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The NYT reports that with the release of the long-awaited Senate report on the use of torture by the United States government — a detailed account that will shed an unsparing light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s darkest practices after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the US is bracing itself for the risk that it will set off a backlash overseas. Some leading Republican lawmakers have warned against releasing the report, saying that domestic and foreign intelligence reports indicate that a detailed account of the brutal interrogation methods used by the CIA during the George W. Bush administration could incite unrest and violence, even resulting in the deaths of Americans. The White House acknowledged that the report could pose a “greater risk” to American installations and personnel in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Iraq. But it said that the government had months to plan for the reverberations from its report — indeed, years — and that those risks should not delay the release of the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee. “When would be a good time to release this report?” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, asked. “It’s difficult to imagine one, particularly given the painful details that will be included.”
Among the administration’s concerns is that terrorist groups will exploit the disclosures in the report for propaganda value. The Islamic State already clads its American hostages in orange jumpsuits, like those worn by prisoners in CIA interrogations. Hostages held by the Islamic State in Syria were subjected to waterboarding, one of the practices used by the CIA to extract information from suspected terrorists. The 480-page document reveals the results of Senate investigation into the CIA's use of torture and other techniques that violate international law against prisoners held on terrorism-related charges. Though many details of the Senate's findings will remain classified – the document is a summary of a 6,000-page report that is not being released – the report is expected to conclude that the methods used by the CIA to interrogate prisoners during the post-9/11 years were more extreme than previously admitted and produced no intelligence that could not have been acquired through legal means.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:26AM
The reason people talk about it is because there are two distinct arguments regarding torture - the "pro" and the "con."
(pro) Argument for torture: Torture 'works'
(con) Argument against torture: Torture is immoral
The pro-torture people don't care about morality, arguing about morality won't sway them. So if you want to convince that audience, you need to address their argument.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:14AM
This a thousand times over. Sung by choirs from the roofs of the cities.
"Argumentation" in dichotomous America, polarized between red team and blue team, usually takes the form of two groups of monkeys screaming about totally different things, usually in two distinct jargons, and wondering why the other side doesn't make sense to them. You can tell which team the monkey belongs to by the words he uses: sustainable = blue, job-creation = red, social justice = blue, personal responsibility = red, etc. They have fractured the English language so that the monkeys don't remember how to talk to each other, just scream and fling feces and bask in the self-righteousness of their screaming feces-flinging. None of either team's monkeys is willing to address the points the other team's monkeys make, because it's about a different thing and in a different jargon.
That's what's going on with the protests over police brutality: one side wants "justice" (even if there isn't even enough evidence for a trial -- that must be a lie that the unjust tell in order to keep us from getting "justice") while the other sees nothing but the Free Shit Army using a dead hoodlum as an excuse for looting burned-out shops. Neither side sees the other, listens to the other, or would understand what the other side was saying. The torture "debate" goes the same way: one team of monkeys sees religious fanatics under duress getting what they always deserved and maybe giving up some of their secret fanatic plans as an added bonus, while the other team of monkeys thinks that Our Sacred Honor Must Be Upheld and the stain of torture must be brought into the light of day while we ignore the drone wars and the puppet regimes and the interference in other countries' sovereign affairs and all the other dark things we do in the night. And, in the end, we're all still a circus of monkeys fighting a tragicomic battle flinging poo while the tent burns.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 10 2014, @01:05PM
Is this a joke or something? 'cause I don't get how this fits with Republican lawmakers have warned against releasing the report, where's the responsibility factor in that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @02:39PM
Don't confuse "personal responsibility" with "organizational responsibility" - the authoritarian mindset is heavily biased to support hierarchy. This attitude is rooted in the belief that the organization provides a net good so holding it accountable endangers the net good. This is why all the defense of the torturers is "buck passing" to the diffused responsibility of the organization instead of holding individual torturers accountable - in their worldview it is perfectly OK if the organization has systemic problems as long as all the individuals involved did not act in bad faith (i.e. just following the rules). Here is another example of similar thinking Arizona v Youngblood. [theatlantic.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @02:10PM
It's what they talk about, not necessarily what they actually believe in or do. The red team uses the language of "personal responsibility" when the blue team uses that of "caring," concepts which are orthogonal but both applied in different senses and ways to the debate over subsidies for the poor (food, housing, etc). Even specifying those subsidies has different language: red team says they're taxpayer-provided subsidies, blue team government-provided.
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:22AM
The pro-torture people don't care about morality, arguing about morality won't sway them.
Then they are likely the cause of the TSA, the NSA's mass surveillance, DUI checkpoints, and numerous other violations of our constitution and our fundamental liberty. In "the land of the free and the home of the brave," freedom should be considered more important than safety. Yet, these people would give up our freedom, constitution, and principles to obtain a feeling of safety.
I do not quite understand why they don't just move to North Korea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @06:10AM
Then they are likely the cause of the TSA, the NSA's mass surveillance, DUI checkpoints, and numerous other violations of our constitution and our fundamental liberty.
Yes, they are, not because they are bad-asses defending us whiney liberals, but because they are cowards. Dick "Dick" Cheney is a coward. He knows that torture works, because it would work him. He knows that we will do whatever the terrorists want us to, if they have the upper hand, so it is important to be more terrorist than the terrorists to keep that from happening, because, OMG, anal hydration? The CIA does this as a "favor" to you? Best comment so far: the people who did this are not Americans. We need to make an example of them.
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday December 10 2014, @01:41PM
FTFY.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @02:41PM
No, you didn't fix shit. In fact you completely and utterly missed the point. Biggest wooooosh! EVER.
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:06PM
Really? I think you did.
So if you want to convince that audience, you need to address their argument.
The fact that their argument is categorically false... I'd call that one pretty fuckin' addressed argument. Somehow, though, it hasn't stopped the assholes (the ones doing it, nor the ones supporting it), so I think "addressing their argument" didn't accomplish anything.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday December 11 2014, @04:14AM
True, torture doesn't work.
But the single largest problem with it is that the ends don't justify the means. I like to focus on the morality aspect of it because I want to make it clear that even if it did work, I would be 100% opposed to it.
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Thursday December 11 2014, @04:09PM
In principle, I agree. But, semi-literate as he came across, the AC did have a valid point in that you can't argue morality with immoral and amoral actors: by "focusing on the morality aspect of it", one makes a fine statement of personal principle while doing absolutely nothing to address the problem.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday December 12 2014, @05:07AM
The problem is that you're arguing with people who have essentially no principles and don't care about inflicting pain upon prisoners to get what they want. I have a feeling they'd be willing to torture people just for the sake of vengeance even if they knew it wouldn't get them any good information.
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Friday December 12 2014, @07:11PM
The problem is that you're arguing with people who have essentially no principles and don't care about inflicting pain upon prisoners to get what they want
Exactly my point. Taking the principle/moral position with such people is just empty, self-righteous posturing.
I have a feeling they'd be willing to torture people just for the sake of vengeance even if they knew it wouldn't get them any good information.
And since it doesn't get them any reliable information, it's not unreasonable to conclude that to, in fact, be the case.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday December 12 2014, @09:19PM
I'm saying that neither argument will truly work with a majority of them. They just see it as inflicting harm upon Bad People, which they don't care about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @05:41PM
Yes, we have heard this argument at least a dozen times before. This suggests that the pro-torture people aren't really interested in the effectiveness of torture as a means to get information out of an unwilling detainee. The humongous elephant in the room here is that advocates for torture are sadistic people who just plain delight in the pain of others. This is what really needs to be addressed. Until we address that, we will be talking past each other.