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

theguardian.com

91–100 of 182 posts

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

#91
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.

"Can't torture at home so let's fly people to some dictatorship to get it done there." People are tortured in the US all the time. All the time. Ordinary prisons are well-known example, where one can be subject to solitary confinement, denial of medical care, subjection to temperature extremes, beatings, and rape so common that it's the subject of the most common prison-related jokes. Military recruits are often tort…

> Military recruits are often tortured to "toughen them up", as punishment, or ostensibly to prepare them for possible torture at the hands of "The Enemy".

That couldn’t be further from the truth. It use to be that drill instructors/MTI can hit you. Not anymore. The worse they can do to you is yell in your face and give you a spit shower. They're even required to give you 8 hours of sleep except in special cases. There are many other rules as well and these rules are a big deal these days.

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

#92
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.

"Can't torture at home so let's fly people to some dictatorship to get it done there." People are tortured in the US all the time. All the time. Ordinary prisons are well-known example, where one can be subject to solitary confinement, denial of medical care, subjection to temperature extremes, beatings, and rape so common that it's the subject of the most common prison-related jokes. Military recruits are often tort…

So what's your take on why did they fly them overseas. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but why did they do it really?

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

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population. When has someone pushed for a "Muslim ban" in the United States?

While Trump's immigration policy was not actually a Muslim ban and was actually very similar to some of Obama's policies, a quick scan of my Facebook feed indicates that there are plenty of conservatives who actually do want a "Muslim ban" and believe that there's a significant movement to overthrow the government and institute Shariah Law in the U.S.

In my experience liberals want a Muslim ban too, they just aren't capable of stating it as such. For example, 86% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for homosexuality. It's a simple question, how many of those people do you want voting in your district? How many of them do you want on your school board? Now, I'm fairly liberal leaning as far as immigration is concerned, and I don't support a Muslim ban either. But if you're checking the box that says you think gay people deserve to die, you can kindly turn your ass around and go back to wherever you came from, regardless of your religion. But this "policy" of mine disproportionately impacts Muslims. And by our modern standards of bigotry, that would mean that I support a "Muslim ban."

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

#94
post #79

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…

I think both of your statements can apply to any President. For instance, Trump has called for "fire and fury" against NK and "bombing the hell" out of our enemies. He's embraced torture as a mechanism for obtaining information and a cursory Google search shows that Gitmo conditions have gotten significantly worse over the past year. Frankly, this seems like a misdirected personal crusade of yours against Obama when virtually every administration has blood on its hands.

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

#95
post #79

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…

> 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

Do you know who he dropped bombs on and why? You make it sound like he dropped bombs for the fun of it.

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

#96

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.

I'm not sure how to begin answering the moral question of what bad thing is worse. I do know that the answer is uninteresting to me. We just shouldn't be doing either of those things.

I do not believe the Obama administration used more drones because of public backlash against torture. Correlation does not imply causation and all that.

It could easily be explained that because torture doesn't work there's no reason to risk more lives to capture someone alive. It may be that drone technology just advanced and became an option or an easier option. I can think of a lot of possibilities but I have no reason to believe any of them.

Is there a name for this kind of fallacy?

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

#97
post #16

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.

Torture. Army's are trained to kill not Torture for very good reasons.

Are they though? Sure we say we don't torture people but given a realistic choice between taking someone alive and killing them don't we generally favor capture?

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s a myth What's a myth, that torture doesn't work? Imma need a citation on that one, because I've got stacks of 'em to the contrary.

Most people will hand over their wallet, phone, car keys, passwords, and spill their darkest secrets if you just point a toy gun at them and raise your voice.

Some won't, but saying "torture doesn't work" as a blanket statement implies that they all have infinite pain tolerance.

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

#100
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.

Likely because he leads with “Muslim ban,” which sounds ignorant. Most people who agree with the ban realize it is a temporary ban on countries requested by DHS because there currently is no valid process for doing background checks on people from those countries. So yeah I can see why he fails to change minds.

Regardless of what Trump actually implemented. During the campaign he called for a Muslim ban.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."

>We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population.

The OP is saying that close to half the voters voted for Trump, so it's likely they agree that a Muslim ban is appropriate.

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