogators are doing is wrong, but does it become any less wrong when the emotional distress is caused in a non-sexually-suggestive way, such as my half-joke about bacon body wraps?
edit: hit submit before I meant to. If exploiting the anti-pork taboo is just as wrong as smearing them with menstrual blood, then what techniques could be used? What would be some valid, permissible tactics for extracting information from the prisoners that wouldn't constitute torture?
[ January 28, 2005, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Stray ]
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
Okay, so...let me get this straight here. Because they believe in a radical and ultra-conservative sect of Islam, they deserve to be tortured?
...well, at least I'm glad that our soldiers, at least, are safe, 'cause they wear our flag on their uniforms. They couldn't possibly be tortured then. But you bad people who don't play by the rules and wear flags, you're screwed!
*EDIT* -To Jim-me (Y'all post too fast.)
[ January 28, 2005, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Human ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
edit: to Jim-Me
Torture is not judged by the host culture's values, but by the emotional and physical impact on the one possibly being tortured, the former being determined by that person's values.
You look at this transcript and tell me this person was not tortured? I thought more of you.
[ January 28, 2005, 10:31 AM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
And fugu - I don't disagree with you. I think slightly differently, but I can see where you're coming from.
{edit - this was just after my post.)
[ January 28, 2005, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: imogen ]
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Human, if you are going to put words in my mouth I'll just absent myself and make it easier for you.
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
Jim-me, I apologize. It's just that...I get horribly frustrated when arguments like this come around. I have the weird trait of seeing this as humans doing something to other humans, not 'us' doing something to the 'enemy'. I don't agree with you, not at all...but I shouldn't mock your viewpoint.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
quote: , torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity
The defintion of torture from the Convention Against Torture - both a customary and conventional international law norm.
It seems the acts detailed would fall in the definition.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
So jail is torture under that definition, at least for some people.
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
So what are we supposed to do, then? Just ask them nicely and hope they'll be honest with us? I certainly don't want to condone torture, but isn't there anything the interrogators could do to get information/cooperation/whatever from the captives?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
There are generally considered exceptions for reasons of practicality; in part, I believe most conventions specifically state such things which are allowed, such as imprisonment.
However, I predict smearing people's faces with fake menstrual blood and preventing them from washing is neither mentioned as an exception nor considered by any practicing states an exception for reasons of practicality.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
The reason this thead is unproductive is because there is more posing than talking.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Perhaps if some people were to voice their opinions instead of striking a pose to talk about others this thread would be more productive.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Thanks for the compliment fugu, but I can't change you.
[ January 28, 2005, 10:50 AM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I think my point is made.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
You are indeed exemplifying this thread, yes.
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
I think I'm confused...would someone please tell me what the new topic of the thread is now? It obviously became something else, I'm just not sure what.
[ January 28, 2005, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: Human ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
View kat's first post, then look at my meta-comment, and think about what both it and her comment mean regarding her comment. That should help elucidate things.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Human, it started as something akin to attack mode on some people in our government, accusing them of something akin to rape. Other people, who do not think the government should be accused of things it didn't commit, disagreed with the allegation. This prompted insinuations about them. So, instead of a discussion, it's a combination of attacks and defensiveness. Which is too bad, because a genuine discussion could be interesting.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Finally, an actual on-topic comment by the one person who the entirety of her posts on this thread had been attacking people actually making on-topic comments.
It is, of course, not a biased comment at all, assuming things factual where there is in fact considerable debate.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I'm confused. I think we were discussing to know if these actions can be called torture, and if torture can be justified. Yes, and no, as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Posing?
I don't really think that torture works. It didn't really do much good during the witch hunts, except getting people to confess to a bunch of things that were impossible. People never learn. To these men, it is a form of torture, it violates them. It's sort of like if their men were doing something simular to our soilders. It would pretty much have the same effect.
Also, there are quite a few cultures that view menstrual blood as unclean. There's even a whole part in Leviticus about what a woman should sacrifice after her period and all.
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
*EDIT, irrelevancy* (Y'all really do post too fast.)
[ January 28, 2005, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: Human ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I think we were discussing to know if these actions can be called torture, and if torture can be justified. Yes, and no, as far as I'm concerned.
There's a third question Anna - if they are not torture, are these actions justified?
Someone deciding these aren't torture doesn't mean they have decided they should be done.
Dagonee
[ January 28, 2005, 10:59 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Human (Member # 2985) on :
If that isn't torture, by all means, go ahead. I think you'll have a hard time finding anyone on this thread who doesn't think it's at the very least sexual harrassment--it's whether or not they think it's deserved that's the real debate.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Fugu, what is wrong with you? You're not getting my attention with this.
----
The Atlantic Monthly had an article about torture a few months back.
There are a few sides to it, but if non-invasive, non-bodily harm things are done to fed, warm, and sheltered inmates that offend their sensibilities but produce actionable results, is it worth it? War is yucky - can you approve of the need for war but then quarrel with non-violent means used to reach its goals?
Would it have been better to shoot them in battle?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I know I, for one, like to be known as a citizen of the country that takes care to skirt the definition of torture as frequently as possible, sometimes arguably crossing the line.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
We didn't shoot them in battle, we captured them. That question is already past (assuming they don't get out and then get shot, but I think our reticence in allowing them to go free is obvious).
And I don't particularly care to convince you, actually, you came into this thread with no apparent purpose but to attack me (and possibly people who agree with me), so I expect little I say will convince you.
Is it worth it if it gets information? I repeat, there's a reason besides inhumanity torture's out of vogue -- it just doesn't work all that well as a means of extracting information.
And yes, I can approve of (some) war and disapprove of this, easily. The only reason war has not destroyed this world is we operate under the polite fiction that war may be conducted in a civilized way. When we stop caring about that polite fiction, we jeopardize all that rests on it.
And this was not non-violent, this was non-physical (and in a strict sense it wasn't even that). That prisoner was tortured until he mentally broke down. We jail people in this country for long periods of time for doing stuff like was done to that prisoner.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote: Against the Geneva Convention? possibly... but not being members of a flagged army, they don't qualify...
But Jim-Me, what if they're not terrorists? The person mentioned, it seems like his crime is being a muslim who went to flight school. Obviously we don't know all the details, and there very well may be more compelling evidence against him, and the rest of the people detained without due process. But if you're saying that because they're not members of an army we can do this sort of thing, what's to stop us from pulling any foreign visitor off the street and shipping them off, too?
I wish we would follow the Geneva Convention anyway, on the grounds that if it ends up we were wrong and some/all of these people are innocent of plotting against us, at least we won't have tortured them for it. Just, you know, stolen three years of their lives and freedom.
And, frankly, if they've been in there three years without telling us anything of value, do you really think anything we get now is going to be helpful? (I realize that the actions described happened some time ago, I'm just not sure how long agao.)
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
I came into the thread because I want to talk about when not-quite-torture might be justified.
I can think of an occasion right now.
----------
I don't like the methods, and I think it is tacky and undeserving, and if it is just for kicks by the guards then everyone involved needs to be demoted and spanked, but if it actually getting results, I'm not sure I can dissaprove.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I don't think it's worth it. I don't think they will find anything from doing something like that to these people and they will create more terrorists, or at least provide them with fuel for their anger. Plus, how in the world can America take a high moral ground after something like this?
Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :
quote: Saar said he witnessed about 20 interrogations and about three months after his arrival at the remote U.S. base he started noticing "disturbing" practices.
One female civilian contractor used a special outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra during late-night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren't their wives.
quote:Wasn't the US orignally one of the countries that supported the Geneva Convention?
Is interrogating someone in a thong, bra and miniskirt against the geneva convention?
I heard one of the last thing the terrorists who flew into the WTC did was check out porn.
That always confused me. Can anyone verify if that is true.
I also heard that the only movie theaters open IN Iraq were porn theaters.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I came into the thread because I want to talk about when not-quite-torture might be justified."
Out of interest, how do you measure "not quite torture," Katie? Do you keep a mental graph -- an X-axis of "importance" and a Y-axis of "severity of torment" -- and plot our behavior against it to verify that our actions are in fact "justified," if not good?
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Yes.
I have a low tolerance for violence and more than a little skepticism for our government, but I do think that it is better for a few people to be made uncomfortable (Not in pain, not starved, not molested. Uncomfortable.) than for a war that never should have begun to be dragged out for longer than it needs to be.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
But doing this will not help. It will not do one big of good and it will only make things WORSE.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
The link didn't tell that side of the story. It doesn't what intelligence, if any, was gathered. It doesn't say why these particular prisoners were being questioned. It doesn't say what the results of the interrogation were.
I do think this is ugly and tacky and to a faithful Muslim more than a little offensive, but if disrespecting someone's religion is akin to rape then Hatrack would be shut down.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
It will bring more insurgency and ugliness as the US continues to grow ugly itself in the eyes of others. We're not the good guys anymore.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
We stopped being the good guys a long time ago. This isn't the final straw.
I want to know the other side of the story - the purpose, results, and usefullness of the interogation. If someone being smeared with ink saved someone else's life, it was worth it.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Katarina, you have to understand that to them, something like this is a violation of the highest degree. Their religion and culture forbids men from having contact with women who are not their wives. Having these women run around in thongs, taunting them, touching them and pretending to have their periods really just crushes these men. Sure, it's not peeling their fingernails off, or cutting them, but in some ways it's a lot worse. Just put yourself in their situation. Then think of the sort of BS you'd come up with just to get this torment to stop.
Something like this will not save anyone's life! If my life has to be saved by breaking someone, but hurting another person, I'd really rather not live... It's just that simple... If we can't act in a way that is honorable, and can't live up to our principles, what is the point? All this sis going to do is create more hatred, more chaos and more war and that is not what we need!
[ January 28, 2005, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: Synesthesia ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"If someone being smeared with ink saved someone else's life, it was worth it."
Let's word that differently: If making someone believe that the bond between him and his god was shattered, perhaps eternally risking the future of his immortal soul, saved someone's life, it was worth it.
[ January 28, 2005, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Sometimes in police interrogations, the officers will tell an arrested person that his partners have already spilled everything, and that his only chance of getting less time is to admit everything and tell them where they hid the kid they kidnapped. He believes them, believes that his friends and adopted family have betrayed him, and believes he has nothing to lose by telling them the location. He does, and someone's life is saved. Do you call foul on that?
Posted by Lost Ashes (Member # 6745) on :
So, just what is the Geneva Convention's position on the use of a thong and mini skirt?
Would there be other forms of lingerie that might be less torturous to the viewer? Perhaps flannel pajamas would be more humane?
But let's get down to something very important in this, what is the real crux of the power play between interrogator and detainee... A man from a Muslim society is being interrogated by a woman. The woman is in power. She's using dress and the threat of... oh my... her menstrual cycle, to get the upper hand.
She isn't beating him with a garden hose. She isn't having the skin flayed from the bottoms of his feet. She isn't having members of his family executed. She isn't drugging him.
And this is the "horrible torture" we're inflicting on the detainees? How many soldiers from other cultures would rather be "tortured" in this way?
Sheesh, there are men all over who pay money to be treated like this at your local strip clubs.
Really, it's not that different from US forces bombarding the Vatican Embassy in Panama with Led Zepplin and AC/DC music until Manuel Noriega came out with his hands up.
Our current conflict is a war of cultures. Their culture says it is okay to talk a young man into strapping explosives to himself and then set the bomb off in a crowded shopping center.
Ours says that a mini-skirt and a thong on the right gal isn't necessarily a bad thing.
War is Hell, but the torture techniques they are complaining about are might close to their "27 virgins in Paradise at your beckoned call" reward for Jihadist actions...
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Exactly why do I even bother? Seriously. I'd have more luck trying to break down a wall with my own head. The fact is, that the human species sucks. America is going right to the dogs, and this is proof of it. Would any of you, especially the men, what other men rubbing against you and molesting you? That's what it's like to them! That's why it's wrong. Telling someone that their partner has betrayed them is NOT the same thing.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
I agree, Syn. This is less equivalent to rape, and more equivalent to homosexual sexual harassment, especially if it was perpetrated against a Christian soldier who thought that homosexuality was a crime against God, and people who practiced it were going to hell.
How would the American military react if they found out that an American spy was sexually molested in prison, a prison where he was unable to have a lawyer or obtain due process. What if this person was a civilian imprisoned wrongly?
The fact is that the guards are taking advantage of what they know about these men's religious traditions and cultural taboos and using it against them. And that is not right.
quote: Sheesh, there are men all over who pay money to be treated like this at your local strip clubs.
That doesn't make it OK. There are people who go to gay bars to pick up a quickie in the alley, but that doesn't make inmates raping other inmates OK.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
quote:If making someone believe that the bond between him and his god was shattered, perhaps eternally risking the future of his immortal soul, saved someone's life, it was worth it.
It isn't worth it.
When you take away another person's humanity, you lose your own in the process.
Just because we stopped being the good guys long ago doesn't justify any actions that continue along that trend. Obtaining information in manners such as those instigates more violence and perhaps causes more lives lost than could be saved.
Or are we talking about US lives and not counting those of the opposing force?
Would we do this to Jews? Make them eat pork? Or force a Mormon to drink until drunk and then get information from them?
It isn't right to do to ANYone.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Syn, you're adding things.
Like the molesting part, and the being rubbed up against by other men.
Why do you need to exaggerate it to make it sound bad? Because on its own it doesn't sound that bad? If something's only horrifying when exaggerated, then it's not enough to be horrifying on its own.
quote:Or force a Mormon to drink until drunk and then get information from them?
The Lord would not hold them responsible for it. Are they withholding information that means someone will die? Is it worth forcing a Mormon to drink alchohol to save someone else's life? I think so. The Mormon can make the decision for their own life that it isn't worth it, but they can't make that decision about someone else's.
I don't think it is good. I think it's ugly and tacky and if the guards were ordered to do it by their superiors they have a good case to throw a fit, but you can't go to war and expect everyone to throw sensitivity parties in the prisons. That what it MEANS to go to war. That's why war is bad!
That's why most religions have an exception killing done by a soldier as opposed to killing done by a civilian - because war has started, that means ugly things have to happen. I do think there is a line, but if the honest goal of the interrogations was useful information that hadn't been spilled in the three years before (NOT doing it just for kicks, but for a legitimate purpose), then forcing young men to see a guard in a miniskirt and tight shirt and be smeared with ink didn't cross it.
[ January 28, 2005, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
What about the Muslim? The Jew? Or making a Hindu eat beef?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I'm not exagerating. To them it really is that bad! It's not just some frat boy prank gone wrong, although, hazing is pretty disturbing. It's using someone's cultural taboos against them. It's dehumanizing them. What's worse is they probably will not even find useful information. Torturing people does not work. Read about the witch hunts. About people confessing to dancing naked with the devil and all of that stuff. Torture is WRONG. I don't care why it's done. It's wrong.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
The witch hunts are a fairly old example.. Here's the wikipedia article, which contains a lot more evidence that torture is not very efficient.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
quote:It's using someone's cultural taboos against them. It's dehumanizing them.
Yeah. It is. It's breaking them down to get information without causing physical pain. So is putting them in jail, shining bright light, and telling them there is no home to go home to.
Syn, where is your line? I'm not posing here - where, exactly, do you draw the line? Do you object to taking prisoners at all? What about questioning for 24 hours straight? Don't just react to the story - what do you think the policy should be?
quote:What's worse is they probably will not even find useful information. Torturing people does not work.
If this is true, then it wasn't worth it.
But I'm not convinced it is true. We are missing a great deal of the story.
The Truth about Torture Dang it, you have to be a subscriber, I think. I wish there was another link to it.
[ January 28, 2005, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Taking prisoners is one thing. Holding them for 24 hours is reasonable. But parading around in skimpy clothes in front of a devote Muslim, purposely disregarding their culture. It's wrong. Plus, you stand the risk of crushing a person's spirit so much you won't even get useful answers from them, so it's useless.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Holding them in prison, away from their family, preventing them from attending a mosque, forcing them to let their families starve, denying them the power to control their own destiny, their own schedule, denying them news - taking their lives. Why is that okay?
Their bodies may be living, but to those they left behind, they might as well be dead - they are gone just as surely. Why is that okay?
I'm not trying to twist anything. I do think it is okay, if there are compelling reasons. I also think forcing them to see a girl in a tight shirt is okay, if there are compelling reasons. For you, why is the first okay but not the second?
[ January 28, 2005, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Lost Ashes (Member # 6745) on :
Okay, Synth... how would you interrogate them?
You're the agent required to get information from an al Qaeda operative. He won't talk and freely give up the information.
But he could also provide you with the names of 10 active and free al Qaeda terrorists, all of whom could be preparing the next 9/11 incident.
How would you get the information from them? The lives of your own family, friends and countrymen could very well depend on what you find out.
Heck, let's all try this exercise... what would work better?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Suppose it's not an opperative of al Queda. Suppose it's just someone snagged off the street because they have an Arab name. Suppose they don't know anything because they are innocent. Are you saying it would be worth breaking an innocent mind because they might be a terrorist?
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
That's the compelling reasons part. If the capturing officers have determined to the satisfaction of the person appointed to decide these kind of things that there is enough evidence that there is a very good chance that the person has information that if known will prevent deaths, then there are compelling reasons.
No one is deafening taunting people for fun.
In Lost Ashes' situation, what is okay to do, and what isn't? Where's your line?
[ January 28, 2005, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Lost Ashes (Member # 6745) on :
Synth.. work with me here. This was a gun-toting al Qaeda member snagged in a camp in Afghanistan. He was carrying an Osama bin Laden lunchbox stuffed with Death to America twinkies.
Posted by Lost Ashes (Member # 6745) on :
M'lady Jane, I think part of the exercise is answering the question yourself, where do YOU draw the line?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Interragating is one thing... Keeping them up 24 hours a day with some bright light, that's reasonable. Keeping them without sleep, feeding them bread and water, that doesn't cross the line. If it wears them down enough to talk, then yes. But you do not disrespect another person's culture. You do not press half naked men against a straight Christian anymore than you do what these women did to those men. In their eyes they are being violated, their culture is being stepped on and crushed. If you think that will save lives, you are mistaken. It will give the insurgents and excuse. It will prove their leaders right. It will be a danger to all Americans and those who support America. Stuff like this has to be handled with the delicacy of surgery. What they are doing is open heart surgery with a sledgehammer.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
quote: That's the compelling reasons part. If the capturing officers have determined to the satisfaction of the person appointed to decide these kind of things that there is enough evidence that there is a very good chance that the person has information that if known will prevent deaths, then there are compelling reasons.
I both agree and disagree with the above statement. The clincher is the part that I italicized. If that person is decent and trustworthy and has a respect for humanity then it would be fine. If however that person has their respect for humanity nibbled at around the edges and is viewing terrorests as varelse instead of ramen, you get in major trouble. Just watched a thing on the history channel on the guys that headed up the SS. They were wonderful loving fathers in most cases, and showed no remorse for what they'd done.
(and if you want to shoot me down by invoking Godwin's law fine, but the case is extremely relevant to this topic, I'm not invoking Godwin in an argument on why the sky is blue.)
AJ
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Syn, I love that you want everyone to always have their dignity. Part of the reason war is hell is that it isn't possible. In your scenario, one conspirator's dignity is worth more than a dozen lives that have been entrusted to you.
The people doing the interrogations are not only working to protect themselves - they are making the decisions on behalf of people whom they have sworn to protect. They have a responsibility toward those people. What are those lives and that oath worth?
------------------------
AJ: Me too - that's why I added the statement. The entire situation needs someone who can be trusted to make a decision based on the evidence. The real travesty would be the lack of that.
[ January 28, 2005, 01:21 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
This does no change the fact that torturing people is WRONG. How many times do I have to say that? Everytime something like this is uncovered, it hurts America's reputation.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Syn, I love that you want everyone to always have their dignity. Part of the reason war is hell is that it isn't possible.
Some would say this places a very strong constraint upon when a war should be started. Specifically:
1) We should never start a war unless the moral benefits of winning it outweigh the moral cost of the atrocities we know our people will surely commit.
2) We should never start a war whose purpose can only be accomplished if our people refrain from committing atrocities.
Failing to follow these two principles is what's gotten us mixed up in this Iraq/War on Terror mess.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
quote:This does no change the fact that torturing people is WRONG. How many times do I have to say that?
On the one side, taking away someone's dignity.
On the other, allowing people to die and failing to live up to an oath to protect.
Sometimes we don't get to choose between good and evil - sometimes the choice is between two evils.
Destineer: I completely agree. I don't think we should have gone at all. That's what I meant by no longer being the good guy - we stopped being that when we invaded Iraq.
[ January 28, 2005, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Torture does not work. If anything it will make the situation much, much worse!!
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
So if exploiting religious and cultural taboos is definitely wrong, what about more general non-physically-harmful stuff, like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, denying them use of a toilet until they soil themselves? It'll certainly cause psychological distress, enough so that eventually they'll probably tell the interrogators anything they know just to make it stop (though I suppose information given by someone who's clinically insane after a week of no sleep might not be the most reliable). Should stuff like that be permitted, that's not culturally specific?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
If it's actually effective and reasonable, yes.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Why is it okay to violate things that important to them as a human being, but not things that are important to them as a Muslim?
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
So where do you draw the line between torture and legitimate interrogation? Anything that's not designed to exploit a specific cultural taboo, and that doesn't cause physical harm?
edit: or, what Lady jane said.
[ January 28, 2005, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Stray ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I don't know... We should have never got involved in this in the first place. Now, every second we are there it just gets worse and it leads to this sort of pointless behaviour. Perhaps it has ceased to even be about getting information. Maybe they enjoy tormenting people like this. I'm tired of trying to explain over and over why torture is wrong no matter what.
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
I understand that you believe torture is wrong no matter what. I'm inclined to agree. I'm just curious where you (and others, if they feel like answering) draw the line between what constitutes torture and what constitues legitimate interrogation.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Torture is wrong, no matter what. My argument is that actions may not be torture and can be justified when the alternative is so much worse. Letting people die whom you have sworn to protect is also wrong no matter what.
[ January 28, 2005, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
This just occurred to me, and I don't know how feasible it would really be, but what about exploiting individual phobias that prisoners happen to have? Like say, hooking them up to a polygraph machine, ask questions about heights, claustrophobia, total darkness, spiders, whatever, and record which images give them the strongest stress responses, and subject them to those? Would that be legitimate? (Not asking Syn in particular, just whoever feels like responding.)
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
As usual, it seems that "might makes right". (sigh) Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Letting people die whom you have sworn to protect is also wrong no matter what.
That's clearly false in the right circumstances, if letting your sworn charges die will save enough other lives. The Russians would be wrong to nuke Chechnya even if doing so might protect a few Russian lives.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
It may be justified because more lives will be saved by letting it happen, but justified does not equal right.
[ January 28, 2005, 03:22 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
People use that argument for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it always sickens me. As if American lives are worth more than people of other countries? Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
In accord to some Americans, they seem to... But don't worry. It's not an American thing. It's a human thing. I know people over here who cheer everytime an American soldier dies in Iraq. I'm also appaled by that. (feeling a little bitter today)
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Don't exaggerate what the topic is. No one is defending or justifying murder.
If you have to exaggerate your cause to get sympathy, you are showing that you don't believe your cause deserves sympathy on its own.
Posted by Lost Ashes (Member # 6745) on :
Getting back to that... since no one was being killed or even physically harmed...
Terrorist gets teased by a woman in a mini-skirt and thong...
Right, and this led to a Hiroshima reference because of...???
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
I think some devout muslims would rather die than being subject to that kind of interrogation, though.
I also tend to disagree with actions generating "bad karma".
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I am not exagerating.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I'm trying to understand Syn. In your mind torture=murder?
I think torture is rephrensible, but they are not 100% legally equivalent. People *can* recover from torture, they probably will have psycological scars but they will still be alive. No one has ever recovered from murder.
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I think the other thing that Kat is trying to point out, is that there are shades of grey, all along the way.
Obviously it would have been nicer if they could have just called a halt to WWII, and everyone laid down their arms and played hopscotch. But, if as it was thought at the time, the Japaneese Islanders would have fought down to the last woman and child breathing and dying because it was their culture and quasi-religion, isn't it better to have bombed, and broken the will to fight, rather than ending up killing every last one of them, and losing millions of allied lives in the process? More people lived and didn't fight because of the drop of those bombs than the number that died. Yes, every death was a tragedy, but those are the facts of war.
It's *always* a choice of "fewest casualties" and whose they are. There's never a "no casualties" situation. Interrogations are part of the "least casualties" process and making those judgment calls and as a result *always* end up being a "least bad" choice. There is no good choice.
AJ
[ January 28, 2005, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Also, knowing what we know now, should we have gone into Iraq? Probably not. However, we are there now. So what are we going to do about it?
Do you really think it is practical or stable just to move our troops wholesale out of the region, because "war was bad and this was an unjust war to begin with". I hear that all the time on the news but no one is proposing any new solutions. Since we are now there we *can't* leave. Once again it is a "least bad" choice.
If we started removing troops now, and were out by next year, it is a certianty that Iraq would degenerate into a bloody civil war nearly instantaneously. That entire region is way too unstable, it could easily sprawl over into neighboring Middle Eastern countries and be a horrible horrible blood bath. Since we can't go back and change history, what is the "least bad" thing to do? The answer is stay and try to fix our own screwup. If we stay there is some hope. If we left now, I believe the outcome would be certain and have horriffic numbers of Iraqi casualties.
AJ
You know, I'm going to ammend this slightly. The screwup really isn't just ours, though it is ours in the shorter term. The ScrewUp is a global one for letting Saddam get away with the crap he did for as long as he did (yeah we helped but the US isn't soley responsible). However brutal dictators do create a calm environment. They squelch all dissenters so that anything that was fomenting before (tribal disagreements etc.) are pushed under the rug in praise of the Glorious Leader, who is only torturing a few of them...and not allowing them to think for themselves. And once again, until we actually start dismembering people, our "least bad" torture is much much much less than the stuff that Qusay and Uday were pulling before. Do I think we should be torturing people on principle? No. But the stuff the US is getting called on is stuff that other countries who *have* signed the Geneva convention pull all the time anyway...
[ January 28, 2005, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by Lost Ashes (Member # 6745) on :
As usual, AJ has thrown out some very calm and well-considered wisdom.
I agree wholeheartedly and with a bit better of an understanding.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Don't exaggerate what the topic is. No one is defending or justifying murder.
(Assuming this was directed at me...)
I wasn't talking about "my cause." You cited as backup for your position a moral principle that I know is false. I was correcting a misstep in your argument.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
It wasn't directed at you.
Added: However, I don't agree with you. Just because something is the best choice of the possible choices and the least of the several evils, that does not mean the best choice is Right. It may be justified, but the lesser of two evils is still an evil.
Hmm...I should start thread on the difference between innocent and justified.
[ January 28, 2005, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I saw what seemed to be a well documented story on the History channel that there was a planned coup attempt that failed because of some amazing luck. The purpose of the coup? To keep the emporer from surrendering after the second bomb.
If this mentality was wide-spread enough, then the U.S. would have either had to invade, or literally starve Japan into submission to end the war.
I can't really judge the truth of the plot, of course, but it was quoting researcht that had been published in some journals that seemed reputable. It didn't strike me as a "Dillinger survived and lives in Oregon" type of thing.
Dagonee
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
*wonders what Syn is thinking about this*
AJ
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I'm just frustrated, because there really isn't a thing I can do, and that drives me insane. I don't support this war. I don't agree with it, and I fear the aftermath of it but there literaly is nothing I can do. I'm not the president or the secretary of defense or someone who can actually influence things. Still, I cannot support torture, or this kind of interragation. But, we are screwed. We can't leave until things are stable, and things are anything but stable in Iraq right now... *sigh*
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Do you think that someone innocent wouldn't tell anything he's asked to tell under torture ? I know I would ! That attitude makes me sick, especially - and it's often - when it come for religious people who say life is sacred, but are willing to do anything to someone as long as they don't identify him as human - foreigner, for exemple, people from other religions, or someone suspected - and I underline suspected - of terrorism !![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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