Was it bad that the Soviet Union tortured its prisoners?

Question

Now that America is making excuses for torturing its prisoners, was there anything wrong with the USSR doing the same thing to its prisoners? How do we distinguish the USA from the USSR now that we are acting like they did? What are we supposed to be proud of as Americans now that our country is acting like the USSR? Or is that what we are supposed to be proud of?

Answer 1

Yes, Soviet torture of prisoners was bad.

Soviet torture was a lot worse than anything we are doing. They went well beyond "water boarding" or playing rock music. The Soviets would force people to sit on red hot iron or would work them to death in freezing Siberian temperatures.

But more importantly, the Soviets did this to people whose only crime was to criticize the regime, whose only danger to the state was that they had taken a few potatoes to prevent their family from starving.

The U.S. is walking on thin ice when it comes to using certain interrogation methods, but we are nowhere near the Soviets.

Answer 2

First when you say torture I wonder how many accounts of it you have read. WWII the Japanese made it and art form, the SS, the KGB, the Vietnamese, the Bathists under Saddam, there are whole books written on the atrocities and war crimes committed by these men. Now how many books are written about the torture committed by our government , of our enemies or it's own citizens. Interrogation is not torture, making someone very uncomfortable is not torture, humiliating someone is not torture. The SS would start with your hands and break every bone one at a time then move up your arm and then your collar bone, you have heard of bamboo under the finger nails , being hung three feet of the ground with your hands tied behind your back. Save this moral equivalent crap. If they capture a terrorist on the ground while trying to kill our troops and we can make him uncomfortable for just long enough for him to tell us where the next car bomb is set to go off then those means justifies the end.You have been sheltered and not taught much history to believe that America's need to interrogate terrorist in any way shape or form resembles the KGB's torture of it's own citizen's for asking questions, like the one you were able to ask. In Russia the KGB would have come to your home tonight and taken you away and if you were very lucky you might just disappear in Siberia, if not you would find out what REAL torture was all about.

Answer 3

What about Vietnam?

I will describe one such torture. I read it in a Vietnam book in which this sniper had the most confirmed kills at 93, i believe it was.

Just a mile from the Military's encampment, there was a US soldier being tortured during the evening. His screams were so loud that everyone at the camp could hear them. The military could do noting since there was barbed wire and land mines around the area. They found his body mangled in the barbed wire the next day.

His eyelids were cut off, so every time he blinked, blood would come down his face. All his fingers were broken backwards, and all the finger and toe nails were removed. He had cuts up and down his body. OH, and he died from blood loss, mangled in the barbed wire, because his genitals were cut off.

America, is not doing anything in the vicinity of that.

Did Vietnamse ever get tried for war crimes?

Answer 4

The issue of torture is something that should never even be considered as a means to obtain information .
I can not stress this enough or even use language to express just how wrong it is to explain to you that it can not be allowed under any circumstances .
Till we come up with a method that allows the prisoners to choose to provide information without beating or harming them mentaly .
Maybe we kidnap virgins from there country and offer them as gifts for providing information lol .

Answer 5

Chechen rebels (Al Qaeda in Russia), attacked a school and killed many school children. Do you remember? It was on the news. If Russia or the U.S. could use torture (to extract info) to prevent another school from being attacked, it is justifiable.

Sometimes extracting information from terrorists is difficult. Using torture at appropriate times could save many innocent people's lives.

Answer 6

Yes because torture made the Russians crazy. So crazy that they pointed missiles at America from Cuba.

Answer 7

Hell yes, USSR was terrible.

Then the USA does the same thing to "terrorists" to extract information.

The USA should NEVER lower ourselves to the level of 3rd world dictators and commie nations.

Answer 8

of course its bad, but to compare what the soviets did to what the u.s. does is like comparing night and day. the kgb answed to no one. most of the time you were arrested for speaking out against the government. thats how the u.s. was founded. most were imprisoned in gulags (prisons) in siberia for years

Answer 9

O.ok. - first of all - please provide us a hyperlink to this meant quote of Bush saying "he would not care approximately human rights." - i would be suprised in case you are able to actual furnish one. 2d, is it no longer the militia's impressive to detain somebody, reporter or no longer, who they sense is a protection probability? undergo in techniques, this continues to be a conflict, and Iraq continues to be seen a conflict zone. 0.33, we don't be attentive to precisely what Mr. Hussein did, or alegedly did. simply by circumstances (being in a conflict zone - and in all probability related to the militia), we in all probability won't be attentive to. Fourth, the incontrovertible fact that AP executives stated they do no longer think of he's executed something incorrect - that does no longer recommend that he hasn't executed something incorrect. it may desire to easily be that he hasn't stated each and every thing he has executed (perhaps this different stuff replaced into outdoors the scope of his employement with the AP). 5th, it may desire to be that he replaced into "caught" doing despite, and subsequently, it does no longer have been something the AP could desire to evaluation. 6th, we've had no indication, different than for the trial of Saddam Hussein (no relation, i'm specific) that the Iraqi criminal justice equipment is even functioning yet. it may additionally be the case that the alleged "crime" replaced into perpatrated against the U.S. militia and not against the Iraqi government - and hence falls under the pervue of the U.S. militia and not the Iraqi government. it may properly be that Mr. Hussein (Bilal - no longer Saddam) has executed no longer something incorrect, and is being detained wrongfully. regrettably, we purely don't be attentive to, and the militia is properly interior their rights to detain somebody for motives of protection. you are able to not even fault the guideline they used - it replaced right into a United international locations rule - no longer a U.S. militia rule.

Answer 10

It would be bad to torture any prisoner in any Country.