US Politics Balboa (VII)

[lokisnow]

torture doesn't work because you don't get truthful information. the only information you get from torture is whatever the person being tortured thinks it is you want to hear. They'll say anything to make it stop and then swear they're telling the truth. Anything to make it stop and keep it from recurring.

Torture is only good for one thing. Getting false confessions.

[Guest Other-in-law]

Just so we are clear here. So I do not buy the arguement that turtore does not work. I don't really care what documents you bring up to say it never works, and never has. If it never worked..people wouldn't use it.

Now there's some airtight logic right there. How could we have forgotten about human infallibility? No one would ever use anything that didn't work. That's how we know astrology is the real deal, after all. :rolleyes:

And it's not like there are any other motives for torture, such as being a sadistic fuck. Nosirree! That's never the case either.

[Werthead]

torture doesn't work because you don't get truthful information. the only information you get from torture is whatever the person being tortured thinks it is you want to hear. They'll say anything to make it stop and then swear they're telling the truth. Anything to make it stop and keep it from recurring.

Torture is only good for one thing. Getting false confessions.

Starkimus is correct in that torture works, which is why people have used it throughout history. The problem is that the USA is trying to use torture to get people to admit to wrongdoing. That is not the purpose of torture. The purpose of torture is to force the person to agree to the scenario proposed by the torturer, whether that is falsely admitting to a crime to telling him what he wants to hear. The value of torture as a way of getting accurate information is zero.

[sToNED_CAT]

torture doesn't work because you don't get truthful information. the only information you get from torture is whatever the person being tortured thinks it is you want to hear. They'll say anything to make it stop and then swear they're telling the truth. Anything to make it stop and keep it from recurring.

Torture is only good for one thing. Getting false confessions.

Oh and how do YOU know it? I mean they are torturing terrorists just for fun, right? In era of lie detectors, truth serums and god knows what else, american administration and intel used torture despite the fact that they knew it is bad PR and that it's possible that they may be prosecuted.

Logical conclusion is that it works very well, otherwise they would simply not risk it.

[Tempra]

Starkimus is correct in that torture works, which is why people have used it throughout history. The problem is that the USA is trying to use torture to get people to admit to wrongdoing. That is not the purpose of torture. The purpose of torture is to force the person to agree to the scenario proposed by the torturer, whether that is falsely admitting to a crime to telling him what he wants to hear. The value of torture as a way of getting accurate information is zero.

No, i don't think the US waterboarded to get people to admit to wrong doing. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad admitted torture before we even touched him. He was tortured to get info about al-qaeda and any impending attacks.

[DanteGabriel]

No, i don't think the US waterboarded to get people to admit to wrong doing. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad admitted torture before we even touched him. He was tortured to get info about al-qaeda and any impending attacks.

More specifically, he was waterboarded to gin up "evidence" of collusion between Saddam and al Qaeda and provide Bush the Lesser and Cheney with a pretext for war.

Wert is absolutely correct -- torture was employed here to build support for a conclusion that Cheney et al had already decided was correct.

[Werthead]

No, i don't think the US waterboarded to get people to admit to wrong doing. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad admitted torture before we even touched him. He was tortured to get info about al-qaeda and any impending attacks.

Any such information would be automatically suspect and would not stand up in any court of law, which is why no-one tortured in Guantanamo Bay has been prosecuted by a US court.

Torture is completely amoral and completely unacceptable for any country to practice, let along the alleged leader of the civilised world (just think that ten years ago you could say this without the result being howls of derivative laughter). The United States has zero right now to comment on the actions of any other state who uses torture, be it North Korea, Iran or whatever. Ending this practice and ensuring it never happens again is a vital step in restoring the USA's reputation with the rest of the world.

The UK now also needs to get its house in order and ensure it is never again a party to this behaviour either.

[Andriy Czarchenko]

Quote:

What you´re not understanding is that in your scenario you either

1) Know the target already which means it won´t happen due government actions

or

2) Torture for absolutely no known reason as you don´t know about any planned attacks

Therefore your scenario is impossible and has no place in this discussion.

Hmm. I dont think you got it right there, and maybe I wasnt as clear as I could have been. I blame myself for this. First off, "Physical persuasion" (I just made that up to go along with Man-made disasters), should only be used as a last resort, and only used if / when there is other evidence that points to a person that knows that a 'Man Made Disaster' is in the works but the where and the when are currently unknown. So..yes the scenario is possible, and has a place in the discussion. Thanks for helping me clear up that point.

"Last resort" and "evidence" are so vaque definitions that if we go through all the motions the scenario once again is irrelevant. If you don´t know when it´s going to happen in the first place, there´s no reasoning for last resort. If you know when, the security buildup is gonna be so huge it´s not gonna happen anyway. The scenario really has no place in the discussion.

[IheartTesla]

Oh and how do YOU know it? I mean they are torturing terrorists just for fun, right? In era of lie detectors, truth serums and god knows what else, american administration and intel used torture despite the fact that they knew it is bad PR and that it's possible that they may be prosecuted.

Logical conclusion is that it works very well, otherwise they would simply not risk it.

It worked so well Bush got his casus belli, the people of Iraq treated us as liberators, those WMDs will never harm American lives again and the al Qaeda-Iraq network was forever squashed.

The reality is truth serums dont work very well, lie detector tests can be fooled and torture yields unreliable information. American administration and intel is full of idiots so I have no problems believing they uses techniques without recourse to logic.

[Tempra]

More specifically, he was waterboarded to gin up "evidence" of collusion between Saddam and al Qaeda and provide Bush the Lesser and Cheney with a pretext for war.

Wert is absolutely correct -- torture was employed here to build support for a conclusion that Cheney et al had already decided was correct.

Um, he was captured on March 1, 2003. The iraq war began on March 20, 2003. Bit late to use him to "gin up evidence" as a pretext for war. It was just about, if not already, inevitable.

[Annelise]

I am not really looking at the legality of it anyway. I am looking at it from a standpoint..of, does the end justify the means. And, sometimes, the answer is a yes.

Ah, apologies, I thought you were defending it as a policy. You're just discussing it hypothetically?

You said you think it's illegal -- then what is your issue with possible prosecutions (non-CIA)? This is assuming they can build good enough cases to prosecute, which I do not take for granted. That it would be more divisive than it's worth? Or?

Someone said it would set a bad precedent for future admins... should we find it regrettable, but acceptable, for Presidents and their admins to break the law? To refuse to enforce the law? *shrugs* I'm not saying it's easy. I am saying all of us, of every political persuasion, deserve no better if we refuse to demand more.

[Tempra]

Any such information would be automatically suspect and would not stand up in any court of law, which is why no-one tortured in Guantanamo Bay has been prosecuted by a US court.

Torture is completely amoral and completely unacceptable for any country to practice, let along the alleged leader of the civilised world (just think that ten years ago you could say this without the result being howls of derivative laughter). The United States has zero right now to comment on the actions of any other state who uses torture, be it North Korea, Iran or whatever. Ending this practice and ensuring it never happens again is a vital step in restoring the USA's reputation with the rest of the world.

The UK now also needs to get its house in order and ensure it is never again a party to this behaviour either.

I don't think their intent was to use the evidence in court, but to stop an impending attack.

And your relativist argument is not very persuasive, let alone imaginative.

[Shryke]

Oh and how do YOU know it? I mean they are torturing terrorists just for fun, right? In era of lie detectors, truth serums and god knows what else, american administration and intel used torture despite the fact that they knew it is bad PR and that it's possible that they may be prosecuted.

Logical conclusion is that it works very well, otherwise they would simply not risk it.

Actually that's not a logical conclusion at all. Your assuming those who ordered it knew WTF they were talking about.

The interrogation techniques being described weren't even devised by interrogators, but rather by psychologists with the SERE program. A program, if your not familiar with it, that is based off the torture US troops endured at the hands of the Japanese/Chinese/Koreans/etc that is supposed to help US troops withstand said torture.

In fact:

Steve Kleinman, an Air Force Reserve colonel and expert in human-intelligence operations, says he finds it astonishing that the C.I.A. “chose two clinical psychologists who had no intelligence background whatsoever, who had never conducted an interrogation … to do something that had never been proven in the real world.â€

The tactics were a “voodoo science,†says Michael Rolince, former section chief of the F.B.I.’s International Terrorism Operations. According to a person familiar with the methods, the basic approach was to “break down [the detainees] through isolation, white noise, completely take away their ability to predict the future, create dependence on interrogators.â€

Mitchell and Jessen’s methods were so controversial that, among colleagues, the reaction to their names alone became a litmus test of one’s attitude toward coercion and human rights. Their critics called them the “Mormon mafia†(a reference to their shared religion) and the “poster boys†(referring to the F.B.I.’s “most wanted†posters, which are where some thought their activities would land them).

As Mr. Shane and Mr. Mazzetti reported, all of this was reportedly based on a misunderstanding on the theory of “learned helplessnessâ€

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/2...ge-approach/?hp

The whole idea was to break these people till they would do ANYTHING to please their captors.

Do I need to explain why this would result in faulty intelligence?

More on Learned Helplessness and the effects of Waterboarding:

The CIA did not use the technique as a threatened punishment for uncooperativeness. Rather, they were attempting to reduce the prisoners to a state of "learned helplessness," a condition described by psychologist M.E.P. Seligman in the 1960s. Seligman determined that a dog that has been subjected to repeated electric shocks will eventually stop trying to escape them. The CIA believed that prisoners in this psychological state would be more compliant and honest. Department of Defense memoranda repeatedly refer to establishing an attitude of helplessness in the prisoner.

http://www.slate.com/id/2216784/

[ljkeane]

torture doesn't work because you don't get truthful information. the only information you get from torture is whatever the person being tortured thinks it is you want to hear. They'll say anything to make it stop and then swear they're telling the truth. Anything to make it stop and keep it from recurring.

Torture is only good for one thing. Getting false confessions.

I think torture shouldn't be used by civilised governments and doesn't appear to be consistently effective anyway.

Having said that if the person you are torturing does know the truth you are looking for I don't think it's inconceivable that they would tell you to avoid further torture. I think the arguments against the use of torture should really focus on the fact that torture is morally wrong rather than on the basis that torture can never work.

[Werthead]

I don't think their intent was to use the evidence in court, but to stop an impending attack.

What impending attack? What evidence was there of this attack? When and where was it going to happen? Given that al-Qaeda was arranged in cell formations with no one cell privy to the operations of others, what was the US government's basis to believe that any al-Qaeda operatives they captured would know about such plans in the first place?

What you are saying is that the United States government has no responsibility to uphold international treaties it has signed such as the Geneva Convention? It can just trot out a very vague, "Something is going to happen unless we do this!" line and then do whatever it likes?

Interesting. I think Cheney and Bush really make a mistake in basing their international and domestic policy on the question, "What would Jack Bauer do?" every time a problem arose.

And your relativist argument is not very persuasive, let alone imaginative.

I see your point. The USA could just say, "Torture is okay when we do it. No-one else is allowed. We are special." That should work.

[DanteGabriel]

Um, he was captured on March 1, 2003. The iraq war began on March 20, 2003. Bit late to use him to "gin up evidence" as a pretext for war. It was just about, if not already, inevitable.

A pretext can come at any time. The war criminals of BushCo were already telling us up and down that Saddam was involved. The fact that they were still trying to find corroboration, days before their invasion began, tells us more about the dishonest and pernicious way in which they operated than it does about unlikely timing. Your timeline just tells us that the administration operated like a bunch of lazy college kids rushing to get their work together at the last minute, not that they weren't after Iraq-al Qaeda ties when they were torturing KSM.

The fact remains that Cheney and Rumsfeld instituted the torture program with specific interest in finding links between Saddam and al Qaeda.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly -- Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 -- according to a newly released Justice Department document.

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/66622.html

[Shryke]

It's not even international treaties Wert. I believe it was Republican Jesus who made said treaties into law back in the 80s.

This is the section I was quoted on torture by someone, although apparently there's more then 1:

US Code: Title 18, Chapter 113C § 2340 wrote:

As used in this chapter—

(1) “torture†means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering†means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

© the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

(3) “United States†means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

2340A

(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—

(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or

(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.

© Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

2340B

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as precluding the application of State or local laws on the same subject, nor shall anything in this chapter be construed as creating any substantive or procedural right enforceable by law by any party in any civil proceeding.

[DanteGabriel]

That did seem like his point, which if it is, strikes me as rather relativist.

Yeah, it's the pro-torture people making relativist arguments ("We can do it if the situation is right and we're only doing with the noblest of intentions anyway!"), and the anti-torture people saying, "It's wrong no matter what. It's the law! Follow the law!"

[Werthead]

Yeah, it's the pro-torture people making relativist arguments ("We can do it if the situation is right and we're only doing with the noblest of intentions anyway!"), and the anti-torture people saying, "It's wrong no matter what. It's the law! Follow the law!"

The guys at PirateBay should totally try this tack in their appeal. "Well, we did violate copyright law, but frankly if we didn't download the latest episode of Heroes ASAP then something unspecifically bad would have happened in an indeterminate amount of time."

"Fuck, they've pulled the Cheney defense on us."

[Annelise]

And your relativist argument is not very persuasive, let alone imaginative.

You may not personally be impressed, but it does matter how the world perceives us. I could be wrong, but that's how I read what Wert said.

You agree this was damaging to our international credibility, don't you? I'm guessing that you may feel putting the US on level with Iran and N. Korea is overreacting* but I think it's important to accept what that says about the damage to our international reputation.

*I instinctually bristle, personally, I can't help it. That is not a comment about whether I think Wert is right or wrong to do so, that is not a debate I care to enter.