Does Torture Work? The C.I.A.’s Claims and What the Committee Found

You drinking buddy? PTSD is a b**** ain't it.

 

The same CIA who said Iraq had nukes?

hehe :grin:

 

Your America, treeman.

8. "At least five CIA detainees were subjected to 'rectal rehydration' or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity," the report said. More specifically, "Majid Khan's 'lunch tray' of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins was 'pureed' and rectally infused."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/cia-reports-shocking-passages/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

If torturing a detainee could save a thousand lives, would you all be for it? Just an exercise here, trying to sort my thoughts out.

 

But does not and did not, and we knew it didn't beforehand.

 

You can't beat hunger strikes. Let them starve or force feed them. You lose either way.

 

There was a good part of my life when I thought this stuff was settled and when I could never imagine a report on torture done on behalf of America.

Torture does not work and it has never worked. There are countless studies that show this, as if we needed academic affirmation on this fact that Aristotle knew centuries ago:

“Evidence from torture may be considered completely untrustworthy.”

And Cicero:

“The course of the examination under torture is steered by pain, is controlled by individual qualities of mind and body, is directed by the president of the court, is diverted by caprice, tainted by hope, invalidated by fear and the result is that in all these straights there is no room left for the truth.”

Even the Catholic Church saw the light:

"Whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity; all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator"

Seems like we should have remembered this knowledge, not to mention the prosecution's case put forward by Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg Trials on behalf of the United States of America.

When I was in college, I read The Gulag Archipelago. It seemed so foreign and I felt thankful that I was an American.

Here's a line:

That book was a sensation in America and rightly so. People condemned the Soviets for their unimaginable torture and murder. That was ages ago though.

“When we torture we are departing downward from humanity.”
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

 

Cherry picked information is not the same thing as non-factual information.

And regardless of what any of us are inclined to believe, we can still admit that there is a chance that what is reported is true. So, in the event that it is true, do you think the information should still have been hidden from the public?

 

america was never a country of torturing, bending laws because a bunch of ppl killed etc. our principles define us. not all conservatives support this jack bower crap from TV. Were a society shining as a.beacon for freedom, laws, justice, and truth. torture goes against all that. it never worked. most of my friends and family have served for this country (against mexico, ww1, Korea, Nam, Iraq) and they would kick this treeguy's ass if they heard the **** he says about it being okay. if anyone's a traitor, its ppl who support the destruction of our rule of law and transparency. if tree guy ain't a traitor then he's failed the citizenship test of keeping us on the high road instead off torturing like China and Korea.

 

Probably.

 

And how does releasing this report to the public accomplish this?

 

Because it undercuts the public mythology that the pro torture crowd advanced to justify acts of illegal torture.

Did you read the report? The CIA was actively trying to publicly promote the success of its torture policies by basically spreading lies. That needs to be exposed as publicly as possible. Shaming the pro torturers is about the only punishment they will ever have.

At the end of the day the CIA works for us, and they're accountable to us.

 

What public mythology? I don't recall the torture debate being an issue for 8-odd years now. Sure, you have idiots like treeman who are going to try to be all Jack Bauer, but this report's not going to change that one way or the other.

Furthermore, Franchise was talking about how if the executive branch and the CIA were discussing the use of torture, that this report would be a tool to dissuade them otherwise. That is a reason for the executive branch and the CIA to have this report. That is NOT a reason for the public to have this report, because the public does not run around determining things like this. And the public having this report does a lot more harm compared to some nebulous benefit of "maybe this report will affect the public opinion when torture becomes an issue in another 10-15 years at least".

 

we did far worse to civilians in WWII than we ever did to any detainee terrorist

and of course torture works

 

First of all, no I wouldn't. Secondly that's a bogus question. There is never a time when only torture will get the information needed, that also will guarantee accurate information, and won't also gain many false leads.

Again, though, torture is wrong so nobody should do it, especially a government representing me. Nobody asks if using chemical weapons is effective and will save thousands of lives. Everyone just knows it's wrong and we don't do it.

 

It puts into public knowledge the fact that the CIA and executive branch broke the law. Releasing it to the public can help raise the issue in the public's consciousness and voters might be more vigilant in making sure we elect people who won't let it happen again.

 

any worse than the employment of "rectal hummus"?

 

ignore that dude. He's another one of those who give conservatives a bad name and likes crap shows like 24 and home land so he thinks torture works.

 

"Might."

Compared to the very concrete damage that releasing this report to the public fosters, "might" isn't good enough. And you have far more faith in the American voter compared to me.

 

This is a fight that Republicans simply cannot win.

How utterly embarrassing for the entire country.