Torture: getting Cheney to admit to the Tate murders...

As far as I can see, the folks supporting Ventura here are only doing it because he said something they agree with. Any port in a storm, I suppose. What exactly does Ventura bring to the debate? The experience of being waterboarded (presumably once) in the 1970s.

I do have to wonder though why they do this in the SERE training; apparently it is so awful that even though you know you're not going to die you'll tell everything you know. So what is the point of doing it to our soldiers?

One would think that on a skeptical forum Ventura would be the last person anyone would cite as a credible authority. But as you say, all that 9/11 woo and made up military career fades into the background when he gives the accepted answer to a Larry King softball.
 
Cicero, the man was in Predator. Predator. His credibility is rock solid and you can't deny.
 
My apologies. I guess I didn't grasp that torture only produces completely trustworthy information. It sort of puts the whole Gulag Achapelago and the Inquesition into a new light...bunch of guilty whiners.


You are correct in that it doesn't only produce trustworthy information. What bothers me, still, is that some want to say that it never produces trustworthy info.

I still feel it's an attempt to demonize it more than it already deserves. I'm going to make an example here, but I don't want to be acused of Godwinning because I'm not comparing anyone involved in this with Hitler. But I want you to consider the following statements:

"Adolph Hitler was the leader of the Third Reich and led his country in World War II where they commited numerous war crimes and attempted genocide on the Jewish people".

Now consider it again:

"Adolph Hitler was the leader of the Third Reich and led his country in World War II where they commited numerous war crimes and attempted genocide on the Jewish people. And he ate babies, and worshipped Satan!".

That's the kind of feeling I get when I see some people speak against torture. It's not bad enough to point out how bad it is, in and of itself, you have to bend over backwards to make it out to be pure fail, in every single way. Why?

I want to stress again that I'm not motivated here to defend torture. I am more angry to see people being intellectually dishonest about it. I wonder what motivates people. That's always where I come from on these things. Why? Why do people do this?

ETA: You're mentioning the Inquistion is a bit of a "tell" to me. I feel that the "why" here could at least be partially motivated by the fact it was used by the church, heinously, for such a long time. I know, I know.. strawman. Calling it a strawman isn't always true. Some people are truly irrationally angry about religon. Much moreso than seems reasonable anyhow. As if a Cardinal actually molested their younger brother or something.
 
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I am happy to see what kind of insightful commentary a 911 truther brings to the table.
 
I'll be happy to cover the other two points.



The point being that waterboarding is such a horrendous form of torture, a person is likely to admit to anything just to get it to stop. Therefore, it is not an effective means of extracting truthful information.

What evidence do you have to support this? Do you think telling obvious lies will impress the interrogator or will it just prolong the exercise? If waterboarding was one of the most "horrendous" forms of torture, Chris Hitchens would never volunteer for a personal demonstration.
 
Again:

There's a difference between using torture to elicit false confessions, and using torture to elicit testable claims.

In the first instance, the torturer has no interest in the truth, only in what is politically correct. Once the prisoner has figured out the "right" thing to say, and has been induced to say it, the torture has done its job.

In the second instance, the torturer is concerned only with the truth. The only "right" thing to say is a testable claim that, when tested, is true. Once a true claim has been made and verified, the torture has done its job.

I think that the use of torture to elicit false confessions has no place in a free society.

I also think that the use of torture to elicit true and testable claims, may, in some extreme cases, be legitimately employed even by a free society.
 
Interesting. So the US military tortures its own soldiers, and Ventura doesn't object, but torture KSM and he's upset? Somebody's got their priorities wrong.

There is a difference between training someone in what they might expect in the field, and performing actual torture on people.

Example - when I was in the navy, I was tear gassed. In a special booth that had been built for the purpose. It was part of basic training.

And I understand some police are tasered as part of taser training...
 
What you failed to grasp is that waterboarding, as implemented by the CIA interrogators at GITMO on 3 detainees, did produce "trustworthy" and verifiable information. Or do you doubt what President Obama said about it? Any comparison to the Inquisition or Solzhenitsyn's book can only be described as utter hysteria.

I guess that they could have gotten similarly trustworthy and verifiable information by cutting of people's toes with garden shears, as well. Or by popping out people's eyes with soup spoons.

Torture *can* be effective.

But it is also notoriously unreliable and it is an incredibly blunt tool.

How many people did they torture to get these three pieces of trustworthy and verifiable information?
 
Jesse Ventura should be waterboarded until he admits he's been lying about what happened on 9/11.
 
I guess that they could have gotten similarly trustworthy and verifiable information by cutting of people's toes with garden shears, as well. Or by popping out people's eyes with soup spoons.

I wonder if NobbyNobbs considers those forms more or less "horrendous" than waterboarding. Would Hitchens have volunteered for such a demonstration?

Torture *can* be effective.

According to the "experts" on JREF, it is impossible for any info obtained from waterboarding to be reliable. Yet President Obama agrees that waterboarding was effective in obtaining intel.

But it is also notoriously unreliable and it is an incredibly blunt tool.

Blunt, sure, but I don't know if this assessment of waterboarding is true as used on the three detainees.


How many people did they torture to get these three pieces of trustworthy and verifiable information?

3 were waterboarded.
 
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Yes, per sworn testimony to Congress by CIA director Michael Hayden: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/washington/08intel.html?scp=2&sq=hayden&st=nyt

I am the first to admit that I may have comprehension problems when reading newspapers....

But that article doesn't say they only used it on three people.

It merely says that it was used on three named people.

If Hayden has been asked "How many people were "waterboarded"?" and he answered "three", then yes, I would agree with you.

But that answer simply says that those particular three people were questioned using this method.
 
I am the first to admit that I may have comprehension problems when reading newspapers....

But that article doesn't say they only used it on three people.

It merely says that it was used on three named people.

If Hayden has been asked "How many people were "waterboarded"?" and he answered "three", then yes, I would agree with you.

But that answer simply says that those particular three people were questioned using this method.

"Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees," Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee, publicly specifying the number of subjects and naming them for the first time, as Congress considers banning the technique."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/05/cia-waterboarding-used-o_n_85099.html
 

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