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Senate panel releases scathing report on CIA interrogation...

Dittohead not! said:
Killing people with drones may get some of the terrorists, but it just creates more.
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that's an interesting claim. Can you demonstrate that drone strikes create more VEO members than they kill?
 
Hamster Buddha said:
Just summarize one point for me: are you saying that we should treat terrorist, who we've labeled not as military combatants and in fact have pushed hard not to, as POW's?
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No, I am saying that terrorists are not a protected class of POW and instead fall into the category of saboteurs and non-uniformed combatants.
 
eohrnberger said:
Again, you miss the point I was making.

The 'ends justifies the means' criticism is not only applicable to the enhanced interrogation methods. Criticism of this method of doing things extends to the ObamaCare equally well, if you consider how tortured the bills language and how tortured the process with which it was passed.

I'm criticizing that method of operation. Not making a comparison between EIMs and ObamaCare.

With your willful ignoring of this point, I can only assume that liberal / progressives using 'the ends justifies the means' is perfect acceptable to you, however, when others use the same, it's totally objectionable. Rather inconsistent, I'd say.

I'd further add that a cost / benefit analysis is not the same thing as adopting 'the ends justifies the means' method of operation.
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What's the difference? If a person has an "ends justify the means" mentality, all it implies is that person disregards the means in their decision. Which is what you're doing with torture - hey, it works, so ergo we should/must do it if the ends are just/large, etc!! Keep us safe!!

I've never read or seen any legitimate supporter of ACA pretend that it has no downsides, i.e. the ends justified any means. If that was the attitude, we'd have universal healthcare for all, and just raised taxes to whatever level required to pay for it, etc. That didn't happen - there were 1000 compromises, which are nothing more than weighting the ends - full coverage for every American - with the means required to reach that goal.
 
cpwill said:
that's an interesting claim. Can you demonstrate that drone strikes create more VEO members than they kill?
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Heheh, yeah I'm sure that's a metric we track. Though for.decades now we've been intervening in the middle east, and terrorist organizations seems stronger than ever. So I guess we can say all the.bombing and intervention hasn't done anything to curb the tide of terrorism.
 
Uncensored2008 said:
How indeed..

{“The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever,” Emmerson said in a statement. “Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.”
He added that as a signatory to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, the U.S. is legally obligated to prosecute acts of torture and enforced disappearance if there is sufficient evidence to to bring about a case.
International law does not permit individuals who carried out torture to dismiss liability because they were acting on orders. And, Emmerson said, “States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes.”}

Horrors Of Torture Report Could Mean International Legal Cases Against Participants | ThinkProgress
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Well, if the crimes create legal issues and potential prosecutions of the persons who perpetrated alleged crimes, then the persons to blame are those who engaged in illegal acts not those who revealed them.
 
Uncensored2008 said:
When the messenger bears such a striking resemblance to Josef Goebbels, that seems an appropriate response.
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Great, a Nazi reference - always a great way to encourage rational debate!!

This would work better if you had some clue what treason actually is.
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It would work even better if the person I responded to had a clue what treason was.
 
cpwill said:
Circular logic - I could make the same argument about Senate Democrats.

This isn't a unitary CIA saying this - it is political appointees from both Parties who have been put in charge of the CIA over the course of more than a decade saying this.
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I really don't know how to respond. Neither of us is privy to classified information on the level required to evaluate whether torture 'worked' or not. But what I know are some people who I respect and with excellent civil liberties records haven't been convinced by the CIA that the torture of those we know about has produced intelligence sufficient to justify its use. What I suspect is the program is wider than we know, that many cases can't be revealed because they are classified or unknown to anyone but the spooks, and some of those may have produced the kind of intelligence that allows CIA leaders to justify its use. So it's deception on another level. But from the cases we know the evidence is VERY thin.

But the bigger issue is of course torture 'works' in that those subjected to it will talk and of course some of what they say surely will be useful at some point. It doesn't tell us if torture, all things considered, improves or degrades national security versus alternatives. But if "it works" is the key decision, let's get on with it and just admit that we don't mean a lot of what we say about human rights, and are willing to throw the ideals overboard when it suits us or might be beneficial.
 
JasperL said:
What's the difference? If a person has an "ends justify the means" mentality, all it implies is that person disregards the means in their decision. Which is what you're doing with torture - hey, it works, so ergo we should/must do it if the ends are just/large, etc!! Keep us safe!!

I've never read or seen any legitimate supporter of ACA pretend that it has no downsides, i.e. the ends justified any means. If that was the attitude, we'd have universal healthcare for all, and just raised taxes to whatever level required to pay for it, etc. That didn't happen - there were 1000 compromises, which are nothing more than weighting the ends - full coverage for every American - with the means required to reach that goal.
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When you consider all the deceit all along the way, during ObamaCare's structuring, developing, writing (tortured language), selling and passing, yeah, I really do think it was a case of 'the ends justifies the means' mentality taken over all common sense and sensibilities, and integrity for that matter.
 
eohrnberger said:
When you consider all the deceit all along the way, during ObamaCare's structuring, developing, writing (tortured language), selling and passing, yeah, I really do think it was a case of 'the ends justifies the means' mentality taken over all common sense and sensibilities, and integrity for that matter.
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I disagree, but that's fine, let's have that discussion for the 100th time on an ACA thread. It has no business here - there are no equivalents between this discussion about interrogation and torture and war and the ACA.
 
JasperL said:
And the black sites?
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Also facilities run by US personnel, being interrogated by trained US personnel? I mean, if you want to talk rendition, then that's fine - but it's a different (though related) topic.

You're committed to ignoring the fundamental difference of having your fellow soldiers controlling your fate versus your sworn enemy, in a hostile environment, in a foreign land.
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Not really. There's a psychological difference between SERE and captivity where you might actually be executed (as we face), although they put a lot of effort and do a pretty good job of ensuring that that will be reduced as much as possible. Your brain is pretty much fried during the course of SERE. But that division (our soldiers will probably not execute or torture you) is not what imputes the definition of "torture".

I guess I'll admit defeat. Orwell has won, and we've redefined the word 'torture' as EIT and can now pretend that it's something else.
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Words have meaning, and that is important.

Right, because being held by your enemies is just like being held by your fellow soldiers.... Give me a break. You don't even believe that.
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I'm not saying "just like". I'm saying that the distinction you are highlighting does not impute the definition of torture.

I see, so now it WAS a crime.
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No. Would have been a crime had we done it to members of a military who fought in uniform.

That's a different claim than before, but even with the change in position, all you're doing is hiding behind legal niceties.
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Laws are important. For example, we are also only supposed to ask uniformed members of a military what their name, rank, etc. is; would you support a detainee interrogation program that only asked for that information?

Was rectal feeding an authorized interrogation technique? Hypothermia?
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Rectal Feeding is a form of tube-feeding, which has long been used to force those who go on hunger strikes to stay alive. Being cold, yup, is also an interrogation technique. So is being hot, and having loud exceedingly annoying music played on loop for hours.

So, if the WH or CIA can get its lawyers to fit something in a legal box, we are expected to say, "Well, it's legal, so we should do it. QED."
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No. "Lawful"=/="Wise" or "Moral". But if it does not meet the definition of torture, then it is not - actually - torture. You can argue that the EIT program was wrong, you can argue that it was unwise, but it does not meet the threshold of torture for the simple reason that we went to great lengths to make sure we never crossed that line.

EIT.... As I've said, we do need to have an honest discussion about what happened and learn from it. We can't do that by burying our heads in the sand about what we did.
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Sure. I would agree.

Doing something that is intended to prevent someone from getting oxygen to their brain, induce panic, stop breathing, is fundamentally different than driving a car or shooting on a range - you're not even trying to have an honest conversation now.
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... trying hard not to simply return the favor and accuse you of projecting, but you were arguing that the factor of the presence of medical personnel indicated that the actions being taken were torturous. The multiple, obviously non-torturous activities that also require the factor of the presence of medical personnel are pretty germane to that question.

Brilliant point. I suppose we should be applauded for 'just' subjecting our detainees to torture.
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No, the premise of that statement is incorrect. We have put them up into a pretty nice facility. The Gitmo prisoners have gained weight - most of them were gaunt and undernourished when captured. Now they have the best healthcare they've had in their lives, etc.

The point isn't to say that getting access to a dentist "makes up" for being forced to stand half-naked in a chilly room until you told us what you knew about current attack planning, but merely to point out that these people do not enjoy the protections afforded to uniformed military members in a conflict. Even the non-controversial interrogation techniques are not supposed to be used on uniformed military members captured during conflict.
 
JasperL said:
I really don't know how to respond. Neither of us is privy to classified information on the level required to evaluate whether torture 'worked' or not.
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A) I've watched torture (actual torture) work. It does.
B) WRT to the EIT program, however, aren't we fortunate, then, that much of it has been declassified so that we can, in fact, point to several incidences where it worked?

But what I know are some people who I respect and with excellent civil liberties records haven't been convinced by the CIA that the torture of those we know about has produced intelligence sufficient to justify its use.
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Ah. What I know are people who I respect with excellent records who were involved in gathering and operationalizing intelligence from the Gitmo detainee program, and they are pretty clear that it did.

In the meantime, the same Senate Democrats that urged this program on in 2002/2003 are now shocked - shocked to find gambling going on in here!, and seeking to score points by producing reports that even their fellow Senate Democrats admit is partisan hackery rather than any attempt to produce something that would be useful to good governance.

Which, again, is why we are fortunate that multiple leaders from both parties have come forth to state that yes, in fact, we did get reams of incredibly valuable information from this program. For a critical time period when we were first responding to the WoT and trying to figure out AQ's global laydown, the majority of our knowledge on how and where they function came from the detainee interrogation program.

What I suspect is the program is wider than we know, that many cases can't be revealed because they are classified or unknown to anyone but the spooks, and some of those may have produced the kind of intelligence that allows CIA leaders to justify its use. So it's deception on another level.
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:shrug: you can play the circular logic game forever. If every piece of information that could possibly contradict is simply evidence of new deception, then all information is useless.

But from the cases we know the evidence is VERY thin.

But the bigger issue is of course torture 'works' in that those subjected to it will talk and of course some of what they say surely will be useful at some point. It doesn't tell us if torture, all things considered, improves or degrades national security versus alternatives. But if "it works" is the key decision, let's get on with it and just admit that we don't mean a lot of what we say about human rights, and are willing to throw the ideals overboard when it suits us or might be beneficial.
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:shrug: as for me, I am happy to value the rights of (for example) American citizens not to be deprived of their lives without due process over the "right" of a terrorist not to be made to stand half-naked in a cold room for 24 hours. This isn't a matter of whether or not rights are important - it's a matter of which rights are more important.
 
Ikari said:
Heheh, yeah I'm sure that's a metric we track. Though for.decades now we've been intervening in the middle east, and terrorist organizations seems stronger than ever. So I guess we can say all the.bombing and intervention hasn't done anything to curb the tide of terrorism.
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Odd, isn't it, that their area of control exploded just as our interference reduced?
 
cpwill said:
Also facilities run by US personnel, being interrogated by trained US personnel? I mean, if you want to talk rendition, then that's fine - but it's a different (though related) topic.
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The point was we don't have a good accounting of those places unlike GITMO - the CIA somehow missed a couple dozen detainees in its possession, in the black sites. But of course that's a feature not a bug.

Not really. There's a psychological difference between SERE and captivity where you might actually be executed ...But that division (our soldiers will probably not execute or torture you) is not what imputes the definition of "torture".
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We're not making much progress, but I have no idea other than "we don't torture, so if we did it it's not 'torture'" you're using to make these non-distinctions. Waterboarding cause severe pain? Check. Lasting psychological damage? Check. Risk of loss of life, and/or fear of loss of life? Check. It was 'torture' when it was done to U.S. personnel? Check!

Words have meaning, and that is important.
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The point is the distinction between EIT and "torture" is imaginary. At best vague points along some continuum that we know nothing about except, per the torture apologists on here, we stay solidly on the line of not-torture!!

I'm not saying "just like". I'm saying that the distinction you are highlighting does not impute the definition of torture.
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Again, not sure how you're drawing your box around what is torture and what is not-torture. Certainly the intended purpose is relevant.

Laws are important. For example, we are also only supposed to ask uniformed members....
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OK, so why not discuss this on a legal forum with experts in treaties, and the like.

Rectal Feeding is a form of tube-feeding, which has long been used to force those who go on hunger strikes to stay alive. Being cold, yup, is also an interrogation technique. So is being hot, and having loud exceedingly annoying music played on loop for hours.
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You don't absorb nutrients from food in your large intestine. It's a form of extreme degradation or torture, take your pick. Not a legitimate medical procedure. Liquids perhaps, not solid food.

And "being cold" =/= hypothermia leading to death.

No. "Lawful"=/="Wise" or "Moral". But if it does not meet the definition of torture, then it is not - actually - torture.
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And for the purpose of this discussion, what John Yoo or another CIA lawyer puts in the "torture" box controls the language? You're making an imaginary distinction based on legal niceties. If the Saudi's don't consider, say, electrical shocks to the genitals as (airquotes) "torture," does that make it so and you'll call it EIT?

Sure. I would agree.
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OK, so we're on the same page - we tortured detainees and need to have a discussion about how or if or when we'll do so in the future. Great.

... trying hard not to simply return the favor and accuse you of projecting, but you were arguing that the factor of the presence of medical personnel indicated that the actions being taken were torturous. The multiple, obviously non-torturous activities that also require the factor of the presence of medical personnel are pretty germane to that question.
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Different purposes, and you know it. They are present in interrogations because the technique carries with it a significant risk, and that risk is an intentional result of the procedure itself, which is to prevent the person from breathing, cause uncontrolled choking, significant risk of nausea, panic, which if done improperly could cause any number of serious medical events including unconsciousness and death.

No, the premise of that statement is incorrect. We have put them up into a pretty nice facility. The Gitmo prisoners have gained weight - most of them were gaunt and undernourished when captured. Now they have the best healthcare they've had in their lives, etc.
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Gosh, just imagine if the Russians/Iranians etc. tried that argument on you with American detainees. Or one of them was your son. Hey, sure, they've been held for a decade with no charges or trial, subjected to weeks or months of harsh interrogation, often held in isolation, unable to contact family, friends, etc. but they're healthy!!!
 
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ocean515 said:
It would appear you are unable to recognize the significant subjectivity you are applying to your opinion. That fact can only lead to the failure of your argument. You can't inject numerous "maybe's" in your argument and expect to have you position built on solid ground.
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There are always maybe's and what if's and anything to excuse almost anything. However, what is a fact is nothing has been shown that is verifiable has been presented by those who support torture. I listened to CIA Director John Brennan today on PBS try to connect ticking bomb time urgency with the getting OBL. They don't connect. And he offered nothing when asked for an example of the ticking bomb. This is always the problem. Those willing to believe, will hang on to him like death. But they tend not to ask any questions that a critical thinker would ask, like why can't you give an example? Didn't we get most of this on OBL from other sources? How many times did we get it wrong and travel down false paths, thus wasting time? The important thing in the Director's rebuttal is that they did no study to judge effectiveness and cannot report effectiveness.
 
cpwill said:
Odd, isn't it, that their area of control exploded just as our interference reduced?
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No, not really. We were still there, still interveneing, and in general blowing up lots of people in the Middle East. Bound to produce some blowback. And when we got to blow up another sector of the ME, we just displace portions of terrorist groups to other places. We created the environment they thrive in.
 
JasperL said:
Well, if the crimes create legal issues and potential prosecutions of the persons who perpetrated alleged crimes, then the persons to blame are those who engaged in illegal acts not those who revealed them.
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No foreign power currently has jurisdiction over American citizens. As much as the left would like to place America under the dominion of world body, we are not.

The point is the hyperbole of the democrats and their minions in the press, which certainly appears to be crafted so as to incite violence by America's enemies.
 
Boo Radley said:
There are always maybe's and what if's and anything to excuse almost anything. However, what is a fact is nothing has been shown that is verifiable has been presented by those who support torture. I listened to CIA Director John Brennan today on PBS try to connect ticking bomb time urgency with the getting OBL. They don't connect. And he offered nothing when asked for an example of the ticking bomb. This is always the problem. Those willing to believe, will hang on to him like death. But they tend not to ask any questions that a critical thinker would ask, like why can't you give an example? Didn't we get most of this on OBL from other sources? How many times did we get it wrong and travel down false paths, thus wasting time? The important thing in the Director's rebuttal is that they did no study to judge effectiveness and cannot report effectiveness.
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I appreciate your opinion. Perhaps you can appreciate that I have one also. :peace
 
cpwill said:
A) I've watched torture (actual torture) work. It does.
B) WRT to the EIT program, however, aren't we fortunate, then, that much of it has been declassified so that we can, in fact, point to several incidences where it worked?
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But we can't, at least not with anything like solid evidence. That's been Boo's point over and over and he's right.

Ah. What I know are people who I respect with excellent records who were involved in gathering and operationalizing intelligence from the Gitmo detainee program, and they are pretty clear that it did.
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Well then maybe the CIA should talk to them, so they can share the success stories with journalists and Congress.

In the meantime, the same Senate Democrats that urged this program on in 2002/2003 are now shocked - shocked to find gambling going on in here!, and seeking to score points by producing reports that even their fellow Senate Democrats admit is partisan hackery rather than any attempt to produce something that would be useful to good governance.
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I'm not making a partisan argument - haven't mentioned parties a single time. But since you've brought it up, where are the civil liberties GOPers? Or is torture a new right for libertarians - what could go wrong making torture a tool of government. Hey, small and limited and free to torture if the ends are just!!

Which, again, is why we are fortunate that multiple leaders from both parties have come forth to state that yes, in fact, we did get reams of incredibly valuable information from this program. For a critical time period when we were first responding to the WoT and trying to figure out AQ's global laydown, the majority of our knowledge on how and where they function came from the detainee interrogation program.
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I've tried to find the evidence and other than bare assertions, haven't located it.

:shrug: you can play the circular logic game forever. If every piece of information that could possibly contradict is simply evidence of new deception, then all information is useless.
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It's more than that - the cases cited as proof all have huge holes in them and are at best thin evidence. So why the vigorous assertions that there is all this compelling evidence? It's not the cases we know about, so what alternative can you come up with except that there are cases we do NOT know about?

as for me, I am happy to value the rights of (for example) American citizens not to be deprived of their lives without due process over the "right" of a terrorist not to be made to stand half-naked in a cold room for 24 hours. This isn't a matter of whether or not rights are important - it's a matter of which rights are more important.
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Of course, human rights aren't restricted to Americans. If so they're not human rights, but rights of U.S. citizens, and we're a long way from "we hold these truths...all men" to "some men, if they are U.S. born or became citizens, have some rights unless we determine that stripping them produces a short term benefit...."
 
JasperL said:
Great, a Nazi reference - always a great way to encourage rational debate!!



It would work even better if the person I responded to had a clue what treason was.
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The people you are responding to know exactly what it is, sadly, you do not.

{Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.}


Feel free to explain how the actions of the CIA bear any resemblance to treason? Or not, makes no real difference.
 
JasperL said:
But we can't, at least not with anything like solid evidence. That's been Boo's point over and over and he's right.



Well then maybe the CIA should talk to them, so they can share the success stories with journalists and Congress.



I'm not making a partisan argument - haven't mentioned parties a single time. But since you've brought it up, where are the civil liberties GOPers? Or is torture a new right for libertarians - what could go wrong making torture a tool of government. Hey, small and limited and free to torture if the ends are just!!



I've tried to find the evidence and other than bare assertions, haven't located it.



It's more than that - the cases cited as proof all have huge holes in them and are at best thin evidence. So why the vigorous assertions that there is all this compelling evidence? It's not the cases we know about, so what alternative can you come up with except that there are cases we do NOT know about?



Of course, human rights aren't restricted to Americans. If so they're not human rights, but rights of U.S. citizens, and we're a long way from "we hold these truths...all men" to "some men, if they are U.S. born or became citizens, have some rights unless we determine that stripping them produces a short term benefit...."
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What could go wrong with the death penalty as a tool of government? Oh wait.....that's totally legal, and never used on a mass scale in the US.

:failpail:
 
Ikari said:
No, not really. We were still there, still interveneing, and in general blowing up lots of people in the Middle East. Bound to produce some blowback. And when we got to blow up another sector of the ME, we just displace portions of terrorist groups to other places. We created the environment they thrive in.
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On the contrary - it seems as we pull back, we create vacuums, which other actors rush to fill.
 
cpwill said:
On the contrary - it seems as we pull back, we create vacuums, which other actors rush to fill.
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That is why we need to establish a robust global system with a general system of security for populations is commonly upheld.
 
Uncensored2008 said:
The people you are responding to know exactly what it is, sadly, you do not.

{Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.}


Feel free to explain how the actions of the CIA bear any resemblance to treason? Or not, makes no real difference.
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I'll do that right after someone explains how oversight of the CIA and making those findings public is treason. I guess we need to start executing whistle blowers while we're at it too. After all, it's not what was done, it is that it was REVEALED that is the crime!
 
cpwill said:
Odd, isn't it, that their area of control exploded just as our interference reduced?
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I didn't realize this until another friend on mine posted it to another forum, so I can't take full credit.

If you review the history of the 20th century, you'll find more instances where the US left after the military conflict, only to have something of greater evil raise up form the ashes.

Post WW I bailed on Europe, the world got Hitler, Bolsheviks and other fascists came to rise and got WW II.
We stood by as Japan raped Nanking and we got Perl Harbor.
Post WW II we stayed in Europe, it flourished and is Democratic.
We stayed in Japan, it flourished and is Democratic.
We've stayed in Korea and Taiwan, there are prosperous and free people, and trusted allies.
The Persian Civil War wasn't our problem, now we have radical Islamist all over.
No Russians in Afghanistan, so not problem, the Taliban moved in, and attacked US soil from there.
Now we are pretending that the Syrian Civil War and the unrest in the Pakistan frontier are not our problem.
What do you think is going to happen next?

That in itself does also substantiate that the US is a noble force of good on the planet, more so than anything that the left can say and uses to denigrate the nation.
 
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