[mike777]

"However, I disagree with you trying to make this a CIA issue, when it clearly is not so."


We disagree, it is a CIA issue.
1) I quoted two books that show torture is not something going on just since 2002 but for 50 years.
2) Clearly the CIA has been capturing people, stealing stuff, and killing people for at least 50 years.
3) Of course then the analysts back in the USA use these stolen data goods and they know it is stolen.



"Unfortunately, yes. Which is why IMO the CIA should be controlled.


Controlled how, it is this unspecific stuff that gets the CIA in trouble.

BTW people say Control the CIA but control it to do what? Follow the law? Exactly what law and what does it allow the CIA to legally do?

To at least start a discussion:

At the very least they can stop stealing stuff, killing people and interrogating people in their quest to gather intelligence? They can stop using violence or the threat of violence themselves or through the people they associate with?

We know torture is out, now lets define it in detail...

[Al_U_Card]

Every country has had spies since there were countries to spy on (and from).

The OSS after the WWII was converted into the CIA and told to never deal in domestic matters.

Dulles was fired by JFK for his over-reaching in many areas. He was on the Warren Commission...guess he couldn't have been involved in a conflict of interest there....nah...

Someone had to get the drug trade going...to insure that enough $$$ was available for those black ops that were really really really necessary for national security...to say nothing of the arms needed to help "freedom fighters" everywhere that US military-industrial interests were in danger...

[mike777]

As many posters have articulated the issue is not does torture work or not but what values should the CIA and our intellegent gathering services expouse and emulate.

As P.O said he would let Americans die if it went going against these values to gain information.

So far I have not seen any Congress or President including the current one agree with this in my lifetime.

Given this we can only expect to see our Spies continue to do illegal/immoral violent stuff going forward. Do not be shocked or surprised.

[Winstonm]

Although Mike is trying to hijack the thread and misdirect our attention, the issue is not now nor has it ever been simply the CIA.

Abu Gharaib and Guantanemo were not CIA issues. The plain facts of the matter are coming closer to being exposed, and the picture being painted is quite simply that of the Vice-president and the Secretary of Defense authorizing torture in order to validate at any cost the agenda to which they were already tied.

The timing can't be much clearer: the Bybee memo came within a week of the Downing Street Memo and within a month of Cheney going on "Meet the Press" and claiming a proven connection betwen Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

And then there was the creation of a seperate intelligence organization within the Pentagon that was headed by Feith which reported to Rumsfeld, where the yellowcake allogations surfaced which led to the subsequent outing of Valerie Plame.

Add it up. It's pretty simple math. The neo-nuts, of whom Cheney was a lead player, had a grand plan to invade Iraq as part of a larger war. However, they had no justification for the invasion, no connection could be found linking Al-Qaeda to Iraq, so SERE reverse-engineered torture was condoned, which had only been used in the past by Communist regimes to accumulate false confessions for propaganda purposes, leading to the conclusion that truthful confessions were not the goal of condoning these methods.

These people were not trying to stop another attack - they were trying to justify their war plans.

[Winstonm]

Quote

As P.O said he would let Americans die if it went going against these values to gain information.

This is simply tacky. Not only did P.O. not say this, but no one else did, either, and it is the same cheap logic fallacy as asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?", as it presumes that torture prevents Americans from dying.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Apr 26 2009, 07:23 PM, said:

Although Mike is trying to hijack the thread and misdirect our attention, the issue is not now nor has it ever been simply the CIA.

i think his point is that the past administration has been accused of doing things executively that other (and present) administrations have done and do delegatorily (via cia and others)

Winstonm, on Apr 26 2009, 07:34 PM, said:

Quote

As P.O said he would let Americans die if it went going against these values to gain information.

This is simply tacky. Not only did P.O. not say this, but no one else did, either, and it is the same cheap logic fallacy as asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?", as it presumes that torture prevents Americans from dying.

i think you're wrong here, although i don't have time to look for it... didn't he say the end does not justify the means? and if so, how does that differ from what mike said?

[Winstonm]

Quote

i think his point is that the past administration has been accused of doing things executively that other (and present) administrations have done and do delegatorily (via cia and others

Then why did the CIA ask for legal protection? Regardless, the issue was not about simply the CIA. Mike is trying to twist the argument that the CIA initiated the torture, as they have done in the past, and therefore the last administration did nothing that other administrations have done.

This is a bogus claim and simply misdirection.

When it comes to systemic SERE-type torture as an approved U.S. interrogation method, Mike's claim is simply untrue.

Quote

didn't he say the end does not justify the means? and if so, how does that differ from what mike said?

The clear inference in Mike's translation is that without going against our values Americans would die when that has clearly never been shown as a fact, and has in fact been challenged by interrogation experts as untrue.

The discussion went like this.
A) I am against torture.
B) Would you torture to save lives?
A) No
B) Then you would let Americans die before you would torture?

There error was in answering the first question - would you torture to save lives. Everything past that was nonsense, spin, and misdirection.

[Lobowolf]

Winstonm, on Apr 27 2009, 06:35 PM, said:

Quote

i think his point is that the past administration has been accused of doing things executively that other (and present) administrations have done and do delegatorily (via cia and others

Then why did the CIA ask for legal protection? Regardless, the issue was not about simply the CIA. Mike is trying to twist the argument that the CIA initiated the torture, as they have done in the past, and therefore the last administration did nothing that other administrations have done.

This is a bogus claim and simply misdirection.

When it comes to systemic SERE-type torture as an approved U.S. interrogation method, Mike's claim is simply untrue.

Quote

didn't he say the end does not justify the means? and if so, how does that differ from what mike said?

The clear inference in Mike's translation is that without going against our values Americans would die when that has clearly never been shown as a fact, and has in fact been challenged by interrogation experts as untrue.

The discussion went like this.
A) I am against torture.
Would you torture to save lives?
A) No
Then you would let Americans die before you would torture?

There error was in answering the first question - would you torture to save lives. Everything past that was nonsense, spin, and misdirection.

Actually, it wasn't put as Question 1; Question 2 (if you're talking about the subthread involving him and me). Just to ensure that nothing is lost in the translation, it went exactly like this:

Quote

Would it affect your position if you knew the claim to be true?  If, say, waterboarding a known terrorist could be known definitively to have prevented something on the scale of 9-11.

Quote

No.

I object to the characterization of any of it as "error," "nonsense," "spin," or "misdirection." He gave a straight answer based on principle to a straight (tough) question. Props to him.

[Winstonm]

Quote

I object to the characterization of any of it as "error," "nonsense," "spin," or "misdirection." He gave a straight answer based on principle to a straight (tough) question.

The misdirection is a ploy Mike often uses and has done so once again. The question you asked and quote was a non-sensical thought experiment that should not have been answered - it was misdirection in its own right - and that was bad enough. But to paraphrase that quote and use it as some kind of proof of a position is more that nonsense - it's shabby.

BTW, you forgot to produce the entire exchange:

Quote

Of course Cheney, Rice, and the other torturers claim that torture produced results and that "the ends justified the means." But a person willing to torture is surely a person willing to lie

Quote

Would it affect your position if you knew the claim to be true?  If, say, waterboarding a known terrorist could be known definitively to have prevented something on the scale of 9-11

Quote

No.

His position, clearly stated, was that people who torture are surely willing to lie. You asked an irrelevant question that is nothing but a thought experiment to change the subject. That was bad enough, but Mike twisted that into something even more sinister - that P.O.'s positions was to allow Americans to die to protect certain values. And by assuming Americans would die the false assumption is made that torture prevents Americans from dying and PO would allow it to happen - which all seems to prove P.O.'s basic premise that torture supporters are willing to lie.

[Lobowolf]

Winstonm, on Apr 27 2009, 07:26 PM, said:

Quote

I object to the characterization of any of it as "error," "nonsense," "spin," or "misdirection." He gave a straight answer based on principle to a straight (tough) question.

The misdirection is a ploy Mike often uses and has done so once again. The question you quote is a non-sensical thought experiment that should not have been answered - it is misdirection - and then to paraphrase that quote and use it as some kind of proof of a position is more that nonsense - it's shabby.

In what sense (sorry) is the question non-sensical?

[Winstonm]

Lobowolf, on Apr 27 2009, 07:33 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 27 2009, 07:26 PM, said:

Quote

I object to the characterization of any of it as "error," "nonsense," "spin," or "misdirection." He gave a straight answer based on principle to a straight (tough) question.

The misdirection is a ploy Mike often uses and has done so once again. The question you quote is a non-sensical thought experiment that should not have been answered - it is misdirection - and then to paraphrase that quote and use it as some kind of proof of a position is more that nonsense - it's shabby.

In what sense (sorry) is the question non-sensical?

Answered above.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Apr 27 2009, 01:26 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 26 2009, 07:34 PM, said:

Quote

As P.O said he would let Americans die if it went going against these values to gain information.

This is simply tacky. Not only did P.O. not say this, but no one else did, either, and it is the same cheap logic fallacy as asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?", as it presumes that torture prevents Americans from dying.

i think you're wrong here, although i don't have time to look for it... didn't he say the end does not justify the means? and if so, how does that differ from what mike said?

I said:

PassedOut, on Apr 23 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

It's true that the opinion I expressed about Cheney and Rice is not germane to  my views on torture. I just don't believe that our country's principles should be sacrificed for expediency, even if doing so would make us a little safer.

Although it seems absurd to some, many people do put principle ahead of complete safety. Folks in my neck of the woods insist that the second amendment confers the right to own any type of firearm, even though some innocent Americans will die for the sake of that principle. I own rifles and handguns myself.

If preserving safety were the most important goal, we wouldn't have guns and we wouldn't have fast cars.

By torturing people, the Bush administration contends (in word and deed) that the fundamental principles of our country are not worth preserving in the face of risk. But I believe that our principles are worth risking American lives to maintain. That's the basic difference between my thinking and that of Cheney and Bush and their apologists.

In fact, though, I don't believe that they value safety as much as they pretend. Otherwise they would be trying to reduce the number of high-powered rifles and cheap handguns sold.

I do believe that Cheney and Bush and that group use the "we made you safer by torturing muslims" argument to appeal to the block of voters that they (and I) call "the pants-pissers." Those are people who are quite willing to sacrifice principle for a feeling of safety.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on Apr 28 2009, 12:38 AM, said:

luke warm, on Apr 27 2009, 01:26 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 26 2009, 07:34 PM, said:

Quote

As P.O said he would let Americans die if it went going against these values to gain information.

This is simply tacky. Not only did P.O. not say this, but no one else did, either, and it is the same cheap logic fallacy as asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?", as it presumes that torture prevents Americans from dying.

i think you're wrong here, although i don't have time to look for it... didn't he say the end does not justify the means? and if so, how does that differ from what mike said?

I said:

PassedOut, on Apr 23 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

It's true that the opinion I expressed about Cheney and Rice is not germane to  my views on torture. I just don't believe that our country's principles should be sacrificed for expediency, even if doing so would make us a little safer.

Although it seems absurd to some, many people do put principle ahead of complete safety.

i'm not disagreeing with you, i agree philosophically with your conclusion... i was just trying to straighten out winston's take on the whole thing

[PassedOut]

Interesting piece by columnist Ross Douthat today: Cheney for President

Quote

A large swath of the political class wants to avoid the torture debate. The Obama administration backed into it last week, and obviously wants to back right out again.

But the argument isn’t going away. It will be with us as long as the threat of terrorism endures. And where the Bush administration’s interrogation programs are concerned, we’ve heard too much to just “look forward,” as the president would have us do. We need to hear more: What was done and who approved it, and what intelligence we really gleaned from it. Not so that we can prosecute – unless the Democratic Party has taken leave of its senses – but so that we can learn, and pass judgment, and struggle toward consensus.

Here Dick Cheney, prodded by the ironies of history into demanding greater disclosure about programs he once sought to keep completely secret, has an important role to play. He wants to defend his record; let him defend it. And let the country judge.

But better if this debate had happened during the campaign season. And better, perhaps, if Cheney himself had been there to have it out.

Looks like more and more folks want to get this out in the open and sorted out.

[y66]

Wow. Ross Douthat can write.

Quote

“Real conservatism,” in this narrative, means a particular strain of right-wingery: a conservatism of supply-side economics and stress positions, uninterested in social policy and dismissive of libertarian qualms about the national-security state. And Dick Cheney happens to be its diamond-hard distillation. The former vice-president kept his distance from the Bush administration’s attempts at domestic reform, and he had little time for the idealistic, religiously infused side of his boss’s policy agenda. He was for tax cuts at home and pre-emptive warfare overseas; anything else he seemed to disdain as sentimentalism.

This is precisely the sort of conservatism that’s ascendant in today’s much-reduced Republican Party, from the talk radio dials to the party’s grassroots. And a Cheney-for-President campaign would have been an instructive test of its political viability.

Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt are rolling over in their graves.

[Al_U_Card]

When the guy in the white hat leads the posse out and it has one or two rowdies in it, there can still be a claim to legitimacy when the bad guys are brought in (mostly alive)....


When the posse is all wearing black hats.....time to determine who is chasing whom.

[Lobowolf]

y66, on Apr 28 2009, 11:09 AM, said:

Ronald Regan and Teddy Roosevelt are rolling over in their graves.

Indeed they are. But don't think Kennedy hasn't been for 35 years, too.

[PassedOut]

Lobowolf, on Apr 28 2009, 11:11 AM, said:

y66, on Apr 28 2009, 11:09 AM, said:

Ronald Regan and Teddy Roosevelt are rolling over in their graves.

Indeed they are. But don't think Kennedy hasn't been for 35 years, too.

To my eyes, the republicans today apply a much more rigid ideology than they did in the past: in fact, the ideology just described by Ross Douthat.

So, almost by default, the democrats, who do not do so, get the nod these days from those of us who can see that our problems are not (always) amenable to those ideological solutions.

[y66]

Quote

Indeed they are. But don't think Kennedy hasn't been for 35 years, too.

So, Lobowolf, it seems you are an idealist after all. Never doubted it.

[Winstonm]

Quote

But I believe that our principles are worth risking American lives to maintain. That's the basic difference between my thinking and that of Cheney and Bush and their apologists.

Quote

As P.O said he would let Americans die if it went going against these values to gain information.

I will let the readers decide for themselves if these two quotes express the same sentiments.