Comments on: Neuroscientist Says Torture Produces False Memories and Bad Intel

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:08:18 +0000

I categorically reject the idea that it matters whether torture produces “Good intel” or “Bad intel”. Even if torture is effective and the scenario is the overused “ticking time bomb” it still doesn’t matter.

Torture is wrong and lowers you to the moral level you believe the tortured is at. Torture either damages the person doing the torturing, or encourages you to hire those who are so morally flawed that they cannot be harmed by torturing. Think about that–are those the people you want working on your side? Psychopaths?

What makes us the good guys? Why are the enemy the bad guys? Is it all about teams and affiliation and tribalism or do we really have a morally superior position?

As far as I’m concerned, in order to have a cause worth fighting for, you cannot torture. If you torture then you cannot claim moral superiority to the enemy.

By: Tara Phoenix

Tara Phoenix — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:34:26 +0000

Bad behavior NEVER justifies bad behavior. Punishment and torture do not work, have never worked, and will never work. The “price to be paid” is that we need to own our part in that which has created antipathy toward the United States.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:44:59 +0000

Ironically, this is the price some pay for what is good and beautiful in this world. Not necessarily of course but men choose to make it the price. Women, in their blind desires to simply please men will second the charges instead of using maternal influence to change things. Sad. You never know though, I thought So. Africa would never be free of its legal Aparthied either so maybe there’s hope…
Bush is a personification of the Devil himself. I know things this man has done that no one else does. How did he get into human form?

By: salami salami baloney

salami salami baloney — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:53:59 +0000

Extraordinary rendition is when you take a suspect, often on hearsay testimony, and send him from a non-torturing country to a torturing country. No waterboards in Egypt, but plenty of pliars and blowtorches..

That’s the same as hiring a leg breaking goon to do something you don’t want to get your hands dirty doing yourself.

Why does the current administration continue the lasts shamefull policies without public outrage?

By: Kelly

Kelly — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:48:38 +0000

I think if torture resulted in reliable information there might be some justification, in an instance where you could damage one (or a few) lives to save many. However I still wouldn’t condone it, let alone in the real world where “evidence” retrieved through torture is no more likely to be accurate than eye-witness accounts, which in and of themselves are tenuous at best. I just read an article (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/falsetestimony/) about how people convince themselves that something happened, even when it didn’t, just because they watched a video that had been modified to make it look like the event happened. That’s scary! And now we physically and mentally abuse people in the pursuit of possibly (/probably) false information? HORRIFYING.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:48:51 +0000

Well, all of this isn’t entirely new, but it’s all interesting. The proven best way to extract information is to establish a relationship of some kind of trust with the person being questioned. That individual will eventually tell you a great deal.

However, that often takes a LONG time. Where time is of the essence, the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario, the questioner cannot be successful with that process. So if thousands of lives are at stake, the questioner has a moral conundrum of the highest order: is torture justified in this particular instance, or is torture NEVER justified?

Using torture affects the questioner as well as the questioned, and greatly affects the institution that authorizes the torture. All in very negative ways. Are these negative effects acceptable in some extraordinary circumstances, or not?

I don’t see these questions as very easily answered. If my daughters were to die very soon, and torture of the most horrific kind could save them, would I condone it? Frankly, I hope I am not confronted with this kind of choice.

By: Coma Coma Coma Chameleon

Coma Coma Coma Chameleon — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:00:23 +0000

Palin Cheney in 2012! Now that’s entertainment!