Senate torture report

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Senate torture report

treasured8elief: Jul 25, 2011; Salad Prong

I forgot we have a specific Hague Invasion law just to stop international prosecution of US officials. Is there any chance that, if someone involved is arrested while overseas, we'd actually invoke it?

# ? Dec 11, 2014 16:09

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# ? May 30, 2024 00:30

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

tentative8e8op posted:

I forgot we have a specific Hague Invasion law just to stop international prosecution of US officials. Is there any chance that, if someone involved is arrested while overseas, we'd actually invoke it?

If it's someone important, sure.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 16:18

Gin and Juche: Apr 3, 2008; The Highest Judge of Paradise
Shiki Eiki
YAMAXANADU

Decent article on the techniques outlined in the report:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...hods/?tid=hp_mm.

Funny how comparable the feelings in this and the US politics thread are to 'learned helplessness'.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 16:53

TerminalSaint: Apr 21, 2007; Where must we go...

we who wander this Wasteland in search of our better selves?

FuriousxGeorge posted:

I hope I never die in a terrorist attack so republicans can't use pictures of me to justify their war crimes.

The really sad part is that you wouldn't even be the first goon to have it happen.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:21

Mr Ice Cream Glove: Apr 22, 2007

Let's be real and look at the true issue with this report...abortion

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:43

Gin and Juche: Apr 3, 2008; The Highest Judge of Paradise
Shiki Eiki
YAMAXANADU

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Let's be real and look at the true issue with this report...abortion

Is he confusing rectal feeding with an enema?

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:45

Condiv: May 7, 2008; Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
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Gravel Gravy posted:

Is he confusing rectal feeding with an enema?

he's probably thinking literal rectal rehydration, which I think involves a saline solution.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:51

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Let's be real and look at the true issue with this report...abortion

It always comes back to abortion. And isn't partial birth abortion a significantly small portion of abortions?

Might as well cherry picky heart surgeries or something.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:52

Accretionist: Nov 7, 2012; I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

CommieGIR posted:

It always comes back to abortion. And isn't partial birth abortion a significantly small portion of abortions?

Might as well cherry picky heart surgeries or something.

Yeah, it doesn't really exist outside of medical necessity.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:53

Shbobdb: Dec 16, 2010; by Reene

Isn't rectal feeding a vanishingly small portion of our intelligence gathering apparatus?

Don't give ground you don't have to.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 17:58

Mr Ice Cream Glove: Apr 22, 2007

Yup this happened

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:09

eviltastic: Feb 8, 2004; Fan of Britches

"using enhanced interrogation techniques ~~(a euphemism for torture)~~ on detainees"

reason for edit: removing bias

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:17

eviltastic: Feb 8, 2004; Fan of Britches

Getting off topic here, but lol: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CongressEdits&diff=prev&oldid=620286685

Same IP.

e: Maybe not so off topic. "Propoganda is banned by the Federal government thus no propaganda would have existed. This is a biased and unfactual use of this term in this article."

Now where have I heard this logic before...

eviltastic fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Dec 11, 2014

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:25

red_blip: Feb 19, 2008; Fine human machine.

I posted on Facebook something along the lines of "CIA Torture: Discuss", thinking that it would yield a similar slew of discussion as the ones located here. To my surprise, the topic went almost indefinitely on as "If they saved one American life, it's all worth it."

I tried to respond to them, thinking that eventually we'd get to the fact that illegality had taken place within this situation in many, many ways, but it just kept going back to that same idea - "If it protected us, we can do it."

I mean, these are the types of things they said:

-It makes me sick that Americans care more about the well-being of terrorists than they do about the children being killed by them.
-If it was a family member's life on the line, what would you do to get them back?
-They do much worse to us.
-The only way to defeat a group like Isis or Al-Qaeda is to play dirtier than them.
-[a u.s. soldier posted] You haven't seen what they do. You just hear things from the media. I've seen it and they don't deserve human rights. They aren't human. They're animals.

So I deleted that post quick-fast and came to see what any of you would have responded to them.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:53

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

red_blip posted:

-It makes me sick that Americans care more about the well-being of terrorists than they do about the children being killed by them.

It makes me sick that Americans care more about the torturing of terrorists than they do about the children being tortured by the CIA.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:58

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

"How many people would you rape if it saved one American life? I personally would bite the bullet, take one for the team, and put my penis inside a screaming crying man if it stopped terrorist scum from harming just one American. I'd rape that person and burn them alive afterward, and you're a filthy communist turncoat if you wouldn't do the same."

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:58

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

It makes me sick that human beings are made sick by inhuman actions done in their names.

People make me sick.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 18:59

Accretionist: Nov 7, 2012; I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

red_blip posted:

I posted on Facebook something along the lines of "CIA Torture: Discuss", thinking that it would yield a similar slew of discussion as the ones located here. To my surprise, the topic went almost indefinitely on as "If they saved one American life, it's all worth it."

I tried to respond to them, thinking that eventually we'd get to the fact that illegality had taken place within this situation in many, many ways, but it just kept going back to that same idea - "If it protected us, we can do it."

I mean, these are the types of things they said:

-It makes me sick that Americans care more about the well-being of terrorists than they do about the children being killed by them.
-If it was a family member's life on the line, what would you do to get them back?
-They do much worse to us.
-The only way to defeat a group like Isis or Al-Qaeda is to play dirtier than them.
-[a u.s. soldier posted] You haven't seen what they do. You just hear things from the media. I've seen it and they don't deserve human rights. They aren't human. They're animals.

So I deleted that post quick-fast and came to see what any of you would have responded to them.

'Torture's inefficient. Every instance of torture was a wasted opportunity to do it right.'

'Torture generates bad intel, and bad intel gets people killed.'

'The FBI should have handled all this. The FBI has made a science of interrogation. The CIA are a bunch of rear end freaks that're down with hiring rapists.'

Edit: 'Torture gave us some of the made-up bullshit that led to invading Iraq'

Edit 2: Specifically...

COMMENT: If it was a family member's life on the line, what would you do to get them back?
RESPONSE: Something that works.

COMMENT: The only way to defeat a group like Isis or Al-Qaeda is to play dirtier than them.
RESPONSE: 'Dirty' doesn't always work.

COMMENT: You haven't seen what they do. You just hear things from the media. I've seen it and they don't deserve human rights. They aren't human. They're animals.
RESPONSE: Then do serial killer poo poo on your own drat time.

Accretionist fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Dec 11, 2014

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:00

Eggplant Squire: Aug 14, 2003

These people don't really care about getting intel. It's all about revenge fantasies on what they consider animals which is why you'll never convince them it was bad. CIA raping people or killing them in freezing water is the end result not the means to an end. People against this need to realize that a huge percentage of Americans want their enemies to be horribly mistreated and don't care how many innocent people are hurt. They just use the "it's worth it if one American life was saved" as window dressing so they don't have to hear themselves act like monsters.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:04

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Radish posted:

These people don't really care about getting intel. It's all about revenge fantasies on what they consider animals which is why you'll never convince them it was bad. CIA raping people or killing them in freezing water is the end result not the means to an end. People against this need to realize that a huge percentage of Americans want their enemies to be horribly mistreated and don't care how many innocent people are hurt. They just use the "it's worth it if one American life was saved" as window dressing so they don't have to hear themselves act like monsters.

Seriously. Torture is just the new way to let racist fantasies play themselves out.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:07

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Radish posted:

These people don't really care about getting intel. It's all about revenge fantasies on what they consider animals which is why you'll never convince them it was bad. CIA raping people or killing them in freezing water is the end result not the means to an end. People against this need to realize that a huge percentage of Americans want their enemies to be horribly mistreated and don't care how many innocent people are hurt. They just use the "it's worth it if one American life was saved" as window dressing so they don't have to hear themselves act like monsters.

Yeah. The Intel thing is just a thin excuse to be an awful sociopath. People, in general, can barely restrain themselved from hateful behavior.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:08

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Radish posted:

These people don't really care about getting intel. It's all about revenge fantasies on what they consider animals which is why you'll never convince them it was bad. CIA raping people or killing them in freezing water is the end result not the means to an end. People against this need to realize that a huge percentage of Americans want their enemies to be horribly mistreated and don't care how many innocent people are hurt. They just use the "it's worth it if one American life was saved" as window dressing so they don't have to hear themselves act like monsters.

Exactly. Someone needed to feel Tough and Serious. The article in the NYT this morning about how the CIA initially planned for something like regular maximum security prisons at first, right after 9/11, hints at this.

This other piece rings true to me as well

quote:

Most commonly, torture�s purpose is not to extract intelligence, but to extract confessions.
...
Relatedly, torture is a valuable tool to instill fear in the general population.
...
These are the primary reasons why regimes like the Nazis or Soviets used torture extensively. Yes, they also used torture to try to extract intelligence, but that was never the primary purpose of such techniques. There were other, fully rational reasons to torture.

I believe that our reasons were far less rational.

I�ve written before about the overwhelming fear that afflicted the country in the wake of 9-11, and how, perversely, exaggerating the severity of the threat from al Qaeda helped address that fear, because it made it acceptable to contemplate more extreme actions in response. If al Qaeda was really just a band of lunatics who got lucky, then 3,000 died because, well, because that�s the kind of thing that can happen. If al Qaeda was the leading edge of a worldwide Islamo-fascist movement with the real potential to destroy the West, then we would be justified in nuking Mecca in response. Next to that kind of response, torture seems moderate.

Willingness to torture became, first within elite government and opinion-making circles, then in the culture generally, and finally as a partisan GOP talking point, a litmus test of seriousness with respect to the fight against terrorism. That � proving one�s seriousness in the fight � was its primary purpose from the beginning, in my view. It was only secondarily about extracting intelligence. It certainly wasn�t about instilling fear or extracting false confessions � these would not have served American purposes. It was never about �them� at all. It was about us. It was our psychological security blanket, our best evidence that we were �all-in� in this war, the thing that proved to us that we were fierce enough to win.

Not unlike the Iraq war itself. Blood for oil? Nah, blood to let us beat our chests like apes.

rockopete fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Dec 11, 2014

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:19

Sharkie: Feb 4, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Remember, though, they were all middle to upper-middle class white males! :v:

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:22

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Sharkie posted:

Remember, though, they were all middle to upper-middle class white males!

And look how well that turned out!

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:23

Sharkie: Feb 4, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:

And look how well that turned out!

Yep, that's the point! I think there was some game theory experiment involving cooperation, and all the guy students they tried it on kept dicking each other over and making suboptimal choices, but when they tried it with the secretaries, they consistently cooperated and won it.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:32

ActusRhesus: Sep 18, 2007; "Perhaps the fact the defendant had to be dragged out of the courtroom while declaring 'Death to you all, a Jihad on the court' may have had something to do with the revocation of his bond. That or calling the judge a bald-headed cock-sucker. Either way."

Sharkie posted:

Remember, though, they were all middle to upper-middle class white males!

Not disagreeing with the main point being made, but you may not want to hold up the Stanford prison experiment as an illustration of humanity's flaws, as it got pretty well crushed in peer review.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:34

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Middle class Western students, often used as the main testing group for cooperation related experiments (the results of which tended to be extrapolated to be the same for all of humanity), turned out to be one of the most selfish groups in existence once the tests started being performed across different cultures, occupations, age groups, etc.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:37

ActusRhesus: Sep 18, 2007; "Perhaps the fact the defendant had to be dragged out of the courtroom while declaring 'Death to you all, a Jihad on the court' may have had something to do with the revocation of his bond. That or calling the judge a bald-headed cock-sucker. Either way."

my dad posted:

Middle class Western students, often used as the main testing group for cooperation related experiments (the results of which tended to be extrapolated to be the same for all of humanity), turned out to be one of the most selfish groups in existence once the tests started being performed across different cultures, occupations, age groups, etc.

There were also issues in how the test subjects were recruited, IIRC. ads seeking participants in "studies on prison life" drew a much different test base than ads for a later similar experiment seeking participants in an unnamed "psychological study."

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:39

Sharkie: Feb 4, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

ActusRhesus posted:

Not disagreeing with the main point being made, but you may not want to hold up the Stanford prison experiment as an illustration of humanity's flaws, as it got pretty well crushed in peer review.

Oh for sure, it was a poo poo experiment.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:44

duz: Jul 11, 2005; Come on Ilhan, lets go bag us a shitpost

Sharkie posted:

Oh for sure, it was a poo poo experiment.

Much like a representative democracy.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:53

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

Much like a representative democracy.

Well, maybe if representative democracy wasn't stuck in a 1700s system held up as a holy standard...

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:57

Gin and Juche: Apr 3, 2008; The Highest Judge of Paradise
Shiki Eiki
YAMAXANADU

So Brennan is going over the topic live. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/c/live/CIA_director_delivers_statement_on_interrogation_report/5489a3cee4b08e52b2b921ea

Edit: Don't know what I expected...

Gin and Juche fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Dec 11, 2014

# ? Dec 11, 2014 19:58

Rygar201: Jan 26, 2011; I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.

Feinstein is livetweeting Brennan's response, basically making GBS threads on him and the CIA. It's awesome

# ? Dec 11, 2014 20:24

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

Arguing with someone against torture by citing its ineffectiveness implies its use would be valid were it effective.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 20:30

ActusRhesus: Sep 18, 2007; "Perhaps the fact the defendant had to be dragged out of the courtroom while declaring 'Death to you all, a Jihad on the court' may have had something to do with the revocation of his bond. That or calling the judge a bald-headed cock-sucker. Either way."

FizFashizzle posted:

Arguing with someone against torture by citing its ineffectiveness implies its use would be valid were it effective.

This. The question is not whether or not it was effective.

the question is whether or not we as a nation want to go there in the first place.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 20:35

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

ActusRhesus posted:

This. The question is not whether or not it was effective.

the question is whether or not we as a nation want to go there in the first place.

I think that's the thing though: Not only is it an embarrassment to our country, but it wasn't even an effective tool, and it was KNOWN to be defective BEFORE 9/11 and prior to its instituted use.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 20:38

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# ? May 30, 2024 00:30

Accretionist: Nov 7, 2012; I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

But if there is a perceived utility and necessity to torture which supersedes consideration of values and identity, you do need to make that point.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 20:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Senate torture report

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tentative8e8op posted:

FuriousxGeorge posted:

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Gravel Gravy posted:

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

CommieGIR posted:

red_blip posted:

red_blip posted:

Radish posted:

Radish posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Radish posted:

quote:

CommieGIR posted:

Sharkie posted:

CommieGIR posted:

Sharkie posted:

my dad posted:

ActusRhesus posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Sharkie posted:

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

FizFashizzle posted:

ActusRhesus posted: