It was mentioned at the start of the first released memo that they used insects to terrorize one person because he had a phobia of them, like in 1984 with the rats. Half the paragraph is blacked out, so we don’t know how far they went.
Fuck you, you fucking troll.
I don’t think he’s a troll; I think he’s a typically sociopathic Randian.
Yawn. He’s not a sociopath, he’s a naughty boy. And when dolts like you call him a sociopath, he grins and gets a bit of a stiffy.
…
Well, just so long as he doesn’t lead his followers and disciples away from the Boards, and, like, boycott us. We’d probably have to send emissaries to him, begging him to come back and save us from ourselves. So, I really hope he doesn’t do that, because that would be totally awful. No, really.
No; he’s a monster who apparently lacks the power to implement his fantasies. Pretending that he’s a “naughty boy” doesn’t make him any less potentially dangerous; someone like Rand Rover would cheerfully send a few million people to their deaths if it profited him or if he was ordered to. Guys like Bush don’t do their torture and killing all by themselves; they need flunkies and functionaries to do the dirty work and make the excuses.
We reelected Bush and didn’t impeach him, AND have let him and his minions walk. We’ve put our collective stamp of approval on what he had done. So yes, that makes America a nation of torturers and murderers. Unrepentant ones.
I get the impression that many Americans don’t know much about this. So they will be informed, anyway.
Re: future outrage - if it weren’t for that, all these old Civil Rights cases wouldn’t have successfully been brought to trial at long last. Based on my observations of that, I think there is hope for future prosecution of this.
You mean assuming we’re both US nationals? No.
I have to ask: if torture, throughout human history, has NEVER produced reliable information, then why do human beings continue to do it? Because it’s fun?
AND: where is the line drawn for interrogation, then? Which methods are acceptable and which aren’t? Is this even clearly defined by some law, somewhere?
Judging by some of the responses here, it sounds like kid gloves for dangerous people are the order of the day.
What SHOULD we do with someone that we’re “pretty sure” was involved in say, the 9/11 attacks and we want to extract information from him about his cohorts/plans?
Bullshit. He’s a tax attorney who sits at a desk and gets his kicks from saying shocking, shocking, shocking things that annoy people.
Yes. And as a twisted form of self justification; the same principle as show trials with predetermined verdicts, and dictators who win “popular votes” that are blatant fakery.
And we know that they are dangerous because ? Oh, yeah; they said they we evil terrorists to stop the torture. Or because we offered a bounty and the local Al Qaeda guy turned some random citizen in to us.
The techniques that actually work; which AREN’T torture. Torture degrades your ability to get information out of someone, it doesn’t enhance it.
And Hitler was a failed artist before he got power.
More typical :rolleyes: from you. I am saying that whether something constitutes “torture” or not for purposes of certain statutes etc. is a matter of opinion, which is completely obvious, and that makes me a monster and a potential mass murderer. Get a hold of yourself.
Wrong again. I’m just trying to fight ignorance. Lots of people in this thread are being ignorant. They think that their difference of opinion with the OLC means that Bush authorized torturer, the US is a country full of torturers, etc. That’s idiotic and ignorant. In reality, there is a diversity of opinion on which actions are torture as defined in the relevant law, and the people in this thread simply have a difference of opinion with the people that advised the president.
It counterintuitive, Fois. Its perfectly natural to assume that if someone knows something and won’t tell you, you can force them to tell you. But if you think about it, you can see the paucity of that assumption.
First off, if he knows something you don’t know, something like where the bomb is ticking, something like the codes, where you have no clue whatsoever…you have no means of ascertaining the truth of what he says. And he’s *going *to tell you stuff, you better believe it! But how do you know if he has no idea what he’s talking about, or if he is making shit up while hiding the actual truth?
Second, there’s the tactical issue: any clandestine organization worth two bits knows the rules: if one of your guys gets picked up, assume he talked. Assume he started talking the moment he was picked up, and hasn’t shut up yet. Assume that everything he knows, your enemy knows. Because he will, and they will, sooner or later.
So if your guy goes missing, you immediately change everything that he knew about. If he was party to a plot, the plot is called off. Whatever codes, whatever safe houses, whatever he knew is blown sky high. Now, maybe your enemy isn’t that smart. You going to take that risk? Tough time to say “Ooopsy!”, after your guys walk into an ambush.
There’s nothing new about any of this, its part and parcel of clandestine/revolutionary/terrorist organizational structure, studied with Russian obsessiveness by the Okhrana and the Leninist revoutionary cells with equal ardor and enthusiasm, its “101”, the stuff you gotta know before you get the first merit badge.
If there are successes to be crowed about, where are they? Do you imagine that they are keeping quiet about their spectacular success out of some overweening modesty? Are you willing to believe that there are such coups, without any evidence? Willing to believe that it wouldn’t somehow manage to “leak” out of a Bush administration? Can I have some of that tequila and bongwater?
Der Trihs and elucidator, your arguments that torture doesn’t work are just post hoc justifications for your prejudices. You don’t really give a shit whether it works or not and haven’t really thought about or researched the matter, you just decided that it doesn’t work because you don’t like it.
I think that law enforcement and intelligence people should be able to use all efficacious means to protect us within the bounds of the law. If “stress techniques” and other things that you call torture are part of those means, then fine. If stress techniques prove to be ineffective on certain people or in certain scenarios, then law enforcement and intelligence people won’t use stress techniques on those people or in those scenario because it would be a waste of time.
Oh? You can read minds, now, Randy? Telepathic as well as psychopathic, are you, and qualified to take my inventory? Really? OK, what am I thinking right now?
Well, OK, you’re right, I do think you’re a poxed maggot. Lucky guess…
False, asstard. It has been demonstrated again and again that torture does not fucking work. Pouring water on someone’s face and making him stand up for three days straight doesn’t get you information, it gets you whatever you want to hear so the pain will stop. You know what works? Making the prisoner trust you. Making him feel that he’s doing the right thing by telling you what he knows. In other words, not being a total cockbag, but I know that’s beyond your capabilities even to understand.
I’m just trying to understand the contours of what you mean by “diversity of opinion.”
If I say that, consistent with the 15th Amendment, Alabama can purge from voter rolls all citizens with ancestry from West Africa—regardless of race or color or previous condition of servitude—does this represent a “diversity of opinion” on which actions violate the 15th Amendment?
If your answer is no, then let me ask a more refined question. Suppose a plaintiff brings a legal claim and the defendant wins on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The judge rules that the plaintiff was simply wrong about the law. Did the claim represent a “diversity of opinion” on the law before the motion to dismiss was decided? And after? Feel free to qualify your answer, but if you do, please make clear what the relevant factors are.
In short, how would someone go about demonstrating to you that the OLC memos do not represent a valid “diversity of opinion” and rather are simply incorrect legal arguments? What kind of arguments will you consider?
Then what is the alternative? Sit on your hands and pray? There has to be a middle ground somewhere. Der Trihs alludes in his reply to me to (paraphrasing) “stick to the techniques that actually work, that AREN’T torture”.
Well, what are those? Are they any more/less effective than ACTUAL torture?
I suppose if drugs like sodium pentothal and other “truth serums” were proven to work we could just use those, right?
And as to your assertion as to “crowing about successes”, WRT intel, I suspect that our intelligence community, even with the black eye they currently sport, is made up of highly intelligent, capable people that generally know what they are doing, and that they have far more successes than failures, but you don’t hear about intel success…only the blatant failures. Which is as it should be.
And as for the last (OP), there’s simply no way any high-level people involved in all this get prosecuted. It just isn’t done. Look at what happened at Abu Ghraib!
Who got punished there? The order takers. The order givers are going to remain free and hidden under a shroud of impenetrable secrecy. Which unfortunately, is ALSO the way it should be.