450 posts IS a worse crime than wanting to kill us .
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Friday, May 22, 2009 14:59
VIEWED: 29463
PAGE 11 of 46
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:You’re asking me about details of the trade. I’m not an interrogator, so I don’t know how detailed I can explain the process. If you query me on the details of basket weaving you’ll get just as vague a response.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Kind of a non-answer.
I'm not asking about what's used in the real world, I'm asking about the methods you are promoting, so it's only your opinion I'm interested in, which you should be an expert on. :)
Quote:Quote:Ah, so there is a distinction between interrogation and extracting confessions. The first, sleep-deprivation, would be a method of interrogation designed to weaken the will of the suspect. The later would be a means of extracting confessions designed to force the suspect to say what you want to hear.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Are you saying that sleep-deprivation is a good kind of torture or are you saying torture them until they can't stand it anymore (which is silly because they could well start lying early and keep lying when they are echausted)?
That's not how I would draw the distinction.
You equare different goals with different methods. Confession = painful torture. Information = psychological torture.
You should have just said that you mean a difference in technique, because I don't think most people necessarily make that same assumption.
It's also an assumption that psychological torture like sleep deprivation is that much more reliable than pain-infliction, methinks. I do think you can get someone to confess a crime they didn't commit by depriving them of sleep long enough, and they could stil lie and lie and lie if you're asking them for particular information.
And it still doesn't answer what I'm really interested in: at what point and how to you verify what they tell you and how does it influence the torture process. If they tell you something, do you let them sleep and go verify? Or do g on? Do you torture them until it's verified? What if that takes a while?
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Quote:You mean like dunking a suspected witch under water and if they didn’t drown they were innocent? The tests were designed to kill you, and if they didn’t you were a convicted witch, and condemned to die.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I disagree that they knew they would necessarily die. Why else were there all these "tests" to see if someone was actually a witch? The theory was that you'd withstand torture if you were innocent.
Quote:The difference lies in the intent. If your intent is to extract a confession then the most painful and damaging techniques will rending results, but if your intent is to find information, then it doesn’t do a lot of good to use those kinds of methods. The methods you want to use are those that result in mental exhaustion to break the will of the suspect. It would seem that inflicting injury, at the very least, would be counterproductive.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Okay, honestly. I'm not trying to be irritating, but I have not noticed you explaining the difference. Maybe I didn't catch it from your words.
So, I guess, in the interest of clarity I will request you to be so kind and restate in very specific terms the exact difference is between torturing for a confession and torturing for information. Please.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:So you feel like if the actual act that you are trying to prevent is distant enough then the defense used to prevent it should be less. As the time to the attack grows closer and more immediate does your willingness to be more aggressive in defense become greater?
Originally posted by thatweirdgirl:
There is an immediacy and fear of death that we're disconnecting on here. I don't feel torture coercion is appropriate in interrogation for even terrorists who threaten to bomb my hometown.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Glad you clarified, Finn. Let me quote myself and see if you agree with what I said. If not let me know
Quote:So it has nothing to do with the "means"... which could include anything that the interrogator might think is useful ... and everything to do with the ends? What I gather from your statements is that you wouldn't rule out any technique on moral grounds but simply on whether a particular technique was effective in obtaining the truth?
But as I gather from your statements- It all goes back to INTENT. "Interrogation" is anything that you do to break a person with the intent of getting the truth. That COULD include electric shock, or boiling oil, if in the eyes of the interrogator it was necessary or helpful. The one thing it COULDN'T include is death, because at that point no more information is available. (Unless of course the interrogator thought that all useful information had been extracted and simply didn't want the victim to go squealing to the press later.) Whereas "extracting a confession" is anything you can do to break a person with the INTENT of getting them to tell you what you want to hear!
I know that you try to draw a correlation between what is moral and what is effective, but that correlation simply doesn't hold up.
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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
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Hello Everyone,
First of all, I'd like to wag my finger at some of you. Finn and I were managing a productive exchange of ideas last night, and I woke up to see a lot of exchanged insults. I thought to myself, "God Damn, why can't these assholes just have a fucking discussion for a change?!" Which, of course, made me as guilty of name calling as everyone else.
Geezer and Auraptor,
You are astute and correct on one important item. I am more outraged about the US committing heinous acts than I am about our enemies doing so. I am much more critical of US morality than I am of the morality of other nations. I am unfair in my application of judgment to both parties.
I will tell you why torture and other crimes committed by Americans do bother me more than similar crimes committed by other countries and their citizens. It is because of my personal shame and guilt in this matter.
I selected, trained, equipped, and deployed the people who committed torture. I gave them orders to use whatever means were necessary to extract information. I stripped people of their dignity. I grinned next to miserable, naked souls. I corrupted the interrogated and the interrogator. I am guilty of these things.
I am a tax-paying citizen in a republic, and the buck stops here.
My own crimes against humanity will always weigh more heavily on me than the crimes and injustices of others. The American outrages will always feed my outrage to greater heights than the outrages of any other group or people.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:You mean like dunking a suspected witch under water and if they didn’t drown they were innocent? The tests were designed to kill you, and if they didn’t you were a convicted witch, and condemned to die.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I disagree that they knew they would necessarily die. Why else were there all these "tests" to see if someone was actually a witch? The theory was that you'd withstand torture if you were innocent.
They didn't generally wait until they drowned. If they sunk, they were probably not witches and were mostly pulled out. If they swam on top, they were guilty and would be pulled out for further interrogation.
Quote:
The difference lies in the intent. If your intent is to extract a confession then the most painful and damaging techniques will rending results, but if your intent is to find information, then it doesn’t do a lot of good to use those kinds of methods. The methods you want to use are those that result in mental exhaustion to break the will of the suspect. It would seem that inflicting injury, at the very least, would be counterproductive.
Actually, the difference lies in the method, then.
So why not say that right away? And why waterboarding, then? That's painful and damaging, so obviously intent and method don't always match your theory.
But thank you for clarifying what you mean.
I still think that mental exhaustion methods don't make the actual information received more reliable. You receive information, but do you receive the truth? You can torture your suspect longer because they don't have as many medical issues, but does it really improve the quality of the result?
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Quote:Does that include me? I hope not! But if so, let me know where I've erred.
First of all, I'd like to wag my finger at some of you.
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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
Does that it might save lives make it right ?
No. Nothing makes it right to torture someone for information.
However, the prospect of saving lives creates a legal condition known as "exigent circumstances".
Generally this is recognized situations where there is a reasonable belief that life, property, or evidence may be in jeopardy. If this is the case the State may use that as justification to violate a person's Constitutional rights (such as a warrant requirement for entry into a private residence).
"When police have a reasonable and sincere fear that someone is in jeopardy and contraband might be destroyed, this usually constitutes sufficient exigency to justify a simultaneous, no-refusal entry." See McConney, 728 F.2d at 1206; Whitney, 633 F.2d at 909-10.
The harm is still there, so the mere fact that the lives are on the line does not make it right...rather it mitigates the harm...in effect cancelling out the wrong (ie still not right, but no longer wrong).
In order to effectively judge the correctness of the Bush administration's decsion we need to know the basis of that decision (what they reasonably believed) and the results of the interrogation (terror plots uncovered and lives saved). To that end President Obama should have and should now declassify ALL the memos and records. Should any sort of prosecution be undertaken it is likely those additional memos will be declassified by the Court as they would be essential to the defense.
Frankly, it was irresponsible to declassify the torture memos...but the President chose to do it, now it is completely unreasonable to declassify those without the others to give us the "rest of the story".
Cheney says they stopped a 9/11 second wave attack and saved thousands of lives. If thats true, we deserve to know, if its not...we need to know that too.
Truth is Obama is now in a corner. He's stopped these interrogations, then released the memos, which led to us learning the interrogations were effective in stopping attacks. If we are attacked again then he's completely screwed, if he tries to reverse his policy and it comes out, he's completely screwed. He'd have been better off keeping the whole thing secret so he'd have a card to play should we capture a person with information we need when lives are on the line.
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you"- Chrisisall, 2009.
So you are saying " intent " mitigates " the crime.
But could not the same argument be used in ANY torture case ? Sudan, Congo, Balkans, etc
With the precedents set by the Nuremberg trials as well as the US execution of Japanese interrogators for waterboarding Americans, or even more recently the court martial of US interrogators during the Vietnam war for waterboarding Vietnamese prisoners
While I am not a lawyer, your remarks here
" we need to know the basis of that decision (what they reasonably believed) and the results of the interrogation " leads to more questions
could you explain what happens to evidence developed by illegal search, we would definitely need more information here on all case even those where these methods were employed to no result, but if even one case doesn't support reasonable grounds that would bring to question the legality of the order and expose the interrogators and their chain of command to action. And if the use of these methods resulted in the death of the subject ?
Perhaps Obama should simply step sideways on the issue,
He should lift the US prohibitions on the International Criminal Court and allow the Hague to decide this issue. Then it is not a question of the success or failure of an Obama policy, but simply one of complying with international law.
" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson
Lets party like its 1939
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
So you feel like if the actual act that you are trying to prevent is distant enough then the defense used to prevent it should be less. As the time to the attack grows closer and more immediate does your willingness to be more aggressive in defense become greater?
Not really. In my mind, torture or extreme coercion or whatever we're calling it is not acceptable at any point. I expect tenacious and continuing investigations into the threat. I want people out there on the ground looking for evidence and clues and leads. I want people in the offices following the communication trail. I want the inside men to learn key info. I'm not going to give up when the interrogation returns little or no usable information. I'm also not going t resort to harm. I am going to keep looking and verifying.
The best defense may be a good offense but that doesn't apply in national security. We can't attack someone because they might hurt us. We can't torture someone because they might know something. We prepare. We learn. We build intelligence. Then we either stop the threat through legal(national and international law) means or defend ourselves. The best defense is preparedness.
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Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charlie Brown
www.thatcostumegirl.com
www.thatweirdgirl.com
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Torture, American style
The surprising force behind torture: democracies
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/12/16/torture_am
erican_style/?page=1
" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson
Lets party like its 1939
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