Torture – is it ever justified?

Serious 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?

hmmm… one mans terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.. it often seems that the west’s definition of terrorist.. if applied during WWII.. would have made anyone that opposed Hitler’s regime a terror suspect..

anyway.. I thought this thread was about X-factor..?

To be honest I can’t see why this is such a difficult subject. I tried that waterboarding once, it was fantastic, That was in Cornwall, admittedly when i did it up north it was a bit chilly. But these guys are in Cuba, so what’s the problem?

Serious question – what amounts to “Torture”?

Just saw this on the BBC news, apparently our government thinks waterboarding is torture:

A Number 10 spokeswoman declined to comment directly on the claims but said it classed waterboarding as torture.

“We don’t condone it [torture], nor do we ask others to do it on our behalf.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11715577

Sam Harris on the “ticking bomb”

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 : ny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted

Severe pain or suffering… thats very much a matter of perception, its not a black or white definition!

You’re worrying about definitions 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 – Member

Serious 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 ? ffs

🙄

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 you doesn’t make it ‘sense’.

If someone agrees with me, then fair enough. But you; sorry, doesn’t work like that.

If torture is the only way to stop some towelhead 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.