Waterboarding was used by the Spanish Inquisition.
But I doubt you’ll remember that.
I don’t think he even remembers that torture gave us false information to help justify the Iraq invasion, also right wingers seem to forget that it was the moving of resources to Iraq that crippled or limited the efforts to get Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda and Taliban members.
And . . . both of you continue to illustrate my point. You read “waterboarding” and think that what the US did with terror suspects is exactly the same thing as what the Spanish Inquisition did.
If you would read the memos on the EITs, you’ll see that they were carefully choreographed routines designed primarily to scare the shit out of the people they were used against. They weren’t just people willy-nilly hacking off people’s thumbs or whatever.
Not that you guys care–you’ve made up your mind and nothing I say will get you to actually think about the issue.
The US did, and it is torture, deal with it.
Like I said . . .
Try thinking for yourself instead of mindlessly repeating stuff you read in your echo chamber. You may like it.
I don’t know about the Gestapo, but Hans Scharff of the Luftwaffe seemed to do very well interrogating people without the use of torture.
He apparently used the suggestion of handing people over to the Gestapo as a threat, but was not physically abusive. Instead he made himself into a confidant of the POWs. One assumes he felt this approach led to more successful information gathering.
You have been shown multiple times that the consensus is that torture doesn’t provide reliable information. Now you back-peddle and pretend that you meant waterboarding isn’t torture.
You have no desire to learn and combat your ignorance here. Why are you posting in this thread? Do you simply hope someone will only read your most recent post and think you’re being genuine?
So? What do you think that means? Can’t you both be right?
I’ve got a crazy thought here, stick with me folks. Perhaps different techniques work with different people under different circumstances. And perhaps someone with experience using different techniques should be allowed to select those that work against a particular person in a particular circumstance.
Nah, that’s crazy talk. A bunch of people on the internet read some news articles and they know for an absolute fact that “torture don’t work,” so of course that means professional interrogators shouldn’t be allowed to use any technique that any of these people on the internet could plausibly lump into the category of “torture.” Yeah, that’s right. Man, I was losing it for a second there.
You have failed to support your claim that a consensus of professional interrogators say EITs don’t work. So now you try to change your claim to just “a consensus.” That’s very telling.
I never said that. I said that you don’t understand that there’s a difference between (i) anything you personally could lump into a category called “torture” and (ii) the specific EITs undertaken against terror suspects.
I’m posting here to attempt to get people to think more deeply and clearly about these issues. I’ve failed so far if your posts are any indication.
But I love how you keep making claims and keep failing to support them. At least I’m not doing that.
I already did, you missed the point I made were I acknowledged that torture may work, but it is a fool’s errand. It is like the lottery, it is called the “fools tax” for a reason, because it worked once in a blue moon for someone else: then by golly, it means that it will be effective if we use it more… Not.
Incidentally, the realization that right wingers are just assuming that someone won the torture “lottery” in the past (there is less evidence that it worked in the Osama case) and they are confusing a “lottery win” with “effectiveness” was reached by me alone, I did not need any echo chamber to realize it.
Effectiveness is not the same as obtaining good information; a sorry ruler, like Bush the lesser, got what he wanted: a reason to invade Iraq. He did not need then to think much on where Osama was.
So then threatening people with death and tricking people into thinking that they’d be tortured or killed if they don’t spill their guts to you isn’t torture?
I’m reminded of the people who say “torture doesn’t work, what you need to use is psychological pressure techniques”.
Anyway, your example hardly suggests that the Gestapo was ineffective which everyone who insists that torture is ineffective must insist it was.
Similarly, anyone who genuinely believes that “regular interrogation techniques” are more effective than torture must believe that the FBI is far more successful at getting members of the Mafia to rat out their friends than the Gestapo was at getting members of the Maquis to give up their comrades.
Also, they must believe that all the torture victims who’ve told of how effective SAVAK was were lying for no apparent reason.
Personally I think it’s better arguing that there are certain lines we shouldn’t cross and damn the consequences then to start making arguments that all apart as soon as we scratch a little below the surface.
I supported my claims. I said that a consensus of professional interrogators say that torture provides unreliable information. Citations have been offered to you showing that this is the opinion of every major intelligence organization in America. You ignore this and provide no counter-cites.
It really seems that you will accept no information that conflicts with you ideology.
To rephrase: What in the universe, that could possibly be attained, could convince you that you are wrong? You aren’t debating, you’re justing making ideological statements.
Perhaps at my peril, I will take that as an honest question.
-
It means to me that there is good evidence that torturing people is unnecessary in obtaining information.
-
This makes me take a stronger stand against the use of torture since I make the ethical judgement that brutalizing people is a “bad thing” regardless of the quality of information obtained.
-
Because of 1 & 2, I find myself opposed to your idea of using different techniques depending on the person and situation.
Depends on what you mean by “right”. Sure it’s possible to beat information out of a person, but that doesn’t mean it’s something I would support by those acting on my behalf, no matter how well intentioned.
Nah, as I already pointed out, what you are using here is a straw man, for practical purposes it does not work, that it may had been effective on some occasions is possible, but just like it is foolish to play the lottery, it would be foolish to rely on the information obtained with torture, we already know that the price we paid with the Iraq invasion should had been enough to discourage further uses of torture.
See also: prayer, faith healing, rain dances.
I’ve been trying not to post this but this thread has been on the front page for so long I can’t help it.
Every damn time I see this thread I wonder if the OP was asking if the US SEALS waterboarded bin Laden to death when they captured him. There, I said it.
Nope. You are failing to take Ibn Warraq’s point into consideration. Instructions from the Army to grunts in the field say things like “using force doesn’t work,” but those manuals aren’t for the very few people interrogating terror suspects, and they don’t specifically address EITs.
And you are the one letting your ideology get in the way. If you don’t think EITs should be used, then fine, just think that, I don’t care and won’t argue with you about that.
But you aren’t happy just having an opinion about whether they should be used or not, you have to argue that EITs aren’t effective (and you use bullshit biased cites and twist words in official agency pronouncements to get there). For some reason (on this issue and others) you have to paint yourself as siding with facts whereas I side with ideology. That’s only true in the sense that you ignore facts you find inconvenient.
And on this issue in particular, I’ve shown that I have no ideology. I think whatever efficacious means should be used to get to the end. There’s no ideology there–I’m not “pro-torture”; I don’t derive any particular joy from the thought of someone experiencing pain. You have the ideology here, bub.
I don’t know, maybe it is. And I’m not saying I’m in favor of it. But it’s also certainly not physical abuse. Given the choice between the two, I’d rather a person were not physically abused.
That assertion was not implicit in my example - in fact I specifically said I wasn’t commenting on the Gestapo’s effectiveness. I was pointing out successful use of interrogation that didn’t involve physical abuse.
I’m fine with that. It would be better than continuing to argue the definition of “torture”.
OK, you have a “moral” or “ethical” position against torture. That’s fine by me. I just wish you could separate that out from the position that “torture isn’t effective.” Sounds like you are opposed to it whether it’s effective or not, so there’s really no reason for you to even argue that it’s not effective.
I noticed that you are avoiding the example I mentioned, I wonder why.
I would think so as I do remember that when D-day came it showed that the Nazis missed a whole mess of Maquis.
Once again, one will reveal a lot under torture, but if there is a clear apparent reason to lie, is that they also know that a lot of what they told could not had been the truth.
I think so too, so when will you start?