Good torture, bad torture

[Pekelo]

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

No one is advocating torture as punishment.

At least 2 of us were. What's wrong with torture as punishment?
It might work better than just doing time. The timesaver part was already mentioned...

Of course civilized societies reject it out of hand.


Well, let's see: not allowing smoking in prisons for heavy smokers sure counts as torture, and we probably would ALL agree, that it is GOOD torture...

How about being in solitary confinement? That is torture for sure, and most "civilized" societies allow it....

 

[man]

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

The term "torture" is being thrown around pretty loosely as well. The Geneva Conventions on POW's treatment consider anything remotely coercive as torture. Is it torture to have a dog barking at a terrorist? To force him to listen to loud music? To keep a light on in his room? To slap him around a little? To stage mock executions? All are currently out of bounds. If we used such techniques to uncover a plot to blow up airliners have we really lowered ourselves morally to where we are no better than terroirsts? Or have we demonstrated that we are able to make moral distinctions and that we value innocent life above all else?

the problem is that this inevitably gets out of
hand. there is no a little more here, since it is
terrorists and a little less here, since it is just a
normal murderer. this does not work. you hand
over power to executives and then they have it.

btw torture has very different forms and the "art"
is to leave no traces. and all this:

"To force him to listen to loud music? To keep a light on in his room? To slap him around a little? To stage mock executions?"

can have devastating effects on the human brain
if used intensively enough. we are not talking about
having some loud music for an hour or two. we
are talking about 24/7 sensoric terror. i really hope
you are not as naive as you sound, if i may say so.
this: "hey, some music, some barking, big deal"-thing
is ... shocking. and if i may dare to say so: naive.

an aspect you completely leave out of the equation
is that torture as a means to get out useful is very
questionable. tortured people, from a certain point
on, simply tell you everything you want. and the
torturer has no means whatsoever to distinguish
between what is right or wrong, because the lines
start to blur for the victim himself.

there is no such thing as "good" torture.
there is no excuse for guantamo bay and
it is purely shocking that there needs to be
a public debate on geneva and torture in the
United States Of America in the 21st century.