Interrogation Methods for Sami Mohammad Ali Said al-Jaaf

[Macroscopic]

For the reasons already stated, you cannot guarantee that. Not even close.

If we are willing to place one person's life over the lives of many others, that is sad. I could understand not wanting to torture him to save one life, but it is more than that. The needs of the many should always outweigh the needs of the few.( can't remember where that quote came from. )

[Phi for All]

I believe it would be more immoral to have life-saving information within our reach, and not use whatever methods are neccesary to get it, then to torture a mass murderer into giving us life-saving information. I believe that in this case torture is the lesser of two evils.

It's within our reach to give in to terrorist demands to save people from beheadings. Do you think we should do that? Wouldn't that be the lesser evil?

[syntax252]

It's within our reach to give in to terrorist demands to save people from beheadings. Do you think we should do that? Wouldn't that be the lesser evil?

 

Giving in to terrorist demands would guarantee that they will kidnap and behead more people. We cannot negotiate with terrorists.

[Phi for All]

Giving in to terrorist demands would guarantee that they will kidnap and behead more people. We cannot negotiate with terrorists.

And if openly torturing a prisoner guarantees that more people will be beheaded if captured, what kind of strategy is that?

 

I don't believe in giving in to terrorist demands either, and I also don't believe torturing prisoners gains us the kinds of long-term benefits we think we will get. Aggression feeds the religious fervor among the fundamentalists, and torture gives them the justifications they have been praying for.

[Macroscopic]

And if openly torturing a prisoner guarantees that more people will be beheaded if captured, what kind of strategy is that?

It doesn't have to be done openly. It's not like we would record it, put it on TV, the Internet, send it to the guy's family or anything like that.

[Tetrahedrite]

It doesn't have to be done openly. It's not like we would record it, put it on TV, the Internet, send it to the guy's family or anything like that.

Two words: Abu Ghraib!!!!!

[Sayonara]

If we are willing to place one person's life over the lives of many[/b'] others, that is sad. I could understand not wanting to torture him to save one life, but it is more than that.

Actually, my proposal was that his life should be placed at the same level as anybody else's. If you want to respond to this thread, maybe you could suspend your moral outrage for long enough to actually read it first.

 

 

The needs of the many should always outweigh the needs of the few.( can't remember where that quote came from. )

Captain Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Not the most sound basis for defining foreign policy really, is it?

[syntax252]

And if openly torturing a prisoner guarantees that more people will be beheaded if captured' date=' what kind of strategy is [i']that[/i]?

 

I don't believe in giving in to terrorist demands either, and I also don't believe torturing prisoners gains us the kinds of long-term benefits we think we will get. Aggression feeds the religious fervor among the fundamentalists, and torture gives them the justifications they have been praying for.

 

I agree and I disagree.

 

I think it (torture) is probably not a reliable way to get information from a terrorist who is quite capable of committing suicide for his cause.

 

But as to the torture somehow justifying further terrorist acts, well I am of the opinion that terrorists will do all that they can to us and what we do, good or bad, has nothing to do with it.

[syntax252]

Captain Spock' date=' [i']Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan[/i].

Not the most sound basis for defining foreign policy really, is it?

 

Perhaps not, but it does possess a certain resonance, doesn't it?

[Phi for All]

I agree and I disagree.

 

I think it (torture) is probably not a reliable way to get information from a terrorist who is quite capable of committing suicide for his cause.

 

But as to the torture somehow justifying further terrorist acts' date=' well I am of the opinion that terrorists will do all that they can to us and what [b']we[/b] do, good or bad, has nothing to do with it.

I agree and I disagree.

 

Torture is definitely not a reliable way to get information from someone who already believes you are a monster capable of any atrocity. Reverse the situation: if you were about to be beheaded by Al Qaeda, would you betray your countrymen hoping for mercy from your captors?

 

But as to terrorists doing all that they can do to us and what we do has nothing to do with it, you are forgetting that they didn't just spring from the ground as evil beings. They hate us for a reason, and only part of it is because we are not of their faith. Some act on our part (real or imagined) triggered their leap to terrorism. At its roots you will probably find some form of violent aggression where we should have used diplomacy.

 

And before you immediately start posting about diplomacy being weak and invasion showing our commitment to strength, please know that I believe there are times when we need to show strength, when it may be necessary to kill a few in order to avoid killing a lot more. But it doesn't work with terrorists. In fact, they are praying we'll over-react. They are small and their followers few, so they goad us into a huge display of aggression, depleting our resources and giving them the means to recruit more followers. The more we fight, the bigger they get. The more we kill, the more outrage we incite. The more lives and money we spend, the more we fall into the trap of the zealot.

 

Negotiation and diplomacy shows us to be reasonable people, and the terrorists can't stand before that. Their followers will begin to disappear and go back to their lives once we take off the monster mask and start treating them as people instead of savages.

[syntax252]

I agree and I disagree.

 

Torture is definitely not a reliable way to get information from someone who already believes you are a monster capable of any atrocity. Reverse the situation: if you were about to be beheaded by Al Qaeda' date=' would you betray your countrymen hoping for mercy from your captors?

 

But as to terrorists doing all that they can do to us and what we do has nothing to do with it, you are forgetting that they didn't just spring from the ground as evil beings. They hate us for a reason, and only part of it is because we are not of their faith. Some act on our part (real or imagined) triggered their leap to terrorism. At its roots you will probably find some form of violent aggression where we should have used diplomacy.

 

And before you immediately start posting about diplomacy being weak and invasion showing our commitment to strength, please know that I believe there are times when we need to show strength, when it may be necessary to kill a few in order to avoid killing a lot more. [b']But it doesn't work with terrorists.[/b] In fact, they are praying we'll over-react. They are small and their followers few, so they goad us into a huge display of aggression, depleting our resources and giving them the means to recruit more followers. The more we fight, the bigger they get. The more we kill, the more outrage we incite. The more lives and money we spend, the more we fall into the trap of the zealot.

 

Negotiation and diplomacy shows us to be reasonable people, and the terrorists can't stand before that. Their followers will begin to disappear and go back to their lives once we take off the monster mask and start treating them as people instead of savages.

 

You don't happen to know the precise reason that Al Quaeda decided that we needed to be on their hit list, do you?

[Sayonara]

Perhaps not, but it does[/b'] possess a certain resonance, doesn't it?

Not as much resonance as "Logic is the beginning of wisdom Valeris; not its end."

[Macroscopic]

Actually, my proposal was that his life should be placed at the same level as anybody else's.

I know what you are saying, but that misses the point of my argument. I'm not saying his life should be placed below any ONE other life, I'm saying his ONE life shouldn't be placed at the same level of worth as the lives of MANY. If you put his life equal to not just one other life, but equal to many lives, that would imply that you're not putting his life at the same level as anybody else's, but putting it above.

Captain Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Not the most sound basis for defining foreign policy really, is it?

The fact that it came from Star Trek doesn't make it any less true. If you put the needs of the many below the needs of the few, you are putting the live's of the few at a higher value.

[Phi for All]

You don't happen to know the precise reason that Al Quaeda decided that we needed to be on their hit list, do you?

Unfortunately, it was Dickens who used the phrase "As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back", not an Arab philosopher as one might surmise. While I would never excuse or justify violence of the level Al Qaeda has used, I would imagine that there was not one "precise reason" for us to be on their "hit list". As with most things, I'm sure it built up over time until it reached a critical mass.

 

Al Qaeda was an offshoot of the Mujahadeen resistance movement, opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s (where they actually received our help in equipment and training). I believe they eventually broadened their scope to include all countries they felt oppressed Muslim society, such as Israel and the United States.

 

I don't know why you bring this up after quoting my earlier post. My point is simply that further violence from us is what Al Qaeda wants. Diplomacy and negotiation would destroy them where all the bombs and torture we can produce just makes them grow. Disprove THAT statement if you want any further debate from me.

[Aardvark]

Unfortunately, it was Dickens who used the phrase "As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back", not an Arab philosopher as one might surmise.

 

Any Arab philosopher would know that an overladen camel would break its front legs as it tried to stand up, not its back.

[Aardvark]

My point is simply that further violence from us is what Al Qaeda wants. Diplomacy and negotiation would destroy them where all the bombs and torture we can produce just makes them grow. Disprove THAT statement if you want any further debate from me.

 

'Warfare is the continuation of diplomacy by other means.'

 

Surely a balanced strategy of confronting terrorism with both the use of diplomacy and the use of force is best. Al Qeada are attempting to fight a physical war of violence against the west, as such, the use of military means to fight them would make sense in conjunture with diplomatic means to isolate them from, and to shrink, their suport base.

[Phi for All]

Any Arab philosopher would know that an overladen camel would break its front legs as it tried to stand up, not its back.

"Load a camel from the ground, he won't get up and you will frown." --unknown Arab philosopher

[Aardvark]

"Load a camel from the ground, he won't get up and you will frown." [i']--unknown Arab philosopher[/i]

 

Very good, although quite how you are supposed to load a camel that's not on the ground eludes me

[Sayonara]

The fact that it came from Star Trek doesn't make it any less true. If you put the needs of the many below the needs of the few, you are putting the live's of the few at a higher value.

See post 112.

 

When we reduce the right to life to numerics, we lose.

[Phi for All]

Very good, although quite how you are supposed to load a camel that's not on the ground eludes me

What, you can't throw a piece of straw that high, Mr. Muscles?

[Aardvark]

What, you can't throw a piece of straw that high, Mr. Muscles?

 

It's surprising how tetchy a heavily loaded camel can be.

 

I'll let you experiment with that piece of straw, just remember, camels can kick 6 feet in any direction!

[Macroscopic]

When we reduce the right to life to numerics, we lose.

Could you support that with some reasoning, because I don't see how looking at logic makes us lose.

[Phi for All]

Surely a balanced strategy of confronting terrorism with both the use of diplomacy and the use of force is best. Al Qeada are attempting to fight a physical war of violence against the west, as such, the use of military means to fight them would make sense in conjunture with diplomatic means to isolate them from, and to shrink, their suport base.

If this were the present case, you would get no opposition from me. If we were to defend ourselves while diplomacy shows our good intentions to the rest of the Islamic world, the heat of fanaticism would die and Al Qaeda would be hard-pressed to find a following. Taking the offensive into Iraq and being so brutal about it may make some folks at home proud but it only adds fuel to an already raging inferno over there.

When we reduce the right to life to numerics, we lose.

Could you support that with some reasoning' date=' because I don't see how looking at logic makes us lose.[/quote']Perhaps because your logic in this instance is flawed. It has been stated previously that even with torture you may not get info that saves the lives "of the many". This logic also doesn't take into consideration what happens, to us and to our world credibility, when we cross the line into barbarism and the torture of prisoners. It assumes that torture is OK because "they" started it.

 

Whenever you try to take anything as complicated as life and morality and make it fit a simple pattern, you are deceiving yourself. Patterns don't take context into consideration, they ignore the details and try to make the unpredictable fit the predictable.

 

Take the scenario of the movie Air Force One. Were all the people who died saving the president's life illogical? The Secret Service would argue that many of their lives are worth saving one life if it's the president's.

 

I wanted to give you an example of one instance where the "needs of the many" logic breaks down, but it really boils down to the fact that you can't use some sort of moral bathroom scale to weigh the worth of people's lives. The effect of their deaths is not something you can measure with any sense of accuracy.

[atinymonkey]

Could you support that with some reasoning, because I don't see how looking at logic makes us lose.

 

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

 

~ John Donne

[Sayonara]

Could you support that with some reasoning, because I don't see how looking at logic makes us lose.

See posts #123-124.

 

Has this thread really given you no food for thought?