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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

#211

Post by sneak »

The CIA has a venture capital arm, called In-Q-Tel, which invests in tech companies.

Many of you reading this have coworkers who share a cap table with this organization.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30628667

Those of you who work at Amazon, your employer built and operates a special custom, airgapped datacenter at Langley for this organization. When you write library code that makes AWS services better, you also enrich this organization and make them more effective at carrying out these types of operations (like actively hacking into the computers in the US Congress that were used by the congresspeople who provide oversight to the CIA, to delete evidence of torture, getting caught doing the hacking and evidence tampering, and subsequently lying to Congress about the hacking).

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...

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

#212

Post by worik »

thereisnospork wrote: post #202
drewcoo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If morals are how we maintain and encourage the well-being of other humans, then yes.

At this risk of being pedantic: the question isn't how we maintain the well-being of other humans, it is how we maintain the well-being of our humans[0] and frankly there's a lot to be said for boot-to-neck diplomacy. [0]Specifically here our non-upper crust humans.

> At this risk of being pedantic: the question isn't how we maintain the well-being of other humans, it is how we maintain the well-being of our humans[0] and frankly there's a lot to be said for boot-to-neck diplomacy.

That attitude with the associated American power was a complete catastrophe for:

* Iraq.

* Nicaragua

* Panama

* Cuba

* Afghanistan

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

#213

Post by worik »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #198
tiahura wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel obtaibed at the torture extreme is simply not reliable. Besides a few anecdotes, how many torture debriefings have you read and then cross checked? Unless you’re in the industry, how could you possibly think you have an informed opinion on methods of intelligence gathering?

You call Torture an industry? Like what, tech manufacturing? That's disturbing. While the myth about Tprture's (lack of) effectiveness persists? The idea that being an "industry" insider is necessary to understand Human Psychology 101 is also misinformation. These ideas come from the NSA, CIA, etc. It doesn't mean they're true. It doesn't mean we have to buy them.

> You call Torture an industry? Like what, tech manufacturing? That's disturbing.

In rouge states it is.

Just saying....

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

#214

Post by throwawaycities »

teakettle42 wrote: post #139
mywacaday wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to see how the US can claim a moral high ground on anything when it continues to not be a member of the ICC and is even occasionally actively hostile towards individual judges and member countries by threatening sanctions.

I’m glad that my US constitutional rights cannot be abrogated by a supranational judicial system.

I used to hear this all the time in law school, something to the effect that the US should never relinquish its sovereignty by signing the Rome Statute and subject itself to the International Criminal Court. This was at the height of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the associated allegations of POW torture and abuse (e.g. Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, guantanamo bay, etc…). How ironic 20 years later the very same classmates that argued waterboarding wasn’t torture are the same ones that claim they can’t breathe wearing a cloth mask and mask mandates are a violation of their Constitutional Rights because of their often fabricated “medical conditions.”

Back then I’d ask my classmates to look at the other UN member countries not signatories to the Rome Statute subject to the ICC: China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen. Not exactly a list of countries championing human rights or state Sovereignty, the US included.

Absolute sovereignty is a very romantic notion, but the US gives up sovereignty regularly through other treaties, it is very telling the Rome Statute is where the US and others draw the line. If you are worried about violation of your US Constitutional Rights you should be significantly more concerned about the US government that in the last 20 years has created secret kills lists and conducted extra judicial killings of its own citizens including bombing citizens abroad in violation of the territorial integrity of other nations. When those charged with protecting and enforcing your Constitutional Rights are the ones violating them, I personally like the idea those bearing the most responsibility be subject to an International Court.

I don’t want to say your concern about being subject to the ICC as a civilian otherwise in contravention to your US Constitutional Rights isn’t worthy of discussion or potential concern, but it is detached from reality. Moreover, the ICC has jurisdiction over things like genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity it’s not exactly a “criminal court” the average citizen is likely to find themselves in violation of their Constitutional Rivhts (though perhaps you are not a civilian rather a high ranking military officer, in which case I understand your concern over an international court that prosecutes war crimes and human rights abuses).

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

#215

Post by soraminazuki »

willis936 wrote: post #184
nicholasnorris wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's still worth considering that despite the existence of this strategy, acknowledging it doesn't necessarily repair the damage of being seen as hypocritical. Evoking "whataboutism" could even be seen as a sort of counter-deflection in some cases.

The solution is simple: don't use whataboutism. Acknowledge history and context and appreciate that moral relativism absolves no one of their own actions. This case of excusing Russia's invasion of Ukraine because the US commits war crimes is gold medal mental gymnastics and really only makes sense in the context of the history of Russian propaganda.

> This case of excusing Russia's invasion of Ukraine

I double-checked the parent comments and not a single person did that.

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

#216

Post by worik »

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…

This is a vacuous argument.

No matter what principals you hold I can come up with a scenario where you will violate them. It does not make you unprincipled.

States using torture is a long way down the hole. It is such a shame that a dynamic exciting creative society like the USA's has fallen so far. It would be possible for the country to be a beacon of hope and civilisation. Instead it has become just another in a long line of grubby corrupt super states.

Such a crying shame.

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

#217

Post by keybored »

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…

I cannot express how bewildering this comment is. The article in question is about using torture as a training tool -- inflicting brain damage on a person so that folks will learn the valuable skill of beating up defenseless people. Then this comment comes along and complains about the optics of it. Why? Because it undermines "Western civilization". And what's the problem with that? Because then Western civilization loses its "moral high ground". And what will that lead to? That the right- and left-wing -- those good-for-nothings that want to "bring down the current horrible governance and figure out things later" -- will opportunistically use that against the shining city on the hill called Western Civilization.

Whether this torture business is right or wrong is not even part of the discussion, and might not even be relevant -- the whole point is that the angelic Western Civilization might be beset by the devilish "anti-establishment movement".

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

#218

Post by adolph »

sdoering wrote: post #121
adamsmith143 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a strictly utilitarian point of view killing one person to secure the survival of two others is a net positive outcome. But it feels morally more than wrong. Well of course all sorts of definitive truths feel unintuitive or wrong to humans, perhaps that's just a limitation of our brains. From this utilitarian pov the net positive outcome is the morally correct one.

Is there something like a "definitive truth"? Being an atheist, I would say, that this is an overly simplistic view. But that would be my personal take on that. Utilitarianism isn't a rational choice. What if - in my extreme example, one of the two surviving people would have been Hitler? Or even less dramatic, still contrived: What if the person being killed would go on and invent a cure against cancer? You can't pr…

> Is there something like a "definitive truth"?

There is math, right? 2 > 1?

> What if the person being killed would go on . . .

Don't worry about it. If they would cure cancer, redux hitler, etc, they will even if not seen here. Flip your coin; accept the result; one's feelings afterward don't offend the multiverse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

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

#219

Post by sneak »

upofadown wrote: post #109

>The interrogators were convinced that Baluchi knew more than he was saying because he was a nephew of the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. Repressive regimes often make a point of persecuting family members. It sends the message that resistance will cause terrible things to happen to those you love, not just you. The torture works toward that end in this case.

It almost makes one wonder if there is no such thing as a regime that isn't "repressive", given that the one most loudly trumpeting the rule of law and righteousness engages in the exact same blatantly criminal acts as all of the other ones they like to vilify as being without the rule of law. There are precisely zero states that have the power to torture with impunity that don't use it to, well, torture with impunity. It's a decades old running gag and common TV trope in the US-and-A that you'll get raped in prison if you get locked up. Everyone truly knows that the concept of equal protection under the law is just a joke, but we keep on as if the emperor were fully clothed.

Now that we've got a real honest-to-goodness war (with associated war crimes) happening in the only region of this planet that seemed at present to have a snowball's chance in hell of actually maintaining peace and human rights, I'm beginning to wonder if large groups of humans are even capable of actually having, you know, a civilization.

It's not lookin' good. I will remain pathologically optimistic, however.

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

#220

Post by deutschew »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #159
deutschew wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm saying is pick up a history book or even read through various things America was involved in all over the world. It is anything BUT moral and yes the average American has no say in the matter in the decision making. So perhaps that absolves them of the sins of the state but nevertheless the blind masses continue to push away these ugly things under the closet with various political labels and in doing so the…

I understand you. May I humbly give you links to some reading which I hope will benefit your views and arguments in the future. It pertains to a specific phrase I used above. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dirty-hands/ https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/s152... respects

thanks for being respectful here, I will take a look at those.
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