Senate The US Politics discussion

I hate to be a buzzkill but everyone that screams torture is bad is giving power to the sadistic bastards that tortured these guys because they wanted to. They didn't have to do anything. They wanted to do it cause they were paid to or because they wanted anyone not screaming yeah America deserved punishment to the max. Those who understand how and why the CIA does its job and does it job responsibly understands where the lines are, and when not to cross them. They are ones that can look the sadists in the eye and tell them what they really are. You guys just scream torture is bad and can't fathom what it takes to be in the intelligence community. Why do you think no president comes out against the CIA? Why do you think those in charge of Senate who are privy to the CIA's budget really question what the CIA does. Feinstein, she defends the Intelligence community and yet she is the one that questioned this. Why because she knows where the line is and she is willing to call anyone out for going over it. Trust me Cheney is just an old white guy who doesn't understand what it takes. He only wanted information. He was a politician who didn't care about results and spread rumours about anyone else who is his real enemy. Not you, oh no you guys give him power because the Media listens to what he has to say and gives him an audience. Just like the conservatives. Reality is the left and the right do more damage to those who are willing to pick up the sword and are willing to act responsibly with it. Listen, fighting an intelligence war is dirty and messy and no one likes it. But its necessary. But necessary doesn't give an excuse to be sadistic. It means acting smart and responsible. Is torture ok, not at all. But there are many forms of it including psychological. Those fighting in the intelligence community understand that it takes a conscious to do the job as much as a brain. A brain the left or the right do not have. All they have is a heart. A heart that either is nieve or angry and sadistic. Politics always muddies up the intelligence community because its based on heart, not brains.

 

Firstly, you don't protect your country, and never have. Secondly, actual servicemen are not in favour of the methodology, so...

Every expert, Smuggler, agrees torture is wrong. Experts agree there's literally no scenario where it's a defensible use of resources. You'll note that I'm not decrying human rights issues or the poor detainees. I'm stating as a use of manpower and time, it accomplishes nothing and just undermines the already fairly useless CIA (does it bug you that the Brits are roughly a thousand times better at intelligence gathering than you are? )

You cannot rely on information obtained under torture. And don't come up with a ticking time bomb scenarios - you only confirm what I know, which is that you've never actually interviewed someone under duress.

 

I just saw this.

So my question is this: states act in their own self interest. How would you keep track of that and ascertain the extent to which states and sub-state actors would threaten that self-interest?

 

You're assuming I like this system of states that controls the world. I'm not going to accept a terrible thing just because it's necessary to support a larger terrible thing.

 

I would like to argue that the word torture can mean various things and has various levels. Perhaps using the term Sadistic torture is more appropriate. Because we all know parents use psychological torture on their kids to get them to do their chores.

 

True. There's always three options when someone confesses under torture (if any one thinks of other options feel free to correct me):

a) Telling the truth

b) believes he's telling the truth but it turns out to be a lie

c) deliberately lies

 

Ender the Left and the Right will never understand the intelligence community and the responsibilities it has to the world. It is useless to argue the fact.

 

When someone is being tortured, they will tell you what you want to hear so that the torture stops. Sometimes, that coincides with the truth. Sometimes it doesn't.

 

wtf is wrong with you?

 

I am, that's correct. Fair enough.

Skywalker8921, the majority of cases it is simply that the tortured will tell the torturer what they want to hear in order to make the distress - be it physical pain, sleep deprivation, whatever - go away. There may be nuggets of reliable product in among the discharge of information but most of it's chaff. Finding the wheat is a real challenge.

Defenders of torture are themselves psychopathic and support the practice because it fulfills the need in their personality disorder to see violent revenge meted out to people who cannot defend themselves. Generally, because they have impaired or non-existent empathy levels, they have determined the victim is sub-human and therefore not worth of basic human dignity. Knowing that these people, whom they have designated as villains, are being harmed provides them a sense of deep satisfaction.

If there is any doubt, I am absolutely suggesting that Smuggler's defence of the practice and the dehumanisation of the tortured is related to underlying psychopathy.

 

If you enjoy your paycheck as an enhanced interrogater then you are a psychopath.

 

Do you know what a psychopath is?

 

Those guys were getting 1800 dollars a day to torture someone and 400 if they didn't. And they were the ones who decided if the guy was being compliant. So what do you think they did most days.

 

So, I'll take that as a no.

 

That's true, too, but perhaps only to a point. Citing a fictional example here, but bear with me.


Just recently, I was watching an episode of TV show set in 1550s France. The French King had ordered a Protestant minister tortured after the man, in open court, told the King there was a - 'bomb', I suppose you could call it - planted in a place where it would injure hundreds of Catholics. The man finally confessed where the bomb was located, and he believed he was telling the truth. It wasn't until guards went after the bomb that it was discovered to be a ruse.

The King had the man tortured again, but he kept insisting he was telling the truth. At this point, I don't think it was a case of 'tell them what they want to hear to stop the pain.' Earlier, yes, but the second time, no.

 

beezel, having actually been involved in an interrogation that relied on psychological games in order to elicit cooperation, I think you're talking firmly from your bottom. Tethered neither by research, experience, or reality you've sort of floated into a number of conversations where you deliver a view with utmost conviction and confidence. It's a lot like a child definitively stating that small people inside a television act out the shows we see; you can understand how they arrived there, but it's mostly because of their childlike naïveté.

There are wicked people in the world, and sometimes to make them tell you what you want you have to lean on them. It's necessary, it's not about enjoyment. This is not the same as rectally feeding someone, depriving them of sleep for 120+ hours, exposing them to the elements, and beating them up for the sheer jollies it brings.

The issue is also not that the torturers enjoyed it. In order to cope, they would have long ago distanced themselves from any emotional reaction to their actions. If, as you contend, they enjoyed it then they would have to turn to frustration if they didn't get traction after a time - or more simply, they would stop asking questions and just hurt them. This is not apparently the case. The psychopathy emerges from the lack of empathy, not the actual "hells yes I'm pulling finger nails w00t!"

 

What!?

 

Skywalker, that's as you stated fiction. Not fiction based in fact. Fiction.

If I have a bomb that goes off in 5 hrs and you're hurting me to find it, I can easily withstand enough of whatever you can do in that time to give you false trails and delay you until it goes off.

You understand that the needs of a narrative compel these situations, right? These "X hours to save Y lives" moments?

You should read up on the use of torture and its effectiveness rather than allowing yourself to believe fiction.

 

Also when a prisoner is captured, his cohorts will sometimes change the things he knows about making any information no longer valid. Which is why they used to that validate the torture to get Bin Laden but reality the guy constantly moved anyway. Just look at the hunt for Mexican drug lords. They usually are just a few minutes behind the guy until he completely slips up. But its really only after doing proper police work and intelligence gathering that they get the guy. Not the other way around.

 

Thanks for the smackdown, Ender. Clearly I am out of my depth.

 

Here you go, Skywalker:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-fbi-interrogator-torture-ineffective/
http://terrorism.about.com/od/issuestrends/a/TortureTerror2.htm - quoting sources on the myth of the ticking time bomb
The US Army field manual says that torture "is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06soufan.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/200...torture-ineffective-in-intelligence-gathering

OTOH, people who have never served in a military or intelligence organisation say it's useful, like Paul Wolfowitz or JedISmuggler. Oh and Jack Bauer, whom I think the people who defend torture think is real.

You're free to decide who you believe.

EDIT: It wasn't intended as a smackdown. A lot of people have said that the torture stuff undermines the values the US was founded on. Personally I find all this high minded values talk a load of ****, but it seems to play to both sides in the US. In any event, you do need other nations, and it's critical what they think. Torturing people when it's known not to be useful simply ensures that you'll incense moderates and create more radicals; and ensure captured Americans are treated the same.

 

It's like when a janitor is captured for failure to disclose the location of water pipes. His fellow janitors will change the plumbing without his knowledge, thus making the information he has no longer valid. Which is why they used that knowledge he had to fix the plumbing but the plumbing just moved away. Just look at the hunt for UFOs. They are usually captured on video with grainy footage and not focused. But it's really only after doing proper paperwork that the Greys can abduct the human. Not the other way around.

There. That made about as much sense as what I just read from beezel26