Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

[sunmaster14]

I've walked slowly across the room. Clearly, I'm no different than a marathon runner. It is only a matter of degree.

Depends what you're being compared to. You're a lot closer to a marathon runner than a fish is.

More on point, if you had to run across town to save a person's life, I think you would try to haul ass. You might not get there as fast as an experienced marathon runner, but you would be sweating and huffing and puffing despite the fact that you wouldn't ordinarily want to exert yourself to that degree.

 

[Wudang]

More on point, if you had to run across town to save a person's life, I think you would try to haul ass. You might not get there as fast as an experienced marathon runner, but you would be sweating and huffing and puffing despite the fact that you wouldn't ordinarily want to exert yourself to that degree.

To complete the analogy: why on earth would he do that when he has a car, money for bus/cab fare etc which will get him their more efficiently? I.e. when better and more reliable methods are available?

 

[Garrette]

It is unpleasant to be restrained. There is no question that many suspects are coerced into compliance by the threat of restraint, and that the police use this to achieve compliance. Regardless, I don't see how anybody can doubt that our whole system of laws is based on deterrence and the threat of punishment, and also that punishment clearly involves the application of discomfort. Torture is not qualitatively different. It is only a matter of degree. Also, the compliance being sought, i.e. revealing information, is not qualitatively different from the compliance being sought in other areas of the law, e.g. stop resisting arrest.

And this proves absolutely the point that you are not really just talking about the fictional ticking bomb scenario; you want this applied universally (assuming universally means Western nations interrogating prisoners of whom you personally disbelieve).

We are all also simply different degrees of life. Very few mind if I step on an ant so what's the difference if I shoot a stranger in the street.

The argument-by-spectrum may not be a named logical fallacy, but it should be. "Handcuffs aren't nice, therefore electric shocks to the balls are fine" is not a philosophy for which you have made a convincing argument.

 

[Darat]

And this proves absolutely the point that you are not really just talking about the fictional ticking bomb scenario; you want this applied universally (assuming universally means Western nations interrogating prisoners of whom you personally disbelieve).

We are all also simply different degrees of life. Very few mind if I step on an ant so what's the difference if I shoot a stranger in the street.

The argument-by-spectrum may not be a named logical fallacy, but it should be. "Handcuffs aren't nice, therefore electric shocks to the balls are fine" is not a philosophy for which you have made a convincing argument.

It is very old fallacy, Loki's wager is its name.

 

[sunmaster14]

It is very old fallacy, Loki's wager is its name.

It is not Loki's wager at all. You have completely failed to understand the point (as well as Loki's wager), which is that because these things lie on a spectrum, there exists a moral indifference curve which is continuous and upward sloping. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that such curve has a vertical asymptote. Therefore for any amount of inflicted pain, there should exist an expected benefit which morally justifies it.

 

[Upchurch]

To complete the analogy: why on earth would he do that when he has a car, money for bus/cab fare etc which will get him their more efficiently? I.e. when better and more reliable methods are available?

To take it further, sunmaster14 will have to concoct a scenario where we now live in post-apocalyptic world with no gas, no bicycles, and no horses. Oh, and the guy whose life needs saving is uphill all the way, so no skate boards and no bobsleds.

 

[quadraginta]

It is unpleasant to be restrained. There is no question that many suspects are coerced into compliance by the threat of restraint, and that the police use this to achieve compliance.

<snip>

Sure there is. I question it, so that's at least one. I think they tend to either do it, or not. Rarely is it a specific threat

Now provide the data you base your claim on.

And no quibbling about how many is "many".

 

[Garrette]

It is very old fallacy, Loki's wager is its name.

Thanks. I remember that from long ago on this forum but had forgotten it since.

 

[sunmaster14]

Sure there is. I question it, so that's at least one. I think they tend to either do it, or not. Rarely is it a specific threat

Now provide the data you base your claim on.

And no quibbling about how many is "many".

Here's a good example. And the video to go with it:

 

[quadraginta]

Here's a good example. And the video to go with it:

Not any evidence here of anyone being "coerced into compliance by the threat of restraint", so that's not much use for you.

Threat of being tased is not equivalent.

 

[sunmaster14]

Not any evidence here of anyone being "coerced into compliance by the threat of restraint", so that's not much use for you.

Threat of being tased is not equivalent.

Huh? Are you taking issue with my argument with respect to physical force and threats of physical force being routinely applied (and accepted by society) in order to achieve compliance, or are you focused specifically on handcuffs? I personally am not interested in handcuffs. It was only an example, and I'm not going to waste time proving to you that handcuffs are used as a threat and a punishment to induce cooperation with the police. They most certainly are, but their use is not as dramatic as, for example, the use of a taser, pepper spray, a nightstick, or a gun, so evidence on the internet will not be as easy to find.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Sunmaster, nothing short of scientific evidence is going to convince most people in the forum that torture is an effective interrogation method.

 

[sunmaster14]

Sunmaster, nothing short of scientific evidence is going to convince most people in the forum that torture is an effective interrogation method.

Well, that's awfully convenient because it would be unethical to do direct scientific experiments. The best we can do is extrapolate from punitive measures which fall short of torture and which are allowed. That's the evidence on which I'm basing my argument. In the olden days, corporal punishment of children was pretty common, and I think it mostly worked to alter their behavior.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Well, that's awfully convenient because it would be unethical to do direct scientific experiments. The best we can do is extrapolate from punitive measures which fall short of torture and which are allowed. That's the evidence on which I'm basing my argument. In the olden days, corporal punishment of children was pretty common, and I think it mostly worked to alter their behavior.

In other words, you have nothing.

Thanks for that.

 

[Upchurch]

Well, that's awfully convenient

"Consistent". The word you are looking for is "consistent".

The best we can do is extrapolate from punitive measures which fall short of torture and which are allowed. That's the evidence on which I'm basing my argument.

You're basing your argument that torture is more efficient and effective than alternative interrogation methods because of ...handcuffs?

In the olden days, corporal punishment of children was pretty common, and I think it mostly worked to alter their behavior.

Alter behavior? I thought your goal with torture was to gather intelligence.

Well, you've admitted that your actual goal is to rationalize away the crimes of the Bush Administration, but you previously it was rationalized as the only means to gather intelligence. Now, you want to alter prisoners' behavior? In what way?

 

[quadraginta]

Huh? Are you taking issue with my argument with respect to physical force and threats of physical force being routinely applied (and accepted by society) in order to achieve compliance, or are you focused specifically on handcuffs? I personally am not interested in handcuffs. It was only an example, and I'm not going to waste time proving to you that handcuffs are used as a threat and a punishment to induce cooperation with the police. They most certainly are, but their use is not as dramatic as, for example, the use of a taser, pepper spray, a nightstick, or a gun, so evidence on the internet will not be as easy to find.

It was your example. Not mine.

If you don't like it anymore that's just fine, but don't try to make me out to be the unreasonable one.

The reason I reacted to that statement of yours is that it was patently bogus.

I'm glad to see you agree, though.

 

[sunmaster14]

It was your example. Not mine.

If you don't like it anymore that's just fine, but don't try to make me out to be the unreasonable one.

The reason I reacted to that statement of yours is that it was patently bogus.

I'm glad to see you agree, though.

It was one of many examples that I gave in a post from almost one year ago, and I actually implied that it was mildest form of coercion:

<snip>

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.

To focus on whether or not handcuffing counts as a punishment is besides the point and something of a strawman. In any case, there is no question that handcuffs function at the very least as a physical constraint on a suspect in order to protect the arresting officers from harm. One could analogize using pain to force a suspect to divulge critical information as imposing a physical constraint on his desire to keep his mouth shut in order to protect innocent civilians from harm.

 

[sunmaster14]

<snip>

Alter behavior? I thought your goal with torture was to gather intelligence.

The behavior which is being altered is the refusal to reveal crucial knowledge. I don't see a qualitative difference between refusing to tell what you know and refusing to stop flailing your arms about or throwing poo around your prison cell. The US constitution makes a distinction, but I don't think there is a moral one.

 

[jimbob]

Well, that's awfully convenient because it would be unethical to do direct scientific experiments. The best we can do is extrapolate from punitive measures which fall short of torture and which are allowed. That's the evidence on which I'm basing my argument. In the olden days, corporal punishment of children was pretty common, and I think it mostly worked to alter their behavior.

Except that the CIA *did* try to work out the efficacy of torture - in fact they had previously tried with the MKULTRA program. They dodn't seem to have progressed much beyond that, given how they behaved in the their assessment of the torture used post 9/11 (see highlighted part for an example).

I don't think this argument about "does it work/doesn't it work" is using the same idea of the role of torture on both sides. The one side seems to have an idea that torture is going to be used to extract specific information - like someone's pin code or where the bomb is hidden. Others would say it's just one piece of the larger picture, a link in a chain meant to develop intelligence generally. In this view, saying we could have got the info in another way is always true - a case is built up from many elements, no one of which is the "smoking gun." Any of them could be missing and it is quite possible the information would be found. This puts torture in a more minor, adjunct role, instead of the star of the show.

The latter view would have torture as a useful tool, even if it didn't "get the goods" in a clear an unambiguous manner. It might not even reveal any specific fact and still have a use as evidence that some suite of facts is true in a cumulative fashion.

It could also have a role as a threat. If information is given to avoid torture, no torture happens - does the torture get credit or not?

The general mechanism is valid, or seems so. "Tell us about X, or Y will happen." That's a common enough pattern. We see it in cop interrogations all the time - sometimes implied, sometimes stated outright: "The judge will go easier on you if you come clean now, before we get the DNA tests back."

The root issue about whether it works or not then has to do with what we take "works" to mean. As usual, it comes down to expectations and metrics. With two different operative definitions, both sides of the issue can be correct.

Well, being most generous to the idea of torture it might be good for getting information that is difficult to otherwise get easily - however it is significantly harder to get accurate information.

The CIA say it worked but can't give any examples. An FBI interrogator said it stopped one source of information and gave an example. There is at least one other case where a tortured Al Quaeda suspect cracked, then falsely confessed as well as falsely claiming that Iraq had been supplying Al Quaeda with WMDs.

I'm speaking of institutional experience and knowledge. People who learned from torture passed on their information to the next generation and so on. It's not necessary for the people who first conducted the research or gained the experience to still be at the CIA, or even alive. I think that if torture really didn't work, then the CIA as an institution would have taught its employees that it didn't work. I mean there's really no good reason for using it if you know it doesn't work. It's not only demoralizing, but it puts your people in legal jeopardy too. And it's quite clear that the CIA was very anxious from the very beginning about putting their people in legal jeopardy. They knew that the legal and political environment was a lot different in 2002 than it was in 1972 or 1962 or 1952.

If that was the case, why did they hire private contractors with no experience of actual interrogation - just of designing training regimes to help withstand interrogation?

There are reasons why the CIA turned to outsourcing. Few of them are good. The CIA had no experience in running detention centres. It was handed this mission abruptly a few days after 9/11. The Senate report stresses how “unprepared” it was. So it sought assistance from outside its ranks. The psychologists asked to conceive a set of “coercive interrogation techniques” had previously worked at a US Air Force school, training pilots to withstand the treatment they might face if taken prisoner or hostage. This was the basis on which they won this grim contract.

Meanwhile a couple of science blog posts in the guardian:
here (from 2010)

One of the interesting features of the torture debate is that many in the military and intelligence communities seem decidedly unconvinced about the effectiveness of torture. Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent with considerable experience interrogating al-Qaeda operatives, pointed out in Time that:

When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information you're getting is useless.

He isn't alone in this assessment – a number of former intelligence people have expressed similar views, and his words are echoed by the US Army Training Manual's section on interrogation, which suggests that:

…the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

or this about one of the CIA's claims:

The situation is further clouded by the fact that members of the George W. Bush administration made claims for the effectiveness of torture that have later been proven to be untrue. One such claim was that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack the Liberty Tower in Los Angeles in 2002. Slight problem - in 2002 Shaikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan.

Well, no. Suppose I start beating you around the head, demanding that you tell me that Justin Bieber is in fact a supremely talented artist. Eventually, although it may take several days of torture to get there, you'll tell me what I want to hear, but that doesn't make it true.

The second major problem is that human memory just isn't reliable. Take a bunch of witnesses from any major news event: a bombing, 9/11, a car crash, wherever. The more people you interview, the more different stories you'll get, because our recall of past events isn't always very accurate. On top of that, there is a vast body of scientific literature telling us that one way to make a person's memory even less reliable is to deprive them of sleep, or put them under great stress, or otherwise confuse them. You know, like you do with torture.

In a stunningly obtuse piece of mismanagement, the same psychologists the CIA had contracted to engage in the torture were also assessing their own effectiveness, as detailed on page 473:

The CIA Inspector General Special Review states that CIA ‘psychologists objected to the use of on-site psychologists as interrogators and raised conflict of interest and ethical concerns.’ According to the Special Review, this was ‘based on a concern that the on-site psychologists who were administering the [CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques] participated in the evaluations, assessing the effectiveness and impact of the [CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques] on the detainees. In January 2003, CIA Headquarters requested that at least one other psychologist be present who was not physically participating in the administration of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. According to [Redacted] OMS, however, the problem still existed because ‘psychologist/interrogators continue to perform both functions.

’

Your claims that it might be effective seem to be countered by the examples previously given in this thread. Recently I mentioned the NVA destroying a lot of its own capability due to this during the Vietnam war.

We also know it did produce incorrect intelligence in at least one case in the time that you are defending, where the torturers thought the victim (who wasn't innocent) knew something that he didn't - so he made it up.

Indeed, and the link in my post below showed that it produced wrong intelligence about Al Queada (A confession the person tortured was an aide to Bin Laden (they'd had a flalling out and) and that Al Quaeda was working with Saddam Hussein to distribute WMDs)

Referring to this quote:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/us-torture-shaker-aamer-cia-guantanamo

He might query why the single most important
catastrophe of the torture programme receives so
little attention. Shaker was Prisoner 005 in Bagram,
and he witnessed Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi being taken
out in a coffin. The CIA erroneously thought that
Libi, who was actually at odds with Osama bin
Laden, was number three in al-Qaida. They flew
him to Egypt where he was subjected to torture by
electric cattle prod. Once there, he “confessed” that
al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein were in league
together, trafficking in weapons of mass
destruction – a false and bitter fruit of torture that
was wheeled out to justify the invasion of Iraq, and
only discredited after many thousands had died.

In short, there is nothing to say it works any better than chance, and a lot of evidence that it doesn't work even in the short-term tactical viewpoint, let alone when thinking about any wider goals.

 

[quadraginta]

It was one of many examples that I gave in a post from almost one year ago, and I actually implied that it was mildest form of coercion:

If you don't like your own examples then don't put them forward and reiterate them.

To focus on whether or not handcuffing counts as a punishment is besides the point and something of a strawman. In any case, there is no question that handcuffs function at the very least as a physical constraint on a suspect in order to protect the arresting officers from harm.

Did someone question that?

How is that like, "coerced into compliance by the threat of restraint"?

One could analogize using pain to force a suspect to divulge critical information as imposing a physical constraint on his desire to keep his mouth shut in order to protect innocent civilians from harm.

"One could"? Which "one"? Is that what you are doing? Why not just say so?

Then explain what it has to do with "coerced into compliance by the threat of restraint".