Posted on 11/12/2005 6:40:35 AM PST by aculeus
The British government operated a secret torture centre during the second world war to extract information and confessions from German prisoners, according to official papers which have been unearthed by the Guardian.
More than 3,000 prisoners passed through the centre, where many were systematically beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours at a time and threatened with execution or unnecessary surgery.
Some are also alleged to have been starved and subjected to extremes of temperature in specially built showers, while others later complained that they had been threatened with electric shock torture or menaced by interrogators brandishing red-hot pokers.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Today they'd be prosecuted for hate crimes. Really disturbing.
This is why we won the war.
I'm sorry, am I supposed to be upset by this? The Nazis were burning Jews and Gypsies in ovens. Depriving them of sleep or even beating the hell out of them doesn't disturb me in the slightest.
Regards, Ivan
What purpose does this story serve ?
More than 3,000 prisoners passed through the centre, where many were systematically beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours at a time and THREATENED....
Some are also alleged to have been starved and subjected to extremes of temperature in specially built showers, while others later complained that they had been THREATENED with electric shock torture or MENACED by interrogators brandishing red-hot pokers.
Oh the horror.
The Guardian is just showing they're a bunch of traitors, as per usual. They'll criticise Britain for torturing Nazi prisoners, without a second thought about what the Nazis were up to.
Regards, Ivan
.....What purpose does this story serve ?.....
It provides credence to the current media template that war is an evil that must be abolished at all costs, including the freedom won by previous wars.
The idealogy is more important than life.
"...others later complained that they had been threatened with electric shock torture or menaced by interrogators brandishing red-hot pokers."
Key words here: "threatened" and "brandished."
Meanwhile, the Gestapo was actually using these methods as SOP. What kind of news can be expected from the communist Guardian? Digging up fifty year old meaningless drivel (and quite mild at that) and calling it torture is nothing more than a naked ploy. I would suggest that the Guardian is torturing thinking people with endless whining - can they be tried at the EU Tribunal?
This and many other reasons are why we won that war. A country should not consider going to war unless they are ready and willing to kill every man, woman, and child of the enemy.
War is not something a country should take lightly or attempt to do half heartedly.
It's the Guardian. It's what they do.
"according to official papers which have been unearthed by the Guardian."
Can we see the papers? Do they have proportional spacing?
In other words, the Allies were just as bad as Nazis. They say the newspaper is the first draft of history.
Germany had declared war on Great Britain. Germany was attacking British cities and killing British people. Britain didn't suddenly wake up one day and say "Cheerio! 'Ow's about we open a torture camp, what?" There was no Geneva Convention, and the Nazis weren't exactly conducting themselves in a manner befitting the gentlemanly profession of arms.
This article exists for the same reason articles about the Crusades and Jim Crow lynchings exist: they attempt to de-legitimize the existing power structure by asserting that it is founded on immoral practices. They also seek to deprive the West of the high ground by demonstrating that sometime (usually in the dim, dark past) Christian white men were guilty of the same acts that Muslim barbarians practice today.
Indeed. That is the lesson they want us to learn
My take-away: Even moral wars (and WWII certainly was one) involve good people using bad methods (torture, atomic bombs). If the Good Guys limit their options, and the Bad Guys don't, the Bad Guys get a huge advantage.
Think about Gun Control: law-abiding citizens disarm themselves, crooks do not.
War is Hell. I figure the Bad Guys will always use all means at their disposal. I'm a bit nervous coming out in favor of torture, but I say this: Americans should always be immune from War Crimes prosecution in American Court. Always. If we lose a war, the victors will put us on trial. But our chances of winning increase if we do not hold ourselves back.
War is not about "how you play the game". War is about winning.
.....In other words, the Allies were just as bad as Nazis....
Yep.
And then there is the guilt. Guilt, unrequited guilt, is as necessary for a liberal as getting up each morning. For a liberal, life with no guilt is no life at all.
Winston's fault.
Compared to the horrors of Communism, Nazism, and radical Islam, whatever the British did in this case or America has done in Iraq is insignificant.
But I thought anything optained under torture was likely false ? That's the bleat these days. Personally, who cares ? When your survival is at stake you do what you have to do and sort it out later.
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