Hardcore

[Steltek]

The Geneva convention specifically states who is protected, and terrorists do not meet the qualifications. For example, carrying a fixed mark or sign visible from a distance, having a person in charge of them responsible for their actions, carrying arms openly, etc. are ALL required to be protected under the Geneva convention.

If Nip here was torturing a uniformed soldier to get information about an upcoming offensive on some military target by other enemy soldiers, I would say his actions are wrong and he should go to jail for it, because such a person IS protected under the Geneva convention, and that protection is what makes sure our men stay safe when we're fighting a civilized enemy. But we're not fighting civilized soldiers in this war, we're fighting the slime of humanity.

[T.s.a.o]

this is actually a lot better than seeing this done in "Tokyo Tribes"

WHAT I DONT GET IS THAT THE KORAN ACTUALLY SAYS THAT NO ONE EVEN A MUSLIM IS GARUANTEED INTO HEAVEN NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO YET THEY CAN EASILY TEAR AWAY SOMEONE ELSES TICKET FOR THEMSELVES oh wait, did someone already post that and I just skimmed through?
but I like Muslim Music, especially from Africa

[Sharuuk]

Okay folks......time to show you just how "nasty" I can get.....

The Catholic priest and holy water thing is pretty good....but rather than go thru all the rigamarole of convincing this sand-rat of his involuntary conversion, I'm just simply gonna destroy his soul.

Rancid Raghead is strapped to a table...crucifix style just to add to the humiliation. In strolls yours truely leading a fairly large, healthy pig on a leash. This alone is gonna really bug Rancid. I tell him that I'm not going to hurt him or inflict any pain on him....I'm just going to take his soul and make him an abomination to Allah. So no matter how many infidels he kills, he ain't gonna go to "Paradise", he ain't gonna pass "GO" and collect 72 virgins. Allah's just gonna spit ihis face and send him straight to Hell....or whatever Muslim equivalent there is.

I now take out a sterile needle and syringe and withdraw about 10-20cc's of blood from said pig.

Y'all startin' to see where this is goin'?

I walk back over to Ol' Rancy and ask a couple of "pertinant" questions....since I really don't care what the answers are, I now dribble a few drops of the pigs blood on his face making sure to hit his lips and nostrils.......just before emptying the entire syringe into a vein in either his neck or arm.

The blood will NOT hurt him physically.......but what do think his mind is doing right about now?

You want to see real undiluted terror in someones eyes? He wants to die for Allah, so threatening to kill him has no weight and chopping of pieces of him and tossing them out the window only works on devout Buddists.

But here is a devout, no, fanatical Muslim who's just had one of his greatest taboos inflicted on him in a most unspeakable way.....and I hold up another syringe with some yellowish colored liquid in it that I tell him is the only thing that will restore his soul and it takes a specific amount to do so, and that every BS answer or attempted subtrefuge will result in my squirting a bit of the "restorer" out onto the floor right in front of his eyes.

Any bets on how truthfull his answers will be?

Personally, I think we sould really start doing this....fight these bastards on a spiritual level and use what they think is there strongest "armor and weapon" into their Achilles Heel.

S'aaruuk

[T.s.a.o]

won't work, already proven-even for Christian missionaries in China and in the Middle east-religuous defilement can easily be patched up with more hatred and thoughts of retribution-lastly its an act of the AntiChrist, so its certainly a war-stragety NO-NO-NO on the standards of God's word.

[MikeVanPelt]

Thing is, what is "Torture" anymore? Listening to Amnesty International, some of the most non-violent methods of destabilising captives, such as sleep deprivation or basic sensory deprivation (like keeping captives in the dark) are now considered "Torture", even though neither of those techniques have any effect beyond the psychological.

I mean, if you can't even destabilize terrorists on a purely psychological level, what are we supposed to use to get them to talk? Positive Thinking?

This is an excellent point. To hear some talk (like the Amnesty International folks) it is impermissible to apply any pressure of any kind whatsoever to attempt to persuade captured terrorists to talk. "Torture" now includes speaking harshly to the poor dears.

At least, when the United States is doing it to the enemies of Civilization. Whatever abominations and atrocities the enemies of Civilization choose to commit, well, that's hardly worth mentioning.

[T.s.a.o]

if you saw that commentary on "Fear Factor"

heck, try 'Family Guy'

*vomits once the title left his mouth*

excuse me, I need more berracuda again

[Maxgoof]

I am appalled!!

I am disgusted!!

This scene is horrible! Just horrible!

What kind of example is Nip setting for the children of America?

I mean, Nip smoking? I am just appalled at....

What? Oh, that was the terrorist's cigarette?

Shove it in the other eye, Nip.

[Sciguy]

A good question would be; What would be the more civilized thing to do?What would be proper and good?

Of course this all goes to the mith of civilization and the whole fact that good, evil, civilized behavior, and what is and isn't torture is all up to preception.

Hell, for all Amenisty International knows, some of the prisoners could have a BDSM kick.


Ick.


Of course, if you factor in the fact that there are people who get off on being tortured (ick) then it is sure to be unreliable on certain individuals.

Now excuse me while I go take a shower. I feel dirty after that conclusion.

Must use steel wool.

[Wanderwolf]

A good question would be; What would be the more civilized thing to do?What would be proper and good?

<cocks head> Assuming the situation predicated? First you check the truck for clues; a truck is much more accomodating than a fanatic, after all. (Remember the first WTC attack?) Then follow the clues, with fanatic in tow; the closer you get to the place where he knows people will soon be dying in screaming piles of death, the less <ahem> "sanguine" he'll be. He may be a fanatic, but nobody really wants to die; even the hijackers on 9/11 had to be convinced first that something worse than death awaited them if they surrendered.

Of course this all goes to the mith of civilization and the whole fact that good, evil, civilized behavior, and what is and isn't torture is all up to preception.

<cocks head in the other direction> You know, I just found a quote on the subject:

Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.

I respectfully disagree. Moral relativism is not moral at all.

Hell, for all Amenisty International knows, some of the prisoners could have a BDSM kick.


Ick.


Of course, if you factor in the fact that there are people who get off on being tortured (ick) then it is sure to be unreliable on certain individuals.

Now excuse me while I go take a shower. I feel dirty after that conclusion.

Must use steel wool.

No argument. Sakes, the Marines have known torture isn't reliable for years... and let's face it, if it isn't torture being a Marine...

Yours truly,

The friend-of-an-ex-Marine,

Wanderer

[Calbeck]

Problem is, RH, the simplest defense against torture is the hardest to detect:

Talking...Talk for hours. Tell them anything and everything you can imagine. Talk until they tell you to shut up. And lie like a mother-lovin' dog.

Not applicable to the given situation. If the terrorist fails to give immediately useful information, he'll be subjected to more pain. He can lie about where the WMDs went, but he can also be dragged along for the ride, and he can be made to understand that an extremely painful, slow, and irrevocable death will be the result for lying.

At that point, the terrorist who chooses to lie is acting on basis of one of only two principles: first, the hope that his torturer will not follow through on his threat --- after watching thousands of his countrymen die. The second is that he is not actually afraid of, say, being skinned.

In most cases, where these threats are being applied by a governmental agency (US or Syrian or Russian, whoever), the prisoner has a relatively realistic hope that the torturer is simply being overzealous and may be restrained by cooler heads. But we don't have that in this case --- Mr. Tod is alone, acting on his own, pissed off, and in complete control of what happens next.

The only real obstacle here is convincing the terrorist, in short order, that he CANNOT expect a repreive of any kind under any circumstances unless he gives up the information demanded. Hence the cigarette in the eye.

[Sciguy]

Wanderer, when I say Civilization is a myth, I mean more along the lines that it's up to how one views what is civilized.

Preception makes up a lot of our own preconceptions, like Good and evil, hot or cold, soft or hard, the two sides of a coin, and civilization.

Take the coin for example. if it's lying down, we can say it's ether heads or tails. Infact the statement is wrong. It's just a coin. Heads and tails is how we view the coin.


As far as I can see, civilization and morealaty can only be defined as what a person or group of persions view as acceptable or unacceptable.

[LoneWolf23k]

if you saw that commentary on "Fear Factor"

heck, try 'Family Guy'

*vomits once the title left his mouth*

excuse me, I need more berracuda again

...Hey! What's wrong with Family Guy? ...Dammit, that show's funny..

[T.s.a.o]

for people who only have pessissmistic sense of humor--there's nothing funny on Family Guy-or anything else on Adult Swim as far as I've heard of.

A fact lost on many people is the fact that the Geneva Convention only applies to combatents of signatory nations. Terrorists are not only not combatents of signatory nations, but are not combatents of ANY nation (at least in theory).

While such actions would not be keeping in a Christian spirit, they are certainly not illegal. Politically unpopular perhaps, but not strictly illegal on the international scene.

As far as our own domestic laws being applied? That is also nonsense.
Two good points not at all lost of some of us!

The distinctions on classification of detainees is very important. It's the same basis by which spies and saboteurs weren't classified as prisoners of war in times past and that terrorists shouldn't be today. They're all entitled to basic humane treatment but they're not entitled to the same degree of protection under the laws derived from the treaties to which we've subscribed.

The distinction between the law of war and criminal law is likewise very important. Even terrorists should be given due process - such as it might be - but never to the same extent or under the same basis as others subject to civil government. We can not prosecute war as a law enforcement operation.

We shouldn't torture any one - no category of person - but we should keep our options open to apply the fullest extent of legal measures to defend our nation including the rules applied to dividing out various categories of detainees, applying varying degrees of rules for interrogation, and subjecting them to due process according to their status.

And now for something compleately different (not a horrible movie): I'll try putting out an idea of my own-

so what if the enemy uses these methods and they're more effective. By law our naion was founded to have a higher standard (With exception for Isreal) than any of them. If we revert back to our enemy's measures which stem from Canaan and even SodomandGomorah-what will stop us from using sucide bombers of our own? It was very effective in the war with Vitenam (which is what gets me--how can mothers and children be motivated to commit sucide for their country with just communist motivation? There was no spiritual or moral reward invoved-so how did their goverment do it?), we didn't even get a moral victory out of that one either!

[Acolyte]

For what it's worth, there was a similar scene in "Guarding Tess" when the Secret Service agent played by Nicholas Cage shot a toe off a suspect he was questioning. Time was of the essence, and he was more interested in making rescuing the title character before she was killed than obtaining a conviction.

This resulted in no loss of audience sympathy for the protagonists, so its perfectly realistic to place this into a movie and expect it to work.

[EdBecerra]

I am appalled!!

I am disgusted!!

This scene is horrible! Just horrible!

What kind of example is Nip setting for the children of America?

I mean, Nip smoking? I am just appalled at....

What? Oh, that was the terrorist's cigarette?

Shove it in the other eye, Nip.

*thumps Maxgoof with a large humidor full of nice cuban cigars*

Bad Goof! BAD GOOF!

*gently strokes the humidor*

He didn't mean it, my lovelies... he's just an ignorant little man who doesn't understand the glory and the wonder of tobacco. Now let's go home. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe from the nasty anti-smoker...

[Squeaky Bunny]

I am appalled!!

I am disgusted!!

This scene is horrible! Just horrible!

What kind of example is Nip setting for the children of America?

I mean, Nip smoking? I am just appalled at....

What? Oh, that was the terrorist's cigarette?

Shove it in the other eye, Nip.

*thumps Maxgoof with a large humidor full of nice cuban cigars*

Bad Goof! BAD GOOF!

*gently strokes the humidor*

He didn't mean it, my lovelies... he's just an ignorant little man who doesn't understand the glory and the wonder of tobacco. Now let's go home. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe from the nasty anti-smoker...

Ooooooh! Are they Ramone Allones? Partagas? Romeo Y Julieta? Maybe some Cohiba Prominentes???

[Wanderwolf]

Problem is, RH, the simplest defense against torture is the hardest to detect:

Talking...Talk for hours. Tell them anything and everything you can imagine. Talk until they tell you to shut up. And lie like a mother-lovin' dog.

Not applicable to the given situation. If the terrorist fails to give immediately useful information, he'll be subjected to more pain. He can lie about where the WMDs went, but he can also be dragged along for the ride, and he can be made to understand that an extremely painful, slow, and irrevocable death will be the result for lying.

Be fair, Calbeck, this is an action movie. You know the terrorist character will crack now that this "Geneva Convention" bushwah is out of the way. I'm just talking about real torture to make the point that, in reality, it's not a reliable means of extracting information. Extracting fingernails and teeth, yes, but not information.

In reality, by this point, the torture target (the terrorist) has the idea that he's going to die anyway. Fast, slow, in-between... he's in the hands of someone who's stated outright that he's worthless except for the information. The guy just burned out his eye with a cigarette, after all, then as much as said he considers him just a piece of meat. Wouldn't you start making preparations for death right then and there?

This is why I linked to the Vietnam veterans: They truly believed they were going to die. They were downright certain that the Viet Cong were going to kill them if they didn't do what they were told.

And they didn't do it.

In action movies, torture works. In reality, it's a lousy means of extracting information. Eminently satisfying, highly enjoyable to the right person... but not very useful for information extraction. I mean, sakes, the only way you stop is if they tell you something you're willing to believe is the truth, remember? So what happens if the truth is unbelievable?

So your captive starts crying, bawling, jabbering prayers in Arabic because he's rather understandably scared out of his mind. Applying more pain at this point will get you nowhere, Calbeck. You have to wait until his brain is ready for input again, or you might as well be twiddling your thumbs.

At that point, the terrorist who chooses to lie is acting on basis of one of only two principles: first, the hope that his torturer will not follow through on his threat --- after watching thousands of his countrymen die. The second is that he is not actually afraid of, say, being skinned.

<long, sad look>

Calbeck, think this through: If he honestly believes he's going to be killed either way, why does he talk? "Nothing focuses the mind so wonderfully as knowing you are to be hanged in the morning", after all, and he has no reason to believe that Nip won't kill him once his usefulness is ended. If you thought you were going to die whether you betrayed your people or not, what would you do?

In any event, Nip has only so much time to devote to this, and the terrorist likely knows it. Heck, he's been told from the start that, if captured, he'll be subjected to long and excruciating tortures before we kill him. (Hey, that's what they tell people in those organizations.) As much fun as Nip's character is likely to have turning his captive into a sobbing, bleeding piece of torn flesh and snapped bone, he really only has so much free time for this kind of fun...

In most cases, where these threats are being applied by a governmental agency (US or Syrian or Russian, whoever), the prisoner has a relatively realistic hope that the torturer is simply being overzealous and may be restrained by cooler heads. But we don't have that in this case --- Mr. Tod is alone, acting on his own, pissed off, and in complete control of what happens next.

The only real obstacle here is convincing the terrorist, in short order, that he CANNOT expect a repreive of any kind under any circumstances unless he gives up the information demanded. Hence the cigarette in the eye.

<sigh> Calbeck, the last time the U.S.A. sent in untrained interrogators, it gave us Abu Ghraib. Worse, that's all it gave us. All that mess, all those injured prisoners, all those lewd photos, and we got zilch out of it. (You can check the Schlesinger report if you don't believe me.)

The key to effective torture, as with any interrogation, is establishing a rapport with the subject. If you yell and scream at him, you will only make him fearful or angry, and will have to work five times as hard to get anywhere. Approach it coldly, and you will have to work twice as hard.

Approach it gently, apologizing, telling him how much you hate to do this, and how much better it would be if he just did what he was told so you could stop. He will crumble like the walls of Jericho before the Lord's army. His own pain is only so effective, after all. Combined with yours, it becomes an unbearable burden.

Yours wishing for a different subject,

The disapproving,

Wanderer

[Wanderwolf]

For what it's worth, there was a similar scene in "Guarding Tess" when the Secret Service agent played by Nicholas Cage shot a toe off a suspect he was questioning. Time was of the essence, and he was more interested in making rescuing the title character before she was killed than obtaining a conviction.

This resulted in no loss of audience sympathy for the protagonists, so its perfectly realistic to place this into a movie and expect it to work.

Actually, there is still a loss of sympathy; it's counterbalanced by what we've seen happen to the guy over the course of the movie thus far.

Over the course of "Guarding Tess", Nicholas Cage's character has been horribly put-upon. He's had the woman he's supposed to be protecting treating him horribly, and he's done his job the whole time. This creates a ton of sympathy for him, so you can expend some of it in the interrogation scene. We've seen him chat with friends, sit down to a candlelight supper with Tess... we've seen him at his best. That makes it forgivable when we see him shoot a guy's toe off.

It's all in the balance. Same reason Tess is given the candlelight supper scene in the first place; without that scene, she's just a pain in the tail, and nobody in the audience would like her. With that scene, she becomes more understandable as a human being.

Yours in a balanced manner,

The authorial,

Wanderer

[Jachra]

The intelligence is only actionable for a few minutes?

Great, it'll take...how long for the guy to stob babbling incoherently?
I find Wanderer's point...cogent. I've heard a lot from Vietnam Vets especially, and I doubt they had the same tolerance for pain a dedicated suicide ready soldier is going to have.

[EdBecerra]

The key to effective torture, as with any interrogation, is establishing a rapport with the subject. If you yell and scream at him, you will only make him fearful or angry, and will have to work five times as hard to get anywhere. Approach it coldly, and you will have to work twice as hard.

Approach it gently, apologizing, telling him how much you hate to do this, and how much better it would be if he just did what he was told so you could stop. He will crumble like the walls of Jericho before the Lord's army. His own pain is only so effective, after all. Combined with yours, it becomes an unbearable burden.

I don't always agree with Wander, but he's quite correct here. It's the ones who can tell you "this hurts me more than it hurts you" and project SINCERITY while they say it, they're the most effective interrogators of all. Why do you think "good cop/bad cop" became the cliche' that it is? Because even when you KNOW they're using it on you, it still works. The only ones it fails on are the insane.