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Bush Administration Conducted "Experiments" On Detainees
Posts
There are very few topics that I feel a derisive reply is appropriate, but justifying torture is one of them.
Yes, but including hostility in a counter-argument is a good way to have it ignored completely by the opposition.
Not that I'm really expecting MM to sit down and think about these points and possibly reconsider his position, but I can hope, right?
"Experimental torture" is still torture and violates the laws against cruel and unusual punishment. Their really is no back door or loophole. I cannot say that, under some kind of supervision, that I'm going to beat the shit out of random people to view the psychological effects without having major psychological institutions barreling down on me.
There is no need to argue morality here. It's against the law and has served little purpose.
Everyone breaks eventually under duress. Once they do, you're able to figure out whether they have useful intelligence, or whether they don't know anything helpful.
In any event, it's not like these techniques are used as a matter of course against every detainee. We don't have the time and resources to do so, and it would be a waste for probably 90%+ of detainees who are low-level grunts and probably don't know shit, anyway. But, when you catch someone relatively high up in a network, then it's worthwhile to try and squeeze them for intelligence.
Rigorous Scholarship
No no guys, it's ok. We're not inflicting pain, we're just systematically destroying the subject's psyche. It's a lot better and more humane, don't you see?
/sarcasm
Modern Man did say that, yes. But since he's kind of completely lacking in empathy, this shouldn't be surprising.
Assuming you don't think it's ok to torture innocent people (although I'm not sure I should assume that...), then how do you prove their guilt/knowledge of something before you torture them? Is there a trial? Do we just take some random intelligence guy's word on it? Is it ok as long as a superior officer ok's it? Is it ok as long as the president ok's it? Should the government be able to torture people without proving to anyone that they aren't innocent?
Edit: CORRECTED
1) An illegal combatant captured overseas who is not an American citizen.
2) The detainee is known to be highly-placed or in a leadership role in a terrorist/militant group.
3) The appropriate intelligence agency believes that the detainee can offer significant, actionable intelligence that would be useful in ongoing operations or to hurt the group or network of which he is a part.
The question of guilt or innocence doesn't come into play here. This is not a criminal trial. Rather, it's a mechanism used for extracting operational intelligence.
You're not just taking all detainees and torturing them. That would be pointless and stupid. But, if you've captured a guy who you know is the #2 in Al Qaeda in Iraq, it's almost certain that he is going to have useful intelligence. The low-level insurgent is of no interest to interrogators.
Rigorous Scholarship
At least be intellectually honest in your morally repugnant behavior.
To avoid torture, you should make sure you are captured in the United States then.
But, for an illegal combatant captured on the battlefield in some Middle Eastern hellhole, the rules are different, IMO.
Rigorous Scholarship
1) An illegal combatant captured overseas who is not an American citizen.
Is there a point where the government should prove that they are torturing a combatant, or are you fine just taking their word for it?
2) The detainee is known to be highly-placed or in a leadership role in a terrorist/militant group.
Once again, on whose word?
3) The appropriate intelligence agency believes that the detainee can offer significant, actionable intelligence that would be useful in ongoing operations or to hurt the group or network of which he is a part.
So, as long as the CIA says it, it must be true? Those WMDs in Iraq don't lend me confidence to their accuracy.
Basically, you entirely avoided my question. Are you alright torturing possibly innocent people? Having a system where we capture foreigners and then torture them for information with no accountability or system to prove thier possible innocence?
Edit: yeah, me and the guy with the hair are in sync
American Exceptionalism, duh.
Which means that by your rules, if someone from a "middle eastern hellhole" plans to massacre a million people with some dirty bomb in New York, all he needs to do is sneak into the country before he is caught (and presumably yell "Safety").
I can live with it, because I know the numbers involved are going to be really low. There's only a small number of people who we have any real interest in interrogating, let alone using enhanced techniques on.
I'd think you'd be happy that I'm in favor of putting restraints on the government here.
Rigorous Scholarship
3? 5? 10? 50?
Translation from Modern Man to reality above.
Yeah, this basically is what the problem is. Our legal system offers no way to create accountability for this situation, because our courts properly recognize all these interrogation methods as illegal. Incidentally, so do all relevant international authorities.
So the only way this sort of a setup can work is if we admit that we're just going to trust that the people in charge are always going to do the right thing. Which works fine when the person we're trusting is the protagonist on a TV show, but less so in the real world.
edit: note that torturing a confession out of someone also renders the evidence unusable in a military trial, which is why the Bush administration wanted to go with the whole contrived "tribunal" setup.
dappled sunlight / strikes your butt
girl you got a / real sweet butt
Rigorous Scholarship
Is it still ok?
Edit: and don't come back with "but she hasn't done anything"
Because I'll just say, "how do we know?"
Which is hilarious if you've ever read his philosophy on regulation.
It's mostly he has absolute faith in Republicans.
The American people have been pacified with popular media. And we're all okay with that.
*goes back to watching cable TV dramas from the Netflix queue*
If you hurt someone saying "I will continue to hurt you until you tell me things" then the person will probably tell you things, yes. The question is whether or not those things have any relation, at all, to reality.
If by "torture works" you simply mean "torture will result in the person tortured making linguistic statements" then, ok, but that's not what most people mean by "works".
If by "torture works" you mean "torture will necessarily result in the person tortured giving true statements pertaining to the information sought" then you are incorrect.
What do you mean by "torture works"?
Actually having an all power 1984 style government does put an end to gangs. Any kind of organized violence then becomes strictly something the government does
We even think he killed an American citizen!
As previously mentioned, we send thousands of volts of electricity through all kinds of people for the most minor of things like... not obeying a police officer no matter what they request.
Well, if my mom met the following criteria:
1) An illegal combatant captured overseas who is not an American citizen.
2) The detainee is known to be highly-placed or in a leadership role in a terrorist/militant group.
3) The appropriate intelligence agency believes that the detainee can offer significant, actionable intelligence that would be useful in ongoing operations or to hurt the group or network of which he is a part.
I'd be in favor if waterboarding her. She doesn't meet any of these three requirements. Unless she has a secret life no one knows about.
But, I doubt there are many 60 year-old grandmothers from Florida on any terrorist list.
Those aforementioned gang members live in the US and are protected by the Constitution. I went over this already.
Rigorous Scholarship
Well, duh!
But we adjusted the laws to allow for advanced interrogations, so I'm asking if you'd like to adjust the laws to allow it for Americans as well. The Americans who rape women, and murder children. Not the innocent ones of course.
Thanks for the sig.