President Bush's Crusade Against Justice Continues..

[SlowwHand]

And if you could point out an alternative, just like Vel the Mouth, you might have a leg to stand on, but you don't.
Just more complaints, just like Vel. Don't do that. A complaint without an alternative is one of the most annoying things I can think of, and you're better than that.

[chequita guevara]

PLATO, the difference between now-dead Bush bill and the Senate bill is that the Bush bill would allow information generated by coersion, secret evidence, and a whole host of other unconstitutional and outlawed practices.

The Specter bill, also now dead, would allow the Administration to decide whether or not it needed to get a warrant from a court to spy on Americans and infomr Congress of what it's up to, and most importantly, retroactively make this legal so that the President hasn't broken the law.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
And if you could point out an alternative,

The alternative is the technique that actually works, that the military and the CIA are both in favor of using, which is to use psychological trickery to get terrorists to give up their info. It is not and has never been a matter of torture the terrorists or our people die. Torture is not an interrogative technique. People will either stand up to it or tell you whatever they think you want to hear, wehther or not it is the truth.

This guy that Bush keeps trotting out as an example of the success of using torture, only gave useful information before he was tortured. He just didn't know anything, but he had to be tortured because Bush puffed him up as some important guy, when actually all he was was the chaufer. But they had to torture him, and he began spinning tales of bridges being bombed and malls attacks, and the Administration then had to send hundreds of agents and thousands of wasted man hours for what!?! NOTHING!!!!

Were we safer!?! NO! We were less safe because resources that could have been used to chase real threats were on wild goose chases!

[SlowwHand]

So now you're a fan of the CIA? Well, let me write this date down.

[chequita guevara]

Did I say I was? I do recognize, however, that they are likley to be experts on interrogation.

[SlowwHand]

Well, yeah.

The alternative is the technique that actually works, that the military and the CIA are both in favor of using, which is to use psychological trickery to get terrorists to give up their info

[chequita guevara]

There was a group of rengade cops in Chicago, that from the 70s to the 90s, operated a torture ring. They tortured over 200 people, a number of whom are or were on death row or serving life setences. Why, cuz they confessed after being tortured and threated with murder. How reliable do you think those confessions are?

[SlowwHand]

Let me ask you this. Why do you think U.S. military members are instructed to give Name, Rank, and Serial Number only?

To avoid "psychological trickery".

Let me ask another question. Going on the assumption that coerced confessions can be worthless to the interrogator, what is the true motivation to confessing falsely, or in truth? Would you really expect the interrogators to pat you on the head and send you on your way?

Doubtful.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
what is the true motivation to confessing falsely, or in truth? Would you really expect the interrogators to pat you on the head and send you on your way?

Uhm, whenn you're being tortured, you are either the kind of person that can resist or the kind of person who will break. When you break, you're saying anything you can think of that will get your tortures to stop tortuing you, true, false, or anything in between. Do you think people who confessed to the Inquisition were actually consorting with devils? Do you think that Zinoviev and Kaminev actually were aiding help the capitalists to return the USSR? There is one goal and one goal only in the torturee's mind: STOP THE PAIN!!!!

[SlowwHand]

Exactly my point. I didn't say I was in favor of torture. Quite the contrary, I find it a wasted effort; just as confessing is a wasted effort. Guilty or not, the end result will be the same for the individual. Why talk? To end pain? Well, that's a fallacy. The pain won't end until all ends and you only put others at risk.
It's why I've said kidnapped Israeli soldiers, or U.S. soldiers, would probaly call in a bomb strike on their position if able.

The one thing I would ask is for realization that our captured military personnel are certainly tortured in many instances. Does retribution in kind make it right, or any more effective? No.

[Ramo]

Jane Mayer wrote a great article on the rendition program a while back, and included a lot of great information on the virtues of due process in interrogations.

On a bleak winter day in Trenton, New Jersey, Dan Coleman, an ex-F.B.I. agent who retired last July, because of asthma, scoffed at the idea that a C.I.A. agent was now having compunctions about renditions. The C.I.A., Coleman said, liked rendition from the start. “They loved that these guys would just disappear off the books, and never be heard of again,” he said. “They were proud of it.”

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.)

[...]

Coleman was angry that lawyers in Washington were redefining the parameters of counter-terrorism interrogations. “Have any of these guys ever tried to talk to someone who’s been deprived of his clothes?” he asked. “He’s going to be ashamed, and humiliated, and cold. He’ll tell you anything you want to hear to get his clothes back. There’s no value in it.” Coleman said that he had learned to treat even the most despicable suspects as if there were “a personal relationship, even if you can’t stand them.” 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://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

[MrFun]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Why talk? To end pain? Well, that's a fallacy.

It's not a fallacy. I do not know if you're aware of this, but the human body has a nervous system that runs throughout the body, connecting with the brain. The nerves transmit pain. And here's something that will surprise you -- humans (actually all creatures with nervous systems) have a SERIOUS AVERSION to pain, seeking almost any means to avoid pain or relieve current pain.

[SlowwHand]

It's a fallacy that pain will end. I suppose if they kill you quickly afterwards it ends. They're not going to just nurse you back to health and send you home.

[korn469]

Originally posted by korn469


Enemy combatants are not US citizens, so they don't qualify for protection under the Constitution of the United States

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Untrue. They don't qualify for the same protections.

Which is what I said.

[Ramo]

No, it's not. They do qualify for protections, but not the same protections as US citizens.