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US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

intelligence.senate.gov

351–360 of 579 posts

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#351

Earlier 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?

I'm much more comfortable with blowing up bad guys than with capturing them and subjecting them to a combined anal rape/feeding procedure.

Does this surprise you? It shouldn't.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#352
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uncontroversial, accurate factual description. Are you so obsessed with minutiae of definitions that you are unable to see that both terms describe reprehensible acts performed by people against other people?

The parent is right to be skeptical considering the number of lawyers involved in this mess. Torture is obviously illegal so it has more implications than just "enhanced interrogation".

Right to be skeptical of what, precisely?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#353
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Would this revenge be unjustified?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#355
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

1. The crimes of others do not excuse your own. 2. There is abundant proof that the US engaged in a deliberate, not occasional, policy of torture, whitewashed as "enhanced interrogation techniques". 3. There is so far no proof that other western nations have recently had a policy of deliberate torture, except for the sad cases where the US creatively outsourced some of its torture needs to Poland and perhaps a few ot…

Where was I excusing anyone? I am merely stating, it would be ignorant to assume that other western countries are not doing the same and the same investigation into the possibility is warranted.

Other Western nations facilitated capture and detention, they are helped get people to the CIA. So you are seriously telling me that they didn't suspect? Really???

Look, the EU is willing to drag planes from the sky to support the US in getting Snowden, so you think they don't know what the CIA was doing? Really???

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, be serious: Most of us would much rather prefer to be shot dead or blown up in a split second than being even slightly tortured and locked up indefinitely. If not it must be because we don't know what we are talking about.

Throwing water on someone and leaving them in a 59-degree room is worse than shooting them dead? Keeping someone awake until they hallucinate is worse than shooting them dead? Really? I can imagine torture that's worse than death. I don't think any of the things revealed in the article qualify. Which is precisely what I'm getting at. If you're not a pacifist and you think it's okay to kill people in war, I think you…

Why do you continually focus on the cold room and ignore all the other kinds of torture in this report? It's unconvincing and reflects poorly on your argument.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#357
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget, not all the detainees were terrorists. US promoted a reward program in middle east asking locals to turn in anyone with ties to terrorists. All they had to do was tell a name to US military, and collect reward for every name. Many locals turned in thousands of innocent people just to collect a reward. These people were immediately arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay without any investigation.…

No. But A LOT of them were.

s/A LOT/some

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, be serious: Most of us would much rather prefer to be shot dead or blown up in a split second than being even slightly tortured and locked up indefinitely. If not it must be because we don't know what we are talking about.

Throwing water on someone and leaving them in a 59-degree room is worse than shooting them dead? Keeping someone awake until they hallucinate is worse than shooting them dead? Really? I can imagine torture that's worse than death. I don't think any of the things revealed in the article qualify. Which is precisely what I'm getting at. If you're not a pacifist and you think it's okay to kill people in war, I think you…

Oh man, I find your responses to this thread hilariously ironic. A week ago on a thread concerning H1B's and immigration to the US, you refuted someone's claim that America could accommodate almost unlimited migration because this ignored the issues of having these people absorb and internalize the cultural norms that make the US a great place to live and which others places that aren't so great to live lack. You used the example of bribery being a cultural norm in the country your parents emigrated from and one of the things that caused your father to leave.

Well consider me convinced! We definitely need to limit immigration to America otherwise we could end up with large numbers of people whose cultural norms allow them to condone torture and try to make jokes about it! Can you imagine what a cluster fuck this nation would be if the majority view was that repeated anal rape leading to multiple attempts at self-harm was something to be made light of!? No we definitely need to make sure that we only accept a small enough number of immigrants that we can ensure that things like the concept of the rule of law, the right to trial, and the right to not be, you know FUCKING TORTURED, are fully assimilated by them. Gods knows what things would be like if they somehow managed to not internalize these concepts.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#359
post #49

Fellow parents, how do you teach or plan to teach your kids about this? I was discussing this with my son last night, but I really couldn't explain to him the prejudice and fear that people use to justify these types of acts, or the "otherness" that the perpetrators try to construct around the victims in the media. It's just not something he's experienced yet. There's no way to put it into context.

Are you familiar with Jane Elliott's "Blue eyes/brown eyes" experiment? It's a good kind of ultra-lite introduction to racism/discrimination if you've literally never come across the concept before. (Comes up a lot in Holocaust curriculum.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAmdZvKf6M Though I wonder if small children aren't closer to understanding this than most of us. They're such a jumble of implicit biases at the…

It's been a long time, but could Seuss' The Sneeches (those with stars and those without thars) serve the purpose?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is there a name for the argumentative tactic of singling out the weakest thing a person said, then exaggerating it into a straw man and arguing against it, while ignoring everything else? Whatever it's called, you're not fooling anybody.

"rayiner" is a lawyer: it's called "legal argument".
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