Waterboard Feinstein!

[Bill the Cat]

No it isn't - not if you can save innocent lives.

If someone ever raped one of my daughters, I can assure you they would wish they had died as a child after I was done with them.

[seer]

Former CIA senior officers are pushing back:

http://ciasavedlives.com/

The recently released Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Majority report on the CIA's Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Program is marred by errors of facts and interpretation and is completely at odds with the reality that the leaders and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency lived through. It represents the single worst example of Congressional oversight in our many years of government service.

Astonishingly, the SSCI Majority staff interviewed no CIA officers responsible for establishing, implementing, or evaluating the program’s effectiveness. Let us repeat, no one at the CIA was interviewed.

Worse, the Committee selectively used documents to try to substantiate a point of view where ample and contrary evidence existed.

[firstfloor]

Just for being a stupid woman. I mean even John Kerry asked her not to release the report. They are putting our soldiers and other US citizens in more danger for nothing! Idiots...

No, no. This is just chickens coming home to roost. When you decide to torture their guys you give them permission to torture your guys. That’s why it’s a bad idea. This report is not telling us something we did not know already. It is an essential act of repentance.

[Bill the Cat]

No, no. This is just chickens coming home to roost. When you decide to torture their guys you give them permission to torture your guys. That’s why it’s a bad idea. This report is not telling us something we did not know already. It is an essential act of repentance.

You think they need PERMISSION to torture our guys? What rock have you been for the past few decades?

[Sparko]

No, no. This is just chickens coming home to roost. When you decide to torture their guys you give them permission to torture your guys. That’s why it’s a bad idea. This report is not telling us something we did not know already. It is an essential act of repentance.

Don't they already torture our guys? and chop of their heads? and kidnap civilians?

Personally I don't think physical torture works all that well. They will tell you what you want to hear, or die holding it in because of a martyr complex.

[Darth Executor]

No, no. This is just chickens coming home to roost. When you decide to torture their guys you give them permission to torture your guys. That’s why it’s a bad idea. This report is not telling us something we did not know already. It is an essential act of repentance.

Yeah like islamists wait for our permission before they torture our guys. Of all the anti-torture arguments this is probably the dumbest.

[Darth Executor]

Don't they already torture our guys? and chop of their heads? and kidnap civilians?

Personally I don't think physical torture works all that well. They will tell you what you want to hear, or die holding it in because of a martyr complex.

When I ask a guy "where is your HQ?", I want to hear where the HQ is, so it seems like it works out ok.

[Bill the Cat]

When I ask a guy "where is your HQ?", I want to hear where the HQ is, so it seems like it works out ok.

tonguelooseners.jpg

[Sparko]

When I ask a guy "where is your HQ?", I want to hear where the HQ is, so it seems like it works out ok.

derp.

You know what I mean, they will tell you anything to get you to stop. Then you have to go check it out, and it might or might not be true. You might be going into a trap. If it is not true you have to start over.

Unless you are Jack Bauer. He gets the real answer the first time around.

[Sparko]

Yeah like islamists wait for our permission before they torture our guys. Of all the anti-torture arguments this is probably the dumbest.

But judging by FF's logic, since they tortured us first, and killed our civilians, that means they gave us permission to torture and kill them.

[Bill the Cat]

derp.

You know what I mean, they will tell you anything to get you to stop. Then you have to go check it out, and it might or might not be true. You might be going into a trap. If it is not true you have to start over.

Unless you are Jack Bauer. He gets the real answer the first time around.

Or Raymond Reddington.

[Teallaura]

FF is not completely wrong - it's both short term and too narrowly focused to use tit for tat tactics. Diplomacy/International Relations are long term efforts with a whole lot of short term projects. Playing tit for tat makes the playing field a heck of a lot rougher over the long term.

That doesn't mean you never play rough - but you DON'T let the other guys dictate your game book, either. Only a weak nation or a stupid one has only one club in its bag - or lets the enemy chose which clubs to play with. Sometimes you do have to meet fire with fire - but it's also perfectly fair and often much smarter to meet fire with really big buckets of water.

It's nonsense and REALLY STUPID to divorce government from morality - and 'they did it first' doesn't cut it as an excuse for immoral government actions. Using force can be justified; torture, not so much, both from moral and practical grounds. Torture gets whatever the guy thinks will make it stop - and since humans all come with preconceived notions, it's always a possibility that the victim will play to those rather than the actual truth (especially if the truth is unlikely to be accepted). Is it morally wrong? Heck, yes - that ain't what Jesus meant by 'Do unto others..." and y'all darned well know it. You can make the 'necessary evil' case as justification and in some cases, you'll even be right - but not as a moral case nor as a best practice case. There are better ways to get information in the vast majority of cases.

That's not the same thing as holding the guy's hand and singing Kum Bah Yah - there's are many options on the table that don't mean playing stupid - lawful stupid, for those gamers in the group. You let the experts do their jobs - and you keep a tight rein because that's the price of democracy and freedom. Those things we are fighting for mean we don't get to become the things we hate.

Tit for tat thinking is for children. It has no place in the relations of nations. Tit for tat is NOT justice - mistaking on for the other is pure folly.

[firstfloor]

No it isn't - not if you can save innocent lives.

No Exceptions
“Long ago, German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote about the perennial human tendency to find exceptions to moral rules when the rules bind a bit too tightly on us: "Hence there arises a natural … disposition to argue against these strict laws of duty and to question their validity, or at least their purity and strictness, and, if possible, to make them more accordant with our wishes and inclinations, that is to say, to corrupt them at their very source, and to entirely destroy their worth."

It is past time for evangelical Christians to remind our government and our society of perennial moral values, which also happen to be international and domestic laws. As Christians, we care about moral values, and we vote on the basis of such values. We care deeply about human-rights violations around the world. Now it is time to raise our voice and say an unequivocal no to torture, a practice that has no place in our society and violates our most cherished moral convictions.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/...ary/23.32.html

[Darth Executor]

FF is not completely wrong - it's both short term and too narrowly focused to use tit for tat tactics. Diplomacy/International Relations are long term efforts with a whole lot of short term projects. Playing tit for tat makes the playing field a heck of a lot rougher over the long term.

No, FF is completely wrong and what you said isn't what FF said. In fact it's not something anyone here said so it's just a waste of words.

That doesn't mean you never play rough - but you DON'T let the other guys dictate your game book, either. Only a weak nation or a stupid one has only one club in its bag - or lets the enemy chose which clubs to play with. Sometimes you do have to meet fire with fire - but it's also perfectly fair and often much smarter to meet fire with really big buckets of water.

As is this. Nobody suggested we should torture because they torture, or that our entire interrogation policy should consist of nothing but torture.

It's nonsense and REALLY STUPID to divorce government from morality

I agree.

- and 'they did it first' doesn't cut it as an excuse for immoral government actions. Using force can be justified; torture, not so much, both from moral and practical grounds.

Feel free to inform God that torture cannot be morally justified:

Deuteronomy 25

1 If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

2 And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.

3 Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.

Also, torture IS force, so saying using force is justified but torture isn't sounds schizo. Nevermind that war itself is just large scale torture, where you punish the entire population of an enemy in an effort to make their lives miserable enough that they'll concede to your demands to make the violence stop. A lot of Christian moralists love twisting themselves into a pretzel to have it both ways: not allow your own innocent people to suffer at the hands of an enemy but also make the suffering you inflict palatable to their conscience, even when it drags out the conflict and causes more misery in the long run.

Torture gets whatever the guy thinks will make it stop - and since humans all come with preconceived notions, it's always a possibility that the victim will play to those rather than the actual truth (especially if the truth is unlikely to be accepted).

Sure, if the interrogator is retarded. But I'm willing to bet you'd give up your wallet pretty quickly if someone merely held the likely threat of physical violence on you, as would many prisoners. Also, torture doesn't have to even involve physical pain. The best torture is the kind that breaks an enemy's mind so prying secrets out of them becomes a lot easier. Like sleep deprivation.

Is it morally wrong? Heck, yes - that ain't what Jesus meant by 'Do unto others..." and y'all darned well know it.

There are several problems with this statement, and I'll enumerate them for your benefit:

1. Do unto others was a command given to average joes, not to a government entity. The state is to be a terror on the wicked, so it's inapplicable.
2. Not all commandments carry equal weight. I'd much rather explain why I tortured a guy to save some kids than explain why I didn't torture a guy and let a bunch of kids die on judgement day.
3. It presupposes that one necessarily believes they should not be tortured even when one is responsible for death and could stop it by cooperating. I don't.

You can make the 'necessary evil' case as justification and in some cases, you'll even be right - but not as a moral case nor as a best practice case. There are better ways to get information in the vast majority of cases.

I'm not making the necessary evil case, I'm making the case that it's not inherently evil at all.

That's not the same thing as holding the guy's hand and singing Kum Bah Yah - there's are many options on the table that don't mean playing stupid - lawful stupid, for those gamers in the group. You let the experts do their jobs - and you keep a tight rein because that's the price of democracy and freedom. Those things we are fighting for mean we don't get to become the things we hate.

Tit for tat thinking is for children. It has no place in the relations of nations. Tit for tat is NOT justice - mistaking on for the other is pure folly.

I agree, I much prefer nuke for tat.

[Psychic Missile]

No it isn't - not if you can save innocent lives.

Do you really think that's how it works? How naive.