BCC said:


What is stupid is your comment. It didn't convince you? Who the hell are you? This was the CIA lawyer explaining why it was used or do I have to understand things for you too?

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

BCC said:

tjohn said:

As I suspected, it seems like it depends on what the meaning of is is.

No, it depends on what the DOJ and the CIA lawyer say what is is.

As with every other lawyer on the planet, those lawyers say whatever they are paid to say. 

BCC said:

nohero said:

BCC said:

This was where that link was supposed to take you. I have no idea why it didn't.

CIA Lawyer: Waterboarding Wasn't Torture Then And Isn't Torture Now

I heard that when it was on the radio originally - it didn't convince me then, either.

And not for nothing, but introducing it the way you did ("From NPR, not exactly a right wing rag") is stupid or misleading or both.  Just because NPR has someone on the air, interviewed about their position, doesn't mean it's any kind of endorsement.

BCC said:

From NPR, not exactly a right wing rag.

https://www.npr.org/series/100876926/npr-book-notes

[Edited to add] That's a very "Surovellian" technique you used right there.

What is stupid is your comment. It didn't convince you? Who the hell are you? This was the CIA lawyer explaining why it was used or do I have to understand things for you too?

Who the hell am I?  I'm someone not convinced by the attempt to excuse the practice.  There is a lot of material which you are capable of finding, which provides authoritative arguments against that former CIA attorney's position.

By the way, when you shift from your normal "objective" tone to the more insulting one, that's your "tell" that you've run out of arguments and are backed into a corner.

it's a myopic U.S.-centric argument to claim that because a bunch of DOJ or CIA lawyers tried to argue that torture isn't torture that the rest of the civilized world ever considered waterboarding to not be torture. It is and has been counter to international law for a very, very long time. 

someone here, not saying who, would have been a stellar member of the Hitler Youth.

I have asked this question before and got no answer.

The Twin Towers are lying in rubble, there is the fear of another attack to come.

Your options are to try to get info that will help you prevent the attack or ameliorate it, or do nothing and hope for the best.

You are now in 2002 not 2018 and have to make the decision now. Thousands of American lives can be at stake.

How many of you honestly would opt to do nothing.

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

nohero said:

BCC said:

nohero said:

BCC said:

This was where that link was supposed to take you. I have no idea why it didn't.

CIA Lawyer: Waterboarding Wasn't Torture Then And Isn't Torture Now

I heard that when it was on the radio originally - it didn't convince me then, either.

And not for nothing, but introducing it the way you did ("From NPR, not exactly a right wing rag") is stupid or misleading or both.  Just because NPR has someone on the air, interviewed about their position, doesn't mean it's any kind of endorsement.

BCC said:

From NPR, not exactly a right wing rag.

https://www.npr.org/series/100876926/npr-book-notes

[Edited to add] That's a very "Surovellian" technique you used right there.

What is stupid is your comment. It didn't convince you? Who the hell are you? This was the CIA lawyer explaining why it was used or do I have to understand things for you too?

Who the hell am I?  I'm someone not convinced by the attempt to excuse the practice.  There is a lot of material which you are capable of finding, which provides authoritative arguments against that former CIA attorney's position.

By the way, when you shift from your normal "objective" tone to the more insulting one, that's your "tell" that you've run out of arguments and are backed into a corner.

My 'tell' is that my objective tone changes when someone calls me stupid, as you did.

Or are you so dense you don't even know you did that.

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

This is 2002 not 16 years later when we now call it torture.

The attack could come any minute now. Remember, the Towers have fallen, thousands have died. You can use an authorized procedure to try to get the info, hopefully quickly or some other method, more terrible and illegal, or do nothing and hope for the best?

What do you do?

Welcome to leadership where you are constantly faced with having to make decisions where there are no good answers.

In the case of torture, the efficacy is rather questionable, especially when you are fishing for information that the captive may or may not have.  So, this is one consideration.  I suppose if you know your captive has specific information and you know what the information is but not the details, it might be more effective.

Another consideration (assuming torture is effective) is the value of the information.  Are you going to save a couple dozen or a couple of hundred lives or are you going to prevent a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.

Something that should not be a consideration, but probably is, is whether or not you will look bad if you opt to not use torture and something bad happens.  Unfortunately, this last point seems to be your main argument.

Edited to add, it was torture then and it is torture now so please don't torture the English language trying to argue it any other way.

Your mixing up two things.  The first thing is whether its torture.  Plenty of people said it was and objected to it at the time.  You're making it sound like in the atmosphere of the times, everyone had a la di da attitude about it.  They did not.

The second thing, alluded to in your latest post, is whether torture is ever justified.  It's  a difficult question.  In the action suspense movie scenario where crazies have planted an  A bomb in New York, I have no trouble saying we can use extraordinary means to extract info.  But its not like that situation is black and white different from more conventional war situations.  Think WWII.  Two fanatically motivated enemies with a track record of war crimes and efforts to launch attacks on the mainland U.S.   Throw out the rules of war and torture prisoners?  Torture jut S.S. prisoners?  Its that old slippery slope.          

BCC said:

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

This is 2002 not 16 years later when we now call it torture.

The attack could come any minute now. Remember, the Towers have fallen, thousands have died. You can use an authorized procedure to try to get the info, hopefully quickly or some other method, more terrible and illegal, or do nothing and hope for the best?


What do you do?

We know now that you think torture is a good idea.

BCC said:

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

This is 2002 not 16 years later when we now call it torture.

The attack could come any minute now. Remember, the Towers have fallen, thousands have died. You can use an authorized procedure to try to get the info, hopefully quickly or some other method, more terrible and illegal, or do nothing and hope for the best?


What do you do?

Use interrogation techniques that work.

Life is not a movie.

BCC said:

I have asked this question before and got no answer.

The Twin Towers are lying in rubble, there is the fear of another attack to come.

Your options are to try to get info that will help you prevent the attack or ameliorate it, or do nothing and hope for the best.

You are now in 2002 not 2018 and have to make the decision now. Thousands of American lives can be at stake.

How many of you honestly would opt to do nothing.

BCC said:

nohero said:

By the way, when you shift from your normal "objective" tone to the more insulting one, that's your "tell" that you've run out of arguments and are backed into a corner.

My 'tell' is that my objective tone changes when someone calls me stupid, as you did.

Or are you so dense you don't even know you did that.

To be precise, my comment was that a statement was stupid, as one alternative.

BCC said:

I have asked this question before and got no answer.

The Twin Towers are lying in rubble, there is the fear of another attack to come.

Your options are to try to get info that will help you prevent the attack or ameliorate it, or do nothing and hope for the best.

You are now in 2002 not 2018 and have to make the decision now. Thousands of American lives can be at stake.

How many of you honestly would opt to do nothing.

I'm pretty sure that none of us would opt do to nothing.  It's also pretty clear from the posts here that neither would we (the we responding on this thread) choose torture.  

You posted the following:

BCC said:

I have asked this question before and got no answer.

The Twin Towers are lying in rubble, there is the fear of another attack to come.

Your options are to try to get info that will help you prevent the attack or ameliorate it, or do nothing and hope for the best.

You are now in 2002 not 2018 and have to make the decision now. Thousands of American lives can be at stake.

How many of you honestly would opt to do nothing.

to which I responded:

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

Then, rather than answering the question, you went with an implicit ad hominem attack:

BCC said:

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

This is 2002 not 16 years later when we now call it torture.

The attack could come any minute now. Remember, the Towers have fallen, thousands have died. You can use an authorized procedure to try to get the info, hopefully quickly or some other method, more terrible and illegal, or do nothing and hope for the best?


What do you do?

All the while, you have declined to answer the question I posed and completely ignored the inconvenient facts that the "Torture Memos" authored by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee have been repudiated (and were first done so under Bybee's successor in 2004) because they were legally flawed.  That's a virtually unanimous conclusion.  The DOJ OPR went so far as to call the memos the result professional misconduct because they deliberated omitted controlling law.

Because past is prologue, I'm not going to hold my breath and wait for you to substantively respond.

P.S.  I would direct the use of effective interrogation techniques that don't violate either the law or standards of morality.  And, for the record, I was there when the buildings came down.

BCC said:

tjohn said:

BCC said:

We are talking in 2018 about the morality of 2002 when we were seriously concerned about another attack and the government authorized water boarding to prevent it. Sorry, but you don't get to impose today's morality on 2002. It was legal then and supported by Democrats and Republicans with oversight responsibility.

You talk about acts of our government as if they contain some element of morality.  If memory serves, this is the same deliberative body that thought invading Iraq and destroying the Hussein regime was a good idea.

What is the moral position when you have been attacked and fear another one and you have a choice of hoping for the best or waterboarding several of the enemy who might give you info that might prevent it.

Choose one and choose it now, the day after the the twin towers went down.

So your moral positions depend on what day it is?

So in the last 6 pages we now have established that almost all of us understand that waterboarding is torture (both before 2001 and after 2001), and that it is therefore unamerican, and that someone that ran secret torture camps is a terrible choice to run the CIA, based on morality as well as practicality. Our current president notwithstanding, I would hope we appoint leadership that does not panic and throws morality overboard in times of crisis.

yeah, unfortunately the electoral college consistently prevents us from doing that.

gerritn said:

So in the last 6 pages we now have established that almost all of us understand that waterboarding is torture (both before 2001 and after 2001), and that it is therefore unamerican, and that someone that ran secret torture camps is a terrible choice to run the CIA, based on morality as well as practicality. Our current president notwithstanding, I would hope we appoint leadership that does not panic and throws morality overboard in times of crisis.

tjohn said:

Welcome to leadership where you are constantly faced with having to make decisions where there are no good answers.

In the case of torture, the efficacy is rather questionable, especially when you are fishing for information that the captive may or may not have.  So, this is one consideration.  I suppose if you know your captive has specific information and you know what the information is but not the details, it might be more effective.

Another consideration (assuming torture is effective) is the value of the information.  Are you going to save a couple dozen or a couple of hundred lives or are you going to prevent a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.

Something that should not be a consideration, but probably is, is whether or not you will look bad if you opt to not use torture and something bad happens.  Unfortunately, this last point seems to be your main argument.




Edited to add, it was torture then and it is torture now so please don't torture the English language trying to argue it any other way.

It is interesting that neither you nor any one else answered the question.

Something bad happens? Something bad had indeed just happened, thousands of our people were killed. There was far from a la de da attitude. People were frightened, afraid of a repeat attack could kill more thousands.

I will give a more complete answer tomorrow.

Until then I would like to hear what you or anyone else would have done in that situation 16 years ago. And I agree there were no good choices.

. Would you or anyone else have sat back and waited?

Steve said:

You posted the following:

BCC said:

I have asked this question before and got no answer.

The Twin Towers are lying in rubble, there is the fear of another attack to come.

Your options are to try to get info that will help you prevent the attack or ameliorate it, or do nothing and hope for the best.

You are now in 2002 not 2018 and have to make the decision now. Thousands of American lives can be at stake.

How many of you honestly would opt to do nothing.

to which I responded:

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

Then, rather than answering the question, you went with an implicit ad hominem attack:

BCC said:

Steve said:

Why is the option do nothing or torture people?

This is 2002 not 16 years later when we now call it torture.

The attack could come any minute now. Remember, the Towers have fallen, thousands have died. You can use an authorized procedure to try to get the info, hopefully quickly or some other method, more terrible and illegal, or do nothing and hope for the best?


What do you do?

All the while, you have declined to answer the question I posed and completely ignored the inconvenient facts that the "Torture Memos" authored by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee have been repudiated (and were first done so under Bybee's successor in 2004) because they were legally flawed.  That's a virtually unanimous conclusion.  The DOJ OPR went so far as to call the memos the result professional misconduct because they deliberated omitted controlling law.

Because past is prologue, I'm not going to hold my breath and wait for you to substantively respond.

P.S.  I would direct the use of effective interrogation techniques that don't violate either the law or standards of morality.  And, for the record, I was there when the buildings came down.

There was no ad hominem attack and we are talking about 2002 when the decision had to be made not two years later.

And just how long would those effective techniques take. The ones I know of require taking the time to gain the perps trust and time was something they didn't have.

BCC said:

tjohn said:

Welcome to leadership where you are constantly faced with having to make decisions where there are no good answers.

In the case of torture, the efficacy is rather questionable, especially when you are fishing for information that the captive may or may not have.  So, this is one consideration.  I suppose if you know your captive has specific information and you know what the information is but not the details, it might be more effective.

Another consideration (assuming torture is effective) is the value of the information.  Are you going to save a couple dozen or a couple of hundred lives or are you going to prevent a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.

Something that should not be a consideration, but probably is, is whether or not you will look bad if you opt to not use torture and something bad happens.  Unfortunately, this last point seems to be your main argument.




Edited to add, it was torture then and it is torture now so please don't torture the English language trying to argue it any other way.

It is interesting that neither you nor almost any one else answered the question.



Something bad happens? Something bad had indeed just happened, thousands of our people were killed. There was far from a la de da attitude. People were frightened, afraid of a repeat attack could kill more thousands.

I will give a more complete answer tomorrow.


Until then I would like to hear what you or anyone else would have done in that situation 16 years ago. And I agree there were no good choices.


. Would you or anyone else have sat back and waited?

ETA almost anyone

BCC said:

 Would you or anyone else have sat back and waited?

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white

BCC said:
It is interesting that neither you nor any one else answered the question.

Almost everyone answered the question, including me. (Use interrogation techniques that *work*.)

The torture took place for *years* after 9/11, not just days. It was not the result of momentary panic; it was policy.

That said, what would you have done over the course of those years? (You avoid yes/no questions, so I phrased this one differently.)

ridski said:

BCC said:

 Would you or anyone else have sat back and waited?

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white

or -

BCC said:

And just how long would those effective techniques take. The ones I know of require taking the time to gain the perps trust and time was something they didn't have.

Specifically, the waterboarding that has been confirmed while Haspel ran the black site in Thailand occurred in December 2002, 15 months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Arguing about torture is like arguing about whether racism is justified.

No difference really. One side is wrong, the other side isn't.

This is not hard, at least not for morally centered people and for people who are not so scared out of their wits about the oncoming muslim hordes that they throw all their morals into the trash.

BCC said:

tjohn said:

It is interesting that neither you nor any one else answered the question.

No, it is not at all interesting.  Repeatedly asking your question is a refusal to provide support for your position that torture is acceptable.  I for one do not have an answer to the question, but that's completely irrelevant.  I did not choose to be in a position where I may be confronted with such a decision.  The fact that neither I nor anyone else here does not have or refuses to provide an answer to your question is not support for your argument.  A reasonable, rational person would understand that. 

nohero said:

BCC said:

nohero said:

By the way, when you shift from your normal "objective" tone to the more insulting one, that's your "tell" that you've run out of arguments and are backed into a corner.

My 'tell' is that my objective tone changes when someone calls me stupid, as you did.

Or are you so dense you don't even know you did that.

To be precise, my comment was that a statement was stupid, as one alternative.

To b precise the alternative was to be misleading.

To be precise that is one lame excuse and you are now trying to bull***t your way out.

How does it feel to be in the corner?