Author Topic: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture  (Read 21062 times)

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Universe Prince

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #30 on: June 04, 2007, 05:13:45 PM »

Prince, to me at least, you are an oversensitive, overly-circumspect little paranoid pretender. The obvious and open intent of my suggested exercise is to determine whether in a theoretical world "extreme measures" in interrogation are ever justified.


What a lot of self-righteous excrement. Your hypothetical is juvenile and so is your bluster. You did not propose that torture could be justified and then explain your position with a hypothetical. You posed an implausible hypothetical wherein "brutal and inhuman techniques" were required and certain to make a terrorist talk and asked, "Do you use those techniques?" That isn't an open ended exercise to determine whether "extreme measures" are ever justified. The obvious intent of your hypothetical is to determine whether the respondent will agree that torture can be justified. The hypothetical was leading. Did you think no one would notice?

Most of your insults are asinine, so I don't intend to answer them. However I'd like to address that you called me paranoid. I didn't make this about me. You're the one who started with the insults, and you directed them at me specifically. If you don't like it, too bad because it's your own damn fault.
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Lanya

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #31 on: June 04, 2007, 06:05:53 PM »
Question:   If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Except for the point he wouldn't authorize such a barbaric terrorist-like act.  And the idea that someone would even think he could, demonstrates just how bad their BDS has gotten    >:(    This is the point I apparently couldn't make with Prince.  When I reference listening to rap music as a form of "torture" I would have a hard time with, it's not to directly compare it on an even keel with sleep deprivation or scaring the bejeebees out of someone you were interrogating.  Yet it's in this vane that folks on the left lay innuendo that sleep deprivation is akin to crushing children's testicles.

 Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children

By Philip Watts

01/08/06 "revcom.us" -- -- John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.

This came out in response to a question in a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel.

What is particularly chilling and revealing about this is that John Yoo was a key architect post-9/11 Bush Administration legal policy. As a deputy assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, John Yoo authored a number of legal memos arguing for unlimited presidential powers to order torture of captive suspects, and to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.

It has now come out Yoo also had a hand in providing legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush’s legal policies in the 'war on terror’ than John Yoo."

This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

The audio of this exchange is available online at revcom.us

Yoo argues presidential powers on Constitutional grounds, but where in the Constitution does it say the President can order the torture of children ? As David Cole puts it, "Yoo reasoned that because the Constitution makes the President the 'Commander-in-Chief,’ no law can restrict the actions he may take in pursuit of war. On this reasoning, the President would be entitled by the Constitution to resort to genocide if he wished."

What is the position of the Bush Administration on the torture of children, since one of its most influential legal architects is advocating the President’s right to order the crushing of a child’s testicles?

This fascist logic has nothing to do with "getting information" as Yoo has argued. The legal theory developed by Yoo and a few others and adopted by the Administration has resulted in thousands being abducted from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world, mostly at random. People have been raped, electrocuted, nearly drowned and tortured literally to death in U.S.-run torture centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. And there is much still to come out. What about the secret centers in Europe or the many still-suppressed photos from Abu Ghraib? What can explain this sadistic, indiscriminate, barbaric brutality except a need to instill widespread fear among people all over the world?

It is ironic that just prior to arguing the President's legal right to torture children, John Yoo was defensive about the Bush administration policies, based on his legal memo’s, being equated to those during Nazi Germany.

Yoo said, "If you are trying to draw a moral equivalence between the Nazis and what the United States is trying to do in defending themselves against Al Qauueda and the 9/11 attacks, I fully reject that. Second, if you’re trying to equate the Bush Administration to Nazi officials who committed atrocities in the holocaust, I completely reject that too…I think to equate Nazi Germany to the Bush Administration is irresponsible."

[..........]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11488.htm
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sirs

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #32 on: June 04, 2007, 08:09:15 PM »
Question:   If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Except for the point he wouldn't authorize such a barbaric terrorist-like act.  And the idea that someone would even think he could, demonstrates just how bad their BDS has gotten    >:(    This is the point I apparently couldn't make with Prince.  When I reference listening to rap music as a form of "torture" I would have a hard time with, it's not to directly compare it on an even keel with sleep deprivation or scaring the bejeebees out of someone you were interrogating.  Yet it's in this vane that folks on the left lay innuendo that sleep deprivation is akin to crushing children's testicles.

Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children
By Philip Watts
  ...snip...

And this changes my point.....how again?
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

gipper

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #33 on: June 04, 2007, 08:57:09 PM »
You prattle on, Prince, with nothing to say. Trust me, my hypothetical was a good conversation starter in the right crowd, and the point it hopes to address is sound if controversial. I could, but won't, give you a list of scholarly works addressing the same general theme, pro and con.

fatman

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #34 on: June 04, 2007, 10:51:32 PM »
you might as well have posed one suggesting that we could use ordained priests armed with the power of Christ to compel terrorists to talk

It worked for the Exorcist, it'll work for Iraq!

Universe Prince

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #35 on: June 05, 2007, 12:11:28 AM »

You prattle on, Prince, with nothing to say.


Actually, I've said plenty. I've gone out of my way to explain my objection to your hypothetical, which could easily have led to a discussion of ideas about the topic. You apparently are unwilling to discuss the topic. You seem to have preferred that I act like a little marionette, with you tugging on the strings, dancing to your tune. I did not, and so far the best you can do is insult me, insist that you really were making serious point, complain that I didn't play by your made up rules, and all with a virtual stomp of your foot. So far, I'm not impressed.


Trust me, my hypothetical was a good conversation starter in the right crowd,


Of that I have little doubt.


and the point it hopes to address is sound if controversial.


I am sure that is also true.


I could, but won't, give you a list of scholarly works addressing the same general theme, pro and con.


I do not doubt that. You seem to have mistakenly assumed that my objection was to the general theme of your hypothetical. The issue of whether torture is an acceptable course of action in certain circumstances is, of course, a perfectly reasonable topic of discussion. I never said otherwise. The objection was not to the general topic, but the specifics of your hypothetical. Do try to keep up.
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Universe Prince

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #36 on: June 05, 2007, 12:18:35 AM »

It worked for the Exorcist, it'll work for Iraq!


Heh. Yes, I did for a moment have an image of Max von Sydow saying "The power of Christ compells you..." to a man in an interrogation room. As I say that now, though, I'm thinking if you really wanted to creep out a terrorist, you need Max von Sydow not as a Catholic priest, but as Jesus Christ. Then again, that might result in a tedium that would make the terrorist talk just to make it end.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #37 on: June 05, 2007, 12:29:33 AM »
And this changes my point.....how again?

Quote
......................*deafening silence*...................

That's what I thought
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Lanya

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #38 on: June 05, 2007, 12:43:52 AM »
Question:   If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Except for the point he wouldn't authorize such a barbaric terrorist-like act.  And the idea that someone would even think he could, demonstrates just how bad their BDS has gotten    >:(    This is the point I apparently couldn't make with Prince.  When I reference listening to rap music as a form of "torture" I would have a hard time with, it's not to directly compare it on an even keel with sleep deprivation or scaring the bejeebees out of someone you were interrogating.  Yet it's in this vane that folks on the left lay innuendo that sleep deprivation is akin to crushing children's testicles.

Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children
By Philip Watts
  ...snip...

And this changes my point.....how again?
----------------------
   Isn't that the whole point of torture, these extreme-case scenarios?   The ticking time-bomb scene, and the little boy's father knows where the bomb is....
But you say Bush wouldn't do that.  So let's just go back to being a nation who doesn't torture.
Don't mince and prance around the meaning of the word.   
If you don't want it done to you or your child or any one else, don't do it, and don't order it done.  Don't pretend that it isn't happening.   Face up to it.  Demand that it be stopped, if you think that it is terrorist-like behavior.
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sirs

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #39 on: June 05, 2007, 01:14:37 AM »
Question:   If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Except for the point he wouldn't authorize such a barbaric terrorist-like act.  And the idea that someone would even think he could, demonstrates just how bad their BDS has gotten    >:(    This is the point I apparently couldn't make with Prince.  When I reference listening to rap music as a form of "torture" I would have a hard time with, it's not to directly compare it on an even keel with sleep deprivation or scaring the bejeebees out of someone you were interrogating.  Yet it's in this vane that folks on the left lay innuendo that sleep deprivation is akin to crushing children's testicles.

Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children
By Philip Watts
  ...snip...

And this changes my point.....how again?
----------------------
Isn't that the whole point of torture, these extreme-case scenarios?   

No, it's not.  The whole point of "torture" is to inflict the greatest amount of pain and suffering as possible, and still see if your captive can remain alive.  That or just decapitate him/her, if they haven't already been burned to death.


The ticking time-bomb scene, and the little boy's father knows where the bomb is....But you say Bush wouldn't do that. 

No, he wouldn't


So let's just go back to being a nation who doesn't torture.

We don't.  And the form of stressful interrogation techniques used are nothing like the continued dren you keep implying as anaolgus to children's testicles being crushed

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Amianthus

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #40 on: June 05, 2007, 08:27:30 AM »
If you don't want it done to you or your child or any one else, don't do it, and don't order it done.  Don't pretend that it isn't happening.   Face up to it.  Demand that it be stopped, if you think that it is terrorist-like behavior.

How can we "demand that it be stopped" - do you have an example of crushing child's testicles for us to protest?
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BT

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #41 on: June 05, 2007, 08:44:18 AM »
It isn't about a child's testicles to Lanya, it is about Bush.

Meanwhile renditioning, invented during the Clinton Admin, which put the blessing on outsourcing torture, gets hardly a mention from her.

Renditioning is real, Yoo's comments were hypothetical.

I guess it is OK if you are a Democrat.


sirs

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #42 on: June 05, 2007, 11:43:13 AM »
It isn't about a child's testicles to Lanya, it is about Bush.  Meanwhile renditioning, invented during the Clinton Admin, which put the blessing on outsourcing torture, gets hardly a mention from her.  Renditioning is real, Yoo's comments were hypothetical.  I guess it is OK if you are a Democrat.

Boy, that sure hits the nail on the head.  But of course, Lanya doesn't hate Bush
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

_JS

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #43 on: June 05, 2007, 11:47:16 AM »
Quote
We don't.  And the form of stressful interrogation techniques used are nothing like the continued dren you keep implying as anaolgus to children's testicles being crushed

How do you know? I ask that about the first and second clause of your second sentence.

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gipper

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Re: We took lessons from the Soviets and Chinese on torture
« Reply #44 on: June 05, 2007, 12:19:02 PM »
I find Lanya's breeziness just another casualty of the mindset of the looney left. Yes, distinctions have to be made. Even John McCain makes them. Interrogation in time of war or other serious peril should not imitate a tea party. But, yes, core values are at stake so our best (not our breeziest) thought should be devoted to the matter. Among the things to consider, aside from downright uncomfortability, are the reliability of the methods, IF ANY, and the degree of harm we are attempting to avert, and the time frame within which averting must be accomplished. A blanket ban on "severe techniques" -- even if such a ban were established de facto by nonuse of certain techniques as part of the regular "arsenal" -- must be rejected so as to save every (approved) tool for use when it really and actually may save a significant amount of lives.