JLFS

In my senario, I said the suspect himself had said that an explosion or terrorist act was iminent, ie in 2 hours, no doubt as to if there is 100 percent certainty or not, by his own admission he is the man.

You cannot use sensory deprivation in the short time left before the blast, would torture be justified in thoses circumstances. As you say it is NEVER justified, do you really mean never?

bil

Gosh. I never said that SD was a quick result. Far faster to rip his fingernails out one by one.

Fine, under those circumstances, go ahead. However, in return, I want an assurance that if you are wrong, you will be jailed for life with no possibility of release, as will anyone who supplied you with the information to make that decision.

That's just to keep you honest, ok? It's nothing to worry about after all, as you will be 100% certain, won't you?

JLFS

Well yes in that case, it would be 100 oercent certain. if the stupid bstard confessed, if he was telling porkies about his guilt, then its his own fault.....isnt it?

HBG

It is juries (twelve men good and true) who convict serious offenders, not the police or judges. And there have been miscarriages of justice even under such a safe and well supervised system. And it’s not possible to be 100% certain in such cases, or life in general.

And it’s far easier for governments to give in and pay compensation, rather than wash their dirty linen in the very public High Court. In the infamous IRA cases a few innocents’ were released and paid compensation. Having spent their compensation money some of them are still trying to sell their stories to Fleet Street and publishers, but they’re afraid to touch them for various reasons and guess what – none of them were innocent after all.

What about the Hanratty case, who was hanged for rape and murder. The left wingers and assorted do-gooders fought for years to clear his name and eventually dug him up to check his DNA. They went a bit quiet once they found that he was as guilty as the jury found him.

It’s perfectly understandable that people who rely totally on a scientific explanation for everything will not understand those aspects of human nature which drive some people to fly aeroplanes into buildings to kill thousands of innocent people, there is no scientific or logical reason for it.

To them, there’s not much logic in torturing suspects either, surely if those people are spoken to in an orderly manner and their misguided beliefs pointed out to them, they will happily confess?

JLFS

that goes without saying.......

There were 2 IRA bombers in a car, the one in the passenger seat had the bomb on his knee, he asked his partner what would happen if the bomb went off before they could place it, his partner replied, "Dont worry we have another one in the boot".

angiescarr

A propos of none of the above (still haven't worked out how to post without quoting then cutting out the post!)
Those who advocate torture"under certain circumstances" may also advocate racism "under certain circumstances".

Under certain circumstances it's also OK for an armed American guard to ask someone in the middle of Schipol airport (not a US airport... But Amsterdam)why they've got a moslem (sounding) middle name. Not noticing that the same young man's first name was a distinctly catholic (sounding)one!
It's OK then to wait until they've arrived in the United States and bounce them back out on the same plane they came in on using very devious removal of certain words in an answer to their questions. This young man was with his mother on her business trip so, well, might as well throw the mother out as well! Never mind that she had a hundred people waiting to take classes, and that the whole thing cost this (not very well off) family a months income in plane fares that now couldn't be reclaimed. But this is OK because these people *might* be terrorists because of the name. Surely we should understand the need to be extra vigilant! after all 11th september.... yadda yadda.
No, I bloody well don't. And even 7 years later, I will never go to America again!!

Yes it was me. and my son. It may not have been torture but the whole experience was very unpleasant and felt close. I also saw how the department of homeland security treated a polish immigrant in front of me. I think it was my shocked look which made the twat who's name was Tod decide he was going to 'get me too'!

You allow 'small' injustices you get bigger ones. You allow any injustice it will come back to you or yours one day.

Dick Dasterdly

I doubt there is any poster on this thread who would disagree with you that two wrongs don't make a right, however you consistently concentrate on your own side of the arguement that torture is totally wrong under any circumstances, without fully appreciating the consequences of not taking sufficient action to prevent mass slaughter of large numbers of innocent ppl.,..so I will try putting you on the spot in the hope of a straight answer.

You personally are in charge of security and have a terrorist suspect in detention.
You are a 100% convinced in your own mind that this person has knowledge of a plot to blow up a thousand innocent ppl.
You are also convinced in your own mind that water-boarding this person is the only sure way to get enough information quickly enough to save the lives of those one thousand innocent souls.

Would you abide by your principles and refuse to water-board him ?

A simple yes or no will do quite nicely.

bil

Those who don't understand this equally can't have read Thomas Paine, 'The rights of man'.

To simplify what he said, if you torture, you give a green light to you enemies to torture your people. If you fail to give them justice, why should they ever deem you worthy of it?

bil

So, he is brought in to you, and you are told that he has confessed, and you are told torture is the only way to get the necessary data.

So, you would go ahead. However, we know that certain people will confess to crimes they haven't actually committed.

Here you are sticking the needles under his nails, giving him electroshock, and he is denying it all. At what point would you start to worry?

bil

I used to keep abreast of all this stuff, and there were a worrying number of people who really were innocent.

Hanratty? yeah, it does look as tho he did it. That doesn't obviate the need for serious penalties NOT to be dished out like parking tickets, and it doesn't mean that similar claims of innocence aren't true. Kischko, the Bridgewater 4, several other poor sods that spent decades behind bars for crimes they didn't do.

The alleged Lockerbie bomber? The last good years of his life spent in jail. Personally I doubt that he did it. There is certainly enough reasonable doubt there to make me very concerned abou the validity of his conviction. It has been claimed that the UK gov't letting him go was because the proposed appeal would have demonstrated that our friends across the pond were up to their necks in the fraudulent conviction of an innocent man.

JLFS

Senario:

If 9/11 could have been avoided by a waterboarding, would it have been justified or would you say "no, let the passengers and the office workers die because torture is wrong?"

By the way you are implying that I would be doing the torturing, I would not.

bil

Well, you overlook the fact that I would not be sure that that was the best method.

I would not torture him. I would hardly be in that position, because the State could never trust someone like me to slavishly follow its orders. Why use people like me who actually had scruples, when people like Jackytoo would probably pay good money for the priviledge of torturing someone who was guilty of looking a bit muslim?

I'm reminded of what someone once said.

"Given the choice between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I pray to god that I would have the moral fibre to betray my country."

I'll go with that thought.

JLFS

Sorry I may be a bit thick, and not understand too weel, but is that supposed to be an answer to my question?

If it is, could you explain in simpler terms, because I dont get it.

bil

Now why would you not be doing it? I would have thought that if you support the action, you must be willing to do it. Anything I support, I must by my moral code be prepared to do it. I always thought that was how it worked.

It's a little bit...hmmm, what's the word? ... to advocate something disgusting, and then seek not to have anything to do with actually soiling ones hands.

Given that 9/11 wasn't preventable by the whole of the US secret services et al, I doubt that a single torturing event would have prevented it.

Torture is disgusting. To suggest that somehow it would be ennobled by only using it on a known terrorist event in the past is insane.

Ignore all this crap and place your arguments in the current, real world.

All we have is a number of vague threats which may or may not turn out to be real. We have a list of people, who may or may not be involved, and each one has a varying probability of being involved.

So who do we torture?

bil

In simple terms, this was an answer to Dick's post, and was not supposed to be an answer to your post. Does that help?