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Cynthetiq 04-16-2009 12:54 PM

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder: No charges against CIA officials for torture
 
Quote:

View: No charges against CIA officials for waterboarding
Source: Usatoday
posted with the TFP thread generator

No charges against CIA officials for waterboarding
No charges against CIA officials for waterboarding
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to move beyond what he calls a "a dark and painful chapter in our history," President Obama said Thursday that CIA officials who used harsh interrogation tactics during the Bush administration will not be prosecuted.

The government released four memos in which Bush-era lawyers approved in often graphic detail tough interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects. The rough tactics range from waterboarding — simulated drowning — to keeping suspects naked and withholding solid food.

Even as they exposed new details of the interrogation program, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, offered the first definitive assurance that those CIA officials are in the clear, as long as their actions were in line with the legal advice at the time.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Holder: 'Waterboarding is torture'
ON DEADLINE: Obama won't prosecute CIA for waterboarding
EARLIER ON DEADLINE: Senate votes to ban waterboarding

Obama said the nation must protect the identity of CIA contractors and employees "as vigilantly as they protect our security."

"We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history," the president said. "But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

Holder told the CIA that the government would provide free legal representation to CIA employees in any legal proceeding or congressional investigation related to the program and would repay any financial judgment.

"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Holder said.

The CIA has acknowledged using waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on three high-level terror detainees in 2002 and 2003, with the permission of the White House and the Justice Department. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said waterboarding has not been used since, but some human rights groups have urged Obama to hold CIA employees accountable for what they, and many Obama officials and others around the world, say was torture.

Further, the statements accompanied the Justice Department's release of four significant Bush-era legal opinions governing — in graphic and extensive detail — the interrogation of 14 high-value terror detainees using harsh techniques beyond waterboarding, the officials said. One of the memos was produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002, the other three in 2005.

The memos, released to meet a court-approved deadline in a lawsuit against the government in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union, detail the dozen harsh techniques approved for use by CIA interrogators, the officials said. One memo also specifically authorized a method for combining multiple techniques, a practice human rights advocates argue crosses the line into torture even if any individual methods does not.

The Obama administration last month released nine legal memos, and probably will release more as the lawsuit proceeds. But the four released Thursday represent the fullest, and now complete, accounting by the government of the methods authorized and used, the officials said.

Those include keeping detainees naked for long periods, keeping them in a painful standing position for long periods, and depriving them of solid food. Other tactics included using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls, keeping the detainee's cell cold for long periods, and beating and kicking the detainee. Sleep-deprivation, prolonged shackling, and threats to a detainee's family were also used.

Among the things not allowed in the memos were allowing a prisoner's body temperature or caloric intake to fall below a certain level, because either could cause permanent damage, said senior administration officials. They discussed the memos on condition of anonymity to more fully describe the president's decision-making process.

The ACLU suit has sought to use the Freedom of Information Act to shed light on the treatment of prisoners — even though the Bush administration eventually abandoned many of the legal conclusions and the Obama administration has gone further to actively dismantle much of President George W. Bush's anti-terror program.

Obama has ordered the CIA's secret overseas prisons known as "black sites" closed and ended so-called "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects if there is any reason to believe the third country would torture them. He has also restricted CIA questioners to only those interrogation methods and protocols approved for use by the U.S. military until a complete review of the program is conducted.

Also Thursday, Holder formally revoked every legal opinion or memo issued during Bush's presidency that justified interrogation programs.

The documents have been the subject of a long, fierce debate in and outside government over how much officials should say.

The Bush administration held the view that the president had the authority to claim broad powers that could not be checked by Congress or the courts in order to keep Americans safe. Obama and Holder, among others, have said that the use of such unchecked powers has actually made Americans less safe, by increasing anti-U.S. sentiment, endangering American troops when captured and handing terrorists a recruiting tool.

"Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure," Obama said in his statement.

Even so, the officials described the president's process of deciding how much to release in response to the suit as very difficult. Over four weeks, there were intense debates involving the president, Cabinet members, lower-level officials and even former administration officials.

Obama was concerned that releasing the information could endanger ongoing operations, American personnel or U.S. relationships with foreign intelligence services. CIA officials, in particular, needed reassuring, the officials said.

But in the end, the view of the Justice Department prevailed, that the FOIA law required the release and that the government would be forced to do so by the court if it didn't do so itself, the officials said.

A critic of the policies on torture hailed the release of the documents, but questioned the decision not to prosecute.

"Releasing the torture memos was a good step toward restoring America's credibility as a nation that doesn't torture, but the president is dead wrong to say that nothing will be gained by laying blame for what happened in the past," said Stacy Sullivan of Human Rights Watch. "Prosecuting violations of the law is not about laying blame for the past, it's about ensuring that those crimes don't happen again."

In his statement, Obama said he was reassured about the potential national security implications by the fact that much of the information contained had already been widely publicized — including some of it by Bush himself — and by the fact that the program itself no longer exists.

He said "exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release" and does not change his determination to keep other intelligence operations secret and information about them classified.

But, said Obama, "Withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States."

Those assurances are not likely to innoculate Obama against criticism from conservatives. Last month, Vice President Cheney said, for instance, that Obama's decisions to revoke Bush-era terrorist detainee policies will "raise the risk to the American people of another attack."
So President Obama is not going to pursue the illegal actions of the CIA. I'm not surprised by this, which again, I'll say flat out, I'm fine with torture, just like I'm fine with war. So for me, I don't find this outrageous or that the program no longer exists that it won't happen again in the future.

Was this the right move for President Obama? Should he have done something differently?

KirStang 04-16-2009 01:04 PM

Well,

For one, consider the media field day that would occur if they went ahead with prosecution...

dippin 04-16-2009 01:10 PM

I think torture is always wrong, and it has generally been established that while torture is "great" for extracting false confessions, it is of extremely limited use to gain actual intelligence.

That said, this news is expected. And in any case, if prosecution was to ever come about, it should be against the people who wrote the new guidelines and their rationale.

roachboy 04-16-2009 01:38 PM

1.

this would get into an extremely ugly area pretty quickly if there was a move against people who carried out torture--you'd end up with versions of the nuremburg defense---whaddya mean? i was just following orders.
i would expect that the political and institutional damage that would have been done was seen as outweighing the upside of positioning the united states as a country that actually does not torture because, you know, geneva convention, basic human rights--all that stuff which only really matters when adhering to them is a problem. when there's no pressure, when there's no crisis, it means nothing---well not nothing, but rather it is easy to adhere to such conventions and principles when there's no pressure from within not to.

and we all know that war crimes only happen in the context of regimes that loose wars. loosing a war is therefore the real crime.

so i think this decision is in principle kinda foul.

2.

at the same time, in pragmatic terms, i think the obama administration's systematic dismantling of the bush people's policy logic and legal framework that enabled this to happen is obviously a good thing. and the public repudiations of the policy a good thing.

but that isn't really the question.

=======

reframe.

if i may, i 'd like to try to open out the questions in the op a bit. this is complicated.

(a) *should* it in fact be the case that war crimes--crimes against humanity--are only actionable if a political regime looses a war.
what does that mean?
that there are no crimes against humanity possible by a "legitimate" regime?
but if it's functionally impossible to prosecute war crimes carried out by "legitimate"regimes, doesn't that amount to saying that there are no war crimes possible unless a regime looses a war?

and again--that means the real crime in our o-so-ethical global order is losing a war.
you want an example---think about the travesty that was the trail of saddam hussein.
now i'm not in any way arguing that he was not a brutal dictator--but think of the farce his trial was.
what clearer demonstration could you have that the crime really was loosing and the war crimes prosecution is in fact a mechanism used by those who win to break the political power of the regime they fought?

that seems fucked up.
doesn't it seem so to you?

what does that make a war crime?

o but it gets better:

(b) war crimes---crimes against humanity--are of an order that the legitimacy of a political regime that enacts them SHOULD be placed into serious question.

members of the political class within a given nation-state in a position like, say, obama's, find themselves trying to maintain the legitimacy of the system as a whole in significant measure because they occupy positions of power by virtue of it.

so they have no interest in triggering the kind of questions about legitimacy that would follow by prosecuting war crimes--torture is a war crime, extraorindary rendition arguably so, much of the treatment of prisoners arguably so, the separation of detainee from prisoner of war arguably so.

the reason that the legitimacy of a political regime that carries out such actions is placed in question fundamentally by any prosecution is simply that a political order in a modern state dovetails with a professional apparatus that is not politically appointed, that is permanent--the functionaries---and the prosecution of war crimes necessarily implicates not only the political leadership but the permanent apparatus of the state. there is something about the way things are done in the states IN GENERAL that is a Problem.

this seems to be the position the obama administration is basically arguing above--they aren't talking about state legitimacy though (why would they?)--instead they couch the argument in continuity of "national security"--but that's bullshit, really. but if you think about it, that they'd do this is expedient: why invite the questions that your actions are designed to avoid?


but this leads to a Problem.

(c) if that is the situation of, say, the obama administration (here as an example)--that they simultaneously want to condemn the practices of the bush people, dismantle their local conditions of possibility---but they also want to block basic questions as to the legitimacy of the political order itself which they now control...and if this is in general the position of ANY nation-state government---and this would be the basis for the argument that war crimes are only carried out by regimes that loose wars.

but there's another way to see this.
doesn't it follow that a national-level legal system, which is intertwined with the national-level legal system--is NOT in a position to make decisions about war crimes prosecutions?

should this be a question for the international war crimes tribunal to decide on?

if there were crimes against humanity, where is the iwct?



it's a tricky set of problems.
i'm not sure i've outlined them in the best way, but as i see it, there we are.

Willravel 04-16-2009 01:51 PM

It's a shame that there wasn't some famous international trail that established precedent when it came to following illegal orders.

Charlatan 04-16-2009 04:21 PM

Ultimately, if this sort of prosecution (persecution) were to proceed it would lead right to the top (i.e. the I was just following orders always moves uphill).

I don't think *any* US administration is interested in pursuing that line of enquiry.

Derwood 04-16-2009 06:58 PM

I always thought that this was a pipe dream. Never was going to happen

SecretMethod70 04-16-2009 07:16 PM

There's also some talk that the intelligence community would revolt against the Obama administration if it pursued prosecution.

Personally, I'm fine with taking this line of inquiry as high as it goes, and making it known whenever anyone puts national security at risk because of it (such as the intelligence community not cooperating with the Obama administration).

I realize that's too much to ask for most politicians though, so I can't get too outraged over this. Still disappointed though.

robot_parade 04-16-2009 07:37 PM

Willravel: Nuremberg only happened because Germany lost the war. Can you name a time where a similar thing happened without such a huge disparity of power? Watergate is close, I admit, but for whatever reasons, the public outrage just isn't there this time.

Regarding the question of immunity to CIA agents...I can understand why he did it...if he started a witch hunt within the CIA, he'd be in seriously deep shit. He would never get any loyalty from the CIA. That could be a huge problem.

And, while I agree that 'following orders' isn't an excuse for illegal behavior, I'd almost be ok with it if those giving the orders (Cheney, Bush), were actually prosecuted. Unfortunately, I can't see that happening.

roachboy 04-17-2009 03:39 AM

i dont know if you saw these, but in case not and you're curious, here's a link to a the memos regarding torture that the obama administration released yesterday.
they're a sobering read.

Read the torture memos released by Barack Obama | World news | guardian.co.uk

aceventura3 04-17-2009 07:50 AM

I am not surprised no legal action is going to be taken against CIA officials who acted within the administrations' interpretation of the law. The root problem here is with the vague legal definition of torture that allows broad interpretation. The business of war and enemy interrogation is not pretty and in my view those in the business of doing the work to keep us safe want to be as effective as possible staying within the law. Whether we like it or can even stomach reading the memos, I think it was appropriate for the administration to issue more specific parameters for the men and women doing the work. I would hope that the current administration has already done the same thing if they disagree with the previous administrations interpretation of the law. And four years from now we can again act all grossed out and self righteous when we read those memos, because at the margins there will always be something average people will have a problem with, and that is why average people are not put in situations requiring exceptional ability or exceptional tolerance to perform certain tasks.

Slims 04-17-2009 08:07 AM

Mirriam-Websters definition of Torture:

1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain
2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure
3: distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument

I don't see how getting slapped counts as intense pain or agony. Ditto with everything else in the memo.


I think the interrogators were right to follow the directives/decisions from the Justice Department Lawyers. They were making detainees uncomfortable, but were not inflicting intense pain or anguish.

You can argue that what was done was not right, but I fail to see how the behavior meets the criteria for torture. To suggest that it does lessens the sacrifices of those who really are tortured...broken limbs, crushed bodies, etc.

And am I missing something in the Geneva conventions which makes them apply to non-signatories?

---------- Post added at 12:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:01 PM ----------

Also, I can tell you 100% that the military inflicts worse 'torture' on some of it's own troops during training.

If the methods outlined in the memos count as torture and are inexcusable under any circumstances, then the Military is going to have to explain why it is "torturing" rather than "training" soldiers.

And don't give me any nonsense about consent, because I promise you that no soldier is going to say "yeah, go ahead and slap the shit out of me."

dippin 04-17-2009 11:58 AM

I think it is amazing the lengths of moral relativism people go to in order to justify torture.

First, there was nothing "ambiguous" about what was being done here. This wasn't a good faith effort to determine the limits of the law, but a bad faith effort to subvert them.

The Bush administration had no problems calling the same things the US did torture when it was other nations doing it the exact same things.

And one must be either exercising selective reading or not have read at all to think that the only torture that was going on was slapping.

Waterboarding, slapping, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, smashing heads against walls, stress positions, confinement in boxes, etc. are not just "slaps." There are over 100 recorded cases of detainees dying under interrogation, as well as several more cases of individuals being driven insane because of that, including American citizen Jose Padilla.

And even those very close to the interrogations admit that very little, if any, relevant intelligence came of it. If there is one thing these memos make clear is that the whole "ticking time bomb" scenario is false.

QuasiMondo 04-17-2009 12:13 PM

I'm satisfied with the Justice Dept's decision not to prosecute.

This isn't the Nuremberg scenario where these agents were just following orders. They're not going to be tried by an international tribunal, so the question of whether they're following orders is the incorrect one. It really comes down to this: Does it make sense for the Justice Department to retroactively prosecute these agents for doing things that this very same Justice Dept said was legal? Never mind the intelligence community revolting against the Administration, you'd have to deal with an already angry public who has now lost faith in a Justice Department who would prosecute individuals for doing things they said was perfectly legal.

The circus would surely be in town then.

Slims 04-17-2009 12:19 PM

What?

Dude, there is no moral relativism involved. It's a legal issue and only a legal issue. Torture is, by definition extremely painful (or it wouldn't be torture). The methods listed in that memo just dont' fit that bill. If detainees were actually being tortured beyond the treatment authorized then that is another issue. As for the number of detainees who have 'died' in custody, remember that many of them were already sick or wounded before they were picked up and are often on their way out the door already.

Some of those detainees who were "Tortured" were the primary producers of Intel on Al-Qaeda for quite some time. Those tactics were employed BECAUSE they were effective and were constantly refined and re-verified.

I can understand the argument that it wasn't right and shouldn't have been done I disagree, but it is absolutely a legitimate argument. I can even understand an argument saying the tactics should have been interpreted as illegal. What I don't understand is an argument which circumvents the issue by either pointing at people who were actually tortured (illegally) and/or misrepresents the effectiveness of the methods employed with absolutely no first hand (or even second or third) information whatsoever and no data (because none has been released, intelligence being one of those 'secret' type things) to support your claim.

dippin 04-17-2009 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2625297)
What?

Dude, there is no moral relativism involved. It's a legal issue and only a legal issue. Torture is, by definition extremely painful (or it wouldn't be torture). The methods listed in that memo just dont' fit that bill. If detainees were actually being tortured beyond the treatment authorized then that is another issue. As for the number of detainees who have 'died' in custody, remember that many of them were already sick or wounded before they were picked up and are often on their way out the door already. Several times we almost had a detainee die on us....In particular one from congestive heart failure, another due to a massive hernia, and a third who was gut-shot. In each instance we were more worried about their health and how it would be perceived politically if a detainee died in our custody than we were in the intelligence they could provide.

Some of those detainees who were "Tortured" were the primary producers of Intel on Al-Qaeda for quite some time. Those tactics were employed BECAUSE they were effective and were constantly refined and re-verified. I have seen how well some of them can work when properly applied.


I can understand the argument that it wasn't right and shouldn't have been done I disagree, but it is absolutely a legitimate argument. I can even understand an argument saying the tactics should have been interpreted as illegal. What I don't understand is an argument which circumvents the issue by either pointing at people who were actually tortured (illegally) and/or misrepresents the effectiveness of the methods employed with absolutely no first hand (or even second or third) information whatsoever and no data (because none has been released, intelligence being one of those 'secret' type things) to support your claim.

Torture is not by definition "extremely painful." It can just as easily be about mental anguish, like with sleep deprivation, extended sensory deprivation, fake executions.

And the legal "rationale" used to approve these techniques is extremely weak, as anyone who has read them knows.

And the argument that only someone who has immediate knowledge of these situations can discuss them is total Bullshit with a capital B, and circular to boot. "We can torture because we know what we learned, but I can't tell you, so we will keep doing without anyone's interference."

But in any case, there have been numerous memos released about how people were actually saying that their ability to gather intelligence had been compromised due to the mental state of the detainee.

And in any case, just look at the numbers of people release and deemed not of interest after undergoing such treatment. So we know several innocent people were tortured, and yet this is all ok?

Slims 04-17-2009 12:51 PM

Ok, I don't recall reading anything which authorized fake executions.

Second, "Mental Anguish" is torture? Really?

Sleep deprivation not to exceed 48 hours isn't torture or college students cramming for a test wouldn't do it on a regular basis.

They are not slamming heads into a wall.

Sensory Deprivation is torture? I guess we should make sure they have HBO.

The food deprivation consisted of a tasteless but nutritionally complete liquid diet, not starvation.

It is my understanding that our government is only required to look out for the most basic needs of a detainee...he doesn't have to like the food he is given, it doesn't have to be on a regular schedule, he can be uncomfortable so long as he is not harmed. Those memos lay out exactly how far the CIA was able to go before they stepped over that line.

I know what you are saying about the mental state of the detainee...If the Afghans roll someone up and then rape him over and over again for a week before giving him to you then yeah, he is probably not going to be very usefull. But if you make someone drink a protein shake instead of eat a stake dinner I doubt he is going to be mentally 'broken' and useless. Also, if you administer corrections and whatnot willy-nilly and don't reward good behavior/punish bad, etc. then you make someone who is simply traumatized rather than cooperative. Also, the memo's require a psychologist to be present during all such interrogations to monitor and ensure that the methods are productive rather than counterproductive....Sounds to me like they were already addressing the issue you are worried about.



Edit: last thing. I was not implying that you were not free to discuss the issue. But rather that you were drawing conclusions you knew nothing about. Saying an interrogation method is ineffective when you don't even know how the method is employed is silly. It's like saying fast cars always kill people because you read about a NASCAR wreck. What I was saying about the information is that you would only have heard about the failures...there is no reason to keep that a secret. The people who rolled over as a result of these tactics and are giving good information would not be mentioned, even at the expense of making the method look like a failure. So even if the program were wildly successful beyond anyones imagination, the few people who did not provide information would be all the public is likely to ever learn about.

roachboy 04-17-2009 01:49 PM

waterboarding is torture. there's not a whole lot of debate about that. sleep deprivation etc.---alot of these actions were developed in order to circumvent restrictions on torture. slapping etc--it's hard to say: taken in isolation, probably not; seen in the context of a systematic desensitization of the interrogators to limits that should have been placed on their actions, they're a problem.

i hear gordon liddy making the same kind of arguments outlined above concerning some of these actions--o pshaw they're not really torture according to some arbitrary manly man notion of what "real pain" is. and his move was the same as what you see above--isolate "slapping"and ask well, is that torture?

fact is that the bush administration attempted to fashion a legal rationale which circumvented international conventions of the treatment of prisoners to which the united states is a signatory; the bush administration attempted to fashion the narrowest possible interpretation of torture in order to justify actions in the name of----well what, really?---it's been known for a very long time that what torture is good at eliciting is whatever information will make the torture stop--that has nothing to do with accurate information--this is self-evident---look at the history of the french in algeria for fucks sake. the only way torture worked in that case was that is was applied to a huge population regardless of legal standing and was aimed at eliciting extremely narrow types of information and the accuracy of that information really wasn't important because it just fed back into the same operation. and in the end, this tactic not only did not work, but it was fundamental to political changes that caused the french to loose the war in algeria. it's a fools game.

anyway, there are problems with prosecuting bush administration officials for the policy-but i fundamentally do not think that the government of the united states is in a position to determine what actions of the previous version of the same government were and were not war crimes.
i think this should be tried by an international tribunal.
otherwise, it is functionally the case that a government that does not loose a war can do any fucking thing it decides is justified, and that the ONLY crime really is losing a war.
that, folks, is fucked up.

most of the factors folk have elicited to either be cool with or justify the obama administration's decision not to prosecute i already used as arguments against the idea that a national government is in a position to functionally prosecute itself for this kind of action.

and the question of what is and is not torture really is not for a messageboard debate to decide.
it's for a court.
there should be prosecution.

but i think the people who are responsible for the policy should be the ones facing charges. starting with rumsfeld.

Willravel 04-17-2009 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2624851)
I'm not surprised by this, which again, I'll say flat out, I'm fine with torture, just like I'm fine with war.

People who are fine with torture are people who don't understand torture.

Baraka_Guru 04-17-2009 03:37 PM

Other than pretty much agreeing with most of what roachboy has laid out of late, I want to say that the use of torture is an indication of a problematic moral failure. Within the context of war, it obliterates any possibility of "just" warfare.

Once you cross the line of bypassing human dignity, you have bypassed all hope for fighting for the greater good. If you cannot uphold your own values, it becomes unclear as to what exactly you're fighting for.

If America is okay with torture, it can be little better than many of the brutal dictatorships we've seen come and go. What else will we see as a means to an end?

I don't understand your Constitution to the letter, but I'd be rather surprised to learn that this kind of behaviour doesn't go against such an important document. That it does is indicative of a serious omission on the part of the framers and those involved in the amendments.

dippin 04-17-2009 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2625318)
Ok, I don't recall reading anything which authorized fake executions.

Second, "Mental Anguish" is torture? Really?

Sleep deprivation not to exceed 48 hours isn't torture or college students cramming for a test wouldn't do it on a regular basis.

They are not slamming heads into a wall.

Sensory Deprivation is torture? I guess we should make sure they have HBO.

The food deprivation consisted of a tasteless but nutritionally complete liquid diet, not starvation.

It is my understanding that our government is only required to look out for the most basic needs of a detainee...he doesn't have to like the food he is given, it doesn't have to be on a regular schedule, he can be uncomfortable so long as he is not harmed. Those memos lay out exactly how far the CIA was able to go before they stepped over that line.

I know what you are saying about the mental state of the detainee...If the Afghans roll someone up and then rape him over and over again for a week before giving him to you then yeah, he is probably not going to be very usefull. But if you make someone drink a protein shake instead of eat a stake dinner I doubt he is going to be mentally 'broken' and useless. Also, if you administer corrections and whatnot willy-nilly and don't reward good behavior/punish bad, etc. then you make someone who is simply traumatized rather than cooperative. Also, the memo's require a psychologist to be present during all such interrogations to monitor and ensure that the methods are productive rather than counterproductive....Sounds to me like they were already addressing the issue you are worried about.



Edit: last thing. I was not implying that you were not free to discuss the issue. But rather that you were drawing conclusions you knew nothing about. Saying an interrogation method is ineffective when you don't even know how the method is employed is silly. It's like saying fast cars always kill people because you read about a NASCAR wreck. What I was saying about the information is that you would only have heard about the failures...there is no reason to keep that a secret. The people who rolled over as a result of these tactics and are giving good information would not be mentioned, even at the expense of making the method look like a failure. So even if the program were wildly successful beyond anyones imagination, the few people who did not provide information would be all the public is likely to ever learn about.


This is all bullshit, with all due respect.

Yes, "mental anguish" in all scare quotes you want, is torture. I guess you haven't read any of the released info on the mental condition of several of the detainees in GITMO, but hey, apparently literally driving someone insane is not torture.

And you either didn't read the memos or is intentionally trying to mislead. The memos authorize sleep deprivation up to 264 hours.

And sensory deprivation for months at a time is really just "going without HBO?"

The fact that you insist that "Im drawing conclusions I know nothing about" even as you distinctively mislead (intentionally or not) regarding the content of the memos that outline the methods of torture employed by the CIA is ironic to say the least. And your silence about stress positions, waterboarding, "walling" and other outlined techniques is telling.

And as far as the mental state of the tortured, it's not speculation on my part, it's based on the released information regarding Abu Zubaydah, Jose Padilla and others.

You keep talking as if you have some sort of insider knowledge that invalidates everything that has been publicly released, but unless you are a CIA agent with sufficient clearance to a- confirm the authenticity of whatever intelligence you've come across, and b- know the detailed state of those being tortured by the CIA, you really don't have any more insight than anyone else who's read the available reports.

And the memos currently released are exercises in extreme manipulation of the law to justify torture under current agreements. So much so that they cite as precedent decisions regarding building codes, but fail to mention the most basic precedent: that Japanese soldiers and officers were prosecuted and found guilty of torture for waterboarding during WWII.

And as far as personal experience with torture, I have an uncle who became an extreme schizophrenic and eventually was killed after he was extensively tortured by one of the puppet regimes in Latin America for being a student union leader, so don't assume whatever little experience you have is somehow unique and superior.

Cynthetiq 04-17-2009 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin (Post 2625412)
And as far as personal experience with torture, I have an uncle who became an extreme schizophrenic and eventually was killed after he was extensively tortured by one of the puppet regimes in Latin America for being a student union leader, so don't assume whatever little experience you have is somehow unique and superior.

I'm sorry to hear that. My uncle was tortured, drained of blood to transfuse to wounded Japanese soldiers, beheaded, and tossed into a mass grave. This happened because he was an insurgent providing information to the rebels and Americans during the occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese.

Still doesn't affect my choice of finding torture acceptable. I don't condone it, won't do it, but it is part of the range of what happens when humans war with each other. I don't find killing acceptable either, but yet somehow that's part of what happens in war. It's not like it is a football or baseball game. To believe that war can be civilized or pussified is some manner is folly. War isn't pleasant. It isn't flowery. It isn't nice. It sucks and there is a lot at stake.

dippin 04-17-2009 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625418)
I'm sorry to hear that. My uncle was tortured, drained of blood to transfuse to wounded Japanese soldiers, beheaded, and tossed into a mass grave. This happened because he was an insurgent providing information to the rebels and Americans during the occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese.

Still doesn't affect my choice of finding torture acceptable. I don't condone it, won't do it, but it is part of the range of what happens when humans war with each other. I don't find killing acceptable either, but yet somehow that's part of what happens in war. It's not like it is a football or baseball game. To believe that war can be civilized or pussified is some manner is folly. War isn't pleasant. It isn't flowery. It isn't nice. It sucks and there is a lot at stake.

Sorry about your uncle as well.

The reason I mentioned that was not to try to "score" points and make people suddenly against torture, but because of the specific reason that Slims keeps claiming that somehow I shouldn't say anything here because somehow I know nothing of torture and its applications and consequences.

Slims 04-17-2009 08:22 PM

Ok, to be clear, I am not claiming to be CIA or anything similar.

I miss spoke about the sleep deprivation. It was my understanding that such incidents didn't last more than 48 hours straight, though they may be part of a longer cycle. The memo indicates different, however.


With regards to the waterboarding, the Japanese would routinely 'waterboard' our servicemen until they were unconscious. They would then revive them and repeat the process. The procedure that was OK'd by the Justice Dept. only allows for breathing to be 'somewhat' impeded for 20-40 seconds at a time in order to induce panic without actually drowning the person. Big difference, IMHO.

Jose Padilla was evaluated by a court-appointed psychologist who concluded he was and remains mentally competent...he was trying to play the crazy card so he wouldn't go to PMITA prison. Didn't work.

Abu Zubaydah was shot prior to his capture and appeared to be either mentally unstable to begin with or very cunning. How exactly did interrogators cripple him mentally? Seems to me like most of the trauma he experienced was during his capture rather than his interrogations.

As far as my "telling silence:" I mentioned walling when I stated that they are not banging the detainees head against a wall, as you stated. I never bothered to mention waterboarding as that is nothing but a panic inducer and hasnt' been authorized for use in a way that would actually cause any pain or damage. Am I really supposed to get upset because the CIA told a prisoner to lean against a wall and 'dont' move'?

Yes, I am equating sensory deprivation to missing HBO. Both these asshats were involved in attacks against either the United States or it's citizens. They also knew other people who were still on the loose and active. I have very little regard for their feelings. I think we should have (and we did) safeguard their physical well being, but they do not have to like their time in our prisons, feel comfortable, or be happy.


I already conceded the Memo's were on what appeared (to my non-lawyer eyes) to be weak legal justification. However, our country routinely stretches the law to the limit and it is not a crime to do so. Standing up in court and stating "I obeyed the letter of the law if not the spirit" is still a valid defense. The prosecution does not get a "Well we really meant for the law to mean this" rebuttal because it is completely irrelevant.

If you think we should coddle detainees more than we already do then fine, pass a law requiring us to do so. But don't storm after people who were acting in good faith to carry out what were (at least at the time) legal interrogations.

And the Memo's are not 'extreme manipulations to justify torture' as you state. Rather, they are a clarification on exactly what can be done without breaking the law by torturing someone. Big difference, like it or not.

---------- Post added at 12:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 AM ----------

Edit:

I have not implied that I have super secret access to anything.

What I have implied is that due to the nature of the beast you are only going to hear details about the people who were dead ends. Those who rolled over and gave up everything are not going to be talked about because the information they provided is likely involved in current ongoing operations.

My point was that you are only seeing the negative because the CIA is unable to come forward and mount an adequate defense and is not about to provide further information on the exact details of the interrogations.

You also mentioned in a very adamant way that the techniques outlined were unreliable and couldn't be trusted. That is also something which I would trust the judgment of the intelligence professionals over yours. I don't know why they felt these particular techniques would be effective, but they probably had good reasons.


Granted, straight up pulling fingernails is counterproductive for the obvious reason that the detainee will say anything to make the pain stop. Likewise if you are overly nice they have no incentive to talk. You have to provide interrogators with options in the middle for complex individuals with valuable information.


Lastly, your uncle is irrelevant with respect to the discussion.

---------- Post added at 12:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:15 AM ----------

Oh, and I didn't mention SERE specifically because I didn't want to be the guy who drags it into the discussion, but going back over the memos it is made quite clear that these techniques have been used on soldiers for years with no adverse effects.

Willravel 04-17-2009 08:39 PM

What constitutes torture shouldn't be up for debate.
Quote:

Originally Posted by United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
...'torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

Of course waterboarding is torture. It causes severe pain (unless you've had it done to you, you can't say it isn't "severe"), both physical and mental, and is intentionally inflicted to obtain information or to intimidate/coerce. It is torture. If you don't believe it is, ask yourself if police officers should be allowed to waterboard suspects. If you're anywhere near normal and haven't lost your very last connection with reality, you'll conclude that the police should not waterboard, therefore there's no reason the military or any other government or civilian individual or organization should be allowed to do it legally.

Torture is illegal. Torture is immoral. Torture cannot provide reliable results. Again, people who are fine with torture are people who don't understand torture.


And really, the "shit happens" take doesn't make any sense. Are you also fine with genocide? Rape? Child slavery? All of those other horrific things that are a "part of the range of what happens when humans war with each other"? "I'm fine with torture" really isn't even callous. It's quite literally indefensible.

Slims 04-17-2009 08:43 PM

Will, the police shouldn't be allowed to drop bombs on the houses of suspected criminals...The Military can and should when it is at War.

Water boarding does not involved pain, only panic. The Memo tells me so.

Also, I have passed out underwater several times, once in a full blown panic as I was trying to get back to the surface and could not. I can honestly say I was not in pain.

Cynthetiq 04-17-2009 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2625468)
What constitutes torture shouldn't be up for debate.

UN Convention Against Torture

Of course waterboarding is torture. It causes severe pain (unless you've had it done to you, you can't say it isn't "severe"), both physical and mental, and is intentionally inflicted to obtain information or to intimidate/coerce. It is torture. If you don't believe it is, ask yourself if police officers should be allowed to waterboard suspects. If you're anywhere near normal and haven't lost your very last connection with reality, you'll conclude that the police should not waterboard, therefore there's no reason the military or any other government or civilian individual or organization should be allowed to do it legally.

Torture is illegal. Torture is immoral. Torture cannot provide reliable results. Again, people who are fine with torture are people who don't understand torture.


And really, the "shit happens" take doesn't make any sense. Are you also fine with genocide? Rape? Child slavery? All of those other horrific things that are a "part of the range of what happens when humans war with each other"? "I'm fine with torture" really isn't even callous. It's quite literally indefensible.

that's where you are mistaken Will. You'd like the world to be this flowery, zen, no trouble, utopia, I see it as it is, realistic.

I'm not happy that genocide happens, but there's damn little I can do about it. I can't stop it or prevent it from happening in the world. I can not support it. I can decry it. I can tell people that I don't like it. I can tell my government and other governments that it shouldn't be done. But I cannot stop it anymore than I can stop people from dying.

Because I see it in that manner, I believe it to be part of the ying and yang of the world. No great joy without great sorrow.

Willravel 04-17-2009 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2625470)
Will, the police shouldn't be allowed to drop bombs on the houses of suspected criminals...The Military can and should when it is at War.

The US has not been "at war" since the 1940s. We have an authorization to use military force, but nowhere does that allow the torture of detainees, who are (in theory) waiting to be tried. The detainees are the same as a suspect being held by the police in that they've been captured but not tried or convicted. Until the person has been found guilty, it is not in line with established American principles present in our laws to punish them in any way.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2625470)
Water boarding does not involved pain, only panic. The Memo tells me so.

If you'd like to be waterboarded under controlled conditions, I've done it twice now and had it done to me once.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2625470)
Also, I have passed out underwater several times, once in a full blown panic as I was trying to get back to the surface and could not. I can honestly say I was not in pain.

You suffered. Suffering is mental pain. Mental pain is covered under the legal definition of torture.

Still, looking back, while waterboarding is intended to simulate drowning, it's much, much more disorienting, closer to being forced to drown upside down. It's a fairly unique experience. I'm serious when I say you need to experience it to judge it.

In case you're wondering, you need to put a plank of some kind into a bathtub, with the plank laying flat at the nozzle end and elevated at the opposite end. Lay down with your head under the nozzle, and have your arms and legs securely bound. Have someone you trust cover your eyes with duct tape and, as quickly as he can, wrap your face with cellophane and then pour several gallons of water on your chin heading downwards toward the drain. This should last 15-30 seconds. Because of the danger in the situation, you need to work out a signal of some kind that tells them to stop, and someone needs to be able to release you very quickly. I'd also suggest having someone trained in CPR on site just in case.

---------- Post added at 10:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625477)
that's where you are mistaken Will. You'd like the world to be this flowery, zen, no trouble, utopia, I see it as it is, realistic.

The world doesn't require torture for any reason whatsoever. It serves no function other than to inflict extreme pain. It has nothing at all to do with your erroneous idea that because the world is unfixable we shouldn't bother. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, torture should not exist.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625477)
I'm not happy that genocide happens, but there's damn little I can do about it. I can't stop it or prevent it from happening in the world. I can not support it. I can decry it. I can tell people that I don't like it. I can tell my government and other governments that it shouldn't be done. But I cannot stop it anymore than I can stop people from dying.

You don't decry it. You passively support it in making statements like "I'm fine with torture". You're not fine with torture even by your own words. You don't like it. You're not happy that it happens. I'll understand if your position is "I can't do anything to stop it", but that's not the same thing as "I'm fine with torture". I'm unable to do anything about AIDS in Africa, but I'm not even close to being fine with it.

dippin 04-17-2009 09:26 PM

And yet you still belittle whatever is described. As if the only alternative to torture is to put people on the four seasons all expenses paid...

Sensory deprivation included being kept in the absolute dark for months at a time, and using blacked out goggles whenever the prisoner had to be moved elsewhere.

With regards to waterboarding "just for a few seconds," once again you've shown you haven't even read the memos.

The memos have said that for a very long time waterboarding exceeded all limits established.

And I don't need to pass a law to ban torture. The US has already signed and ratified the treaties that ban them.

And whatever "good faith" the actual CIA interrogators had, the same certainly cannot be said about those who crafted these memos. Here is part of the "legal justification" provided by Steven Bradbury:

"By its terms, Article 16 [of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment] is limited to conduct within "territory under [United States] jurisdiction. We conclude that territory under United States jurisdiction includes, at most, areas over which the United States exercises at least de facto authority as the government. Based on CIA assurances, we understand that the interrogations do not take place in any such areas."

In other words: it's torture, but it's not really happening in the US...

Keep in mind, the point is not whether these things would get a conviction in a court of law, but I don't see how ANYONE can deny it's torture. Even the memos don't try to deny it, and simply try to find a loophole applicable. So if even you admit that the former administration had to "stretch the law" to make its torture program conform in some way with the treaties the US had ratified, I think that my point is made: that this wasn't a good faith effort to determine what they could do, but a bad faith effort to find all technicalities to make torture legal, and that things that even these people consider torture took place, and that it was significantly more than "slaps."

As far as the mental state of the prisoners:

Jose Padilla might not have been considered incompetent to stand trial, but his sentence took into account the "extensive mental anguish" he was suffering.

Zubaydah might have been already insane before, but that is not certain, and in any case it is clear by now that the Bush administration willingly overestimated the intelligence obtained from him, and especially the role of torture in obtaining that information. According to the released memos, the people who interrogated him thought they had everything they could have from him but were ordered to torture by people at the CIA headquarters! As the memo states"“although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within C.I.A. headquarters still believed he was withholding information.”"

And then we have Al Qahtani, which according to the FBI ""was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma" due to torture.

And Omar Khadr, who now exhibits "delusions and hallucinations, suicidal behaviour and intense paranoia" and from whom the only known piece of intelligence obtained was the fingering of an innocent Canadian as a member of Al Qaeda, who then was sent to Syria and tortured for a year.

And the whole "ticking time bomb" scenario is shown as patently false, as the memos talk about the limits of torturing someone who has been under custody for 2, 3 years.

---------- Post added at 09:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2625470)
Will, the police shouldn't be allowed to drop bombs on the houses of suspected criminals...The Military can and should when it is at War.

Water boarding does not involved pain, only panic. The Memo tells me so.

Also, I have passed out underwater several times, once in a full blown panic as I was trying to get back to the surface and could not. I can honestly say I was not in pain.


The definition of torture is not bound by pain. As we've covered already, even the US has prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding. There is a very good reason why the declaration against torture uses "pain OR suffering."

And the memos also explicitly say that the goal of waterboarding is for the subject to feel his life is in imminent danger, and that he could die from it.

The memos even admits that some of the techniques described there were described by the state department as torture when other nations did it.

Heck, it was a staple of Khmer Rouge torture practices...

pan6467 04-17-2009 10:45 PM

It's funny that the majority of people who wanted Bush and co. tried for war crimes seem to be ok or silent about this. Why Obama could have offered immunity, kept secret their identity through some plea deals some of the agents that would testify the orders came from above.

Just more hypocrisy.

dippin 04-17-2009 10:53 PM

Where is this majority of people who wanted Bush tried but are ok with "this?"

This thing where every political thread gets derailed by someone who comes up with "Obama worshipers this," "majority of Obama supporters that" without ever identifying who these mythical creatures with such blatant double standards are is getting tiresome.

Cynthetiq 04-17-2009 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2625478)
The US has not been "at war" since the 1940s. We have an authorization to use military force, but nowhere does that allow the torture of detainees, who are (in theory) waiting to be tried. The detainees are the same as a suspect being held by the police in that they've been captured but not tried or convicted. Until the person has been found guilty, it is not in line with established American principles present in our laws to punish them in any way.

If you'd like to be waterboarded under controlled conditions, I've done it twice now and had it done to me once.

You suffered. Suffering is mental pain. Mental pain is covered under the legal definition of torture.

Still, looking back, while waterboarding is intended to simulate drowning, it's much, much more disorienting, closer to being forced to drown upside down. It's a fairly unique experience. I'm serious when I say you need to experience it to judge it.

In case you're wondering, you need to put a plank of some kind into a bathtub, with the plank laying flat at the nozzle end and elevated at the opposite end. Lay down with your head under the nozzle, and have your arms and legs securely bound. Have someone you trust cover your eyes with duct tape and, as quickly as he can, wrap your face with cellophane and then pour several gallons of water on your chin heading downwards toward the drain. This should last 15-30 seconds. Because of the danger in the situation, you need to work out a signal of some kind that tells them to stop, and someone needs to be able to release you very quickly. I'd also suggest having someone trained in CPR on site just in case.

---------- Post added at 10:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 PM ----------


The world doesn't require torture for any reason whatsoever. It serves no function other than to inflict extreme pain. It has nothing at all to do with your erroneous idea that because the world is unfixable we shouldn't bother. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, torture should not exist.

You don't decry it. You passively support it in making statements like "I'm fine with torture". You're not fine with torture even by your own words. You don't like it. You're not happy that it happens. I'll understand if your position is "I can't do anything to stop it", but that's not the same thing as "I'm fine with torture". I'm unable to do anything about AIDS in Africa, but I'm not even close to being fine with it.

It doesn't? You don't think that cruelty is a viable part of the range of humanity?

You only want the good to exist. I don't. I need to see the bad to appreciate the good. I need to know that there is evil and bad out there. I get to see examples of it every day.

I don't do ANY of those things I listed because the net effect is the same as me shaking my fist in the air. It don't change the song, it don't change the dance. People have been killing, maiming, and torturing each other since they learned how to pick up rocks and bash in skulls. It will continue after the dust of my bones blow into the winds.

So while you sit and be all aghast and abhorred by it all, I'll sit and enjoy my life as it's the one that I was lucky to have the die cast for.

Willravel 04-18-2009 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625498)
It doesn't? You don't think that cruelty is a viable part of the range of humanity?

"Viable"? That means capable of working successfully. Torture cannot succeed in the way those who use it want to succeed; it cannot yield reliable results. So no, it's not viable in any way.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625498)
You only want the good to exist. I don't. I need to see the bad to appreciate the good. I need to know that there is evil and bad out there. I get to see examples of it every day.

I don't know what fortune cookie, yin-yang world you live in, but the rest of us generally struggle to make the world a better place. We wouldn't do that if the universe was magically maintaining some bizarre equilibrium between good and bad. You sound like a comic book villain. "You need me, Batman! Your good can only exist if my evil gives it meaning! HAHAHhahahahahAHAHH!!"
http://media.filmschoolrejects.com/i...dger-joker.jpg
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625498)
I don't do ANY of those things I listed because the net effect is the same as me shaking my fist in the air. It don't change the song, it don't change the dance.

Don't pretend like you're not involved. Your and my tax dollars go to fund a corrupt intelligence community that kidnaps, holds without trial, and tortures. You and every other person that passively accepts or even condones torture are partially responsible.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625498)
People have been killing, maiming, and torturing each other since they learned how to pick up rocks and bash in skulls. It will continue after the dust of my bones blow into the winds.

You're not arguing for your statement. You didn't say "I can't do shit about it", you said "I'm fine with torture". Defend the latter statement.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2625498)
So while you sit and be all aghast and abhorred by it all, I'll sit and enjoy my life as it's the one that I was lucky to have the die cast for.

Ignorance may be bliss, but you're aware of what's happening. You're not ignorant of torture or rendition. You are in a position to cast at least some judgment on it, and your verdict is that you're fine with it. That position is indefensible.

Cynthetiq 04-18-2009 09:04 AM

My tax dollars fund a multitude of things that you and I know NOTHING about. Our consumer dollars go to fund multitudes of things that you and I know nothing about.

See, you want me to do something that I don't have to do. I don't have to argue for it. I don't have to defend the statement. I just have to state it. I say that torture is fine.

In fact, you need to do something more than I do. You need to accept that my opinion is valid and acceptable.

roachboy 04-18-2009 09:19 AM

cyn--how about we make this into a bit more formal a game for a minute? just play along. it's fun at least for the duration of this post. maybe.

only if you restrict the argument to the fact that you can say it. ethically condoning torture seems pretty close to reprehensible. and this is an area wherein ethical and political considerations intertwine in a wholesale fashion.

so let's assume that is the case--your arguments, cyn, are essentially of two types: expediency and utility. expediency doesn't hold up real well in a space where ethical and poltical arguments are tangled, so i assume that in order to make that argument you presuppose that you can hold the two apart. see what i mean? so you'd ave to move on to argue that torture can be understood as a problem that does NOT involve an ethical dimension. but if you make that move, you repeat something of the position of the bush administration--which is a problematic position to find yourself backed into i would think given that i don't have the sense you were heading in that direction.

the utility argument can be made on ethical grounds--it's a classic ends justify the means statement, really. the main counter to that is that torture practices are not and cannot be justified on utility grounds because of the nature of the information they tend to elicit. you'd have to be in a position to argue that's not the case in respose. there'd be no ducking the question either--and if you can't make that argument work, your position collapses. because the counter-argument really is that not only can torture not be justified as a legitimate practice, and not only can it not be justified as an interrogation procedure, but that its use is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE on utilitarian grounds because it's consequences call into question the legitimacy of the political order that employs torture.

want an example? think about the political turmoil that surrounded the end of the 4th republic and setting up of the 5th republic in france.
de gaulle found himself entirely boxed in by the political shit-storm that followed from books like henri alleg's that outlined the french military's systematic use of torture on the algerian population. his solution was basically to concede the conflict to the fln---that in turn triggered a radical rightwing counter-revolution from the oas. the political damage done by the fact that the french state used torture--and that it got out--was extraorindary. and later, in books like gangrene, the fact that for some prisoners the torture would happen in paris, in the same building that the gestapo had used to torture suspected resistance members---it's not good.

so there's a history that militates pretty strongly against any utility arguments, and without a utility argument, i think you're position is in serious trouble.

i run this stuff out because i really don't see a way to justify the use of torture at all, anywhere, ever.

this is why i am as irritated as i am that the decision about whether to prosecute rests with the obama administration and not with an international tribunal, frankly.
i already ran out the arguments for such a tribunal...

anyway--your move.

dlish 04-18-2009 09:49 AM

just in todays news..

the story is a few pages long..here is page 1

in short, i believe medical professionals should remain partial irrespective of who's the employer

but when the governments paying the bills, who's going to say no?

also, heres a link to one of the torture memos in question. http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/se...ture_Memo1.pdf


Quote:

Psychologists? work at CIA prisons denounced - Washington Post- msnbc.com

Psychologists’ work at CIA prisons denounced
Role in harsh treatment draws condemnation from medical ethicists


WASHINGTON - When the CIA began what it called an "increased pressure phase" with captured terrorist suspect Abu Zubaida in the summer of 2002, its first step was to limit the detainee's human contact to just two people. One was the CIA interrogator, the other a psychologist.

During the extraordinary weeks that followed, it was the psychologist who apparently played the more critical role. According to newly released Justice Department documents, the psychologist provided ideas, practical advice and even legal justification for interrogation methods that would break Abu Zubaida, physically and mentally. Extreme sleep deprivation, waterboarding, the use of insects to provoke fear — all were deemed acceptable, in part because the psychologist said so.

"No severe mental pain or suffering would have been inflicted," a Justice Department lawyer said in a 2002 memo explaining why waterboarding, or simulated drowning, should not be considered torture

The role of health professionals as described in the documents has prompted a renewed outcry from ethicists who say the conduct of psychologists and supervising physicians violated basic standards of their professions.

Their names are among the few details censored in the long-concealed Bush administration memos released on Thursday, but the documents show a steady stream of psychologists, physicians and other health officials who both kept detainees alive and actively participated in designing the interrogation program and monitoring its implementation. Their presence also enabled the government to argue that the interrogations did not include torture.

'Broke the law'
Most of the psychologists were contract employees of the CIA, according to intelligence officials familiar with the program.

"The health professionals involved in the CIA program broke the law and shame the bedrock ethical traditions of medicine and psychology," said Frank Donaghue, chief executive of Physicians for Human Rights, an international advocacy group made up of physicians opposed to torture. "All psychologists and physicians found to be involved in the torture of detainees must lose their license and never be allowed to practice again."

The CIA declined to comment yesterday on the role played by health professionals in the agency's self-described "enhanced interrogation program," which operated from 2002 to 2006 in various secret prisons overseas.

"The fact remains that CIA's detention and interrogation effort was authorized and approved by our government," CIA Director Leon Panetta said Thursday in a statement to employees. The Obama administration and its top intelligence leaders have banned harsh interrogations while also strongly opposing investigations or penalties for employees who were following their government's orders.

The CIA dispatched personnel from its Office of Medical Services to each secret prison and evaluated medical professionals involved in interrogations "to make sure they could stand up, psychologically handle it," according to a former CIA official.

The alleged actions of medical professionals in the secret prisons are viewed as particularly troubling by an array of groups, including the American Medical Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

AMA policies state that physicians "must not be present when torture is used or threatened." The guidelines allow doctors to treat detainees only "if doing so is in their [detainees'] best interest" and not merely to monitor their health "so that torture can begin or continue." The American Psychological Association has condemned any participation by its members in interrogations involving torture, but critics of the organization faulted it for failing to censure members involved in harsh interrogation.

The ICRC, which conducted the first independent interviews of CIA detainees in 2006, said the prisoners were told they would not be killed during interrogations, though one was warned that he would be brought to "the verge of death and back again," according to a confidential ICRC report leaked to the New York Review of Books last month.

"The interrogation process is contrary to international law and the participation of health personnel in such a process is contrary to international standards of medical ethics," the ICRC report concluded.

The newly released Justice Department memos place medical officials at the scene of the earliest CIA interrogations. At least one psychologist was present — and others were frequently consulted — during the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, a Palestinian who was captured by CIA and Pakistani intelligence officers in March 2002, the Justice documents state.

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo said the CIA relied on its "on-site psychologists" for help in designing an interrogation program for Abu Zubaida and ultimately came up with a list of 10 methods drawn from a U.S. military training program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE. That program, used to help prepare pilots endure torture in the event they are captured, is loosely based on techniques that were used by the Communist Chinese to torture American prisoners of war.

pan6467 04-18-2009 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin (Post 2625495)
Where is this majority of people who wanted Bush tried but are ok with "this?"

This thing where every political thread gets derailed by someone who comes up with "Obama worshipers this," "majority of Obama supporters that" without ever identifying who these mythical creatures with such blatant double standards are is getting tiresome.

I just don't like mentioning names because unless they directly mention mine, it's not a pissing game. I'm just trying to show the hypocrisy.

I never once say, it's a majority of Dems or a majority of GOP ers.I simply put forth the question and to me it is a viable one. There were people screaming for Bush's trial as a war criminal because of Gitmo and so on, yet when Obama has the chance and gives a free pass or in the case of warrantless wiretaps grabs the power and extends it, some (and to me it seems here, the vocal majority) the people decrying Bush for doing such things seem to be ok or making excuses or giving Obama a pass on those things.

To me, if you say it was wrong for one, you should be equal in your disgust and criticisms.... if you aren't you are a hypocrite.

Willravel 04-18-2009 10:25 AM

Who's making excuses for Obama? Can you cite something or someone?

pan6467 04-18-2009 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2625623)
Who's making excuses for Obama? Can you cite something or someone?

Let's start with ignoring Obama keeping the wiretaps.... NY Times talks about how evil they were under Bush but after reading the article, I fail to see where they mention Obama has kept them going. I don't know printing an article how W abused the program but not mentioning Obama is doing the same thing, kinda seems to me as ignoring the problem/whitewashing etc... no matter what it is it is in a form, IMHO, a way to let Obama off the hook for the same for the same abuses they yell W was taking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us...iretaps&st=cse

As I am getting ready for work I took the easy one first, I will gladly after work or tomorrow show they verbal/written excuses for Obama.

roachboy 04-18-2009 10:57 AM

goddamn it, pan.

no-one's ignored the ongoing wiretap thing in the real world--maybe in your own private world things are different--but at this point, your private world really isn't that interesting.

so how about you try to figure a way to interact with thread so that every interaction is not the same as any other?
this cookie cutter shit is getting old.

dippin 04-18-2009 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467 (Post 2625631)
Let's start with ignoring Obama keeping the wiretaps.... NY Times talks about how evil they were under Bush but after reading the article, I fail to see where they mention Obama has kept them going. I don't know printing an article how W abused the program but not mentioning Obama is doing the same thing, kinda seems to me as ignoring the problem/whitewashing etc... no matter what it is it is in a form, IMHO, a way to let Obama off the hook for the same for the same abuses they yell W was taking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us...iretaps&st=cse

As I am getting ready for work I took the easy one first, I will gladly after work or tomorrow show they verbal/written excuses for Obama.

"Let's start with ignoring Obama keeping the wiretaps?"

Who is ignoring them?
Nytimes first news story on Obama and continuing the wiretap program was done on November 17, 2008!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/wa...ef=todayspaper

And is that your example of this rampant hypocrisy?

roachboy 04-21-2009 03:30 AM

two new elements related to this mess.

first, appealing to that fine means-ends rationality that manages so many ethical questions, i give you:
Quote:

Cheney demands release of CIA memos proving torture 'success'

Former US vice-president Cheney says CIA memos showed torture methods such as waterboarding delivered 'good' intelligence

* Ewan MacAskill and Robert Booth
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 April 2009 11.30 BST

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney has called for the disclosure of CIA memos which reveal the "success" of torture techniques, including waterboarding, used on al-Qaida suspects under the Bush administration..

Cheney said that, according to secret documents he has seen, the interrogation techniques, which the Obama administration now accepts amounted to torture, delivered "good" intelligence. He hinted that it had significant consequences for US security.

Cheney was speaking out in response to the release by Barack Obama of four Bush administration memos detailing the agency's interrogation methods used against al-Qaida suspects.

"One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," Cheney said in an appearance on Fox News.

"I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.

"I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was."

Obama yesterday visited CIA headquarters to defend the publication of the internal documents. The row gathered further momentum yesterday when it emerged that one detainee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had been subjected to waterboarding 183 times and another, Abu Zubaydah, 83 times.

Obama is keen to try to put the row behind him, reluctant to see prosecutions that could be politically divisive and distract attention from his heavy domestic and foreign agenda.
Ewen MacAskill on Obama's reluctance to prosecute torturers Link to this audio

In a speech to about 1,000 staff aimed at restoring CIA morale, Obama, who promised last week that CIA operatives would not be prosecuted, reiterated that he would stand by them.

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened in the last few weeks," Obama said. "Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we've made some mistakes. That's how we learn."

At a private meeting with 50 rank-and-file CIA members at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, before his speech, Obama heard "understandable anxiety and concern" from agents fearful of prosecution.

The CIA's director during the Bush administration, Michael Hayden, who criticised the release of the memos, warned on Sunday that agents could be vulnerable because of the memos, facing civil lawsuits or congressional inquiries.

Sensitive details were blacked out in the memos seen by most of the media on Thursday but over the weekend Marcy Wheeler, of the Emptywheel blog, found a copy in which crucial details were not masked.

That copy showed that Mohammed had been subjected to waterboarding – which simulates drowning – 183 times in March 2003. He had been arrested in Pakistan at the start of that month. Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi captured in Pakistan in March 2002, was subjected to waterboarding 83 times in August 2002.

Mohammed had admitted to involvement in terrorist actions before his capture but, after being interrogated, confessed to a list of incidents and plots that included the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, as well as a plot to attack Heathrow, Big Ben and Canary Wharf, the beheading of the US journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali bombing.

Abu Zubaydah denied involvement with al-Qaida.

Obama, defending himself against those in the CIA who argued that he should not have released the memos, said legally he had no grounds for blocking a freedom of information request from the US human rights group, the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos, particularly the fact that so much of the information was public," Obama said.

Standing in front of a wall with 89 stars, each depicting an officer killed in action, Obama praised the CIA as the "tip of the spear" in protecting the US from its enemies.

Obama said he understood that intelligence officials must sometimes feel that they are working with one hand tied behind their backs. But, rebutting Hayden, he said: "What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy, even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when its expedient to do so.

"So yes, you've got a harder job and so do I, and that's OK. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies, because we're on the better side of history."

Hayden had argued that the harsher interrogation techniques had provided valuable information and said that the techniques did not amount to torture.

Human rights lawyers question the credibility of the confessions because they were obtained under duress.

The White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, when asked yesterday why Bush administration lawyers could not be prosecuted, said: "The president is focusing on looking forward."
Dick Cheney demands release of CIA memos proving torture 'success' | World news | guardian.co.uk

meanwhile, many human rights groups continue to press for criminal prosecution
and the obama administration continues walking the line it cannot really help but walk i suppose once the choice was made to demonstrate why nation-states cannot deal with prosecution of crimes against humanity carried by themselves...

Obama moves to calm CIA agents' fears over potential torture prosecution | World news | The Guardian

Willravel 04-21-2009 08:43 AM

I saw this on Huffington this morning and thought of this thread. Is waterboarding torture? How long could you last?

Journalist bets he can endure 15 seconds of waterboarding
Watch this carefully. Notice that the man is only slightly at an angle, head down feet up. He lasts about 6 seconds.

You aren't in a position to judge waterboarding until you've been waterboarded. It's a singular and unique experience that can't be equated with things like holding your breath underwater or withstanding pain. It's altogether different.

aceventura3 04-21-2009 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2626742)
I saw this on Huffington this morning and thought of this thread. Is waterboarding torture? How long could you last?

I will go along with your logic for awhile and assume everything you have written is a given so far.

When does waterboarding become torture?

Is it torture at the same time for every person?

Is the threat of waterboarding torture?

Is describing waterboarding with a threat of it being done to a person torture?

Is being shown a videotape of someone being waterboarded with the threat of it being done to a person torture?

Is doing everything up the point of using water and not actually using the water torture?

Is putting a rag in someone mouth with no intent of waterboarding but when the person thinks they may be waterboarded actually torture?

Is being captured and thinking you may be waterboarded torture?

Pretend you are the AG and I am the Director of the CIA, and I have just asked you for clarification, what do you say?

Willravel 04-21-2009 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
When does waterboarding become torture?

It is torture when used to coerce a confession, to punish, or to seek pleasure. Because waterboarding causes incredible mental stress and extreme discomfort, a discomfort which is worse than many instances of actual pain, it causes substantial and real suffering. This suffering is mental pain, and mental pain is listed as one of the two circumstances for torture, the other of course being physical pain.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is it torture at the same time for every person?

It is the same torture because the reaction to waterboarding is innate to virtually every person. It is a survival instinct in humans to a combination of disorientation and drowning. I am unaware of anyone without the understood reaction to waterboarding. If there is such a person, the torture would not be the same, but short of finding that person and demonstrating his immunity to the process, I'd have to say it's virtually the same for everyone.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is the threat of waterboarding torture?

No, but it's not an effective method of extracting information so I can't imagine it's use being necessary.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is describing waterboarding with a threat of it being done to a person torture?

Same as above.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is being shown a videotape of someone being waterboarded with the threat of it being done to a person torture?

Same.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is doing everything up the point of using water and not actually using the water torture?

Same.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is putting a rag in someone mouth with no intent of waterboarding but when the person thinks they may be waterboarded actually torture?

Same.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Is being captured and thinking you may be waterboarded torture?

Same.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
Pretend you are the AG and I am the Director of the CIA, and I have just asked you for clarification, what do you say?

I'd suggest you use proven and legal techniques to extract intelligence instead of torture, and I'd warn you that should you ever be prosecuted for torturing it's entirely possible that there would be serious legal consequences for your decisions.

Then again I've never attended law school, never passed the bar, and I've never practiced law, so you'd probably want to take my recommendation with a grain of salt. My understanding of waterboarding and torture comes from what I learned of torture from professors, books, articles, and of course being waterboarded myself.

dippin 04-21-2009 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626799)
I will go along with your logic for awhile and assume everything you have written is a given so far.

When does waterboarding become torture?

Is it torture at the same time for every person?

Is the threat of waterboarding torture?

Is describing waterboarding with a threat of it being done to a person torture?

Is being shown a videotape of someone being waterboarded with the threat of it being done to a person torture?

Is doing everything up the point of using water and not actually using the water torture?

Is putting a rag in someone mouth with no intent of waterboarding but when the person thinks they may be waterboarded actually torture?

Is being captured and thinking you may be waterboarded torture?

Pretend you are the AG and I am the Director of the CIA, and I have just asked you for clarification, what do you say?


Well, considering that everything described in the memos goes far beyond what you are asking, I fail to see the relevance. In fact, the memos themselves outline waterboarding far beyond the extent that even the original ones allowed.

I don't think there is any gray area here that some republicans want to pretend there is.

What we have, from the memos, is waterboarding beyond even what those who were hellbent on authorizing them allowed, sometimes against people who the interrogators themselves thought were being cooperative, but were ordered to torture anyways, by people who were thousands of miles away from the interrogation room.

aceventura3 04-21-2009 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin (Post 2626824)
Well, considering that everything described in the memos goes far beyond what you are asking, I fail to see the relevance.

The relevance is in the fact that there can be a fine line between theoretical judgments and practical guidelines. If Will addresses the basic essence of the questions, at the margins how is he going to be different than the people in the Bush justice department? He will use his interpretation of how he understands the law and waterboarding and try to give me guidance. the obvious direction of my questioning leads to the fact that at some point someone with a lower tolerance than his can sit in judgment of his interpretation. Should he then be subject to prosecution? Should I, for following his guidance?

Willravel 04-21-2009 12:01 PM

When you say lower tolerance are you talking about being waterboarded? Or are you speaking in generalities about what does or doesn't constitute any torture?

roachboy 04-21-2009 12:10 PM

ace, i don't see what you're arguing here. not even dick cheney is making the same claim you are--his justification for this is that, in his view, it "worked"---that this justification is tautological seems to be beside the point.

i have heard a similar line from gordon liddy though. but he's....well...he's gordon liddy.

i don't see that you have a leg to stand on, so i suspect you're playing some devil's advocate game or other.

Willravel 04-21-2009 12:19 PM

I'm pretty sure he's going for the "torture is in the eye of the beholder, therefore nothing is torture" argument.

roachboy 04-21-2009 12:22 PM

Senior Bush figures could be prosecuted for torture, says Obama | World news | guardian.co.uk

well apparently that isn't at all how the administration sees things, and it sure as hell isn't how most human rights groups see things.
this afternoon, the obama administration revealed that some of the senior bushpeople who were responsible for outlining the rationale for torture may face prosecution. the argument is that this entire episode represents a "loss of moral compass"...

which it does.
as do the defenses of it.

we'll see what happens with this.
but the ground's shifted on the bush apologists pretty quickly here.


btw it's funny to compare the guardian's version to that of the ny times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us...ef=global-home

here obama "leaves the door open for the formation of a commission to investigate" the use of "harsh interrogation techniques."

isn't that precious?

dksuddeth 04-21-2009 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2626841)
here obama "leaves the door open for the formation of a commission to investigate" the use of "harsh interrogation techniques."

isn't that precious?

lip service. what the people want to hear, but will never see happen. unless someone chooses to fall on a sword like Ollie North did.

aceventura3 04-21-2009 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2626819)
It is torture when used to coerce a confession, to punish, or to seek pleasure.

"coerce" a confession, to "punish"..., do you really want to stand by that? That seems pretty vague.

Quote:

Because waterboarding causes incredible mental stress and extreme discomfort, a discomfort which is worse than many instances of actual pain, it causes substantial and real suffering. This suffering is mental pain, and mental pain is listed as one of the two circumstances for torture, the other of course being physical pain.
What if a person has been trained and it does not cause that person "incredible" mental stress and "extreme" discomfort. How do we measure "incredible" and "extreme". Taking it to an extreme, if I had to watch Rachel Maddow's show for an extended period of time, I would be put under "incredible" mental stress. So far we are being very subjective, and it appears we don't know it torture until we can determine "ectreme" discomfort or "incredible" stress. what if we have a person who is willing to blow themselves up, how would waterboarding comparatively speaking be "increadible" stress, or "extreme" discomfort?

Quote:

It is the same torture because the reaction to waterboarding is innate to virtually every person. It is a survival instinct in humans to a combination of disorientation and drowning. I am unaware of anyone without the understood reaction to waterboarding. If there is such a person, the torture would not be the same, but short of finding that person and demonstrating his immunity to the process, I'd have to say it's virtually the same for everyone.
How do you reconcile your position above with the billions of people on this planet that react to things differently? You position here seems to defy what makes us unique humans.

Then if we do assume you are correct, I think it would be very simple to create of list of "torture" and "not torture", with no shades of gray, can you?

Quote:

No, but it's not an effective method of extracting information so I can't imagine it's use being necessary.

Same as above.
Not effective? Doesn't that depend? Earlier you wrote about "extreme" discomfort and "incredible" mental stress, what if the threat puts a person into those conditions?

Also, If "it" is not effective, what is?

Quote:

Same.

Same.

Same.

Same.

I'd suggest you use proven and legal techniques to extract intelligence instead of torture, and I'd warn you that should you ever be prosecuted for torturing it's entirely possible that there would be serious legal consequences for your decisions.
The point is - what is legal? So far, it is still not clear. waterboarding could be clearly defined as torture, what about being in a confined space with inspects? Some people live in highly insect infected areas, and others have a phobia to insects, couldn't that be torture to one and "normal" to another?

Quote:

Then again I've never attended law school, never passed the bar, and I've never practiced law, so you'd probably want to take my recommendation with a grain of salt. My understanding of waterboarding and torture comes from what I learned of torture from professors, books, articles, and of course being waterboarded myself.
This seems to contradict your earlier posts on torture. I would have thought torture would be very easy for you to identify when you saw it. I don't think law school... is needed. If it is needed, isn't that a problem for the CIA folks in the field needing to make decisions and act in some cases under short time pressures.

If I am your CIA agent and I creatively come up with a questioning method on the spot using what is available and a reasonable interpretation of the guidelines to save lives that you later deem slightly over the line how do you respond? Would I get the benefit of the doubt, do you throw the book at me to the full extent of your authority with no regard for the circumstances and the result?

roachboy 04-21-2009 12:33 PM

i maintain that this is a demonstration of how and why it is the case that there really is only one crime against humanity in the present nation-state system, and that crime is losing a war.

the only way this would not be the case would be for an international tribunal to conduct this investigation, file charges, undertake the process, etc..

national sovereignty encounters its limits in areas like torture. the price of allowing it to be determinate is not acceptable.

aceventura3 04-21-2009 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2626833)
When you say lower tolerance are you talking about being waterboarded? Or are you speaking in generalities about what does or doesn't constitute any torture?

Both. I personally would not call waterboarding torture, you do. There may be things you consider torture that others don't. So there can be different tolerances to what torture is.

dippin 04-21-2009 12:37 PM

Ace,
there is no gray area here, no matter how hard you try.

Legal precedent by American courts have deemed waterboarding torture.

And the CIA surpassed even whatever limits the Bush administration could legally justify.

---------- Post added at 12:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:34 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626851)
Both. I personally would not call waterboarding torture, you do. There may be things you consider torture that others don't. So there can be different tolerances to what torture is.

What techniques you have never experienced that you consider or not to be torture are completely irrelevant.

Legal precedent considers waterboarding torture. The state department under Bush considered waterboarding when done by other nations to be torture.

And even the fickle legal justification provided by less than ethical attorneys was surpassed, so even by the lax limits set by the Bush administration that constitutes torture.

aceventura3 04-21-2009 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2626835)
ace, i don't see what you're arguing here.

I am not arguing anything with my questions. I can formulate my argument for you after we see where the answers lead.

Quote:

not even dick cheney is making the same claim you are--

I have a one, but I am not Dick. What the point? I can't have a view unless Chaney shares it?

---------- Post added at 08:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:37 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2626838)
I'm pretty sure he's going for the "torture is in the eye of the beholder, therefore nothing is torture" argument.

I am going for the - you can not define torture, so how the hell can you say a person is guilty of it until you do. Everything to this point has been vague and has lacked any clarity.

---------- Post added at 08:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2626850)
i maintain that this is a demonstration of how and why it is the case that there really is only one crime against humanity in the present nation-state system, and that crime is losing a war.

I tend to agree with this.

Quote:

the only way this would not be the case would be for an international tribunal to conduct this investigation, file charges, undertake the process, etc..

national sovereignty encounters its limits in areas like torture. the price of allowing it to be determinate is not acceptable.
I can not imagine Democrats being so foolish as to let this issue be adjudicated by a counsel of other nations. To subject a prior administration to such a trial would be a joke.

roachboy 04-21-2009 12:45 PM

ace, darling, it's fine that you personally don't think that waterboarding is torture. what's important is that your opinion has nothing to do with the legal situation that defines torture. what's even more important is that people who think the way you do are no longer in power. and more than that is that those people who were in power and who formulated policy based on thinking like yours should face prosecution. and i personally would hope that they'd pay a heavy price for that policy. and if you were among those people, i would be hoping that you faced significant criminal charges for implementing policy based on your way of thinking.

but that thinking divorced from power is not interesting. i think you have no coherent arguments and that your politcally motivated interest in systematically refusing to accept any criticism of the bush administration bespeaks more a psychological situation than a loss of moral compass. because without the power to implement policy, your moral compass is your problem.

i just hope you don't imagine waterboarding to be so removed from torture that you'd try it on your dog. but i don't think you'd treat your dog that way.

Willravel 04-21-2009 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
"coerce" a confession, to "punish"..., do you really want to stand by that? That seems pretty vague.

It's supposed to be all-inclusive to prevent any kind of torture. The last thing you want when authoring the definition of torture is to leave any loopholes. You don't want it to happen at all, ever. Unless you're sick, but sick people shouldn't really be allowed to author things like this.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
What if a person has been trained and it does not cause that person "incredible" mental stress and "extreme" discomfort. How do we measure "incredible" and "extreme". Taking it to an extreme, if I had to watch Rachel Maddow's show for an extended period of time, I would be put under "incredible" mental stress. So far we are being very subjective, and it appears we don't know it torture until we can determine "ectreme" discomfort or "incredible" stress. what if we have a person who is willing to blow themselves up, how would waterboarding comparatively speaking be "increadible" stress, or "extreme" discomfort?

It's childish to use hyperbole when talking about torture, Ace. Waterboarding is a singular experience, one unequatable to even drowning, but you're making jokes about Rachel Maddow? Have someone you trust waterboard you. It's not something that one can subjectively judge as perfectly fine just like having someone snap your arm isn't something one will subjectively judge. It's an experience that is the same regardless of who you are.

This isn't a game of theoretical states. It's real. It's happened, it's happening, and it will happen.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
How do you reconcile your position above with the billions of people on this planet that react to things differently? You position here seems to defy what makes us unique humans.

If I shoot you in the leg and then shoot someone else in the leg, no amount of uniqueness will dull the pain. It's the same.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
Then if we do assume you are correct, I think it would be very simple to create of list of "torture" and "not torture", with no shades of gray, can you?

There is a legal definition that one can visit when unsure. It's pretty clear.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
Not effective? Doesn't that depend? Earlier you wrote about "extreme" discomfort and "incredible" mental stress, what if the threat puts a person into those conditions?

No, it doesn't depend. For as long as humans have tortured for information, that information has been at the very best highly suspect and unreliable. That has never nor will ever change.

Quote:

[The conclusion of counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic] is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts—with Abu Zubaydah’s case one of the most glaring examples.
Tortured Reasoning | vanityfair.com

Torture has no redeeming quality whatsoever.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
Also, If "it" is not effective, what is?

According to the people in the intelligence community, the most effective method for acquiring information from a detainee is positive reinforcement.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
The point is - what is legal? So far, it is still not clear. waterboarding could be clearly defined as torture, what about being in a confined space with inspects? Some people live in highly inspect infected areas, and others have a phobia to insects, couldn't that be torture to one and "normal" to another?

You're making this way too relative and theoretical, which is allowing you to distance yourself from the visceral and undeniable truth of the situation. Again, I invite you to have someone you trust waterboard you. Then, for comparison, get in a box filled with crickets. You'll figure it out quickly
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626846)
This seems to contradict your earlier posts on torture. I would have thought torture would be very easy for you to identify when you saw it. I don't think law school... is needed. If it is needed, isn't that a problem for the CIA folks in the field needing to make decisions and act in some cases under short time pressures.

If I am your CIA agent and I creatively come up with a questioning method on the spot using what is available and a reasonable interpretation of the guidelines to save lives that you later deem slightly over the line how do you respond? Would I get the benefit of the doubt, do you throw the book at me to the full extent of your authority with no regard for the circumstances and the result?

I'd not be able to tell you exactly what legal fate awaited you for torturing. That was my point. If I were AG, I'd tell you that waterboarding is torture, and that you'd be putting yourself in a very bad legal position for torturing, but consequences for people as high up as the CIA director aren't the same as they might be for Willravel or Aceventura. If I waterboarded someone, I'd go to jail. When the CIA does it, it can get covered up and made quite hazy.

The saving lives thing is irrelevant because, as I've said now hundreds of times on TFP, torture cannot yield reliable intelligence. You could just as easily cost lives as save them, and that's assuming you can even get the detainee to talk in anything other than gibberish. The idea that torturing a prisoner can save or has saved lives is ludicrous. If it weren't so disgusting, the idea would be laughable.

---------- Post added at 01:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:50 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626851)
Both. I personally would not call waterboarding torture...

You've never been waterboarded, so your opinion holds no weight. Go get waterboarded and we can have a real debate on the issue. I'm not exaggerating, it is nothing like what you would imagine.

aceventura3 04-21-2009 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin (Post 2626852)
Ace,
there is no gray area here, no matter how hard you try.

Legal precedent by American courts have deemed waterboarding torture.

What makes it torture? If that is defined then it can be applied to every type of questioning. If a 16 year-old kid gets pulled over by the police for alleged car theft and they cuff him, read him his rights, put him in the back seat of a police vehicle, they start to ask him questions in a loud stern voice, and say he is going to be taken in and he pisses his pants and then faints he so scared and under so much stress, based on what Will wrote that would be torture. He clearly had physical manifestations of extreme stress and he was being coerced. Then if he had to sit in his piss... I don't think that would be torture.

---------- Post added at 08:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:52 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2626861)
ace, darling, it's fine that you personally don't think that waterboarding is torture.

That is why I went to the AG to get guidelines. But if Will actually gave guidlines, then would it be o.k. for you to use those against him?

Willravel 04-21-2009 12:56 PM

It bears repeating:
Quote:

...torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
UN Convention Against Torture

aceventura3 04-21-2009 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2626862)
According to the people in the intelligence community, the most effective method for acquiring information from a detainee is positive reinforcement.

I disagree. Enough said.

dksuddeth 04-21-2009 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626851)
Both. I personally would not call waterboarding torture, you do. There may be things you consider torture that others don't. So there can be different tolerances to what torture is.

I have a real hard time understanding how anybody doesn't define waterboarding as torture. can you explain this to me? why it isn't torture in your opinion?

Willravel 04-21-2009 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2626870)
I disagree. Enough said.

Maybe you'd also like to give me your opinion about a car you've never driven? I could go on for days about a Koenigsegg CCX, tell you how fast it'll get you to 60 or where the torques peak, what the drag coefficient is compared to the Carrera GT, how they're built by hand, but I can't really offer an informed opinion without driving one, can I?

samcol 04-21-2009 02:11 PM

"Water boarding is not torture." I can't even believe I'm reading this.

I can't trust a government who tortures, and I really can't trust a government who covers it up and lies about it. This is disgusting :(

How can we even trust a damn thing that comes out of the governments mouth? How many times does it take an Aphgan goat herder to get waterboarded before he claims to be with Al Qaida? Mark one for the good guys we got a terrorist... sheeeshh

roachboy 04-22-2009 05:15 AM

by coincidence, this is the lead story in this mornings ny times...

ace, you in particular might recognize something in this:

Quote:

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — The program began with Central Intelligence Agency leaders in the grip of an alluring idea: They could get tough in terrorist interrogations without risking legal trouble by adopting a set of methods used on Americans during military training. How could that be torture?

In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.

This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said.

Today, asked how it happened, Bush administration officials are finger-pointing. Some blame the C.I.A., while some former agency officials blame the Justice Department or the White House.

Philip D. Zelikow, who worked on interrogation issues as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005 and 2006, said the flawed decision-making badly served Mr. Bush and the country.

“Competent staff work could have quickly canvassed relevant history, insights from the best law enforcement and military interrogators, and lessons from the painful British and Israeli experience,” Mr. Zelikow said. “Especially in a time of great stress, walking into this minefield, the president was entitled to get the most thoughtful and searching analysis our government could muster.”

After years of recriminations about torture and American values, Bush administration officials say it is easy to second-guess the decisions of 2002, when they feared that a new attack from Al Qaeda could come any moment.

If they shunned interrogation methods some thought might work, and an undetected bomb or bioweapon cost thousands of lives, where would the moral compass point today? It is a question that still haunts some officials. Others say that if they had known the full history of the interrogation methods or been able to anticipate how the issue would explode, they would have advised against using them.

This account is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former senior officials of the C.I.A., White House, Justice Department and Congress. Nearly all, citing the possibility of future investigations, shared their recollections of the internal discussions of a classified program only on condition of anonymity.

Leaked to the news media months after they were first used, the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods would darken the country’s reputation, blur the moral distinction between terrorists and the Americans who hunted them, bring broad condemnation from Western allies and become a ready-made defense for governments accused of torture. The response has only intensified since Justice Department legal memos released last week showed that two prisoners were waterboarded 266 times and that C.I.A. interrogators were ordered to waterboard one of the captives despite their belief that he had no more information to divulge.

But according to many Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and some intelligence officers who are critics of the coercive methods, the C.I.A. program would also produce an invaluable trove of information on Al Qaeda, including leads on the whereabouts of important operatives and on terror schemes discussed by Al Qaeda. Whether the same information could have been acquired using the traditional, noncoercive methods that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the military have long used is impossible to say, and former Bush administration officials say they did not have the luxury of time to develop a more patient approach, given that they had intelligence warnings of further attacks.

Michael V. Hayden, who served as C.I.A. director for the last two years of the Bush administration, devoted part of his last press briefing in January to defending the C.I.A. program. “It worked,” Mr. Hayden insisted.

“I have said to all who will listen that the agency did none of this out of enthusiasm,” he said. “It did it out of duty. It did it with the best legal advice it had.”

A Program Takes Shape

When Mr. Bush assigned the C.I.A. with the task of questioning high-level Qaeda captives in late 2001, the agency had almost no experience interrogating the kind of hostile prisoners it soon expected to hold.

It had dozens of psychiatrists, psychologists, polygraphists and operations officers who had practiced the arts of eliciting information and assessing truthfulness. Their targets, however, were not usually terrorists, but foreigners offering to spy for the United States or C.I.A. employees suspected of misdeeds.

Agency officials, led by Mr. Tenet, sought interrogation advice from other countries. And, fatefully, they contacted the military unit that runs the SERE training program, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which gives American pilots, special operations troops and others a sample of the brutal interrogation methods they might face as prisoners of war. Mr. Tenet declined to be interviewed.

By late 2001, the agency had contracted with James E. Mitchell, a psychologist with the SERE program who had monitored many mock interrogations but had never conducted any real ones, according to colleagues. He was known for his belief that a psychological concept called “learned helplessness” was crucial to successful interrogation.

Martin Seligman, a prominent professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania who had developed the concept, said in an interview that he was puzzled by Dr. Mitchell’s notion that learned helplessness was relevant to interrogation.

“I think helplessness would make someone more dependent, less defiant and more compliant,” Dr. Seligman said, “but I do not think it would lead reliably to more truth-telling.”

Still, forceful and brainy, Dr. Mitchell, who declined to comment for this article, became a persuasive player in high-level agency discussions about the best way to interrogate Qaeda prisoners. Eventually, along with another former SERE psychologist, Bruce Jessen, Dr. Mitchell helped persuade C.I.A. officials that Qaeda members were fundamentally different from the myriad personalities the agency routinely dealt with.

“Jim believed that people of this ilk would confess for only one reason: sheer terror,” said one C.I.A. official who had discussed the matter with Dr. Mitchell.

Overwhelmed with reports of potential threats and anguished that the agency had failed to stop the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet and his top aides did not probe deeply into the prescription Dr. Mitchell so confidently presented: using the SERE tactics on Qaeda prisoners.

A little research on the origin of those methods would have given reason for doubt. Government studies in the 1950s found that Chinese Communist interrogators had produced false confessions from captured American pilots not with some kind of sinister “brainwashing” but with crude tactics: shackling the Americans to force them to stand for hours, keeping them in cold cells, disrupting their sleep and limiting access to food and hygiene.

“The Communists do not look upon these assaults as ‘torture,’ ” one 1956 study concluded. “But all of them produce great discomfort, and lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes; there is no reason to differentiate them from any other form of torture.”

Worse, the study found that under such abusive treatment, a prisoner became “malleable and suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate.”

In late 2001, about a half-dozen SERE trainers, according to a report released Tuesday night by the Senate Armed Services Committee, began raising stark warning about plans by both the military and the C.I.A. to use the SERE methods in interrogations.

In December 2001, Lt. Col. Daniel J. Baumgartner of the Air Force, who oversaw SERE training, cautioned in one memo that physical pressure was “less reliable” than other interrogation methods, could backfire by increasing a prisoner’s resistance and would have an “intolerable public and political backlash when discovered.” But his memo went to the Defense Department, not the C.I.A.

One former senior intelligence official who played an important role in approving the interrogation methods said he had no idea of the origins and history of the SERE program when the C.I.A. started it in 2002.

“The agency was counting on the Justice Department to fully explore all the factors contributing to a judgment about legality, including the surrounding history and context,” the official said.

But it was the C.I.A. that was proposing the methods, and John Yoo, the Justice Department official who was the principal author of a secret August 2002 memorandum that authorized the interrogation program, was mostly interested in making a case that the president’s wartime powers allowed for the harsh tactics.

A Persuasive Case

After the March 28, 2002, capture in Pakistan of the Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah — the C.I.A.’s first big catch after Sept. 11 — Mr. Tenet told Ms. Rice, then the national security adviser, he wanted to discuss interrogation, several former officials said. At a series of small-group and individual briefings attended by Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Ms. Rice and Attorney General John Ashcroft, Mr. Tenet and his deputy, John McLaughlin, laid out their case.

They made a persuasive duo, former officials who heard their pitch recalled. Mr. Tenet, an extroverted former Congressional staff member, was given to forceful language about the threat from Al Qaeda, which he said might well have had operations under way involving biological, radiological or even nuclear weapons. Mr. McLaughlin, a career intelligence analyst, was low-key and cerebral, and some White House officials said they found his support for the methods reassuring.

In the briefings, Mr. Tenet said that after extensive research, the agency believed that only the methods he described — which he said had been used on thousands of American trainees — could extract the details of plots from hardened Qaeda fanatics.

“It was described as a program that was safe and necessary, that would be closely monitored by medical personnel,” a former senior official recalled. “And it was very much in the context of the threat streams that were just eye-popping at the time.”

Mr. Tenet’s descriptions of each proposed interrogation method was so clinical and specific that at one briefing Mr. Ashcroft objected, saying that cabinet officials should approve broad outlines of important policies, not the fine details, according to someone present. The attorney general later complained that he thought Mr. Tenet was looking for cover in case controversy erupted, the person said.

Ms. Rice insisted that Mr. Ashcroft not just pass along the conclusions of his Office of Legal Counsel, where Mr. Yoo worked, but give his personal assurance that the methods were legal under domestic and international law. He did.

The C.I.A. then gave individual briefings to the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and the secretary of state, Colin L. Powell. Neither objected, several former officials said.

Mr. Cheney, whose top legal adviser, David S. Addington, was closely consulting with Mr. Yoo about legal justification, strongly endorsed the program. Mr. Bush also gave his approval, though what details were shared with him is not known.

With that, the C.I.A. had the full support of the White House to begin its harshest interrogations. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have never publicly second-guessed their decision. Though some former officials expressed regret that such a momentous decision was made so quickly without vital information or robust debate, none were willing to be quoted by name.

There was one more check on intelligence programs, one designed in the 1970s to make sure independent observers kept an eye on spy agencies: Congress. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees had been created in the mid-1970s to prevent any repeat of the C.I.A. abuses unearthed by the Senate’s Church Committee.

As was common with the most secret programs, the C.I.A. chose not to brief the entire committees about the interrogation methods but only the so-called Gang of Four — the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate and House committees. The rest of the committee members would be fully briefed only in 2006.

The 2002 Gang of Four briefings left a hodgepodge of contradictory recollections that, to some Congressional staff members, reveal a dysfunctional oversight system. Without full staff support, few lawmakers are equipped to make difficult legal and policy judgments about secret programs, critics say.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who in 2002 was the ranking Democrat on the House committee, has said in public statements that she recalls being briefed on the methods, including waterboarding. She insists, however, that the lawmakers were told only that the C.I.A. believed the methods were legal — not that they were going to be used.

By contrast, the ranking Republican on the House committee at the time, Porter J. Goss of Florida, who later served as C.I.A. director, recalls a clear message that the methods would be used.

“We were briefed, and we certainly understood what C.I.A. was doing,” Mr. Goss said in an interview. “Not only was there no objection, there was actually concern about whether the agency was doing enough.”

Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, who was committee chairman in 2002, said in an interview that he did not recall ever being briefed on the methods, though government officials with access to records say all four committee leaders received multiple briefings.

Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the committee, declined to discuss the briefings.

Vicki Divoll, general counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002 and a former C.I.A. lawyer, would have been a logical choice to advise senators on the legal status of the interrogation methods. But because of the restricted briefings, Ms. Divoll learned about them only years later from news media accounts.

Ms. Divoll, who now teaches government at the United States Naval Academy, said the interrogation issue revealed the perils of such restricted briefings.

“The very programs that are among the most risky and controversial, and that therefore should get the greatest congressional oversight,” she said, “in fact get the least.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us...ef=global-home

classic.
the solution to complexity in bushworld?
don't think too hard about it.
don't think about the past, don't worry too much about whether it works...just implement it.
thinking thin as paper.

but this raises a really ugly question.
cheney has been arguing that torture should be measured by whether it "works"---but it appears that this criterion was not high on the administration's agenda at the outset.

so what exactly lay behind the implementation of torture as a policy?
"a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm"....

but beyond that, a vague idea that this might "work" to "prevent more attacks" buttressed by no reasearch whatsoever into the literature that torture produces the opposite effect, elliciting false information....so that seems implausible really. strange to find oneself in a position to rule out efficacy as a rational criterion, and to find oneself there because the degree of incompetence in the fashioning of the policy is so astonishingly high.

but if that's the case, then what's the motive?

revenge.

in which case any plausible claim to "moral compass" was out the fucking window from the start.

it gets harder and harder to accept the idea that "looking forward not back" means letting this shit slide.

Martian 04-22-2009 05:34 AM

As a companion to roachboy's article, this popped up in my feed this morning.

Obama opens door to prosecutions on interrogations

Quote:

Originally Posted by Associated Press
Obama opens door to prosecutions on interrogations
By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama opened the door on Tuesday to possible prosecutions of U.S. officials who laid the legal groundwork for harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration.

Obama also said he would not necessarily oppose an effort to pursue a "further accounting" or investigation into the Bush-era interrogation program that included waterboarding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, shoving people into walls and other methods.

That marked a shift for the Obama administration, which has emphasized it does not want to dwell on the past with lengthy probes into policies put in place by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But pressure in the U.S. Congress is growing for a full-blown investigation of the CIA interrogation program.

Controversy has erupted across the political spectrum over last week's release by the Obama administration of classified memos detailing the program to question al Qaeda suspects.

Human rights groups say tactics such as waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning -- constituted torture and violated U.S. and international laws. Conservative critics contend Obama has endangered the country by releasing CIA secrets.

The New York Times reported that Dennis Blair, Obama's national intelligence director, told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques yielded "high-value information" that "provided a deeper understanding" of the al Qaeda organization.

The newspaper reported that Blair sent his memo on the same day the Obama administration publicly released the Bush-era memos. It said Blair's assessment that the interrogation methods produced important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the news media.

REPORT SAYS TACTICS SPREAD TO IRAQ

A congressional report released late on Tuesday traced how a Bush-era policy on interrogation at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, helped set the stage for detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The report may add impetus to calls for a wider probe.

The report, released by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, laid blame for the abuses on former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top Bush administration officials.

"The report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse -- such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan -- to low-ranking soldiers," Levin said.

"It was senior civilian leaders who set the tone."

Earlier, in an Oval Office question-and-answer session with reporters, Obama reiterated his vow not to prosecute CIA interrogators who relied in good faith on legal opinions from the Bush administration condoning the harsh methods.

However, Obama did not rule out charges against those who wrote the opinions justifying the methods used on captured terrorism suspects.

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said after meeting Jordan's King Abdullah.

"I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there," Obama said.

The comment seemed at odds with the position offered on Sunday by Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who told ABC that the president did not believe the authors of the legal opinions should be prosecuted.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs brushed aside questions about the contradiction. "Instead of referring to what anybody might have said ... it's important to refer to what the president said," he said.

While human rights advocates have urged prosecutions for those involved in the interrogation program, Obama has received scathing criticism from some conservatives over the release of the memos detailing the harsh methods.

Among the most outspoken critics has been Cheney, who contends the questioning yielded valuable information about terrorist activities and has accused Obama of endangering the country by releasing the CIA memos.

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, welcomed Obama's comments about a possible inquiry as a "step forward."

Feinstein has urged Obama to withhold judgment on possible prosecutions pending a closed-door review by her committee of the interrogation program.

Obama said he would not necessarily oppose a U.S. panel to investigate the interrogation program. But he said he would prefer to see such an inquiry take place outside of the "typical hearing process" of Congress, where the issue could become politicized.


aceventura3 04-22-2009 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth (Post 2626873)
I have a real hard time understanding how anybody doesn't define waterboarding as torture. can you explain this to me? why it isn't torture in your opinion?

This is just how I would define torture, I know it has no relevance to anyone but me.

Torture is the intentional infliction of physical or emotional harm with measurable and lasting damage to the individual for no other purpose than to inflict physical or emotional harm.

So, in my view - if the CIA had reason to believe a captive had needed information to help save lives, and they used waterboarding to get it; one, I would not consider it torture because they acted based on a reasonable belief they could obtain information; two, I would not consider it torture if the "damage" on the individual was not measurable. Perhaps ironically to some, I think a school yard bully could be more easily guilty of torture than military or CIA officials involved in war with enemy combatants.

---------- Post added at 03:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:31 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2626874)
Maybe you'd also like to give me your opinion about a car you've never driven? I could go on for days about a Koenigsegg CCX, tell you how fast it'll get you to 60 or where the torques peak, what the drag coefficient is compared to the Carrera GT, how they're built by hand, but I can't really offer an informed opinion without driving one, can I?

I don't think I get your point. I don't doubt waterboarding is severely unpleasant. I could not do it to a human or animal and I would not want it done to me. However, there are many things that fall into that category. My list would be different than yours. I simply try to understand two things about your view of waterboarding:

1) When does it become torture?
2) What makes it torture?

If I understand your answers to those questions, I think it would be easy to then clearly define what you would consider torture. Right now if I am your CIA guy in the field I am more confused than when we started. First, there are vague terms like "extreme" and "severe", then there is the concept that what works is positive reinforcement. It is easy to say waterboarding is torture based on the 'I know it when I see it' theory. However, the issue is should people in the Bush administration be brought to trial for having the courage to try to define a vague concept. I think that is dangerous for all people in public service needing to make tough choices.

---------- Post added at 03:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:42 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol (Post 2626894)
"Water boarding is not torture." I can't even believe I'm reading this.

How about answering the question I presented to Will. Rather than being in disbelief, put yourself in the role of defining what torture is, what would be and what would not be acceptable to a CIA agent with a captive who you know has information regarding impending attacks intended to kill people you care about. You need the information and you need it now, what are you going to do? Positive reinforcement? You going to take him to get a latte, take a walk in the park, catch a movie, etc, to get the information?

Quote:

I can't trust a government who tortures, and I really can't trust a government who covers it up and lies about it. This is disgusting :(
Who has lied? I think you had people honestly wanting to do the right thing. They asked for guidance, the people who gave guidance gave their honest opinions. All of this was documented, no cover ups. What is not to trust? Even members of Congress were aware of what was going on.

---------- Post added at 03:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:50 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2627106)

but if that's the case, then what's the motive?

revenge.

in which case any plausible claim to "moral compass" was out the fucking window from the start.

I think the motive was to save lives.

I guess we do need Obama to release the information showing the successes and failures, all the results of the questioning.

roachboy 04-22-2009 08:09 AM

ace, there is no mean-ends justification for torture.
there was no effort to understand even the most basic research on the effects of torture---see the ny times article from this morning i posted above---there was extensive us military research done after the korean war on the fact that torture elicits one kind of information, which is the desire for the torture to stop. that this has been obvious from the 18th century onward is something that is maybe a bit abstruse to expect the parochials from american conservatism to know about---but there's no excuse for not doing the basic legwork on the efficacy of the technique if one is to lend even the slightest credence to the argument you're trying to make.


you haven't a leg to stand on here, ace.

the well-meaning folk trying to accomplish a politically desirable goal so whaddya complaining about defense is a variant of the nuremberg defense. i am not at all sure that you want to continue aligning yourself with it. but hey, look it up for yourself. no problemo.

Willravel 04-22-2009 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627161)
I don't think I get your point. I don't doubt waterboarding is severely unpleasant. I could not do it to a human or animal and I would not want it done to me.

It's more than unpleasant, it causes suffering which is equivalent to what I would assume we might both consider torture, such as bone breaking. The problem is that you can't really understand how horrible waterboarding is until it's been done to you. That's my point.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627161)
However, there are many things that fall into that category. My list would be different than yours. I simply try to understand two things about your view of waterboarding:

1) When does it become torture?
2) What makes it torture?

If I understand your answers to those questions, I think it would be easy to then clearly define what you would consider torture.

When does something become torture? When it causes severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, it become torture. If you're unsure about the use of the word "severe", you'll have to get more specific. Waterboarding is torture. Why? Because it causes a similar or greater level of suffering to actually drowning. I'm sure you'd agree that dunking someone's head under water for extended periods of time is torture. If not, you may have lost perspective on the issue.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627161)
Right now if I am your CIA guy in the field I am more confused than when we started. First, there are vague terms like "extreme" and "severe", then there is the concept that what works is positive reinforcement. It is easy to say waterboarding is torture based on the 'I know it when I see it' theory. However, the issue is should people in the Bush administration be brought to trial for having the courage to try to define a vague concept. I think that is dangerous for all people in public service needing to make tough choices.

It takes cowardice to torture, not courage. Alberto Gonzales refused to define torture in order to aid the efforts to extract intelligence with the use of torture by our intelligence and military personnel. Much like Gonzales, you're equivocating on the definition of torture. The only reason one has to equivocate on the definition of torture is to try and excuse something they think many others might think of as torture.

Rekna 04-22-2009 08:41 AM

When is water boarding torture? When it is done to Americans, otherwise it is a harsh interrogation technique...

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2625609)
cyn--how about we make this into a bit more formal a game for a minute? just play along. it's fun at least for the duration of this post. maybe.

only if you restrict the argument to the fact that you can say it. ethically condoning torture seems pretty close to reprehensible. and this is an area wherein ethical and political considerations intertwine in a wholesale fashion.

so let's assume that is the case--your arguments, cyn, are essentially of two types: expediency and utility. expediency doesn't hold up real well in a space where ethical and poltical arguments are tangled, so i assume that in order to make that argument you presuppose that you can hold the two apart. see what i mean? so you'd ave to move on to argue that torture can be understood as a problem that does NOT involve an ethical dimension. but if you make that move, you repeat something of the position of the bush administration--which is a problematic position to find yourself backed into i would think given that i don't have the sense you were heading in that direction.

the utility argument can be made on ethical grounds--it's a classic ends justify the means statement, really. the main counter to that is that torture practices are not and cannot be justified on utility grounds because of the nature of the information they tend to elicit. you'd have to be in a position to argue that's not the case in respose. there'd be no ducking the question either--and if you can't make that argument work, your position collapses. because the counter-argument really is that not only can torture not be justified as a legitimate practice, and not only can it not be justified as an interrogation procedure, but that its use is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE on utilitarian grounds because it's consequences call into question the legitimacy of the political order that employs torture.

want an example? think about the political turmoil that surrounded the end of the 4th republic and setting up of the 5th republic in france.
de gaulle found himself entirely boxed in by the political shit-storm that followed from books like henri alleg's that outlined the french military's systematic use of torture on the algerian population. his solution was basically to concede the conflict to the fln---that in turn triggered a radical rightwing counter-revolution from the oas. the political damage done by the fact that the french state used torture--and that it got out--was extraorindary. and later, in books like gangrene, the fact that for some prisoners the torture would happen in paris, in the same building that the gestapo had used to torture suspected resistance members---it's not good.

so there's a history that militates pretty strongly against any utility arguments, and without a utility argument, i think you're position is in serious trouble.

i run this stuff out because i really don't see a way to justify the use of torture at all, anywhere, ever.

this is why i am as irritated as i am that the decision about whether to prosecute rests with the obama administration and not with an international tribunal, frankly.
i already ran out the arguments for such a tribunal...

anyway--your move.

My apologies, but this has taken me quite some time to write to make sure I articulate exactly how and why I believe I am okay with torture.

The rubric you're holding is very different than the one that I'm holding.

I'm not even on that court rb, that's where everyone else's logic falls apart and cannot follow mine. You're all looking at this from the morality aspects, I'm looking at it from a more anthropological or sociological aspect. I'm not talking about the morality or the attempt at getting reliable information and the rest of the talking points you or willravel are setting up.

Simple logic example:

We agree that murder is bad.
We agree that killing is bad.
War involves killing and murdering, but killing and murder in that sense is okay since it's "the enemy."

In my mind there is disconnect where it's bad in one example, and "excusable" or "acceptable" in another. I cannot understand or process that easily, thus I believe that in its basic form, it has to be acceptable. It is the circumstances and other factors that change it from acceptable to not acceptable.

Torture happens to be part of the ability of the range that humans can and will lower themselves to in some fashion in given conditions just like with war. I find that acceptable as part of the range that humans can and will become given conditions and circumstances. Murder and torture happened before I was on the planet, and will continue to happen when I'm no longer walking the planet.

There is a utility. The human being wants to feel better about themselves in some fashion.
  • Party A wishes to instill fear into party B.
  • Party A wants to get information from party B.
  • Party A wishes to be cruel to party B.
  • Party A wished to exact revenge upon party B.
  • Party A wishes to control party B.
  • Party A tries to coerce allegiance from party B.

While the utility to you and I may be conceived incorrectly by Party A. It still is going to be a mode and methodology used by Party A. It has happened in the past, and will again happen in the future.

Following this same vein of thought, I am not surprised when any American politician is accused or is caught in some sort of corruption scandal. I again, accept that corruption is part of the range of behaviors that politicians can be caught within. I'm not surprised by this one bit, yet it seems that the American populace doesn't know it's own history. Yet somehow it's more abhorrent when it's an American politician.

Thus while you are correct with the idea that it's problematic for the administration or government that does such things, as people will attribute some sort of moral or ethics in their decision making. But I also submit that they themselves carry this on a daily basis until they can make a choice. People hold onto it and feel responsible or even to blame for such choices made by another individual.

Since we're allowed to elect, re-elect, or elect other individuals on a regular basis, and there is no "lifers" for any single position, I get the opportunity to apply what force I can within the mechanisms available to me at the appropriate times. I don't need to internalize, own any of their behaviors, or be responsible for them.

It is exactly what you say, it calls into "into question the legitimacy of the political order that employs torture." It speaks tomes to me about the people that support, the government that employs, and the individuals that ask or require of it's citizens to carry such things out. This is not just he actions themselves, but the manufactured products to support such things. This spider webs the discussion but people/companies aren't simple machines that just do one single action. There are many other things that they do. In essence one fail isn't complete fail, but most people attribute it as wholesale fail in their book. This is as you say that it doesn’t just happen within a vacuum.

People will parse it into digestible words and ideas, and it will continue. Governments will rationalize it and utilize it.

Other peoples in the world don't get such luxuries; government seems to be established and set, not changing within a lifetime or possibly several lifetimes. Again, as you stated it brings in question the legitimacy of the government, but that still doesn't change or alter it. We can call the Baath party or Taliban government illegitimate because it condoned and used torture, but it still didn't change much until someone came in with force and actually changed it. In order to do so, killed and maimed a few people along the way, all in the name of ending whatever illegitimate regime.

It doesn’t stop at the government level for me. It happens locally with police departments, with adults, and with children. There are numerous reports of torture from solid citizens in the police force and criminals, to children and other children. It’s hazing by fraternities, sororities, and gangs. It's bullying on the playground.

Here's why I believe it in this fashion. I will not allow someone to guilt me or make me feel bad because of someone else's actions. I'm not responsible for their actions, thus I am not responsible for the guilt and other feelings a third party is trying to foist upon me. The path your logic and will's is to try and express a manner in which I should feel bad for someone else's actions. I say, "No thank you. I'm fine with the way that it is." Traveling around the world to hear someone say, “That George Bush...” You know, I'm not responsible for his actions. I wasn't then and am still not.

This kind of human action is the kind that evokes some sort of emotional response from the reader/outsider. I reject that wholesale and do not accept any responsibility for it. Just like I don’t accept any responsibility for their achievements, I do not accept responsibility for their fails.

I came to this understanding after spending an evening in the Torture Museum in Prague, Czech Republic. There's more ways to torture people than what is listed in that declassified paper, and there's more that goes on than we see in the newspaper. It opened my eyes to just how horrific the human being can truly be. Reading about it doesn't come close to seeing the machines, and seeing woodcuts, drawings, or cut outs where your hands, arms, etc. all fit. It was a very sobering experience. Of course after that I had copious amounts of the Green Fairy with sugar and a spoon.

Further along I read the book , I understand that prosecution and removal of power of those that have committed such acts are next to impossible to prosecute in any meaningful way to inhibit future torture. Unlike other kinds of justice where there really is a sense of justice to the offended, this rarely happens in torture cases. Torture is around us all the time. It isn't just relegated to war, it is part and parcel sitting around us.

This is how I understand it and it doesn't pose a problem for me.

Willravel 04-22-2009 09:06 AM

By that logic, you should be fine with everything done by someone that's not you. You should be fine with child prostitution, genocide, genital mutilation, ethnic cleansing, slavery, biological warfare and all of the other horrible things our species is capable of but you're not directly involved in. The problem with this attitude is that, widespread, it allows for these horrible things to happen. I'm sure you think the old Burke quote "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" is an oversimplification, but I find it is a perfect critique of your inexcusable position. The "that's not my dog" position on suffering in the world is what passively allows said suffering. I know you don't want to hear it but you, Cynthetiq, are responsible for torturing. Passively, yes, but responsible none the less.

I wonder how many other people leave the torture museum thinking, "You know what? That wasn't so bad. Torture is just fine."

roachboy 04-22-2009 09:20 AM

thanks for that cyn...i'll probably make something else tonight when i've the leisure to think more expansively, but for the moment a couple quick points. first, i don't think that will and i are arguing in the same way---this is more a question of emphasis i suppose than anything else--but in my view this is a political & legal issue that has its force because it involves an ethical problem..but most of what i've been arguing sits on the first two levels moving into the third. where i take will to be arguing most from the second two and occaisonally sliding into the first.

it seems to me will engages more on the "how could you think that?" level where i see what i've been doing here working mostly along the lines that there are absolute prohibitions agreed to internationally against this kind of action because there's a history of proof that people can do horrific things to each other and that some of these things are simply unacceptable. so conventions were drawn up that define torture as a crime against humanity and outlaw it. because people in particular situations, locked into particular interests, can put aside nicities like the fact that the people they take to be threats are human beings and can treat them as if they were things, but things that can feel pain...there's abundant historical proof that torture degrades, dehumanizes BOTH the victim and the torturer--and what's worse that a political system capable of rationalizing torture itself can become inhuman. secondly, we live in an environment that calls itself civilized in part because it operates within sets of laws--the international ban on torture was in part passed as an indication that "we" desire a certain level of "civilization" and that this desire leads to renouncing certain actions as being antithetical with that idea. this is a political decision. so that's one point. there may be more to say about it, i dunno.

second point: the end justifies the means argument simply does not hold water. check out the ny times article from this morning's international edition i posted just a bit above here. the fact is that torture elicits one kind of information consistently--the desire that the torture stop. it is not an effective intelligence gathering tool--and the military knew as much, historians know as much--anyone who has looked into the sue of torture in a legal context knows as much. you have the history of the inquisition as a good, extended other example---know why there were no witch prosecutions in spain? because there was no agreement about a legal standard that would enable to court to determine whether the crime actually existed. but in other areas, thousands were executed as witches. how did that happen? you might wonder about the role of torture, which was part of the inquisitorial interrogation process, in generating the answers that the people applying the torture wanted to hear--not what happened, but what they wanted to hear. why? because in many cases, continuing the torture made death seem like a fine alternative.

so there is no utility argument to be made for using it.

the political Problems that are generated by a nation-state government prosecuting itself for using torture are of a different order---i think they're serious---but you can already see that the cat's out of the bag and i now doubt very seriously that it will be possible to NOT prosecute at least the people who developed this fucked up guidelines. and if that happens, i hope they are convicted.

but this is a real Problem. i find it interesting to watch the theater surrounding it. but think about the situation: the use of torture, the arguments which justify it, the fact that the bush administration undertook such a policy in ignorance of history, in ignorance of efficacy---it generates really big problems of legitimacy for the american state itself. how can that be justified on grounds of utility?

and trust me, if the legitimacy of a state is undermined adequate, it won't necessarily take some armed force to topple it. there are any number of instances of a state simply imploding. think the french revolution for one.

anyway, i have to stop there.
interesting stuff. difficult things to remain dispassionate about enough to make clear arguments.

Willravel 04-22-2009 09:29 AM

I don't think Cynth is making the ends justify the means argument, rb. He's saying that he consciously prevents himself from internalizing the fact that our government tortures and thus does not have an emotional response to it. Normally, I'd think this was a coping mechanism, something that someone might do to prevent emotionally breaking down, but Cynth has both the emotional maturity and the ability to dispassionately judge a situation, so that doesn't apply. His argument seems to be that because he is not directly responsible for torture, he doesn't feel it necessary to judge it. This is odd and highly suspect because countless times across thousands of posts Cynth has been more than willing to roll up his sleeves and pass judgment or even offer advice on things he's not even remotely connected with; things that allowed him to process a situation by utilizing sympathy and empathy and then, via that process, come to a conclusion.

roachboy 04-22-2009 09:37 AM

i don't want to speak for cyn---but i accounted for that before i started making a response. i don't buy the claim that torture carried out by a state apparatus can be thought about using the model of person A doing something that person W doesn't do and the Problem of torture is basically that some Outside Judge expects W to "feel guilty" about it. that evacuates the whole question as it actually is---so i routed things back the other way, and then ticked off problems one after the other. because torture represents a system-level political problem no matter what people inside the system may think on the question. this simply because of the legal context, the international context and the fact that "i don't really feel bad about this" is a minority position.

anyway, that's why the moves are as they are.
i could be wrong about the logic.
it's happened before. it'll happen again.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627198)
By that logic, you should be fine with everything done by someone that's not you. You should be fine with child prostitution, genocide, genital mutilation, ethnic cleansing, slavery, biological warfare and all of the other horrible things our species is capable of but you're not directly involved in. The problem with this attitude is that, widespread, it allows for these horrible things to happen. I'm sure you think the old Burke quote "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" is an oversimplification, but I find it is a perfect critique of your inexcusable position. The "that's not my dog" position on suffering in the world is what passively allows said suffering. I know you don't want to hear it but you, Cynthetiq, are responsible for torturing. Passively, yes, but responsible none the less.

I wonder how many other people leave the torture museum thinking, "You know what? That wasn't so bad. Torture is just fine."

I'm as much responsible for torturing as you are for the dog that crapped on my sidewalk and the owner didn't pick it up.

I think you need to read what I wrote a bit more and see what kind of thought I've put into it. You're reading just one single little sound bite and passing all the rest of the thought that has gone into it.

I have never once said that I find that Bush's policies are something that I agree with. I've not said once I approve someone torturing someone else.

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.

rb, I get what you're saying but it again, obfuscates the position that I'm starting from. I agree, that people met in some foreign country and said they'd agree to do and not do certain things. I find that flawed because well, people tend agree not to do but do them anyways. It may not be in the immediate moment, but fovrever or in perpetuity is a long time. People tend to be fallible and again, do what and when they want based on many functions of utilty.

Will, if you look at things always from the top down, you'll never understand something from the bottom up.

So again, from my point of view, I've not even gotten to the point of the ethics and the morals. I've looked at and cited where and how it's been used, right or wrong it has been used to some effect. It inadvertently has an affect on society as a whole, for fear, control, etc. It may be rooted in false logic or premise, but it still is a mode that people do operate from and stand within.

Thus, your citing of my ability to roll up my sleeves and pass jugement, isn't a simple possibility here on the breadth of torture. From the simplistic points, the Geneva Conventions agreed to make it very simple cut and dry discussion for this instance. But as a whole for the entirety of torture, which is the line I am speaking from, it is not as simple.

roachboy 04-22-2009 10:12 AM

the reason it seems to obfuscate the position you're starting from, cyn, is that i don't think it makes sense to start from that position.

it seemed to me when i responded to you initially that there were two different conversations happening that converged in some ways, but which were nonetheless different from each other. you're really talking more to will in this one than to me. but again the conversations overlap in some ways, so it's not surprising that there'd be a bit of confusion about it.

i'm not really concerned with whether you as an individual can justify torture as an ethical question. this because the situation is that the bush administration authorized the use of torture, wrote a series of legal positions that fashioned a rationale for it, and the fact that it happened generated a significant political Problem for the united states, one that continues to ramify, and as it does it poses other problems. these all happen at a level quite independent of what you or i might personally feel about the question of torture. it's involved with legal and political questions that operate at basically different scales than do questions of individual ethics.

the obvious connection is that one's individual position on the ethical questions--or other questions if you like--concerning torture inform the positions that one might take with respect to what the bush administration did. but if that's the way you want to go, then you're approaching it from a strange angle, which has more to do with a sense that you shouldn't have to take position x or y on the question. the reason it's strange is that i don't think that's being asked of you. but maybe will is asking that of you. it just isn't something i think particularly relevant--and that because (again) the situation at hand unfolds along dynamics and in registers quite independent of this sort of question, really.

anyway, two different conversations.
as often happens in debates, the real argument is not over the content of one's position but over the starting point from which that position is built. your position is internally consistent. i just don't think the place you start from makes sense situationally.

Willravel 04-22-2009 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627214)
I'm as much responsible for torturing as you are for the dog that crapped on my sidewalk and the owner didn't pick it up.

I don't vote for that particular dog owner to walk his dog near your house nor do I pay taxes to fund his walks nor do I have a stake in the response to said shitting. But you know all of this. I'm left wondering why you'd intentionally use an incorrect illustration like this. Are you really ignorant to your role in torturing? You are many things, but naive isn't one of them.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627214)
I think you need to read what I wrote a bit more and see what kind of thought I've put into it. You're reading just one single little sound bite and passing all the rest of the thought that has gone into it.

I have never once said that I find that Bush's policies are something that I agree with. I've not said once I approve someone torturing someone else.

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.

"I don't approve of torture, but I'm fine with it". Where do you draw the line between approving of something and being fine with it? In what way are those different?
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627214)
Will, if you look at things always from the top down, you'll never understand something from the bottom up.

And if you look at something from the side, squinting your eyes a bit, you can find yourself taking two opposing positions on the same issue.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627214)
So again, from my point of view, I've not even gotten to the point of the ethics and the morals. I've looked at and cited where and how it's been used, right or wrong it has been used to some effect. It inadvertently has an affect on society as a whole, for fear, control, etc. It may be rooted in false logic or premise, but it still is a mode that people do operate from and stand within.

Thus, your citing of my ability to roll up my sleeves and pass judgment, isn't a simple possibility here on the breadth of torture. From the simplistic points, the Geneva Conventions agreed to make it very simple cut and dry discussion for this instance. But as a whole for the entirety of torture, which is the line I am speaking from, it is not as simple.

It is, of course, perfectly simple. Torture has no place but masochism or vengeance. Those are really the only functions it can adequately perform. It cannot yield reliable information, it cannot reliably coerce, and it cannot control. It has absolutely no functional use for military or intelligence. Beyond questioning it's function is judging it ethically, which is something you claim to have not done at all, despite saying you're fine with torture and that you don't approve of it.

Your position is at best unclear.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 10:26 AM

rb if I start where you guys start, I will guarantee to wind up in exactly the same position. In some ways I'm predisposed to that same position based on the ability of my gut logic, which again, the Geneva convention etc.

But the point of evolving thoughts and challenging one's own beliefs has to sometimes be really tried from a different rubric. This is why I stated it from the beginning that my thought on this is coming from a totally different angle.

If found a good link to an excerpt from the book:

Quote:

Bystanders from the book Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People
When a dictatorship is overthrown by a democratic regime, torture squads typically elude punishment because the new government is not entirely secure. After the junta fell in Argentina, for example, the new government lived in constant fear of a coup; the leaders of the ruling junta were prosecuted, but to avoid riling the armed forces further, there was no great purge of torturers, no indictments of whole companies of men. In other countries in which civilian governments have taken over from a regime that practiced torture, the new leaders, seeing the need for order and continuity, have decided it was not practical to replace every judge, prosecutor, and policeman who held office during the dark ages; as a result, the bureaucracy that supported or tolerated torture remains in place, a bureaucracy understandably not interested in investigating the sins of the past. In other nations where torture has been systematic, reform governments have become convinced that what their country needs is reconciliation and healing, that prosecution of torturers would once again polarize society, that the best course is to avoid indictments for human rights violations. Other liberating governments have declined to prosecute either because they quickly find the torturer's tools quite useful or because the liberators have a history of torture themselves.

Democracies and authoritarian regimes sometimes offer the same rationales for failing to prosecute torturers. The morale of the security forces, for example, is as sacred in a democracy as it is in an undemocratic regime. Putting soldiers or policemen on the witness stand is politically dangerous. They might, after all, name high-ranking officers or public officials who sanctioned the treatment.

Furthermore, it is often difficult to mount an effective prosecution. Torture usually occurs in a closed room without independent witnesses. Sometimes the victims have been blindfolded or they are dead, so although their in juries indicate they were tortured and it is not hard to determine what unit was responsible for their custody, it may be impossible to determine which man in particular attached the electrodes, performed the rape, the near drowning, or the severe beating. Without predetention medical examinations, it is often difficult to prove that a victim's injuries were sustained in custody.
A prosecutor's task is made more difficult by the fact that torturers are often decorated soldiers or policemen who have served their country in time of need, men who often represent popular belief: they were tough on crime, or they were saving the country from subversion or immorality. The victims, on the other hand, may hold political or religious beliefs not in favor in the larger society, or they may come from some lesser class that is viewed as a threat to the society at large gooks, niggers, Paddies, Arabs, Jews, criminals, agitators, heretics, labor organizers, stone throwers, flag wavers, singers of nationalist songs, terrorists, friends of terrorists, and so on. A judge or jury choosing between an erect and courageous torturer and an unpopular victim often has an easier time identifying with the torturer.

In various nations in which notorious regimes have fallen, there has been a public acknowledgment that people were tortured. In democracies of long standing in which torture has taken place, however, denial takes hold and official acknowledgment is extremely slow in coming, if it appears at all. The response of those societies is fairly predictable and can be charted in thematic, if not chronological, stages.

Consider, for example, the British reaction to the revelations that they were torturing the Northern Irish in 197I. The first stage of response was absolute and complete denial, accompanied by attacks on those who exposed the treatment. Northern Irish Prime Minister Brian Faulkner announced that there had been "no brutality of any kind." The London Sunday Times was denounced for printing "the fantasies of terrorists."

The second stage was to minimize the abuse. The government referred to it not as torture but as "interrogation in depth." Home Secretary Reginald Maulding proclaimed that there was "no permanent lasting injury whatever, physical or mental, to any of the men." The majority report of the Parker Commission proclaimed that any mental disorientation should disappear within hours, and, if it didn't, it might be the men's own fault, the product of anxiety caused by "guilty knowledge" and "fear of reprisals" from comrades for having allegedly given information. In the Compton Report, Sir Edmund Compton and his colleagues concluded that part of the torture had been done for the men's own good: the hooding kept the prisoners from identifying each other, thus preserving each man's security. The beating of Joe Clarke's hands had not occurred; his hands had been massaged by guards in order to restore circulation. The guards who forced men to perform strenuous exercises were merely trying to keep the prisoners warm.

A third stage is to disparage the victims. Lord Carrington judged them to be "thugs and murderers," while Reginald Maulding proclaimed, "It was necessary to take measures to fight terrorists, the murderous enemy. We must recognize them for what they are. They are criminals who wish to impose their own will by violence and terror." Yet after extensive torture and ostensibly extensive confessions about their acts of "violence and terror," none of the hooded men were charged with any crime.

A fourth stage is to justify the treatment on the grounds that it was effective or appropriate under the circumstances. Lord Balniel, junior minister of defense, said that there was no evidence of torture, ill-treatment, or brainwashing, and that the methods employed had produced "invaluable" information about a brutal, callous, and barbaric enemy. Compton proclaimed that the five techniques had been used on the men because it was "operationally necessary to obtain [information] as rapidly as possible in the interest of saving lives." On November 2I, 197l, the Sunday Times poked holes in the apologists' claims, pointing out that if the interrogation methods used on the hooded men "were approved for use in any British police station, where the need for information is sometimes just as urgent as in Ulster, there would be universal outrage." The Sunday Times editorial staff dismissed the claim that cruel treatment was justified if it saved lives. How can you be sure, the paper asked, that the prisoner has the information you seek, that the lack of that information will indeed mean someone will die, and that cruel methods extract reliable information ? The claim that lives were saved became even more suspect as time passed. The IRA was invigorated by new recruits inspired by the cruel treatment accorded the Catholic community, and in the calendar year following the introduction of internment, the number of shootings rose by 605 percent, the number of armed robberies increased 44 1 percent, and the number of deaths rose 268 percent.

A fifth component of a torturing society's defense is to charge that those who take up the cause of those tortured are aiding the enemies of the state. So when the Republic of Ireland persisted in its suit against the United Kingdom on behalf of the victims, the Guardian argued that the republic's government was "torturing Northern Ireland" by "force feeding the Provisionals [the Provisional IRA] with propaganda."

A sixth defense is that the torture is no longer occurring, and anyone who raises the issue is therefore "raking up the past." Northern Ireland Secretary Merlyn Rees leveled that charge at the Irish government when it persisted in its pursuit of the victims' cause five years after their ordeal. Fifteen years later, there was widespread support throughout the United Kingdom for the War Crimes Bill, which became law in May 1991 and which allowed for the prosecution of former Nazi officials for crimes committed fifty years earlier. (Lord Carrington and former Prime Minister Edwin Heath opposed the bill.) It 's always easier to see torture in another country than in one's own.
A seventh component of a torturing bureaucracy is to put the blame on a few bad apples. In defending themselves before the European Court, the British proclaimed that it was not an administrative practice, but rather a few men exceeding their orders. If this had been the case, however, there would seem to be no reason why the torturers could not have been publicly named and prosecuted.

An eighth stage in a society's rationalization of its policy of torture is the common torturer's defense, presented to me by most of the former torturers I interviewed, that someone else does or has done much worse things. When the subject of the hooded men arose, it was common for the British government spokesmen and many editorial writers to respond by denouncing the IRA for its callous campaign of random murder, as if that justified the torture of randomly chosen men who, on the whole, were not members of the IRA. In the wake of the European Commission decision labeling the five techniques torture, the Times of London hastened to point out that Britain should not be "lumped together with regimes past or present in Greece, Brazil, Iran, Argentina." The Times argued that the techniques employed by those regimes put the victim in terror of the continuation of pain, and that that terror forced the victim to submit to the interrogator. The British techniques, the Times said, were not as evil because they were not designed to induce terror, but rather to induce a state of mental disorientation so that the victim's will to resist was lost.

A final rationalization of a torturing nation is that the victims will get over it. In a I982 interview, General Harry Tuzo, the Oxford-educated commander of the army in Northern Ireland at the time Jir.. Auld and the others were tortured, claimed that the victims, who in Tuzo's words had suffered not torture but "acute discomfort and humiliation," had been "very well compensated and looked after." "I personally would have thought," Tuzo said, "that they had got over it by now." Similarly, General Jacques Massu, the French commander who throughout his life staunchly defended the widespread use of torture by his troops during the Algerian war, dismissed the pains suffered by Henri Alleg, the European-born Jew who wrote a book about his experience as a victim of Massu's policy (The Question, George Braziller, 1958). Massu saw Alleg in 1970, thirteen years after he was tortured, and based on that viewing discerned that the torture survivor was in "reassuringly vigorous condition."

aceventura3 04-22-2009 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2627178)
ace, there is no mean-ends justification for torture.

I define torture differently than you do.

Quote:

there was no effort to understand even the most basic research on the effects of torture---see the ny times article from this morning i posted above---there was extensive us military research done after the korean war on the fact that torture elicits one kind of information, which is the desire for the torture to stop. that this has been obvious from the 18th century onward is something that is maybe a bit abstruse to expect the parochials from american conservatism to know about---but there's no excuse for not doing the basic legwork on the efficacy of the technique if one is to lend even the slightest credence to the argument you're trying to make.
I think abusing people with no evidence to support that the person being questioned has specific information on a specific issue could be torture and would be a waste of time.

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:

you haven't a leg to stand on here, ace.
You have given no clear guidance to the basic questions on the table. When does it become torture and what makes it torture? If I had a clear answer to those questions, I would agree with you. The 'I know it when I see it' argument is not helpful for people like me, who see the world in 'black and white', I don't get the shades of gray stuff. Define it so I can understand it.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627218)
I don't vote for that particular dog owner to walk his dog near your house nor do I pay taxes to fund his walks nor do I have a stake in the response to said shitting. But you know all of this. I'm left wondering why you'd intentionally use an incorrect illustration like this. Are you really ignorant to your role in torturing? You are many things, but naive isn't one of them.

"I don't approve of torture, but I'm fine with it". Where do you draw the line between approving of something and being fine with it? In what way are those different?

And if you look at something from the side, squinting your eyes a bit, you can find yourself taking two opposing positions on the same issue.

It is, of course, perfectly simple. Torture has no place but masochism or vengeance. Those are really the only functions it can adequately perform. It cannot yield reliable information, it cannot reliably coerce, and it cannot control. It has absolutely no functional use for military or intelligence. Beyond questioning it's function is judging it ethically, which is something you claim to have not done at all, despite saying you're fine with torture and that you don't approve of it.

Your position is at best unclear.

Again, you fail at reading and quite possibly comprehension.

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

roachboy 04-22-2009 10:46 AM

this is from a little further down the page in the same extract you posted, cyn.

Quote:

Darley and Latane's experiments and others inspired by the Genovese murder have led psychologists to conclude that people tend to look to others to define events. Someone who sees something that may be an emergency looks to see if other witnesses are also alarmed. If everyone seems calm or indifferent, the observer often concludes that no emergency is taking place. The group defines the event, and most people follow the spoken and unspoken norms of the group and are unwilling to risk the embarrassment-of overreacting in public. Furthermore, even if people recognize that they are witnessing an event in which help is called for, they remain unsure who is responsible for providing that help: in a group of strangers there is no captain. Responsibility is therefore diffused, and so is the guilt felt by those who do nothing.

Social psychologists also explain the passivity of human beings in the face of emergencies by citing the human tendency to believe that there is some order to the universe-that the guilty are punished, the innocent are rewarded, and justice prevails. Various studies indicate that most of us are given to this " just world thinking," and that we will rearrange our perception of people and events so that it seems as ~ though everyone gets what they deserve. Upon seeing an innocent per- j son punished, for example, most people will ad just their interpretation of what they have witnessed: the person being punished "must have done something," must somehow be inferior or dangerous or evil, or must be suffering because some higher cause is being served.

aceventura3 04-22-2009 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627182)
It's more than unpleasant, it causes suffering which is equivalent to what I would assume we might both consider torture, such as bone breaking. The problem is that you can't really understand how horrible waterboarding is until it's been done to you. That's my point.

I would volunteer for it, if it would save the life of a person I cared for. If I volunteer for it, how could you define it as torture?

Quote:

When does something become torture? When it causes severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, it become torture.
In states that require grounds for divorce, they often use pain and suffering as a basis. We all know that is generic bull shit. So now you throw in "severe" and call it torture? All I am saying is that your guidance would be of no value to me. So you tell me not to waterboard, then I come up with something else, so the cycle goes on and on. Why can't you clearly define torture?

Quote:

If you're unsure about the use of the word "severe", you'll have to get more specific. Waterboarding is torture. Why? Because it causes a similar or greater level of suffering to actually drowning.
Drowning or having the sensation of drowning is unpleasant, but so are many other things. Earlier I stipulated that waterboarding was torture, then I went through what if's to try to get clarify some of the vague terms like "severe", "extreme" in the context of how you view the issue.
Quote:

I'm sure you'd agree that dunking someone's head under water for extended periods of time is torture. If not, you may have lost perspective on the issue.
Here we go again. What is an "extended" period of time? I think when some people get baptized they get their heads dunk in water.

Quote:

It takes cowardice to torture, not courage. Alberto Gonzales refused to define torture in order to aid the efforts to extract intelligence with the use of torture by our intelligence and military personnel. Much like Gonzales, you're equivocating on the definition of torture. The only reason one has to equivocate on the definition of torture is to try and excuse something they think many others might think of as torture.
I have been asking you for clarification. Again if I were your CIA guy in the field, I would have no understanding of your view other than waterboarding being torture.

Is isolation torture?
Is sleep deprivation torture?
Is being subjected to extreme temperatures torture?
Is depriving someone of toilet paper torture?
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 11:01 AM

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.

roachboy 04-22-2009 11:08 AM

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...

Willravel 04-22-2009 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627238)
I would volunteer for it, if it would save the life of a person I cared for. If I volunteer for it, how could you define it as torture?

There's no need to explore impossible hypothetical situations. Torture was used on people that were kidnapped or captured in order to get intelligence to fight the GWOT, but in that function it proved to be at best unreliable and in truth a huge problem.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627238)
In states that require grounds for divorce, they often use pain and suffering as a basis. We all know that is generic bull shit. So now you throw in "severe" and call it torture? All I am saying is that your guidance would be of no value to me. So you tell me not to waterboard, then I come up with something else, so the cycle goes on and on. Why can't you clearly define torture?

The UN clearly defines torture. Your getting hung up on adjectives isn't an issue of clarity, it's an issue of intellectual dishonesty. You're proposing that because the language isn't unreasonably clear there's a big gray area. There's not. Waterboarding is mental pain and is therefore torture.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627238)
Here we go again. What is an "extended" period of time? I think when some people get baptized they get their heads dunk in water.

Extended periods of time was intended to communicate "up until the point where the individual has run out of oxygen and is a few seconds from passing out". You see what I mean by unreasonably clear descriptions? I know you're feigning ignorance on the issue, that'd be clear to a blind person (a person unable to see due to a physical factor).
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627238)
I have been asking you for clarification. Again if I were your CIA guy in the field, I would have no understanding of your view other than waterboarding being torture.

Is isolation torture?
Is sleep deprivation torture?
Is being subjected to extreme temperatures torture?
Is depriving someone of toilet paper torture?
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

Isolation can become torture when it reaches a point of causing hallucinations, insomnia, attempts at suicide, speaking to people that aren't there, and shaking. Sleep deprivation has similar markers (minus insomnia, of course) and should never exceed 36 hours. The human body has temperature points at which it cannot function properly, and interrogation methods should never be within 15 degrees F of those temperatures for any period of time (I'm not a biologist, but I believe the extremes without proper protection are around 45 F and 110 F, which would mean no colder than 60 F and no hotter than 95 F). Depriving someone of toilet paper for more than maybe 12 hours without providing an alternate method of cleaning can cause the skin to become irritated and even can cause the skin to break which could lead to infection, so I'd say you should leave the TP in the room.

Keep em coming. I can do this all day long.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2627246)
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...

I get you. You're right, now that I'm re-reading your posts, we're more on the same road than it seems like. You're just on the road much further. I think that's why you're statements of it not being about utility etc, is because you've already moved past where I am and have invalidated those elements to help as a prevention method. In this context, since were post, it's harder for me to see it in the prevention light, but since I'm trying to strip away the emotional responses from it, I see you down the road.

Willravel 04-22-2009 12:08 PM

Meanwhile, on an adjacent yet less abstract road...
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627233)
Torture has a place. It exists. No matter how much you state that it doesn't and shouldn't it does.

In the context of the GWOT and the Bush Administration, torture represented desperation giving way to foolishness. That hardly justifies it. Something existing doesn't mean it has a place.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627233)
Really? It cannot control? Seems like the Talilban had control over the people.

You think torture and torture alone kept "control" over the "people" of Afghanistan? No other factors there? No social and cultural factors? No religious factors? No economic factors? Are you really willing to sum up the Taliban situation in Afghanistan before the invasion as "it's torture, stupid"?
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627233)
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.

Same as above. Torture was implemented with the intention of intimidation, but was used with a host of other strategies. Can you perhaps find an instance where torture alone was used to control?

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627278)
Meanwhile, on an adjacent yet less abstract road...

In the context of the GWOT and the Bush Administration, torture represented desperation giving way to foolishness. That hardly justifies it. Something existing doesn't mean it has a place.

You think torture and torture alone kept "control" over the "people" of Afghanistan? No other factors there? No social and cultural factors? No religious factors? No economic factors? Are you really willing to sum up the Taliban situation in Afghanistan before the invasion as "it's torture, stupid"?

Same as above. Torture was implemented with the intention of intimidation, but was used with a host of other strategies. Can you perhaps find an instance where torture alone was used to control?

Step away from the coffee machine Beavis.

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.....

Willravel 04-22-2009 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627280)
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.

I never said you did, but this thread is about something specific: the GWOT and the US using torture, and, more specifically, accountability. When you said, waaay back in the OP, that you're fine with torture, you made that statement in the context of the article you linked, which was talking about accountability for torture. This conversation isn't happening in a vacuum regardless of how abstract the conversation gets.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627280)
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.

I'm not making the case that torture hasn't happened, I'm making the case it has no function beyond selfish reasons like masochism and vengeance. It cannot do what it was supposedly used for in the GWOT, extracting intelligence. That alone should tell you that even though something may be used often, it isn't necessarily functional in what it's being used for.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627280)
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.

"I'll say flat out, I'm fine with torture..." Can you reconcile this with you not approving of it's use in the GWOT?
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627280)
Really? Intimidation? Oh so it has a use.....

I said the intention of intimidation. What was it earlier you said about reading comprehension?

dippin 04-22-2009 12:44 PM

Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link | McClatchy

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 12:48 PM

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.

aceventura3 04-22-2009 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627251)
The UN clearly defines torture.

Well, the course of action should be clear.

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?

Willravel 04-22-2009 03:08 PM

Investigation, arrests, prosecution, and then, assuming a guilty verdict, whatever punishment is appropriate under the law.

aceventura3 04-22-2009 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627362)
Investigation, arrests, prosecution, and then, assuming a guilty verdict, whatever punishment is appropriate under the law.

Under whose jurisdiction?
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.

Willravel 04-22-2009 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627371)
Under whose jurisdiction?

I believe the appropriate first step is congressional investigation of the CIA along with an internal military investigation.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627371)
Should members of Congress, who may have been informed, be investigated and brought up on charges and face punishment as well, for being complicit?

That depends on the findings of the first investigations.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627371)
Should the investigation include past administrations?

Same.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627371)
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?

That depends on the outcomes of the US investigations. It would make sense to have independent oversight of the military and congressional investigations. Still, we can't simply assume that they will both be corrupt. The UN should only get involved if they can demonstrate systemic corruption of the investigations.
Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2627371)
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.

The Obama administration is made up of Democrats, and Democrats historically lack balls. If you remember, many Democrats were quick to sign the AUMF and Patriot Act, fearing they'd be labeled soft on terrorism if they didn't. Similarly, the Obama administration, quick to pick a fight with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is scared shitless they'll be labeled soft on terrorism. Instead of elevating the level of discourse by refusing to play the bullshit games, they are victimized by them over and over again. I remember watching Clinton scramble his fat ass toward the center time and again. We're seeing the same thing now.

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.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2627433)
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.

...and that's why I believe in reality, not some pink cloud sun kissed pipe dream. There are real world factors of human beings that come into play not just ideologies and dogmas, but actual psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Surely someone as collegiate schooled in the human being understands that.

Willravel 04-22-2009 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq (Post 2627436)
...and that's why I believe in reality, not some pink cloud sun kissed pipe dream. There are real world factors of human beings that come into play not just ideologies and dogmas, but actual psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Surely someone as collegiate schooled in the human being understands that.

I understand that making excuses for torture can enable torture. I learned about enabling in a collage psychology class.

Cynthetiq 04-22-2009 08:13 PM

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.


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