I find some remarks in this thread to be quite shocking! Some of the arguments come down to this "Torture is wrong, except if it is us being threatend, then it is right" The arguemtns put forward for torture here is nothing new, it is the same arguemtns the Russians, Chinese, Iraq (before invasion), the Japanese in WWII, everybody who uses and used it would use. We are threatend, this is a way to protect ourselves.

This is very close to my heart, becasue my people were fooled in this way. In the 70's and 80's our government told us they are using some methods they don't want to, to protect us from terrorists. Andwe looked the other way, believed in the expections, and it is only now that we realise what we have done.

ALso the Moral Highground is an important factor in wars like these. The moment you start torturing people, you become like your enemy.

Another factoro is inocence. People being torrtured has not yet been found guilty of any crime by any legal court. So there is a real, REAL chance of you torturing an inocent people. Surely that can never be justified?

If the US believes that torture is right to protect themselves, they should a. immediatly withdraw from all treaties saying otherwise b. change the part of their constitution forbidding it, and c. Never again critise any other country for torture.

AH

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“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”

It ain't much of a game to the person being tortured...

I don't think anyone should be permanently maimed, but using certain interrogation techniques can be effective. After a while, a prisoner may tell the interrogator anything they want to hear, but a well trained interrogator will know how to check the validity of that information.

Anyhow, electrodes to the scrotum and bamboo shutes under the fingernails is going a bit too far. There are other ways to get good intelligence from a prisoner.

nothing to do with it? then why did they put the torture centre in cuba i wonder..
true that nobody can stop the US from torturing, but dont forget they signed the treaties themselves.

I really dont believe that any country with an intellegence department has to result to torture,


so your intelligence department has no other way to find terrorists they must rely simply on catching one terrorist and beating the shit out of him till he spills the beans on the 1000s of other terrorists?? When a army man is caught the only information he really can give is the whereabouts of his station however he does not know anything about the decisions that are being made from the generals or the president. so what the enemy would have captured is nothing more than a pawn and the pawn is trained to not give up any information how ever little it may be.

Its like a terrorist army catching a us army man and beating the shit out of him asking him what is bush's plan.Question when we catch a terrorist what makes you think that he is more than just a pawn? He is out front on the battle feild he does not know his generals plans but yet you want to beat the shit out of him for what? for information that your spy planes and intelligence department allready know? Who beat the shit out of who to find out that Osama bin laden was behind the 9 11 because they had his picture up less than 24 hours and all of the "terrorists" who hijacked the plane died.


BULLSHIT!!!!!
If a satelite can zoom in on you from space and read your newspaper and listen to you talk you mean to tell me that beating people up is one of the fastest ways to get information?? wtf??

Yes i agree with many of your points and i would make the same arguments but real world situations may prove our view somewhat of a luxury .

For instance there is a bomb conventional maybe nuclear it is suspected it will detonate with in 24 hours in a major city in your /my country we have captured one suspect he has clear links to those who planted the bomb he will not talk .... what do we do ?

Is the moral high ground - treating him exactly as the law says we should really worth it ...outcome.... BOOM 100 to 1,000,000 dead ?

At what point do we admit there can be a divergence in doing the moral thing and doing the right thing .

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"One must never forget that monetary union, which the two of us were the first to propose more than a decade ago is ultimately a political project. It aims to give a new impulse to the historic movement towards union of the European states. Monetary union is a federative project that needs to be accompanied and followed by other steps." — Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt

Ypur example shows that black and white is hte fringes, life is a gray area, where right and wrong is not that easy to decide.

This pains me to admit, but yes, sometimes we have to go to the ethical issue of 'Clash of responsibility" where both issues are wrong, so we have to choose the lesser of two evils. But that should only be in extreme cases.

AH

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“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”

I agree difficult almost impossible decisions have to be made we can only hope they are taken in good faith and are limited with strict oversight as we are at the top of a very slippery slope.

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"One must never forget that monetary union, which the two of us were the first to propose more than a decade ago is ultimately a political project. It aims to give a new impulse to the historic movement towards union of the European states. Monetary union is a federative project that needs to be accompanied and followed by other steps." — Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt

As far as I know you have not showed scientific support for your position either. I don't force you to believe what I have to say, I just share on this thread with others my opinion.

The American system in this regard is indeed a bit unclear to me. In Europe you have basic human rights that protect each and everyone, no matter if he is prisoner or foreigner. If you dont have something like this in the US, its a large deficit, it would mean you dont grant foreigners or prisoners any basic rights. If you have something like this however, just tell me.

I am very well aware that a prisoner will have reduced rights, thats logically, but that does not mean the state would be allowed to do with a prisoner what he likes to do with him, neither with a foreigner.

Sounds like the argumentation of a rouge state. You have obliged yourself to abide some very basic human rights obligation that you pretend to oblige anyway. Stand to it, or delcare openly that you give a damn s*** about human rights or international treaties etc.

If you think like this, thats your business, I consider however moral relativisim also to be immoral. Making someone physically drouning no matter how exactly is torture and at least so far all your politician oppose officially torture.

Not directly but this entire line of your argumentation "security against human rights" has very much to do with posing a risk to democracy itself. The line of protecting the own citizen has to be first priority can be used into many directions. Maybe you think thats off topic, ok, we dont have to talk about it, its just that it was one of my first associations because in Austria democracy has been abolished in the name of security.

The threat of the pirates was not fabricated. The pirates were real. The thread was bloated up however in order to legitimate an reaction that was entirely out of proportion. 9/11 was a big deal in Europe as well, I can assure you. I know that neocons told us later on that if we only experienced the same, we would support the same as they do. Than came the attacks in Madrid and London and we still did not support the same, just to get to hear from Neocons that its because our victims only numbered into a few hundreds instead of 3000 we still can't understand...

I am surprised by this, as it shows a basic ignorance on European history. Europe has been confronted with different faces of terrorism already for a long time. Do you see it supporting torture therefore?

Reread the human rights, your claim is not only fundamentally wrong, its inhumane. Who after all says who a terrorist is, and who is none? Thats sounds like "Volksgerichtshof" in my ears.

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"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"