Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

[sunmaster14]

You're evading again. It's almost like you know you can't actually support your position, so you want to talk about anything else.

I'd say that you are projecting. Is offering rewards to a detainee for cooperation a good way of building rapport?

aside: BPS response to US torture report

All I ever see are unsupported assertions of ineffectiveness. Never any actually studies.

 

[Upchurch]

I'd say that you are projecting.

Oh? Sorry. I must have missed the post where you supported your assumption that torture obtains reliable information quickly.

Could you point me to that post so that I can review it?

 

[Upchurch]

The Game Theory Case Against Torture
(or, if you prefer, the actual paper by John Schiemann)

“The question as to whether—in reality—interrogational torture actually provides us with vital information we otherwise would not get—and at what human cost—is one of the pressing moral questions of our time,” Schiemann wrote in his 2012 paper. “The debate over this question suggests that this reality needs probing, and the probing offered here suggests that torture games have no winners.”

 

[Upchurch]

Yes Upchurch, but assume for the sake of argument that it was both effective and moral then what would be wrong with it?

If we assume it was significantly more effective than other techniques but not moral, then the article that sunmaster14 is lauding would at least be applicable. If we assume that it was moral but not effective, then there would still be little reason to use it. If we assume that it were both effective and moral, I think the question is moot.

Of course, it appears to be neither.

 

[Allen773]

A top al Qaeda expert who remains in a senior position at the CIA was a key architect of the agency's defense of its detention and "enhanced interrogation" program for suspected terrorists, developing oft-repeated talking points that misrepresented and overstated its effectiveness, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report released last week.

The report singles out the female expert as a key apologist for the program, stating that she repeatedly told her superiors and others — including members of Congress — that the "torture" was working and producing useful intelligence, when it was not. She wrote the "template on which future justifications for the CIA program and the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were based," it said.

The expert also participated in "enhanced interrogations" of self-professed 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, witnessed the waterboarding of terror suspect Abu Zubaydah and ordered the detention of a suspected terrorist who turned out to be unconnected to al Qaeda, according to the report.

The expert is no stranger to controversy. She was criticized after 9/11 terrorist attacks for countenancing a subordinate's refusal to share the names of two of the hijackers with the FBI prior to the terror attacks.

But instead of being sanctioned, she was promoted.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/bin-laden-expert-accused-shaping-cia-deception-torture-program-n269551

 

[RandFan]

All I ever see are unsupported assertions of ineffectiveness. Never any actually studies.

One cannot see what one will not look at. I've posted links and sources. You simply refuse to acknowledge them.

Does Torture Work?

A Sociolegal Assessment of the Practice in Historical and Global Perspective

Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2009. 5:311–45
First published online as a Review in Advance on
August 10, 2009
The Annual Review of Law and Social Science

Judgment about the efficacy of interrogational torture, Rejali’s (2007, p. 478) comparative global assessment is a fitting description of the American case: “[O]rganized torture yields poor information, sweeps up many innocents, degrades organizational capabilities, and destroys interrogators. Limited time during bat- tle or emergency intensifies all these problems.” The U.S. case demonstrates that harming and humiliating prisoners was ineffective in elicit ing accurate or actionable intelligence. Rather, the torture policy generated a vast amount of false and useless information that caused the waste of valuable time and resources. This truth should silence assertions that such meth- ods are a necessary “lesser evil.” Rejali (2007) writes, “Apologists often assume that torture works ... [but if it] does not work, then their apology is irrelevant” (p. 447).

 

[tsig]

I'd say that you are projecting. Is offering rewards to a detainee for cooperation a good way of building rapport?



All I ever see are unsupported assertions of ineffectiveness. Never any actually studies.

Trying to reverse that burden of proof again I see.

Your assertion:

Torture works

Others:

Prove it

You:

Prove it doesn't.

ETA: let's substitute:

God exists

Prove it

Prove he doesn't.

Notice a pattern

 

[fishbob]

The Torture Convention defines torture as the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering. It's right there in the first sentence of your excerpt. It does not cover intentional infliction of pain and suffering which falls short of severe. The Geneva Conventions do, but only for lawful combatants and noncombatant civilians detained in a war zone. The distinction arose in a discussion I had with 3point14 about the use of pain compliance or lengthy interrogations in policing and the like. Does that clear it up? I won't hold my breath waiting for either a concession or an apology from you.

"Severe": a poorly defined term that leaves a great big gray area for humanity-lite interrogators to stomp around in.

 

[Crossbow]

The Torture Convention defines torture as the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering. It's right there in the first sentence of your excerpt. It does not cover intentional infliction of pain and suffering which falls short of severe. The Geneva Conventions do, but only for lawful combatants and noncombatant civilians detained in a war zone. The distinction arose in a discussion I had with 3point14 about the use of pain compliance or lengthy interrogations in policing and the like. Does that clear it up? I won't hold my breath waiting for either a concession or an apology from you.

It is a good thing that you are not holding your breath, because I am not going to apologize to you because your are either woefully ignorant or a terrible liar or both.

From the first sentence I cited, and to which you referred to:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, ...

It is right there, torture is not limited to the infliction of pain so an honest person would not keep claiming otherwise.

 

[Jango]

Any thoughts? Shouldn't some heads roll over this at least? I don't think there is much appetite for prosecutions, but shouldn't there be some kind of accountability?

People should be prosecuted for spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

There would have to be true blue investigation not worried about all of the levers of power being affected, but that is not going to happen so we'll have to instead try and interpret a report hamstrung by a weird investigation and large amounts of blacked out information I.e. the norm.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Really, my main argument is that the level of moral (p)outrage over torturing a handful of terrorists is over the top. And inconsistent with other moral outrages which have transpired in the past and which continue to this day. I think much of the outrage is driven by partisan concerns.

1. Believe it or not, human beings are capable of caring about more than one moral issue in the world at a time.
2. You assume they're all guilty of terrorism, even though most of them were denied due process.
3. In another post, you use the 9/11 attacks to argue for perspective. Yet this amounts to using 9/11 as an excuse or justification for torture. 9/11 was not the worst thing an enemy power could have done to the United States, believe it or not.
4. You assume it's partisan. You didn't ask how many people would still be outraged regardless of which administration carried out the torture.

 

[jimbob]

I'd say that you are projecting. Is offering rewards to a detainee for cooperation a good way of building rapport?



All I ever see are unsupported assertions of ineffectiveness. Never any actually studies.

We have given examples where torture gave the wrong evidence both from older history and post 9/11

We have given an example where an Islamic terrorist had been cooperative with conventional questioning but "became unresponsive" after torture.

Throughout history, people have understood that torture doesn't get to the truth, except incidentally

You have given some disputed, nonspecific claims by people with a significant financial vested interest in saying it works

 

[Jango]

We have given examples where torture gave the wrong evidence both from older history and post 9/11

We have given an example where an Islamic terrorist had been cooperative with conventional questioning but "became unresponsive" after torture.

Throughout history, people have understood that torture doesn't get to the truth, except incidentally

You have given some disputed, nonspecific claims by people with a significant financial vested interest in saying it works

You're right, however, given its use in proximity to the battlefield and war, I'd readily employ such tactics if I felt I could get intelligence I needed out of someone that was beneficial to my team and/or prevented my guys getting killed by an IED/ambush/etc. When the job is of that caliber of stress and duress, what business do bureaucrats thousands of miles away have tying the hands of the guys actually fighting the wars they sent them their to fight? I get the importance of civilian leadership but I disagree wholeheartedly with the notion that Kissinger and others have put forward -- the military man is a dumb, brutish and expendable ape for foreign policy. If we care about our military, we don't send 'em to fight ******** wars, but if we do send 'em to ******** wars like we love to do so much then we gotta at least them fight the way they're trained to do (speaking as a Marine) -- forward and with overwhelming force with the law of the land coming from the highest ranking military officer responsible for the war.

If the U.S. leadership had let the Marines off their leashes, we wouldn't be in Afghanistan right now and Iraq would have been pacified too. Like with torture, bombs and bullets break down our biology and with enough of it, our collective will too -- to break the opponent's will is to win the war. Spy satellites, air force, drones, contractors, special operations and the Marine Corps. would have been enough to take care of Afghanistan and Iraq. But as we saw, bad politics and bad leadership and the inability to just fight war like we're trying to kill any and all who oppose us made the situations there swamps that have unnecessarily bogged us down militarily, economically, politically and spiritually for over a decade now.

For as much fighting as we do one would think that some sort of institutional memory would kick in and we wouldn't succumb to the same failures as we've suffered previously.

 

[3point14]

Which part of 'it doesn't work' do people not understand?

 

[marplots]

Which part of 'it doesn't work' do people not understand?

The "work" part.

For example, if I have a truculent prisoner, "work" might just mean getting them to talk at all - not spill the beans or give up the keys to the kingdom, but just start talking. Maybe "work" means establishing a good cop/bad cop with serious, painful credentials. Maybe "work" just means getting the word out to other prisoners that, "yes, they will go there."

And "work" doesn't have to mean 75 or 80% of the time. If you've exhausted other methods, "works very, very rarely" would still put torture on the menu.

I have no direct experience with torturing people. But I do know there's a lot of room for different expectations, and that little word can be pretty troublesome.

 

[Upchurch]

marplots, feel free to look through the links I've provided. I thought the game theory one was a particularly interesting approach on the issue.

 

[3point14]

The "work" part.

For example, if I have a truculent prisoner, "work" might just mean getting them to talk at all - not spill the beans or give up the keys to the kingdom, but just start talking. Maybe "work" means establishing a good cop/bad cop with serious, painful credentials. Maybe "work" just means getting the word out to other prisoners that, "yes, they will go there."

And "work" doesn't have to mean 75 or 80% of the time. If you've exhausted other methods, "works very, very rarely" would still put torture on the menu.

I have no direct experience with torturing people. But I do know there's a lot of room for different expectations, and that little word can be pretty troublesome.

Everything I've ever read indicates that one will hear what one wants to hear. I'm deeply unimpressed with those that pop up and say either 'oh, well, I'd use it in a n emergency' or, as above, 'oh, I'd use it if I were on the front line'

Both of these comments are actually an indication that people would like it to work, possibly because it works for Keiffer on the telly and he's a hero (of a sort).
I think some people want torture to work because then the desired revenge comes with a justification. As it is, it's just an ignorance of the facts and a blatant disregard for international law that leads people to try to find a circumstance in which they can justify medieval philosophy in the modern age.

To recap

1 - It doesn't work. Anyone advocating torture has the burden of proof to show otherwise.
2 - It is illegal - by any and all international measures it is an illegal act.
3 - It is an immoral act - Those who proclaim that it is useful are stupid those that claim it is moral are using, as noted above, a C13th map
4 - It induces hate in those one tortures (for, as noted above, no good reason)


Any hypothetical scenarios or, as I see here, wishful thinking, are not useful when, and I'm getting tired of saying this, The Whitehouse has admitted torture was undertaken in the name of the people of the USA.

Consequenses =0
Internationa respect <0

 

[marplots]

Everything I've ever read indicates that one will hear what one wants to hear. I'm deeply unimpressed with those that pop up and say either 'oh, well, I'd use it in a n emergency' or, as above, 'oh, I'd use it if I were on the front line'

Both of these comments are actually an indication that people would like it to work, possibly because it works for Keiffer on the telly and he's a hero (of a sort).
I think some people want torture to work because then the desired revenge comes with a justification. As it is, it's just an ignorance of the facts and a blatant disregard for international law that leads people to try to find a circumstance in which they can justify medieval philosophy in the modern age.

To recap

1 - It doesn't work. Anyone advocating torture has the burden of proof to show otherwise.
2 - It is illegal - by any and all international measures it is an illegal act.
3 - It is an immoral act - Those who proclaim that it is useful are stupid those that claim it is moral are using, as noted above, a C13th map
4 - It induces hate in those one tortures (for, as noted above, no good reason)


Any hypothetical scenarios or, as I see here, wishful thinking, are not useful when, and I'm getting tired of saying this, The Whitehouse has admitted torture was undertaken in the name of the people of the USA.

Consequenses =0
Internationa respect <0

Which means it works for revenge and inducing hate. As I said, the problem is with the word "works."

 

[jimbob]

Well yes marplots if you want a false confession and have no scruples, then torture is fine.

 

[3point14]

Which means it works for revenge and inducing hate. As I said, the problem is with the word "works."

Did you read the definition of torture? That definition includes purpose. What you're discussing isn't torture.