[di meliora]

Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, is a Brigadier General (Ret), US Army. He says:

The plain fact is that nothing that has been claimed in the name of defending our country can justify cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of another man or woman. Torture, in any form—light or heavy—is not a tool of interrogation or useful for gathering good intelligence. It is a propaganda tool, and it degrades the perpetrator as well as the victim. This is not just the rhetoric of bleeding heart progressives. It is the opinion of more than 50 retired admirals, generals, and senior government officials convened by Human Rights First to discuss this issue, and our conclusions can be stated simply:

• Torture is un-American. General George Washington laid down the directive that American soldiers will treat the enemy humanely and conform to high moral and ethical principles on the battlefield.

• Torture is ineffective. Experienced interrogators acknowledge that information extracted by the use of torture is unreliable.

• Torture is unnecessary. Veteran FBI and military interrogators have spoken out publicly against the use of physical pressure in interrogation.

• Torture is damaging. “. . . a person who is tortured is damaged, but so are the torturer, the nation, and the military.”
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/prin...printable=true

Something to think about. Empathy or torture?

[Tomjones]

Originally Posted by di meliora

• Torture is ineffective. Experienced interrogators acknowledge that information extracted by the use of torture is unreliable.

Couldn't agree more, under torture I'd admit to anything.. From stealing a fiver to being Osama Bin Laden

[eskielover]

It was the torture & all the inhumane killings that Hitler did during WWII that finally got the generals who weren't tied to Hitler in the first place or part of the SS to band together & help with the conspiracy groups that were formed internal to Germany to go against Hitler.

I am reading the book Bonhoeffer.....which is about a pastor in Germany before & during WWII who got involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.....it was quite an eye opener even though the book is a biography......it's very historical even though it's not written as a history book. All those horrible attrocities were what the Germans had to be held accountable for after the War even though it was mostly the SS troops who performed those horrible actions.

I can say, it's scary to think that anyone could be that evil to treat any humans in that way......even when they were confronted about it being against the international laws of war.