It's not about revenge, its about obtaining information in order to save lives. And sleep deprivation is not torture if it saves lives.
It's difficult to see how the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence could render such sweeping indictments of the agency and the EITs without ever having interviewed a single agent, or any past or current officers in NSA, DIA, FBI or considered evidence form Bush administration NSC members. Seems to me the SSC went into the effort of writing a report with preconceived notions and didn't want any facts getting in the way of a good rant.If you read the report, you will see that these method don't even work all the time. The FBI interrogations proved to be more succesful than the CIA's method, at least in the case of Abu Zabaydu, who was subjected to waterboarding, nakedness, sleep depravation, and other tactics that I prefer not to mention with much detail. Only to later come to the conclusion that he didn't even have the information he was interrogated about.
Any session you can walk away from isn't torture, and countless agents, administration officials and military personnel have affirmed the information we got prevented at least a dozen, and probably more, subsequent mass attacks on U.S. soil or on U.S. territory or property overseas, not to mention preventing attacks in Britain and the Mideast.Who are we to know the limits of how much a human can suffer? In my opinion, that's playing God. If we can't get justice by righteous means, then it's up to God to bring about justice. Before anyone says I'm defending terrorists, I'm not talking about punishment and I'm not saying agencies of justice shouldn't exhaust all their [legal] resources to get to the truth, but there are limits.
It's difficult to see how the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence could render such sweeping indictments of the agency and the EITs without ever having interviewed a single agent, or any past or current officers in NSA, DIA, FBI or considered evidence form Bush administration NSC members. Seems to me the SSC went into the effort of writing a report with preconceived notions and didn't want any facts getting in the way of a good rant.
Any session you can walk away from isn't torture, and countless agents, administration officials and military personnel have affirmed the information we got prevented at least a dozen, and probably more, subsequent mass attacks on U.S. soil or on U.S. territory or property overseas, not to mention preventing attacks in Britain and the Mideast.
It's not about revenge, its about obtaining information in order to save lives. And sleep deprivation is not torture if it saves lives.
It's difficult to see how the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence could render such sweeping indictments of the agency and the EITs without ever having interviewed a single agent, or any past or current officers in NSA, DIA, FBI or considered evidence form Bush administration NSC members. Seems to me the SSC went into the effort of writing a report with preconceived notions and didn't want any facts getting in the way of a good rant
Any session you can walk away from isn't torture, and countless agents, administration officials and military personnel have affirmed the information we got prevented at least a dozen, and probably more, subsequent mass attacks on U.S. soil or on U.S. territory or property overseas, not to mention preventing attacks in Britain and the Mideast.
CIA torture report paints picture of agency out of control
What shocks me more about the brutal Republican Lead Government, was not just it's crimes against humanity but the profound incompetence. After all that torture, there was very little to show for it.
I feel literally a bit sick to my stomach after reading some of the things done in here.
To give fair warning, the report is very graphic, and for no wonder given the subject. Here is a 525 page summary of the report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
Senate report on CIA torture program
You are not what we call a deep thinker.All I can think of is Colonel Flagg.
525 pages is more than I have time to read at the moment. Other than water boarding and sleep deprivation what was considered torture?
To name a few of the torture methods that are talked about most in the news (though there are no doubt other methods):
Mock executions, stress positions, shackling of prisoners to the wall, sensory deprivation, etc. Music torture, which in fairness was disclosed publicly about a year or two ago to make it seem like the Gitmo torture program wasn't all that bad. Essentially they play annoying songs (ie: Christmas carols, kids TV show themes, etc.) for days straight. The most disturbing stuff though is the various sexual abuse stuff. The sad thing is the sexual abuse stuff isn't out of the ordinary. The US sadly has a reputation for that stuff.
I wouldnt have any problems with anything but the sexual abuse.I hadn't hard about that.Do you have a link to what that entailed?
It's widely discussed in the news, just look around at some articles. Within the actual report if you use the CNN release of the report (same link I posted earlier) to the upper righthand corner of the report layout should be a little search bar that you can type in key terms and it will find the pages for you. For instance if you search the term "Sexual abuse" page 11 should pop up detailing some episodes from threats to sexually abuse detainees' mothers to forcing them to walk around naked. There is worse, but I cannot even type them without feeling queasy.
EDIT: Also to make clear, I have a problem with all of this. Torture of any sort is unacceptable.
Given the committee heard no witnesses, received no documents other than those admitted to other committees, and had no mandate to put such a grossly inept report out for public consumption, I have to wonder 1) How much of it can actually be believed, given they have no substantiation for their conclusions, and 2) Why should such an obvious politically motivated report be taken as valid by anyone who knows the facts -- or lack thereof -- behind it?It's widely discussed in the news, just look around at some articles. Within the actual report if you use the CNN release of the report (same link I posted earlier) to the upper righthand corner of the report layout should be a little search bar that you can type in key terms and it will find the pages for you. For instance if you search the term "Sexual abuse" page 11 should pop up detailing some episodes from threats to sexually abuse detainees' mothers to forcing them to walk around naked. There is worse, but I cannot even type them without feeling queasy.
EDIT: Also to make clear, I have a problem with all of this. Torture of any sort is unacceptable.
Given the committee heard no witnesses, received no documents other than those admitted to other committees, and had no mandate to put such a grossly inept report out for public consumption, I have to wonder 1) How much of it can actually be believed, given they have no substantiation for their conclusions, and 2) Why should such an obvious politically motivated report be taken as valid by anyone who knows the facts -- or lack thereof -- behind it?
As I said the other day, any interrogation session one can walk away from did not involve torture.
See if you can find any precedent for a Senate Select Committee of any kind to issue a report without holding any hearings? It is unheard of, and was entirely politically motivated. As to truth, it concludes no actionable intelligence was gleaned from EIT interrogations, whereas the intelligence community has stated many, many times over the years that this piece of information or that nugget of data obtained during EIT interrogations resulted in "X" plot being foiled, well over 20 in total. That was reiterated over the last week. Also, I question having confidence in a report issued by only one side of a committee, the other side refusing to sign off on it. IF a Republican committee next year undertakes so biased an effort, I'm sure most Democrats will be crying "Foul!" the loudest for this exact same reason.This report is true. Feinstein's speech (video and link provided on page 1) details how the report was compiled from known facts previously talked about in the Senate, from inter-governmental memos, and from evidence taken from the CIA themselves, etc.
Noting again that any interrogation session from which the subject could walk away was not torture ...In fact what we can know as the public is only a tiny fraction of what actually has been going on. It is noted the CIA destroyed many video tapes and documents of their torture ...
Which we should count as fortunate, given I'm sure some of the more extremist among the Democrats wanted to release the entire study, flawed as it obviously was given the misleading information put out in the summary.... and also for fact the 525-page summary is but a fraction of a 6,000 page report that is still classified.
No thanks. Wikipedia is as unreliable as the Democrats on the SSC on Intelligence.If you don't desire to read the summary nor watch Feinstein's speech, this wikipedia ...
Clear indication you don't watch Fox News or you would know they've devoted more airtime to the pros and cons of this report than any other network, on-air or cable. But thanks for the reply. I just don't happen to agree with your conclusions or those of the committee. No offense intended, and I hope none taken.... It is apparant FOX News is being used as the sock puppet to try to either cover up ...