If those who were tortured were actually complicit in the killing of Americans, or Christians or Jews or Hindus or their own countrymen and women or their own religion, then I am not overly sympathetic. The downside is that torture did not solve the problem nor even diminish it. In fact it may very well have exacerbated the problem. The further problem is that we did not know whether the captives were the actual bad guys, we merely believed that they were. Bottom line; it did more harm than good and it violated our so firmly held claim to superior civility.
(https://38.media.tumblr.com/92e0232c79bc5cb92521e5fc5f327651/tumblr_ngc37svPbx1qguyo7o1_500.jpg)
The Guardian: Rectal rehydration and waterboarding: the CIA torture report's grisliest findings (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-report-worst-findings-waterboard-rectal)
Quote from: Steeler on December 13, 2014, 08:12:58 PM
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on December 13, 2014, 01:19:39 PM
Quote from: Steeler on December 13, 2014, 02:09:46 AM
In response to your question, sounds to me like he thinks those tactics are not productive.
I have no problem with that. I'm not trying to defend it. I agree that the US should not be torturing as a method of interrogation.
Fact is, we did. I do not feel bad for the bad guys on the shit end of it. That's all I'm saying.
I'm trying to understand you here, because to me you're being rather inconsistent. Why exactly is it do you now think that enhanced interrogation techniques torture isn't the best method?
I don't think I'm being inconsistent at all. I never stated that I thought torture was the best method. I said I simply didn't feel bad for those who were tortured.
Let me word it a little better: why do you think that the US should not be torturing as a method of interrogation?
Simply put, if we are a civilized nation then maybe we should be a little more civil in our tactics.
I should say that it really isn't a big worry for me though in certain circumstances. If a politician I supported was in favor of those tactics, it would not be enough to sway my vote.
Although a year old, I thought this was an interesting read. I'm just throwing it out there for discussion. If true, it goes against the idea of nothing being gained.
Again, I AM NOT SUPPORTING, just adding to the discussion.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10493913/Manhunt-how-the-CIA-traced-Osama-bin-Laden.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10493913/Manhunt-how-the-CIA-traced-Osama-bin-Laden.html)
Quote from: Steeler on December 14, 2014, 03:54:15 AM
Although a year old, I thought this was an interesting read. I'm just throwing it out there for discussion. If true, it goes against the idea of nothing being gained.
Again, I AM NOT SUPPORTING, just adding to the discussion.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10493913/Manhunt-how-the-CIA-traced-Osama-bin-Laden.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10493913/Manhunt-how-the-CIA-traced-Osama-bin-Laden.html)
One "senior manager" in the CIA. How about we check with someone who actually interrogated the suspects? Like one of the FBI agents who interviewed Zubaydah, who completely disputes the assertion that torture is what caused him to talk:
My Tortured Decision (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html)
As far as Mohammed goes, here's a Fox News (of all news agencies!) report about the exaggeration of intelligence gathered due to the torture of him:
CIA misrepresented key aspects of brutal interrogation program, according to Senate report (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/13/cia-misrepresented-key-aspects-brutal-interrogation-program-according-to-senate/)
Well looky there, fair and balanced! :D
Good reads.
Unfortunately the first part of this thread was lost, probably forever, in the crash. It began as a discussion of the publicly released portions of the Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA (http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/senate-intelligence-committee-study-on-cia-detention-and-interrogation-program).
For anybody who is interested, there is an excellent series of stories from The Guardian about the background of how the report was produced (including the CIA's efforts to hinder the investigation), and the fallout that resulted from the report. The articles are long, but I'm finding them very interesting and worthwhile. The series begins with "Inside the fight to reveal the CIA's torture secrets" | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/09/cia-insider-daniel-jones-senate-torture-investigation).
Torture is not a means of extracting information. It is a means of exacting revenge.
If you are willing to dole it out, don't cry when it bites your ass!
Quote from: No one on January 31, 2017, 09:01:32 PM
Torture is not a means of extracting information. It is a means of exacting revenge.
If you are willing to dole it out, don't cry when it bites your ass!
It can create martyrs as well. ::)
And those martyrs emerge from the crybabies. Those that have the "courage" to dish it out, but behave like petulant children when it comes home to roost.
Lex talonis isn't the answer.
If they are crybabies then they aren't something to be emulated but people create and embellish stories about the deaths of others, especially in those circumstances, making heroes and martyrs out of them by their communities.
Does torture extract information? Not anything reliable, apparently.
Is torturing others misplaced anger? Yes.
I would rather go for the jugular, that is, destroy their ideology completely. It's way more difficult than cutting off fingers, waterboarding and keeping naked people in stress positions.
I am talking torture in general. Against anyone, not just any particular sect. If you are a sadistic serial killer who gets off inflicting pain on your victims. No have no right to cry when the tides turn and someone even more sadistic treats you the same in the stoney lonesome.
Quote from: No one on February 03, 2017, 10:45:26 PM
I am talking torture in general. Against anyone, not just any particular sect. If you are a sadistic serial killer who gets off inflicting pain on your victims. No have no right to cry when the tides turn and someone even more sadistic treats you the same in the stoney lonesome.
Been watching Dexter lately?
I don't think I agree with the 'eye for an eye' approach, besides being barbaric it just perpetuates violence, rather than lessen it.
Who would be responsible for retribution? The State or the people involved?
Well, humans are violent, malevolent, awful creatures. That being said, if someone were to hurt a person i truly cared about, and i was granted the opportunity to suck the life from them ounce by ounce, inch by painful inch, i would most certainly revel in its glory. No questions asked!
Yes, humans certainly have that potential, but not all are, most of the time.
If you were to do that to somebody, someone who loves them could think the same about you. It just perpetuates violence.
Human beings suck! They are without a doubt, the most awful creature on the planet. Nothing even comes close. You are probably right in your assumption that someone might think that of me, but i couldn't care less. I am all out of fucks to give in that department! I wouldn't go out to harm someone just because i could. But in the defense of someone special to me, i would stop at nothing to ensure that no harm would come to them.
Quote from: No one on February 03, 2017, 11:31:02 PM
Human beings suck! They are without a doubt, the most awful creature on the planet. Nothing even comes close. You are probably right in your assumption that someone might think that of me, but i couldn't care less. I am all out of fucks to give in that department! I wouldn't go out to harm someone just because i could.
Some human beings are great. :love: Others are despicable lowlifes...I've run into quite a few myself.
QuoteBut in the defense of someone special to me, i would stop at nothing to ensure that no harm would come to them.
Ok, that's perfectly natural, but in a world where the cycle of violence is perpetuated then the odds of harm coming to your loved ones is increased, not the contrary.
Persons are, well at least can be, great. Humans, on the hand, are despicable, deplorable, utterly detestable creatures. Hence, my absolute hatred for them!
If you don't mind my saying so, I find your use of language interesting. You use 'them' instead of 'us', as if you want to distance yourself from the species. I'm a little surprised, to be honest.
A new article from
The Guardian reports on some of the revelations about a CIA operated torture facility in Afghanistan that came out in the discovery process of a recent lawsuit against CIA contracted psychologists who came up with the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used by the CIA. The psychologists' lawyers decided that it would be best to settle out of court.
"Inside the CIA's black site torture room" |
The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/09/cia-torture-black-site-enhanced-interrogation)
QuoteThere were twenty cells inside the prison, each a stand-alone concrete box. In sixteen, prisoners were shackled to a metal ring in the wall. In four, designed for sleep deprivation, they stood chained by the wrists to an overhead bar. Those in the regular cells had a plastic bucket; those in sleep deprivation wore diapers. When diapers weren't available, guards crafted substitutes with duct tape, or prisoners were chained naked in their cells. The cellblock was unheated, pitch black day and night, with music blaring around the clock.
"The atmosphere was very good," John "Bruce" Jessen told a CIA investigator in January 2003, two months after he interrogated a prisoner named Gul Rahman in the facility. "Nasty, but safe."
Jessen, one of the two contract psychologists who designed the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques", spent 10 days in the secret prison near Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2002. Five days after he left, Rahman, naked from the waist down and shackled to the cold concrete floor, was discovered dead in his cell from hypothermia.
In August, Gul Rahman's family and Mohamed Ben Soud and Suleiman Abdullah Salim, two surviving prisoners of the Afghan black site, reached an out-of-court settlement in their lawsuit against Jessen and James Mitchell seeking restitution for torture.
[Continues . . . (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/09/cia-torture-black-site-enhanced-interrogation)]
Not very pleasant reading.