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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

#51

Post by bluesign »

shapefrog wrote: post #25
Loughla wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good moral question, and really is going to come down to personal belief. I absolutely do not believe governments should be able to torture someone, for any reason, regardless of the consequences. It has less to do with the suffering of a single person, and more with the constant and consistent scope creep that enters every government program coupled with the ability for any and all governments to be full o…

Is it not already a moral slip to allow those 1 million people to die in a fireball to save the 1 person from torture?

What is the threshold, what about saving 1 person from dying ?

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

#52

Post by zozbot234 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
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…

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 in intent. The basic dynamics is that this hopefully makes it less likely for people to lie, since no one sane would want to risk being beat up unless they had an actual grievance and no other way of addressing it.

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

#53

Post by elzbardico »

foxyv wrote: post #2

I kind of hoped that Biden would try and stop this thing from happening anymore. Or Obama... Then I see stuff like this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/06/cia-torture-...

They are all part of the same system, a system which has only the trappings of a democracy, but in no practical sense is the government from the people, by the people to the people. It is just a giant gang warfare between warring plutocratic and bureaucratic factions. Trump, Biden, Bush, Obama. They all tortured, they all bombed, they all let people die without healthcare while spending billions in the biggest military machine of the world, for "defense". It is about time people wake up and stop letting those criminals divide us in their fictional turfs.

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

#54

Post by BbzzbB »

14 wrote: post #17
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…

Not only that but it is considered a war crime to torture from my understanding. So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing war crimes if the US blatantly does things like this. We need to lead on a moral high ground.

Well the US isn't a party to the ICC so it can't be sued by it over war crimes in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute

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

#55

Post by spacechild1 »

ed_balls wrote: post #42
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…

> torture is morally acceptable? Someone stole the car with the baby inside. Police caught the thief, but there is no car or the baby. There is a heatwave and the baby can last max 2h in the car. The thief panicked and dumped the car somewhere. He is not willing to tell where it is. Beating him up to get the info is acceptable ethically.

They can threaten the thief with murder charges, promise a reduced sentence if he tells the location of the car, etc. Do you really think beating up the thief would be more effective? Life is not a hollywood action movie.

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

#58

Post by bluesign »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
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…

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…

I think most interesting construct would be, allowing someone to torture someone, only with condition that in the end torturer is killed, while torturer decides with totally free will.

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

#59

Post by gregatragenet »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16
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…

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…

What if by detaining and torturing an individual or a few key individuals you could prevent the death of many of your citizens and widespread destruction - through a bloody civil war. It would be for the good of the people. <--- most Autocrats

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

#60

Post by belter »

krageon wrote: post #38
14 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but it is considered a war crime to torture from my understanding. So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing war crimes if the US blatantly does things like this. We need to lead on a moral high ground.

The US is friends with the regime that has the war crime tribunal, and Russia is not. In the end such things are disappointingly simple.

The US is not a friend of the country as it made a law saying they would invade the Netherlands if required.

"The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague. This provision, dubbed the "Hague invasion clause," has caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies around the world, particularly in the Netherlands. "

"U.S.: 'Hague Invasion Act' Becomes Law"

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

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