CIA Report

[CountDeMoney]

Whether it's "partisan" or not, the fact of the matter is that the CIA was lying to political leadership, whether it was an Administration that didn't care or a Senate committee with its head in the sand.

And contrary to Martinus's opinion that the whole place is full of sociopaths, there were several examples of CIA personnel looking to its own leadership for guidance--including the crew in Thailand, that found it to be so reprehensible they tried to get out. 

[Capetan Mihali]

"Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant." -- some universally renowned American statesman of the Victorian era, probably a Supreme Court justice and maybe the same one who came up with the "laboratory of democracy" line about the states.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Not really.  Otto speaks as though "states" were more than legal fictions.  Of course "states" are immoral, but "states" don't torture people.  Only people torture people, and when they do so, the appropriate legal authorities should punish them.  The people who directed and carried out torture didn't think that the torture was going to be carried out by some impersonal and amoral state; they knew exactly which individuals were going to torture exactly which victims.

I'm not sure "legal fiction" makes much sense, they're a "legal construct", but fiction implies an ephemeral nature that I think doesn't apply to entities that possess as much force monopoly and real world power as your typical State.

I don't know that they knew "exactly which individuals", unless you're talking about a lower rung of management. I doubt Bush/Cheney knew which contractor or which agent was pouring the water, only that it was going to be done, but I also think they "knew" in a way that avoids direct linkages through any typical chain of command.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I share a lot of Otto's basic objections to the report - I think it is about 94% political theater of the worst kind.

But the idea that you can cloak the actions of the "state" behind some "amoral" fiction is ridiculous. People act on the behest of the state, which in turn is acting at the behest of and in the interests of the citizens it represents. It is not just "amoral" to claim that the state can be "amoral", it is downright, IMO, evil. And I mean that in a very practical manner, much more so than I mean it in a theoretical manner. It is that kind of thinking, that the actions of people on the behest of the state cannot be wrong that leads to the most horrific of human behaviors.

Let's make it clear--I'm fine with prosecuting people who do illegal things. Torture is illegal. I'm just saying they won't be prosecuted, and we've known that since 2009. We've also known all the "material information" we need to know about this to have already come to a moral judgment of these individuals as well (thus why I say the report may have filled in some blanks but didn't show us anything that changed the fundamental understanding of what happened), which is why I say this report is ill advised.

I'm also not defending the immorality of States, just commenting on it. I don't believe States will ever be moral actors for lots of reasons. But I'm not a Statist per se, I advocate for strong government because I think any conglomeration of humans is little more than a barbarian horde and need to be controlled and ordered, but I view the state as a necessary evil. Where I split with libertarians is I feel once you've signed on for all the benefits you get from said necessary evil, I think you need to go all the way and make the State robust/strong, not indolent and weak.

[OttoVonBismarck]

What is it that makes it so bad? That there will be few concrete results in terms of prosecution etc? That the people involved are in bringing this forward are in you opinion likely to be motivated by political concerns?

If I may--it's because we already essentially knew all of this. All that releasing this report does is stir up more problems with our allies because it puts it back in the press. It's very similar to the NSA metadata collection in that regard. We already knew we waterboarded people. We already knew that we used "stress positions" and loud music and sleep deprivation. Are there a few new details that came out? Sure. But those other things were torture and we have known since 2008 for a fact that we had tortured people. Bush put an end to the program initially because word was getting out. Holder investigated it in 2009. Movies have actually been made based on CIA types who have leaked information and film makers ran with it. This report isn't telling us something materially new.

Even the concept of CIA black sites and secret prisons in NATO ally territory has also been known for a long time. This Senate report thus digs up something we already knew, had already decided we would not act on, and in a way that hurts our relationship with close allies.

To me, there's a fundamental clash of values here, and significant wrongdoing that otherwise seemed destined to be left untouched. Bringing it into the political limelight is exactly what the political process is supposed to do (or one of the things it's supposed to do). It may be political theatre, but IMO it's of a vital kind.

I'd agree if this was the first we heard about this, but this had all already been called wrong, deemed illegal, and been in the limelight and press before--and our Attorney General made it known no one would ever be punished for it. Dredging it up again is just troublemaking.

Is torture in the name of the American people okay or not okay?

Legally it's been established it's not okay, and the program was cancelled the first time outcry started over it. It was then later reviewed by a new Administration, which caused it to be in the press again. This is arguably the third time we've gone to the well on this one.

[Berkut]

I think it is about 94% political theater of the worst kind

What is it that makes it so bad? That there will be few concrete results in terms of prosecution etc? That the people involved are in bringing this forward are in you opinion likely to be motivated by political concerns?

To me, there's a fundamental clash of values here, and significant wrongdoing that otherwise seemed destined to be left untouched. Bringing it into the political limelight is exactly what the political process is supposed to do (or one of the things it's supposed to do). It may be political theatre, but IMO it's of a vital kind.

Is torture in the name of the American people okay or not okay?

It is bad because it serves no purpose - there isn't anything here that wasn't already known, and it is clear that the intent is not to illuminate but rather to exaggerate, and it has worked very well.

The report has no nuance to it, no attempt at balance, no effort to even really understand what ACTUALLY happened and why. It is just there to make the targets look as bad as possible. It isn't objective or balanced.

I mean, not only did the US torture people, they apparently did it for no reason at all, because none of it worked, and everyone knew it didn't work, and yet they did it anyway. Apparently because they are all EVIL.

That is just to stupid it doesn't pass even a basic sniff test.

Of course torture is not ok, but we knew that a month ago, didn't we?

My objection to bullshit like this is that is subsittute political theater for actual reform, or even attempting to understand why people do the things they do, and why they make the mistakes they make. It isn't emotionally satisfying enough to say that people made bad decisions for good reasons, or that enhanced interrogation is effective sometimes, and deciding where to draw the line between what works and what our conscience allows is hard, so we just go with the "Hey, all these people are like Hitler! We don't need to understand anything, they were EVIL!".

The reality is, as always, much more nuanced than that, and what bothers me is that the reality is much more dangerous than this simplistic idea that apparently the US engaged in torture because a bunch of sadists all decided it would be fun. Because what that really means is that it lets us disconnect from the perpetrators - WE are not grotesquely evil people, so in 20 years when someone is trying to make hard choices again, will they even look at this if this narrative sticks? It won't be the same thing at all - these hypothetical future people won't be sadists looking to get their jollies off, they will be consciencious human beings put in hard spots and asked to make difficult decisions about ethics, morality, and the law. And if this kind of idiotic narrative takes root, they would (and should) simply dismiss anything learned, because what does the actions of a bunch of sadists and psychopaths have to do with THEM?

Of course, it has everything to do with them, because these actions and decisions taken in the decades after 9/11 were not made by crazy assholes who are evil people who like to torture for its own sake. They are people in tough situations being asked to make tough decisions and they made some really, really bad ones. But exaggerating it, demonizing them, painting the entire thing as this black and white good vs evil where evil won, just makes the entire thing largely meaningless, except as a means to make everyone justly outraged at the evil of Americans and their allies.

IMO, the entire thing is at the same time not nearly as bad as the reporting and reports like this make it out to be (in that it was not by any means some crazy psycopath assholes getting their rocks off torturing people for no discernible reason) and actually much more concerning (in that the road to hell truly is paved with the best of intentions, and the people who made terrible errors here did so almost certainly for what they thought at the time were the best of reasons), and that is a lot more dangerous than the crazy asshole psychopath narrative being embraced.

[The Minsky Moment]

Of course, it has everything to do with them, because these actions and decisions taken in the decades after 9/11 were not made by crazy assholes who are evil people who like to torture for its own sake. They are people in tough situations being asked to make tough decisions and they made some really, really bad ones.

"tough situations" might be some kind of excuse for the line CIA guys who got "carried away".  Maybe.  But it doesn't excuse the DC desk jockeys who authorized them to act and gave them the legal cover.  Those guys didn't have tough decisions to make.  All he had to do was their job - uphold the constitution and carry out the law of the United States.  Whether what they did is "evil" or not I don't care  - leave that to the theologians.  But what they did is fully deserving of all the opprobrium that has been heaped on them and more.

[grumbler]

It is bad because it serves no purpose - there isn't anything here that wasn't already known, and it is clear that the intent is not to illuminate but rather to exaggerate, and it has worked very well.

The report has no nuance to it, no attempt at balance, no effort to even really understand what ACTUALLY happened and why. It is just there to make the targets look as bad as possible. It isn't objective or balanced.

I mean, not only did the US torture people, they apparently did it for no reason at all, because none of it worked, and everyone knew it didn't work, and yet they did it anyway. Apparently because they are all EVIL.

That is just to stupid it doesn't pass even a basic sniff test.

It is interesting that you respond to the report using exactly the kind of reasoning you criticize in the report! 

My objection to bullshit like this is that is subsittute political theater for actual reform, or even attempting to understand why people do the things they do, and why they make the mistakes they make. It isn't emotionally satisfying enough to say that people made bad decisions for good reasons, or that enhanced interrogation is effective sometimes, and deciding where to draw the line between what works and what our conscience allows is hard, so we just go with the "Hey, all these people are like Hitler! We don't need to understand anything, they were EVIL!".

The report doesn't say that anyone was like Hitler, and doesn't use the word evil (let alone EVIL!).

(skipped a bunch of strawman arguments).

The report has problems, of course.  Among them is the fact that the republicans on the committee refused to participate in its preparation, and so it ended up being a pretty-much-Democrat-only report.  I can live with that.  While I think that we "knew" in the past that torture had been carried out, because individuals reported it, I am not aware of any official document from a US government agency or actor that laid out the details like this report does.  We "knew" Nixon was guilty of a criminal conspiracy to cover up Watergate long before he resigned, but he didn't resign until that knowledge became official.  That's the difference here, too: we knew, but now we officially know.

[Malthus]

I think it is about 94% political theater of the worst kind

What is it that makes it so bad? That there will be few concrete results in terms of prosecution etc? That the people involved are in bringing this forward are in you opinion likely to be motivated by political concerns?

To me, there's a fundamental clash of values here, and significant wrongdoing that otherwise seemed destined to be left untouched. Bringing it into the political limelight is exactly what the political process is supposed to do (or one of the things it's supposed to do). It may be political theatre, but IMO it's of a vital kind.

Is torture in the name of the American people okay or not okay?

It is bad because it serves no purpose - there isn't anything here that wasn't already known, and it is clear that the intent is not to illuminate but rather to exaggerate, and it has worked very well.

The report has no nuance to it, no attempt at balance, no effort to even really understand what ACTUALLY happened and why. It is just there to make the targets look as bad as possible. It isn't objective or balanced.

I mean, not only did the US torture people, they apparently did it for no reason at all, because none of it worked, and everyone knew it didn't work, and yet they did it anyway. Apparently because they are all EVIL.

That is just to stupid it doesn't pass even a basic sniff test.

Of course torture is not ok, but we knew that a month ago, didn't we?

My objection to bullshit like this is that is subsittute political theater for actual reform, or even attempting to understand why people do the things they do, and why they make the mistakes they make. It isn't emotionally satisfying enough to say that people made bad decisions for good reasons, or that enhanced interrogation is effective sometimes, and deciding where to draw the line between what works and what our conscience allows is hard, so we just go with the "Hey, all these people are like Hitler! We don't need to understand anything, they were EVIL!".

The reality is, as always, much more nuanced than that, and what bothers me is that the reality is much more dangerous than this simplistic idea that apparently the US engaged in torture because a bunch of sadists all decided it would be fun. Because what that really means is that it lets us disconnect from the perpetrators - WE are not grotesquely evil people, so in 20 years when someone is trying to make hard choices again, will they even look at this if this narrative sticks? It won't be the same thing at all - these hypothetical future people won't be sadists looking to get their jollies off, they will be consciencious human beings put in hard spots and asked to make difficult decisions about ethics, morality, and the law. And if this kind of idiotic narrative takes root, they would (and should) simply dismiss anything learned, because what does the actions of a bunch of sadists and psychopaths have to do with THEM?

Of course, it has everything to do with them, because these actions and decisions taken in the decades after 9/11 were not made by crazy assholes who are evil people who like to torture for its own sake. They are people in tough situations being asked to make tough decisions and they made some really, really bad ones. But exaggerating it, demonizing them, painting the entire thing as this black and white good vs evil where evil won, just makes the entire thing largely meaningless, except as a means to make everyone justly outraged at the evil of Americans and their allies.

IMO, the entire thing is at the same time not nearly as bad as the reporting and reports like this make it out to be (in that it was not by any means some crazy psycopath assholes getting their rocks off torturing people for no discernible reason) and actually much more concerning (in that the road to hell truly is paved with the best of intentions, and the people who made terrible errors here did so almost certainly for what they thought at the time were the best of reasons), and that is a lot more dangerous than the crazy asshole psychopath narrative being embraced.

I don't agree with the argument from incredulity here. There are lots of reasons for organizations to become so dysfunctional they do stuff that is morally wrong that is not even, in a balance of interests sort of way, for their own benefit - there are numerous examples. In fact, it may even be typical of organizations that are reacting to a perceived shocking outrage with fear and paranoia. The 20th century was rife with this stuff - from the Nazis (much of what they did made no sense from a purely self-interested POV - they gained exactly nothing from the Holocaust) through Communists (Stalin's purges nearly destroyed the Red Army) through Americans (McCarthyism did America much harm and no good).   

[OttoVonBismarck]

They gained a reduction in Jews.

[The Brain]

They gained immortality.

[The Minsky Moment]

If a man were measured solely by the sheer brassiness of his balls, Dick Cheney would be the winner.

[CountDeMoney]

If a man were measured solely by the sheer brassiness of his balls, Dick Cheney would be the winner.

No kidding.  The man is a throwback to a different era.  Let's hear it for Wyoming grads.



Meanwhile, the Balls of Light will either be 1) disappointed or 2) not surprised:

Poll: Almost half say torture sometimes needed
By Lucy McCalmont
Politico
12/15/14 8:34 AM EST

Nearly seven in 10 Americans consider waterboarding torture, but nearly half also believe that such tactics are sometimes necessary in interrogation, according to a new poll.

Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed said the tactic is torture, according to a CBS poll released Monday on the heels of the controversial Senate report detailing the CIA interrogation program that took place under the Bush administration from 2002 until it ended in 2009.

Despite criticism of some of the tactics described in the report, 49 percent said such tactics are sometimes justified — a number that has increased in recent years, the outlet said — and 57 percent said they believe it leads to information to prevent terrorist attacks.

Thirty-seven percent said such tactics are never justified.

The CBS News poll was conducted by telephone Dec. 11-14 and surveyed 1,003 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[Martinus]

Skinny Puppy demands $666,000 in royalties from U.S. government for using their music in Guantanamo torture


Skinny Puppy @ Best Buy Theatre, 12/2/2014 (more by Greg Cristman)

Canadian industrial band Skinny Puppy have invoiced the U.S. government $666,000 in royalties after learning their music was used as a torture device at Guantánamo Bay:

Cevin Key, the band's keyboardist, says the band at first planned to design an album cover based on an invoice for the U.S. government, rather than sending a physical invoice. But after learning that the government had allegedly used their music without permission, Key says the band was told it could bring a suit against the Department of Defense.

"We sent them an invoice for our musical services considering they had gone ahead and used our music without our knowledge and used it as an actual weapon against somebody," Key told CTV's Kevin Newman Live.

And Key said band members were "offended" to learn that their music was played in the notorious prison to "inflict damage" on detainees.

"I wouldn't want to be subjected to any overly loud music for six to 12 hours at a time without a break," he said.

Key says a former Guantanamo Bay guard and fan of the band contacted the musicians to let them know their music was being used at the detention centre. - [CTV]
Other music reportedly used in Guantánamo Bay as torture include works by Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Queen, Eminem and, apparently, David Gray. Skinny Puppy were just in NYC on tour with fellow Canadian industrialists Front Line Assembly.

Surprised the list does not include Shitgoat.

[Martinus]

They gained a reduction in Jews.

And yet no report on Holocaust gives Nazis the credit for that. Berkut would be disappointed at such glaring lack of objectivity.