To Torture Or Not To Torture, That Is The Question?
Thursday, June 11, 2009Posted in: Torture, waterboarding
I have a slightly twisted viewpoint with regards to the subject of torture.
I don’t think that torturing people to get information from them is right at all, however, I’d be all for torturing people who’d committed heinous crimes.
I have no problem with paedophiles being subjected to waterboarding just for the hell of it. In fact, I’d be happy as a pig in shit if all paedophiles, and murdering bastards were strung up by their finger nails and their skin systematically removed from their bodies. Seriously, that thought makes me feel all nice and warm inside.
But I have to say, in the case of the Guantanomo prisoners, I actually can’t condone it, mostly because there doesn’t seem to be any comprehensive evidence that information-by-torture works.
My other objection to torture methods, is that it’s bound to become a tit-for-tat game, where any American/European person captured by extremists would be subjected to even more heinous treatment on the grounds that they’re just doing the same as we would.
Here’s an interesting article on the subject, via Angry Black Bitch.
What say you? Do you support torture tactics, if so, what are your justifications?
joanne
June 11
12:06 pm
Although it may give me some personal satisfaction to see some creeps roasted over hot coals, I think that torturing people – any people – is wrong and should never be accepted. The moral relativity by some in our government is both shameful and embarrassing when it comes to this issue. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Marianne McA
June 11
12:50 pm
It’s illegal.
It doesn’t work.
There is, whisper it not, the possibilty that people arrested as terrorists are actually innocent.
There is, and this is incredible, the possibility that when you give nice policemen the right to torture people they may misuse those powers.
There is the mind-blowingly fantastic propoganda opportunity you give to the other side – people who would not normally become terrorists may, when they see evidence that the state acts with illegal brutality, begin to think of terrorism as a reasonable option.
And afterwards, there’s the legacy of distrust.
Apart from which, it’s wrong.
Sparkindarkness
June 11
1:38 pm
I’d never support torture. No way, no how in no circumstances.
Even if it DID work, it cannot be supported. There has to be somewhere we draw the line. There has to be something we will not do. There are some things that, if allowed, remove any claim of goodness or right.
You cannot hold the moral highground and torture. You cannot be just and torture. You cannot be right or justified or anything approaching a decent human being if you torture. You can no more be a good torturer then you could be a good rapist or a good paedophile. It’s not possible.
If we sink to the depths where we’re willing to resort to such evil then protecting ourselves becomes moot – we’ve already sunk to the same level of that which we seek to prevent
AztecLady
June 11
1:42 pm
What Marianne said.
What Sparkindarkness said.
and (paraphrasing, don’t remember who said it),
Fae Sutherland
June 11
1:43 pm
No. No explanation required, just no.
FD
June 11
2:42 pm
No. Not ever. Not even for paedophiles.
Tuscan Capo
June 11
3:34 pm
Depends on the situation. And there’s different levels of torture. There’s your medically supervised waterboarding, there’s the crippling rack, there’s the life-threatening electrodes applied to genitalia. Then there’s the truly inhumane forms of torture like putting someone in a room with an indestructible tv that only shows reruns of American Idol, or wiring the room up to a sound system and playing Billy Ray Cyrus songs over and over. After a few plays of Achey Breaky Heart I’d confess to literally anything for the chance of mercy.
Bethany
June 11
4:53 pm
What AztecLady said!
Never, ever is torture justified.
GrowlyCub
June 11
5:56 pm
Absolutely not. Torture is never justified.
Anon76
June 11
5:58 pm
Nope, don’t want to see my country into torture games. Not of the level I’ve read about of late. Lock you up in a sticky, uncomfortable prison and not worry much about your religious or socializing needs, yeah, okay.
The only thing I’d pay religious heed to would be in the dietary category. I wouldn’t starve a prisoner by feeding them only something his/her religion prohibits and he/she will not eat.
Now mind you, I do realize that some of our troops and even our innocent citizens have been tortured abroad before, but I’m not in to tit-for-tat in this case. To do that only drags us down to a level we (hopefully) don’t wish to “aspire” to.
To do so only puts the victims on a martyr level and incites more violence from those who may have remained neutral.
Taking the high road is often painful and frustrating, but you gotta do it. At least IMHO.
Louise van Hine
June 12
1:52 am
torturing other human beings takes away our humanity. There is some justification for execution when the society can’t isolate a dangerous person from the community he is dangerous to, but there is no justification of any kind for torturing other human beings. It makes us soulless.