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Torture Report Released

jhmd2000 said:
Okay. Fair stance. I understand where you come from.

Now....Khalid Sheik Mohammed walks into your FBI office on September 12, 2001. Sits down. Go.
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Have you ever tortured a defendant to obtain information, counselor? Ever shoved something up a guy's ass (without his consent, I'm not talking about your lost weekend at the End Up in 2003) to try and bring out a confession?

I mean their are some predictable animals on this thread, such as SC, 8XDeac, and knowell- the "America, Fuck Yeah!!11one1!1juan!" crowd who is certain that the ends justify the means and we have to be as bad as the bad guys. They are wrong, but at least they have a defense- they are morons.

You, on the other hand, took a number of different oats related to your profession and your time in the military. Would you interrogate a prisoner in the ways described in the report? Do you think so little of your cross-examination skills that you couldn't obtain information without extreme physical damage?
 
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DeaconSig said:
Have you ever tortured a defendant to obtain information, counselor? Ever shoved something up a guy's ass (without his consent, I'm not talking about your lost weekend at the End Up in 2003) to try and bring out a confession?

I mean their are some predictable animals on this thread, such as SC, 8XDeac, and knowell- the "America, Fuck Yeah!!11one1!1juan!" crowd who is certain that the ends justify the means and we have to be as bad as the bad guys. They are wrong, but at least they have a defense- they are morons.

You, on the other hand, took a number of different oats related to your profession and your time in the military. Would you interrogate a prisoner in the ways described in the report? Do you think so little of your cross-examination skills that you couldn't obtain information without extreme physical damage?
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Let's leave my breakfast choices out of this, Mr. Siglesworth.

While I don't endorse physical harm as a matter of policy (or exception to policy), there is an awful lot of middle ground between "I'd arrest him and get him his choice of Ivy league counsel" and "Let's put this interrogation into high Gere."

The law enforcement approach to interdicting terror threats did not work. Our country's interests endured a series of lethal attacks throughout the 1990's and early part of the last decade using the law enforcement approach. We tried and convicted the first WTC bomber and the Blind Sheik. That ultimately failed, as many of us remember.

We've been relatively safe since 2001. From a pure functionality examination, our policies since that time have been successful.

Since you asked, I would encourage our policy makers not to torture people. We have a body of policies that has worked. Let's study those policies, eliminate those that don't work (sit down, RJ. No one wants to hear your feelings. We need facts and evidence. The sorts of things that you would get with interviews of actual people. This is the U.S. Senate, not ROLLING STONE), eliminate those that are inconsistent with our values, but let's not---in the wake of 14 years of security---naively pretend that the policies of 20 years ago were effective. The "I'd arrest him" approach failed. I know that because up to 100 of our fellow citizens who were placed in a position that motivated them to execute the best course of action in diving dive face-first off the 110th floor of the World Trade Center. Let's not do that again.

If I was King for a day and had to draw the line, it would be at physical harm. When you are dealing with bad and dangerous actors, we have to have the right to interrogate them in the interests of national security, including indefinite detention during kinetics in a war declared by others on us. To the extent that detainees know that they can camp out in Cuba with nutrition, medical care and under monitoring by third party NGOs to ensure that they are free from physical harm, I'm fully satisfied that we have met our obligations. If in that process our intelligence professionals use tradecraft that is designed to induce them to cooperate without imparting physical harm, I'm also satisfied that that is the best balance of the equities.
 
You know the 6.3 million cables included transcripts and summaries of interviews conducted during the period of the war crimes program, right?
 
As bad as the "torture" is, it beats killing them, their family, and their friends (drone attack).
 
jhmd2000 said:
Let's leave my breakfast choices out of this, Mr. Siglesworth.

While I don't endorse physical harm as a matter of policy (or exception to policy), there is an awful lot of middle ground between "I'd arrest him and get him his choice of Ivy league counsel" and "Let's put this interrogation into high Gere."

The law enforcement approach to interdicting terror threats did not work. Our country's interests endured a series of lethal attacks throughout the 1990's and early part of the last decade using the law enforcement approach. We tried and convicted the first WTC bomber and the Blind Sheik. That ultimately failed, as many of us remember.

We've been relatively safe since 2001. From a pure functionality examination, our policies since that time have been successful.

Since you asked, I would encourage our policy makers not to torture people. We have a body of policies that has worked. Let's study those policies, eliminate those that don't work (sit down, RJ. No one wants to hear your feelings. We need facts and evidence. The sorts of things that you would get with interviews of actual people. This is the U.S. Senate, not ROLLING STONE), eliminate those that are inconsistent with our values, but let's not---in the wake of 14 years of security---naively pretend that the policies of 20 years ago were effective. The "I'd arrest him" approach failed. I know that because up to 100 of our fellow citizens who were placed in a position that motivated them to execute the best course of action in diving dive face-first off the 110th floor of the World Trade Center. Let's not do that again.

If I was King for a day and had to draw the line, it would be at physical harm. When you are dealing with bad and dangerous actors, we have to have the right to interrogate them in the interests of national security, including indefinite detention during kinetics in a war declared by others on us. To the extent that detainees know that they can camp out in Cuba with nutrition, medical care and under monitoring by third party NGOs to ensure that they are free from physical harm, I'm fully satisfied that we have met our obligations. If in that process our intelligence professionals use tradecraft that is designed to induce them to cooperate without imparting physical harm, I'm also satisfied that that is the best balance of the equities.
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We misunderstood each other a bit. I'm not suggesting that we capture a group of Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan and immediately let them lawyer up (although, at the rate the ABA is accrediting for-profit law schools, we may need to do that just to allow numbers and the other baby lawyers coming out to have some clients). Interrogating prisoners of war is something that has been done since groups started fighting each other. And I have no problem with interrogating those prisoners without counsel (or any due process protections such as a speedy trial or need to be charged). I just believe in my ability to elicit the necessary information from almost anybody if given enough time and surrounding information.

Make somebody feel comfortable, catch them in a lie, and then do it again. They will eventually tell you the truth.

Or intimidate the shit out of them. Make them scared of the consequences of telling a lie. Again, they will tell you the truth.

Or have two people going at the detainee using both approaches. That's how you get information.

Other than some of the usual suspects, my guess is that if you shoved stuff up the ass of the majority of the posters here, you would get what they think you want to here, not the truth.
 
DeaconSig said:
We misunderstood each other a bit. I'm not suggesting that we capture a group of Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan and immediately let them lawyer up (although, at the rate the ABA is accrediting for-profit law schools, we may need to do that just to allow numbers and the other baby lawyers coming out to have some clients). Interrogating prisoners of war is something that has been done since groups started fighting each other. And I have no problem with interrogating those prisoners without counsel (or any due process protections such as a speedy trial or need to be charged). I just believe in my ability to elicit the necessary information from almost anybody if given enough time and surrounding information.

Make somebody feel comfortable, catch them in a lie, and then do it again. They will eventually tell you the truth.

Or intimidate the shit out of them. Make them scared of the consequences of telling a lie. Again, they will tell you the truth.

Or have two people going at the detainee using both approaches. That's how you get information.

Other than some of the usual suspects, my guess is that if you shoved stuff up the ass of the majority of the posters here, you would get what they think you want to here, not the truth.
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Only one way to find out.
 
One thing no one has talked about is that once we take a person prisoner anything he was working on will be changed. Thus the concept of "ticking bomb" becomes irrelevant within no longer than a week. It would make no sense whatsoever to keep the plans in tact.

Once you hold someone for a few months, any alleged intel you might get from him will likely not be actionable. Certainly, the ticking bomb concept is long gone. Thus the hundreds of waterboardings, stringing people up, not allowing them to sleep become barbaric sadistic events to make yourself look tough.

Of course, the chicken hawks among us and in DC think that a year down the road some good old torture will allow some people to channel what might happen.

Something else to think about is that after Abu Gharib (and maybe before) that it would be logical for the people who know anything to provide disinformation.

There's also no doubt that over two dozen totally innocent people were tortured. How many others were considered "sources" after they gave false information to stop the torture so the CIA and the criminal Bush cabal didn't look worse than they already do?

The bottom line is we held war crimes trials to convict Nazis and Japanese for what did systemically. There is no justification for the war crimes of Bush, Cheney, Tenet, Yoo, et al.

Every civilized country in the word is outraged by our actions.
 
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
 
ImTheCaptain said:
so it's illegal to cut down tree's in England?
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Well, my father's army unit cut down a tree in England for firewood during WWII. When they came back through after Germany surrendered, the British gave them a bill for cutting down one of the King's trees.
 
RJKarl said:
One thing no one has talked about is that once we take a person prisoner anything he was working on will be changed. Thus the concept of "ticking bomb" becomes irrelevant within no longer than a week. It would make no sense whatsoever to keep the plans in tact.

Once you hold someone for a few months, any alleged intel you might get from him will likely not be actionable. Certainly, the ticking bomb concept is long gone. Thus the hundreds of waterboardings, stringing people up, not allowing them to sleep become barbaric sadistic events to make yourself look tough.
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You know way more about all of this than the CIA, right? :bowrofl:

I am withholding judgement on these reports. The timing is politically motivated, and Dianne Feinstein has attacked intelligence organizations publicly for years.

There is no doubt that we had been in some sketchy situations throughout the world in the past few decades. If you have a few hours to kill, there is some great reading on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri

In April 2004, CIA Director George Tenet was told by his staff that El-Masri was being wrongfully detained. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice learned of the German citizen's detention in early May and ordered his release.[16] Shortly before el-Masri was released, in May 2004 the US ambassador to Germany informed the government for the first time of his detention.[2] The ambassador asked the interior minister Otto Schily not to disclose the events, as the US feared "exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Mr Masri and others with similar allegations."[2] El-Masri was released on May 28, 2004 following a second order from Rice.[16]

The CIA flew El-Masri out of Afghanistan and released him at night on a desolate road in Albania, without apology or funds to return home.[20] He later said that, at the time he believed his release was a ruse, and he would be executed. He was intercepted by Albanian guards, who believed him to be a terrorist due to his haggard and unkempt appearance. He was returned to Germany. It took time for him to be reunited with his wife; with no word of him for so long, she thought he had abandoned her and their family, and returned with their children to her family in Lebanon.[21]
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RJ -" I want the truth!"
Cheney -"You can't handle the truth!"
Cheney - "Son, we live in a world that has torture, and that torture has to be executed by men with guts. Who's gonna do it? You? You, RJ? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for terrorist, and you curse the CIA. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That torture, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me to torture, you need me to torture. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and got back on your damn internet, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a bucket of water, and start pouring. Either way, I don't give a damn."
 
WFU71 said:
Well, my father's army unit cut down a tree in England for firewood during WWII. When they came back through after Germany surrendered, the British gave them a bill for cutting down one of the King's trees.
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damned right
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Question for folks who support "enhanced interrogation", but don't support "torture": where do you draw the distinction between the two?
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In law school we learned about a case where the Supreme Court was attempting to distinguish between porn and art. I don't remember which justice it was, but the test was "I know it when I see it."
 
knowell said:
RJ -" I want the truth!"
Cheney -"You can't handle the truth!"
Cheney - "Son, we live in a world that has torture, and that torture has to be executed by men with guts. Who's gonna do it? You? You, RJ? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for terrorist, and you curse the CIA. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That torture, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me to torture, you need me to torture. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and got back on your damn internet, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a bucket of water, and start pouring. Either way, I don't give a damn."
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He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.
 
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