# 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:** 22
**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, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/421 "2014-12-11T02:00:10Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I think Cheney ought to be hung. Hanged. Although, possibly also hung. He certainly has gigantic testicles. ---
**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, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/422 "2014-12-11T02:02:43Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > 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. > > 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) Start another thread for this and I will. And list what you’d like me to respond to. Otherwise it will derail the current discussion and obfuscate the degree to which Michael Savage was right about the liberal mind. ---
**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, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/423 "2014-12-11T02:03:51Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > 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: I know what the fallacy is. Now explain, in clear language what middle I excluded in this post: > [@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. In it, I’m saying that if basic training is torture, in the sense that we treated our prisoners no harsher than basic training, then… now listen to this part… we must have done similar things to our soldiers in basic training. My comment doesn’t include a list that is only partial in an attempt to limit possible responses. It specifically mentions actions we did, that are not done in most basic training scenarios. So no, friend Magellan, there is no false dilemma here. ---
**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, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/424 "2014-12-11T02:05:05Z")
> [@andros](#): > > 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. I aint dying. And this hill is a mere side trip to call someone on ridiculous debate tactics that, in essence, is calling someone a liar, because he things he knows better than the person what that person actually experienced. ---
**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, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/425 "2014-12-11T02:06:28Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Hanged. > > Although, possibly also hung. He certainly has gigantic testicles. Thank you. Also: [http://wizbangblog.com/images/dickdick1.php](http://wizbangblog.com/images/dickdick1.php) \<–Cheney’s Dick ---
**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, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/426 "2014-12-11T02:07:59Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Start another thread for this and I will. And list what you’d like me to respond to. Otherwise it will derail the current discussion and obfuscate the degree to which Michael Savage was right about the liberal mind. I don’t have much interest in the that thread. Suffice to say, you aren’t willing to support your position. ---
**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, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/427 "2014-12-11T02:09:58Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I aint dying. And this hill is a mere side trip to call someone on ridiculous debate tactics that, in essence, is calling someone a liar, because he things he knows better than the person what that person actually experienced. Yanno…I just edited out my last response. You’re actually kinda right. We have no way of knowing what **Terr** experienced, as everyone’s experiences are subjective. Perhaps he encountered legitimate torture from his DIs, in which case I hope to hell that man is punished to the fullest extent of military law. Or perhaps his experience was personally torturous, in which case I’m sorry for his pain and would very definitely recommend counseling. Or perhaps, as I’m sure you’ll agree is most likely, he was not in any sense tortured in boot. . ---
**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, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/428 "2014-12-11T02:23:34Z")
> [@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. Our potential friends have already declined to share intelligence with us on the grounds that we would abuse it or their sources. Making a sincere effort to correct our behavior–including admitting to it–could get us more cooperation to bring an end to the monsters that you seem to want us to emulate. As to your nonsense about playing loud music or your dismissal of actual sleep deprivation, that is nothing more than avoiding the reality of the torture we inflicted. You are repeating the behavior of Limbaugh when he dismissed Abu Ghraib as frat pranks even though it had actually resulted in deaths. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/429 "2014-12-11T02:47:30Z")
How many of them were innocent? How many brand spanking new enemies did we harvest from this modest investment in horror? Certainly the survivors, no one could blame them for hating America now, even if they didn’t before. Their families, of course. Friends. Anyone who hears their story. > [@](#): > > …It is a pretty amazing kind of evil. The kind for which no individual is indicted or convicted. An abstract, insubstantial kind of evil… Tell _them_ how abstract it is. How insubstantial. ---
**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, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/430 "2014-12-11T02:50:01Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Our potential friends have already declined to share intelligence with us on the grounds that we would abuse it or their sources. You probably mean [this](http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/article165209.ece) (if not - cite?). If so, you’re not quoting it correctly. The allies didn’t want to “become implicated in the use of torture during interrogations”. Why? Because of stuff like this Congressional report. US cannot maintain secrecy, and if they collaborated with the US, it would become public. Who needs the hassle? ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/431 "2014-12-11T02:55:10Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Basic training is designed so they “break you” and put you together again. Kinda like “breaking” someone in interrogation. Not like that at all, actually. ---
**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, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/432 "2014-12-11T03:09:29Z")
And without any of the building-you-back-up part at all. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/433 "2014-12-11T03:12:03Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Cite? > [@](#): > > A footnote notes that “CIA medical officers discussed rectal rehydration as a means of behavior control. As one officer wrote, “while IV infusion is safe and effective, we were impressed with the anciliary effectiveness of rectal infusion on ending water refusal” (page 126) [Link](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11282617/CIA-torture-report-released-live.html) These are the people you are defending: people who say how impressed they are with anal rape as a form of punishment for prisoners who refuse to eat or drink. ---
**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, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/434 "2014-12-11T03:20:47Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > [Link](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11282617/CIA-torture-report-released-live.html) > > These are the people you are defending: people who say how impressed they are with anal rape as a form of punishment for prisoners who refuse to eat or drink. Ah you’re one of those people who claims that the law that required an ultrasound before abortion was “rape” as well. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/435 "2014-12-11T03:27:54Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Ah you’re one of those people who claims that the law that required an ultrasound before abortion was “rape” as well. They had a safe, non-invasive means of hydrating prisoners, but chose this method specifically because it let them stick something up their ass to cause them distress. Of course it’s rape! ---
**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, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/436 "2014-12-11T03:28:58Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > They had a safe, non-invasive means of hydrating prisoners, but chose this method specifically because it let them stick something up their ass to cause them distress. Of course it’s rape! Fantasies. As you quoted yourself, it was more effective. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/437 "2014-12-11T03:42:49Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Fantasies. As you quoted yourself, it was more effective. Do you understand why it was more effective? As for your forced march after being awake for 72 hours, I weep for you. Seriously, it sounds very sad. Meanwhile, [prisoners were kept awake for 180 hours–more than a week at a time–in stress positions](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1376764-committee-study-ofthe-centralintelligenceagmcys.html#document/p10). That’s more than twice as long as you. Your experience is not the same as the experience of the prisoners. Yeah, three days awake sounds really bad. Walking after those three days sounds bad. Now imagine that instead, for those three days, you’d been shackled into a painful position, hands above your head–and at the end of the three days, instead of having to go on a march, you were told you had another four days of sleeplessness in front of you. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/438 "2014-12-11T03:47:58Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Fantasies. As you quoted yourself, it was more effective. They were raping prisoners into submission and your reaction is “Hey, it was more effective?” ---
**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, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/439 "2014-12-11T03:48:19Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Do you understand why it was more effective? Of course. So? If it worked, more effectively, to keep the prisoners from dying from thirst, great. > [@](#): > > As for your forced march after being awake for 72 hours, I weep for you. Seriously, it sounds very sad. > > Meanwhile, [prisoners were kept awake for 180 hours–more than a week at a time–in stress positions](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1376764-committee-study-ofthe-centralintelligenceagmcys.html#document/p10). That’s more than twice as long as you. > > Your experience is not the same as the experience of the prisoners. Yeah, three days awake sounds really bad. Walking after those three days sounds bad. Now imagine that instead, for those three days, you’d been shackled into a painful position, hands above your head–and at the end of the three days, instead of having to go on a march, you were told you had another four days of sleeplessness in front of you. As compared to having your nails pulled with pliers (you know, “torture”)? Piece of cake. ---
**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, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/440 "2014-12-11T03:49:19Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > They were raping prisoners into submission and your reaction is “Hey, it was more effective?” Again, the “rape” is in your fantasies only. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773.md?page=23)