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CIA Torturers Hide Report, But That's Not The Worst Part

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posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 11:14 AM
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reply to post by crazyewok
 



To be fair I would not be bothered if America had torture warrants to be used under extreme circumstances and not to extract confessions to be used in court. With proper records kept.


I'd have to say we're in about the same place then. Torture as a means of gathering evidence is barbaric and outright evil. Torture in extremes to directly save life....well, as you say, having that recorded by process to who did what, when, and why is the only way that even makes it as an idea, IMO. Historical support or otherwise. (I bet it happens VERY VERY rarely...when everything about the terrible process is a public record to be viewed in some detail)

I disagree on the Constitution. It's fine how it is, IMO. The Constitution isn't there as an set of absolutes where we just forfeit the nation by default if we don't live up to every last ideal it embodies. We'll fall short of some, and more frequently right now than is healthy. It's important that our core document hold what we aspire to...not necessarily what we actually achieve on a daily basis. That is more fitting for the Crime Blotter in the metro section...lol



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 11:53 AM
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reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan
 


From the Newsweek Article...




The backstory. The inspector general of the CIA last month released a 2004 report on the interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects. As my colleague Mark Hosenball reported, it and other internal documents (which Cheney called on the CIA to release, believing they would back his claim) do not show that torture worked





Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Dublin explains in a paper in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciencecalled "Torturing the Brain," "the use of such techniques appears motivated by a folk psychology that is demonstrably incorrect. Solid scientific evidence on how repeated and extreme stress and pain affect memory and executive functions (such as planning or forming intentions) suggests these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or 'enhanced' interrogation."




The article basically just expands on all of the many vital functions that torture impairs and in some cases, destroys.....and basically says that torture is an ineffective tool for obtaining useful intelligence.


Bottom line......Torture doesn't work.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:00 PM
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reply to post by TDawg61
 


the cia is a cartel not a national asset
they were caught for example, flying tons of coke into the us...on a plane used for rendition flights
so really the problem is the people who allow this to happen on thier watch and allow it done in thier name

while some sick sobs reap the profits and the above mentioned peeps reap the blowback
edit on Tuepm3b20143America/Chicago25 by Danbones because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:09 PM
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Torture as a means of gathering evidence is barbaric and outright evil.
reply to post by Wrabbit2000
 


Torture as a means of extracting useful information....DOESN'T WORK.




Torture in extremes to directly save life



Since it is well known that torture doesn't work...you would be doing it for nothing more than to hurt someone. I am amazed that people EVEN TRY to find some far out scenario in which they could justify the torture of another human being....such as this complete documentation scenario.

Torture is NEVER the right thing to do. Which is why it has been banned by all civilized countries and has been declared a WAR CRIME. War Crimes are by their very definition....not to be done for any reason. It simply cannot be tolerated.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:12 PM
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Too big to fail, just like the banks.
The CIA and NSA answer to no one but themselves.
Funny how we can change Congress and Presidents but can't touch a hair of either of these agencies.
They leave us no choice but to completely dismantle both agencies and start over.
If not, lets at least get rid of Congress and a President that essentially have no power.
Screw the whole lot of them, traitors each and every one.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:19 PM
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Btw, torture does work.
It creates pain and fear and more "enemies" to join the crusade against America.
How can you have a war on terror if there's no more terrorists?
Like Rumsfeld said: this will be a long war that will go on for generations.
They're making sure of that.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:38 PM
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Like Rumsfeld said: this will be a long war that will go on for generations.
reply to post by Asktheanimals
 


Excellent point. In fact, your whole post was well put.

Thx for contributing to the thread.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:39 PM
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reply to post by deadcalm
 


I'm sorry but we absolutely disagree.

I'd refer you to the studies and personal testimonies from the Vietnam War. The fact torture breaks a man like an animal is established by hard hard experience from men who lived it to know that truth as a first hand reality.

Is what that requires worth it? That seems the question.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 12:43 PM
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Laykilla

So the dilemma is, do you act as the bad guy, and kill 3 people, or do you act as an even badder guy, and because you refuse to do what's necessary, be responsible for the deaths of 15-20 million people?

I'd kill the 3 people before I let 20 million die, that's just me though.


You mean you would torture 3 people... right? And not to death, because no information is forthcoming from a corpse.

Your argument, and one thats seen all over the place, is consequentialism, or "the ends justify the means". The argument can be used to literally justify anything, as long as the "end" is considered "good", and what is good is subjective to the individual.

The problem with consequentialism is that "good" ends born out of "evil" means are not good at all. Just like planting a kudzu seed will not result in an apple tree, no matter if you call the resultant kudzu vine an apple tree or not, good is never the fruit of evil; evil is the fruit of evil, and good is the fruit of good, even in a reality which good and evil are subjective.


Laykilla

Sometimes there IS no alternative. Do I think they should torture everyone? No, but when the stakes are as high as millions of people, I don't think you have a choice.

Do you torture somebody who has hidden 3 nuclear bombs throughout the US, and you can confirm that the threat is real, and you're on a clock?

You don't have a choice.


Dont get it twisted; there is always a choice. And you have, or are prepared, to choose evil. "Theres no choice" is just an eyes-tightly-shut rationalization that creates the comforting delusion of mitigated personal responsibility.

Good never grows from evil. In the situation above, you do two things: trade one evil act for another, and also completely take on full responsibility for that evil act onto your own being. You saved the apple orchard from fire by tainting the entire orchard with a mutagenic poison that will destroy the essence of the orchard, slowly corrupting the goodness of it from the inside out until at some point you no longer have apples growing in that orchard; you have something... unintended, and no where near as wholesome.

Both options achieve the same end: the destruction of the orchard. Just one is overt and not by your hand, the other is covert and by your hand.

So why really would one decide to stop the destroyer by becoming the destroyer? Certainly not out of a sense of the ends justifying the means, because the end happens to be the same, only the means are different.

Could it be when one is given the opportunity to become what they hate or a variant of it, they will usually accept?

I dont know the answer to that.

But I do know that if you wish to grow apples, you plant apple seeds, not kudzu seeds.

And I also know that if you wish to retain the health and vitality of your orchard, you water it with pure water, not tainted water from a chemical plants run off.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 01:05 PM
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The fact torture breaks a man like an animal
reply to post by Wrabbit2000
 


You will get absolutely no argument from me on that point. It is the very essence of what torture is...it breaks a human being...body, mind and soul.

We seem to have had some catastrophic breakdown in communication...so let me be clear...I do not...under any circumstances....condone the torture of any human being, no matter how bad they are perceived to be, nor how urgent the need.

It is wrong. It's a as simple as that.

It cannot be defended for any reason....none. Not to save a hundred or a million.

I say if we can torture another human being...then we are no better than animals ourselves.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 01:06 PM
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deadcalm



Oh the tears, so delicious.
reply to post by schadenfreude
 


I know right? It was a damning indictment of Obama's Presidency.


if you think Obama is being told everything, I've got a bridge to sell you....when oversite is patently refused by the "3-letter" agencies. something is terribly wrong. when our elected leaders cannot find out what these agencies are doing, those agencies are the one's in charge of this nation.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 01:24 PM
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I'm sorry but we absolutely disagree.
reply to post by Wrabbit2000
 


Think about this Wrabbit2000 .....how would you like it if it were you being tortured? Perhaps a sister...a cousin...your mother or...maybe a beloved aunt? Would you still defend it do you think? Would you still see it's absolute necessity? Would it comfort you if the CIA told you they did it for National Security and stopping terrorism?



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 01:36 PM
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if you think Obama is being told everything
reply to post by jimmyx
 


Obama, like all Presidents are only told what they need to know...nothing more.

But in this case, Obama is well aware....and is once again failing in his duty to faithfully execute the law, which he took a solemn oath to the American people to do. The CIA has lied to Congress, the Senate, and the American people about a great many things recently...and torture is just one of them. Not one person has been prosecuted, and in many cases, those involved have been promoted to higher positions. Barak Obama is allowing the CIA to keep this report from the American people.

If this is the stuff we know...can you imagine the stuff we don't??



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 02:14 PM
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Wrabbit2000

Is what that requires worth it? That seems the question.


No. Never. NEVER.

Especially not in my name as a citizen of this once great country.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 03:05 PM
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They aren't principles if we make exceptions for them.
It's the same excuse they've been giving us forever.
"Sometimes we have to use the dark side to defeat the enemy"
I'm still trying to figure out how smuggling guns to Mexican cartels is helping us but oh well, Holder knows best - right?



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 03:14 PM
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Wrabbit2000
Torture works. Torture works 100% absolutely, 100% of the time.

Incorrect.

Torture only provides the aggressor with a predetermined answer to a predetermined question.

Nothing more, nothing less.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 03:20 PM
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I'm still trying to figure out how smuggling guns to Mexican cartels is helping us but oh well, Holder knows best - right?
reply to post by Asktheanimals
 


Ahhh...yes, Eric Holder...the fastest and most furious Attorney General...ever.




he became the only cabinet member in US history to be held in contempt of Congress


That always looks good on your resume.




Eric Holder knew about the Fast and Furious scandal at least 10 months before he claimed he did to Congress. Of course in Obamaville, what difference does it make if the Attorney General of the United States lied under oath to Congress twice.


That....maybe not so much.




As Attorney General, Holder has been a staunch defender of the President's legal right to prosecute the War on Terror.


Of course he was.

If Eric Holder says it`s legal...you take it as such...lol.



edit on 11-3-2014 by deadcalm because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 05:43 PM
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For those who are under the false delusion that 'torture' began under the W administration?

Need to open up a history book, and look up things like VIetnam.

The 'CIA' was a 'smooth' operator back then.



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 05:59 PM
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reply to post by deadcalm
 



I say if we can torture another human being...then we are no better than animals ourselves.


What on Earth ever caused you to think we're better than animals? We are animals. Higher order intelligence, yes. Crafty and clever to have mastered tool making where our primate cousins are still using one time tools and making new ones every time. Yet, we are what we are.

I find these discussions interesting because it's among the few philosophical areas average people really get into debates with. Most things under that heading are so academic in my experience, even academics play along at times.

It's especially interesting to see the absolute statements made of never and absolutely not. I'm always curious what we're each imagining with the term torture and I'll bet that varies by quite a wide margin. For example.....



I think that was one of Denzel's better performances in meaning if not all ways. I agree entirely with what his character says in that scene, and most definitely under the circumstances I recall so well from having seen the movie a few times. It's a fishing expedition on a strong hunch, and the guy ends up being innocent anyway....after being tortured to death and shot. I fear scenes like that may have taken place and more than once since these wars began. That would be an example of evil. Evil actions, even if men aren't so, themselves.

-----

Getting back to the idea of never as a REALLY big word to use in this topic...what if it's not a fishing trip or hunt for evidence? What if we can put faces...and very specific ones to it.

How about they capture a combatant and within the car, a meter pegs the red lines for gamma radiation in the now empty trunk. How about, to add to the scene, there are other signatures not quite as well known for absolutely confirming the presence of a sophisticated nuclear core, likely within a weapon, and it had been there very recently? Now....figure the capture is in a major city. US...European..doesn't matter.

Now, far from professing ignorance and innocence....your capture is smirking and telling you to go look up minimum safe distances you're not quite in yet and then laughs a bit while telling you to get him an attorney and a deal to learn more...very quickly.

Tell me...what do you do? What should society permit be done, vs. what men WILL do anyway and then be put down for as a violation of law while doing it, later? This is where anything outside the absolute of no, I believe, would require a Court review and approval, on the record. These ought to be so rare, write the law so it's no less than the Super's themselves and they *MUST* drop whatever they are doing and teleconference if necessary, to determine the request.

-----

Take one last example...and it's a hard one, but this is a hard topic and it's a damn hard world where straight blacks and whites of morality rarely fit outside theory. Lets say you're a parent. The worst happens and your small child is abducted. They guy is captured and come to find out, is someone with a history of violence that shouldn't have been out, and has made it clear....his freedom for your kid's life. He walks...or they die and his history shows he honestly doesn't care either way for how it turns out. Lets even say he's a smart criminal, understands things like Proof of Life, and no one doubts the child is still alive but won't be, indefinitely.

What do you do? What should society allow and again, if cops or others do what it takes to recover the child ANYWAY, how far should it be taken in ending their productive lives for the actions?

-----

Nothing in life is ever 100% black and white, IMO. Even this. Some things get VERY close......but this doesn't. It's just exceptionally dangerous to handle poorly both for individuals and ultimately, for society as I see it.
edit on 11-3-2014 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 11 2014 @ 06:04 PM
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The Constitution isn't there as an set of absolutes
reply to post by Wrabbit2000
 


In point of fact...it is.

What is the Purpose of the Constitution of the United States?




The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the nation. It was officially adopted on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has been amended twenty-seven times since then. The first three articles of the constitution describes three branches of the federal government, and provides a set of rules and regulations they have to follow. It also confers them with individual powers....


You can read more....HERE




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