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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

#271

Post by naniwaduni »

worik wrote: post #255
thereisnospork wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

War is not an extension of "diplomacy by other means". War is a crime. The war crimes I listed were a catastrophe for everybody connected.

The idea that war is a crime at the international scale is underpinned by the threat of war, just as the idea that murder is a crime at the personal scale is underpinned by the threat of murder. We fully intentionally put a lot of steps in between because it turns out that dying sucks a lot,[citation needed] but the fact that they stand between radical disruption of quality, er, quantity of life is what gives those steps weight.

That is to say, war is not other means. It is the primal means of diplomacy from which all others spring forth.

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

#272

Post by buran77 »

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.

> “Due process” is an individual US constitutional right

Which basically says "the state must respect the legal rights owed to a person" according to the legal process. And those can range from "you have none because we think you're a terrorist" to "whatever you desire because you're rich enough to buy yourself laws, or at the very least judges".

I will quote something I said just 2 days ago:

> Speaking of due process, 97% of criminal cases don't actually go to trial in the US and are instead settled with plea deals [0]. The sentencing is so harsh for anyone demanding trial and losing that it's mostly a paper right at this time. It does give people the warm fuzzy feeling of justice and correctness though.

Under these conditions having "due process" matters a lot less than you think. China also has laws against having more than 3 children, it just happens that Uyghurs are disproportionately imprisoned for breaking them. Can you think of another group of people being disproportionately imprisoned elsewhere?

> We still have extradition treaties

What's the value of treaties if attempts to enforce them are met with threats from a country with powerful economy and military? The US has repeatedly threatened countries to deter them from ever attempting to prosecute US citizens even for things as serious as war crimes (including the famed "Hague Invasion Act [0]) despite never actually taking any actions to punish this even internally. Like a mob "protection tax", it's not a real agreement if it can't realistically be enforced both ways.

What sort of moral high ground do you think you're defending now? I find it both fascinating and depressing that people find pride in defending such behavior just because it's enacted by their country.

[0] https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-pleas-on-the-rise-crimin...

[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-be...

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

#273

Post by itsoktocry »

mywacaday wrote: post #105
mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Hard to see how the US can claim a moral high ground on anything when it continues to not be a member of the ICC and is even occasionally actively hostile towards individual judges and member countries by threatening sanctions.

>Hard to see how the US can claim a moral high ground on anything

People now counter any claim like this with "that's whataboutism!". It's free reign to be be hypocritical I guess.

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

#274

Post by cwkoss »

sneak wrote: post #265
cwkoss wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair perspective, and one I've previously held. However my view of social attitudes is that they almost always follow a bell curve: exposure to extreme positions are how moderates reflect on and revise the status quo. The long tail must move before the centroid can shift. 10% of the population needs to call for the execution of all torturers in the CIA before the zeitgeist's illusion of justice painted over…

I don't think violence actually works to solve the problem, however. In addition to being barbaric, it also has the tiny problem of being ineffective. You can't execute an ideology, you have to out-meme it. The concept of an above-the-law class has a long and beloved history because us social human beings seem to really love (and require!) having a very clear and well-defined social hierarchy within which one can ori…

I don't think it is the violence itself that solves the problem. I think it is the broader public realizing that "the CIA is engaging in acts so egregious my countrymen think execution is morally justified" that solves the problem, by forcing them to look for more moderate solutions and prioritize their implementation.

I think 'never advocate for violence, even against more-violent greater evils' is a flawed rule because it leads to the compromise result landed closer to in favor of evil. We need the radical voices to drag the center towards effective action. (And torture is so superlatively evil that I have no moral qualms advocating for the humane execution of those who can be proven to have engaged in or ordered it).

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

#275

Post by mywacaday »

hguant wrote: post #254
black_puppydog wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why the US is increasingly seen as nothing more than a bully on the international stage. And to the point of the root comment, this will fall back on everyone in the US, you included.

I think, while this might have been the perception up until a few weeks ago, the invasion of Ukraine has shown the world what a true "bully" on the international stage looks like. There will always be cloistered individuals who think that anyone who isn't "pure" (for an increasingly variable definition of pure) is evil. That opinion is absolutely fine to have until reality strikes. The bubble of people who post on HN…

I would add that the US does the above without being willing to be accountable to the 123 other ICC member states along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen while demanding the rest of the the world to obey it's sanctions. Do as I say and not as I do is hardly a shining example of democracy. If the planet is is ever to be a globally equitable and safe place for all accountability for all is needed.

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

#277

Post by beeboop »

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!

Not sure what this looked like when you posted two hours ago, but all the top posts now are calling this evil, disgusting, awful, and all the bad things.

Glancing through the comments now, I see only maybe one or two that don't overtly and somewhat emotionally condemn this. And those one or two that don't aren't praising it by any means either.

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

#278

Post by nebula8804 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #80
spacechild1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same. But maybe they just do (have) not care. History has shown that the US can do all sorts of horrendous things and nothing ever seems to happen...

"History has shown that the US can do all sorts of horrendous things and nothing ever seems to happen..." Well, nothing except: 1 - make lots of enemies 2 - make the world a more dangerous place 3 - lose the moral high ground and the respect of people/countries who might have otherwise been friends These things have consequences... measured in American lives (which are, sadly, the only kind of lives some people care…

>These things have consequences... measured in American lives (which are, sadly, the only kind of lives some people care about)... but also in many other lives.

If we have learned anything from the past 2 years, its not even all American lives. Some American lives are treated with utmost care while others barely register a blip on their radar.

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

#279

Post by CWuestefeld »

mywacaday wrote: post #239
teakettle42 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What about the US abrogating the legal rights of people, terrorist or not, taking them to a black site to avoid their own domestic laws and using them as a training test doll for torture techniques to the point of causing brain damage. At some point every country should be accountable to someone.

Yes, you're right about that. I think teakettle42's objection was to you trying to turn the question around to make climate change the issue that trumps everything else. At least, that's my objection to your original reply.

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

#280

Post by sneak »

cwkoss wrote: post #274
sneak wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think violence actually works to solve the problem, however. In addition to being barbaric, it also has the tiny problem of being ineffective. You can't execute an ideology, you have to out-meme it. The concept of an above-the-law class has a long and beloved history because us social human beings seem to really love (and require!) having a very clear and well-defined social hierarchy within which one can ori…

I don't think it is the violence itself that solves the problem. I think it is the broader public realizing that "the CIA is engaging in acts so egregious my countrymen think execution is morally justified" that solves the problem, by forcing them to look for more moderate solutions and prioritize their implementation. I think 'never advocate for violence, even against more-violent greater evils' is a flawed rule bec…

I don't think you persuade the segment of the population that thinks that execution is morally unjustifiable by advocating for morally justified execution, but I'm no sociologist.
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