CIA Reports To Torture or Not.

[The Feral Slasher]

Just look at the statistics of people killed by drones! 41 men targetted, 1,147 killed by drones... That's lunacy! This is our face in places like Pakistan, not just the face we show to terrorists, but the face we show to citizens. Killing 30 innocent people for every 1 terrorist is acceptable to us. Let's not pretend we weren't already rolling in the muck. We're choking on it now.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...ikes-kill-1147

If we killed 300 or 3000 innocent people for every terrorist I think most Americans would still support it or basically ignore it like we do now. Hard to envision this war ever ending.

[The Feral Slasher]

In one of your articles it mentioned that 119 people were detained and tortured. Horrible. It stated that 26 were innocent. Beyond horrible. What of the other 93? Did they get the information needed to prevent more attacks and save innocent lives? Still horrible. Did it work? How many lives were saved?
.

Torture has had it's 15 minutes of fame, but for anyone interested, these articles discuss the "torture saves lives" theory. As the CIA noted when they didn't want us to release the torture report summary, the United States use of torture actually creates more enemies and likely results in more death and continuing war. Hard to believe, but our use of torture might actually piss off some Muslims, go figure.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/09/369646177/torture-report-did-harsh-interrogations-help-catch-osama-bin-laden

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/04/20/torture-doesnt-work.html

As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse.

[Kevin Seitzer]

So make no mistake, I am not supporting the actions of torture.Is it ever necessary? Should it be the absolute last resort in a time sensitive defense? While I cannot barely read about acts of torture, could I imagine some instances where as terrible as it is to say, probably.

In one of your articles it mentioned that 119 people were detained and tortured. Horrible. It stated that 26 were innocent. Beyond horrible. What of the other 93? Did they get the information needed to prevent more attacks and save innocent lives? Still horrible. Did it work? How many lives were saved?

The sad fact is that no, no information was gathered to prevent more attacks. No, it did not work, and lives were not saved. It was done for the sake of revenge and cruelty and sadism alone.

And it has back-fired on us and cost us in our standing in the world on human rights, which certainly wasn't perfect pre-Bush/Cheney but was a far sight better than it is now, and in our ability to insist on humane treatment for own troops and the troops of our allies when they are captured.

So even if you want to ignore morality (which troubles me deeply that so many Christians are so quick to want to do), in the purely pragmatic sense it was a disaster, too.

[The Feral Slasher]

The sad fact is that no, no information was gathered to prevent more attacks. No, it did not work, and lives were not saved. It was done for the sake of revenge and cruelty and sadism alone.

And it has back-fired on us and cost us in our standing in the world on human rights, which certainly wasn't perfect pre-Bush/Cheney but was a far sight better than it is now, and in our ability to insist on humane treatment for own troops and the troops of our allies when they are captured.

So even if you want to ignore morality (which troubles me deeply that so many Christians are so quick to want to do), in the purely pragmatic sense it was a disaster, too.

thanks for posting, it is nice to see one of the respected members of the RJ community denounce our use of torture, not just us "complainers and saber-rattlers"

[The Feral Slasher]

Been a while since we talked about torture. Shameful that no one was ever held accountable.

https://foreverwars.substack.com/p/i-was-raped-by-the-cia-medics-says