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duz posted:Naw, it's running under the logic that to accept a pardon, you have to admit you committed a crime. It's kind of like how when Ford pardoned Nixon, Nixon's admission of guilt as part of the pardon caused all politicians' hearts to grow two sizes and ushered in a new era of transparency and good faith in governance. I don't understand how someone as smart as Anthony Romero believes something as utterly stupid as this. One real easy way to show everyone torture is Very Bad and Illegal is to make it a crime. Which we did long ago. And which did absolutely nothing to stop this. Pardoning these people would only make future rectal feeding enthusiasts even more sure they won't face consequences. Maybe in fifteen years the CIA officer will tell the detainee "Yeah I don't give a gently caress if you go to court, worst case is I get a pardon if everyone finds out what I did to you," instead of assuming there would be hell to pay if the public found out.
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Dec 11, 2014 01:07
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Shbobdb posted:So, how would someone apply for a job at one of these CIA torture sites? How do you get yourself in that situation? If we're going to have an evil gravy train, may as well be on it! Judging by the number of anal enthusiasts and diaper fetishists they employ, just try sending them your fetlife profile. Probably want to list some super extreme kinks to show you're serious, butt stuff is getting pretty mainstream these days.
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Dec 11, 2014 03:05
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awesmoe posted:The options are either tacit pardons or explicit pardons. Explicit pardons signify guilt, whereas tacit pardons leave the question of guilt open. Thats all he's got; he's just acknowledged that nothing else is going to come of this. That's the part I don't get from Romero. The ACLU's stock in trade is principled stands in the face of long odds because you don't compromise on basic rights. This position is like him saying "you know we really don't like capital punishment, so if it's painless and you let the 'tards live, okay I guess." The ACLU isn't supposed to throw in the towel.
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Dec 11, 2014 03:13
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Didn't Peter King literally fund the IRA before he became America's #1 opponent of those dastardly browm mooslim terrorists? A guy who can do those mental gymnastics can provably justify anything. The real fun question would be to ask him if it would have been okay for scotland yard to do these exact things to IRA members (and a few random innocent cab drivers thrown in). Basically, if CIA torture offers another opportunity to watch Peter King defend white terrorists in the same breath he attacks brown ones, then it was worth it.
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Dec 11, 2014 03:42
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Has anyone heard any media outlet call this rape yet? I've only seen it referred to as rectal feeding so far, which is approximately the same thing as calling it EIT instead of torture.
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Dec 11, 2014 03:53
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Darth Walrus posted:I some ways, I think rectal feeding is the better term. I mean, yes, rape is a powerful, emotive term, but shunting entire meals up someone's rear end to gently caress up their digestive system somehow seems even more horrifying, and the more precise 'rectal feeding' seems to better encapsulate what made it special. 'Anal food rape', maybe? I don't think rape is appropriate because it's powerful or emotive, but because it is correct. The CIA documents acknowledged they used the technique instead of safe IV/nasal alternatives because it furthered their goal of creating a power dynamic based on humiliation and fear. Nonconsensual penetration of the anus is included under the U.S. Code (and any state statute I am familiar with) definition of rape: quote:penetration, however slight, of the vulva or anus or mouth, of another by any part of the body or by any object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade any person or to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person. 10 U.S.C §920(g)(1)(B), provided one of the compulsion elements of subsection (a) is present, which they were. It's right there next to the hold a bitch down and gently caress her subsection. If this had been a female detainee and they raped her with a penis to break her, that would be the numero uno thing people talk about. This is the same thing, at least according to the U.S. Code (and I would argue under any sane definition of rape, though I don't want to derail into a debate about what counts as "rape rape"). They shoved things up peoples' asses for the sole purpose of humiliating them. That's rape, and it should be called rape.
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Dec 11, 2014 04:23
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Trabisnikof posted:This is the reason no one is going to go to jail: That's just, like, Jay Bybee's opinion, man.
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Dec 11, 2014 05:09
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Trabisnikof posted:In your mind who should they charge then? The torturers themselves? The psychologists running the program? John Yoo? President Bush? Everyone involved from the person who blended the hummus on up? Hummus masher right on up. That one interrogator who told the detainee they'd have to kill him because they could never let the world find out what they'd done to him damned them all. They knew what they were doing was terrible and illegal. There's more than enough culpability to prosecute every single one of those assholes.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:30
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Trabisnikof posted:You realize they were told explicitly that what they were doing wasn't illegal and the DoJ wrote out the legal reasoning why it was legal right? Then why did that interrogator admit to the detainee that the world could never find out? For funsies? What interrogation purpose did that admission serve? If he wanted to terrorize the detainee into thinking he'd never get out alive, he could have, i don't know, locked him in a coffin for 300 hours and told him he'd never get out alive, which happens to be a Real Life Thing They Did. Perhaps these fairly intelligent psychopaths, much like pretty much anyone who has ever read these memos, knew they were self-serving fig leaves written by yes men interested in being rewarded by the insanely partisan administration that plucked them out of the federalist society to write the memos in the first place. On the other hand, if you're sticking with "nah, I paid my lawyer to say it was okay, therefore it is," cool I've got some pretty lucrative crimes to go get okayed by a lawyer.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:49
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Trabisnikof posted:I'm not trying to argue that it was actually legal. Just that they were told it was legal enough. Which would make the court case all the worse for the Obama administration. That's my point, that the nature of the Bush administration's attempts at muddying the legal waters were sufficient to make any prosecution at best a pyrrhic victory. I don't actually expect a prosecution, given the last three or four decades crystallizing the unaccountability of the powerful. However, in a fantasy world where presidents had principles and attorneys general had spines, I see a prosecution offering more than a pyrrhic victory. For one thing, OLC memos don't carry the force of law For another, assuming a prosecution survived past a motion to dismiss, whether there was a conviction or not, there is immense value in the people involved in this sitting on a witness stand and being examined under oath, in the open. Finally, again assuming we got beyond a motion to dismiss, the utterly graphic and depraved facts of the case would carry far more weight than legal memoranda using adventurous interpretations of fairly unambiguous statutes, but in the eyes of a finder of fact and the public. Like, we almost literally have a case of "well, that depends on what the meaning of 'is' is," on one hand and "yeah, so that's when I pureed a whole meal and shoved it up a guy's rear end" on the other. That is a deck of cards I'd be willing to play with if I were a federal prosecutor.
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Dec 11, 2014 23:26
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Of course Fox would say wild and awful poo poo. They already do. They have already spent six years calling Obama everything they could think of, regardless of what he does. Since that's all they will ever do, who cares? They're going to have Ollie North calling Obama a furrener and a human being three nights a week either way, why not get something done? They're gonna say mean things about me if I eat a big mac, they'll say the exact same mean things if I eat a steak, I'm eating the loving steak.
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Dec 11, 2014 23:33
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Instead of disbanding the CIA, why not aim for a more achievable target? Name and remove torture participants. It is somewhat overlooked that the people who did this are largely still with the agency. They've promoted up, they should now be in management positions. One reason it's certain this will happen again is that people who did it will be quite literally running the place. Not that I think that will happen, but it is one concrete step people could call for.
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Dec 15, 2014 23:48
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Mightypeon posted:
I mean, that is one of the basic tenets of classical realist theory in international relations - countries are rational actors w/r/t their national interests, and internal politics are just fluff. I don't really agree with that, and realism has developed into many more nuanced flavors today, but that theory isn't just a Soviet view of America.
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Dec 19, 2014 21:16
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Quasimango posted:http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/unidentified-queen-torture I had not read that story. That's all hosed up. I am not sure how the Senate has to get permission from anyone to do any goddamn thing.
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Dec 19, 2014 21:17
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I wonder how many names are in the full report if/when Udall releases it.
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Dec 21, 2014 00:30
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