# The Senate torture report **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773 "2014-12-09T17:20:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/401 "2014-12-11T01:39:03Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Basic training is designed so they “break you” and put you together again. Kinda like “breaking” someone in interrogation. So a little exercise was your breaking point? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/402 "2014-12-11T01:39:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Ah, the old Kreskin school of debate. Interesting that you know more about what he experienced than he did. If you doubt his recollection, why don’t you ASK him for clarification. Easier your way, huh? I don’t have to ask the difference between basic training and torture. If you want to buy into his silly claims, that is your problem. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/403 "2014-12-11T01:40:03Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Accounting for the evil GOP voters put in power did, isn’t trivial. It’s necessary so that we don’t have more evil done in our names. If you think this is a GOP-only thing, you’re magnificently naive. And newsflash: whatever torture that was being done has stopped. Unless you think Obama is doing it at some black site. Try to keep up. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/404 "2014-12-11T01:41:55Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I assure you, I’m not the one with something up his ass. And where is it written that there needs to be a multiple things happening for it to constitute torture? You’re defending torture. Please don’t distract from that with some nonsense tangent. > [@](#): > > And no, I’m not defending torture. Yes you are. You are glad-handing it because “your side” did it. > [@](#): > > And that brings to light part of the problem—what is torture? What was done was torture. If you don’t think so, you’re misguided. > [@](#): > > That’s really fodder for a separate discussion, but you’re attempting to use the ambiguity to help your argument. It does not, it simply derails the debate. What’s derailing the debate is partisan cheerleaders bobbing in and out, batting their eyelids and saying, “What torture?” ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/405 "2014-12-11T01:42:23Z")
[QUOTE=Lobohan] Accounting for the evil GOP voters put in power did, isn’t trivial. It’s necessary so that we don’t have more evil done in our names. [/QUOTE] It is a pretty amazing kind of evil. The kind for which no individual is indicted or convicted. An abstract, insubstantial kind of evil. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/406 "2014-12-11T01:43:24Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Bullshit. > > It’s your assertion that that torture done by the CIA is no worse than the basic training you did? Get a lot of tubes up your ass in basic? Get waterboarded a hundred and some odd times? > > Aside, even if the acts were the same (and they weren’t) doing them while captive and while in a voluntary service is not the same thing. Holy shit. That’s excluding a middle the size of the whole Arabian Pennisula. According to my good friend who was a Marine Drill Instructor at Parris Island, Terr’s description is 100% correct. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/407 "2014-12-11T01:44:29Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > If you think this is a GOP-only thing, you’re magnificently naive. Evidence please. I’ve got mine. Check the title of this thread. > [@](#): > > And newsflash: whatever torture that was being done has stopped. Unless you think Obama is doing it at some black site. So what if it was stopped? If someone breaks into a house and rapes an entire family, it’s all cool if he stops before the cops get there? Oh well, it stopped. Let bygones be bygones. It’s not happening right now, so nothing to see here! That’s drivel. And you ought to know it. > [@](#): > > Try to keep up. Try to keep up? I’m lapping you every other post. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/408 "2014-12-11T01:47:20Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > You’re defending torture. Please don’t distract from that with some nonsense tangent. > > Yes you are. You are glad-handing it because “your side” did it. Nope. Your wrong. Repeatedly so. And when you spout this nonsense again, you will be wrong yet again. > [@Lobohan](#): > > What was done was torture. If you don’t think so, you’re misguided. Depends what specific act you’re referring to. Or in your brain is everything we did that was not nice, torture. What, no A1 with the steak? TORTURE! ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/409 "2014-12-11T01:47:46Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Holy shit. That’s excluding a middle the size of the whole Arabian Pennisula. According to my good friend who was a Marine Drill Instructor at Parris Island, Terr’s description is 100% correct. Your good friend was full of shit. Ask John McCain if what he experienced in Hanoi was the same as bootcamp. Just nonsense. Even making these arguments is insulting. Also, you don’t know what an _excluded middle_ is. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/410 "2014-12-11T01:48:55Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Our enemies, and most of our friends with militaries that have ever participated in any significant engagement, do the same or way worse in the torture department to extract information from enemies at war time. Of course, unlike us, they don’t air their laundry out for the world to see and point to. Of course, that is the perfect excuse. Some other group engaged in barbaric and ineffective actions, so we should too. Meanwhile, we reduce the amount of support we could get from potential friends and continue to encourage the recruiting efforts of our enemies by blatantly lying about our actions. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/411 "2014-12-11T01:49:35Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > So a little exercise was your breaking point? Wow. For me, it would be. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/412 "2014-12-11T01:52:03Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I don’t have to ask the difference between basic training and torture. If you want to buy into his silly claims, that is your problem. Oh, really. Are you of the mind that all DIs administer punishment and training identically? Are you in possession of some special knowledge that that fantasy was true when Terr was in basic training? Have no DIs gone further than others? Too far? Do you know what, specifically, Terr went through and how it compared to the treatment of others under other DIs. Of course I could ask Terr, but since you can **Kreskin** yourself into his head, thought I’d save the time and ask you. ---
**Author:** ![EndlessEntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f9ae1b/32.png) [@EndlessEntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EndlessEntropy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/413 "2014-12-11T01:52:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > For those who say that discussing the report is wrong, is it just as wrong when Fox discusses it…or is it just wrong when those who are against torture discuss it? Fox News sensationalist stories are not representative of reality bro ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/414 "2014-12-11T01:52:34Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Of course, that is the perfect excuse. Some other group engaged in barbaric and ineffective actions, so we should too. Meanwhile, we reduce the amount of support we could get from potential friends and continue to encourage the recruiting efforts of our enemies by blatantly lying about our actions. Right. Our enemies are massacring thousands handcuffed in ditches, executing women and children and beheading people on youtube videos. But our “potential friends” are turned away from us by us playing loud music at the captives or depriving them of sleep. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/415 "2014-12-11T01:55:25Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Your good friend was full of shit. > > Ask John McCain if what he experienced in Hanoi was the same as bootcamp. Just nonsense. Even making these arguments is insulting. > > Also, you don’t know what an _excluded middle_ is. You fucking did it again! Holy shit. Please go look up Fallacies: Excluded Middle. And there’s even a more fundamental flaw in your logic. Me: Great Danes are tall. You: Giraffes are tall. Great Danes are not as tall as Giraffes! Me: Oh, forgot who I was talking to. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/416 "2014-12-11T01:54:26Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Of course I could ask Terr, but since you can **Kreskin** yourself into his head, thought I’d save the time and ask you. I am pretty sure that if we were asked, when sent on a forced march after 72 hours of being awake, if this was “torture”, the response would have been a unanimous “yes”. But nobody asked. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/417 "2014-12-11T01:57:09Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I am pretty sure that if we were asked, when sent on a forced march after 72 hours of being awake, if this was “torture”, the response would have been a unanimous “yes”. I believe you believe that. How dare you speak for **tomndebb**! He seems to know more about what you experienced than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/418 "2014-12-11T01:57:14Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Nope. Your wrong. Repeatedly so. And when you spout this nonsense again, you will be wrong yet again. I’m not the one who thinks that pointing out that “your side” tortured people is a bad idea. I think Cheney ought to be hung. But that isn’t going to happen, so an accounting of the evil they did is necessary and laudable. > [@](#): > > Depends what specific act you’re referring to. Or in your brain is everything we did that was not nice, torture. What, no A1 with the steak? TORTURE! I’ve never said that. Here’s some stuff for you to look at. Tell me what is and isn’t torture in your mind: [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/09/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/09/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/419 "2014-12-11T01:58:42Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Right. Our enemies are massacring thousands handcuffed in ditches, executing women and children and beheading people on youtube videos. But our “potential friends” are turned away from us by us playing loud music at the captives or depriving them of sleep. Or, possibly, putting those of them who hat the color purple in purple rooms, for days, maybe weeks, on end! Oh, when did we lose out humanity?.. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/420 "2014-12-11T01:59:07Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Oh, really. Are you of the mind that all DIs administer punishment and training identically? Are you in possession of some special knowledge that that fantasy was true when Terr was in basic training? Have no DIs gone further than others? Too far? Do you know what, specifically, Terr went through and how it compared to the treatment of others under other DIs. > > Of course I could ask Terr, but since you can **Kreskin** yourself into his head, thought I’d save the time and ask you. Is this really the hill you’re choosing to die on? It’s almost sillier than **Terr** ’s. Look, **Terr** is very clearly choosing not to understand what EIT and torture actually are. If you can show a direct equivalency between boot–even with a harsh DI–and the torture discussed in the Senate report, please do so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773.md?page=22)