CIA Lied Over Brutal Interrogations 772
mrspoonsi sends this news from the BBC:
The CIA carried out "brutal" interrogations of terror suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., a U.S. Senate report has said. The summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report said the CIA misled Americans on the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation." The interrogation was poorly managed and unreliable, the report said. President Obama has previously said that in his view the techniques amounted to torture. The Senate committee's report runs to more than 6,000 pages, drawing on huge quantities of evidence, but it remains classified and only a 480-page summary (PDF) is being released. Publication had been delayed amid disagreements in Washington over what should be made public.
CIA Director John Brennan has posted a response.
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit.
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Insightful)
I might too, but that doesn't make us right.
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Insightful)
I see.
Terrorizing is bad.
So obviously the solution is more terrorizing.
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Insightful)
Torture is useless as an intelligence tool. It is also counterproductive for any reason other than a "sense of vengeance".
Sure, it satisfies that, but then you lose the moral high ground. And that shit is actually important.
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Informative)
Except that doesn't work, because people being tortured will say anything to make it stop. At no point when they change their stories can you be certain they're now telling the truth. Even if their stories suddenly match, it could be a complete fluke, or as a result of the interrogator asking leading questions. Torture is useless.
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Insightful)
But the blow back undoes any advantage you got. The enemy knows we torture and uses it as a propaganda tool. Ie, the US does a better job of recruiting for Al Qaeda than Al Qaeda does. Also our friends know we torture and then don't want to be around friends so much (not a problem for US because we think "friend" means "does what we ask with no questions"). And it means that all those other countries out there are saying "hey, if US can torture then we can torture too!", or "if US can violate Geneva convention, then we can too!" And when our soldiers get captured, and they will, the enemy will use the same techniques we use or worse.
That's the main reason why so many in politics just wanted to cover all this up. They know it causes problems for the US, but it's ridiculous to pretend it doesn't exist or that anyone eventually freed from Guantanamo is lying when they claim to be tortured. If we don't want blowback from torture then we shouldn't do it.
Remember these are all interrogation methods disallowed by the army. The army knows there would be blowback. But they're ok for the CIA?
Another problem is that the interrogation techniques were not originally designed to get information. They were originally developed to get captured soldiers to admit to false confessions. Then the US used training for our soldiers so that they could attempt to resist such methods. Then ridiculously the CIA adopts those techniques and think that they would work to get useful intelligence. It's BS. If the CIA does know what it is doing then it is not using these enhanced interrogations to get information but for some other motivation (please the boss, please the political base, make it seem like we're doing something, finally have a suitable job for those who flunked the psych exam at Langley, etc).
Now there's this idiotic justification I do hear, not from politicians but the fanboys of one party or the other. That we treat the prisoners better than so many other countries. Dumb. That's like saying you beat your wife less than the neighbor does. Really, do these morons think that the standard of conduct should be "don't be as bad as North Korea"?
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You gotta do what you gotta do. If someone was tied to terrorizing my neighborhood I would hang them from a chain, soak them with salt water, and zap them with a MIG Welder.
God I hope you aren't American. Because to any objective observer, it is the US who is terrorizing everyone else's neighborhoods. Do you apply the same standard to yourself?
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You're going to bathe them in a mixture of Argon/CO2 while poking them with a steel wire that has a small ball on the end?
wow.
Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score:5, Informative)
Are there "lawful" enemy combatants and under who's law these ones unlawful?
Yes, there are. I'll explain in a moment. The Law in this case is International Law - the Geneva Convention, among others, is involved here.
And aren't they enemy combatants because a "coalition of forces" invaded their countries?
Yes, that is part of what makes them enemy combatants. The other part is that they chose to shoot at those invaders.
Ok, so some explanation -- there's some rules of war that the countries in power at the time put together. They include things like soldiers needing to wear a uniform with identifying marks for the country (or group in cases where you might not have an officially recognized country) in whose service they are fighting. If two of those powers went to war, they'd follow those rules (in theory), and soldiers of the other side would be lawful enemy combatants (or usually just enemy combatants, contrasted against enemy civilians).
If some of those soldiers stripped off their uniforms and did stuff against those rules, they could be disavowed by the other country -- they were out of uniform and therefore they were unlawful enemy combatants. The special rules regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War wouldn't apply. They could be held after the cessation of hostilities, for example, and could be tried by the country that captured them for their crimes rather than those acts (such as mass-homicide and such) being considered acts of war and therefore somehow perfectly acceptable.
So if these insurgent groups wore a uniform of some sort, and followed a normal command structure, and didn't hide in civilian populations, they could be lawful enemy combatants. They'd also be a lot easier to eliminate, which is why they don't do that. However, because they aren't playing by the Big Powers rules, that means the Big Powers don't technically need to follow those rules either. I still think we should, but that's a separate discussion.
That should hopefully help you understand where the term comes from, and why it gets used in reference to actions like this.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
7.5 days with no sleep? After half that you'd be saying its pretty brutal.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly, you've never worked on a major software release.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
"Brutal"
No injuries, marks, or other affects, permanent or otherwise.
They didn't have fun, to be sure, but brutal it wasn't.
Brutal is having your skinned peeled off in one inch strips, electrodes to the privates, hammer to the toes, peeling your finger nails off, propane torches, pliers and nipples, etc. THAT'S brutal.
These guys just didn't have a good time is all.
I'd like to chain you by your wrists and suspend you from the ceiling for 4 days, while trained fighters deliver peritoneal kicks to your legs, and see whether you still think that's not brutal. For as long as you survive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Dilawar (born c. 1979 Ã" December 10, 2002), also known as Dilawar of Yakubi, was an Afghan taxi driver who was tortured to death by US army soldiers at the Bagram Collection Point, a US military detention center in Afghanistan.
He arrived at the prison on December 5, 2002, and was declared dead 5 days later. His death was declared a homicide and investigated and prosecuted in the Bagram torture and prisoner abuse trials....
On the day of his death, Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days. A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling. "Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying. Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned that most of the interrogators had in fact believed Mr. Dilawar to be an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
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Damn. This is why the US being forever at war is so disgusting. This is what happens when you send soldiers on bully missions.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "ticking time bomb" scenario has never been realised in the United States, to my knowledge. There haven't been situations when someone was caught after the plan was finalized and before it was put into play where we identified them as a player.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. This is what you get when you allow a corrupt government to continue operating in a corrupt manner, despite continuous and direct evidence of its corruption.
Stop thinking the guys in the trenches bear primary responsibility for the commands of their political masters. Are the interrogators, lower courts, and lawyers guilty? You bet they are. But their crimes pale in comparison to the federal legislature, the supreme court, and the heads of the various TLA operations. That's the root of the problem -- corrupt leadership -- and as no one is in the least proposing to address it, all finger-pointing at the lower echelons is strictly in line with exactly what they want you to do: See to it that all blame falls on scapegoats, while those who bear the responsibility of authorizing these practices continue to operate as per usual. You watch. There will be exactly ZERO fallout at the level of those who made these choices. ZERO.
While we're at it here, let's give Obama an attaboy for saying "fuck no" to the whole disgusting mess. He surely isn't perfect, but he got this exactly right.
That there are worse things is no excuse (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't have fun, to be sure, but brutal it wasn't.
Your ability to think of something more horrific does not mean it was not brutal. All you proved is that there are even more horrible things that can be done but that does not in any way mitigate or excuse needlessly harsh treatment of another human being. Just because you don't leave a mark doesn't mean it isn't torture and certainly doesn't make it right.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Really? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not enough to kill the perps, you have to kill somebody helpless that's important to them. Torture a man's wife and small child then give him a gun with no bullets!!!
Wow. Classy. The way to combat terror is to be a terrorist?
Suffering the sins of the father on the son has been recognized as unjust since Old Testament times, and probably earlier.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
But hey, this Anonymous Coward says that's not brutality so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Seriously, fuck you.
Re: (Score:3)
To be fair, the AC has pureed food forced into his butt for fun, so he can't really relate.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Funny)
Pfff. That's not brutal. Brutal is having your head ripped off by a Bengal tiger with ebola while being lifted into the air on a studded 2x4 stuck up your ass, while Linkin Park is being played at 160 decibels. Before you've had your morning coffee.
Now THAT'S brutal.
We talking about the CIA interrogators? It sounded like they had a blast.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Waterboarding is regarded by many countries as torture. It simulates the feeling of drowning. Blasting people with sound is also widely considered to be torture, and is pretty brutal to experience.
If anything the fact that they stuck to abuse that didn't leave scars, or purely mental torture, just goes to show that they knew it was wrong, and were hoping that the lack of evidence would allow them to continue denying it. Who would believe a (suspected) terrorist or bleeding heart human rights activist?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Waterboarding was regarded by the US as torture and at least a couple of Japanese officers were tried and put to death over applying it to captured US soldiers in WW II. It's hard to express how much disgust and shame I felt when I learned that elements of the US government were using it. Even worse is that no one has been held accountable for it yet, one the the biggest failures of the Obama administration.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I actually suspect that is exactly the failure he means, and that he is not a Republican just blaming everything on Obama. Everyone is allowed to criticize the President, but especially former supporters when he fails to live up to campaign promises or even his own initial acts in office. That Guantanamo Bay is still open and the prisoners are still there without any formal or official charges or trials is a massive failure, for example.
This is another. The guy that ordered the torture not bothering to prosecute it? Understandable, if terrible. His successor failing to enforce the law and prosecute those responsible? A pretty big failure on that newer administration. If you're going to call it torture, press the case. Deeds, not words.
I supported Obama initially -- lesser of two evils (particularly after Palin was selected as the running mate), and I hoped even if he was only a figure head his rhetoric would set the tone for everyone working in government, and he definitely talked a good talk. He has since failed to deliver on those speeches (which was expected), but has also changed his tone and simply adopted his predecessor's as his own (which was not expected). Just because I supported him in the past, and feel his opponents are worse, that doesn't mean I am incapable of seeing that he has had many failures during his term. That you would blindly assume anyone criticizing Obama is a Republican doesn't speak well of you, or politics in general. No one should be safe from blame.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Even the Spanish Inquisition regarded waterboarding as torture.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Leaving marks or not is a choice for any half-way competent torturer. Being brutal without leaving marks is something which was first developed around 1920 and which has been refined since then. England, France, and the United States have led the world in this, and various governments around the world have been quick to learn from their examples. The reason is, of course, to mislead people like you into believing that torture is not torture.
See Torture and Democracy [princeton.edu] by Darius Rejali.
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No injuries, marks, or other affects, permanent or otherwise.
People were TORTURED TO DEATH. That permanent enough for you?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
"Brutal"
No injuries, marks, or other affects, permanent or otherwise.
They didn't have fun, to be sure, but brutal it wasn't.
Ah, the Spanish Inquisition rationaliztion approach From the Wikipedia page:
"Although the Inquisition was technically forbidden from permanently harming or drawing blood, this still allowed for methods of torture. The methods most used, and common in other secular and ecclesiastical tribunals, were garrucha, toca and the potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted of suspending the victim from the ceiling by the wrists, which are tied behind the back. Sometimes weights were tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which the arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated. The toca, also called interrogatorio mejorado del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning .[76] The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used most frequently."
The freaky part is the similarity to teh Spanish inquisition.
No one expected that!
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys DID have permanent damage. Prisoners have died.
What should the standard of conduct be for the US government? "At least we didn't use pliers", that's our baseline? Maybe we call up Mubarak and ask him how much torture he did, then we can do even more torture just as long as it's slightly less than the other guys.
This corrupts everything our country was founded on. From ignoring the constitution with perverted logic that it doesn't apply on military bases, ignoring international treaties which have the FULL weight of law in the US according to the constitution, and picking up random people in Afghanistan and detaining them indefinitely without any evidence to bring them to trial all because they're neighbor turned them in to get a cash reward, and so on.
Al Qaeda WON the war here. They destroyed our constitution and turned us into the bad guys.
Re:On the other hand, the Jihadists perform (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also beside the point.
The people in Guantanamo has not been found guilty of beheadings. Do you really think it's the right thing to torture individuals for something other individuals of the same faith and complexion did at a later date? Can I torture you a little for what Jeffrey Dahmer did?
If anything, torturing prisoners is used as a justification for what's done to hostages by others.
No one has a right to condone inhuman behavior and then act offended when others respond with inhuman behavior. We reap what we sow.
Re:On the other hand, the Jihadists perform (Score:4, Insightful)
... precise surgical removal of heads, on their captive, without applying any anesthesia ...
Now which one is more BRUTAL ???
Even if all the prisoners had been caught red-handed beheading people, that still wouldn't justify torturing them.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
BINGO!
No, I don't mean I agree with you, I mean I literally won a game of conservative "BINGO", as in you successfully parroted almost every current conservative talking point. Please allow me to enumerate:
1. Obama doesn't like America
2. The US was "scared out of our minds"
3. Never recovered economically
4. Justification of impunity
5. Should have escalated war
6. Justification of torture using irrelevant current events
7. FUD as the result of these revelations
8. More Obama FUD
9. The world only respects military might
10. Weak justification of destroying and occupying Iraq
11. "The gov't is failing to protect our interests"
12. Obama golfs...
So congratulations for being able to repeat things you've heard without having to actually put any real thought into it. A two-year-old toddler can do the same.
Re: (Score:3)
Justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anybody going to jail?
How about Bush, is this enough to put Bush in jail?
Re:Justice (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, the powerful can be the most evil scum and commit the most heinous crimes against humanity and will have nothing to fear from "the law" at all.
Re:Justice (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, it's pretty much SoP. The more rich and powerful you are, the less likely you'll ever be held accountable.
A politician held accountable for crimes he authorized? Never gonna happen.
Same goes for the crooks on Wall Street.
I'm sure it's the same elsewhere -- the old boys network makes sure the people who can do the most damage are shielded from consequences.
Crimes Against Humanity (Score:3)
In the US, the powerful can be the most evil scum and commit the most heinous crimes against humanity and will have nothing to fear from "the law" at all.
To be clear, torture is a human rights violation against customary international law and treaty; it is not a crime against humanity unless it is part of widespread or systemic practice.
It is, however, widely practiced as a practical matter. Sometimes even by heads of state. This guy has personally tortured people, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Justice (Score:5, Funny)
...with liberty and justice for all. *
* Disclaimer: Must be 18 or over, void where prohibited, some restrictions may apply, not available in all states.
apologies to Doug Stanhope
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Justice (Score:5, Informative)
Also, waterboarding was done on 3 prisoners, though the media would have you believe every single prisoner in gitmo had it done to them.
FTFA:
The CIA has maintained that only three prisoners were ever subjected to waterboarding, but the report alludes to evidence that it may have been used on others, including photographs of a well-worn waterboard at a black site where its use was never officially recorded. The committee said the agency could not explain the presence of the board and water-dousing equipment at the site, which is not named in the report, but is believed to be the âoeSalt Pitâ in Afghanistan.
Who are you going to believe, the CIA or your own lying eyes?
Re:Justice (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, he didn't really strike me as the curious type. But Cheney claims to have known every single detail. I guess he gets off on that stuff.
"Say fellas? You think we can ramp down the shoving of pureed food up prisoners' asses a little bit? The screaming is starting to keep Laura awake at night and somebody keeps stealing the mashed peas out of the White House fridge. Now watch this drive"
http://youtu.be/Z3p9y_OEAdc [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:3)
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Re: (Score:3)
Re:Justice (Score:4, Informative)
According to the report, CIA officials did not disclose the methods of interrogation to White House officials, either by omission or blatantly lying about it. This is in reference to techniques that went beyond the initial executive order authorizing "enhanced interrogation techniques." Note that this report is not collected from sources friendly to the previous administration; if they could have thrown Bush under the bus, they would have.
Re:Justice (Score:5, Insightful)
The question remains why nobody has been (and likely will be) prosecuted for these war crimes. Sure, a few underlings got a little punishment, but it has been very clear from the early days of the Obama administration that the guys where the buck stopped would never face any prosecution. The parts of the report that have now been published suggest the buck stopped at the CIA top, but from other sources we know that at least Cheney, Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld were so deeply involved they deserve at least some investigation. At least Cheney has been pretty open about his involvement.
So why did this prosecution for war crimes never happen? The most charitable explanation I have been able to come up with is that Obama thought the unrest this would cause in the USA would be unacceptable, but I admit it is a weak explanation.
Oh, and yes, the things described in the report were war crimes. Waterboarding is explicitly mentioned in a UN definition of torture, and after World War II some Japanese soldiers were tried and executed for waterboarding allied soldiers. And that's just the waterboarding.
From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, despite common ground with some of the findings of the Committee’s Study, we part ways with the Committee on some key points. Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qa’ida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.
Just when will the CIA get off its high horse of believing that this program, in its former form, or any newer form, produces value for the American citizen or state as a whole? They need to stop defending this indefensible stance that it's okay as long as the CIA is in charge of capturing, detaining, violating rights, and denying everything it does or has ever done.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they will lie about the "success" of what they did. Otherwise everybody would see them for what they are: Utterly primitive and vicious cavemen without even a shred of intact morality.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they will lie about the "success" of what they did.
Does it matter it if was successful? If they could show that American lives were saved by torturing prisoners, would that make it okay?
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
If the prevailing attitude is "we as Americans will accept anything done to you to protect us", then in some people's minds, it may well be okay.
Of course, if America decides that torturing other people is OK then America has pretty much lost any form of moral high ground, and should expect other countries to torture Americans with impunity.
When you decide the morality of the situation is asymmetrical, don't expect the other guy to see your side of it.
So, hey, if a couple of your CIA agents or citizens end up getting offed or tortured, don't suddenly say that's unfair. Because it's kind of the bar you set.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
When you decide the morality of the situation is asymmetrical, don't expect the other guy to see your side of it.
This has been the main argument in favor of torture. "Do you think the terrorists treat their prisoners nicely? Then why should we be bound to any conventions we know they won't abide?" The argument has always been that "they" started it.
The morality of any of these situations has to be asymmetrical, and "our side" always needs to be the kinder, more honest, and more fair side. As soon as you demonstrate your willingness to use the unethical or evil techniques of your enemy, you lose any distinction from them.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
When you decide the morality of the situation is asymmetrical, don't expect the other guy to see your side of it.
This has been the main argument in favor of torture. "Do you think the terrorists treat their prisoners nicely? Then why should we be bound to any conventions we know they won't abide?" The argument has always been that "they" started it.
The morality of any of these situations has to be asymmetrical, and "our side" always needs to be the kinder, more honest, and more fair side. As soon as you demonstrate your willingness to use the unethical or evil techniques of your enemy, you lose any distinction from them.
More than asymmetrical, it has to be utterly unambiguous.
People will always give their side the benefit of the doubt and the good guy isn't always clear. Bin Laden killed 3k in an utterly indefensible act, the Iraq war killed 100k in a much more defensible act. In the west it's easy to consider Bil Laden's act as the greater evil. Afterall he explicitly tried to kill as many people as possible with the goal of starting a wider war. The Iraq war, even if it were a mistake, wasn't started with the objective of mass casualties.
However, if you're from the middle east, and find it easier to identify with the dead Iraqis than the dead Americans, then you might consider the far greater number of Iraqi casualties to make that the worse crime.
Or in Ukraine, where Russia is are using the NATO intervensions in Bosnia and Libya, and the US invasion of Iraq, as justifications for their own actions. It doesn't matter if they're right, it's incredibly easy to rationalize the acts of your side. Just to be certain that you're not one of the bad guys yourself you need to keep your actions way above reproach.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more, I believe that there have been studies showing that a gentle hand will get better results than a firm first. If you can show the person that they have a lot to gain, rather than something to lose, and treat them nice they are far more likely to divulge information (be it by slipping up or by confessing). Plus, the propaganda probably makes us out to be hellspawn demons, so if we turn out to be quite pleasant people after we capture them it will make them question other things they've been told about what they are doing.
Aggression puts people on the defensive, so they're more likely to fight against whatever it is you want to accomplish.
Can't back these words right now, though, as the Google is flooded with posts about the CIA torture reveal and it's harder to look for relevant information.
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Bullshit. The 'moral relativist' argument doesn't work unless you presuppose that there IS a moral difference in the first place. "Wait, if you do this (torture) it means we aren't the good guys!!" ONLY applies if you believed that we were the good guys in the first place, which is the sort of Manichean simplification that the people upset about this like to keep pointing out in their opponents, ironically.
America isn't a magical special place on the hill. America is a country like any other that pursue
Re: (Score:3)
So, hey, if a couple of your CIA agents or citizens end up getting offed or tortured, don't suddenly say that's unfair. Because it's kind of the bar you set.
The question is, were the Americans tortured with the intention that they should reveal knowledge they possessed about plots against the state of the captors? If that's the case then sure, it sucks, but it's war. We hate them, they hate us, and the gloves are off. If they are torturing certain Americans completely unrelated to the military, as a form of collective punishment, then no *fuck that* we are still on the high ground and we are good to go on dropping a few thousand more bombs on those barbarians.
How do they know that those Americans are not American spies that know of plots against the state of the captors until they torture them? Isn't that the same rationale that the USA used to lock prisoners away in Guantanamo Bay (where tortures took place) without a trial -- many were victims of circumstance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we just locked them away with no real recourse for release since they *might* have been enemy combatants.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. Until 9/11, we (the West) had moral authority because we didn't torutre. That was part of the discourse: we held ourselves to a higher standard than the despots of the world despite the risk and cost it entailed. It was a sign of our strength that we were able to win without resorting to state-sanctioned torture.
Our status as non-torturing states was essential to the legitimacy of our governments in leading the world: we set global standards not just because of economic wealth but because of our moral standing.
Taking your example, if a CIA agent spying on a dictatorship was tortured, then we would have seen that as evidence that the dictatorship deserved to be overthrown. It would be evidence of the weakness and illegitimacy of the dictatorship that it resorted to such barbarity.
The gloves of basic decency should never come off. There are hypothetical, us-or-them situations that can be imagined, but we can and should be able to win our wars without officially-sanctioned, legalized barbarity.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is, were the Americans tortured with the intention that they should reveal knowledge they possessed about plots against the state of the captors? If that's the case then sure, it sucks, but it's war. We hate them, they hate us, and the gloves are off. If they are torturing certain Americans completely unrelated to the military, as a form of collective punishment, then no *fuck that* we are still on the high ground and we are good to go on dropping a few thousand more bombs on those barbarians.
No, you're not. The justification for doing evil doesn't make it ok or even a little less evil. It is still just as evil. The attempt at justification simply makes you an even worse person because you aren't even enough of an adult to own up to your actions. Believe me, the other guys have their own justifications too...you just don't like theirs in the same way that they don't like yours.
I prefer this memo. (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer this memo:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/ [theatlantic.com]
Part of being the "good guys" means NOT being the "bad guys".
More people die in traffic accidents EVERY YEAR than the "terrorists" have ever killed here. So why give up a morally superior position to "fight" people who pose almost no threat to anyone outside their own countries?
Re:I prefer this memo. (Score:4, Insightful)
>So why give up a morally superior position to "fight" people who pose almost no threat to anyone outside their own countries?
Money.
--
BMO
Re:I prefer this memo. (Score:4, Insightful)
Traffic deaths aren't random, even if they aren't intentional. Nearly every traffic death can be traced to a specific and often avoidable cause. Addressing a minute fraction of those causes will have a dramatic effect on the number of people who die in the US every year.
On the other hand, if your opponent's most successful attack ever can't be distinguished from year to year variations in the death rate of Americans, spending any significant energy fighting him is a waste. We could have a 9/11 attack every single day for hundreds of years and still not deplete the American population. This is an ant-bite of a threat and deserves an ant-bite appropriate response.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Informative)
The Committee's Study outlined 20 specific cases that the CIA claimed either solely based on EIT (torture) or thwarted attacks. In ALL cases, there was either other corroborating intelligence (so they didn't need to torture anyone) or that the "attacks" were either fantasies or non-operational.
Brennan's statement doesn't actually refute this. Providing intelligence that "helped" is not the same as intelligence that was critical.
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't get that far. "Countless lives have been saved" that count is zero. 9/11 was a non-event.
We have some sort of war being waged against a faceless enemy that supposedly comes in, hijacks our shit, and attacks us from within. We haven't really stopped any such attacks; we've brought attention to attempts which were never going to succeed, but that's it. The PETN underwear bomber is one of the better examples: you can't blow up PETN that way; it needs compression, else it just burns.
The scenar
Re: (Score:3)
but if we were suddenly stopped recognizing Israel, bombing Yemen/Iraq/Syria/Afganhistan, and left middle-east affairs completely, would ISIS/Al-Qaeda/Taliban call off their aggression?
No, but that's not the point. We're not bombing military targets; we're bombing civilian population centers, claiming there is a "suspected terrorist" there, and then writing off anyone caught in the blast as a "Militant". The word "militant" has been redefined to cover what historically would be termed "Civilian Casualty", and has nothing to do with people being of the persuasion to take up arms of any sort.
Imagine if France, in its pursuit of "eliminating global terrorism", were to blow up the Starbu
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
When will people wake up and realize that the gov't (even though they suck at their job most of the time in the civil area) is there to protect its constituents at all times and with whatever force required. When the gov't fails to do that, that is when they have failed you. People want to be "nice" and live in a box.
This is a fascinating comment. First, we are not "constituents" of the government. We are citizens of a nation, and the government works for us. Secondly, I think I disagree that the government's job is to protect the citizens with "whatever force is required". The uncertainty comes from what you mean by "protect citizens". I think that it's more protective of citizens to behave in a way that isn't morally reprehensible. The government completely and totally failed us when it began torturing people.
The underlying implication of your comment, though, is the most curious of all: it appears that you think that the only legitimate role of government is to make war, and further that the government is better at that than at its civil duties. I disagree with both of those implications.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:4, Insightful)
"It's really quite simple," eh? Okay, I'll try it out:
Now, you little fascist shit, do you begin to see the goddamn problem with that logic?!?!
Re:From Jack Brennan's response (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, it is simple! Good. So, let's run a testsuite over that simple algorithm of yours:
Were the people who fought for the creation of the state Israel terrorists? Remember that at the time Israel was not a `true nation state', and this fight involved attacks on hotels, Palestinian farmers, and similar non-military targets.
Were the people who fought for the creation of the USA terrorists?
Were the people who fought for the independence of Ireland in the early 20th century terrorists? Remember that as far as the UK was concerned, Ireland was not a `true nation state'.
Are the Palestinians who fight against past and future Israeli injustice and encroachment on their land terrorists? Remember that almost all Israelis are or have been in the army, and are reservists for a large part of their life. And like it or not, these Palestinians consider their land, and a lot of the land that is now Israel, as part of their own `true nation state'.
Was the Saudi national who argued that the US military bases in his country were a form of occupation, and who founded an organisation to fight against this, was he a terrorist? I presume Saudi Arabia falls under your definition of `true nation state'. Hint: he was deeply involved with the immediate causes of the report we're discussing.
Enlightening... (Score:5, Interesting)
Queue all the posts of "Why are you surprised! of course they were doing this!"
No, you should be surprised. Suspecting and Knowing are 2 different things. Get mad, do something. Don't use your arrogance as an excuse for apathy.
I think the most enlightening part of the report was this:
The torture of prisoners at times was so extreme that some C.I.A. personnel tried to put a halt to the techniques, but were told by senior agency officials to continue the interrogation sessions.
The Senate report quotes a series of August 2002 cables from a C.I.A. facility in Thailand, where the agency’s first prisoner was held. Within days of the Justice Department’s approval to begin waterboarding the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, the sessions became so extreme that some C.I.A. officers were “to the point of tears and choking up,” and several said they would elect to be transferred out of the facility if the brutal interrogations continued.
That gave me some hope for the world. At least some stood up and said "No" and likely ended their careers over it. I doubt we'll ever know who those people were, but if any of you read this, my hats off to you. You're the real Hero's of this war.
Re:Enlightening... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Enlightening... (Score:5, Insightful)
Queue all the posts of "Why are you surprised! of course they were doing this!"
I wish people would understand that this response is a standard rhetorical technique. You see it happen all the time in various scandals and cover-ups. Essentially the aim is to diffuse the response by delaying it until people can be persuaded not to care.
A few years ago, if someone suggested that the CIA is torturing people, they'd be accused of being unpatriotic and paranoid. As the news starts to come up, defenders change their message to, "Hold on there. There are some unproven allegations, but you should wait until all the evidence is in before getting upset." They drag the whole thing out for years, and when the evidence is in, the defenders say, "Well we knew all of this years ago. Why are you upset now?!"
Lots of things follow this pattern. CIA torture, NSA spying, unethical/illegal actions leading to the financial system meltdown, invading other countries, global climate change, and even Clinton sexually harassing White House interns. It's very often those same three steps: (a) Deny it happened; (b) Admit something happened, but ask people to wait before passing judgment; (d) Delay; and finally (e) Admit the whole thing, but claim that the time for a response has already passed.
It's intentional, and people will keep doing it because it works.
Re: (Score:3)
And the population runs around screaming "wait until shit hits the fan". Well shit has been hitting the fan for years but as the above comment shows, the formula to diffuse it works, so people keep running around saying "wait until shit hits the fan"
While the person to reveal the torture sits in jail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kiriakou
Re:Enlightening... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real heros are the ones that stood up after they had started waterboarding and it just got to the point where they couldn't' handled it any more? No, they aren't heroes. Heroes are the ones that stand up, stop it BEFORE it got to that point. Or if it progressed to the point of no return, quit, and made it as public as they can regardless what their personal consequences are. Heroes don't get to abuse, and then just walk away when it gets too much and still get to be called heroes.
I suppose that you'll also call them victims of terrorism for what they have to live with knowing what they've done too.
Re:Enlightening... (Score:5, Insightful)
Effectiveness doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if torturing prisoners was "effective," who cares? If something is immoral, good results will never make it moral.
Before someone have the nerve to defend it read it (Score:3)
Page 115
Re:Before someone have the nerve to defend it read (Score:5, Informative)
No comments needed.
Senator John McCain (Score:5, Insightful)
"I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored."
From a Republican even.
Re:Senator John McCain (Score:4, Interesting)
I still remember a GOP debate during the primaries. The moderator asked for a show of hands, who would approve torture to save american lives. The camera slowly pans past all the candidates with their hands up. And then there's John McCain on the end with what can only be described as a horrified expression. I felt sorry for the guy that day, there in front of him were some of his closest colleagues and presumably a few friends saying that the torture the Vietcong did to him was not only justifiable but in fact justified from the perpetrators point of view.
And who pays???? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who doesn't pay? Those responsible for such atrocities. We increasingly live in a society where a few - IE military and intelligence brass, the rich, the police, and corporations and individuals with the money to play the game can do nearly anything with impunity.
This meets the definition of tyranny - arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power - and we live it every day, but most do not see it. The question is, is the natural state of being for humans - people abusing their power over others, or can it be changed and transcended?
Oversight? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where's the oversight? Oh, it was by the same people that oversee the NSA, never mind.
Where are the war crimes prosecutions? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, really.
Re:Where are the war crimes prosecutions? (Score:5, Informative)
Out of control (Score:3)
In case no one has noticed it seems everything is out of control theses days. War, spying, bankers and the economy, human rights and the list goes on.
As Leonard Cohen says in his song The Future:
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
It seems that everything we ever used to benchmark human progress has slipped away.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
The sheer stupidity bothers me... (Score:3)
Not just the cruelty.
Did fMRIs disappear yesterday and did I just miss the memo? Did psychoactive agents stop working? We couldn't have used neurological stimulation of the pleasure center each time a detectable truth was told until the subject couldn't wait to answer?
Did all this disappear yesterday? Did the hundreds of other neurological manipulation techniques we might have employed painlessly go away? Suppose we stimulated the "God Spot" in each detainee, and broke their religious beliefs. Think that wouldn't have worked?
Are security agency personnel simply incapable of reading neurophysiology journals? Or do we just hire stupid people?
So, instead, the CIA and probably Homeland Security (i.e. the new KGB) wallow in the temple of dumb. Any one of the aforementioned techniques is likely to be at least as effective as crude torture, and probably more so.
Dems say Bush a meanie. More news at 11 (Score:3)
With their own approval rating at 16%, Senate Democrats announced today that Bush was a meanie. More exciting news after the break.
Republicans: Ideology over facts (Score:3)
The Israelis who have no qualms supporting state sponsored assassinations in the name of national security told the Bush administration that torture doesn't work.
For Xsakes, this are your friends telling you not to do it, because it doesn't work. What did Bush do? he carried on regardless.
This has become a signature pattern for the right in the last 15 years. It wasn't always that way. In the 80s and 90s one could disagree yet respect the opinion of Republican leaders and administrations, even if one didn't always agree with them. Somewhere around the time of the Contract with American ideology became more important than facts and it has been all downhill for America. The 2 trillion dollar invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, the loss of critical support across the world with unwarranted acts of torture, the obstructionist practices of the Republican congress v. the Obama administration.
Give it another 10 years and the present GOP will achieve from within what Osama Bin Laden foolishly tried to do with a few planes. He should have financed the Tea Party instead, and by now he would be further ahead in his goal.
America, you stink. (Score:5, Insightful)
War Crimes Trials (Score:3)
American Hypocrisy is unmatched (Score:5, Insightful)
Time and time again, the evidence tends to show that we can actually be much worse than those countries we love to demonize.
Can you imagine what would happen if another country ( pick one ) started a program like the one we run for snatching up Americans ( or American Allies ) suspected of ties to $scarylabel ?
Perhaps building their own version of Guantanamo and holding them indefinitely without charges, trial or even notification to anyone they were being held at all ?
Everyone here knows exactly what the reaction would be. Drone strikes, commando raids, hell we might even send a Battle Group or three and park them off your coast. Regime change, invasion, air strikes, sanctions, excuse for new war toys testing, etc. etc.
As long as the country in question isn't a major power of course. We love to send in the troops to countries that cannot possibly defend themselves from our mighty war machine. Not so much into the countries that can. See any Russian or Chinese detainees in that lovely detention camp of ours ? Yeah . .
Ever see a bully pick on someone who could kick their ass ? Me either.
Wonder how our war-nuts would handle it if $evil_country started snatching our worldwide intelligence agents ( or just Americans and their Allies at random ) and subjecting them to the same tortu. . . . er. . . . enhanced interrogation techniques that we use. Would be hilarious to hear what insanity would spew forth from our Government about how . . . how . . . EVIL such a thing is. How DARE they do that to an American ?! Resolutions !! Declarations !!! OMGTEHHORROR !! ( Fox News would just implode I think )
To the rest of the world, I would like to apologize for the arrogance, hypocrisy and illogical ideology of our "elected" government. If you have any ideas on how to fix it, we're all ears.
Re:It's allowed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally fighting fire with water or other fire retardants is the preferred method.
It is in the very nature of evil that it "gets results". The entire point of morality is that there are things you will not do even if they are in your interest.
As an American citizen, I do not in any way approve of the use of torture. I am willing to accept the higher risk of death by terrorism, assuming the risk even is higher, in return for the country behaving in a moral fashion. I am willing to trade my safety for doing what is right. No torture, no indefinite detention, no extra-judicial killings.
If I knew a legal way to stop the US from using torture, I would.
We have become the things we always claimed that we opposed in the world.
Re:*yawn* (Score:5, Insightful)
This was 100% politics and had little to do with much else. Why else release such inflammatory information AGAIN?
...
The really sad part though is that it is highly possible that the release of this report will cost Americans their lives. The world is a dangerous place, but it's stupid to poke the enemy or hand them such a public relations win as this will be. We will be lectured by Iran and North Korea for human rights abuses and you can bet ISIS will be happy to use this to recruit/conscript more help.
(sarcasm)Oh Yea! That's great.. (/sarcasm)
The really sad part is that people get so caught up in petty politics that they can't see that torturing people is immoral and ineffective and that maybe we should consider not fucking torturing people and hold ourselves to a higher standard than "other people are worse than us."
Re:As for the people who say "XXX kills more than. (Score:5, Insightful)
terrorists, stop being an idiot. Richard Reid tried to light a shoe bomb and didn't kill anyone, yet let at all of the trouble and hassle EVERYONE who flies has to go through now. It isn't always about death. It's also about our way of life. How much money do you think is being spent to find explosives on persons who fly?
So stop saying "More people are killed by albino left-handed sharks than terrorists because that isn't the point."
No, that's exactly the point. We've completely caved to fear and thrown what little moral standing we had in the world right out the window. We've spent well over a trillion dollars, killed thousands of people directly, tens of thousands indirectly and replaced an evil but fairly contained dictator with a sectarian battlefield. Because we're bad at math and suck at assessing threats. We are a nation cowards, armed to the teeth and afraid of shadows. We are the fucking boogieman.
And before I get shit for it, no I don't think we deserved to be attacked on 9/11 and terrorists are asshats. But that doesn't justify overreacting and it doesn't justify holding people sans due process and torture.