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CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

theguardian.com

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Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#221

Post by worik »

gerbilly wrote: post #209
pandemicsoul wrote: post #166

Bonkers reading through this thread and seeing people discuss torture as casually and unemotionally as if it were just a regular ol' anyday thing. Like wow folks, this is not academic!

That's HN for you. I honestly don't know why I keep coming here. This is a safe space for rationalisation, we can't let 'the feels' creep in and threaten that. Also it would be way too 'political' if we assigned a moral valence to torture, and political discussions are discouraged here.

Weighing torture, in light of "if it is effective it is OK" is not "rationalisation".

It is loosing the civilisation plot.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#222

Post by rendall »

FpUser wrote: post #162
ALittleLight wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was in response to the "torture = bad" part of the parent comment, not an attempt to justify using detainees to practice your torture techniques.

He was also tortured in a "regular" way on a basis of being relative. And he is still tortured - what else do you want to call keeping him in for so many years without charges and trial. Any way you spin it it is sick. And what good did it do? Care to share accounts of people saved from an imminent death by torturing this guy?

These kinds of conversations always devolve.

"Torture is bad and should be abolished".

"Well, what about this other, very contrived situation where it's good?"

You can use that non-sequitur to justify literally anything. "Murder, slavery and rape is bad". "Well, what about this situation where it did good?"

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#223

Post by xyzzyz »

teakettle42 wrote: post #204
nisa wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"due process" - not really: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn#Diplomatic...

“Due process” is an individual US constitutional right to have access to our established legal procedures and rules prior to any deprivation of “life, liberty, or property”. I don’t see a due process violation in your link — just an example of how abdicating sovereign judicial authority can go wrong, as is the case with diplomatic immunity.

There was no "diplomatic immunity" issue relevant in that case. The perpetrator had no diplomatic immunity. She was only immune to prosecution because she ran away, and the US government denied extradition because it would be "troubling".

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#224

Post by worik »

cwkoss wrote: post #170

If our country was just, everyone in the CIA who engaged in or authorized torture would be executed. I'm typically against capital punishment, but state sanctioned torture is such a far line past what is acceptable, I really think we'd be better off if we swept all these evil people off the face of the planet. Instead, they get cushy think tank and consultancy jobs as a reward for their evil 'service'.

> , I really think we'd be better off if we swept all these evil people off the face of the planet.

Steady! We must not become our enemy. We achieve peace and justice through peaceful and just means, or not at all!

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#225

Post by adolph »

yencabulator wrote: post #195
pmarreck wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said someone had to die. In your case, someone does.

Okay, so just one kidney and some blood then.

Or a vaccine administration? (sorry if this is too soon to bring that up)

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#226

Post by keybored »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #112
deutschew wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. There never was any moral high ground, the establishment were successful at making people FEEL as such. We are quick to point fingers at Nazis, Terrorists, Enemies yet the Western perspective is always 'we can do know wrong, if we did, its justified' which is exactly what the opposing side does. Once a subtle reminder that many supported Nazi ideals early in…

> There never was any moral high ground, the establishment were successful at making people FEEL as such. I understand what you're trying to say with respect to dirty hands, and not wilfully misunderstanding you. But, wrong. There _was_ a moral high ground. It subsisted within the group of people you claim were duped. Those were and always will be the people who count, who hold the _normative_ values of a society. Wh…

So the Noble Lie was real because some people believed it. But those who told it lied. Moreover they didn't follow it. Moreover they were in fact bad guys. And why is that bad? Because they were caught and now those other bad guys will undermine our values... that we don't have (but we thought we did).

This makes absolutely no sense unless you insert some unfounded premise of national/Western exceptionalism somewhere.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#227

Post by oh_sigh »

worik wrote: post #203
teakettle42 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad that my US constitutional rights cannot be abrogated by a supranational judicial system.

Your constitutional rights are safe if you stay at home and are not a threat to the power structure. The subject of this article, that the United States government tortured was not so lucky. Do the constitutional rights of a USA citizen need torture to maintain?

How are terrorists(or, random people mistakenly identified as terrorists) a threat to the power structure?

After 9/11, was anyone calling for diminishing US government powers? Maybe a few people, but for the most part - just the opposite - we wanted to hand even more power and money to the federal government.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#228

Post by drugstorecowboy »

zozbot234 wrote: post #52
adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

Historically, torture was far more likely to be used on accusers and witnesses than presumed perpetrators. The idea is that if you're tasked with some sort of policing role and can't possibly figure out who is in the wrong, you just beat up both the accuser and the alleged perp. Chinese justice in the imperial era worked pretty much the same way: criminal punishment was neither explicitly retaliative nor restorative…

If that's true it's fascinating, could you suggest a resource I could use to learn more about this? If you know you are both just going to be punished and justice wasn't retaliative nor restorative, what would be the point of bringing a grievance to the authorities?

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#229

Post by thereisnospork »

worik wrote: post #212
thereisnospork wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this risk of being pedantic: the question isn't how we maintain the well-being of other humans, it is how we maintain the well-being of our humans[0] and frankly there's a lot to be said for boot-to-neck diplomacy. [0]Specifically here our non-upper crust humans.

> At this risk of being pedantic: the question isn't how we maintain the well-being of other humans, it is how we maintain the well-being of our humans[0] and frankly there's a lot to be said for boot-to-neck diplomacy. That attitude with the associated American power was a complete catastrophe for: * Iraq. * Nicaragua * Panama * Cuba * Afghanistan

A catastrophe for America (Americans) or for the countries listed and their people? Only one of those is relevant.[0]

My greater point here is that global politics is an inherently amoral game. By extension a morality-based strategy is inherently sub-optimal.

[0]addendum: To be clear there are definitely arguments to be made that some or all of them weren't good for Americans (e.g. loss of global goodwill may have resulted in less favorable trade agreements).

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#230

Post by worik »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #19

...isn't the whole idea of such "back sites" that once anyone gets into them, they are NEVER getting out alive? Torture and atrocities asside, I'd imagine most organized crime syndicates run tighter ships (eg. the standard dissolve the bodies of torture victims + kill the "torture service providers" too at regular intervals then re-recruit new ones etc.) ...this seem so beyond sloppy it's clearly a political s throwi…

A wonderful thing (among many) about American society is openness. We get to see inside the machine.

Often what we see, in the military machine is ugly. No surprise.

It is not that the American military are worse, the problem is they are more powerful.

(As I have commented elsewhere here) It is possible for the Americans to be a beacon of light in a dark world. It is a choice for them.

They have chosen the path of darkness. Such a waste

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