The Future of Torture

[level_head]

A thoughtful post from a friend of a friend has me thinking about the issue of torture. Is it permissible? Is it moral? Is it right?  Not quite the same questions, and I wrote a sort of a rambling reply to her about a framework for considering this unpleasant topic:

Comments

[shockwave77598]

My personal feeling is two-fold

[ford_prefect42]

I actually disagree. I think that it *behooves* white hats to deal in kind with those that we deal with

[lds]

Just for the record: if the US ever makes it a policy to saw off the heads of screaming non-combatants just because Al Qaeda did it to us first, I will repudiate the oath I've taken, burn my passport, and renounce citizenship. I draw that line in the sand.

Call me French if you like. That will never be done in my name.

[ford_prefect42]

Bin laden was a noncombatant. I'd certainly have supported sawing his screaming head off.

It is, or should be, about what *works*.

But yeah, I will agree with you that there is a line. It's just a long, long, long, long ways away from where it is currently drawn.

[witteafval]

A while back I read the wartime biography of noted LDS scholar Hugh Nibley, who was in intelligence with the 101st Airborne during World War II. He wasn't very good at interrogation himself, though some of the others in his team were. (Most memorable was a little Jewish guy from New York who would yell at and threaten the prisoners they captured, brandishing a long knife at them and sometimes cutting buttons off their uniforms

Strong divide by political leaning

[marmoe]

Re: Strong divide by political leaning

[level_head]

If you'd have asked the same question a few years ago, you would not have seen the political divide.

===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

[marmoe]

Let’s imagine a future (not very long from now) during which we can electronically stimulate a person’s brain to make them fear for their lives, but not actually suffer any physical harm whatsoever. Would that be considered torture? It might be, to some, but this number would be less than is currently opposed to waterboarding.

You may want to look into victims of torture and whether they suffer more from the physical or the psychological wounds.

[level_head]

And what do you think the answer is? Your phrasing implies that you have an answer.

It doesn't seem exactly comparable to me. The psychological "wounds" of receiving physical wounds would be different, I'd think, if there were no physical wounds.

It would be the Mark Twain torture: "I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened."

===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

[marmoe]

I don't have a definite answer. However, in all the reporting I have seen on torture victims they mostly talk about the psychological aftereffects. Inability/difficulties to trust anybody, difficulties fitting back into society because of this, panic attacks triggered by daily life situations that remind their subconciousness of the torture, for some depression, etc. I've linked to a documentation on my LJ, which I have started watching. You may want to give it a try, too.

So why is more weight being placed on the psychological side than the phyiscal side? More interesting to reporters, TV, etc? Easier to talk about? I'm inclined to think it really is the psychological after effects that are more on the mind of torture victims than the physical injuries.

[level_head]

It doesn't seem exactly comparable to me. The psychological "wounds" of receiving physical wounds would be different, I'd think, if there were no physical wounds.

===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

[thatcatgirl]

"Now we go a little further, and induce in someone’s brain a feeling that it is good to cooperate and provide the requested information."

That is a chilling thought.