Thread: "The US Does Not Torture"

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Ok (and believe me, I hate to even bring it up, because you were giving me a compliment at the time that you said it, which I really appreciate. I don't mean it as any sort of personal attack at all (so don't take it personally), but this is the side of you that I think I've been debating against, in this discussion).

Your post in the Drug Discussion thread, but the specific paragraph is here:

What I was claiming I never said is that I pick a side and make a point to stay with it because of a "vested interest" or a "technicality" or "talking points". That was the nature of your characterization. That is how you described it. You were suggesting that I hold to a side and am not dissuaded by counterlogic. But I absolutely do pick the side I think is more logical and usually end up staying with it because I seem to have been right that it is the more logical side, and I am usually very opinionated through the whole process. However, you showed a very clear exception to that. You posted a quote of mine where I said that my mind was being changed back and forth. My mind does get changed when somebody convinces me that the other side is right, and that seemed to be what you were saying I don't do. You just illustrated a situation where I did.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

And you don't even have to worry about stating my personal investments. I will do it for you. I believe, wholeheartedly, that if there is a chance that we are being lied to by our government, we should make stead-fast, dilligent and meticulous attempts to investigate the claim. I do not believe on pardoning any government (given the history of government, in general) simply because they claim that they are doing everything by the books. Does that about cover it? It should, because that is my only personal investment in looking for evidence to the torture claims.

I am all for keeping the government in check. But I also understand why certain foreign policy measures have to be kept a secret. We just have to make sure the government does not go too far. When we find out they do, we can vote them out of office.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Exactly right. Except, in a court of law, it would be up to a third-party to decide which part of the debate (the prosecution or the defense) is presenting the stronger case (because, yes, they both have to present a case). In your mind (and in your posts) you are playing defense/judge/jury. You are not only playing defense by countering however many of my points as you possibly can, but you are playing judge/jury by telling me which points don't even qualify as evidence. Had this been a real court of law, you would not have the luxury of doing both. We are basically doing what a prosecutor and D.A. would do if there were no judge and jury in the courtroom: we are going back and forth against each other, ad nauseum. We could go on forever, and who would decide who is presenting the stronger case. Do you get me?

I never claimed that we are in some sort of internet court. I have said that you have made claims about stuff that could not possibly be disproven. All I can do is know what your evidence is and critique it. Who would decide who has the stronger case? I wasn't planning on asking anybody. If we did that, which I have no interest in doing, it would have to be somebody who would not be biased, and you know the political ideological nature of this forum. Do you think debates here need judges? This is the internet, not a court room. But the fact that a person making a claim has the responsibility of proving/supporting the claim is a matter of logic that applies to both court and internet debate. I was also saying that by certain proof standards your evidence would not make it to court in order to illustrate the lack of evidence. But you yourself have said that your case is not proven. To tell you the truth, I don't even know what we are arguing about at this point. We both think the existence of black sites and secret U.S. torture policy might be real and that there is evidence of them but that neither has been conclusively proven. What is the disagreement?

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

That is from the man (that you were just speaking of), himself. Based on that testimony, he is on record as stating that something happened to Zubaida that goes well above waterboarding for thirty minutes. Is he lying? I don't know. Was this an act of U.S. order? I don't know. Is it evidence (given the context of all that has been presented) that should be given consideration? I think so.

Criminals get pissed when they get put through the cycle, and they lash out against the system they had to deal with. Their words are not credible. He might be telling the truth, but I am far from convinced of it.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

This is exactly the kind of illogic that I'm talking about. I'm not trying to get people to agree with me. I don't want people to just agree with me. I want people to look at the cases that we both of have made, objectively, and decide for themselves who has presented a stronger case. That you would even try to spin it any other way, I think, highlights your playing "bulletproof D.A." instead of trying to actually provide a logical defense.

It's not about whether you were trying to. It's that you said they would. My interpretation was that you were saying they already do and that if you asked them, they would tell you. I am saying that is irrelevant because this forum is the lucid dreaming version of MoveOn.org.

I am still lost on what our big disagreement is at this point. We seem to have different grey area levels of uncertainty, and that's all.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

If I'm not mistaken, the links I posted suggest that some (not all) of these sites were CIA operated.

Judge: Bush Violated Geneva Conventions

Abu Ghraib. The portion of Abu Ghraib where the infamous abuse took place was, officially, controlled by the Iraqi government. Until we have evidence that the abuse was the result of only this one group of 19 individuals, it is not logical to exonerate the rest of the military personnel, there. I'm not saying that anyone else is guilty, but until some sort of formal investigation concludes that only this group has been responsible (coincidentally, the only group from which photos were leaked), I think it's important not to pardon the possibility that others might have been treating the detainees the same way.

New Light Shed on CIA's Black Site Prisons

U.N. Torture Experts Want to See Secret U.S. Jails
I feel that all of the red-tape and deterrent, if these sites were so legitimate, is more than slightly suspicious.

Get Details on New 'Secret Flights' Allegations

Justices Refuse To Hear German Man's Claims He was Abducted, Tortured By CIA So, even in the case of mistaken identity, a free man cannot even hope for any sort of legal procedure (which should be his right) to hear his allegations of torture by the CIA.

Very interesting article, so far. (I'm not all the way through it yet, though. I will comment on it, more, later.)

There has been an Abu Ghraib investigation, and nobody higher up has been charged. It was just the young knuckleheads who took the silly pictures that have been charged.

The articles you posted earlier said the U.S. is in charge of the "black sites", and Abu Ghraib is not a "black site". I am still unclear on the relevance of black sites if torture governments are not supposedly running them. Your point that got us into this very long argument where I am not even sure what we majorly disagree on was that the black sites are in torture countries and that that suggests that the terrorist prisoners are being tortured. That is where we really are in the conversation, though we have gone down all kinds of roads in the process. What do you say at this point is the relevance of the supposed existence of black sites in torture countries?

And please tell me what our big disagreement is supposed to be at this point. We have agreed on about thirty things now, including the fact that evidence of black sites and torture exist but that the evidence is inconclusive. Are we just arguing about the degrees of inconclusiveness? Where are we?