The Democrat Thread

[bmags]

Senator Bob Kerrey reminds us all how terrible he is in his USA Today editorial condemning the report and making all sorts of excuses for torturing people. "But 9/11!!!!!!" still justifies torture in many people's minds.

 

edit: For example, there isn't a single sentence in this paragraph that is not some combination of a logical failure, wrong, contradiction of a previous sentence or an outright misrepresentation.

 

Here Bob, take this quarter, it protects you from bears.

[StrangeSox]

It's a rock that protects you from tigers, damn it.

 

 

Looking more closely at that paragraph:

 

It is important for all of us to remember how unprepared we were for the attacks of September 11, 2001

We were unprepared for 9/11 because we weren't torturing enough people? I thought it was a widespread intelligence failure to put the pieces we had together. How would torture have helped?

 

and how unprepared we were to do the things necessary to keep the country from being attacked again.

Torture is necessary, sufficient, or even helpful at all in keeping us safe? Funny, the report and plenty of history of torture shows us that torture is very useful for getting people to say whatever you want them to say, but pretty useful for actual intelligence-gathering. And this wasn't some immediate post-9/11 thing, torture continued for years. The lies for longer.

 

There was no operating manual to guide the choices and decisions made by the men and women in charge of protecting us.

There was no manual? The FBI had non-torture interrogation methods, as did our armed forces. These things were actually working until the CIA brought in their methods. The CIA has always gone off and done their own terrible things, but there were plenty of non-terrible manuals available.

 

I will continue to read the report to learn of the mistakes we apparently made

"Mistakes we made" but wait, I thought that Kerrey had just implied that torture was not only useful but necessary to protect the country? Were they deliberate methods used for several years and then lied about repeatedly to Congress and the White House with little or no oversight, or were they just "mistakes?" I think (thankfully) former Sen. Kerrey is being a bit disingenuous here!

 

I do not need to read the report in full to know this: We have not been attacked since and for that I am very grateful.

We haven't been attacked since! This rock also keeps tigers away. Edited December 10, 2014 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

We have not been attacked since and for that I am very grateful."

[StrangeSox]

Plus the Times Square and Underwear Bomber attempts. They ultimately failed due to incompetence or equipment malfunction, not because they were foiled by intelligence agencies.

 

[bmags]

Damn, I had Tigers written down. I think I was mixing up the time the bear strolls through springfield and they start a bear watch.

[StrangeSox]

that is the same episode! they launch a bear patrol and lisa uses the rock-tiger as an example of bad reasoning.

[bmags]

Well then. I'm a fraud.

[StrangeSox]

the important point is that Bob Kerrey is horrible. Not CIA-torturing-people horrible, but pretty horrible.

[bmags]

The thing is, they had that response ready regardless of the report. The report is so huge and details so much incompetence, but its' so huge, that they'll muddy the waters with "it kept us safe" regardless of direct contradictions that it did not, and since it feels like torture is awesome because 24 and zero dark 30 and every f***ing show, people will go back to the argument of

 

OH YEAH AND IF A GUY HAS KNOWLEDGE OF AN ATTACK WE CAN'T BREATHE ON EM OH YOU LIBERALS OH

[StrangeSox]

I think the "ticking time bomb" thing was just a cover for a lot of the real motivation, anyway, which is that a substantial number of people do not actually have a problem with torturing other people (or having their government do it in their name).

[Balta1701]

I think the "ticking time bomb" thing was just a cover for a lot of the real motivation, anyway, which is that a substantial number of people do not actually have a problem with torturing other people (or having their government do it in their name).

If I were running a media organization, every person who said it would save lives or wasn't torture would be asked if they would support having a US Soldier rectally force fed.

[bmags]

The ineptitude and amateurishness to which we deployed, as we heard at the time, this extreme interrogation for only the most wanted suspects, across a seemingly random swath of 123 people, should make anyone pause if this can ever be done right while still secretive.

[StrangeSox]

[Jenksismyhero]

If I were running a media organization, every person who said it would save lives or wasn't torture would be asked if they would support having a US Soldier rectally force fed.

 

Because members of the Taliban who capture American soldiers wouldn't do worse things?

 

I'm not ok'ing the torture or justifying it. But let's have some perspective here. We're not fighting a country. We're not fighting members of an organized military. We're fighting a bunch of randoms who live in the hills/mountains. Randoms that behead people. On the list of terrible things, sleep deprivation and forced rectal feeding is at least a smidge better than cutting off someone's head.

 

[StrangeSox]

Because members of the Taliban who capture American soldiers wouldn't do worse things?

 

"America: Not Quite as Barbaric as the Taliban!"

 

I'm not ok'ing the torture or justifying it.

 

Actually that's exactly what your first sentence does. It's at least a partial justification or excuse for torture.

 

But let's have some perspective here.

 

I'm not sure what sort of perspective would ever cause me to lose my moral revulsion to torture, but okay.

 

We're not fighting a country. We're not fighting members of an organized military. We're fighting a bunch of randoms who live in the hills/mountains.

 

This causes us to torture people or makes it okay because? Why is it any more acceptable to torture a bunch of 'randoms' as opposed to foreign military?

 

Randoms that behead people. On the list of terrible things, sleep deprivation and forced rectal feeding is at least a smidge better than cutting off someone's head.

 

A smidge, that's about it. Death would probably actually be preferable to some of the prolonged torture that some of these people were exposed to. Some of it actually resulted in death, anyway. And there were numerous other horrific acts than "just" a solid week of sleep deprivation (which will literally drive you crazy) and forced rectal feeding (seriously, wtf).

 

And not that it should matter anyway, but some of these people hadn't actually done a damn thing. They were picked up because somebody else the CIA was torturing gave them their name.

[bmags]

Why is torture justified for CIA when it is not justified for our military? You don't establish your morals on a relative basis, well, they behead so we can rectal feed. Good work.

[Balta1701]

Because members of the Taliban who capture American soldiers wouldn't do worse things?

 

I'm not ok'ing the torture or justifying it. But let's have some perspective here. We're not fighting a country. We're not fighting members of an organized military. We're fighting a bunch of randoms who live in the hills/mountains. Randoms that behead people. On the list of terrible things, sleep deprivation and forced rectal feeding is at least a smidge better than cutting off someone's head.

I'm struggling to figure out how beheading someone is worse than repeatedly rectally force-feeding someone while they're strapped down. I mean, if you gave me the choice I legitimately do not know which one I'd choose. Would probably depend on hope of escape/release. If I was stuck in the middle of a US Gulag and being waterboarded and rectally force-fed with no charges filed or hope of release...well...

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm struggling to figure out how beheading someone is worse than repeatedly rectally force-feeding someone while they're strapped down. I mean, if you gave me the choice I legitimately do not know which one I'd choose. Would probably depend on hope of escape/release. If I was stuck in the middle of a US Gulag and being waterboarded and rectally force-fed with no charges filed or hope of release...well...

 

Um, because you die painfully and definitively, whereas with rectal feeding you probably won't? I'm gonna go with life 99% of the time.

 

Look, again, i'm not excusing anything here. I'll i'm saying is when you read some responses it's as if the American CIA committed an atrocity akin to the Holocaust. It was terrible, immoral, unethical, unjustified, unacceptable and flat out wrong. No question. It was not the worst crime in the world, however. And there are people that are concerned that terrorists will be motivated even more by this, as if terrorists who are already beyond this point morally by beheading random, innocent people, aren't already at an incredibly hateful/immoral place. It's like complaining about throwing a can of gas on a 5 alarm fire.

 

[bmags]

Um, because you die painfully and definitively, whereas with rectal feeding you probably won't? I'm gonna go with life 99% of the time.

 

Look, again, i'm not excusing anything here. I'll i'm saying is when you read some responses it's as if the American CIA committed an atrocity akin to the Holocaust. It was terrible, immoral, unethical, unjustified, unacceptable and flat out wrong. No question. It was not the worst crime in the world, however. And there are people that are concerned that terrorists will be motivated even more by this, as if terrorists who are already beyond this point morally by beheading random, innocent people, aren't already at an incredibly hateful/immoral place. It's like complaining about throwing a can of gas on a 5 alarm fire.

 

As long as something isn't the holocaust, no wrong is done. Good to know. Hey ISIS is bad, but they aren't Nazi bad, so why are we complaining?

[Balta1701]

And there are people that are concerned that terrorists will be motivated even more by this, as if terrorists who are already beyond this point morally by beheading random, innocent people, aren't already at an incredibly hateful/immoral place. It's like complaining about throwing a can of gas on a 5 alarm fire.

Dude, you have your talking points wrong. The people saying that right now are the ones saying that releasing this report will cause that, not that it happened in the first place. We're supposed to keep it secret because that will motivate them. That's the pro-torturer's side.

[StrangeSox]

Um, because you die painfully and definitively, whereas with rectal feeding you probably won't? I'm gonna go with life 99% of the time.

 

That 1% of the time is probably when you're being tortured, sometimes to death.

[StrangeSox]

Jenks, you also didn't explain why who the CIA was torturing matters.

[Balta1701]

Jenks, you also didn't explain why who the CIA was torturing matters.

Eh, we only tortured 26 innocent people. That's a solid accuracy rate right? I mean it's not like the CIA tortured their own informants because they didn't know which side was which and just said F*** it lets torture everyone, right?

[Jenksismyhero]

As long as something isn't the holocaust, no wrong is done. Good to know. Hey ISIS is bad, but they aren't Nazi bad, so why are we complaining?

 

Yep that's what I said!

[Jenksismyhero]

Jenks, you also didn't explain why who the CIA was torturing matters.

 

It doesn't matter in the sense that it's right or wrong, but again this idea of the effects of it don't make sense when your dealing with groups of terrorists, not a sovereign nation with an army.