Dershowitz: Torture Advocate

[malatesta1137]

The real torture is to watch this disgusting-looking vomit bag.

BLITZER: Alan, how do you know he (terrorist) doesn't have that kind of ticking-bomb information right now, that there's some plot against New York or Washington that he was involved in and there's a time sensitivity? If you knew that, if you suspected that, you would say get the president to authorize torture.

DERSHOWITZ: Well, we don't know, and that's why a torture warrant..... more at

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/cnna.Dershowitz/

[JohnLocke]

1. Oh, great. Another thread where the uninformed misrepresent Dershowitz.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

4. He advocates torture - where is the misrepresentation?

In fact he was one of the first to call for "legalised" torture after Sept 11.

[JohnLocke]

9. He doesn't "advocate" torture.

Read: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/22/ED5329.DTL

[Devils Advocate NZ]

11. Yes he does.

Albeit a limited and "legalised" usage, but he does indeed advocate the usage of torture.

If he did not advocate torture he wouldn't be coming up withh bullshit "torture warrant" crap, but would instead be reaffirming the illegality and immorality of torture REGARDLESS of the situation.

[malatesta1137]

7. Another gullible Dershowitz defender condoning torture:

To you JohnLocke and Dershowitz, I will quote Roth:

ROTH: Once you open the door to torture, once you start legitimizing it in any way, you have broken the absolute taboo. President Bush had it right in his State of the Union address when he was describing various forms of torture by Saddam Hussein and he said, "If this isn't evil, then evil has no meaning."

[JohnLocke]

10. Yes, I condone torture.

You, know, I'm a rabid Bush supporter for saying that if there is an immediate, clear and present danger to thousands of lives and no alternative, we should consider torture. :eyes:

[Devils Advocate NZ]

13. So you DO condone torture?

And who said anything about you being a Bush supporter?

Stretching a little aren't you? We were talkiong about torture, not YOUR political leanings.

[malatesta1137]

14. how do you know the person you're torturing

has the information you need? are you aware that studies show that torture does NOT produce the desired results 90% of the time?

Torture is sub-human and so are its supporters.

[Classical_Liberal]

23. Torture doesn't work. You end up with false confessions

and innocent people get tortured.

[sir_captain]

29. This is one point

on which we agree.

[malatesta1137]

45. sir_captain

loved your Hitch pic! there's a true genius. and he loved to TORTURE his audience.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. For more discussion

Please click here.

I disagree strongly with Dershowitz. However, it pays not to oversimplify his views.

[Straight Shooter]

3. Well, at least they're using the word "torture" instead of "abuse"

My head is beginning to explode over the RW justification.

Hey! Did our soldiers torture any pregnant women?

[JohnLocke]

5. That was oddly random.

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Perhaps....

after they raped them, they may have raped them again.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org
Distrusting the Government Since 1984

[bluestateguy]

8. These scenarios are rare, very rare

They are rarer than popular culture and TV shows like "24" would suggest. My concern is that shows like "24" lead people to believe that such scenarios are more common than they really are. The circumstances under which torture would be justified must be exceptional: immediate, clear and present danger to thousands of lives and no alterative.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

16. Even under those circumstances torture is still wrong.

The fact is, if you NEED to torture someone, it is because you don't have enough information, and thus you are likely to not have enough information to know for sure that the person to be tortured can supply the needed information.

It's the same as the death penalty - you can't untorture someone if you torture them by mistake. What happens if the torture goes too far, and they die? What happens if they are in fact innocent?

Do you trust the likes of Ashcroft to decide who should be tortured?

[fujiyama]

43. Thank you

for making a good point.

If these torture defenders and advocates understood what it would be like to be a brown person, and possibly at the wrong place at the wrong time, they'd reconsider their support for such heinous practicies -- even in the rarest of circumstances, such practices CANNOT be considered, for if we do, we make a mockery of anything and everything we believe in.

Say perhaps there is a "dirty bomb" in some major city. In that city, there are people of different races and ethnicities, however, the person that is of south Asian or Arabic origin will be the one targetted to be questioned, and possibly tortured. It's like racial profiling. It's simply WRONG.

[Raven]

12. Dershowitz is a shameless self-promoter.

He's getting ready to release a book on this, believe me! He wants to be on the news shows. He loves attention and he will try to get it any way he can.

[number6]

15. Torture is basically useless for gaining information ...

any crazed fanatic who's planted a device
somewhere, will die first before he gives out
any info, if your resorting to toture to
gain needed information its already too late ...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. and

people who have no information will say whatever you want them to say to stop the pain.

Torture is inhumane.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. The nazis considered the Jews an imminent threat.

Not to mention the Communists, Socialists, Liberals, Homosexuals, and anyone else that appeared to them to be not patriotic enough.

And, torture was never "legal" under the nazis, nor was the holocaust.

Dershowitz is an ass (at best).

[LittleApple81]

19. Did you see his article condemning Palestinians for suicide bombers?

It is quoted here in the IP section.
He wants them to resort to "Gandhi" like protests. I guess he does not remember what happened to the Jews with the Nazis....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x69958

[sir_captain]

21. So we're back to the Israelis = Nazis argument?

I'd like to see some anti-Israeli posters show some objectivity and disagree with posters who apparently advocate suicide bombings and compare Israelis with Nazis.

[LittleApple81]

22. I am not advocating suicide bombings. But I think that Israel

has a lot of self-examination to do. And they are not willing to do it. And I am not anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish (I don't want to say anti-semite because Palestinians are semites). I am not pro-suice-bombers (that would be criminal). But usually there are actions/reactions in most of human interactions.

[sir_captain]

25. I didn't see anyone accusing you of being anti-semitic

(which, as you should know, refers only to anti-Jewish bigotry) so let's not start playing that game.

If you are not advocating suicide bombing and are not seeking to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, you should edit your post and make that clear. "But usually there are actions/reactions in most of human interactions." What does that mean?

I also urge you not to reduce Israel to "they" and do a little actual research. Read a couple of Israeli newspapers and you'll see that there are a lot of Israelis who agree with you and practice plenty of "self-examination." There is a lot of truth on both sides of the table.

[LittleApple81]

31. I understand what you are saying. It is like in the US: there are

plenty of people opposed to the war, who are liberal, and whose voices are smothered by the corporate media. I have read articles from Jewish newspapers on the Web that are well written and express anguish at the present situation between Israel and the Palestinians.
Why should anti-semitic refer only to anti-Jewish bigotry?
I looked for a definition of semite:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=semite
3 entries found for semite.
Sem·ite ( P ) Pronunciation Key (smt)
n.
A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.
A Jew.
Bible. A descendant of Shem.

And for semitic:
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=semitic
The adjective "semitic" has 2 senses in WordNet.

1. Semitic -- (of or relating to the group of Semitic languages; "Semitic tongues have a complicated morphology")
2. Semite, Semitic -- (of or relating to or characteristic of Semites; "Semite peoples")

The action/reaction has permeated all human interaction and produced untold cruelty among peoples in the world. Israel and Palestine have gotten into a unsupportable situation. It is a horrible state of affairs involving an unending blaming game.

[sir_captain]

34. Now go look up the definition of the actual word discussed

"anti-semitic" -- I think you might be surprised. The word anti-semitic was invented in the 1880s to refer specifically to anti-Jewish bigotry--that's simply what it means.

Here, I'll do some of the work for you. From the American Heritage Dictionary:

an·ti-Sem·i·tism (nt-sm-tzm, nt-)
n.

1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.

You'll find similar entries in every dictionary, including the OED, which I consider to be the authority on usage of the English language.

"It is a horrible state of affairs involving an unending blaming game.' Now here's something on which we emphatically agree.

edit: that's a good analogy you made, by the way

[LittleApple81]

36. I did not say anti-semitic. I said anti-semite. n/t

[sir_captain]

37. Fine...fine..

anti-semitic is simply the adjective form...let's not split hairs

an·ti-Sem·ite (nt-smt, nt-)
n.

One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews.

[Classical_Liberal]

24. In light of the Nazis the Israelis should fucking know better

If the rest of the world has to have the nazis shoved in the face for criticism of Israel why can't Nazi examples ever be used toward the behavior of Israel itself. Fair is Fair, and the poster didn't say the Israelis were Nazis. He said they should know better which is true.

[sir_captain]

26. No, the poster implied

that the Israelis were acting in the same way as the Nazis did and that the Palestinians were simply resisting in a more active way than the Europeans did. And this is blatantly false and offensive.

What does: "If the rest of the world has to have the nazis shoved in the face for criticism of Israel" mean? I don't understand.

[Classical_Liberal]

27. Any criticism of Israel generates a reminder of the holocaust

from Israeli apologists. The Nazis did torture a group the viewed as a threat, so given the specific context the characterizations is quite accurate.

[sir_captain]

28. This is unbelievable

"The Nazis did torture a group the viewed as a threat"

The Nazis MURDERED 6,000,000 people. They gassed them and burned them in ovens. That is *genocide*

Do I like the way the Israelis treat the Palestinian people. Absolutely not. Do I think you can make an argument that Sharon is practicing a type of ethnic cleansing...yeah, probably. But to say that what they're doing is the same as the Nazi's genocide is so preposterous that I find myself almost speechless.

[Classical_Liberal]

30. He said torture, not genocide. The nazis also tortured

and if Israel doesn't want to be like them in that way, than Israel shouldn't torture people. Why does everything short of genocide get a fucking pass.

[sir_captain]

32. The poster (I am not going to presume gender)

did not once mention the word torture. Rather, he/she referred only to suicide bombing (presumably in response to Israeli missles, etc.) So my point stands. Why don't you go back and actually read what the poster wrote before you reply...

[Classical_Liberal]

33. The original poster in this thread did specifically mention torture.

. In light of Israel's terrible experience with fascists who torture, they should know better.

[sir_captain]

35. I didn't reply to the original poster in the thread.

I replied to a specific post. Come on...

[Classical_Liberal]

38. I think you are being over-sensitive.

.

[sir_captain]

39. And I think you're not being sensitive enough...

cheers

[Classical_Liberal]

40. If the Israeli state had not elected Netenyahu and fudged Oslo

If the left in Israel were not so chicken shit, I don't believe any of this violence against the Israelis would be happening now. I just take a long view, that's all. Additionally the Israeli sympathy section is much bigger than the Palestinian one and I go with the underdogs.

[sir_captain]

41. Maybe in this country

I'd say 90% of the world agrees with you.

So what do you say to the fact that the Israeli people elected Barak after Netenyahu. And why do you absolve Yasser Arafat for his premium role in the disrailing of Oslo?

[Classical_Liberal]

42. I don't see how Arafat derailed Oslo. Barak was a chicken shit

leftist I was referring to. He expanded the settlements more than any other PM, giving the Palestinians the impression of Israeli intransigence no matter who was elected. He also broke of negotiations when Afafat wouldn't accept his ungenerous offer. Then he lied about it saying it was a generous offer, claiming Arafat broke negotiations, and claiming there was no partner for peace. The Mitchel report debunked all his claims. Since ther was no partner for peace the Israelis elected another Oslo wrecker, Ariel Sharon.

[sir_captain]

44. Where is your evidence that Barak broke it off?

I think the general consensus has it the other way around. I agree that the offer was far from perfect but it seems to me that it was a decent basis for negotiation. It was certainly at least as fair as Arafat's oft-repeated offer to "drive the Jews into the sea."

The Mitchell Report did not "debunk all his claims." It suggested that his original offer was not a good solution. I agree. It did not say that Barak broke off negotitions...something that would have been really stupid for him to do since it was his political end.

Sharon we agree about.

[Jacobin]

20. Sleazeball Likudnick

I'm glad he's mostly gone from talk tv.

Basically he's insufferable

[Moderator]

46. locking

locking... thread has turned into a flame-fest.