Does Torture Work? - Senator Carl Levin

[hotrod4you2]

TANKER DEAL >Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich and others, heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the hearings will look into "the propriety of the procurement process of the KC-X tanker blast us law makers for betrayal and out sorcing america

[BanPhotoRadar]

Funny, how good ole boy Levin thinks it is okay for Americans to be sexually assaulted, irradiated, and strip searched by TSA.

[log140]

Torture is a war-crime! period!

just to discuss if it works, proves the US has lost it`s moral values..

[kagiso3741]

I sure would love to see Carl Levin, my state's senator .. tortured for all the corruption and lies he has perpetrated on the American people .. How about having each lie .. exposed 1 at at time to the world .. as his form of torture .. Assuming you spent 30 seconds explaining each lie .. and retating his lie .. . This would take several months even if you did it 24 / 7 ...

[Ruinous]

Yeah, lets ask a pampered democrat senator if torture works. That only experience he has in torture is his highly paid trick that ties him up to his bed at the Hilton with furry handcuffs.

[Zzozze]

@Ruinous How do you know this? Yeah you were there too!!!!

[nickrambus]

Carl Levin is a worthles toxic piece of government crap, that does know his own fat ass from thrid base. He has freeloading on our tax dollars for over 30 years and hasn't accomplish squat. He is a life sucking, money sucking, soul sucking load on mankind.

[kagiso3741]

@nickrambus Amen brother ..

[bluete21]

Wow, thank you Senator for stating this so clearly. I hope others will listen!

[killer8579]

you people are the sick and hideous one's. The torture techniques were used on TERRORISTS to extract info. what, now were just going to bring in a cup of tea to the terrorist and ask him very politly to give up info (hahahaha)? These terrorists dont give a FUCK ABOUT US, infack most of them killed or were linked to killing american's. You obamabots are the reason that are country will be attacked again soon, it's coming. Obama has let out some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world!!!!!!

[MostHumbleManOnEarth]

SAVE AMERICA STOP THE OBAMABOTS

[im4wur2]

If OUR representatives aren't accountable for their actions then we're in more trouble than many can even imagine; because if corrupt and criminal representatives know they won't be held accountable by citizens of the US, they won't stop. To their way of thinking, why should they? - It's up to we the people to demonstrate our support for... and in fact demand ACCOUNTABILITY from our elected officials.

[im4wur2]

...because the consequences of the alternative are unthinkable.

[EmmaJakeway]

Carl Levin was Detroit City councilmember '69-'77, serving as its president '73-'77. He re-wrote the City Charter in '74, was elected to the U.S. Senate in '78, claims he still lives there, but he has nothing to do with the city anymore. He purposely ruined Detroit because the 50s showed they could easily trump New York City using real capital: automobiles, rather than fake Monopoly money in New York City.

[MrBeefmuncher]

Pouring water on some terrorists head is not the same as nailing them to the floor and clipping their toes off with pliers.

[freesk8]

It does not matter if torture works or not.

What matters is that it is always morally wrong.

If we did not prop up dictators in other countries, we would not have people who wanted to attack us and we would have no temptation to use torture in the first place.

America is better than that. We are the good guys. We wear the white hats. When we have to attack, we attack in self defense AND THEN WE LEAVE.

We need openness. Torture makes us look bad. So we can not even torture in secret.

[Aaberg123]

Great. A follower of the Bush doctrine :S

[freesk8]

Huh?

The Bush doctrine is the opposite of what I wrote above.

Bush would have us prop up dictators who called themselves allies. He would torture prisoners to attempt to protect Americans. He would have us maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

This is the opposite of my stated position.

I did not vote for Bush or McCain.

I'm against torture and the Iraq war.

What are you talking about? Are you being ironic? I can't tell from your post.

[Aaberg123]

By it, I meant the perhaps most controversial part: Preemptive war.

[freesk8]

I don't support the war in Iraq, but I do support preemptive war under certain circumstances.

Let's say the Canadian tanks were massing on the border :) and you could take 'em out with a few non-nuke cruise missiles. I think that might be a good move.

How 'bout taking out N. Korea's nuke missile on a launch pad at a time when our intelligence has good reason to believe they intend to launch at San Francisco?

Though I would not trust Bush to decide, there is a time for preemptive war.

[freesk8]

Then there is the US entry in to WWII.

Granted, we may have made that war happen in the first place due to our breaking of the stale-mate in WWI that caused Germany to be humiliated by war reparations, etc. And our Smoot-Hawley tariff contributed to wrecking Germany's economy.

But generally, our attacks in WWII were preemptive.

[Aaberg123]

Joining the war (WWII) to support your allies is not quite what I call preemptive. Especially considering how relatively late the involvement was.

The examples you gave are incidents of direct, imminent threats. Those are not examples of preemptive war, with regards to the Bush doctrine.

[freesk8]

I don't support the Bush doctrine.  Never said I did.

But I can come up with a few scenarios in which I would advocate making the first attack. I'll bet you can too.

The point is that attacking Iraq was not even a defensive move for the US. It was not preemptive war. We should have attacked bin Laden, but we attacked a country that was no threat to us. Stupid move.

When there ARE "direct, imminent threats" then, preemptive war might make sense.

But this is not the Bush doctrine.

[metalic699]

Those who are merciful upon the cruel will inevitably be cruel upon the merciful.

[Scoforever]

Torture doesn't work.

[matyuk54]

i dont agree with him; one case doesnt mean every torture is false; informations gathered from torture should just be verified and not believed

[PaulCynic]

How do you feel about one case resulting in a war that is effectively illegal as a result of false information provided by someone under the stress of torture? Doesn't that make the risks of using torture-based information too great?

And how about we honor our treaties and just don't torture, let alone the humanity element.

[Slyfox38]

Distorted? If the US is in fack torturing detainees then how is that description distorted?

[k166a]

I wonder if Bush or Cheney ever feel embarrassed when they hear stuff like this.

[dbryandolman]

A pragmatic critique of torture is itself a betrayal: the act is corrupt and corrupting in its nature, not through any tactical consequences it may have.

[freesk8]

Exactly! Well put.

Torture is just plain wrong, no matter whether it is effective or not.

[MrBeefmuncher]

Grow up you sad twat. What if the person knew where your family were being held hostage and wouldn't say?

[freesk8]

OK, so you have an accessory to kidnapping in your possession. If your loved-one is murdered, then the charge is accessory to murder. If they cooperate, they get a lighter sentence.

The best thing to do is to avoid the situation entirely. In our foreign policy, we could do this by stopping our policy of propping up dictators. Then terrorists would not want to attack us in the first place.

I'd say someone who calls another a "sad twat" is the one who needs to grow up. Try some civility.

[MrBeefmuncher]

A lighter sentence?

Well.... just send a few lawyers to help Private Bowe Bergdahl, that'll really work.

I never cease to be amazed at how naive some people are. I'd say someone you need to grow up!

[franksvenatra]

Read the title of this video again. Let it sink in. How are we asking this question in 2009?

[dlucas90]

Torture is the process of verifying what is already believed to be true by the torturer, otherwise, how would the torturer know when to end the "interagation"?

Historicaly, torture has been used to terrorize the enemy and gain false confessions.

How can we trust a government that will use a technique for "information gathering" when the same technique can be used to gain false confessions?

[wiskawind]

Torture is a War Crime; I don't care who is doing the torturing, it is still a War Crime.

What did we do to the Japanese when they tortured, and committed War Crimes like water torture?

They were hung, and rightly so.

Now Bush should hang ok, but Cheney needs to be put on a diet so his head doesnt disconnect from his body when the trap is pulled. LOL

[MumblingMythos]

Torture is immoral. It stays immoral whether there are benefits or not. I don't care if torture works. It is wrong.

[jonesjamie]

Agreed!

"Give me liberty or give me death"

=

Live by your morals or die by your morals.

If America changes its moral stance because of some threat its not america anymore(yes I know thats an exaggeration)

Thats letting people change the physical makeup of or country plus the spiritual makeup of our country in one swoop.

Torture = fail for us

Torture = win for them(yes, that's odd)

[mrwhite692000]

Funny how American politicians can't say "torture".

[phfrankh]

If one tells a dog to stop barking... Guess what ?the dog will bark. Do you know why?

[fatmanprime]

It doesn't understand English?

[phfrankh]

No! the dog thinks your barking to! (;-)

[RationalLiberty]

prosecute the lawbreakers! Bring them to justice!

[acr08807]

Isn't this really an empirically testable proposition? We could take half of the terrorists we capture and treat them humanely, and torture the other half, and see which group produces the most useful intelligence.

[allgoo19]

It's been already done, well.. sort of.

There's a real effective way to get the true information instead of torture.

Watch this video,

"How To Break A Terrorist"

[acr08807]

Thanks, that's an interesting video (and I don't say that often about Fox News reports). I just ordered his book. It sounds like we could get the best of both worlds by trying more gentle methods first, and then, if that doesn't break the terrorist, using torture.

You might be interested in Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace. Horne is against torture, but his book chronicles (among other things) how the French successfully broke the Algeirs resistance movement using torture.

[franksvenatra]

Don't you think that the said senior intelligence officer's bad opinion of torture is based on 'empirical data'?

[acr08807]

Don't you think the intelligence officers who support torture's good opinion of torture is based on 'empirical data?'

[Oopaack]

not really.

[franksvenatra]

If a human being is in extreme pain and knows the answer his interrogators want to hear he will give it whether it's true or not. Everyone knows this.

[acr08807]

But what if he doesn't know which answer they want? You need to keep torturing until you start getting the same answers from different prisoners.

[allgoo19]

Is this only me? Carl Levin looks like re-incarnation of Benjamin Franklin.

[VivekRajcoomar]

someone should do an interview with dick cheney on this.

under "enhanced interrogation" of course. ; )

[jvittetoe]

Does torture work? How tragic it is that this is the question society is asking.