Check out the comparison between the Hayden testimony and what this report found -- from pg. 462 onward (~37 pages total) it's a point-by-point refutation. Language in almost all of the examples includes "This testimony is incongruent with CIA records" and even "This testimony is inaccurate".
US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
301–310 of 579 posts
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#302[deleted]
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> Real risk for real people has been created. It's not theoretical. Risk of what? > Actual innocent people have been placed in danger. Who? I'm not attempting to argue the point. I haven't read the report. It just seems a strong statement to make that innocent bystanders (with no connection to torture) have been put at risk (of what?). I'm curious how legitimate this claim is since to be honest it reads a bit like FU…
Risk of revenge attacks leading to severe injury and death.
People working for the US government overseas. Or just Americans. Or even just westerners in general.
Security is heightened, units are on alert worldwide. The risk is real and serious.
Remember, radical elements killed people over a silly video on youtube. This is much more inflammatory.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#304Earlier 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?
I would also like to turn the question around though: If torture could prevent the mass killing of innocent civilians, do you see any justification in it?
Even if I thought it prevented mass killing in the short term, it is certainly likely to lead to more mass killing in the long term.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#305I think we should be a little more amazed that this report is available at all---an through internal channels at that. While we're all bashing the CIA for what they've done (and are right to do so), we should also appreciate that this is also at some level an instance of government working "properly": one branch of government audited another branch, found that there had been misconduct, and was able to publish a repo…
This is a really good point, and shouldn't be lost in the outrage. Of course, the outrage shouldn't be lost either, but you're right: some of our morality is salvaged by the publication of this report.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
We generally try to uphold high moral standards even if they won't be reciprocated. Many of those conventions provide additional incentive of reciprocation, but that's not the only relevant factor.
So you're saying we shouldn't engage in torture because it's "bad"? It's okay to blow these same people up in the battlefield, but god forbid we throw water on them and put them in a slightly cold room?
You're being disingenuous here. It's like the difference between a police officer shooting an armed criminal on the street (which may be a matter of necessity, though recent examples highlight just how problematic such a standard can be) and beating them up in jail when they're already in a custodial situation and thus present no threat to the public.
It's true that is the scale of awful behavior, the CIA's program would rate something like 3 or 4 out of 10 - other regimes have engaged in things like pulling out people's fingernails, administering electric shocks, actually killing or raping family members rather than simply threatening to do so so, and worse - much worse. It's also true that atrocious actions by the US during the 'war on terror' are less bad than prior atrocities in previous conflicts like Vietnam or the Phillippine-American war of 1899-1902, a largely-forgotten conflict which would be considered genocidal by modern standards (and which is very much worth studying because it has so many similarities to the war on terror - gruesome murders by the rebels, widespread use of waterboarding by the US (then called the 'water cure'), subsequent political fallout and so on).
But even when we look at these things from a purely utilitarian standpoint rather than an idealistic one, the fact is that it our ability to project soft power - that is, to promulgate our values internationally so as to further our interests - is severely impaired by our all-too-apparent willingness to abandon the standards we propound in the areas of human rights and so forth. I'm not too impressed by the authoritarian regime in Cuba, for example, but the fact that we have a mini-Gulag in Guantanamo Bay makes it impossible for the US to criticize that regime in any meaningful fashion - even when it does the same or worse, it can fall back on a Tu quoque argument, and while that's a logical fallacy it's nevertheless a very effective one. On a more serious level, it has severely blunted our ability (along with that of the UK and other coalition countries, albeit to a lesser extent) to put pressure on North Korea over that country's appalling human rights record.
The basic problem for the US is this: we don't necessarily aspire to hegemony, but a de facto hegemony is the best guarantor of our long-term interests. We can't impose that by force, or want to, but we can get close by exercising soft economic and ideological power backed up with the availability of force against those who directly threaten our interests. At times the world is too messy and we'd like to take our ball and go home - let everyone else think what they like, the US land mass and economy is large enough for us to function as an autarky in an unconnected world. But the reality of a global technological world is that oceans no longer serve as impassable moats; disengagement and indifference to the emergence of other hegemonic powers would sooner or later result in disadvantage.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Torture has been shown to be a reasonably good (though not always effective) means of getting people to tell torturers things that they think the torturers want to hear -- whatever the tortured person thinks is most likely to lead to the present cessation of the torture. Its also been shown to be a fairly poor technique, compared to other alternatives, to get accurate, actionable information. As the Senate report its…
The White House is apparently not taking a side in the debate over whether it works or not. Which frankly makes me think they believe it does. The easy political win is to say it doesn't, and they aren't taking it. https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/542382617711370240 "Obama official: White House won’t take sides between CIA, which says interrogations worked, and Senate, which says they didn’t."
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Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#308Dianne Feinstein deserves enormous credit. Fox News and Republicans are bashing her and by extension her party as traitorous as we speak. The argument that this report should be kept in secret because it endangers Americans' lives is abominable. As an American living abroad, I'm happy to see this released. Still, I wonder about some of the side-effects of this. Instead of arresting and interrogating terrorists we kil…
Look into her history. Before she was against it, she was for it.
She was in favor of what, exactly?
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#309> 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'm in total agreement with your sentiment and those (so far) in this thread. But I want to question the pretext of the interrogations: the assumption that Americans will support any action that keeps America safe, the "safety first" assumption. While the importance of safety is reflected in bulk of our public discretionary expenditures, Americans have other values. Americans value liberty. Americans value humanity.…
Even the "safety first" argument, from the summary I read of the report, doesn't hold, since the value of intelligence gained by torture is clearly debatable. So it's both cruel and inefficient.
Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Criminals are apparently considered unworthy of civil rights. Just witness how many people justify the recent high-profile police killings by pointing out that one victim had previously robbed a convenience store and another one was selling cigarettes on the black market. In many people's minds, "selling illegal cigarettes" equates to "OK to kill in the street." Given that, it's no wonder that prison conditions aren'…
> Just witness how many people justify the recent high-profile police killings by pointing out that one victim had previously robbed a convenience store and another one was selling cigarettes on the black market I haven't seen many people use Brown's robbing the convenience store (and assaulting the shopkeeper) to justify his shooting. It's his attacking the officer and trying to take the officer's gun that is typica…
Character doesn't really interest me. People can be extremely inconsistent. It's to the point where it's a standard joke that the neighbors of serial killers describe them as being nice people. So I personally see no inconsistency with either the supposed nice kid going bonkers or the supposed good cop turning murderous.
To me, the interesting questions are your second one plus the question of why the officer started shooting instead of leaving the scene, potentially returning with backup, since he was still in his car.