Torture, is it a relative term?
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DonR101395
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IMO, yes it's all in the eyes of the beholder. What some might consider torture; is all in a day's living for others.
Some think barking dogs and loud music is torture. Others think those people who believe that are FOS.
Some think barking dogs and loud music is torture. Others think those people who believe that are FOS.
rolleyes: ) at is the drive by media's (and "leading" liberals) lack of being up in arms over this obvious torture vs. a frat party!silicon wolverine
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Apprently mr Murtha doesnt see the hacking off of your private parts and having them sutffed down your throat "torture". But standing in womens underpants while a dog barks at you is. We sure havent seen him condemning the insurgetns for "torture".
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Marko Kloos
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What I find amusing is that much the same demographic who usually argue absolute morality and bemoan the "moral relativism" common in the Left now advance such relativism themselves.
Torture is either moral, or it is not. If it is, we can hardly get outraged when they're doing it to our guys. If it isn't, we have no business doing it if we want to claim the moral high ground.
But hey, we can always redefine the term. Letting someone get bit by dogs and staging mock executions is not as bad as cutting someone's head off, so one is torture and the other is not. Welcome to relative morality.
Torture is either moral, or it is not. If it is, we can hardly get outraged when they're doing it to our guys. If it isn't, we have no business doing it if we want to claim the moral high ground.
But hey, we can always redefine the term. Letting someone get bit by dogs and staging mock executions is not as bad as cutting someone's head off, so one is torture and the other is not. Welcome to relative morality.
Marko Kloos
Inactive
The definition of torture is the infliction of severe physical or psychological pain for the purpose of punishment, revenge, intimidation, deterrance, or the extraction of information.
Does making a Muslim wear women's underwear and simulate sex acts with other men constitute "severe psychological pain"? (That would probably give a Baptist lasting mental scars, too.)
Does threatening someone with an unmuzzled dog make them fear for their life, and does that constitute "severe psychological pain"? (Think about that next time we have a "dog shooting" thread...it seems like a snarling unmuzzled dog is considered a threat to one's life even among most of us.)
I guess we're back to relativism...it's torture when it's done to you or yours, but it's a prank when it's done to the other guys.
Does making a Muslim wear women's underwear and simulate sex acts with other men constitute "severe psychological pain"? (That would probably give a Baptist lasting mental scars, too.)
Does threatening someone with an unmuzzled dog make them fear for their life, and does that constitute "severe psychological pain"? (Think about that next time we have a "dog shooting" thread...it seems like a snarling unmuzzled dog is considered a threat to one's life even among most of us.)
I guess we're back to relativism...it's torture when it's done to you or yours, but it's a prank when it's done to the other guys.
+1 to Marko for pointing out what constitutes torture.
But what constitutes torture according to the rules of warfare? If caught by an opposing force, one should expect to be interrogated, intimidated, pressured, restrained, kept awake, subjected to uncomfortable and disagreeable conditions, fed barely tolerable food and forced to repeatedly watch Hillary Clinton speeches.
Most countries have used fear and intimidation when interrogating their prisoners. The fear of never returning to their homeland or families is enough for some people. Intimidating someone by suggesting their safety is dubious or by suggesting they'll be duly tried just before the hanging are old tricks.
Physical torture isn't nearly as bad as psychological torture. Imagine waking up every day for months with your guard opening the door and saying "today you die!", aiming a pistol at your head and then you hear *Click*, just before he leaves. Now imagine that randomly he fires a round over/past your head before leaving, say about once a week.
Imagine overhearing your guards talking in whispers about the team dispatched to kill your family and bring back some body parts to make you talk.
Using common phobias against a prisoner is another tactic. Moving a prisoner to progressively smaller confines until you find his claustrophobia threshold; putting a live snake in his cell; adding bugs, etc.
Simply making loud noises every night to deprive your subject of sleep can be considered "torture" by some and can be an effective technique.
Personally, forcing someone to listen to the singing of Rosanne Barr or Connie Chung should be considered torture as should being forced to listen to a Hillary Clinton screech-speech.
But what constitutes torture according to the rules of warfare? If caught by an opposing force, one should expect to be interrogated, intimidated, pressured, restrained, kept awake, subjected to uncomfortable and disagreeable conditions, fed barely tolerable food and forced to repeatedly watch Hillary Clinton speeches.
Most countries have used fear and intimidation when interrogating their prisoners. The fear of never returning to their homeland or families is enough for some people. Intimidating someone by suggesting their safety is dubious or by suggesting they'll be duly tried just before the hanging are old tricks.
Physical torture isn't nearly as bad as psychological torture. Imagine waking up every day for months with your guard opening the door and saying "today you die!", aiming a pistol at your head and then you hear *Click*, just before he leaves. Now imagine that randomly he fires a round over/past your head before leaving, say about once a week.
Imagine overhearing your guards talking in whispers about the team dispatched to kill your family and bring back some body parts to make you talk.
Using common phobias against a prisoner is another tactic. Moving a prisoner to progressively smaller confines until you find his claustrophobia threshold; putting a live snake in his cell; adding bugs, etc.
Simply making loud noises every night to deprive your subject of sleep can be considered "torture" by some and can be an effective technique.
Personally, forcing someone to listen to the singing of Rosanne Barr or Connie Chung should be considered torture as should being forced to listen to a Hillary Clinton screech-speech.
Glenn E. Meyer
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When some of our torture fans are arrested by the UN gun police and have some of that stuff done to them - they will be crying torture aplenty.
DonR101395
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I don't think anyone has stated they were fans of torture. What has been stated is that many of the things the media is reporting as torture is pure bs. I've had the same things and a few worse things done to me for the sake of realistic training.
If you go to war and don't expect to have a severe mental mind f#$% played on you and physical manhandling if you're captured; you have to be the most simple minded person on the planet.
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
I don't want to get in trouble again but some posters have posted zeal for clear torture.
I grant you that it is to be expected in war. The crucial point is whether any rules at all apply to state to state or state vs. citizens conflict.
It is a reasonable position to say that no prohibitions exist. We decry nonstate organizations attacking our citizens but we engaged in deliberate state sanction civilian destruction.
Let's make up our minds.
I grant you that it is to be expected in war. The crucial point is whether any rules at all apply to state to state or state vs. citizens conflict.
It is a reasonable position to say that no prohibitions exist. We decry nonstate organizations attacking our citizens but we engaged in deliberate state sanction civilian destruction.
Let's make up our minds.
DonR101395
New member
As soon as they took up arms or aided those who did they became nonlawful combatants and do not have to be afforded treatment under the Geneva conventions. I would say we've done an exceptional job at offording them more than they deserve. There's an a$$ in every crowd and those are the ones the media loves to play up as wholesale torture.
Abu Gharib has done a lot of damage to our cause in Iraq and in the Muslim World. If cartoons upset muslims you can bet your bottom dollar Americans forcing Iraqi men to wear womens clothes and simulated sex are pretty dern close to a 10 on the 1 to 10 scale. The objct is to show that we are the good guys who promote decency, tolerance and democracy. If we kepp driving Iraqis to the insurgents doing stuff like that pretty soon the problem gets worse.
Lets put the shoe on the other foot....
Suppose you had a brother, sister, mother or father end up in jail. They were put there on the suspicion of being affiliated with a group. Next thing you know pictures pop up in the paper of your family member in the nude being forced to do simulated sex acts and being harrased... you would be madder than hell. Why would you expect a different reaction form the Iraqis and muslims?
Lets put the shoe on the other foot....
Suppose you had a brother, sister, mother or father end up in jail. They were put there on the suspicion of being affiliated with a group. Next thing you know pictures pop up in the paper of your family member in the nude being forced to do simulated sex acts and being harrased... you would be madder than hell. Why would you expect a different reaction form the Iraqis and muslims?
Kyote stated:
They both are torture. At least attendance at a frat party is voluntary.
DonR101395 stated:
OK, this is one of the things that drives critics of the war and American treatment of its captives up the wall. On the one hand, those who support the war argue often that it is indeed a war and that it needs to be pursued with the ruthlessness of total war, not the restraint of some type of police action. Then, on the other hand, those same advocates of 'loosing the dogs of war' engage in legalistic semantics about captives being unlawful combatants instead of prisoners of war, nonesense about regulars vs. irregulars in order to exploit them outside the scope of the various conventions and treaties that govern the humane treatment of captured opponents. I dunno, seems contradictory to argue that a state of war exists, but those captured weren't actually fighting in a war.
I guess when your 'war' is on terror, as opposed to an actual state, your enemies all are irregular and anything goes, including torture.
They both are torture. At least attendance at a frat party is voluntary.
DonR101395 stated:
OK, this is one of the things that drives critics of the war and American treatment of its captives up the wall. On the one hand, those who support the war argue often that it is indeed a war and that it needs to be pursued with the ruthlessness of total war, not the restraint of some type of police action. Then, on the other hand, those same advocates of 'loosing the dogs of war' engage in legalistic semantics about captives being unlawful combatants instead of prisoners of war, nonesense about regulars vs. irregulars in order to exploit them outside the scope of the various conventions and treaties that govern the humane treatment of captured opponents. I dunno, seems contradictory to argue that a state of war exists, but those captured weren't actually fighting in a war.
I guess when your 'war' is on terror, as opposed to an actual state, your enemies all are irregular and anything goes, including torture.
It would appear to me that Mr. Murtha's statements are politically motivated....certainly not from the mouth of a decorated man in uniform!!! I find it disgusting that he even referrs himself as having been part of our military..How could any current member serving in our forces even consider looking up to the likes of Murtha ??? When he is layed to rest, i'm sure his gravestone will be tainted yellow....and probably by natural causes!!!
DonR101395
New member
It's not difficult to understand Leif, we invaded Iraq, defeated the Government of Iraq, then installed an interum government and finally an elected government. The unlawful combatants I spoke of are unlawful because they are not part of a government force, they wear no recognizable uniform, and have no government for diplomatic ties. They are similar to the confederate soldiers after the civil war who continued fighting even though a surrender was agreed upon by both sides government. The biggest difference is that these insurgents for the most part were not soldiers of the losing government prior to or during the invasion.
Torture
Liberal whiners don't know what torture is. Revert to WWII, our enemy were masters at torture to gain information or for their enjoyment. The North Vietnamese were no amatuers. The North Koreans as bad as the baddest. And these muslim cretins beheading a screaming victim on video for TV.
So don't try to get my attention and passions aroused by what the Army or Marines do to the enemy which is Iraqi terrorists, I could care less about what US Army and the Marines do to these sub human misfits. War is to kill the enemy and destroy property and although my President believes these vermin can be introduced to democracy, I differ and believe that the woeld is in danger until they are eradicated or get our message!
Liberal whiners don't know what torture is. Revert to WWII, our enemy were masters at torture to gain information or for their enjoyment. The North Vietnamese were no amatuers. The North Koreans as bad as the baddest. And these muslim cretins beheading a screaming victim on video for TV.
So don't try to get my attention and passions aroused by what the Army or Marines do to the enemy which is Iraqi terrorists, I could care less about what US Army and the Marines do to these sub human misfits. War is to kill the enemy and destroy property and although my President believes these vermin can be introduced to democracy, I differ and believe that the woeld is in danger until they are eradicated or get our message!
Marko Kloos
Inactive
Well, the enemy thinks of us in exactly the same way.
I guess you can't really get too upset with them for the whole torture thing if we can and should do the same to those subhumans, right? I mean, in war, anything goes. Why then the outcry about them cutting off heads on camera?
"Subhumans"...I swear, sometimes I feel a great sense of shame to be spending time moderating such reasoned and constructive discourse.
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