Senate report on torture

Michael Everett wrote:

gcomeau wrote: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.

Won't speak to whatever the left on the UK may be up to, not familiar with it, but since we're talking about the CIA I was referring to the US left and right.

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.

Approximately 25%. 1 in 4.

It's a stretch to call that a tiny minority.

And let's not lose sight of the fact that that's just talking about the really clear cut "oops, turns out that's the wrong guy we meant to go grab that other guy" type of innocent and for the rest a lot of them were still at best *suspected* terrorists.

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.

Attempt to pull yourself out of the "I don't care what happened to the bad guys" mentality for a moment and answer whether you care about the conduct and morality of the good guys.


Or, if you can't bring yourself to do that, how about just getting outraged at the sheer incompetence and stupidity and cowardice? Do you realize they contracted out these ever-so-vital-OMG-if-we-don't-do-this-people-are-going-to-die interrogations to people with ZERO experience as interrogators and absolutely no background whatsoever with the Middle east or terrorism? Whose primary apparent qualifications was a willingness to hurt people for money? That they produced effectively no actionable intelligence as a result, but rather a wealth of counter-productive false information? (Some of the innocent people who ended up getting tortured themselves were because these idiots tortured someone else and they, of course, started just spouting any names they could think of to get them to stop). That every specific claimed plot that was put forward before this information was declassified in this report that the CIA cited as a being foiled as justification for the program was disrupted by intel that came totally separately from the torture program? That the ONLY thing the program accomplished was to hand a propaganda coup to the enemy and destroy the US's moral standing in the international community?

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

Wait, what? Please elaborate on what you think the positive aspects of torture are. I am dying to know.

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)

I don't give a single fuck about which treaties the US has signed or chose to ignore. Whether or not you act like a civilized state should not be dependant on what treaties you have ratified.

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

So, first you say that "Torture is always justified", now you say the US wasn't justified in doing it, so what the fuck are you talking about?

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

I'm guessing that might have been addressed to me?

If so, you made an argument that any country that would do this kind of thing would already be doing it.

I pointed out that that's exactly what anyone would have said about the US before Bush cam along... right up until Bush authorized this program and changed that forever. So your argument is less than compelling.

And the justification that administration presented to the international community for why it was ok to do that was that these terrorists were SUCH a big threat that they just had to go there.


If a raggedy band of terrorists is such a large threat to the most powerful nation on earth that it justifies that nation using torture of prisoners in it's custody to defend itself against them then the threat posed BY that most powerful nation on earth to any other adversary it will ever face in war, which far exceeds any threat terrorists could ever possibly pose to the United States, obviously clears that threshold.


So yes, the average grunt in the field should without a doubt be worried in any conflicts in which they might find themselves prisoners in the future. Their protections have been *gutted* by this.

Torture is always justified I think.

I can only assume that's a typo. No other explanation seems rationally possible to me.

(You ate the last of the ice cream? Torture! That's my seat on the bus you're sitting in. Torture! I'm in a bad mood and don't like that hat you're wearing. Torture! Always justified!)

Yeah... has to be a typo.

Do you also realise that the US is still to ratify the parts of the convention that covered the so called enhanced interrogation techniques?

No, I don't realize that. Because that's an untrue statement. The US ratified the convention in it's entirety in 1994. It is now US law. Which was blatantly violated.

You may be thinking of the much more recent "Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture" which augments that document by adding in requirements for independent inspections of prisoner facilities, to make sure signatories aren't breaking the law. THAT the US didn't sign, since it was put forward in 2006 and guess what? The Bush administration knew full well they were in total violation of the law and would never stand up to an inspection.

(Well, without specific information as to methods we don't know if they crossed the lines into techniques that they did ratify,

We have that specific information. It's in the report. And they obliterated the line. (As a general rule, just as one example, you can safely assume that when you torture your prisoners TO DEATH you have crossed the line.)

You do know that the first world (not just the USA) has for decades deliberately allowed terrorist prisoners to be captured and tortured by less civilized "allies" (Saudis, Egyptians etc), so that they could obtain intelligence but still claim that their hands were clean? At least these CIA guys were willing to do the dirty work personally.

Personally I am very ambivalent about the idea. Torture is wrong. But so is allowing a terrorist to succeed. And frankly, if a terrorist knows something like say about attack details, torture is the most likely way to gain that info quickly enough to stop the attack. Like gcomeau I am worried about the average grunt in the field. Because of the public way this misuse of torture (which should only be used as a tactic of desperation) was exposed, a field agent in a truly desperate situation in the future will be between a rock and a hard place. I suspect they will go back to the old tried and true method, which has after all been how they've handled this for decades. Allow a less civilized "ally" to "capture" the terrorist in question....

biochem wrote:You do know that the first world (not just the USA) has for decades deliberately allowed terrorist prisoners to be captured and tortured by less civilized "allies" (Saudis, Egyptians etc), so that they could obtain intelligence but still claim that their hands were clean?

Yes, I am aware. And that was bad enough.

At least these CIA guys were willing to do the dirty work personally.

If by "do the work personally" you mean "contract it out to unqualified amateurs and pay them a fortune to accomplish squat"... yeah, at least they were willing to do that. I'm struggling to see the upside there though.

Personally I am very ambivalent about the idea. Torture is wrong. But so is allowing a terrorist to succeed. And frankly, if a terrorist knows something like say about attack details, torture is the most likely way to gain that info quickly enough to stop the attack.

Leaving aside whether the ends justify the means argument is valid, the report showed quite clearly that the torture did not prevent any terrorist plots. No actionable intelligence produced that was not already in hand from other sources before they started torturing and loads of false information predictably spouted by anyone they tortured since that's what people do when you torture them, start blabbing anything just to make you stop.

One reason they ended up torturing a bunch of innocent damn people is because first they tortured other guys and they gave up the names of innocent parties just to make the torture stop.


There is no upside here... it was all detriment, no benefit.

biochem wrote:And frankly, if a terrorist knows something like say about attack details, torture is the most likely way to gain that info quickly enough to stop the attack.

You are absolutely, categorically in the wrong about this. The senate report lays this out in great detail; There was very little, if any, actionable intelligence coming out of the torture sessions. The fucking US Army Field Manual for Interrogation states that torture is "a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

Torture is, simply put, not reliable, no matter what the writers of 24 may think. It's not reliable as a tool to get strategic information about long-term plans, it's not reliable as a tool to get information about a plot in motion, it is not reliable at all.

The E wrote:

biochem wrote:You do know that the first world (not just the USA) has for decades deliberately allowed terrorist prisoners to be captured and tortured by less civilized "allies" (Saudis, Egyptians etc), so that they could obtain intelligence but still claim that their hands were clean

?


Yes, I am aware. And that was bad enough.

Bad enough? I think it is considerably worse. In the human psyche it is much easier to do monstrous things (and let's be honest torture is monstrous) at an arms length. At least doing it in house forces the individuals involved to see just what it is that they are doing to another human being and makes it much more difficult for them.

You are absolutely, categorically in the wrong about this. The senate report lays this out in great detail; There was very little, if any, actionable intelligence coming out of the torture sessions. The fucking US Army Field Manual for Interrogation states that torture is "a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

Torture is, simply put, not reliable, no matter what the writers of 24 may think. It's not reliable as a tool to get strategic information about long-term plans, it's not reliable as a tool to get information about a plot in motion, it is not reliable at all.

It certainly is very unreliable for the type of fishing expedition that the CIA was on as evidenced by their failure to get actionable intelligence, which is one of several reasons it was a misuse. The one area in which it is an effective source of intel is when it is known (known for a fact, not assumed) that the individual involved knows actionable intel about an imminent attack. In spite of 24 etc, the instances of this situation occurring in the real world are rare. But rare does not equal never.

With this publicity, the chances that a field grunt getting the short end of the stick are high. The higher ups will just revert to their standard arms length policy. For that reason among others, this report should never have been made public.

biochem wrote:It certainly is very unreliable for the type of fishing expedition that the CIA was on as evidenced by their failure to get actionable intelligence, which is one of several reasons it was a misuse. The one area in which it is an effective source of intel is when it is known (known for a fact, not assumed) that the individual involved knows actionable intel about an imminent attack. In spite of 24 etc, the instances of this situation occurring in the real world are rare. But rare does not equal never.

It is unreliable period. The factors that make torture unreliable do not go away just because the information is needed right now, and the idea that they do is one that is based on the idea that TV screenwriters have a clue about anything.

Meanwhile, the use of torture has so many ramifications that solving a crime, stopping a single attack is not worth the price. Terrorists, simply put, are not a big enough threat.

Seriously, stop getting so bent out of shape about one particular class of criminal just because they go on and on about them being on some mission from god or whatever. They're criminals. Nothing more. Treating them as more gives them legitimacy they do not deserve. Using methods to deal with them that violate ethics, that will get you cheered on by those who believe that being uncivilized to those they believe are not civilized is just the thing to do, that will maybe solve an immediate problem but create even bigger ones down the road is stupid. It's not solving anything.

The E wrote:

biochem wrote:It certainly is very unreliable for the type of fishing expedition that the CIA was on as evidenced by their failure to get actionable intelligence, which is one of several reasons it was a misuse. The one area in which it is an effective source of intel is when it is known (known for a fact, not assumed) that the individual involved knows actionable intel about an imminent attack. In spite of 24 etc, the instances of this situation occurring in the real world are rare. But rare does not equal never.

It is unreliable period. The factors that make torture unreliable do not go away just because the information is needed right now,

If anything it's even worse in those situations. You lack the time to do anything resembling careful verification of the information they're spouting. So you start torturing, they immediately throw out the first bit of nonsense that comes to mind that they think will make you stop... sending you on a goose chase and the thing you're trying to stop is all over before you can do anything about it.