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

"The use of torture can be exposed." What? This report didn't expose torture. As I've observed, we've known about this for years now. What this report actually exposed was a bunch of lurid details which are great for headlines and columns, but are ultimately meaningless, and the fact that elements in the CIA did have problems with it, which to me falls under "Why the **** does the public need to know this?"

As for your idea that the outrage of the people will inspire the momentum to make some changes, my response is that 1. the partisan nature of this report precludes this from happening, because the Republicans will now dig in their heels and 2. even if you were right, that's not a good thing. Outraged people don't make good decisions.

First, I'm not a conservative ( hence my disparaging of the conservatives here who act like torture is fine), so take your Manichean worldview and shove it up your ass.
Second, I never said it was for election purposes. I said it was in retaliation for 2014, and you guys somehow determined that meant that I saw talking about 2016.
Third, note specifically what my problem is. I never said I had a problem with investigating reports of torture. I have a problem with releasing a bunch of lurid details to the public for similar reasons to the fact that I think Snowden should be shot. And I do think that the Republicans went way overboard over Benghazi.

Cue Sam pulling up some Fox News article I cited about it back then because like most partisan hacks, he doesn't seem to get this concept called "changing your mind based on new evidence."

Let me be clear about my perspective. Torture is wrong, and ineffective. What the CIA did was wrong. But that does not mean releasing that report to the public was right. The right thing to do is to sit down, figure out how things went wrong, and implement rational, sober policies which slowly change things ( and yes, slowly. You try to change the bureaucracy rapidly and more often than not, you end up with a lot of unforeseen consequences).

Releasing this report to the public does not do that. Most likely, now this gets turned into yet another partisan ****show and so nothing actually gets done. Even if the left wins and reform gets implemented, what will probably happen next are the mistakes of the 1970s and early 1990s - namely the CIA gets unduly hampered. Then when the next big threat looms on the horizon, the people will run crying to the CIA and tell them to do whatever necessary to stop this threat, and the CIA will implement a bunch of ad hoc policies since they haven't been able to properly prepare and so big mistakes are made. Which pretty much is what happened to the CIA on 9/12/01.

 

Well one thing torture works well at is making others hate us. This makes us less safe.

 

Less safe from the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and Arabs?

 

Again, I know it is a very unlikely scenario. My point was, many of us (particularly you, jo mama) love sounding righteous and principled about an issue from afar, but that all tends to change when things become personal. A better question would probably be to ask if you would kill to save your family. Or even a friend? Unless you're completely nutless, the answer is probably yes. We all break rules. Using torture to entertain that point was probably lost on some of you, but if your indignation makes you feel better about yourself, more power to you.

 

so your point is if you invent a sufficiently emotional attachment to a hypothetical, you can get somebody to do something that they normally wouldn't.

My point is - big freaking deal? You can do this with pretty much anything. I don't want Jeremy Lin on the Rockets. But if you asked me if I'd kill my family rather than see him on the Rockets - of course I'd rather see him on the Rockets.

Basically this is emotional hostage taking/blackmail/logical fallacy, not a reasonable form of dialogue. Hypotheticals can be useful when discussing situations but ones that are emotionally loaded are pretty pointless. And in this particular case it's rather fruitless, because not only is torture pretty much wrong/abhorrent/illegal in the abstract, but because in this particular case, it has been shown to be a failure in practice as well. Torture is all downside, and no upside. So what's the argument in favor of it again?

 

who did the committee interview that was involved with the interrogation program?

 

John Yoo dropping knowledge on MSNBC, just like he did with John Stewart

<iframe src='http://player.theplatform.com/p/7wvmTC/MSNBCEmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_mj_yoo_141210' height='500' width='635' scrolling='no' border='no' ></iframe>

 

Sign another jackass up for the "massive multi-year conspiracy between half the CIA, the Obama Adminstration, the Senate Democrats and the Bush Administration to fabricate documentation of a fake torture program" theory. Now it's you and treeman (pour some out on the curb for private pyle...)

The "I don't believe the Senate! I believe the CIA!" argument is severely undercut by page, after page, after page of direct quotation from CIA folks who hated the program, contemporaneously.

It's fractionally possible that all of the documents are forgeries and that this is an elaborate ruse, which was only possible due to the CIA's refusal to submit to interviews. Again, this conspiracy would require substantial depth and width and a rigorous amount discipline and concealment.

Is it the most likely probability?

 

Just about anyone will look less kindly toward us. It makes people less willing to do business with us move here speak well of us cooperate on intelligence with us etc.

Use your common sense. Do you like folks who torture?

Not to difficult if you think about it a bit.

 

who did the committee interview that was involved with the interrogation program?

 

How did this conspiracy work?

Did Dianne Feinstein get Sergey Brin to fabricate the emails from the CIA director of interrogation and to what extent was Bill Ayers involved?

 

You aren't answering the question.

 

A must-read from a patriot on the situation.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/interrogated-terrorist-cia-senate-report

 

John Yoo should be swinging from a gallows.

 

for what?

 

your actions on this thread have revoked your libertarian card.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ul-says-torture-banned-under-us-internationa/

"Torture is illegal by our laws. It's illegal by international laws."
— Ron Paul on Saturday, November 12th, 2011 in a Republican presidential debate in Spartanburg, S.C.

does yoo deserve death? hardly. Neither does anybody "deserve" torture---that is if you believe in the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.

 

what war crime did John Yoo commit?

 

His advice specifically led to people committing war crimes, and torture as defined by the State Department, ICAT, and the U.S.C.

connect the dots.

...though to be honest, I'm just amused at how your shallow positions on cryptocurrency and Rand have fallen apart at the true test of libertarian principles. At least Ron Paul has the decency to be consistent in his reasoning on this topic (as opposed to others).

 

Providing a legal opinion is not a warcrime.

Good grief.

 

Neither did I say it was, you just connected the wrong dots. I said he provided legal advice that led to systematic acts of torture, which are war crimes.

Of course, it's up to you why you'd want to defend the architect of a systematic attempt to subvert the laws of the United States.

At this point, I turn to the following questions-

1) Do you deny that torture is a crime under American and international law?
2) Do you deny that torture is a war crime under American and international law?
3) If you believe in rule of law, why are you defending a systematic attempt to subvert it?
4) If indeed you believe in reining in government, why does the torture of prisoners held by force not concern you?
5) Why are you supporting an administration and individual with the most radical theories on an unitary and strong executive branch?
6) If indeed you endorse their beliefs, does that not make anything you say about the Obama Administration's overuse of executive power completely hollow?