CIA lied to you

[Lord Jim]

Do try to make some slight feeble effort at logical sense

An excellent suggestion...

I anxiously await your first attempt...

[MajGenl.Meade]

The odd thing is, one cannot even agree with rubato without him attacking. Ah well.... at least he's coherent and posts more than one line over and over and over.

[Lord Jim]

The odd thing is, one cannot even agree with rubato without him attacking.

You're just now noticing this?

It's all part and parcel of being a 100% thoroughgoing complete misanthrope...

When you have that sort of way of relating to the world, you have every bit as much contempt for those who agree with you as those who disagree with you...

In fact probably more so...

[rubato]

A misanthrope is someone who justifies torture even after it is proven to be of no use at all.


I am the opposite of a misanthrope. I just don't suck up to stupid people.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Moral clarity:

“‘Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands,’ he wrote. In all respects the prisoners were to be treated no worse than American soldiers; and in some respects, better. Through this approach, Washington sought to shame his British adversaries, and to demonstrate the moral superiority of the American cause.”

In the worst of times – when foreign troops literally occupied American soil, torturing and murdering American patriots – and few believed that the cause of the revolution could ultimately win against the might of the British Empire, the first Commander in Chief of the U.S.A. set the precedent that this society is to lead even our enemies by “benignant sympathy of [our] example.” To win the war against the occupying army of Redcoats, the American revolutionaries needed right on their side.

And it worked. Many of the German Hessians in fact joined the revolutionaries in their fight against the English and stayed here in America to be free when the war was won.

Must we abandon this legacy? Is it already too late to reclaim it?

we need it.

yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

I agree with your point, but you say in such a way as to make it unattractive.

need a hug?

[Econoline]

Exactly. That's why, when I agree with rubato, I often don't say so explicitly but just post something of my own that makes the same argument as I imagine he was trying to articulate.

[Econoline]

“That there are elements of the American government still arguing against this cold blast of truth, offering up the craven fear that the rest of the world might see us as we actually are, or that our enemies will perhaps use the evidence of our sadism to justify violent retribution or political maneuver — this further cowardice only adds to the national humiliation.

This is not one of the world’s great powers behaving as such, and it is certainly no force for good in the world. This might as well be the Spanish national amnesia following the death of Franco, or a post-war West Germany without the stomach for the necessary self-reflection. Shit, even the fragile, post-apartheid democracy of South Africa managed to openly conduct hearings and attempt some measure of apology and reconciliation in the wake of the previous regime’s brutalities. Not us. Not the United States. We’re too weak to endure any such moral reflection without the attempt itself descending into moronic partisan banter.”

— David Simon

[Econoline]

From The American Conservative:

Why Did We Torture?
By NOAH MILLMAN • December 10, 2014, 9:50 AM

I don’t have much to say about the torture report released by the Senate. While many of the details were unknown to me – or to any ordinary civilian – prior to the release, nothing that has come out strikes me as a particular surprise. We already knew that we committed brutal, systematic torture; we already knew that many credible analysts concluded that it was useless; we already knew that what was done was done in knowing violation of American law; and we already knew that the Executive branch as a whole and the CIA in particular labored mightily to cover it up.

The United States is obligated by treaty to punish those responsible, both those who committed the acts and those who ordered them. Orders to commit torture are illegal and must be affirmatively disobeyed; American law is crystal clear about that, so the only real defense is to claim that illegal actions did not occur, which is no longer a plausible claim. I assume that we will refuse to comply with this obligation.

None of this is a surprise. All of this could have been known in advance. So why did we do it?

Most commonly, torture’s purpose is not to extract intelligence, but to extract confessions. Whether you’re talking about the Inquisition or the NKVD, there is value to a given regime in “proving” that the accused is guilty. It vindicates the justice of the regime’s actions generally; it demonstrates the power of the regime over truth itself. It may well be of distinctly secondary importance whether or not the confession is actually true, whether the accused is actually guilty. So long as he confesses, the regime’s power is confirmed.

Relatedly, torture is a valuable tool to instill fear in the general population. Incarceration is fearful, but if incarceration brings with it terrible physical and psychological pain, including the possibility of permanent injury or death, then the possibility of being apprehended by the authorities is much more fearful, and ordinary civilians will be much more cautious about risking that possibility. If instilling fear is more important to a regime than inspiring confidence, cooperation and loyalty, then torture serves these purposes well.

These are the primary reasons why regimes like the Nazis or Soviets used torture extensively. Yes, they also used torture to try to extract intelligence, but that was never the primary purpose of such techniques. There were other, fully rational reasons to torture.

I believe that our reasons were far less rational.

I’ve written before about the overwhelming fear that afflicted the country in the wake of 9-11, and how, perversely, exaggerating the severity of the threat from al Qaeda helped address that fear, because it made it acceptable to contemplate more extreme actions in response. If al Qaeda was really just a band of lunatics who got lucky, then 3,000 died because, well, because that’s the kind of thing that can happen. If al Qaeda was the leading edge of a worldwide Islamo-fascist movement with the real potential to destroy the West, then we would be justified in nuking Mecca in response. Next to that kind of response, torture seems moderate.

Willingness to torture became, first within elite government and opinion-making circles, then in the culture generally, and finally as a partisan GOP talking point, a litmus test of seriousness with respect to the fight against terrorism. That – proving one’s seriousness in the fight – was its primary purpose from the beginning, in my view. It was only secondarily about extracting intelligence. It certainly wasn’t about instilling fear or extracting false confessions – these would not have served American purposes. It was never about “them” at all. It was about us. It was our psychological security blanket, our best evidence that we were “all-in” in this war, the thing that proved to us that we were fierce enough to win.

I’ve used “we” all through this piece, and the reason is not just because America is a democracy. Our government tortured for us, not just in the sense that it is our representative nor in the sense that its motive was our protection, but in the sense that we, as a country in aggregate, really wanted the proof of seriousness that torture provided.

That’s something we’ll have to grapple with, as a country, if we’re ever to have the strength to follow our own laws and bring the guilty to justice.

[BoSoxGal]

I know why we tortured, after reading about the contents of the Senate report.

Two guys who trained our CIA and contractors on how to torture, based on their academic research into torture techniques used on American POWs by the Chinese and others, were paid $81 million dollars - which they shared with colleagues - to run the torture program.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

[Sue U]

I’ve written before about the overwhelming fear that afflicted the country in the wake of 9-11, and how, perversely, exaggerating the severity of the threat from al Qaeda helped address that fear, because it made it acceptable to contemplate more extreme actions in response. If al Qaeda was really just a band of lunatics who got lucky, then 3,000 died because, well, because that’s the kind of thing that can happen. If al Qaeda was the leading edge of a worldwide Islamo-fascist movement with the real potential to destroy the West, then we would be justified in nuking Mecca in response. Next to that kind of response, torture seems moderate.

This paragraph exactly encapsulates the whole problem with the "war on terror" and why it lead to such panicked (or, taking advantage of panic, cynically premeditated) over-reaction. If al-Qaeda had been treated from the outset like the third-rate criminal gang of indiscriminate murderers that it was, it would have been a straightforward police operation to bring the perpetrators to justice. Instead, calling up the military and ham-handedly invading not only Afghanistan but also Iraq (WTF?) actually gave legitimacy to al-Qaeda's lunatic claims -- which maybe weren't so insane after all, given the PNAC cabal calling the shots. Instead of simply mopping up al-Qaeda as a criminal enterprise, they were handed the PR opportunity of the century to portray themselves as the very visible spearhead of resistance to western hegemony generally, and US imperialism in particular.

[Big RR]

If al Qaeda was the leading edge of a worldwide Islamo-fascist movement with the real potential to destroy the West, then we would be justified in nuking Mecca in response

And this part of the quote shows the inherent racist appeal to action. even if Al Qaeda were a worldwide "islamo fascist movement" (and I agree with sue about her assessment of them, we would no more justified in nuking Mecca than the jews would have been justified in nuking (if nukes existed then) Bethlehem (or even the Vatican) because of the holocaust and its worldwide implications. But somehow tying it to the others who don't believe as we do, don't act as we do, and probably don't really care all that much about us has an appeal all its own.

[wesw]

breaking someones mind is as bad as breaking their body, IMHO

[liberty]

The CIA doesn’t talk to us, it works for and communicates directly with the President through the his staff.

And what is new here; didn’t we already know this stuff?

[Econoline]

This is just the end, the conclusion, of a long essay entitled "The Road to Hell":

In the days before we became torturers, before September 11th, 2001, the CIA, the FBI, they had all the information necessary to stop that attack – and they got that information without torture, without compromising our values, without becoming our enemies.

But they failed to act on it.

The problem wasn’t a lack of information, the problem was a failure of intelligence. We had the information, but our intelligence organizations refused to work together and to share that information – and they still do.

Torture won’t change that, in fact, the techniques and classification of information gained via torture ensures that the information will be tightly controlled and not shared among those who could make best use of it. Again, I was a professional intelligence officer, trust me on this, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Over and over and over.

The problem wasn’t that we couldn’t get our enemies to talk, the problem was that those in authority, congress, the Bush Administration, the intelligence community, refused to listen – and they still do.

The effectiveness or ineffectiveness of torture matters not at all. It’s a red herring.

It doesn’t matter if you're right or wrong about the effectiveness of torture.

It doesn’t matter if your motives are patriotic and your heart is pure.

It doesn’t matter if your cause is just.

It doesn’t matter how terrible your enemy.

Listen to me, it doesn’t matter if you’re a man of God, if you molest a child, you’re a goddamned child molester.

And it comes down to this: If you engage in torture, you're a torturer.

And you live in a country that tortures people.

It’s really just that simple.

I know, I know...I've probably already pushed this guy's blog way too much in the past...but I highly recommend that you go and read the whole essay here:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/12/the- ... -hell.html

[rubato]

Very clear ideas and effective writing. Thanks for the reminder, I need to look him up more often.



yrs,
rubato