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our government thinks
But thats not an ICC court decision is it? I mean our government saying it is is as valid as the American claim it isnt.
only international definition I can find is : [i]ny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted[/i]
[b]Severe[/b] pain or suffering... thats very much a matter of perception, its not a black or white definition!
You're worrying about [b]definitions[/b] of torture?
You need to decide what *you* think is torture. Make your own mind up.
Good grief. What is happening to the people of this country. Is everyone's moral compass out of whack?
surely someone else must be in favour of the good old chinese burn............... 😉
good old chinese burn.
Racist!!
Zulu-Eleven - MemberSerious question - what amounts to "Torture"?
Repeated questioning?
Shouting?
Humiliation (name calling)?
Thirst/Hunger?
Denial of cigarettes?
Stress positioning?
sensory deprivation?
White noise?
Sleep deprivation?
Couple of slaps?
Heat/Cold stress?
Mild shocks with Electrocution?
Tasering?
Beating?
Waterboarding?
Rape?
Thumbscrews?
Amputation?
More silliness from ratty.
If it was happening to you mate, I'm pretty sure you'd have a fair idea what constitutes torture. You don't strike me as someone who would think, "if only I could find out whether I'd been tortured, then I would know whether I should complain".
If waterboarding wasn't torture, then they wouldn't bother doing it. Or do you think waterboarding is provided as a recreational activity for prisoners ?
And as for your nonsense concerning whether it is "severe", are you seriously suggesting that just a mild slap is all that is needed to make people sign confessions and denounce themselves ? [i]ffs[/i]
🙄
Ha! Prisoners torture me very bleeding day! What's different?
Waterboarding sounds like fun. You need quite a fast boat for that don't you?
I quite fancy extreme waterboarding...as long as it's not "severe".
OK, torture is wrong.
You are the head of MI6. You receive information to the effect that known terrorist suspects are planning an attack on a nightclub in a busy city centre. You are reasonably certain the info you've received has come about through use of torture by a third party/country
Do you act on it?
nickc, please, not that old chestnut.
Bless you ton..........you are so utterly predictable ! 😀
Just after I posted, I thought to myself, "ton is on this thread, I wonder whether I'll get the rolling eyes"
You didn't let me down .......with your consistent, but very carefully thought out comment ! 😀
😆
if it saves lives , then yes.lets not forget these people will watch you burn and not even piss on you if you were on fire,
scraprider sense at last.
scraprider. torture to 50 people to get the information to save one person? How about having to torture an entire town full of people to get a scrap of info? Where do you draw the line?
It can only be drawn at zero
Remeber of course that any information garnered by torture is suspect to say the least.
How about if it was member of your family? Remember that the ony reason you are using torture is that you have no other info so the innocent get caught up in it as well.
How many innocent people is it justifiable to torture to save one life?
Where do you draw the line?
The line is very easy to draw. For example ....... the Yanks are allowed to torture freely, but the Chinese, or perhaps the Iranians, aren't. It's all pretty logical.
The original question was "Torture - is it ever justified?"
Take this scenario
Your wife and children have been taken by a group of people you catch one of them as they are leaving. The person you have captured laughs at you and tells you his friends are going to kill your wife and family in 3hrs time. Would you get the drill out to persuade him to tell you where they have taken your wife and children, or would you stand by the fact torture is never ever justified ?
Bazzer
Bazzer it's not a real scenario that's ever going to happen though is it?
Would you get the drill out
Well call me sentimental, but personally I would leave my DIY chores for another day.
Every so often on STW, we get a "What battery drill" thread. Tbh, they get a bit boring. Tonight though, it's received an interesting twist.
What battery drill for torturing the guy you've hypothetically caught that's hypothetically captured your wife and kids and hypothetically knows their whereabouts but laughs hypothetically hysterically at you. I'm thinking lithium ion isn't going to be that important for this job.
Only in 24.
How about a brace and bit for that old skool feel
I used to date a girl who liked me to hold her down, tweak her nipples and call her a bitch.
I had no moral qualms about doing this, she was a bitch.
😈
So yes, torture is justified when in the company of up for it women.
If torture is the only way to stop some towelhead blowing a plane up then get the electrodes on the testicles.I expect all countries use some form of torture it's what secret services do and being secret we are never really going to find out are we?
Torture is always justified. Especially on children, or animals, or your wife - particularly if the tea's not on the table in time.
oohh towelhead nice bit of leftie-baiting racism there
its already been said but if you torture your enemies you loose the right to judge them for the same crimes and surely torture is just another form of terrorism
and bush is just trying to clean up his image, the same way nixon did after he was kicked out
but nixon = liar
and bush = warmongering idiot
scraprider sense at last.
No, ton; just because someone agrees with [i]you[/i] doesn't make it 'sense'.
If someone agrees with [i][b]me[/b][/i], then fair enough. But [i]you[/i]; sorry, doesn't work like that.
If torture is the only way to stop some [b]towelhead[/b] blowing a plane up then get the electrodes on the testicles
Uh-oh. The hard of thinking have turned up. Must have a word about the security down at the Home for the Terminally Inane...
If torture is the only way to stop some towelhead blowing a plane up then get the electrodes on the testicles.
Surely if you can manage to get some electrodes onto the towelhead's testicles, then it's just as easy to stop him boarding the plane with a bomb ?
ton, I reckon you've probably used torture once or twice haven't you? We know you're not one to be messed with. What's your favourite method?
Is it acceptable to own bombers with bombers?
This is the kind of thing that gets done in our name when we start condoning torture.
Within days of starting his job in Tashkent in 2002, photographs of a corpse landed on his desk. He sent them off to Britain, to be analysed by a Home Office pathologist.The victim was a supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a fundamentalist Islamic organisation but one that professes non-violence. Murray says: "The main finding was that this person had died from immersion in boiling liquid. And it was immersion, rather than splashing, because there was a clear tide-line around the upper torso and upper limbs and complete burns coverage underneath.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/09/ive_seen_the_bl.html
Jack Straw thinks it's ok though. Maybe that's good enough for us?
i dont agree with any one , my veiws are my own, ive done my time in harms way, 3 times , and seen what " the cause " can do , and it aint nice, there will never be a sensible amswer to threads like this, or to the question , its a hard one, but i stand by what i said yes , if it saves lives, of course WE will never know if lives were/will/have been saved , but i think we can all agree , its a shity mess alrighty,not going to post about it again 😐
in a theoretical situation where you knew somwone knew something of great significance, which could potentially save lives, then u could argue that leaning on them a bit may be appropriate. But you just know that what George Bush is talking about is the sort of crap that went on in Iraqi prisons, where US service personnel treated the inmates worse than animals on a regular basis, all in the interestes of 'freedom'.
I'm sure I could justify torture myself under some circumstances but I could justify my country doing it in my name.
Every so often on STW, we get a "What battery drill" thread. Tbh, they get a bit boring. Tonight though, it's received an interesting twist.What battery drill for torturing the guy you've hypothetically caught that's hypothetically captured your wife and kids and hypothetically knows their whereabouts but laughs hypothetically hysterically at you. I'm thinking lithium ion isn't going to be that important for this job.
As contrived and hypothetical as it gets, unless you can answer that you would not use torture under any circumstances then you are "not against torture" as such.
We can argue about how effective it is in practice but by definition I suspect we will not get accurate statistics!
The question Harris asks is "is there ever any circumstances in which you would agree to its use" Unless you can say no to every possible situation then you are "for" torture.
The Link to Sam Harris's article above outlines this.
Nobody likes the thought of using it but its easy to take the high moral ground when decisions to protect security are taken by someone else. we can then live our lives in "relative" security while condemning the distasteful and difficult decisions taken by others to keep us that way.
Every so often on STW, we get a "What battery drill" thread. Tbh, they get a bit boring. Tonight though, it's received an interesting twist.What battery drill for torturing the guy you've hypothetically caught that's hypothetically captured your wife and kids and hypothetically knows their whereabouts but laughs hypothetically hysterically at you. I'm thinking lithium ion isn't going to be that important for this job.
As contrived and hypothetical as it gets, unless you can answer that you would not use torture under any circumstances then you are "not against torture" as such.
We can argue about how effective it is in practice but by definition I suspect we will not get accurate statistics!
The question Harris asks is "is there ever any circumstances in which you would agree to its use" Unless you can say no to every possible situation then you are "for" torture.
The Link to Sam Harris's article above outlines this.
Nobody likes the thought of using it but its easy to take the high moral ground when decisions to protect security are taken by someone else. we can then live our lives in "relative" security while condemning the distasteful and difficult decisions taken by others to keep us that way.
Torture- Is it ever justified?
Yes it is........ i work in a pupil referral unit.
I have noticed that no one has really answered my hypothetical question 🙂
I know I would do whatever it took to keep my family safe and everything from there on in is a shade of grey.
Nobody likes the thought of using it but its easy to take the high moral ground when decisions to protect security are taken by someone else. we can then live our lives in "relative" security while condemning the distasteful and difficult decisions taken by others to keep us that way.
+1
Torture- is it ever justified?
yes by the people carrying out the act so that they can do barabric things and pass the moral blame on to someone else.
Is it an act that should ever be carried out?
No, no way, not ever.
If you are going to torture someone just to inflict maximum pain as a punishment then at least you're an honest evil b**tard.
If you try to protect the liberty and freedom of a democracy by torture then you've already lost as liberty and freedom can't exist with state sponsored torture
So given the contrived theoretical positions I refer to (call it the Sam Harris position) that you would never inflict torture on somebody? even if you were "sure" that they could provide information that could lead to the release of innocent victims?
bike thiefs would be right at the top of my torture list..... 8)
followed by soft lefty ****s, taxi drivers, vegans, hoodies and richard maddeley
To answer the question.
I would find it as distasteful and barbaric as anybody else on this thread but when I try to answer the theoretical question above I personally would inflict pain on someone if I was convinced there was a high likliehood that innocent people could be saved by my actions.