151–160 of 579 posts
Why 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.
> 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.…
I wonder when the UN will stand up and impose trade bans on the US for such deeds.
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? Do keep in mind that 9/11 doesn't even register on the atrocity scale when compared to what's been done by "soldiers of a legitimate state." If you would endorse torture to prevent another 9/11, why wouldn't you also endorse torture to prevent, say, another Hiroshima?
> 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…
OK, so nuclear attacks by soldiers justify it. How about conventional strategic bombing? Invasions? Exactly where and why do you draw the line, if you're not drawing it where you previously said?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
* I would never support the use of these techniques against soldiers of a legitimate state or other criminal actors. * The perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks to me represent a completely different sort of threat than has ever been encountered - which legitimized the use of torture (though to be honest, the sorts of techniques outlined in the report don't really sound like what I would classify as "torture"; i.e., the i…
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? Do keep in mind that 9/11 doesn't even register on the atrocity scale when compared to what's been done by "soldiers of a legitimate state." If you would endorse torture to prevent another 9/11, why wouldn't you also endorse torture to prevent, say, another Hiroshima?
If torture could prevent the mass killing of innocent civilians, do you see any justification in it?
As an exercise visit as many news outlets as you can and count how many times they use the word torture in their articles.
CNN 3
BBC 2
Al Jazeera 5
FoxNews 2
NBC News 3
ABC News 1
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/cia-torture-report/in... http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30401100 http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/9/senate-tortu... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/09/senate-panel-rele... http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-torture-report/doj-stan... http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/torture-report-reveals-cias-b...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder when the UN will stand up and impose trade bans on the US for such deeds.
The UN does not impose trade bans. You know why the Secretary General, the UN's leader, is called that? Because he is a secretary for the people who actually have power, the leaders of nation-states.
Secretary is essentially another word for Minister, and NATO's Secretary-General is its supreme commander in wartime. The UN's leader is called the Secretary General because he is in essence its Prime Minister, not because you get confused between a Secretary and his/her secretaries...
Unless you think General Secretary Joseph Stalin was a powerless functionary, of course.
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The saving grace is that we have a country that was able to admit that it did this. For me, that's hope that we're still in a position to learn from our wrongs, and that the checks-and-balances are still somewhat in-tact.
Until the next 9/11 or Pearl Habour and then everyone just looks the other way for the next ten years. Japanese internment is still rarely talked about and in some states rarely taught in schools(!).
Compare to this memo, where you have roughly half of the politically involved population of the country criticizing its release as if the memo itself is somehow reprehensible, and not saying one word about the activities it describes.
As an exercise visit as many news outlets as you can and count how many times they use the word torture in their articles.
I just quickly went to a few and the results are below with the sources below that CNN 3 BBC 2 Al Jazeera 5 FoxNews 2 NBC News 3 ABC News 1 http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/cia-torture-report/in... http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30401100 http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/9/senate-tortu... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/09/senate-panel-rele... http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The saving grace is that we have a country that was able to admit that it did this. For me, that's hope that we're still in a position to learn from our wrongs, and that the checks-and-balances are still somewhat in-tact.
Until the next 9/11 or Pearl Habour and then everyone just looks the other way for the next ten years. Japanese internment is still rarely talked about and in some states rarely taught in schools(!).
It's important to teach about what happened in those camps and to understand why they were wrong. Drawing inappropriate comparisons between those camps and the absolute atrocities in this report isn't helpful.