Torture and the Law

Join New York attorney and human rights advocate Scott Horton and attorney and columnist Stuart Taylor as they debate the consequences of violating laws prohibiting torture. Series: Voices [6/2009] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 16592]

Category:

Education

Tags:

• torture
• public
• policy
• human
• rights

[yazyh]

I can't even believe this is being debated. "should a us-official be prosecuted for not abiding the law and torture?!" how ridiculous. If thats the case maybe they should waive it for everybody as well and hold everyone to their own courrpt standards and not be so quick to condem and charge other people of un-humanitarian acts. JERKS!

[Zenoah1]

Bush is a criminal. His cronies, criminals also. And I hope, and pray someone in government, someone in the world.. Has the guts to step up and bring that basxxx to justice. They thumbed their nose, at the Geneva Conventions. If the US won't do it, I pray someone in the International community will step up, and make him stand before his peers, be charged, tried, and hopefully convicted of crimes against humanity.

[OrionArmyAngel]

Evil is "destructive" and will tend to melt with the torture and if the person is innocent he/she will remain in silence. Evil is associated woth homosexuality and thus if you try to apply "sexual techniques" to obtain information, the person will only give you his/her homosexuality because "evil is very carnal". The real torture is simply to perform "an elegant intellectual confrontation with the evidence". 

[1888junkteam]

excellent work!

[Parent33w]

"Legal Jeopardy"; that's funny. How about people just consider treating other people like they are members of the human race, entiled to dignity, respect, and human and civil, if not contitutional rights. Thomas Paine's quote is to freedom, democracy, and respresentative constitutional government what torture is to . . . . ." What is war, death, conflict and anarchy? You are correct, you proceed to Final Jeopardy for non-elitist/-tyrranical/auotoc­rats that view mankind as their own caste system

[Parent33w]

Maybe Stuart is suggesting it is time for the poor and downtrodden to unite and really get down with the program. Fuck the Constitution. If polititicians can escape it because of their bad policy that creates situations where compliance isn't "expedient" or "efficient"; what the hell are we all doing here? Wasting time being law abiding citizens under the thumbs of these arrogant fascist fucking pricks I guess, them selling out the citizenry, country, and Constitution. Do as they do I guess.

[DrJulienArbor]

There is no debate... and you haven't even cracked the surface!

[vidfreak56]

Torture might work only if it is used against someone who has useful information and is able to break (we all have our weaknesses). The issue is that torture is often used against the innocent and incites wrong information. The same might actually be said for those who have information but simply lie to get the torture to stop. It CAN work, but often doesnt. I still believe there are times when it is probably necessary (even if ineffective), but only in extreme circumstances.

[4400735]

Torture is actually ineffective at gaining useful information. The torture techniques they borrowed from SERE training (to torture-proof US and allied soldiers) were used by the Communists to extract false confessions of war crimes and cetera during the Korean War.

To squander the Moral High Ground, a vital asset in the Jihad Against Terror, for obviously unuseable information arguably constitutes TREASON, depending on whether or not the United States is in a time of war.

[Zenoah1]

Us or them. Well, which them are you actually referring to ? Because the people who were tortured were innocent of any type of crime. Gasp. Imagine that. Most of those prisoners.. were never even charged with a crime.

[vidfreak56]

I tend to agree that it should only be used if it is absolutely necessary, when all other possibilities have been attempted and failed. However, if it is a crime, under our national laws, then it simply cant be done. If we want to legalize it, then the law should be changed first. W/O adhering to law America quickly becomes meaningless.