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US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

intelligence.senate.gov

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Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#211

Post by user24 »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #189
rdtsc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, and we might even be in worse position if action is not taken. If there is lack of outrage, it will send a message up the chain that "this is not that bad, nobody really minded this much, let's use harsher techniques next time".

So here's an ethical question- If the report leads to no action, where is the good in releasing it? Real risk for real people has been created. It's not theoretical. Actual innocent people have been placed in danger. If there's no good coming from the report, was it worth placing those people in danger?

Yes because it produced the opportunity to do good. At the time of publication it couldn't be known whether good would be done or not.

You can't make moral judgements from a viewpoint that assumes knowledge of the future.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#212

Post by rqebmm »

mikeash wrote: post #181
cyorir wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up Hiroshima as an example. I think that in many ways this becomes the old Moral Absolutism versus Moral Relativism problem. You can have a moral absolutist who says, "Harming another human is wrong, therefore we will not torture under any case." (A different absolutist might be more utilitarian in arguing for torture of one to save many, but you get the point- an absolutist has a position and a rigid inter…

You (like so many others, sadly) assume torture is actually effective, and that objections to its use rest solely on immorality. I object to torture on moral grounds. I also object to it on practical grounds. It doesn't work. Since both of those objections point in the same direction, the solution is completely clear.

This has also been stated by many interrogation professionals, so it's not like it's just uninformed civilians running around saying "torture doesn't work, so don't use it"

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#213

Post by jdimov »

rdtsc wrote: post #25

> 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.…

And Obama has the nerve to call beheadings "barbaric"?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#214

Post by user24 »

rayiner wrote: post #207
user24 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> These same detainees were subsequently placed in rooms with temperatures ranging from 59 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh the horror of room temperature.

I dunno, 59 degrees seems quite chilly if you've just been stripped naked and soaked with ice cold water. Note no mention is made of whether the detainees were dried or clothed first either.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#215

Post by dragonwriter »

Cushman wrote: post #145
dragonwriter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Are we noticing the irony of using the term "uncontroversial" to answer controversy?

Sure, "comparatively less emotionally loaded way of distinguishing from other interrogation techniques that also does not carry the weight of appearing to be conclusory on a matter of law on which the Committee was very clearly not intending to state a conclusion" would probably be better than "uncontroversial".

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#216

Post by mark_l_watson »

anigbrowl wrote: post #130
rdtsc wrote: post #25

> 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.…

Not sure who said, maybe it was Slavoj Zizek, about how if we are even debating "is torture right or what advantages it might have" we have already lost. It was, and I think his point is borne out in the fact that numerous films and TV shows have depicted torture that would formerly have been the preserve of pure villains to tools available to heroic protagonists in sufficiently urgent circumstances. Never do you see…

I have a family member who was hooked on the TV show "24" which featured torture.

I think that it is quite possible that there is some purposeful desensitization going on.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#217

Post by jdimov »

willscott wrote: post #61
rdtsc wrote: post #25

> 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 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.

Hey, ISIS admits to beheading people. How is your country any better?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#218

Post by waterlesscloud »

rayiner wrote: post #207
user24 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> These same detainees were subsequently placed in rooms with temperatures ranging from 59 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh the horror of room temperature.

59 is definitely cold enough to induce hypothermia. Particularly if you're naked and/or wet.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#219

Post by fleitz »

mikeash wrote: post #158
Someone1234 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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(!).

At least you'll find few people willing to defend Japanese internment in public, and public opinion is such that it's unlikely anything similar would happen again. 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.

In 40 years you'll find the same thing, that whatever is happening 'now' was deplorable, and that whatever is happening 40 years from now is 'freedom'.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#220

Post by rayiner »

lotharbot wrote: post #160
Someone1234 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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(!).

From what I understand (from talking to now very old Japanese-American men who were in the camps as young adults) it was unpleasant and caused significant hardship, but not even remotely similar to what's in this report. 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'…

The difference, of course, is that those in the internment camps were Americans, while most of these guys are terrorists captured on the battlefield. I do think the comparison is inappropriate, but internment was the atrocity, not this.
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