SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:11PM
People, stop and think! Please, stop and think. There is discussion, even on this board, among people of greater than average intelligence, of the practical, real-politik value of torture. Torture is wrong. It is a crime against humanity. Full. Stop.
Leave off the fake butch discussion of its utility. Leave off the "It's a dangerous world" crap. It has always been a dangerous world. It always will be. It does not change the fact that torture is totally, categorically, wrong. It is evil. Those who do it are evil. Those who order it done are evil. All of them must face the death penalty.
If you do not agree, then kindly remove yourselves from our company and go live in some pariah state like North Korea where political opponents are fed to starving packs of wild dogs. You suck, and I don't want your kids playing with my kids.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Wednesday December 10 2014, @11:22PM
I don't condone torture, but I also do condone absoluteism, either. If one can't find a compelling reason that something could ever happen, they lack imagination or are a zealot. Are you seriously telling us that people should 'go away' just because they have a difference of opinion? Absoluteism is the bedfellow of extremism. I don't want your kids playing with my kids.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:23AM
When it comes to torture, yes, that is an absolute position. Under no circumstances, ever.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday December 11 2014, @01:49PM
Hypothetically thinking, what makes torture different from, say, use of nuclear weapons? Seriously, I would like to know what privilages one type of violence above others in terms of its unacceptibility. We as a civilisation are prepared to accept that it is sometimes ok to kill (in war, in the line of duty, etc) but somehow it's magically not to simply harm? What is the unifying principle here?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 11 2014, @02:20PM
Because it's a war crime. There is no justification for torture under any circumstance because it is a crime against humanity. So please stop and consider where your moral relativism is taking you on this. You're essentially saying that there's nothing that you absolutely wouldn't do. Does that include, say, raping a child? Are you saying that you could see yourself having moral justification for that, under the right circumstances? Are you saying that there are totally, 100% despicable, evil acts that you could see yourself committing if the "context was right?" And that that would be OK?
Some things are beyond the pale. Child rape and torture are at least two. I would also include things like genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Please stop defending the indefensible. When you do that you don't just dehumanize the rest of us, you dehumanize yourself.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:23PM
I'm sorry, but I respectfully disagree. I would absolutely do the worst possible things for the best possible reasons. I (like most people) would kill for my family, and I would rate torture as being a lesser sin than killing. Obviously, the extingent circumstances needed to justify the truly reprehensible are pretty high. Would I wipe out one race of people to save all life in the univese? Yes. In an instant, because to do otherwise is monsterous. Fortunately, I am unlikely to ever be in that situation.
And no, just because you call something evil or a crime doesn't make it beyond the pale for a rational person. Murder is a crime, but killing in war is regarded as an acceptable behaviour when justified; the act itself is not evil, just its reason. Are you seriously saying you wouldn't torture someone to save your own family if you were absolutely convinced it would really work and was the one and only way?
You don't like relativism - I get it. Just as I don't like absoluteism. The difference is that I'm not going to tell you that you're somehow less of a person for believing in it. And also, before you buckle your swashes about other people's morality, do remember that just because I think that extreme behaviour can be justifiable in extreme circumstances doesn't mean that I'm somehow arguing that torture or genocide are ever good or right, or that the Americans in any way were justified in using torture. My philosophical position is simply that sometimes doing the despicable thing is the best of a lousy set of options.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 11 2014, @04:23PM
And my position is that sometimes virtuous death is better than evil. If raping a thousand children would save my own family, I would still not do it. If torturing one man to death would save my family, I would still not do it. If wiping out a race of people, say, the Jews, would save the rest of humanity and my family, I would still not do it. And it's not a hypothetical family that I'm talking about, but my actual family and actual children. But then, I believe in God and an afterlife and that there are consequences to our actions in life that extend beyond death.
Consider that when you make excuses for monstrous acts, you too become a monster. The vast, vast majority of humanity agrees and has agreed that torture is a crime against humanity. If you choose to nevertheless excuse a crime against humanity, then you render yourself part of the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity. Your saying that you would torture someone under certain circumstances is not OK. It's not a philosophical, academic question. It's a question about your humanity. And in this repartee at least you have failed, and failed again, wilfully. So perhaps you think that you're just typing words on an internet forum and that it doesn't mean anything, but what you are signalling is that you condone evil and that you consciously comply with that evil. That, my friend, makes you evil too.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday December 11 2014, @05:03PM
Consider that when you make excuses for monstrous acts, you too become a monster.
I disagree with this statement. Ultimately our difference of opinion depends on whether intentions matter or if only action matters. Ie. are actions innately good or evil? I think no, whereas you obviously think yes. Unless one of us can convince the other differently, it is unlikely that we will ever find resolution on this matter.
I further disagree that "making excuses" for monsterous acts indicates culpability in the act or is somehow tantamount to crime against humanity. If an action is justified, then it needs no excusing and there is no responsibility for anyone except the person who took it upon themselves to perform the act. I deny entirely your premise that identifying the rational basis for action makes me somehow liable for it. That's simply ridiculous.
I will kill a man threatening my family (yes, my real actual non-hypothetical family) if that is the only way to save them. You can throw me in prision for it, but I'd do it again. Why? Because I would believe my action was justified. You might say it boils down to "the ends justify the means"; of course the more horrendous the means, the more critical and urgent that end had better be. I'm hardly going to kill a man who bears no credible risk to my family, even if he makes threatening statements? Why? Because the urgency doesn't justify it. If he had a gun pointed at their heads and made clear he was about to pull the trigger, then I would act with all possible violence to avert it.
If you want to call me evil for defending my family, feel free. I could just as well call you evil for allowing harm to come to those you are charged to protect because you are too "principled" to take the moral burden upon yourself for their protection. Absolutist morals are a fine thing in civil life and it's great that people can enjoy the luxury of them, however it's not true for all parts of the world, or even sometimes in our own privilaged society. I pray that I will never need employ violence to protect that society or the people I care about. But I will, and I will rest well doing so.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.