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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

The amazing part, to me, is that many people are either unaware or this, or (worse yet) vaguely know that the US tortures people when it likes, but still think of the country as a place that respects human rights or the rule of law.

I used to think that the concept of doublethink in 1984 was satire. It pains me to realize that it absolutely is not.

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> The two "doctors" assured the military men who hired them and the lawyers and politicians who signed it off that their techniques were entirely "painless". Let me take you through the one described as "a technique in which the detainees' wrists were tied together above their heads and they were unable to lean against a wall or lie down." I was put down a hole, suspended by my wrists from two chains that were locked to a horizontal metal bar at a height where my feet could barely touch the ground. I was left in total darkness for days—perhaps a week. Without food. Standing on tiptoe in my own excrement.

I have to admit, it's hard to believe we'd allow this sort of thing these days and yet there is also recent history supporting this as a pattern of behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBLNohqquRk

How can anyone watch this and realize that precisely nobody went to jail or suffered any kind of process of justice as a result and still think that the country has any respect whatsoever for its written policies or procedures?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spy...

I, for one, am firmly convinced that there are two different sets of laws in this country. One for us, and one for them.

> I have to admit, it's hard to believe we'd allow this sort of thing these day

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment- suppose you had some information about 9/11 one week before, would you torture your informant to get the precise date and location ? one person's rights in exchange for thousands.

And still under the devil's advocate cover- why are tortures different than killing terrorist (or "terrorists") in remote countries without trial while many times causing suffering collateral damage ?

This “ticking time bomb” scenario where torture was effective at stopping some terror attack has as far as I can tell never happened.

When I was in college Alan Dershowitz participated in a public debate about torture in front of students where (aside from a great deal of incoherent blather and blatant disrespect his opponent, a woman whose husband had been tortured and murdered) he pulled some example of torture stopping a terror plot in (I believe?) Southeast Asia.

But when I looked up the details after the debate, it turned out that in fact torture hadn’t accomplished anything and the plot was stopped through unrelated regular investigative police work.

The whole argument is disingenuous, and many of the torture apologists behind it are lazy and academically dishonest.

> why are tortures different than killing terrorist (or "terrorists") in remote countries without trial

Personally I would argue that assassination is an unjust, illegal, and ineffective tactic for fighting against criminals, even violent criminals.

But still, assassination and torture are pretty clearly different. One is killing someone who presumably cannot be easily captured by ordinary law enforcement action. The other is inflicting horrific pain and suffering on a defenseless person in custody out of spite, for no practical benefit.

> Playing the devil's advocate for a moment- suppose you had some information about 9/11 one week before, would you torture your informant to get the precise date and location ? one person's rights in exchange for thousands.

This is a pretty classic example of a utility monster. It's part of the reason that many have issues with utilitarianism.

Regardless, we're talking about Abu Ghraib. This was a rape factory that pushed several thousand through it's doors, so it's important to keep that in view, rather than drifting off into fantastical hypotheticals that presupposes our defensive reaction instead of our continual aggression.

> This is a pretty classic example of a utility monster. It's part of the reason that many have issues with utilitarianism.

I'm not sure it's even utilitarianism. Otherwise he'd be admitting that "Well, torture doesn't give us any actionable intelligence, so we shouldn't be torturing anybody". Utilitarianism isn't about doing pointless actions in the remote hope of the victim giving up anything useful or true.

> Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes. It is a form of consequentialism.

Stated otherwise: Suppose you had some information about 9/11 one week before and you torture your informant to get the precise date and location. You don't get anything because torture doesn't work, and it draws resources away from more useful investigative efforts to track potential attackers, while undermining US strategic and diplomatic efforts overseas. Should you have tortured that person or not?

>Utilitarianism isn't about doing pointless actions in the remote hope of the victim giving up anything useful or true.

Utilitarianism is about the perception of value. If torturing someone makes a population feel better, then at scale it is a net positive.

Utilitarianism is about whether the consequence justifies your course of action. If your goal is to prevent the 9/11 attacks, torturing whoever is the wrong solution. If your goal is to make people feel better, maybe, but even then I'd posit that you'd make them feel better by preventing 9/11.

> Utilitarianism is about whether the consequence justifies your course of action.

It's consequentialist but the OP was pretty spot on. Utilitarianism is about maximizing utility.

> If your goal is to make people feel better, maybe, but even then I'd posit that you'd make them feel better by preventing 9/11.

Unless the terrorist attack provided greater utility than preventing it, then you wouldn't want to stop it. Utilitarianism is real worrying, isn't it?

> Unless the terrorist attack provided greater utility than preventing it, then you wouldn't want to stop it. Utilitarianism is real worrying, isn't it?

Again, it depends on what your goal is. Utilitarianism is as worrying as moral relativism, and I don't see people worried about that either.

> Again, it depends on what your goal is.

Well, as I've said multiple times, we're talking about Utilitarianism, so the goal is always utility maximization.

> Utilitarianism is as worrying as moral relativism, and I don't see people worried about that either.

Plenty of people are justifiably terrified about moral relativism.

It sounds like you've been watching too much 24. In reality, according to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, it doesn't seem to actually work effectively. Their key findings:

1. The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.

2. The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniq...

"The Report" is a pretty good movie about this.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8236336/

Because that argument has been repeatedly proven false. How would you know that the defendant was telling the truth? If your torture is working, then by definition the victim is in a rather confused mental state. SO even if you, as the devil, can assert that your victim actually has the knowledge (itself a difficult thing to know), how can you trust what is said under torture?

Secondly, the argument is essentially utilitarian, "one person's rights in exchange for thousands"-- which you would argue was true in this one case. However, if your strategy was adopted as policy, how many torture cases would there be? Would it only be this one time? Or are we talking about thousands of people being tortured over the years in the hope that one time this save thousands of lives.

If the goal is to obtain information, the most effective technique seems to simply to be nice to people:

https://psmag.com/social-justice/nazi-interrogator-revealed-...

Discussions about the utility of torture always make me thing of what people are really after:

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

Edit: Probably doesn't make good TV though....

No, torture has been proven ineffective in revealing information like that, especially from indoctrinated terrorists - they expect to be tortured. If you could just stick a knife in a person and have them tell you all they know - then by all means, yes - I will stab every single suspected terrorist with a surgeon attending to stitch them back up. As it stands, it's a barbaric practice that doesn't even work.

Torture literally does not work and the scenarios where it could conceivably work never materialize.

Even at the most basic level; torture doesn't work to reveal the truth, so any "information" that you gained is worthless until confirmed by another reliable channel, and if you can do that - well you might as well could have just used that reliable channel in the first place. It's also worth pointing out that even if someone knows something, they are not going to tell you just because you torture them. Famously the US tortured an actual terrorist for months on end using these methods and the man told his torturers exactly only those things he knew they already knew.

It doesn't work.

The word "painless" is just for the paper trail so people can start pointing at each other instead of taking responsibility. Means it will be covered up while people are still being held captive without a fair trial.

This needs to go to the International Court Of Justice in Den Haag, regardless if the court is being recognized by the US.

Security agencies actually did have some information about 9/11 more than a week before but didn't follow up on the leads. It's all in the 9/11 commission report, which led to forming the DHS and changing the policies for intelligence sharing.

You have no way to check if the people you torture told you the truth until it's too late. And they know it.

So they will just lie, you will torture them some more until you persuade yourself they told you the truth, and the attack will happen somewhere else than where they told you anyway.

But hey - you get to torture them some more after the fact to feel better.

The thing about such chinstroking under the banner of devil's advocacy is that you're advocating for the devil.

He doesn't need the help.

It amazes me anyone could sell any of these procedures as "painless" and WH lawyers somehow managed to concoct an opinion that even if this was a painful process that it was not torture because the goal of the interrogators was not to inflict pain but rather to gain information.

I'd like to a) see an interview with both doctors about this, and b) see a legal analysis of why the USG got them to sign off on anything, and what they gained from it. Then, if those opinions were invalid or coerced for any reason, you can nail them for breaking the law AND attempting to cover it up.

I would also, assuming its as bad as it sounds, at the very least, I'd go hard after those doctors and get their licenses, at least. I bet it would trigger already existing law if you could elminate this evil little maneuver.

Now, a motivated administration could still get someone to do it, I'm sure, unethical doctors at the end of their career, or doctors you pay off or threaten to do it. But that increases the difficulty considerably.

Oh, and I would also like to see an interview with W and Obama (and Trump!) about this.

If you like 1984 and doublethink, then you'll enjoy this. Department of War was rebranded as Department of Defense three months after 1984 was published. Life imitating art? And ever since, the Department of Defense has engaged in offensive wars all over the world nonstop. Though I suppose the best defense is a good offense...

To be fair, 1984 was published in 1948. Just about the right time for Department of War to be renamed for appropriate reasons.

It's the right name though, in my opinion.

To be fair, there has not been evidence of systematical torture since that program was abandoned. That's also sometimes forgotten.

And by that I mean that yes, there were individual incidents of torture, but they weren't sanctioned and often prosecuted. There might be as of yet unknown incidents or programs, but the space and scope for such would be rather limited, given all that happened since.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/the-shocking-abuse-of-solitary-co...

The willingness to torture prisoners arbitrarily, and the unwillingness to police or prosecute or punish the widespread application of torture in prisons is well-distributed and longstanding tradition within the United States.

Apparently, it's also fairly common to torture schoolchildren: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/11/20/illinois...

Additionally, it's sort of hard to say that the incidences in question by the military weren't sanctioned when the CIA actually hacked into Congress to further the coverup.

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