What about using drugs in lieu of torture?

[LoneWolf]

I didn’t want this to get lost in the torture thread, but in that thread epepke mentions (http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?p=30253&#post30253) that there is an injectable drug that is just as effective, if not more so, than torture.

So this then leads me to ask the following question: Should be be allowed to administer drugs to an enemy combatant against his will in order to help force him to tell the truth?

I will admit that I am torn on the question. My initial response is sure, it is simple and painless, go ahead and give the shot. But I DON’T think police in my home country of the US should be permited to do that to a suspected criminal. How can I justify doing it to one and not the other? Neither have been convicted of anything and a human is a human, right?

So I am still trying to work it out in my own head. What do you all think?

[His Noodly Appendage]

You think that's bad, what about blowing them up?

[LoneWolf]

You think that's bad, what about blowing them up?

Well, that is a whole other topic altogether. I obviously think there are times when it is justified in using force against other armed soldiers, but once they are our prisoners what are the limits to how we should treat them?

[His Noodly Appendage]

Why the difference?

[BWE]

You think that's bad, what about blowing them up?

Well, that is a whole other topic altogether. I obviously think there are times when it is justified in using force against other armed soldiers, but once they are our prisoners what are the limits to how we should treat them?

Why the difference?

They stop shooting at you once you take them prisoner?

[His Noodly Appendage]

They stop shooting at you once you take them prisoner?
http://www.grahamowen.com/images8/SHOCKandAWE.jpg

Self defense?

[BWE]

huh? Prisoners don't shoot at you usually.

???

[LoneWolf]

Why the difference?

That is like asking why police should treat an unarmed suspect in an interrogation room any different than they would treat a suspect with an automatic rifle taking pot shots at people passing on the highway.

And you can post all the pictures of bombings and war atrocities you want. Your preaching to the choir here. I think there are justified wars and unjustified wars. I also think there are unjustified actions that can be taken within a justified war and justified actions that can be taken within an unjustified war. The picture you show? I’m not sure. What is being blown up? It might be a completely unjustified attack. But it has nothing to do with the OP that I can see.

If you are against torture, how do you feel about using drugs in lieu of it?

[tjakey]

IF there was a drug that was completely safe and completely reliable, assuring that truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth was uttered in response to questioning, I don't think I would have a problem with it being administered to people suspected of being guilty of a crime or of planning an act of terrorism. I think the 5th amendment was written precisely to prevent people from being tortured or tricked into false confessions. But if there was a way to really know the truth, every time, without brutalizing the suspect, I think that would be a good thing. The guilty would go free far less often and, more importantly, the innocent would not go to jail.

I don't think such a drug should be used in "fishing expeditions," though. People arrested and charged with a crime based on other evidence and properly executed warrants, and POWs suspected of having specific information relevant to a strategic situation only.

[His Noodly Appendage]

a human is a human, right?

If they are, then it doesn't matter whether they're on the battlefield or in a POW camp, now does it?

[LoneWolf]

a human is a human, right?

If they are, then it doesn't matter whether they're on the battlefield or in a POW camp, now does it?

Well, it would depend on what they are doing on that battle field? If they are trying to kill me or my buddy next to me then I am going to treat them a bit more harshly then if they are unarmed and handcuffed to a chair in a compound under my control. Wouldn’t you?

OK, HNA, I can see you are looking at all this in light of our most recent conflicts. I am trying to discuss drugs vs. torture independent of that. But to get a better fix on your opinion let me change the battle field.

Let’s say a foreign nation decides to mount a full on assault on the US. They attack us on US soil. When we capture their soldiers should we be allowed to torture them to get information? Should we be allowed to inject them with drugs to get them to talk?

[His Noodly Appendage]

The point is, if you get the jump on them with a stealth bomber, field artillery, missiles, etc, they're 'enemy combatants', and nobody objects to killing them from miles away despite the total lack of personal threat. But the moment you say "tag, you're it!", the moment you can't pretend they're not human beings... oh, THEN their welfare matters.

People always object to contrived counterfactual ethical dilemmas - well, it's my turn. Where you have these utterly ad hoc rules that bear no relation to ethics... make up your own, what the fuck does it matter?

[LoneWolf]

That sounds like an all or nothing point of view to me. "If we are going to violate some people's human rights in some cases, fuck it, we might as well do it in all cases. Why worry about whether or not doing A is wrong? B is worse than A and we do that all the time." Why worry about if it is right or wrong to castrate little boys? They often die in war zones anyway. We don't care about that so why care about castration?

Ok, now I am derailing. My point is, is it not possible to focus on just one particular aspect of human rights now and then for the purposes of discussion?

[Ray Moscow]

I didn’t want this to get lost in the torture thread, but in that thread epepke mentions (http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?p=30253&#post30253) that there is an injectable drug that is just as effective, if not more so, than torture.

So this then leads me to ask the following question: Should be be allowed to administer drugs to an enemy combatant against his will in order to help force him to tell the truth?

I will admit that I am torn on the question. My initial response is sure, it is simple and painless, go ahead and give the shot. But I DON’T think police in my home country of the US should be permited to do that to a suspected criminal. How can I justify doing it to one and not the other? Neither have been convicted of anything and a human is a human, right?

So I am still trying to work it out in my own head. What do you all think?

Well, my first take was that non-damaging drugs would be much less violation of human rights than torture -- and so if atrocities were prevented, maybe it could be justified. This still depends on whether such techniques actually produced reliable intelligence.

OTOH, you still couldn't try such people afterwards since their rights were still violated. You'd still be left with either detaining them indefinitely without charge or just letting them go.

It would also be incredibly easy to frame people for crimes that they didn't commit using "evidence" obtained this way.

On balance, it's not such a good idea either, although it still seems much less bad than torture.

[Lisa0315]

Train our soldiers in the science of lie detection. I am not talking about a lie detector machine, but like on the TV series, "Lie To Me". There is a great deal of truth in body language, facial expression, etc. If they lie, then, inject the drugs. You at least then have probably cause and know that they are hiding something.

Lisa

[tjakey]

Ohhh nooossss...first we get "torture lessons" from the TV show "24" and now we are going to train our combat forces useing the Fox show "Lie To Me?" We are sooooooo screwed. (At least they put the show on the right network.)

[Lisa0315]

Ohhh nooossss...first we get "torture lessons" from the TV show "24" and now we are going to train our combat forces useing the Fox show "Lie To Me?" We are sooooooo screwed. (At least they put the show on the right network.)

Oh, C'mon! I did not say use the show, but the show is based on a science which is far more accurate than lie detector machines.

Lisa

[BioBeing]

I don't think Lisa has ever heard of poker players. Or con men. Or politicians. Or Fox News presenters. Some people can lie virtually undetectably (other than when their lips move).

[BioBeing]

As to the OP: I'm conflicted too.

What is the legality of such a drug?

[Matty]

"Sarge we got a problem, suspect no1 is keeping tight lipped and tbh it doesnt really look like he was that close to the scene in any case, shall we let him go and issue the press release that the rapist is still at large?

"Nah, tell you what, dope him up with some XYZ and even if he doesnt cop to the rape charge I'm sure we can find something he'll admit to. That stuff is fucking great at getting results, our stats have never looked so good."

Bacially if you are "too pissed" give a statement after 2 pints of beer, i dont see how they can justify using information garned by deliberately getting you off your tits.

Better than torture but i doubt it is that much more reliable, dont most of these drugs generally work on lowering inhibitions or promoting confusion and allowing the interrogators to get the strategic upper hand? S'all well and good as long as you know what you are looking for and can corroborate information gathered from multiple sources i guess but there are a lot of holes in the idea.

[Lisa0315]

I don't think Lisa has ever heard of poker players. Or con men. Or politicians. Or Fox News presenters. Some people can lie virtually undetectably (other than when their lips move).

Sure I have. That does not mean that the average Al Queda dude can do all of that shit. I am just trying to present an idea which is somewhere between getting information and torture. A truth serum or whatever is not torture, and I certainly think it is suitable for this situation. However, for those who do not have the stomach for giving it to pretty much anyone who is suspected, use a scientific approach (not perfect by no means of course) to at least narrow down the suspects to the ones who might have something to hide.

Saying that there are ways around it does not negate the potential. Can it be used in a court of law? Of course not. As an interrogation practice, I think it might be extremely useful.

If all the interviews were video taped, then, the lying experts could review and say, "That one is saying No, but he is nodding his head Yes.

It really works. I was watching some kind of True Crime investigation in which the mother was accused of killing her two husbands and attempting to kill her daughter making it look as if the daughter had killed her father and step-father, then, tried to commit suicide.

The mother did that very thing. When she was asked if she killed her husbands, she said, "I absolutely did not!", but she was nodding her head Yes. They had all kinds of evidence against the mother, but, there was plenty of evidence against the daughter as well. There was certainly enough for reasonable doubt. Yet, the testimony, if the jurors even instinctively saw what I did...well, the Mother was lying, and they convicted her.

That is just one example of how your body betrays you when you are lying.

Lisa

[Matty]

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[Garnet]

I don't think Lisa has ever heard of poker players. Or con men. Or politicians. Or Fox News presenters. Some people can lie virtually undetectably (other than when their lips move).

Sure I have. That does not mean that the average Al Queda dude can do all of that shit. I am just trying to present an idea which is somewhere between getting information and torture. A truth serum or whatever is not torture, and I certainly think it is suitable for this situation. However, for those who do not have the stomach for giving it to pretty much anyone who is suspected, use a scientific approach (not perfect by no means of course) to at least narrow down the suspects to the ones who might have something to hide.

Saying that there are ways around it does not negate the potential. Can it be used in a court of law? Of course not. As an interrogation practice, I think it might be extremely useful.

If all the interviews were video taped, then, the lying experts could review and say, "That one is saying No, but he is nodding his head Yes.

It really works. I was watching some kind of True Crime investigation in which the mother was accused of killing her two husbands and attempting to kill her daughter making it look as if the daughter had killed her father and step-father, then, tried to commit suicide.

The mother did that very thing. When she was asked if she killed her husbands, she said, "I absolutely did not!", but she was nodding her head Yes. They had all kinds of evidence against the mother, but, there was plenty of evidence against the daughter as well. There was certainly enough for reasonable doubt. Yet, the testimony, if the jurors even instinctively saw what I did...well, the Mother was lying, and they convicted her.

That is just one example of how your body betrays you when you are lying.

Lisa

Interrogators are already trained in the kind of stuff you are talking about. It is not a reliable as you seem to think.

[rlogan]

I didn’t want this to get lost in the torture thread, but in that thread epepke mentions (http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?p=30253&#post30253) that there is an injectable drug that is just as effective, if not more so, than torture.



Pretty simple.

If it is "just as effective" then it will get them to tell you whatever you want, and is valueless as an "intelligence" tool.


Were it actually the case (that it garnered unambiguously truthful and complete data) instead of hype, it would be so well estblished in intelligence circles as to be inconrovertible and universally applied.

Like wheels on cars. They are used because they work. There is no controversy, no doubt, no bullshit contrived stories about how square wheels might work if the world was made of ice sloping downhill at every point, etc.

[Cheetah]

Administering drugs to prisoners without their consent is considered to be torture under international law.

[Schneibster]

Administering drugs to prisoners without their consent is considered to be torture under international law.Correct. So the correct answer to the OP is, using drugs isn't in lieu of torture- it is torture.

[Schneibster]

The medical facts are that there is no such thing as a truth serum or truth drug. As anyone who's done much experimenting knows, anything that will render your will or understanding compromised to such an extent that you're incapable of lying will also render you incapable of giving a coherent account of anything at all.

[BWE]

Administering drugs to prisoners without their consent is considered to be torture under international law.Correct. So the correct answer to the OP is, using drugs isn't in lieu of torture- it is torture.

Wait a minute here. Law =/= truth.

Not that it isn't torture but that isn't evidence for a claim.

[BWE]

The medical facts are that there is no such thing as a truth serum or truth drug. As anyone who's done much experimenting knows, anything that will render your will or understanding compromised to such an extent that you're incapable of lying will also render you incapable of giving a coherent account of anything at all.

I've done a lot of experimenting and I am pretty confident in my assessment that drugs don't help you tell the truth.

Otherwise cops wouldn't have all those good stories. Ask Ronin. How many people say, "Yeah, I dropped 4 hits of acid before I got to the party."?

[Schneibster]

Administering drugs to prisoners without their consent is considered to be torture under international law.Correct. So the correct answer to the OP is, using drugs isn't in lieu of torture- it is torture.

Wait a minute here. Law =/= truth.

Not that it isn't torture but that isn't evidence for a claim.What we're talking about here is the definition of torture, and since it's a crime I'm content to look to the law to provide that definition.

I see your point, but I disagree with it; I think similar constructions are at the heart of the current controversy. I think just this sort of thinking, but with a more sinister intent than you're likely to have, generated the memos that supposedly justified this.

I know you well enough to take your "not that it isn't torture" seriously; I simply disagree that the law is not sufficient evidence to draw my conclusion.

[BWE]

Well, I really don't know what ethical principle it violates as torture.

You are right, I don't think it isn't torture. I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. But I don't know that it is either. If someone is shooting at me and I manage to take his gun away, my personal first thought would probably be to torture the hell out of him and let him go so he'd tell his buddies to stop shooting at me. Just for shooting at me. But that has a lot of drawbacks to it.

One, no way in hell would someone give me a gun and then successfully push me into a battlefield that I didn't want to go into. Maybe when I was a kid, not now. So if someone was shooting at me I'd be taking it pretty personally.

But as a policy, I think the geneva convention is reasonably good and a few added tidbits of international law and various treaties make it a little better.

But I still don't want people to shoot at American kids. Even if they deserve it. So, while I generally abhor unnecessary brutality, I'm not sure that drugging someone necessarily hurts them. Assuming they recover fully with no massive complications, it doesn't seem particularly terrible.

The information isn't any good though. But maybe it might provide some leads to check out? I dunno. I really don't know which ethical principles are invoked defining drugging as torture. It seems like small potatoes next to incarceration generally.

[Schneibster]

There're a lot of ways to justify looking at it as torture. A couple to ponder:

The risk of side effects or sequelae.

Violation of your bodily integrity and right to determine what does and does not go into your body.

[BWE]

I think once you shoot at people you lose the right to determine what doesn't go in your body though. No?

Remember the OP says in lieu of torture. Defining it as torture means it's equivalent maybe? I'd rather be drugged than beaten. Maybe that's just me.

[David M]

a human is a human, right?

If they are, then it doesn't matter whether they're on the battlefield or in a POW camp, now does it?

Of course it does, once you have curtailed their freedom and control those freedoms you have a responsibility for them.

[Schneibster]

I think once you shoot at people you lose the right to determine what doesn't go in your body though. No? Not legally speaking.

Remember the OP says in lieu of torture. Defining it as torture means it's equivalent maybe? I'd rather be drugged than beaten. Maybe that's just me.I hadn't considered the matter. I'm not sure I'd have a preference.

[BWE]

a human is a human, right?

If they are, then it doesn't matter whether they're on the battlefield or in a POW camp, now does it?

Of course it does, once you have curtailed their freedom and control those freedoms you have a responsibility for them.
This is really where the ethical principle begins as far as I can tell.