"Believe me, it's torture" by Christopher Hitchens

BurnTheShips

The Hitch submits to, and writes about, waterboarding and the fine line between interrogation and torture as well as the "ticking bomb" quandary.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

No atheists in torture chambers?

BTS

SixofNine

This atheist would've enjoyed waterboarding that atheist.

BurnTheShips

Thanks for douching the thread 6, I feel refreshed.

funkyderek

BurnTheShips:

No atheists in torture chambers?

No neo-cons in torture chambers, perhaps.

snowbird

It's kind of amusing that he quotes Abe Lincoln's statement "If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong" to bolster his argument against waterboarding.

There's an article on MSN that compares and contrasts Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin. I wonder which is Hitchens' hero?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143742?GT1=43002

Sylvia

BurnTheShips

It's kind of amusing that he quotes Abe Lincoln's statement "If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong" to bolster his argument against waterboarding.
There's an article on MSN that compares and contrasts Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin. I wonder which is Hitchens' hero?
http://www.newsweek.com/id/143742?GT1=43002
Sylvia

I almost started a thread on that article but I decided the verdict (Abe Lincoln) would start a flamewar here. But back to the issue adressed very well by Hitch: Is waterboarding torture? Is torture never morally justified? It is a tough one! BTS

snowbird

But back to the issue adressed very well by Hitch:

So sorry. I do that every time, don't I?

Is waterboarding torture?

Indeed it is.

Is torture never morally justified?

It is a tough one! BTS

Ditto! I'm glad I haven't been called upon to make the call.

Sylvia

BurnTheShips

So sorry. I do that every time, don't I?

No need for embarassement, you are always polite, and never boring.

Ditto! I'm glad I haven't been called upon to make the call.

What do you do in the ticking bomb scenario? Torture the prisoner and find out where the nuke is buried? Or do nothing?

BTS

SixofNine

If that powerful McClatchy series whet your appetite for Gitmo news: the New York Times' Scott Shane reports today on "a chart of 'coercive management techniques'" (like "Exploitation of Wounds" and "Filthy, Infested Surroundings") and the effects of these techniques (like "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability To Resist"), a chart that was used by military trainers at Guantanamo in 2002 and was "recycled" from "a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners." The absence of the chart's original title, "Communist Attempts To Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners Of War," was the only difference in the version used in 2002.

from: http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/oops_gitmo_training_to_elicit.php

snowbird

No need for embarassement, you are always polite, and never boring.

Thank you.

What do you do in the ticking bomb scenario? Torture the prisoner and find out where the nuke is buried? Or do nothing?

Some won't talk. Period. Is there a psychological or physiological way of finding out who is more liable to cave under duress? There are so many variables in such a scenario. As I said, I wouldn't want to make the call.

Sylvia

"Believe me, it's torture" by Christopher Hitchens

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