Is This Torture

[MIKolbe]

Interesting...


[i]Time was when at least some of my readers would proudly say they didn't care about torturing a few bad guys. War is hell, etc.

Slowly, through a process of attrition, those guys have found their natural habitat at Little Green Footballs and other places that have nothing but contempt for any Catholic teaching that stand in the way of such secular messianic projects as Grand End to Evil Schemes for Changing the World and Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary Projects. So the open contempt for Catholic moral teaching has faded in the comboxes somewhat.

However, we are still playing the "What O What *is* torture" game. Because not e few people still have the notion that the Church's teaching here is entirely negative--"Don't torture"--and has no positive component. Also, there is still tthe delusional notion that the world is chockablock with Ticking Time Bombs, so that we *need* to be able to tiptoe right up to torturing somebody in order to, 'ow you say, "save countless lives". Consequently, we have been treated to the spectacle of various readers trying to parse just exactly where to draw the line between "breaking the will" and torture or puzzling about what possible moral difference there could be between training people to endure waterboarding in a nice safe environment and being subjected to waterboarding at the hands of interrogators who don't much care whether you drown or not.

This embarrassing spectacle of attempting to simultaneously claim that waterboarding is *not* torture but training people is makes me roll my eyes.

Here's the deai: have you ever had an experience of being dunked when you weren't rready for it as a teenager? Ever wrestle as a kid and have somebody cut off your wind for half a second? Remember the panic when you needed to breathe and couldn't?

Now: You are strapped to a board spread-eagle. You already can't breath too deeply in this position. The board is tipped back into a dunk tank and you are head down in the water. The water runs into your sinuses unless you breathe out through your nose. But breathing out means you can't hold your breathe for long. You feel the urge to breathe but you mustn't. Your whole body begins to flex in panic and terror. Your knotted fists bang ineffectually on the board. But the people doing this are not trainers. They are Professionals. They aren't waiting for you to say, "Okay guys, I get the idea of what it's like, You can take me out now!"

They are waiting for your lungs to feel as though they will burst, for the moment *past* the moment of supreme horror when your autonomic system kicks in and you inhale--and gag on--a lungful of water, when you would scream if there were any air in your lungs, when you start to black out.

Then, they pull you from the water, pound on your chest, and bring you too, coughing and retching and more terrified than you have ever been in your life. You have five seconds to start talking--even if you have nothing to say.

And then it all starts again.

And people in these comfy comboxes and elsewhere in cyberspace and on the Rubbber Hose Right (not to mention in the office of the Vice President) have the *gall* to say "That does not rise to the level of torture."

A second and a half of not being able to reach the surface of the lake when I was a kid is still the stuff of nightmares decades later. Those who pretend waterboarding is not torture are either so out of touch with reality that they should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery or they are moral imbeciles.

And still, all this fine parsing about "What O what is torture?" come nowhere near to discussing the real issue of how to deal with the Church *positive* command to "Treat prisoners humanely". That command is so far beyond the thinking of most of the discussants because, still, so many people don't really believe the gospel to be a reflection of reality but an unattainable ideal.

I think the gospel is, quite simply, the truth about the human person. Therefore, I believe that if we obey the gospel instead of searching for excuses to disobey it, reality will, in the long run, cooperate and we will be blessed for it. Might be an interesting change of pace to change the conversation from "How close can we tiptoe to war crimes?" to "How do we treat prisoners humanely *and* get the intelligence we need?"[/i]

It's from Mark Shea's blog.. I think he's right.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]"How do we treat prisoners humanely *and* get the intelligence we need?"[/quote]

he naively poses the question as if it could be done.
this point is mainly to point out the last naive comment. how does he have the "goll" to leave a vaque insinuation that you can get the info to save lives, and not acknolwedge that usually his argument is one that says he's gonna keep his principles even if it means millions die. he should at least be more explicit about this instead of a vague ending of this hope notion.

reality hurts. less than a million people dying. torture hurts. less than a million people dying. you can always have the president or someone very reputable be required for approval before a heavier dose of roughness.

plus, i still insiste the ends can justify the means, so i'm not sure my opinion counts a whole lot.
other than to say that i'm not sure this is explicitly defined dogma and might be changed in the future, requiring only assent at the here and now as it appears the ordinary magisterium teaches it, when in fact, it may not.

he's got a point yes it is so bad, but is it bad bad, like slowly cutting someone etc etc. ? i don't think so. kids do this to each other holding each other under water etc. it's bad, but it's not bad bad. it's "torture" but is it torture.

Edited December 18, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Deb]

This has gotten rather lengthy. Torture to me is immoral and vengeful. It has been shown that torture very rarely produces anything of any value. That said..........

Sleep deprivation is okay for a couple of days. Running cold water on a persons head while they are tied down could create an "ice cream" headache that never ends and that would definitely be torture.

You could wrap me in bacon and I would be fine but, threaten to behead me, no problem but, if you put a cockroach on me, I would tell you anything. I would even make up stuff to tell you and that would be the problem.

Deblette

P.S. Christ did do away with an "eye for an eye." At least that is what I got out of Matthew 5; 38-47 in my RCIA class tonight.

[Deb]

Here is a nice site with lots of quotes regarding the effectiveness of torture by people who have been tortured, who have tortured or involved some way with torture.

[url="http://www.ellamazel.org/notinmyname/chapter9.htm"]http://www.ellamazel.org/notinmyname/chapter9.htm[/url]

[Hassan]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1411820' date='Oct 30 2007, 11:25 PM']God forbid that innocent human lives be spared at the cost of a terrorist's good night sleep, or by making him scared![/quote]

I think you've been watching to much 24. It is torture. When the North Koreans used it on 36 eirmen to get them to "confess" to useing biological weapons we called it torture. It is such non-sense to act like all is going on there is "loosing a good nights sleep" or getting "scared".
[url="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808"]http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feature.../hitchens200808[/url]


[quote]Shoot, some of the training at USMC OCS would make these bleeding hearts keel over in horror![/quote]

OCS is nothing like what has gone on at Gitmo buddy

[quote]But, comfort over human life, of course! That's the new "Catholic" way.[/quote]

So whenyou had to choose between being a neo-con and being a Christian you choose the former.

nice!



[quote]God save us all![/quote]

yep

[jeffpugh]

Oh noes, we has a necromancer on our hands... a bad thread risen from the dead!

[Didacus]

I once stayed up for 86 hours trying to finish a report so I could graduate, slept for 2 hours then went for another 24 hours.

Gong 48 hours without sleep = torture? Maybe in nursery rhymes, but in adult life come on?!?!? I could do 48 hours on one leg and both arms behind my back and I still wouldn't deny Jesus nor the pope.

[Paddington]

[quote name='Didacus' post='1703272' date='Nov 17 2008, 02:20 PM']Gong 48 hours without sleep = torture? Maybe in nursery rhymes, but in adult life come on?!?!?[/quote]

But, we all have different bodies. I've never gone 32 hours, as far as I can remember. My epilepsy meds could be part of that.

[CSLF]

I find it strange that sleep deprivation seems to be more accepted than other forms of torture (as far as I can tell from this board). There's a major difference between choosing to stay awake/drinking 12 cups of coffee to finish a paper and being kept awake by other people who are probably slapping you awake (if not worse). Also, people lose their grip on reality when they are kept awake, so even the torture for information scenario is illogical. One example is the story of the Guildford Four, who were indicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes they confessed to under torture (and the effects of withdrawal). The reality is that because they 'confessed' the perpetrators remained free to commit other crimes, which should be a more important factor than it usually is in 'time is running out' scenarios.

[Hassan]

[quote name='CSLF' post='1722871' date='Dec 8 2008, 11:10 PM']I find it strange that sleep deprivation seems to be more accepted than other forms of torture (as far as I can tell from this board). There's a major difference between choosing to stay awake/drinking 12 cups of coffee to finish a paper and being kept awake by other people who are probably slapping you awake (if not worse). Also, people lose their grip on reality when they are kept awake, so even the torture for information scenario is illogical. One example is the story of the Guildford Four, who were indicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes they confessed to under torture (and the effects of withdrawal). The reality is that because they 'confessed' the perpetrators remained free to commit other crimes, which should be a more important factor than it usually is in 'time is running out' scenarios.[/quote]

Not to mention these "frequent flier" programs can last a month or more. I just pulled an all nighter not to long ago and can do so without much difficulty. Could I go a few days without sleep, get a few hours only to be rooughly awoken, interogated again, replaced in a foreign, confusing situation, given a few hours woken up again, throughly bewildered, kept up a few days, threatened, slapped around, denied access to any temporal reference (how long did I sleep? a half hour, two hours? How long was I awake?) and degraded, forced to commit "tricks" like a dog, forced to deficate on myself like a dog, told my family was killed, told I would never leave. Could I endure this for a month or more? I doubt it.

To compare what goes on in Gitmo to a Uni student pulling an all nighter or more is just silly and not even close to a valid comparison. This very sort of treatment broke down 36 airmen during the Korean war and made them confess to useing "biological weapons" against North Koreans. I doubt a process that broke the will to resist in 36 UNMC Airmen (many of whom fought in WWII) is analgous to a Uni student typing a paper for a couple days.

[Tinkerlina]

I don't believe that any of these things are ethical. Anything intended to produce an outcome of terror or that dehumanizes a person is, imo, wrong. No matter what someone has done, we are to treat every human being with respect. That doesn't mean people shouldn't be punished if they have done something wrong, but I do not think torture is excusable, nor do I think it is necessarily effective. -Katie

[Hassan]

[quote name='Tinkerlina' post='1726750' date='Dec 12 2008, 08:18 PM']I don't believe that any of these things are ethical. Anything intended to produce an outcome of terror or that dehumanizes a person is, imo, wrong. No matter what someone has done, we are to treat every human being with respect. That doesn't mean people shouldn't be punished if they have done something wrong, but I do not think torture is excusable, nor do I think it is necessarily effective. -Katie[/quote]

Shabbir Akhtar decried the Christian reformation as ending in a capitulation of Christianity to Secularism (primairly with respect to Protestantism) and he then described Christendom as "rhetorically religious but operationally secular". I disagree with him on some counts. I think that Roman Catholicism has not been so complicit in this capitulation and I believe much of the "soul" of the Church is still both rhetorically Christian and operationally so (here I refer to some religious orders, the current Pope and his predicesor, and some subsets of the larger Church clerg and laity). Yet I believe the fact that we are seeing a serious debate on a Catholic forum as to wether an avowedly secular state can engadge in torture previous to due process or any sort of genuine, exernal check does demonstrate that this "rhetorically religious but operationally secular" criticism is legitimate for much of the larger Christian populace.

That was not directed towards you, it was just a general thought that came to my mind for whatever reason.

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Hassan' post='1726753' date='Dec 12 2008, 08:26 PM']Shabbir Akhtar decried the Christian reformation as ending in a capitulation of Christianity to Secularism (primairly with respect to Protestantism) and he then described Christendom as "rhetorically religious but operationally secular". I disagree with him on some counts. I think that Roman Catholicism has not been so complicit in this capitulation and I believe much of the "soul" of the Church is still both rhetorically Christian and operationally so (here I refer to some religious orders, the current Pope and his predicesor, and some subsets of the larger Church clerg and laity). Yet I believe the fact that we are seeing a serious debate on a Catholic forum as to wether an avowedly secular state can engadge in torture previous to due process or any sort of genuine, exernal check does demonstrate that this "rhetorically religious but operationally secular" criticism is legitimate for much of the larger Christian populace.

That was not directed towards you, it was just a general thought that came to my mind for whatever reason.[/quote]

I understand what you're saying, it's an issue where religion and state and their correlation comes up. -Katie

[Hassan]

As the oral arguments were on the 9th, I wonder how the pro torture crowed feels about Maher Arar?