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Trump's Pick for New CIA Director Is Career Spymaster (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a AP report: President Donald Trump's choice to be the first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where terror suspects were subjected to a harsh interrogation technique that the president has supported. Trump tweeted Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and that he has selected Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo. Haspel, the current deputy CIA director, also helped carry out an order that the agency destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges. Haspel, who has extensive overseas experience, briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Wasn't I married to her once?
Only if she's complicit in destroying criminal evidence.
Thanks CNN.
I didn't get that impression from his Wikipedia page.
I'm against torture, (however much people use weasel words to underplay whatever "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used).
It brings us down to the level of those who seek to destroy our society and its hard-won liberties and values.
(I'm certainly not against them in battle or cold blood if they're caught in the act...)
I'm also against the increasing trend of leaking:
according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
WTF? Intelligence officials briefing the press? Prosecute them!
Sorry, should read "...killing them in battle..." of course
Typical Internet slander from the alt right. Post a big fucking lie 50,000 times and people get confused, start thinking "Well, maybe... who knows what Obama did or didn't do."
In fact Obama was extremely vocal against waterboarding. He banned that practice of the Bush administration.
Cheney was the one who kept calling it "enhanced interrogation techniques" while insisting it wasn't torture.
that and torturing people
So you're saying we should treat women differently and shouldn't be outraged that she destroyed video documentation to hide torture and approves of harsh methods as we would even if it were a man doing the same thing?
No, her being Deputy Director is a problem, AND being made Director is a bigger problem.
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Only because she's an apologist for torture and an enemy of freedom, I'm sure.
...then she'll make a great CIA director! 8)
Where's the option to mark a story with a -1 Troll? If this story were any more inflammatory it would contain trigger warnings for snowflakes.
Obama's administration just transferred prisoners it wanted tortured to ally countries to do the dirty work so they could keep their hands clean.
So it's OK for her to be the Deputy director, but once she gets to climb one rung of the ladder that's a big problem?
It's not OK for her to be either Deputy Director or Director, but it is nearly impossible to pull out the bad ones who are already in place.
Waterboarding by the CIA was something that helped terrorists. Our doing it gave a powerful recruiting tool to terrorist organizations: it allowed them to show that the U.S. are not the good guys. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and we should object to her being Director because we should not reward people for doing stupid things in their job.
CNN before: "He's the ex CEO of Exon Mobil. He's trash". CNN after: "Rex Tillerson is a Hero. He stood up to Trump"
It is possible for both of those statements to be reasonable. It's possible for him to be trash, and also for him to be heroic.
So, Trump fired Tillerson just hours after this: https://twitter.com/ZekeJMille... . Delicious.
The word and the action is "TORTURE"
Nope, that's still a Bush policy. To be fair, Obama's administration would instead tell other countries where "people of interest" were and let those other countries arrest them. In many countries that's likely to get the arrested person tortured, but it's at least a small step in a better direction.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It's all relative to what the alternative is. If you've got a Dean Acheson or George Marshall waiting in the wings, and you go for a Warren Christopher instead, Warren Christopher is trash. If your alternative to Warren Christopher is Rex Tillerson, then Warren Christopher is a hero.
If your alternative to Rex Tillerson is Mike Pompeo, then Tillerson looks like a hero. The Secretary of State is the country's top diplomat, and Pompeo has no relevant experience. He's a short-term tea party Congressman who's been at CIA for a year, barely enough time to get his bearings. The only Secretaries of State in living memory with less experience in foreign affairs were William Rogers and Cy Vance.
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obama banned cia torture
Obama is the reason we have Trump.
Bullshit. Hillary is the reason we have Trump.
Has it occurred to you yet that it makes more sense that you're the Russian spy troll sent here to make progressives look even more dumb?
Shouldn't it be "Spymistress"?
Or is that sexist?
Doesn't look like it. It looks like Tillerson is being replaced because he criticized Russia. Apparently calling Trump a moron is ok, but blaming Russia for assassinating defectors is one step too far...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
He tried and congress would not let him. At one point he even said his inability to close Gitmo was one of his greatest failures as president.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Leaking is remarkably rarely prosecuted, especially given how much administrations complain about it. The reason that administrations don't pursue leaking more aggressively is that the people in the administration want to preserve their own ability to leak.
Leaking is an essential part of the way government works. It's going over the head of the regular channels and appealing directly to the people. This can be done for both personal/professional reasons, and for patriotic reasons.
There has only been one exception to this pattern I can remember: the Obama administration. Obama didn't complain much about leakers publicly, he just quietly went after them. Only 13 people have ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, and eight of those thirteen were on Obama's watch.
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I assume you're just pretending to be obtuse.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yeah, he really did. Stop spreading lies.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/175/end-the-use-of-torture/
So ... you prefer to keep someone who is incompetent?
If you find out you made a bad choice, fix it and move on. That's leadership.
Sounds like Trump's base needs to fix their bad choice, move on, and lead.
This sig is false.
No, the Democrats putting Hillary on the ballot is why we have Trump.
Obama was extremely vocal...
Aren't words grand?
Pray tell, who are "the base" supposed to lead? Themselves??
Meanwhile, your own link is from.. oh, that's right, you haven't provided one. Maybe instead of doing nothing but "nuh uh! you're wrong because I said so!", you should try backing up your claims?
Er, is being a career spymaster a bad thing for leading the CIA? Just wondering.
If you replace one person under you they're likely the problem
If you're replacing everyone under you you're likely the problem
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
Yeah, he really did. Stop spreading lies.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/175/end-the-use-of-torture/
Tell us how Obama never used "extrajudicial killings" via drone strike - even against US citizens, even though it often caused "collateral damage".
So Obama banned torture, but turned to not only just killing "suspected terrorists" but also anyone nearby.
That's an improvement HOW?!?!
It was all just a weasel way of avoiding any consequences from his decisions.
the type of person that is attracted to terrorist organizations has never, ever believed that the U.S. was part of the "good guys"... regardless of the existence of waterboarding methods. Just like you can't convince a truther than 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy, a birther that obama is an american, a fookooshimar that fukushima will kill every single person in japan and then some, a typical terrorist has an image of the West that does not need to be based in reality or fact.
I'm also against the increasing trend of leaking:
according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
WTF? Intelligence officials briefing the press? Prosecute them!
You do realize a lot of "leaks" are actually supported or directed by the administration or upper leadership of an agency, right? It's used as a way to control narratives, refute information that is about to be released by a news agency, as a way to get out information without making a formal statement, or even just to maintain relationships with friendly media.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
the american propensity to fall for hucksters' cons is why we have trump
Obama is the reason we have Trump. If you consider that an accomplishment then oh well.
Agreed. Obama was so bad we elected a billionaire reality tv star who's never held a political office. Considering his lack of politics he's doing surprisingly well but that's not the point.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Because torture does not work and it ultimately does great harm to the torturers. I would cite moral reasons, but I get the impression from your question that morality is not an issue with you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
He tried and congress would not let him.
You appear to be employing selective memory. He made the same argument about congress being a roadblock to fixing immigration. He maintained that position. After 3 or so years, when it finally suited him, he declared "I have a phone and a pen" and proceeded to do what he liked.
Now, you could argue whether he was right or wrong to act unilaterally without congress. You can also point to the problem those who supported Obama's actions on immigration face: an executive order by one president can be undone by another president. However, it is patently disingenuous to say that he did not close Guantanamo because congress would not let him.
Had he really wanted to close it, he would have closed it. After all, he really wanted the Affordable Care Act, and that made it through congress. Any failure to close Guantanamo, end rendition, and/or end "enhanced interrogation" is a direct result of a lack of real desire to see it done.
Tillerson has already said he doesn't know the reason he was fired.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Without any solid proof, most of the time based on heresay or even on arse pulls like wearing a Casio watch. Besides, torture is a crime. This is why you should care.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
You're either too nice or too naive.
Sounds more like desperate to me. We're long past the point where the Resident's behavior can be explained rationally, but some people are still trying.
The list of people who have either quit or have been escorted out of the White House by security continues to grow. The Trump administration has broken all records in regard to staff turnover, and it's only been a year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...
THE BEST PEOPLE
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why? Do you expect that will result in a less violent society? Any references?
Won't someone think of due process?
Place something witty here
Forget what the murderer deserves (and we don't know that they're all murderers) - Torture doesn't work. But it does ruin any chance we have to prosecute the person in question, and give ammunition to terrorist recruiting, and damage our standing with allies and rivals alike. You might be comfortable having no soul, but most Americans are not.
Due process is necessary to determine if they are murderers. Torture eliminates the possibility of due process.
The good news is they only need to pay her 72% of what they normally pay the CIA director. That 28% savings can help fund the wall. Double win!
No, but until you torture and kill my father, brother or child, I could at least be indifferent to you.
After you do, I want you dead. You. And your father, your brother and your child.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How do you sell your soul? Who do you sell it to? What's it worth? If I sell my humanity, am I no longer human? If I sold my humanity, and am no longer human, wouldn't that then make me different from them, or are you saying they're not human either? Could I sell my humanity yet still be different from them?
Considering that the alternative would have been Hillary...
THANK YOU, OBAMA!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"diverse CIA director"
What the hell does that mean? Does she have ten totally different hobbies or something like that?
Ezekiel 23:20
Hmm... Hard to decide which one of the assholes I wanna waterboard first.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. Is waterboarding torture?
2. Has waterboarding ever extracted useful information?
3. What great harm does waterboarding do to those performing it? Please provide some factual info, not just your opinion
It starts to feel a bit like Celebrity Big Brother. Every week someone else has to leave.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well it does cut down on the number of repeat offenders
Whataboutism is strong in this one
AC said waterboarding does no physical harm. He didn't say it has no effect. By "no physical harm" he means exactly that...no wounds, no scars, no physical "damage". As to why you would waterboard someone 83 times, that has to do with an iterative process of information gathering and information verification.
Waterboarding by the CIA was something that helped terrorists. Our doing it gave a powerful recruiting tool to terrorist organizations: it allowed them to show that the U.S. are not the good guys. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and we should object to her being Director because we should not reward people for doing stupid things in their job.
Oh yes, it was the waterboarding that led to ISIS and Al Qaeda believing the US was evil. It had nothing to do with brainwashing, fanaticism, extremist religious leaders, or any of that.
By the way, you know the number one fact that's used by terrorists to prove America is evil, is America's acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality, right?
The only Secretaries of State in living memory with less experience in foreign affairs were William Rogers and Cy Vance.
You're showing your age there.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Nonsense. Rendition dramatically increased under Obama.
Why don't you provide a citation for this claim. I'm not one to usually exclaim CITATION REQUIRED as this is an internet forum, not a research paper, but when you make extraordinary claims you should back them up.
From looking at your post history, I can't tell if you're a troll or just a horribly ineloquent contrarian. Then again, what's the difference?
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I think he genuinely wanted to, but I also don't believe he resorted to a broad use of executive power lightly. The Affordable Care Act was his great congressional push and after that he lost congress. There are certain things the executive branch can act on and certain things it cannot. Selective enforcement, which is basically what he did with the immigration problem, has long been an area where the executive branch has great latitude. Moving a military base/prison isn't the same thing. As a Constitutional scholar, I'm sure Obama was aware that he would not win in court if he attempted to shut Gitmo down without congressional approval.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I don't really have an opinion on Haspel, I am just very encouraged that Trump appointed someone who seems qualified for the position.
Given his track record, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if he appointed the VP of marketing for Kraft foods the CIA director.
Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
https://twitter.com/AP_Politic...
"Well it does cut down on the number of repeat offenders"
Well yes, but the vast majority of murderers never re-offend, and for the few others incarceration has the same effect.
How different policies affect the overall level of violence is what I'm wondering about, because it seems that promoting revenge would of course promote revenge for example.
Obama was so bad
At what? He came into office during an economic crisis. He stabilized the economy and it has done extremely well since. He also expanded healthcare to millions of Americans without it, which addressed one of the great moral failings of this country. He appointed experts to the various agencies and bureaus he oversaw. He took steps to protect our environment that led to an explosion of green technologies. No major wars were started during his presidency. America regained good standing with the international community that was squandered by the Bush era.
I could go on. What more could he have really done? History will judge Obama very favorably. He will be remembered as one of the greats.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I'm also against the increasing trend of leaking
Why? Information frees.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I hate to respond to myself, but I will include a quick caveat: I wholly disapproved of how Obama handled Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and the NSA data collection as a whole. It's an unfortunate stain on his presidency. However, I would be a fool to believe any of the men who ran against him would have been any better. McCain is scary pro-military and Romney isn't much better.
Obama moved society in the direction of being better. If we judge a president only by their failures and not by their greater body of work, all presidents would be failures.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Yeah, it really is that simple. Why don't you simply listen to what the actual terrorist say? Do you REALLY believe some sheltered, white, suburban "progressive" twit in a US college knows what motivates a terrorist from Pakistan or Iran or Saudi Arabia better than the terrorist himself?
Boy it's really convenient that
a) all terrorists have exactly the same beliefs and motivations
b) all terrorists are completely honest and forthright about what those beliefs actually are
It sure makes my job of blindly hating them much easier.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Considering the Manchurian candidate has yet to say a single bad word about his buddy Putin, it was about time an adult said something.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Your own link is from 2011. Are you aware that he was president for another 5 years and renditions skyrocketed during that time? Tell us again about his promises to close Gitmo.
I can blame Obama for a great many things (including torture), but I can't really blame him for not closing Gitmo. Congress refused to authorize any funds because they wanted to keep the detainees there, and both Congress and the states refused to allow any detainees to be moved to any mainland detention facility out of safety concerns, as if they were a bunch of super-spies that would somehow escape and commit terrorism. Obama's choices were to keep the detainees in Gitmo or release them, and the latter would have been politically disastrous.
See? Now that's American-style humor. Much better.
For the first two years, they did not. Democrats had a super majority, and the opposition had no veto power. This power was used extensively. It was not used, however, to close Guantanamo Bay.
That right there is the very definition of "not working". If the people who actually have useful information can be trained to not give it out, or to give out a specific subset of information that won't be useful by the time you get the person to a detention center, then torture won't provide any meaningful intel from anyone who matters, and anyone claiming otherwise is just plain lying.
At best, you'll get some minor bits of trivia from low-level grunts who aren't trained to resist torture, and you could almost certainly get the same information from them just by offering them freedom and relocation under an assumed name instead of beating them or drowning them.
In other words, contrary to authoritarian propaganda, torture doesn't work in any meaningful sense of the word, and this has been proven time and time again in study after study.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Not being a constitutional law professor I'd argue that as Commander-in-Chief he'd have a lot firmer standing closing Gitmo than some of his other executive actions. It was likely a low priority with him, having more symbolic than practical substance. Something perhaps more politically beneficial to rue than to act upon.
What part of "harsh interrogation technique" and "waterboarding" did you miss in the summary? While there is probably a contingent of people here who care the new head is a female, I would be far more care about that aspect of her career.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So it's OK for her to be the Deputy director, but once she gets to climb one rung of the ladder that's a big problem?
It wasn't okay. That's the point. But with all the other crazy Trump appointments it probably got lost in the news. The NY Times covered it when she was appointed Deputy Director.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Whether an executive order from Obama to shut down Gitmo would have been challenged is IRRELEVANT to the fact that he did not issue such an order. He didn't even try.
As a Constitutional scholar he should have known that holding anyone indefinitely and without trial was a violation of the Constitution and that, despite what some claim, the rights mentioned in the Constitution are meant to apply to all people, not just American citizens.
And also on that note Obama issued Executive Orders almost as many time as G.W.Bush. (Obama 276, Bush 291)
Her travel in Europe is somewhat restrictive, though since certain countries there would arrest her on sight, given her background in running Thai torture houses.
So you the dood who has never read a newspaper over the past 30 years, huh??? CIA's got a great record, you believe? Drop much acid, bubba????
Waterboarding by the CIA was something that helped terrorists. Our doing it gave a powerful recruiting tool to terrorist organizations: it allowed them to show that the U.S. are not the good guys. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and we should object to her being Director because we should not reward people for doing stupid things in their job.
Oh yes, it was the waterboarding that led to ISIS and Al Qaeda believing the US was evil.
You mis-interpreted what I said. ISIS and Al Queda believe the U.S. is evil, and utilize America's use of torture as a recruitment tool to get people to sign on to that belief.
It had nothing to do with brainwashing, fanaticism, extremist religious leaders, or any of that.
They have to recruit. They have to turn people into fanatics, and they do that by showing that we are the bad guys, and they are the people opposing the bad guya. When our message is trying to be "we're the good guys, we want to help you," their pointing to the U.S. using torture pretty much zeros out that argument, getting people to listen to the fanaticism and extremist religious leaders.
Terrorists are murdering innocent people and she's torturing murderers.
Oh, and these people were terrorists, were they?
Or... wait, half the reason they were "indefinitely detained" is they were picked up but we don't know if they were terrorists or not.
Murderers don't care about the people they murder so why should we care about them?
You need to be better than the people you're fighting. Better, not the same.
What should be bothersome, esp to western allies, is that she is inept and only moved up by being part of the far right wingers. She is, for all intents and purposes, a far right fascists who does not care really about America, what we stand ( stood ? ) for, or even our Constitution.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We wanted to see "Spy Mistress." Not only technically more accurate, but much cooler on so many levels...
I assume you're just pretending to be obtuse.
He's just being a disingenuous troll. Maybe he thinks he actually has a point, but he doesn't. He just attacks strawman.
Please point to actual evidence that Islamic countries have in fact ever demonstrated that they have given the US any "moral authority".
No one "gives you" moral authority. You earn it with the combination of your words and deeds.
Terrorists are murdering innocent people and she's torturing murderers.
I thought that "two wrongs don't make a right" was still taught to young children. Apparently you skipped school that day...
Moreover, while your first point is broadly correct the second is merely an assumption. i.e. "she's torturing alleged murderers." I'd suggest this is still a moot point but, since I'm not sure how your moral reasoning works, it might be worth lodging objections at varying degrees of 'wrong' in case something triggers a response.
the type of person that is attracted to terrorist organizations has never, ever believed that the U.S. was part of the "good guys"... regardless of the existence of waterboarding methods.
This would be true if the world consisted of only two clearly distinct types of people "the type of person that is attracted to terrorist organizations" and the type that isn't, and if the type that "is" will always go and join Al Qaeda without any convincing. But the world is not, and they don't. People are anywhere in any range in between. Radicals have to be radicalized. Angry young men are plentiful, but they don't become terrorists until they have their anger focussed and fanned and, most particularly, given a target. "Terrorists" don't pop up out of nowhere, they are recruited and radicalized.
They might get radicalized to say "my country is repressive, I need to fight for more freedom for myself and my brothers." They might say "I need to fight to leave my country and go to America where I can open a falafel stand and get rich." Or they might get radicalized to "America is evil and wants to destroy us and our way of life and we need to fight it."
Our use of torture is a tool that gets organizations like ISIS or Al Qaeda the ability to take these angry young men and turn them to that last option.
Just like you can't convince a truther than 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy, a birther that obama is an american, a fookooshimar that fukushima will kill every single person in japan and then some, a typical terrorist has an image of the West that does not need to be based in reality or fact.
But how did that "typical terrorist [who] has an image of the West that does not need to be based in reality or fact" become a terrorist? How do they get that image of the west? They are radicalized. We are giving the terrorist organizations the tools to do that.
I take you've never met anybody from the middle east, right? They aren't born saying "I need to kill infidels". They have to be recruited.
That you even use the terms "cuck" and "soyboy" doesn't say much for you as a person.
Rex Tillerson never wanted the job. He publicly said as much when he was appointed.
Trump has been making derogatory remarks about Tillerson for awhile, and the general trend is that once Trump starts publicly bad-mouthing you, your days are numbered. Sessions will be next, though the Mueller investigation makes firing him more challenging. Not that that stopped him from firing Comey.
Give it up Russian troll bot.
Why do you think he's a Russian troll bot?
Thanks for posting some counter points vs the groupthink. It's interesting to consider all sides of an issue.
On much of this, we are ALL talking to of our ass. We simply do not know. We really can't answer "is water boarding torture" for two reasons. First because we haven't experienced it and don't really know what it's like. We can only parrot what someone said on our favorite echo-chamber TV program. Secondly, the question itself is absurdly binary. Water boarding is clearly very unpleasant. It's also clearly far less severe than most of what what traditionally be considered torture. There is a continuum, a range of degree, and framing it as a yes/no question is silly.
We can't really answer the other questions brought up, for the same reasons. "Does water boarding work?". Again treating that as a yes/no is silly. Of course subjects may give untrue answers, so there is a need to think about whether their answers are logical and consistent with other information available. (And "consistent with" doesn't mean "duplicative"). Also as you point out we train our special forces how to limit the amount and importance of the information they reveal because prisoners DO reveal valuable information. A good question would be "how well does water boarding work under each of the following sets of circumstances ...?". The answer will be different under different circumstances. Probably none of us here are interrogation experts, so none of us know how well it has worked under any given set of circumstances.
Lacking so much relevant information, here's my opinion:
As a general policy, the United States should stand as a beacon of freedom, liberty, and human rights. The US is not a nation created around a certain ethnic group, the country was created based on certain principles; we should exemplify those principles.
Having said the above, in the very RARE case that we capture someone who has knowledge of an ongoing plan to blow up a bunch of innocent people, our agents should stop that disastrous attack using whatever methods are necessary to get the information from the murderous terrorist we've captured. And I don't want to know what they did to the terrorist. Handle it. Those instances are very rare.
We've executed people we _know_ are innocent. What of them? Just collateral damage so folks like you can enact your revenge fantasies?
I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
I don't murder innocent children for one thing. But ya, other than that, we are all terrorists.
You are forgetting about the effect of fear on people who have not committed a crime but intend to. Remember, all people calculate risk/reward in their own ways but if the risks are known widely and harsh enough, it may deter future crime.
It led to the release of actual terrorists by the Obama administration so...
Torture absolutely works in a specific case, and that is to extract verifiable information. For instance, if I want to know the combination to a safe, torture works great for finding it.
Disregarding the morality (which isn't easy to disregard, but if people are "pro-torture" obviously they don't care) there are two issues. First, we've found that it's generally easier to just pay someone for the information. And usually this involves gaining their trust and going that route.
Second, and this is the big one, torture is terrible for what it's often used for: open ended questions or confessions of guilt. People will give you information or gladly confess to make it stop. The problem is that the information may be worthless and the confession may be false. Neither of these situations help whomever is trying to gather information.
I said "two" but there is a third issue, too. The torturers fall into two categories: 1) normal people who will be emotionally devastated by it and 2) sadists who enjoy it. As the normal people fall away you're left with sadists who enjoy doing it. They have no reason to get information from the victim because that would end their fun.
But make no mistake: torture is useful for extracting easily verifiable and specific information. I know because there are news stories of torture being used very effectively in that manner. You can find them easily on Google, I won't link.
Do you have ESP?
Did I say it was ALWAYS the number one fact? Way to construct a strawman and knock it down convincingly.
Newsflash for you AC: ISIS has been defeated.
Also, you want to talk about "Provoking people like Trump does", yet didn't North Korea just acquiesce and agree to meet with Trump in order to negotiate nuclear disarmament?
Nobody said "we need to torture people to win because that is what the enemy would do". We have merely stated that waterboarding is an effective way of getting someone to talk "without" having to resort to torture.
I'm sure that "vast majority of murderers never re-offend" is a comforting statistic for the victims of the small minority who do re-offend.
Care to give some statistics on just how "vast" that majority is? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/o...
Here's a Canadian study that found a 0.3% repeat murder rate over a 10 year period: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/resea...
And here's an article from the UK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Whether or not your a Trump supporter, isn't a large number of firings exactly what's to be expected if he's "draining the swamp"?
These are all bureaucrats within the administration, not elected positions. The fear this brings you notwithstanding, hiring and firing here is the job your country elected him to do.
He's firing people that he hired. So, if that's "draining the swamp" then it means that he brought the swamp with him in the first place.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Can you guarantee that the torture will only be used on people who are guilty of murder, and not just suspected of it? If so, how?
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Has it occurred to you yet that it makes more sense that you're the Russian spy troll sent here to make progressives look even more dumb?
It's about time someone figured that out. And your statement is silly, because I wouldn't have to figure anything out. Just call me Afonasii, and Vashe zrodovye!
Although the clue is reall trolls seldom answer questions like yours, Grigori. Just sayin'
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh man, THREE Russian names. Has anyone ever told you how clever you are? Disagreeing with someone politically and accusing them of being a foreign troll, wow. That's like, super funny and original. You must be a writer for Jimmy Kimmel or something.
All of the above. Plus I'm located at the south pole.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you elect an ex-CIA boss to president in the next elections, the US would finally have someone to match Putin (more or less).
At least, they could talk shop quite easily.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Lame straw-man is lame straw-man.
No, they don't ALL have the same beliefs and motivations.
Just 95+ percent do.
Made up statistic is made up.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Leaking, like espionage, is often a genuinely good thing for human civilization, because they can reveal intentions in a way that well-prepared media events do not.
Hanns Scharff was one of the most successful interrogators of the second world war. Working for the Luftwaffe, he interrogated VIPs, captured American fighter aces and other high value prisoners. He could basically get what ever he wanted, without ever laying a finger on his subject or otherwise coercing them. It all came down to forming a relationship and getting someone to talk.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
probably just a mistake, "Russian troll bot" is the signature line.
So I've actually been to Gitmo... The biggest issue they had with the prisoners there was what to do with them. Congress would not allow them to enter the US, and the US military/government would not send them to a country that would disappear/kill/torture them. For example, when I was there they had a fairly large group of Chinese Huygers (sp?) They knew were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet they were stuck at Gitmo because they couldn't be brought to the us, and they couldn't be sent back to China. These people were effectively stateless through the actions of the us government. So they were in limbo.
Eventually I believe a south American country accepted them but they were stuck there for years.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Actually no, Hillary got more people votes, but the electoral college nonsense gave us Trump
Except that studies demonstrate that the death penalty is not only no disincentive, it can actually lead to crimes of greater severity.
Once you're going to be sentenced to death anyway, you've got nothing to lose..
Waterboarding, as practiced under the Bush administration, is not torture.
Yes, it is.
It is simulated drowning that does no physical harm.
People have drowned from it. Even if they do suffer no physical harm, torture does not have to have permanent physical effects.
If it had no physical effect it wouldn't be fucking used.
beat the victims belly until it burst. That is torture.
That is also torture. Torture can take many forms.
torture does work.
Sure, if you was to inflict pain, suffering and misery on someone.
As an interrogation technique? No.
That's why the armed forces have classes in how to resist torture
No, that's because they risk being captured by people that will use torture to inflict pain, suffering and misery.
The final lesson of that class is that you will break but whatever 'secrets' you have are only useful for about 24 hours.
Not everybody breaks, and a lot of people will lie to stop the torture.
Torture is morally wrong, and also just totally shit from an efficiency perspective. There are better ways to get information from someone.
Poe's law just kicked in.
Oh, come on. You have no evidence of that.
We know you have no evidence of that. You're still alive.
Suddenly the new law in Poland regarding Polish Concentration Camps has an interesting spin on it that I hadn't previously considered.
No. Leadership is developing people, helping them exploit their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.
Not picking the wrong person or just sacking everyone.
Trump is many things, but he really hasn't shown strong leadership skills.
I wish more people understood this. You can't claim a moral high ground or to be a beacon for the rest of the world if you're doing the same things as terrorists.
"it may deter"
I beg to differ: overall, it may promote crime
Yes, but does vengance or the death penalty promote more crime and hence more victims.
I agree. Any links?
"it may deter"
and it may, overall, may promote crime
Agreed. Any links?
Yes, but does vengeance, or the death penalty, promote more crime and hence more victims.
Interesting first link too :
"Mullane said she was able to determine that 988 convicted murderers were released from prisons in California over a 20 year period ... none of the 988 were rearrested for murder, and none went back to prison over the 20 year period she examined."
Terrorists are murdering innocent people and she's torturing murderers.
I thought that "two wrongs don't make a right" was still taught to young children. Apparently you skipped school that day...
Even God wiped out people that were "wrong", does that mean two wrongs do make a right? Or is it justice?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
No, it doesn't, shit for brains. All torture does is get the victim to say whatever he thinks the torturer wants to hear. Your dumb ass would confess to assassinating Abraham Lincoln if water was poured down your throat.
Fuck that tired Obamabot bullshit. Obama no more needed a special bill to transfer prisoners out of Gitmo than Bush needed a special bill to send them there. And Obama didn't intend to close it so much as move it to a SuperMax in Illinois - which is why people like Russ Fiengold voted against his plan. The problem with Gitmo wasn't its location, it was the utterly lawless system of endless detention of mostly innocent people. One Obama had no intention of ending.
This was all known waaaay back in 2009. So fuck you along with your propaganda.
You understand Obama continued to hold people in Gitmo that had been cleared for release under Bush, right?
Pretty much complete bullshit. Obama didn't need an act from Congress to transfer inmates of the gulag into federal prisons or to release them, any more than Bush needed a special act to send them there in the first place.
Obama no more needed a special act to transfer Gitmo prisoners to federal custody on US soil than Bush needed a special act to send them there in the first place. He also could have sent an Article III judge there to conduct trials. Who cares if the building was still there as long as the prisoners were freed from the gulag.
But Obama had no intention of ending the gulag, but to move it to a Supermax prison in Illinois - which is why senators like Russ Feingold voted against his neocon proposal.
And the moment Obama took office, it became his policy, same as drone murders are now Trump's policy. And Politifact is toilet paper.
If Obama ended extraordinary renditions, how is it "his policy"?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Because he didn't end them. Any more simple answers to simple questions?