SENATE TORTURE REPORT

[HairOfTheDog]

Isn't torture just another form of terrorism?

It depends on who's doing the defining and where they're sitting. For me, personally, torture isn't always terrorism.

For example, if I was a security commander and had solid proof that a specific person had planted fatal gases to be automatically released in 3 hours somewhere in San Francisco, I might authorize the infliction of physical pain onto that specific person in attempt to get the location IF all else had failed and I was running outta time. Historical evidence seems to indicate that my last-ditch violence/torture strategy likely wouldn't work, but if there was nothing else left and it meant certain death for others if the source couldn't be cracked, I might go there and I wouldn't consider myself a terrorist.

I wouldn't, however, authorize such techniques in anticipation of potential future acts or as payback for past acts -- I'd only do so in attempt to prevent certain immediate death of innocents.

Still, some people could argue that I was indeed a terrorist once I authorized the use of torture/violence under any circumstances, regardless of my motivation.

And, I acknowledge that some people/groups that I consider "terrorists" probably use torture in attempt to achieve goals which they feel benefit the lives of others. Those people and groups could argue that I was a hypocrite (though most of them, in my view, are just evil entities who use torture to gain power, political standing, or money).

Basically, I think the answer to your question is highly subjective.

[crash]

It depends on who's doing the defining...

(though most, in my view, are just evil entities who use torture to gain power, political standing, or money)...

is highly subjective.

Yep.

[Duchess]

I love my country & I'm proud to be American but some of the stuff in that report is just so sucky and some of it sounds like it was carried out by the inept. It looked like the keystone cops were in charge

I feel the need to defend George Bush. Oh God.

[crash]

It's the biggest problem with conflict of this scale; I'm not sure there is a right and wrong or it's just all wrong. It's definitely not alright.

America has a lot to be proud of for being the police of the world for so long, and maintaining a reasonably fair and just global community. And some things not to be proud of as well, but were probably necessary to keep things on a steady course as a whole.

I read this on a rock or a plaque or a wall somewhere once "Whilst ever we have humans we will have greed and whilst ever we have greed we will have war". I think you can change that 'greed' to differences or a few other words and that statement will still ring true. Conflict will never desert this planet whilst ever there are people walking around on it.

So when we have this conflict, is it better to sit back and watch the other side carry on with heinous tactics whilst we play fair just to claim the moral high ground? I don't know, like HotD says, it's highly subjective and a huge grey area. There just is no easy answer.

What I do think though, is if we look from a neutral viewpoint, if both sides are playing the same tactics, how can one side claim to be any better than the other? How is cutting the head of a journalist on camera any worse than shoving food up somebody's ass until they are haunted for the rest of their life or die of toxic shock? The terms 'Terrorist' and 'War on terror' and all that other stuff then just become propaganda to keep our side hating, and the appropriation of funds for the good fight easier to come by.

[Duchess]

It's all Dick Cheney's fault.

[Cutz]

Let's nuke Australia.

Who would miss it? Nobody... that's who.

[crash]

How would you even find it? I'd hate to be living in Austria if that's the plan..

[Cutz]

Finding it is easy. All the nukes have Garmin. You just type in "Prison Island" into the search box and it's straight to Final Destination. (One nuke might aim for Alcatraz instead, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.)

[crash]

Goodbye Guantanamo Bay then. It's a lot closer than here.

[Cutz]

Bonus. Gitmo is less a prison and more a circle of hell tho

[HairOfTheDog]

Let's nuke Australia.

Who would miss it? Nobody... that's who.

You remind me of Dick Cheney, except his chin is a little cleaner. And, he's more strategic and a much better aim.

Before you accidentally waste nukes on an abandoned prison island in the Bay or a soon-to-be abandoned prison island in another Bay, Cutz, you might consider some terrorist 101 mentoring from Cheney.

Fly with Dick to some great hunting site; some point-blank, in-air face time with the man could literally blow your mind.

[HairOfTheDog]

CIA Director John Brennan defended his agency's actions after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and said while it is "unknowable" whether the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects provided useful information, the agency did not mislead the Bush White House about its activities.

Brennan's comments, at a rare news conference today, come two days after the Senate Intelligence Committee released the executive summary of its report on the agency's interrogation practices.

The report's two main assertions – that the CIA misled the Bush White House about its methods, and that techniques did not yield any useful information – have both been disputed heavily by both former CIA officials as well as former officials of President George W. Bush's administration.

Brennan said he found the process by which the Senate committee arrived at its report "flawed," but that many of its conclusions were "sound and consistent with our own findings." He said the agency was authorized by Bush, in the wake of Sept. 11, to come up with ways to keep the country safer.

It was "was unchartered territory for the CIA," he said, "and we were not prepared." The CIA chief said though some of the agency's actions were abhorrent and unauthorized, the CIA "did a lot of right things" at a time there were "no easy answers."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate panel that released the report, live tweeted during Brennan's news conference. (Tweets with article link below)

But the agency has its defenders.

Bush told CNN over the weekend, that while he hadn't read the report, the CIA has "good people, really good people and we're lucky as a nation to have them." Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News that "the report is full of crap."

John Rizzo, the agency's former general counsel, told NPR that abuses, when discovered, were reported, adding he had no doubt the program yielded results. Similarly, John McLaughlin. a former deputy director of the agency, told NPR the report was "off-base." Former CIA directors and deputy directors rebutted the report in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014...report-xxx
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I miss George Carlin.

He did some great bits about the PC diluting of words and phrases.

He would have loved Enhanced Interrogation Techniques = EITs (translation: torture treatment).

[cannongal]

They tried to get the elf to talk.....

[Duchess]

Hahaha!

I've heard of The Elf On The Shelf of course but I didn't know until yesterday that it was his job to report to Santa on the behavior of children. I read an article by a Professor yesterday who dissed that elf in a major way. She said that parents who have this elf in their home are teaching children that it's okay to have others spy on you and you're not entitled to privacy. Seriously.

What is troubling is what The Elf on the Shelf represents and normalizes: anecdotal evidence reveals that children perform an identity that is not only for caretakers, but for an external authority (The Elf on the Shelf), similar to the dynamic between citizen and authority in the context of the surveillance state.

Further to this, The Elf on the Shelf website offers teacher resources, integrating into both home and school not only the brand but also tacit acceptance of being monitored and always being on one's best behavior — without question. "You're teaching [children] a bigger lesson, which is that it's OK for other people to spy on you and you're not entitled to privacy," she summarized.

Story

[Midwest Spy]

We've had the Elf for a couple of years now.

We don't use him as some sort of spy, however. We put him in a different spot every night and the kids love waking up and searching him out.

People sure get their pants in a wad over the silliest shit.

[Duchess]

People sure get their pants in a wad over the silliest shit.

I could hardly believe that this person would take an innocent, children's type toy and read all of that into it. At first I laughed but now I don't think it's all that funny at all.