Torture memos

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

IMO, the only thing that would be gutting would be illegal acts of torture (and possibly the more ambiguous Cruel/Degrading/Inhumane treatment)....and it is still highly contentious if these methods are really any more effective than legal means of interrogation. IMO, and according to many interrogation experts, they are not.

It is more than that. Cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment is a highly subjective list which most will never agree on. If you have operators who are always looking over their shoulder and supers who do not have their back they will hesitate and will not be an effective force. They run the risk of gutting the soul of the Operations Branch. The world is not a fair place and those countries that allow the enemy to dictate the rules of engagement are setting themselves up for failure. It has happened before in the CIA and it is going to happen again. We are going to lose a valuable tool when that portion of our forces loses it's heart in the fight. Maybe some are ok with that. I have seen these people work. I am not willing to accept that.

[DanaC]

From earlier in this debate:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

It is more than that. Cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment is a highly subjective list which most will never agree on. If you have operators who are always looking over their shoulder and supers who do not have their back they will hesitate and will not be an effective force. They run the risk of gutting the soul of the Operations Branch. The world is not a fair place and those countries that allow the enemy to dictate the rules of engagement are setting themselves up for failure. It has happened before in the CIA and it is going to happen again. We are going to lose a valuable tool when that portion of our forces loses it's heart in the fight. Maybe some are ok with that. I have seen these people work. I am not willing to accept that.

Therefore we shouldn't have them 'looking over their shoulders'. That's a recipe for them continuing to use methods that are illegal and immoral. This in itself is a justification. I realise that you were arguing against them being held accountable retrospectively and the damage that might do to the organisation in the future. But you are arguing here for complicity in the actions they took. The actions they took included torture.

I don't by the way mean you have advocated the use of torture\; you've been very clear that 'torture' is illegal and should not be used. You have however shown remarkable unwillingness to accept that commonly used methods of interrogation during this period constitute tporture. Even where you have (after much diagreement over definitions) accepted something as a method of 'torture'you have then suggested that the inmates who suffered it are the least reliable witnesses. This is a catch 22. The only people who can make an accusation of torture in individual cases are those who were present\: the interrogator and the victim. The fact that they are claiming they have been tortured is taken by you, seemingly as evidence that they have not. The only people who can be trusted are those who were not involved. Therefore nobody can be trusted and therefore no evidence is secure.

I was perhaps unfair to say you have justified the use of torture. But you have advocated an attitude which is inherently complicit in that crime, and which inherently removes all possibility of truly illuminating it.