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If not being Greek means being in the category of the type of people I listed, then sure.

And coincidentally, I am Greek.

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah, I didn't say we should be needlessly pulling finger nails. I am not a barbarian. But I also just have to laugh at people who think that these people are anything resembling human beings and deserving of being treated with kid gloves

Congratulations. You and the Taliban completely agree that our enemies are non-humans that we are superior to, thus justifying any act we wage against them.

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

1) If you consider EIT "torture"... so what? Listening to Nickelback is far more egregious . I just find the whole arguement that "we're better than that" tiring...

Do you find it tiring when people use the same argument to justify the use of waterboarding?

Yup.

It's the less savory part of war and intelligence. It is what it is... and I hope/pray that to those who do these things "in our name" do it judiciously and not for some retribution.

We need to stop thinking that everyone plays by the rules...

And @Ouze... I'm not ashamed... what I think it's bad is that someone should've been prosecuted when those tapes were destroyed.

http://vimeo.com/19952563

Please watch that documentary.

 Crablezworth wrote:
http://vimeo.com/19952563

Please watch that documentary.

and?


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Edit:
Lemme ask you guys something...

I have some serious reservation of the need/effectiveness of all the drone missile strikes we've done, which to my eyes elevated higher civilians casualties.

If you knew that had we captured high-valued target AND used EIT to extract useful informations, which in turn would lead to lower drone strikes (being more surgical) and thus lower casualties... would ya be okay with it? [caveat: I have no idea if anyone espoused this, but interested in the responses]

 djones520 wrote:
Less violent and damaging? No physical harm comes from waterboarding.

First up, waterboarding can kill. It isn't the sensation of drowing - it is putting water on the lungs - it is drowning, and if you do it for too long it will kill people.

Second up, in their various interrogations the US did kill people - two people in fact;
"Gul Rahman, suspected of being a militant, who died in 2002 after being shackled to a concrete wall in near-freezing temperatures at a secret C.I.A. prison in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit; and Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in C.I.A. custody in 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where his corpse was photographed packed in ice and wrapped in plastic."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us/holder-rules-out-prosecutions-in-cia-interrogations.html?src=recg&pagewanted=all&_r=0


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 djones520 wrote:
Personally, I'd be fine busting out the medieval torture playbook on these people, because if any deserve it, they do.

Interesting. Torture not because it might be useful, but because they deserve it.

Which is the kind of fethed up thinking that shows exactly why torture is such a dangerous thing to allow.


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 djones520 wrote:
They weren't?

No, they weren't. Have you read nothing about this issue at all?

 whembly wrote:
If you knew that had we captured high-valued target AND used EIT to extract useful informations, which in turn would lead to lower drone strikes (being more surgical) and thus lower casualties... would ya be okay with it? [caveat: I have no idea if anyone espoused this, but interested in the responses]

Ah, the ticking time bomb scenario (well, a variant of it anyway). My opinion is that it's not warranted even then because of several reasons. First, it's unreliable - especially in such a high-pressure situation, they're going to be inclined to lie to throw you on a wild goose chase. Remember, even the people who espouse torture via waterboarding state that it first has to be set up to where they only get known information, and so on. If you only have an hour, it's simply not going to yield useful results.

More importantly, in my opinion, is that our values are worth more then some fleeting moment. Things always seem so dire that we need to break the rules "just this one time". All Al Qaeda did was kill some people, and yes, that was horrible. Yes, we should use military force against them, for it was an act of war. But shredding our values to prosecute that conflict is more harmful to the country then the actions they took.

In 1812, the White House was burned to ruins and the nations capital was occupied by a foreign army. In time, we rebuilt. This too will pass, but our values, the principle that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that we do not engage in cruel and unusual punishment - that endures.

 whembly wrote:
If you knew that had we captured high-valued target AND used EIT to extract useful informations, which in turn would lead to lower drone strikes (being more surgical) and thus lower casualties... would ya be okay with it? [caveat: I have no idea if anyone espoused this, but interested in the responses]

It's a fair question, and one to which I'm not sure of the answer. I mean, in the classic ticking time bomb situation everyone is going to torture the guy to get the information, but given the ticking time bomb situation has never happened, we have to wonder how likely it is it ever will.

And against that we have to worry about the ease with which allowing torture if needed becomes torture as a matter of course. I mean, just read about the use of torture by the British during the troubles in Ireland, it was almost a matter of weeks from torture being accepted unofficially if there was a pressing need, to torture becoming a part of routine practice.

I mean, I tend to side with not allowing torture, just because from what I've read it doesn't seem any more effective than sleep deprivation and other methods used to break down a captive's resistance. In fact, waterboarding and other forms of torture are often used as part of that process as it is. But I'm not going to outright state that torture can't be used, or that it can't produce useful information that is far more valuable than our perceived willingness to get our hands dirty. But any use of torture would need to have extremely strict and controlled processes around it.

The problem I have, as perfectly demonstrated by dakka's usual suspects in this thread, is that so much nonsense gets thrown around the debate about whether torture is useful and needed, and how it might be controlled properly if it were used gets drowned out. Because of the people claiming piffle like "waterboarding isn't torture" "they deserve it" "bleeding hearts" "we're better than them" and all that other nonsense, the end result is that there is no real debate on whether torture should be allowed, and if so how we might make sure it is used properly. And without that debate allowing torture is incredibly dangerous.


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 Ouze wrote:
In 1812, the White House was burned to ruins and the nations capital was occupied by a foreign army. In time, we rebuilt. This too will pass, but our values, the principle that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that we do not engage in cruel and unusual punishment - that endures.

The problem I have with that is that it isn't as though the US hadn't tortured before the war on terror. I mean, the School of the Americas was basically a CIA franchise that used torture extensively.

The US is a very powerful nation, and like all very powerful nations before it, to some extent it protects its power through very ugly means. That, to me, just seems to be how life is.

The only real difference in torture in the global war on terror was the the Bush administration wasn't pretending it didn't happen, instead they were pretending what they were doing wasn't torture, and saying what they were doing was necessary.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If you knew that had we captured high-valued target AND used EIT to extract useful informations, which in turn would lead to lower drone strikes (being more surgical) and thus lower casualties... would ya be okay with it? [caveat: I have no idea if anyone espoused this, but interested in the responses]

It's a fair question, and one to which I'm not sure of the answer. I mean, in the classic ticking time bomb situation everyone is going to torture the guy to get the information, but given the ticking time bomb situation has never happened, we have to wonder how likely it is it ever will.

And against that we have to worry about the ease with which allowing torture if needed becomes torture as a matter of course. I mean, just read about the use of torture by the British during the troubles in Ireland, it was almost a matter of weeks from torture being accepted unofficially if there was a pressing need, to torture becoming a part of routine practice.

I mean, I tend to side with not allowing torture, just because from what I've read it doesn't seem any more effective than sleep deprivation and other methods used to break down a captive's resistance. In fact, waterboarding and other forms of torture are often used as part of that process as it is. But I'm not going to outright state that torture can't be used, or that it can't produce useful information that is far more valuable than our perceived willingness to get our hands dirty. But any use of torture would need to have extremely strict and controlled processes around it.

The problem I have, as perfectly demonstrated by dakka's usual suspects in this thread, is that so much nonsense gets thrown around the debate about whether torture is useful and needed, and how it might be controlled properly if it were used gets drowned out. Because of the people claiming piffle like "waterboarding isn't torture" "they deserve it" "bleeding hearts" "we're better than them" and all that other nonsense, the end result is that there is no real debate on whether torture should be allowed, and if so how we might make sure it is used properly. And without that debate allowing torture is incredibly dangerous.


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 Ouze wrote:
In 1812, the White House was burned to ruins and the nations capital was occupied by a foreign army. In time, we rebuilt. This too will pass, but our values, the principle that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that we do not engage in cruel and unusual punishment - that endures.

The problem I have with that is that it isn't as though the US hadn't tortured before the war on terror. I mean, the School of the Americas was basically a CIA franchise that used torture extensively.

The US is a very powerful nation, and like all very powerful nations before it, to some extent it protects its power through very ugly means. That, to me, just seems to be how life is.

The only real difference in torture in the global war on terror was the the Bush administration wasn't pretending it didn't happen, instead they were pretending what they were doing wasn't torture, and saying what they were doing was necessary.

Yeah... that's how I sorta feel about it... 'tis why I said earlier in the thread " I hope/pray that to those who do these things "in our name" do it judiciously and not for some retribution."

The world can be an ugly place... (I still have a hard time reconciling the drone bombing... seemlying used as an "easy button"... but, maybe I'm wrong as I'm not in the decision making chain for these actions and I have to come to terms with that.)

I'm not a big fan of torture, but I'm very much for drowning terrorists.

I'm torn.

 whembly wrote:

Yup.

It's the less savory part of war and intelligence. It is what it is... and I hope/pray that to those who do these things "in our name" do it judiciously and not for some retribution.

We need to stop thinking that everyone plays by the rules...

I'm not sure you appreciate my meaning. When people use the "We're better than that." argument to defend waterboarding, they usually do so by pointing at crimes committed by the other side; noting that not everyone plays by the rules.

Though, quite honestly, I'm not sure what rules they're talking about.

 whembly wrote:
[The world can be an ugly place... (I still have a hard time reconciling the drone bombing... seemlying used as an "easy button"... but, maybe I'm wrong as I'm not in the decision making chain for these actions and I have to come to terms with that.)

Well, with that last sentence, you appear to be buying into the "if you knew what we knew' line of BS. Don't - you never get to know what they know, and it's an easy way to cover up how sloppy they are. Don't assume that these guys are all principled professionals agonizing about doing the hard thing. Like any job, there are plenty of hard-working professionals, some who are lazy and could care less, and some are full-on screwups who only got where they are by a truly epic peter principle effect. For example, look at that awesome Iraq WMD evidence pre-invasion.

So far as the first part of what you said, I have no problem with drones being used in warfare against Al-Qaeda. We have a legally passed authorization to use military force against Al-Qaeda, wherever they are, as passed by the duly elected representatives of the people. I feel a great, burning desire to make our waging of warfare as unfair as humanly possible - I favor overwhelming force so as to end hostilities as soon as possible and to return to normal diplomatic means of resolving disputes. I think anything less is immoral, truthfully.

But I'm deeply concerned about how the Obama administrations use of drones appears to exceed that authorization, and that the authorization seemingly has no endpoint on it, and that there are really no meaningful checks on this authority. The Al-awlaki situation especially is I think a bajillion times more concerning then that gunrunning fiasco.

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Yup.

It's the less savory part of war and intelligence. It is what it is... and I hope/pray that to those who do these things "in our name" do it judiciously and not for some retribution.

We need to stop thinking that everyone plays by the rules...

I'm not sure you appreciate my meaning. When people use the "We're better than that." argument to defend waterboarding, they usually do so by pointing at crimes committed by the other side; noting that not everyone plays by the rules.

Though, quite honestly, I'm not sure what rules they're talking about.

Oh... I see.

Sorry... yeah, I get where you're coming from... yup, "we're better than that" bugs me too.


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 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
[The world can be an ugly place... (I still have a hard time reconciling the drone bombing... seemlying used as an "easy button"... but, maybe I'm wrong as I'm not in the decision making chain for these actions and I have to come to terms with that.)

Well, with that last sentence, you appear to be buying into the "if you knew what we knew' line of BS. Don't - you never get to know what they know, and it's an easy way to cover up how sloppy they are. Don't assume that these guys are all principled professionals agonizing about doing the hard thing. Like any job, there are plenty of hard-working professionals, some who are lazy and could care less, and some are full-on screwups who only got where they are by a truly epic peter principle effect. For example, look at that awesome Iraq WMD evidence pre-invasion.

That's just it... I don't buy that "if you knew what we know" argument. That's what I'm struggling with... all we can hope for is that there ARE good people along the decision chain to act in our best interests.

So far as the first part of what you said, I have no problem with drones being used in warfare against Al-Qaeda. We have a legally passed authorization to use military force against Al-Qaeda, wherever they are, as passed by the duly elected representatives of the people. I feel a great, burning desire to make our waging of warfare as unfair as humanly possible - I favor overwhelming force so as to end hostilities as soon as possible and to return to normal diplomatic means of resolving disputes. I think anything less is immoral, truthfully.

Oh... I certainly agree here. However... are these "armed drone excursions" the most OVERWHEMLMING action?

But I'm deeply concerned about how the Obama administrations use of drones appears to exceed that authorization, and that the authorization seemingly has no endpoint on it, and that there are really no meaningful checks on this authority. The Al-awlaki situation especially is I think a bajillion times more concerning then that gunrunning fiasco.

Agreed x1000!

 Monster Rain wrote:
I'm not a big fan of torture, but I'm very much for drowning terrorists.

I'm torn.

This sums up my issue.

 whembly wrote:
That's just it... I don't buy that "if you knew what we know" argument. That's what I'm struggling with... all we can hope for is that there ARE good people along the decision chain to act in our best interests.

Ummm, I think we can do more than hope. We can put laws and accountability in place to make sure it the behaviours we find acceptable happen.

You know the old saying, hope in one hand and crap in the other. See which hand has more in it when you are done.

I don't put much faith in hope. I put more faith in the Rule of Law.

 Easy E wrote:

 whembly wrote:
That's just it... I don't buy that "if you knew what we know" argument. That's what I'm struggling with... all we can hope for is that there ARE good people along the decision chain to act in our best interests.

Ummm, I think we can do more than hope. We can put laws and accountability in place to make sure it the behaviours we find acceptable happen.

You know the old saying, hope in one hand and crap in the other. See which hand has more in it when you are done.

I don't put much faith in hope. I put more faith in the Rule of Law.

So... you saying EIT broke US laws?

Nope, I'm not an expert on EIT and torture laws so I have no ideas.

I'm saying if the US doesn't want certain things to happen to people in our custody, we don't have to simply hope they don't happen. We can legislate said things and then hold people accountable when and if these said things happen. That way, it deters others from doing said things that we don't want to happen.

It's not really a new idea. Instead of relying on faith that bad things won't happen, we can create laws and prosecutions to help enforce the idea that these bad things should not happen. Then, if they do; the people responsible are punished.

It seems to me that the pro side is a simple matter of pure racism. Because they are "brown" they might be terrorists so it must be ok. Never mind that they might not be, or the people who are killed for happening to live near them (drone strikes), as long as it is "them" and not "us".

Ask yourself this, would you be ok with being subjected to "EIT" on the basis that you happen to know someone involved in funding of terrorist groups, even though you have nothing to do with it and no idea it was happening? How angry would you be if the Sri Lankan government started drone strikes where you live because a Tamil Tiger leader was living near you? You would not accept this, yet the apologists accept this every time they justify torcher and extra judicial killings. Why? Because it is "them" to protect "us".


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 Easy E wrote:
Nope, I'm not an expert on EIT and torture laws so I have no ideas.

I'm saying if the US doesn't want certain things to happen to people in our custody, we don't have to simply hope they don't happen. We can legislate said things and then hold people accountable when and if these said things happen. That way, it deters others from doing said things that we don't want to happen.

It's not really a new idea. Instead of relying on faith that bad things won't happen, we can create laws and prosecutions to help enforce the idea that these bad things should not happen. Then, if they do; the people responsible are punished.

One of the reasons Gitmo exists is to let the CIA do things that are illigal under US law. The CIA also refuse to class most of the people held there as POWs because they want to do things that are illigal under international law.

And the level of discourse plummets further.

It is entirely possible to separate the person who is a "terrorist" from the blanket term "brown people", though I think on some level you knew that.

Steve steveson wrote:
It seems to me that the pro side is a simple matter of pure racism. Because they are "brown" they might be terrorists so it must be ok. Never mind that they might not be, or the people who are killed for happening to live near them (drone strikes), as long as it is "them" and not "us".

Ask yourself this, would you be ok with being subjected to "EIT" on the basis that you happen to know someone involved in funding of terrorist groups, even though you have nothing to do with it and no idea it was happening? How angry would you be if the Sri Lankan government started drone strikes where you live because a Tamil Tiger leader was living near you? You would not accept this, yet the apologists accept this every time they justify torcher and extra judicial killings. Why? Because it is "them" to protect "us".


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 Easy E wrote:
Nope, I'm not an expert on EIT and torture laws so I have no ideas.

I'm saying if the US doesn't want certain things to happen to people in our custody, we don't have to simply hope they don't happen. We can legislate said things and then hold people accountable when and if these said things happen. That way, it deters others from doing said things that we don't want to happen.

It's not really a new idea. Instead of relying on faith that bad things won't happen, we can create laws and prosecutions to help enforce the idea that these bad things should not happen. Then, if they do; the people responsible are punished.

One of the reasons Gitmo exists is to let the CIA do things that are illigal under US law. The CIA also refuse to class most of the people held there as POWs because they want to do things that are illigal under international law.

Wow, so much factually wrong info here...

CIA doesn't run GITMO, neither the facility nor the interogations.

If a Tamil Tiger leader was in the US, I would expect Sri Lanka to go through diplomatic channels to get him, seeing as how the LTTE is on our list of FTOs, I suspect our FBI would like to catch the guy too. Not too much Gov't of Pakistan or Yemen capability to get guys we are interested in so frankly the anaology sucks.

I could go on, but I assume facts and reality don't really matter.

Steve steveson wrote:IOne of the reasons Gitmo exists is to let the CIA do things that are illigal under US law. The CIA also refuse to class most of the people held there as POWs because they want to do things that are illigal under international law.

CptJake wrote:[Wow, so much factually wrong info here...

CIA doesn't run GITMO, neither the facility nor the interogations.

I'd say split the difference - you're both right., and you're both wrong.

While the CIA certainly doesn't run the facilities at Guantanamo Bay (so Captjake is right, Steve is wrong), on the other hand they clearly have, intentionally, free reign to do things that would be against the law in the United States (So, CaptJake is wrong - operational control vs the name on the lease is really just a matter of semantics). Before we started sending detainees to Guantanamo, the Bush administration asked to find a place that was "legal outer space" in which to house them. And even beyond Gitmo, we know damn well the CIA ran black sites to torture people at in other countries, like Poland (So Steve is right).

They were able to justify setting up these unlawful torture gulags under the theory that these guys aren't actually POWs, and so they're free to torture at will. So Steve is right in principle if may not 100% on geography.

And before someone argues, well, we don't know they tortured, you have as much evidence as I do they didn't - they burned the tapes and then the Obama administration refused to even investigate it. You'll free to defend or admonish what happened as you like, but you don't find secret places to do stuff and then burn evidence of what you did if you knew people would be OK with it. I think as a nation of laws we should all be horrified that this was allowed to happen in our name - the coverup, if not the crimes.

Steve steveson wrote:
It seems to me that the pro side is a simple matter of pure racism. Because they are "brown" they might be terrorists so it must be ok. Never mind that they might not be, or the people who are killed for happening to live near them (drone strikes), as long as it is "them" and not "us".

Really? Racism? You really don't know what that means...eh?

Ask yourself this, would you be ok with being subjected to "EIT" on the basis that you happen to know someone involved in funding of terrorist groups, even though you have nothing to do with it and no idea it was happening? How angry would you be if the Sri Lankan government started drone strikes where you live because a Tamil Tiger leader was living near you? You would not accept this, yet the apologists accept this every time they justify torcher and extra judicial killings. Why? Because it is "them" to protect "us".

Funny that you say that...

Don't some service men go thru the same EIT for training? Read that article...

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 Easy E wrote:
Nope, I'm not an expert on EIT and torture laws so I have no ideas.

I'm saying if the US doesn't want certain things to happen to people in our custody, we don't have to simply hope they don't happen. We can legislate said things and then hold people accountable when and if these said things happen. That way, it deters others from doing said things that we don't want to happen.

It's not really a new idea. Instead of relying on faith that bad things won't happen, we can create laws and prosecutions to help enforce the idea that these bad things should not happen. Then, if they do; the people responsible are punished.

One of the reasons Gitmo exists is to let the CIA do things that are illigal under US law. The CIA also refuse to class most of the people held there as POWs because they want to do things that are illigal under international law.

I'll have to weigh in against torture for a few reasons.
In the first place, it invalidates any moral high ground we can claim when we act at a level that involves maiming someone physically or mentaly.
Then there is the fallout that comes when people talk about what happened, whether the news comes from prisoners or the people in charge of them. The populace we are trying to win over begins to hate us, or at the very least fear reprisals against those that helped us when we leave, ala Vietnam.
I spe ak for myself on this point, but if I were to torture someone, the incident would stay with me and severly begin to affect me.
From what I've been told by an interrogator, about 95 percent of prisoners taken are rank amatures in resisting non harmful interrogation techniques simply because they have neither the indoctrination or training to realize how much information they are being tricked into giving.
The whole torture angle seems counter productive to the long game in my mind.

 whembly wrote:

Don't some service men go thru the same EIT for training? Read that article...

I wouldn't call it the same, but yes.

 Seaward wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Don't some service men go thru the same EIT for training? Read that article...

I wouldn't call it the same, but yes.

Yeah... the major difference is that they know it's a simulation, whereas the captive don't.

I dunno it got pretty freaking real at a couple points.

I will however point out that SERE in it's various forms are incredibly harsh because we usually end up fighting nations who don't care about the Geneva Conventions, Human Rights in any sense of the term, the US's own Laws of Armed Conflict, etc. Witness the torture experienced by US POWs in Vietnam, or the brutal executions carried about by the Taliban and insurgent forces today.

Why shouldn't we torture? because we're supposed to be better then that.

The question of non-governmental insurgents are a curious one. They don't fit the definition of a legal combatant under the US's LOAC or the Geneva Conventions, so they really can't be POWs in any circumstance. They're criminals and are usually controlled and tried as such. There's global legal precedence for this since the rise of terrorism in many western nations. The fate of captured members of the Irish Republican Army for example.

 whembly wrote:
Yeah... the major difference is that they know it's a simulation, whereas the captive don't.

They're quite good at making sure that notion provides no comfort at all.

Okay guys... I stand corrected.

 Seaward wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Yeah... the major difference is that they know it's a simulation, whereas the captive don't.

They're quite good at making sure that notion provides no comfort at all.

*post deleted*

I wrote up a whole commentary, but.... technically I can't say gak. So I won't.

Suffice to say. I'd rather do boot camp again (three months) then have to redo SERE in December in Northern Maine. (two frozen horrible weeks)

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Yeah... the major difference is that they know it's a simulation, whereas the captive don't.

They're quite good at making sure that notion provides no comfort at all.

*post deleted*

I wrote up a whole commentary, but.... technically I can't say gak. So I won't.

Suffice to say. I'd rather do boot camp again (three months) then have to redo SERE in December in Northern Maine. (two frozen horrible weeks)

Sorry guys... I assumed too much. My bad.