US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program • Hacker News Board

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#121

Post by lotsofmangos » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:41 PM UTC

blocktuw wrote: post #98

dragonwriter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, we are surprised to find that threats are used? We are, if not surprised, rightfully offended that our government does not obey its own laws, which define and punish torture -- acts "intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control", where "severe physical or mental pain or…

> Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee. Causing the death of a detainee is not a threat. Perhaps negligence which should have consequences for those who were responsible for this person while in their custody.

It is if you have more than one detainee.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#122

Post by tormeh » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:41 PM UTC

ep103 wrote: post #94

debacle wrote: 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.

That's because there wasn't any prejudice or fear that warranted this, ever. IIRC, in Dick Cheney's autobiography, he states that he was a driving force behind pushing the intelligence community to torture their detainees. And he states that he did so "because if we started torturing people, no one would call the republican party weak on terrorism." He didn't have to go that extra mile. That was it, that was the just…

I can't think of any good person that have ever argued that they are "tough on [x]".

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#123

Post by Omniusaspirer » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

jstrate wrote: post #43

Read almost half of it today and nothing really surprising. Still waiting for the Taliban, Al Qaida, and IS interrogation program reports though.

If we can't hold ourselves to a higher standard than religious terrorist groups then something is very wrong with this country.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#124

Post by cryoshon » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

A few things:

The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture. I hope this dissuades some of their remaining voter base from continuing to support them.

Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture. Not sure that he has any credibility left after being caught on the record lying to congress, but whatever.

The White House attempted to keep this report from coming out. Obama's admission that "we tortured some folks" was hollow, and his promises regarding torture transparency have been refuted as lies. I assume that the White House supports torture, via its resistance to exposing torture. I hope this dissuades some of their voter base from continuing to support them.

Feinstein, though extremely undesirable due to her support of the NSA, has showed some balls here. In the months leading up to the release of this report, she claimed that the CIA was threatening her, so we'll see what happens. I would like it if the next big stink she makes is about the CIA's surveillance of the Senate committee.

The CIA itself has just been pinned on the record as having intentionally misled Congress (its only real oversight) for a period of nearly a decade. Additionally, the CIA has been pinned on the record as having attempted to cover up evidence that it tortured people, and then also spied on the people investigating the torture within the US government. I hope that this agency is drastically reduced by some sort of chemotherapy now that some of its crimes have come to light.

Just remember that this isn't over. Keep paying attention to who defends the CIA, and which media outlets place torture as a choice on the same level as other options. Keep paying attention to the way that the government tries to deny, scapegoat, and minimize this, and make sure to point it out wherever you see it. Finally, don't let them re-focus on the inevitable violent reprisals that will soon come. Releasing the report isn't the ultimate cause of violence against the US or its proxies, torturing people is.

Edit: It appears as though in one of the footnotes of the report there is an admission that one of the people who was tortured to death was an innocent man who was wrongly abducted.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#125

Post by nraynaud » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

pmr_ wrote: post #105

nraynaud wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an American, but I have one specific positive point to say about that: generally the only way to get a country to acknowledge the horror it did is to invade it and trial the leaders (Germany WWII: trial, Iraq against kurds: trial, France Vichy: nothing substantial, France colonial wars: amnesty, USSR: nothing, Yugoslavia: trial, without real invasion). In this instance, nobody is in court (if we ignore Polan…

It is easy to forget that this is just a report and up to this point it hasn't had any real consequences yet. If this will ever lead to anything (be it criminal charges, convictions or change in policy) is still open.

I don't think it will lead to anything, not more than the 11th september 1973, or the whole Operation Condor. There is no balance of powers around the CIA.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#126

Post by pknerd » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

Hope the report will help Americans to find the answer of Why they hate us?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#127

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #115

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…

‘Enhanced’ is factual here? How about ‘Damaging interrogation technique’? That’s certainly more factual than ‘enhanced’.

> ‘Enhanced’ is factual here?

Yes, in terms of intensity.

> How about ‘Damaging interrogation technique’?

That's more conclusory than descriptive of the technique, though certainly the whole report (well, the whole several-hundred-page "executive summary") makes that point.

I don't think there is any advantage to adding the emotional weighting associated with the conclusion that the report leads to into the language describing the individual facts. Its more comfortable, perhaps, to people who didn't need the facts to come to the conclusion that the report demands, but I don't see that as an important feature.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#128

Post by scott_karana » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

pessimist wrote: post #51

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…

It's really disappointing that she does support the NSA's extrajudicial activities, though, to the point of calling Snowden a traitor.

C'est la vie :P

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#129

Post by Someone1234 » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

user24 wrote: post #87

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 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…

That last one is special. Add "anal rape" to the list of the CIA's torture accolades. Certainly didn't hear about THAT on the news.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#130

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:47 PM UTC

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 the efficacy of it questioned, or the deleterious effects on the administrator explored, or the scenario where it is erroneously applied to an innocent or where an intelligence asset is lost as a result. Deliberately or not, the fictional depiction of torture over the last decade or so has been almust uniformly ideological.

Fox and the like will also be debating its "benefits and how it saved Americans' lives"

the top headline on Fox news this morning was quoting some blowhard politician calling the release of the report 'unconscionable.' strange moral calculus in which the publication of a document is considered a more egregious offense than torturing people.