Had Al-Zarqawi been captured alive, would you advocate torturing him for information?

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nate1865

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Just opening this up.

Say we captured him alive. Being the top general in the al-quaida army, would you torture him to get information that would save American and Iraqi lives? Would you torture him for info on where they are attempting to acquire nuclear weapons?

Keep in mind, his silence during questioning would be killing as many people as the terrorists' IEDs.

Tough call.
 
No, but not due to the morality of torture. Simply because I've heard the same opinion from a number of military and law enforcement interrogators: torture only works in the movies.
 
No, because we shouldn't stoop to the level of those whom we oppose. Simply because they choose to act in such a fashion does not give us license to do the same.
 
That's a tuffy!

The emotional side of me says get all the info out of him you can,however you have to. Hook him up to a car battery or whatever.

The logical/practical/rational side says not too. I honestly believe that he deserves it, but would we be any better then the terrorist if we torture him?
 
Torture. Such a subjective word. Toothpicks pushed all the way under fingernails is torture in ANYONE'S book, but there are too many gray areas. Some people would have us believe that anything less than HBO, a queen sized pillowtop mattress, and tea served at 10am and 2pm is barbaric.
 
It is not a tough call. We stand by our morality or we don't. In philosophy, this is called the ticking bomb problem. You have a terrorist and there is a ticking bomb. Lots of writing on it with no clear answer due to the immediacy of the bomb.

In this case, it is clearer - would you support the torture of an American born terrorist in the USA with a ticking bomb like McVeigh? Then how about a drug dealer who knows that a big sale with hurt 100s of people on the street?

The answer is no. I'm reading a book, the History of the Jews and it makes the point that one of the great tenets of Mosaic law in the development of monotheism is that the God of Israel move away from torture and disfigurement as punishment. That's a hint.
 
I am against physically abusive torture, but not against annoying the hell out of those who would withold vital information. Sleep deprivation, loud noises, bright lights and drugs that suppress the higher cortical functions of the brain, like sodium pentothal, are not torture in my book.

-Dave
 
Yes it would not bother me one bit. It's called winning at all costs the loser goes home in a body bag. But i wouldn't expect anything different if i was caught. Anyone who beleives there should be rules in warfare is a idiot. It would be at last resort if all other methods failed. It's has to be worked up to. You can't start off with the bolt cutters on his toes and not expect him to tell you what ever you want to hear. Extracting information is an art form all by it's self because if you project what info you are looking for then the interrogated can weave a viable story to your liking. I never claimed to take the moral high ground. I always liked the saying. History is written be the winners.
 
Sleep deprivation, loud noises, bright lights and drugs that suppress the higher cortical functions of the brain
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Been to that party when I was young. As far as winning at all costs - as I said, would you do that to an American home grown terrorist suspect? Would you pull out Tim McVeigh's toe nails or take someone who knew the layout of Koresh's compound and burn them with cigarettes?

If you captured a terrorist's baby son, would you put the kid slowly into the wood chipper to make Daddy talk?

Call me an idiot - but I'm not down with such.

We are such zealots about owning guns and then sacrifice other parts of our humanity for expediency?
 
I agree that "all is fair in love and war" and all but I think TheBluesMan hit it on the head with the "annoyance" tactic. Physical torture involving bodily harm will place us in the crosshairs for warcrime hearings and extremely alter the worlds perspective on our foreign diplomacy tactics. (Not that they haven't been construed already) He may or may not have vital information on other insurgent cell locations or the where abouts of weapons caches. I think there should be some attemt at getting that out of him.
 
If we believe in torture, then should we abandon the trials of the torturers that we capture after we win a war?

Thus, do we accept and then do not punish those who rape and mutilate our soldiers?

So when, we see a captured pilot who is abused and beaten - should the POTUS express outrage or say that such treatment is quite alright with us?
 
The kind of "torture" we've been doing (loud noises, lights, etc) doesn't offend my sense of morality.

But, torture is generaly considered to be an unreliable way of getting information. For that reason alone I don't think it's worth it.
 
Bluesman

Who then enforces the rules in war? You are already trying to kill the enemy what more of a punishment are you going to inflict on them if they don't follow the "rules". Economic sanctions will be imposed. That will work great. I beleive one of the first things that are tought in leadership is don't issue an order you know will be disobeyed. And rules in warfare will be disobeyed. And for calling you an idiot i try to refain from that unless i'm face to face with that person it's a little cowardly to do so over the internet IMO. In rereading my first post it does come off as name calling for that i apologize.
 
Found an interesting passage in the Third Geneva Convention. The passage is the following and I will also post a link to the whole convention.


Because many of the guerillas do not display a "fixed distinctive sign recognisable at a distance", they are traditionally not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention [1]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention

It's a bit lengthy but a good read.

Morality aside and basing a decision on legality alone would this change anyone's mind if it applied to al-Zarqawi?
 
Following that logic, you would have no problem with the government torturing members of, say, an armed rebellion which might come about after a few more decades of federal abuses? After all, they probably wouldn't wear a uniform with a logo. :barf:
 
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