Talk:Torture

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Contents 1 POV, 7 March 2007 2 In popular culture offloaded 3 Quality of the text 4 Whether the degree of pain is important

[edit] POV, 7 March 2007

It seems to me that this article is against torture, which in some ways is understandable but I would certainly love to see some arguements in favor of it included to make this article more complete. KenBest 18:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

See the section Ethical arguments regarding torture --Philip Baird Shearer 13:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

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.

[edit] In popular culture offloaded

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)

[edit] Quality of the text

Quality of the text at this time is awful - first half of the text covers information about Geneva conventions and UN treaties which are only of minor relevance to the topic. Torture had been with the humankind throughout the whole history and couple of modern agreements few care about deserve few lines or paragraph, the rest should be in leaf article(s). I added {{cleanup-rewrite}}. Pavel Vozenilek 16:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

In your opinion they are only of minor relevance. I disagree and think that they are central to understanding the position of torture in contemporary society. How would you for example define torture? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The definition should be IMHO more like from Websters [1] or from Britannica, less concentrated on modern era.

The article would get better by splitting up and in some parts expanding:

• History of use of the torture is now covered in single, rather short section ignoring everything outside Europe.
• Historical laws covering torture do deserve leaf article (possibly list). There's huge amount of material that will be added into WP at some time.
• Torture devices and methods section grew into hard to orient list and may be offloaded.
• The text about Geneva conventions, UN resolutions, etc should be offloaded into stable leaf articles.
• The accumulated recent use of torture should be all moved into the leaf article.

Pavel Vozenilek 11:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The definition of what is torture changes over time. The UNCAT is the foundation of all modern legal defintions. How are the definition of Websters or Britannica different apart from less detail from that of UNCAT? Details of UNCAT explain actions like those of the USA's use of stress postions etc and their use of Extraordinary rendition, both of which are topical issues about the use of torture. --Philip Baird Shearer 07:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No, the definition of torture doesn't change. What changes are laws against torture. These laws might include extra things in their purview, but that doesn't change the primary definition of the word.

For example, check out "racism". The general definition is "discrimination or prejudice based on race". That is a timeless formulation.

Politically or ethically, however, some people dispute whether a particular type of discrimination or prejudice is justified. So they may contend, "It's not racism if we apply (this policy) or endorse (this theory)". Some scholars have claimed that black people are inherently 'less smart' than Asians or Whites. Whether they are "pre-judging" is a matter of no small controversy. There is also a political dispute over whether affirmative action is a valid remedy or a type of "reverse discrimination".

Wikipedia articles cannot settle such questions. We can only quote what 'secondary sources' say about them.

It will help our readers if we distinguish between general concepts and specific legal formulations. --Uncle Ed 14:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken on this issue. During the time in England that HDQ was the common way to execute traitors,few thought it a cruel or unusual punishment, but today few in the English speaking world would think it as anything but cruel and unusual punishment. The meanings of words particularly those used in treaties have a legal definition which defines what they are. The interpretation of these may change over time and that needs to be taken into account, but that is what court judgements do. When the ECHR (Court) ruled that the five techniques as used by the British Government in Ireland in the 1970s were not torture under ECHR (Convention), this helped to clarify what torture was and what was mealy degrading treatment. Using international treaty definitions and backing those up with International court rulings and commentaries is a much more precise way of defining what a word means than using dictionary definitions which might or might not stand up to an analysis as detailed as those presented in a court case.

Uncle Ed on a slightly tangential note you wrote in the edit history of this article "It's not neutral to open with a quotation from such a recent political document (19 March 2007)" in the article on the unlawful combatants you have recently added a quote to the lead section (See "nonprivileged or unlawful combatants cannot claim the same protections under interrogation as POWs (9 February 2007)"). Please explain what the difference is in the use of quotes in the introduction of this article and in the unlawful combatants article. Given that the UNCAT has near universal support from the member states of the UN how is it not neutral to open with a quotation from such a treaty? --Philip Baird Shearer 15:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, Philip, if I'm wrong you have put it so politely and clearly that it was practically painless to find this out. --Uncle Ed 00:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The definition of torture does not change. Someone who's tall in China may not be tall in the US, but that doesn't mean the definition of tall has changed. Only its relative application. 66.167.145.86 08:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whether the degree of pain is important

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)

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 Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 14:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

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)