tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9044826704035279962.post7533368026003142664..comments2024-03-28T17:16:25.333-04:00Comments on Mad Padre: "I Made Horrible Mistakes": Regrets Of An American TorturerMad Padrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410143683610813671noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9044826704035279962.post-58762932461853627672016-04-08T10:53:29.769-04:002016-04-08T10:53:29.769-04:00Thanks for this heartfelt response, Thomas.
At the...Thanks for this heartfelt response, Thomas.<br />At the risk of alientating one my few readers, I will push back a bit. The problem with the ticking bomb defence of toture bomb defence of toture lies in its scalability. Sure, it looks good on 24 when Jack Bauer has to beat the shit out of Terror Dude to save New York from the nuke. Saving millions of lives through torture? Great deal. But what how many lives have to be saved to justify torture? Where's the cutoff? If it's a guy planting IEDs by the side of the road and you can save four soldiers in a truck? Or two? Why not torture him? Lives are lives, after all. And what about if it's another guy who might know where the bomber might be? Can you torture him? Why not? And then you're at the point where you have a 24/7 interrogration/torture shop going and people are saying whatever they think you want them to say.<br /><br />AS for your point 2, your country's neighbours had experience of those sorts of regimes - Denmark ad Norway w the Nazis, the Balts w the Soviets. I think Fair's point is, do we really want the US to be feared and hated? Because that worked so 1well for ancient Rome, and for the Third Reich.<br /><br />As for your last point, I hear you, to be sure. But substitute 'the guy who wants to rape my wife' for 'the next Bataclan' and you're back to the problem of scalability.Mad Padrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00410143683610813671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9044826704035279962.post-74703926879340087042016-04-07T03:54:40.372-04:002016-04-07T03:54:40.372-04:00I have to disagree there, Padre. Torture works fin...I have to disagree there, Padre. Torture works fine, just not for the things we want to use it for.<br />Two use-cases:<br />1, extracting information. You need to know what information you want and you need to be able to verify that information. Classic is ticking bomb. We ask, we get a location, we check that location. Asking "Who helped do this?" on the other hand is worthless. We must always remember that the victims does not tell the truth, he tells you whatever he thinks will make the pain stop.<br /><br />2, terror. If it is not really about getting information, just about scaring the shit out of people, it works great. Ask Khaddaffi, Hussein, Assad and a bunch of others who had it down to an art. They only lost the grip on the population because outsiders intervened.<br /><br />For my own part, I think torture is morally wrong, a crime against humanity and if there is a hell, you go there for doing it...and I'd still do it if it meant stopping the next Bataclan.<br />Thomas Nissvikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11635793244352536541noreply@blogger.com