"Enhanced Interrogation Tactics" - What if they averted 9/11?

[Unitedwestand13]

Tell me, honestly, which you believe has been the greater recruitment tool for terrorist organizations:

1) Gitmo and the detainees there

2) Use of drone strikes in war zones and sovereign nations to kill terrorists with no regard for innocents who happen to get in the way

You believe everyone in Guantanamo to be members of a terrorist organization?

Both are equally damnable.

 

[CanadaJohn]

You believe everyone in Guantanamo to be members of a terrorist organization?

Both are equally damnable.

As for your second comment, I appreciate your views.

As for your first comment, I believe that everyone in Gitmo was an individual swept up in the middle of a war zone in Afghanistan fighting for the Coalition opposition, be they Taliban, Al Qaeda, or simply Afghan tribal leaders. They are/were being detained as "enemy combatants" - the new name for those not representing a nation fighting a war with America yet still fighting that war.

Do you believe that all detainees in Gitmo have been poorly treated? Tortured? Or do you just believe that there's a time limit on how long a prisoner of war may be detained before they must be released back into the field of battle?

 

[Unitedwestand13]

As for your second comment, I appreciate your views.

As for your first comment, I believe that everyone in Gitmo was an individual swept up in the middle of a war zone in Afghanistan fighting for the Coalition opposition, be they Taliban, Al Qaeda, or simply Afghan tribal leaders. They are/were being detained as "enemy combatants" - the new name for those not representing a nation fighting a war with America yet still fighting that war.

Do you believe that all detainees in Gitmo have been poorly treated? Tortured? Or do you just believe that there's a time limit on how long a prisoner of war may be detained before they must be released back into the field of battle?

Why do we have to create some new legal classification for captured terrorists when there is a far simpler method.

Terrorism is a crime. Terrorists are criminals, and should be handled as such.

The only explanation I can think of for creating a new system to convict prisoners captured in the war on terror is to make a system that intentionally deprives terrorists of human rights in order to make them suffer in agony.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

How far do you want to take that?

Even a judges ruling is that judge thinking the man is guilty.

In the US judges don't convict people, juries do. Please educate yourself.

 

[Papa bull]

In the US judges don't convict people, juries do. Please educate yourself.

In the US, it is possible for a suspect to choose a trial by judge rather than jury so judges can and DO convict people.

 

[CanadaJohn]

Why do we have to create some new legal classification for captured terrorists when there is a far simpler method.

Terrorism is a crime. Terrorists are criminals, and should be handled as such.

The only explanation I can think of for creating a new system to convict prisoners captured in the war on terror is to make a system that intentionally deprives terrorists of human rights in order to make them suffer in agony.

I see nothing related to Gitmo and its treatment of the prisoners there that would be discribed as making them "suffer in agony". I haven't seen any beheadings, I haven't seen any Gitmo prisoners hanging from bridges or with their heads on sticks in the middle of the streets. In fact, I see the prisoners in Gitmo having it pretty easy peasy compared to any prisoner in a federal penitentiary in mainland America. Sunshine most days, always warm temps but not as warm as the middle eastern desert, nice Caribbean breezes at night, three square meals, prayer books, prayer mats, prayer breaks. I'll bet you the vast majority never had it so good.

 

[Papa bull]

Why do we have to create some new legal classification for captured terrorists when there is a far simpler method.

Terrorism is a crime. Terrorists are criminals, and should be handled as such.

The only explanation I can think of for creating a new system to convict prisoners captured in the war on terror is to make a system that intentionally deprives terrorists of human rights in order to make them suffer in agony.

You still don't get it.

There is no new legal classification for captured terrorists. You are, again, confusing "terrorists" with "illegal combatants". They are NOT the same thing even though someone can be both simultaneously. And there is no "new classification" for any of that. It's old stuff and well-established law.

 

[Unitedwestand13]

I see nothing related to Gitmo and its treatment of the prisoners there that would be discribed as making them "suffer in agony". I haven't seen any beheadings, I haven't seen any Gitmo prisoners hanging from bridges or with their heads on sticks in the middle of the streets. In fact, I see the prisoners in Gitmo having it pretty easy peasy compared to any prisoner in a federal penitentiary in mainland America. Sunshine most days, always warm temps but not as warm as the middle eastern desert, nice Caribbean breezes at night, three square meals, prayer books, prayer mats, prayer breaks. I'll bet you the vast majority never had it so good.

Depriving a person of their rights and forcing them to wait years for a actual trial is not justice.

 

[Unitedwestand13]

You still don't get it.

There is no new legal classification for captured terrorists. You are, again, confusing "terrorists" with "illegal combatants". They are NOT the same thing even though someone can be both simultaneously. And there is no "new classification" for any of that. It's old stuff and well-established law.

Do illegal combatants somehow have no human rights?

 

[CanadaJohn]

Depriving a person of their rights and forcing them to wait years for a actual trial is not justice.

Happens in America every day.

 

[Unitedwestand13]

Happens in America every day.

The people who are locked in prison have to be convicted before receiving their punishment.

It seems to me that someone wants to see the prisoners at Guantanamo bay be forced to the punishment stage with all due haste.

 

[Mason66]

In the US judges don't convict people, juries do. Please educate yourself.

That is not true at all.

The defendant can opt for a trial without a jury where the judge decides.

So back to my original question.

 

[CanadaJohn]

The people who are locked in prison have to be convicted before receiving their punishment.

It seems to me that someone wants to see the prisoners at Guantanamo bay be forced to the punishment stage with all due haste.

You've never seen an American locked in prison for years prior to their day in court?

You've never seen an American prisoner serve years, decades, while being falsely imprisoned and innocent?

Let's get real. Every single enemy combatant that was swept up and housed in Gitmo is a person who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan for the most part, and perhaps in Iraq, directly trying to kill American soldiers. The extent to which some Americans want to coddle these people is staggering.

 

[Papa bull]

Do illegal combatants somehow have no human rights?

Illegal combatants have no rights whatsoever under the Geneva Convention. And if those illegal enemy combatants happen to be terrorists, they forfeited their human rights, as well, in my opinion. But then again, I'm not a terrorist sympathizer so I don't expect our opinions to ever be aligned. Illegal enemy combatants can be lined up against a wall and shot.

 

[Papa bull]

Happens in America every day.

You are dead right that it happens in America... if not every day, damned near. It's way easier than people think to end up kidnapped and locked up with some really, REALLY bad people for years waiting for a trial if you can't afford bail and a private attorney.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Many people who support the US use of enhanced interrogation tactics after 9/11 site wanting to ensure that a similar occurrence never happened again or they use the example of a nuclear bomb soon to detonate and these tactics could avert the loss of millions of lives as a rationale. Those opposed dismiss such talk because "America is better than that" and the ends don't justify the means.

But let's look at something more concrete. Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that these enhanced interrogation tactics were in use prior to 9/11 and through their use the 9/11 plot was exposed and thwarted before it happened. Imagine some 3,000 Americans and other nationals still being alive. Imagine the Twin Towers in NYC still standing. Imagine life without two wars in the Middle East. Imagine life without taking your shoes off at the airport, going through a full body scan, not being able to carry a bottle of shampoo in your carry on, etc. Imagine no full scale NSA spying on everyone's communication activities. Imagine the world in December, 2014 being more like the simpler world we lived in on September 1, 2001.

Would such enhanced interrogation tactics be justified if they had saved us from the last decade plus?

It presents a bit of a paradox. Our society became more comfortable with torture because 9/11 scared a lot of people.

But in the end, I don't think the moral sacrifice is worth it. With moral sacrifice for a bigger cause comes with issues like we are having with the police going overboard with people. I am not sure what we ended up with is any more valuable then what we gave up. Even if ~5,000 people died.

 

[Unitedwestand13]

You've never seen an American locked in prison for years prior to their day in court?

You've never seen an American prisoner serve years, decades, while being falsely imprisoned and innocent?

Let's get real. Every single enemy combatant that was swept up and housed in Gitmo is a person who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan for the most part, and perhaps in Iraq, directly trying to kill American soldiers. The extent to which some Americans want to coddle these people is staggering.

You know what I believe seperates the United States from Groups like ISIS? It is in the way we value human life.

I oppose ISIS for the way it treats other human beings. ISIS does not believe in human rights, it is a orginazation that believes might makes right and that the strong is meant to dominate the weak. They do not see their enemies like human beings, but like vermin that are meant to be exterminated, and as vermin the enemies of ISIS deserve every act of cruelty that is inflicted upon them.

The United States is supposed to value human life, we may fight our enemies, but unlike ISIS we should show that there is no weakness in treating our captured enemies with basic human decency. Even if our enemies do not show us any decency in return, we prove to the world that conflict has not robbed us of our principles.

 

[Visbek]

As opposed to politicians whose sole MO is to lie to the public.

lol... "I'll see your cynicism, and raise you a partisan cynical response!"

Do you not understand that it's the job of those politicians to conduct oversight of the CIA, and other agencies that need to operate without public awareness of their activities? And how they've been caught red-handed, numerous times, subverting that oversight process?

Who kept America and Americans safe after 9/11? The intelligence community or Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi?

• You mean Dianne Feinstein (D, chair of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) and Saxby Chambliss (R, Vice Chair). Along with 7 other Democratic, and 6 other Republican Senators. (Not to mention the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which has been controlled by Republicans for the past few years.)

• Apparently, the CIA, NSA and FBI etc failed to keep us safe before 9/11. This includes Presidential decisions to use the CIA to engineer coups, perform violent covert ops, use polio vaccinations (!!!) as a cover for intelligence ops, and support totalitarian regimes that *cough* use torture to oppress citizens (here's lookin' at you, Shah Reza) that have outraged people around the world.

• I do not believe the CIA "kept America safe" by indefinitely detaining and torturing suspected terrorists.

• Along similar lines, it doesn't look like the CIA kept Americans safe by engineering the occasional coup and supporting regimes that *cough* use torture to keep their populace in line.


And again.... I don't have to rely on the Senate report at all to assert that "CIA torture didn't work" or that "in general, torture does not produce good intelligence" or that "regardless of any practical details, torture is unethical" or that "torturing people, and engineering coups, and supporting dictators turns people around the world against the US."

From an ethical perspective, it's very clear that torture is cruel and unusual punishment; that torture as a form of gathering intelligence is a punishment without due process; that if we license it in some circumstances, it's almost certainly going to lead to justifying it under other circumstances.

The practical claims have sources independent of the report, including the fact that research has not shown that it works, people who were part of the process and criticized it, and the psychologists who developed the various techniques didn't actually know what they were doing (and still took home $80 million in taxpayer dollars).

 

[Visbek]

You've never seen an American locked in prison for years prior to their day in court?

When that happens, at least it's done within the context of due process. The defendant has a bail hearing; their bail status is a matter of public record; if they are convicted, they are often credited with "time served."

We can certainly discuss how the bail system is tilted against poor defendants, but that's a different story. Those suspects are not thrown into a black hole, where they are barred from communicating with their lawyers or family, where the government refuses to identify the suspects, where they have no protection against self-incrimination, where they are in legal limbo, intentionally kept off the continental US to avoid making the argument that they have the same legal rights as anyone else accused of a crime in the US....

Let's get real. Every single enemy combatant that was swept up and housed in Gitmo is a person who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan....

Incorrect. Many were captured in Pakistan; most were not captured by American soldiers, but by Pakistani and Afghani soldiers who received bounties of $5000 USD per prisoner.

Rumsfeld wrote in a 2003 memo: "We need to stop populating Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) with low-level enemy combatants...GTMO needs to serve as an [redacted] not a prison for Afghanistan."

Out of the 779 men detained at Guantanamo, 173 were released without charges.

The extent to which some Americans want to coddle these people is staggering.

"Coddling people?"

Recognizing the basic human rights of people is "coddling?" If I refuse to torture someone that makes me what, a big wuss?

Even if they are our enemy, we still have an obligation to respect their rights and their humanity. This does not mean that we should hug them on the battlefield. What it means is that if we accuse someone of attacking the US, they should still get due process before punishing them, and ensuring that their punishments are just rather than cruel.

 

[Papa bull]

It presents a bit of a paradox. Our society became more comfortable with torture because 9/11 scared a lot of people.

But in the end, I don't think the moral sacrifice is worth it. With moral sacrifice for a bigger cause comes with issues like we are having with the police going overboard with people. I am not sure what we ended up with is any more valuable then what we gave up. Even if ~5,000 people died.

Policy was driven a lot less by the 5,000 innocent men, women and children that died than it was by the 300 million more that Muslim terrorists would like very much to kill.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Policy was driven a lot less by the 5,000 innocent men, women and children that died than it was by the 300 million more that Muslim terrorists would like very much to kill.

yes, i know people were irrationally fearful during that few month period. and given your apparent fear of skeery mooslims in other threads ... you won't be convinced by reality anyway.

 

[Papa bull]

You know what I believe seperates the United States from Groups like ISIS? It is in the way we value human life.

I oppose ISIS for the way it treats other human beings. ISIS does not believe in human rights, it is a orginazation that believes might makes right and that the strong is meant to dominate the weak. They do not see their enemies like human beings, but like vermin that are meant to be exterminated, and as vermin the enemies of ISIS deserve every act of cruelty that is inflicted upon them.

The United States is supposed to value human life, we may fight our enemies, but unlike ISIS we should show that there is no weakness in treating our captured enemies with basic human decency. Even if our enemies do not show us any decency in return, we prove to the world that conflict has not robbed us of our principles.

The fact that we didn't execute them all shows that we offer a great deal more human decency to terrorists than they deserve.

 

[Papa bull]

yes, i know people were irrationally fearful during that few month period. and given your apparent fear of skeery mooslims in other threads ... you won't be convinced by reality anyway.

Reality is that there is a large organized terrorist group that would like very much to saw your head off with a dull knife and kill your family in a mass bombing just because you aren't a Muslim. Granted, you seem to have a lot more respect for them than the people that stand between you and them but there's nothing anyone can do about such irrational thinking. It just is what it is. I hope you never have to find out how serious the threat really is.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Reality is that there is a large organized terrorist group that would like very much to saw your head off with a dull knife and kill your family in a mass bombing just because you aren't a Muslim. Granted, you seem to have a lot more respect for them than the people that stand between you and them but there's nothing anyone can do about such irrational thinking. It just is what it is. I hope you never have to find out how serious the threat really is.

I respect our military a lot more then some scared dude on the internet. At least they are doing something other than bitching on a forum.

 

[radcen]

Happens in America every day.

So? That makes it ok?

This little factoid does not justify it in the least. All you've done with this little tidbit is point out that there are other areas that need to be addressed as well.