Does anyone really care about terrorists rights? Torture, why not? Thoughts?

Question

Why is time and tax payer dollars being sent on this? Why not hang 'em all? Works for me!

Answer 1

Hell yeah they would do the same to us. Why do they get rights that all Americans captured by them don't get. How about all the people with there heads cut off where they given humanitarian treatment. Hell no. They deserve to die. End of story.

Answer 2

The torture issue has got to be the most complicated of all. It seems so obvious that it works and needs to be done. We can't sit back while terrorists plot against us. We need inormation. It is so difficult to get information in the far corners of the earth otherwise. If we stay within the old rules it is almost impossible to successfully prosecute or do anything to get these guys.

If there is a ticking time bomb why don't we torture the terrorists associates, wife, and infant child? And why not do the same even if the terrorist is an American citizen? Where do we draw the line? This line we walk determines our future.

To admit that torture is what should be done in the ticking time bomb situation is to admit that torture works. This is not clear at all. Torture is nothing new and history has much data on the subject. Our elders that created the legal framework in which we live probably had more experience on the subject then we do. I feel it is important to prove, or at least make a case, that torture works AND is advantageous BEFORE you turn against established wisdom.

Can anyone even prove that torture gets extra info in the first place? The reports by government officials below disagree. And then I believe we all know their are negative externalities to interogating by torture.

My feeling on the ticking time bomb: if an agent in the field wishes to take exceptional action in the exceptional circumstance of a ticking time bomb, that agent can deal with the consequences be they good or bad. We don't need to establish a new policy just for this case. The president can pardon a hero from just about anything.

This is a CIA article about the interogation of a man who was the North Vietnamese equivalent of Osama Bin Laden.
https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol48no1/article06.html

This is a comprehensive scientific article on the subject by a leader at the US Air force academy:
http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE03/Arrigo03.html?Study/Report

This is a time magazine piece that goes over the records and result of our torture of the '20th hijacker':
http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1071230,00.html

I hope those who support our torture practice can take the time to read these articles and not attack anyones patriotism for disagreeing with the practice. The rules of dentention, punishment, and interogation all may need changed.
We all want what is best for America. Let's figure it out patiently and not just ram radical ways of doing things down everybodies throat like the world is going to end tomorrow. We are in a fight that will last forever despite what scaredy cats may think. Let's do battle wisely.

Thank You for reading and Make it a Great Day!

Answer 3

The Bull---- polemic is: "If we use torture, we are no better than the terrorists", but that is flawed reasoning. If one innocent life is saved because we found out about a terrorist attack using torture to do so, then it is justified. It isn't merely the ends justifying the means because it will be our end quite literally. During war, and this is real war, no government ever strictly abides the Geneva conventions. Just look at how few soldiers ever even make it to pow camps in comparison to the hundreds of thousands captured. It is an historical fact that all really is fair ( or unfair)in war. The one thing the world learned from taking a strong stance is that it works. The Berlin Wall came down because Reagan walked out of the talks at Rejivik and rebuilt the military.

I am no hawk. I am not in favor of unleashed torture. There is a huge difference between being water- boarded and being "stretched" on the rack or having electricity frying gentials, etc. We are dealing with a cult that has no morality at all. They are absolutely insane. How can we play nice and apply a standard of total decency when we are dealing with indecent acts? There are means of torture that are still within the parameters of being civilized. Torture does work on most people. It is horrible. It is wrong. But this enemy will destroy us, if we don't stand tough. There must be some kind of limits put on torture, but the whole world can't know it . Supposedly the last largescale attack was blocked because the waterboarding worked. I guess we need a "Department of Bad" to somehow mette out the procedures to be implemtened.

What do you tell our people after a tactical nuke has exposed hundreds of thousands of people to excessive radiation.....that we could have prevented it with intel from top operatives we had captured, but we didn't use tough means to force them to talk? Get real!!

Answer 4

And if you were arrested and charged with being a terrorist? Doesn't work for me. Torture, hanging without a fair trial is what our founding fathers fought England over. Turn the clock back to 1770 and most of our "heroes" according to the newspapers of the time (in England), would have been called terrorists. If the world was able to give Nazi leaders fair trials after WW11, then surely we can find a way to do the same to the terrorists of today.

Answer 5

Because of the PATRIOT ACT'S very VAGUE definition of "terrorist", or perceived national threat, could be YOU, if any government agent DECIDES you are. You will then have NO guarantee of due process, NO access to a lawyer, NO right to view evidence against you, nobody spoken to in your invetsigation can speak of that investigation BY LAW, your MILITARY trial only requires 2/3rds vote for conviction, and you can be held in confinement INDEFINITELY, or be deported.

The Patriot Act affects ALL Americans. It protects our government from US, and protects us from NOTHING.

Stop listening to opinionated rhetoric, and read/investigate for yourself. I'm real tired of listening to Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly zombies just repeating the same propaganda they heard. If you didn't look into it for yourself, then you don't know ANYTHING...and are selling this country out.

Answer 6

Because they are INNOCENT until proven GUILTY! In America we are guilt by association driven and that just is not right when someones life is on the line. I'll (mis)quote "Resevoir Dogs" ~ "If you torture a man like that he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear and it don't make it ******* so!" As Ghandi said "An eye for an eye makes the world blind."
~Another pertinent quote for you's: First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for ME, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. ~Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945 (Germany)

Answer 7

I don't care about the terrorist rights. But torture, thats not what America is about.

I'm more for the shoot first and ask questions later if they are still alive.

Answer 8

The Geneva Conventions prescribe international standards for the treatment of prisoners taken in a war. Terrorists are not prisoners of war. Draw and quarter them for all I care!

Answer 9

While I agree that they certainly would not afford us the benefits of the Geneva Convention, if we submit to their tactics, then how are we any different?

What needs to be done is remove the media from the front. remove them from the prisons. Let the soldiers do their jobs.

Answer 10

As far as I'm concerned, terrorists have no rights. They abandon any rights they might have when they try to kill other unsuspecting, innocent people. They can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. I say hang em all or fry em all!!!