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The idea that you cede the moral high ground when you use torture seems to have been forgotten. I don't care if it works. I grew up believing that we were "The

The idea that you cede the moral high ground when you use torture seems to have been forgotten. I don't care if it works. I grew up believing that we were "The Good Guys" and under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture people. What made the Viet Cong so bad? They tortured people. What made the Japanese so bad? They tortured people. What made the Germans so bad? They tortured people. We should never torture anyone.

lrc 11y ago
This is the whole point of the movie the Great Escape. The allied prisoners know they won't be tortured since they're in a Luftwaffe camp and not a Gestapo one. After the escape, the ones who are recaptured are handed over to the Gestapo and are executed. Even in a 1963 film set in a Nazi POW camp, it was understood that there were rules. Sic transit.
nickff 11y ago
You are very clearly begging the question here; not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground', or that torture made the Germans, Japanese, or North Vietnamese 'bad'.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question
- jdc 11y ago
  It's bad because it increases human suffering, and it's unfair to harm someone who can't fight back.
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but let's say a terrorist is captured and you have to put a stop to his operation. His cell will kill a hundred or so people in the next month. You don't torture him and the bomb goes off killing 243 people. A year and a half later you capture another and you have to put a stop to his operation. What do you do?
    - marklgr 11y ago
      This might happen in some (arguably extremely rare) cases, but you know that's the narrative that will be used every time it will be somewhat convenient to torture someone.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      You fire half your detectives fpr incompetence. You know how hard is to procure even rudimentary explosives without leaving a trail?
      - TheLogothete 11y ago
        It's not hard at all. You need a few google searches and household supplies.
        LoSboccacc 11y ago
        Why would you need a whole terrorist cell and a cell leader uf any fuckwit could do it? Your whole argoment falls apart from whenever direction you look at it.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - doikor 11y ago
      And if you torture him and he doesn't really know and he just feeds you some lies just so you will stop torturing him and you follow wrong info and cannot stop the incident. But if you didn't follow his lies you might have followed some other leads and stopped the attack.
    - honzzz 11y ago
      I believe this scenario is misleading because it does ignore the negative consequences of allowing torture. The way you describe it there seem to be two possible scenarios - 1. forbid torturing the terrorist and let innocent people die or 2. torture the terrorist and save innocent people. I believe this is not what happens in real life. The real decision is either 1. authorities are never allowed to torture anyone and some innocent people whose deaths could be prevented die and 2. authorities are allowed to torture terrorist suspects and they will abuse this power to achieve what they want by torturing people they know are innocent and claiming they were suspects. As someone who grew up in a totalitarian country I am inclined to believe that real 2 does more harm to society than real 1.
- weland 11y ago
  > not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground' There probably are a few assholes who don't, but to take it seriously outside the realm of a purely philosophical discussion on formal logic is something that no sane human being should even consider. I don't care if Germans, Japanese, North Vietnamese or, for that matter, Americans were generally good or bad.
  - bluecalm 11y ago
    I think most sane human beings would consider torture in situations where the information obtained could save many lives (for example during the war).
    - weland 11y ago
      I hear this argument a lot. That situation is as unlikely as it gets. At least in my part of the world, torture is particularly discouraged as a means of gathering information during war. Not only are prisoners likely to confess anything that will make the pain stop, but the ones inflicting it are themselves unlikely to be able to tell when the one being tortured is telling the truth. Furthermore, even if he tells the truth (as in information that he honestly believes to be true), it's very difficult to tell if that information is of real value or just another smoke screen -- i.e. if the man you're holding was intentionally misinformed by an enemy who became aware of his imminent capture, or who simply believe the risk of capture to be very high. History is full of cases where important plans have been withheld even from unit commanders, having been shared only with the highest political and military commanders. In such cases, field units aren't left without orders -- they're given inconsequentially fake ones. Saying "torture would be OK in situations where the information obtained could save many lives" is basically like saying "living in the Sahara would be OK during rainy days". It's theoretically possible and it's obviously hard to disagree that you can live for 24 hours in a desert where it rains, but there's a good reason why no one is rushing to live in the Sahara.
      - bluecalm 11y ago
        I agree with your arguments but it seems to me you are arguing for different point: that torture is bad in almost all situations and is especially bad when applied systematically. I don't think anyone reasonable are going to contest that though. My position is that I can imagine situations where I think torture is justified even though I see those situations as very unlikely to occur and even less likely to be judged correctly. I do agree that the history doesn't inspire optimism and that systemic torture use is a problem and it's a good battle to reduce it.
- vacri 11y ago
  You can make that statement about anything and everything. Using your standard: Not everyone agrees that the earth is a sphere, therefore any statement which assumes it is a sphere is begging the question.
UlyssesSKrunk 11y ago
>The idea that you cede the moral high ground when you use torture seems to have been forgotten. It wasn't forgotten, it's simply not true. I don't care if it works. I grew up believing that we were "The Good Guys" and under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture people. Well of course, growing up you're a child who is incredibly naive and can't understand the complexities of the world enough to know that the idea that "under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture people" is just kind of dumb.
- corin_ 11y ago
  Plenty of us still have that view as adults, actually.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Precisely. The view that anything my side does is OK because it's my side is the kind of nationalism that can turn ugly very quickly.
cm2187 11y ago
It's not a matter of moral high ground. Carpet bombing cities to weaken the morale of the ennemy would have been treated as a war crime should the allies have lost WW2. It was deleberately killing civilians. The Good Guys is usually defined as "our own side". Even today, if you place a bomb under a car it is terrorism, but if the bomb is delivered by a drone, then it's all OK...
junto 11y ago
Do you really believe that we didn't torture or enemies during WWII. History is written by the victors. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_Wor... Similarly, we often believe that it was only the Soviets that took part in the rape of German women after the third Reich fell in 1945, but there are lots of evidence to suggest that all the allied forces participated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_o... I'm not trying to take away the fact that the Axis forces were vicious and committed war crimes, but we have to remember that war is horrendous and has unforeseeable and negative long-term human outcomes. I wish our countries thought a bit more about this before they rush us all into such decisions using lies and deceit.
- LordKano 11y ago
  I'm not trying to minimize the excesses taken by some Allied troops but the big difference was that these excesses were just that, excesses and not policy as in the case of the Japanese forcing women into sexual slavery or giving children candy laced with Anthrax spores.

lrc 11y ago

This is the whole point of the movie the Great Escape. The allied prisoners know they won't be tortured since they're in a Luftwaffe camp and not a Gestapo one. After the escape, the ones who are recaptured are handed over to the Gestapo and are executed. Even in a 1963 film set in a Nazi POW camp, it was understood that there were rules. Sic transit.

nickff 11y ago

You are very clearly begging the question here; not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground', or that torture made the Germans, Japanese, or North Vietnamese 'bad'.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question

jdc 11y ago
It's bad because it increases human suffering, and it's unfair to harm someone who can't fight back.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but let's say a terrorist is captured and you have to put a stop to his operation. His cell will kill a hundred or so people in the next month. You don't torture him and the bomb goes off killing 243 people. A year and a half later you capture another and you have to put a stop to his operation. What do you do?
  - marklgr 11y ago
    This might happen in some (arguably extremely rare) cases, but you know that's the narrative that will be used every time it will be somewhat convenient to torture someone.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    You fire half your detectives fpr incompetence. You know how hard is to procure even rudimentary explosives without leaving a trail?
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      It's not hard at all. You need a few google searches and household supplies.
      - LoSboccacc 11y ago
        Why would you need a whole terrorist cell and a cell leader uf any fuckwit could do it? Your whole argoment falls apart from whenever direction you look at it.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - doikor 11y ago
    And if you torture him and he doesn't really know and he just feeds you some lies just so you will stop torturing him and you follow wrong info and cannot stop the incident. But if you didn't follow his lies you might have followed some other leads and stopped the attack.
  - honzzz 11y ago
    I believe this scenario is misleading because it does ignore the negative consequences of allowing torture. The way you describe it there seem to be two possible scenarios - 1. forbid torturing the terrorist and let innocent people die or 2. torture the terrorist and save innocent people. I believe this is not what happens in real life. The real decision is either 1. authorities are never allowed to torture anyone and some innocent people whose deaths could be prevented die and 2. authorities are allowed to torture terrorist suspects and they will abuse this power to achieve what they want by torturing people they know are innocent and claiming they were suspects. As someone who grew up in a totalitarian country I am inclined to believe that real 2 does more harm to society than real 1.
weland 11y ago
> not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground' There probably are a few assholes who don't, but to take it seriously outside the realm of a purely philosophical discussion on formal logic is something that no sane human being should even consider. I don't care if Germans, Japanese, North Vietnamese or, for that matter, Americans were generally good or bad.
- bluecalm 11y ago
  I think most sane human beings would consider torture in situations where the information obtained could save many lives (for example during the war).
  - weland 11y ago
    I hear this argument a lot. That situation is as unlikely as it gets. At least in my part of the world, torture is particularly discouraged as a means of gathering information during war. Not only are prisoners likely to confess anything that will make the pain stop, but the ones inflicting it are themselves unlikely to be able to tell when the one being tortured is telling the truth. Furthermore, even if he tells the truth (as in information that he honestly believes to be true), it's very difficult to tell if that information is of real value or just another smoke screen -- i.e. if the man you're holding was intentionally misinformed by an enemy who became aware of his imminent capture, or who simply believe the risk of capture to be very high. History is full of cases where important plans have been withheld even from unit commanders, having been shared only with the highest political and military commanders. In such cases, field units aren't left without orders -- they're given inconsequentially fake ones. Saying "torture would be OK in situations where the information obtained could save many lives" is basically like saying "living in the Sahara would be OK during rainy days". It's theoretically possible and it's obviously hard to disagree that you can live for 24 hours in a desert where it rains, but there's a good reason why no one is rushing to live in the Sahara.
    - bluecalm 11y ago
      I agree with your arguments but it seems to me you are arguing for different point: that torture is bad in almost all situations and is especially bad when applied systematically. I don't think anyone reasonable are going to contest that though. My position is that I can imagine situations where I think torture is justified even though I see those situations as very unlikely to occur and even less likely to be judged correctly. I do agree that the history doesn't inspire optimism and that systemic torture use is a problem and it's a good battle to reduce it.
vacri 11y ago
You can make that statement about anything and everything. Using your standard: Not everyone agrees that the earth is a sphere, therefore any statement which assumes it is a sphere is begging the question.

UlyssesSKrunk 11y ago

>The idea that you cede the moral high ground when you use torture seems to have been forgotten. It wasn't forgotten, it's simply not true. I don't care if it works. I grew up believing that we were "The Good Guys" and under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture people. Well of course, growing up you're a child who is incredibly naive and can't understand the complexities of the world enough to know that the idea that "under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture people" is just kind of dumb.

corin_ 11y ago
Plenty of us still have that view as adults, actually.
- LordKano 11y ago
  Precisely. The view that anything my side does is OK because it's my side is the kind of nationalism that can turn ugly very quickly.

cm2187 11y ago

It's not a matter of moral high ground. Carpet bombing cities to weaken the morale of the ennemy would have been treated as a war crime should the allies have lost WW2. It was deleberately killing civilians. The Good Guys is usually defined as "our own side". Even today, if you place a bomb under a car it is terrorism, but if the bomb is delivered by a drone, then it's all OK...

junto 11y ago

Do you really believe that we didn't torture or enemies during WWII. History is written by the victors. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_Wor... Similarly, we often believe that it was only the Soviets that took part in the rape of German women after the third Reich fell in 1945, but there are lots of evidence to suggest that all the allied forces participated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_o... I'm not trying to take away the fact that the Axis forces were vicious and committed war crimes, but we have to remember that war is horrendous and has unforeseeable and negative long-term human outcomes. I wish our countries thought a bit more about this before they rush us all into such decisions using lies and deceit.

LordKano 11y ago
I'm not trying to minimize the excesses taken by some Allied troops but the big difference was that these excesses were just that, excesses and not policy as in the case of the Japanese forcing women into sexual slavery or giving children candy laced with Anthrax spores.