Debate:Define torture

Torture needs defining because liberals have blurred the true meaning. Is torture to stand on one foot with a black hood over your head? Maybe it is when you cut a persons fingers off. Is torture a degrading naked pyramid of men? Or maybe it is hammering nails into someones skull. Is torture having a scary dog bark at your face? Maybe it is beating your face silly with brass knuckles. Is torture three square meals a day, tropical skies, a free Koran? Or maybe it is locked in a cold dungeon, no light, starving to death. Help, the issue is so distorted. Jpatt

Torture is any cruel or unusual punishment, forbidden by the 8th Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the highest law of our Republic, assuming we still have a Republic. Teresita 03:22, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

So to call you a bad name, that is torture?--jp 03:34, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Thee square meals a day, tropical skies and a free Koran? You make prison sound like club med. Answer honestly, who was treated worse: enemy combatants and terrorists held by US forces in Abu Graib, or innocent British sailors captured by the Iranians?

There is no real line where you can say 'interregation stops here, then torture begins.' Horrible things go on in American prisons, but no one raises holy hell. The fact of the matter is that the US is supposed to be a moral nation, based on individual rights and liberty. When the world hears we stick people in jail without trial and use techniques like water boarding...well, how are we any better than those we are trying to fight in their eyes? Czolgolz 08:53, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I am not comparing prison to club med. I am comparing torture situations. Another America basher comments, way to Golz.--jp 10:14, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

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. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.[1]

Well its a start...

WhatIsG0ing0n 09:01, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

How do you suggest that we get information, Ask nicely?

That might not work ... on the other hand there are aparrently people trained in non-torturous interrogation who do know how to get information out of people. Their success rate is quite high and the information is usually of good quality. Under torture people are likely to admit to anything. One never knows if the information acquired is any good or not. Then again ... if you just like being cruel to people...

WhatIsG0ing0n 09:39, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

like what? truth serum?Jaques 09:45, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Never mind. Just carry on recruiting terrorists.

WhatIsG0ing0n 09:47, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I think that only American citizens should be protected by the constitution (even the 8th ammendment). We are better than the terrorists because they attacked us, and because we are the ones who will eventually win. I don't think that we should use anything that I personally would define as torture (sticking splinters up their fingernails, skining and salting them, etc.) but we could definately be doing alot better to persuade them to confess. I suggest that we:

1. Regularly starve them for a week or so; nothing life threatening but we don't want them to get comfortable.
2. when we do feed them it should be nothing very good.
3. Put them in solitary confinment; we might do this already but I wouldn't know.
4. We can certainly pretend that we're going to do something cruel. I suggest we have somebody realy good at special effects make a video to show them of some horrible torture method. --BenjaminS 09:25, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I am all for that benjamin, but to the left, everything you mention is cruel and unusual punishment, a.k.a torture. --jp 10:46, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

• my definition of torture: techniques that cause irreversible physical or psychological damage. Jaques 09:37, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

You know torure is not an effective means of getting accurate information, right? And you do know that the best way to get accurate information is, in fact, to be nice to them. It's like good cop bad cop, but they're already in prison so you don't even need a bad cop. Just the good cop.

And Benjamin, while your ethnocentrism is to be applauded on this site, our various governmental documents don't make any allowance for all men to be created equal and certain unalienable rights... except then not so much for people that are different. And you say that "we are better than the terrorists because they attacked us." Well... how exactly do you know that the man you have in custody is a terrorist or was responsible for attacking us? So you're going to detain a man, deprive him of food on suspicion of being a terrorist? Well guess what: you can never let this man out because when you do, he's going to be a terrorist. And regardless of whether you let him out, his friends and brothers will be terrorists. And "they will be better than us because they wrongfully imprisoned my brother."

I thought we were discussing the ones that we know are terrorists. We obviously don't want to deprive them of food for information that they don't have or we will get a pack of lies. --BenjaminS 10:56, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Maybe we should abide by the laws we write and the treaties we sign, hm? Myk 09:56, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I didn't know that we signed any treaties with radical islam. --BenjaminS 11:00, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

that'll probably require one-on-one therapy session with a psychologist over a 2 year treatment, ha ha ha. Jaques 10:06, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

maybe the terrorists will abide by international law, hmmm--jp 10:14, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Torture is also defined in the Geneva Convention. The fuzzy area is who the Convention covers, that's the real line that's been blurred. And to Jpatt's original comment, the liberals didn't blur the line of what's torture, that's totally up to interpertation. Same as hazing laws in the US, they're vaguely worded to allow the legal system greater leeway in prosecuting and protecting rights. Jrssr5 10:35, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

When liberals accuse the USA of torture, it is defintely been blurred because a slow painful death to me is torture, not inprisonment by America.--jp 10:50, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

If countries like the UK and US practise torture, then haven't we given up a bit of what makes us better than terrorists? JPatt's comment is a perfect example of the childish view of international affairs that has caused this problem - 'cause they're breaking international law, we can too! Cheney, get me those thumbscrews now!' You can't fight fire with fire. Torture just recruits terrorists - as was shown when Aussaresses justified torture in Algeria. Wikinterpreter

To fight fire with fire or torture with torture, is just fubar. My point which is too complicated for Wiki, I was not asking for vague law interpretation, which one side doesn't adhere to and the other side blames it's leaders for breaking. It is a matter of treatment, suffering, unspeakable human behavior. Defining torture to seperate what is and what is not political fodder to accuse and point fingers. Calling you the name FAT, if overweight is cruel. Does it fit as torture? Black hooded standing on one foot, does it fit as torture? If you hate America, yes it does mean torture. I say hell no as I outlined what torture really is above.--jp 15:05, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

One other point I forgot to respond to. Torture recruits terrorists? Who was the US torturing when the WTC was attacked? I guess they were recruited before 9/11, when we were so comfy safe at home. It's the same method of operation liberals use to discredit why we are in Iraq, just recruits terrorists. Except, they were attacking us well before we occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe they were attacking us because no response after the USS Cole was bombed embolden them to do more harm. 2000 plus days after taking the fight to them, the homeland hasn't suffered.--jp 15:24, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome? Jaques 13:05, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Wuh? Wikinterpreter

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/self-criticism/ Jaques 13:12, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

'Wow! Because we're us, anything we do must be right!' Sorry, doesn't cut it. Wikinterpreter

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/moral-equivalence/ Jaques 13:22, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

'They're worse than us; they've got to be, because they're not us!' Kerching, next. We should really get closer to the topic, though this is fun. :) Wikinterpreter

'They are not us, so they have no moral' Sorry, doesn't cut it. Jaques 17:41, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

My litmus test: if The Enemy did the given disputed action to an American, would we call it torture? If yes, then it's torture, if no, not.--WJThomas 14:28, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

1a. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion. b. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain. 2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense. 3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.American Heritage

1 a : anguish of body or mind : AGONY b : something that causes agony or pain

2 : the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure

3 : distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument : STRAININGMerriam-Webster

I'm waiting with considerable interest to see just what language Bush and Blair come up with to describe the treatment of the captured British sailors by the Iranians. I nominate "torture lite" as the ugliest phrase to emerge in the last ten years. Dpbsmith 15:39, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

If you include "anguish of body or mind" in your definition of torture, then every criminal locked in jail in America is being tortured.Jaques 17:45, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

My definition of torture? No, please, the dictionary's definition of torture. Dpbsmith 18:58, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

doesn't matter, do you support freeing all criminals in jail? Jaques 15:45, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Do you support distortion of overrefinement of a meaning or an argument? Dpbsmith 19:46, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Even if I don't, lawyers will.Jaques 20:48, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

"We are better than the terrorists because they attacked us, and because we are the ones who will eventually win." Benjamin, did you not criticize another user in the discussion on morality for allegedly saying that might makes right?--Άθεος 20:23, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Okay, now that we've settled that, how about Debate:Define terrorism? --Ed Poor 20:43, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

I thought we were discussing the ones that we know are terrorists. We obviously don't want to deprive them of food for information that they don't have or we will get a pack of lies. --BenjaminS 10:56, 6 April 2007 (EDT) Ah, "Innocent 'til Proven Guilty" is for wusses, eh? You _are_ aware that some of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have had to be released after several years of imprisonment, right? [2] Since the US Government generally (I hope) isn't in the habit of locking people up just for the fun of it, I think it's safe to assume that someone THOUGHT they 'knew' these guys were Terrorists, and turned out to be wrong. It's hilarious to see members of the Small Government Party arguing for the infallability and unwavering righteousness of a bunch of bureaucrats. Bureaucrats with GUNS, but bureaucrats nonetheless. --BDobbs 21:26, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

And for the 'definition of torture', why not break out the ol' Ouija board and ask some of the Suspected Terrorists who died under the tender care of Lynndie England, She-Wolf of the US? I suspect they'd have a few choice words on the subject. --BDobbs 21:34, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Lynndie England wasn't so bad, she just mocked some guy's genital.Jaques 22:27, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

I guess that one guy whose corpse she was photographed grinning over just died of embarrassment? --BDobbs 22:44, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Like you've never grinned during a funneral.Jaques 00:41, 12 April 2007 (EDT)