So. Torture.

[gorfias]

As bad as they were, I don't think people were getting their heads slowly sawed off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Admittedly, relatively few Allied prisoners ended up there, but the Japanese did like cutting people's heads off, or using them for bayonet practice, among various other forms of mutilation or torture.

Playing the odds. It was unlikely an American prisoner of the Japanese would face this particular fate. And how much did the Average allied soldier know of this?

Today it is different. A westerner has no expectation of an existence less than Hellish among the terrorists. Heck, they have an expectation that it WILL be hellish.

 

[Lightknight]

Fight longer? Maybe. Retreat also isn't getting captured. Maybe it will make them retreat sooner?

Sure. But I think that concedes the point: How a prisoner expects to be treated in capture effects their battlefield conduct.

Sure, but the topic was specifically on our own torture practices. Intense questioning for a week followed by three square meals a day, a stable living environment with entertainment, and air conditioning? Surely you can understand that this wouldn't really bear any weight on them, right? They aren't getting their toes smashed or getting raped. If the torture they face is temporary and not particularly brutal (sorry, water boarding is rough but at the end of the day you're still alive and no longer in pain, not even bruised). Sleep deprivation? Cry me a river. You know? We are bleeding hearts, that's all there is to it. We have the most mundane and sterile interrogation techniques I've ever heard of. If I were ever captured with sensitive information that the enemy wants to get out of me I would sure as heck hope that the techniques they tried were the ones Americans use.

Why did our troops still surrender to the Japanese forces even when we knew how bad their camps were?

As bad as they were, I don't think people were getting their heads slowly sawed off.

What? You actually couldn't be any more wrong about anything. If society were to really weigh what the Nazi's did compared to what the Japanese forces did during WWII Hitler would be toppled from his position at top-evil by whichever Japanese official lands at the top of control during that time. They are basically the pinnacle of evil where it comes to how they treated POWs and even civilians under their control. Cutting someone's head off slowly? That's child's play compared to the vivisection and amputations were performed on POWs in anesthesia. Vivi - fucking -section. Without anesthesia. Seems like thaluikhain brought up Unit 731 who did this. They'd remove a stomach and hook the esophagus directly up to the intestines. They're probably responsible for the most wide-scale and evil treatment of POWs in history. They were responsible for around 3,000 deaths by themselves.

To put Japan's POW treatment in comparison with the Nazi's, if you were a POW in a Nazi POW camp you only had a 4% chance of not surviving the war. In Japan's POW camp, there was a 30% chance you'd die.

They committed widespread torture against prisoners and those that were tortured were often then executed. From what I've heard and read, the form of torture they used was particularly brutal too.

They committed cannibalism against the POWs. Sometimes they'd cut flesh off of them while they were still alive and toss their still breathing bodies in a ditch while dining on said flesh.

They instituted fairly brutal forced labor. More than 100,000 civilians and POWs died just in the construction of the Burma-Siam railway.

They buried people alive. Which would you prefer? Slow decapitation or live burial? It's a close one if nothing else.

They tested biological weapons on POWs.

Yeah, Japan was shitty to everyone and the world knew it. Perhaps the most brutal treatment of POWs in history that we know of. They even managed to murder more people in the name of genocide than the Germans did. And that's saying something.

And yet, our soldiers still surrendered because that was better than guaranteed death.

 

[gorfias]

snip.

EDIT: upon further reflection, I owe you better than another movie reference.

Reviewing the stats.

Pretty scary stats. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/prisoners_of_war.aspx

Makes one wonder why we have laws of war at all.

 

[Queen Michael]

snip.

This doesn't appear as certain as worse than death...


As I've written, I cannot, in a family forum, post things about what happens to Westerners among the terrorists.

Family forum? As I recall, there's a 13-year-age limit.

 

[the_dramatica]

It solves a lot of problems that would be impossible without it.

IMO we should allow rapist and stuff the choice to either spend their 10-20 years in prison or take 3 months of torture so they can live their life more if they choose too.

 

[gorfias]

As I've written, I cannot, in a family forum, post things about what happens to Westerners among the terrorists.

Family forum? As I recall, there's a 13-year-age limit.

Interesting. I know I've been spanked at this site just for mentioning how much I enjoy a Bombay Gin Martini. Someone was scandalized that I'd even mention "big boy drink".

Ooops. I just did it again

 

[Mumbly]

This is an oddly specific scenario. Like the one with a guy tied to train tracks and five guys tied to the other train tracks, but you can't know for sure that the one guy isn't Hitler.

 

[Lightknight]

snip.

EDIT: upon further reflection, I owe you better than another movie reference.

Reviewing the stats.

Pretty scary stats. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/prisoners_of_war.aspx

It's an excellent read that really highlights our humane treatment of prisoners by the US in contrast to the inhumane and lethal means used by the other side. We actually pioneered the ethical treatment of POWs.

However, keep in mind that none of these actually address interrogation techniques. Interrogation is still used by basically every country in the world and it's just the line of what's acceptable that we all squabble over. Limits have been placed on things like sleep deprivation but not a ban on it at all, for example. Having interrogation techniques are not considered to be crimes of humanity unless you're mutilating or killing them.

I'll also point out that members of terrorist organizations aren't strictly deemed as POWs, either. Members of the Taliban likely should have been perceived as POWs since they were a governing authority in Afghanistan and 9/11 could have been called an act of war (albeit also simultaneously a war crime) by a tribal government in Afghanistan for that reason. But non-POW combatants are often given less rights than prisoners who are military of a sovereign nation rather than "rebels" or whatnot.

Makes one wonder why we have laws of war at all.

Because of what happens after the dust settles. Breaching of those laws usually leads to a witch hunt of epic proportions but where actual witches exist. The laws of war do influence the actions of many first world nations that care about the condition of their soldiers. Japan was perhaps extra hard on our soldiers because they expected their own soldiers to commit suicide if captured.

But in any event, these laws are in place to that people may be punished for breaking them as well as for the chance that they could be obeyed by both sides. Germany, for all the atrocities of their concentration camps weren't actually that out of line with their treatment of POWs. Most of the war crime trials conducted afterwards were regarding their concentration camps only. It's just that the concentration camps were so absolutely horrible that it could never be anything but highest priority to talk about. But Japan was technically far more evil during WWII. We seem not to cover it as much because they weren't being evil to Europeans on the same scale as Germany and we didn't have as much intelligence in Asia as we did in Europe. But the Chinese were brutally murdered and enslaved in sometimes worse ways than Germany treated the Jews. The Chinese were killed in larger numbers overall and many more were forced into slavery. Women as sex slaves and men as work slaves.

I've always felt this wasn't covered enough. Not that Germany doesn't deserve the ire they got for their actions, but we really seem to gloss over Japan's actions in that period out of shame over the atomic bombs we dropped to stop the war and save many hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides by showing Japan how utterly disparate the power difference was.

Bridge over the River Kwai is actually one of my favorite military movies. It's probably the number one reason I researched the topic in the way I have despite it going almost entirely uncovered in school.

It solves a lot of problems that would be impossible without it.

IMO we should allow rapist and stuff the choice to either spend their 10-20 years in prison or take 3 months of torture so they can live their life more if they choose too.

While I don't necessarily agree with this. I do think it's important to bring up that where some people see long sentences as humane, others (like myself) would see punishments and shorter sentences are more humane. Wounds heal but time is never recovered. People are wasting away in prison who could have had a whipping and a couple weeks of confinement before being released. But we apparently have something against any physical violence and I think that serves to some people's detriment. Nothing is more brutal than forcing the loss of time. I would prefer death by execution to a life sentence.

 

[gorfias]

snip

I think you've done a good job showing there are those that surrender even when surrender means likely horrible, even deadly torture treatment. The corollary is proving someone fought on rather than surrender due to fear of how they would be treated if they surrendered.

So far, this is about the best I can do: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/04/what-caught-lone-survivor-marcus-luttrell-off-guard-in-bergdahl-prisoner-exchange/

The guy Lone Survivor is based on, speaking of capture meaning near certain death.

 

[Lightknight]

snip

I think you've done a good job showing there are those that surrender even when surrender means likely horrible, even deadly torture treatment. The corollary is proving someone fought on rather than surrender due to fear of how they would be treated if they surrendered.

So far, this is about the best I can do: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/04/what-caught-lone-survivor-marcus-luttrell-off-guard-in-bergdahl-prisoner-exchange/

The guy Lone Survivor is based on, speaking of capture meaning near certain death.

The corollary requires two things when applied to American interrogation techniques. 1 is that the interrogation techniques are deemed soooo terrifying as to be a fate worse than death and 2 is that the fighters on the ground know of it. We've seen some pretty nasty executions happen to our people in their captivity. They haven't seen the same from us. We certainly don't video tape killing their soldiers and send it their way.

So tell me, would you consider even being water-boarded for a few days followed by years of secure living quarters and solid meals worse than death itself? If they are being fed lies then that isn't our fault or our problem.

 

[gorfias]

The corollary requires two things when applied to American interrogation techniques. 1 is that the interrogation techniques are deemed soooo terrifying as to be a fate worse than death and 2 is that the fighters on the ground know of it. We've seen some pretty nasty executions happen to our people in their captivity. They haven't seen the same from us. We certainly don't video tape killing their soldiers and send it their way.

So tell me, would you consider even being water-boarded for a few days followed by years of secure living quarters and solid meals worse than death itself? If they are being fed lies then that isn't our fault or our problem.

Oh absolutely not! Were I some terrorist savage from some hell hole, the idea of American treatment, with unlikely water boarding added to other positive aspects of life style after capture, there would likely be, on balance, in captivity, an improvement in my standard of living!!!

Hardly terrifying!

I've always been writing very generally: can one fear treatment in captivity so much it makes them fight harder? In theory, yes. Against the US as we currently act? A joke.

 

[Do4600]

snip

I think you've done a good job showing there are those that surrender even when surrender means likely horrible, even deadly torture treatment. The corollary is proving someone fought on rather than surrender due to fear of how they would be treated if they surrendered.

So far, this is about the best I can do: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/04/what-caught-lone-survivor-marcus-luttrell-off-guard-in-bergdahl-prisoner-exchange/

The guy Lone Survivor is based on, speaking of capture meaning near certain death.

The corollary requires two things when applied to American interrogation techniques. 1 is that the interrogation techniques are deemed soooo terrifying as to be a fate worse than death and 2 is that the fighters on the ground know of it. We've seen some pretty nasty executions happen to our people in their captivity. They haven't seen the same from us. We certainly don't video tape killing their soldiers and send it their way.

So tell me, would you consider even being water-boarded for a few days followed by years of secure living quarters and solid meals worse than death itself? If they are being fed lies then that isn't our fault or our problem.

Well there was that one guy we restrained on the floor and over the course of 18 hours he got hypothermia and died. That's a pretty shitty way to die.