The Price of False Chivalry

[TemplarKormac]

SCIC? I don't recognize the acronym.

Forgive me, it's SSIC, not SCIC. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

However, the other side of that is the fact that the Republicans have a golden opportunity to highlight that and beat the Democrats with their own political bullshit.

If anything, they shouldn't be making politics out of this matter whatsoever. Injustice should be injustice, not something to be bandied about in the midst of political theater.

You are not seeing that though, are we?

No. For the reasons stated above, I don't believe in exploiting injustices for the sake of political gain. I don't see the sense of it.

Instead, they are desperately trying to justify those actions. That is, to me, inherently disgusting.

The one thing I respond to positively are well reasoned arguments, and I acknowledge the fact I was trying to justify the use of torture. Call it disgusting if you must, but I admit it freely. To be truthful, it conflicts with everything I was taught about mercy and compassion for those who, IMHO, don't deserve it. My anger remains for those who committed murder on our soil though, but I should be equally as angry at the methods we used to take them down.

The only way I learn is to challenge other arguments with my own.

Rather than come out, admit that this entire thing is wrong and ugly and highlight the political BS in the report they want to run and hide. Pathetic.

As is typical behavior for those in Washington. To be expected. I will never again trust anything that comes from the mouth of a politician (or politicians).

Intelligence Committee and I would agree that the blatant political play here is absolutely disgusting. This is even outlined by the fact that Pelosi was more aware of this program than virtually anyone and yet she is the one trying to use it as a hammer against the republicans.

Like I said. This should not be used as a political bludgeon. If they were truly concerned about these acts of torture, they would put forth more zeal in correcting the problem than using the problem as a political weapon.

Even in this instance, do you really think that the torture employed would stand better than the methods we have perfected in modern times?

No. I simply wished to dispense with the notion that torture is 'completely ineffective.' Blanket statements are a pet peeve of mine. No offense.

...I want substance before even making the moral judgement...

Admittedly that is a character flaw of mine. Not using it as a crutch, just something I have neglected to address. I tend to make snap judgements on issues of this magnitude. It is true that we should not repay savagery with more savagery.

It is not a 'moral' stance or countries that we agree with but rather simple common gain.

I don't think it should work that way. I value commonality over common gain. Common gain comes when you hold more in common with another country than not. Sacrificing the things that our government is founded upon for 'common gain' is traitorous and an unacceptable tradeoff. TBH it is why our government is unrecognizable from the one that it was intended to be.

As I told Disco, there is no moral high ground, not anywhere, or for anyone involved, whether it be torturer or terrorist.

 

[hipeter924]

The problem is that the amibgunity of the Patriot Act and Survelliance Act hypothetically allow Americans to be indefinitely detained without charge - meaning you don't have to be accused of a crime to potentially be tortured.

But given that those cases (if they have occurred) are quite rare, this comes down to arguments over whether constitutional rights are able to be applicable to people (citizens or not) that are warring against the United States or attempting to join terrorist groups.

As far as previous rulings are concerned, the US government is within the law if it confines those that are a risk to national security (as long as they are well treated) i.e. Japanese and German Americans interned during ww2.

Torture is ethically questionable, but pain is undeniably an effective tool to extract information and encourage compliance - but only to a point.

Not that I support the use of torture, but methods of waging war or national security agencies are never going to ethically sound i.e. you can't win a war without injuries or death, or gather intelligence from targets without running the risk of causing them harm.

 

[Spare_change]

So ... if we apply the '500 ft' technique of interrogation, is that torture?

For those who don't know ... take two enemy combatants to 500 ft in a helicopter ... ask the first one a question ... when he refuses to answer, throw him out of the chopper ... then, ask the second one the same question.

No muss, no fuss ....

 

[FA_Q2]

If anything, they shouldn't be making politics out of this matter whatsoever. Injustice should be injustice, not something to be bandied about in the midst of political theater.

...

No. For the reasons stated above, I don't believe in exploiting injustices for the sake of political gain. I don't see the sense of it.

...

The one thing I respond to positively are well reasoned arguments, and I acknowledge the fact I was trying to justify the use of torture. Call it disgusting if you must, but I admit it freely. To be truthful, it conflicts with everything I was taught about mercy and compassion for those who, IMHO, don't deserve it. My anger remains for those who committed murder on our soil though, but I should be equally as angry at the methods we used to take them down.

The only way I learn is to challenge other arguments with my own.

My comments were not necessarily completely directed at you. Don't misunderstand, I would not call our exchange here 'disgusting' thus far. It has been a very good exchange. I was mostly referring to the republican party and the way they have handled the report itself (as well as many of the comments we have seen on this message board). I actually think there should be real debates on the torture methods and our actions as we cannot simply ignore what was done or why.

I could not agree more with the bold though. That is spot on.

As is typical behavior for those in Washington. To be expected. I will never again trust anything that comes from the mouth of a politician (or politicians).

Welcome to the dark side

It is a sad reality that we cannot trust our own government.

Like I said. This should not be used as a political bludgeon. If they were truly concerned about these acts of torture, they would put forth more zeal in correcting the problem than using the problem as a political weapon.

I am not saying that the acts should be used as a bludgeon. I am stating that they WERE used as a bludgeon by the democrats when they dreamed up this report, failed to make it as inclusive as such a report demands, did not talk to the people involved, went on ahead with a completely partisan committee on the subject and (worst of all) buried the report for no explicable reason that I can come up with until now. That
is what I think the republicans should be using rather than defending the torture tactics.

I have a problem with playing politics over torture - I don't have a problem with politicians playing politics with political ploys that the other party has rolled out. I think the release of this report at this time is a political ploy because they are losing the senate and also their control soon. If it was so important to release, they should have done that 2 years ago.

No. I simply wished to dispense with the notion that torture is 'completely ineffective.' Blanket statements are a pet peeve of mine. No offense.

Point taken and no offense taken. I suffer from the same pet peeve and should have not fallen into that myself. Never, all, everyone etc are very rarely the case.

I don't think it should work that way. I value commonality over common gain. Common gain comes when you hold more in common with another country than not. Sacrificing the things that our government is founded upon for 'common gain' is traitorous and an unacceptable tradeoff. TBH it is why our government is unrecognizable from the one that it was intended to be.

As I told Disco, there is no moral high ground, not anywhere, or for anyone involved, whether it be torturer or terrorist.

This I disagree with. What a nation does in its borders is that nations concern. Those that are politically and morally misaligned certainly need to be watched pretty close as our mutual gains will be much harder to come by but I am not interested in making moral judgements for the entire world. The people in those nations are responsible for their own government and themselves - not us.

I never said anything about sacrificing things that our government is founded upon to deal with other nations. We sacrifice nothing by dealing with the Chinese even though the Chinese have very little in common with our moral or value system yet there is MUCH to be gained from a mutual relationship. It is not for America to decide what is best for the Chinese, just what is best for America.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Chivalry: it was expected of all the medieval knights of old. Courage, honor, courtesy, justice and ready charity to the weak. But as we disseminate the 'torture' report released last week, the message was given "we need not sacrifice our values in the act of interrogating suspected terrorists." Well, that's all well and good, but why be chivalrous to our enemies?

Why should we sacrifice for our enemies courage for courtesy? Why should we grant ready charity to murderers who granted no charity to their victims? Where is the justice and honor for those who have died at their hands? If there is to be justice, let it be dealt equally. Yes, there was torture, yes, some of it went too far. But in my mind, those who played part in murdering innocents deserved every bit of what they got. For they showed us no mercy, and in turn they should be spared none. Their human rights were forfeit from the moment they ended life for the sake of a twisted belief.

Mind you, some of those detainees who were interrogated might have been innocent of wrongdoing. If they were tortured, a line was crossed. But for those who are guilty of crimes against humanity, there should be no line. No, not one. America, in World War II, killed German soldiers under flag of surrender. However, America wasn't a sole party to this kind of barbarity, Germany issued the Commando Order, which accepted no surrender and ordered American soldiers attempting to surrender to be killed on sight. We are not blameless.

What is the expense of chivalry? For those Democrats on the SSIC, it meant endangering the men and women working for the CIA, military men and women fighting overseas; a price which they were not hesitant to pay. Whatever blood is shed for this supposed act of chivalry, will be on their hands. Whatever reconciliation was to be had should have been dealt with out of the public eye, not before the very eyes of our adversaries. Democrats are working to erase their involvement in these events.

Let's not get started about those who had underlying political motives to release this report. They expended their efforts (and $40 million of your taxpayer dollars) to publish a partisan, one sided report of suspected torture of detainees by the CIA without even so much as attempting to get their side of the of the story. They never interviewed anyone, claimed no intelligence was gleaned by these tactics, and feigned ignorance by saying they were never briefed about them, when all along they knew and said nothing, maintaining their tacitness. Democrats as far back as 2002 never objected to them. In fact it has been alleged some of them pushed the CIA to go even further.

Chivalry isn't something you dole out on a whim. To do so under a false banner means sacrificing the very values we wish to preserve. And it doesn't mean publishing a report to slander political opponents and destroy the reputations of those involved.

Torture is despicable, I realize that. But what I find despicable is this: claiming a group of men and women willingly tortured detainees without ever getting their sides of the story. Saying their work yielded no results whatsoever. This report would fall apart in the courts, on the grounds it refused to let the accused exercise their Sixth Amendment rights to testify. They were not even allowed a chance to defend themselves.

This wasn't an attempt at chivalry, it was a travesty. This wasn't an attempt to project accountability. It was legal and political chicanery, a sophistry let loose on the masses in the name of justice. I know there may be some truth in parts of this report, but overall, it was twisted to suit a narrative, overshadowed by a deception. Now, a country already divided has become even more so, because of this. This is the price we pay for false chivalry.

Then why limit it to foreign accused criminals?

Why not torture American terrorists, like Tim McVeigh, or the guys who shot abortion doctors or blew up clinics?

Why don't we simply beat confessions out of suspected murderers, and allow the confession as evidence?

 

[Discombobulated]

Leaving it up to the terrorists to determine the moral high ground means they've already won, they've achieved their goals by terrorizing us into being a scared, repressive, less civilized society, one that can allow torture.

For me, there is no moral high ground in regards to this case.

My take is this: should we treat a murderer with more dignity than his victim? Is it fair to treat him with the humanity that he denied his victim(s)? There might be complexities that I may not understand, I freely admit.

Maybe you think we should provide these people with more incentive, a greater sense of injustice, another cause to fight for.

Though I believe they gave us all the incentive on one September morning in 2001. You know the rest. However, accusing me or others of being 'uncivilized animals' who somehow are supporting terrorism undermines your very premise.

No moral high ground for you? I don't think your sense of morality matters when we're talking about practical military considerations.

No. No moral high ground for the interrogators, and in most instances not for the detainees. They are both guilty of deplorable behavior. By the way, how would you know what is 'practical' in the military? Your version of morality is useless also.

You have no idea what you believe or what you stand for. Which means you stand for nothing.

 

[Discombobulated]

Here's my take from the standpoint of military necessity: No one should ever have know that we were torturing people, it should have been a closely guarded secret rather than a subject for public debate.

Why? Why is it better that we torture and keep it secrete than we torture and have to face our own actions.

I find your 'preference' the WORST possibility there is. A government that is not only capable of taking those actions but also not having to face the fact they did. IOW, that is an open license to do as they please.

No, nothing is worse than a government that has that kind of license.

Maybe you just didn't notice that having this as a public issue did nothing to take away that licence, in fact making all this public revealed for the whole world what kind of brutal savages we really are, when push comes to shove we are no different from anyone else. Now we have polls showing that the majority of Americans support the use of torture. The next time the terrorists attack they can feel even more justified while you recoil in horror over academic arguments.

 

[Discombobulated]

You and I don't necessarily agree very often, FA_Q2 - but in this thread you're echoing my thoughts in a much more coherent and logical way than I probably could.

We are almost entirely on the same page on this.

Funny coming from someone who's morality appears to be all relative to the circumstance.

 

[Discombobulated]

Leaving it up to the terrorists to determine the moral high ground means they've already won, they've achieved their goals by terrorizing us into being a scared, repressive, less civilized society, one that can allow torture.

For me, there is no moral high ground in regards to this case.

My take is this: should we treat a murderer with more dignity than his victim? Is it fair to treat him with the humanity that he denied his victim(s)? There might be complexities that I may not understand, I freely admit.

Maybe you think we should provide these people with more incentive, a greater sense of injustice, another cause to fight for.

Though I believe they gave us all the incentive on one September morning in 2001. You know the rest. However, accusing me or others of being 'uncivilized animals' who somehow are supporting terrorism undermines your very premise.

No moral high ground for you? I don't think your sense of morality matters when we're talking about practical military considerations.

No. No moral high ground for the interrogators, and in most instances not for the detainees. They are both guilty of deplorable behavior. By the way, how would you know what is 'practical' in the military? Your version of morality is useless also.

The idea is to win, your version of morality is no morality at all.

 

[Discombobulated]

So ... if we apply the '500 ft' technique of interrogation, is that torture?

For those who don't know ... take two enemy combatants to 500 ft in a helicopter ... ask the first one a question ... when he refuses to answer, throw him out of the chopper ... then, ask the second one the same question.

No muss, no fuss ....

Very effective, I knew a Vietnamese police captain who used that one. He did it a little differently though, he'd have them blindfolded, take the helicopter up and then back down to about ten feet off the deck before pushing one out. The other guy would shit his pants and tell everything he knows.

 

[FA_Q2]

Here's my take from the standpoint of military necessity: No one should ever have know that we were torturing people, it should have been a closely guarded secret rather than a subject for public debate.

Why? Why is it better that we torture and keep it secrete than we torture and have to face our own actions.

I find your 'preference' the WORST possibility there is. A government that is not only capable of taking those actions but also not having to face the fact they did. IOW, that is an open license to do as they please.

No, nothing is worse than a government that has that kind of license.

Maybe you just didn't notice that having this as a public issue did nothing to take away that licence, in fact making all this public revealed for the whole world what kind of brutal savages we really are, when push comes to shove we are no different from anyone else. Now we have polls showing that the majority of Americans support the use of torture. The next time the terrorists attack they can feel even more justified while you recoil in horror over academic arguments.

Do you honestly think that we are in the same position now than we would have been in if this had not come out publicly?

it certainly has affected the program. I have no doubt that if this were still in the dark that the program would have expanded much farther than it has. Without public discourse then torture will not change either. It take that 'intellectual' debate to happen in the open FIRST before actual change ever occurs.

 

[JoeB131]

Yes, there was torture, yes, some of it went too far. But in my mind, those who played part in murdering innocents deserved every bit of what they got. For they showed us no mercy, and in turn they should be spared none. Their human rights were forfeit from the moment they ended life for the sake of a twisted belief.

Okay, Templar, what about the guys who were tortured who had nothing to do with 9/11?

Torture is despicable, I realize that. But what I find despicable is this: claiming a group of men and women willingly tortured detainees without ever getting their sides of the story. Saying their work yielded no results whatsoever. This report would fall apart in the courts, on the grounds it refused to let the accused exercise their Sixth Amendment rights to testify. They were not even allowed a chance to defend themselves.

Since no one is going to ever be charged with a crime- from Cheney down to the low-level torturer - it's not a matter of Sixth Amendment rights.

Look, you can leap through all the rhetorical hoops you want to justify torture. But the bottom line is by engaging in it, we lost the moral high ground. And when both sides are seen as equally bad, there's a lot less incentive for those on the sidelines to get involved.

 

[JoeB131]

For me, there is no moral high ground in regards to this case.

My take is this: should we treat a murderer with more dignity than his victim? Is it fair to treat him with the humanity that he denied his victim(s)? There might be complexities that I may not understand, I freely admit.

The only murderers in the case of 9/11 are the guys who died during the attack.

Now, yeah, KSM was probably the 'mastermind', but here's a funny thing. We can't bring him to trial now because all the evidence against him has been tainted by torture.

 

[Discombobulated]

Here's my take from the standpoint of military necessity: No one should ever have know that we were torturing people, it should have been a closely guarded secret rather than a subject for public debate.

Why? Why is it better that we torture and keep it secrete than we torture and have to face our own actions.

I find your 'preference' the WORST possibility there is. A government that is not only capable of taking those actions but also not having to face the fact they did. IOW, that is an open license to do as they please.

No, nothing is worse than a government that has that kind of license.

Maybe you just didn't notice that having this as a public issue did nothing to take away that licence, in fact making all this public revealed for the whole world what kind of brutal savages we really are, when push comes to shove we are no different from anyone else. Now we have polls showing that the majority of Americans support the use of torture. The next time the terrorists attack they can feel even more justified while you recoil in horror over academic arguments.

Do you honestly think that we are in the same position now than we would have been in if this had not come out publicly?

it certainly has affected the program. I have no doubt that if this were still in the dark that the program would have expanded much farther than it has. Without public discourse then torture will not change either. It take that 'intellectual' debate to happen in the open FIRST before actual change ever occurs.

Really? What's changed? Have there been some revisions to the Patriot Act? Does the CIA operate under different laws now? They merely changed a policy, which means they change it again any time they feel like it. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking the recent public disclosures are anything but political and personal. As authors of the Patriot Act McCain and Fienstein are far more concerned about their legacies than they are in public discourse. As their political careers come to a close they want history to remember them for things other than torture.