Investigations of CIA interrogators

[JoeBob]

Basement,

 

We terrorize Islam with gay marriage, blue jeans, dresses that show cleavage, and bad movies...

 

;^O

[Scoutfish]

Okay, I said what I said before. Yeah, it's contradictive, but it also shows the difference between logic and emotional rationing.

 

But I will also say this: I had a friend who - a long time ago ( he was 9 at the time) showd another boy ( who was 7 at the time) his little boy parts. Well, his mom was baby sitting the younger boy at the time and walked in on them ( they were in my friends room at the time).

 

WEll, that night, his dad - who was verty heavy handed wanted to know exactly what was going on, and why and how often it happened. He then beat the answer out of his son.

 

Somehow, I was implicated in the evnt even though I was not only not there...but had been with my parents out of town by 200 miles while on vacation at my grandmothers place in Cape Hatteras.

 

At first, my parents were mad at me until they realized that the boy gave times and dates that did not match up to when I was at mty friends house. He lived 5 miles away, and at 10 years old, I had to be driven there or picked up.

 

Anyways, the point is this: THat boy gave out all kinds of info to his dad to make the beatings stop. Anything and everything that would make the beatings stop. If dad didn't like the answer, he whipped his belt hader and slung the boy around some until he got the answer he wanted.

 

Of course, since the dad wasn't there ( and neither was I for that matter) how could he know what was true or not. How was he able toi ddetermine what was the truth or reliable or no?

 

In the ned, the dad felt the info he got from his son was reliable , abd made a point to visit my parents to share this valuble information.

 

I guess it really sucked when he found out we just got back into town about 3 hours ealier.

 

That really punched a HUGE FREAKING hole in the story he beat out of his son.

 

So toruture might not get you anything except what the torture thinks you want to hear...and naturally, if that's what you are wanting to hear, you may very well torture past the truth to get to what you want to hear instread of what really is.

 

 

Again, I know very well that if somebody was to harm my son or wife....that I most likely will put logic and sane thought aside and go after them with no regret.

 

But I do know later that I'll realize I was no better and regret what I did.

 

Call it temporary insanity or temporary don't give a damn.

But it is what it is, and probably what makes me human.

[packsaddle]

"Degrees of coercion are entirely situational.

What is at stake? Who are you questioning?"

 

I asked for you to state where you thought treatment crossed a line. You responded by requesting ME to supply you with a situation. This indicates that you are just going to take them as they come and, in fact, you have no actual 'code' of conduct.

Prove me wrong. Tell me what your 'code' is.

 

OK as you requested, here's your hypothetical:

There IS a 1 Mton nuke in an unknown large American city and it will kill maybe a million Americans in just a couple of hours. You have tortured a courier for a terrorist cell and he has revealed absolute evidence of the bomb's existence and that a young girl whose identity he doesn't know can identify the the perpetrator. You don't know who this girl is but the courier says that she attends an exclusive high school for troubled teen girls. The courier has died from your torture.

Since the school only has less than 50 students, you have locked it down and are now preparing the interrogation. Two hours or less left to stop the bomb.

All of the girls there are in various stages of oppositional defiant behavior and their inclination is for you to stick it to yourself.

Do you torture all of them? Is there anything you will NOT do to these girls to find the ONE who knows the identity of the bomber, maybe even more information? You already mentioned your willingness to inflict pain...how much? In what manner? Pull the finger nails? Chop off fingers or hands? Would you sodomize the girls if you had to? Is ANYTHING off the table?

 

Or you can reveal your code of conduct.

[JoeBob]

Gawd! Just look at the emotonal backflips you went through to devise an almost impossible scenario!

 

IF we assume that all of your assumptions are true:

1- You messed up when you didn't have a Dr. present and killed your primary witness. Pain does not have to be lethal.

2- 1,000,000 lives per 50 potential saviours - that is 20,000 lives per interogation suspect - pretty good odds.

3- Especially when you consider that 49 of the 50 are not crazy, and a trained questioner will be able to spot those fairly easily.

 

But let's play along with your ridiculous scenario, and say we have to cut off one hand from every girl to learn details to stop from killing 1 million. Lets say you are one of the girls. Would you not be willing to give one of your hands to save 20,000 lives?

 

I hope that I have raised my kids so that they will be willing to trade one of their hands to save ONE life.

 

Assuming everything else about your scenario is true.

 

Use some judgement, man.

[packsaddle]

You asked for a situation. I merely supplied one. If you think it's impossible to address then you obviously have a limited ability to address tough situations. Want me to make it simple? You think reality is simple?

 

To begin with, it doesn't equate like that - exchanging a hand for 20,000 lives. (By the way there are 100 hands to cut off - you know...two per)

And you haven't answered the questions except for the hand question. You would, in fact, cut the hands off dozens of innocent persons with the faint hope that the answer is 'yes' to two questions: 1) does one of the girls actually know something? and 2) will she tell you the truth either before or after you cut her hand(s) off? I guess the fingernails go without saying. But in the end, if either of those two questions is answered 'no' you are going to end up with a pile of severed hands and about a million dead Americans. What did the torture gain you?

I'll untangle the neurons for you...the answer to that last question is 'nothing'...but a pile of severed hands from girls who were possibly all innocent. Congratulations.

 

You say that you 'hope' and you 'assume' - but these girls were angry when they entered this school, they don't care a bit about you or your big lie about some imaginary bomb. You admit the uncertainty in all this. How does cutting off all those hands diminish that uncertainty? It doesn't. Some of them are going to say anything to keep their hands a little longer. This is going to cost you more time. BOOM!!!

Moreover, even after torturing the first guy, do you really know anything more than the existence of the bomb? Or even that really? Do you really KNOW there is another person who can identify the bomber? Do you really know this person is a female or at this particular school? You are willing to mutilate dozens of young women based on a level of ignorance that has not diminished at all since you started your torture. But you ARE willing to do this. Would you pull one of the girls out and brutalize her in front of the others to try scare them? More than one? All of them?

So I ask again...is ANYTHING off the table? To all of you advocates for torture, where do you draw the line?

 

 

[JoeBob]

Packsaddle,

 

Spew all the belittling words you want trying to hold on to your moral superiority. You have burrowed so deep into the minutia that you must look like an ostrich.

But you have lost touch with reality.

About the only thing I remember about SERE school is getting stuck with someone else's pants that were too tight. So I guess it really wasn't that hard.

[packsaddle]

The original request was a simple one. You weren't up to it.

[evmori]

EV....from our perspective we are not terrorist.....from their perspective we are.

 

Actually, if we didn't support Israel, there would probably not be an issue. From their perspective, we are the source of greed, not terrorists.

[OldGreyEagle]

"I'm BRAVE enough to accept that being REVERENT to my God sometimes requires that I not defer to their god."

 

Gee you go away for a few days and miss all the fun

 

JoeBob, when you say "their god" are you talking about Islam?

 

Because I am pretty sure Christians, Jews and Islam worships the God of Abraham,

 

I Don't know if the end justifies the means, well actually I know that the end does not justify the means, at least the ends does not in the universe of pure reason and logic but in the actual physical world I think you do the best you can with what you got

[Basementdweller]

Just say the disaster was in Paris, london, berlin, Telaviv or Cairo......The girls were at a School in the United states and US citizens.......

 

Would you be singing a different tune?

 

I enjoy a good discussion

[BrentAllen]

OGE,

Should we have dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did the end of the war in the Pacific justify it?

 

I personally don't see how we can get so bent out of shape about water boarding terrorists after we decimated 2 cities with atomic bombs, killing thousands of women, children and the elderly.

 

Maybe somebody will answer (packsaddle, Beavah?) - Did Allen West commit torture when he fired his pistol into the sand beside the head of the Iraqi policeman who he thought had information about an upcoming ambush?

[SR540Beaver]

JoeBob, saying torture is OK and it works is easy. But as Pack has pointed out, the devil is in the details. Given the details, where do you draw the line?

[Beavah]

[Location: Inside a high-walled compound in a posh suburban military district outside Tehran]

 

Ayatollah Fahd-al-Islami: "Ah, marvelous! What wonderful ideas I get from this Scouter.Com! Call for Farooq!"

 

Farooq: "Yes, Ayatollah?"

 

Ayatollah: "Farooq, I have a job for you to do, that will strike a great blow for Allah and for all of Islam against the Great Satan. I want you to go pretend to plant a bomb in Dallas."

 

Farooq: "Pretend to plant a bomb? I don't understand, master."

 

Ayaltollah: "Yes, pretend. Bombs are expensive, and we don't know how to make them yet anyways. But we'll give you some nuclear material we bought from corrupt Russian infidels to spread around and set off the American detectors."

 

Farooq: "Master, you know I am willing to die for the cause and for all those virgins you have promised, but how will a pretend bomb strike a blow against America?"

 

Ayatollah: "Farooq, you must trust in da wisdom of your elders, eh? We cannot defeat the American military. Our objective is to bankrupt them, economically and especially morally. If you spread fake bombs and material about, eventually you will set off a detector and get caught. At that point, you will spit in their face and curse them before Allah and tell them they will go up in burning fire from hell. Can you do that, Farooq?"

 

Farooq: "With pleasure, Master! But won't they torture me? I have been fighting the infidels ever since they tortured my brother in Abu Ghraib."

 

Ayatollah: "Yes, they will torture you, and you will be brave. You will tell them that there are two bombs in Dallas, and you will resist. You are strong in faith, and they are weak. And then after a bit, you will confess that the couriers who placed the bomb are disaffected high school girls from Austin who are democrats."

 

Farooq: "But I don't know any girls from Austin."

 

Ayatollah: "It matters not, Farooq. Abdul will give you some common American names to mention, like "Sarah" and "Amy". Faced with the possibility of losing Dallas, and filled with the cowardice and fear that all Americans have in the face of even a few deaths, they will arrest and torture each others' children just because they are so weak.

 

Farooq: "Are you sure, Ayatollah? That seems like remarkable stupidity even for Americans."

 

Ayatollah: "Yes, Farooq, I am sure. And even better, when the bomb doesn't go off, one of the torturers will take credit for saving Dallas, because Americans love nothing better than taking credit for things they had nothing to do with. This will make it OK for them to continue torturing their own children, especially if they are from the other political party."

 

Farooq: "But only the most wretched and despicable cowards would torture their own children!"

 

Ayatollah: "Yes, but we know that is what Americans are. Cowards who live without honor or faith. For your brief sacrifice Farooq, you will start a bloodletting among the Americans that will demonstrate their moral bankruptcy to the world. With your one act of bravery you will damage thousands of Americans, and undermine their alliances with every other country who will look upon them with contempt."

 

Farooq: "Allah akhbar! I am ready and willing to give my life to strike such a devastating blow to the Great Satan!"

 

Ayatollah: "Then go with God's blessing, Farooq."

 

 

[acco40]

Not so hypothetical a situation: The CIA had found bin Laden's wife and children in the compound and not Osama himself? Is it justified to take one of bin Laden's children, point a gun to their head and demand information on bin Laden's whereabouts from his wife - regardless if the child was really going to be shot or not?

 

Allen West - any relation to Batman?

 

Beavah - wasn't their a "Dirty Harry" movie along the same vein?

 

A doctor, who hopefully subscribes to the hippocratic oath (first, do no harm) being utilized to check on the health of torture victims?

 

(This message has been edited by acco40)

[BS-87]

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Ben Franklin

 

There is no doubt that Beavah's example is how terror groups expect to win. They may say their ultimate goal is to kill as many of us as possible, but they're equally as happy with disturbing our life as much as possible. They may not hate us because of our freedom, but they certainly don't feel we deserve our freedom. From the looks of it... they may be right...