Americans voted for Change

[Ramo]

OK, I'll admit I am just not familiar enough with the laws you're talk about to have an input there.

As I've been saying, the military operates in a strictly legalistic manner, and the set of legal interrogation techniques is explicitly described in the army field manual. Furthermore, we have legislation and treaties explicitly saying that torture is illegal.

To re-emphasize the point that we're debating, functioning military and criminal justice institutions work this way. The ones that we don't want to imitate, work under the kinds of rules enacted by the Bush OLC.

Sure, here's a reasonable metric: the torture applies to several orders of magnitude fewer people than the tax increase

Obviously I was comparing the ethics of force on an individual. The scale of the problems both measures are meant to address are not at all comparable (for example, the value of the information extracted from torture over, say, a decade is going to be at least a few orders of magnitude less than the $ trillion or so due to the tax increase in a comparable amount of time).

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Shorter Drake - The moral cost of using enhanced interrogations is not infinite and the benefits of enhanced interrogations are not zero, so it is possible that the benefits of enhanced interrogations outweigh the moral cost either on the average or in specific situations.

Fixed.

[Velociryx]

Shorter Drake - The bad guys torture. We should use "enhanced interrogation techniques" (it's really torture, but that word makes me squemish, so I'll use the PC term for it so I can feel better about supporting the position), but don't worry. Cheny sez it's reliable, so it must be, and we run no risk of ever becoming "like them" when we engage in reprehensible behaviors.

It's for the greater good, see?

-=Vel=-

(God Bless America! Now where did I put my knife set, box springs, and car battery?)


****

Shorter Vel - The moral cost of "enhanced interrogations" (also known as Torture) is very high, while the liklihood of getting something other than a false positive or "what the interrigator wants to hear" is, by most accounts, very low. It doesn't take a McGenius, or years of torture experimentation to understand that these two lines will intersect only in the most extreme situations (usually hollywood style fictions, invented for the sole purpose of those espousing the use of torture to say, "see! I told you so!"), and that in all probability, better intel can be gleaned without crossing that line in any case.

Fixed.

[Theben]

I just watched a former CIA officer talk about how bad intel gathered from post-2001 "enhanced interrogations" cost the FBI & CIA valuable time and resources in wasted missions. So there are direct negative implications.

[Drake Tungsten]

The moral cost of "enhanced interrogations" (also known as Torture) is very high, while the liklihood of getting something other than a false positive or "what the interrigator wants to hear" is, by most accounts, very low.

Where is your evidence for these assertions? Strong assumptions like this need some sort of basis in reality if we're to accept them as plausible.

[Kuciwalker]

Always, obviously? Aren't you dismissing the opposing opinion out of hand?

No, given that this is a question of logic and not fact

[Kuciwalker]

Obviously I was comparing the ethics of force on an individual. The scale of the problems both measures are meant to address are not at all comparable (for example, the value of the information extracted from torture over, say, a decade is going to be at least a few orders of magnitude less than the $ trillion or so due to the tax increase in a comparable amount of time).

1) What's the estimated cost of 9/11? What's the estimated cost of a nuclear attack? If there's a reasonable chance of preventing something like that, or many smaller things, by using torture (not through a specific tip necessarily, but because better intel lets us hurt AQ more, etc) then the benefits could be comparable.

2) You can only count a fraction of that $trillion as a gain, since most of it is just transfer.

[Velociryx]

The moral cost of "enhanced interrogations" (also known as Torture) is very high, while the liklihood of getting something other than a false positive or "what the interregator wants to hear" is, by most accounts, very low.

Where is your evidence for these assertions? Strong assumptions like this need some sort of basis in reality if we're to accept them as plausible.

Drake, I know that the brain is not considered a vital organ in your case, so I'll go slow.

Accept my position as plausible, or don't. I promise you I won't lose one minute's sleep over it, but if you're curious about what lies beyond whatever right wing blogs you frequent, or what's on Fox Noise, you might want to try googling some derivation on "the effectiveness of torture" and spend several nights reading a cross section of the (several million) results you get.

There are articles that support your position, and there are articles that don't. Try to read a good cross section to get a generalized sense of where the search is leading you. I've posted a few examples of the kinds of articles you'll find, but with in excess of six million hits, if you're not happy with these for some reason, there are plenty more.

You'll find examples like this:

http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2007/11/military-interr.html

Or

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html

or for the sake of variety:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/28585/

http://www.newsweek.com/id/45788

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=96921&d=1&m=6&y=2007

A very interesting (and long) read is this PDF:

http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf

An interesting quote lifted from it as it relates to torture:

Not surprisingly, the inquisitors also believed that imprisonment, often for
long periods under cruel conditions including solitary confinement, was likely
their most effective interrogation technique, surpassing the utility of torture.
Bernard Gui described “imprisonment as an integral component of the inquisitor’s
interrogation strategy…. [C]oupled if necessary, with hunger, shackles, and
torture…[it] could…loosen the tongues of even the most obdurate.”15 In practice,
such methods may have posed a dilemma for Gui and his fellow inquisitors, who
zealously sought truthful confessions not only to root out heresy itself but also
to save the immortal souls of the heretics – a dilemma over how to ensure the
veracity of forced confessions. An account of the conditions in one notorious 13th
century inquisitorial prison and their impact on the “truth” paints a grim picture:

Some of these cells are dark and airless, so that those lodged
there cannot tell if it is day or night…. In other cells there are
kept miserable wretches laden with shackles…. These cannot
11move, but defecate and urinate on themselves. Nor can they
lie down except on the frigid ground…. And thus coerced they
say that what is false is true, choosing to die once rather than
to endure more torture. As a result of these false and coerced
confessions not only do those making confessions perish, but
so do the innocent people named by them…. [M]any of those
who are newly cited to appear [before the inquisitors], hearing
of the torments and trials of those who are detained…assert that
what is false is true; in which assertions they accuse not only
themselves but other innocent people, that they may avoid the
above mentioned pains…. Those who thus confess afterward
reveal to their close friends that those things that they said to the
inquisitors are not true, but rather false, and they confessed out
of imminent danger. 16

Sadly, the conditions described above, although 800 years in the past, are
direct antecedents of conditions experienced by Iraqi prisoners confined in Abu
Ghraib prison during 2003 and 2004, and perhaps by other prisoners in U.S.
custody. The results of interrogations conducted under these conditions were just
as unreliable as those in the 13th century. Why, in the 21st century, with all our
accumulated knowledge about how human beings think and interact and function,
are we still repeating costly medieval mistakes?

Bottom line: There are a number of "experts in the field" who support your position, and there are a number that don't. Just because they don't doesn't mean that their position has no "basis in reality," it means that you're refusing to acknowledge that they might be right, which is about what I expected from you, so I'm glad you didn't disappoint!

(I know you'll find fault with whatever links I post, so I posted a random sprinkling in no particular order, but by all means, have a look for yourself).

Also...I wonder what you would say to Dilawar's parents if you had the opportunity to speak with them? Something like, "uh...gee...sorry 'bout your son...wrong place, wrong time?" or perhaps some derivation of "oops...an unavoidable casualty of war?"

The war on terror is like the war on any other concept (drugs, poverty, crime, etc., etc). It's endless and it can't be won, period. The sad part is that in this case, it's being used as an excuse to wear a particularly ugly and unflattering mask, and to justify nearly any behavior as being a "necessary evil."

It's evil alright...unfortunately, it's not terribly helpful.



-=Vel=-

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake, I know that the brain is not considered a vital organ in your case, so I'll go slow.

You should try presenting a coherent argument before you go about impugning my intelligence.

[Velociryx]

*shakes head*



One of a kind.

Truly.

-=Vel=-

(and on that note, I'm off to bed)

[Theben]

No, given that this is a question of logic and not fact

I fail to see how logic could be included in a moral argument.

As for Drake, the impetus is on you, I'm afraid, to prove the likelihood of torture being more effective than traditional methods of interrogation and that the benefits exceed the costs.

[Ramo]

1) What's the estimated cost of 9/11? What's the estimated cost of a nuclear attack? If there's a reasonable chance of preventing something like that, or many smaller things, by using torture (not through a specific tip necessarily, but because better intel lets us hurt AQ more, etc) then the benefits could be comparable.

Yes. Torture is going to stop a nuclear attack, and would've stopped 9/11.

If torture were so essential to our security, one would think that the Bush Admin would've been able to cite substantial evidence to that effect that withstands basic scrutiny (and again, it's not that they don't try to produce specific evidence, but the scrutiny thing is an issue).

And again, I'm referring to the ethical imposition on an individual. I didn't intend to get into a comparison over aggregates (and if you want a serious cost-benefit comparison, you have to consider the monumental damage torture does with regards to public diplomacy). I think that the best case (and to be clear, one that I would heavily dispute) that you can make for torture given publicly available data is that you might have marginal net gains with a huge amount of uncertainty. Given the brutality of the imposition in question, one would think that the conservative position would be to err on the side of restraint.

[Joseph]

a question?

During h3ll week, do we still water board our guys, so they will know what it is like if they are capture at some point in the future.

[chequita guevara]

People who advocate for torture are a grave threat to America. We should torture them to make sure they aren't plotting against America.

[Velociryx]

My fellow Americans, I have disturbing news, straight from the "We Love D|CK (Cheney) Foundation" (hereafter referred to as the WLDF).

In 2001, there were approximately 278 Million Americans.

That same year, some 3000 were killed by terrorists.

Some 30,000 died via suicide.

If you were an American in 2001, your chances of being killed by a crazed Jihadist was approximately 1:92,666

Your chances of doing yourself in were approximately 1:9266.

In brief, you were ten times a greater threat to yourself than the terrorists, and because of this friends, we have deemed you...and by you I mean all of you*, a National Security Risk (it sounds better with all caps, don't you think?).

Therefore, effective immediately, and to ensure the safety of our nation, we at the WLDF are proposing an immediate implementation of "enhanced interrogation" techniques to be carried out on every man, woman and child in this country to assess the exact nature of the threat we face here.

Trust us, it's for your own good.

You don't have to do anything. A black, unmarked van will pick you up and transfer you to an undisclosed location for the interrogation, and will return you to your home (for a nominal 'donation' to the RNC) if and when it can be ascertained that you are not one of "them" who pose this grave risk to the security of our proud nation. Oh, and we'd prefer not to hear any of your lily livered whining or lame excuses as to why you should be excluded.

Operations will commence at 0530 tomorrow, and God Bless America!

Thank you and that is all.

WE LOVE D|CK! (Cheney)

-=Vel=-

This message brought to you by Right Wing Fanatics R Us

* - By "all of you," we of course don't mean any member of the Christian Right, who are well known to be the only "real" Americans. And those of you making more than 250k per year who donate in excess of 30k to the RNC are of course exempt. Please call 1-888-PARTYOFTHERICH for further details about how you can gain an exemption. Bleeding heart libs will be interrogated more than once, but certainly not to exceed 180 times a month. We're not inhuman after all. Thank you.