Talk:Torture

Added a bit in HTML comments which mentioned McCain. Many people respect him, but I don't know how popular he is in Utah.

I think the torture discussion (and the administration's outright support of the idea) is a good place for an appeal to human decency.

I think this is a tricky subject. While no one wants to consider it being done by "our side", let alone be involved in it. Define torture. Is it just the way prisoners are routinely treated? or is it the way they are questioned? or is it both?

Where do we draw the line? Torture is "extreme physical or mental pain". By this definition spouse and child abuse is torture and should be included in the discussion. Other activities can be included. When I was younger I misbehaved in such a way that my mother lay awake at night in fear of where I was and what I was doing. That's torture.

There is something that people who have not been involved in conflict do not ever seem to understand.

War is different.

During wartime (however 'war' is defined) the goals and necessities are completely unrelated to "civilized" society. War is not civilized, no matter how much it is dressed up. It is visceral. It is ugly. It is messy. It is (sometimes controlled) chaos.

Innocents are killed. No matter how it is cloaked or euphemised, innocents are swept up in war. They always will be.

Torture is a part of war. Intentional or not.

This blanket condemnation of torture is wrong. It needs to be clarified. --harleypig

Can you give me any examples of how torture helped us win World War II? --pashdown 12:02, 28 March 2006 (MST)

Not at the moment. However, I've been doing some reading and I'd still like a clarification on the definition of the word and concept of 'torture' being used here. My problem (which, admittedly, is not well stated) isn't with the stance of anti-torture so much as the vagueness of the term. I've had many people tell me, or claim in my presence, that questioning someone for 24 hours with no sleep and little or no chance to go to the bathroom is torture. But it's not. The key word in the definition above is *extreme*. Wikipedia uses severe. But when talking to people about it I get vaque responses.

What I'm trying to ask is, what do you define as torture? What I should do is wait until you respond before going into a rant (like above :/ ) --[[User::harleypig|harleypig]]

There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Torture is well defined in "international law", "federal statutes", and military regulations. We know what torture is, this Administration simply doesn't want to follow the rules. That is the problem, along with Democratic inability to express simple and absolute humanitarian outrage for fear of being seen as 'weak on terror'. There should be no equivocations here. Every Democratic candidate should say, "Torture is immoral, illegal, and ineffective in anti-terrorism operations. Torture is the crude tool of a terrorist, not the policy of a great nation. Torture is morally unacceptable under any circumstances, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that United States does not become a nation that employs or tolerates such barbarism. This is not about what can be twisted into legality in the opinion of some unaccountable lawyers, it's about doing what is right and moral, and upholding our nation's honor in the eyes of the world."