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

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#231

Post by mikeash » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:50 PM UTC

leroy_masochist wrote: post #210

mikeash wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Then again, these guys did not get rolled up for signing too loud in church. They have valuable intel in their heads." Why does terrorism frighten people so much that they're willing to throw away basic principles like "innocent until proven guilty"? Honest question. I see comment after comment after comment in this thread that indicates the commenters are unbelievably frightened of terrorism, to the extent that the…

> Why does terrorism frighten people so much that they're willing to throw away basic principles like "innocent until proven guilty"? Great question, and one we should always keep in mind. The death toll from terrorism on US soil since 9/11 is indeed very low. That said, the people plotting against us are intelligent and adaptive and wish to do us harm. If they succeed, they might destroy the free society which we've…

Remember the Cold War, when the threat wasn't that someone might figure out a way to smuggle a small weapon into NYC, but that we'd have fifteen minutes' warning before NYC was subject to multiple megaton-class detonations, along with every other major city in the country?

There isn't even any evidence that the threat of nuclear terrorism is credible. Nukes aren't something you pick up at the local Safeway on your way home from the daily jihad. Compare to 30 years ago, where the threat was absolutely, 100% credible. Literally hundreds of missiles ready to go at a moment's notice. One bad decision or bad hangover away from a billion deaths. And yet, we weren't having debates like this then.

That's not to say that the US was all innocent and pure. But at the very least, torture was secretive, hidden, not defended in public as being a worthwhile and justifiable act.

And then combine all that with the simple fact that torture doesn't even work. All it does is make their friends angry. Do you really think that torturing suspected terrorists reduces the chances of a future terrorist nuclear detonation in Manhattan? I don't see how.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to point out that those hundreds of missiles and hundreds of nuclear warheads are still there and still ready to go at a moment's notice and we are still one person's bad decision or bad hangover away from total annihilation. We just manage to pretend it's not there.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#232

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:50 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…

> Still, I wonder about some of the side-effects of this. Instead of arresting and interrogating terrorists we kill them with drones as its less messy.

We were killing plenty of people in the War on Terror while the detentions and torture were going on (heck, the torture was sold in part on the basis that it was helping us find and kill people that needed killing in that war.) And some of those tortured also died as a result.

Torture and killing aren't mutually exclusive alternatives.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#233

Post by DanBC » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:51 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #207

user24 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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

Please try it.

Just take two hours of your day. Strip naked, have someone throw a bucket of cold water over you, and then stand on a letter-size piece of paper for two hours in a room that is 15C

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#234

Post by mikeash » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:51 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #219

mikeash wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you'll find few people willing to defend Japanese internment in public, and public opinion is such that it's unlikely anything similar would happen again. Compare to this memo, where you have roughly half of the politically involved population of the country criticizing its release as if the memo itself is somehow reprehensible, and not saying one word about the activities it describes.

In 40 years you'll find the same thing, that whatever is happening 'now' was deplorable, and that whatever is happening 40 years from now is 'freedom'.

I don't doubt it.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#235

Post by RealGeek » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:51 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.…

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. US did not even require any probably cause, evidence or investigation to detain and torture these people.

If CIA tortured George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in this way, I am sure they would confess to being an accomplice along with Osama Bin Laden in 9/11 attack.

Unfortunately, this US "war on terror" has created tens of thousands of more terrorists all over the world. It haven't made the US or World any safer, it has created a even bigger monster.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#236

Post by mikeash » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:52 PM UTC

tosser-001 wrote: post #174

mikeash wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass killings of innocent civilians are commonly carried out by "soldiers of a legitimate state." OK, so nuclear attacks by soldiers justify it. How about conventional strategic bombing? Invasions? Exactly where and why do you draw the line, if you're not drawing it where you previously said?

I'll admit, you've got me. I don't know where I would draw the line, but in the case of Qeada/ISIS, they are well across my personal fuzzy gray line.

I think you'd better sit down and think about it a bit more before publicly advocating for torturing prisoners, then.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#237

Post by disposition2 » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

kuhhk wrote: post #222

cryoshon wrote: post #124

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 atte…

> The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture. Stop assuming Republicans support torture. McCain comments on the report: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/12/09/lv-mcc...

Not trying to make this a party issue but that is 1 GOP rep who has been subjected to torture. Considering the GOP released a rebuttal to the report, I think it is a fair statement to say in turn that they are effectively supporting the use of torture by the US [1].

Edit: 1. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/republicans-dismiss-senate-tortur...

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#238

Post by rayiner » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #216

anigbrowl wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

I've heard this theory. It's not really consistent with the fact that "24" was a torture-fest from the first season, aired before the enhanced interrogation stuff really got going. I was in college at the time, and we loved the show. You don't need much "purposeful desensitizing" to convince a bunch of 20-something guys it's okay to torture terrorists.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#239

Post by mikeash » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:54 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #207

user24 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#240

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 6:56 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #72

Loughla wrote: post #10

Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Even when it obviously means torture: "Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique." When talking about a physical place. That is so blatant word replacement that I find it hard to take it seriously.

> 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 interrogation technique" is an uncontroversial, accurate factual description.

I disagree. 'Enhanced' certainly refers to intensification or increase, but also has strongly positive associations. If you experienced two injuries in a row you wouldn't normally say that the second one had 'enhanced your pain experience' - if you did people would assume you were a masochist of some sort. The measure of interrogation is surely in the quality of results it yields; if some technique actually results in a decrease in the quality of intelligence then I'd say it's a degraded interrogation technique.

To the extent that you want a neutral description of an action whose efficacy is unknown, you could say 'aggressive interrogation technique' or 'intensified interrogation technique' or any number of other words. Just because 'enhanced' can be read to mean intensified or increased without necessarily being better does mean it is commonly understood to mean that; when you're choosing terms to describe something to the public - and especially when you're choosing words for their referential rather than explanatory power - that lowest common denominator of meaning is the one that matters.

I appreciate the fine legal distinction that you're drawing here in the context of war crimes and so forth, but I suggest to you that phrases like 'enhanced interrogation technique' are actually part of the problem - deliberate euphemisms chosen primarily for their anodyne qualities.