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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

#71

Post by pmoriarty »

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?

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

  -- Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

dhosek wrote: post #69
whatshisface wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A president was recently elected that had more viable blackmail material released about him than any previous president and instead of launching missiles into Sudan like Clinton did a couple days after his scandal, he just slid past it.

One of my friends from college is now a Poli Sci professor. He researched the effectiveness of “wag the dog” techniques and found that they were ineffective. I don't think his paper on the topic is available online though.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by krisoft »

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.

> So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing war crimes if the US blatantly does things like this.

I don't understand what you are saying here. More than one group can commit war crimes.

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

#74

Post by tux3 »

BbzzbB wrote: post #54
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.

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

"Okay. But That's Worse. You, You Do Get How That's Worse, Right?" — NBC, The Good Place

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

#75

Post by harryf »

BbzzbB wrote: post #54
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.

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

It doesn’t need a treaty for something to be clearly wrong… and like wrong at any level.

I mean the poster at the top of this thread immediately tries to make some justification…

> 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.

No! It’s just wrong! We should never do this to other human beings. Period. But you want a GOOD reason why not ?

Because the people you trained to torture abroad one day return home and get jobs like security outside the nightclub your teenage kids are going to. You’re literally training psychopaths which later get unleashed on the public at home.

Also we know torture doesn’t work for information gathering. It’s only useful as a tool of oppression. Which is why we’re actually using it.

But seriously. I can’t believe I need to make the case against torture. It’s just wrong.

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

#76

Post by pmoriarty »

torturedreading wrote: post #70
Sharlin wrote: post #23

> “Ammar fabricated the information he provided when undergoing EITs,” it said. “He later admitted to his interrogators/debriefers that he was terrified and lied to get agency officers to stop the measures … Ammar also explained that he was afraid to tell a lie and was afraid to tell the truth because he did not know how either would be received.” Which is pretty much all you need to know about torture.

> Which is pretty much all you need to know about torture. When torture or "EIT" is used for a source of intelligence, using that sole point of data as proof is fraught with peril. Dropping JDAMs on a building fingered solely by a detainee is sure to get random bystanders killed. Running a raid, similarly, might well be a trap. However, when one corroborates this with other sources of data, it is a "valid" technique.…

"Dropping JDAMs on a building fingered solely by a detainee is sure to get random bystanders killed."

Like that ever stopped anyone. "Collateral damage" they call it.

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

#77

Post by pessimizer »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #47
pessimizer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typical scenario for this question, but not a good one. There's no reason for torture to work on this person, you have no timely way of verifying what they're saying, and you're going to hurt/kill them whether or not they give you the answer. They're just going to lie to you. What you have to do is credibly threaten to torture or kill their family members and loved ones, to rape their children. This works. Are you…

> Are you a bad enough dude to rationalize that? Probably many are, but for a person crazy enough to do such a horrible act such threats would also likely not work (either "nothing to lose" or "don't care about anything anymore"). As a society I think we can only try to avoid creating enough people who have "nothing to lose" or "don't care about anything anymore"... They're basically "cancer cells", once at least one…

> Probably many are, but for a person crazy enough to do such a horrible act such threats would also likely not work (either "nothing to lose" or "don't care about anything anymore").

War isn't crazy, and participating in attacks on [your country] doesn't mean that one is irrational or doesn't care about anyone in the world. Just because you are willing to give your own life for a cause doesn't mean you have nothing to lose.

The reason I say it works is because it actually works, and has been used by states many times, esp. in South America by US trained torturers, but also by plenty of others, like the Khmer Rouge. The point is credibility - and if somebody has planted a dirty bomb in some city, you can't credibly give them any reward for telling on themselves. You can promise things, but they will not believe you. If you're Pinochet, though, you can credibly threaten to have someone's children raped and murdered, because he did it all the time. He can credibly promise to do it even after the bomb goes off, and after you've been executed, because he's done it to others. He can have them brought to you and have it done in front of you.

The US also uses this tactic, although since it will never carry it out (although it will carry out deportations, indictments, etc. for family members) it relies on a lot of playacting. There are stories of the US pretending to torture family members within earshot of people being interrogated.

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

#78

Post by pessimizer »

spacechild1 wrote: post #55
ed_balls wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

On TV they give up everything they worked for and believe in if you break a few fingers. In real life, they just lie to you, you run back and forth trying to verify the lies, then 2 hours have passed.

edit: Americans (and others) have been taught to believe in torture like a religion, to continue to associate torture with truth. Torture is an argument; you're arguing with people that it's in their best interest to do what you want them to do. It is rarely an appropriate argument, and rarely an effective argument. It's far easier and more effective to convince them that cooperating with you is the right thing to do, and that's still not easy. But there are tactics, such as complete isolation and control over their environment, rewards for any sort of cooperation, friendliness and human connection, actual rhetoric and discussion, periods of complete disorientation alternated with periods of calm, pandering to their egos. They don't work in two hours.

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

#79

Post by Ekaros »

bluesign wrote: post #51
shapefrog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Or potentially saving someone from torture?

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

#80

Post by pmoriarty »

spacechild1 wrote: post #63
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…

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 about)... but also in many other lives.

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