Posted on 12/05/2016 11:35:41 AM PST by MaxistheBest
Nearly half of Americans in a global survey said they believed an enemy fighter could be tortured to extract information, according to results released Monday. That finding puts respondents in the United States in contrast with citizens of many countries and at odds with international law, which prohibits torture under any circumstances.
The results were part of a poll carried out by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which surveyed 17,000 people in 16 countries, including many nations in conflict or recovering from conflict, to gauge public opinion about the laws of war.
The findings on torture were among the starkest. Among Americans, 46 percent said torture could be used to obtain information from an enemy combatant, while 30 percent disagreed and the rest said they did not know. On a more general question, one in three said torture was “part of war,” just over half called it “wrong,” and the rest said they did not know or preferred not to answer.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ever hear a Hillary screech?
Cruel and unusual punishment is not OK.
But torture isn’t punishment. It’s a tool. Nothing wrong with having a bunch of tools in the toolbox.
Barack Obama has been torturing tens of millions for 8 years.
How do they define “torture”?
Using harsh language or merely asking questions shouldn’t qualify.
Wrong. Its against the Geneva Convention and against American traditions.
Waterboarding is not torture. And terrorists are NOT “enemy combantants”, they are lunatics and criminals.
Torture is done by socialists and stuff
Give me a chair, some rope and a pair of pliers and I can show them how useful it can be.
I’ve been watching the history of the D-Day and the Battle of the bulge on the American Hero channel. Great stuff!
There is one paratrooper that went in behind enemy lines during D-Day and went all the way to Berlin. The guy was talking about when the Germans infiltrated our ranks during the Battle of the Bulge.
He said they captured a group of Germans and asked them where and who were the infiltrators. When nobody answered, he pulled one aside, put a gun to his head and said if they don’t get the information they needed, he would blow his head off. No answers ...he shot him.
After that they gave up all the info and they were able to round them up. It works!
Consequently, this violates "International Law" only in places where the writ runs, which is not in the United States, its territories or possessions.
As usual, liberals are pretending that treaties they'd "like" to be ratified have the force of US law. They don't.
The rules of war don’t apply to terrorists.
Do what you need to.
The pole may say Americans support torture, but of course the Times definition is not supported by the people. Here we have a popular voice which memorializes as torture legitimate steps this society took to protect itself from catastrophe. Their crime involves validating demands for an asymmetrical morality undefiled by any perception of danger. Placating those coveting such luxurious, dilemma-free morality ignores military and intelligence professionals facing shrewd, ruthless enemies obscured behind uncertain and unprecedented security threats. The Times believes a safe distance in time and space from the events of 9/11 and the war in Iraq now allows political capital and moral authority to be earned by berating people going into harm’s way our behalf.
However, these feral psychopaths never display the civility required for Geneva Convention definitions for militia, armed force, or volunteer corps, but are so dissociated from country or culture, so committed to butchery that they best match Webster’s definition for a virus. They are not insurgents or freedom fighters, and when captured, certainly not prisoners of war. These killers are not members of an organized resistance movement carrying arms openly, and they have no distinctive identifier. The Geneva Conventions describe terrorists as beyond the pale.
The Geneva Convention framers were parents and grandparents of the “Greatest Generation”, and held powerful positions throughout the darkest times of our world. Their words synthesize a brutal, durable morality properly earned from suffering through the ultimate bloody deluges of the 20th century. The people writing the Conventions intended to isolate terrorist forces, provide them minimal protections, and allow destruction with any overwhelming furies needed to crush their abominations.
Soon terrorists earning degrees in physical/biological sciences will abandon the trivial killing of hundreds to anticipate the incalculable deaths available from 21th century technologies. They will mine a world with ubiquitously available nuclear technology and material. They will exploit the diseases that decimated Europe and are now located one step away in the food chain. They will use technologies which can be found on the internet for creating cottage industries to produce lethal toxins and pathogens. They will appropriate the available delivery systems provided by the closed HVAC environments where 2,000 to 20,000 urban residents reside, travel, and work. The rapid spread of stealth and drone technologies will enable future extraordinarily effective delivery systems.
Terrorists remain unresponsive to direct questioning and psychological gambits. Therefore, effective interrogation necessitates applying all stress and coercion techniques our military encounters in survival schools. Effective interrogation requires combining these techniques within a continually confused and uncertain environment. For example CIA Director Leon Panetta told Brian Williams that “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including waterboarding, contributed the lead intelligence enabling Osama bin Laden’s discovery.
However, if the only information obtained is a confession or an assumed desired answer, then incorrect questions have been asked. The best humint intelligence acquired remains as unreliable as that from satellite surveillance, double agents, or cryptanalysis. Even independent verification leaves lingering uncertainties and critical hazards conquered only through resolute leadership. Yet not taking every step imagined to narrow the uncertainties is inviting unimaginable slaughter.
Representative DeFazio quoted to me 20 former Army interrogators who said, “Prisoner/detainee abuse and torture should be avoided at all costs”. I find the assertion disturbing, because on 9/11 we were prepared to shoot down any civilian airliner, which did not land immediately, regardless of crew assertions.
An incredible moral disconnect enabled killing our own citizens on 9/11, but now forbids subjecting terrorists to severe discomfort, such as the water boarding demonstrated on the capital mall, which might prevent extravagant murder and destruction. At what point in application of chemical, biological and atomic weapons to our society must we protect the American people “at all costs”?
Our politicians and particularly the Senate have criminally abandoned an historic duty to protect the American people. They have directed the definition for U.S. victory must reside wholly within interrogation processes that maintain their personal illusion of moral high ground. Islamic jihadists define victory as U.S. destruction through elaborate and extensive slaughters. Given jihadists avoid our desired scenarios for conflict; they win by their definition. However, according to senate mandates, we perish by the tens of thousands, but win by their definition.
I would not trust the results of torture, the natural inclination of suspects would be to say anything plausible to get the torture to stop, but probably not the truth, so how can you rely on what you “learn” if it is more often false than true?
There must be more sophisticated means of getting the reluctant to talk. For example, you could provide internet access and monitor what the suspect was looking at; he might realize what the motive was, but not be smart enough to hide all of his thought processes. I’m not talking about granting communication privileges although under the right supervision that could be productive too. This of course would apply more to special situations and not general inmate situations which would be constitutionally bound.
The larger question is how to stop terrorism. It may sound trite but not enough emphasis has been placed on the question of motivation. How can we reduce the motivation to commit terrorist acts? I am not talking about going soft and squishy on foreign policy, I am talking about real-world solutions here, what would reduce the motivation of a potential terrorist to act? I leave this as an open question. Clearly, we have not hit upon any meaningful disincentives as of yet.
Nonsense. You have no idea what you're talking about.
The information they gained, and what kinds of interrogation techniques were used -- and even in what countries they were used or who did the interrogations -- are NOT known, nor are they ever likely to be. They certainly aren't known to any "journalists" who have reported the crap you're spewing.
Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GG0KJ4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 It's written by the man who would know. He reveals NOTHING even remotely resembling what you've typed, and suggests quite the opposite.
Please don't portend to speak for the interrogators. We are a small community and we discuss these issues ad nauseam much like doctors talk about procedures, and lawyers talk about law.
Others in the world have a significantly different view on that subject.
It depends on the information that you are trying to get. One rule of interrogation is to never ask a question whose answer you cannot verify. The classic example is the "ticking bomb" scenario -- if the subject tells you where the bomb is before it goes off, and when you go and look, the bomb is there, then you have conducted a successful interrogation.
There maybe a time and a place.
I support waterboarding democrats!
As low as my trust in our government is now, I’d like as my restrictions on what they can do to someone they claim is their enemy.
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