If torture doesn't work in child rearing, why does Bush think it will work with adults?

Question

The "parents" of Baby Grace have now confessed to torturing their child to death in order to make her say "please" and "yes sir." They did not succeed in getting any of the desired behavior out of the child but they did manage to inflict horrible pain on her and kill her.

If torture can't get the desired responses from a child, how can it work on an adult?


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/28/child.remains.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Answer 1

"water-boarding isn't torture. It is merely a psychological method used to change the state of mind of the subject"

This guy should have been writing the torture memo:

"In the view expressed by the Justice Department memo, which differs from the view of the Army, physical torture 'must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.' For a cruel or inhuman psychological technique to rise to the level of mental torture, the Justice Department argued, the psychological harm must last "months or even years.' "

However, this letter states:

"Waterboarding is torture. It causes severe physical suffering in the form of reflexive choking, gagging, and the feeling of suffocation. It may cause severe pain in some cases. If uninterrupted, waterboarding will cause death by suffocation."
"Waterboarding, when used against people captured in the context of war, may also amount to a war crime as defined under the federal war crimes statute 18 U.S.C. § 2441, which criminalizes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions (in international armed conflicts), and violations of Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions (in non-international armed conflicts). Waterboarding is also an assault, and thus violates the federal assault statute, 18 U.S.C. § 113, when it occurs in the 'special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,' a jurisdictional area which includes government installations overseas. In cases involving the U.S. armed forces, waterboarding also amounts to assault, and cruelty and maltreatment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. "

Signed,

Richard Abel, UCLA School of Law
Bruce Ackerman, Yale University
Catherine Adcock Admay, Duke University
Madelaine Adelman, Arizona State University
Jose E. Alvarez, Columbia Law School (former attorney-adviser, Department of State)
Paul Amar, University of California-Santa Barbara
Fran Ansley, University of Tennessee College of Law
Michael Avery, Suffolk Law School
Amy Bartholomew, Carleton University
Katherine Beckett, University of Washington
George Bisharat, Hastings College of the Law
Christopher L. Blakesley, William S. Boyd School of Law (UNLV)
Gary Blasi, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
John Charles Boger, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
David Bowker, adjunct, Cardozo Law School (former attorney-adviser, Department of State)
Alice C. Briggs, Franklin Pierce Law Center
John Brigham, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Peter Brooks, University of Virginia
Rosa Brooks, University of Virginia
William T. Burke, University of Washington School of Law
William Burke-White, University of Pennsylvania School of Law
Kitty Calavita, University of California-Irvine
Henry (Chip) Carey, Georgia State University
Anupam Chander, University of California-Davis
Oscar G. Chase, New York University Law School
Kathleen Clark, Washington University
Cornell W. Clayton, Washington State University
Marjorie Cohn, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center
John Comaroff, University of Chicago
Michael Comiskey, Pennsylvania State University
Marianne Constable, University of California- Berkeley
Don Crowley, University of Idaho
Scott Cummings, UCLA School of Law
Eve Darian-Smith, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Benjamin Davis, University of Toledo College of Law
Stephen F. Diamond, Santa Clara University School of Law
Hilal Elver, University of California-Santa Barbara
Richard Falk, Princeton University and University of California-Santa Barbara
Thomas G. Field, Jr. Franklin Pierce Law Center
Gregory H. Fox, Wayne State University Law School
Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanford University
Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law
David R. Ginsburg, UCLA School of Law
Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, University of Washington
Leslie F.Goldstein, University of Delaware
Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., UCLA Law School
David Greenberg, New York University
Lisa Hajjar, University of California-Santa Barbara
Joel F. Handler, UCLA School of Law
Hendrik Hartog, Princeton University
Lynne Henderson, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
William O. Hennessey, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Richard A. Hesse, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Elisabeth Hilbink, University of Minnesota
Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University
Scott Horton, Adjunct, Columbia Law School
Derek Jinks, University of Texas School of Law
Jerry Kang, UCLA School of Law
Lisa A. Kelly, University of Washington School of Law
Heinz Klug, University of Wisconsin
Itzchak E. Kornfeld, Drexel University
Ariana R. Levinson, UCLA School of Law
Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School
Robert Justin Lipkin, Widener University School of Law
Lynn M. LoPucki, UCLA School of Law
David Luban, Georgetown University Law Center
Deborah Maranville, University of Washington School of Law
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, University of Pennsylvania
Jamie Mayerfeld, University of Washington
Joel Migdal, University of Washington
Martha Minow, Harvard Law School
William W. Monning, Monterrey College of Law
Kathleen M. Moore, University of California-Santa Barbara
Forrest S. Mosten, UCLA School of Law
Ken Mott, Gettysburg College
Stephen R. Munzer, UCLA School of Law
Jyoti Nanda, UCLA School of Law
Smita Narula, New York University School of Law
Julie Novkov, University of Oregon
Frances Olsen, UCLA School of Law
John Orcutt, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Arzoo Osanloo, University of Washington
Jordan J. Paust, University of Houston
William P. Quigley, Loyola University, New Orleans
Christopher J. Peters, Wayne State University Law School
Judith Resnik, Yale Law School
Sandra L. Rierson, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Brad R. Roth, Wayne State University
Gary Rowe, UCLA School of Law
Austin Sarat, Amherst College
Margaret L. Satterthwaite, New York University School of Law
Stuart A. Scheingold, University of Washington
Kim Lane Scheppele, Woodrow Wilson School and Princeton University
Benjamin N. Schiff, Oberlin College
David Schultz, Hamline University
Robert A. Sedler, Wayne State University
Barry Shanks, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Charles Anthony Smith, University of Miami
Eunice Son, UCLA School of Law
Susan Sterett, University of Denver
Jacqueline Stevens, University of California-Santa Barbara
Katherine Stone, UCLA School of Law
Steven Tauber, University of South Florida
Samuel. C. Thompson, Jr, UCLA School of Law
Beth Van Schaack, Santa Clara University School of Law
Andrew Strauss, Widener University School of Law
Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Miami School of Law
Richard Weisberg, Cardozo Law School
Deborah M. Weissman, University of North Carolina School of Law
Burns H. Weston, University of Iowa and Vermont Law School
Adam Winkler, UCLA School of Law
Maryann Zavez, Vermont Law School
Richard O. Zerbe Jr., University of Washington

I think these people have a little more authority on the subject than mr. waterboarding isn't torture. give me a break

Answer 2

You're proper. If the ones youngsters had been pointing AK-47s at our combating guys and females, they will have to had been gunned down immediate as an alternative than captured and tortured later.

Answer 3

To be quite fair, this case has nothing to do with Bush. However you may safely say that as President and commander in chief of the USA should be partially blamed for the torture of suspected terrorists.

Answer 4

The CIA use torture because some of them like it. Its a bit much when the great home of Freedom and Democracy blatantly flaunts the Geneva convention and violates many other conventions too like flying suspects (rendition) all over the planet in order to torture them in countries who practice it themselves.

Answer 5

Horrible story out of Texas. ugh!

But I think I have an answer for your question. It's a little deep, so follow.

They torture suspects to elicit answers they want to further their agenda. For example they (supposedly) got Khalid Shiehk Mohammad (sp?) to confess to being the mastermind of 911, though none of the evidence points to him or his group. They could torture Iranians to say Iran has a million nukes pointed at Jerusalem and Crawford -- BINGO we got our next war! yay!
ugh.

Answer 6

First of all, water-boarding isn't torture. It is merely a psychological method used to change the state of mind of the subject. Second of all, I don't care if terrorists are tortured even to the point of death. They are evil people who want to kill you and as many westerners as they can. You need to put the pipe down and wake up.

Answer 7

Because presumably the adults are cognitively and developmentally able to do what is demanded of them.

I am not defending it, but there is a distinction.

Answer 8

If that is the premise, maybe during Bush childhood, it was made effective to him....can you send email to WH address to Pres....for confirmation pls? Be sure he will be honest to you...by the way when was a politician had been honest to citizens?