Torture and interrogation

Torture is inhumane, an act that causes maiming to the body and mind. At the same time, it can help obtain important information from a stubborn tight lipped informant. The issues of humane actions dictated by the Genevea and Hague convention states that torture is illegal. Many forms take place, from mental(sleep deprivation), to physical(beatings), to psychological(watching others going through torture), to spiritual(burning of a bible or Koran). If let's say there was a report on a possible terrorist attack, and we had one of the terrorists in custody....how far should we go to obtain the necessary info?

Okay that is a more politicaly correct definition of torture. But should it be necessary?

Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
Something causing severe pain or anguish.

okay okay ppl! i'm sure we all get the idea of what "torture" is by now! I want your opinions on wether or not it should be used for extraction of intricate information during interrogations! so please stop posting your definitions!!!!

Just a question saw the movie "Hostel"? If that's anything nearly as bad as and interigation is here then I think we don't need it. Yes it can make progress, but my gosh. That suspect has humane rights too.

no i do not beleive in torture it is bad ,even to get valid information

I agree that torture is bad when it is used for the simple reason of inflcting unecessary harm upon someone just for a sadistic means. But let's say that a sick pedophile serial killer/rapist has kidnapped a close relative...or someone important to you, and they refuse to give any info from normal verbal interrogation, how far should it go to get the needed info to save that person's life? I mean, do we just beat around the bush "Humanelyl" until the victim dies from exposure/starvation/suffocation? What if a terrorist has planted an explosive somewhere in the USA, and it will go off at a certain time (reference the zodiac) and the suspect is captured. A million lives are at stake..women, children, the elderly. the suspect refuses negotiations, oral interrogations, threats, pleas. what do do next? what would you do?

When police/army use it just for a means of entertainment, it's bad. Nobody should have to go through that if they are POWs, they should stick to interrogation, not tortutre just to pass the time.
In S.S. we did a thing with Guantanmo Bay, and how the president knows what is going on, but chooses not to do anything about it. Torture in the U.S. is illegal, but since Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba. . . Well, they prefer torture, I guess we can leave it at that. I, however, think it is wrong, and that they should not torture people to get information, or just for 'fun'.

I agree, teh atrocities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are inexcusable. But there are also other "interrogation" operations being conducted secretly, in secret locations that are unknown. But aside from sadism, I feel that torture should be reserved for very dire means that could save a large number of innocent lives. Sometimes one has to break a few eggs to make an omolet (sp?)

ok well if u think tortouring people is wrong in interigation then u are just silly because i dunno say there werebombs in lots of places ready to go off due to terroism an the only way to get the info in time is to hurt them do u think it is exceptable then..................i think its fun its the kind of person i am haha yes im sick minded i know but hey there ya go

true, causing pain and torment could have the person surrender information. but who is to say that that information obtained ins accurate,let alone true? what if they were in so much pain, they only blurted out what the interrogators wanted to hear? then torture would be a pointless waste of time. just consider those into the equation.

Muted Scream:

I agree, teh atrocities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are inexcusable. But there are also other "interrogation" operations being conducted secretly, in secret locations that are unknown. But aside from sadism, I feel that torture should be reserved for very dire means that could save a large number of innocent lives. Sometimes one has to break a few eggs to make an omolet (sp?)

I completely agree.
So long as the information obtained were the vital key to saving people's lives. . . it might be okay.

But there is the fact that these people have rights too.
To torture someone like they are an animal is wrong, no person should be subjected to something like that.
It is a fate worse than death because the pain keeps coming and it never stops until they get what they want.

I'm sure there's a better way for getting very important information. Most people don't actually train themselves to trick lie detectors. I'll bet the governments already have better ways of getting someone to tell the truth, injections that numb your brain so that you answer automatically, or something similar. A commonplace kidnapper wouldn't be trained to resist that sort of stuff, and if the person was working for some top-secret assosciation, well, they wouldn't be getting tortured anyways, they'd have proper protection.

But I think there's an even worse affect on the person who's torturing someone else- I mean, to torture someone, you have to be extremely brutal...like a maniac. Who knows what those kind of people will do? Having to torture another human probably ruins their lives, completely.

I did a 30 page project on 'amnesty' wich is an organization for the declaration of human rights, using letter campaigns they can often free people that are tortured and imprisoned for hardly anything.. It was sad to do the project cos we had to watch a video and this dude got electrecuted on the eletric chair some place in amaerica

Sodium penethol is the "truth Serum". but using it is just as much of a travesty on human rights as torture. it may be more humane than torture, but it still tramples on the human rights by the fact that you would hold down a human being, and administer a drug into their systems that alters their mental awareness. sure it's more humane, but it's still a crime in some books. lie detectors aren't very accurate, and if teh person is uncooperative, that makes things even more harder.

no1 deserves2 be tortured. end of discussion

i agree w/ ilovegerardway2much, no one deserves that...if someone did something bad, they did something bad. doesn't mean they're a horrible person.