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CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

theguardian.com

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Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#71

Post by maxxxxx »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #67
maxxxxx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real life is not an action movie. Your scenario is totally made up and has probably almost never happened.

I hope my scenario has never happened, but nothing about it is implausible. The point though is to illustrate that there are moments where pragmatism must trump laws and values. If you look, there are many times throughout history where such tradeoffs have been made. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists a real life example along the lines of my hypothetical one. In…

Then they should be honest, explain the situation and torture people at home with their own specialists immediately and not fly to them to some country with questionable torturing skills.

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#72

Post by InclinedPlane »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
maxxxxx wrote: post #8

The value systems of the people running this must be severely distorted. Can't torture at home so let's fly people to some dictatorship to get it done there. I guess it's the same mindset that caused a democratically elected president in Iran to be overthrown and replaced by a dictator in order to save freedom and democracy.

It is the same value system that created Guantanamo Bay Prison.

And the Phoenix Program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#74

Post by dmitrygr »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #4

That's real optimistic of the Guardian but somehow I doubt there's all that much grass roots support against rendition flights. We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population. In Democracy the people get the government they deserve. Guess we really don't deserve human rights and habeus corpus.

You present this as a dichotomy: Muslim Ban / Rendition flights, but that is a false dichotomy. People outside the country have no implicit right to enter it, but people inside the country have the constitution apply to them, including prohibition against torture and imprisonment without a charge.

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#75

Post by ImSkeptical »

maxxxxx wrote: post #71
ImSkeptical wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope my scenario has never happened, but nothing about it is implausible. The point though is to illustrate that there are moments where pragmatism must trump laws and values. If you look, there are many times throughout history where such tradeoffs have been made. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists a real life example along the lines of my hypothetical one. In…

Then they should be honest, explain the situation and torture people at home with their own specialists immediately and not fly to them to some country with questionable torturing skills.

I think you're confusing my position, and the contents of my comments, with something else.

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#76

Post by rdtsc »

jnbiche wrote: post #52
IIAOPSW wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So speak up. Educate your fellow citizens as to why these issues are important. Break through their media bubble/snowglobe and have multiple meaningful conversations that go deeper than the talking points spewed out by media personalities. Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind? Not trying to be facetious, but I'm incredulous.

> Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind? I know the question wasn't directed at me, and it's not with respect to the proposed Muslim ban, but I have changed the mind of some of the voters from this general background: specifically, would-be Roy Moore voters. I convinced a good handful of them not to vote for him[1]. And as far as I know, they stayed home. T…

I forgot where I read it, maybe on the Southern Poverty Law Center's site, but I could be wrong, but they were talking about a similar thing -- how to convince people to change their mind. The example was about how to change people's opinion in regard to transgender people. The idea was similar -- beating them on the head with 140-character sarcastic blurbs, showing stats and facts, insulting etc, just doesn't work. What works is to talk to them face to face and to present a case of one particular individual, not a hypothetical one but one whose name is John or Jane and how they are struggling and how they face hate and discrimination and how it makes them feel.

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#77

Post by mcguire »

dgzl wrote: post #26
knz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population. In Democracy the people get the government they deserve. Guess we really don't deserve human rights and habeus corpus. So speak up. Educate your fellow citizens as to why these issues are important. Break through their media bubble/snowglobe and have multiple meaningful conversations that go deeper than the talking poi…

I used to be highly political on Facebook. From my experience, people just don't care.

How do you be "highly political" on Facebook?

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#78

Post by mcguire »

matte_black wrote: post #57
paganel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torture doesn't provide any valuable intelligence results for those doing the torturing, we're not living in "24", the TV series. I know for sure that if I were to be tortured I'd be ready to recognize even the killing of the biblical character Abel if those doing the torturing would ask that from me, and I guess I'm not the only person so predisposed.

That’s a myth, if you’re looking for objective verifiable facts you can get some useful information. Also, if you have enough statistical data on torture methods, you can have a probability that a person doesn’t know something based on how long they’ve been actively tortured.

"...probability that a person doesn’t know something based on how long they’ve been actively tortured."

I, actually, have nothing I can say to that.

Are you listening to yourself?

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#79

Post by rdtsc »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #14

Which is worse: torture or killing? It seems that with all the attention that torture got, the Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism.

> Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism.

Not only that but after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize he proceeded to engage in drone warfare. Just in 2016 he dropped more then 20k bombs, in countries which we were not even at war with. Many in Africa. It was surprising how little flak he got for it. Indeed when he was elected in 2008 he got the best marketer of year award http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market... and he presented a great image.

> Which is worse: torture or killing?

It is kind of a false choice. But let's go with it, Obama effectively picked both. Anyone remember how he promised to close Guantanamo? Well it is still open. He picked both killing and continued torture. Yet people still idolize him and think he was so great. Again, that's the power of propaganda and marketing at work, AdAge's award was very much on point, better then Coke, Nike and Apple.

Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

#80

Post by rdtsc »

maxxxxx wrote: post #8

The value systems of the people running this must be severely distorted. Can't torture at home so let's fly people to some dictatorship to get it done there. I guess it's the same mindset that caused a democratically elected president in Iran to be overthrown and replaced by a dictator in order to save freedom and democracy.

Yes. People don't want to know how the sausage is made, they don't want to break the law, they want to feel good. Delegating to some place outside the legal jurisdictions and and away from their backyards lets them do that.

You'd be surprised how many people condone and support it. Even people who on the surface would be opposed to it, they'd vote against if presented in elections. If it happened in the next town over, they might call the politicians. But if they have a way of denying that it is happening at all, they'd be happy to not ask questions and turn the other way.

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