[Lillie_Steins]

It's not about mercy its about effectiveness.

[radikal]

"It's not about mercy its about effectiveness."

There is every logical reason why applied stress in conjunction with careful and systematic questioning should be effective. Recreational sadism is NOT the objective. It should be as cold as computer forensics.

The assertions that "torture is ineffective" are based on either "desire to discredit torture" or "experience of misapplied torture". For example, the Inquisition used torture to obtain a predetermined goal, which was confession of specific acts. That was not interrogative torture directed at obtaining actual information.

Applied stress with proper interrogation is a logical choice to break resistance of people who would otherwise refuse to talk. There is no reason to tolerate "refusal" or give anyone a voluntary sanctuary. Instead, stress could be applied to gain verifiable information. Confession is not verification, but information from broken enemies can be used in conjunction with other means, not the least crosschecking with other extracted data.

The Soviets used torture to break Nazi prisoners. We are dealing with IslamoNazis so there is no reason we should be gentler.

From Bararallu:
"Let me tell you a story Andak. My great grandad spent many years in Prussia, when he was captured on the front fighting for the Tsar in WW1. He actually ended up working in a nice German factory, as a manager, and learned German to native proficiency (this is a rare instance when Jewish soldiers where treated with respect and humanity in Central Europe). My great grandad passed on this linguistic proficiency to my grandad, who in turn served in a forward reconnaissance and intelligence role for the Red Army.

His job (rather this unit), was to capture Nazi & allied officers, interrogate them in the field, dispatch them, and relay that information back to head quarters behind the lines. My grandfather killed and brutally tortured dozens if not hundreds of men. He and many others consequently saved many lives, from gathering this essential intelligence, Russian, Jew, American, British, and at the end of the day even German. He never regretted it as far as I know, even as he was obviously affected as a human being. So no the Jury is not out for most of us, it works, it just differs as farmall, very correctly states, that in some cases it's to make some one suffer w/o thought, for ones enjoyment (Saddam's sons ring a bell?) and alternatively doing the minimum, and quickly, to get what you need, and then stop the suffering immediately afterwards once you get it."

A quote from one who used torture effectively against an enemy whose barbarism justified such methods:

" "I thought of nothing. I had no regrets over his death--if I had any regrets, it was because he did not talk."
Paul Aussaresses

From the Roger Trinquier Wikipedia page:

"Perhaps his most original contribution was his study and application of terrorism and torture as it related to this Modern Warfare. He argued that it was immoral to treat terrorists as criminals, and to hold them criminally liable for their acts. In his view terrorists should be treated as soldiers, albeit with the qualification that while they may attack civilian targets and wear no uniform, they also must be tortured for the very specific purpose of betraying their organization. Trinquier's criteria for torture was that the terrorist was to be asked only questions that related to the organization of his movement, that the interrogators must know what to ask, and that once the information is obtained the torture must stop and the terrorist is then treated as any other prisoner of war. (See Chapter 4 of Modern Warfare)."

From Chapter 4:
"The terrorist should not be considered an ordinary criminal. Actually, he fights within the framework of his organization,. without personal interest, for a cause he considers noble and for a respectable ideal, the same as the soldiers in the armies confronting him. On the command of his superiors, he kills without hatred individuals unknown to him, with the same indifference as the soldier on the battlefield. His victims are often women and children, almost always defenseless individuals taken by surprise. But during a period of history when the bombing of open cities is permitted, and when two Japanese cities were razed to hasten the end of the war in the Pacific, one cannot with good cause reproach him."

"The terrorist has become a soldier, like the aviator or the infantryman.

But the aviator flying over a city knows that antiaircraft shells can kill or maim him. The infantryman wounded on the battlefield accepts physical suffering, often for long hours, when he falls between the lines and it is impossible to rescue him. It never occurs to him to complain and to ask, for example, that his enemy renounce the use of the rifle, the shell, or the bomb. If he can, he goes back to a hospital knowing this to be his lot. The soldier, therefore, admits the possibility of physical suffering as part of the job. The risks he runs on the battlefield and the suffering he endures are the price of the glory he receives.

The terrorist claims the same honors while rejecting the same obligations. His kind of organization permits him to escape from the police, his victims cannot defend themselves, and the army cannot use the power of its weapons against him because he hides himself permanently within the midst of a population going about its peaceful pursuits.

But he must be made to realize that, when he is captured, he cannot be treated as an ordinary criminal, nor like a prisoner taken on the battlefield. What the forces of order who have arrested him are seeking is not to punish a crime, for which he is otherwise not personally responsible, but, as in any war, the destruction of the enemy army or its surrender. Therefore he is not asked details about himself or about attacks that he may or may not have committed and that are not of immediate interest, but rather for precise information about his organization. In particular, each man has a superior whom he knows; he will first have to give the name of this person, along with his address, so that it will be possible to proceed with the arrest without delay.

In France during the Nazi occupation, members of the Resistance violated the rules of warfare. They knew they could not hide behind them, and they were perfectly aware of the risks to which they were exposing themselves. Their glory is to have calmly faced those risks with full knowledge of the consequences.

No lawyer is present for such an interrogation. If the prisoner gives the information requested, the examination is quickly terminated; if not, specialists must force his secret from him. Then, as a soldier, he must face the suffering, and perhaps the death, he has heretofore managed to avoid. The terrorist must accept this as a condition inherent in his trade and in the methods of warfare that, with full knowledge, his superiors and he himself have chosen. Once the interrogation is finished, however, the terrorist can take his place among soldiers. From then on, he is a prisoner of war like any other, kept from resuming hostilities until the end of the conflict."

[Ifroham4]

"It was considered a war crime at that time when Nazis killed prisoners."

Not (legally) when they shot partisans who were out of uniform. The 1929 Geneva Convention did not protect such fighters, who were not POWs. "Prisoners" is not specific. The sort of prisoner matters. The Allies shot Werewolf partisans in Germany after the war. It was equally legal.

"What else do you admire about the Soviets?"

They destroyed the rotten Tsarist government, unified their country, and forced it into the modern age.
They weren't nice about it and their methods were poor compared to those of China, but they are not a Germanic protectorate because their methods worked.

They also had talented aircraft designers. Should I reject their designs because they were built by the Soviet aviation industry?

FWIW, I don't respect law in cultural war, though I can debate it in that context. We only need law if it serves our culture, because law is not more than a convenience for maintaining social order. It is an important convenience, until the enemy shelters under it. Once that happens, we don't need it any more.
Whenever anyone argues that law should shelter cultural enemies, they are either such an enemy or are childishly delusional. If law is a weapon against the society it supposedly protects, then it is time to put other, different, sentences on paper and to do other, useful things as a matter of situationally appropriate custom.

[9mm_fan]

And that is exactly why you, I and scattergood incurs the wrath of a taqqiya moslem like andak. His job,and those of his ilk, is to secure that time for islam. Where islam does gain that power, either through sheer demographics or even a few WMD. He'd love to have the civilized world lulled into a sense of complacency before the hordes of mohammad gather to strike. Classic taqqiya.

Islam is going to get the demographics whether you want it or not. However, the nature of Islam at that point is going to affect how your descendents will be treated. If all Muslim have been outcast as Nazis for a couple of generations, the mainstream may resemble that much more than they do today. On the other hand, if there is a distinction between moderates and jihadis that allows moderates to become part of the solution, it's likely that the demographic shift will come without ill consequences.

[Paul Bunyan]

The issue is what works and what does not. The downside political risks of torture coupled with the low reliable success rate of it, generally disqualify it.

While I have no Sephardi heritage that I know of some of you do. Your anousim ancestors would have converted at the drop of a hat under torture.

[NeroASERCH]

Posted by Andak01:

Stalin killed ten million people (conservatively). What else do you admire about the Soviets?

Source (outside of the wikipedia.... please).

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/c...?story_id=4193

How do you make a terrorist talk? Veteran FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan has broken some of al Qaeda’s toughest operatives. In this special interview with FP, he shares some of his methods for making a terrorist tell all.