RRC Archives

der uber wrote:Here here - or is it hear hear?

I think it's "Hear hear!" as in "I hear ya!"

Crankmas wrote:your mother and sister are going to the mall, an FBI sting captures two AQ suspects who having just left the mall are nervous and their vehicle contains traces of explosives and plans detailing bombing several local shopping centers, the FBI was gonna extract the information from the terrorists about their intentions but they are reluctant to talk, they are waterboarded and the informatiom gleaned from their "torture" reveals the location and design of the devices, your mother and sister are among those evacuated and saved just prior to detonation of 1500 lbs of TNT, just kidding, waterboarding is illegal your mom and sister are blown to bits- Merry Xmas

L K Day wrote:What do you think of this?

Torturing him "worked?" Why is it the British quit using torture in Ireland? Because it was faster and more reliable to use legal techniques. You can't prove the result was better because of torture, you can only prove there was a result. Since you don't have another KSM you can question with legal means you have no comparison. Torture is wrong and it sucks ass that not only is my country doing it but that people like you can actually convince yourselves that it is not a bad thing. It is wrong and should never happen. Period.

I'm good with everything except the part where you said "Period."

Crankmas wrote:your mother and sister are going to the mall, an FBI sting captures two AQ suspects who having just left the mall are nervous and their vehicle contains traces of explosives and plans detailing bombing several local shopping centers, the FBI was gonna extract the information from the terrorists about their intentions but they are reluctant to talk, they are waterboarded and the informatiom gleaned from their "torture" reveals the location and design of the devices, your mother and sister are among those evacuated and saved just prior to detonation of 1500 lbs of TNT, just kidding, waterboarding is illegal your mom and sister are blown to bits- Merry Xmas

Given that the suspects had just left the mall, have a vehicle with traces of explosives, and plans to bomb shopping centers, do the suspects need to be tortured? How stupid would the agents have to be to waste time on torture, rather than just evacuating the mall?

That's the problem with the ticking time bomb scenario. The odds of it actually happening are so low that they approach the infinitesimal, while its specter is used to justify widespread torture that's caused us to waste untold resources on false leads, damaged our country's moral standing, and led to over a hundred deaths of suspects in our custody.

der uber wrote:

tomdarch wrote: Of course, a big part of why there's less sectarian violence in Iraq is the result of ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Where's your reference for this? How does ethnic cleansing lead to less sectarian violence? I'm asking because I haven't heard that, don't know etc. and interested in finding out more.

I believe he meant to say that the ethnic cleansing has been completed in many neighborhoods and towns, so there's less sectarian violence because there's only one sect left in a lot of places.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004670.php

Here's an article about a veteran interrogator testifying in congress. The two most important paragraphs are below:

It's not just what a subject says in an interrogation that an interrogator needs to watch for clues, Kleinman said. The way in which he expresses himself is significant: does the subject fidget? Does he shift in his seat? Does he gesture, or suddenly stop gesturing? All of these non-verbal clues -- "clusters, groupings of behaviors," Kleinman called them -- provide interrogators with valuable information to observe what a detainee is like when he's lying, when he's being uncooperative, and when he's being truthful, or a combination of the three.

But if a detainee has his hands tied, or if a detainee shivers because a room is chilled, then "I don't know whether he's shivering because the room is cold or because my questions are penetrating," Kleinman said. That degree of abuse "takes away a lot of my tools." It's one of the clearest explanations in the public record about what torture costs professional interrogators in terms of actionable intelligence, as the debate is so often set up as what a lack of torture ends up costing national security.

This is the best argument against our using torture I've read. I think it is from the same Mr. Nance from Wolf's link above.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/1 ... ure-perio/

He said "period" too.

It makes me sick that someone could call the Geneva Convention "quaint." If we are the best people in the world we should hold ourselves to the highest standards in the world. We don't so...