The CIA's use of Torture

Arouet

Member
I am sure there is going to be a lot to discuss about this as the details come out:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...uesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html


Some pretty disturbing tales.

Particularly relevant to this forum, though, is the skeptical angle - or lack thereof. If committing the atrocity of horror could be justified, it could only be because it helped avert even bigger horrors. If this article is accurate, there was never any study done before now assessing the effectiveness of the torture program. Again - if true -his makes the use of the practice or torture indefensible. To do so much damage (both to the victims as well as those ordered to do the task) with so little skeptical evaluation should be considered criminal.

(Again: I haven't read the full report - which I think will be released shortly and don't know how accurate this allegation is.)
 
I am sure there is going to be a lot to discuss about this as the details come out:


- There is no way any of us will know the full details and accuracy of any allegations or claims.

- AFAIK Torture is already considered criminal by the US and most Western nations

- There have been many studies on the effectiveness (or lack of) of torture. I don't know how many were done before 2003 though.
 
Ct'ers on this forum should use this as an object lesson that it's very hard to keep real and large events a secret.
 
Ct'ers on this forum should use this as an object lesson that it's very hard to keep real and large events a secret.
Whaa??? Where in blazes do you pull these ideas from? So that there's an official report on something carried out in relative public that was never secret to begin with means it's hard to keep "real events a secret"?? Of course it doesn't. As for "large" - obviously. But the point is that aspects of large events can be, and many times are, kept secret. Even a mind like yours should be able to grasp both those things.But far it be from you to let slip an op to attempt to further your agenda. Sorry, but the only people here who might be that daft are probably already on board with you.
 
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Whaa??? Where in blazes do you pull these ideas from? So that there's an official report on something carried out in relative public that was never secret to begin with means it's hard to keep "real events a secret"?? Of course it doesn't. As for "large" - obviously. But the point is that secrets about aspects of large events can be, and many times are, kept secret. Even a mind like yours should be able to grasp both those things.But far it be from you to let slip an op to attempt to further your agenda. Sorry, but the only people here who might be that daft are probably already on board with you.
Let me try this. Both the CIA use of torture has been talked about for sometime as has the idea that 9/11 was a government plot. Now the question. How can one (CIA) which is damning to the USA be exposed in detail yet the 9/11 government plot which has been talked about almost from day one remain secret? I can tell you why. Because the CIA torture actually happened, whereas the "9/11 government plot" did not.
 
Let me try this. Both the CIA use of torture has been talked about for sometime as has the idea that 9/11 was a government plot. Now the question. How can one (CIA) which is damning to the USA be exposed in detail yet the 9/11 government plot which has been talked about almost from day one remain secret? I can tell you why. Because the CIA torture actually happened, whereas the "9/11 government plot" did not.
Wow! I'm glad of this exchange. Based on other threads, I thought it was just that you had a different ( materialist ) mindset. Now I see that it's more than that. You seem to have an inability to understand subjects clearly. The flaws in what you state above are shocking. No let me rephrase that - what you just posted is mind-bogglingly stupid. And yes I can point out the many ways in which it is but I can't be bothered. I'll just trust that most here also see at least a couple of them.
 
Let me try this. Both the CIA use of torture has been talked about for sometime as has the idea that 9/11 was a government plot. Now the question. How can one (CIA) which is damning to the USA be exposed in detail yet the 9/11 government plot which has been talked about almost from day one remain secret? I can tell you why. Because the CIA torture actually happened, whereas the "9/11 government plot" did not.

hehe :)
 
I am sure there is going to be a lot to discuss about this as the details come out:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...uesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html
To do so much damage (both to the victims as well as those ordered to do the task) with so little skeptical evaluation should be considered criminal.

It's already considered criminal and is illegal under international law, which is why Bush & Cheney won't travel to Europe, for fear of being arrested and tried for war crimes in the Netherlands.
 
Wow! I'm glad of this exchange. Based on other threads, I thought it was just that you had a different ( materialist ) mindset. Now I see that it's more than that. You seem to have an inability to understand subjects clearly. The flaws in what you state above are shocking. No let me rephrase that - what you just posted is mind-bogglingly stupid. And yes I can point out the many ways in which it is but I can't be bothered. I'll just trust that most here also see at least a couple of them.
That's rich, Saiko coming from someone who tried to argue NASA is dumb.
 
That's rich, Saiko coming from someone who tried to argue NASA is dumb.
Ouch. That's what you've got as a response?

What gives? It's as if you're on a campaign to prove that you are capable of greater and greater heights of stupid thinking. Most startling is that, even when it is pointed out to you, it seems to not register. Okay here we go. In basic terms - raising a question about the efficacy of an action or action doesn't constitute an overall critique of an organization.

BTW the chance of me saying that NASA is dumb is about as high as that of Peyton Manning saying football is a stupid sport.
 
Something not being covered on mainstream media but talked about on blogs and alternative media about the purpose of the Bush/Cheney torture regime, which I found apt:

The Iraq War always has been the elephant in the room as the investigations into the crimes of the last administration as regards torture were investigated. (Remember the default setting for that White House in its explanation for there having been no WMD's was that the CIA screwed up and misinformed them.) Hanging this all on the CIA is to poke in the eye the institution wherein work the people who know how the intelligence used to lie this country into a calamitous war was barbered and stove-piped. They know where the memos are. Their memories are very good. They know the phone numbers of many reporters. It behooves the former president and his minions, no matter how unscathed they were left by the Senate report, to stay on the good side of people, even if that means cheering for torture on the television. And there is also one more reason for them to do it, more horrible than all the rest.

John McCain has come right up to the edge of saying it on a couple of occasions since the report was released. Many of the techniques used by this country in torturing its captives were not designed merely to produce actionable intelligence -- and the report states clearly that very little of that was forthcoming anyway -- but to produce confessions of any kind, whether that was for propaganda purposes or to furnish their captors with a ginned-up casus belli of their own. That was why the North Koreans used sleep deprivation on American GI's. That was why the North Vietnamese trussed McCain up into stress positions.

I do not want to believe what I am about to write. I think it's possible that the barbarians in the White House tortured people in order to produce statements they could use to validate further their bullshit case for their bullshit war. Even I don't want to believe that we were ruled for eight years by that species of monster. If that is the case, however, somewhere at the CIA there's a memo, and somewhere there's somebody in a cubicle that knows where the memo is, and who knows the phone number of a reporter. I suspect the Christmas card list at the Cheney household will be lengthy for the next several decades.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Iraq_In_The_Room
 
I am sure there is going to be a lot to discuss about this as the details come out:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...uesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html


Some pretty disturbing tales.

Particularly relevant to this forum, though, is the skeptical angle - or lack thereof. If committing the atrocity of horror could be justified, it could only be because it helped avert even bigger horrors. If this article is accurate, there was never any study done before now assessing the effectiveness of the torture program. Again - if true -his makes the use of the practice or torture indefensible. To do so much damage (both to the victims as well as those ordered to do the task) with so little skeptical evaluation should be considered criminal.

(Again: I haven't read the full report - which I think will be released shortly and don't know how accurate this allegation is.)

Ct'ers on this forum should use this as an object lesson that it's very hard to keep real and large events a secret.

Whaa??? Where in blazes do you pull these ideas from? So that there's an official report on something carried out in relative public that was never secret to begin with means it's hard to keep "real events a secret"?? Of course it doesn't. As for "large" - obviously. But the point is that aspects of large events can be, and many times are, kept secret. Even a mind like yours should be able to grasp both those things.But far it be from you to let slip an op to attempt to further your agenda. Sorry, but the only people here who might be that daft are probably already on board with you.

Something not being covered on mainstream media but talked about on blogs and alternative media about the purpose of the Bush/Cheney torture regime, which I found apt:



http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Iraq_In_The_Room

This reminds me of one small exchange I once had on Craig Weiler's blog. I think it is worth to put it here, because these two texts are a very good summary of the most common objection to the so-called "conspiracy theories" - and the persuasive (well, I hope that it is persuasive!) reply of the pro-conspiracy people.

On the blog, Stephen Baumgart wrote:

What raises a red flag for me for proponent positions on some controversial topics are conspiracy theories – especially conspiracy theories involving a combination of heinous crimes and large numbers of conspirators. You can always find a small number of people willing to do something very evil or a large number of people willing to do something somewhat morally questionable but you will not be able to convince a large number of people to do something extremely wicked and hope to keep it secret in a free society. The exceptions to this rule would be the Holocaust, Stalin’s Gulags, and the Cultural Revolution, which all occurred in totalitarian countries.

To justify this position some more, the insiders of an alleged conspiracy, for example, those working in the CIA/FBI/NSA are human too and they members of the same society as the rest of us. I want you who believe in a 9/11 conspiracy to imagine that you got a job at the CIA and received orders to help carry out a conspiracy to murder thousands of your fellow citizens. Would you cooperate? For me, there is nothing they could offer or threaten to convince me to take part in such an heinous crime. I’d rather die first.

In practice it would be the conspirators themselves who risk life imprisonment and execution as their plot is exposed. And for what gain are they taking this risk? Bin Laden’s acolytes believed they were doing God’s work and would receive a harem of 72 virgins in Paradise for their efforts. What if you were an American government insider supposedly bribed by a large amount of money or threatened with some sort of blackmail? You get to live the rest of your life in fear you will be found out, get the death penalty, and have your name spit on in the history books for the rest of time.

From a social standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world that 9/11 was the work of outside religious fanatics rather than government insiders.

For other controversial topics, if you’re postulating enormous conspiracies at work suppressing controversial topics, I’d urge you to think again. Often what you’re seeing is instead a social taboo (as in the case of psi or UFOs). You simply won’t be able to find enough people willing to undertake the illegal or immoral activities necessary to have a large-scale conspiracy in a democratic society. That said, I do not discount the existence of small organizations of limited means working against proponent positions through use of the media. I would include JREF and CSI in this class.

I responded to him:

Stephen Baumgart, I think your argument against conspiracy theories is not as strong as you think. Actually, for a person who knows the history more-or-less well, it seems to be quite weak.

It is horrifyingly easy to persuade the colossal masses of people to perform nightmarishly cruel actions – not only in totalitarian states, but anywhere. Read something about the Crusades, or religious wars between the Catholic Church and various heretical movements – these were the conflicts in which a lot of “normal” people had participated, and the most shocking atrocities, often and enthusiastically done by these “normal” people, were common. Read about the European colonialism – no strict religious motivation there, yet the whole tribes were regularly sadistically massacred by the “normal” colonizers. And the totalitarian states of 20th century did not appeared out of thin air – they created by the people who were born and raised in non-totalitarian environment, yet were eager to torture and kill for the sake of their ideologies – no less eager than the denizens of “democratic” states like USA, who murdered countless victims in the “third world” countries such as Vietnam during the Cold War conflicts.

And “fear of punishment” does not work. For almost all human history, crimes and transgressions were “punished” much more severely than today. Even the mildest offences, which may lead one nowadays only to being fined, were “punished” with public beating; for the more serious crimes, one would be slowly and sadistically executed (and probably tortured for days before that, in the process of interrogation). Yet no one seemed to be frightened enough to stop committing crimes; to the contrary, the more atrocious “punishments” were used by authorities, the more violent the next rebellion was. Thieves were stealing people’s purses in the crowd which gathered to watch the cutting off hands of the thief who were caught; the gang of robbers waited for the merchant to rob near the road gallows with the mutilated corpses of their less lucky brethren. The cruelty of “punishments” did not work as deterrent, as authorities hoped. To the contrary, it worked as an example of violence as a way of life, which enraged people more and more day by day. They were not afraid; they were taught that the one the strong and victorious has the right to torture the weak and defeated any way they like. And to be strong and victorious, one should gather into gang.

The situation with institutional, powerful organization which is deliberately created to initiate violence against others, such as CIA, is even worse. If ordinary gangsters might have at least some fear of “punishment”, gangsters working for the government are almost devoid of it. After all, they are working for the very societal force which create the laws, and enforce them with initiatory violence. They are granted power above others, who are weak against the strength of the dominant system. They are no more oppressed Little Men, who live in constant fear of “punishment” for their transgressions; they are the Big Men now, ones who “punish” others, one who frighten and oppress. Whether cruel and ugly deeds they perform in their servitude for the authorities, they are most likely to be forgiven, because the rulers depend on the loyal guards who are eager to make their hands dirty to protect their superiors.

So, if one knows history, one is not persuaded by arguments like “many people cannot do terrible things”. Unfortunately, they can and do.

And, I have to say, sometimes one genuinely wish NOT to see the evidential validation of one's views. Living in Russia, I'm in the middle of insane and horrifying info-war: the Russian mass-media is filled with the most twisted and hysterial anti-Ukranian propaganda, which fills people's mind with the mixture of fear, hate and rage. The vast majority of Russians, believing any official information, are sure that Ukranians are all hellish fiends who deserve death. Some Russians have already gone to war zone, to put their views into practice.

And, AFAIK, the Ukranian media is filled with the same hate towars Russians. So, two socially and culturally close nations have transformed into two gangs of violent haters.

I want them to be more sceptical, definitely - but not "skeptical" in the JREF/CSI sense! "Skeptics" from these organizations are well-known for their uncritical support of any dominant, "official" (read: bureaucratic-corporatist) opinion, exept for the few cases when authorities confess and accept the accusations, such as the current CIA-torture scandal. Unfortunately, most times powerful groups and organizations deny their role in opression in violence - even if the accusations are as evidence-based as possible (which is the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement).
 
This reminds me of one small exchange I once had on Craig Weiler's blog. I think it is worth to put it here, because these two texts are a very good summary of the most common objection to the so-called "conspiracy theories" - and the persuasive (well, I hope that it is persuasive!) reply of the pro-conspiracy people.

On the blog, Stephen Baumgart wrote:



I responded to him:



And, I have to say, sometimes one genuinely wish NOT to see the evidential validation of one's views. Living in Russia, I'm in the middle of insane and horrifying info-war: the Russian mass-media is filled with the most twisted and hysterial anti-Ukranian propaganda, which fills people's mind with the mixture of fear, hate and rage. The vast majority of Russians, believing any official information, are sure that Ukranians are all hellish fiends who deserve death. Some Russians have already gone to war zone, to put their views into practice.

And, AFAIK, the Ukranian media is filled with the same hate towars Russians. So, two socially and culturally close nations have transformed into two gangs of violent haters.

I want them to be more sceptical, definitely - but not "skeptical" in the JREF/CSI sense! "Skeptics" from these organizations are well-known for their uncritical support of any dominant, "official" (read: bureaucratic-corporatist) opinion, exept for the few cases when authorities confess and accept the accusations, such as the current CIA-torture scandal. Unfortunately, most times powerful groups and organizations deny their role in opression in violence - even if the accusations are as evidence-based as possible (which is the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement).

Very well stated, Vortex. Enjoyable to read.
 
roflmao. What he wrote is one of the most flawed arguments on the subject I've read or heard. Hilarious. Then again, maybe there are many people do envision "conspiracy theories" in those ridiculous terms.

Very well stated, Vortex. Enjoyable to read.

Being deeply flawed, this type of argument is sadly common, if not dominant, in mainstream accessment of the "conspiracy theories". Even some people who are open-minded enough to look beyond the mainsteam sources simply resufe to believe that the authorities of allegedly "free" and "democratic" countries are no less capable of initiatory violence than obvious tyrants and dictators. For example, the erudite and intelligent technologist/engineer whom I persuaded in the reality of psi was not that receptive to the arguments of the 9/11 Truth Movement. To his credit, he did not denounced them totally; he even admitted that these arguments are quite strong. But, after a long silence, he said with a painful expression on his face: "Ilya, I can't beleive it. I don't want to beleive it. It is too hard to think that the liberal leaders of the USA are no less capable of brutality than the known tyrants. We, Russian intelligentia, always looked at thye West as the example of humanism. We cannot afford to lose this source of inspiration for our struggle with the current oppressive Russian regime.".

At least, he was self-critical enough to perceive the blatant psychosocial bias that lies in the basis of mainstream's furious and derisive refusal to evaluate the "conspiracy theories" properly. Even if the current regime of Russia is indeed oppressive, it does not authomatically mean that the West is totally clean and pure. Authoritarianism, to some degree, rules the society everywhere; even if is not so wildly bold and demostrative in the West as in Russia, it does not mean that it is noticeably less powerful.
 
Being deeply flawed, this type of argument is sadly common, if not dominant, in mainstream accessment of the "conspiracy theories".
Okay. Though what I see as one glaring flaw isn't covered in what you describe. It's the ridiculous idea that any "conspiracy" would involve methods such as:
received orders to help carry out a conspiracy
 
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