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Senate report on torture

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Senate report on torture
Post by Daryl   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 6:52 am

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Firstly I'd like to plead that people discuss this rationally, not emotionally as it could quickly get into a flame war.

If I was a US serviceman serving overseas I'd be really annoyed with the CIA at present. They have set the standard of captured personnel interrogation at a very low level. If a US soldier is captured now the opponents can justifiably do all the nasty things to him that were done to their people. The argument that the others were not regular soldiers is irrelevant, and wrong in an asymmetric warfare context anyway.

I'd also argue that those who did this should not be free to walk the streets. A crime is a crime regardless of where it is performed or whatever cover is given to the perpetrator. Just following orders was not accepted at the Nuremberg trials, and I personally risked my career on several occasions by saying no to much less wrong instructions.

With Gitmo still not shut the US has lost any pretense to the high moral ground. It will cost in less international support from now on.
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by Annachie   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 8:31 am

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I would disagree that US, or related like our guys, are more likely to suffervthose nasties. If the 'enemy' were going to do that sort of thing they'd do it anyway. The PR posibilities are no doubt better for said enemy of course since they could claim they're only doing it because the CIA did. That and a straight face might work, for the PR.
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by Michael Everett   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:01 am

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Given that the followers and allies of Al-Qaeda etc follow codes that include stoning women to death for being raped, executing hostages on video, random suicide bombings, the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons (they ended up with a VW engine!), the desire to kill everyone who doesn't believe exactly what they do, the mass kidnapping of teenaged girls for sexual slavery...

Sorry, I just can't bring myself to have that much sympathy for them.

By the way, do extreme left-wingers in the western world still support Al-Qaeda and the Taliban because of their anti-America stance, or have they finally looked at what the pseudo-muslims actually stand for as opposed to the true muslims who believe that Islam is a religion of peace?
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by Annachie   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:36 am

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You do realise that it was the American right wing that supported Al-Qaeda don't you? Back when the Russians occupied Afghanastan.
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by Daryl   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:43 am

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I've got no sympathy for religious nutcases of any persuasion, but I do believe that it is a serious mistake to go outside the rule of law and civilized behavior and behave as badly as they do.

Your response intimates that you believe I'm an extreme left winger who supports Al-Qaeda, just a little insulting thanks. I abhor everything they stand for.

If any civilized country goes down the torture and mistreatment of prisoner route they then become their own enemy, guess who wins?

While writing this I saw Annachie's post & as usual agree with him. The US thought that Iraq had WMD because Rumsfeld had years earlier supplied them with some to counter Iran. They were too incompetent to maintain them.

Michael Everett wrote:Given that the followers and allies of Al-Qaeda etc follow codes that include stoning women to death for being raped, executing hostages on video, random suicide bombings, the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons (they ended up with a VW engine!), the desire to kill everyone who doesn't believe exactly what they do, the mass kidnapping of teenaged girls for sexual slavery...

Sorry, I just can't bring myself to have that much sympathy for them.

By the way, do extreme left-wingers in the western world still support Al-Qaeda and the Taliban because of their anti-America stance, or have they finally looked at what the pseudo-muslims actually stand for as opposed to the true muslims who believe that Islam is a religion of peace?
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by gcomeau   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:42 am

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Annachie wrote:I would disagree that US, or related like our guys, are more likely to suffervthose nasties. If the 'enemy' were going to do that sort of thing they'd do it anyway.


Putting aside the many other things I have to say on this topic, dealing with this first...

So as I understand your argument here, we don;t have to worry about this making it any less likely any enemy the US fights in the future will follow the Geneva conventions and the convention against torture because they would only do that if they were already going to regardless.

Would you mind telling me any nation on earth you would have put in the "they wouldn't do that to prisoners" column more than the US before the Bush administration authorized this program?


And if the United States, mot powerful nation on earth, can declare they were justified in resorting to torture because of the huge threat to it's existence posed by a band of raggedly equipped and questionably organized terrorists who managed to kill a few thousand people would you mind explaining to me how ANY nation the US goes to war with after this wouldn't have a rock solid argument using that logic that the threat posed to them by being at war with the most powerful military on the planet didn't rise to the level of justifying any treatment of captured personnel they felt like in order to get any scrap of information that might give them a shot at survival?

You can argue anyone who would have done it would have anyway but that's pure nonsense. Those conventions had meaning for a lot of countries on the edge precisely because the big boys took it seriously and violations of it would have consequences and more people lining up to take them out on the other side of the field... or at least dropping support for them in any conflict. Hard to make that case anymore though isn't it?
Last edited by gcomeau on Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by gcomeau   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:56 am

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Michael Everett wrote:Given that the followers and allies of Al-Qaeda etc follow codes that include stoning women to death for being raped, executing hostages on video, random suicide bombings, the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons (they ended up with a VW engine!), the desire to kill everyone who doesn't believe exactly what they do, the mass kidnapping of teenaged girls for sexual slavery...

Sorry, I just can't bring myself to have that much sympathy for them.


And the innocent people that got scooped up and tortured? In at least one case to death? What about them? Because the Senate report made it abundantly clear that happened.

How about the "mentally challenged" guy whose taped crying was used as leverage over a family member who was the actual person of interest? Any sympathy for that guy? The innocent mentally handicapped guy that got deliberately kidnapped and tormented just because he was related to someone we cared about getting to?


Or were you unaware of the full scope of the barbarism the report made public?


By the way, do extreme left-wingers in the western world still support Al-Qaeda and the Taliban


You have your right and left mixed up. The right supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban and armed them to the teeth (Saddam in Iraq too for that matter). Unless people like Reagan and Rumsfeld are the left now... the goalposts shift so often I lose track...
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by Michael Everett   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 4:57 pm

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gcomeau wrote:
By the way, do extreme left-wingers in the western world still support Al-Qaeda and the Taliban


You have your right and left mixed up. The right supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban and armed them to the teeth (Saddam in Iraq too for that matter). Unless people like Reagan and Rumsfeld are the left now... the goalposts shift so often I lose track...

I do? In the UK, the Left were the ones who supported Islamist extremists because of their anti-USA credentials. Heck, many of our left-wingers have a track record of allying themselves to tyrants, terrorists and other unsavory characters simply because they were anti-USA and therefore must somehow be the good guys.
:roll:

Also, I never said I had no sympathy, only that I didn't have much sympathy. My sympathy is reserved for the tiny minority of those who were tortured who were actually innocent. Those I feel sorry for. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, were wrongly accused or were simply the victims of very bad luck.
As for those who celebrated the collapse of the Twin Towers? Who rejoiced in the London Underground bombings and who flocked to the Extremist banner so that they could get their rocks off by killing people?
Could. Not. Care. Less.
Really.
As for those who flocked to the banner of ISIS and now want to come home because they've discovered that the Extremist preachers see them as nothing more than disposable pawns?
Well, they chose to abandon their homeland. They chose to become killers, murderers and in quite a few cases rapists.
They had freedom to choose their path. They must learn to accept the consequences of their choices.
After all, consequences are the way of learning.
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But I try nonetheless, And even do my own artwork.
(Now on Twitter)and mentioned by RFC!
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by The E   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:53 pm

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I think you're setting up a false equivalence here. "These guys are terrorists", you seem to be saying, "they will not hesitate to torture, rape and murder, therefore the state is justified in torturing, raping and murdering."

There's a power imbalance here, one on a massive scale, and saying that the actions of the small, powerless (if ideologically abhorrent) group justify excesses and brutality on the part of the larger (but ideologically acceptable) one against the smaller is questionable, from an ethical standpoint.

Torture, IMNSHO, is not and can not be justified. There is no upside to it, there are no benefits to be gained from it, apart from giving the people who glory in atrocities committed against the deserving an excuse for a good old wank. I put it to you that the segment of the population that believes in righteous retribution against the uncivilized darkies should not be allowed to make policies that the rest of us have to live with afterwards.

I want to be a part of a civilization I can be proud of. Not one that makes a big show of the glorious ideals it has, only to append a footnote that reads "Offer only valid for citizens of the following nations and subscribers of the following belief systems."
How we treat our friends is important. But even more important is that we treat our enemies in such a way that they too can become friends, given time. Systematic torture does not help in this.
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Re: Senate report on torture
Post by Annachie   » Mon Dec 15, 2014 6:48 pm

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Aren't we talking about after the Bush administration authorised the program, so talking about before is kind of not part of the point.

Actually, I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Toture is always justified I think.

Do you also realise that the US is still to ratify the parts of the convention that covered the so called enhanced interrogation techniques? (Well, without specific information as to methods we don't know if they crossed the lines into techniques that they did ratify, but what has been made public doesn't cross it). That they didn't break the Geneva Convention because they don't have to follow that part yet. (Along with Israel, Turkey, Iran, India, Pakistan, Indonesia)

Does that make what the US did right, or justified. Hell no.

But should your average grunt in Iraq or Afghanastan or any other hot zone where they could be deployed be more worried because of it? No, I don't think do.
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