Health Care

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Kugbok_Fennin

Torture is illegal, since when is it okay to break the law and not be forced to stand trial for your actions?

Your argument is hypocritical and asinine.

Except that, you know, they received legal advice from the justice department that gave them permission to use certain tactics and procedures on high-value detainees that were in fact NOT illegal.

Which is the whole fucking point of releasing the memos.

I don't see the point in going after the interrogators either, they were following orders and believed what they were doing was hunky dory and had backing for thinking so. I'd agree that the people high up in the Bush Administration should be pursued because they were the ones that pushed for this shit, however I don't know that doing so would be worth the massive amount of political capital Obama would have to expend to do anything about it. So basically, it's most productive to just move on, unfortunately, and learn from past mistakes.

[Heavens_Myst]

That reasoning is fucking madness. Military personnel are supposed to disobey unlawful orders but if their superiors tell them they checked it out with the higher ups and it was OK then they don't still have that responsibility? Were the SS soldiers stationed at concentration camps justified because they got the legal OK from Himmler?

The responsibility for one's conduct rests solely on one's own shoulders. These people were not under duress and they had a moral obligation to follow federal law and international obligations. The fact that they disregarded that moral imperative out of a sense of duty to country is admirable, but sometimes justice does demand martyrs. The use of powers that allegedly fall outside the scope of those granted by law should never be allowed without punishment.

[Soriak]

I obviously have no knowledge of the inner workings of the CIA, but my guess is they do many things that are in the gray area. If you prosecute them for things they were told were legal, you risk having them refuse all orders that are not unambiguously clear. However, if those opinions were obviously not based in fact and someone knowingly gave cover for illegal activity, why not prosecute them instead? This Yoo guy is a constitutional lawyer - is it reasonably to assume he knew the actions were illegal? If so, hold him responsible.

[Smocca]

Originally Posted by Heavens_Myst

That reasoning is fucking madness. Military personnel are supposed to disobey unlawful orders but if their superiors tell them they checked it out with the higher ups and it was OK then they don't still have that responsibility? Were the SS soldiers stationed at concentration camps justified because they got the legal OK from Himmler?

The responsibility for one's conduct rests solely on one's own shoulders. These people were not under duress and they had a moral obligation to follow federal law and international obligations. The fact that they disregarded that moral imperative out of a sense of duty to country is admirable, but sometimes justice does demand martyrs. The use of powers that allegedly fall outside the scope of those granted by law should never be allowed without punishment.

I agree. Let the evidence in each individual's case dictate what happens. If an individual clearly sought out legal council and was given something as ridiculous as these memos as a response, then I can understand leniency given in that case. Whether that means letting it go, giving some sort of reprimand, lesser imprisonment or whatever I am not going to speculate. That is not my area. But waiving a hand in the air and saying let bygones by bygones is insane.

The "political capital" argument is far too easily and quickly used to justify shit like this. Leave that to the politicians who are making that decision. It is one thing to accept it when we are talking about small issues but where does it end? People died from these techniques. Especially for the politicians involved, we know beyond any reasonable doubt that it wasn't just isolated incidents ("a few bad apples") but a program developed over many years. How can people so easily look the other way for political expedience?

[Smocca]

Originally Posted by Soriak

I obviously have no knowledge of the inner workings of the CIA, but my guess is they do many things that are in the gray area. If you prosecute them for things they were told were legal, you risk having them refuse all orders that are not unambiguously clear. However, if those opinions were obviously not based in fact and someone knowingly gave cover for illegal activity, why not prosecute them instead? This Yoo guy is a constitutional lawyer - is it reasonably to assume he knew the actions were illegal? If so, hold him responsible.

I understand that and it isn't unreasonable, but again isn't it dangerous to just give a blanket pass to the CIA? Do they really have no culpability in war crimes?

What does that say exactly? If you can find a politician willing to authorize it and a lawyer willing to justify it (no matter how pathetically) the CIA can do anything? Isn't that a dangerous precedent?

[Cad]

You guys see things as black & white. They aren't. Waterboarding is a gray area, because no harm occurs. Thats really the crux of the legal position the Bush DoJ took. You're obviously not allowed to break all their fingers, pry off their kneecaps, etc - that'd be against the conventions. You're allowed to annoy them, to deprive them of sunlight, to use psychological techniques.. sleep deprivation, etc.. and waterboarding is really a psychological technique which fools your body into thinking it's drowning. I'm sure it is highly unpleasant, but no physical harm occurs. It's a fucking gray area. Concentration camps are not a fucking gray area. Stop comparing the CIA to the nazis, it makes your point worthless.

[cosmic_cs]

Originally Posted by Cad

Waterboarding is a gray area, because no harm occurs.

My brain just exploded.

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by cosmic_cs

My brain just exploded.

Proof that the brainless are still able to post on the internet?

[cosmic_cs]

Originally Posted by Malakriss

Proof that the brainless are still able to post on the internet?

Let's crack your bones because they'll heal back to normal. No harm was done.

Are you guys retarded or what?

Anyway I'm not comparing the CIA to Nazis, but saying "no harm was done" from waterboarding is absurd. Using sunlight deprivation and other minor psychological "techniques" doesn't give you slippery slope to waterboarding, lol.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by cosmic_cs

Let's crack your bones because they'll heal back to normal. No harm was done.

Harm that healed doesn't mean no harm was done. I'm sure you're not this stupid. Then again, maybe you are.. I dunno.

Originally Posted by cosmic_cs

Anyway I'm not comparing the CIA to Nazis, but saying "no harm was done" from waterboarding is absurd. Using sunlight deprivation and other minor psychological "techniques" doesn't give you slippery slope to waterboarding, lol.

Waterboarding is ultimately a psychological technique, just as sensory deprivation terrifies you (eventually) and makes you tell them what you know (or what you think they want to hear) so that they won't do it again, while being physically harmless, waterboarding does the same.

It seems to me to be a matter of degree, waterboarding is highly intense and "shocking" while sensory deprivation seems pretty mild, it's just unpleasant and a long-duration type of torture.

I'm not saying waterboarding is okay, I'm saying given then language of the conventions, it's a gray area. Ordinarily you'd be well advised to stay out of the gray areas, but the Bush DoJ ventured into them. It could come back to bite them, or it might not - I'd tend towards amending the conventions to outlaw the psychological tortures you want outlawed rather than arguing by analogy to fucking nazis and claiming it's the same thing.

[AladainAF]

Let's crack your bones because they'll heal back to normal. No harm was done.

Cracking bones is the same as simulated drowning where no drowning occurs, of course.

[Tuco]

My friend wants me to waterboard him, should I?

[Hopper]

Here's a good article and video featuring Christopher Hitchens on the issue of water boarding:

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned...

[Smocca]

Originally Posted by Cad

Harm that healed doesn't mean no harm was done. I'm sure you're not this stupid. Then again, maybe you are.. I dunno.



Waterboarding is ultimately a psychological technique, just as sensory deprivation terrifies you (eventually) and makes you tell them what you know (or what you think they want to hear) so that they won't do it again, while being physically harmless, waterboarding does the same.

It seems to me to be a matter of degree, waterboarding is highly intense and "shocking" while sensory deprivation seems pretty mild, it's just unpleasant and a long-duration type of torture.

I'm not saying waterboarding is okay, I'm saying given then language of the conventions, it's a gray area. Ordinarily you'd be well advised to stay out of the gray areas, but the Bush DoJ ventured into them. It could come back to bite them, or it might not - I'd tend towards amending the conventions to outlaw the psychological tortures you want outlawed rather than arguing by analogy to fucking nazis and claiming it's the same thing.

Maybe waterboarding is in the gray area but that is a small part of what went on. Read the ICRC report if you have not. I don't really think it is reasonable to say that what went on does not constitute obvious torture and human rights violations. It's also indisputable that great efforts were taken to get around the Geneva convention. Finally, people were killed in our custody as a result of these practices (due to suffocation yes as well as hypothermia and other causes). I don't see how you can then argue that we weren't causing real harm.

I don't know if people are comparing the practices to the nazis. If I came off that way I didn't mean to. People are trying to draw comparisons as far as the "just following orders" thing goes. Using nazis in a comparison of anything though isn't going to produce reasonable debate so I'm not going to defend it. Let's just judge this situation on its own merits.

EDIT: Finally I want to point out that some of the people responsible for this condemned these practices during the whole Abu Ghraib thing. We know now that while they were condemning these things and declaring it the result of "bad apples" out of one side of their mouth, they were calling for more out of the other.

[cosmic_cs]

Originally Posted by AladainAF

Cracking bones is the same as simulated drowning where no drowning occurs, of course.

My perspective is that psychological harm is just as bad, if not worse, than physical harm. Waterboarding brings your psyche to the edge of death, and the mental scars would take long to heal. For example, many veterans don't have any physical signs of war, but they have trouble functioning in society because of mental scars.

But comparing the CIA to Nazis is dumb. The overarching factor in these practices is intent. Obviously, the CIA's practices were intended for the benefit of our nation, whereas the Nazis just wanted to destroy Jews.