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CIA Torture Report

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Dormin111

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I hope I didn't give you the impression that I wanted new people to execute the same strategy. A new strategy is implied by different goals. You can try to achieve the same goals with different strategies, but you can't use the same strategy to achieve different goals.

 

Thanks for the clarification.  Expecting a different outcome using the same strategy defines insanity, as some say.

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I have chocked this up to being a good case of the kind of position one is put in when living in a non-free society, even if a mixed economy.  If this was a free one the Government would be doing it's job and only engaging an enemy we have declared war upon. A Prisoner of War would be treated as a prisoner of war and a combatant in the field would be also treated accordingly.  Torture, as such, becomes a non-issue.  Assuming an isolated need on the battlefield to save soldier lives then most of us would just assume war is hell and move on since it is a combat theater.  

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Guys, again, context.

 

The Founders imagined war powers to be given to the president when our entire existence was threatened, not when some criminals figure out how to kill exactly 1/10,000th of our population all at once, every 25 years.

 

Terrorism is in no way worthy of a war declaration, nor was Iraq.

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I personally hate the idea of torture, but it is justified if it works, if it is the only effective method, and if the people being tortured are actual terrorists.

 

I do not believe that the last item is the case when talking about the people the U.S. government has tortured. Whether or not torture itself is justified depends on the first two points.

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Guys, again, context.

 

The Founders imagined war powers to be given to the president when our entire existence was threatened, not when some criminals figure out how to kill exactly 1/10,000th of our population all at once, every 25 years.

 

Terrorism is in no way worthy of a war declaration, nor was Iraq.

 

A government exists to protect the rights of individual citizens, it's not a numbers game.

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The conclusion we can draw from the Iraq War is that democracy cannot be delivered with a foreign bullet.  We wanted Sadam out - he's out.  We wanted Bin Laden out - he's out.  We're two for two, but the list of people we want out keeps growing, and apparently they grow in the very camps we imprision (and torture) them in.

 

Time for a new strategy, not a new person to execute the same old strategy.

We wanted Sadam out -he's out. We wanted Bin Laden out - he's out. This is focusing on the figureheads. It's like chopping off the head of the hydra. Two more grow back.

 

Hitler was the villain of Nazi Germany. The Ominous Parallels asks what made such a figurehead possible.

 

How individuals in the various positions of government are going to deal with today's concrete, particular, real-life situations is going to be determined by what?

 

Miss Rand states in Philosophy: Who Needs It?:

Now some of you might say, as many people do: "Aw, I never think in such abstract terms—I want to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems—what do I need philosophy for?" My answer is: In order to be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems—i.e., in order to be able to live on earth.

 

To play a little devil's advocate here, consider the reaction that took place in 1941 when 1.72/100,000th of our population was killed. Or prior to that, in 1775 how what percentage of colonist had been killed by British soldiers prior to Lexington and Concord?

 

What has changed or is changing over the course of the years? Human nature? I don't think so. I do think what has changed is an aspect that is fundamental to human nature.

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To play a little devil's advocate here, consider the reaction that took place in 1941 when 1.72/100,000th of our population was killed. Or prior to that, in 1775 how what percentage of colonist had been killed by British soldiers prior to Lexington and Concord?

Churchill is supposed to have said he could defend Europe with just one American "preferably dead".
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CriticalThinker2000, on 20 Dec 2014 - 8:08 PM, said:snapback.png

 

That, my friends, is what a floating abstraction looks like...

 

How is that a floating abstraction? If the government holds a monopoly on the right to protect the American people and bring terrorists to justice, then it has an obligation to perform that duty and to take action if even one person is killed.

 

However, this does not justify everything the U.S. government has done in response to 9/11, or even the majority of it.

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No it's not.

 

That too. :-)

 

Whatever you do, don't ever try to imagine the ideal government working in the real world organized among real human beings on the real planet Earth. What fun would that be? It's far easier to imagine that everybody is good (as soon as they are educated in private schools) and foreign policy is a simple matter of invading and occupying the rest of the world until they all do what we say. The great thing about this future is that taxes will be insignificant because being the world's police force doesn't cost very much.

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How is that a floating abstraction? If the government holds a monopoly on the right to protect the American people and bring terrorists to justice, then it has an obligation to perform that duty and to take action if even one person is killed.

 

However, this does not justify everything the U.S. government has done in response to 9/11, or even the majority of it.

 

Well, to take your first premise at its word for a moment, why not? This isn't a numbers game, right? One American death is worth of a full scale invasion of another country, trillions of dollars and thousands of soldiers dead, right?

Edited by CrowEpistemologist
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The great thing about this future is that taxes will be insignificant because being the world's police force doesn't cost very much.

This must be one of the better aspects of omitting any particular standard of measurement along the cost/benefit analysis.

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One American death is worth of a full scale invasion of another country, trillions of dollars and thousands of soldiers dead, right?

 

If another country is violating the rights of people living in the U.S., then it is the duty of the U.S. government to ensure that it stops. And if that means going to war, then that's what we should do.

 

I actually agree with you that most of what the U.S. government has done since World War II was wrong, but you need to lay your arguments on a consistent foundation instead of sarcastically replying to someone for raising a legitimate point from the other side.

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If another country is violating the rights of people living in the U.S., then it is the duty of the U.S. government to ensure that it stops. And if that means going to war, then that's what we should do.

 

I actually agree with you that most of what the U.S. government has done since World War II was wrong, but you need to lay your arguments on a consistent foundation instead of sarcastically replying to someone for raising a legitimate point from the other side.

 

Yeah, trading trillions of dollars and thousands of lives of soldiers for a single American citizen murdered doesn't really garner a serious response. Sorry. You are arguing in the realm of floating abstractions. Let me know when you want to get real.

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...

 

What has changed or is changing over the course of the years? Human nature? I don't think so...

 

Cria cuervos...

 

... I do think what has changed is an aspect that is fundamental to human nature.

 

I've been puzzling over this for a couple of days now.  Does this aspect have to do with how humans respond to threats, i.e., something like the fight or flight response?

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Cria cuervos...

 

 

I've been puzzling over this for a couple of days now.  Does this aspect have to do with how humans respond to threats, i.e., something like the fight or flight response?

The aspect I'm referring to is philosophy. Specifically the shift from the resurgence of Aristotelian philosophy following Thomas Aquinas culminating in formation of the United States to the Pragmatic approach which has been on the rise since probably the late 1800's.

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