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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not give a shit about terror suspects being 'tortured'.

93 replies

BigMommaOfAlmost4 · 07/07/2010 10:39

and to be fucking pissed off that taxpayers money will be used to 'compensate' this pond life.

Do not believe for one minute that they are all completely innocent people picked up at random by the security forces.

Feel that it they had even the slightest inclination to repeat 9/11 or 7/7 they deserve a good slapping and more. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you .

Rant over. Am feeling highly irritated today so bring it on!!

OP posts:
FioFio · 07/07/2010 11:24

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TheMysticMasseuse · 07/07/2010 11:24

You do not agree with torture "per se" but in some cases you are "not bothered" about it?

I repeat, are you for real or on a wind-up mission?

Do you actually know what you believe? Or what "per se" means?

5DollarShake · 07/07/2010 11:24

BigMomma - you're embarrassing yourself here, seriously! You're coming across as really quite stupid.

Log off, have a word with yourself, and then log back on.

gorionine · 07/07/2010 11:25

You agree with someone who has not yet been actually convinced of anything being tortured, how is that not "agree with torture per se"?

EricNorthmansmistress · 07/07/2010 11:26

Are you saying you are not the same BigMomma who name changed to post an inflammatory and Islamophobic thread, then changed back halfway through to defend yourself?

How funny that MN has two posters called BigMomma who are a bit racist! What a coincidence!

Original poster
BigMommaOfAlmost4 · 07/07/2010 11:27

MysticMasseuse - go on unpick it, please.

Surely we have to have faith in our security forces that they are getting their intelligence right so that is what I mean by 'compromising position'. The fact they could not actually 'prove' it, which would be extraordinarily difficult unless they caught them in the 'act' means little to me.

OP posts:
MrsC2010 · 07/07/2010 11:27

Torture is torture, you can't pick and choose.

Chil1234 · 07/07/2010 11:27

"Sorry but how is this racist EricNorthernMistress?"

Giveaway is the 'biting the hand that feeds you' comment. Suggests that the 7/7 bombers and people like them should be more grateful that we allow them to live among us.... and that is a rather condescending & racist standpoint. If British-born terror suspects were more anglo-saxon in appearance/background you would not make that remark.

As others have said, we have decided as a civilised society that we don't condone torture. YABU

GypsyMoth · 07/07/2010 11:28

oh this is cringey!!!

Original poster
BigMommaOfAlmost4 · 07/07/2010 11:28

Eric - please find that thread, if it was me, I will hold my hands up. As I am not an Islamophobe, I have no idea what you are talking about.

OP posts:
OrmRenewed · 07/07/2010 11:30

Yes you are. Very.

EricNorthmansmistress · 07/07/2010 11:30

I can't since I can't remember the exact username that was used - so I'll keep my suspicions to myself from now on.

TheMysticMasseuse · 07/07/2010 11:30

"Surely we have to have faith in our security forces that they are getting their intelligence right so that is what I mean by 'compromising position'. The fact they could not actually 'prove' it, which would be extraordinarily difficult unless they caught them in the 'act' means little to me."

I really, really wish, BigMomma, that no one in your family ever happens to be at the wrong end of a miscarriage of justice (go on, google it). I bet the fact that something cannot be 'proven' will suddenly mean a lot to you.

TBH, I see little point in trying to argue with you in the face of your obvious ignorance of any legal or moral underpinning of our society.

toccatanfudge · 07/07/2010 11:31

as the OP is so laughable I'm going to lower the tone somewhat

you think that anyone caught in a compromising position in a war zone has a bad reason for being there...........perhaps they just wanted a shag

camaleon · 07/07/2010 11:31

Callisto,
The ticking bomb scenario is really crap in general. very few times in history that scenario has been presented and when it has, the record of such events are really doubtful. But if you really had an idea you would know about some cases normally reported in relation to Argelia and other countries.

would you torture the babies of the 'terrorist' to get the location of the bomb? Because you seem to believe also that people in security forces are all super-humans who resist torture just because they got some 'training'. Hilarious really. You need to stop checking films.

I am in the line of TheMysticMasseuse (love your name). Either you believe this is wrong for everybody or you don't. Many countries justify human rights violations on the grounds of security. Perhaps it works. Perhaps countries like China, Iran and many others have managed to achieve some stability with censorship, death penalty, stoning, whatever. The UK has always been on the side of those countries believing that was wrong and that 'security reasons' were not good enough reasons to justify certain degree of abuses. The UK know is on the slippery slope using the very old argument of security. Other countries are taking note of this too. It will not do any good to anybody.

And by the way, there are many other scenarios much more difficult to work out in 'real life' than the ticking bomb scenario. For instance, a case (badly) reproduced in 'Law & Order' a few weeks ago that really happened in Germany about a child kidnapped, finding the clear suspect, not knowing whether the child was alive or not. The police did torture the suspect who did confess where the body of the child was. if the child would have been alive, a self-defence argument could be used: torture to prevent the suffering of the child who was probably suffering too. This argument was rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.

The ethical grounds are always tested in the hard cases, not the easy ones. You cannot believe on the worth of every human being 'unless...

edam · 07/07/2010 11:32

Oh, you aren't an Islamophobe but you are happy for our spies to torture people who just happen to be Muslims? Because they sure aren't coming for white people.

Personally have many issues with Islam as a political doctrine and human rights issues, but torture is both wrong and stupid (because people will confess to anything you like if you hurt them badly enough and threaten to do it again. Doesn't help the torturer find the truth or the facts). You've been watching too many episodes of 24.

electra · 07/07/2010 11:33

YABVU on many levels but I suspect you know this.

Torturing is always wrong and does not belong within the context of civilised society.

cory · 07/07/2010 11:33

Anyone remember the Birmingham Six? Beaten by the police until they signed false confessions- it was only much later that anyone bothered to point out that these confessions were inconsisted with each other. Basically, they were beaten until they signed whatever they were told and mentioned the first names that came into their heads. But of course, we had faith in our police force to get things right....

"Surely we have to have faith in our security forces that they are getting their intelligence right so that is what I mean by 'compromising position'. The fact they could not actually 'prove' it, which would be extraordinarily difficult unless they caught them in the 'act' means little to me."

Really? What do you think the security forces are? Some kind of gods who see things from above? They rely on information from informers. Sometimes the informers are telling the truth, sometimes they lie- for motives of gain or spite or simply because they'd lose their position as informers if they didn't pretend to know things (even when they don't). The security forces have to do their best to untangle this mass of information: but torture is hardly a very reliable tool.

FioFio · 07/07/2010 11:35

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TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 07/07/2010 11:36

BigMommaOfAlmost4 -The security forces do not and cannot always get it right. Not only is 100% accuracy in any human endeavour almost impossible to acheive, but intelligence gathering is by it's very nature uncertain. If torture is considered a legitimate tool then it is inevitable that innocent people will be tortured.

Is it ok to torture someone who you know for SURE has the code to stop a bomb? Probably, as the lesser of two evils. But, and this is important, this NEVER HAPPENS outside 24. Torture in the real world is used on people who you don't KNOW if they have the information you are attempting to extract.

FioFio · 07/07/2010 11:36

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ArcticRoll · 07/07/2010 11:38

YABVU

5DollarShake · 07/07/2010 11:38

So BigMomma - you'd be OK with an Irish person being tortured on the basis that they might be in the 'wrong place' at the 'wrong time', and therefore 'more than likely' be connected with the IRA??

My ex-FIL was taken from his pregnant wife and tortured by Pinochet's thugs for no other reason than being a left-leaning student in Chile in 1973.

Is that also OK?

cory · 07/07/2010 11:40

Yes, Fio, but it wouldn't matter if it had been 300 years ago. The point is that people who were tortured pretended to knowledge they did not have to make the beatings stop. No reason to believe that human beings would not react in the same way to physical pain these days. Or that interrogators would not be equally cavalier about the value of the evidence if they believed they could get away with it. Our job as a society is to make sure they do not get away with it. Because otherwise we can never know whether what is presented as evidence is actually evidence. And that matters- for the sake of all our safety.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 07/07/2010 11:43

Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.