Comment by cryoshon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cryoshon | Hacker News Reader

A few things:

The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture. I hope this dissuades some of their remaining voter base from continuing to support them.

Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture. Not sure that he has any credibility left after being caught on the record lying to congress, but whatever.

The White House attempted to keep this report from coming out. Obama's admission that "we tortured some folks" was hollow, and his promises regarding torture transparency have been refuted as lies. I assume that the White House supports torture, via its resistance to exposing torture. I hope this dissuades some of their voter base from continuing to support them.

Feinstein, though extremely undesirable due to her support of the NSA, has showed some balls here. In the months leading up to the release of this report, she claimed that the CIA was threatening her, so we'll see what happens. I would like it if the next big stink she makes is about the CIA's surveillance of the Senate committee.

The CIA itself has just been pinned on the record as having intentionally misled Congress (its only real oversight) for a period of nearly a decade. Additionally, the CIA has been pinned on the record as having attempted to cover up evidence that it tortured people, and then also spied on the people investigating the torture within the US government. I hope that this agency is drastically reduced by some sort of chemotherapy now that some of its crimes have come to light.

Just remember that this isn't over. Keep paying attention to who defends the CIA, and which media outlets place torture as a choice on the same level as other options. Keep paying attention to the way that the government tries to deny, scapegoat, and minimize this, and make sure to point it out wherever you see it. Finally, don't let them re-focus on the inevitable violent reprisals that will soon come. Releasing the report isn't the ultimate cause of violence against the US or its proxies, torturing people is.

Edit: It appears as though in one of the footnotes of the report there is an admission that one of the people who was tortured to death was an innocent man who was wrongly abducted.

The White House attempted to keep this report from coming out.

That's inaccurate. Kerry asked for a delay in its release; as Secretary of State, responsible for US embassies around the world, it's his job to draw attention to the risk factors. All reports I've read prior to the release said that both the President and Vice President were strongly in favor of publication. Ultimately the choice to classify or declassify rests with the President.

Anybody got any sources on either side of the points about the current administration?

It's also been argued that the White House really wanted to prevent the release, and reasoned that if they could prevent it from coming out until the new (republican) senate takes office, that republican congress would likely kill it entirely and let the white house claim the high ground despite actually doing the opposite. Kerry's actions certainly support that theory.

When you say that the President and VP were in favor of publication, that is definitely not consistent with what we've seen from Obama.

Remember when Obama blocked the release of additional Gitmo evidence because he claimed it would result in Americans being hurt? I assume the exact same logic was used here to prevent this report from coming out.

I assume Kerry's plea for a delay was a result of the CIA pressuring him to protect their assets which are embedded with embassies worldwide. The collaboration between the State Department and the CIA runs deep, like a mold with many filaments.

> When you say that the President and VP were in favor of publication, that is definitely not consistent with what we've seen from Obama.

We've seen Obama declassify this exact report, without which it could not be published. I'm not sure how much more consistency there can be on this point.

> Remember when Obama blocked the release of additional Gitmo evidence because he claimed it would result in Americans being hurt? I assume the exact same logic was used here to prevent this report from coming out.

I conclude (rather than assume) that it wasn't, because if it that logic was used by Obama, then this report wouldn't have been declassified.

> I assume Kerry's plea for a delay was a result of the CIA pressuring him to protect their assets which are embedded with embassies worldwide.

I don't see any reason to assume that. Its not entirely implausible, but the way that it paints US ambassadors as dupes of the CIA and undermines US diplomatic credibility is also a plausible reason for Kerry to seek to delay it, particularly if there are ongoing negotiations to which the particular issues on which it most damages that credibility may be relevant, and there are numerous other plausible reasons why Kerry might have sought the delay.

>"The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture."

>"Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture."

>"The White House attempted to keep this report from coming out...I assume that the White House supports torture..."

Politics is a dirty, complex game. If you treat every news event as black and white like this, you will form many extremist positions very quickly. Obama, for example, banned torture via executive order when he took office. Did you cry that he was "against torture" when that came out?

This is black and white, unless you have no morals. We tortured people and now some people are defending those actions.

Let me ask you this: What if this report came out and said the exact opposite? What would your reaction be if the interrogation techniques were in no way overly brutal, if everything was done to the books, and the information collected saved millions of lives.

I'm going to take a guess and say you'd be very skeptical of the contents. Maybe you'd go so far as to say everything about the document was a lie perpetrated by the Republican party and other supporters of "advanced interrogation techniques".

This is just a prime example of confirmation bias [0]. If a report comes out saying torture has worked, you dismiss it. If a report comes out saying the opposite, you hail it as the only evidence that even matters (obviously I'm exaggerating a bit to make my point, but I'm sure you get the idea).

A very strongly-sided report just became declassified with little insight into any biases that its writers may have. I highly doubt anyone in the government lacks the integrity to put out a completely fake report of this caliber, but everyone should be looking at this with at least a little cynicism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Torture is a cut and dry moral issue; inflicting pain on a person willfully for an extended period of time is not acceptable behavior, nor is this fact a matter of politics. The people/groups I listed in my original comment have placed themselves on the wrong side of this moral issue, and history will judge them harshly as such.

Obama may have issued an executive order when he entered office, but attempting to block/redact/delay this report betrays his true loyalties.

It isn't an extremist position that torture is wrong, or that the people who support/cover up torture are in the wrong. If anything, it is an extremist position that torture is a valid tactic.

Yes, torture is a pretty cut and dry moral issue. That does not mean the people/groups you listed are "for torture" based on the small sample of reactions you listed. I would not describe the Obama administration as being "for torture" just for going against the report (can you source that by the way? I can't find it). Maybe they genuinely thought unrest in its aftermath would pose a security risk? I don't think this is really what they thought, hence, the report was released. Likewise, perhaps the Republican party views the report as inaccurate, but not that torture is justified in general (given past members' support for the programs, I doubt this too, but still).

Apparently 2/3 of Americans are on the wrong side of this "cut and dry moral issue." http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/09/poll-68-of-americans-s...

That’s quite irrelevant.

It wouldn't be the first time that 2/3 of Americans support something atrocious. Slavery, voting rights, segregation, senseless wars, drug laws, gay rights, etc.

> The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture.

> Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture.

If I write, 'cryoshon eats babies,' and Jimbo replies, 'no he doesn't; he eats eggs, and besides he was starving,' then that doesn't mean that Jimbo supports baby-eating: it means that he doesn't believe that eating eggs is eating babies.

There is a minority report which rebuts this one, and the CIA itself have issued their own rebuttal. Now, those could be non-rebuttals entirely of the form, 'doesn't matter, it worked' or they could be rebuttals of the form, 'the worst stuff you mention never happened; the rest of it is unpleasant but legal, and effective.'

They could also be true, or false—as could this report.

> The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture.

Stop assuming Republicans support torture.

McCain comments on the report: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/12/09/lv-mcc...

Not trying to make this a party issue but that is 1 GOP rep who has been subjected to torture. Considering the GOP released a rebuttal to the report, I think it is a fair statement to say in turn that they are effectively supporting the use of torture by the US [1].

Edit: 1. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/republicans-dismiss-senate-tortur...

Marco Rubio has come out in support of the actions of the CIA; who is to say he doesn't represent the party line on this issue more than McCain?

(and really, McCain is one of few Republicans who doesn't support torture because of his own background as a POW)

Is McCain's opinion shared by the rest of the Republicans? If so, then getting justice done should not be a problem. My impression is that McCain is pretty alone, though.

Strong persecution and us-versus-them phrasing going on here. This is our government, our representatives, the people we elected and allow to perform these actions. We as a whole may not be as directly culpable, but we certainly are not clean of conscience. It evokes thoughts of "this happened on our watch". Even for those not residing in the USA, there is responsibility.

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