Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What is different about the 9/11 attacks that legitimizes the use of torture, when you would not support it against soldiers or other criminals? They had demonstrated the practice of mass killings of innocent civilians and expressed the desire to continue to do so. > If you would endorse torture to prevent another 9/11, why wouldn't you also endorse torture to prevent, say, another Hiroshima? Well, setting aside th…
Let me refresh one of the key point of the report (sorry about the caps) TORTURE IS NOT EFFECTIVE This is hardly news, it has been known for a long time. CIA knew it before 9/11
US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
141–150 of 579 posts
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of these things are clearly off the deep end. But some of them, especially threats, seem like pretty basic/standard interrogation... There are many techniques, but it seems like we have forgotten it is fundamentally manipulative and abusive. I mean, we are surprised to find that threats are used? What?
I wouldn't say that any of these techniques are "basic/standard", and I used to work in the field. You can get plenty of information out of someone without laying a finger on them. In my opinion the question is the extent to which it's OK to play with people's psychology through isolation and misinformation, while still giving them 3 hots and a cot. The important thing to note here is that you can still damage people…
According to the report, "Of the 119 known detainees, at least 26 were wrongfully held and did not meet the detention standard in the September 2001 Memorandum of Notification (MON). These included an "intellectually challenged" man whose CIA detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information, two individuals who were intelligence sources for foreign liaison services and were former CIA sources, and two individuals whom the CIA assessed to be connected to al-Qa'ida based solely on information fabricated by a CIA detainee subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#143edit: removed a comment on this article getting flagged.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#144Falsehood right in the forward: "the largest attack against the American homeland in our history". War of 1812?
I was under the impression that in the War of 1812, USA was the agressor. Wikipedia seems to also support this view. Is that not correct, or do americans just have their own differing viewpoint?
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#145Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Even when it obviously means torture: "Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique." When talking about a physical place. That is so blatant word replacement that I find it hard to take it seriously.
> Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? "Enhanced interrogation technique" is an uncontroversial, accurate factual description. "Torture" is a conclusion of law applied to the facts that, while there is overwhelming reason to accept that the conclusion is valid for the program as a whole, and many of the specific instances in particular, does not necessarily apply to all…
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#146Too bad this only covers the CIA and not the military. I was a 97E (interrogator) in the Army during both Bush administrations, who was lucky to never be deployed. I bet the military also has lots and lots of sins that need to be uncovered.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who has said sorry? Cheney? Bush? Rice? The people who put this system into place continue to defend it and have suffered no consequences.
Before you get on your Liberal high horse, you might want to check yourself. Extraordinary Rendition began under Clinton: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/fact-sheet-extraordin... Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspect…
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#148I mean lighten up people, the hazing at my frat 30 years ago was almost worse than half this stuff.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#149You'll get more accurate information through tricks and false friendships than torture. There is no justification for torture. None. It's not even a good tool regardless of the morality.
- revenge
- increasing the torturer's loyalty for the organization (how many torturers are whistleblowers?)
- showing your superiors how far you are willing to go in pursuit of information
- terrorizing the enemies you haven't captured yet
- strengthening the connections with subordinate countries (Romania hosted secret torture prisons and bribes where given to officials. Who there dares to challenge the imposed economical partners or foreign policies? Or the visa requirements still in place in a country that hosts US military bases on its territory for that matter.)
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#150> Interrogation techniques such as slaps and "wallings" (slamming detainees against a wall) were used in combination, frequently concurrent with sleep deprivation and nudity. Records do not support CIA representations that the CIA initially used an "an open, non-threatening approach," or that interrogations began with the "least coercive technique possible" and escalated to more coercive techniques only as necessary.…
>The list goes on. It sure does. > At DETENTION SITE COBALT, detainees were often held down, naked, on a tarp on the floor, with the tarp pulled up around them to form a makeshift tub, while cold or refrigerated water was poured on them. Others were hosed down repeatedly while they were shackled naked, in the standing sleep deprivation position. These same detainees were subsequently placed in rooms with temperatures…
If you are not interested in someone torturing on your behalf, you need to speak out, and loudly.