h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone remember the film Marathon Man? Larry Olivier the evil dentist had Dustin Hoffman strapped to the dentist's chair and continued to ask him 'Is it safe? Is it safe?' whilst drilling into his mouth and teeth with no anaesthetic until Dustin finally blurted out 'Yes yes, it's safe!' and not knowing what the f**k Larry was talking about.

I can't see that any torture methods end up with 'the truth' being told, especially when so many torture victims are simply being asked to confirm what the authorities want to hear.

Torture is not only cowardly and morally wrong, but it also serves no real purpose except to make people say things under terrible physical and/or emotional duress that they would never say otherwise.

Such means of acquiring so-called 'evidence' should not be allowed in any decent court of law.


az

I think that just about sums it up.

"In 1970 when Rhodesia became a republic the crown was removed from the crest and from the flag, although the name "British South Africa Police" was retained until 1980".

And my former boyfriend was in service in Rhodesia between 1976 and 1978. As I have photos of him in uniform and in service there, letters from him there, and a friend of ours who left with him to join the BSAP as a mercenary was killed on his firet day of service, the only Canadian to be killed in the conflict, I am more than sure of my facts.

http://www.rhodesianforces.org/Pages/BSAP/British%20South%20Africa%20Police%20History.htm

http://www.rhodesianforces.org/Pages/BSAP/BSAP%20Roll%20of%20Honour.htm

"During most of Rhodesian history, the leading internal security institutions were the national police force and the Native Affairs Department. Until the late 1960s, the country maintained only a rudimentary territorial army. The proportion of public revenue earmarked for defense was small, and the army played a small role in domestic order and external defense until the outbreak of guerrilla war in the 1970s. Rhodesia's British South African Police (BSAP) was the de facto defense force".: http://texts.cdlib.org:8088/xtf/view?docId=ft2199n7jp&doc.view=content&chunk.id=d0e2339&toc.depth=1&anchor.id=0&brand=ucpress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_South_Africa_Police

""In 1970 when Rhodesia became a republic the crown was removed from the crest and from the flag, although the name "British South Africa Police" was retained until 1980"."

Ah, so they weren't British nor South African but they were called the "British South African Police". Seems it was like Admiral Horthy all over again.

Talking of Rhodesia, here's an interesting bit of food for thought for those of you with strong opinions on war, meddling in another country's internal affairs etc.

When Ian Smith declared Rhodesian independence under a far-right minority-rule government the British Prime Minister (Harold Wilson, I think) drew-up plans to attack and invade Rhodesia in order to overthrow Smith and impose British rule and law. However, Wilson decided against it since his advisors suggested any such war would be massively opposed by the British public.

The result of Wilson leaving Rhodesia alone and effectively allowing it's independence - decades of white minority rule, torture and persecution of the black majority, a resulting long civil war bringing to power Robert Mugabe followed by much the same under his rule (to this day).

Of course, we have no idea what would have resulted had Wilson gone ahead with his plan.

Did Harold Wilson do the right thing?

Whether things would have been any different if Harold Wilson had invaded (called off in the hours before the thing was supposed to have gone ahead, so as close a shave as one could get) is impossible to say.... Probably eventually....

Here's an interesting article from Craig Murray, the British Ambassador sacked for his stance against torture in Uzbekistan.

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article322520.ece

Continuing to take a skeptical/contrarian stance (despite largely agreeing with the general view of the thread), I'd suggest a few points to consider.

a) If *I* were running a country which used torture as a means of political oppression, I'd be tempted to pass on useful information to other countries who might otherwise be tempted to criticise my regime. Even if the information had been obtained by other means such as surveillance or informants, it might be to my benefit to let other countries think that it might be the product of torture.

Result: - less foreign criticism.

b) If I were running a country with a significant underground opposition movement, and I used torture (whether as a tool of general oppression, or more selectively) it would be in my interests to let my opposition believe that torture was particularly effective as a means of information gathering, and that my torturers were particularly skilled (even if they were cack-handed butchers who rarely provided any useful information.
Not only would it provide a cover for using information gleaned from surveillance and infiltration, but it might even work as a self-fulfilling belief - if people believe that most people *will* talk eventually, they may be more likley to be forthcoming than otherwise, simply because they are less likely to believe they can survive without talking.

Result: a widespread belief in the efficacy of torture can improve intelligence-gathering, *even if it isn't correct*.

Of course you can see why the opposition is underground, if the governmnet is going around torturing people who do not agree with it....
BCNU - Crescent

The problem is that people who fear torture don't particularly care if it is effective or not. It isn't the likelyhood of "getting" the information that strikes fear into the heart of people but the actual torture they fear.

In fact, the people who apply torture don't particularly care whether the torture "works" or not, or even if the "ememy" think it works or not. They may convince TPTB that it works, otherwise they might be out of a job.

I would wager that what strikes fear into most oppressed peope is the use of torture "for no good reason" which is what the majority of torture is used for.

I'm not saying vicious torture is justified - just trying to point out that even if it doesn't *really* work as an information-gathering tool much of the time, it might be useful for repressive regimes to have people believe that it does.

If the powers running a repressive country *do* find out much useful information by non-violent means, it may be in their interests to let people inside and outside the country think that torture is (or may be) the source of much of their information.

I'd guess TPTB know pretty well how well torture does or doesn't work. If anything, it may be the torturers themselves who are kept partly in the dark about how successful it is. If it doesn't work particularly well as a direct information source, but is useful for repression and as a cover, what need *is* there to let the grunts doing it know the real score?