What country do you live in? Oh wait, are you talking about America… HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAaaaaaa…. :(

At Balko’s site, I got into a little bit of a debate with him and some of the commenters on torture……

According to Prof Shaker, several women held in Abu Ghraib jail were sexually abused, including one who was raped by an American military policeman and became pregnant. She has now disappeared.

…

“A female colleague of mine was arrested and taken there. When I asked her after she was released what happened at Abu Ghraib she started crying,” Prof Shaker said.

“Ladies here are afraid and shy of talking about such subjects. They say everything is OK. Even in a very advanced society in the west it is very difficult to talk about rape. But I think it happened.”

Well, I guess that proves it! After all, Professor Shaker would never lie.

You guys seriously need to develop a little skepticism. Believe it or not, some of the people who hate Americans enough to kill them are actually willing to smear American soldiers with falsities.

Now I’m not saying no American soldier has ever done anything bad. Some people do bad things (even some people who aren’t soldiers do bad things, believe it or not). But let’s just be rational about this. First of all, the abuse that did occur does not prove that interrogation is torture. And yes, interrogation that does no permanent damage is preferable by far to interrogation that does. If you believe there’s no difference between waterboarding and acid baths, you are a lunatic. Please check yourself into the nearest hospital for your own safety.

Look, I think we all agree that people in custody should not be tortured, raped, or murdered. And yes, the naked pyramid was wrong. And no, people should not be kidnapped off the street at random and waterboarded (where do you guys gets this stuff?).

Radley, thank you for responding. But I think you should actually read the articles to which you referred. There is simply no reliable evidence of the kinds of abuse to which you, and others, are referring. I’m as outraged by the abuse that did occur as anyone. And I’m glad that I live in a country that demands that such abusers be held accountable.

Of course means can be justified by ends. Let’s say I shoot someone. Is that bad in and of itself? What if the person was about to rape my wife and/or daughter and the only way I could stop him was by shooting him? Doesn’t that justify it?

Seriously, I just don’t know what else to say.

Where have you been?

No, look. A human being has a minimum daily caloric requirement to stay alive. The sun provides a finite daily caloric input to the Earth.

That right there sets a thermodynamic limit on human population. The idea that human populations can grow unchecked indefiniately is absurd, and an obvious violation of physics. Sure, you can coast for a while on the ancient sunlight we’ve banked up, but the evidence is that we’ve peaked on those sources. At some point, the only energy available to humanity is that received in real-time from the sun.

In other words, we’re headed for K-selection, eventually. There’s no mutation or innovation that can defeat the second law; we can’t get energy from nothing.

So torture is cool as long as it doesn’t kill. Got it.

And if waterboarding isn’t torture, and simply an interrogation technique, it must be cool if the local pd brings you in for a little simulated drowning before you request a lawyer, right?

Hold yourself to a higher standard, friend. This is the United States of America.

It is a shame that Judge in South Carolina is in for a shit storm. Finally somebody actually follows the written law, instead of a precedant, the man should be commended, instead of becoming a target for everything MADD can throw at him. There was one statement in that article that inflames me every time I see it. It has to do with it being a “privilege to buy alcohol”. Who are these clowns to be granting US privileges?

The police can put their hands on a person, especially a child in a school, to protect their safety or the safety of others. They are not REQUIRED to arrest you in order to save you from injury or injury to others, and certainly you’re not arguing that once the polcie put thier hadns on you to help you be safer that they SHOULD just go back and arrest you to cover their asses. The whole thing about parents suing is also hogwash. I could sue you right now for stealing my screen name, or for having an ugly face. The LAW says that teachers are responsilbe with student safety and any reasonable means to achieving that end will be deemed legal by a court after applying a very loose standard that considers things from the teacher/school personnel’s perspective.

Tokin42. My poitn baout Iraq was that torture methods were used to elicit a great deal of information that supported the case that Iraq was very dangerous and connected to Al Qaeda. That information supported the invasion of Iraq. The point being that torture can be very inaccurate and end up with disasterous consequences.

I’m curious, were the torture apologists on this thread upset that Lyndiie Englund and Grenner were prosecuted for Abu Ghraib? Did they think it was ok what we did to those people there? It really seems odd to me that no one debated torture when Abu Ghraib came out, but now so many people seem to think it is a good idea. Was it the pictures? The low-level-ness of the perpetrators? Just a change of heart?

No, of course I don’t believe that. But somebody does. Daniel Pearl was killed as he was, yes, because he was a Jewish reporter, but also to serve to terrorize others (they’re terrorists, right?) to apply pressure to advance their agenda.

Everybody thinks their intentions are noble, and that’s even before considering other factors that make things even more murky, like soldiers or agents fearing the consequences of disobeying their superiors, politicians and appointees wanting to get re-elected/re-appointed/promoted, and sheer anger at the perpetrators of 9/11.

It’s one thing to say, “It was unintentional, I slipped on a banana peel and in a chain of unlikely events, accidentally caused this guy to be waterboarded.” It’s another thing to say, “Yes, I engaged in torture, but my intentions were noble.” That is just another way of saying that the end justifies the means.

They don’t.

I’ll bet that Arizona hotel didn’t feel like one penny was wasted.

Wow. You really have no idea what you’re talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

Rape, sodomy, battery, and homicide. Yes, it’s Wikipedia. Read the footnoted articles. Even the U.S. military admits as much.

no one was hurt by the stupid antics of the guards at Abu Ghraib. People were humiliated, but let’s be realistic.

You are lying, uninformed, or self-diluted in your own BS. Either way, you just lost the thread.

But do you agree with me that thinking that way is wrong?

Mischief? Mischief is sticking gum in someone’s hair. Mischief is blowing spitballs. Mischief is cow tipping and egging houses.

What happened at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers was not mischief.

You’re using the wrong standard. Do not evaluate whether something is ethical based on whether or not bloodthirsty savages would do such a thing. It should be based on what civilized people would do.