The point is, coercive interrogation is wrong to do to someone who we hold prisoner. Chris said that loud and clear, but folks are so incensed that he might not agree that something is torture that they miss the fundamentally more important point. Another fundamentally important issue, if you believe in The Rule of Law, is that we don’t have clear laws on what to do with terrorist combatants and that poses a problem. One of the keys to solving the problems of piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries was to promulgate clear, consistent, logically and legally sound laws and regulations for dealing with pirates.

We don’t have that for terrorists today, and that’s a problem.

P.S. adding to the point about use of language. We used to know that torture meant causing permanent injury to someone. When we talked about the police giving someone the “third degree”, it meant physically injuring someone to coerce them to do something. The reason we said “third degree” is that there were three levels of Inquisition used during the Catholic Inquisition.

1. 1st Degree – Discussing the crimes someone is accused of and informing them that stronger methods of inquisition can be used if they don’t cooperate
2. 2nd Degree – Showing the accused person the methods that can be used, like racks, knives, flails and other implements of torture
3. 3rd Degree – Actually using those implements on the accused person, i.e. the Third Degree of Inquisition.

So, the very tortured definitions of torture that folks are trying to come up are actually changing the meanings of the language in ways that support the individual’s position. This is something that Orwell argued strenuously against and that most “libertarians” argue against, as well. Except, it seems, when being for it supports their personal beliefs.

Causing PTSD does not automatically make something torture. PTSD can be caused by a car accident, by seeing your sibling die, by participating in violent combat and many other things. None of which are “torture”. I suggest that we should return to the traditional definition that doing things which would be considered “the third degree” is torture. Let’s use the language right. AND we can still agree that things which are not torture, but are inhumane or coercive, or both, are wrong for US interrogators to do to our prisoners.

True libertarians get out there and bust their ass for the libertarian movement like I have done for the past 25 years. So, don’t you dare start preaching to me, what is and what is not “true libertarian.”

I never ran into you out on the Libertarian Party petitioning trail. But then again, how would I know, since you post under an assumed on-line name?

And if I stipulate that you’re so very manly that you’ll likely expire of testosterone poisoning within the year, can we back away from committing the United States to acting exactly like the enemies we despise?

But just like torture, it is also unreliable, potentially inhumane (if used for sleep deprivation), and can only glean dubious information that is almost immediately out of date as of the prisoner’s capture.

When looking for effective intelligence, there are much more reliable, effective, and ethical ways to obtain it than torturing prisoners.

So, care to “answer my fucking question, asshole?”

Is this about effectively getting information to defend the country, or about a need for vengeance?

They inflict their wrath on us, we need to hit them back 10 times fucking harder.

You know when Russian KBG Agents were caught by Radical Islamists in Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan in the 1980s, and killed and tortured, you know what the Ruskies did? They’d come in to the village of those who killed their Agent, and killed every member of the offenders family.

They’d even sometimes cut off the genitals of Terrorists they caught who had killed and tortured their men, and sent the genitals in a package back home to their families.

We need a little more Masculinity in our culture, and a little less Girlie-manism.

Old Mafia saying: “You fucka widt me, I fucka widt you, your family, and every one in your village.”

Water ballooning
Dodge ball
All college hazing
All military hazing such as Shellback initiation
Sleep deprivation
Bad food
& Physical activity such as push ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, running laps, ect…

DO YOU CONSIDER HEAVY METAL MUSIC TO BE TORTURE??

A simple yes or no will do.

Would it be okay for the interrogator to start snipping off, then cauterizing body parts? How about consulting the techniques of the Spanish Inquisition or Germany’s National Socialists? Could we locate a suspect’s family and rape and kill them? How about the other people in their village?

Maybe we could fly a plane into one of their buildings…

Is there a point at which we lose the high ground?

Sources I’ve read tend to agree that information gathering is about time constraints. The most effective interrogation techniques require time to gain the trust of the suspect. Less effective techniques like sleep deprivation, requiring the suspect to stand for several hours at a time, holding the suspect naked and wet at 50 degrees, and water boarding tend to produce information the suspect thinks the interrogator wants to hear, true or not.

And, at best, all of these techniques only gain intelligence from a suspected enemy. Investigative and third party methods can yield intelligence that is much more current and untainted by a prisoner’s interests or duress.

Is this about obtaining the most effective intelligence, or assuaging a need for vengeance?

If it’s vengeance, fine. Have the balls to admit that.

If you do remember, you’ll recall that it was Heavy Metal music, that eventually flushed out Noriega from his palace in Panama City. For three nights, 24 hours a day, US Troops shined extremely bright lights onto the Palace, and blared Motorhead, Scorpions, Thrash Metal, and bad ’80s Hair Bands at extremely high decibels from boom boxes.

Eventually, a weary Noriega emerged. He was overheard screaming to the arresting Troops: “Bastante, Bastante, pinch diablos blancos… Bastante.” (Enough! you fuckin’ white devels… Enough!)

Now, fast forward to politically correct-obsessed 2009.

Would such a tactic be permitted to be used by US Forces today?

I wanna know, do you all here, view Heavy Metal music as a form of “torture?”

Be honest. I mean if you deem splashing water on someone’s face as “torture,” than surely blasting HM has got to be torture, as well.

And will you so-called “Libertarians,” be in favor of banning Metallica, next?