talkpolitics | Entries tagged with torture

So an audio has now confirmed that WaPo journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured, beheaded and dismembered by 15 Saudi agents. Meanwhile, the fake president has tried to cover it all up or at least wave it off. All to protect his personal Saudi business interests that he isn't even supposet to have in the first place, using the faux justification that he's protecting American jobs and businesses.

But as we have seen in the last couple of days, Trump's supporters have no problems with any of this, they do not care, have no interest in it, or approve of what Trump does - essentially supporting the killing of a journalist at the hands of the Saudis. Trump's own interests are the main reason why the US has not hit the brakes, or condemned and punished Saudi Arabia as they do with countries who've done far less.

The fact is that the GOP has accepted this as the norm, and they do this to appease the folks who helped elect Trump. So they accept it, they support it, and they'd do anything in their power to change the tune and come with excuses for what's happenning.

All for the sake of political expediency.

Remember that, come November.

johnny9fingers

talkpolitics.dreamwidth.org/1992147.html#comments

Kiaa's post raised some points about torture; and I must admit that I've put the cart before the horse. My original thesis in this discussion was that the idea of torture had been normalised first, and then we had allowed ourselves to torture people. A bit like the Mafioso hit-man going to confession for the sins he is about to commit.

However, in light of this information:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/44031774

which cited a Reuters report from 2016:

www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-torture-exclusive-idUSKCN0WW0Y3

I think it is now obvious that torture was first approved by the Bush administration under Cheney, and post-hoc the normalisation of torture was attempted (successfully) through the usual media channels.

The notion that three-quarters of Americans approve of torture whilst claiming to be Christians of one kind or another is one of those particularly delicious ironies. But what is also interesting is I haven't read any real substantial defence of torture from any intellectual right-wing pundits. Which leads me to speculate that the toleration of torture, even more than the toleration of racism, is a private belief but a public shame.

Brexit has apparently allowed some English folk to express a withheld and buried racism. Trump has enabled some American folk to do similar.
When our polities not only allow but encourage our worst traits and excesses, we ought to heed the omens.

But does the panel have any possible arguments in favour of torture? Whether you believe in those arguments or not?

I can start with one: in some circumstances it might just work?

kiaa

Here's something I'm finding increasingly disturbing: The defense of Gina Haspel by justifying her approval of torture as "just doing her job." In the last day or so, I have seen several talking heads on FOX say that she was following the laws of the land and engaging in activities that were approved by the attorney general as "perfectly legal." This, of course, is bullshit. Keep in mind that in Germany during the 1930s, it was legal to discriminate against Jews, stealing from them and even causing them bodily harm. Hell, even the Final Solution was technically "legal" and approved by powerful members of the Nazi government. Does anyone now think that such actions were moral?

Sorry for the Godwin, by the way. I couldn't help myself.

Well, the answer is, it's in no way moral. And neither is waterboarding, or any other form of torture (I refuse to call it "enhanced interrogation techniques". Let's call it what it really is). It doesn't matter how many, or how few, people were subjected to these techniques. Nor does it matter one iota how evil these people may or not have been. To engage in these activities robs us of any kind of moral authority and makes us hypocrites when we criticize other countries for doing what we ourselves are doing. Torture is wrong. Period. And if Haspel approved of using these techniques, then she is no patriot, but a monster who is unfit to serve in public office.

mahnmut.livejournal.com

Sorry Obama, America is just awesome. You hate that? Tough life, Obama!

"The United States of America is awesome. We are awesome, but we've had this discussion" about torture, Tantaros said. She lamented, "the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are;" rather, "this administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we're not awesome." This is because "they apologized for this country, they don't like this country, they want us to look bad. And all this does is have our enemies laughing at us, that we are having this debate again." (source)

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I think Ms Tantaros has done a great job demonstrating her stunning intellect and insight on the peculiarities of international politics. No doubt, it's adjusted and tuned to perfectly match the Fox audience, and the general requirements for the "qualities" that Fox "News" a.k.a. Bullshit Mountain uses to recruit their hosts. I have no doubt she has found many people with whom her message of awesomeness would resonate. Because "It doesn't matter if we torture... cuz we're just awesome!" Take that, Obama!

( And while we're at it... )

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

...Even if your intentions are (allegedly) benevolent: protecting your people, countering extremism, ending terrorism, things like that.

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Looks familiar?

Yeah, we've already heard about the Congress report on CIA's ~~enhanced interrogation~~ (fuck PC) torture. It doesn't tell us anything new, granted. It's just an official acknowledgement of what everyone had already known for quite a while: that the US has committed crimes against humanity and/or war crimes, while pretending to be a valiant defender of freedom and paragon of democracy.

We already knew all that - because secrets of this magnitude tend to leak through sooner or later, and a number of outlets had spread the news a long time ago. Curiously, back then these were declared traitors, criminals. Now, when Congress comes up with basically the same info, the tune has changed a little bit.

( Interesting way to promote democracy, no? )

paft.livejournal.com

From an unsigned editorial in the Wall Street Journal: Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.

The anonymous writers of this piece know perfectly well what they are saying and what they are doing. They are saying that "free-market reform" and a "transition to democracy" sometimes requires the vicious and murderous repression of anyone who openly opposes "free-market reform." They are saying that a leftist like Salvador Allende being legally elected to office does not qualify as "democracy," and warrants a violent overthrow so that "true" democracy -- one where people on the left have no real say or influence -- can flourish.

They are putting this on their editorial page because they know rancid nostalgia for a torturer and killer of leftists and liberals will appeal, not just to the current base Republican "base," but to the influential monied interests determined to hang on to their power in spite of growing popular anger and skepticism.

Pinochet fans on the lower levels, right wing bloggers and their commenters, etc., tend to be fairly direct about what they find appealing in Pinochet. The idea of forcibly removing, not just liberal and leftist politicians, but their liberal and leftist neighbors from the public sphere makes them happy. Hence the emphasis on guns, on changing the political landscape, not through elections and legislation, but by raw, physical force. The apologists for Pinochet on the upper levels, however, often adopt an air of unfocussed euphemism --"Took power amid chaos" for someone blasting his way into power using military force, "midwifed a transition to democracy" for murdering and torturing thousands of citizens.

I'm no mind-reader, so I can't say for certain to what extent these high level Pinochet fans personally embrace the violence of Pinochet's regime. It often seems more a matter of deliberately unfocussing their eyes and carefully looking somewhere other than the blood-spattered walls of the Villa Grimaldi, while congratulating themselves on their own clear-sighted realism. They want what they want, and if they can't get it through suppressing the vote, gerrymandering, or other subversions of democracy, well, sometimes what Jonah Goldberg so elegantly referred to as "dispatching souls" is necessary.

If someone took this comparison literally and decided American needed a Pinochet and they were going to step up to the plate, would the reaction from those high-level Pinochet apologists include an agonized reassessment of their fondness for the Chilean dictator?

Why would it? For all their euphemisms, they know perfectly well what Pinochet did. If they could rationalize what Pinochet did in Chile, and wish for it to happen in Egypt why would they not rationalize some free-market right winger in the military doing it here?

*

dv8nation.livejournal.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/16943268

Canada ordered its intelligence agency to use information that may have been extracted through torture if public safety is at risk, it has emerged.

The directive, obtained by Canadian media through freedom of information laws, was issued in 2010.

It applies only in exceptional cases and does not urge security services to condone or engage in torture, the public safety ministry says.

So basically the Canadian government said "Okay, you can torture people but only if you REALLY need to. Don't be dicks about it, eh?"

This, unsurprisingly, isn't going over so well in the Great White North. As an American my first reaction is "Ha! And here you were looking down your nose at us. Turns out you're really not much better!"

Of course, that's just my knee-jerk reaction driven by a love all Americans share of ripping on filthy, filthy foreigners. American's shameful attitude towards torture in recent years is far worse. But the point I'm trying to make here is that while a lot of countries were right to denounce said policies, the people who live there shouldn't be so quick to assume that their hands are clean. Governments do a lot things behind closed doors and human nature will always trump national attitudes.

Mood: dirty
Location: Icheon, Soth Korea
Music: "Two Steps From Hell" Protectors of the Earth

paft.livejournal.com

Chris Wallace on Fox News:

I’m not asking why it was okay to shoot Osama bin Laden…What I am second-guess is, if that’s okay, why can’t you do waterboarding, why can’t you do enhanced interrogation…

So now the argument is that if we’re going to shoot people, we might as well torture them. Apparently Wallace can’t see the difference between shooting someone in a firefight and systematically torturing a naked, bound prisoner. This moral difference is one that has been recognized for decades in the civilized world – people who waterboarded captured combatants in the past have been tried and convicted for it -- but apparently it’s lost on him.

This is why some of us have reservations about targeted assassinations without trials, even targeted assassinations against someone like bin Laden. It’s not because we feel sorry for bin Laden. It’s because of people like Wallace. Give them in inch in that direction, and they'll clamor for a mile the next day. Remove one human rights barrier, and it doesn’t matter how many assurances you get about it only being this once, about it only being done in very specific circumstances, about it never, EVER being abused… A day later the Chris Wallaces of the world will point to where the barrier once stood, assert out there's no barrier anymore, and ask why we all don't go just a little further.

Honest. Just this once! Just a few inches! Cross their hearts and hope to die...

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

tniassaint.livejournal.com

The argument over torture has two sides ( and I do not mean left and "right" - but that's coming).

( Cut for length and for those who have interest )

Mood: amused
Music: Nothing at the moment

malasadas.livejournal.com

Amid all of the reactions to Osama bin Laden's death, there has been a full range from laudatory of the administration to denial that the administration deserves credit to brand new conspiracy theories about the whole thing being faked.

We will almost certainly not know the full story of how this location was found in this administration's tenure -- and probably not for some time to come. Given that the chain of intelligence is probably legitimately sensitive that makes sense, but as the rough story comes out, the narrative strongly suggests that the leads go all the way back to the Bush administration under whose watch intelligence sources learned about bin Laden's couriers from detainees.

The question I have not heard discussed much (although an interview with the CIA's former Osama bin Laden division head on NPR this morning directly addressed it) is whether or not "enhanced interrogation" of detainees can be credited with the intelligence that finally landed that Navy SEAl team on top of him.

I've understood three arguments against the Bush administration's interrogation program that I have largely agreed with:

1) Legality: "Enhanced interrogation" includes techniques that have historically been defined as torture and we have international obligations to not torture. All of the legalistic pretzeling about whether or not it matters that someone is in an official uniform or John Yoo's attempts to redefine the word don't change that techniques we know were used on detainees meet broadly accepted definitions of torture and the rule of law matters.

2) Morality: Our authority as the "good guys" is severely diminished by torture. Think about the nature of the company we keep internationally with regimes that routinely torture and I think it is not remotely a stretch to say that ends do not justify means if you believe that your nation is actually good and should meet a good standard.

3) Practicality: Jack Bauer fantasies aside, there is rarely a ticking bomb that is found via brtualizing a prisoner. Moreover, a lot of perspectives on torture state that torture is best at extracting not true information but desired responses that make the torturer stop. There is a reason why the USSR and Maoist China routinely tortured people into signing statements "confessing" to "crimes against the revolution."

So for discussion: If the chain of information that was eventually followed to Osama bin Laden's hiding place began with a prisoner who was tortured (or "interrogated in an enhanced manner" if you prefer) does that change anything regarding how we evaluate the policies of President Bush?

badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com

First:

Earlier this month, guards began demanding that he strip off all his clothes at night. Defense officials have suggested that the measure was needed to keep Manning from attempting suicide. But Manning’s official complaint notes that Navy psychiatrists who have examined him don’t believe he’s a suicide risk.

“I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards,” the president answered. “They assured me that they are.”

Second:

Two West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensaries were raided Tuesday afternoon. One arrest was made, according to City News Service.

Federal agents along with Los Angeles Police Department officers and West Hollywood sheriff's deputies raided Alternative Herbal Health Services and Zen Healing Collective on Santa Monica Boulevard around 2:10 p.m., the Los Angeles Times reported.

I'm definitely not pro-Obama, but on issues of prisoner treatment (I'm not one who automatically says "yup, we tortured," but I'm definitely in the "treat your prisoners as you want your prisoners to be treated" camp) and on ending these dispensary raids, I wasn't going to complain in the least. Meanwhile, as the military effectively breaks down Manning mentally, and as the DEA continues to assert its own will on legal products in California, the question has to be asked at this point what Obama's getting at.

How is this impacting your view of Obama? Especially if you were one of those who voted for him based on his views on torture as opposed to Bush, where are you going to end up in 18 months when its time to pull the lever?

green-man-2010.livejournal.com

Ok, Go George Bush says he thinks torture is ok sometimes. He even says it saved Britain and America from further terrorist attacks. But is it true, I ask myself? ( Read more... )

mijopo.livejournal.com

Apparently GWB's memoirs include an acknowledgement that he okayed torture and attempts to justify it by claiming that it saves lives, British lives in particular. It also appears that the British are taking some exception to that claim. Setting aside the intriguing question of whether he's acknowledging war crimes, this points to something that's always bothered me about the torture debate, i.e., the fact that so much of it seems to hinge on the question of whether or not it's effective. Imagine someone proposing, oh, i don't know, something crazy like having poor people eat their children and trying to demonstrate that that would bring down poverty rates and/or dependence on government welfare programs. Surely, we'd reject the argument as absurd, not because we're skeptical about whether or not it would actually bring down poverty rates or welfare dependence, but because the proposed solution is an affront to human decency and a violation of fundamental human rights.

x-posted to my LJ

underlankers.livejournal.com

( cut for length )
_________________________________________________________

While I'm the resident Europhobe on the Community, I will have to say there is something shameful about the unwillingness of our country to enforce on our own the same standards we say the rest of the world should follow. Terrorism is not something the United States can destroy by military means. Any attempt to do so is doomed to fail. And of course I have nothing but admiration for officials actually willing to prosecute wrongdoing done on their soil.

Things like this are a threat to international law for obvious reasons, because it lays a dangerous precedent that could one day bite the United States hard in the ass. They are also a threat to the body politic for in the United States when people used to these methods return to US soil they will have less scruples about using them and this will in turn pose a deep risk for those unfortunate enough to run across them. To me this also raises another point about the risk of setting precedents at things like the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials only to shamelessly break the very ones already established. But hypocrisy on the part of the strong to the weak is a regrettably ancient tendency among states as a whole. >.< That said this is one thing that I feel as a US citizen shame for because it shows how hollow our promises of the last eight years were. If this be the democracy and freedom we bring elsewhere, how then are we surprised other people are too unwilling to accept these "gifts?".

sophia-sadek.livejournal.com

Here is a Rachel Maddow segment on a document that is to be released tomorrow (at least partially released, partially redacted).

I know it seems rather lame to say that threatening someone with a gun or a power drill constitutes torture, but it can be a harrowing experience. The thing I find quite interesting is the obstruction of justice issue on the part of the CIA. The organization seems to cost our nation more than it gains us.

BTW, I like the line of traffic off of Isikoff's right shoulder. It brings back memories of Manhattan.

rumorsofwar.livejournal.com

You've got to hand it to conservative shock jock Mancow. He's got the balls to put his money where his mouth is, unlike a certain squealy-voiced loud-mouth to whom I will anonymously refer as "Inannity".

Basically Mancow just volunteered to be waterboarded, because, hey, it's not like it's torture or anything! How long would you guess he lasted? A minute? Thirty seconds? Fourteen seconds? Try six seconds. It took him a tenth of a minute to leap up and declare that it was torture.

Video of the incident and Mancow's own admission that waterboarding is, in fact, torture behind the cut:

( Video is NSFW because, you know, it's torture )

Source article: http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/conservative-radio-hosts-waterboarded/

rumorsofwar.livejournal.com

This is one of those rare instances where I am so disgusted that I can't even express it.

Think Progress reports: Gitmo Detainee's "Genitals Were Sliced With A Scalpel," Waterboarding "Far Down The List Of Things They Did".

Is this the American/British way? Is this the freedom we're supposed to be offering the fledgling democracies of the Middle East?

If these accusations are shown to be true, is there anyone in this community willing to defend it? Any armchair Jack Bauers out there?

And where is my liberal media when I need it? This article is from the beginning of February and no major cable news channel that I've seen has even acknowledged its existence.

The ugliness of the Bush/Cheney years still stains our countries today and for the most part I don't think that the American or British people have learned from this.

Mood: cold

underlankers.livejournal.com

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/president-oba-5.html

^Um....Nixon burglarized an office building and is forced to resign. People violate the Geneva Convention under the Dubya and are let off scot-free?

The Changer-in-chief becomes the Liar-in-chief once again....

mijopo.livejournal.com

In his Friday column, see also this earlier post, Charles Krauthammer argues that people who "believe you never torture ... are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances" and that "you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation". That's an interesting and important claim, i.e., that torture and pacifism are in important respects morally equivalent positions worthy of some sort of grudging respect, but also a pathology of sorts for which we must vet our nation's defenders.

One can understand why that might be a seductive argument. Like the pacificist, the torture opponent is taking a principled and absolutist position against violence of a certain kind, contending that there are no situations in which it's acceptable even when the safety of fellow citizens and loved ones is at stake. But there is a key difference between pacifism and blanket opposition to torture. The pacifist is arguing against violence in situations even in which one is being directly attacked, that's what makes their absolutism remarkable. But torture is not being practiced on agents that are attacking, it's being practiced on agents that are already captive, that are in no position to make attacks.

Pacifism argues that it's not okay to take an action an agent even when being directly attacked by that agent, but opposing torture differs in kind because torture is never defense, it's always offense, always doing more than what needs to be done to prevent attack.

But, aren't I missing Krauthammer's point? Isn't he arguing that torture is okay only if being done defensively to prevent an attack? I think not. There's an important difference between performing violence in anticipation of an attack and performing violence insofar as its necessary to stop that attacker from carrying out his/her violent intents. The pacifist position, taken to its extremes, is arguing against using violence to defend oneself against direct attack, the torture opponent is making a far less radical claim, contending only that it's never acceptable to perform violence against a person that is personally incapable of further attack.

a version x-posted to my journal.

underlankers.livejournal.com

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/01/shifts/

That treacherous Manchurian candidate Ronald Reagan and his Un-American record of supporting a ban on torture. The little pinko Commie, with his ideas of never torturing anyone, why Reagan must have been a Commie in disguise!

Ronald Reagan: Soft On Torture. Ronald Reagan: A hater of America and a servile toady of the Soviet Union!

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with torture

Our good friends, the murderers

As a follow-on from kiaa's post of 13/05

There's no justification for this. Period.

Slogan of the month: "America is awesome!"

Doing evil does not make you good...

Pinochet Nostalgia

Canada: The Closet Jack Bower

Chris Wallace Shows Us All that Slippery Slope

A short and incomplete discussion on a euphemism

The 900 Pound Gorilla in the Room

Not Obama's Best Week

Security - how far should we allow interrogators to go?

bush and torture

Speaking of Democratic hypocrisy:

Breaking news on torture issue.

It's absolutely torture

Beyond Waterboarding

Hope and Change....yah, right.

Pacifism like opposing torture?

As penance for the last post: Why does Ronald Reagan hate America?

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June 2025

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