US State Department calls waterboarding "exceptionallly cruel torture"

[Bob Arctor]

Torture sounds good to me

 

I hear Daesh are recruiting

[tinfoilhat]

Because I'd swear black was white and my Mum was Osama Bin Laden if they were putting electric shocks on my testicles...which rather negates the whole "point" of torture, which is to get meaningful information.

 

Asking them nicely won't work. Threatening to kill them won't work - they'll be martyrs then. Jailing them for infinity won't get vital intelligence that could stop a terrorist atrocity. So we either jail/excecute them and just hope we aren't in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

But scale it back a bit. Couple of years ago there was that toddler in Wales kidnapped and killed by some sick *******. They caught him early and if memory serves there was chance she could have been alive. The police did as much as they legally could do but he sat with his lawyer and said "no comment" ad infinitum. Now, if there was chance she was alive would the use of water boarding or even the use of pliers and blowtorch be justified? Genuine question, if torture was, for a want of better word, regulated and had a high level of oversight should it be used?

[ENG601PM]

It always is crueler when somebody else is doing it

 

But it's never funnier Mel. hi hi indeed.

 

---------- Post added 10-02-2018 at 15:30 ----------

 

Now, if there was chance she was alive would the use of water boarding or even the use of pliers and blowtorch be justified? Genuine question, if torture was, for a want of better word, regulated and had a high level of oversight should it be used?

 

No it shouldn't. I've always been under the impression that torture is a totally unreliable way of gaining information, and what you might get can't be trusted one way or the other so it's worthless except in lucky hindsight.

 

I think people need to be honest with themselves and admit that they like the idea of torture as a form of vengeance, not information gathering. It's as effective at crime prevention as the death penalty, but there are plenty in favour of that too.

Edited February 10, 2018 by ENG601PM