Bush Administration wants an exception for CIA to commit torture

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

He said that many of the suspects he had interrogated expected to be tortured, and were stunned to learn that they had rights under the American system. Due process made detainees more compliant, not less, Coleman said. He had also found that a defendant’s right to legal counsel was beneficial not only to suspects but also to law-enforcement officers.Defense lawyers frequently persuaded detainees to cooperate with prosecutors, in exchange for plea agreements. “The lawyers show these guys there’s a way out,” Coleman said. “It’s human nature. People don’t cooperate with you unless they have some reason to.” He added, “Brutalization doesn’t work. We know that. Besides, you lose your soul.”

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4085321#post4085321

Granted we won't be needing a lot of these people for trial but it does show quite well that getting reliable information from even Islamic terrorist funde's doesn't require torture.

Your quote is completely anecodotal. We have no info as to who these detainees were, who the 'law enfocement officers' were (wtf? - what 'law enfocement officers' are at Guantanamo?) and it finishes of with the oft repeated but never evidenced “Brutalization doesn’t work. We know that."

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


I don't accept your premise. 'Killing' is not morally wrong; murder is. Torture is always wrong and never justified. End of story.

And when you rule the world you can have it your way. There are plenty of people and societys that believe that killing is wrong.

[BeBMan]

edit: this was re Ogie's post

There is still a difference IMO - you can indeed have a clear case of self-defense (which was given as justification above) when killing someone. At the moment when you're torturing someone this is not a case of self-defense, unless you re-define self-defense in a very broad way, which opens the question if it then is still comparable to the case of killing in self-defense.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Why would killing imply a justifiable reason to do so? I would think killing is simply ending a life, regardless of reason. Murder is just a subset of killing.

I don't know, ask Cyclotron and Spencer how they can reconcile their mutually accepted definition of killing as acceptable if not it being justifiable by a given reason.

Given that they both agreed to a definition of killing be acceptable one could only draw the conclusion that they both agreed it was justifiable for a reason.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by SpencerH


Your comment would make a minutiae of sense if either I or the character played by Jack Nicholson were republicans. Since I'm not, and we dont know the colonels political affiliation, I'm afraid you've missed the boat (again).

Are you claiming he might have been a lefty?



Only people with fascistic tendencies support the current policy of torture. Torture is like the death penalty: it doesn't tend to work, and the consequences of a general policy of torture are far worse than any benefits.

You have to be some kind of sick, perverted creep to torture anyone. None of this "only obeying orders" crap. Anyone who tortures anyone else is no better than a rapist.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
On a side note, what are the odds of there being an investigation to track down the leakers responsible for the revelation of these secret CIA prisons?

0

[Ramo]

Your quote is completely anecodotal. We have no info as to who these detainees were, who the 'law enfocement officers' were (wtf? - what 'law enfocement officers' are at Guantanamo?) and it finishes of with the oft repeated but never evidenced “Brutalization doesn’t work. We know that."

Yes, we do:

For ten years, Coleman worked closely with the C.I.A. on counter-terrorism cases, including the Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. His methodical style of detective work, in which interrogations were aimed at forging relationships with detainees, became unfashionable after September 11th, in part because the government was intent on extracting information as quickly as possible, in order to prevent future attacks. Yet the more patient approach used by Coleman and other agents had yielded major successes. In the Embassy-bombings case, they helped convict four Al Qaeda operatives on three hundred and two criminal counts; all four men pleaded guilty to serious terrorism charges. The confessions the F.B.I. agents elicited, and the trial itself, which ended in May, 2001, created an invaluable public record about Al Qaeda, including details about its funding mechanisms, its internal structure, and its intention to obtain weapons of mass destruction. (The political leadership in Washington, unfortunately, did not pay sufficient attention.)

[Ramo]

On a side note, what are the odds of there being an investigation to track down the leakers responsible for the revelation of these secret CIA prisons?

Whistleblowing on morally and legally outrageous gov't practices should clearly be treated identically to outing a NOC to smear her husband.

[Cyclotron]

Ogie:

Killing is to murder as extracting information is to torture.

Incorrect. Killing is to murder as 'hurting' or 'causing pain' is to torture. Causing pain is not in itself evil; I'm sure people cause pain when they use force in their own self defense. What makes it evil is the reason for it. In the same way, killing is not evil, because killing is just an act - check our own legal system, you'll see that equally important to the act committed is the intent with which it is done.

Murder implies premeditation with some evil purposes while killing implies some justifiable reason for soing so.

Again, incorrect. Murder does not necessarily involve premeditation, though I would describe it as always evil. 'Killing' doesn't imply anything except that you have ended a life. There is no ethical judgement there.

Torture implies inflicting harm with some evil purposes while extracting intelligence implies some justifiable reason for doing so.

Stop using 'implies' and just define the words, damnit.

I think Kontki said it more simply:

Why would killing imply a justifiable reason to do so? I would think killing is simply ending a life, regardless of reason. Murder is just a subset of killing.

Thank you, kontiki.

And now on to SpencerH:

And when you rule the world you can have it your way. There are plenty of people and societys that believe that killing is wrong.

Only totally pacifistic people and societies belive killing in itself is wrong, of which there are not many. Killing, defined as the act of ending a life, is considered by most people to be ethically neutral, because there are obviously certain conditions (war, self defense) for which people consider killing to be justified. Something that is evil is unjustifiable; it is always wrong.

[Ramo]

Powell's ex-CoS, Col. Wilkerson implicated Cheney in condoning torture. He paraphrased Cheney as saying,

"We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4987598

Edit:

Full quote:

"Mr. WILKERSON: What happened was that the secretary of Defense, under the cover of the vice president's office, began to create an environment -- and this started from the very beginning when David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, was a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions. Regardless of the president having put out this memo, they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to, in my view, what we've seen.

"INSKEEP: We have to get more detail .... What hard evidence takes those abuses up the chain of command and lands them in the vice president's office, which is where you're placing it?

"Mr. WILKERSON: I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms -- I'll give you that -- that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.

Not systematic, my arse.

[Chemical Ollie]

Anyone supporting freedom and democracy should loathe torture like the Bubonic Plague. Anything else is a huge oxymoron and own goal.

- Here you freaking terrorist, taste the cold steel of democracy and freedom!!! And here!!!! And here!!!

(Don't attack me for spelling, im too lazy to go look in my dictionary and English is not my first language)

[realpolitic]

I just hope that the exemption gives someone the ablity to torture neocons accused of crimes.

Originally posted by Ramo
Powell's ex-CoS, Col. Wilkerson implicated Cheney in condoning torture. He paraphrased Cheney as saying,

"We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war."

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Ramo

On a side note, what are the odds of there being an investigation to track down the leakers responsible for the revelation of these secret CIA prisons?

Whistleblowing on morally and legally outrageous gov't practices should clearly be treated identically to outing a NOC to smear her husband.

So exposing covert CIA operations is ok as long as you agree with the results. Thought so.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Joining the 'flower children' are we AH! Yeah, we should be able to convert fundementalist terrorists to our cause with our good will and kind words.

well hardly - I just know what works and what doesn't.

The US has been hugely damaged by this torture business for little return. Its brought shame on your country.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Ramo
Powell's ex-CoS, Col. Wilkerson implicated Cheney in condoning torture. He paraphrased Cheney as saying,

"We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4987598

Edit:

Full quote:

"Mr. WILKERSON: What happened was that the secretary of Defense, under the cover of the vice president's office, began to create an environment -- and this started from the very beginning when David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, was a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions. Regardless of the president having put out this memo, they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to, in my view, what we've seen.

"INSKEEP: We have to get more detail .... What hard evidence takes those abuses up the chain of command and lands them in the vice president's office, which is where you're placing it?

"Mr. WILKERSON: I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms -- I'll give you that -- that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.

Not systematic, my arse.

This is pretty much all the evidence that is needed.

The torture has come from the top down.

There is absolutley no question of that. It is FACT. Period.

Anything else is just wishful thinking.