Is torture ever warranted?

[headscratcher4]

Your demonstrating that the plot was foiled well before the capture of the person who spilled the beans on the plot merely stands to reinforce the effectiveness of torture.

 

[themusicteacher]

Your demonstrating that the plot was foiled well before the capture of the person who spilled the beans on the plot merely stands to reinforce the effectiveness of torture.

What?


Is there a time machine I should be aware of because if there is, I want a ride. The guy they captured, Khaleid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM, as he's known) was captured and tortured in 2003, after the plot was said to have been aborted due to the torture on KSM. In other words, the torture that the CIA performed in 2003 was said to have produced the intel on a plot in LA in 2002. Well la-dee-frickin'-da. I can tell you the outcome of yesterday's Canes-Devils game today if you insisted on it, you don't even have to waterboard me or take me to a Miley Cyrus concert.

 

[Neally]

an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous"—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003.

Looks like someone is mistaken or lying. Either an anonymous FBI agent or the CIA:

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

 

[headscratcher4]

What?


Is there a time machine I should be aware of because if there is, I want a ride. The guy they captured, Khaleid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM, as he's known) was captured and tortured in 2003, after the plot was said to have been aborted due to the torture on KSM. In other words, the torture that the CIA performed in 2003 was said to have produced the intel on a plot in LA in 2002. Well la-dee-frickin'-da. I can tell you the outcome of yesterday's Canes-Devils game today if you insisted on it, you don't even have to waterboard me or take me to a Miley Cyrus concert.

Sarcasm...learn to recognize it and smile.

 

[themusicteacher]

They can "stand by" their assertions all they want but the facts and evidence suggest someone was trying to justify torture and got their timeline screwed up.

BTW, CNSNews person? I think you're a terrorist mole and I need some info, come with me...A lawyer, you say? Ha, ha, aaaahhh! Oh no, we don't really have habeas corpus anymore so you won't be needing one of those, "war on terror' and everything. No I don't have to show eveidence either but I'll just say you screamed like a little girl and told me about something that already happened.

 

[themusicteacher]

Sarcasm...learn to recognize it and smile.

AAAUUGGGHHH! You got me. See, sarcasm really doesn't translate well in print sometimes. And I, of all people, should be embarrassed since sarcasm is a second language for me. That's what those silly smilies are for!

 

[Cavemonster]

Sarcasm...learn to recognize it and smile.

You've gotta be aware of Poe's law and similar effects, that there is no position or argument so stupid that it can be automatically seen as irony when posted online because there are bound to be people online who actually believe it.

 

[DC]

Looks like someone is mistaken or lying. Either an anonymous FBI agent or the CIA:

THE CIA told them?
i agree i dislike info that begin with an unnamed source but its as good as yours.

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today

who exactly?

A CIA spokesman confirmed to CNSNews.com today that the CIA stands by the factual assertions made here.

who exactly?

 

[Neally]

They can "stand by" their assertions all they want but the facts and evidence suggest someone was trying to justify torture and got their timeline screwed up.

I'd say the "facts" are in dispute. We have an FBI agent and the CIA in disagreement.

THE CIA told them?
i agree i dislike info that begin with an unnamed source but its as good as yours.

Which means a bit more investigation is needed to ascertain the truth.

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Mr. Bush, said on Fox News Sunday last weekend that “the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html?_r=2&hp

 

[GreNME]

I'd say the "facts" are in dispute. We have an FBI agent and the CIA in disagreement.

This being the same CIA that brought us irrefutable evidence of WMD in Iraq, no?

The only real fact is that the FBI and the CIA are both going to cover their own asses, and if that also involves making the other agency look less efficient, all the better.

 

[Neally]

The only real fact is that the FBI and the CIA are both going to cover their own asses, and if that also involves making the other agency look less efficient, all the better.

Agreed. I doubt that a truly non-biased review of the torture and resulting information will be done.

 

[GreNME]

Yeah, between the petty organizational rivalries in DC and the ideological rivalries between the left and the right, it's a wonder anyone in politics trusts anyone else in politics, if they do at all.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

After doing some additional reading(and "soul" searching), I've reversed my position on torture. It doesn't work and its use is too often misused to allow its use under any situations even the hypothetical "ticking time bomb" scenario.

The ethical thing to do would be ban all use of torture, no matter the cause.

 

[Toke]

So the best solution would be to ban torture completely, and if anyone experince some ticking bomb and act on it they can explain their decisions to a court.
Fine.

That is what we have now*, not sure what happened to the german police officers.

*Except the US and 3. world.

 

[Cavemonster]

So the best solution would be to ban torture completely, and if anyone experince some ticking bomb and act on it they can explain their decisions to a court.
Fine.

That is what we have now*, not sure what happened to the german police officers.

*Except the US and 3. world.

I think the major reason for this thread was that the US doesn't have that solution now. I haven't seen any good reason why the US shouldn't get in line with the rest of civilization.

 

[Toke]

Me neither.

And if I had a ticking bomb and helped with the wiring, I have no doubt that a court would be sympatetic.

 

[Toke]

Paximperium,

I don´t know if it matters to you
But even if you are sometime politicaly disagreeable to me you are honest about it and internally consistent.

 

[paximperium]

Paximperium,

I don´t know if it matters to you
But even if you are sometime politicaly disagreeable to me you are honest about it and internally consistent.

Thanks. My main issue when it came to torture was that when Kevin Lowe started putting forth some of the fact when it came to torture, I started to realize that I was spouting nonsense and basically sounding like a brainless right wing hack.

I realized at that point, I didn't know as much as I thought about the issue and had some serious reading to do. After looking at it more objectively, I realized I was wrong.

 

[JihadJane]

I thought it had been established that the purpose of the Bush regime torture program was to produce false intelligence to connect 911 with Iraq. Ticking bombs are irrelevant to such an enterprise.

'What They Craved

Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11'

http://counterpunch.org/cohn04242009.html

 

[BeAChooser]

Exactly, and if the illusory Ticking bomb senario were real, it would be pardoned and the public would accept it.

So you are for telling our soldiers (and I use that word in a broad sense) to go ahead and waterboard someone if they think there's a ticking time bomb ... even though Obama has now made that against policy ... even though the treaty that Obama referred to in making it against policy states there is absolutely NO circumstance for which torture is justified?