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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

#551

Post by rurounijones »

tptacek wrote: post #533
rurounijones wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I do not get the purpose of that sentence in your post since it reads like "Yes we did shitty stuff to him but remember they thought he was a bad guy at the time."

I'll assume that's because you're unfamiliar with the Kiriakou case, in which Zubaydah plays an important role. You could sum that case up by saying that Kiriakou is accused of two major harms to the USG: first, outing a 20-year undercover operative, and second, potentially compromising the Zubaydah case. It would be an easy message board rebuttal to say, "well, it turns out Zubaydah was a pawn with virtually no valu…

I am not in disagreement with your assesment of Kiraikou and I don't see how any of that ties into your original statement

"However terribly Zubaydah was treated by the CIA, we should probably remain clear on the fact that he was believed by everyone involved, including Kiriakou, to have been an integral part of the Al Qaeda network."

which seems totally unrelated to anything you have posted above, which was what make it stand out in the first place.

I cannot see any other way of interpreting it than the way I mentioned in my previous post, could you clarify what you meant by this since I am obviously not getting your meaning?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#552

Post by tptacek »

rurounijones wrote: post #551
tptacek wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll assume that's because you're unfamiliar with the Kiriakou case, in which Zubaydah plays an important role. You could sum that case up by saying that Kiriakou is accused of two major harms to the USG: first, outing a 20-year undercover operative, and second, potentially compromising the Zubaydah case. It would be an easy message board rebuttal to say, "well, it turns out Zubaydah was a pawn with virtually no valu…

I am not in disagreement with your assesment of Kiraikou and I don't see how any of that ties into your original statement "However terribly Zubaydah was treated by the CIA, we should probably remain clear on the fact that he was believed by everyone involved, including Kiriakou, to have been an integral part of the Al Qaeda network." which seems totally unrelated to anything you have posted above, which was what mak…

No.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#553

Post by rurounijones »

tptacek wrote: post #552
rurounijones wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not in disagreement with your assesment of Kiraikou and I don't see how any of that ties into your original statement "However terribly Zubaydah was treated by the CIA, we should probably remain clear on the fact that he was believed by everyone involved, including Kiriakou, to have been an integral part of the Al Qaeda network." which seems totally unrelated to anything you have posted above, which was what mak…

No.

Ok then, end of thread.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#555

Post by waterlesscloud »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #537
waterlesscloud wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the number the executive report gives as the total. There's no reason to believe they're not counting them all.

I just checked, that isn't what the report says at all. They say "at least 39" and say that there are at least 17 other people who were tortured without central office even being notified. Also, these numbers are from one CIA program, not all CIA programs. And it specifically does not include people where the interrogators did anything outside guidelines, so the worst atrocities are not counted on this list at all. T…

Where's that quote from? I can't find it in the report.

What I did find, on page 101 is this:

"Over the course ofthe CIA program, at least 39 detainees were subjected to one or more of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.CIA records indicate that there were at least 17 CIA detainees who were subjected to one or more CIA enhanced interrogation techniques without CIA Headquarters approval. This count includes detainees who were approved for the use of some techniques, but were subjected to unapproved techniques, as well as detainees for whom interrogators had no approvals to use any of the techniques"

This passage indicates that those 17 tortured outside the approval process are accounted for. I don't see anything showing there were others outside the 39.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#556

Post by lotsofmangos »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #555
lotsofmangos wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked, that isn't what the report says at all. They say "at least 39" and say that there are at least 17 other people who were tortured without central office even being notified. Also, these numbers are from one CIA program, not all CIA programs. And it specifically does not include people where the interrogators did anything outside guidelines, so the worst atrocities are not counted on this list at all. T…

Where's that quote from? I can't find it in the report. What I did find, on page 101 is this: "Over the course ofthe CIA program, at least 39 detainees were subjected to one or more of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.CIA records indicate that there were at least 17 CIA detainees who were subjected to one or more CIA enhanced interrogation techniques without CIA Headquarters approval. This count includes d…

at least 39 detainees

I don't see anything showing there were others outside the 39

Rather than give my honest opinion here, which would no doubt end up in a kindly word by dang, may I just ask you to run a basic boolean check over your posts before hitting 'reply'.

edit - the part you have such difficulty locating is from the exact same section you quoted, just a little further on, page 104.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#557

Post by waterlesscloud »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #556
waterlesscloud wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's that quote from? I can't find it in the report. What I did find, on page 101 is this: "Over the course ofthe CIA program, at least 39 detainees were subjected to one or more of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.CIA records indicate that there were at least 17 CIA detainees who were subjected to one or more CIA enhanced interrogation techniques without CIA Headquarters approval. This count includes d…

at least 39 detainees I don't see anything showing there were others outside the 39 Rather than give my honest opinion here, which would no doubt end up in a kindly word by dang, may I just ask you to run a basic boolean check over your posts before hitting 'reply'. edit - the part you have such difficulty locating is from the exact same section you quoted, just a little further on, page 104.

Your snark aside, "at least 39" doesn't indicate there are more than 39.

Also, the bit you quoted from page 104 is in reference to a list of the 17 tortured without authorization. So it also doesn't indicate there were more than 39 total

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#558

Post by tripzilch »

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.

> The saving grace is that we have a country that was able to admit that it did this.

Pft. You're not getting off that easy.

The "saving grace" for Germany was going to international trial for the crimes committed, something the US actively refuses to do, AND hanging their heads in collective national shame for the atrocities they allowed happen in their name, scared shitless what a country is capable of when not kept in check by its people, fearing and strongly dismissing anything remotely reeking like nazism, even up to the point of partially giving up their own freedom of speech, ever since. I don't see the US doing anything similar any time soon. "It's our FREEDOMS! We must have our FREEDOMS!"

Sorry I'm just really angry and sad.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#559

Post by tripzilch »

user24 wrote: post #211
waterlesscloud wrote: post #189

Earlier 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?

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.

I don't disagree with your point, but:

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

Actually, you can. It's one of the main categories of normative ethics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics#Normative_eth...

"Consequentialism (Teleology) argues that the morality of an action is contingent on the action's outcome or result", this particular category includes one of the most famous theories of ethics, utilitarianism.

Your problem with it is valid, however. As far as I've understood from my study of the subject matter, no ethical theory is perfect, not even utilitarianism.

Check out the wiki page for the other categories. Personally I like virtue ethics, keeps me on my toes and critical. I wouldn't recommend it though, I'd prefer if the rest of the world was utilitarian :-P cough

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#560

Post by [deleted] »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #557
lotsofmangos wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at least 39 detainees I don't see anything showing there were others outside the 39 Rather than give my honest opinion here, which would no doubt end up in a kindly word by dang, may I just ask you to run a basic boolean check over your posts before hitting 'reply'. edit - the part you have such difficulty locating is from the exact same section you quoted, just a little further on, page 104.

Your snark aside, "at least 39" doesn't indicate there are more than 39. Also, the bit you quoted from page 104 is in reference to a list of the 17 tortured without authorization. So it also doesn't indicate there were more than 39 total

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