On the Daily Show the implication is that the Bush Administration said "we do not torture" saying that the Obama Administration put out a memo admitting that yes, we do torture and this is what we do. With lots of funny views of Right Wingers complaining that now the terrorists can now train to be prepared to be tortured blah blah.
I thought everyone already knew all of this?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Bush officials to be prosecuted? The US might have to. The InternationalCriminalCourt charter states that if the nation in which crimes against humanity occurs fails to undertake proper legal actions, then the ICC gains jurisdiction.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Woot!
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I thought everyone already knew all of this?
I thought so, after all its public knowledge that the Americans copied, developed, and have been using water-boarding ever since the Korean War.
quote: A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. "Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role," the manual states.
The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of "touchless torture" until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: Bush officials to be prosecuted? The US might have to. The InternationalCriminalCourt charter states that if the nation in which crimes against humanity occurs fails to undertake proper legal actions, then the ICC gains jurisdiction.
Although I wish it were otherwise, the US doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. Without a voluntary submission, the ICC has no means of enforcement.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I thought everyone already knew all of this?
A lot of people did; that's part of what Obama is citing as justification for declassifying the documents in question.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
There's a difference between "everyone knows" and "the government publicly states".
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
It's been really disturbing reading the combination of "Terrorists deserve whatever's coming to them, they do far worse things to people from the United States" and "Obama's going to tear the country apart on this one issue and then he'll be a one-termer" from some on the right wing in comments on the news sites.
Frankly, I think it's extremely wishful thinking on their part (if Obama actually is a one-term president, I suspect it will be much more as a result of failure to bring about an economic turnaround), but at the same time I just want to snap, "What's wrong with you people?"
[ April 22, 2009, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: Sterling ]
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
The Daily Show had a great series of clips.
"Gee, why did you tell everyone?" and "Maybe its better if we just move on and forget this."
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
I don't like the "It's ok we did it because it worked" attitude that Cheney has about it. That doesn't make it right or ok. It just makes it effective. We wouldn't be saying it was ok if Iraq used the technique to determine when the US was going to invade, we'd be screaming for prosecution of the individuals who did it.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote:We wouldn't be saying it was ok if Iraq used the technique to determine when the US was going to invade, we'd be screaming for prosecution of the individuals who did it.
If an American civilian was committing terroristic acts in Iraq I would not scream at all.
Posted by Flaming Toad on a Stick (Member # 9302) on :
Pray tell, which Iraqi civilians were commiting terrorist acts on American soil?
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by andi330:
I don't like the "It's ok we did it because it worked" attitude that Cheney has about it. That doesn't make it right or ok. It just makes it effective.
The problem with effectiveness justifying any torture is that you're not certain the people you're torturing even have information. There are some situations in which I'd pardon an interrogator who tortured a captive, but they probably almost never come up outside of movies.
They should let us know exactly how effective our interrogation techniques were, though, just to let us feel confident that we're not hurting ourselves by not using certain techniques (assuming they gave us almost nothing).
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
The principle doesn't seem very different if you insert 'Saudi Arabian' for 'Iraqi'.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
One of the memos said they water boarded one prisoner 183 times. One hundred and eighty three times and then they decided that a) it wasn't working and b) it might be crossing the line.
Given that fact, it makes me sick that Cheney is still arguing that this was necessary to keep America safe.
If Cheney thinks that the American people would support this if they knew how much valuable information was gained, why didn't he declassify the information while he was still in a position of power? Its not like this scandal wasn't made public then.
I have a pretty good idea why, that priceless information obtained by torturing prisoners doesn't actually exist. But now that Cheney is out of power, he can keep asserting that it exists and that Obama is covering it up by refusing to declassify it. It won't matter what the Obama administration declassifies, Cheney can keep claiming that they are still hiding the critical piece that would prove him right. We know for a fact that Cheney deliberately mislead the American people about the contents of classified information in the lead up to the Iraq war. He has proven that he is perfectly willing to dissemble whenever it suits his need. Why should we believe he isn't lying this time?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight:
quote:We wouldn't be saying it was ok if Iraq used the technique to determine when the US was going to invade, we'd be screaming for prosecution of the individuals who did it.
If an American civilian was committing terroristic acts in Iraq I would not scream at all.
Would it bother you if the American they choose to torture wasn't the one who committed the terrorist acts?
None of the people we are talking about have been convicted of any crime. Whatever happened to considering people innocent until proven guilty.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Even if it were true "because it works" is not a good defense because then where is the limit? If chopping off fingers or breasts or noses worked would that have been justified, too?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Even if it were true "because it works" is not a good defense because then where is the limit? If chopping off fingers or breasts or noses worked would that have been justified, too?
What about the rack, the iron maiden, thumb screws? If it worked would you approve of impaling people, drawing and quartering them, burning them? Anyone who argues that torture is OK if its gets desirable results has indeed lost their moral compass.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight:
quote:We wouldn't be saying it was ok if Iraq used the technique to determine when the US was going to invade, we'd be screaming for prosecution of the individuals who did it.
If an American civilian was committing terroristic acts in Iraq I would not scream at all.
Moron.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: If an American civilian was committing terroristic acts in Iraq I would not scream at all.
Indeed. And you haven't. At least that much is consistent.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: Would it bother you if the American they choose to torture wasn't the one who committed the terrorist acts?
None of the people we are talking about have been convicted of any crime. Whatever happened to considering people innocent until proven guilty.
That depends on what the American was doing at the time. If the American was helping construct roadside bombs but was not the one who set them off then they are still committing terroristic acts. Is it your assertion that none of the prisoners have committed a crime? You seem to be under the assumption that we waterboarded every single person picked up. Why doesn't Obama do what Cheney suggested and release all of the documents?
quote: Moron.
I know you are but what am I?
quote: Indeed. And you haven't. At least that much is consistent.
Why would I scream about someone being waterboarded if their intent is to kill as many innocent civilians as they can?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Is it your assertion that none of the prisoners have committed a crime?
It is my assertion that some of the prisoners have not committed any crimes and we don't know which ones they are. If we do know which ones committed crimes and which ones didn't, why are we still keeping the innocent ones prisoner?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: [QB]Why would I scream about someone being waterboarded if their intent is to kill as many innocent civilians as they can?
Because it's a dumb policy which harms us and is a moral failure and didn't even work in the first place.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Why would I scream about someone being waterboarded if their intent is to kill as many innocent civilians as they can?
First, you do not in fact know their intent as many others have pointed out.
Second, water-boarding has been internationally established as a war crime which when inflicted on Americans in WII by Japanese soldiers was punishable by 15 years of hard labour.
Unless you thought it was ok back then, it would simply be hypocritical to consider it ok now.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: One of the memos said they water boarded one prisoner 183 times. One hundred and eighty three times and then they decided that a) it wasn't working and b) it might be crossing the line.
Given that fact, it makes me sick that Cheney is still arguing that this was necessary to keep America safe.
If Cheney thinks that the American people would support this if they knew how much valuable information was gained, why didn't he declassify the information while he was still in a position of power? Its not like this scandal wasn't made public then.
I have a pretty good idea why, that priceless information obtained by torturing prisoners doesn't actually exist. But now that Cheney is out of power, he can keep asserting that it exists and that Obama is covering it up by refusing to declassify it. It won't matter what the Obama administration declassifies, Cheney can keep claiming that they are still hiding the critical piece that would prove him right. We know for a fact that Cheney deliberately mislead the American people about the contents of classified information in the lead up to the Iraq war. He has proven that he is perfectly willing to dissemble whenever it suits his need. Why should we believe he isn't lying this time?
183 times in a single month.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
There were a fair number of things that were "okayed" as interrogation techniques that I don't think should be done to anyone. And the thought of them being done to American P.O.W.s ought to give those who think otherwise some pause.
We don't win the moral high ground by saying "But we only immerse them in solutions of no more than 20% hydrochloric acid" or "We only pull off part of the fingernail." We win it by saying "we don't torture" and putting it into practice in a way that would cause the vast majority of people to recognize that statement as true.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
WHAT WE LEARNED
1. The good intelligence we got out of suspects came before the torture started.
2. The torture itself gave us basically nothing.
3. Torture turned out to be less effectual than befriending suspects and/or playing good cop/bad cop with them.
4. The interrogators very often did not even believe themselves that the torture would get us any new information, as they were well versed in interrogation and as such had personal understanding of the failures of torture.
5. There never, never was a ticking time bomb scenario, of the kind commonly assured to us by armchair chickenhawkels. Surprise, right?
6. The "high value" of torture targets was vastly overstated and they were just torturing subjects more or less on experimental grounds; there was no concrete definition of a "high value" subject and no intent to discriminate thusly.
7. We waterboarded a person 183 times in a month. We deprived someone of sleep for 11 days in a row, and in addition to other clear cut episodes of torture — not 'enhanced interrogation,' the outright, indefensible, definite torture of individuals — we have point by point transcripts of interrogation methods which are decidedly cruel and unusual.
8. The torture began before the first memo justifying torture was produced, so anything said about how the torture was just following bad legal advice is absolute horse poop.
9. As Time has recently helped note: The techniques the CIA drew on ultimately go back to an article written for the Air Force about Chinese torture techniques during the Korean War, entitled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War." As the title indicates, the Chinese intent was to produce false confessions, not obtain vital intelligence.
10. I was right, Picard was right, and if you agreed with me, you were right too. :smug.gif:
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:If an American civilian was committing terroristic acts in Iraq I would not scream at all.
Why not?
Does torture become acceptable or at least tolerable to you if it's in retaliation for or in an effort to prevent terrorism?
What if it's to stop serial killers? Or gang violence? Those two things can be pretty big in the death counts too.
And of course there's also the issue of whether or not it works, and I think you'll have to agree that question is unresolved at the least.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: ... 9. As Time has recently helped note: The techniques the CIA drew on ultimately go back to an article written for the Air Force about Chinese torture techniques during the Korean War, entitled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War." As the title indicates, the Chinese intent was to produce false confessions, not obtain vital intelligence.
Ultimately, this may have been the intent.
quote: The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.
...
"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.
"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."
Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.
quote:Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.
So the Bushies committed crimes against humanity in order to justify the crimes against humanity they were planning to commit.
"Lost our moral compass" is way to generous. These people are evil. I want to see their full crimes made public and the responsible parties properly punished. Its not about revenge or refusal to move on. Sometime you can't move forward without making proper recompense for the past. Trying these leaders is important for us as Americans to reassert that these are not the values we want as a foundation for our society.
The Nuremberg trials were an incredibly important for the transformation of Germany. Without them, I doubt Germany would have been able to so fully reject fascism or build the ethical society they have built.
As America we've spent way too many years avoiding dealing with the hard truths of our past. We still have come to grips with McCarthy, Vietnam, Watergate, or Iran/Contra, and those are just the last 50 years. It isn't time to move on until we know the truth, make a clear stand about we as Americans will and will not tolerate in our leaders, and make reconciliation with those we have injured.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:The Nuremberg trials were an incredibly important for the transformation of Germany. Without them, I doubt Germany would have been able to so fully reject fascism or build the ethical society they have built.
That's an interesting take on a process not begun or implemented by Germans. The imminent threat of the Soviets certainly tempered their rejection of fascism, to say the least.
Rabbit, I agree that if these things are true* - and as time passes, and further documents come to light, that seems more and more likely - there needs to be some serious redress in the form of trials. Not that there ever will be, but there should. But I have to admit I view with skepticism your claim that 'it's not about revenge'.
Are you saying you wouldn't get any vengeful satisfaction out of that sort of thing?
*One thing I wonder about. I am surprised if our people weren't able to get the pretexts they needed if they were actually going about such unfettered methods as this.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: As Krugman puts it,
quote:Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.
Yeah what a great president.
Such a moral bulwark. We should definitely be singing his praises.
Seriously though, bush's legacy defenders have essentially been slapped in the face by this.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
Even if it were true "because it works" is not a good defense because then where is the limit? If chopping off fingers or breasts or noses worked would that have been justified, too?
There are some cases in which I'd do whatever was necessary to get information. But I'm sure they have a negligible chance of happening outside of the movies.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Are you saying you wouldn't get any vengeful satisfaction out of that sort of thing?
I've never found revenge to be particularly satisfying. Perhaps I am deceiving myself but revenge is not something that particularly motivates me.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote: quote:
quote:The Nuremberg trials were an incredibly important for the transformation of Germany. Without them, I doubt Germany would have been able to so fully reject fascism or build the ethical society they have built.
That's an interesting take on a process not begun or implemented by Germans. The imminent threat of the Soviets certainly tempered their rejection of fascism, to say the least.
The value of Nuremberg to Germany was that it made public all the secrets of the Nazi regime. By putting all the "classified" crimes on public trial, Nuremberg made possible German introspection about the war and about the culpability of individuals. The data presented at Nuremberg laid the foundation for public discussion that continues today and has resulted in a major cultural and ethical shift in Germany.
Hitler was able to do what he did in part because he controlled the flow of information. Nuremberg opened all those secrets to public scrutiny.
A trial would be an opportunity for public discourse about what really happened and whether it was justified or unjustified. That discourse is a necessary part of ethical progress.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Are you saying you wouldn't get any vengeful satisfaction out of that sort of thing?
Revenge? Nobody here wants Bush tortured. Just imprisoned for life.
I want justice and transparency, not revenge. Worthless bastards like this aren't worth my attention, just my disgust -- try them, jail them, and let's try to fix all the harm they've done. And along the way, let's hopefully learn a lesson about electing Republicans.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Face it. Torture is illegal. We have laws against it just as we have laws against taking illegal drugs.
So lets see what we get when we change Torture to Drug Use. We change Water Boarding to Marijuana.
We have political people who left memos encouraging soldiers and governmental employees to Do Drugs. They state that its important, necessary, and fine. The Vice President basically says, "Just Do It."
In short, they became the dealers for the drugs.
When this is discovered President Bush quickly says that, "We are against illegal drug use. It is not what we stand for, nor what the US stands for. Those caught doing serious drugs will be sent to prison. However, there are some who even right now may be smoking Hemp. That's OK. Hemp is not a Drug. Hemp is not Marijuana. Trust me."
Then later we have Vice President Cheney saying, "Yeah, so we had people doing a little Coke. We had some uppers and some speed going, but hey--look at the increase in their performance. Its not "Drugs" its performance enhancement--like Steroids. It was a national emergency. Lives were saved because our troops, our people, were running on Speed."
Now arguments can be made that people are more or less efficient under special medications.
That doesn't stop it from being illegal.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
The problem with your argument Darth_Mauve is that in our civilization it is widely agreed that torture is grossly immoral, a crime against humanity, one of the worst things a person or society can do. We don't just think its illegal, we are in broad agreement that its a really really bad thing. Bans against torture are enshrined in our constitution, the universal declaration of human rights and numerous treaties.
In contrast, a lot of people think using drugs isn't a particularly bad thing. The last 3 presidents of the US used marijuana in their youth. By most accounts, Bush used cocaine when he was in college. Nearly half of American adults admit to having tried illegal drugs. So while drug use is illegal, we certainly don't have any consensus that it is immoral. Comparing breaking laws against torture to breaking laws forbiding the use of certain drugs is ridiculous. Its like comparing murder to jay walking.
Imagine if I'd said, 45% of adult Americans admit to having water boarded someone. Our last three presidents all admit to having tortured someone while they were in college. Do you think there is any chance that Obama would have been elected if he had confessed to torturing someone in his misguided youth? Do you think even republicans would have backed George Bush is he had admitted to torturing Vietnam POWs while he was in the Texas national guard?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'll believe Rabbit when she says she wouldn't take any vengeful satisfaction in Bush being put up on charges.
You making the same claims? Let's just say that is greeted with substantial skepticism and leave it at that.
--
Not that I think there's anything that bad about feeling vengeful satisfaction in this sort of thing, or even that the question is important compared to larger considerations.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
"Vengeful satisfaction"? What? I also take "vengeful satisfaction" in Nelson Mandela's freedom and the Allied victory in WWII.
You're so weird, dude. Do all your arguments consist of semantic nitpicking?
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Rabbit, I don't mean to equalize torture with drug use.
What I want to point out is that the same people who demand prosecution and long jail terms for any drug offense, and would make certain to ruin the career and reputation of any politician, soldier, or government worker who breaks the law in such a way, are the same ones arguing that "The past is the past and we should just forget about it" when it comes to these torture charged.
Heck, they refuse to discuss immigration reform for fear of giving amnesty to people who have worked hard and paid taxes for decades, because "they Broke The Law, and that can't be tolerated."
The illegal immigrants risked their lives to get a better life for their families.
The politicians responsible for this have inflicted terror and pain on people who may be innocent, because they were scared.
That's the latest excuse. After 9/11, we were scared. That's why we did this. We feared another attack any moment and we had to make sure we were safe.
In other words--we were scared and over reacted.
Now doesn't that excuse make the US proud.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I see your point now Darth. I just think it didn't work that well since most people would be willing to excuse breaking drug laws in an emergency situation.
In fact most people excuse G.W. Bush's drug use as a youthful indiscretion which we should overlook now that he has matured.
[ April 23, 2009, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Lalo, you're acting like that phrase somehow didn't make sense. Rabbit, for example, appears to have had no difficulty understanding it at all though, with only a little bit of context.
So I don't know where that comes from.
As for arguments, I wasn't arguing with you. I was just saying that I doubted your claim that you wouldn't get any vengeful satisfaction out of it. That's not semantic nitpicking.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
I'm happy that criminals might be brought to justice, and transparency and accountability might be brought to the too-powerful federal government.
Your assessment is that I'm taking vengeful satisfaction.
You're so weird.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:The Nuremberg trials were an incredibly important for the transformation of Germany. Without them, I doubt Germany would have been able to so fully reject fascism or build the ethical society they have built.
That's an interesting take on a process not begun or implemented by Germans. The imminent threat of the Soviets certainly tempered their rejection of fascism, to say the least.
Rabbit, I agree that if these things are true* - and as time passes, and further documents come to light, that seems more and more likely - there needs to be some serious redress in the form of trials. Not that there ever will be, but there should. But I have to admit I view with skepticism your claim that 'it's not about revenge'.
Are you saying you wouldn't get any vengeful satisfaction out of that sort of thing?
*One thing I wonder about. I am surprised if our people weren't able to get the pretexts they needed if they were actually going about such unfettered methods as this.
Considering Nazi'ism was very much the ideological opposition to Bolshevikism I highly doubt that the Soviets presented any impetus to develop a ethical democratic society. Its all to easy to revert to facsism if the leaders can claim it can fight militant bolshevikism.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I'm happy that criminals might be brought to justice, and transparency and accountability might be brought to the too-powerful federal government.
Your assessment is that I'm taking vengeful satisfaction.
You're so weird.
And you're so inattentive.
My assessment wasn't that you are taking vengeful satisfaction, it's that if Bush (or at least high ranking members of the Bush Administration) were to be brought up on charges, you would take some vengeful satisfaction. I said nothing about whether or not you wouldn't feel other things as well.
But, just for fun, are you saying that the people who we're talking about are conservative Republicans wouldn't add even a bit of icing to the cake for you? A cake stuffed full of wholesome justice and integrity, to be sure, but what about that tastes-so-great frosting?
---
Blayne, I'm not sure what you're talking about, or how it relates to what I quoted.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
I have a hard time understanding how anyone could possibly compare our intelligence agencies to the Nazi's. Please, there were no gas chambers, we weren't pulling their teeth out or making lamps out of their skin.
The so called "torture" our special forces submit themselves to in training.
None of them died and likely didn't even bleed. Sure they may have been humiliated and made uncomfortable, a far cry from what these animals do to the infidel. I hear much more outrage over waterboarding than one of them beheading an American contractore on tv.
Bin Laden was right, most Americans are pathetic and week.
The taliban is in Pakistan beating women in the streets for Sharia offenses and barbers are being beaten and having their stores torched for the sin of shaving a man's face.
If we really want them tortured, we send them to one of our allies and let them do it for us. If I'm ever sent back, I'll definitely be less inclined to take a prisoner. Our troops should do the humane thing and just put them down like the dogs they are.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:None of them died and likely didn't even bleed.
I have a question for you. Let's say that we invent a device capable of firing every single nerve at once, creating awesome, indescribable, total pain in a way that no amount of real-world damage could ever cause. And we can do this at will, and subject our prisoners to sustained periods of this experience.
Is that better or worse than making a lamp out of their skin?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
We convicted Japanese soldiers of war crimes and sentenced them to 15 years hard labour for waterboarding American soldiers during WWII.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
What would you say to someone who responded to that with, "You're right---maybe we should apologize to Japan and compensate those prisoners."?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
malanthrop: Some of those sentiments are pretty disgusting to me. I'll try to just respond to the ideas themselves as I don't personally think you are a terrible person.
quote:I have a hard time understanding how anyone could possibly compare our intelligence agencies to the Nazi's. Please, there were no gas chambers, we weren't pulling their teeth out or making lamps out of their skin.
Tom's next post responding to this is exactly what I've said every time somebody makes this claim.
quote: None of them died and likely didn't even bleed. Sure they may have been humiliated and made uncomfortable, a far cry from what these animals do to the infidel. I hear much more outrage over waterboarding than one of them beheading an American contractore on tv.
When it comes to torture, it is often worse than death, the goal in fact is to make the person desire death, but be unable to find it, thus making their only recourse to do what is necessary to stop the torture.
quote:Bin Laden was right, most Americans are pathetic and week.
You'll forgive me if I do not let a terrorist with evil intentions define what makes somebody admirable and strong. You shouldn't do it either.
quote:The taliban is in Pakistan beating women in the streets for Sharia offenses and barbers are being beaten and having their stores torched for the sin of shaving a man's face.
I don't quite understand. Are you saying that because Taliban forces do terrible things for causes we think are wrong that for the sake of those they victimize we should turn them into victims of torture?
quote:If we really want them tortured, we send them to one of our allies and let them do it for us.
Extraordinary Rendition may be the darkest blot on our nation's good name that I have seen since I was born. If those people are really our allies I hope they tell us to 'shove it' and remind us that we made the commitment not to torture and to hold us to it.
quote: If I'm ever sent back, I'll definitely be less inclined to take a prisoner. Our troops should do the humane thing and just put them down like the dogs they are.
I sincerely hope then that you are never redeployed until you reconsider that position. Atrocities in war are unavoidable as war by its' very nature is an atrocity, but while our soldiers are prosecuting the war they represent me and everyone in America. We've already agreed that executing the enemy is categorically wrong, it says so in the uniform code of military justice. I hope that any soldier that decides to kill another human being without justification is tried for murder.
We the people have already spoken on the subject, you and your fellow soldiers are not permitted to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Cultivate some love for your enemies, your lack of empathy has already lead you to conclusions I think are dastardly cruel.
edit: Calling them dogs is only an attempt to dehumanize them so that treating them inhumanely is less difficult. The worst crimes in human history were committed by first doing that very thing.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:None of them died and likely didn't even bleed.
I have a question for you. Let's say that we invent a device capable of firing every single nerve at once, creating awesome, indescribable, total pain in a way that no amount of real-world damage could ever cause. And we can do this at will, and subject our prisoners to sustained periods of this experience.
Is that better or worse than making a lamp out of their skin?
If your as of yet uninvented torture device were available, I would suggest it is better than having a lamp made out of your skin.
They are suggesting prosecuting the attourneys that gave the legal opinion that it was not torture. If the case went to the supreme court it is unlikely they would come to a unanimous decision. Should the dissenting justices be punished for their opinions? The current administration is setting a scary trend. Ex post facto political retribution. First they threaten 90% taxes on past pay now they are willing to charge prior legal opinions??? If congress wanted to, they could outlaw waterboarding, they have not. Wether it is "torture" is legally debatable and Pelosi and Obama could make it illegal by passing a law but politicizing it is much better for them. Congress was briefed on its use years ago. This will set a very bad precident that will only further the grid lock in our government. Every decision will have to go through tedious legal arguments for fear of future political retribution under the guise of law. We are going back to the pre 911 mentality that got us into trouble. The war on terror, excuse me, "overseas contingency operations" and "man made disasters" are once again becoming a police action subject to the courts. They are at war with us, they have no constitutional rights and they are not subject to the Geneva convention.
When conservatives regain power they could do the same and charge the current administration with treason for violating the constitution. If abortion is made illegal they could go back and throw the lawyers in jail who once argued for its legality.
Make it explicitly illegal and move on. They don't want to though. They would rather you keep your narrow minds on the Bush administration while they convert the preferred stock in the banks into common stock and become the controlling vote in our banking system, thus nationalizing the banks.
In better times, the personal lives of Paris Hilton in conjunction with our pathetic education system sufficed to keep the masses from paying attention. Times are tough, we need a bad guy. Wall Street and Bush. Eventually the Bush administrations flaws will lose their effect and people will begin to scrutinize this administration.
Maybe Napalitano should be charged with dereliction of duty for heading homeland security and stating that illegal immigration isn't a crime. Talk about inept. Everything they are doing is undermining our national security. Obama shaking hands and smiling at a tin pan dictator who locks up his political opposition hurts freedom around the world. The speaker of the house demanding that ICE stop deporting illegal immigrants and our head of homeland security claiming it isn't a crime weakens our borders. Forcing the DoD to release all the photos of "torture" to the public will cause a fire storm in the middle east. Are you not seeing the security in the world crumble due to his affable, nice guy nature?? Iran, Venezuala, North Korea just ramping it up since he's been in office. Russia pressing against the young democratic nations on it's borders. Sometimes having a cowboy is good. We're dealing with tyrants who understand the cowboy and laugh at this administration.
[ April 24, 2009, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: malanthrop ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Waterboarding was illegal. It was illegal for soldiers to use it during Vietnam. It was illegal for law enforcement to use it to get confessions.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
Waterboarding isn't the only technique they are scrutinizing. Only 3 prisoners were waterboarded, one of them planned the September 11th attacks.
You are using "law enforcement". These people do not have American legal rights. They do not have miranda rights, etc. But once they are in our courts, a nit wit lawyer will argue that the soldier didn't read him his rights to get him released. Again, this is a war not a criminal action. The 911 commission found that treating terrorism (manmade disasters) as a crime was what lead to 911. We are not only going back to pre 911 mentality, they are going beyond that and giving these animals the rights of US Citizens.
How's the American reporter in an Iranian prison doing about now. When Mr. nice guy Obama talks with Ahmadinejad, do you think it hurts her? Our enemies are emboldened and we are all in greater danger for it.
Manuel Rosales fled Venezuala soon after O's bromance with Chaves. Rosales was his strongest opponent, his greatest threat to locking up his president for life bid. But, being nice doesn't hurt, right??? Rosales can see the writing on the wall. He was about to become a political prisoner just like our reporter.
You think the way to beat them is to become them?
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
Waterboarding was the worst we did. No comparison to what they do and what we are. They will behead an American civilian, any American civilian. They've killed thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world. We waterboarde 3 people who had a lot of knowledge. There is no comparison. When we start beheading the Arab who owns the corner store with a butcher knife and sending the videos to the SWAT region, we've become them.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
We are doing things that we not so long ago considered war crimes.
What they do or do not do does not mitigate this.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
malanthrop: Could you verify your "only 3 waterboarded" statement? How can we even know how many people were waterboarded when after the Justice Department requested tapes of interrogations, the CIA erased hours of footage? It was certainly more than three who were sent to other countries where worse things took place. Waterboarding is not the worst we did, as we are still responsible for those we used extraordinary rendition on, and we don't know what was on those tapes.
It does not matter what others are doing, we are not a tit for tat nation. If Al Qaeda kidnapped some children from the continental United States and publicly executed them would we show our resolve by one upping them? I don't think so.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Make it explicitly illegal and move on.
Point of order: Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress positions are already explicitly illegal. The US has - freely of its own will - entered into treaties whereby these precise techniques are considered crimes against humanity, and has convicted other nations' citizens for war crimes for such actions on American citizens. These treaties have the force of law in the US. There is no need for new law; the law exists, and the only question is whether to enforce it.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Malanthrop,
quote:The so called "torture" our special forces submit themselves to in training.
Why do our special forces submit themselves to that sort of thing, do you think?
quote:None of them died and likely didn't even bleed. Sure they may have been humiliated and made uncomfortable, a far cry from what these animals do to the infidel. I hear much more outrage over waterboarding than one of them beheading an American contractore on tv.
Whether or not they bled and certainly whether or not they died has no bearing at all on whether or not they were tortured. So that was a pretty foolish statement to make.
The fact that our enemies treat their prisoners worse in many cases is also irrelevant. We're not supposed to have moral standards on the basis of the worst our enemies do to us.
There is not more 'outrage' over torture than American contractors being beheaded.
quote:If we really want them tortured, we send them to one of our allies and let them do it for us. If I'm ever sent back, I'll definitely be less inclined to take a prisoner. Our troops should do the humane thing and just put them down like the dogs they are.
In that case you would be a disgrace to the uniform you'd be wearing and the tradition you'd be serving if you did it. Regardless of how widespread the sentiment is.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:There is not more 'outrage' over torture than American contractors being beheaded.
I don't know. I am more outraged that the US is torturing prisoners in my name than I am that terrorists beheaded someone. I expect my country to have a higher and stronger ethical code than terrorists. I am outraged when people like mal suggest that its OK for us to sink into moral depravity solely because the other guys are even worse. Terrorists and Nazi's should not be the standard by which we set our moral code. We should not judge ourselves in comparison to their moral depravity. Some things are simply wrong regardless of whether or not other people do even worse things. Torture is one of those things.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
The special forces submitting to torture training are clearly different from prisoners. For one thing, they volunteered. They have the option of leaving at any time. They know the end date if they stay the whole time. They have safety words if it gets too intense. And the people torturing them are fellow Americans- who ultimately are on the same side as the torture trainee. I thought one news outlet made a great comparison- the difference in these two cases is the same as the difference between S&M and rape. Consent matters.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I've never understood that argument: "When our forces are being trained to withstand torture, they get tortured, so when we do it to other people, it's no big deal."
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
According to one Navy captain, they stopped the technique of waterboarding our special forces trainees because it hurt morale.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
The fact that our enemies treat their prisoners worse in many cases is also irrelevant. We're not supposed to have moral standards on the basis of the worst our enemies do to us.
If our "moral standards" are giving our enemies an advantage over us, we should ask why we should keep the standards when dealing with these enemies.
I assume that the reasons for keeping the standards are (1) to keep people who are currently not with our enemies from having another reason to join our enemies; (2) to maintain our relationships with our allies, who probably won't have enough information to see our torture as necessary even if it is; and (3) to keep us off the slippery slope of using torture for more and more things.
I'd still like to here Cheney et al. say why they thought the interrogation techniques they approved were necessary.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I would say that moral standards are worth having for their own sake.
As to whether we should prosecute those responsible for torture:
quote: The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.
G.W. Bush is such a hypocrite. The statement kmboots posted above was posted after the he approved the torture of prisoners.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: In better times, the personal lives of Paris Hilton in conjunction with our pathetic education system sufficed to keep the masses from paying attention. Times are tough, we need a bad guy. Wall Street and Bush. Eventually the Bush administrations flaws will lose their effect and people will begin to scrutinize this administration.
Maybe Napalitano should be charged with dereliction of duty for heading homeland security and stating that illegal immigration isn't a crime. Talk about inept. Everything they are doing is undermining our national security. Obama shaking hands and smiling at a tin pan dictator who locks up his political opposition hurts freedom around the world. The speaker of the house demanding that ICE stop deporting illegal immigrants and our head of homeland security claiming it isn't a crime weakens our borders. Forcing the DoD to release all the photos of "torture" to the public will cause a fire storm in the middle east. Are you not seeing the security in the world crumble due to his affable, nice guy nature?? Iran, Venezuala, North Korea just ramping it up since he's been in office. Russia pressing against the young democratic nations on it's borders. Sometimes having a cowboy is good. We're dealing with tyrants who understand the cowboy and laugh at this administration.
You know, I'd oddly not offended by your opinions -- I can see where you're coming from, and it's not the typical vapid Republican argument against gay marriage or federal oversight.
But calling Bush a cowboy? Really? Cowboys do things. Bush was a posing frat boy whose incompetence and corruption bankrupted our treasury, exhausted our military, and destabilized the world. He's at best an utter failure.
Pretending that Obama is destabilizing the world is just baffling.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
That said, I understand your impatience with Middle Eastern culture. To some extent, I share it. It's really easy to see them as subhuman, because a great many of them are animals.
But I've dated, and been very much in love with, a Muslim girl who introduced me to her parents and gave me an idea what life is like over there. I have a number of Iranian friends who have the best families in the world. In many ways, the Middle East is like the US -- tons of wonderful people politically dominated by religious fundamentalists. The Religious Right is just more powerful over there.
I understand the glass-parking-lot arguments, and I understand why you think torturing these people is okay. But if you wouldn't be okay with your local police torturing suspects, what makes you think the military should?
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
quote:If our "moral standards" are giving our enemies an advantage over us, we should ask why we should keep the standards when dealing with these enemies.
How about 4--its the humane thing to do?
Terrorists are willing to kill thousands of innocent civilians to try and scare us into bowing to their perverted ideas. Only a few daft lunatic fringe elements are willing to do the same to them. Sure we could nuke Pakistan and be done with a lot of them, and terrorize a bunch more into laying down their arms. But we don't, because its the wrong thing to do. Sure, we give up that advantage to the enemy, but if we don't we become the enemy.
Why did they think it was OK? Because they were scared and panic produces bad choices.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
God help us all if "well, it's not like we're doing what the Nazis did" becomes our watermark for moral behavior.
We know a tiny fraction of what has been done to prisoners under U.S. control because of various leaks and similar acts of poor information control. We know a tiny amount more because this administation is more concerned with transparency than the previous one.
We will probably never know the full extent of what has been done; we will almost certainly never know all of what has been done at "black sites" and to prisoners who have been given over to regimes with laxer standards than those we espouse.
According to the Red Cross, military intelligence officers estimated some 70-90% of prisoners taken in Iraq were "arrested "by mistake". That's the kind of prisoner we risk when we legitamize torture. Someone like, say, Maher Arer.
So, even if we presume that terrorists who are willing to kill innocent civilians warrant torture- which is not an assumption I support- how many innocent people are we willing to inflict pain upon in the name of making such techniques available to use on the "bad guys"?
And then do we return them to the civilian populace to allow their stories to become propoganda coups for radical anti-U.S. groups? Or do we just quietly dispose of their bodies, in the approved manner of dictatorship death squads?
And as far as the tired old straw about some people "caring more about [insert U.S. human rights abuse here] than [insert terrorist atrocity here]"; does anyone really think my petitioning or protesting terrorist/insurgent groups is a good use of my time? Yes, I hate that innocent people have been the victims of insurgent/terrorist violence. Take that as a given. No, I am not prepared to authorize more violence, with fewer safeguards to prevent other innocent people from being enveloped, to prove that I care to people who are already determined to see my views in the worst possible light anyway.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Considering it's pretty easy to hold ones breath for over 3minutes, I'd think it'd be cheaper to just hire the NewFirm.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:God help us all if "well, it's not like we're doing what the Nazis did" becomes our watermark for moral behavior.
While what you say is true, I feel it's necessary to point out that in fact, waterboarding, beatings, and stress positions are what the Nazis did. In favoured countries like Norway, that is, where the brother Aryans were to be treated with the silk gloves. What they did in Poland is admittedly worse.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
bush godwinned us.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"I don't like the "It's ok we did it because it worked" attitude that Cheney has about it. That doesn't make it right or ok. It just makes it effective."
[ April 27, 2009, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I don't like the "It's ok we did it because it worked" attitude that Cheney has about it. That doesn't make it right or ok. It just makes it effective.
One former interogator claims torture is not only ineffective its counterproductive, even in the ticking time bomb situation.
This guys arguments make perfect sense to me. I don't know about the rest of you. I'm sure there are those whose response to bullying is to cooperate. But when I sense I'm being bullied into doing something, I dig in my heels. When bullied, I'm unlikely to do something I might have willingly done if I'd been simply asked politely. Even though I'm sure there are some types of people who would quickly confess to avoid torture, somehow I don't expect that the those people are likely to join an insurgency against the world's most powerful army.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lalo: That said, I understand your impatience with Middle Eastern culture. To some extent, I share it. It's really easy to see them as subhuman, because a great many of them are animals.
But I've dated, and been very much in love with, a Muslim girl who introduced me to her parents and gave me an idea what life is like over there. I have a number of Iranian friends who have the best families in the world. In many ways, the Middle East is like the US -- tons of wonderful people politically dominated by religious fundamentalists. The Religious Right is just more powerful over there.
I understand the glass-parking-lot arguments, and I understand why you think torturing these people is okay. But if you wouldn't be okay with your local police torturing suspects, what makes you think the military should?
Great post, man.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote: Even though I'm sure there are some types of people who would quickly confess to avoid torture, somehow I don't expect that the those people are likely to join an insurgency against the world's most powerful army.
Be reasonable, Rabbit. The argument in favor of torture or 'harsh methods' isn't that the threat of it will be effective. It's that the application and then withdrawl of it will be.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Rakeesh, I don't see how that changes my argument. Insert a "further" in front of torture. Read the article I linked. An experienced interrogator says that torture tends to harden prisoners resolve not to talk. I find that a very understandable response based on my personal reactions.
I'm sorry if that make no sense to you but you should still read what the experienced interrogator says.
[ April 27, 2009, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote: Even though I'm sure there are some types of people who would quickly confess to avoid torture, somehow I don't expect that the those people are likely to join an insurgency against the world's most powerful army.
Be reasonable, Rabbit. The argument in favor of torture or 'harsh methods' isn't that the threat of it will be effective. It's that the application and then withdrawl of it will be.
Wait, you would .. have to explain the relevance of that?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Rakeesh, I don't see how that changes my argument. Insert a "further" in front of torture. Read the article I linked. An experienced interrogator says that torture tends to harden prisoners resolve not to talk. I find that a very understandable response based on my personal reactions.
I've read the link. You're missing my point. First of all, Major 'Alexander' doesn't just say that torture causes suspects to simply clam up and not say anything. He says that's the initial reaction. For example: ""People will only tell you the minimum to make the pain stop," he says. "They might tell you the location of a house used by insurgents but not that it is booby-trapped.""
He doesn't say they'll simply clam up forever.
The post I responded to suggested that the sorts of people likely to join these insurgencies are the sort to be able to withstand torture. You don't specify a length of time, which was pretty much my point.
Advocates of torture aren't saying, "It'll work as soon as you pour the water down the guy's throat." They say it works the tenth or the twentieth time, or by the time you've gone through a few fingers, or several other unpleasant (to say the least) possibilities.
quote:Wait, you would .. have to explain the relevance of that?
It's relevant because saying, "Torture causes suspects to clam up," and simply leaving it at that is not a good argument, in my opinion. That's all.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
While I absolutely do not condone torture, I also think we've taken a very liberal definition of torture.
There was a time when torture was a brutal and sadistic thing, but in the modern time, if you don't offer a prisoner sugar with his tea and biscuits, it is considered inhuman treatment.
These are suspected enemy combatants, we have not obligation to be nice to them. We suspect them of conspiring to plot against us in dark and deadly ways, consequently, we need to treat them as they are, prisoners.
And in questioning them, I don't feel we need to say 'please' and 'thank you'; serious crimes warrant serious questioning and serious treatment.
But, while I think harsh interrogation is warranted, I stop short of true torture, but keep in mind when I say 'true torture' I mean 'true torture', not some overhyped liberal hippy 'politically correct' impression of torture, nor do I mean some overhyped scandal-mongering media version of torture.
Steve/bluewizard
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
BlueWizard: Historically speaking humanity as virtually always erred on the side of excess cruelty when dealing with prisoners and enemies. People will almost always stepped just a bit further than the lines we draw with ink, and call it "personal discretion." It behooves us then to draw the lines a bit too amiably back so that when our agents step over that line they are still within reason.
I suppose this warrants the risk of not getting information of a possibly vital nature, and yet, I'd rather let the prisoner be a party of one as far as roguery is concerned.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
We considered waterboarding "true torture" when the Japanese did it to our soldiers in WWII. Certainly waterboarding a prisoner 183 times within a single month qualifies as real torture by any honest definition. There is only one accurate description of claims that waterboarding is merely a harsh interrogation method when we do it today even though we called it torture when the Japanese did it 60 years ago -- gross hypocrisy.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:
quote:Col. Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American fighter pilot who was routinely tortured in a Chinese prison during and after the Korean War, becoming — along with three other American airmen held at the same prison — a symbol and victim of cold war tension, died in Las Vegas on April 30. He was 83 and lived in Las Vegas. The cause was complications of back surgery, his son Kurt said.
From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air. ...
You will notice how the NYT defines torture when it comes to foreign governments - isolation, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation. Much milder than anything the US did to one of its own citizens, Jose Padilla. But the parallel is almost perfect: these are, after all, the exact Chinese Communist techniques that were reverse engineered from the SERE program. So you have a perfect demonstration of the NYT's double-standard. If Chinese do it to Americans, it's torture; if Americans do it to an American, it's "harsh interrogation." Does Jill Abramson really expect us to take this lying down?
You will also notice the quality of the intelligence procured through methods milder than the Bush administration's ...
Kinda puts both the effectiveness of torture and the types of techniques we used in perspective. (And I'm not as familiar with US publications, but isn't the NYT supposed to be liberal, not even right-wing?)
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
... ... Sheik Yerbouti Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: We considered waterboarding "true torture" when the Japanese did it to our soldiers in WWII. Certainly waterboarding a prisoner 183 times within a single month qualifies as real torture by any honest definition. There is only one accurate description of claims that waterboarding is merely a harsh interrogation method when we do it today even though we called it torture when the Japanese did it 60 years ago -- gross hypocrisy.
QFT.
And I want to point out that the hypocrisy in this is not really open for debate. We called it one thing 60 years ago, when it was used against us, and we called it something very different when we used it ourselves. The thing being one and the same, the hypocrisy is already committed. Even if we decided today that in fact what the Japanese did to us 60 years ago was just fine, we would still be hypocrites.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Kinda puts both the effectiveness of torture and the types of techniques we used in perspective. (And I'm not as familiar with US publications, but isn't the NYT supposed to be liberal, not even right-wing?)
Assume some degree of actual reality seeps in whether the paper is left or right wing, or whatever. It's not at all crazy or revolutionary to consider these tactics to be torture. Have you ever been sleep deprived? It's not the same thing as being exhausted and relaxed after a hard day's work.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Even if we decided today that in fact what the Japanese did to us 60 years ago was just fine, we would still be hypocrites.
I'll take issue with this. First off, neither you nor I was around 60 years ago and its entirely possible that people born after 1940 might never have considered it torture when the Japanese water boarded American prisoners.
I'll also note that changing your mind doesn't necessarily make you a hypocrite. If the situation were reversed and we had thought it was fine to water board prisoners in WW II but then decided it was torture in the 21st century -- would that have been hypocrisy or moral progress?
But with that said, I do think most Americans who are justifying this are being very hypocritical here. Few people are saying, terrorism has caused us to reevaluate our stand and we now believe that there are morally justifiable reasons to torture prisoners. That isn't hypocrisy, it's moral regression. But is that what they are arguing? No, what they are saying is "we used to consider these actions torture but now we think they might be useful so we're going to rename them "harsh interrogation". At the heart of hypocrisy, is exceptionalism, the belief that for what every reason you can break rules that would be wrong for other people to break.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:But with that said, I do think most Americans who are justifying this are being very hypocritical here.
I wouldn't go that far. I think the breakdown occurs in what many Americans think is acceptable treatment of soldiers - which is basically, if captured, treated with respect and housed in a clean though not necessarily comfortable PoW camp - and terrorists.
Where the hypocrisy occurs, I think, is not in us labeling one interrogation torture when used on our soldiers but not on terrorists. Two entirely different categories of people in the eyes of many (myself included). Where the hypocrisy occurs, I think, is when we conveniently forget that, according to our laws and our culture and our ideals, some things are supposed to be off-limits to everyone. Period.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Wilkerson wrote that in one case, the CIA told Cheney's office that a prisoner under its interrogation program was now "compliant," meaning agents recommended the use of "alternative" techniques should stop.
At that point, "The VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods," Wilkerson wrote.
"The detainee had not revealed any al Qaeda-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, 'revealed' such contacts."
If this is true...
...I may throw up.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Well, no wonder they based their torture program off of a chinese program designed to elicit false confessions.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve:
But we don't, because its the wrong thing to do. Sure, we give up that advantage to the enemy, but if we don't we become the enemy.
Do the people who say things like this think that there is no situation in which torture should be carried out, or just no situation that is likely to occur? I can think of plenty of theoretical situations in which I'd be fine with torture.
quote:For several years our government has been fighting terrorism without using these extreme methods. We face some serious obstacles in defeating al Qaeda and its allies. We could be hit again, hit hard. But our decision to respect basic international standards does not appear to be a big hindrance us in the fight. In fact, if the U.S. regains some higher ground in the wider struggle of ideas, our prospects in a long conflict will be better.
as well as the many interrogators quoted in that Media Matters article.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
quote:Do the people who say things like this think that there is no situation in which torture should be carried out, or just no situation that is likely to occur? I can think of plenty of theoretical situations in which I'd be fine with torture.
Good question.
What I said was in response to your question if our Moral Standards were giving our enemies an advantage, why shouldn't we do away with them.
My response was not that Torture is such a slime that it should never be used, but that our Moral Standards need to be about what we believe, not what our enemy is willing to sink to.
More specifically, you asked if "people who write this" think that Torture should ever be used.
You say that you can imagine situations where torture should be used.
I have a great imagination. I can create some scenarios where it could be used.
The question is, what is the goal of the torture.
If it is to get reliable data, there is strong evidence that other interrogation techniques work better.
The ticking bomb scenario, where we need to do it quickly, kind of falls apart when we water-board a detainee 182 times in A MONTH.
If it is to terrorize the terrorists, to scare them into never crossing the US again, which is not an argument I've ever heard made, but may be believed by some, it doesn't work.
If it is to punish those that have or would inflict harm on our country, then I say we are being petty and vengeful, not two characteristics I want associated with my country. Yet when people excuse the torture by saying we are torturing, "The guy who planned the 9/11" what can they mean but that its justifiable vengeance.
Yes, I would say that I said the above because I could not see a reasonable likelihood that there would be a good cause to torture a terrorist.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
Maybe I mischaracterized you, then. What exasperates me is statements like this one from Ted Rall:
quote:I don't care if torture works. I don't give a damn if torture could reveal a plot that would cost millions of lives. I would rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a society that relies upon torture to protect itself. But what do I know? Maybe I've just been brainwashed by my Christian upbringing.
I just don't understand an ethical system that tells you to let millions of people to die before you harm anyone else. If this means that I don't have Christian values, so be it. (Not that it matters, but I wonder whether Ted Rall really believes this for Christian reasons or whether he's simply trying to turn the Christianity of Bush et al. against them.)
The most charitable elucidation I can give to what Ted Rall says here is that the American government, with the tacit approval of the American people, has committed so many atrocities over the centuries that any assaults on it that could have been prevented by judicious torture would only help balance these out.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
That is pretty exasperating. Would I rather die than let someone be tortured to keep me alive?
Academically, in the abstract, even, I can only answer a 'maybe'-it depends on who the person is and what they've done. Much of that uncertainty vanishes if the question becomes about, say, my sister and the person involved is a murderous terrorist who has dedicated his or her life to slaughtering the people I care about in as great and public a number as possible.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Omega M: Do you literally "don't understand" such an ethical system or is it that you simply don't agree with one?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Not sure where to put this, but there was a story on CNN today about how a proposed nuclear deal between the US and the UAE is apparently in jeopardy because US Congressmen are hesitant to sign off on a deal that sends nuclear power to nations that torture and have spotty human rights records.
Now, the Middle East isn't a cup of tea when it comes to human rights abuses, our own torture issues notwithstanding, but the UAE is hardly the worst of them by any reasonable measure, and the irony, given our recent torture outing in the light of day, is I'm sure lost on no one.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
My personal policy is this: torture remains on the books as a major crime, something that is illegal in all cases.
If there is ever a situation in which someone is confident that torturing this one guy will save thousands of lives, they should have no problem with also sacrificing their own freedom for those lives by choosing to commit a crime and suffer the punishment for it.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... and the irony, given our recent torture outing in the light of day, is I'm sure lost on no one.
Indeed.
quote:When American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee fell into the hands of North Korean border guards two weeks ago, vanishing into the maw of the most isolated nation on Earth, their fate drew concern. ... North Korea appears to be holding the women in a protocol house in Pyongyang.
"The rumor was that they are being housed at one of the guest villas," said Han S. Park, a University of Georgia expert who was visiting North Korea as part of a private U.S. delegation after the women were captured. Park told CNN International that the North Koreans scoffed at any suggestion that the Americans were receiving harsh treatment.
"They laughed. 'We are not Guantanamo.' That's what they said," Park said.
quote:A training manual for Canadian diplomats lists the United States among countries that potentially torture or abuse prisoners.
The manual is an internal document of the Department of Foreign Affairs. A spokesman for the foreign minister confirmed the contents of the manual after news reports about it circulated on Thursday.
The manual appears to contradict the public stance of Canada’s Conservative government, which accepts assurances from the United States that it does not mistreat prisoners, including those at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
One Canadian, Omar Khadr, is being held there; he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002.
In an e-mail message, Neil Hrab, a spokesman for the minister of foreign affairs, Maxime Bernier, said the manual was “not a policy document or any kind of a statement of policy” and did not “convey the government’s views or positions.”
A spokeswoman for the United States Embassy here was quoted by Reuters as saying, “The United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances.”
[ May 22, 2009, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: Mucus ]
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
I am opposed to torture for many reasons, one of which is I am not convinced it would work. I do think that if someone was in the ticking bomb situation and felt like that was the only option, they probably should do it and then turn themselves in for prosecution. With such extreme circumstances, I imagine there will be leniency, but that means the evidence that you had to torture must be concrete and convincing to someone else. And probably, you are going to have to get some useful info or it wouldn't be worth it.
As far as why let thousands die rather then accept torture, I can see that mentality. If you believe that a society permissive to torture is fallen so much that it is not worth living in, better to let those thousands die then condemn millions to live in a reprehensible state.
Edited for clarity.
[ May 22, 2009, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: scholarette ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: My personal policy is this: torture remains on the books as a major crime, something that is illegal in all cases.
If there is ever a situation in which someone is confident that torturing this one guy will save thousands of lives, they should have no problem with also sacrificing their own freedom for those lives by choosing to commit a crime and suffer the punishment for it.
Exactly. And should it prove that they had indeed saved lives by breaking the law, well presidents have pardoned people for worse.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholarette:
As far as why let thousands die rather then accept torture, I can see that mentality. If you believe that a society permissive to torture is fallen so much that it is not worth living in, better to let those thousands die then condemn millions to live in a reprehensible state.
Note that Ted Rall said he'd rather allow an attack to take "millions of lives" than torture someone to stop it.
Anyway, it does seem safest to keep torture illegal, as in practice it's almost guaranteed to occur at a greater frequency than whatever the law allows. There should be leniency if the torture yielded good information; but as it's impossible to prove that torture was necessary, there should probably always be a penalty unless overridden by a pardon. (I've read that this is the law in Israel.) This would also show the world that we don't use extreme measures casually.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:And should it prove that they had indeed saved lives by breaking the law, well presidents have pardoned people for worse.
Would you personally endorse such a pardon in those circumstances?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
It would depend on the specific circumstances and, likely, on information that a president would have that I would not. There are some presidents that I would trust to grant such a pardon and who would have my endorsement and others that I would not.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:It would depend on the specific circumstances and, likely, on information that a president would have that I would not.
Interesting. So torture isn't something that is wrong in all cases, then? That's not an accusation-it's just not an admission I'd have expected is all.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: There are some presidents that I would trust to grant such a pardon and who would have my endorsement and others that I would not.
How do you feel about Van Buren?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Pardoning, as I understand it, is not the same as saying that someone did no wrong or that someone did not break the law.
If I am wrong about that, then I retract what I said.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Would you personally endorse such a pardon in those circumstances?
Generally no.
I don't think it would be consistent for a government to essentially pardon its operatives (and effectively itself?) especially when it seems clear to me that we would have scoffed at claims by Japanese soldiers who tortured allied soldiers at being pardoned by their emperor.
However, I do recognize that realistically, the chances of the US being consistent in this regard and holding international hearings are low to nil.
Therefore, my minimum hope would at least be for a different administration, not complicit in the torture (it is becoming unclear if the Democrats are actually complicit or not due to the Pelosi issue) to conduct proper public trials with full transparency. I think that in many cases, the defence that torture may have saved lives would fall apart under proper scrutiny and that the remaining few cases could be handled in terms of sentencing.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote: I don't think it would be consistent for a government to essentially pardon its operatives (and effectively itself?) especially when it seems clear to me that we would have scoffed at claims by Japanese soldiers who tortured allied soldiers at being pardoned by their emperor.
The two situations aren't really analagous at all, Mucus.
On the one hand, we've got factual torture of US PoWs, prisoners in declared wars, taken while in uniform in a theater of conflict, etc., and then as often as not tortured because Japanese military tradition put surrendered soldiers as below the pale as not.
The other, hypothetical case involves a situation wherein an American government employee, be they soldier or spy or bureaucrat, tortures a known terrorist with strong, reliable intelligence that that terrorist knows something about an imminent attack that will kill thousands of civilians, and then actually obtains that information and thus saves those lives.
Equating the two doesn't seem fitting, to me at least.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:...we would have scoffed at claims by Japanese soldiers who tortured allied soldiers at being pardoned by their emperor.
Also, of course, there's the difficulty posed by 'would have 60 years ago' and 'will in the future'.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Also, of course, there's the difficulty posed by 'would have 60 years ago' and 'will in the future'.
Oh, believe me.
If I thought for a moment that the United States had consciously decided to put torture back on the table as a viable practice for all nations and was prepared to treat future foreign torturers as leniently as it is treating its own torturers, then that would indeed take the problem of consistency off the table.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: ... The other, hypothetical case involves a situation wherein an American government employee, be they soldier or spy or bureaucrat, tortures a known terrorist with strong, reliable intelligence that that terrorist knows something about an imminent attack that will kill thousands of civilians, and then actually obtains that information and thus saves those lives.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Even in the hypothetical, it is still American "reliable" intelligence about imminent attacks. How is that hunt for Iraqi WMDs going? And it is still American belief that the person is a known terrorist, like say Maher Arar.
So all we really have in kmbboots' example is an American president informed and convinced by the, ahem, reliability of American intelligence that the person they tortured was in fact a terrorist and that they actually stopped anything, deciding to pardon one of his own for torture.
Bah.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: ... Equating the two doesn't seem fitting, to me at least.
Seems pretty fitting to me.
Especially in light of irony such as this:
quote:Anami told the other cabinet ministers that, under torture, a captured American B-29 pilot had told his interrogators that the Americans possessed 100 atom bombs and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be bombed "in the next few days"
Arguably the Japanese did have pretty solid intelligence that the US was planning to use weapons of mass destruction on them (not from *torture* mind you) but from other events.
In fact, if torture was actually effective, one could argue that in a world where torture was permissible, in order to save lives they should have started much much sooner.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote: If I thought for a moment that the United States had consciously decided to put torture back on the table as a viable practice for all nations and was prepared to treat future foreign torturers as leniently as it is treating its own torturers, then that would indeed take the problem of consistency off the table.
That's not what I was talking about. I was referring to the problem of guiding our current actions by what we would have said of similar actions sixty years ago. That seems a poor standard to me.
quote:So all we really have in kmbboots' example is an American president informed and convinced by the, ahem, reliability of American intelligence deciding to pardon one of his own for torture.
That wasn't quite the question I asked her, either. You're inserting a large amount of uncertainty into my admittedly academic hypothetical question.
quote:Arguably the Japanese did have pretty solid intelligence that the US was planning to use weapons of mass destruction on them (not from *torture* mind you) but from other events.
So you're acknowledging that the situations weren't the same, then?
Also, lemme just register that the contradiction (to put it favorably) you're so disdainful of is hardly an American specialty. I'm not saying you're suggesting it is...just pointing it out. Just because we should be better doesn't necessarily make us worse...and when you're top of the heap with the biggest target, choices and predicaments come to you that don't always come to your neighbors, either.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: That's not what I was talking about. I was referring to the problem of guiding our current actions by what we would have said of similar actions sixty years ago. That seems a poor standard to me.
Well, no. It is not exactly a guide. I think of it more as a par. The US is free to do better and I would certainly hope that it would. The fact that the US superficially seems to be doing worse (as in becoming more approving of torture) would be disturbing if I thought it was indicative of a real change.
quote:That wasn't quite the question I asked her, either.
Oh, then to make it clear, I'm am addressing the hypothetical posed by the exchange that I thought you were addressing here:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: ... If there is ever a situation in which someone is confident that torturing this one guy will save thousands of lives, they should have no problem with also sacrificing their own freedom for those lives by choosing to commit a crime and suffer the punishment for it.
Exactly. And should it prove that they had indeed saved lives by breaking the law, well presidents have pardoned people for worse.
i.e. a government operative, perhaps convinced in their own good faith that an attack was imminent and deciding to torture.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
You are misunderstanding me. In my imagined scenario, the consequences of a US operative using torture should be dire in any case. The operative will have in no uncertain terms have broken the law, become a felon, have his or her career as an operative ended and almost certainly face considerable jail time.
On the very slight chance that his actions did, in fact, save hundreds or thousands of lives, he might hope for - not expect - leniency and escape prison.
He had better be right because he is sacrificing a great deal in any case and certainly his freedom as well if there were other ways of getting the information, or the information was false, or anything except the unlikely-to-the-point-of-absurdity hypothetical "ticking bomb" situation that people who want to justify torture posit as an argument.
That is the scenario I was imagining when I suggested the possibility of a presidential pardon.
Is that clearer?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Conservative radio commentator Mancow Muller: argued on his show that waterboarding wasn't torture. Said that he'd go and get waterboarded in the hopes that reenactment would help prove it. LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHOO
Oh hey let's go back in time for Christopher Hitchens:
quote:Hitchens was asked by Vanity Fair to experience it for himself. In May 2008, Hitchens voluntarily experienced waterboarding, after which he fully changed his opinion. He concluded "if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."
And this space reserved for when Sean Hannity when he finally goes through with the waterboarding he said he would go through
________________________________________
k
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:On the very slight chance that his actions did, in fact, save hundreds or thousands of lives, he might hope for - not expect - leniency and escape prison.
I'm afraid I just don't understand the mentality that refuses torture (I share that particular mentality) but simultaneously thinks there is something unreasonable or unfair about excusing it if it actually works in the worst-case scenario, because then not only will the subject certainly have deserved it, but morality demand it.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
My favorite expert response to the Ticking Bomb scenario...
Using standard interrogation techniques that build rapport between the interrogator and terrorist. The terrorist then offers information that the interrogator is asking about, and even what the interrogator does not ask about, but that the terrorist thinks the interrogator should know.
The enhanced techniques main result is to get information that we do know about.
So if there were two bombs ticking away, but we only know about one, torture would get us the location of that one, we'd stop the torture, and the second bomb would go boom. Using standard interrogation techniques he tells us about the second and we save millions of lives.
If we torture one man to save millions, shouldn't we torture one man to save thousands?
If we torture one man to save thousands, shouldn't we torture ten men to save thousands?
If we torture ten men to save thousands shouldn't we torture a hundred men to save two hundred?
If we torture a hundred of their men to save two hundred of ours shouldn't we torture two hundred of theirs to save a hundred of ours?
Where do we draw the line?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Rakeesh, if I understand your question, the difference is the difference between condone and forgive. Nowhere in my scenario do we believe that the torturer's actions were legal or in accordance with US policy or morally right.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse, which U. S. President Barack Obama is attempting to censor, include images of rape and sexual abuse.
At least one shows a U. S. soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Details of the content emerged from Major-General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed.
Wow. And I thought BSG was stretching things out with its rape scene. Turns out it was true to life.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
WE WILL BE WELCOMED AS LIBERATORS
*slaps a support the troops sticker on his truck*
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Another odd revelation, not torture but this seems to be the only related thread on the front page.
quote:Bush, who turns 63 in July and was 54 when first sworn into office in 2001, has yet to comment on the reports. They include last week's GQ magazine exposé into the hawkish use of scripture in 2003, when then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld forwarded secret intelligence memos to Bush embroidered with biblical passages.
"Therefore, put on the full armour of God," a verse from Ephesians, and "Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter," from Isaiah, are among the messages that adorn reports prepared for Bush by Rumsfeld's Pentagon.
Alright. I already knew this one from the Colbert Report although I wasn't clear which part was satire and which part was real.
quote:Stranger still are new accounts emerging from France describing how former president Jacques Chirac was utterly baffled by a 2003 telephone conversation in which Bush reportedly invoked fanatical Old Testament prophecy – including the Earth-ending battle with forces of evil, Gog and Magog – in his arguments to enlist France in the Coalition of the Willing.
"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins," Bush said to Chirac, according to Thomas Romer, a University of Lausanne theology professor who was later approached by French officials anxious to understand the biblical reference. Romer first revealed his account in a 2007 article for the university review, Allez savoir, which passed largely unnoticed.
Hot damn.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Seems distinctly related to Rumsfeld's utterly ridiculous scripturequotin' cover pages.
He was playing to his audience: a president with the febrile intent to play God's Little Chosen Warrior.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
What the---?
quote:Yelm Police Chief Todd Stancil said Joshua Tabor of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Wash., was arrested on charges he allegedly punished his daughter by holding her head backwards into a sink full of water, the New York Daily News said Monday.
Police allege Tabor, 27, chose the torture technique because his young daughter was scared of water.
Stancil said Tabor, who is facing assault of a child charges, allegedly told authorities he used the technique as many as four times.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Would you personally endorse such a pardon in those circumstances?
Generally no.
I don't think it would be consistent for a government to essentially pardon its operatives (and effectively itself?) especially when it seems clear to me that we would have scoffed at claims by Japanese soldiers who tortured allied soldiers at being pardoned by their emperor.
However, I do recognize that realistically, the chances of the US being consistent in this regard and holding international hearings are low to nil.
Therefore, my minimum hope would at least be for a different administration, not complicit in the torture (it is becoming unclear if the Democrats are actually complicit or not due to the Pelosi issue) to conduct proper public trials with full transparency. I think that in many cases, the defence that torture may have saved lives would fall apart under proper scrutiny and that the remaining few cases could be handled in terms of sentencing.
Actually, they DID torture, and American soldiers were specifically barred (by OUR government) from suing them/ We made our own soldiers sign waivers of their rights before we shipped them home, and in some cases kept them there for weeks until they agreed under duress.
There was a famous case where the ONE soldier who didn't sign, as he was air lifted out of Japan with a life threatening medical condition. He sued, and won a ton of cash.
My wife has a friend who did her thesis on those war crimes, and our treatment of our own soldiers. She was the granddaughter of one of those POW's who survived the Bataan Death March, and she eventually wrote a book on it.
I will see if Jenni remembers her name, and any details I can find to look up some links later.
////end tangent
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I think you misunderstood me. The conviction of Japanese soldiers for torture is factual and assumed. The claim was that the US government would not have accepted a Japanese government pardoning the Japanese soldiers convicted ahead of their trials.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: And this space reserved for when Sean Hannity when he finally goes through with the waterboarding he said he would go through
________________________________________
Hannity welshed on this like a coward, btw
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Accountability for Torture (in Britain)
The contrast could not be more distressing.
The British government has decided to pay former detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tens of millions of dollars in compensation and conduct an independent investigation into its role in the mistreatment of prisoners.
The United States still operates the Guantánamo camp, with no end in sight. None of the truly dangerous terrorists there have been brought to justice, while many prisoners are still held who never should have been. The government not only refuses to come clean on this ignoble history, but it is covering up the Bush administration’s abuses by denying victims a day in court.
quote:It will do no good for this nation’s tarnished human rights reputation that at the same time Britain took responsibility for its comparatively minor role in the ill treatment of terrorism suspects, former President George W. Bush was bragging in a new book that he had personally authorized the repeated use of a form of simulated drowning called waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of Sept. 11.
At least someone is owning up to the awful legacy of Mr. Bush’s illegal detention policies.
My step-father joined the Marines, originally he was going to be an Interagationist (or whatever the hell you would cosider this proffession of getting the truth out of people by certain means) however because he had a criminal record they wouldn't let him do it, instead he became an engineer...........
I think they are doing something right my Step-father is well, a very bad choice of interogating people as he might take great leaps and say remove fingernails with pliers.....
So if anyone is being tortured it's obviously not as inhumane as it sounds XD
Tortured itself is well open for criticism on what counts as torture and what doesn't...
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'm so ashamed of my country.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'm so ashamed of my country.
Aha! Now you can never run for political office!
All joking aside, this business with torture is possibly the worst thing my country has done since I was born.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'm so ashamed of my country.
Aha! Now you can never run for political office!
All joking aside, this business with torture is possibly the worst thing my country has done since I was born.
I object! This government is the worst thing the country has done.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
step one: obviously we did it step two: bush admits he approved it, writes this explicitly in his 'hey remember when I was a terrible president' book step three: ??? step four: nobody is prosecuted lol
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rawrain:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'm so ashamed of my country.
Aha! Now you can never run for political office!
All joking aside, this business with torture is possibly the worst thing my country has done since I was born.
I object! This government is the worst thing the country has done.
This government was not "done" in my lifetime. Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
There is a certain "Madame" in Washington DC who claims she and her employees have "Done" a surprisingly large part of our government.
And not so surprisingly small parts of our government.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
Anyone feel like, grouping up together and overthrowing the government with me.... in my experience the more people who participate, the more successful it will be expecially without incident.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
In your experience?
I'm envisioning you staging a one-man rebellion against the federal government in a food court somewhere. Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
No more like literally removing members of the government, via grabbing and dragging them out of office, and cramming all of them in a nice cell :D
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yeah, I'm going to doubt that you've done that.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
To be honest, if torturing one person would prevent 1,000 American citizens from being killed, I'm for it. Nothing to the extent of shoving bamboo under someone's nails mind you. Playing loud music so they cannot sleep though? Go for it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
So you wouldn't shove bamboo under someone's nails to save 1000 people?
How many studies and testimonials from people who know about this stuff will it take to convince people that, not only is torture morally wrong, it doesn't make us safer?
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
I never said I was for torture, but with our government practically everything they do is hidden in fine print in paperwork you have to specifically request for to see, but how do you know to request for it if you never knew it existed.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: To be honest, if torturing one person would prevent 1,000 American citizens from being killed, I'm for it.
And if not, you're against it, right?
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
Why American citizens, torturing one person to save 1000 is good enough why are you being a nationalist, a person is still a person American or otherwise >__>
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: To be honest, if torturing one person would prevent 1,000 American citizens from being killed, I'm for it. Nothing to the extent of shoving bamboo under someone's nails mind you. Playing loud music so they cannot sleep though? Go for it.
The problem is that there is no way to know in advance whether torturing one person will save 1000 lives, cost 1000 lives or have no outcome except causing the suffering of one person. You can never no the outcome in advance. That's why we should always eschew torture, always, no exceptions.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
Actually you could be able to know some information from the target, whom then witholds the rest knowing you can't touch him/her.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
There are two common methods of interrogating a prisoner.
1) Using current psychological science, befriend the villain, get them to doubt their self, and they will surrender the information.
2) Threaten them with pain. Inflict pain to insure they understand the threat is real. Repeat until they talk.
Way number 1 works. The information given is more complete, more honest, and more actionable. Often the prisoner leaves as a spy working for you.
Some complain that it takes too long, but it seems the bigger problem people have with it is that it pampers the bad guy.
Way number 2 does not work. People give the information they think you want to hear. It increases resistance to working for the heroes and usually results in partial information being stripped from the villain.
Some complain that it is faster, for those emergency ticking bomb situations, but when we had to Water Board the one guy 60+ times, it doesn't seem faster to me.
Seems to me that where its illegal to make those terrorist #@$@#$@#$@# pay with a painful punishment, if we can humiliate and beat the @#$@#$@# out of them in the name of interrogation, well a lot of people are all for that.
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