• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

RandFan said:
The evidence that torture works is that no one will come forward and admit that it works. Thank about it, why would anyone admit that torture works? Ergo. Torture is not only effective it is necessary.

Hello, my name is O'Brien. Welcome to room 101.
Click to expand...

Straw man. You're the one that claimed it's so well-accepted that torture is ineffective that we don't even have to discuss it anymore. Your claim, your burden.
 
RandFan said:
The evidence that torture works is that no one will come forward and admit that it works. Thank about it, why would anyone admit that torture works? Ergo. Torture is not only effective it is necessary.

Hello, my name is O'Brien. Welcome to room 101.
Click to expand...

That's why a comprehensive list of actionable information obtained via torture was not made available to the resistance Feinstein.
 
sunmaster14 said:
You completely ignored the rest of my post where I made what I thought was a cogent argument.
Click to expand...
I ignored it because it had nothing to do with the ticking time bomb scenario you've been trying to use to justify torture for practical reasons. It was a non-sequitur.

eta: and the drek you did write did nothing to argue in favor of the utility of torture, but its usage to punish, to hurt, to revenge. Your "argument" is no better than MG's, which amounted to it fulfills a sadistic pleasure.
 
Last edited:
By the way, here are some actual arguments I've heard in favor of torture on these very forums:

* The Coalition is fighting a just war, therefore any measures we take in fighting this war are justified.
* We are not using more extreme methods, like the beheadings that ISIS is carrying out.
* Even if the prisoner is willing to lie or say anything to get the torture to stop, it's better to get one true statement out of that than nothing at all.
* 9/11 proved we have to take the threat of terrorism seriously, and be willing to do whatever it takes to prevent another such attack.
* The people who carried out excessive torture methods that resulted in the deaths of prisoners were punished appropriately, so no harm done.
* The terrorists we are torturing would not care about due process if they captured a Coalition member, so why should we care about due process for them?
* We can safely assume that any prisoners captured on the field of battle are enemy combatants, therefore it's okay to torture them.
* These terrorists would kill innocents without batting an eye, so why should we shed any tears for them? Why show them any sympathy?
* It's just my opinion that torture works, just like people have different opinions about which movies they like. And I have a right to my opinions.


Well, I can't think of any way to refute such sound logic. Can you?
 
sunmaster14 said:
One day? Well, let's see what was going on. Four days before the Presidential election. Two days before the Soviets invaded Hungary and killed thousands of civilians while we stood by and did nothing. Right in the middle of the Suez Crisis where we sided with a 3rd world dictator over our two best allies, and one future ally. I guess all in all, we probably didn't do anything that bad on that day. Of course, yesterday was a pretty good day tooy. Or perhaps that's just the media covering for Barack Obama again.
Click to expand...
Yes, one day. You asked for a time in the past. I gave you one. You also set no criteria, but you hint at them here.

sunmaster14's criteria for "better"
1. No one else does something bad
2. We do not stand against bad things if it is our allies doing it
3. Obama doesn't get credit

Regardless how fine a display of "My dad can beat up your dad" argumentation this is, I am afraid it does not impress me in the slightest.


ETA: Using your implied criteria to right now:

In the very recent past Russia annexed the Crimea and is currently engineering some form of authority over much of what is left of the Ukraine.

The US is siding directly with an Iranian ally (Iraq), a group (the Kurds) viewed as terrorists by a NATO ally (Turkey), is slowly ceding control of the South China Sea, has been overtaken by some economic measures by China, has lost influence in Africa to China, has the greatest debt in the history of the nation, and can't keep the government running except by repeated emergency continuing resolutions.

Even if I grant your criteria, your argument fails.
 
Last edited:
And I'd like to ask you, sunmaster14, the same question someone else asked previously:

Which of the 86 water boardings of Zubaydah worked? Was it the first one so that the last 85 were just for fun? Perhaps it was the last one. If so, we should rewrite the manuals so that the ticking-time-bomb scenario only applies if it's a veeeeeerrrrrry slowly ticking time bomb.
 
Sunmaster has already admitted that he has no verifiable accounts of torture producing accurate information.
 
anglolawyer said:
WW2 is not a case in point. Only one side was engaged in genocide and armed conquest. Carpet bombing their cities was not great but it was at least underpinned by some strategic thinking, plus they started it.
Click to expand...


*sigh* I won't sidetrack this thread, but will simply observe the above quote highlights a long-standing aspect about the strategic bombing campaign during WWII, namely, that it is often misprepresented. Few, it seems, understand or are aware of the technological, operational, and logistical constraints which influenced and shaped it, nor the degree to which that campaign had measurable and considerable direct and indirect effects on the economies of the nations struck by that bombing effort.
 
Upchurch said:
I ignored it because it had nothing to do with the ticking time bomb scenario you've been trying to use to justify torture for practical reasons. It was a non-sequitur.

eta: and the drek you did write did nothing to argue in favor of the utility of torture, but its usage to punish, to hurt, to revenge. Your "argument" is no better than MG's, which amounted to it fulfills a sadistic pleasure.
Click to expand...

You have utterly misconstrued my argument. To such an extent actually that I think you're being dishonest. I will repeat it here to show how unjustified your comment is (particularly your ETA comment):

Well, maybe this. If the physical punishment of a human being lies on a continuum (ranging from restraint in handcuffs on one end to the most grisly torture at the other end), then if some level of punishment can be justified by a social goal, it seems possible to show that a more important social goal would justify at least a slightly harsher level of punishment. I think that as long as there is no cap on the social utility that could be gained from a punishment, one could theoretically find a scenario which justifies any level of physical punishment. As I pointed out in the previous discussion, and as anglolawyer pointed out here, our society uses physical punishment routinely to affect human behavior. In fact, all of our laws, ultimately, are backed by the threat of physical punishment.

So, if restraint in handcuffs is justified in some circumstances, perhaps tugging on them to cause a little bit of pain compliance is justified in more extreme circumstances. Or tasering. Or putting someone in an armbar. Or punching them in the face. And on and on. I think a civilized society would not inflict pain gratuitously, but rather only to enforce compliance. Does such compliance include divulging information which could potentially save innocent lives? Maybe.
Click to expand...
 
Garrette said:
Yes, one day. You asked for a time in the past. I gave you one. You also set no criteria, but you hint at them here.
Click to expand...

Picking a single day is obviously ludicrous. Who even knows what the government was doing or plotting on that day anyway? Less than 3.5 years before, they were overthrowing the elected government of Iran and fighting a war in Korea. Approximately 3.5 years later, they were trying to assassinate Castro.

In the very recent past Russia annexed the Crimea and is currently engineering some form of authority over much of what is left of the Ukraine.

The US is siding directly with an Iranian ally (Iraq), a group (the Kurds) viewed as terrorists by a NATO ally (Turkey), is slowly ceding control of the South China Sea, has been overtaken by some economic measures by China, has lost influence in Africa to China, has the greatest debt in the history of the nation, and can't keep the government running except by repeated emergency continuing resolutions.
Click to expand...

This is a silly game, but I don't view any of those things as even bad, let alone immoral. We're doing what we can with respect to Ukraine. I thought Obama could have been a little more forceful, but we're obviously constrained. If he engineered the drop in the price of oil, which is putting a major hurt to both Russia and Iran, then good for him. The national debt is definitely not a bad thing, as I've tried to explain elsewhere.
 
Garrette said:
And I'd like to ask you, sunmaster14, the same question someone else asked previously:

Which of the 86 water boardings of Zubaydah worked? Was it the first one so that the last 85 were just for fun? Perhaps it was the last one. If so, we should rewrite the manuals so that the ticking-time-bomb scenario only applies if it's a veeeeeerrrrrry slowly ticking time bomb.
Click to expand...

You do realize that the count is of the number of times water was poured onto his face for a time lasting less than 5 seconds, right? It's not of actual waterboarding sessions. And I'm not defending the methods which were used in this case.

I have only argued two things here:

(1) The people responsible for authorizing torture and carrying it out probably should not be prosecuted, or even vilified; and

(2) The moral absolutists who claim that torture is never justified are either illogical or intellectually dishonest.
 
I was listening to AM radio host this morning who's fairly left-leaning. He wondered "is sleep-deprivation really torture"? I wonder that too. Playing loud music for hours on end? The police are allowed to lie during interrogations. Is "official lying" a form of torture? Is the good-cop bad-cop routine torture? Do we have to act like saints? Who draws the line on what "torture" is? Is it like pornography: you know it when you see it?
 
Last edited:
RandFan said:
If torture were effective, it's not, it would still be immoral but perhaps justifiable in some extreme circumstances.
Click to expand...


Still, what I think is most disturbing about that line of argument is it's always trotted out in defense of torture in actual circumstances that are nowhere near as extreme as a hypothetical "ticking time bomb". It's a massive red herring. And I wonder if it's intended more to distract the person making the argument than the people at which the argument is directed.

Frozenwolf150 said:
By the way, here are some actual arguments I've heard in favor of torture on these very forums:

...
* 9/11 proved we have to take the threat of terrorism seriously, and be willing to do whatever it takes to prevent another such attack.
...
Click to expand...


Curiously, and maybe even amusingly, "give in to their demands" never appears on the list of horrible things we must be willing to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom