CIA torture report could ignite unrest, Kerry warns

originally posted by: tothetenthpower

Now I'm not one to trust any politician. But if you make me choose between a guy who ran a secret CIA rendition program, vs Diane Feinstein...I"m probably going to believe the ladder.

~Tenth

I couldn't agree more!

Furthermore, I'd just bet that if the CIA pushes the issue, there's probably a recording and/or transcript somewhere of the exact words used by the agency at the time they were briefing the congressional intelligence committees.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Those Americans who support torture either are hypocrites or don't actually understand those principles.

Or are something else entirely.

originally posted by: ColCurious
a reply to: eisegesis

originally posted by: eisegesis
I have clearly stated that these practices are not to be used on anyone but people who have taken the lives of others by the very same torture and brutality that we are being accused of using.

Wow.
Don't you realize that your logic is condemning the serviceman of your nation too?
Torture is either unethical or not.
What if an enemy of your nation used the same logic for the MO of US armed forces regarding collateral damage towards civilians in drone strikes?

And this is an important point.

All philosophies have to be tested both ways.

If Americans think it's okay to torture enemies to get important information and to "save lives," then other countries have the right to do the same in reverse or to others. It goes both ways.

It's the same with all kinds of weapons production. If Americans think that Iran can't have peaceful nuclear power or even weapons, then neither an the developed countries.

Most people are being hypocritical about all of these. They want enemies to stay weak and enemies to be tortured but not the other way around.

a reply to: eisegesis

So in your book anti-torture sentiments are synonymous with terrorist sympathizer? I think the elite would probably agree.

Lets imagine I am the terrorist in your scenario:

The "good guys" are interrogating me trying to find the village people. They begin waterboarding me.

I can't take this simulated drowning so I lie (like I was trained) and tell the the villagers are being held at a terrorist training camp to the south east. My captors believe me, which gives my cohorts the time they need to do whatever it is they want to do to the village people.

So unless they dose me with sodium pentathol, I will lie to cover my comrades. I will tell my captors just about anything to make them stop, even if I have no real idea of the truth.

Torture doesn't work. Its like gambling, either you trust the intel you extracted or you continue interrogating your captive, hoping he provides useful intel, which almost never happens.

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
a reply to: butcherguy

If I were the terrorist in your make-believe scenario I would likely tell them anything just to make the torture stop.

That's the problem with torture. One can never trust the information gathered by such techniques. If I was being waterboarded I would tell them I was the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa just to make them stop, see my point?

I agree that torture is notoriously ineffective at getting good information, that has been proven.
You refer to my hypothetical situation as 'make believe', I will suppose as a way for you to make it seem impossible.
It is a possibility, for all we know it may have already happened.
What I did notice is that you failed to answer my question.
What would you do if it was your call?

The "eye for an eye" didn't start with the terrorists.

The US and west instigated the "brutal and disgusting acts" by invading, couping, manipulating countries including in the ME region for the last 100 years or longer.

It is a big moment when someone realizes "holy sh$t the 'terrorists' may have been fighting back in the only way they knew how in the face of fighting empires."

This doesn't excuse violence against random civilians of the enemy. So I'm not excusing that.

But terrorism is also the US invading Iraq when it posed no threat, with up to 200,000 civilians dying.

originally posted by: eisegesis
a reply to: tothetenthpower

You are not going to get a simple "yes" or "no" answer out of me, it's complicated. I refuse to painted as an apologist.

Take all the families who have lost their brothers, sisters and children to the brutal and disgusting acts of terrorists; beheaded, limbs torn off, starvation, etc. Put them in the same room with the terrorist responsible for their loved ones death. You will see people do things that are far worse than what we put them through during an interrogation.

Not to mention, interrogating a known terrorist doesn't fit into the "eye for an eye" category. Since I cannot validate the success, outcome or value of information that comes from these interrogations, I cannot say for sure that I condone them all.

If done correctly, they aren't designed to punish, they are designed to crack. We get information in return that could lead us to PREVENT more brutal attacks on innocent civilians, if the US was actually doing it's job correctly. See the trade-off there?

I'm trying to hang out in the grey area of all this. I don't agree with the US or most of anything it does. I do not believe people should be tortured. But you have heard the voices at least on this site before, "if that were my son or daughter, I would be arrested for murder!" Let me know how you'd feel meeting the convicted murderer of your son or daughter in a private room. Justice comes in many forms they say.

What the US is SUPPOSED to do is use these interrogations to save more lives. Learn the location of hidden POW's. Locate a hidden missile silo or weapons of mass destruction cache. I can see them getting overzealous and forgetting when the right time is to turn the heat up. The tactics are more than likely being abused and that in itself is very wrong.

originally posted by: Spiramirabilis
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Those Americans who support torture either are hypocrites or don't actually understand those principles.

Morality is relative. When people have an enemy they sometimes forget themselves - and everything they believe in

Well, it is a good thing then that after WWII we passed all kinds of anti-torture laws and signed them at an international level.

But yes, I understand your sentiment.

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
a reply to: eisegesis

So in your book anti-torture sentiments are synonymous with terrorist sympathizer? I think the elite would probably agree.

Lets imagine I am the terrorist in your scenario:

The "good guys" are interrogating me trying to find the village people. They begin waterboarding me.

I can't take this simulated drowning so I lie (like I was trained) and tell the the villagers are being held at a terrorist training camp to the south east. My captors believe me, which gives my cohorts the time they need to do whatever it is they want to do to the village people.

So unless they dose me with sodium pentathol, I will lie to cover my comrades. I will tell my captors just about anything to make them stop, even if I have no real idea of the truth.

Torture doesn't work. Its like gambling, either you trust the intel you extracted or you continue interrogating your captive, hoping he provides useful intel, which almost never happens.

Right, so not only is it unethical and illegal to torture it's also ineffective, as you noted.

a reply to: butcherguy

answer my question. What would you do if it was your call?

Apologies. I figured that was rather obvious considering the opinions I have expressed herein. To spell it out, however, I would find some other way because torture is not an effective means to gather intel.

a reply to: tothetenthpower
As a chronic insomniac, I can tell you sleep deprivation is torture. Want to know how to feel really crazy? Stay up for a few days, if you can even manage it. Being in a place with little outside stimulation to distract your mind while doing it, kinda amplifies the effects. All you have is your insane thoughts.

As for people that defend torture, they are ignorant or insane in my book. People are always talking like we have some kind of moral high ground over our enemies, when we clearly don't. We blow people up indiscriminately with our high tech toys, we torture, we have been meddling and causing overthrows of other peoples' governments forever now. We have become worse than the mopnsters we claim to fight, probably really started that slide in WW1, been downhill after it.

a reply to: eisegesis

When a nation lowers itself down to the level of the enemy that is so 'evil',then that nation itself is evil. You can not stand and go on about how good you are as a nation while you are involved in or support such things as torture. We signed agreements with the rest of the world that we would not use such means,and yet we can't even abide by those agreements. So what kind of nation does that make us?

If you were disgusted by what the Nazi doctors did to people,then you don't do it.If you are disgusted by what 'terrorists' do then you don't do it. If you were disgusted with the Spanish inquisition,then you don't go and do the same things to others. Two wrongs do not make a right,and if we are truly an 'exceptional' nation,we would not have to sink so low towards others. I don't care what the terrorists do as far their methods, we can't complain about it if we are doing the same or worse. Then WE are the terrorists now. And that we are.

originally posted by: TKDRL
a reply to: tothetenthpower
As a chronic insomniac, I can tell you sleep deprivation is torture. Want to know how to feel really crazy? Stay up for a few days, if you can even manage it. Being in a place with little outside stimulation to distract your mind while doing it, kinda amplifies the effects. All you have is your insane thoughts.

It's basically been proven that you start to hallucinate after 72 straight hours ( I think that's the mark), and that's without outside stimulus to screw with you.

So include food deprivation, confined spaces and usually that god awful loud music they've been playing at them 24/hrs a day and to me, that's VERY much a torturing experiment.

~Tenth

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
Torture doesn't work. Its like gambling, either you trust the intel you extracted or you continue interrogating your captive, hoping he provides useful intel, which almost never happens.

Oh, you can get info, it's just noisy. You use that sort either as a fishing expedition to see what associations the guy makes or as corroborative evidence for things you already know.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

So include food deprivation, confined spaces and usually that god awful loud music they've been playing at them 24/hrs a day and to me, that's VERY much a torturing experiment.

Don''t forget to include fear - not knowing what will happen to you - that in and of itself is torture

It's always interested me that a law and order country like the USA can defend torture as something somebody deserves before they've been tried and have actually been proven guilty

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

Thank you. I didn't want to guess your answer and be wrong.

I should give my answer, to be fair.
I would risk the terrorist suspect giving me false information under torture rather than have him give me no information at all, hoping that he may give factual info... Which also can happen under torture.
I would only do this because of the time constraint and the horrible outcome if I failed to act.

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

All they had to do was create a legal frame work that made it impossible to consider terrorists as people.

"Enemy Combatants", not part of the language in the Geneva Convention, not POW's, so we can do what we want to them.

Sickening.

~Tenth

You have to actually be a psychopath to employ torture... think about that.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Sickening.

It makes me feel a very deep sense of shame

If the report is released (and I'm almost certain that it will be now - finally) we are going to have a lot of very interesting, long overdue conversations in this country - all over the world for that matter

I see this as the first step back on the road to recovery. It absolutely has to happen

a reply to: Kali74

Not if you have a doctor standing by to make sure you don't go too far

Honestly - how is this not insane?

originally posted by: Kali74
You have to actually be a psychopath to employ torture... think about that.

Well, they are a part of society.
And they are they ones that actually perform the deed. That is who the CIA hires for the task. It is sick, but true.