So tell me again why we are releasing this CIA "torture" report?

[pardus]

Most of the report was fairly tame, but there was also incredibly bizarre stuff like this

They basically raped this dude.

There's also a few instances of the report detailing agency incompotence or improper vetting

If true, that is really bad, and yeah torture, minor torture (in the scale of medieval torture, which is my template ), but horribly psychologically damaging and unforgivable.
Still from a culture of hazing that often manifests in a sexual manner, and one that forgives child rape, I'm not surprised, sickened, but not surprised.

After the shit I've gone through in this country, The next time a govt official tries to vett me for worthiness, I'm going to smash his nose into his face.

 

[Centermass]

If this was about politics the report would have been released prior to the elections, not post elections.

Gruber was a nothing story beyond a d-bag talking out of his 4th point of contact.

If this was Obama driving the issue it would have been released prior to 2010. 6 year later this was about the Feinstein crusade and she banged plenty of heads with the administration over this report.

One side of me says we needed an accounting for the torture because it was wrong and isn't a great source of intel. You torture someone enough they will tell you their Mom was on the grassy knoll and killed Kennedy. On the other hand this report does nothing good for us internationally and just gives people an excuse to retaliate against our people.

It's a no win either way.

'IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY, WE NEED NATIONAL DISCLOSURE"

And unless you know the ins and outs about enhanced interrogations and intelligence techniques, you haven't got a clue Scott.

Yeah, it is ABOUT FUCKING POLITICS. and yeah, it is about Gruber.

Yup. When it came to healthcare, everything was done behind closed doors and hid. and once finally, manufactured and rolled out, we finally starting learning as a nation what it really entailed. And when questioned, one minute, it's not a "Tax" then, when scrutinized after going before the supreme court...."Oh, your honors, it is a tax" Gee, how convenient. Meaning = "We can change it to suit the outcome and hide the truth"

Gruber made lots of money helping draft the legislation, all the while knowing the "Cadillac tax" on high-end health plans was envisioned to charge insurance companies rather than consumers, and knowing enrollees would get hit with higher prices in the end, as a result.

Transparent when it comes to agenda. Secretive when it comes to agenda, except for National Security. This administration has disclosed more classified information (Or info that should have remained that way) to the detriment of our nation, than any other in my lifetime.

January 2017 can't get here soon enough.

I'm glad that those who demonize and now condemn that, with which, they so fervently supported back after 9/11, have washed their hands of it all and can sleep at night.

As far as I'm concerned, Feinstein and the rest can go fuck themselves.

 

[AWP]

CNN's take on this mess....What a trainwreck. Points 1 and 8 (mock executions and hummus enemas) bothered me the most until I read the report (which probably 99% of Americans won't). The mock executions jumped out at me because that IS a war crime, but how did that make it into the report?

The Committee, which presumably has lawyers on staff, used gossip.

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf

Page 56:

Inspector General records of the interview of a senior CIA debriefer indicated that, "[d]uring the two weeks of interrogation training, she heard stories of [COBALT] detainees
being 'hung for days on end,' not beingfed, mock assassinations, and at least one case of a detainee being repeatedly choked.

A single source rumor made it into the report? No one's bothered to figure out the context of this damning information? Her "testimony" wouldn't fly in court and it wouldn't even pass muster in a 7th Grade classroom, but the Senate Committee allowed that in as fact?

Vermin...

 

[Totentanz]

I'm just still trying to figure out the answer to one question: Exactly what did the United States gain by this action (the release of this report)?

 

[DA SWO]

CNN's take on this mess....What a trainwreck. Points 1 and 8 (mock executions and hummus enemas) bothered me the most until I read the report (which probably 99% of Americans won't). The mock executions jumped out at me because that IS a war crime, but how did that make it into the report?

The Committee, which presumably has lawyers on staff, used gossip.

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf

Page 56:



A single source rumor made it into the report? No one's bothered to figure out the context of this damning information? Her "testimony" wouldn't fly in court and it wouldn't even pass muster in a 7th Grade classroom, but the Senate Committee allowed that in as fact?

Vermin...

CIA Debriefer- Would that be considered an intel MOS in the Army?

 

[TLDR20]

There is no way anyone should be sticking up for this release.

 

[Salt USMC]

There is no way anyone should be sticking up for this release.

It really seems like there are three main arguments in the public sphere right now:

1. The material in the report is incredibly damning and its release was very important

2. The material in the report is incredibly damning but it should not have been released

3. The material in the report does not matter for [reasons given] and should not have been released.

I think every SS poster falls either falls into camp #2 or #3.

Personally, while I feel like the CIA's actions outlined in this report make it seem like a complete shitshow, I don't believe that releasing this report helps anything. What would help is having a chief executive with enough spine to say "Yo, this was fucked up." and bring people up on charges. Nobody went to jail as a result of the Church Committee, nothing of substance has been done since the revelation of the NSA's activities (at least the we in the public sphere know about). I would start with that assclown John Yoo, and whoever failed to vet those dudes listed in the report.

 

[DA SWO]

It really seems like there are three main arguments in the public sphere right now:

1. The material in the report is incredibly damning and its release was very important

2. The material in the report is incredibly damning but it should not have been released

3. The material in the report does not matter for [reasons given] and should not have been released.

I think every SS poster falls either falls into camp #2 or #3.

Personally, while I feel like the CIA's actions outlined in this report make it seem like a complete shitshow, I don't believe that releasing this report helps anything. What would help is having a chief executive with enough spine to say "Yo, this was fucked up." and bring people up on charges. Nobody went to jail as a result of the Church Committee, nothing of substance has been done since the revelation of the NSA's activities (at least the we in the public sphere know about). I would start with that assclown John Yoo, and whoever failed to vet those dudes listed in the report.

How do you know everything in the report is accurate?
Former CIA Chief was on TV this morning claiming they over 700 pieces of "Actionable Intel".
Some items seem legit (like cramming food up the guys ass), but others lack evidence, and no one interviewed had 1st hand knowledge

 

[Gunz]

After 9-11 everybody--including Liberals--wanted revenge. Everybody wanted blood. Everybody wanted to find the terrorist cocksuckers that did this. I got no problem with rectal feeding. At least we fed the sonofabitch. I do have a problem with the release of this information, not because it shocks me because nothing related to war can shock me...but because it might get some of our people killed in retaliatory attacks and there's no excuse for that.

It was fuckin war.

 

[Salt USMC]

How do you know everything in the report is accurate?
Former CIA Chief was on TV this morning claiming they over 700 pieces of "Actionable Intel".
Some items seem legit (like cramming food up the guys ass), but others lack evidence, and no one interviewed had 1st hand knowledge

I admit that we have no way of verifying whether or not this stuff is true. Unless one was there, there is no way to verify. However, the sheer amount of material presented here, as well as the CIA's actual acknowledgement of unspecified mistakes (seen here: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports...ormer_Detention_and_Interrogation_Program.pdf) lends credence to the notion that things were seriously fucked up.

EDIT: I haven't read the entire CIA response yet, but the BLUF is pretty telling so far.

 

[Totentanz]

How do you know everything in the report is accurate?
Former CIA Chief was on TV this morning claiming they over 700 pieces of "Actionable Intel".
Some items seem legit (like cramming food up the guys ass), but others lack evidence, and no one interviewed had 1st hand knowledge

Sometimes the appearance of accuracy is more important than accuracy itself... just ask any major news network.

 

[Brill]

Most of the report was fairly tame, but there was also incredibly bizarre stuff like this

They basically raped this dude.

There's also a few instances of the report detailing agency incompotence or improper vetting

Is there ANYTHING in that report that is actually positive or praiseworthy? If not, then the entire document MUST be discounted as biased CIA bashing and nothing more.

 

[Rapid]

"Afghan President Asraf Ghani has said the CIA's brutal interrogation programme "violated all accepted norms of human rights in the world"."

 

[Centermass]

Just another reason why this whole idea of releasing a so called "Report" not collaborated with anyone about, condemning methods that haven't been used in 8 yrs, and no punitive actions to be taken by anyone is tantamount to dumbshit in the 1st degree. Don't worry about the possible repercussions, backlash or anything else that may show itself in response you fucking dumbass.

Feinstein needs to have this hanging in her office from now on, staring at her constantly. Idiot.

McCain as well.

 

[Brill]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...torture-reports-one-glaring-weakness/?hpid=z3

 

[Salt USMC]

Is there ANYTHING in that report that is actually positive or praiseworthy? If not, then the entire document MUST be discounted as biased CIA bashing and nothing more.

There might be, but the full report is nearly 6,000 pages long, and the declassified portion is somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 pages. It's a long read. The news media, being who they are, report on the negative stuff because that stuff sells. Yeah, it's kind of a lame practice, but it does not mean that we ought to reject the report wholesale. The things that the report points out, which have been corroborated by the CIA itself, should be enough to give one pause. It should also serve as a reminder of what happens when we let fear dictate policy.

 

[Scotth]

'IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY, WE NEED NATIONAL DISCLOSURE"

And unless you know the ins and outs about enhanced interrogations and intelligence techniques, you haven't got a clue Scott.

Yeah, it is ABOUT FUCKING POLITICS. and yeah, it is about Gruber.

Yup. When it came to healthcare, everything was done behind closed doors and hid. and once finally, manufactured and rolled out, we finally starting learning as a nation what it really entailed. And when questioned, one minute, it's not a "Tax" then, when scrutinized after going before the supreme court...."Oh, your honors, it is a tax" Gee, how convenient. Meaning = "We can change it to suit the outcome and hide the truth"

Gruber made lots of money helping draft the legislation, all the while knowing the "Cadillac tax" on high-end health plans was envisioned to charge insurance companies rather than consumers, and knowing enrollees would get hit with higher prices in the end, as a result.

Transparent when it comes to agenda. Secretive when it comes to agenda, except for National Security. This administration has disclosed more classified information (Or info that should have remained that way) to the detriment of our nation, than any other in my lifetime.

January 2015 can't get here soon enough.

I'm glad that those who demonize and now condemn that, with which, they so fervently supported back after 9/11, have washed their hands of it all and can sleep at night.

As far as I'm concerned, Feinstein and the rest can go fuck themselves.

First of all don't try to imply that I said, 'IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY, WE NEED NATIONAL DISCLOSURE". I said I had mixed feeling about the release.

Second, assuming it was all about knocking the Gruber story off the front page, tells us all what we missed yesterday and what was the "Big Discovery" from Gruber hearing?

Gruber didn't write the law or help write the law. He did economic modeling to predict outcomes.

OMG the super duper secret squirrel Cadillac Insurance Tax plan that no one ever heard of because of the lack of transparency? Funny a post from 2009 about that very thing.
http://ourfuture.org/files/documents/WatsonWyatt_2009_final.pdf

You might want to take the blinders off for your own sides actions on transparency. Remember back in the lead up to the 2010 election when House Republicans promised to post all legislation online 72 hours before a vote, because they were all about transparency unlike Obama? Do you have that online link to that House government funding bill they are planning on voting on tomorrow?

 

[racing_kitty]

You might want to take the blinders off for your own sides actions on transparency. Remember back in the lead up to the 2010 election when House Republicans promised to post all legislation online 72 hours before a vote, because they were all about transparency unlike Obama? Do you have that online link to that House government funding bill they are planning on voting on tomorrow?

Well, if you want to be picky about it, "your side" set the precedent on that. When in Rome, and what not. Frankly, I don't think that there's two sides in the manner that people think. Republican, Democrat, all paid by the highest bidder. The only other side is the unwashed, unelected masses (in other words, us).

Remember when San Fran Nan promised to drain the swamp of corruption when she became Speaker of the House? Or do you try to forget that one? The corruption has run deep for a while. I'm surprised the Repubs have only now abandoned the 72 hour promise when the Dems didn't care about it to begin with.

 

[DA SWO]

First of all don't try to imply that I said, 'IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY, WE NEED NATIONAL DISCLOSURE". I said I had mixed feeling about the release.

Second, assuming it was all about knocking the Gruber story off the front page, tells us all what we missed yesterday and what was the "Big Discovery" from Gruber hearing?

Gruber didn't write the law or help write the law. He did economic modeling to predict outcomes.

OMG the super duper secret squirrel Cadillac Insurance Tax plan that no one ever heard of because of the lack of transparency? Funny a post from 2009 about that very thing.
http://ourfuture.org/files/documents/WatsonWyatt_2009_final.pdf

You might want to take the blinders off for your own sides actions on transparency. Remember back in the lead up to the 2010 election when House Republicans promised to post all legislation online 72 hours before a vote, because they were all about transparency unlike Obama? Do you have that online link to that House government funding bill they are planning on voting on tomorrow?

I remember a Presidential Candidate from Illinois saying laws would be posted on the internet for 10 days prior to signing, how long was ACA posted for???

As far as Gruber, what we learned is the people writing the law lied and obfuscated the facts to hide the true cost to the taxpayer. We also learned that Gruber won't discuss his salary, saying we need to talk to his lawyer to find out how much he made, which begs the question: What could be incriminating about a pay check?

 

[Gunz]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...torture-reports-one-glaring-weakness/?hpid=z3

"A more honest report would have squarely faced the arguments made by former CIA officials that key members of Congress were informed about interrogation practices and, far from objecting, condoned the very CIA activities we now judge to have been wrong."

Like I said, everybody wanted blood and didn't care how they got it, even liberals.

This is historical hindsight. If you want to find heinous "criminal" acts perpetrated by our government (or any other government for that matter) you need only go back in time. How is the rectal feeding of a few terrorists any more atrocious than firebombing entire cities? It's too freaking easy to point fingers at the past, and too unfair to judge desperate actions of war by the civilized standards and political slants of a new day.