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CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

theguardian.com

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Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#31

Post by car_analogy »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

> Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable?

Sure it is. But if torture was limited to only cases as clear-cut as the one you propose, it would be virtually non-existent.

For such rare, extreme cases, it's better to keep it illegal, and hope an interrogator will risk jail to save the million people (and possibly be freed by jury nullification), than (effectively) legalizing it, and have its use creep to anyone merely suspected of terrorism (as defined by, from the point of view of the torture victims, an invading force), by an organization unaccountable even to citizens of its own country.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#32

Post by Teever »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

How come when someone posts a link about a heinous gang rape no one ever replies with 'Is it possible for you to construct scenario where rape is morally acceptable?'

Riddle me that and you'll have answered your own question and hopefully had an epiphany along the way.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#33

Post by ejstronge »

whatshisface wrote: post #6
bogantech wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No president is going to do anything about it because the intelligence agencies almost certainly have blackmail material on them all

A president was recently elected that had more viable blackmail material released about him than any previous president and instead of launching missiles into Sudan like Clinton did a couple days after his scandal, he just slid past it.

> A president was recently elected that had more viable blackmail material released about him than any previous president and instead of launching missiles into Sudan like Clinton did a couple days after his scandal, he just slid past it.

I'm not sure how a scandal during one presidency is comparable in your example to scandals that happened before a presidency. Further, you might recall that there was a 'strategic strike' attack in Africa as well as a contentious immigration ban in the first weeks of the Trump presidency, which, if I am following your logic, would actually suggest an attempt to distract from unsavory past deeds.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#34

Post by pessimizer »

foxyv wrote: post #2

I kind of hoped that Biden would try and stop this thing from happening anymore. Or Obama... Then I see stuff like this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/06/cia-torture-...

They were good at stopping us from prosecuting it, or the destruction of the evidence of it.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#35

Post by NoGravitas »

foxyv wrote: post #2

I kind of hoped that Biden would try and stop this thing from happening anymore. Or Obama... Then I see stuff like this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/06/cia-torture-...

Obama ran for office on a pledge to close Guantanamo, and he could have done so by executive order. He didn't, and that should tell you all you need to know about the nature of the American presidency.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#36

Post by inasio »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

I remember that soon after 9/11 the tv show 24 started exploring "justified torture" scenarios, in retrospect I'm pretty sure it was not a coincidence.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#37

Post by pmarreck »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

Let’s make it personal. Someone’s kidnapped your 2 year old kid and you know that this person knows where they are.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#38

Post by krageon »

14 wrote: post #17
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Not only that but it is considered a war crime to torture from my understanding. So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing war crimes if the US blatantly does things like this. We need to lead on a moral high ground.

The US is friends with the regime that has the war crime tribunal, and Russia is not. In the end such things are disappointingly simple.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#39

Post by rendall »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

> Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable?

Yes, it's possible to concoct a fictional scenario whereby torturing one person saves millions of lives. Heck, why not a more plausible scenario where torturing someone saves 2 lives. But it's a non-sequitur: a true statement that is irrelevant.

I won't argue this well, especially not well enough to convince someone for whom "torture" is acceptable, but principles matter. It's the only thing that separates the good guys from the bad guys. Not guns, not good looks, not firm jaws, not money, not power, not magical spells. Bad and good people have, or don't have, those things in equal measure.

Torture = bad guy. Beating people in the street = bad guy. Planting evidence on a suspect = bad guy. Stealing elections = bad guy.

This is important because, while some of those things might be expedient to get your desired outcome, it makes society worse. If you do that, you are the bad guy. Maybe the other guy is bad too, but you definitely are. Now when other people do it, you can't say shit. You did it. You could not come up with a better way. Society is now worse and more dangerous because of you. All the bad guys have reasons for doing bad things, but only good guys do the good things, even when it's not easy. Good people say "times are extraordinarily dangerous, so now more than ever we must fight to maintain our integrity and our values, and treat our opponents with due process and dignity, no matter how much we despise them"

We now have a society where torture is considered awful, but that is hard won. Not long ago, we would burn people alive publicly as punishment for Very Serious reasons. When we start saying "torture is ok now because these times are extraordinarily dangerous", then torture is a bit more acceptable when times are not so dangerous.

That's it. That's the argument.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#40

Post by Super_Jambo »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

Even if you can construct a morally acceptable edge case it should still be illegal.

In these extreme edge cases the people on the ground can be expected to break the law and break out the thumb screws. After all if you're willing to torture someone your own freedom is presumably a relatively mild price to pay... right?

We could then hope that the citizens enforcing the legal system will recognize the correctness of their actions and let them off.

Legal torture exists because the powerful don't see themselves as answering to anyone.

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