[HN Gopher] CIA black site detainee served as training prop to t...
___________________________________________________________________
CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture
techniques
Author : LittleMoveBig
Score : 422 points
Date : 2022-03-15 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| dingoegret12 wrote:
| Christ this is beyond horrendous.
| _Marak_ wrote:
| Ouch
| chmod775 wrote:
| Wow. Now that was hard to read.
|
| The people who can do these things need to be locked away for the
| good of mankind. Start from the top.
| typon wrote:
| >Start from the top.
|
| Precisely.
|
| I think if the US wants to be a global hegemon without having a
| bankrupt/hypocritical liberal ideology, a good way to start
| would be with locking up Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the
| neocons responsible for the Iraq War for a life sentence.
| Obama, Clinton and the rest of the administration officials
| responsible for Libya, Syria, and the drone assassination
| program.
|
| We don't even need to go that far back to prosecute all living
| presidents (even though in a just world, we would), but this
| would be a good start. Anything less means that US
| participation in international institutions like ICJ is just a
| farce (like how Saudi Arabia has a seat on the UN HRC)
| dqpb wrote:
| CIA employees who engaged in this behavior should be treated as
| terrorists who sought to undermine the legitimacy of the US
| government.
| [deleted]
| Tepix wrote:
| Reading this makes me sick and doubt humanity.
|
| The ongoing Assange case comes to mind. A farce if i've ever seen
| one.
| jMyles wrote:
| Holy shit. This is nauseating. Why do we tolerate the existence
| of the US state anymore? What's the point of any of this?
|
| I _hate_ the feeling of the smacking the back of my head. And
| they did it, against a plywood wall, by gripping a towel wrapped
| around his neck and slamming him into it, for two hours at a
| time, just to 'train' people.
|
| Everyone involved - perpetrators and victims - needs therapy and
| rehabilitation.
|
| The assailants need to sit down and apologize to this guy if they
| are ever going to be healthy humans again.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| > do we tolerate the existence of the US state anymore
|
| This is a ridiculous thing to say. I mean, what are you
| proposing? The whole world sanction the US?
| worik wrote:
| >> do we tolerate the existence of the US state anymore
|
| > This is a ridiculous thing to say. I mean, what are you
| proposing? The whole world sanction the US?
|
| That would be a good start
| jMyles wrote:
| I am proposing that the US state no longer exist.
|
| The use cases of a single government having domain over such
| a large land mass, when 50 smaller states are already defined
| and functioning, are dwindling amidst the information age.
|
| The crimes described in this article are utterly intolerable.
| Nobody wants this.
| dash2 wrote:
| I think the perpetrators need to be tried, found guilty and put
| in jail. Then they can apologize if they want.
| codr7 wrote:
| Why? Fear, they know what they're doing.
| worik wrote:
| > Holy shit. This is nauseating. Why do we tolerate the
| existence of the US state anymore? What's the point of any of
| this?
|
| Because we are not like them. We believe in peace, love, and
| human dignity.
|
| That and the fact the US state has more military power than the
| rest of the world combined.....
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| ugh, that was hard to read.
| tored wrote:
| EU should put sanctions on top US leadership and many of the
| large US based corporations, especially in businesses like
| banking, media and technology.
| Extropy_ wrote:
| What do you think that will accomplish?
| tored wrote:
| Short term: keep US responsible for their actions, otherwise
| this will just continue.
|
| Long term: a broader separation of US and EU interest, EU
| does not benefit from many of the US imperial policies, it
| actually loses on many of them.
| catchclose8919 wrote:
| ...isn't the whole idea of such "back sites" that _once anyone
| gets into them, they are NEVER getting out alive?_
|
| Torture and atrocities asside, I'd imagine most organized crime
| syndicates run tighter ships (eg. the standard dissolve the
| bodies of torture victims + kill the "torture service providers"
| too at regular intervals then re-recruit new ones etc.) ...this
| seem so beyond sloppy it's clearly a political s throwing play.
| worik wrote:
| A wonderful thing (among many) about American society is
| openness. We get to see inside the machine.
|
| Often what we see, in the military machine is ugly. No
| surprise.
|
| It is not that the American military are worse, the problem is
| they are more powerful.
|
| (As I have commented elsewhere here) It is possible for the
| Americans to be a beacon of light in a dark world. It is a
| choice for them.
|
| They have chosen the path of darkness. Such a waste
| [deleted]
| spacechild1 wrote:
| I thought the same. But maybe they just do (have) not care.
| History has shown that the US can do all sorts of horrendous
| things and nothing ever seems to happen...
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" History has shown that the US can do all sorts of
| horrendous things and nothing ever seems to happen..."_
|
| Well, nothing except:
|
| 1 - make lots of enemies
|
| 2 - make the world a more dangerous place
|
| 3 - lose the moral high ground and the respect of
| people/countries who might have otherwise been friends
|
| These things have consequences... measured in American lives
| (which are, sadly, the only kind of lives some people care
| about)... but also in many other lives.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Up to 8 billion present human lives, trillions or
| qaudrillions of potential human lives, and uncountable
| animal and plant lives.
|
| That's not exaggeration. Those are the stakes America is
| fucking around with by provoking the world like this and
| spooking the shit out of everyone.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It's not just America either... plenty of blame to go
| around.
|
| Power corrupts.
| mandmandam wrote:
| That's fair.
|
| I would say though that in terms of the ratio between
| self praise and evil shit, there's a very clear winner
| way, way out in front.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >These things have consequences... measured in American
| lives (which are, sadly, the only kind of lives some people
| care about)... but also in many other lives.
|
| If we have learned anything from the past 2 years, its not
| even all American lives. Some American lives are treated
| with utmost care while others barely register a blip on
| their radar.
| Epiphany21 wrote:
| Organized crime torturing people makes for an interesting TV
| show plot but in reality it's the exception. Kidnapping and
| torture carry far harsher penalties than most other (vastly
| more profitable) crimes. If mobsters want information they
| usually just pay for it. Money is the best tool for convincing
| people to betray their convictions and break promises. What was
| the old saying again? Thirty pieces of silver?
|
| The difference is the CIA doesn't care about making money.
| They're secret police gone wild. They have no financial, legal
| or moral constraints, and the results were wholly predictable.
| foxyv wrote:
| I kind of hoped that Biden would try and stop this thing from
| happening anymore. Or Obama... Then I see stuff like this:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/06/cia-torture-...
| elzbardico wrote:
| They are all part of the same system, a system which has only
| the trappings of a democracy, but in no practical sense is the
| government from the people, by the people to the people. It is
| just a giant gang warfare between warring plutocratic and
| bureaucratic factions. Trump, Biden, Bush, Obama. They all
| tortured, they all bombed, they all let people die without
| healthcare while spending billions in the biggest military
| machine of the world, for "defense". It is about time people
| wake up and stop letting those criminals divide us in their
| fictional turfs.
| worik wrote:
| Obama was very bad. Made the use of robots to do extra judicial
| killings, state sanctioned murder, routine.
|
| What a shame.
| pessimizer wrote:
| They were good at stopping us from prosecuting it, or the
| destruction of the evidence of it.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Obama ran for office on a pledge to close Guantanamo, and he
| could have done so by executive order. He didn't, and that
| should tell you all you need to know about the nature of the
| American presidency.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Didn't or couldn't?
| dhosek wrote:
| There was a HUGE faction in congress (they go by a name that
| rhymes with schmepublicans) that would have punished him
| severely if he had done that. The presidency is not as all-
| powerful as some people think it is, sometimes this is good,
| sometimes not so much.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Punished him severely how?
|
| Trump did way more extreme things with impunity.
| thissuchness wrote:
| Punished him how? Were the schmepublicans not already
| turning up the drama dial to 11? What further recourse did
| they have to make things worse for him?
| Loughla wrote:
| Didn't the republicans stop him at every turn, no matter
| what, anyway?
|
| Seems like he didn't really have anything to lose, so why
| not just do it?
| arcbyte wrote:
| There was an opportunity for Obama to have a much more
| effective and bipartisan presidency early on. It wouldn't
| have been a friendly relationship, but certainly a more
| effective government. He rammed Obamacare through
| Congress very early in his presidency and that pretty
| much removed his ability to do anything else in his first
| term.
| Loughla wrote:
| That doesn't really answer my question.
|
| Also, and I'm really not trying to be snarky, that
| statement sounds like something the child of abusive
| parents would say. If only Obama had been quiet, they
| would've left him alone. That's a no-win situation, I
| think.
|
| Either way, it didn't really answer my questions.
| arcbyte wrote:
| I'm answering your question by suggesting that Obama
| could have gotten much more done if he had not been so
| extremely partisan from day 1. When it became clear he
| was not going to negotiate any changes to the monumental
| Obamacare law and pass it through on a partisan vote, the
| only natural response for Republicans seeking to effect
| their own policy agenda was to block as much as possible.
| In effect Obama, rather than choosing a 90/10 or 80/20
| ratio of democrat to republican polciies to be passed,
| said there was no point in allowing any republican
| policies through. And so the only natural response was
| for Republicans, as the minority, to respond in kind
| until the next election.
|
| A more mathematical explanation would be that if every
| law was 80% Democrat policy and you were able to pass 100
| policies a term, you could get 80 of your policies
| through in a single term. You might think getting 100% of
| every policy in a bill would be better but that might
| mean you only get to pass 50 policies a term because of
| increased partisan tensions. Even at 100% that's only 50
| Democrat policies instead of 80.
|
| By allowing some compromise you can achieve more.
| dhosek wrote:
| I'm sorry, but you're ignoring the actual things that
| happened. There were good faith negotiations with the
| Republicans about Obamacare and post-crash stimulus and
| the Republicans chose to unanimously vote against them
| because they saw a partisan advantage to doing so.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc
| dhosek wrote:
| There was good faith negotiation about the plan. It was
| very close to what the Republican plan was. The problem
| was that Mitch McConnell stated publicly that he was
| going to block everything that Obama did. The Republicans
| blocked stimulus funding. To claim that the failure of
| bipartisanship was Obama's is to ignore the facts as
| stated by the Republicans at the time.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Early in a new President's first term, "I promised over and
| over to do X while I was running for President, and the
| American People very clearly voted for that" is d*mn good
| political cover for doing X.
| nradov wrote:
| When President Obama took office, Democrats controlled both
| the House and Senate. You can't hang this one on
| Republicans. Both parties were equal participants in
| keeping the Guantanamo detention facility open.
|
| Congress sets the annual federal budget. The Democrat
| controlled Congress literally allocated dollars to run that
| facility. If Democrats actually wanted to close it they
| could have eliminated funding, but they specifically chose
| to keep it multiple times.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I'm amazed how 100-to-zero can magically be 50-50.
| millzlane wrote:
| Well considering the Biden administration, like the Trump
| administration before it, said the information should not be
| disclosed because it would do significant harm to national
| security. The mention of national security makes me think the
| issue here is multi faceted.
| wl wrote:
| The case the Supreme Court used to uphold the State Secrets
| privilege was, in retrospect, a coverup with no genuine
| national security issues.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Reynolds
| whatshisface wrote:
| National security is not a get-out-of-democracy-free card.
| There has to be some way for public opinions about the CIA to
| loop back around to the congresspeople on the security
| council, otherwise the system won't work.
| mc32 wrote:
| The likely possibilities are, they all agree it's necessary
| for reasons we don't understand so they condone it--or, the
| power of the executive branch is diffuse and doesn't always
| emanate from the Oval Office. I.e., the so called deep state,
| career bureaucracy and momentum hold more sway.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| bogantech wrote:
| No president is going to do anything about it because the
| intelligence agencies almost certainly have blackmail material
| on them all
| jonnybgood wrote:
| How does that work exactly?
|
| CIA: If you don't let us torture people just because then
| we'll make a scandal of you.
|
| President: Oh no. I guess I have to let you. I have no power
| whatsoever. Can't get the FBI on it, because they're
| blackmailing me too!
|
| The US government and intelligence agencies is not like what
| you see in the movies.
| michaelt wrote:
| Presumably bogantech is thinking of the likes of J. Edgar
| Hoover - who had his federal agency spy on political
| leaders, and "amassed a great deal of power and was in a
| position to intimidate and threaten others, including
| multiple sitting presidents of the United States."
| according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
| dls2016 wrote:
| > How does that work exactly?
|
| Jeffrey Epstein. Do you think it was coincidence that he
| had power of attorney over Les Wexner, who was involved
| with the notorious Southern Air Transport? There are many
| other intelligence connections, for instance Maxwell and
| her father.
|
| The CIA is really the worst institution in the US
| government.
| whatshisface wrote:
| A president was recently elected that had more viable
| blackmail material released about him than any previous
| president and instead of launching missiles into Sudan like
| Clinton did a couple days after his scandal, he just slid
| past it.
| ejstronge wrote:
| > A president was recently elected that had more viable
| blackmail material released about him than any previous
| president and instead of launching missiles into Sudan like
| Clinton did a couple days after his scandal, he just slid
| past it.
|
| I'm not sure how a scandal during one presidency is
| comparable in your example to scandals that happened before
| a presidency. Further, you might recall that there was a
| 'strategic strike' attack in Africa as well as a
| contentious immigration ban in the first weeks of the Trump
| presidency, which, if I am following your logic, would
| actually suggest an attempt to distract from unsavory past
| deeds.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The Sudan+Afghanistan thing was two days after the
| scandal broke. I am curious if there were any similar
| actions by any of the following presidents but launching
| stuff right after entering office doesn't appear to be
| the same kind of action.
|
| (Perhaps there is another cynical explanation for the
| Africa thing but it is probably not to distract from an,
| as you say, decades-old scandal.)
| dhosek wrote:
| One of my friends from college is now a Poli Sci professor.
| He researched the effectiveness of "wag the dog" techniques
| and found that they were ineffective. I don't think his
| paper on the topic is available online though.
| [deleted]
| joncp wrote:
| More like: "Hey boss, remember JFK? It would be a real shame
| if something like that happened to you. Or your family."
| foxyv wrote:
| How long do you think the CIA would remain as a legitimate
| organization if something like that happened? All it would
| take is one public statement by a president that CIA had
| threatened them and the organization would come down like a
| house of cards. The entire leadership would be in handcuffs
| and trying to explain away treason to the FBI who would
| happily hand them over to military intelligence
| organizations to rendition their asses to their own
| prisons.
|
| There are tons of competing military intelligence
| organizations that would be happy to take over from there.
| The CIA as we know it would cease to exist in a matter of
| days.
| worik wrote:
| > How long do you think the CIA would remain as a
| legitimate organization if something like that happened?
|
| It has been about seventy years so far.
| [deleted]
| mhh__ wrote:
| Given that most presidents have huge egos that is a huge
| gamble for the CIA. All it takes is one tape to get out and
| then you've just started a civil war.
| foxyv wrote:
| I think that the CIA carries a lot of value for sitting
| presidents. The organization gives them a lot of power,
| similar to the military but with less accountability. So far
| we haven't seen a president that was willing to give up that
| power for any reason of simple morality. There is something
| appealing about being able to send an organization out to
| kill, steal, and spy for you with zero accountability.
|
| I don't think the CIA would need to or even be able to
| blackmail a sitting president. They are too busy being his
| second most powerful tool. Like a really good hunting dog. It
| doesn't matter if it bites some peasants so long as he does a
| good job for its master.
| codr7 wrote:
| We most certainly did see a president who was willing to
| give up that power to destroy the CIA, and they killed him
| in public to make sure everyone got the message.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Blackmail is for mid-level aspiring politicians who get
| bigger than their britches. A presidential candidate is a
| smiling face that carries the decision-makers' platform.
| [deleted]
| pandemicsoul wrote:
| Bonkers reading through this thread and seeing people discuss
| torture as casually and unemotionally as if it were just a
| regular ol' anyday thing. Like wow folks, this is not academic!
| gerbilly wrote:
| That's HN for you. I honestly don't know why I keep coming
| here.
|
| This is a safe space for rationalisation, we can't let 'the
| feels' creep in and threaten that.
|
| Also it would be way too 'political' if we assigned a moral
| valence to torture, and political discussions are discouraged
| here.
| cheeze wrote:
| But it's totally okay to get political about COVID and deny,
| deny, deny here.
|
| Such an odd cross section of libertarian "freedom above all
| else" people and legitimately smart technical folks.
|
| I like the technical part, the "this is binary and I believe
| in freedom above all else" cohort turns me off pretty hard
| though.
| gerbilly wrote:
| > "this is binary and I believe in freedom above all else"
| cohort turns me off pretty hard though.
|
| Randroids probably.
|
| Ayn Rand is piss poor literature, and even worse as
| philosophy or life advice.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| Anything short of libertarian anarchy is a dystopia to
| these folks. You would actually think that people with a
| "rationalist" bias would care more about outcomes than
| elevating deontological ideals above all else but I guess
| not
| worik wrote:
| Weighing torture, in light of "if it is effective it is OK"
| is not "rationalisation".
|
| It is loosing the civilisation plot.
| Zerverus wrote:
| Same people causally rationalizing the environmental costs of
| Bitcoin, nothing new here.
| beeboop wrote:
| Not sure what this looked like when you posted two hours ago,
| but all the top posts now are calling this evil, disgusting,
| awful, and all the bad things.
|
| Glancing through the comments now, I see only maybe one or two
| that don't overtly and somewhat emotionally condemn this. And
| those one or two that don't aren't praising it by any means
| either.
| sneak wrote:
| The CIA has a venture capital arm, called In-Q-Tel, which invests
| in tech companies.
|
| Many of you reading this have coworkers who share a cap table
| with this organization.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30628667
|
| Those of you who work at Amazon, your employer built and operates
| a special custom, airgapped datacenter at Langley for this
| organization. When you write library code that makes AWS services
| better, you also enrich this organization and make them more
| effective at carrying out these types of operations (like
| actively hacking into the computers in the US Congress that were
| used by the congresspeople who provide oversight to the CIA, to
| delete evidence of torture, getting caught doing the hacking and
| evidence tampering, and subsequently lying to Congress about the
| hacking).
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...
| cwkoss wrote:
| If our country was just, everyone in the CIA who engaged in or
| authorized torture would be executed. I'm typically against
| capital punishment, but state sanctioned torture is such a far
| line past what is acceptable, I really think we'd be better off
| if we swept all these evil people off the face of the planet.
|
| Instead, they get cushy think tank and consultancy jobs as a
| reward for their evil 'service'.
| runeks wrote:
| > [...] I really think we'd be better off if we swept all these
| evil people off the face of the planet.
|
| That's exactly what your alleged enemy thinks.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| There'd also be the option of "give them the toughest
| punishment in the book."
|
| That might finally make a dent in getting rid of capital
| punishment once and for all.
| sneak wrote:
| The right not to be tortured and the right to not be murdered
| (by the state or anyone else) are practically uttered in the
| same breath.
|
| You can't fix violence with more violence, you have to fix
| violence with cleverness.
| cwkoss wrote:
| What is the clever path to fixing an unaccountable branch of
| government who keeps secrets from the people meant to oversee
| it to cover up their egregious acts?
|
| They are effectively a rogue criminal organization with the
| power of state protection at this point. Making an example of
| the criminal acts we do have knowledge of seems the only
| effective recourse short of dismantling the CIA entirely.
| sneak wrote:
| I think that literally the only way to dismantle the CIA
| and other blatantly and obviously criminal portions of the
| US government without using violence is to spread wide the
| fact that they are a portion of the government that
| operates entirely outside of the rule of law, and that we
| can't be said to actually have the rule of
| law/democracy/freedom/etc if it doesn't apply equally to
| everyone.
|
| If enough people shout about the emperor's nakedness enough
| times, eventually it will jump the gap from something
| everyone knows, to common knowledge[1] (something everyone
| knows that everyone knows). They will have to fall into
| disrepute, and that won't happen by us being quiet about
| it.
|
| Right now, I think most people in the US think of the US as
| a place with the rule of law, and equal application
| thereof. The CIA's well-documented activities illustrate
| plainly that that is not true. The well-publicized summary
| executions of unarmed people by the police without trial or
| jury are getting noticed more often, as well. We can say it
| in plain words, often, to bring it to the level of common
| sense.
|
| The vast, vast majority of people would like to live in a
| place with the rule of law, applied fairly and equally to
| all people. An even higher percentage would be on board
| without the rule of law, just so long as no special
| connected elites get unique treatment and free taxpayer
| money. This is a big tent.
|
| There will, of course, be a subset of the population at all
| times that wants gun-toting, black-bag Jack Bauer 007
| "license to kill" daddy to run around and exercise their
| best super reliable adult judgement and eschew the entire
| time-consuming nonsense of arrest and human rights and
| trial and just put a blowtorch to the balls of the
| Completely Obviously Guilty Bad Terrorist Guy immediately,
| as we have immortalized in so much of our entertainment.
| But I remain resolute in my belief that those people are a
| small minority of human beings, and are shrinking every
| generation. There isn't a month of my life that goes by
| that I am not beaming proud of the human race that we even
| gave the fucking nazis full on courtroom trials after WW2.
| If that doesn't show that we can absolutely get there on a
| long enough timescale, I don't know what does.
|
| The usual tropes apply:
|
| - sunlight is the best disinfectant
|
| - teach, listen, learn
|
| - treat others as you wish to be treated
|
| - always stand up for the truth
|
| We've been improving for thousands of years. In another few
| we'll get there yet.
|
| [1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/inflation-and-the-
| common-knowl... https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
| cwkoss wrote:
| That's a fair perspective, and one I've previously held.
| However my view of social attitudes is that they almost
| always follow a bell curve: exposure to extreme positions
| are how moderates reflect on and revise the status quo.
| The long tail must move before the centroid can shift.
|
| 10% of the population needs to call for the execution of
| all torturers in the CIA before the zeitgeist's illusion
| of justice painted over black ops can be dismantled. If
| radicals only advocated for "CIA is bad and needs to be
| reigned in" that doesn't create enough cognitive
| dissonance for the general public to reflect on their
| attitudes and actually effect change.
|
| Radicals advocating for the superlative solution create
| cover for moderates to take compromise action.
|
| I think it would be good for society if CIA torturers
| would be executed, but I'd be shocked if the moderate
| politicians in power had the courage to actually do so.
| sneak wrote:
| I don't think violence actually works to solve the
| problem, however.
|
| In addition to being barbaric, it also has the tiny
| problem of being ineffective. You can't execute an
| ideology, you have to out-meme it.
|
| The concept of an above-the-law class has a long and
| beloved history because us social human beings seem to
| really love (and require!) having a very clear and well-
| defined social hierarchy within which one can orient
| oneself. Most of us would even prefer _clarity_ about the
| hierarchy and where one resides within it to _elevated
| position_ within a murkier hierarchy.
|
| You can't get rid of a monarch just by stripping them of
| their power and installing a parliament; the poor will
| keep polishing their crowns and spoons for free until the
| cows come home. You literally have to construct a better
| meme to replace the fundamental concept. You'll have to
| out-James Bond James Bond (and Batman and Superman and
| Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne and friends).
|
| I used to think that the US constitution was an
| explicitly fraudulent meme promoted by the ruling class
| (I think Washington was the largest landowner in the
| colonies?) to usurp, and maybe it was, but this Lincoln
| quote made me think a little more deeply about it:
|
| > _As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are
| created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are
| created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings
| get control, it will read 'all men are created equal,
| except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it
| comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country
| where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to
| Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure,
| and without the base alloy of hypocrisy._
|
| Even Lincoln pointed out we were full of shit. I suppose
| he's right that it's better to fake it 'till you make it
| than to not give a shit at all.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I don't think it is the violence itself that solves the
| problem. I think it is the broader public realizing that
| "the CIA is engaging in acts so egregious my countrymen
| think execution is morally justified" that solves the
| problem, by forcing them to look for more moderate
| solutions and prioritize their implementation.
|
| I think 'never advocate for violence, even against more-
| violent greater evils' is a flawed rule because it leads
| to the compromise result landed closer to in favor of
| evil. We need the radical voices to drag the center
| towards effective action. (And torture is so
| superlatively evil that I have no moral qualms advocating
| for the humane execution of those who can be proven to
| have engaged in or ordered it).
| sneak wrote:
| I don't think you persuade the segment of the population
| that thinks that execution is morally unjustifiable by
| advocating for morally justified execution, but I'm no
| sociologist.
| cwkoss wrote:
| That's fair, I think other readers watching us debate
| whether CIA torture is evil enough that state execution
| is justified probably has a similar effect to my goals
| with advocating for it in public discussion... so thanks!
| Hopefully we've shifted a few minds towards "something
| needs to be done".
| worik wrote:
| > , I really think we'd be better off if we swept all these
| evil people off the face of the planet.
|
| Steady! We must not become our enemy. We achieve peace and
| justice through peaceful and just means, or not at all!
| cwkoss wrote:
| We are already as bad or worse than our enemy by torturing
| them, covering it up, and using bad information to justify
| genocide against innocent civilians!
|
| The idea that we are 'above' them is only possible because
| propaganda and secrecy keeps the horrors of what our country
| does out of the zeitgeist.
|
| As long as former torturers get to be pundits on TV talk
| shows, I see no path to fixing this. We need someone
| courageous and with power to start enforcing the existing
| laws against these people to the maximum or the problem is
| only going to get worse.
| Sharlin wrote:
| _> "Ammar fabricated the information he provided when undergoing
| EITs," it said. "He later admitted to his interrogators
| /debriefers that he was terrified and lied to get agency officers
| to stop the measures ... Ammar also explained that he was afraid
| to tell a lie and was afraid to tell the truth because he did not
| know how either would be received."_
|
| Which is pretty much all you need to know about torture.
| torturedreading wrote:
| > Which is pretty much all you need to know about torture.
|
| When torture or "EIT" is used for a source of intelligence,
| using that sole point of data as proof is fraught with peril.
| Dropping JDAMs on a building fingered solely by a detainee is
| sure to get random bystanders killed. Running a raid,
| similarly, might well be a trap.
|
| However, when one corroborates this with other sources of data,
| it is a "valid" technique. When one uses a piece of
| intelligence from a detainee as a starting point and further
| validates the veracity of the claim, it is a "valid" starting
| point.
|
| This isn't to say whether or not this path counts as moral,
| just that the "torture doesn't work because lies" is itself
| dishonest.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Dropping JDAMs on a building fingered solely by a detainee
| is sure to get random bystanders killed."_
|
| Like that ever stopped anyone. "Collateral damage" they call
| it.
| shkkmo wrote:
| My understanding is that rapport building techniques have a
| much better success rate.
| e12e wrote:
| Yeah, even nazi Germany realized that:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff
| hammock wrote:
| >when one corroborates this with other sources of data, it is
| a "valid" technique.
|
| Couldn't you say the same about the technique of having
| 10,000 monkeys hammer randomly on typewriters?
| anon_2022 wrote:
| Making the post as anon. I fully support the CIA to use torture
| even on US Citizens. If you're caught planning a terror attack or
| something similar that could cause mass loss of life, torture is
| a reasonable last resort to extract information from a suspect
| tehwebguy wrote:
| The shame you feel for your opinion is a good start
| dqpb wrote:
| Let's say you confiscate a computer. What do you gain by
| bashing it against a wall?
| gambler wrote:
| I am sure after learning this all Americans will take to the
| streets and after a massive protest the government will defund
| CIA and prosecute everyone responsible for the related crimes.
| Right?
|
| And if that doesn't happen, European companies will cancel
| American accounts, IKEA will close shop here, GOG will refuse to
| sell games in US, etc, etc. Right?
|
| Because, as I've learned on HN in the last two weeks, all
| citizens are responsible for what their government is doing,
| regardless of their knowledge or level of support for the
| practice.
| egisspegis wrote:
| I'm sure they will when US starts carpet bombing Canada's
| cities.
| apocolyps6 wrote:
| So the Middle East and South America is okay but Canada is
| off limits?
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| _> Because, as I 've learned on HN in the last two weeks, all
| citizens are responsible for what their government is doing,_
|
| Yup. They absolutely are.
|
| There is no way the US's long history of human right abuses
| would have gone on for so long if the american people weren't
| fundamentally okay with it.
|
| Doesn't mean anything will be done about it.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Disgusting. May the people who participated go to the same level
| of hell as the 9/11 perpetrators.
| fractalfinity wrote:
| rl3 wrote:
| _A neuropsychologist carried out an MRI of Baluchi's head in late
| 2018 and found "abnormalities indicating moderate to severe brain
| damage" in parts of his brain, affecting memory formation and
| retrieval as well as behavioral regulation. The specialist found
| that the "abnormalities observed were consistent with traumatic
| brain injury."_
|
| Awful. I kind of wonder if this ignorance extends to training
| their own field agents at _The Farm_ where they do mock torture.
| Unlike Hollywood, taking a few blows to the head tends to be
| deleterious rather than toughening one up. Potentially even
| disabling or fatal.
| vmception wrote:
| Reads like cause for a special military operation against the
| people that allow this
| mrtksn wrote:
| This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people's job
| down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western
| civilization.
|
| Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class
| benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for
| the surveillance programs.
|
| Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society.
|
| The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like
| this. The lefties and the right-wingers will be after different
| things but they will be able to come together on the hypocritical
| stance and corruption of the current system. It unites enemies
| against you who think that the most important thing is to bring
| down the current horrible governance and figure out things later.
| cryptonector wrote:
| It's a very small step from this to disappearing and torturing
| dissidents at home. With The View calling for Tucker Carlson to
| be tried for treason by a military tribunal, I think we're
| approaching that point.
|
| Then when we get there and someone disappears (say, a
| colleague, a friend of a friend), some will think and even say
| "they must have done something". How do I know? Because that is
| what happened in Argentina during its Dirty War. Oh, I know,
| most of you will say "that could never happen in my country
| because we're a first-world Western nation", but Argentina very
| much was and still is a Western country, complete with rule of
| law ("Estado del Derecho"), and it was much wealthier then
| relative to the rest of the world, and had been truly first
| world in 1950. So, yes, these things very much can happen here
| in the U.S., and in Canada, and in the UK, and in France and
| Germany and Spain and Italy and Netherlands and Belgium and
| Norway and Sweden and so on.
|
| It takes a very small number of men to do most of the torturing
| and killing domestically. Sure, lots more are needed to do the
| arresting (disappearing) of victims. But not very many need to
| get down and dirty. Just ten men killing 150 victims/year would
| have covered the majority of the killings in the Dirty War over
| six years.
| emilsedgh wrote:
| You don't need hypothetical Tucker Carlson situations in a
| world where Julian Assange and Ed Snowden are alive.
|
| I live in the US now but I come from a third world country
| (Iran) where such atrocities are commonplace. And let me tell
| you. What is happening to Assange shows that when it matters,
| the intelligence community is above the law and not that
| different from those bizarre authoritarian regimes. It's just
| that their propaganda machine is just more successful at
| "spinning the stories" and making people believe Ed Snowden
| and Julian Assange are anything but heroes.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > With The View calling for Tucker Carlson to be tried for
| treason by a military tribunal
|
| Isn't that the exact opposite of disappearing?
|
| I think the examples you're looking for are DHS
| hotel/detention centers [1] and Chicago's hidden detention
| centers [2].
|
| [1]: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/marriott-choice-hotels-
| serve... [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homan_Square_facility
| cryptonector wrote:
| Yes, the Homan Sq. facility kinda counts. As for ICE, well,
| it's somewhat different for people who aren't U.S. persons
| and aren't legally tourists or temporary residents, though,
| of course, that should not be license to disappear them,
| just to deport them (which is not at all the same thing).
| cryptonector wrote:
| > Isn't that the exact opposite of disappearing?
|
| Asking for a _civilian_ to be tried for treason by a
| _military_ tribunal for saying... the same things that a
| government official has said, but in a way that makes the
| government look bad, is the same thing as abandoning the
| rule of law.
|
| We've only ever done such things during the Civil War, and
| even then Lincoln only suspended Habeas Corpus in limited
| places as needed. And Lincoln violated the Constitution in
| that case, as suspension of Habeas Corpus is, by its
| location in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, clearly
| only something Congress can do (though Article I, section
| 9(2), does not actually say so), and Chief Justice Taney
| correctly concluded as much in Ex Parte Merryman. (That
| said, I think Lincoln by and large did the right thing.)
|
| Yes, we've had wartime restrictions on speech that sucked
| and were not constitutional and should not have been used
| at all, both in WWI and WWII. But we didn't treat such
| speech as Treason, nor did we have _military_ tribunals for
| those speakers, nor did we suspend Habeas Corpus at any
| time other than during the Civil War. _And_ those were
| _declared_ wars. Trial of civilians by military tribunals
| is really only something you 'd expect in a civil war, and
| only when the constitutional order has fallen apart.
| paganel wrote:
| It has seriously been undermined for the last 20 years (I'd say
| even 30), that's why guys like Putin who fight in order to
| bring back a multi-polar world know what they're doing, they're
| not crazy or anything.
|
| The West has lost its brightness, its shine, its power of
| attraction (if one ignores the material thing), the reasons for
| that are numerous and I don't see any way to bring back the
| "end of history"-times (i.e. the complete dominance of the West
| when it comes to its cultural and societal influence) many were
| dreaming about in the 1990s.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Power corrupts, when you're capable of doing this and go
| unpunished, you'll have people doing it.
|
| Every government ever had and will have this problem.
|
| What we should try to achieve in our society is to limit the
| power given to individuals on other people and allow each
| member of society to be free of centralised coercion. Nobody
| should have a monopoly on violence and nobody should be able to
| forcefully collect taxes from people and then go and wage a war
| on foreign people.
|
| You can call it being anti-establishment, I call it being
| morally consistent with the idea of freedom which is so often
| touted in the USA.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is
| morally acceptable?
|
| E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to
| be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate
| the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with
| certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible?
|
| Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to
| prevent the suffering of a single person?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Historically, torture was far more likely to be used on
| _accusers_ and _witnesses_ than presumed perpetrators. The
| idea is that if you 're tasked with some sort of policing
| role and can't possibly figure out who is in the wrong, you
| just beat up _both_ the accuser and the alleged perp. Chinese
| justice in the imperial era worked pretty much the same way:
| criminal punishment was neither explicitly retaliative nor
| restorative in intent. The basic dynamics is that this
| hopefully makes it less likely for people to lie, since no
| one sane would want to risk being beat up unless they had an
| actual grievance and no other way of addressing it.
| drugstorecowboy wrote:
| If that's true it's fascinating, could you suggest a
| resource I could use to learn more about this? If you know
| you are both just going to be punished and justice wasn't
| retaliative nor restorative, what would be the point of
| bringing a grievance to the authorities?
| gregshap wrote:
| Even if morally acceptable, the torture should still be
| highly illegal. Like any citizen, the interrogator can make
| their own moral analysis of whether the crime and their own
| punishment are worth it. Anyone allowing or covering up the
| torture is equally guilty. If a firefighter can give their
| life to save one other, the interrogator can choose to give
| theirs.
| car_analogy wrote:
| > Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where
| torture is morally acceptable?
|
| Sure it is. But if torture was limited to only cases as
| clear-cut as the one you propose, it would be virtually non-
| existent.
|
| For such rare, extreme cases, it's better to keep it illegal,
| and hope an interrogator will risk jail to save the million
| people (and possibly be freed by jury nullification), than
| (effectively) legalizing it, and have its use creep to anyone
| merely suspected of terrorism (as defined by, from the point
| of view of the torture victims, an invading force), by an
| organization unaccountable even to citizens of its own
| country.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| > it's better to keep it illegal, and hope an interrogator
| will risk jail to save the million people (and possibly be
| freed by jury nullification), than (effectively) legalizing
| it, and have its use creep to anyone merely suspected of
| terrorism (as defined by, from the point of view of the
| torture victims, an invading force), by an organization
| unaccountable even to citizens of its own country.
|
| Well I believe this is technically still the case in the
| US.
| belorn wrote:
| If you know with certainty that the person knows the location
| of the bomb then you also know where the bomb is located.
|
| It the same issue when the police and prosecutor know all
| facts with certainty. At this point you don't need a court, a
| judge or a jury. In an artificial system where everything is
| know with perfect certainty you don't even need police and
| prosecutors, just a method to punish the guilty. A legal
| system is only needed in order to determine who is guilty and
| who isn't, and this is unnecessary if we know already who is
| guilty.
| nicholasnorris wrote:
| You know, a lot of times, people think they know things
| with absolute certainty, but then it turns out that they
| don't.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Would you torture a person if you were 90% sure they knew
| about the dirty bomb?
| belorn wrote:
| How would you know its 90% certainty? Even attempting to
| measuring certainty has an uncertainty factor in it.
|
| We know with some uncertainty the murder rate each year,
| and from this we have some measurable number that a
| person might be murdered. But we also know that murders
| tend to occur in non-random ways. At what murder rate
| should we start to arrest people at random?
|
| They are fun thoughts experiments, but as guides for real
| life they work about as good as extreme simulations which
| removes mass, gravity and air friction.
| Teever wrote:
| How come when someone posts a link about a heinous gang rape
| no one ever replies with 'Is it possible for you to construct
| scenario where rape is morally acceptable?'
|
| Riddle me that and you'll have answered your own question and
| hopefully had an epiphany along the way.
| bluesign wrote:
| I think most interesting construct would be, allowing someone
| to torture someone, only with condition that in the end
| torturer is killed, while torturer decides with totally free
| will.
| gregatragenet wrote:
| What if by detaining and torturing an individual or a few key
| individuals you could prevent the death of many of your
| citizens and widespread destruction - through a bloody civil
| war. It would be for the good of the people. <--- most
| Autocrats
| inasio wrote:
| I remember that soon after 9/11 the tv show 24 started
| exploring "justified torture" scenarios, in retrospect I'm
| pretty sure it was not a coincidence.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Let's make it personal. Someone's kidnapped your 2 year old
| kid and you know that this person knows where they are.
| philovivero wrote:
| Yeah. Let's do make it personal. (I'll rephrase another
| commenter's comment)
|
| If I disassemble you and redistribute your body parts, I
| could save several people who are in dire need of a heart,
| some kidneys, some blood.
|
| Should I just go ahead and do this? If not, why not?
| pmarreck wrote:
| I never said someone had to die. In your case, someone
| does.
| yencabulator wrote:
| Okay, so just one kidney and some blood then.
| adolph wrote:
| Or a vaccine administration? (sorry if this is too soon
| to bring that up)
| vkou wrote:
| Why should it matter? We could save three or four lives
| by ending just one. Surely, the lives of four people are
| at least a few times more valuable than that of one.
| worik wrote:
| This is a vacuous argument.
|
| No matter what principals you hold I can come up with a
| scenario where you will violate them. It does not make you
| unprincipled.
|
| States using torture is a long way down the hole. It is such
| a shame that a dynamic exciting creative society like the
| USA's has fallen so far. It would be possible for the country
| to be a beacon of hope and civilisation. Instead it has
| become just another in a long line of grubby corrupt super
| states.
|
| Such a crying shame.
| rendall wrote:
| > _Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where
| torture is morally acceptable?_
|
| Yes, it's possible to concoct a fictional scenario whereby
| torturing one person saves millions of lives. Heck, why not a
| more plausible scenario where torturing someone saves 2
| lives. But it's a non-sequitur: a true statement that is
| irrelevant.
|
| I won't argue this well, especially not well enough to
| convince someone for whom "torture" is acceptable, but
| principles matter. It's the only thing that separates the
| good guys from the bad guys. Not guns, not good looks, not
| firm jaws, not money, not power, not magical spells. Bad and
| good people have, or don't have, those things in equal
| measure.
|
| Torture = bad guy. Beating people in the street = bad guy.
| Planting evidence on a suspect = bad guy. Stealing elections
| = bad guy.
|
| This is important because, while some of those things might
| be expedient to get your desired outcome, it makes society
| worse. If you do that, you are the bad guy. Maybe the other
| guy is bad too, but you definitely are. Now when other people
| do it, you can't say shit. You did it. You could not come up
| with a better way. Society is now worse and more dangerous
| because of you. All the bad guys have reasons for doing bad
| things, but only good guys do the good things, even when it's
| not easy. Good people say "times are extraordinarily
| dangerous, so now more than ever we must fight to maintain
| our integrity and our values, and treat our opponents with
| due process and dignity, no matter how much we despise them"
|
| We now have a society where torture is considered awful, but
| that is hard won. Not long ago, we would burn people alive
| publicly as punishment for Very Serious reasons. When we
| start saying "torture is ok now because these times are
| extraordinarily dangerous", then torture is a bit more
| acceptable when times are not so dangerous.
|
| That's it. That's the argument.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy discusses a real
| case where a car thief stole a car with a child in the
| backseat. The car thief had abandoned the car somewhere,
| and, as it was summer and daytime, the child was going to
| cook to death in the car. The police detain the thief and
| ask him where the car and child is, they offer to reduce
| his charges, and he denies it was him though they have him
| on video stealing the car. The police decide to beat the
| guy until he reveals where the car is. They do and he does.
| Would you say the police did anything wrong?
| newuser94303 wrote:
| As long as the police are willing to face a jury for
| their crimes, it is fine. A jury will probably let them
| off but the police can not be judge and jury because the
| line keeps moving.
| a2800276 wrote:
| Ok, I'll bite:
|
| > Would you say the police did anything wrong?
|
| Yes, obviously. At the very least, they very obviously
| broke a law. They should file charges against themselves.
| The legal system is not absolute and a court / jury can
| decide about extenuating circumstances.
|
| I can think of few laws that don't allow me to construct
| some extremely hare-brained counterexample where it might
| be morally justified to break them.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| It's not obviously wrong to break a law to save a child's
| life though. In an extreme example, would you speed to
| take a dying child to the hospital? I think it would be
| wrong if you would refuse to (unless you had some
| calculation that speeding would make you less likely to
| save the child).
|
| Laws are ethics - they are rules that tell us how to act.
| Right and wrong are descriptions of morality - which is
| about good and bad. It's certainly a violation of the
| clearly established rules to beat a man to save a child,
| but it's not obviously wrong to do so. I would say it's
| not wrong at all.
| monocasa wrote:
| Yes the police are in the wrong for torturing him. If the
| thief says nothing and the police find the car with a
| dead child inside he gets murder charges added to his
| grand theft auto charges. This is already the established
| law when a death occurs during the commission of a
| felony. It's why get away drivers for a bank robbery can
| be charged as well with the murders that happened at
| others' hands inside the bank.
|
| You attack the problem with the rule of law, not
| unleashing your justice system from the reins of lawful
| behavior whenever they internally deem it convenient.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| ...says somebody without children?
| monocasa wrote:
| Literally our entire justice system is built on the idea
| that the only ethical option is that victims and families
| of victims don't decide the flow of our justice process,
| and in fact require anyone who is too close to the
| victims to recuse themselves.
|
| Turning it around, how would you like if the police
| tortured your child in a case of mistaken identity?
| Looking at the members of my high school class who became
| cops, they weren't exactly known for being the brightest
| bulbs in the box, but always acted with confidence
| despite that.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Literally our entire justice system is built on the
| idea that the only ethical option is that victims and
| families of victims don't decide the flow of our justice
| process
|
| No, it's not, and the divergence between reality and this
| description is increasing, essentially monotonically,
| over time, with legal incorporation of "victim's rights"
| into the criminal justice process.
|
| That's not to say it _shouldn 't_ be as you describe,
| just that it _isn 't_.
| monocasa wrote:
| Victims rights stop at the boundaries of the rights of
| the accused. They boil down to being explicitly notified
| of changes of public information like court dates and
| release dates, the ability to be present for public
| proceedings, and reaffirming their protection from the
| accused WRT instruments like restraining orders.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao/resources/crime-victims-
| rights-...
|
| They don't extend to the decision making process for
| others' investigations and prosecutions.
| rendall wrote:
| There's always this. "Is it okay in this highly unusual
| circumstance where I set it up so that obviously the
| right answer is to behave terribly?". The world is
| replete with these questions.
|
| The problem is that these quandaries are then used to
| justify shitty behavior in other circumstances. What
| percentage of cop beatings save lives versus total cop
| beatings? 0.2%? 0.02%? What's the point of your question?
| What does the knowledge that you will be beaten if a cop
| suspects you of a terrible crime do to your state of
| mind? To the safety of police officers? To society?
|
| I'm concocting a situation that I would like you to
| consider. Answer, please, with just as much gravitas. Let
| us imagine a society where beating or harassing anyone is
| absolutely taboo. In this society, no one need ever worry
| about physical violence. A woman could walk naked from
| Chicago to California never once being harassed. An
| elderly man could walk anywhere carrying a fat wallet of
| cash without fear of physical violence.
|
| There is the rare and occasional thief, however. Now, one
| of these thieves steals a car and leaves a child baking
| in the sun in much the circumstances you describe.
| Beating the thief is the only possible way to save the
| child from a grizzly, horrendous, agonizing death,
| screaming alone for her mother.
|
| But, once done, the beating breaks that taboo. Those
| police officers are a bit more likely to use violence to
| get what they want. It's a bit contagious, too. Other
| people begin to use violence. Bear with me, here. Let's
| say, because that taboo is broken, 100 more people are
| beaten over the next decade, and 1 or 2 of them die from
| their injuries. None of them "deserve" it.
|
| Would you say it was worth it, to beat the man to save
| the life of that child, knowing that 1 or 2 people die
| and 100 are beaten, directly because of that?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| We've each posed a scenario to the other. There is a
| difference though. My scenario is a real life event that
| actually happened. My scenario is a realistic and common
| sense instance about a moral choice with straightforward
| consequences. Beat a man to save a child. Your scenario,
| by contrast, is an unrealistic fantasy with magic
| consequences. You are asking "Would you do something
| good, if, by magic, doing something good caused something
| bad to happen?"
| rendall wrote:
| > _My scenario is a real life event that actually
| happened._
|
| Not really. It was a story that a philosophy book used to
| illustrate a conundrum. It bore resemblance to "actually
| happened" like a film "based on true events". Are we
| taking the word of the cops and philosophers or does the
| man himself have something to say about it? What would
| have happened if the cops didn't beat the man? We will
| never know.
|
| But ok, let's grant it, for the sake of argument. For our
| purposes, it is the unvarnished reality, precisely as the
| book said. The cops _had_ to beat the man or the child
| _would have died_.
|
| The beating of the man had unknown consequences, however,
| and the construction of the scenario elides them. Is it
| worth it to live in a society where cops beat thieves to
| extract information from them? We don't have to guess.
| Look around you (I mean, assuming you live in the US or
| similar country in that respect). Do cops only beat men
| to extract life-saving information from them? The
| unintended consequence of "it's okay to beat this man
| just this once" is readily apparent. It never is just the
| once in that _exceedingly rare_ scenario, is it?
|
| Now, you can answer my question. In the magical society
| where cops do not beat people, but then do, is 100
| beatings and 1 or 2 deaths worth the life of 1 child?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| It's a real case that went to trial in New Zealand. The
| car thief was on video stealing the car, he confessed to
| stealing the car (admittedly under torture), and he was
| able to locate the stolen car and child.
|
| As it happens, we know what would've happened had the
| police not beat him, because they tried that first. The
| man refused to say where the car was. He would rather let
| a child die than admit to car theft. Of course, maybe, if
| they had let the child die a magic genie would've
| prevented all future crime - it's as plausible as your
| hypothetical - so maybe the police did wrong after all...
|
| As for your question my moral judgements are tuned to
| reality, not nonsense fantasy land. I don't have a strong
| sense of what is right and wrong in a universe that does
| not obey causality as I know it. I would, however, be
| willing to beat the thief if it were my child in the car.
| rendall wrote:
| Cops beat people quite often in the US, and exactly zero-
| point-never times is it to save the life of a child. Yet
| for some reason, you find it necessary to bring up that
| one time in New Zealand to justify torture. I'm sorry,
| but I find that baffling. Seems to me very much not tuned
| to reality, but maybe we should just agree to disagree
| here.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| The original comment of yours that I replied to says that
| "torture = bad" and that all that separates good and bad
| people is principle. I have two reasons for challenging
| this. First, it's just not true. Torture, in some cases,
| is completely justified. These cases are both
| hypothetical (you need to find the dirty bomb going to
| kill millions) and real (beat a car thief to save a
| child). Second is to question the underlying principle
| that makes torture usually immoral.
| rendall wrote:
| I can ask it no clearer: Given that your counterfactual
| is an exceedingly rare edge case, why do you feel it is
| important to counter the valuable moral heuristic of
| "torture=bad"? What are you gaining by doing that?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| If I said "All prime numbers are odd" I would not
| question what you gain by bringing up the example of 2.
| rendall wrote:
| We're talking about torture, not mathematics. Ok. Feel
| free to have the last word.
| FpUser wrote:
| This is very different and clear cut case. I will leave
| it to legal scholars to debate whether the police was
| justified. Trying to compare this to a case when the guy
| is being tortured for training purposes is sick.
|
| In theory since the case is so trivial they could be
| convicted and immediately given complete presidential
| pardon with clean record or whatever is the equivalent.
|
| Or jury nullification can be used. There would be no way
| I as a juror would declare them guilty.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| My comment was in response to the "torture = bad" part of
| the parent comment, not an attempt to justify using
| detainees to practice your torture techniques.
| FpUser wrote:
| He was also tortured in a "regular" way on a basis of
| being relative. And he is still tortured - what else do
| you want to call keeping him in for so many years without
| charges and trial. Any way you spin it it is sick. And
| what good did it do? Care to share accounts of people
| saved from an imminent death by torturing this guy?
| rendall wrote:
| These kinds of conversations always devolve.
|
| "Torture is bad and should be abolished".
|
| "Well, what about this other, very contrived situation
| where it's good?"
|
| You can use that non-sequitur to justify literally
| anything. "Murder, slavery and rape is bad". "Well, what
| about this situation where it did good?"
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| That's why law is hard. Even the contrived situations
| occur.
| burnished wrote:
| Interesting. Imagine that you were the car thief, and did
| not know about a child, what reason would you have to
| believe the police? They lie and apply torture to get
| confessions after all.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| >Would you say the police did anything wrong?
|
| Yes? They beat the man.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| ...and saved the child. Wouldn't it have been wrong to
| let a child die?
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| Saving the child would be the consequence of the wrong
| action. It just happens that this particular consequence
| is the desired one. This doesn't magically transform the
| ethical value of an action. Thinking otherwise ("Finis
| sanctificat media") is the root of all kinds of evil in
| the world.
|
| Should they have done it (acted wrongly)? I don't know,
| they have their own free will.
| drugstorecowboy wrote:
| I feel like these situations make the implicit assumption
| that violence is the ONLY possible way when it is in fact
| just the easiest and fastest way, with very mixed and
| inconsistent results. In the given situation wouldn't the
| obvious thing be to offer him total immunity? Was making
| sure he was punished for something worth the life of the
| child? What if he had given them incorrect info just to
| make the beating stop?
|
| I would say yes they were in the wrong. It was a bad
| choice even if its one I would likely make myself. Maybe
| the insistence that morality is strictly on a continuum
| from "good" to "bad" is part of the issue.
| [deleted]
| Super_Jambo wrote:
| Even if you can construct a morally acceptable edge case it
| should still be illegal.
|
| In these extreme edge cases the people on the ground can be
| expected to break the law and break out the thumb screws.
| After all if you're willing to torture someone your own
| freedom is presumably a relatively mild price to pay...
| right?
|
| We could then hope that the citizens enforcing the legal
| system will recognize the correctness of their actions and
| let them off.
|
| Legal torture exists because the powerful don't see
| themselves as answering to anyone.
| philovivero wrote:
| I am appalled at your insinuation, but even more appalled at
| all the replies that take your premise at face value.
|
| No. No, there is no such scenario. You can coerce the
| information out of someone who has the knowledge in other
| ways, if that is the problem, even though that problem never
| actually surfaces outside of bad TV show plots.
|
| Torture is wrong. It does not work. It often, in fact, does
| the opposite of work. It debases our humanity, our civility,
| and society. It makes the world a worse place in so many
| ways, I find it sad that otherwise intelligent people are
| even pondering this.
|
| No. Torture is not morally, legally, or ethically acceptable.
| tryitnow wrote:
| Yes, of course, anyone with a decent imagination can do so.
|
| Unfortunately, that has little practical impact.
|
| I can construct a lot of scenarios where I build an amazing
| startup and become a billionaire seemingly overnight.
|
| Tragically, my bank account balance always seems to ignore
| the brilliant scenarios my mind comes up with.
|
| Honestly, outside of philosophy departments questions like
| this aren't terribly useful.
|
| The problem with your question is that ignores the specific
| circumstances of this case - where there obviously was no
| dirty bomb, there was no "certainty", there were not one
| million lives at stake in some definite deterministic sense.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >Honestly, outside of philosophy departments questions like
| this aren't terribly useful.
|
| I disagree completely. The fact that you can construct such
| a scenario says something very important about it. That it
| is not totally morally indefensible and the discussion is
| not one about a binary choice but one about degree.
| ed_balls wrote:
| > torture is morally acceptable?
|
| Someone stole the car with the baby inside. Police caught the
| thief, but there is no car or the baby. There is a heatwave
| and the baby can last max 2h in the car. The thief panicked
| and dumped the car somewhere. He is not willing to tell where
| it is.
|
| Beating him up to get the info is acceptable ethically.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| They can threaten the thief with murder charges, promise a
| reduced sentence if he tells the location of the car, etc.
| Do you really think beating up the thief would be more
| effective? Life is not a hollywood action movie.
| ed_balls wrote:
| > promise a reduced sentence
|
| They did, but it didn't work
|
| > Life is not a hollywood action movie.
|
| This is an example from Stanford Encyclopedia of
| Philosophy.
| pessimizer wrote:
| On TV they give up everything they worked for and believe
| in if you break a few fingers. In real life, they just
| lie to you, you run back and forth trying to verify the
| lies, then 2 hours have passed.
|
| edit: Americans (and others) have been taught to believe
| in torture like a religion, to continue to associate
| torture with truth. Torture is an argument; you're
| arguing with people that it's in their best interest to
| do what you want them to do. It is rarely an appropriate
| argument, and rarely an effective argument. It's far
| easier and more effective to convince them that
| cooperating with you is the right thing to do, and that's
| still not easy. But there are tactics, such as complete
| isolation and control over their environment, rewards for
| any sort of cooperation, friendliness and human
| connection, actual rhetoric and discussion, periods of
| complete disorientation alternated with periods of calm,
| pandering to their egos. They don't work in two hours.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| People keep bringing up these hypothetical thought
| experiments, but they are just wildly unrealistic. Also, they
| approach the topic from the wrong end: I shouldn't have to
| justify _not_ to use torture. The abolishment of torture is a
| milestone of Western civilization.
| philovivero wrote:
| Bringing sanity to the discussion. Thank you.
| vkou wrote:
| > Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice
| to prevent the suffering of a single person?
|
| Taking you apart for your organs can be used to save the
| lives of multiple people.
|
| So, I'd say, in your case, three or four, tops.
|
| I don't imagine that was the answer you were looking for.
| gmadsen wrote:
| for one, the marine general Mattis said he was against
| torture. Not because of moral issues, but simply because it
| was ineffective. People will say whatever they think you want
| to hear to stop being tortured, which then leads to a lot of
| really bad and false intel
| bell-cot wrote:
| THIS. "Does Not Actually Work In The Real World" (no matter
| what Hollywood, or your own imagination or seething
| emotions might say on the subject) is a 100%-All-Cases-
| Covered "NO" for "...ends justify the means..." bullshit.
|
| Exact same reasoning as "thou shalt not brutally beat
| epileptic children, to try to cure them by driving the
| demons out".
| Loughla wrote:
| This is a good moral question, and really is going to come
| down to personal belief.
|
| I absolutely do not believe governments should be able to
| torture someone, for any reason, regardless of the
| consequences. It has less to do with the suffering of a
| single person, and more with the constant and consistent
| scope creep that enters every government program coupled with
| the ability for any and all governments to be full of
| faceless, and therefore blameless, bureaucrats.
|
| Torture to save 1 million people today becomes torture to
| save 10 people tomorrow. If no one can be held accountable,
| then it becomes torture to stop a robbery instead of
| genocide.
|
| If you let your morals slip once, you are an immoral society.
| Like it or lump it.
|
| Edit to clarify: I am 100% anti-torture in any situation. I
| didn't think that needed clarification?
| FpUser wrote:
| >"This is a good moral question"
|
| No this is nothing more but a sleazy attempt to whitewash a
| crime
| Loughla wrote:
| No, I'm not trying to do that. If you read my post, I
| plainly agree that torture is out of bounds entirely in
| any instance, ever, forever.
|
| I'm not sure how to re-word that to clarify.
| shapefrog wrote:
| Is it not already a _moral slip_ to allow those 1 million
| people to die in a fireball to save the 1 person from
| torture?
| bluesign wrote:
| What is the threshold, what about saving 1 person from
| dying ?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Or potentially saving someone from torture?
| Loughla wrote:
| No, because I am not the one responsible for those
| deaths. I am absolutely responsible for the torture, if I
| perform it.
|
| It is a travesty and a tragedy, but morally, if I did my
| best within the bounds of the law, what else is there? If
| there is no rule of law, what's the purpose of the whole
| thing? If torture is negotiable, why not speeding? Why
| not kidnapping (which might be implied in the torture)?
| Why not eliminating the right to a fair trial (again,
| maybe that's implied)?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human
| destiny with the object of making men happy in the end,
| giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are
| doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to
| torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby
| beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- in
| order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would
| you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell
| me, and tell the truth."_ -- Fyodor
| Dostoevsky
| sdoering wrote:
| In the end, what you are asking comes down to some form of
| the "Trolley Problem" [0]. The critique towards the Trolley
| Problem can be directed towards your (very) hypothetical
| scenario as well:
|
| > In a 2014 paper published in the Social and Personality
| Psychology Compass, researchers criticized the use of the
| trolley problem, arguing, among other things, that the
| scenario it presents is too extreme and unconnected to real-
| life moral situations to be useful or educational.
|
| I can't say, how I would react in a given situation. I don't
| know, if I could torture/kill one (or a few) for the survival
| (or a better chance of survival) of a larger group. Because
| in the end one would have to ask were to draw the line. From
| a strictly utilitarian point of view killing one person to
| secure the survival of two others is a net positive outcome.
| But it feels morally more than wrong.
|
| Where to draw the line. 1 against 50? Against 1000?
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| > From a strictly utilitarian point of view killing one
| person to secure the survival of two others is a net
| positive outcome. But it feels morally more than wrong.
|
| Well of course all sorts of definitive truths feel
| unintuitive or wrong to humans, perhaps that's just a
| limitation of our brains. From this utilitarian pov the net
| positive outcome is the morally correct one.
| sdoering wrote:
| Is there something like a "definitive truth"? Being an
| atheist, I would say, that this is an overly simplistic
| view. But that would be my personal take on that.
|
| Utilitarianism isn't a rational choice. What if - in my
| extreme example, one of the two surviving people would
| have been Hitler?
|
| Or even less dramatic, still contrived: What if the
| person being killed would go on and invent a cure against
| cancer?
|
| You can't predict the future and these contrived examples
| only show, that (probably) every theory/philosophy can be
| brought to its knees by going to its extreme conclusions.
| So how to quantify "value"? How do we calculate the
| consequences of our decisions? We can't imho.
| adolph wrote:
| > Is there something like a "definitive truth"?
|
| There is math, right? 2 > 1?
|
| > What if the person being killed would go on . . .
|
| Don't worry about it. If they would cure cancer, redux
| hitler, etc, they will even if not seen here. Flip your
| coin; accept the result; one's feelings afterward don't
| offend the multiverse.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
| echelon wrote:
| Another one to ponder,
|
| Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"
| [1, 2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_fr
| om_Om...
|
| [2] Full short story: https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/emi
| ly.klotz/engl1302-6/rea...
| Melatonic wrote:
| Le Guin really is a treasure - this one always stuck with
| me as well
| mrtksn wrote:
| No not really. Dirty bombs and people motivated to detonate
| one don't spontaneously appear in New York or anywhere. It
| always has a prelude, some kind of injustice(perceived or
| real) by you towards a community(drone strike school children
| bus kind of stuff) that you fail to exterminate and they come
| back to you.
|
| Fixing terrorism by more surveillance, torture, less rights
| might delay the detonation of a dirty bomb but since the core
| issue remains nothing is solved.
|
| Besides, there are very effective techniques against
| information extraction through torture, like dividing
| organisations into cells.
|
| IMHO, if it comes to torture 1 person to save 1M+ people
| there's likely to be another person who you will fail to
| catch and that person will take down the 1M+. I don't believe
| that the scenario of torturing 1 person and saving 1M+ exists
| beyond games and movies.
|
| After years of torture, dronning and gunning people, the US
| left Afghanistan and people were falling from the skies when
| trying to run away. Did you miss that? Why do you think that
| torture can be an effective tool?
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Sharlin wrote:
| Absolute certainty that the victim has the information you
| want is a pretty high bar to clear. Philosophical thought
| experiments notwithstanding, some things are best regarded as
| deontologically forbidden in practice, no matter how
| consequentialist one leans otherwise.
| defen wrote:
| Do we have any evidence that torture _actually works_? That
| the person being tortured will tell accurate information?
|
| Basically do we have any examples of this sort of situation,
| where there was an imminent threat to life and people were
| saved due to torture?
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >Basically do we have any examples of this sort of
| situation, where there was an imminent threat to life and
| people were saved due to torture?
|
| In the made up scenario you could make a case that even if
| there is a low probability of torture working, the scale of
| lives saved would make it worth it. A 20% chance of saving
| 1M people is still net +200k lives.
| dls2016 wrote:
| > Do we have any evidence that torture actually works?
|
| Most evidence points the other direction.
|
| > Finally, an exhaustive 2014 report by the Senate Select
| Committee on Intelligence analyzed millions of internal CIA
| documents related to the torture of terrorism suspects,
| concluding that "the CIA's use of its enhanced
| interrogation techniques was not an effective means of
| acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from
| detainees." It adds that "multiple CIA detainees fabricated
| information, resulting in faulty intelligence."
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-rsquo-ve-
| known...
|
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/pub
| l...
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| catchclose8919 wrote:
| ...maybe "information extraction" and "torture" are not
| exactly the same thing? Extracting _valid_ information from
| hardened bad guys would probably work better by using other
| means than physical pain (eg. threaten wiping out their
| family or close ones, drugs + yes-no questions under and MRI
| brain activity scanner etc. etc.), pain and brutality applied
| to people already crazy and quasi-suicidal to begin with
| would only give you a mix of nonsense, lies and irrelevant
| infos that you 'll not be able to separate well and fast
| enough to figure out how to prevent that bomb from going.
|
| I mean, you're probably not torturing average-Joe working-in-
| an-office with 2.5 kids and a white fence house :)
| pessimizer wrote:
| A typical scenario for this question, but not a good one.
| There's no reason for torture to work on this person, you
| have no timely way of verifying what they're saying, and
| you're going to hurt/kill them whether or not they give you
| the answer. They're just going to lie to you.
|
| What you have to do is credibly threaten to torture or kill
| their family members and loved ones, to rape their children.
| This works. Are you a bad enough dude to rationalize that?
| catchclose8919 wrote:
| > Are you a bad enough dude to rationalize that?
|
| Probably many are, but for a person crazy enough to do such
| a horrible act such threats would also likely not work
| (either "nothing to lose" or "don't care about anything
| anymore").
|
| _As a society I think we can only try to avoid creating
| enough people who have "nothing to lose" or "don't care
| about anything anymore"..._ They're basically "cancer
| cells", once at least one survives long enough to "do it's
| thing" (recruit team, deploy destructive thing etc.),
| there's nothing you can do besides damage control, you
| don't "interrogate a cancer cell", they're either
| irrational, or have no rational reason to help you
| regardless of any threat or pain you apply.
|
| But you're right, torture would only work for "regular
| criminals/terrorists" for which... one shouldn't _need_
| torture, threats and rewards for collaboration would be
| enough. But these "regular bad guys" would not do stupid s
| like mass attacks on "civilians".
|
| Generally if you end up thinking you _absolutely need
| actual torture_ you 've already f up badly, you're seeing
| things wrong, and sooner or later s will hit the fan for
| you or your organization... it's more of a sign of
| _incompetence!_
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Probably many are, but for a person crazy enough to do
| such a horrible act such threats would also likely not
| work (either "nothing to lose" or "don't care about
| anything anymore").
|
| War isn't crazy, and participating in attacks on [your
| country] doesn't mean that one is irrational or doesn't
| care about anyone in the world. Just because you are
| willing to give your own life for a cause doesn't mean
| you have nothing to lose.
|
| The reason I say it works is because it actually works,
| and has been used by states many times, esp. in South
| America by US trained torturers, but also by plenty of
| others, like the Khmer Rouge. The point is credibility -
| and if somebody has planted a dirty bomb in some city,
| you can't credibly give them any reward for telling on
| themselves. You can promise things, but they will not
| believe you. If you're Pinochet, though, you can credibly
| threaten to have someone's children raped and murdered,
| because he did it all the time. He can credibly promise
| to do it even after the bomb goes off, and after you've
| been executed, because he's done it to others. He can
| have them brought to you and have it done in front of
| you.
|
| The US also uses this tactic, although since it will
| never carry it out (although it will carry out
| deportations, indictments, etc. for family members) it
| relies on a lot of playacting. There are stories of the
| US pretending to torture family members within earshot of
| people being interrogated.
| catchclose8919 wrote:
| > War isn't crazy
|
| Planting a dirt bomb in a civilian inhabited city is way
| beyond _war_... 99.9% soldiers fighting in a war would
| not participate in anything similar to this... Even when
| a city is bombed to the ground, that generally happens
| well after beginning of a conflict and most people have
| been at least given one chance to run away or
| surrender... Most people who plan their lives well enough
| have a decent chance to at least evacuate vulnerable
| people from war zones (at high cost, sacrifice, but
| still).
|
| _The propaganda people currently trying to blur such
| lines are CRIMINAL imo..._
|
| > like the Khmer Rouge
|
| Not sure how well this (or anything else) worked for
| them... afaik they ended up massacring a large part of
| their civilians population because they were paranoid and
| couldn't figure out who to trust, or had crazy ideas
| about who the ideal future citizens should be...
|
| Yeah, sure, _torturing enemy fighters to give away
| military secrets probably works just fine_ , just don't
| do it on a large enough scale or you'll just motivate the
| enemy to faith-to-death instead of risking to get
| captured... and this would likely nullify any advantage
| you'd gain.
|
| There's a big gap between "regular war" and "total
| unrestricted violence and terror", that's why we talk of
| "war crimes"...
| mbg721 wrote:
| World-war, total-war of the type that's making people
| anxious, that's pretty damn crazy. Sure, some wars don't
| operate that way, but those are irrelevant.
| deutschew wrote:
| > Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society.
|
| There never was any moral high ground, the establishment were
| successful at making people FEEL as such. We are quick to point
| fingers at Nazis, Terrorists, Enemies yet the Western
| perspective is always 'we can do know wrong, if we did, its
| justified' which is exactly what the opposing side does.
|
| Once a subtle reminder that many supported Nazi ideals early in
| America, even as Jews were being sent to gas chambers,
| companies like IBM were happy to do business with the regime,
| very much like they do with CCP companies as well as Putin.
|
| There really is no way to change this without outside
| intervention, I will leave that to your imagination.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > There never was any moral high ground, the establishment
| were successful at making people FEEL as such.
|
| I understand what you're trying to say with respect to dirty
| hands, and not wilfully misunderstanding you.
|
| But, wrong. There _was_ a moral high ground. It subsisted
| within the group of people you claim were duped. Those were
| and always will be the people who count, who hold the
| _normative_ values of a society. What they "feel" is American
| Values (more broadly "western ones").
|
| The "establishment" you mention were the bad guys, and remain
| so. To the extent they spit on normative values then claims
| refuge in the necessity of dirty hands, they are unsoldierly
| and they play into the hands of the enemy who seeks to divide
| us and undermine our values. They may was well be KGB/FSB
| agents in our midst.
| keybored wrote:
| So the Noble Lie was real because some people believed it.
| But those who told it lied. Moreover they didn't follow it.
| Moreover they were in fact bad guys. And why is that bad?
| Because they were caught and now _those other_ bad guys
| will undermine our values... that we don 't have (but we
| thought we did).
|
| This makes absolutely no sense unless you insert some
| unfounded premise of national/Western exceptionalism
| somewhere.
| deutschew wrote:
| What I'm saying is pick up a history book or even read
| through various things America was involved in all over the
| world. It is anything BUT moral and yes the average
| American has no say in the matter in the decision making.
| So perhaps that absolves them of the sins of the state but
| nevertheless the blind masses continue to push away these
| ugly things under the closet with various political labels
| and in doing so they are implicitly approving these actions
| because it ultimately benefits THEM at the expense of other
| humans.
|
| My point was try to see it from the people on the receiving
| end of pax Americana and tell me why the opposing sides
| reacted the way they have.
|
| History is written by the victor and you simply don't get
| to hear from the losers. Therefore, there can be no
| absolute comparisons. You push somebody to poverty or
| vilify them, there is no exit but the desired outcome you
| seek. Once again, narratives is what shapes our reality,
| and the one that continuously virtue signals is the one
| that ultimately wins.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I understand you.
|
| May I humbly give you links to some reading which I hope
| will benefit your views and arguments in the future. It
| pertains to a specific phrase I used above.
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dirty-hands/
|
| https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/s
| 152...
|
| respects
| deutschew wrote:
| thanks for being respectful here, I will take a look at
| those.
| cryptonector wrote:
| I took u/martksn's comment to be that the State needs to
| behave morally as much as it can. The State is composed of
| and run by people -- people who are imperfect, of course, who
| make mistakes, are corrupted, or even outright evil.
|
| We can only try to make the State consist of institutions
| that keep it mostly moral. Doing so, and mostly succeeding,
| gives us the moral high ground even when there are some
| failures.
|
| But when those institutions fail to keep the State mostly
| moral, watch out, because then we're in trouble.
| tiahura wrote:
| _Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class
| benefits from this or other atrocities._
|
| Given that we don't have all, or even most, of the data, that's
| really just emotionally driven speculation.
|
| And maybe I'm being overly nuanced, but I'm beginning to accept
| that there's a qualitative difference between distasteful
| treatment of dozens of people suspected of having information
| about terrorists, and the systematic persecution of entire
| populations.
|
| I'm not terribly concerned that China, Russia, or anyone else
| is going to snatch and torture random nobody like me, and then
| justify it by pointing to CIA torture of Al Queda.
| 14 wrote:
| Not only that but it is considered a war crime to torture from
| my understanding. So how can we look at Russia and say they are
| committing war crimes if the US blatantly does things like
| this. We need to lead on a moral high ground.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Well the US isn't a party to the ICC so it can't be sued by
| it over war crimes in the first place.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute
| monocasa wrote:
| The Rome Statute is tied to territory, so any US citizens
| that find themselves in a country that has signed the Rome
| Statute can find themselves facing war crimes tribunals,
| hence the Hague invasion act. Even with that act in place
| there's a swath of western countries that former US
| statesmen like Cheney and Kissinger won't go anymore.
| tux3 wrote:
| "Okay. But That's Worse. You, You Do Get How That's Worse,
| Right?" -- NBC, The Good Place
| harryf wrote:
| It doesn't need a treaty for something to be clearly
| wrong... and like wrong at any level.
|
| I mean the poster at the top of this thread immediately
| tries to make some justification...
|
| > This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some
| people's job down the pipe easier and at the same time
| undermines the Western civilization.
|
| No! It's just wrong! We should never do this to other human
| beings. Period. But you want a GOOD reason why not ?
|
| Because the people you trained to torture abroad one day
| return home and get jobs like security outside the
| nightclub your teenage kids are going to. You're literally
| training psychopaths which later get unleashed on the
| public at home.
|
| Also we know torture doesn't work for information
| gathering. It's only useful as a tool of oppression. Which
| is why we're actually using it.
|
| But seriously. I can't believe I need to make the case
| against torture. It's just wrong.
| pstuart wrote:
| The show "24" was an advertisement for torture. I got
| sucked in at first because it was a bit of a twist and
| exciting, but soon stopped out of disgust when I realized
| what was going on.
| harryf wrote:
| Exactly. And it came out Nov 6th 2001... not even a month
| after 9/11. Probably did a lot to shape an angry publics
| willingness to use torture as a tool in retribution. The
| writers of 24 (and later Homeland) talk about it here
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/magazine/the-creators-
| of-...
| lesuorac wrote:
| Do you really think they finished all of the casting
| calls, set design, filming, and editing from Sept 12 2001
| to Nov 6th 2001?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_(TV_series)#Conception
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I absolutely agree about leading from the moral high ground.
| It's been frustrating talking with ordinary Russians who are
| reluctant to condemn (even anonymously) that their invasion
| of Ukraine (including the targeted murder of civilians) is an
| atrocity because the US invaded Iraq under false pretenses
| and without UN approval. Of course, it's a significant error
| of degree to conflate these anomalies in US behavior with the
| standard behavior of Russia or China or whomever, but by
| behaving above-board we make it harder for bad faith people
| to conflate American behavior with that of various
| dictatorships.
|
| EDIT: On the subject of dictatorships and the UN, there's a
| brief but insightful essay I recently came across recently:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30687498
|
| > So many member states are themselves dictatorships that
| engage in horrible human rights violations--and _they stick
| together_. The latter point is key: the worst countries are
| far more united in protecting human rights abuses than the
| democracies are in protecting human rights.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > Of course, it's a significant error of degree to conflate
| these anomalies in US behavior with the standard behavior
| of Russia or China or whomever,
|
| Why so? Perhaps for Iraq you've forgot about the fact that
| VP Cheney's former company made significant gains from that
| lie?
|
| The idea that one side's lies and unjustified violence are
| better than the other side's is why the wars and hypocrisy
| continue.
|
| Either we - the ones being served cake - call all BS or we
| don't. But ongoing mediocre excuses for mediocrity aren't
| working.
|
| /rant
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > The idea that one side's lies and unjustified violence
| are better than the other side's is why the wars and
| hypocrisy continue.
|
| First of all, I'm advocating for American behavior to
| remain beyond reproach and I favor prosecuting the
| American officials who misled the American public in the
| case of the Iraq war.
|
| That said, I heartily reject the binary categorization
| between unblemished and blemished countries because all
| countries fall into the latter group. Of course there are
| differences in the quantity and degree of lying and
| unjustified violence that your scheme glosses over--the
| idea that no country is better than say, Nazi Germany or
| Stalin's Russia or Maoist China serves only gives
| rhetorical cover to the worst offenders/offenses: "who is
| Canada to criticize Nazi Germany considering its track
| record of unjustified violence against its own native
| population?". This is the worst kind of race-to-the
| bottom rhetoric.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. are what happens when we start
| putting a rating on lies, justice, murder, etc. Yes,
| these are the extremes. But that doesn't justify a
| slippery slope that isn't - yet? - one of these
| historical extremes.
|
| "Oh. Our lies and murders aren't as bad as {insert
| culture panic button here}" continue to work well for the
| elites, not so much so for the rest of us.
|
| How about we put a cultural / sociopolitical price on say
| the USA's three-quarters of a trillion DoD budget?
| Certainly there's plenty of injustice that could be
| addressed with that type of $. But instead we buy into
| the status quo narrative?
|
| That's not working. The point is, let's get our own house
| in order, instead of manufacturing a narrative that is
| bold-faced, shameless, hyprocricy.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| You're framing this as a dichotomy between slippery
| slopes. We must either pretend that all sins are
| equivalent and thus give cover to the worst sins _or_ we
| must use the fact that some sins are worse than others to
| allow the "better" side to backslide. The obvious
| alternative is to hold all parties account according to
| the severity of their guilt, and demand that everyone
| does better. In other words, the guilt of one party
| doesn't absolve the other or (as children understand)
| "two wrongs don't make a right".
| krageon wrote:
| The US is friends with the regime that has the war crime
| tribunal, and Russia is not. In the end such things are
| disappointingly simple.
| belter wrote:
| The US is not a friend of the country as it made a law
| saying they would invade the Netherlands if required.
|
| "The new law authorizes the use of military force to
| liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country
| being held by the court, which is located in The Hague.
| This provision, dubbed the "Hague invasion clause," has
| caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies around the world,
| particularly in the Netherlands. "
|
| "U.S.: 'Hague Invasion Act' Becomes Law"
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-
| be...
| detaro wrote:
| Neither the US nor Russia (nor China) recognize Den Haag as
| having authority over them. The US even has a law
| authorizing the president to use military force to prevent
| it from prosecuting US service members. It's pretty much
| irrelevant when it comes to any of those countries. And
| even outside of that, has ever anyone been prosecuted that
| didn't comprehensively loose the respective war?
| krapp wrote:
| >So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing war
| crimes if the US blatantly does things like this.
|
| One can be a hypocrite and also be correct. Either a nation
| is committing war crimes, or they aren't. Either it's morally
| justified to oppose war crimes, or it isn't. You can't argue
| that the US should be punished for war crimes without also
| arguing that the US and NATO are correct to oppose Russian
| war crimes.
|
| Otherwise, the argument is that Russia should be allowed to
| commit war crimes because the US gets to, which is at best an
| extremely childish way of viewing the world, wholly separated
| from morality.
| yardie wrote:
| Russia is basically stating the justification for the
| invasion of Ukraine by saying the US did it first in Iraq.
| The US has already proven how toothless the UN Security
| Council is and Russia is reinforcing that idea.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Wasn't that the point? That no country inside it could be
| acted against (veto), as otherwise neither China, Russia,
| nor the US would have agreed to join?
| [deleted]
| krisoft wrote:
| > So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing
| war crimes if the US blatantly does things like this.
|
| I don't understand what you are saying here. More than one
| group can commit war crimes.
| willis936 wrote:
| This is referred to as "Whataboutism". Russia has a
| colorful history of using it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#History
| nicholasnorris wrote:
| I feel like it's still worth considering that despite the
| existence of this strategy, acknowledging it doesn't
| necessarily repair the damage of being seen as
| hypocritical. Evoking "whataboutism" could even be seen
| as a sort of counter-deflection in some cases.
| willis936 wrote:
| The solution is simple: don't use whataboutism.
| Acknowledge history and context and appreciate that moral
| relativism absolves no one of their own actions.
|
| This case of excusing Russia's invasion of Ukraine
| because the US commits war crimes is gold medal mental
| gymnastics and really only makes sense in the context of
| the history of Russian propaganda.
| soraminazuki wrote:
| > This case of excusing Russia's invasion of Ukraine
|
| I double-checked the parent comments and not a single
| person did that.
| parthdesai wrote:
| No, it's called pointing out hypocrisy
| bashinator wrote:
| I believe what the grandparent post actually meant was,
| "This undermines our moral posture in accusing Russia of
| war crimes." Which is true.
| pydry wrote:
| It also makes us more threatening which in turn is more
| likely to provoke a violent response to our mere
| presence.
| keybored wrote:
| I cannot express how bewildering this comment is. The article
| in question is about using torture as a training tool --
| inflicting brain damage on a person so that folks will learn
| the valuable skill of beating up defenseless people. Then this
| comment comes along and complains about the _optics_ of it.
| Why? Because it undermines "Western civilization". And what's
| the problem with that? Because then Western civilization loses
| its "moral high ground". And what will that lead to? That the
| right- and left-wing -- those good-for-nothings that want to
| "bring down the current horrible governance and figure out
| things later" -- will _opportunistically_ use that against the
| shining city on the hill called Western Civilization.
|
| Whether this torture business is right or wrong is not even
| part of the discussion, and might not even be relevant -- the
| whole point is that the angelic Western Civilization might be
| beset by the devilish "anti-establishment movement".
| hammock wrote:
| What about parent comment did you think had to do with
| optics? By my reading it has everything to do with the actual
| behavior itself, which they call "atrocities."
| keybored wrote:
| All of it. I wrote two paragraphs as an interpretation of a
| two-paragraph comment so I don't know how else to explain
| it at this point.
| hammock wrote:
| Do you believe "moral high ground" functions as a result
| of optics, not as a result of actual correct moral
| action?
| keybored wrote:
| You can achieve a moral high ground based on your
| actions. And that's the only way to do it, in fact. But
| that clearly has nothing to do with this post since it is
| about example No. 19281 of the CIA doing some heinous
| shit.
|
| And what's the apparent takeaway from that? That Western
| Civ might lose its moral high ground. But what about
| example No. 19280 of the CIA doing some henious shit?
| What about No. 19279? ...
|
| Whence this alleged moral high ground?
| mrtksn wrote:
| No it's not about optics and I don't see any value in
| discussing if torture is right or wrong as it is an age old
| question. Since I'm not happy about it, I'm obviously on the
| "torture is wrong" camp and I have no intention of listening
| about the virtues of torture. Also, an expression of
| sympathies about the victim will only bloat the text and
| weaken the point I find important. What's the point of
| everyone repeating how horrible torture is? I think that must
| be given.
| keybored wrote:
| > Also, an expression of sympathies about the victim will
| only bloat the text and weaken the point I find important.
|
| The point being about optics. Not about the suffering
| caused by torture.
|
| > What's the point of everyone repeating how horrible
| torture is? I think that must be given.
|
| It hasn't been obvious ever since the start of the War on
| Terror. At least not according to the Bush regime and
| people like Sam Harris or shows like 24. But me making that
| point might undermine the moral high ground of W. Civ.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Not at all, the point being the things done undermining
| the whole society. I don't care how things look and did
| not imply that.
|
| PS: I have no involvement on the War on Terror, I don't
| agree that torture can be good under any conditions.
|
| Can you please stop mischaracterising my post and
| explaining me what I said? Thank you.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| What I found particularly depressing that all this was done
| with an explicit purpose of obtaining a cert. In terms of human
| level absurdity, I could only think of Brazil movie. It is both
| ridiculous and absolutely believable.
|
| I agree that the cost of moral high ground is a great loss to
| the society as a whole. We may never be able to recover from
| this. Guantanamo Bay is part of normal conversation and barely
| raises an eyebrow. Without going into details, my boss's kid
| recently said his dad drone strikes people ( he does nothing of
| the sort ).
|
| This is the new normal.
| naoqj wrote:
| >Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society.
|
| How does having "the moral high ground" help the lower class of
| a society?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Notice that the antiestablishment movement is not about
| fixing something but taking down the current state(the
| individual fractions have different ideas on the fix but they
| unite on the destruction). Not having the moral high grounds
| enables that because you no longer have a discussion over how
| to solve issues, everything is about destroying the current
| order(since it's completely corrupt and immoral, beyond any
| repair).
|
| You can expect further disruption, collapse of institutions,
| political or military coups etc and none of these are great
| for the low class people. As the establishment crumbles, a
| time for a new order will come and the left wing, the right
| wing, the QAnon and others will start fighting over the fix.
| Some will say eat the rich, others will say guns for everyone
| whoever wins takes it all and many will be concerned on what
| would lizard overlords do.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _Notice that the antiestablishment movement is not about
| fixing something but taking down the current state(the
| individual fractions have different ideas on the fix but
| they unite on the destruction). Not having the moral high
| grounds enables that because you no longer have a
| discussion over how to solve issues, everything is about
| destroying the current order(since it 's completely corrupt
| and immoral, beyond any repair)._
|
| You're mistaking a prevailing attitude today for some
| "antiestablishment movement". You're right that a lack of
| moral compass is causing our society to degrade. But "the
| establishment" and "the barbarians" is essentially the same
| group - anyone with power or a platform today has learned
| to package themselves as against some "system" whenever
| it's convenient and things being bad, it's often convenient
| (plenty of "rogue CIA officers doing what "the system"
| won't do to defend America" types out there - they have had
| publicity with shows like "24" as well). Of course, the
| prevalence of and even admiration for, unprincipled
| chameleons is a way this society is degrading as well. But
| it's situation anyone would have trouble walking back.
| afshin wrote:
| The answer to this is related to the answer of: "would you
| prefer to be in the lower class of Norwegian society or the
| lower class of nearby Belarussian society?"
| naoqj wrote:
| Do you think the difference in the standard of life is
| because of "having the moral ground"?
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Given how easily corruption rots things.... I'd say
| definitively yes.
|
| I remember, I took part in a modeling competition trying
| to create a sustainability index for countries. During my
| analysis phase I realized that almost everything
| measurably bad you can think of correlated astoundingly
| well with the corruption index for that country. Even
| what seemed like very distant externalities.
| worik wrote:
| Partly, yes.
|
| It is echoes of the respect one human has for another.
| drewcoo wrote:
| If morals are how we maintain and encourage the well-
| being of other humans, then yes.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| At this risk of being pedantic: the question isn't how we
| maintain the well-being of other humans, it is how we
| maintain the well-being of _our_ humans[0] and frankly
| there 's a lot to be said for boot-to-neck diplomacy.
|
| [0]Specifically here our non-upper crust humans.
| worik wrote:
| > At this risk of being pedantic: the question isn't how
| we maintain the well-being of other humans, it is how we
| maintain the well-being of our humans[0] and frankly
| there's a lot to be said for boot-to-neck diplomacy.
|
| That attitude with the associated American power was a
| complete catastrophe for:
|
| * Iraq.
|
| * Nicaragua
|
| * Panama
|
| * Cuba
|
| * Afghanistan
| thereisnospork wrote:
| A catastrophe for America (Americans) or for the
| countries listed and their people? Only one of those is
| relevant.[0]
|
| My greater point here is that global politics is an
| inherently amoral game. By extension a morality-based
| strategy is inherently sub-optimal.
|
| [0]addendum: To be clear there are definitely arguments
| to be made that some or all of them weren't good for
| Americans (e.g. loss of global goodwill may have resulted
| in less favorable trade agreements).
| worik wrote:
| War is not an extension of "diplomacy by other means".
|
| War is a crime.
|
| The war crimes I listed were a catastrophe for everybody
| connected.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| The idea that war is a crime at the international scale
| is underpinned by the threat of war, just as the idea
| that murder is a crime at the personal scale is
| underpinned by the threat of murder. We fully
| intentionally put a lot of steps in between because it
| turns out that dying sucks a lot,[citation needed] but
| the fact that they stand between radical disruption of
| quality, er, quantity of life is what gives those steps
| weight.
|
| That is to say, war is not _other means_. It is the
| primal means of diplomacy from which all others spring
| forth.
| the_af wrote:
| > _That is to say, war is not other means. It is the
| primal means of diplomacy from which all others spring
| forth._
|
| I'm not sure I understand what you're arguing here. Let
| me spell out my alternative interpretations and tell me
| which (if any) is what you meant:
|
| a- War is the primary principle or tool of diplomacy. It
| is by the threat of war that diplomacy without violence
| can work.
|
| b- Like a-, but with the implication this is the right
| way, and there's no other non-violent means for humans to
| resolve their disagreements and organize themselves at
| the world level. It will always be "my way, or a club to
| the head".
|
| c- Like a-, but with the implication this is a historical
| artifact and reflects a sad state of affairs, and that
| true diplomacy will find a way to work without resorting
| to the threat of violence. Or at least, that this is a
| goal worth striving for, even if humans are imperfect.
|
| The distinction matters, because a- and b- make it easy
| to jump to the conclusion "in this case" violence is
| warranted ("I hate war, but this is a _just_ war! ") and
| that "boot to neck" diplomacy is sometimes needed and
| unavoidable. Whereas option c- will always consider
| resorting to violence a kind of failure and not something
| to celebrate or chest-thump about.
| cryptonector wrote:
| If morality doesn't matter in the least, then we might as
| well all live in Nazi / Soviet / Whatever tyranny. Who cares
| if the government kills your neighbors ("they must have done
| something"), or even you yourself ("I must have done
| something!"), amirite? Nothing matters, if morality doesn't
| matter. Live free, die a slave -- whatever, it's all the
| same? Die of natural causes or be tortured to death --
| whatever, it's all the same?
|
| Or, morality matters, we demand and mostly get the rule of
| law, and then we all benefit from not getting disappeared,
| tortured, killed.
|
| It's very simple. Everyone needs the State to act morally.
| The "lower classes" need it even more than the "higher"
| classes! The poorer you are, the less protection you'll have
| from an immoral State.
|
| Only in Marxist/Leninist fantasies do "the lower classes"
| benefit from not having a moral State: because the State will
| crush the "higher classes" for the benefit of the lower,
| yeah!!1! That's what always happens!! Not. That's very much
| not what happened in the USSR.
|
| No, when the State foregoes morality, everyone suffers.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Oh, this is far, far worse. It shows the CIA is just as rogue
| as the Kremlin, and given their history it is fairly clear now
| that within these two groups there is extreme collusion. The
| Western intelligence apparatus has been hijacked by a force
| that is getting instructions from the reptilian brain instead
| of the cerebral cortex, meaning they are now the enemy.
| api wrote:
| Putin and the modern day Russian regime is basically the KGB.
| The KGB took over Russia after the USSR collapsed. It's
| basically the same agency.
| nanna wrote:
| > The Western intelligence apparatus has been hijacked by a
| force that is getting instructions from the reptilian brain
|
| The sheer wackiness of David Icke's Antisemitism (where
| 'reptile brains' are coda for Jews) never ceases to amaze me.
| adolph wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure what the OP intended but there are more
| generous interpretations:
|
| _Many people call [the limbic system] the "Lizard Brain,"
| because the limbic system is about all a lizard has for
| brain function. It is in charge of fight, flight, feeding,
| fear, freezing up, and fornication._
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/where-addiction-
| meet...
| mywacaday wrote:
| Hard to see how the US can claim a moral high ground on
| anything when it continues to not be a member of the ICC and is
| even occasionally actively hostile towards individual judges
| and member countries by threatening sanctions.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Reminder that since 2002, on the books is a law authorizing
| the US to attack the ICC in the Hague, with the US military!
|
| > ASPA authorizes the President of the United States to use
| "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the
| release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or
| imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the
| International Criminal Court". This authorization has led the
| act to be nicknamed the "Hague Invasion Act".
|
| > The act prohibits federal, state and local governments and
| agencies (including courts and law enforcement agencies) from
| assisting the International Criminal Court (ICC). For
| example, it prohibits the extradition of any person from the
| U.S. to the ICC; it also prohibits the transfer of classified
| national security information and law enforcement information
| to the ICC.
|
| > The act also prohibits U.S. military aid to countries that
| are party to the ICC. However, exceptions are allowed for aid
| to NATO members, major non-NATO allies, Taiwan, and countries
| that have entered into "Article 98 agreements", agreeing not
| to hand over U.S. nationals to the ICC.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-
| be...
|
| edit after 7 upvotes, sorry: I just want to make clear that I
| still largely support Pax Americana, because the alternatives
| are worse. But this law is cowardly and actually works
| against US interests, just like torture.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Hard to see how the US can claim a moral high ground on
| anything_
|
| People now counter any claim like this with "that's
| whataboutism!". It's free reign to be be hypocritical I
| guess.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| No. I'm no fan at all of the US regime and the atrocities
| it committed, but these atrocities aren't a free pass for
| other countries to commit war crimes and remain criticism-
| free.
|
| The fact that Blackwater exists doesn't make Wagner any
| less evil. Whataboutism is using one to shut down
| conversations about the other.
| freeflight wrote:
| Not just threatening sanctions but actually sanctioning ICC
| officials [0], and denying ICC investigators visa to hamper
| their investigations [1].
|
| Which is nowadays commonly handwaved away as the
| "Embarrassing Trump episode of the US", like it was
| unprecedented and will never happen again.
|
| But it wasn't Trump who put the responsible ASPA in place,
| that happened under Bush, and Obama never brought that up as
| something he disagreed with.
|
| Which is the same dynamic with most of these laws that give
| more power to the US executive; Both parties keep expanding
| and enjoying them, it's not seen as a problem because each of
| them gets their turn to then make use of them.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54003527
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-icc-idUSKCN1QW1ZH
| teakettle42 wrote:
| I'm _glad_ that my US constitutional rights cannot be
| abrogated by a supranational judicial system.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| And that's why the US is increasingly seen as nothing more
| than a bully on the international stage. And to the point
| of the root comment, this will fall back on everyone in the
| US, you included.
| hguant wrote:
| I think, while this might have been the perception up
| until a few weeks ago, the invasion of Ukraine has shown
| the world what a true "bully" on the international stage
| looks like. There will always be cloistered individuals
| who think that anyone who isn't "pure" (for an
| increasingly variable definition of pure) is evil. That
| opinion is absolutely fine to have until reality strikes.
|
| The bubble of people who post on HN have been living in
| that cloister for the last decade or so, not realizing
| what goes on in the world. At the end of the day, the US
| has made it a policy to defend and promote democracy
| across the world, and has actively done so, through it's
| support of international institutions and protection of
| democratic norms.
| GrothendieckA wrote:
| Well, then I pass the word to American diplomat (and
| architect of the Cold war) George Kennan, who wrote an
| article in NYT in 1997(!), claiming NATO (i.e. US)
| expansion to Russian borders to be fateful error:
| https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-
| error.h...
|
| Can't you see that Ukraine war is the direct consequence
| of this decision? To reinforce the statement: all public
| polls in 90s showed Russians to be very enthusiastic
| about cooperating with West, they truly believed that the
| Western model is just and brings prosperity. But it is
| US' political arrogance and notorious "exceptionality"
| distracted not only authorities, but people from
| believing US. People lost trust in US even before
| propaganda started to arise. Think about it, my American
| friend.
|
| Of course, living in such a safe island as USA, far from
| potential enemies and with insanely huge military budget
| you might think it is not your problem. And obviously you
| do. But keep in mind that every consequence has a cause.
|
| In 90s US had a unique chance to make this world a better
| and safer place, but instead US planted seeds of
| nowadays' wars. Have you heard of Wolfowitz Doctrine
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine)?
| Even written in diplomatic language, it is horrific.
| Current US foreign policy is no better.
|
| So please don't BS us that US "defends and promotes
| democracy across the world", because it simply doesn't.
| You accuse people on HN of "living in cloister", but it
| is you who transmits US slogans without slightest hint of
| critical thinking. Dixi
| baxuz wrote:
| The US has killed a whole lot more people and committed a
| whole lot more war crimes and crimes against humanity
| than the USSR did in the past 70 years.
|
| Possibly more than any other country in the world.
| mywacaday wrote:
| I would add that the US does the above without being
| willing to be accountable to the 123 other ICC member
| states along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and
| Yemen while demanding the rest of the the world to obey
| it's sanctions. Do as I say and not as I do is hardly a
| shining example of democracy. If the planet is is ever to
| be a globally equitable and safe place for all
| accountability for all is needed.
| the_af wrote:
| > _The bubble of people who post on HN have been living
| in that cloister for the last decade or so, not realizing
| what goes on in the world._
|
| Maybe some, but some of us in Latin America live in
| countries that at times have been subjected to US
| "influence" which resulted in subverting governments,
| abductions and torture. All in the name of freedom and
| fighting communism, which I guess makes it alright!
| pydry wrote:
| I'm not especially thrilled with the idea that this can
| grant you a license to murder me in my sleep with impunity
| simply because Im _not_ a US citizen.
|
| The alternative of supernational courts dispensing justice
| at an international level is essentially loose federations
| of gangs doing the same thing.
|
| And, when a kid in a crips neighborhood tries to join the
| bloods...
| ericmay wrote:
| > I'm not especially thrilled with the idea that this can
| grant you a license to murder me in my sleep with
| impunity simply because Im not a US citizen.
|
| Doesn't seem to stop other countries from doing this
| internationally _and_ to their own citizens anyway.
| Something like the ICC in how you 're envisioning things
| can only work when it's backed by military force. So long
| story short, it is mainly just the U.S. enforcing things,
| which doesn't really change anything.
| pydry wrote:
| The idea that America enforces international law is
| almost as comical as the idea Russia or China enforces
| it.
|
| America is an international gang not an international
| cop.
| ericmay wrote:
| That's fine, but then I'm not sure why you would think
| something like the ICC would exist in an enforceable or
| meaningful way. You have a mismatch of expectations. You
| shouldn't be thrilled that any country has a license to
| kill you in your sleep. That would include Norway,
| Australia, Thailand, Russia, Brazil, you name it.
| pydry wrote:
| Oh, I dont think its _impossible_ for a supranational
| entity backed by national militaries to act as a
| policeman rather than a mafia don.
|
| I just think that America is uniquely incapable of that.
|
| An EU led super power emerging after an American collapse
| might successfully step into that role. Probably not, but
| still possible.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Oh, I dont think its impossible for a supranational
| entity backed by national militaries to act as a
| policeman rather than a mafia don.
|
| One person's policeman is another's mafia don. The
| international system as it exists, exists how you're
| describing it (supranational entity backed by national
| militaries) - it's just that the absence of the premier
| and effective military (America) makes that infeasible.
| So railing against America, calling the country a gang
| and mafia don, and advocating for it to withdraw from
| international organizations that it basically maintains
| flies in the face of your stated ideas and goals.
|
| > An EU led super power emerging after an American
| collapse might successfully step into that role.
|
| I mean that's certainly a scenario of events that _could_
| happen, but recent events on the ground suggest the EU is
| far too weak and neutered to supplant the United States
| in a meaningful way. It 's more likely that the EU would
| break down and give way to war and conflict than create a
| unified state - hence the reason for NATO and the EU
| being created to babysit Europeans who continue to start
| war after war. More likely is just that the collapse of
| America (whatever that means) would give rise to either
| new nation state actors, or China, or some yet unknown
| and interesting new nation state.
|
| One of the things that I think is interesting that has
| come out of the recent conflict in Ukraine that was
| started by Russia is that it is breaking the illusion of
| rules-based order on the international level and people
| are apparently very surprised about this.
|
| Unfortunately might _does_ make right at this level of
| interaction. To the extent that "fair" international
| organizations can exist they only can exist in that they
| are enforced by might and power. Actual bombs, guns,
| tanks, money, resources, and taking the lives of others.
| All of these organizations: the UN, ICC, WTO, you name it
| only exist in a meaningful way because they're literally
| backed by the United States' willingness to bomb or take
| away someone's toys (Russian yachts), and that you'd
| advocate for distancing the US from these organizations
| is to lead to the collapse of them without clear, ready
| replacements. No country or group of countries has the
| apparent ability to do this. Even the EU cannot conjure
| up a single, unified military and impose its will on the
| world.
|
| Much of this anti-Americanism is geared toward sowing
| division where there is none and trying to convince
| Americans to be isolationist so that these international
| organizations _do_ break down and then other countries
| can murder and pillage with impunity. I think it 's safe
| to say we can reject this, in favor of a rules-based
| international order that is imperfect, but can be backed
| by America and supported by the EU and other participants
| such as Japan, Australia, Singapore, and others.
|
| For the most part I just view this stuff (being anti-
| America, destroy international organizations, etc.) as
| right-wing talking points supported by bad actors to
| break ties in democracies.
| the_af wrote:
| > _being anti-America_
|
| Wait, what? I'm American... South American, to be
| precise. The US as world police doesn't exactly fill me
| with confidence, given their track record in our part of
| the Americas.
|
| Whether this world policing is a "US liberal" or a "US
| right-wing" thing is of no interest to me. Both camps
| will call anyone who disagrees anti-American, anyway. (I
| think right now it's more of a "US liberal" thing but it
| used to be "US center-right/neocon". US politics are
| confusing!).
| ericmay wrote:
| > Wait, what? I'm American... South American, to be
| precise.
|
| Just to be precise, being American means you're from the
| United States of America. I don't call myself North
| American, for example. Neither does anyone else. When you
| introduce yourself you don't say "Hi I'm the_af and I'm
| from America". That would be confusing, unless you're
| actually from the United States.
|
| > The US as world police doesn't exactly fill me with
| confidence, given their track record in our part of the
| Americas.
|
| Compared to what?
|
| > Whether this world policing is a "US liberal" or a "US
| right-wing" thing is of no interest to me. Both camps
| will call anyone who disagrees anti-American, anyway. (I
| think right now it's more of a "US liberal" thing but it
| used to be "US center-right/neocon". US politics are
| confusing!).
|
| The "let's get America out of international
| organizations" rhetoric are right-wing talking points
| propped up by countries that seek to divide democracies.
| Brexit is another good example. It's not that you're
| being called "anti-American" it's just that you're
| incorrect. The rhetorical talking points that discredit
| our international institutions and create anti-American
| sentiment seek to destroy those institutions (because
| they're maintained by the United States) to get the US to
| withdraw from those organizations to collapse them.
| the_af wrote:
| > _Just to be precise, being American means you 're from
| the United States of America. I don't call myself North
| American, for example. Neither does anyone else. When you
| introduce yourself you don't say "Hi I'm the_af and I'm
| from America"._
|
| No, this is false. I call myself American. We're from the
| Americas. (North)American exceptionalism is bullshit.
|
| But my point is that disagreement over US policy and
| their role as world police, and disagreement with their
| Manifest Destiny, is not "being anti-American". Even the
| phrase "anti-American" reeks so much of exceptionalism it
| should be avoided at all costs.
|
| I'm not anti-American. Being _American_ is about
| cooperating with all of America, not being a bully who
| doesn 't have to comply with the rules unless you're the
| one writing them.
| ericmay wrote:
| > No, this is false.
|
| Ok. I don't really think I have anything else to add from
| this point on. Have a good day/evening.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> Doesn 't seem to stop other countries from doing this
| internationally and to their own citizens anyway._
|
| What other countries are constantly drone assassinating
| people in other countries territories?
|
| The closest to that I can think of might be Turkey and
| Saudi Arabia with their drone operations in Syria and
| Yemen, but those campaigns accompany full blown open
| military campaigns, quite a bit different to US signature
| strike operations.
| ericmay wrote:
| > What other countries are constantly drone assassinating
| people in other countries territories?
|
| So you can only be murdered in your sleep by a drone?
| Nothing else counts?
|
| But yea sure whatever. Here's 5 seconds of Google search
| [1].
|
| > but those campaigns accompany full blown open military
| campaigns, quite a bit different to US signature strike
| operations.
|
| I think that's a bizarre distinction to draw. Why would a
| military operation justify anything? U.S. drone strikes
| previously did accompany full-blown military campaign
| anyway.
|
| [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/09/16/
| france-...
| freeflight wrote:
| _> But yea sure whatever. Here 's 5 seconds of Google
| search [1]._
|
| That's neither a French citizen nor is it anything beyond
| an anecdote. If you can show me France's equivalent to
| Pakistan [0], then we might be getting somewhere.
|
| _> I think that 's a bizarre distinction to draw. Why
| would a military operation justify anything?_
|
| It's not bizarre at all; Weapons of war being used in a
| conflict of war is something very different than dropping
| weapons of war on a civilian population you are not
| officially at war with.
|
| [0] https://drones.pitchinteractive.com/
| ericmay wrote:
| > That's neither a French citizen nor is it anything
| beyond an anecdote.
|
| Well I don't know why it would matter that it's a French
| citizen. And I'm not sure how in the world you're
| claiming this is an _anecdote_ as if France 's drone
| strike were untrue. Do you have a direct source that
| contradicts the account of the French government?
|
| > If you can show me France's equivalent to Pakistan [0],
| then we might be getting somewhere.
|
| Why would I need to show you that? You asked for an
| example, not "show me an exact equivalent to this thing I
| haven't previously mentioned".
|
| > It's not bizarre at all; Weapons of war being used in a
| conflict of war is something very different than dropping
| weapons of war on a civilian population you are not
| officially at war with.
|
| Ok then we're at war with Pakistan (since that's the
| example you're using). Great now we're back to where we
| started and you got the "war" designation you wanted.
| mywacaday wrote:
| What about the US abrogating the legal rights of people,
| terrorist or not, taking them to a black site to avoid
| their own domestic laws and using them as a training test
| doll for torture techniques to the point of causing brain
| damage. At some point every country should be accountable
| to someone.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Yes, you're right about that. I think teakettle42's
| objection was to you trying to turn the question around
| to make climate change the issue that trumps everything
| else. At least, that's my objection to your original
| reply.
| buran77 wrote:
| > I think teakettle42's objection
|
| I'm convinced they know what the ICC is as it's even
| spelled out above, they just ignore the uncomfortable
| arguments.
|
| > make climate change the issue
|
| The ICC is the International Criminal Court [0], which is
| "Trying individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes
| against humanity, and aggression". The US is not a part
| of it after formerly withdrawing about 20 years ago. It
| shares this position with other countries with strong
| human rights values like China, Sudan, Indonesia, or
| Israel.
|
| Moreover the US has passed the infamous "American
| Service-Members' Protection Act" [1] (also known as the
| "Hague Invasion Act") which authorizes the President of
| the US to use "all means necessary and appropriate to
| bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel
| being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the
| request of the International Criminal Court" and also
| prohibits the United States from providing military aid
| to countries which had ratified the treaty establishing
| the court. This has exceptions if the countries in
| question already have bilateral agreements with the US to
| the same effect. The US went as far as to criminalize
| anyone who works for the ICC [2].
|
| Since the US does not itself punish or even acknowledge
| any war crimes commuted by them you can see how this is
| not a matter of "we can't have others punish our people"
| it's just "we can't have anyone punish our people".
| There's only one reason for the situation to look like
| this and that's quite literally to be able to commit war
| crimes with impunity.
|
| If you were looking at things that put countries like
| Russia, China, Israel, and others at the exact same
| level, it's the ease with which they commit such
| atrocious crimes and go unpunished. But with "due
| process". That should tell you everything you need to
| know about their actual values, not the ones claimed on a
| forum by people who selectively ignore whatever doesn't
| fit their world view.
|
| [0] https://www.icc-cpi.int/
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
|
| [2] https://theconversation.com/us-punishes-
| international-crimin...
| hindsightbias wrote:
| But they can still torture according to Scalia. It wouldn't
| violate the 8th Amendment unless you have been found
| guilty. Then it would be cruel punishment.
| klyrs wrote:
| That guy's hot takes are too spicy for reddit
| nicholasnorris wrote:
| What are the specifics of that? Without more detail, it
| kind of sounds like you're saying American's shouldn't be
| responsible for crimes committed abroad if the US doesn't
| prosecute on behalf of the foreign parties.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| We still have extradition treaties -- along with due
| process rights to challenge an international extradition
| request _within_ the US judicial system.
|
| Additionally, sovereign states are already free to
| prosecute anyone within their borders.
|
| The ICC, however, would preempt US judicial authority --
| including the US Supreme Court.
| nisa wrote:
| "due process" - not really: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Death_of_Harry_Dunn#Diplomatic...
| teakettle42 wrote:
| "Due process" is an individual US constitutional right to
| have access to our established legal procedures and rules
| prior to any deprivation of "life, liberty, or property".
|
| I don't see a due process violation in your link -- just
| an example of how abdicating sovereign judicial authority
| can go wrong, as is the case with diplomatic immunity.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| The executive branch gave itself the authority to murder
| US citizens abroad by decree without any judicial
| oversight based on a declaration of a "targeted killing
| policy" (Anwar Al-Aulaqi being the first). Seems like
| those constitutional rights are getting weaker without
| any legislative or judicial review, no?
| buran77 wrote:
| > "Due process" is an individual US constitutional right
|
| Which basically says "the state must respect the legal
| rights owed to a person" according to the legal process.
| And those can range from "you have none because we think
| you're a terrorist" to "whatever you desire because
| you're rich enough to buy yourself laws, or at the very
| least judges".
|
| I will quote something I said just 2 days ago:
|
| > Speaking of due process, 97% of criminal cases don't
| actually go to trial in the US and are instead settled
| with plea deals [0]. The sentencing is so harsh for
| anyone demanding trial and losing that it's mostly a
| paper right at this time. It does give people the warm
| fuzzy feeling of justice and correctness though.
|
| Under these conditions having "due process" matters a lot
| less than you think. China also has laws against having
| more than 3 children, it just happens that Uyghurs are
| disproportionately imprisoned for breaking them. Can you
| think of another group of people being disproportionately
| imprisoned elsewhere?
|
| > We still have extradition treaties
|
| What's the value of treaties if attempts to enforce them
| are met with threats from a country with powerful economy
| and military? The US has repeatedly threatened countries
| to deter them from ever attempting to prosecute US
| citizens even for things as serious as war crimes
| (including the famed "Hague Invasion Act [0]) despite
| never actually taking any actions to punish this even
| internally. Like a mob "protection tax", it's not a real
| agreement if it can't realistically be enforced both
| ways.
|
| What sort of moral high ground do you think you're
| defending now? I find it both fascinating and depressing
| that people find pride in defending such behavior just
| because it's enacted by their country.
|
| [0] https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-pleas-on-the-
| rise-crimin...
|
| [1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-
| invasion-act-be...
| xyzzyz wrote:
| There was no "diplomatic immunity" issue relevant in that
| case. The perpetrator had no diplomatic immunity. She was
| only immune to prosecution because she ran away, and the
| US government denied extradition because it would be
| "troubling".
| cjbenedikt wrote:
| So much for due process in terms of extradition.
| [deleted]
| monocasa wrote:
| > Additionally, sovereign states are already free to
| prosecute anyone within their borders.
|
| Not without being invaded by the US.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members'_Prot...
| teakettle42 wrote:
| That act refers only to the ICC, which is not a sovereign
| state and only prosecutes cases that the sovereign states
| are themselves unwilling to prosecute.
| monocasa wrote:
| > That act refers only to the ICC, which is not a
| sovereign state
|
| The ICC only has authority in territories where a
| sovereign state grants them authority. Hence the act, a
| threat to invade a sovereign state if that sovereign
| state follows the legal process they've legally decided
| (by signing the Rome statute) and prosecute an American
| citizen
|
| > and only prosecutes cases that the sovereign states are
| themselves unwilling to prosecute.
|
| Cases that the sovereign state defers to the ICC as their
| established legal process.
| freeflight wrote:
| They can and have been, you only need to end up with a
| label like "terrorist" [0] and many of these rights will
| suddenly make way for national security interests.
|
| [0] https://theintercept.com/2017/01/30/obama-
| killed-a-16-year-o...
| throwawaycities wrote:
| I used to hear this all the time in law school, something
| to the effect that the US should never relinquish its
| sovereignty by signing the Rome Statute and subject itself
| to the International Criminal Court. This was at the height
| of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the associated
| allegations of POW torture and abuse (e.g. Abu Ghraib,
| waterboarding, guantanamo bay, etc...). How ironic 20 years
| later the very same classmates that argued waterboarding
| wasn't torture are the same ones that claim they can't
| breathe wearing a cloth mask and mask mandates are a
| violation of their Constitutional Rights because of their
| often fabricated "medical conditions."
|
| Back then I'd ask my classmates to look at the other UN
| member countries not signatories to the Rome Statute
| subject to the ICC: China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and
| Yemen. Not exactly a list of countries championing human
| rights or state Sovereignty, the US included.
|
| Absolute sovereignty is a very romantic notion, but the US
| gives up sovereignty regularly through other treaties, it
| is very telling the Rome Statute is where the US and others
| draw the line. If you are worried about violation of your
| US Constitutional Rights you should be significantly more
| concerned about the US government that in the last 20 years
| has created secret kills lists and conducted extra judicial
| killings of its own citizens including bombing citizens
| abroad in violation of the territorial integrity of other
| nations. When those charged with protecting and enforcing
| your Constitutional Rights are the ones violating them, I
| personally like the idea those bearing the most
| responsibility be subject to an International Court.
|
| I don't want to say your concern about being subject to the
| ICC as a civilian otherwise in contravention to your US
| Constitutional Rights isn't worthy of discussion or
| potential concern, but it is detached from reality.
| Moreover, the ICC has jurisdiction over things like
| genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity it's not
| exactly a "criminal court" the average citizen is likely to
| find themselves in violation of their Constitutional Rivhts
| (though perhaps you are not a civilian rather a high
| ranking military officer, in which case I understand your
| concern over an international court that prosecutes war
| crimes and human rights abuses).
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| If the US joined the ICC they would have the right to
| send US judges to the Hague. It wouldn't be a "foreign
| court".
|
| But I think the real issue is that the CIA doesn't want
| oversight from anyone foreign or domestic.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Not sure you replied to the right person I never called
| the ICC a "foreign court."
|
| However, whether or not US judges are, or may be,
| appointed to the ICC or any other tribunal, US judges
| don't make them domestic courts nor would they apply
| domestic law.
|
| From the time of the Nuremberg Trials these kinds of
| courts are commonly called international tribunals in
| English, the ICC is just a proper name of one such
| international tribunal. Another includes the
| International Criminal Tribunal for the former
| Yugoslavia, which was not a domestic court.
|
| Arguably the first hybrid international tribunal/domestic
| court was the Special Court for Sierra Leon where both
| international law and domestic laws were applied. If
| Liberia ever successfully gets a war crimes it is likely
| to be a similar hybrid international tribunal/domestic
| court approach. Coincidentally I was part of a law clinic
| that represented a number of Liberian refugees and
| torture victims and obtained a $22M judgment against the
| son of the Liberian ex-President Charles Taylor in the US
| under the Foreign Tort Claims Act. If you've ever seen
| the movie Lord of War, the son is the character in this
| clip [2] with the golden AK-47 though the names were
| changed to Baptiste it's otherwise pretty accurate, down
| to the fact Charles "Chucky" Taylor Jr. was a private
| school kid in Florida with a normal life until he went to
| Liberia and become the head of his Father's security
| force ironically called Anti-terrorism Unit.
|
| [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=go9kV4nxsfk
| leereeves wrote:
| > look at the other UN member countries not signatories
| to the Rome Statute subject to the ICC: China, Iraq,
| Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen
|
| That's far from a complete list. There are 193 UN
| members[1]; only 123 have made themselves subject to the
| ICC[2].
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Uni
| ted_Na...
|
| 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Ro
| me_Sta...
| throwawaycities wrote:
| I never said it was a complete list. On the other hand
| you are not distinguishing countries that have signed but
| not yet ratified the treaty, leaving only 41 members. Of
| those 41 members feel free to highlight those countries
| which are shining examples of rule of law and human
| rights.
| leereeves wrote:
| > On the other hand you are not distinguishing countries
| that have signed but not yet ratified the treaty, leaving
| only 41 members.
|
| The US has also signed but not yet ratified the treaty.
| We're not one of the 41 who haven't signed.
|
| > Of those 41 members feel free to highlight those
| countries which are shining examples of rule of law and
| human rights.
|
| I couldn't name any countries I would consider "shining
| examples of rule of law and human rights", ICC member or
| not. Even the ICC itself has been accused of racism and
| neo-colonialism because nearly all its prosecutions have
| targeted Africa.
|
| I did notice that Ukraine, like us, signed but didn't
| ratify the treaty, which I thought was interesting at
| this time.
| monocasa wrote:
| At the time of the initial signing off the Rome Statute,
| Ukraine was a puppet state of Russia.
|
| Since then, it has been on track to ratify the statute,
| recently affirming ICC jurisdiction to prosecute war
| crimes going as far back as the Euromaiden protests.
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/02/ukraine-countries-
| reques...
| throwawaycities wrote:
| > I did notice that Ukraine, like us, signed but didn't
| ratify the treaty, which I thought was interesting at
| this time.
|
| It's a little more nuanced, Ukraine formally declared
| acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC following
| Russia's initial illegal use of force and armed conflict
| in Ukraine beginning in 2014.
|
| Thereafter Russia withdrew their signature from the Rome
| Statute in 2016 the day following the ICC report on
| Crimea classifying Russia's act as occupation.
| worik wrote:
| Your constitutional rights are safe if you stay at home and
| are not a threat to the power structure.
|
| The subject of this article, that the United States
| government tortured was not so lucky.
|
| Do the constitutional rights of a USA citizen need torture
| to maintain?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| How are terrorists(or, random people mistakenly
| identified as terrorists) a threat to the power
| structure?
|
| After 9/11, was anyone calling for diminishing US
| government powers? Maybe a few people, but for the most
| part - just the opposite - we wanted to hand even more
| power and money to the federal government.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Is the ICC subject to the US bill of rights?
| [deleted]
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Worse? Intel obtaibed at the torture extreme is simply not
| reliable. The cultural need - at the elites' level - to "break"
| the opposition is disturbing. And yes,ultimately this manifests
| in the broader culture. If for no other reason, the elites have
| become normalized to The Culture of Violence and see no reason
| to change course. Their power remains safe and intact.
| tiahura wrote:
| _Intel obtaibed at the torture extreme is simply not
| reliable._
|
| Besides a few anecdotes, how many torture debriefings have
| you read and then cross checked?
|
| Unless you're in the industry, how could you possibly think
| you have an informed opinion on methods of intelligence
| gathering?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| You call Torture an industry? Like what, tech
| manufacturing? That's disturbing.
|
| While the myth about Tprture's (lack of) effectiveness
| persists?
|
| The idea that being an "industry" insider is necessary to
| understand Human Psychology 101 is also misinformation.
|
| These ideas come from the NSA, CIA, etc. It doesn't mean
| they're true. It doesn't mean we have to buy them.
| worik wrote:
| > You call Torture an industry? Like what, tech
| manufacturing? That's disturbing.
|
| In rouge states it is.
|
| Just saying....
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Sadly, torture is an industry. Much like so many other
| aspects of our intelligence agencies, the job is often
| done by third party contractors.
|
| The most famous is Mitchell Jessen and Associates, see ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Elmer_Mitchell#Work_as_
| a... , but it's not the only one. Margot Williams
| published articles about an airline company used to send
| people to black sites across the world.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| Well, there was a long report about it that came to that
| conclusion, so
| formerly_proven wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panetta_Review
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee
| _...
| upofadown wrote:
| >The interrogators were convinced that Baluchi knew more than he
| was saying because he was a nephew of the self-proclaimed
| mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
|
| Repressive regimes often make a point of persecuting family
| members. It sends the message that resistance will cause terrible
| things to happen to those you love, not just you. The torture
| works toward that end in this case.
| sneak wrote:
| It almost makes one wonder if there is no such thing as a
| regime that isn't "repressive", given that the one most loudly
| trumpeting the rule of law and righteousness engages in the
| exact same blatantly criminal acts as all of the other ones
| they like to vilify as being without the rule of law. There are
| precisely zero states that have the power to torture with
| impunity that don't use it to, well, torture with impunity.
| It's a decades old running gag and common TV trope in the US-
| and-A that you'll get raped in prison if you get locked up.
| Everyone truly knows that the concept of equal protection under
| the law is just a joke, but we keep on as if the emperor were
| fully clothed.
|
| Now that we've got a real honest-to-goodness war (with
| associated war crimes) happening in the _only_ region of this
| planet that seemed at present to have a snowball 's chance in
| hell of actually maintaining peace and human rights, I'm
| beginning to wonder if large groups of humans are even capable
| of actually having, you know, a civilization.
|
| It's not lookin' good. I will remain pathologically optimistic,
| however.
| jakobdabo wrote:
| Those students must have been real proud that they passed the
| exam with high marks. Now I wonder what type of exams are
| designed for the drone operators.
| xyst wrote:
| "Enhanced interrogation techniques" is one of the reasons why the
| US no longer recognizes the ICC jurisdiction.
| worik wrote:
| Their routine use of torture is one of the reasons why the US
| no longer recognizes the ICC jurisdiction.
|
| Can we not use the euphemisms?
| sschueller wrote:
| It never did. The Bush admin even passed a bill to pull anyone
| sent to it out by force in necessary.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_...
| ganzuul wrote:
| And why the world no longer recognized the US jurisdiction on
| anything. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
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