www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Spinoff Thread: Define Torture

Isn't the real question how one should treat one's enemies?

"Love your enemies" . "Do good to those who harm you". "Do unto others as you would have them do to you".

Those are the words of Jesus Christ, whom we profess to worship.

Creating a hypothetical situation where one is drawn to sympathize with someone doing very bad things is not relevant to a follower of Christ; we can create similar imaginative situations to justify abortion, or create unlikely scenarios that would all but justify other sins. This is consequentialism, not Christian moral thinking.

And it is irrelevant whether other countries do even worse things than the horrid things we have done. Sort of like someone saying "You think I'm a psychopath because I shot the neighbor child? Well at least I didn't cook him and eat him, like Jeffrey Dahmer. Now Dahmer, <i>there's</i> a psychopath".

For a longer take on torture, see my essay at www.caelumetterra.wordpress.com [caelumetterra.wordpress.com] (scroll down to "Tortured Reasoning")...

No, that is not the real question. The real question here is what means are acceptable in motivating an enemy combatant (a terrorist in this case) to obtain information that will save lives. One could take the pacifist position and say that one may do nothing beyond gentle questioning. But the Church does not set such a limit. Generally speaking the Church would not reject denial of comfort to a terrorist to obtain information. The question at hand is to determine at what point the denial of comfort (or application of discomfort) becomes torture.

As to the cutting off of fingers, I reject the example as a hypothetical. Such is illegal. If it is done those who have done it should be prosecuted. But assuming it is currently done seems to require some sort of evidence. Both the current and the past administration state they have not done such things and assuming they have without proof seems irresponsible to me.

I mostly agree with this assessment (except for the cutting off of the finger part). It is realistic. Given that we water board Navy Seals as part of their training it is logical we would not consider the equivalent done to an enemy terrorist as torture. And we do know that the limited use of water boarding (everyone in the government agrees that it was used on 3 individuals) has yielded information that saved lives. But this does not give us a standard definition of torture, and when severe interrogation crosses the line into torture. On the national stage I don't think we are going to get a common definition, at least not one as solidly defined as most of us would like. The Left wants the issue to attack the Right with. Both the Left and the Right have accepted a common definition (mostly for legal purposes) and the public evidence suggests that there is a firm line and that we are not torturing anyone.

Not that this topic really interests me too much (after all I am *a girl*, and girls generally don't have a stomach for anything uncomfortable), but after reading the Administer's post, I have to say that he makes ALOT of sense and that his examples are excellent.

How else can a psychopath or terrorist be 'motivated' to give details of a murder or a location of a victim, or the details of a terror plot?!? Surely being nice to psychopaths is not going to work!!!

We do not live in Utopia and never will...

I also agree totally that this is one of those subjects that sadly, are brought to great attention and exagerration from those in one political party to undermine those of another. I think that such actions only serve to further divide us as Americans.

Alice

John:

I never accused the U.S. government or armed forces of engaging in cutting off fingers. I have no reason to believe that the United States is engaging in this kind of conduct. The whole reason I used that example-as I have already pointed out-was to illustrate the danger of using an end-justifies-the-means sort of approach. I used an exreme example like this because such extreme, tortuous actions like this have taken place in human history and no doubt still do. However, it was not my intent to accuse the government or the armed forces of the U.S.A. of engaging in this particular behavior. Given that this thread is about defining torture and not about whether or not the U.S.A. has engaged in torture, I did not think it necessary for me to state that I was not implying that the U.S.A. was engaging in this sort of conduct.

Ryan

"I never accused the U.S. government or armed forces of engaging in cutting off fingers. I have no reason to believe that the United States is engaging in this kind of conduct."

I was wondering who you suggested would be using such and worse techniques when you said this:

"Things as bad or possibly even worse than this have been done, and I don't know that such techniques are not currently used."

Christ is Risen!!

The other day, former VP Cheny spoke of some of the information derived from the techniques that the current administration has derided. There were a number of derailed plots to kill and maim the civilian population or members thereof in the United States. They were thwarted by the use of the techniques that are currenty being reviled.

The fact that only three--not all, but only three--of the worst of the detainees were subjected to these techniques has not been reported by the mainstream media, which just goes to show their bias in the matter of reporting.

So the moral question has to become not whether such techniques are themselves inherently evil, but whether the saving of numbers of innocent lives justifies their use in specific cases. We do not live in a perfect world and we will never perfectly live out the values we profess as a country. And the world will never love us because of these values. We are hated in fact because of them--because others see themselves as less than us because they cannot or will not adopt the same standards.

BOB

The big problem with torture is that any information gathered by use of pain has been shown repeatedly to be unreliable.

The CIA uses it; the CIA's data has been extremely unreliable of late; the connection is probably due to false information provided to get temporary reprieve.

The question of "information gathered by use of pain" involves a different situation than what has been debated recently. The information gathered was time sensitive and its veracity would be proved by the situation on the ground and how the information correlates or contrasts to what had been gathered up to that point.

I can't agree or disagree with your statement that "the CIA's data has been extremely unreliable as of late" without being privy to classified data.

Terry

The quote of "Information gathered by use of pain" would more closely align to forced confessions or accusations.

I see our country moving in a very negative direction when it condones waterboarding in any form, and I also consider the Navy Seal argument invalid because it is done for entirely different reasons.

The way to combat terrorism in America is through the deportation of undesirables.

Which is, according to the oversight committee reports, exactly what the US interrogators are using sleep deprivation, waterboarding, noise and light pollution, and sexual and psychological harassment to obtain: reveal your friends who were in on it with you, and confess to being a terrorist.

How would you extract information from a terrorist?

Sleep deprivation, waterboarding, noise and light pollution, and sexual and psychological harassment are all legitimate means of enhanced interrogation. Each can be taken across a line and become torture but all of them can be used within reason and not be in any way torture. But I know some who feel that denying terrorists Islamic Cable TV is a form of torture, so one needs an agreed upon definition of torture before one can have a serious discussion of what techniques constitute torture and where the line is drawn.

John:

Would share your opinion as to when waterboarding is legitimate and when it becomes torture?