How are you responding to people who support CIA torture?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

For some of us it's co-workers talking at cubicles. For some of us it's Facebook graphics with people jumping from the WTC with the caption "This is why I don't give a damn how we extracted information from terrorists." Some are Vietnam vets who saw the horrors of what the VC and NVA did to soldiers. For some, we simply remember the Eighth Amendment and the fact that our founding fathers banned cruel and unusual punishment.

When someone expresses support for CIA torture, what, if anything, are you saying?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. "We're supposed to be the good guys."

[Algernon Moncrieff]

5. My response to one friend was similar

"Aren't we supposed to lead by example?"

[SamKnause]

2. They sicken me.

Torture supporters were calling in to C-SPAN the Washington Journal this morning.

They sicken and infuriate me !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Algernon Moncrieff]

8. Stephen Ambrose wrote a book called "The Wild Blue"

It's principally about George McGovern's experiences flying B-24s in WWII.

All of us know that Germany tortured people, and we also know that not all of the torturers were hauled off to face charges at Nuremberg (although some were, to be certain). One of the things Ambrose points out is that the Germans got much of their information from fliers from methods that involved no torture whatsoever. Mostly, they found that if they could simply get airmen to engage in casual converation, they'd get all sorts of information they wanted that the airmen thought was innocuous.

On an unrelated note: we didn't fail to stop 9-11 because we failed to torture people. Conservatives and liberals alike should be able to agree that all of the evidence and clues were their right in the open. The problem was that no one in the intelligence community put those pieces together.

[SamKnause]

10. Thanks for your reply and input.

I will check it out.

Have a great day.

Stay safe.

[Bucky]

44. I read an article in the NYTimes years ago reporting the same thing from interrogation OF Nazis

US military officers got LOTS of useful intel from captured Nazis by putting them in comfortable housing (still barracks, but closer to college dorm rooms) then just playing chess or bridge with them, striking up casual friendly conversations, and getting them to talk openly. They didn't even record the conversations, just wrote down their notes afterwards.

[sgtbenobo]

3. I just choke them....

....a little bit until they change their minds.


Carry on.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

4. "Just lay down on your desk while I get a bottle of water"

[MANative]

6. One of my classmates posted that picture on Facebook. Here's what I replied:

"How many of you who "liked" this can say you were there in NYC that day? I was. I witnessed the carnage first hand and still suffer to this day with the injury to my left knee that was the result of my escape. I am also the daughter of a man who was in Army Intelligence for 27 years. My father firmly believed, and knew from his own experience, that torture, or what the Cheney gang likes to call "enhanced interrogation," simply DOES NOT WORK. I am no fan of John McCain for any number of reasons, but he - a contemporary of my father and veteran of the same war - agrees. If we use these tactics, we are no better than the terrorists. There is a moral imperative beyond simple victory, or we don't deserve our "freedom". Ask Ben Franklin, one of our most insightful Founding Fathers. (Okay, look up his thoughts on the issue.) And unless you were there in Manhattan as I was on that day, my guess is that your perspective is not as clear as mine."

While the conversation was mostly supportive of my view, there were a couple of idiots who had the nerve to say that my personal experience was immaterial and that they would be first in line with the electrified cattle prods.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

12. My in-laws were also in the intelligence business

..and they'd be highly inclined to agree. I think many have been convinced that the Mossad is all-knowing, and by golly they will torture if there's a "ticking time bomb", which could - let's face it, be anything. And it's not like we didn't go down this road in the cold war when we didn't engage in torture, but we certainly supported state torture in Iran, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, and many other places.

Re: Your friends with cattle prods. Do you know what the beauty of the end of WWII was? In the end, we felt like we got our pound of flesh. We got to watch the swastika get blown of the Brandenburg Gate, and got to watch Hiroshima evaporate into a mushroom cloud. Many Americans who witnessed 9-11 still do not feel like we've gotten payback.

[MANative]

20. "Many Americans who witnessed 9-11 still do not feel like we've gotten payback."

Yes, I think there's quite a lot of truth in that, but it's due almost entirely to the differences in war between nation-states and ideological war conducted by what my father would have called "guerillas." I don't know that there ever will be anything that feels like a victory in this, because it's about controlling people with religious and socio-economic agendas. Those are struggles that never end because new generations are continually indoctrinated. The end of these kinds of wars would be the end of "organized" religion in general, and that's a day that could never come too soon for me.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

37. I don't know

We fought/are fighting a police-action type war in Afghanistan. This is a country that has routinely defeated great powers for thousands of years.

We fought what was supposed to be a repeat of Kuwait in Iraq that turned into years of misery and horrific destruction and breathtaking cost.

Many Americans do indeed view this as a religious war.

What would feel like victory? Serious answer? For me personally, I'd like to wash my hands of the entire Middle East and leave them to their own devices for the rest of tiime. For many other Americans: I think they'd simply like to see everything from the border of Israel to the border of India turned into smouldering radioactive slag. Perhaps I'm too cynical.

[2naSalit]

23. Indeed...

Many Americans who witnessed 9-11 still do not feel like we've gotten payback.

And therein lies the rub.

Much of our cultural identity revolves around revenge and "pay back" when we feel we've been wronged. It's in our cultural DNA, and it is sadly misguided at best. The kind of equilibrium of alleged justice we claim to uphold is not only a myth, it's one we'll torture and kill to maintain. Just like the concept that our country is the greatest. We need to get over it as far as our hubris and self aggrandizement as a nation... we're flailing but as long as we have someone to blast away at, we feel as though we have the ultimate advantage... just like an unbeaten bully whose victim got a got strike in and pissed the bully off, that was the US after 9/11. While the war profiteers who either manufactured or facilitated the events of 9/11 are busy with empire-building for their benefit, they manage to manipulate the citizenry with their "We're the best, we've been harmed and someone needs to pay... forever, until we win the world and everyone does what we want no matter if it takes every penny you ever earn."

Expecting that pound of flesh, in this case particularly, illustrates one of the failures of the current culture in this country.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

32. What does America stand for?

Is it a nation of laws and equality? Is it a nation where we value and cherish individual freedom?

Or is a nation in which we can all get rich? Is it a nation where being a patriot means every child says the Pledge of Allegiance, and we all shed a tear while a group of veterans raise a flag during a flawless rendition of our National Anthem? Is it a nation in which we all carry guns and go to church? Is it a nation in which we do all of these things, but violate our own laws and principles by torturing would-be terrorists and their families in secret, overseas prisons?

[2naSalit]

36. I suspect

that the image we like to see in the Cosmic Mirror with all the airbrushed complexion is the former while the "warts and hairs" version is similar to the latter which would be the more realistic of the two.

[jeepers]

7. If torture is allowd in military cases

Should the FBI be allowed to use torture to investigate domestic crime. How about the state police? Should the local police be allowed to use torture to determine guilt or innocence? Is torture just another reality that we should learn to accept? Would you torture your child to get the truth out of them? Ask questions, see how far into this absurdity they are willing to go, and then remind them that if it is acceptable to them it will eventually be used on them.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

9. Why have an Eighth Amendment at all?

Could it be that the British engaged in cruel punishments of Americans, and we didn't like it?

[Bobcat]

11. Yoo

Should the CIA be allowed to crush the testicles of a child to acquire information from the parent? That's what John Yoo - an architect of the ("legal&quot policy - claimed while testifying before Congress. If you are onboard with this you are one sick MFer.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

13. I did a survey the other day here on DU

The survey was entitled: Thinking of Americans, generally - how do you think most of them feel about the torture report?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025936607

One of the options I offered was "I think most Americans feel that the actions of ISIS/Al Quaida are equally reprehensible, and the torture and the terror essentially cancel each other out. " I think, as sick and sadistic Yoo's suggested actions are, that many Americans who are otherwise rational will respond with something like "what about the pregnant women who leaped to their deaths from the WTC on 9-11?" Apparantly, two wrongs do make a right in the minds of many.

[JEB]

14. Torture is a war crime punishable by death.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

15. Do you know the funny thing about international law?

We rarely admit that we're subject to it.

[JEB]

45. We think the law applies to others.

Classic criminal mindset.

[Mr Dixon]

16. SMH

I pretty much just shake my head and move on, what a waste of time trying to reason with morons.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

19. Normally, that's my response

I encountered someone who is politcally conservative, and professes a strong Christian identity. If you one is both of those things, how can you support actions that are squarely in opposition to the wishes of the Founding Fathers, and are in direct conflict with the teachings of Christ?

[Mr Dixon]

43. IMO

Pretty much pick and choose what bible verse they choose to follow, madness IMO

[Iggo]

17. "We strung up people like you at the end of World War II."

[Algernon Moncrieff]

24. Yes we did. And we sent them to prison.

We are hypocrites, and the world knows it.

Unlike Abu Graib, we don't have video or audio of the torture. Unlike WWII, we don't have the photos of the camps. What we have a report that few actually want to read, which is somewhat understandable at several levels. People would rather have it summarized and be told what to think. I've seen conservative reactin fall into three basic groups: 1) the release of the report was stupid because it makes us look really bad, 2) torturing them is preferable to simply killing them, right?, and 3) I don't care what was done to them because of 9-11.

I think there will eventually be prosecutions, but they will be two decades down the road. Look at how long it took to prosecute the Serbians, the Dirty-War Argentines, etc.

[NuclearDem]

18. Ask them if they know what torture is.

Most people back off when I describe exactly what waterboarding is, and how I only lasted three seconds when I was trained on it.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

26. On one hand, I don't know what torture is - I'll admit that.

OTOH, I know what we've done sent Germans to the gallows.

[Raine1967]

21. Yesterday, on FB, I made this my status update :

For all the horror of the atrocity we faced on September 11, 2001 — there is no way in hell I think that what was done in our country's name would ever be worth it.

Torture wins nothing. Aggression, pain and physical horror is not a solution.

More soldiers and civilians died in the 2 battle fronts of Iraq and Afghanistan than to combined total of lives that we lost on 9/11.
There is something terribly morally wrong with people who think that this torture was justified.

This country is supposed to be better than those who would harm us.

We are supposed to be better.

George Washington himself would agree. **Should any American Soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any Canadian or Indian, in his Person or Property, I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary Punishment as the Enormity of the Crime may require. **
He wrote that letter to a man who would become a traitor:
Benedict Arnold.

and added this link: http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/107/Letter_from_George_Washington_to_Benedict_Arnold_1.html

[Algernon Moncrieff]

25. Well stated

I plan to steal your GW reference.

[Kaleva]

22. The subject has yet to come up.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

27. There are lots of other things going on

The Garner fallout is still dominating political headlines, and then there is the California storm, and then there are the holidays and shopping and travel plans and all of that.

I get it.

[Kaleva]

28. Much of the discussion is dominated by Christmas, kids and the weather.

I was on facebook earlier today and all I saw was pics of little ones posted by their mothers and grandmothers.

If I wish to discuss politics or current events, I come here to DU.

[BeyondGeography]

29. John McCain says it doesn't work

[Algernon Moncrieff]

33. John McCain, like the proverbial broken clock, has to be right once in a while.

[BeyondGeography]

34. I finally found a use for him

Sad that this is what it takes.

[KingCharlemagne]

30. Remind them what Abraham Lincoln said about supporters of

slavery:

"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, "Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment" (March 17, 1865), p. 361.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

35. ..and Lincoln was a Republican

...well, maybe a RINO

[KingCharlemagne]

46. Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are probably the only 2 Republicans I would

ever even consider voting for.

DUer Jackpine Radical was kind enough to remind me recently that up until about 1914, Republicans were the 'progressives,' which is an interesting historical fact to contemplate.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

48. Absolutely correct

William Jennings Bryan (D-NE) would have been right at home in the Tea Party.

[johnnyreb]

31. Gently alert them that their opinions are purchased.

Give them a sad but understanding glance while sharing a glimpse of the long history of CIA corruption of the media, showing a clip of the Milgram experiment, or just making a sympathetic remark about the extent of our ability to withstand unknown billions of dollars flying around in Public Relations and advertising. Or just support the release of The 28 Pages and let the light shine.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

39. Long run - sunshine is the best cure

It sanitizes like nothing else.

[Johonny]

38. This poem

Not the torturer will scare me
Nor the body's final fall
Nor the barrels of death's rifles
Nor the shadows on the wall
Nor the night when to the ground
The last dim star of pain, is held
But the blind indifference
Of a merciless unfeeling world


Halfdan Rasmussen

[Capt. Obvious]

40. I add them to my ignore list

[Algernon Moncrieff]

47. On DU, you can do that

On Facebook, you can do that, but unfriending can have consequences beyond the internet if the posters are family, coworkers, or neighbors. One can "unfollow" people on Facebook, which means they remain on your friend list, but you don't see their news -- which may possibly include news of their kids, their dogs, their hobbies/activities in which you share, etc.

In most (not all) cases, one can't avoid family members and co-workers IRL, and there's no law stating they have to share my opinions. I'm working on getting such a law passed, but until then.....

[Taitertots]

41. "next time we get attacked are you going to admit our freedom has nothing to do with it"

Because torturing innocent people is likely to cause justified resistance to American forces. I just want to make sure we remember who caused it, so we can blame them.

[Skidmore]

42. It is an immoral act.

Period. It is the antithesis of the Golden Rule.

[nilesobek]

49. What I tell the apologists

is that with the CIA torturing and the police killing, that there is NO reason for an enemy combatant to ever surrender to Western forces.

Why would anyone ever surrender to armed forces or police if they know they are going to be tortured or killed?

We have made our enemies 10x tougher because they will keep fighting until their last breath and sell their lives at a dear price to American soldiers. Which means more casualties for American soldiers. I know, if it was me, and I knew I was going to be tortured, I would use all my ammo, burn out and melt my gun barrel, then grab a bayonet or knife and continue fighting until I was dead. No surrender to filthy torturers!