Post by Moose on Feb 27, 2009 15:04:12 GMT -5
I write these things for fun sometimes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWhmWeK0TU&NR=1
[4:07 Keith Olbermann talking to Robert Baer]
Should we torture our prisoners? I mean, after all, they provide us with valuable information and countless leads on the war on terror. Right?
If you want to see just how effective torture is, think about what you would do if someone tortured you. You would get captured by foreign government officials who are hell bent on getting information from you about something. About what? Who knows? Why are they questioning you on something you don't even know anything about?
You would then get dragged into a prison cell and they would start doing all kinds of things to you. I don't need to explain the types of torture in graphic detail, but I will tell you what waterboarding is because it has been all over the news lately.
[
Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent. In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.
Although waterboarding can be performed in ways that leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.
]
Eventually, you give in to their demands and tell them whatever they want to hear just so they would leave you alone. If they want you to say you were a mastermind in 9/11, you tell them that. If they want you to confess to killing 50 million Jews in Nazi Germany, yes, you will tell them that, too.
Everyone has a certain threshold of pain. When you reach yours, you'll do anything to make it stop. ANYTHING.
A huge chunk of information we have about 9/11 came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He said all those things while he was being tortured. Even the CIA said this information is unreliable, but this kind of torture-led information is the foundation for our Middle Eastern foreign policy. No wonder we're losing both the nonexistent war on terror AND our credibility among the rest of the world!
The fact is that torture doesn't work. It's that simple.
I'd like to find one good example of excessive torture that gave any significant leads in the war on terror. You can't because there is no good example of excessive torture ever working. None.
But what about police interrogations? Don't they give you valuable information about criminals and their crimes? No, not at all. This is pretty much the same thing, but done on a much smaller scale. If the cops manage to make you upset, you'll want to confess to whatever they accuse you of doing, even if it's not true. You hear it on the news all the time: people confessing to something under interrogation and then recanting it later in court.
Your thoughts?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWhmWeK0TU&NR=1
[4:07 Keith Olbermann talking to Robert Baer]
Should we torture our prisoners? I mean, after all, they provide us with valuable information and countless leads on the war on terror. Right?
If you want to see just how effective torture is, think about what you would do if someone tortured you. You would get captured by foreign government officials who are hell bent on getting information from you about something. About what? Who knows? Why are they questioning you on something you don't even know anything about?
You would then get dragged into a prison cell and they would start doing all kinds of things to you. I don't need to explain the types of torture in graphic detail, but I will tell you what waterboarding is because it has been all over the news lately.
[
Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent. In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.
Although waterboarding can be performed in ways that leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.
]
Eventually, you give in to their demands and tell them whatever they want to hear just so they would leave you alone. If they want you to say you were a mastermind in 9/11, you tell them that. If they want you to confess to killing 50 million Jews in Nazi Germany, yes, you will tell them that, too.
Everyone has a certain threshold of pain. When you reach yours, you'll do anything to make it stop. ANYTHING.
A huge chunk of information we have about 9/11 came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He said all those things while he was being tortured. Even the CIA said this information is unreliable, but this kind of torture-led information is the foundation for our Middle Eastern foreign policy. No wonder we're losing both the nonexistent war on terror AND our credibility among the rest of the world!
The fact is that torture doesn't work. It's that simple.
I'd like to find one good example of excessive torture that gave any significant leads in the war on terror. You can't because there is no good example of excessive torture ever working. None.
But what about police interrogations? Don't they give you valuable information about criminals and their crimes? No, not at all. This is pretty much the same thing, but done on a much smaller scale. If the cops manage to make you upset, you'll want to confess to whatever they accuse you of doing, even if it's not true. You hear it on the news all the time: people confessing to something under interrogation and then recanting it later in court.
Your thoughts?