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I think in order for us to understand each other we have to refine the questions. So basically I can honestly say I agree with you and then honestly say I disagree with you. I think randomly abusing prisoners to seek some random piece of information basically will not useful. On the other hand if you have a target who has specific information and that target is questioned with specificity with increasing severity eventually you will get the information you seek. Quote:
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Torture has a place. It exists. No matter how much you state that it doesn't and shouldn't it does. Really? It cannot control? Seems like the Talilban had control over the people. Seems like the House of Terror in Budapest the building that housed the KGB and the Nazis where unspeakable torture happened, seems to disagree having tortured and controlled its people from the 1940s until the 80s. Torture controlled many people for decades. Looking at the length of the Spanish Inquisition 1480 - 1530, it seems to have again controlled people for a considerable length of time. Torture is still used by 81 governments some openly admitting to torturing their citizens. http://thereport.amnesty.org/document/47 |
this is from a little further down the page in the same extract you posted, cyn.
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Is isolation torture? Is sleep deprivation torture? Is being subjected to extreme temperatures torture? Is depriving someone of toilet paper torture? Etc. Etc. Etc. |
rb, that is a very poignant part of the book and lead me to many other books and reports on the Genovese effect.
I'm not believing that there is an order to the universe, I'm taking the position that it exists from the range of humanity. Humans can do beautiful wondrous things, and heinous and deplorable things. My statement isn't about world thinking or even group thinking because if I was doing either, I'd be sitting exactly next to you and your mode of thinking. I'm again stating that in order for me to process it in a different understanding. I have not choice but to look at it holistically from 70,000 feet before I get into the weeds. History sides with me that it has and will happen again, more than likely in my lifetime. The questions for me aren't the knee jerk reaction, "It's wrong!" but to see and understand the rationalizations as to the "Why did that person/government make that choice to do so such a thing?" That is probably a better way of explaining it. Just decrying the end action doesn't prevent future actions. |
on that we agree, actually cyn--where the important question really is. how to prevent this. what can be done.
the difference really is in what the next move is when you or i try to think it out. this is an interesting question and it gets really disturbing really quickly once you start to pursue it...maybe tonight i'll play around with it... |
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Keep em coming. I can do this all day long. |
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Meanwhile, on an adjacent yet less abstract road...
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I not once ever said anything about GWOT and the Bush Administration being justified in using torture. It hasn't been a SINGLE post of mine. You may not find that it has no place in your world. There are vast tracts of history you should not read since there's torture all over it. Again, you're trying to oversimplify a larger point of view that I have into some internet meme that jives with you you live. I'm sorry but you'll not be able to do so with my points of view on this matter. Really? Intimidation? Oh so it has a use..... |
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Yes, I can reconcile it..... please read my above posts.
I'll say it again. "I've said that I find torture to be a mode and method that people use for various reasons and I'm fine with that." Maybe I should try different languages because you're not understanding my point of view. I've taken an extensive amount of time to write them. You've only taken moments to skim through them and pick out your leaps of understanding and conviction. You're the one taking extreme leaps of logic and understanding, not me. I'm not the one parsing my sentences, you are. You continue to leapfrog your point of view through mine not making any sense whatsoever in the context of what I'm engaged in on my side of the discussion. People judge by ACTIONS not intentions. Using torture for the "Intention of intimidation." Still works in my reading comprehension world. I'm not sure it works in yours. See, again, it has a use. I don't care how many nouns, adjectives, and adverbs you put in front of it, it still is torture and still has a function. It may not be a function that you agree with but the person who is implementing the acts of torture feels and understands that it has a function, that VALUE is what makes it happen and persist as an aspect of humanity. |
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The buck starts with CIA agents and stops with Bush. What do you recommend, assuming waterboarding is torture and the evidence shows it was done and authorized? Do you suggest execution? Prison? What? Then do we go back and look at other administrations and do the same investigation, same punishment? |
Investigation, arrests, prosecution, and then, assuming a guilty verdict, whatever punishment is appropriate under the law.
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Should members of Congress, who may have been informed, be investigated and brought up on charges and face punishment as well, for being complicit? Should the investigation include past administrations? Would you allow foreign governments, under the UN jurisdiction convict and administer punishment to members of our CIA, and former member of our executive branch including a former President? If all this is so clear, why is the Obama administration sending mixed signals? If I believed what you believed and what many in Obama's administration believes, my actions on this subject would be clear and with no doubt or hesitation on my part. Seems like, unlike you, Obama lacks convictions. I have a problem with that. |
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I doubt I'll get to see a proud liberal president in my lifetime. It will be liberals forcing themselves to be centrists and chickenhawk conservatives for the rest of my days. |
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decopage collage psychology?
You keep believing that I'm standing in Times Square holding up a sign saying "I heart Torture." :shakehead: I've not made a single excuse. Your reading comprehension is just horrid these days. Stating that I am trying to understand the human condition enables torture is like saying that I enable great works of art and great engineering. Such extreme leaps of logic...maybe you should be Evel Knievel of logic because those are some extreme and daredevil leaps you're taking. |
You started the thread with "I'm fine with torture", not "I'm studying the human condition". The insane level of acrobatic backpedaling you've done since then would put even the most accomplished daredevil to shame. While it's sad you're unwilling to simply say, "I didn't mean I was fine with torture, I mean that there's nothing I can do about it", it's not altogether unexpected. You're just as stubborn as I am at times.
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Like i said, "I'm fine with torture."
Since you're claiming to be stubborn in reading, maybe the repetition is enough for you to understand it. Quote:
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You're still saying essentially the same thing. You're aware people torture, you're aware they have their reasons, and, AGAIN, you're fine with torture. You're alright with people torturing for their own reasons. That's not a defense of your position, it's an elaboration at best, and it's still inexcusable.
Why is it that you never responded to my question about your position on other horrible acts? Are you fine with genocide? Are you fine with child prostitution? Are you fine with slavery? |
will, zero reading comprehension. I am saying EXACTLY the same thing, not ESSENTIALLY, EXACTLY. No, my opinion isn't inexcusable, it's my opinion.
You're willing to take flying leaps like the Flying Burrito Brothers but you're not willing to understand my position enough to take the necessary logical steps to answer your own questions. Since you need someone to hold your hand to make this particular leap, let me walk you down the path. You're free to substitute the word TORTURE for just about anything else the range of a human being is capable of doing, both NEGATIVE and POSITIVE. There is no ethical or moral judgments taking place at this level of the discussion for my point of view. You're trying so hard to convince my that my position is wrong, instead of trying to understand what my position means. Read post #72 again. |
once again, i only have a couple minutes while i finish my last cup o joe before pitching outward...
the main reason that i have trouble with the abstracting of this use of torture by the cia out of its context, so out of its institutional framework, is that it is the bureaucratoc framework itself that makes this kind of thing so problematic. we've touched on this from time to time--doing one's job, compartmentalization: the way in which one's functions in a bureaucratic setting fragment the understanding, separating for example what's normal as part of the job from its effects--the extreme case is the holocaust which would not have been possible without an entire bureaucracy devoted to murder as an administrative matter....a bureaucracy, for all its efficiencies at the level of information movement from place to place etc, is a really stupid system in that ANYTHING can theoretically be made a normal objective, reduced to an administrative problem, worked on by absolutely regular folk like you and me with no malicious intent who just do their 9-5 the best they can....this is not to say that the fact of being in such a position changes anything about the outcomes--torture is still torture---but it does explain how it is that the starting place of an isolated or abstract individual standing in no particular place may describe how you or i writing here might react to this information, but in terms of thinking it through with an idea of how one would prevent this sort of thing from happening, it's the wrong place. if a bureaucracy is a stupid kind of system in that it implements directives without providing space to think about the directives, and this as a function of how power is distributed, what a vertical organization is, how it works, then it is the fashioning of the rules that is a particular Problem in this case---i think that the people who worked out this policy should face charges. it is not ok to legitimate torture. it is not ok to create a situation in which torture is routinely applied. because from certain positions of power, it is all too easy to do it. to lapse into theological/ethical language, this process is the banalization of evil. it's not a coincidence that international conventions that impose limits on technological systems that can be used in combat (gas for example) and human rights conventions (which extends to the geneva conventions) are products of the 20th century, which was a period of the explosion of bureaucratic forms of administration... |
rb, I'm with you on that. The bureaucracy of any administration or heirarchy removes the directness of the cause and effect since they aren't directly the cause. They pushed the paper or made the call and they didn't directly do the acts. IMO it's not much different than the capos and the soldiers isolating the don from any kind of responsibility. Even at that simple framework, the soldiers have footmen who may have done the deeds to further isolate.
This again is why I'm looking at it from that loop, even going to the Spanish Inquisition, you've got a framework that is isolating and compartmentalizing the processes into acceptable bite size parts. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/op...r=2&ref=global
so to make things clear: we know from the memos that the military resisted implementing these torture techniques. We know from the memos that the CIA agents involved in some of these cases didn't want to implement them, but people all the way back in Virginia and DC ordered them to. And now we know from someone who was there that they were useless, and that the worst stuff to come out of these torture sessions is still not declassified. And some people still insist on defending this? ---------- Post added at 02:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:52 PM ---------- U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself--After Refusing to Take Part in Torture |
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We know that torture was in fact not used to stop a terrorist attack in LA, in fact there's no evidence at all that any torture resulted in lives saved or attacks prevented. Also, just as a reminder, the US had no trouble prosecuting Japanese soldiers for torturing people by waterboarding. |
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Can I summarize? 1. Torture is wrong. 2. Torture is illegal, both in US and international law. 3. Agents of the US government tortured people, with the encouragement of those at the highest levels of government - at least Cheney, and possibly with the approval or knowledge of Bush. |
regarding the prosecution of japanese for waterboarding--again remember that the way these things work, there really is only one real crime against humanity and that crime is losing a war.
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I am personally troubled by my feelings on the matter of torture. I think torture is horrible and if asked if I condone it my immediate reaction is hell no. However if faced with specific details about a situation I can imagine many circumstances where not only would I condone it I would strongly support it. Maybe this is the result of watching too many crime dramas and shows like 24.
I haven't read enough about the charges against the CIA, etc..But I suspect my position on the matter would depend on the details of every case of suspected torture. |
paul krugman makes an eloquent case for the pursuit of serious investigations on this issue.
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...and...to make things worse, I am going to call Obama and his administration a "biatch", if they don't act in a manner consistent with what they think are the facts and their so called moral compass. There are those willing to do what needs to be done, like Bush, and their are people who live in a theoretical 'la la' land, like I think Obama does. ---------- Post added at 03:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 PM ---------- Quote:
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Even the people in the fucking torture room are publicly saying that it wasn't needed, nor was it effective. That is was pushed from Langley and DC, with the intent of finding the Al Qaeda Iraq link, and that some of the false info obtained through torture was even cited by Powell in the UN. |
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According to virtually every expert (REAL experts, people that have actually witnessed or carried out torture), not only does it not work but there are better and more humane options. We can remain the "good guys" AND attain life-saving intelligence. Does that seem like the best option? Instead of sacrificing our dignity and morality for unreliable intelligence, we can remain steadfast and respectful to the principles upon which this country is founded while simultaneously effectively gaining reliable intelligence. |
ace---like it or not, the investigations are about bringing criminal charges.
it doesn't matter whether you like it or not; it doesn't matter whether you imagine--against all evidence--that there's a justification for using torture. personally, i think it'd be a considerable step forward in making it more difficult for regimes to engage in such practices were there to be such prosecutions. it's be a step toward placing legal limits around authoritarian reactionary regimes like that of george w bush. |
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I find it odd that some here find it unbelievable that someone like me can even question if torture actually occurred or if waterboarding is torture, they take the stance that it is a done deal - slam dunk - no need for discussion - etc., and now you and some others are saying we need further investigation???? It is not about what I like, it is about me not understanding the 'fog' you folks are in. I say enjoy the sun, enjoy the rain and get out of the fog. If it is clear that the law was broken, then the next steps are clear. Either take the legal action if you think the law was broken, or say that you think the law was broken but that you are not going to take legal action for whatever reason, or say you don't think the law was broken. Seems simple to me. |
there you go again, ace. your "sunshine" apparently involves neither reading the available information nor thinking real hard about what you do take in. so by "fog" i assume you refer to that state of being in contact with actual information.
if you'd actually read this thread, it was pretty clear from the outset why bringing charges against the bush people would be a problem--it's also become clear over the past few days that the obama administration isn't able to do what it wanted to do, which was release this information and let the matter drop. this isn't over by a long shot, and people like you who still defend the bush administration's actions, based on paper-thin thinking in your case, will have ample time to go all gordon liddy and argue that there is no torture in any of the practices so long as a republican administration is behind them of course. the issue will end up being the limits placed on executive power by international convention. as an authoritarian, you would probably not recognise any such limits...but i think yours is an outworn worldview and one of the reasons that i think the trials--should they come--would be so beneficial for the united states is that they'd spell the absolute end of the possibility for folk who think as you do about power from ever holding it here. i think that's a win-win situation. enjoy the "sun"... |
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Another difference is I can state my view in a simple declarative sentence. If it is clear the law was broken, press charges against those who violated the law. I understand "the problem" with bringing charges against a former President and that is why I say act one way or the other. What is it that needs further investigation? If your point is that this is not as "clear" as some believe, perhaps you should direct your comments to those folks, because I already know it is not "clear". |
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