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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (6496)	5/21/2007 10:26:49 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

Stressing people out to break down their defenses is not in and of itself torture, IMO. If it were all of us parents would be guilty of torturing our children to find out who ate the center scoop of the watermellon. We can clearly draw a line between lopping off fingers and causing long term damage to other body parts vs missing a night's sleep.

To: TimF who wrote (6496)	5/21/2007 12:28:37 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10087

Tim, I wrote: "If we start out with the proposition that these people are as committed, as tough and as willing to endure pain and pressure as we would be under the same circumstances, then what "short of torture" measures could you imagine that would break a committed American down to the point where he ratted out his team members and destroyed the very thing he'd risked everything for? When you add in that this Administration clearly feels that time is of the essence when one of these high level detainees is captured then you must add in the element of getting the information quickly. So now you want to compel a person to do the very thing they're most committed to not doing, and you want to compel them to do so in a short period of time. Your post makes the point that we can't say that we're clearly torturing. I wonder, however, whether you mean that since no one's admitted it we can't say it's true, or are you aware of some methods of "enhanced interrogation techniques" short of torture that could potentially compel information from committed terrorists quickly? Because if no such methods short of torture are available and if the Bush Administration is truthful in stating their commitment to compelling such information, then how do you reconcile those two things? If you give me a reasonable explanation then I'll be happy to entertain the notion that we may not be torturing detainees, or sending them to others to be tortured, if not then I'll have to reassert my conclusion that we're clearly torturing them, especially in view of the Bush Administration's unwillingness to rule out clearly torturous methods of interrogation and their earlier untenable stance that interrogations which don't create permanent serious organ injury or death are NOT torture. But, of course, we don't have the power to distort the meaning of "torture" by calling the things we do something other than torture. Ed