I have mixed feelings about this CIA report being leaked. I do agree it's not in our best interest to use such tactics as water boarding that could be used against our own by the enemy, and that we need to have "empathy" and use "smart power" with those who we disagree with, according to Senator Feinstein and Hillary Clinton. At the same time those who want to destroy us could give a rat's ass about being as pure as white driven snow in torturing our people. Some would say we might as well throw up the white flag since we are projecting such weakness to our enemies. Well, I guess we will have to wait until the next 911 comes to determine which side is right.
We could always let them choose which method they prefer: a) the ISIS-Alqueda way, or b) the CIA way.
There will no doubt that we as a country will be tested again. If the next strike is a dirty nuclear bomb or biological weapon brought in over the border and it means the lives of millions then I say the CIA will be given every support they need. Time will tell who is right.
The point of this report I believe was to show that it(torture) does not work. The information they got from the torture was the same that they had before it. You forgot one more option. The right way! People constantly believe that it is black and white but it isn't. There are multiple paths to solving issues.
I think people forget what the climate of this country was after 9/11...reading it now may seem extreme...but at the time it more than likely felt necessary with no other options...it wasn't black or white...we were seeing red On a side note if you haven't watched the documentary on cantor Fitzgerald "out of the clear blue sky" that company lost 658 of their employees on 9/11...many of their remains were never found...poof...they just disappeared
The problems are 1. The two psychologist that taught these techniques after 911 had no experience thus they were just guessing, and didnot know anything about the terrorist 2. They also killed people who had nothing to do with the war. ----------------------- Lets not pretend we never tortured people.
I remember. I was against the use of torture then, too. There weren't too many of us congressional staffers who thought the way I did, either. We were a small group.
Torture is as old as war itself Let's not be silly here people And if you can't stomach getting intel from the enemy by any means necessary, you have no place in war fighting you hippies
You can interrogate people hard without physically torturing them. There are a number of way to fuck with someone's head through lies and false incentives to get them to break without torturing them. (We'll kill your family. bomb your village, etc.) The United States always busts the balls of rogue nations that employ torture techniques like Russia and China, but whenever we get spooked, we're ready to shove tubes up someone's ass and inject pureed food, or use water to make someone almost drown in a 'controlled' suffocation and act like it's okay. McCain is the only U.S. Senator who's been a prisoner of war, the only one who's seen torture up close AND experienced it himself. Torture to get intel is barbaric and not how you acquire classified information about an enemy. People love to use these epic hypotheticals that if you had a terrorist in custody you knew had planted a nuke in the NYC subway, would you torture him?? That time would be better spent finding the bomb. The problem with condoning torture on behalf of the US government is where do you draw the line?? Can I kill a man's child in front of him to make him talk?? One life for 20 million?? If you believe torture is okay under specific circumstances, then don't be upset when Americans and our allies are beheaded and their murders are uploaded on social media. Real intelligence isn't based on getting captured suspects to talk. You have your own human assets on the ground either infiltrating groups to gather info, or you use surveillance and PAY informants to talk. Even during the height of the Cold War, it wasn't common practice to torture spies. There's no bigger motivator for most folks than hard cash. As much as our enemies hate us, believe it or not there is a benefit to the United States longterm that they can't say we attach electrodes to the balls of enemy combatants or shoot random prisoners in the head. Why do you think North Korea hates Sony Pictures so much?? Because of the brutality of the Japanese imperial army during WWII. The best defense we have against a nuclear attack is by not being excessively brutal towards our enemies. Except for drone strikes. Hell from the sky. Allah Akbar.
