
Why the CIA won't waterboard, even if ordered by the president - SCAQTony
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2016/0411/Why-the-CIA-won-t-waterboard-even-if-ordered-by-the-president
======
anexprogrammer
I don't understand the recurrence of torture. It's very clearly shown it isn't
reliable. We train our military to resist coercive questioning, to plant
misleading answers, and avoid use of yes or no answers to prevent video edited
confessions later. Is it reasonable to suppose that none of our opponents will
be aware of these techniques? An untrained person is just as likely to tell
you anything that might make you stop as the crucial fact you need (presuming
they even know it).

It might save lives. It might lead to mistreatment of many innocent people.
How do you know which beforehand? If you can't know, are you happy with the
abandonment of innocent until proven guilty?

Last, I've noticed an increasingly positive portrayal of torture in TV of
late, say the last ten years. It's neater. The good guys seem to do it as a
matter of course. It's more likely to be effective. Is this coincidental? Am I
just watching the wrong shows?

~~~
sevensor
I was disturbed to see this when I took the kids to see _Zootopia_ this
weekend. The protagonists threaten to harm a petty criminal, who then coughs
up the information they need. It made me wonder -- the writers seem to have
been so careful with their message, so should I take this to mean they endorse
torture along with racial tolerance?

~~~
SilasX
No, they were trying to make a plausible scene. Many people _do_ give up
information when threatened with torture. You probably even remember just such
an instance from your grammar school days!

However, because most people, even on HN, have a cognitive bias that forces
them to prefer believing that their favored course of action has no downsides
("halo" bias), it has been popular to repeat the high-status meme that Torture
Doesn't Work.

Which is true -- it often doesn't "work" for many of the reasons given. But
sometimes it does.

Any position against torture that actually plugs into a consistent worldmodel
will also accept that it does, in fact, sometimes work, and also have a way of
appropriately weighing the ups and downs of any course of action without being
tripped into rebranding every down as an up for the CoA you like, and up as a
down for every CoA you don't like.

~~~
sevensor
Regardless of whether it "works" sometimes, I consider torture unacceptable,
inhumane, and bad policy. I don't give a fig for plausibility. This is a
messagey children's movie with talking sloths. Having the good guys sweat a
perp by threatening his life is something you don't just back into!

------
chippy
The writer Ian Banks was very much opposed to torture and wrote that even if
in some cases it could stop deaths (e.g. torture of terrorist to find the bomb
that will save lives), it should still always be illegal. In other words - the
torturers will be breaking the law, and should be fully prosecuted, even if
they saved lives in the process of the torture.

This is a different way of looking at it than the usual ways of "it's all bad,
illegal and should never to be used, ever" or "some forms are less bad and
should be legal sometimes" and "only when there are lives saves should it be
legal"

~~~
knodi123
A bunch of people I've met seem to love it for utilitarian reasons. But even
if, for the sake of conversation, I grant that it has utility- I still say we
shouldn't ever do it.

I'd rather have an america where some people die of terrorism, than one that I
feel ashamed of.

To hell with the argument that we need to become evil in order to avert evil.

~~~
794CD01
Is choosing not to save the lives of innocent people because you have
religious concerns about the method used to save them not evil?

~~~
peeters
It might be evil (or better, ethically unjustifiable) in some in ethical
frameworks, but it's certainly not in mine. There is not a universally correct
ethical framework.

Even within the utilitarian framework (where "the ends might justify the
means"), which you seem to be representing, you have to consider all of the
"ends". Protecting innocent lives is only one of the considerations.

~~~
794CD01
Most people, if asked in a vacuum, would put protecting innocent life at or
near the top of their priority list. I certainly do. But if you think feeling
good about yourself is more important, then that is your prerogative. As you
say, there is not a universally correct ethical framework.

~~~
peeters
You're being needlessly combative. This isn't about feeling good about myself.

Of course I put protecting innocent life near the top of the priority list.
But that doesn't mean I think it's right (or ever justifiable) to kill the
families of suspected terrorists. That doesn't mean I think that Americans
should give up the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 15th amendments of their
Constitution (all of which could be claimed as barriers to "protecting
innocent life.").

~~~
794CD01
Nobody's talking about giving up protections unilaterally. We're talking about
when they come into conflict with other, also important, values. And you say
I'm the one being needlessly combative?

If you don't think "feeling better about yourself" is an accurate summary of
the principle that you are placing above protection of innocent life in this
hypothetical torture scenario, please word it in a way that you find
preferable. Or was that what you were doing when you listed a number of
American constitutional amendments?

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JamilD
Here's an op-ed by Michael Hayden, written less than 5 years ago, comparing
those who oppose waterboarding to birthers and truthers:
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023037453045763598...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303745304576359820767777538)

It's incredible how quickly he's had a "change of heart".

~~~
kafkaesq
Strictly speaking, he wasn't comparing people who "opposed" waterboarding to
birthers or truthers; but rather "interrogation deniers", or in his own words:

 _individuals who hold that the enhanced interrogation techniques used against
CIA detainees have never yielded useful intelligence._

Still, the juxtaposition of operative viewpoints is... fascinating, to say the
least.

On the whole it sounds like waterboarding has been added to the list of things
the CIA continually swears it would "never do" \-- like, you know,
assassinating foreign leaders; getting into bed with torturers, death squads,
drug runners and mafiosi of various stripes; spying on not just on American
citizens, but on rival branches of the U.S. government itself -- but of course
has kept on doing, and doing, and doing anyway, since its very inception.

------
rdtsc
An interesting opinion on torture came from Slavoj Zizek. He was commenting on
a movie called "Zero Dark Thirty" which brought torture to a Hollywood
audience.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B57bdjIxfQ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B57bdjIxfQ0)

His point was that torture should be so abhorrent, that it should be in the
same category as rape. Even by discussing it and debating the benefits or
downside of it, we've lost quite a bit of ground in a civilized society.

For example nobody debates or discusses the trade-off of rape. It is obvious
anyone who advocates for it is mentally ill, or vile and is shunned by others.

But merits of torture now are open for debate. Maybe it does find terrorist,
maybe it works, or, like in this movie "Oh but see, it affects the torturers
just as much, so they are suffering too, they feel guilty too, don't blame
them too much ..." and so on.

Now clearly we've lost that battle because we've already engaged in it.

~~~
nugga
You can argue the effectiveness of torture but this moral panic seems a bit
too much in a world where we bomb and shoot people every day.

If you're otherwise fine with or at least accept war and its inevitable
civilian casualties and the damage it does to people I don't see how you can
be so against torture. Torture in that case is just a tool - you inflict
violence to your enemies (instead of killing them) to potentially gain
information.

Sam Harris wrote a piece on why torture can be the lesser evil in some cases:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-
tortu...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-
torture_b_8993.html)

~~~
e1g
>accept war ... and the damage it does to people I don't see how you can be so
against torture

We have collectively abolished _many_ weapons and practices: chemical (e.g.
nerve gas), technological (e.g. blinding lasers), or (e.g. booby traps), as
well as many tactics (e.g. public executions). We held meetings (the
Geneva/Hague conventions), and agreed these acts were too evil to continue.
Now those choices are uniformly accepted as being progressive for our society.

War is hell. We do hellish things to the "other" side. Historically, the
"other" side often ends up being on "our" side sooner rather than later
(alliances+migration). Every so often we decide which actions are too inhuman
to perform, regardless of what uniform the human is wearing (if any). Right
now we are deciding on whether the secrecy and severity of physical and mental
torture, with no representation or defence available, is on the wrong side of
who we want to be.

------
alexandrerond
> "Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that once in government,
> the American armed forces would refuse to act," Mr. Hayden told Mr. Maher.
> "You are required not to follow an unlawful order. That would be in
> violation of all the international laws of armed conflict."

Of course. This is totally how the world works, and, in particular, how the
American armed forces act.

~~~
knodi123
Yeah, you absolutely never order someone to do something illegal. Instead, you
simply give your people some disavowable waterboarding equipment, and a bunch
of evil prisoners, and then _demand results_ , while making sure there is no
oversight.

Alternatively you ship them to a country that is more than happy to openly and
gleefully torture.

But you _never_ simply _order_ your troops to torture. That would be
politically stupid.

------
banku_brougham
>Brennan makes his position clear: "Absolutely, I would not agree to having
any CIA officer carrying out waterboarding again."

Sure. We outsource our torture after rendition to 'black sites' in places like
Romania, Thailand, wherever.

This article and these official statements mean nothing.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/02/05...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/02/05/a-staggering-
map-of-the-54-countries-that-reportedly-participated-in-the-cias-rendition-
program/)

~~~
Nelson69
It's unfortunate that we've become so jaded but I thought the same thing. That
was too specific a statement. CIA officer's won't do the torture, it will be
Saudis, Israelis, British, etc.. Or American's that are employed as
"contractors."

------
facetube
CIA to to the rule of law in the US: "Come on baby, I've changed; I won't hurt
you again, I promise"

------
lizardking
If the wrong president gets in there, the first order of business will be to
staff the CIA with compliant officers willing to do whatever he asks.

------
dsr_
Translation:

CIA director John Brennan does not expect to keep his job for long in a
Republican administration.

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grindlach800
>But public opinion on torture flows in the opposite direction from experts:
82 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats favor torture.

That's pretty despicable and disgusting.

~~~
protomyth
Do they actually have the exact questions asked? I tend to wait on declaring
it "despicable and disgusting" until I know what was asked and not the
interpretation of it.

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allendoerfer
Terrible waste of an opportunity to use a nazi reference, where it actually
would have made sense. See also _Legal positivism_ [0].

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism)

------
Zigurd
Without transparency and prosecutions, Brennan's words, and any other
assurances, carry no weight. The leaders and the foot-soldiers who tortured
people all walk free. They got to keep the money they made in torture, and
some are able to conceal their identities. All these people would do it again,
to you or me or members of your family, at the stroke of a pen changing a
policy, or under greater secrecy. Any German would tell you the US will
inevitably use torture again, and in our lifetimes, because we left the
ability to do it readily at hand.

------
Tharkun
Beating someone with a rubber hose is probably cheaper. Good guy CIA, trying
to save water.

~~~
protomyth
If I remember correctly, messing with sleeping habits (telling them they had 8
hours sleep when they had 3, putting them on a variable length day, etc.) and
getting their body off cycle is more effective. Depending on who you are, that
might be torture or it might not be.

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venomsnake
They obeyed once. Chances are they will obey again. An organisation's culture
is near impossible to change.

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zxcvvcxz
I'm admittedly ignorant on this topic.

Have there been studies detailing the efficacy on these methods to obtain
information that lead to the saving of lives?

E.g. if X people were subjected to waterboarding, what % of X revealed
information that lead to derailing terrorist plots? And then we'd need a
control group as well that wasn't subjected.

Edit - downvoted for what, trying to quantify this topic and weigh the pros
and cons? Christ.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I think it might be quite hard to do those studies for ethical reasons.

From what I remember, the consensus among professional interrogators is that
torture is largely useless, because people go more or less instantly from not
saying anything at all to making up any old nonsense that sounds vaguely
plausible just to make the pain and confusion stop.

Psychological torture is even less useful, because people simply stop making
any sense at all after a while.

The most reliable methods were based on extended conversations, with the
interrogator pretending to be an equal and gradually persuading a prisoner to
open up and/or reveal possible gaps in their story.

This kind of interrogation isn't fast, but the ticking timebomb excuse for
torture has never been very convincing anyway.

Pain on its own is very unlikely to change the mind of anyone who's so
indoctrinated they volunteer to take part in a mass terrorist attack.

~~~
zxcvvcxz
Sure, alright that's what I suspected intuitively. Would appreciate some
resources to read on the topic.

I don't think studies of the nature I proposed are particularly hard to do,
but they may be locked in classified status, so civilians wouldn't know.

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fucking_tragedy
They don't arm insurgents either.

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SeanDav
and the check (cheque) is in the mail...

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coldtea
Yeah, sure.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
I bet if you had asked on 10SEP2011 they would have said "absolutely no
waterboarding!" as well.

