Actually, sorry, I’ve obviously missed something, but I’m not that convinced that methadone withdrawal is as bad say, as withdrawing from alcohol, barbitutes, benzodiazepines - mummy’s helpers are particularly nasty thing to come off - et al. My problem with 'done is that it does so much more damage on a maintenance dose than good old heroin, especially to the liver, bones, teeth, heart, etc. Medical heroin, as long as the shot is clean and not an overdose, is extremely well-tolerated, as they say.
But as for turning someone into a junkie as a means to extract info, I’d reckon they’d be much faster and efficient means that are already well-established and proven than waiting to get someone dependent on some drug. Anyway, how reliable would the outcome be, as Spook implies above?
Drawn into it, since it will happen in any case, make it as effective and as short and brutal as it needs to be. I’m quite sure that’s what is done by the professionals, then of course you have the cowboys that no doubt likewise enjoy their work, but not because they are efficient at it. I have heard or read in passing that the brain is the target of an efficient torturer. No reason to do his/her physical worse, much better to do half that and let the victim imagine how bad it could get. The horror, the horror. Spare me!
All this talk about crearing drug dependency in order to extractr information is slightly askew.
There are curently several phamacological cocktails in use that lowere the inhibitions sufficiently to allow extraction by intelligent interogation. This negates the need for creating a dependency and a further with-holding for nformation extraction reasons.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]All this talk about crearing drug dependency in order to extractr information is slightly askew.
There are curently several phamacological cocktails in use that lowere the inhibitions sufficiently to allow extraction by intelligent interogation. This negates the need for creating a dependency and a further with-holding for nformation extraction reasons.[/quote]
Roger that. My personal weaknesses are Jack Daniels and Cuervo Gold. After a couple of those I’ll say or do just about anything.
Hmmmm…I guess they offered M&Ms…maybe a couple of ice cold Cokes. After all, as has been stated here many, many times…torture doesn’t work.
[quote]SAS moved at dawn as prisoner cracked
When it received confirmation of where Norman Kember was being held, the SAS’s Black unit, the specialist hostage release team stationed near the British embassy in the Baghdad Green Zone, was already in full kit and ready to move.
The Iraqi prisoner had cracked in the early hours and provided details of an area and a house.
Speed was essential in case the information proved old by the time the rescue unit arrived. The operation was put together in three hours, said the Americans.[/quote]
The problem with allowing governments to use torture to prevent terrosrism is this: yes, I guess we can all accept that if a terrorist has info that would stop an attack and refuses to give it to us, torturing him for the info seems less bad than letting innocents die.
But - when has this ever been the case? A hypothetical situation which has never, as far as I know, actually happened.
Usually, torture happens in fucked-up dictatorships because the men doing the torturing are sick and twisted. They may get info their governments want - there is no guarantee this info is true or useful, since many would say anything under torture to get it to stop.
-even when the info is true and useful, it could probably be found out some other way
-the worst point: what countries torture? They always use France in Algeria has an example - but France’s role in Algeria was a disgrace, they had no business being there; basically the French government used torture in an attempt to prolong its morally wrong occupation of the country.
China uses torture - are its goals ever legitimate?
German torture of dissidents during the Second World War - obviously effective, but for the wrong side.
Find me one example of where torture actually helped a legitimate government achieve something good.
If we can’t find one, then debating whether it’s OK to use torture to stop terrorism is a waste of time.
[quote=“bababa”]I guess we can all accept that if a terrorist has info that would stop an attack and refuses to give it to us, torturing him for the info seems less bad than letting innocents die.
But - when has this ever been the case? A hypothetical situation which has never, as far as I know, actually happened.[/quote]
Well…now maybe you know differently. I guess you missed the news that the terrorists had [i]already[/i] tortured and murdered one of the hostages, Tom Fox. His body was found March 9.
quote An aid worker from Virginia taken hostage with three other peace activists was found dead near a railroad line in Baghdad with gunshots to his head and chest and signs of torture on his body, Iraqi police said Saturday.
Tom Fox, a 54-year-old member of Christian Peacemaker Teams from Clear Brook, Va., was the fifth American hostage killed in Iraq. There was no immediate word on his fellow captives, a Briton and two Canadians.[/quote]
Of course I agree that the torture and murder of this man was wrong. But I don’t think the occupation forces torturing some random Iraqi (I mean someone who may or may not actually know anything) would have prevented it.
When the government tortures a suspect, they don’t know if the person is actually guilty, and they don’t know whether any info gathered is true or just said to stop the pain; and in most cases of historical torture, we can look back on it and see that the group or government doing the torturing was wrong.
[quote]Posted: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 after a big reefer
By Kurt Nimmo, kurtnimmo.com
NBC news reporter Pete Williams speculates that the feds have rigged a defiant Zacarias Moussaoui with a stun belt, an “electro-shock” device, apparently part of a growing “shock technology” arsenal used by torturers in South Africa, China, and Lebanon. "Amnesty International is extremely concerned about the introduction by the prison authorititties…[/quote]
You can get your own zapper here. It works like a charm on the little lady of the house too!
Well, not my words … but here something Eric Haney said about the issue:
[quote]Interviewer: What do you make of the torture debate? Cheney …
Eric Haney: (Interrupting) That’s Cheney’s pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It’s about vengeance, it’s about revenge, or it’s about cover-up. You don’t gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It’s worse than small-minded, and look what it does.
I’ve argued this on Bill O’Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American public pays to torture? He’s an employee of yours. It’s worse than ridiculous. It’s criminal; it’s utterly criminal.
This administration has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of helpless people in your power is torture, period. And (I’m saying this as) a man who has been involved in the most pointed of our activities. I know it, and all of my mates know it. You don’t do it. It’s an act of cowardice.
I hear apologists for torture say, “Well, they do it to us.” Which is a ludicrous argument. … The Saddam Husseins of the world are not our teachers. Christ almighty, we wrote a Constitution saying what’s legal and what we believed in. Now we’re going to throw it away.[/quote]
Read the rest of the interview here if you like. Only recommended though if you do not mind someone pointing fingers at the Bush administration.
Who said anything about some random Iraqi? What are you talking about???[/quote]
What she means is that there is no way to know for sure whether a person has the information you are trying to extract from them. If we allow torture, then there are bound to be people who honestly don’t have the information. The question then becomes, to what extent and how long will we torture before we finally give up? No doubt the person would eventually say anything to stop to the pain. And when we find out the information was bogus, do we torture him or her to get revenge for not telling us what we wanted to know? This could go on and on in the case of people who really don’t know what we’re trying to find out.
You posted up some examples of cases where torture did work. Although most experts seem to be in agreement torture doesn’t work in general, no doubt there are situations where it would. Now here’s the crux: People who are opposed to torture in any and all circumstances, like me, have to accept that are certain situations where calamity could be prevented by torture, and yet still be opposed to torture. In other words, those of us opposed to torture must accept the fact that it is possible we will not be able to prevent an attack because we refuse to use torture. The immense human suffering inherent in torture, even when inflicted on people with information vital to our safety, is just too great for me to accept. Period.
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“bababa”]I guess we can all accept that if a terrorist has info that would stop an attack and refuses to give it to us, torturing him for the info seems less bad than letting innocents die.
But - when has this ever been the case? A hypothetical situation which has never, as far as I know, actually happened.[/quote]
Well…now maybe you know differently. I guess you missed the news that the terrorists had [i]already[/i] tortured and murdered one of the hostages, Tom Fox. His body was found March 9.[/quote]
And you evidently think that’s cool, right Mr. Stalin? I mean, if torture is okay
for us, then why not for them?
Who’s to say that his captors thought that maybe these peace activists (as in dipshit moron peace activists–I’m with you on that score) might have some information that they wanted? Maybe they thought they were spies? It’s not so outlandish as it may sound.
You’re opposed to torture on humanitarian grounds, and the fact that it goes against all of the post-Enlightenment ideals we hold dear in the West. I agree, and go one step further. Michael Kinsley explains in very convincing fashion why it practically makes no sense:
[quote]There is yet another law-school bromide: “Hard cases make bad law.” It means that divining a general policy from statistical oddballs is a mistake. Better to have a policy that works generally and just live with a troublesome result in the oddball case. And we do this in many situations. For example, criminals go free every day because of trial rules and civil liberties designed to protect the innocent. We live with it.
Of course a million deaths is hard to shrug off as a price worth paying for the principle that we don’t torture people. But college dorm what-ifs like this one share a flaw: They posit certainty (about what you know and what will happen if you do this or that). And uncertainty is not only much more common in real life: It is the generally unspoken assumption behind civil liberties, rules of criminal procedure, and much else that conservatives find sentimental and irritating.
Sure, if we could know the present and predict the future with certainty, we could torture only people who deserve it. Not just that: We could go door-to-door killing people before they kill others. We could lock up innocent people who would otherwise be involved in fatal traffic accidents. Civil libertarians like to believe that criminals get their Miranda warnings and dissidents enjoy freedom of speech because human rights are universal. But if we knew for sure that a newspaper column by Charles Krauthammer would lead
