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Torture is of very limited use to an interrogator. Under extreme duress anyone will admit to anything.
A better option is pshycotropic stimulation whereby the subject volunteers information. However, it is possible to train individuals to resist ordinary torture and to circumvent drugs.
In any case, the whole "war on terror" is a farce.
How many people have died as a result of terrorist activity in the UK since 2000?
Nowhere near the 32,000 that have died on our roads in the same period.As for the government/police/security services uncovering plots and preventing attacks: I just don't buy it.
If they really cared about us then they would not have led us into the current economic cock up which, according to the W.H.O will directly and indirectly cause the death or premature death of 2.5 million people world wide.To....e ..p
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http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/
Oliver this explains it very well (you can watch it on-line)
This is a very powerful documentary not least for the number of senior US military personnel in it who speak out against torture - absolutely shocking
This was shown on PBS in America shortly before the election.
I just finished watching all 3 parts. it is horrid !! It makes me angry and sad at the same time.
What ideals is the 'civilized' West defending ? This documentray should be shown
on all channels on TV.
Thanks for posting Buddha -
OK, I've finally had time to watch this, too.
Thanks for posting, TSB. Very informative as documentaries go, and well-researched.
It is interesting that Obama is starting with this stuff--being a lawyer, he will understand extremely well the scale of the threat this poses to the rule of law.
I still find it interesting that a sufficient legal vacuum seems to exist that apparently amendments to the American Constitution can simply be disregarded by the executive.
The callous and inhuman pseudo-legal somersaults by the Bush lawyers involved were certainly spine-chilling, and the assessment of the effect on American troops 'for decades to come' deeply worrying.
We can only hope that this line of warfare will never, ever be picked up again.
Highly recommended viewing, especially to those who surmised that torture might have a role to play in preventing terrorist activity. The documentary marshals very sound arguments against any such supposition. The testimony of many of those who were powerless to prevent this is very touching in places.
Hopefully, Obama will continue to answer my question in the OP even more comprehensively than this thread has been able to do. Thanks to all who've helped!
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/23/condoleezza-rice-cia-waterboarding
It appears to go much higher than previously admitted...
You've got to ask the question - if waterboarding is such an effective way of getting information out of alleged terrorists, how come so few people in senior positions are coming forward to support and promote its use?
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Out of interest, does anybody know the whole Craig Murray story?
He was the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan for a couple of years but was sacked after (internally) making allegations about UK complicity in torture.
There was a successful campaign to allow him to give evidence at the Joint Committee on Human Rights and he gave this statement, the first time he's formally given evidence in the UK (!!).
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/trying_again_my.html
He's also apparently been the victim of a smear campaign (and I've certainly read some pretty vindictive / unsavoury stuff about his private life in the past).
If anyone has been following the story from the beginning I'd be interested to hear it.
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oliver this is torture!!
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Hasn't Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads been following much of the Murray saga?
True.
On the other hand, and no disrespect to the guy, but reading his website is a giant ballache. He uses a tiny typeface and can never make a point in less than 8 paragraphs. I normally wait for Chicken Yoghurt to summarise the facts for me.
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oliver this is torture!!
YouTube - David Hasselhoff - Hooked On A Feeling (High Quality)
This is Germany, my friend.
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This is Germany, my friend.
Aha! hahahaha!
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UN report says Britain complicit in mistreatment / torture possibly amounting to crimes against humanity.
The whole article makes important reading, but this stood out for me:
"The report details the role of many other governments in the kidnapping and secret detention of terrorism suspects. Among those highlighted alongside the UK are the US, Algeria, China, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe."
Nice to know we're on the side of the angels when it comes to human rights.
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WOooah!!! totally not what i had going through my mind when i opened the thread..
EXPECTATION FAIL!
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After MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up a list of questions to be put to Ahmed, the Pakistani agents who were questioning him ripped out a number of his fingernails. Ahmed alleges he was also beaten, whipped and deprived of sleep. He was later deported to the UK, tried and convicted of terrorism offences and is now serving a life sentence at Full Sutton prison near York.
Mmm on a lighter note maybe they shuold explain this to the parents, brothers, sisters and children of those people whose flesh was torn to shreds, skin and eyes burnt, lungs pierced and heart punctured when those terrorist bombs went off. when that is done they can explain it to the people who can no longer, see, walk... live a normal life. who wake up every day with the to face the devestating effect. people who are outcast in some societys becuase of their newly given and poorly treated disabilities..
Few fingernails and some scratches.. he should man up!
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Mmm on a lighter note maybe they shuold explain this to the parents, brothers, sisters and children of those people whose flesh was torn to shreds, skin and eyes burnt, lungs pierced and heart punctured when those terrorist bombs went off. when that is done they can explain it to the people who can no longer, see, walk... live a normal life. who wake up every day with the to face the devestating effect. people who are outcast in some societys becuase of their newly given and poorly treated disabilities..
Few fingernails and some scratches.. he should man up!
She survived the 7 July attacks. The above link has her opinions on torture and proxy detention.
EDIT: She was in the carriage when the bomb went off, but didn't lose a leg. I'm getting confused...
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Says he was tried and convicted...
yep. bit of a broad brush stroke to go from their to assume he actually killed people... but it is the senseless slaughter of innocents that they need to stop and there is no easy way for that
Rachels article does bring up the interesting fact that people will confess to anything. If they genuinely know nothing they cannot confess. if questions are directed then yes. but then its pointless.
I dont like it one bit.. but.. there is a place for it. it should be the absolute last step AND when you know they are guilty but you need that little bit more information to make the difference and save lifes.
Am i right in thinking the rule of Iraq was kept in place by constant torture and strong arm tactics? so haven't we reduced the amount of suffering?
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they grow back...
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Fuck prosecuting Bush he is a puppet of the US Billionaires and Big Business. *Prosecute Blair*, being a fuckwit is a start and there are enough witnessess in the UK to that one.
diable, I like you very much.
He has a *fat* ugly *wife* that should be oooohhh hold on a sec, punishment enough.......
Oh hang on, I don't like you. Yes, that's what I mean.
I just thought I'd wade in, before knowing all the facts. Its nicer that way.
;)
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Oh yeah, and keeping this on topic:
These are the guys that were accused of killing themselves as "a good PR move" and "an act of asymmetrical warfare". Turns out they were probably tortured to death in a building outside the main Guantanamo camp and the deaths then covered up. Long and horrifying article.
"According to the NCIS documents, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously ... The fact that at least two of the prisoners also had cloth masks affixed to their faces, presumably to prevent the expulsion of the rags from their mouths, went unremarked by the NCIS, as did the fact that standard operating procedure at Camp Delta required the Navy guards on duty after midnight to “conduct a visual search” of each cell and detainee every ten minutes. The report claimed that the prisoners had hung sheets or blankets to hide their activities and shaped more sheets and pillows to look like bodies sleeping in their beds, but it did not explain where they were able to acquire so much fabric beyond their tightly controlled allotment, or why the Navy guards would allow such an obvious and immediately observable deviation from permitted behavior. Nor did the report explain how the dead men managed to hang undetected for more than two hours or why the Navy guards on duty, having for whatever reason so grievously failed in their duties, were never disciplined."
"The [pathologists'] report asserts that the hyoid was broken “during the removal of the neck organs.” An odd admission, given that these are the very body parts—the larynx, the hyoid bone, and the thyroid cartilage—that would have been essential to determining whether death occurred from hanging, from strangulation, or from choking. These parts remained missing when the men’s families finally received their bodies."
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I dont like it one bit.. but.. there is a place for it. it should be the absolute last step AND when you know they are guilty but you need that little bit more information to make the difference and save lifes.
Am i right in thinking the rule of Iraq was kept in place by constant torture and strong arm tactics? so haven't we reduced the amount of suffering?
On Friday Tony Blair will give evidence to the Chilcot enquiry. Would it be reasonable to suggest that rather than being questioned he be tortured? So that we can finally discover what happened in the run up to the Iraq war? Perhaps Lord Goldsmith should have been tortured today to find out if he really did, at the last minute, come to believe that the war would be legal even without a second UN resolution?
No, probably not. Even though they could end up confessing to waging a war of aggression which the UN considers to be the supreme crime; a war which has certainly led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, far far more than any terrorist has ever killed. One reason would be that torture is immoral; the other would be that very very few people can stand any amount of it before they confess to whatever they are told to confess to. It is unreliable and mostly useless. The examples of information extracted by torture that led directly to lives being saved are notable by their absence.
It was forms of torture that led to the false confessions from the Guidford 4 and many other innocent men and women; and that was in a fairly open and rigorous system like ours rather than the secret prisons and Gulags that the US and it's allies operate.
To speak of fingernails being 'liberated' is to stoop to the debased language of cruelty and arrogance that distinguished the remarks and world view of Rumsfeld, Cheney and the other neo-fascist neo-con mass murderers. It is the same complacent mendacity that brought us "collateral damage".
If you approve of torture I would set you the same test as I would for someone who supports the death penalty: no system is perfect and there are bound to be times when the wrong person is executed or tortured. Everyone accepts that. Are you willing to be one of those people? Is your belief in the need for torture so strong that you would accept that you might become a victim of it? Or are the 'mistakes' only for other people to bear? If you think a system of torture can save many lives would you be willing to see your parents, brothers, sisters, girlfriends or boyfriends tortured in error? Would you sacrifice your own child to it? Or, again, is that only for other people, people who have the misfortune to live in a war zone or in a country where terrorists do operate? People we never need see or know of, the invisible, discounted people that actually make up the majority of the worlds' population?
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Torture
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@Oliver Schick
YouTube - wu-tang clan - method man