You can't convince a rational person that water is wet. The best you can do is convince them that it hasn't been dry yet.

Yeah, it's true. The best and brightest torture-thinkers of the day have not been able to devise a torture scheme that's as effective as non-torture interrogation, but they might some day. What we really need is a massive campaign where we round up a bunch of terrorists and subject them to a double-blind randomized trial of new, untested torture techniques and see if any of those are as effective as non-torture. And if all of those don't work, we'd best set up a new trial for another round. Maybe we can crowdsource ideas for torture techniques to try -- a TortureStarter, if you will -- and let people vote or even fund the trial of the torture techniques they think will be most successful. If we keep at it, think creatively, and increase the study's throughput, we may one day discover a torture technique that's better than non-torture.

WH Press Secretary let the word "torture" half-way out before he caught his mistake. guy should know accurately describing things in simple, easy to understand language is not part of his job description.

We could call it KickInTheGroinStarter.

This is what the Stalins, Ceaucescus, etc. used to say. The same.

The big problem is the terrorists who live amongst us, working for our government.

wtf is it with people who like to think of themselves as the intellectual type to completely ignore the actual world we live in and instead waste time starting arguments in hypothetical fantasy worlds? We live in a world where torture has not made America safer and in torturing prisoners our government has done heinous stuff comparable to the heinous stuff you read about in history books. How about we stop arguing about dumb hypotheticals and instead talk about the present, real world we live in.

Good news! Torture did give us useful information.... for the justification of the invasion of Iraq that turned out to be completely fabricated.

I am talking about the real world we live in.

it's the one where when there are major terrorist incidents or real threat to Americans (or Europeans or etc etc) then the lip service arguments count for very little. All we have is the character of the people and the law which will will be severely tested. It's the less emotional times when we have the opportunity to make the good arguments and good law.

Wookie and 13ball etc are being ridiculous. The evidence is that torture was ineffective for certain reasons and these reasons are all addressable with no great leaps. In angry/scared times people will grasp onto the hope that torture can help and they will be offered it by people who claim to have addressed these issues, they wont be offering clinical trials to prove it and we wont be able to demonstrate they are wrong in any plausible way.

I have no idea what you're actually saying Chez. Saying torture is ineffective doesn't preclude saying torture is immoral or illegal.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing how scared people in desperate times will be swayed by, "Well, torturing dudes is morally abhorrent, you shouldn't torture them," but not by, "Torture doesn't work. Our best torturers have never gotten information as good as non-torture interrogation." Shouldn't the urgency and necessity of the situation mean people care less about the morality of the situation and more about what works? That there are charlatans out there who can convince people that torture works when in fact it doesn't makes all the more important the need to educate people about the inefficacy of torture.

I never suggested it does. Did you not get the olive on the cake post?

We need to persuade people and the law makers that torture needs to be banned (and cases prosecuted) not because it is never effective, but because it shouldn't be allowed even if the CIA claims its working this time because they have addressed the issues raised in the past.

because its another level to persuade people to abandon the rule of law, that's why they wriggled this time and that's what we need to address.

Plus if there is a common weak argument against torture that is being used then scared people will latch onto the weakness of that argument and hold on tight. The Rumsfelds etc wont engage in the difficult moral argument they will address the weak popular argument and they will win easily.

then there are bigger dangers which I admit can be addressed. The politicians and law makers might start believing their own dubious arguments and enshrine into law something that links the legality of torture with it's effectiveness. i wont go on about the more philosophical liberal issues.

No I have no idea about olives and cakes and no, no one is here trying to convince people that torture is wrong solely because it's ineffective. It just happens to defeat the people who support torture's best arguments for it. It goes hand and hand with the morality of how we treat people and the values we support. Combining both (along with it's illegal) makes for a very powerful argument.

It doesn't defeat their best logical argument and they know it doesn't. That's precisely the problem

They will just say the issues that made it ineffective need to be addressed.

We have to persuade them it's about values and that means not doing it because it is wrong.

The CIA also claimed to have fixed problems with its moral acceptability, and lawmakers were persuaded.

Maybe you should lay out what you think is the best logical argument for torture for us.

and that's the argument that has to be tackled. If we can't win that argument then torture is morally accepted. I don't remotely share the view that we aren't winning this argument but we have to keep enshrining the gains into law/culture to help get us past the fear/anger force that erupts on occasions

Even so we are very foolish if we don't recognise that enough fear/anger can override that as well.

There are those who argue that some activities described in the report are already banned by current law and the problem is a failure of the executive branch to pursue prosecution of those cases.

I am willing to absolve those who administered torture and go after those who sanctioned it on the decision-making level.

Their best logical argument is that given that they don't care about the human rights it's just about effectiveness and the organisations they rely on to protect them are saying that although torture didn't work for reasons a,b,c, ... last time they have addressed these issues and now believe it is highly effective.

I agree it's way more important to go after those who sanctioned it. imo it's vital

I'm much more sympathetic to those who were 'only obeying orders' but there are limits. This isn't vital though and if immunity helps get the above then fine by me.

Convincing someone who doesn't care about human rights to now start caring about human rights is the best way to attack this?

Arguing for human rights (and liberalism in general) has been highly effective, don't knock it.

We are well ahead on that front. Now we need to take the opportunity to move the legislation forward another notch or two.

The norm moves as we go. Some people change, young people grow up as better people.

Reality is do that stuff to me and Ill confess to anything and everything under the sun and invent stuff also. Its just disgusting and I think it all lies with Cheney. How anyone can defend this is beyond me.

Chez

http://www.theamericanconservative.c...g-and-useless/

its 2014 and we're actually debating whether torture is justified, whether gay people should be allowed to be married, and whether a weed that grows in nature should be legal to smoke.

sigh.

also watching fox news and CNN cover this story makes me want to torture someone.
preferably whomever is responsible for allowing them to broadcast.

jfc its so bad.