Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

[anglolawyer]

Good grief. "Enhanced interrogation program"? Tell you what, why not call it sonderbehandlung and have done with it?

Edit: This is pretty pathetic too:

Actually, I think there is a certain kind of cowardice involved in denouncing people as moral monsters and as criminals without trying to put yourself in their shoes. Personally, I do not want such techniques (and some of them do qualify as torture in my mind) used except in the most extreme circumstances (i.e. the ticking time bomb scenario). At the same time, I am reluctant to judge the people who did use them at a time of great fear and panic.

There are laws, sun master, even ones that bind the secret CIA state. If they are broken then, absent good reason, the perpetrators should be prosecuted. Agree or not?

 

[Upchurch]

Actually, I think there is a certain kind of cowardice involved in denouncing people as moral monsters and as criminals without trying to put yourself in their shoes.

It takes a different, far more real, cowardice to not denounce people when they are being monsters and criminals, especially in your name.

Personally, I do not want such techniques (and some of them do qualify as torture in my mind) used except in the most extreme circumstances (i.e. the ticking time bomb scenario).

The ticking time bomb scenario that can only be solved by using torture is a Hollywood fairy tale. If such a scenario were to ever happen, torture would be the least effective form of getting the needed information because you don't have the time to separate the information you need from the information given just to get the torture to stop.

In all of this, no one has presented evidence that torture is an efficient or effective means of gathering information. There is no justification for its use, unless you count sadism or revenge.

At the same time, I am reluctant to judge the people who did use them at a time of great fear and panic.

Not me. I'll call torture what it is: useless, criminal, inept, and un-American.

 

[sunmaster14]

Good grief. "Enhanced interrogation program"? Tell you what, why not call it sonderbehandlung and have done with it?

Oh, good grief. You and RandFan should get together and swap Nazi allusions/illusions.

<snip>

There are laws, sun master, even ones that bind the secret CIA state. If they are broken then, absent good reason, the perpetrators should be prosecuted. Agree or not?

I agree that crimes should be investigated. Whether or not they should be prosecuted depends upon the strength of the incriminating evidence, as well as any mitigating circumstances. Prosecutors are tasked with using their discretion. In this case, there was both a inspector general investigation and a separate Department of Justice investigation (after Eric Holder became Attorney General in 2009) which resulted in no charges being filed. I have no reason to think that the decision to not prosecute was unreasonable. Even if a prosecutor is certain that crimes were committed, he still needs to allocate blame to individuals. Many of the excesses were committed by collective action, and it's not clear who should be held responsible. The situation reminds me of that wonderful use of the passive voice in admitting fault - "mistakes were made."

By the way, I believe that the Senate report was written with the knowledge that there would be no prosecutions, and in my opinion, this left the drafters a free hand to engage in unusually harsh accusatory language. It is one of the reasons that I suspect the report is very one-sided.

 

[3point14]

There are laws, sun master, even ones that bind the secret CIA state. If they are broken then, absent good reason, the perpetrators should be prosecuted. Agree or not?

Does the legislation involved actually take into account 'good reason'?

 

[3point14]

It is one of the reasons that I suspect the report is very one-sided.

I fail to see 'the other side' when, the bottom line is, It. Doesn't. Work.

Were it the least bit effective then you may have a case that there is 'another side' to the absolute disregard for international law shown by the US administration here.

As the only evidence we have is what might be called 'armchair terrorists' stating (as if it had any weight at all) that 'Oh, I'd cave so it must work.'

 

[sunmaster14]

It takes a different, far more real, cowardice to not denounce people when they are being monsters and criminals, especially in your name.


The ticking time bomb scenario that can only be solved by using torture is a Hollywood fairy tale. If such a scenario were to ever happen, torture would be the least effective form of getting the needed information because you don't have the time to separate the information you need from the information given just to get the torture to stop.

In all of this, no one has presented evidence that torture is an efficient or effective means of gathering information. There is no justification for its use, unless you count sadism or revenge.


Not me. I'll call torture what it is: useless, criminal, inept, and un-American.

Of course, you and I have been around the block on this before in the Condoleezza Rice thread, so I'll just refer anybody who's interested to the discussion which begins roughly here.

 

[Upchurch]

I fail to see 'the other side' when, the bottom line is, It. Doesn't. Work.

Were it the least bit effective then you may have a case that there is 'another side' to the absolute disregard for international law shown by the US administration here.

As the only evidence we have is what might be called 'armchair terrorists' stating (as if it had any weight at all) that 'Oh, I'd cave so it must work.'

Flashback:

The near certainty that I myself would crack under such pressure and sing like a bird. I have a high tolerance to pain, and am pretty tough. But combined water boarding, sleep deprivation, painful postures, constant interrogation, there's not a single bit of information I could withhold.

Is there an "argument from credulity"?

 

[sunmaster14]

I fail to see 'the other side' when, the bottom line is, It. Doesn't. Work.

Well, the other side is that it does work. The CIA leadership insists, with extraordinary vehemence, that very useful intelligence was gained. The main thrust of the Senate report is that this claim is false. I'll note, however, that Senate Republicans did not sign on to the report. It is, by definition, a partisan report, although that doesn't necessarily mean that is is wrong.

Were it the least bit effective then you may have a case that there is 'another side' to the absolute disregard for international law shown by the US administration here.

Ok, so you're not a moral absolutist. That's good. Neither am I.

As the only evidence we have is what might be called 'armchair terrorists' stating (as if it had any weight at all) that 'Oh, I'd cave so it must work.'

Well, that's all we have to go on. There has been very little scientific research which is on point, for obvious reasons. Personally, I think it's kind of obvious that torture works, but maybe that's just because I'm a wimp.

 

[Upchurch]

Of course, you and I have been around the block on this before in the Condoleezza Rice thread, so I'll just refer anybody who's interested to the discussion which begins roughly here.

Ha. That is kinda hilarious to skim back through. I have to admit that you have improved your argument since your early days here on the board.

You still haven't proved your claim.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

I skimmed the document and kept running into things like: Detention Site Blue, Detention Site Violet, Detention Site Cobalt...

Anyhow there seemed to be a lot of them. I lost count.

I have a question though. On the classification line, where they have top secret and such like, there's a block blacked out. So it looks like this, all the way through the document:

TS//*************//NF

Any idea what kind of classification is itself classified? That seemed weird to me that they'd redact that bit.

Compartmented information. The classification is hierarchal: unclassified, confidential, secret, top secret. Codewords for SCI are used to control "need to know" and some documents may be unclassified but compartmented, and yes the code word itself may be part of the compartmented information controlled by the compartment. Compartments can also have sub-compartments that can be either hierarchal or not.

The last bit is "NF" which is a caveat. Caveats can be applied to any document of any classified level even unclassified. NF probably stands for NOFORN, meaning no foreign nationals are allowed access to the document, even if they have clearance and need to know access to other docs with the code word.

Note: my knowledge and experience on this subject is state of the art 1989 and may not accurately reflect current handling rules.

 

[anglolawyer]

Oh, good grief. You and RandFan should get together and swap Nazi allusions/illusions.

You lack imagination. At some point, some PR guys actually sat down and came up with this fancy phrase for rectal feeding, sleep deprivation, freezing, water-boarding etc. They had people like you in mind when they did so. Torture is torture and that's all there is to it.

I agree that crimes should be investigated. Whether or not they should be prosecuted depends upon the strength of the incriminating evidence, as well as any mitigating circumstances.

Mitigation comes after sentence, usually.

Prosecutors are tasked with using their discretion. In this case, there was both a inspector general investigation and a separate Department of Justice investigation (after Eric Holder became Attorney General in 2009) which resulted in no charges being filed. I have no reason to think that the decision to not prosecute was unreasonable. Even if a prosecutor is certain that crimes were committed, he still needs to allocate blame to individuals. Many of the excesses were committed by collective action, and it's not clear who should be held responsible. The situation reminds me of that wonderful use of the passive voice in admitting fault - "mistakes were made."

More double speak from the Goebbels school of evasion. Start with the guy shoving humus up someone's backside and work up from there (no double entendre intended).

By the way, I believe that the Senate report was written with the knowledge that there would be no prosecutions, and in my opinion, this left the drafters a free hand to engage in unusually harsh accusatory language. It is one of the reasons that I suspect the report is very one-sided.

Who gave this guarantee of no prosecutions?

There is nothing new under the sun. The British were castrating mau mau 'terrorists' in the 60s and the Dutch were summarily shooting captives, ordering their comrades to bury them and shooting them in case of disobedience in Indonesia in the 50s. The cover ups, lies and double speak aren't new either.

 

[3point14]

Personally, I think it's kind of obvious that torture works, but maybe that's just because I'm a wimp.

Do you have any evidence for this (I haven't seen any, and I've looked) or is this just wishful thinking to make the spectre of torture in your name more palatable?

 

[anglolawyer]

Do you have any evidence for this (I haven't seen any, and I've looked) or is this just wishful thinking to make the spectre of torture in your name more palatable?

What does it matter whether it works or not? It's wrong and 'we' are supposed to be the good guys. The US is a signatory to the UN convention against torture which it has been wilfully and systematically subverting. Interestingly, the US appears not to be a signatory to the optional protocol which established a system of independent visits to which participants agreed to be subject. Now, why would that be?

 

[3point14]

What does it matter whether it works or not?

It makes my moral decision a lot easier and the argumment a slam dunk.

If it worked I would have a harder time justifying it's non-use to advocates describing worst-case scenarios.

As it is, it's easy to say:

"No, oh barbaric, dehumanising wannabe torturer supporter, your desired, emotion-driven proposed solution doesn't work no matter how much you want it to so there is zero justification for it's implimentation."

 

[Upchurch]

It makes my moral decision a lot easier and the argumment a slam dunk.

It also takes the wind right out of comments like this:

Ok, so you're not a moral absolutist. That's good. Neither am I.

Not that rejecting torture is a position of moral absolutism. It's merely a pragmatic, informed understanding.

 

[anglolawyer]

It makes my moral decision a lot easier and the argumment a slam dunk.

If it worked I would have a harder time justifying it's non-use to advocates describing worst-case scenarios.

As it is, it's easy to say:

"No, oh barbaric, dehumanising wannabe torturer supporter, your desired, emotion-driven proposed solution doesn't work no matter how much you want it to so there is zero justification for it's implimentation."

It's probably impossible to tell whether it works. Of course, some will reveal things they wouldn't have if not tortured but along with that there will be those who say things that aren't true in order for the torture to stop. On the whole, it would surprise me if the former did not outweigh the latter in usefulness but it maybe depends on other things, like how good your other intelligence is. I think the burden is on those who say it doesn't work to prove it.

Looking at things more widely, it might not be beneficial to have everybody hate and mistrust you. That's where the US is increasingly headed it seems to me. We can still hope the day of reckoning is still a long way off.

 

[Olowkow]

Bush, Cheney et al are in an interesting position. They are ostensibly proud of their comportment post 9/11 by having ordered illegal and immoral programs of detention and torture. They place a high value on torture as a legitimate and effective technique, despite the fact that they lied about it at the time giving one an impression of knowledge of guilt. They must now spin their actions as heroic in order to insure political public support among a few remaining faithful and hopefully avoid prosecution for war crimes.

There are two outcomes possible in order to provide accountability for their actions: prosecutions or pardons. If neither occurs, it will appear to the rest of the world that the U.S. has given its imprimatur to torture as a possible future policy with virtually no limits, depriving us of any future "high road" vis-à-vis barbarism in war and providing recruitment fodder to our enemies. Obama has attempted to steer clear of this morass since his election in order to prevent further divisiveness, as I see it, but the eventual duty may fall to our next president to make this critical decision.

Anthony Romero of the ACLU recommends pardons, as G. Ford provided for Nixon after the Watergate affair, serving to prevent an unseemly prosecution. The pardon labeled Nixon's actions as crimes against the United States, while providing him immunity from prosecution. Without the pardon, Nixon's attempts to subvert the government he swore to protect by means of criminal tampering may have gone into the history books as mere political sniping.

Romero asserts that the George W. Bush administration engaged in what seem to be criminal acts, and short of prosecuting them for their war crimes, our integrity as a nation would be well served by labeling their behavior as criminal and granting pardons for their illegal acts. Hopefully, this would provide an ample chilling effect for future would-be torturers in high places.

Personally, I see certain pros and cons for both prosecutions or pardons, but crimes without consequences chip away at the foundation of a justice system. Enough chips, and the the foundation collapses.

 

[Upchurch]

It's probably impossible to tell whether it works. Of course, some will reveal things they wouldn't have if not tortured but along with that there will be those who say things that aren't true in order for the torture to stop. On the whole, it would surprise me if the former did not outweigh the latter in usefulness but it maybe depends on other things, like how good your other intelligence is.

The problem is telling the one from the other.

I think the burden is on those who say it doesn't work to prove it.

That's shifting the burden by asking opponents to prove a negative. Not only is the burden of proof on those who say it works to prove the claim, but to also show that it is more efficient than other forms of interrogation.

 

[jimbob]

Well, the other side is that it does work. The CIA leadership insists, with extraordinary vehemence, that very useful intelligence was gained. The main thrust of the Senate report is that this claim is false. I'll note, however, that Senate Republicans did not sign on to the report. It is, by definition, a partisan report, although that doesn't necessarily mean that is is wrong.



Ok, so you're not a moral absolutist. That's good. Neither am I.



Well, that's all we have to go on. There has been very little scientific research which is on point, for obvious reasons. Personally, I think it's kind of obvious that torture works, but maybe that's just because I'm a wimp.

So the thousands who confessed to being witches after being tortured really were witches then?

Almost anybody will talk. They will say whatever they think the torturer wants to hear, not the truth.

 

[3point14]

Romero asserts that the George W. Bush administration engaged in what seem to be criminal acts, and short of prosecuting them for their war crimes, our integrity as a nation would be well served by labeling their behavior as criminal and granting pardons for their illegal acts. Hopefully, this would provide an ample chilling effect for future would-be torturers in high places.

Seems it's good to be the President.