Dateline Now : It seems France has found a pair. Arresteing and convicting six slime balls who had plotted to blow up the U.S. embassy in Paris.
The very interesting part is the one who ratted on the others was tortured?, "But during the trial, Beghal retracted those statements, saying they had been made under torture.", this we know to be false.
As the outstanding world citizen France would NEVER use such a horrible thing as torture, this guy was obviously lying. ;-)
The 1-10 year sentences seems a little light imho but hey, they did something.. and for that I applaud them.
Full Story @ VOA News
Posted by Muddy at March 15, 2005 10:14 PM | TrackBackCops have the same tendancy worldwide. Sometimes they crack up and hit their prisonners. They "help" them to become more talkative. That's why laws are passed to prevent them to do so, that's why it's so dangerous to create guantanamo bases, and memo justifying degrading treatments and psychological violence.
I think the part you missed, is that, as far as I remember that Beghal was arrested in a foreign country, Kuwait or saoudi arabia, sth. ANd he claims he has been tortured there.
The cops in the middle east do not care much about human rights.
Cops have the same tendancy worldwide. Sometimes they crack up and hit their prisonners. They "help" them to become more talkative. That's why laws are passed to prevent them to do so, that's why it's so dangerous to create guantanamo bases, and memo justifying degrading treatments and psychological violence.
I think the part you missed, is that, as far as I remember that Beghal was arrested in a foreign country, Kuwait or saoudi arabia, sth. ANd he claims he has been tortured there.
The cops in the middle east do not care much about human rights.
If you know that someone is plotting to set off a nuke in paris, and just talking to a suspect won't get you where the bomb is, is it okay or not okay to beat the location out of him df?
Posted by: skywalker at March 17, 2005 06:22 PMIt's not OK. It's never ok to do wrong. If some cop tortures he'll have to hide it.
+ most of the time people lie under torture, so it's also useless. By torturing you have a high probability that the person will admit anything you want that person to admit, but it won't tell you were the bomb is (if there's a bomb)
What do you think of wolfowitz at the head of world bank. Do you think it improves the relationship between the USA and world ? Do you think it improves the trust in US Foreign policy ?
Do you think it is a positive move ?
Well , what I was implying what that I don't think that would be wrong. What you just said is that it's better for possibly millions of people to die than for the killer to be beaten. That's okay with you?
Let me just inform you something DF: no one wants to hurt another human being. No one wants to go to war. People do it out of necessity. Islamic terrorists kill jews because they believe it is necessary for them to get their feast and virgins. Interrogators do things that you consider torture (sorry, making someone stand on their feet for long periods of time isn't torture, anyone who says it is needs to be shown what real torture is) because they believe it is necessary to save lives, and countries go to war because they believe (in most cases) that killing a small number will ultimately save a large number.
To believe otherwise is to believe that the people making such decisions are sociopaths.
Personally, I don't care about our relationship with the rest of the world. My job is not to set policy, mine is to carry it out. So my official opinion on wolfowitz is more or less non-existent.
BTW, anyone with any half-way decent background in interrogations and interrogation resistance can tell you that EVERYONE has a breaking point at which they will tell you everything they know truthfully and that the interrogation's yields are taken with a grain of salt until the prisoner yields consistently verifiable information - even at that point all information is verified before it is acted on. So sure, they'll lie initially, but eventually they'll break.
The point is never to get a person to admit to something, the point is to extract useful information. You don't ask questions about things you don't know they know. You ask things they do know. You find out truthful things, and eventually that leads to them sharing information you didn't know they knew initially. But you never act on that information without ensuring it's accuracy.
Posted by: skywalker at March 19, 2005 02:53 PM"But you never act on that information without ensuring it's accuracy"
If only it were true.
Very often people are tortured to get extracted information because someone for whatever ground turned them over to the torturing lots. Plenty of example in France during the german occupation, in all easter europe and soviet union, in vietnam afganhistan and Iraq.
If I was sure that someone knows where the bomb is, I may torture that person, but I would erase evidence that I have tortured that person, I would never brag publicly that I did.
And I condemn torture in any occasion.
Writing memos to justify guantanamo and torture procedures may be even worse than holding prisoners forever and torturing them.
If you are a b....rd because this is a war, then act as the F......g bas...d you are but don't try to justify it. What you are doing is wrong. Do it secretely if you think it is the best option, but never claim it as the right thing to do, that's a disgrace.
If I were to torture to save the world, and If I got caught, I would commit hara kiri.