Torture

[Leafless]

So is it really a fact that defense minister Gordon O'Connor and General Hillier are actually contributing to torture because they are responsible for our troops turning Afghans over to Afghans?

Is to not totally ridiculous to suggest there are rules of law that govern a lawless breakdown of a social order?

Is Canada obliged to self destruct in the face of aggression and could consequentially fail because claims of torture are paramount over the importance of Canada's initial mission in Afghanistan to secure the safety of a violently oppressed people.

Torture is an ugly word, but I believe is being used as a socialist weapon to only beat down the present Conservative government to put Canada back into the hands of self righteous Liberal government.

War is also an ugly word but torture is sometimes necessary to obtain important information which could save many lives on top of the fact safeguarding sovereignty might require the use of torture.

Maybe it would be wise to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan in order to save face and political world wide embarrassment over pansy Liberal torture allegations.

[Shakeyhands]

We are a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and to even suggest that this has anything to do with politicking is unbelievable.

[M.Dancer]

Is to not totally ridiculous to suggest there are rules of law that govern a lawless breakdown of a social order?

That statement is ridiculous and irrelevant. Canada is not a lawless society and our troops are required to respect the law where ever they may be.

[Leafless]

Is it not totally ridiculous to suggest there are rules of law that govern a lawless breakdown of a social order?

That statement is ridiculous and irrelevant. Canada is not a lawless society and our troops are required to respect the law where ever they may be.

Canada is a law abiding society but over in Afghanistan is another story.

Regardless, Canadians are simply turning over Afghanistan's to Afghanistan's.

There could be a trade off in that country to safeguard the lives Afghanistan citizens by modifying the (rights) of killer terrorist.

It would make more sense to serve society better to shoot terrorist dead on the spot rather than capture them and later run into torture allegations.

It seems you can't win being Canadian.

[Leafless]

We are a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and to even suggest that this has anything to do with politicking is unbelievable.

Think Kyoto.

[Fortunata]

It seems you can't win being Canadian.

This has nothing to do with being Canadian. This has everything to do with our politico's setting systems in place to comply with international agreements. This actually has more to do with NATO ensuring within their operations that the Geneva convention standards are being met. Our soldiers are doing what they are supposed to be doing by handing over prisoners, it is not up to them to ensure proper policy; that's Ottawa's job along with NATO since we are there under the NATO banner.

[Shakeyhands]

We are a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and to even suggest that this has anything to do with politicking is unbelievable.

Think Kyoto.

How is this relevant? This is about basic human rights.

[Leafless]

It seems you can't win being Canadian.

This has nothing to do with being Canadian. This has everything to do with our politico's setting systems in place to comply with international agreements. This actually has more to do with NATO ensuring within their operations that the Geneva convention standards are being met. Our soldiers are doing what they are supposed to be doing by handing over prisoners, it is not up to them to ensure proper policy; that's Ottawa's job along with NATO since we are there under the NATO banner.

Then who is exactly making the torture allegations? NATO?

Hopefully not human rights activist Michael Byers and William Schabas, another pair of socialist do-gooders.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/04/26/...-detainees.html

[Leafless]

We are a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and to even suggest that this has anything to do with politicking is unbelievable.

Think Kyoto.

How is this relevant? This is about basic human rights.

Michael Byers and William Schabas and David Suzuki all socialist political do-gooders.

[Army Guy]

Actually the genva convention was written as a set of guide lines to which nations could expect the other side to use in event of War. But in War nothing ever goes as per the plan and every nation will break some sort of convention along the way...That much is fact...

So basically it is up to the nation and it's people what rules they are willing to play by, what they are willing to live with, and which ones they are going to break. After all history has shown us that very rarely does the victor atone for thier mistakes or crimes.

[southerncomfort]

You all seem to forget this is a war, the Taliban don't play by the rules, if they did this would all be over by now. Not that I condone major torture but how about trying to win this one.

[BornAlbertan]

How can you bind yourself to "rules of war" when the other side doesn't abide by them?

The objective of war is to WIN. Why would you diminish your effectiveness and thus your ability to win with as minimal of your own casualties only to be the only side abiding by your rules? Hell...even Jean Luc Picard said to hell with the Prime Directive sometimes

[Rue]

I think Fort summed it up as of today. Here is the point. We are in a very difficult moral position. We want to differentiate ourselves from terrorists. To do that we need the moral difference and that comes in a legal system where we do not engage in the same behaviour as terrorists.

We also know that we subscribe to international conventions as to the treatment of prisoners precisely for that reason-to remain humane and be seen as morally different or more evolved humanely then terrorists.

I think all rational people agree we do not want to turn into terrorists ourselves in this war.

I think the Abu Greib (I spelled that wrong) prison situation showed us what happens when a nation claiming to be defending democracy loses sight of its own fundamental legal principles and then forces its soldiers to engage in political acts.

In democracy we do not want our soldiers engaged in politics. We keep our soldiers seperated from politics or so we used to.

Today our soldiers are not fighting a conventional enemy they are fighting someone who dresses and talks like a civilian. More to the point we don't want our soldiers being conventional soldiers, we want them to be social workers, community workers, public relations people, police.

Is it realistic to expect conventional soldiers to be all of those.

Me personally I do not think so. I think this idea we can use soldiers to kill Taliban while at the same time being social workers for the rest of Afghanistan is not realistic and in the long run can not work if you are fighting terrorists precisely because those terrorists blend with the civilians and there is no way to tell the difference meaning in the long run, to try catch the terrorists you are going to alienate non terrorists.

We can not be all things to all people. That is what Canadians like to think of themselves as-good guys who can save the world but we can not. That is misguided and nothing more then a new revised version of the old Christian missionary out to save the savages.

So it brings us to the next point. It is unrealistic for anyone to think NATO will set up prison camps and fill them with Taliban. It is not going to happen. For purely political reasons it will not happen.

It is also absolutely unfair to blame Canada's soldier's for that or to suggest they must put a stop to it.

No that is a political issue that our politicians must take direct responsibility for.

I personally believe in international conventions and treaties and believe soldiers should not be placed in positions they were not trained or created to do.

I believe the vast majority of soldiers believe in conventions and conducting themselves with an honour code and have no interest in killing or torturing civilians and would prefer not to have to interact witht hem if at all possible to avoid problems.

I also appreciate in the heat of a battle, soldiers do things you and I would not understand to survive but I distinguish that from when we are talking about civilian situations where there is no heat of battle transpiring.

I do not want to see our soldiers being used as interogators if possible. They were trained to interogate and fight other soldiers not civilians. Now we want them doing the same with civilians. That is a police role not a military role. That is why they have been given over to the Afghanis.

If we believe the present Afghani police and government are no better then the Taliban, then spit it out, say so and leave if that is the point otherwise the status quo of handing them over is the only thing we can practically do for now and we have to rely on our media, ngo's and politicians to assure the Afghan government is doing the right thing, not our soldiers. Our soldiers are trying to stay alive. Leave them alone.

[Leafless]

I think Fort summed it up as of today. Here is the point. We are in a very difficult moral position. We want to differentiate ourselves from terrorists. To do that we need the moral difference and that comes in a legal system where we do not engage in the same behaviour as terrorists.

We also know that we subscribe to international conventions as to the treatment of prisoners precisely for that reason-to remain humane and be seen as morally different or more evolved humanely then terrorists.

I think all rational people agree we do not want to turn into terrorists ourselves in this war.

I think the Abu Greib (I spelled that wrong) prison situation showed us what happens when a nation claiming to be defending democracy loses sight of its own fundamental legal principles and then forces its soldiers to engage in political acts.

In democracy we do not want our soldiers engaged in politics. We keep our soldiers seperated from politics or so we used to.

Today our soldiers are not fighting a conventional enemy they are fighting someone who dresses and talks like a civilian. More to the point we don't want our soldiers being conventional soldiers, we want them to be social workers, community workers, public relations people, police.

Is it realistic to expect conventional soldiers to be all of those.

Me personally I do not think so. I think this idea we can use soldiers to kill Taliban while at the same time being social workers for the rest of Afghanistan is not realistic and in the long run can not work if you are fighting terrorists precisely because those terrorists blend with the civilians and there is no way to tell the difference meaning in the long run, to try catch the terrorists you are going to alienate non terrorists.

We can not be all things to all people. That is what Canadians like to think of themselves as-good guys who can save the world but we can not. That is misguided and nothing more then a new revised version of the old Christian missionary out to save the savages.

So it brings us to the next point. It is unrealistic for anyone to think NATO will set up prison camps and fill them with Taliban. It is not going to happen. For purely political reasons it will not happen.

It is also absolutely unfair to blame Canada's soldier's for that or to suggest they must put a stop to it.

No that is a political issue that our politicians must take direct responsibility for.

I personally believe in international conventions and treaties and believe soldiers should not be placed in positions they were not trained or created to do.

I believe the vast majority of soldiers believe in conventions and conducting themselves with an honour code and have no interest in killing or torturing civilians and would prefer not to have to interact witht hem if at all possible to avoid problems.

I also appreciate in the heat of a battle, soldiers do things you and I would not understand to survive but I distinguish that from when we are talking about civilian situations where there is no heat of battle transpiring.

I do not want to see our soldiers being used as interogators if possible. They were trained to interogate and fight other soldiers not civilians. Now we want them doing the same with civilians. That is a police role not a military role. That is why they have been given over to the Afghanis.

If we believe the present Afghani police and government are no better then the Taliban, then spit it out, say so and leave if that is the point otherwise the status quo of handing them over is the only thing we can practically do for now and we have to rely on our media, ngo's and politicians to assure the Afghan government is doing the right thing, not our soldiers. Our soldiers are trying to stay alive. Leave them alone.

[Leafless]

With all due respect Rue I think your post does not reflect the realities modern countries are faced with.

Terrorist have declared war on many countries of the world, killing many innocent victims.

What makes you or anyone think we have to deal with this situation on their terms. That is having the very difficult position of searching out and eliminating the terrorist in their homeland. This of course means sacrificing many of our troops in the process, for no real reason.

In the day of high tech weaponry, I think the solution would be to obliterate the countries that harbour these terrorist, if of course, their respective governments refuse to clean up their home grown problem.

Only after we obliterate these countries and after we take possession the country, would we provide aid to the survivors and assist with redevelopment providing they adhere to Western style government and ideologies.

I think ruling with an iron fist is the only way to deal with matters involving continual terror attacks and regardless, it will probably come down to this type of action in the future regardless of human rights abuses.

[Black Dog]

War is also an ugly word but torture is sometimes necessary to obtain important information which could save many lives on top of the fact safeguarding sovereignty might require the use of torture.

Except for the fact it doesn't actually work, yeah, torture is peachy.

I think ruling with an iron fist is the only way to deal with matters involving continual terror attacks and regardless, it will probably come down to this type of action in the future regardless of human rights abuses.

I wonder how that sounded in its original German?

[Wilber]

Except for the fact it doesn't actually work, yeah, torture is peachy.

Unfortunately it often does work, that is why it is used.

[M.Dancer]

Except for the fact it doesn't actually work, yeah, torture is peachy.

Unfortunately it often does work, that is why it is used.

Depends what it is you want. If you want timely immediate tactical information then yes, torture doesn't work.

If you want to break a person for spite, to cow the populace into submission, to exact revenge, then torture works perfectly.

.....now the fear of torture, that works.

Take a person of no value and pair of vice grips. Make sure a person of high value can her and smell whats going on (but don't let them see...)

After a few hours the person of high value should be psychologically prepared....

[Black Dog]

Depends what it is you want. If you want timely immediate tactical information then yes, torture doesn't work.

Precisely. Which is why statements like this:

torture is sometimes necessary to obtain important information which could save many lives

are staggeringly wrong.

Y'know, it's one of the enduring mysteries of contemporary political discourse how the people who advocate torture and murder, who scoff at due process and jurisprudence and who are generally but implacably hostile to western standards of behaviour have the nerve to posioton themselves as defenders of the very things they loathe.

[noahbody]

.....now the fear of torture, that works.

I would agree with this. Fear of torture is a stong motivator in interrogation. There is a big difference between "talk or something will happen" and "don't talk and nothing will happen."

[M.Dancer]

Y'know, it's one of the enduring mysteries of contemporary political discourse how the people who advocate torture and murder, who scoff at due process and jurisprudence and who are generally but implacably hostile to western standards of behaviour have the nerve to posioton themselves as defenders of the very things they loathe.

Well....lets say We knew that a fellow has information about a large bomb somewhere....and when it goes off there will be numerous deaths.....

I would not accept torturing this fellow..if he is determined and all he knows is if he holds out long enough the bomb will go off.

......The proper action would be to detain his mother, or better yet, grandmother....and let him see her being taken away, shackled and blindfolded into a room where the instruments of interogation are visable.

......Then ask him some questions.

[Black Dog]

Well....lets say We knew that a fellow has information about a large bomb somewhere....and when it goes off there will be numerous deaths.....

The fatal flaw in the ticking time bomb scenario in any of its iterations is that it's improbability renders it useless as anything more than an interesting starting point for a moral debate (like the old saw about travelling back in time and killing Hitler as a baby). There's no way it should be given the time of day in a serious discussion of policy.

[M.Dancer]

Well....lets say We knew that a fellow has information about a large bomb somewhere....and when it goes off there will be numerous deaths.....

The fatal flaw in the ticking time bomb scenario in any of its iterations is that it's improbability renders it useless as anything more than an interesting starting point for a moral debate (like the old saw about travelling back in time and killing Hitler as a baby). There's no way it should be given the time of day in a serious discussion of policy.

I believe that in Israel, that particular moral dilemma has presented itself a few times already. My thought would be pull the guys balls off and deal with the legalities later....if it means saving the lives of my people.

[Black Dog]

I believe that in Israel, that particular moral dilemma has presented itself a few times already.

I know the old TTB has been used as a defense of Israel's , um, vigourous interregation techniques. But I've never heard of the situation occurring in real life.

My thought would be pull the guys balls off and deal with the legalities later....if it means saving the lives of my people.

Again: the probability of everything falling into place is exceedingly slim. You have to know about the plot, th eimmediacy of the threat, you have to have a guy in custody and thaty guy has to be the guy with the one piece of information you don't have. Oh and also that he'll tell you the truth after torture. It's all very silly and improbable. That a fable like the TTB scenario is the "go-to" argument in the discussion of torture just shows how weak the case for it is.

[M.Dancer]

TTB?