511–520 of 579 posts
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The US is legally required by the Geneva Convention Against Torture, signed into US law by Ronald Reagan, to prosecute the torturers and their chain of command.
This.
> 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.…
> This stuff would make Gestapo, KGB and Stasi proud.
A big difference is that those groups tortured and killed many of their own subjects for their political dissidence. In this case, the CIA tortured (albeit counterproductively) to protect its citizens, and there was a free press to uncover and help stop these programs for the most part.
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> On the internet, however, mocking someone's weakest argument is fair game Not on Hacker News it isn't. We want people to apply the Principle of Charity and respond to the strongest reasonable interpretation of what each other is saying [1]. Alternatively, A comment in reply to another comment should be written in the spirit of colleagues cooperating in good faith to figure out the truth about something, not politic…
As a mild disagreement, I would worry that over-enforcement of this principle would squelch out all humor. While humor may not quite be in the spirit of colleagues, or politics, it is certainly within the spirit of friendship . I am not sure about the right line to draw, but I do think that a truly friendly community is one that doesn't take itself too seriously .
There's a kind of caricaturing wit that could be called uncharitable, but only if it's meant to distort, in which case the humor is a means to something else and it's the something else that's the problem.
Dianne 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…
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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?
Incentives for information: 1.) Extract information. 2.) The information should be useful.
Incentives for intimidation: 1.) Information extraction is of no concern. 2.) The torture should be so shocking, and awesome, that George Carlin style many extra syllables need to be added to the word "tor-ture" like when Diane Feinstein says the supersized Orwellian phrase that "tor-ture" has become. 3.) The details of the torture should be made public.
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The French 10e division parachutiste arrested and interrogated around 24,000 suspects during the battle of Algiers, often using electrical torture, rape, etc., of which an estimated 3,000 were summarily executed. This effectively put an end to the FLN presence in Algiers. Which, I suppose, gets to show that it can be effective in some circumstances, if you are willing to show the appropriate degree of ruthlessness.
French are all around great guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
In this case, I suggest that you start by getting some better material. The Rainbow Warrior is just a blip on the radar. You will find better attack angles in our post-WWII colonial behaviour (for instance, the repression in Algeria and Madagascar), our colonial wars or our African policy. Godspeed.
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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.
Huge 24 fan here (watched all seasons), I loved the show but that doesn't mean I support torture. I always found the following things ridiculous (and pretty unrealistic): 1) The ridiculous urgency of it, where they're running against the clock to "stop the bomb" or something like that. These kinds of scenarios are highly unlikely in real life, IMHO. 2) That Jack Bauer always got away with all the things he did. AFAIK…
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This man literally tried to chew through his own body, to bleed out, to avoid having his food forcefully shoved up his ass, for no reason whatsoever. He further attempted to kill himself on several occasions to avoid this as well. That is the cold truth of that statement. This is fucking disgusting, and someone needs to be held accountable.
> and someone needs to be held accountable. The citizens of the United States need to be held accountable. Sorry, someone has to start looking at the root of the problem.
The best thing a "citizen" can do is recognize the state is foundationally unethical and has no legitimate political authority and never did. [1] Once we leave behind the mysticism of state authority, perhaps we can find better ways to organize society in ways that are ethically sound.
[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Auth...
I 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…
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> You're probably too morally outraged by all this to appreciate the humor in the phrasing of that sentence. How about the humor in sentences about raping?
I'd be pretty happy if HN could muster the same uniform moral outrage about rape jokes involving non-terrorists (e.g. gamergate) as it has shown in response to my comment about terrorists being cold. But I guess my priorities are out of whack.
Second, the idea that terrorists (especially as arbitrarily defined, without trial and due process, for years on end) should be tortured is still problematic.
Third, yes they are out of whack. The decent human priorities would be to have the same sympathies for all victims, and the same demand for human rights to be applied in both cases.