Britain ran a secret prison in Germany for two years after the end of World War II where inmates including Nazi party members were tortured and starved to death, the Guardian says.
Citing Foreign Office files that were opened after a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the newspaper says Britain had held men and woman at a prison in Bad Nenndorf until July 1947.
Locals at the time said you could hear prisoners scream at night.
The Foreign Office files detailed an investigation carried out by a Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Tom Hayward, who found evidence of torture and said at least two inmates had starved to death while another had been beaten to death.
"Even today, the Foreign Office is refusing to release photographs taken of some of the 'living skeletons' on their release," the newspaper said.
Former prisoners told Inspector Hayward they had been whipped as well as beaten and any prisoner thought to be uncooperative during interrogation was taken to a punishment cell.
"Threats to execute prisoners, or to arrest, torture and murder their wives and children were considered 'perfectly proper' on the grounds that such threats were never carried out," the paper reports.
Initially, most of the detainees were Nazi members or former members of the SS, rounded up in an attempt to prevent any Nazi insurgency, although a significant number were also businessmen who had done well under Adolf Hitler, the paper says.
One of the men who starved to death, Walter Bergmann, had offered to spy for the British and fell under suspicion because he spoke Russian.
"There seems little doubt that Bergmann, against whom no charge of any crime has ever been made, but on the contrary, who appears to be a man who has given every assistance, and that of considerable value, has lost his life through malnutrition and lack of medical care," Inspector Hayward wrote in his report.
The newspaper says the then Prime Minister Clement Attlee had been briefed about the camp and was told guards were instructed "to carry out physical assaults on certain prisoners with the object of ... making them more amenable to interrogation".
Three men were court-martialled following the report.
Two were acquitted and another found guilty of neglect of inmates and dismissed from the service.
- Reuters
Never tolerate torture. It is wrong, and ineffective.
Torture is ineffective, and the errors introduced by torture or threat of torture are critical.
The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
The Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1669543,00.html) has names and locations. I don't know why they decided not to identify the documents they were taking this from so that interested people could confirm the story. Maybe it's just the journalistic tradition of not providing hard information. But it looks at least theoretically possible to confirm these statements.
The Huffington Post article is unsourced and strains credibility (if one report of a terrorist link is sufficient to cause a war, Syria, Libya, Saudi, Iran, and old East Germany would have been invaded long ago). I need confirmation before I'll credit it. "I read it on the Internet" just isn't enough.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I read on the internet that your mom went to college.
Will, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Huffington Post is referencing a NY Times article. I can not confirm this since I have no subscription. At the same time, I highly doubt the full article was published at the site anyway. I do doubt Bush based his whole Iran-Al Qaida link on one person (just my opinion at this time with no more access to the article), but the part of the article that was posted leads us to believe he did.
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posted
When an argument is so weak you're reduced to "yo mama" jokes, there's really no point in further discussion. I'm out.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Saying that torture doesn't work is one of the little myths we tell ourselves to justify further opposition to its application.
The truth is, torture is an extremely effective though equally distasteful tool that when used properly works brilliantly-if you examine the issue on a very small scale.
If I want to know where Joe has a bomb and I have to make him tell me quickly, I can torture him without coaching him on answers to give me, and send bomb-squads to the places he names. Joe will crack in pretty short order, and tell me what I want to know, and thus the torture has been successful.
"Putting someone to the question" gets you an answer to that question PDQ. But the question asked must be the right one, asked in the right way.
There are other reasons to oppose torture, without making up reasons to oppose it. The other reasons are very, very good. You only damage your own credibility when you say things like, "Torture doesn't work."
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Yes, torture can be effective at gathering information from those who do have it. However, the bigger problem comes from when you think somebody has some information that they don't have. They make something up, or confess to something that doesn't exist. The addition of this faulty information to the intelligence pool compounds the problem, and more may be tortured
I oppose torture, and I think that if it wre this nation's policy to never torture, we would feel less need to do so, because the worls would hate us just that much less.
Those who advocate torture, namely Cheney, have mentioned "ticking time bomb" scenarios like you set up, but they have never provided an example of when that has ever occured. Since they seem to be quite vocal about the times they have stopped terrorism, you'd expect to hear about this sort of thing.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
I must admit that I believe that if torture is handled by trained professionals, it will give us results.
however...
It has been my experience that when government is concerned, in the heat of major events, trained professionals are soon replaced with beaurocrats.
We have a Veterinarian as head of the FDA. He had a horse-show expert running FEMA. If torture is accepted and used by experts, it will soon be misused and the information obtained--valueless, when beaurocrats and those who love the job, not the results, take over.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:The Huffington Post article is unsourced and strains credibility...
Which distinguishes it from other Huffington Post articles... how?
I remember reading an HP post (again, unsourced) that claimed Katrina victims in the worst areas had resorted to eating each other en masse.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Yes, torture can be effective at gathering information from those who do have it. However, the bigger problem comes from when you think somebody has some information that they don't have. They make something up, or confess to something that doesn't exist. The addition of this faulty information to the intelligence pool compounds the problem, and more may be tortured
Well you'll note I didn't say torture works perfectly. You were the one speaking in absolutes. The difficulties you describe can be partially addressed by torturing for true answers, and not just torturing for answers. Obviously Inquisition style torture where torture is committed with predetermined guilt (in the eyes of accusers) will soon yield confessions of guilt.
No method of interrogation is flawless, but there are reasons enough to oppose torture without manufacturing new ones. You only damage your own argument that way. You're not going to get any mileage with the people you need to convince.
As for trumpeting torture's effectiveness...let's be real, you would be aghast if VP Cheney came out and said, "We tortured this man, and in doing so obtained an accurate confession that stopped mass-transit hub 'x' from being bombed. So would lots of people. Not to mention the tiny little fact that by announcing such a thing, you ruin any further information from the guy.
I know it's a case of a dog that doesn't bark going unheard, but it's something to consider.
pH,
That's why you have people go visit the location he's checked. If it's false, well...back to the thumbscrews. Or throw in some sleep-deprivation over a long period.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Yes, but what if the bomb goes off while you're checking?
Then he's accomplished his mission. And really, if you're only torturing him to gain information, at that point you have no more reason to torture him.
quote:Rakeesh: Well you'll note I didn't say torture works perfectly. You were the one speaking in absolutes. The difficulties you describe can be partially addressed by torturing for true answers, and not just torturing for answers. Obviously Inquisition style torture where torture is committed with predetermined guilt (in the eyes of accusers) will soon yield confessions of guilt.
I don't even think it works very well. When you get incorrect information, like what Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi provided, you come to erroneous conclusions. It damages your intelligence gathering significantly.
You say I hurt my own argument by citing a major instance in recent news where torture failed? You say that the wrong sort of torture can yield this kind of result, but if you "torture for true answers, then it won't happen. Well, whatever method of torture was used, it didn't work. So it is our policy to rely on the method that you say doesn't work. If the Egyptian interrogators used the "wrong torture technique," we still relied on the results. Torture directly led to the claim that Iraq had a partnership with al-Qaeda that didn't exist, and part of Bush's rationale for war was that partnership. This sort of false information wasn't stopped by any effort to verify its accuracy. I'm not inventing this story to bolster my argument that torture is wrong.
I think that even if it is possible to obtain information through torture, we should not do it. Every human life has value. It should be among the rights of every person to never be subjected to such terrible pain and suffering intentionally.
I think the damage our policy of torture is doing to our reputation is also important. We're giving the world an evil to fight against. We're not taking the high road and providing an example of the success of democracy. And our enemies have reasons to want to fight us. Our policy of torture is one of them. There is a parellel fight to the physical war; it has been called the fight for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi (and other) people. This war cannot be won with torture.
Taking the moral high ground is not "appeasing the terrorists" as I've heard some people say. Chipping away at some of the reasons people have to hate the US is something we should do, especially when the policy at hand is one so... hatable.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Well, assuming you know he has planted only one bomb, then you stop torturing him. After the bomb has gone off, I mean. And incidentally, there would still be a reason to torture him, just not good enough of a reason.
Nato,
quote:I don't even think it works very well. When you get incorrect information, like what Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi provided, you come to erroneous conclusions. It damages your intelligence gathering significantly.
So you're going to stick with the assumption that the tool itself is flawed, rather than the application? Do you really think that the expectations of the torturers played no part in the answers they got? Do you really think that the torturers weren't probing for an answer they thought would please the Bush Administration?
People believe that of the CIA, why is it so implausible to believe of Egyptian torture-teams?
quote:You say I hurt my own argument by citing a major instance in recent news where torture failed?
Yes, for the above reasons. You're ignoring the context and holding fast to the result.
quote:Well, whatever method of torture was used, it didn't work. So it is our policy to rely on the method that you say doesn't work.
I do not think it should be our policy to rely on that method. You are putting words into my mouth. The only thing I am saying here is to contradict your statement, "Torture doesn't work." Any interrogation method can be mishandled, tainting the results. Should we stop interrogating suspects then, because of all the millions of times it has been botched? Should we say that interrogation doesn't work?
Of course not. That would be nonsense. If I'm putting a screw in and I mess up the threads and strip them, do I throw out the screw or the screwdriver? Of course not. The fault would lie with me, not the tools.
quote:I think that even if it is possible to obtain information through torture, we should not do it. Every human life has value. It should be among the rights of every person to never be subjected to such terrible pain and suffering intentionally.
I partially agree with the first sentence. It is possible to obtain reliable information through torture, else why would people compartmentalize things? Why do people not tell their allies and agents things they don't need to know, in order to avoid it being tortured out of them, if torture doesn't work? Deep down, Nato, you know it can work. I wholeheartedly agree with your second sentence.
But I absolutely disagree with the third sentence. Just as I oppose "zero-tolerance" policies, I think that using the word "never" is foolish. What about the rights of all the people a criminal being tortured will kill?
quote:And our enemies have reasons to want to fight us. Our policy of torture is one of them.
For some of our enemies, yes. Our actual shooting enemies, though, torture as a matter of course.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
You do realize this is the true definition of evil? To believe that anything your side does is the right thing to do because your side is the good guys. Therefore, if they torture a person for information it is for the good of all of society and will save thousands of lives. Never mind that it is the same sort of thing the other side would do. If THEIR SIDE took one of ours and tortured them, that would be evil and vile wouldn't it? I am so bitter and tired of this form of hypocrasy. How can this country take the moral high ground if any form of torture is allowed to exist here? Toruture dillutes our honour and our credibility and it is wrong. It is purely wrong and there is no justification for it.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
You need to rein in your hyperbolic sense of self-righteous outrage, Synesthesia. I have not said that it's OK because we're the good guys. I have not said that I think we should torture.
I have said that torture works, and that is all. In fact it could be argued that my stance is morally better than that of some who believe it doesn't work, because it's easy to oppose doing something that is disgusting and doesn't work. It's obvious not to do something that's sickening and doesn't work anyway.
Don't call me evil, don't call me a hypocrite, and don't call me vile. In fact, don't call me anything. I've gotten more than a little sick of it, it's happened more than once recently.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I am not calling YOU evil specifically. I am saying that this is what it leads to... People will justify wrong actions by saying it leads to the greater good and that is just an illusion.
Also I am a bit bitter in general today, especially after reading some editorial a person wrote that has totally set me off completely.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Toruture dillutes our honour and our credibility and it is wrong. It is purely wrong and there is no justification for it.
"There is no justification for [torture]" is too strong. Most people can think of justifications for killing (self defense or defense of others when nothing else will suffice), lying (when the murderer asks where his victim is), stealing (when someone has the remote that will turn off the bomb in the basement).
The problem with saying there is no justification is that it's fairly easy to come up with the nuclear bomb scenarioor the kidnapped child buried alive scenario that makes most people agree it would be justified. This is an issue of moral bounds, just as lethal force is an issue of moral bounds. It should be treated as such by people who wish to eliminate the unjustified uses of it.
By the way, on the usefulness factor, the common thread is whether the answer is readily verifiable. If yes, then it might work. Just as following someone might lead you to their hideout.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: You need to rein in your hyperbolic sense of self-righteous outrage, Synesthesia. I have not said that it's OK because we're the good guys. I have not said that I think we should torture.
I have said that torture works, and that is all. In fact it could be argued that my stance is morally better than that of some who believe it doesn't work, because it's easy to oppose doing something that is disgusting and doesn't work. It's obvious not to do something that's sickening and doesn't work anyway.
Don't call me evil, don't call me a hypocrite, and don't call me vile. In fact, don't call me anything.
How about contradictory, Rakeesh?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Originally posted by Nato:I think that even if it is possible to obtain information through torture, we should not do it. Every human life has value. It should be among the rights of every person to never be subjected to such terrible pain and suffering intentionally.
I partially agree with the first sentence. It is possible to obtain reliable information through torture, else why would people compartmentalize things? Why do people not tell their allies and agents things they don't need to know, in order to avoid it being tortured out of them, if torture doesn't work? Deep down, Nato, you know it can work. I wholeheartedly agree with your second sentence.
But I absolutely disagree with the third sentence. Just as I oppose "zero-tolerance" policies, I think that using the word "never" is foolish. What about the rights of all the people a criminal being tortured will kill?
Quotes cut for length, sorry if I left out relevance.
You say "I have not said that I think we should torture."
But if you don't think people have the right "to never be subjected to such terrible pain and suffering intentionally," then you must think that some torture is justified.
Which is it?
Personally, I think torture can sometimes be effective, if done by a skilled interrogator, but it's easy to torture wrong answers out of someone too.
And I think it's wrong, but the "kidnap victim/ticking bomb" scenarios trouble me. Perhaps sometimes it is justified, or the lesser of two evils.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Just because something is justified does not mean we should do it. But opposition to torture on the basis of the rights of the guilty is a slap in the face to the rights of the victims of the guilty. There are other reasons not to condone torture. I have not contradicted myself.
I think that sometimes torture is justified. I think some people's lives are worth so little as to make torture merited in the individual's case. I think complaining about the rights of a heinous criminal is an insult to the rights and humanity of their victims. In fact I think for the purposes of gaining information, torture can work.
But I don't think we should do it. That's what I've said, say, and will say, Morbo.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Again, if you're only torturing for information because, of course, we are America and soooooo moral and right, then there's no reason to continue torturing someone if he gives you the wrong location for a bomb, and while you're searching the wrong location, the bomb goes off.
Therefore, if we really were only torturing for information, all those being tortured could just give false information until their objectives are reached by people who have not yet been detained.
To me, that looks like a huge problem with the effectiveness of torture for information.
The only circumstances in which torture could ever be effective for obtaining correct information, then, are circumstances in which the torture is NOT merely being used as a method for information-gathering.
quote:You do realize this is the true definition of evil? To believe that anything your side does is the right thing to do because your side is the good guys.
Nah. This is fanatiscism.
Evil is when I hurt you because I want you to feel pain for no reason whatsoever.
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But surely some innocents are tortured as well as the guilty. It's not just about the rights of the guilty vs the rights of their victims.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Again, if you're only torturing for information because, of course, we are America and soooooo moral and right, then there's no reason to continue torturing someone if he gives you the wrong location for a bomb, and while you're searching the wrong location, the bomb goes off.
Therefore, if we really were only torturing for information, all those being tortured could just give false information until their objectives are reached by people who have not yet been detained.
To me, that looks like a huge problem with the effectiveness of torture for information.
The only circumstances in which torture could ever be effective for obtaining correct information, then, are circumstances in which the torture is NOT merely being used as a method for information-gathering.
This doesn't follow at all. You have assumed the bomb goes off while they are verifying. That's not necessarily the case. The person torturing doesn't have to leave - he can radio to people to look. And they can radio back that it wasn't found, and the torture could resume.
Sure, when the bomb is going off in 5 minutes, it won't work. When it's going off in 10 days, it can work. The boundary line is somewhere between the two, probably much closer to 5 minutes.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Yes, he doesn't have to leave. But it would take time to send people out to search for the bomb, wherever it may be. And what's to keep the prisoner from giving multiple false locations, assuming the torture resumes once the information first received is found to be false?
posted
Rakeesh- Can you provide any evidence that performing a certain type of torture systematically yeilds better intelligence results then other methods? If not, then its fair to say torture does not work. It MIGHT work, but if it doesn't systematically work to obtain us information better then other methods, then its not a useful tool in our intelligence gathering tool kit, especially since it has such a high cost-to-user.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
I can't believe anyone here is seriously condoning torture. That is just creepy. I think the decent people of the world need legal protection from people who condone torture. I think torture, or willingness to accept torture, is a sign of mental illness.
The Germans tried that type of government during the late 30s and early 40s. It's not viable. It doesn't work. It's a vast sociopathology, not a government. We certainly don't need to repeat their experiment.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:Can you provide any evidence that performing a certain type of torture systematically yeilds better intelligence results then other methods? If not, then its fair to say torture does not work. It MIGHT work, but if it doesn't systematically work to obtain us information better then other methods, then its not a useful tool in our intelligence gathering tool kit, especially since it has such a high cost-to-user.
Nope, I cannot. But that same question can be posed to people who say torture doesn't work, because frankly I don't think we're told of all the individuals who are tortured by our government or its employees, do you?
The Egyptian case is a case not exclusively against torture I believe, because I believe they went fishing for an answer and-surprise!-got that answer.
pH,
You are straining for a hypothetical situation just as much in opposition to torture as people who construct the ticking time bomb situation strain in support of it. Sure, the prisoner could continue to give mulitple false locations. It's possible. Some people break sooner than others. But what's to stop them from giving a false location? The guarantee of excrutiating pain and total helplessness is a powerful motivator.
-----------
Tatiana,
I think you need to re-read the thread and check to see where people are condoning torture. I am really getting sick of this.
I think torture can work as a means of getting information, if done "properly", just like I think that if we used nuclear weapons against the entire Islamic world, well shoot! We'd have much less of a problem with fanatic Islamic terrorists.
Obviously that doesn't mean I think we should actually do it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:You are straining for a hypothetical situation just as much in opposition to torture as people who construct the ticking time bomb situation strain in support of it. Sure, the prisoner could continue to give mulitple false locations. It's possible. Some people break sooner than others. But what's to stop them from giving a false location? The guarantee of excrutiating pain and total helplessness is a powerful motivator.
My point is that it's not a powerful motivator if all the prisoner has to do is hold out until the bomb goes off/mission is carried out/whatever, if torture really is solely for the purpose of gathering information and thus would not be used afterwar. I really don't think it's that much of a stretch to think that someone would believe in his cause enough to endure torture and continue to lie to interrogators until his ends had been accomplished, so long as torture ceases after some kind of information has been given and after the information is no longer needed (in other words, when whatever he was trying to accomplish has happened).
posted
Well then, in this hypothetical situation, what if the torture continued, waiting for repeated answers? I'm talking about torture in pursuit of accurate information, not torturing a Magic 8-Ball for any old answer. Which in either case I am still against.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"Nope, I cannot. But that same question can be posed to people who say torture doesn't work, because frankly I don't think we're told of all the individuals who are tortured by our government or its employees, do you?"
The burden of proof would appear, at least to me, to be on those desiring to have torture be a tool in intelligence gathering toolbox.
I can't provide evidence that torture always systemtically fails, but I can show evidence for failure in instances where torture has been used systematically. (E.g do you believe there were actual witches in england or the colonies in the 17th century)?
The evidence we have on torture as a system is, so far, entirely negative. There are individual instances of torture working, but thats as far as it goes. On the other hand, there are numerous cases where torture has been implemented as a systematic intelligence gathering tool... and in none of those cases have the results been good.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Here's what I think about the effectiveness of torture:
I'll split it into three categories. Either you don't torture, you torture for information, or you torture because you feel like it.
If you don't torture, maybe they'll give up the information, and maybe they won't.
If you torture for information, well, you encounter the problem I've already discussed in which because the prisoner knows that torture will stop once information is no longer needed, he can continue to give false information until the information is no longer valuable.
If you torture because you feel like it, it doesn't matter if he tells you or not because you'll still torture him. So why should he tell you? He's going to be in terrible pain either way.
To my knowledge, torture has not ever been systematically attempted by people who were looking for accurate information, not just the information they wanted to hear (a la Witch Trials, Inquisition.) The evidence regarding torture is entirely negative, but honestly the sample is very small as well.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"To my knowledge, torture has not ever been systematically attempted by people who were looking for accurate information, not just the information they wanted to hear (a la Witch Trials, Inquisition.) The evidence regarding torture is entirely negative, but honestly the sample is very small as well."
The sample isn't as small as it appears at first blush. There have been several studies of torture when its been implemented systematically (nazi torture of the french, french torture of algerians, that I know of).
Further, I think its disengenuous to suggest that difference between "accurate information" and "information they wanted to hear" when talking about torture. Everyone is looking for accurate information when they start torturing, but after the fact we question the methods because the results of the intelligence gathered via torture didn't match up with reality. I think it would be perfectly accurate to say the judges in the witch trials were looking for accurate information. They went about it badly, however. And, I would suggest, its impossible to systematically implement torture methods in such a way as to always be a method proper to achieving accurate information... even if such a method exists, which, as I tried to point out in previous post, is a purely hypothetical question, at this point in time. We simply do not know if there is a method that systematically will get us accurate results, and until we do, and know what that method is, its irresponsible to allow any torture in the pursuit of information.
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