CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

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Londoner
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Post by Londoner »

TSBU wrote:
Then why are you both feeding each other? Really, why are you talking in this thread? I would like to have your answers.
By avoiding responding to the insults, for a while I was able to get him to discuss the topic in a reasonable way. I think it is sometimes worth trying.
Belinda
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Belinda »

FiveRed Apples wrote:

No American soldier is obligated to follow an order he deems immoral. This is codified for him and all military personnel know this. So, if someone does have an objection to an order, he has a means to object to this order and is permitted to not follow the order. The military are grown men and women we're talking about, autonomous people, not little children Belinda takes them to be, so if they perform their duty, then it's because they have consented to it.

Yes, but it's not as simple as you imply. The very history of the Regiment is told to soldiers in such a way as to persuade them that the Regiment knows best. It takes quite lot of rebel to be able to go against the flow.
Londoner
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Londoner »

I always remember an account of those soldiers who refused to go along with the 'My Lai' massacre. You would think they would be strong characters, perhaps with religious convictions, but they just turned out to be very ordinary; there was nothing you could see that explained why those particular individuals went against the majority. When asked for their reasons, they offered nothing much more articulate than 'it was just wrong'. And they were against the majority, most went along with it, not just one or two bad apples.

And that chimes with the article in 'Philosophy Now'. The author (an experienced soldier) writes that for most people combat produces stresses likely to motivate torture and cruelty. The problem is not them doing inhumane things only because they are ordered, rather the situation is that they will do it unless it is made clear and constantly reinforced that they must not.

And, of course, we are all familiar with the corrupting effect of just being in power, from social experiments. One thinks of the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse. Although it seems the abuse was authorised for interrogation, the soldiers turned it into a routine part of prison life, inventing new humiliations (often with a sexual component) and recording them.

The reality of the abuse of prisoners was, and will always be, a long way away from those 'ticking bomb' or 'kidnapped child' analogies offered by its apologists.
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fiveredapples
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by fiveredapples »

Belinda wrote:Yes, but it's not as simple as you imply. The very history of the Regiment is told to soldiers in such a way as to persuade them that the Regiment knows best. It takes quite lot of rebel to be able to go against the flow.
In other words, he has been persuaded with reason, not coerced, and so what are you doing here patronizing his decisions? Soldiers and Marines haven't asked you to speak on their behalf, mainly because they disagree with your opinions, but in order to speak opinions they mostly condemn, you pretend to speak for them, which is underhanded.

Just speak your silliness in your own name and don't make yourself out for the spokesperson or the champion of people better than you, of people who disagree with you.
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fiveredapples
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by fiveredapples »

Londoner wrote:The reality of the abuse of prisoners was, and will always be, a long way away from those 'ticking bomb' or 'kidnapped child' analogies offered by its apologists.
So you quote others more intelligent and honest than you as a build up to your asinine conclusion, a conclusion which they didn't say nor would likely agree with, as it is a non-sequitur.

The story of what people, not just soldiers, will do in certain social contexts is part of human nature. If you read Margaret Mead or Doris Lessing, you'd know a little more about that. Yes, when you're at war, when the lives of your fellow Marine sometimes rest with you doing your job quickly and efficiently, with the group trusting and working together to increase its chances of survival, then you can't sit there and morally ponder every decision, so it'll typically only be the most heinously immoral orders that will get challenged, and only when not following them wouldn't lead to your dying or your fellow soldiers dying. Nobody is going to object to a so-called immoral order in the middle of a fire fight. So, for obvious reasons, the setting of war, the context of serving in the military, the setting of a military unit, will promote that you don't speak up about every thing -- because war is often a life-or-death situation. So, objecting to immoral orders is not easy because of the context of serving in the military. We want a military with discipline, of people who are unflinchingly going to perform some terrible things (legal and lawful but terrible) because it's the military, not your rotary club, and so quite naturally it'll be harder to make objects in this context. There's nothing we can do about it nor is there anything we should do about it. That's the lesson to be drawn from the honest words of what Soldiers and Marines teach us about war.

And, frankly, if you have a problem with certain acts, certain brutal but legal and common military acts, then it's your moral responsibility not to join. Don't sign up. Don't sign up for a combat MOS, to be a part of a squad whose lives often hinge on your doing your job. That's why we have the designation 'conscientious objector'. Be that. That's the story and conclusion you should have drawn.

Instead, you lie to people by saying that story tells us something about 'ticking time bomb' scenarios, when ticking bomb scenarios have nothing to do with the story this former service member tells. Ticking time bomb scenarios are used to highlight that we are morally permitted to perform some seemingly immoral acts (that's the point, moron, that they're only seemingly immoral) when in the middle of protecting human life from unlawful attacks. Yet you come around and lie to people about the lesson to be drawn from the story soldiers honestly tell about the conditions of war. You are a fucking moron or a fucking liar. I told you, you're the dumbest person here.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Christ, so many words, sayin' so very little.

Comes down to this...

If I have you, I can do what I like to you.

If I wanna apply an electric current to you, I will.

And when I do, you'll talk.

You tell me what I want, the current gets shut down.

You don't, it stays on.

Torture works.

It's being used now...it'll be used tomorrow.
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Arising_uk
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Arising_uk »

Although the problem with this is that the current doesn't get shut down. The torturer tells them they are going to get tortured if they don't talk, so lets say they talk. The torturer won't believe them so they torture them anyway and they talk but then the torturer can't be sure that they've told the truth so they torture them again to check, they tell the truth and then some more, anything to stop the torture, and around it goes until the tortured says anything and everything to get it to stop, By the end of it you're left with too much information and misinformation to have made the 'intelligence' gathering worthwhile. On top of that you're likely to act on the misinformation and exacerbate whatever situation it was in the first place you were trying to solve, i.e. you create more of the people you are trying to stop. It may well work in a situation where you can find confirming evidence but ironically if that was the case you wouldn't be needing to torture in the first place. Horrible as it is about the only time it works for gathering reliable information is in the local battlefield where you want very specific answers and are not a sadist with time on your hands.

I think the best sick joke here is that apparently the US only waterboarded three people at the cost of $81,000,000 and you could have just offered them $10,000,000 each and safe haven in the States to tell all and more than likely they'd have taken it whilst saving yourselves $51 odd million. Oh! Apart from the one you tortured who had bugger all to do with Al-Queada. That is if you belive that the program only tortured three people that is. :lol:
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

"the US only waterboarded three people at the cost of $81,000,000"

Shit, I'd have done it for fifty bucks and a cough drop.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re:

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

henry quirk wrote:"the US only waterboarded three people at the cost of $81,000,000"

Shit, I'd have done it for fifty bucks and a cough drop.
I don't think they do it commercially, but I would happily water-board you if that's what you want. You can keep your fifty bucks though. I won't charge you.
Londoner
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Londoner »

fiveredapples wrote: You are a fucking moron or a fucking liar. I told you, you're the dumbest person here.
And you are getting increasingly over-excited and incoherent.

If you have a convincing argument it would speak for itself. That you need to embellish it with insults just indicates a lack of confidence.
RWStanding
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by RWStanding »

Semantics
The question of water-boarding is not an exercise in semantics. A definition of torture could be devised that makes water-boarding mere psychological pain, whereas torture is actual physical harm. But the definition of torture I am aware of is: The act of deliberately inflicting physical or psychological pain on an organism in order to fulfill some desire of the torturer or compel some action from the victim.
If we are altruists, but not perhaps for others, such treatment is in itself a great evil. As such it might well be banned, as it is. But, if Britain were in some existential danger we may be sure spys and others would not be treated with kid gloves.
RWStanding
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by RWStanding »

Semantics
The question of water-boarding is not an exercise in semantics. A definition of torture could be devised that makes water-boarding mere psychological pain, whereas torture is actual physical harm. But the definition of torture I am aware of is: The act of deliberately inflicting physical or psychological pain on an organism in order to fulfill some desire of the torturer or compel some action from the victim.
If we are altruists, but not perhaps for others, such treatment is in itself a great evil. As such it might well be banned, as it is. But, if Britain were in some existential danger we may be sure spies and others would not be treated with kid gloves.
Belinda
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Belinda »

I don't think Britain would torture detainees even in a time of crisis. Apart from altruism, tortured people in those countries where it's done are mostly innocent and the torturers are employees of demagogues. It's the responsibility of torturers to provide admissible evidence that torture works. In the absence of admissible evidence torture is nothing but terrorising of populations by heavy- handed police and their employers.
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Arising_uk
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Re:

Post by Arising_uk »

henry quirk wrote: Shit, I'd have done it for fifty bucks and a cough drop.
Would you? So much for self-governance. Just a little totalitarian at heart.
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Arising_uk
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Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Arising_uk »

Belinda wrote:I don't think Britain would torture detainees even in a time of crisis. ...
Don't you believe it. We're already complicit in rendition.
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