Talk:Torture/Archive 2

message: "It is particularly dangerous to military organizations. The deliberate infliction of pain on a helpless person is fundamentally a cowardly act and its perpetrators must necessarily be of suspect reliability on the battlefield. Cowardice is known to be contagious in deadly combat situations but the acceptable threshold for numbers of combatants who might break and run in any given fight is virtually unknowable. Hence, the deliberate acceptance of any practitioners of torture in a military culture is problematic indeed."
While hardly any of this article is neutral, this is a particularly bad passage. What reason is there for believing torturers are more likely to run on the battlefield? There's no source, it's just an unsubstantiated claim that happens to flatter everyone's world view. Isn't this supposed to be an encyclopedia? Even when we all agree on an issue, an encylcopedic article should at least make a pretense of impartiality.
72.26.64.68 15:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the section Ethical arguments regarding torture --Philip Baird Shearer 13:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I understand your viewpoint, but it may be a little difficult, considering the subject matter. I doubt that if we tried it, it would last very long before someone edited it. Arguments in favour of torture are extremely hard to justify and would probably do more harm than good. We'd probably just set off an edit war. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.30.131.199 (talk • contribs) 11:48, 2 April 2007  (UTC)
Back to the original request:  Arguments pro and con would likely be argumentative–—and not factually illuminated.  People on both sides of such an argument are typically unwilling, on "moral" grounds, that their argument lose, so the heat level increases and the clarity level decreases proportionally. What people on neither side would probably find uncomfortable would be a careful objective inquiry into actual instances of torture including their total costs (e.g., how is the tortured person doing 10 years and 50 years after torture ceased, and, how is the torturer faring at more and more remote times?), their total benefits (Was something learned that saved numerous people from pain and/or death? Was nothing learned? What were the results in the middle?) It's easy to think of examples that could justify the creation of some level of discomfort for the perpetrator of a crime, e.g., if you know where the bomb is and I put an aikido hold on you that causes excruciating pain that totally disappears after you tell where the bomb can be found and how to disable it, but determined terrorists do not give up information so easily and the information they give up may not be worth that much.
Knowing that (1) torture almost never gives good results no matter how severe, or (2) torture frequently yields saving information without needing to be severe enough to leave lasting traces would still not determine what things are moral and what things are immoral, but at least the judges of the torture policy would not be working on their own personal and subjective guesswork.
Unfortunately, such information does not exist in any very well organized format as far as I know. I have been hearing things lately about long-term consequences of torture in North Ireland coming to light, especially as relate to the harm torturers do to themselves.  People may find themselves coerced into torturing others, and they may be the ones who still writhe internally decades later despite the fact that the people they tortured may have gotten over it.  If the information did exist, it would make sense to include the main results in this article. P0M 04:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV, 7 March 2007

message: I'd offloaded all popular culture references to leaf article References to torture in popular culture. This is quite standard way to deal with this kind of information. Pavel Vozenilek 16:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In popular culture offloaded 

message: :Section 1: torture is defined as severe pain or suffering, which means there exist levels of pain and suffering which are not severe enough to be called torture.
This needs attribution, because it is a point which is hotly disputed (if only in the Western world). The split is roughly even, with US Liberals saying there is no distinction (i.e., rough interrogation is torture) and US Liberals saying there is a significant differenc.
Based on their different views, liberals and conservatives sharply disgree on matters of policy and legislation. I recall some sort of resolution in one of the houses of Congress on this, in the form: (blank) is torture and Bush has to make Rumsfield stop it. --Uncle Ed 14:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would think this is covered by the international accepted definition, i.e. UNCAT. Making even psychological pain part of torture. Admittedly the US seeks to redefine torture as those practices resulting in physical identifiable marks or even what results in death. This clearly is more narrowly defined than what the rest of the world says.Nomen NescioGnothi seauton 14:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is clearly defined in the ECHR judgement in the "Ireland v. the United Kingdom" (Case No. 5310/71). See Uses of torture in recent times#United Kingdom and five techniques --Philip Baird Shearer 15:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

text: The most significant aspect of torture might not be pain per se, but the prospect of permanent maiming and disability.  For instance, American treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo with loud noise is presumably intended to damage their hearing, causing permanent ear ringing and/or deafness.  Similarly, Asian practices of whipping the bottoms of the feet or European use of the "boot" were intended to cause the prisoner pain in walking long after the torture session was ended. 70.15.116.59 03:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Whether the degree of pain is important

message: The article was too bias, especially in favour of Amnesty Int.
I've cut down the excessive use of negative adjectives, and created a new definition section, which seems more neutral than the old layout. But it does really need a re-write.
Thanks
Jos —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.109.92.210  (talk • contribs) 16:31, 12 April 2007  (UTC)
::Please read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines specifically Good practice, new sections should go at the bottom of the talk page and you can Sign your posts: To sign a post, type four tildes (~~~~)
:I reversed you edits please see: Wikipedia:Lead section. You might like to consider making you changes but keeping a lead section, but please consider WP:NPOV. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  12/04/07 - Jos' Edit 

message: I read this book where this was a torturous death called "rounding."  From the book, it was a technique invented by Native Americans and used during the American and Indian hostilities (don't know the official name for it) in the 1800s.  What happened was that the person would cut off the victim's nose, lips, ears, and cheeks, which caused the face to be "rounded."  Is this real or made up?  The book I read about this in was one of those mystery Lincoln & Child novels. Eridani 03:55, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rounding

message: I think the politically-charged nature of the Abu Graib picture distracts from an objective description of the subject matter. I think it shoudl be changed to something like an old inquisition woodcut or babmoo or water torture, or the like.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.229.176.98 (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the main article in that section Uses of torture in recent times. When there was more on recent torture in this article it attracted a POV war. For example you sate categogorically that "at least a mention of torture condoned by the US in Iraq and Guatanamo Bay and abroad in CIA prisons" but there is not categogorical proof that the authorised treatment of prisoners held by the Americanse results in "severe pain or suffering". But whatever ones point of view on this there is a detailed section and an  article on the subject in Uses of torture in recent times#United States and in Torture and the United States withou the need to single out the USA in this article. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent torture 

message: Seems to me that any article entitled "Psychology of torture" cannot avoid being a personal reflection or essay as it is not a formally recognised subject, so that it might be a better course to merge it into Torture and redirect? --Zeraeph 00:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is essay then it should be put up for an AfD. Essays should not be merged into other articles to disguise that they are essays. Even if it is not an essay this article is already too large, so I have reverted the text that was added over the last few days. As this article is already the size that it is there is no reason why a short section as an overview can not be written and added to this article with a "main article" much as is done with the section "Ethical arguments regarding torture". --Philip Baird Shearer 18:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge to [[Torture]]

message: From my talk page:
Regarding your edits to Torture; The survey info was specifically added to counterprove the previous sentence "Nevertheless in the 21st Century torture is almost universally considered to be an extreme violation of human rights," which is literally contradicted by the survey info.  So if this survey information is going to be moved then the sentence it was ment to counterprove will have to be removed from the artical in its' entirety.
You do not need to take any action as I have already removed the offending sentence from the artical.
:It saddens me that I must now consider 29% of the world population the 'enemy'.  --ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 07:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torture, survey info, disproved sentence removal. 

message: This article opens with an incomplete sentence.  And btw, what is an "historic dictionary"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.17.134 (talk) 02:46, 23 July 2007
:I agree, the opening paragraph is terrible.  It's virtually unintelligible (it begins with a sentence fragment and gets worse.)  It's original research (unless someone can find a source that says all "historic dictionaries" define torture this way).  It's probably factually incorrect (I don't know what a "historic dictionary" is but I doubt they all define torture in exactly the same way).  It uses bold, italics and hyphenation in an apparently arbitrary-way.  I'm reverting to the last version that made any sense to me.  Sideshow Bob Roberts 13:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's much, much better now!  Great job!--24.90.17.134 01:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where's the rest of the sentence? 

message: I think the section citing Will and Ariel Durant re the Middle Ages strays a little far into speculation about the motivations of victims who resisted interrogations in that period.  The section seems flabby.  I wouldn't know how to fix it, because I'm not clear about the function it's intended to serve within the article as a whole. --24.90.17.134 02:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: this section a little wobbly

message: Was this passed and therefore enforced on all members? Or wa sit one members sign up to?
USA likes to support all sort of international convention, but they never sign them. This is because they dont want to have to play by the rules!
Has the UN done anything about the USA using torture at Gunatanamo Bay? NO! Just another point UN is a joke.--203.192.92.73 13:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the article it "came into force in June 1987". This article needs another rewrite. The soon to be Gonezales folks have once again tried to redefine torture. 199.125.109.125 17:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  United Nations Convention Against Torture 

message: What needs to be included here is at least a mention of how the Soviet Union used extended psychiatric commitments for those airing "politically incorrect opinions" Kiwi 22:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychiatric abuses now included under medical torture

message: Obviously this article is over long, needs added citations, tightening up, lots of wiki-links for deeper coverage of various issues that are addressed, but that will involve a group of interested souls willing to use the talk page here to work out these issues in an atmosphere of consensus seeking and adherence to WikiPedia principals governing encyclopedic standards.
When you find something you disagree with, consider why you disagree - is an obvious pov approach, an essay type diatribe or simply missing citations.  Before feeling driven to wholesale deletions of material, think of what you can do, by editing of existing text, your additions to balance pov, etc, and bring what you see the problems to be to the talk page for discussion. Kiwi 22:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Length - time to begin a review process

message: I added involuntry commitment . There is numerous evidence of crimes in involuntary commitment.
Recent example languished in the hospital's psychiatric unit for up to a decade
This is POV? What is the arguement for removing it?--Mark v1.0 14:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Involuntary_commitment[] Involuntary hospitalization[]. Once a person is judged mentally ill, the state and psychiatry can treat this person the way psychiatrists and hospital staff deem necessary. Examples of abuses are forced electroshock, forced drugging and confinement without judicial hearings.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark v1.0 (talk • contribs) 14:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medical 

message: It should be considered that poisonings which work on a slow, unnoticeable level
should be considered torture.  There exist people with genes who do not
experience pain (albeit very few), poisonings on such people may not be noticed
by them themselves since they experience no pain, but the result is often
worse than immediate painful torture.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.129.249.213 (talk) 10:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  slow torture 

message: this also relates to torturing. i was going to do parable to some torturing tool. i think it has existed and it would be on Wiki. I havent found much there. it would be interesting to have it here. Cc..aa..ll 23:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the section Torture#Torture methods and devices which has a main article List of torture methods and devices and that contains a section Torture devices --Philip Baird Shearer 17:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torturing tools 

message: The section on the Chinese slow slicing torture should probably be modified. The cited source clearly states that the method described is only a myth, and in fact, real victims were usually killed within an hour. There seems little point in reporting on a myth, and readers who do not catch two words in the first sentence will be lead into believing that this indeed did happen.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.227.76.232 (talk) 02:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methods of execution and capital punishment 

message: A further moral definition of torture proposes that the act of torture consists in the disproportionate infliction of pain. 
First, the search for the cited name Kang yields no results on that page. Second, the page is a blog, which is unacceptable as a source according to Wikipedia policy, except if it's an expert's personal blog, which doesn't seem to be the case. Interestingly, it also happens to be a conservative blog, where people may feel that, say, waterboarding and sleep deprivation is not sufficiently "extreme" to be torture. Third, I see no evidence that the author of the statement, whoever he is, is an expert or a reliable source for anything.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 19:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from article 

message: Modern sensibilities have been shaped by a profound reaction to the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Axis Powers in the Second World War, which have led to a sweeping international rejection of most if not all aspects of the practice.
This sounds as if the Nazis simply went a little too far, and as a result people got overly emotional about it and were stupid enough to "sweepingly" forbid all torture, even including the good and useful torture such as the one used by the US government. In fact, humanists and progressives realized both the inefficiency and the inhumanity of torture for decades if not centuries before the Nazis. The opposite claim requires a citation.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 19:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious 

message: The history section seems to focus only on Western Europe.  The lack of diversity of the phenomenon of torture by non-Western and non-Catholic religious leaders, while naming only Catholic clerics, seems to compromise the neutrality of the article.
I also have some concern about the authors and their assertions which are mentioned, although their works are not cited.  I believe I am correct in stating that Durant, at least, is not an expert on the history of torture, but instead is a general historian who writes for popular audiences.  I assume Herrera Puga is Pedro, who I believe writes on Spanish history rather than torture. Emmo827 (talk) 14:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Some good points. I think that the lack of diversity with non-Western torturers is more of an issue of incompleteness, rather than an issue of neutrality. I'm not sure where to weigh in on the contention that because someone is a general historian or just a specialist in Spanish history that their writings on torture should be discounted. One could just as easily discount the writings of experts in torture if they aren't experts in Spanish (or Catholic or Western European) history. Ideally, one would cite the most authoritative sources for any wikipedia article. -- Quartermaster (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've replaced the  with  - I don't think it's an overfocus on Europe so much as a lack of focus on the rest of the world.  Any reliable source discussing torture can be used, but definitely the section should be expanded using such sources to reflect what is known of torture elsewhere.  I've a guy, I'll talk him.  WLU (talk) 16:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I got your message in my talk page, WLU. The subject of torture has always fascinated me. It strikes me as the darkest side of our species. (Animals also torture for fun: chimps, orcas and even our pet cats with mouses.) As to the present dispute, focusing on Western Europe is certainly pov, although an unintentional one. I have almost a hundred edits in each article: Human sacrifice in Aztec culture and Infanticide. You can see in those articles that tribes and non-Western cultures were often horribler than this side of the hemisphere. As can be seen in my user page, the trouble is that, after Franz Boas' anthropology school took over the academy in the West, it's not considered politically correct to state that a culture might be more pathological that another one. But psycho-pathology is evident for psychohistorians. Just think of the holocaust perpetrated by Genghis Khan in Baghdad and China: it reminds me the Nazi advance in the Soviet Union. In the latest years however, feminist anthropologist have become rebellious against Boasian dogma. They consider female genital cutting as mutilation and psychological torture. And there are millions of mutilated (i.e., tortured by their parents and surgeons) women around the world. That's only one example. This subject is huge. However, I am so busy editing the Infanticide article that I've unwatched many other pages. Hope this comment is helpful for you guys. BTW, Will Durant is only a popular writer if we think of his bestseller The Story of Philosophy. His multi-volume work on human history (I've only read two of them) strikes me as scholarly. —Cesar Tort 17:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: Colin Powell who has been implicated foreign-departmental approval of the  torture memo and it seems that he was also given a prescription for Ambien at about the same time.  I would like to know whether Powell was regularly using Ambien while the torture memo was being discussed? Dream Academy (talk) 22:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torture, Colin Powel, and Ambien