Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

[Upchurch]

Our discussion was about whether torture is ever morally permissible, not specifically about whether the CIA was justified in its use of torture. I have actually been consistent in saying that I don't think it was, just as I don't think the drone missile killings are justified. I come to that decision by weighing costs and benefits on a moral balance.

And now you are arguing that it is morally permissible for thieves to use torture to steal money from an ATM?

 

[sunmaster14]

And now you are arguing that it is morally permissible for thieves to use torture to steal money from an ATM?

So now you want an example where torture is more effective than rapport-building, but which is morally permissible? You'll have to be more clear, since it is getting hard to even see those goal posts anymore.

 

[Upchurch]

Being off topic and discourteous.

Yikes. If you think those were off topic and discourteous, how many other posts in this thread have you reported?

 

[Upchurch]

So now you want an example where torture is more effective than rapport-building, but which is morally permissible? You'll have to be more clear, since it is getting hard to even see those goal posts anymore.

Actually you haven't shown that torture is more effective than rapport-building. Several posters have refuted your claim and since you've provided nothing to support your claim, you still don't have a leg to stand on.

 

[sunmaster14]

Actually you haven't shown that torture is more effective than rapport-building. Several posters have refuted your claim and since you've provided nothing to support your claim, you still don't have a leg to stand on.

They haven't actually refuted the claim, since, first of all, they have not proven that they can or will act in the manner they suggest, and second, they are only two individuals. Personally, I find their claims to be incredible, literally, but that's not terribly relevant. In any case, I was asking you. I'm not sure why you can't respond to the question "what would you do?"

I am happy to respond to any and all relevant questions that you care to ask. If I refuse to answer a question because it is irrelevant, then I'll explain why I think it is.

 

[Upchurch]

They haven't actually refuted the claim, since, first of all, they have not proven that they can or will act in the manner they suggest, and second, they are only two individuals. Personally, I find their claims to be incredible, literally, but that's not terribly relevant.

In that same respect, you haven't supported your claim since you haven't proven that your scenario would result in good information quickly. Basically, their refutation has as much weight as your claim: the force of assertion only.

In any case, I was asking you. I'm not sure why you can't respond to the question "what would you do?"

I can't say. I have never been in an even remotely similar situation. I'm not making a claim for which I have no basis for knowing.

 

[Upchurch]

I'm challenging Upchurch. He has refused to answer several questions of mine, including what exactly he proposes is a more effective form of interrogation.

Because you are desperately trying to change the subject.

Oh, so desperately.

 

[sunmaster14]

In that same respect, you haven't supported your claim since you haven't proven that your scenario would result in good information quickly. Basically, their refutation has as much weight as your claim: the force of assertion only.


I can't say. I have never been in an even remotely similar situation. I'm not making a claim for which I have no basis for knowing.

Have you ever been in a fight before and been made to say "Uncle?" Or have you ever watched an MMA fight and seen somebody submit to an armbar or a choke?

 

[Cleon]

Have you ever been in a fight before and been made to say "Uncle?" Or have you ever watched an MMA fight and seen somebody submit to an armbar or a choke?

And let me ask you, do you really want a government run on the same principles held by high-school bullies?

 

[sunmaster14]

And let me ask you, do you really want a government run on the same principles held by high-school bullies?

No, I don't. But in certain exceptional circumstances, I expect that they will do what they have to do. We can judge their actions after the fact. Although I don't think the CIA should have tortured suspected al Qaeda terrorists because I think the immediate need was neither so great nor so probable, I can understand why they might have thought so at the time. If they did the same thing in today's environment, barring additional exculpatory evidence, I would want to see prosecutions.

 

[Cleon]

No, I don't. But in certain exceptional circumstances, I expect that they will do what they have to do.

Torture is never something that they have to do. Ever.

We can judge their actions after the fact. Although I don't think the CIA should have tortured suspected al Qaeda terrorists because I think the immediate need was neither so great nor so probable, I can understand why they might have thought so at the time. If they did the same thing in today's environment, barring additional exculpatory evidence, I would want to see prosecutions.

If something's illegal and warrants prosecution, it's illegal and warrants prosecution regardless of whether the perpetrator thought it was a good idea at the time.

 

[Cleon]

I've quoted Hend (@LibyaLiberty on Twitter) before, and as usual, she says it better than I ever could:

 

[The Norseman]

I'm challenging Upchurch. He has refused to answer several questions of mine, including what exactly he proposes is a more effective form of interrogation. I also asked him specifically whether the promise of rewards would be an effective incentive for a suspect to give information to an interrogator.

These questions have already been answered though the studies posted.

I have also explained why the burden of proof is not on me. First of all, the fact that humans respond to incentives, and that promises of reward or punishment can affect human behavior, is obvious.

Okay.

There is no reason to believe that this incentive structure breaks down at any particular point on the continuum of punishment severity, let alone precisely at that point at which some (or most) people define punishment as causing "severe" pain.

Why is there no reason to believe this?

It is nonsensical to think that all of a sudden, the threat of pain infliction stops working altogether as an effective incentive to cooperate.

How does what you're saying here best explain what we have seen regarding torture then?

Second, torture does not have to work on 100% of people 100% of the time in order for it to be an effective option.

Irrelevant if it applies to morals and ethics which you seem to now be arguing.

It only has to work on some of the people some of the time. So Upchurch's claim becomes that torture never works on anybody ever. That is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence. My claim is actually rather mundane, and I can give you at least one example of a person on whom torture would work quite well. Me.

I could be mistaken because of the length of this thread, but I don't recall Upchurch claiming that torture never works on anybody ever. If that's the case, then sure, one example would disprove the claim, as you have done.

However, I really think that the torture advocates really are vastly underestimating the stakes that those tortured (not including the 20% or so who literally have no information to give) have in not disclosing the information. We even train our soldiers to withstand pain and physical torture; why would they not also?

 

[jimbob]

Sunmaster, did you read what happened to the NVA when they tried using torture to uncover anti-communist infiltrators?

Not really an effective strategy.

 

[tsig]

Neither your post not tsig's is an adequate substitute for argument. Let's not descend to this level of childish stupidity please.

We esp. wouldn't want to descend to the level of calling others names or impugning their intelligence.



Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; - Thomas Jefferson.

 

[jimbob]

Sunmaster, did you read what happened to the NVA when they tried using torture to uncover anti-communist infiltrators?

Not really an effective strategy.

Here's an article to help:

http://www.newsweek.com/cia-torture-report-vietcong-vietnam-war-292041

The CIA is hardly the only spy service to grapple with blowback from making prisoners scream. Even leaders of Communist Vietnam’s wartime intelligence agency, notorious for torturing American POWs, privately knew that “enhanced interrogation techniques,” as the CIA calls them, could create more problems than solutions, according to internal Vietnamese documents reviewed by Newsweek.

In many cases, torturing people wrongly suspected of being enemy spies caused “extremely regrettable losses and damage,” says one of the documents, released to little notice in 1993 by Hanoi’s all-powerful Public Security Service (PSS).

In another part, the report explains how the agency eventually began to arrest its own people, and before long, false confessions began destroying the PSS itself. “A reconnaissance team member who one day went out to arrest someone would suddenly be arrested the very next day,” the documents said. “An investigating officer who one day was sitting in his chair conducting interrogations would the next day be forced to stand in that same office to be interrogated himself.”

Even by the most amoral criteria - it fails.

 

[fishbob]

No, I don't. But in certain exceptional circumstances, I expect that they will do what they have to do. We can judge their actions after the fact. Although I don't think the CIA should have tortured suspected al Qaeda terrorists because I think the immediate need was neither so great nor so probable, I can understand why they might have thought so at the time. If they did the same thing in today's environment, barring additional exculpatory evidence, I would want to see prosecutions.[/QUOTE]

I don't see why they may have thought so at the time, and I still want to see prosecutions.

 

[logger]

You're a bit late to the game to honestly try to play this card. It's torture. It brings the victim to near asphyxiation. We prosecuted people who used waterboarding for war crimes in WWII.

I know I'm late, its a waste of time arguing morals with liberals, amusing as it is.

 

[logger]

I'll come back to this point: are you okay with waterboarding being done on an American captive held by a foreign country or group? Because if you aren't yet are for waterboarding captives the U.S. holds, that is an inherent contradiction.

Don't they already go through it in training?

If only the terrorist would stick to waterboarding, they seem to rather remove heads.

 

[Cleon]

I know I'm late, its a waste of time arguing morals with liberals, amusing as it is.

If you're supporting torture, don't talk "morals" and expect to be taken seriously.