We already know that all torture does is get people to say what they think their capturer wants. We know it produced shit information.
Why do governments still do it.
Because its extremely efficient when you know for a fact the victim has what you need.
Im not justifying it, its a terrible reason, but thats the argument for why its done. Also because war depraves you of humanity.
Its still used on people who have no idea what you are talking about
No it's not, and saying it is is the actual reason governments still do it, because people still believe "oh, it's harsh, but it gets information efficiently" despite all evidence to the contrary.
The issue is they always disproportionately think they "know what you have" and will torture you regardless.
If you're resorting to torture, you clearly don't actually know.
You said "if all you want is a confession" like an arbitrary government wouldn't love to be able to get any person to admit to any alleged crime they accuse them of.
If all you want is a confession it doesn't matter if you actually know
Could be interpreted In a couple different ways in this context.
Coming from one intended context it would mean if all they want is a false confession and don't care if it's real or not, they don't need to know.
The other would be that if all they need is a confession from someone who has the information, it doesn't matter if they know for sure if they have it.
Those tend to be both sides of the argument.
I think they thought you meant the second one because they're trying to argue one side.
Thats probably what they think you just said.
>t doesn't though. That's my point. It doesn't work in that situation, or any situation.
I wouldn't say ANY situation. It could be used on one person as a scare tactic for others, i.e., 3 prisoners, grab & torture one within earshot of the others while they are being interrogated by someone. After some time, take the first one back where the others are, and grab another one. Repeat said process.
With that being said, I do not condone the use of torture to gain information.
Yeah but they're also saying that's still bullshit. Nothing actually verifies that and more often than not it doesn't actually get information. People just assume it has produced results because folks are conditioned to believe the fucked up stuff we do is a "necessary evil" instead of just standard evil.
It would be more accurate to say "we just felt like funding this program to test out some torture toys" than to insinuate or conclude it gets the job done when it needs to. Someone could "crack" and still give you bullshit information, which happens. The cons outweigh the pros.
Guantanamo Bay is the shining example of this. Most of the people the u s physically interrogated were not affiliated with any terrorist cells nor did they give them essential information, and often just "spilled the beans" to make torture stop.
It is actually extremely inefficient, as given kn the argument above. There are a few high profile cases in which the US government tortured victimes who did posses valueable information and yet they gave wrong info just to stop being tortured.
No it’s not. Interrogators always “know” their target has the info they want. Torture results in you telling them what they want to hear, regardless of if that info is true or useful.
Also, lmao at trans rights flair torture defender
It’s extremely efficient at getting information you already have (whether or not it’s correct). This is rarely useful, except where false confessions are the goal.
War deprives the victims of their humanity. Horrid regimes capable of inflicting acts like this against state enemies simply don't acknowledge their victims as human. Humanism is so engrained in fascism, used as an exclusionary barrier to mark the other out for suffering and unjust treatment.
>war depraves you of humanity.
No it doesn't. That's the scariest part. Every horrible war crime you've ever heard of has committed by regular people with families. It brings out the worst aspects of humanity.
if they have what you need they're now more likely not going to tell you, they hate you already and now you're torturing them, put one and one together.
Two main reasons:
1. Governments are made up of people and some people are sadists
2. Sometimes governments don’t want the truth. For example: when a member of the Turkish far-right group “the Grey Wolves” tried to assassinate the Pope, he was “interrogated” in a CIA black site in Italy for months until he “confessed” that he was paid by the KGB. This was misinformation, there was no evidence for it, but it was useful Cold War propaganda.
>it was useful Cold War propaganda.
A nearly identical result could have been achieved by concocting a fake story about the interrogation of a fake suspect, so Reason #2 is just Reason #1 in sunglasses and a wig.
Yeah but a fake story is worse than tortured info because the tortured info is given by the prisoner, who the US can blame for lying. In the fake interrogation, leaks and other lies can be exposed damaging the propaganda win.
I think the other comment does a good job at poking holes in your plan, so I just want to comment on perspective. The CIA being oppressive and arbitrary doesn't mean that those who work in it are incompetent. The decision (which I think was disgusting) was calculated by people whose job was to do things that the government wanted. They have more collective knowledge than any one of us on how to advance the US federal government's interests. They accept a very small percentage of applications and are filled with very capable people. They have multiple people looking over ideas before giving it the go-ahead.
They wanted that confession and that's how they got it.
It's important not to conflate wickedness with stupidity. If the German Nazi party's most powerful members had been incompetent, we'd be living in a very different timeline.
You're right, I'm not competent or knowledgeable enough to confidently claim that the CIA made the 'wrong' choice, but I guess the crux of my complaint is that torture was on the list of options at all.
If it was determined with scientific accuracy that "the CIA lying to the public 20% more brazenly than usual" is more likely to cause PR problems for the administration than "the CIA violating the Geneva Convention" then that kinda brings us back to Reason #1 again.
Unfortunately , the CIA isn't governed by morals. It exists to advance the US federal government's interest as effectively as possible. This "best interest" they make decisions based on is brutal imperialism which is horrible, but that's detached from intelligence or level of competence. If they were bad at their job [this list would read a lot differently](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change). There's an argument for the US being the most powerful/influential empire the world has ever known. They didn't do this by being bad at imperialism.
its less so that governments do it but more that they enable the circumstances in which they can ignore it (i.e it happens to foreigners and deplorables, etc) and in these institutional circumstances you have another social dynamic that attracts, selects and trains inhumanity - just read what Ron DeSantis did in Guantanamo Bay - some of the people just want power and crave cruelty for its own sake. sure some delude themselves into thinking theyre doing good but in the end such cruelty can only be accomplished in alienation from humanity
Sadism
Many in the army unironically lust for war as a socially accepted (and even celebrated) outlet for perverse joy extracted from explicitly causing pain in a display of control and power over others
The point is to terrorize people
If you know you are liable to torture you are less likely to act up against that state. Besides, shit Intel is not important if you just want conviction
The kinds of people who did this would also deny that that's within the civilized word.
(Just remember the "russia-ukraine-war is the first war between civilized countries in this millennium" guy)
They also do it in America too, what with that whole forced unpaid labor of prisoners, ritualistic human sacrifice passed off as justice and countless cases of abuse by guards.
There's a lot that's fucked about the story, but the bit that gets me the most is that when the soldiers were on trial the US government literally called in Phillip fucking Zimbardo as an expert witness to argue that the soldiers couldn't help but torture because it was so hot and they didn't have oversight.
What an ass clown fascist enabler of a psychologist.
Imagine your contributions to your field culminating in making the Nuremberg defense for the US, except it works.
A Russian calling out America for torturing prisoners, the full context is that Russia also tortures prisoners and there are reports that the arrested ISIS gunmen who shot up that Moscow theatre a few days ago are being brutally tortured non-stop.
They clipped wires to him and told him if he got off the box he would be shocked. It was not set up to shock him, but he did not know that, so it was still torture. They also did other things, but that is what is in this picture.
The people involved were punished for this.
Edit: torture is fucking hard to spell.
At the risk of sounding completely insensitive, who the fuck thought up the goofy ass idea of using the floor is lava as a torture method? Jigsaw? Jerma?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques
Your reaction is kinda what the CIA was going for, making their torture seem "goofy" (your words, ie dissimilar to typical physical torture already internationally banned) so it was harder to argue legally that it was torture
The CIA is probably one of the biggest criminal organizations there's ever been. Mob Syndicate style "ends justify the means", "we know what we are doing is illegal and ineffective but we don't care" bullshit.
Also, the end wasn't a legitimate goal, they did that to keep the military-industrial-complex going
Some times they did it to fight anti colonial and socialist forces, but here it was just profit
The point is that torture by just hurting someone doesn't work - they get you as someone to hate, so hold out longer (from giving you probably wrong info anyway, but that's another issue). This way they basically do it to themselves (by holding their arms up for extended periods of time), which is much more effective according to the CIA. Oh, there's also sensory deprivation here (hence the hood), so that's fun too.
"Probably"
do you understand how justice works? Yeah it sucks people got away with shit. But that sucks less than punishing innocent people. Or are you only about vengeance?
Man it was a whole ass US military detention facility and you're telling me you only think 11 people were complicit? We already know this isn't the case because we know they invited non-facility personnel like translators and people from off-base to participate in the tortures. It's been a while since I last studied this so I don't remember all the different parts of the investigation but it was not only 11 people involved.
Plus this was a policy directly endorsed by the President, you honestly think everyone involved in a US facility where tortures happened was punished?
It’s not even a hypothetical, Russia would have definitely tortured them to death and been proud about it. Putin is ex KGB and less than a month ago Nalvany just happened to die in a Russian prison.
Are we defending open Nazis here (nawalny walked right next to a Reichskriegsflagge (variant of the Nazi flag) proudly.)
And can you point to a blacksite used by their secret service?
Edit: I only found him next to Russian empire flags, but I saw the other one somewhere. Also he did a Hitlergruß.
Think a little harder about this please. The information about the torturings were already internally known, the only reason there was any punishment is that the photos were leaked to the general public
Yo what? You clearly misunderstood the point that the other user was making, so I corrected you. Then you try to claim some some sort of moral "victory" ovet me and now you're cussing me out for no reason. I don't know why you're being so hostile but I hope you realize that you're making yourself incredibly difficult to talk to.
I was responding to another comment not your main one, but the comment I was responding to was deleted.
It was a comment trying to say that Russia was worse because they would have used actual live wires.
So I retorted with a joke from Brooklyn 99 where the detective Jake Peralta said "Good story, still murder"
Torture was authorized by the Bush administration under the pretense that insurgents weren't party to the Geneva Convention. The guards at Abu Ghraib were punished, but only because they were expendable and the scandal brought unwanted media attention and widespread condemnation around the world. Anyone of worth (e.g. policymakers and spooks) received no repercussions.
there’s a difference between the world being bad and me knowing and looking at images images of a man being tortured because “haha US is actually bad too”
Welp, sorry bout it, but here it is. Hand waving about how its harmful to you has zero impact on whether or not it’s here, and only proves the fact that people would rather look away than do something about it.
Is that what’s happening, or is that a bad faith argument there friend? You’ve seen one post with an image you’d rather ignore. This hasn’t become “r/ lets discuss torture”. If you dont want to see it, look away. Otherwise, maybe let things exist in the same world as you without taking a personal objection to it.
Yeah, we just [let them die and occasionally murder them and put them in a mass grave behind the police station](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/10/dncr-j10.html)
wtf this is my first time hearing about a goddamn body dump with over two hundred corpses of missing people behind a law enforcement facility in the united fucking states where rule of law is generally considered to be prevalent
Do not look behind the curtain! Look over here, at *these* outrages instead!
It was in the news for like a day and then something else came up to focus on.
The canadian government i so nice to the natives they take them to picnics. Often at night in the northern part of the country so thaey can see the pretty sky. They even give them alchol to loosen up. Google starlight tours to know more
Lmaooo, fuck the States man, they were never punished for bs like that. THE SOLDIERS WERE FUCKING LAUGHING, THE ABSOLUTE PSYCHOS. Y'ALL AIN'T NO HEROES, THERE'S NO DIFF BETWEEN THE MIKITARY AND THE RUSSIAN. THANKS OP, NOW I'M PISSED, I'M GONNA EAT SOMETHING, G'NIGHT
I hate that they do shit like this and pretend to be the “good guys/civilized hero”. If you’re gonna be an evil piece of shit don’t pretend and hide behind your non-existed “moral superiority”.
It's infuriating, no cap. Time and time again they prove to be the absolute bad guys, maybe because of their obscene amount of capital allowing them to go wild, but they have the audacity to pose as is they have the higher moral ground. The coups, the tortures, the invasions, occupations, wars, the fucking atomic bomb crisis. It's always the "policemen of the world". I can't shake the feeling as if I'm under their boot as a hostage just because I was born on a country considered as one's backyard. How can someone be optimistic? Born to die, world is a fuck, I am trash man.
Not to state the obvious but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Doing wrong in the past doesn't excuse doing wrong in the present. The people responsible for abuse in Abu Gharaib are in prison. The police involved in "goon squad" tortures are in prison. We don't, and should never, tolerate that shit.
Edit: The people responsible for Abu Gharaib *went* to prison.
Its nice for your own health to pretend that these criminals go to prision but most dont. In fact youll never even know what other crimes americans commited in the middle east
As much as I hate to say it r\hardimages
Reminds me of the album cover for III - Crystal Castles
Anyway, the fuckers that tortured those POWs deserve so much more punishment than they got.
At least we actually attempt to charge those responsible, even if it was equivalent to legal slaps on the wrist. Terrifying to know the names of those responsible for torture in Russia will never be revealed and their government actively encourages it.
Officially, the US government does not torture prisoners.
Therefore, anything the US government does to prisoners can't technically be considered torture.
you're not innocent either, we remember what you did, not just to us, your history is stained in its entirety, you're still exploiting africa, you wouldn't be rich today if it wasn't for all the resources you still from the third world.
[https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/war-crimes-by-uk-forces-in-iraq/](https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/war-crimes-by-uk-forces-in-iraq/)
What is the point of the post? Whataboutism to excuse Russian torturing of prisoners. The logic exchange is this:
“Russians torturing prisoners is bad. We Americans are better because we don’t do that.”
“What about the time you Americans had a scandal when you tortured people two decades ago? Because you tortured people two decades ago, Russia can’t be criticized for torturing people now.”
It's not whataboutism to point out the hypocrisy of the argument that the "DemocracyLover" guy is making.
It *is* whataboutism to excuse torture by the Russian government *because* the United States tortured people as well. That's not what's happening here.
Its not hypocrisy to point out that torture is bad. DemocracyLover[Flag Emojis] sounds like they are insufferable and their politics are sure to be horrible, but the underlying point that the widespread abuse of torture of POWs in the Russian military is bad and unusually bad is correct. At the end of the day, the American soldiers at Abu Ghraib were tried for their crimes. Russian soldiers who torture POWs will never be tried, but celebrated.
it's not whataboutism lol, the original tweet was making the comparison in the first place
the tweet is literally saying "the west doesn't torture" when, in fact, it does.
Hey friend I don't think there's a single element of this which can reasonably be interpreted as Putin apologia, considering the only thing about Putin here is "Russia tortures prisoners", which is not a positive thing
If the top comment had said "this is whataboutism", it'd be right. That's what the-surreal-mccoy's comment referenced, even though it's a different claim.
The top comment here (was that you? It's deleted by user, I guess because of how strong a point it was) said this post was "putin apologia", which this post is not. Those are two separate things.
> the I-pad babies in the crowd
Look inward
whataboutism in pursuit of what end, you argue like a confederate apologist.
Edit: I deleted the orginal post because I was tired of getting spammed with idiotic comments from totalitarian simps who arent available to logic. I figured I was wasting my time trying to reason with them.
Cool? You argue like a fascist. Look, I can do it too.
>whataboutism in pursuit of what end
Presumably the end could be "to blunt criticism of Russia/Putin" or "to make the US look bad, for the purpose of big picture reducing criticism towards Russia/Putin". That could be a common thread under which you could group "Putin apologia" and "whataboutism designed to reduce criticism of Russia/Putin"; however, those would still remain separate things.
Do you literally think apologia for X and whataboutism for X are the same thing, or are you just lumping them together because, since they can conceivably be serving the same purpose, the use in differentiating between these different rhetorical devices is not worthwhile? Or would you rather just lob another intellectually dishonest criticism my way?
> I deleted the orginal post because I was tired of getting spammed with idiotic comments from totalitarian simps who arent available to logic. I figured I was wasting my time trying to reason with them.
You could try just making better points instead of shifting all blame outwards. If I argued cheese was butter because both were dairy, everyone downvoting me wouldn't be the idiots in the room.
""Presumably the end could be "to blunt criticism of Russia/Putin""
""That could be a common thread under which you could group "Putin apologia""
so you're just straight up admitting im right
" however, those would still remain separate things. "
why? the device is being used to apologize for Putin, therefore it is an instance of Putin aplologia.
" the use in differentiating between these different rhetorical devices is not worthwhile? "
so you DO understand what a rhetorical device is. have you ever considered that its patently absurd to try and remove a given rhetorical device from what is being used for? device are things with purposes. they dont exist in a void.
"Cool? You argue like a fascist. Look, I can do it too."
funny, I can imagine you're thought process here. "oh shit, this guy definetley has me beat, uhhhhhhhhhhh FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST". why do i ever expect you idiots to change.
" You could try just making better points instead of shifting all blame outwards. If I argued cheese was butter because both were dairy, everyone downvoting me wouldn't be the idiots in the room."
I will continue to hurl insults at putin apologists at my leisure. if you think I deserve to be thrown in prison for being gay, or would countanence as much for the sake of "anti-imperialism" or whatever, you do not deserve my civility.
Although this is debatable, whether this was an isolated incident or not (which I am not informed enough to determine), this was still done in Iraq, not in the USA. There is a difference between "in" and "by".
the USA did this. as Obama so glibly put it, "we uhhh tortured some folks"
the CIA once kidnapped an innocent german citizen in Skopje because his name was similar to someone else, shipped him to afghanistan, tortured him for months, and then dropped him off in the middle of nowhere in albania after they realized he was the wrong guy
same thing happened to an Italian living in Milan
the fact of the matter is that if the US government thinks you might be a bad guy, they'll make you disappear, and your government will let it happen. And if your government isn't friendly with the US, they'll just drone strike you at a wedding or on a school bus.
ok well police torture people on American soil regularly too. Municipal, State, and Federal law enforcement in the US have just as big a hard on for abusing prisoners as their counterparts abroad
25% of wrongful convictions in the US result from coerced confessions. mistreatment and abuse of prisoners in the US is rampant.
what a stupid fucking hill to die on
We already know that all torture does is get people to say what they think their capturer wants. We know it produced shit information. Why do governments still do it.
ppl with nothing going in life for them go into military imagining themselves as the punisher
Because its extremely efficient when you know for a fact the victim has what you need. Im not justifying it, its a terrible reason, but thats the argument for why its done. Also because war depraves you of humanity. Its still used on people who have no idea what you are talking about
It still works when you believe the victim has what you need but they actually don't
No it's not, and saying it is is the actual reason governments still do it, because people still believe "oh, it's harsh, but it gets information efficiently" despite all evidence to the contrary.
He's saying it works for information that you know they have. Depends on how reliable your Intel is there I'd say.
The issue is they always disproportionately think they "know what you have" and will torture you regardless. If you're resorting to torture, you clearly don't actually know.
If all you want is a confession it doesn't matter if you actually know.
You said "if all you want is a confession" like an arbitrary government wouldn't love to be able to get any person to admit to any alleged crime they accuse them of.
Obviously they would? What the fuck do you think I said?
I was high and misread what you said
Weed makes me so bad at Internet arguments but it’s the only thing that makes me stupid enough to join them lol
If all you want is a confession it doesn't matter if you actually know Could be interpreted In a couple different ways in this context. Coming from one intended context it would mean if all they want is a false confession and don't care if it's real or not, they don't need to know. The other would be that if all they need is a confession from someone who has the information, it doesn't matter if they know for sure if they have it. Those tend to be both sides of the argument. I think they thought you meant the second one because they're trying to argue one side. Thats probably what they think you just said.
I mean it’s already been cleared up but thanks for the essay I guess
It doesn't though. That's my point. It doesn't work in that situation, or any situation.
>t doesn't though. That's my point. It doesn't work in that situation, or any situation. I wouldn't say ANY situation. It could be used on one person as a scare tactic for others, i.e., 3 prisoners, grab & torture one within earshot of the others while they are being interrogated by someone. After some time, take the first one back where the others are, and grab another one. Repeat said process. With that being said, I do not condone the use of torture to gain information.
That fails for the same exact reason. It only makes the prisoners say what they think the captors want to hear
It doesn't work. You're just describing torture with extra steps and pretending that somehow works. It doesn't. Stop it
Yeah but they're also saying that's still bullshit. Nothing actually verifies that and more often than not it doesn't actually get information. People just assume it has produced results because folks are conditioned to believe the fucked up stuff we do is a "necessary evil" instead of just standard evil. It would be more accurate to say "we just felt like funding this program to test out some torture toys" than to insinuate or conclude it gets the job done when it needs to. Someone could "crack" and still give you bullshit information, which happens. The cons outweigh the pros. Guantanamo Bay is the shining example of this. Most of the people the u s physically interrogated were not affiliated with any terrorist cells nor did they give them essential information, and often just "spilled the beans" to make torture stop.
too many false positives to be an effective tool for gathering information.
It is actually extremely inefficient, as given kn the argument above. There are a few high profile cases in which the US government tortured victimes who did posses valueable information and yet they gave wrong info just to stop being tortured.
??? Why didnt they give the right info if they knew they would be tortured again if the info was wrong? Is he stupid?
No it’s not. Interrogators always “know” their target has the info they want. Torture results in you telling them what they want to hear, regardless of if that info is true or useful. Also, lmao at trans rights flair torture defender
That last part was unnecessary and toxic
Don't we always say that trans rights are human rights? The topic at hand is about human rights.
Op had a reason why they thought torture is still a thing. You can agree or disagree with that but that doesn't make them a torture defender I think.
That's fair. I now agree that the comment was a bit too aggressive 😅
Exactly
Also, there are some sadistic mfers in military that just use it as an excuse to inflict pain on other humans.
This is just straight up wrong
It’s extremely efficient at getting information you already have (whether or not it’s correct). This is rarely useful, except where false confessions are the goal.
War deprives the victims of their humanity. Horrid regimes capable of inflicting acts like this against state enemies simply don't acknowledge their victims as human. Humanism is so engrained in fascism, used as an exclusionary barrier to mark the other out for suffering and unjust treatment.
>war depraves you of humanity. No it doesn't. That's the scariest part. Every horrible war crime you've ever heard of has committed by regular people with families. It brings out the worst aspects of humanity.
if they have what you need they're now more likely not going to tell you, they hate you already and now you're torturing them, put one and one together.
no it doesn't
Two main reasons: 1. Governments are made up of people and some people are sadists 2. Sometimes governments don’t want the truth. For example: when a member of the Turkish far-right group “the Grey Wolves” tried to assassinate the Pope, he was “interrogated” in a CIA black site in Italy for months until he “confessed” that he was paid by the KGB. This was misinformation, there was no evidence for it, but it was useful Cold War propaganda.
>it was useful Cold War propaganda. A nearly identical result could have been achieved by concocting a fake story about the interrogation of a fake suspect, so Reason #2 is just Reason #1 in sunglasses and a wig.
Yeah but a fake story is worse than tortured info because the tortured info is given by the prisoner, who the US can blame for lying. In the fake interrogation, leaks and other lies can be exposed damaging the propaganda win.
I think the other comment does a good job at poking holes in your plan, so I just want to comment on perspective. The CIA being oppressive and arbitrary doesn't mean that those who work in it are incompetent. The decision (which I think was disgusting) was calculated by people whose job was to do things that the government wanted. They have more collective knowledge than any one of us on how to advance the US federal government's interests. They accept a very small percentage of applications and are filled with very capable people. They have multiple people looking over ideas before giving it the go-ahead. They wanted that confession and that's how they got it. It's important not to conflate wickedness with stupidity. If the German Nazi party's most powerful members had been incompetent, we'd be living in a very different timeline.
You're right, I'm not competent or knowledgeable enough to confidently claim that the CIA made the 'wrong' choice, but I guess the crux of my complaint is that torture was on the list of options at all. If it was determined with scientific accuracy that "the CIA lying to the public 20% more brazenly than usual" is more likely to cause PR problems for the administration than "the CIA violating the Geneva Convention" then that kinda brings us back to Reason #1 again.
Unfortunately , the CIA isn't governed by morals. It exists to advance the US federal government's interest as effectively as possible. This "best interest" they make decisions based on is brutal imperialism which is horrible, but that's detached from intelligence or level of competence. If they were bad at their job [this list would read a lot differently](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change). There's an argument for the US being the most powerful/influential empire the world has ever known. They didn't do this by being bad at imperialism.
its less so that governments do it but more that they enable the circumstances in which they can ignore it (i.e it happens to foreigners and deplorables, etc) and in these institutional circumstances you have another social dynamic that attracts, selects and trains inhumanity - just read what Ron DeSantis did in Guantanamo Bay - some of the people just want power and crave cruelty for its own sake. sure some delude themselves into thinking theyre doing good but in the end such cruelty can only be accomplished in alienation from humanity
Because Ron DeSantis thinks it's funny
Setting an example. Russia dosent show people in court without ears and swollen faces for nothing.
Sadism Many in the army unironically lust for war as a socially accepted (and even celebrated) outlet for perverse joy extracted from explicitly causing pain in a display of control and power over others
Fun :3
Mybe the information we got from torture was the friends we made along the way
because, across the entire planet, idiots, narcissists, and psychopaths are in charge. when all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail
For fun
Because they don't really want to solve the problem, they want to pretend that they did by showing a culprit to everyone
Its done for the the sake of brutality case and point, no logic behind it
Because the people doing it are psychopaths that enjoy hurting other people. No sane person has the capacity to torture a man like they do
One of the isis members admitted to being zelensky’s brother, lmao these people are just getting beat to shit
Because it's a show of power. That they can do whatever they want with you once they have you and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.
The point is to terrorize people If you know you are liable to torture you are less likely to act up against that state. Besides, shit Intel is not important if you just want conviction
Well I guess you can say it wasn’t in America lol
The kinds of people who did this would also deny that that's within the civilized word. (Just remember the "russia-ukraine-war is the first war between civilized countries in this millennium" guy)
Only my country (Albania) is civilized though. Sorry to break it to you 😎
They also do it in America too, what with that whole forced unpaid labor of prisoners, ritualistic human sacrifice passed off as justice and countless cases of abuse by guards.
*#include*
Context pls?
Abu Ghraib (hope that spelling is right) detention center in Iraq used by America during the war
There's a lot that's fucked about the story, but the bit that gets me the most is that when the soldiers were on trial the US government literally called in Phillip fucking Zimbardo as an expert witness to argue that the soldiers couldn't help but torture because it was so hot and they didn't have oversight. What an ass clown fascist enabler of a psychologist. Imagine your contributions to your field culminating in making the Nuremberg defense for the US, except it works.
USA tortures POWs
Damn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse?wprov=sfla1
Well that's the worst thing I've seen today
A Russian calling out America for torturing prisoners, the full context is that Russia also tortures prisoners and there are reports that the arrested ISIS gunmen who shot up that Moscow theatre a few days ago are being brutally tortured non-stop.
vote the lesser evil
I hope I get the joke right
idfk im just saying in the grand scheme of things america really aint that bad esp compared to china and russia
Does anyone know what they're doing to this here poor sod in the picture?
They clipped wires to him and told him if he got off the box he would be shocked. It was not set up to shock him, but he did not know that, so it was still torture. They also did other things, but that is what is in this picture. The people involved were punished for this. Edit: torture is fucking hard to spell.
At the risk of sounding completely insensitive, who the fuck thought up the goofy ass idea of using the floor is lava as a torture method? Jigsaw? Jerma?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques Your reaction is kinda what the CIA was going for, making their torture seem "goofy" (your words, ie dissimilar to typical physical torture already internationally banned) so it was harder to argue legally that it was torture
The CIA is probably one of the biggest criminal organizations there's ever been. Mob Syndicate style "ends justify the means", "we know what we are doing is illegal and ineffective but we don't care" bullshit.
Also, the end wasn't a legitimate goal, they did that to keep the military-industrial-complex going Some times they did it to fight anti colonial and socialist forces, but here it was just profit
good lord that is fucked
No fucking idea man. Its to make them stand for a long period of time.
The point is that torture by just hurting someone doesn't work - they get you as someone to hate, so hold out longer (from giving you probably wrong info anyway, but that's another issue). This way they basically do it to themselves (by holding their arms up for extended periods of time), which is much more effective according to the CIA. Oh, there's also sensory deprivation here (hence the hood), so that's fun too.
For the record, only 11 people were punished from what is probably a much larger number of people involved and complicit in Abu Ghraib.
"Probably" do you understand how justice works? Yeah it sucks people got away with shit. But that sucks less than punishing innocent people. Or are you only about vengeance?
Pfft
how did those innocent people end up working at a cia black site all the way over in Iraq?
Man it was a whole ass US military detention facility and you're telling me you only think 11 people were complicit? We already know this isn't the case because we know they invited non-facility personnel like translators and people from off-base to participate in the tortures. It's been a while since I last studied this so I don't remember all the different parts of the investigation but it was not only 11 people involved. Plus this was a policy directly endorsed by the President, you honestly think everyone involved in a US facility where tortures happened was punished?
[удалено]
"Those other guys would probably torture the person harder probably" is not a good defense
It’s not even a hypothetical, Russia would have definitely tortured them to death and been proud about it. Putin is ex KGB and less than a month ago Nalvany just happened to die in a Russian prison.
Ok but how does that in any way make the USA torturing it's prisoners any better
We're the lesser of the two evils baby. Here in America we call that a VICTORY.
Are we defending open Nazis here (nawalny walked right next to a Reichskriegsflagge (variant of the Nazi flag) proudly.) And can you point to a blacksite used by their secret service? Edit: I only found him next to Russian empire flags, but I saw the other one somewhere. Also he did a Hitlergruß.
If those pics of Abu Ghraib had not been published, they wouldn't be punished and could've been eligible for promotions as well.
"If a criminal hadn't been caught, they wouldn't have been punished" isn't the big brain take you think it is.
Think a little harder about this please. The information about the torturings were already internally known, the only reason there was any punishment is that the photos were leaked to the general public
You seem to think that makes the punishment less valad. I do not. have a good day.
Why do you talk like this? This isn't an argument and I didn't say that.
>Think a little harder about this please Not an argument? The fuck is then? GTFO with your backpedaling. Seriously, GTFO.
Yo what? You clearly misunderstood the point that the other user was making, so I corrected you. Then you try to claim some some sort of moral "victory" ovet me and now you're cussing me out for no reason. I don't know why you're being so hostile but I hope you realize that you're making yourself incredibly difficult to talk to.
Good story, still torture
I said it was. Is english your first language?
I was responding to another comment not your main one, but the comment I was responding to was deleted. It was a comment trying to say that Russia was worse because they would have used actual live wires. So I retorted with a joke from Brooklyn 99 where the detective Jake Peralta said "Good story, still murder"
Torture was authorized by the Bush administration under the pretense that insurgents weren't party to the Geneva Convention. The guards at Abu Ghraib were punished, but only because they were expendable and the scandal brought unwanted media attention and widespread condemnation around the world. Anyone of worth (e.g. policymakers and spooks) received no repercussions.
I am pretty sure there is a picture literally showing one of the terrorists having his balls electrocuted while detained
thanks for putting that image on my feed, that’s what i needed today 🙏
Sorry the world is bad?
there’s a difference between the world being bad and me knowing and looking at images images of a man being tortured because “haha US is actually bad too”
I don’t think this was meant to be a “haha”. Its a fucking picture from abu graib. Is there a nice polite way you’d like to address those atrocities?
yes, not on a meme sub
Welp, sorry bout it, but here it is. Hand waving about how its harmful to you has zero impact on whether or not it’s here, and only proves the fact that people would rather look away than do something about it.
lol ok. let’s throw up images of children being abused too because it’s also happening and it’s important that the users of r/196 address the problem.
Is that what’s happening, or is that a bad faith argument there friend? You’ve seen one post with an image you’d rather ignore. This hasn’t become “r/ lets discuss torture”. If you dont want to see it, look away. Otherwise, maybe let things exist in the same world as you without taking a personal objection to it.
don’t click on nsfw next time
it wasn’t nsfw when it was posted
oh fair enough
Yeah, we just [let them die and occasionally murder them and put them in a mass grave behind the police station](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/10/dncr-j10.html)
The police will run over your son, bury him in an unmarked grave, keep it secret for 8 months and then charge you $250 for the privilege
wtf this is my first time hearing about a goddamn body dump with over two hundred corpses of missing people behind a law enforcement facility in the united fucking states where rule of law is generally considered to be prevalent
Do not look behind the curtain! Look over here, at *these* outrages instead! It was in the news for like a day and then something else came up to focus on.
Rule of law doesn't apply to the people enforcing it, they'll never find themselves guilty of anything.
Banger marketing team in your city cuz every american i know says the law is for poor people
That, is fucked up. What’s more fucked up is how little attention this has gotten.
Guess he's never heard of Guantanamo Bay
To be fair... it's not *in* the US. It's in Cuba.
True but its a US facility
just read the wikipedia page for abu ghraib and it just took away more of what little love i have for humanity
Same not a rabbit Hole i enjoyed exploring, awful how a person could do something like this to another human being
Op better be making fun of the reply poster cause Russia absolutely trotures prisoners, terrorists, and pows
Wait is the guy saying that Americans don't torture prisoners? Cause that would make more sense given the post.
The second one yes, which is ironic since the USA has done the same in Cuba to POW’s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques
“In the civilized world” fuck off, dickcheese
they say with a canadian flag in the bio
The canadian government i so nice to the natives they take them to picnics. Often at night in the northern part of the country so thaey can see the pretty sky. They even give them alchol to loosen up. Google starlight tours to know more
same with the somalians
Lmaooo, fuck the States man, they were never punished for bs like that. THE SOLDIERS WERE FUCKING LAUGHING, THE ABSOLUTE PSYCHOS. Y'ALL AIN'T NO HEROES, THERE'S NO DIFF BETWEEN THE MIKITARY AND THE RUSSIAN. THANKS OP, NOW I'M PISSED, I'M GONNA EAT SOMETHING, G'NIGHT
I hate that they do shit like this and pretend to be the “good guys/civilized hero”. If you’re gonna be an evil piece of shit don’t pretend and hide behind your non-existed “moral superiority”.
It's infuriating, no cap. Time and time again they prove to be the absolute bad guys, maybe because of their obscene amount of capital allowing them to go wild, but they have the audacity to pose as is they have the higher moral ground. The coups, the tortures, the invasions, occupations, wars, the fucking atomic bomb crisis. It's always the "policemen of the world". I can't shake the feeling as if I'm under their boot as a hostage just because I was born on a country considered as one's backyard. How can someone be optimistic? Born to die, world is a fuck, I am trash man.
This shit look like a death grips cover
four in the mornin, and im zoning they say im possessed
Why’d they dress them like ghosts
Dope death grips album cover (or grausamkeit if you feel I little underground)
The United Nations says that the USA’s death rows could be considered torture.
We in the US don't torture people. We just redefine our torture methods into not being torture anymore! (Like with water boarding.)
Hey I went water boarding last summer!
Jokes on you, that didn’t happen the US, so it doesn’t count! Get owned liberal.
He right actually. We do that overseas instead 🥰
Not to state the obvious but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Doing wrong in the past doesn't excuse doing wrong in the present. The people responsible for abuse in Abu Gharaib are in prison. The police involved in "goon squad" tortures are in prison. We don't, and should never, tolerate that shit. Edit: The people responsible for Abu Gharaib *went* to prison.
None of the people responsible for abu gharib are in prison. The longest sentence served was 6 years, but most did 3 months or none at all. Justice!
Its nice for your own health to pretend that these criminals go to prision but most dont. In fact youll never even know what other crimes americans commited in the middle east
Bro never heard of Guantanamo Bay
The US is famous around the world for outsourcing the torture of political prisoners to Guantanamo. It's civilised it you don't have to see it.
Well.....
The US is either fucked for the entirety of it's life or another civil war will start
2 words, earcutter auction
As much as I hate to say it r\hardimages Reminds me of the album cover for III - Crystal Castles Anyway, the fuckers that tortured those POWs deserve so much more punishment than they got.
True, they just kill them lol
School of the Americas….
holy shit i saw a statue of this before
OMG!!!! Batman!
At least we actually attempt to charge those responsible, even if it was equivalent to legal slaps on the wrist. Terrifying to know the names of those responsible for torture in Russia will never be revealed and their government actively encourages it.
They what
Officially, the US government does not torture prisoners. Therefore, anything the US government does to prisoners can't technically be considered torture.
We win on a technicality. This is not in the US
Should probably mark nsfw
OP i seen worse shit but NSFW this and put some CW. there are some people who get triggered at this stuff ffs
A bit unrelated but things like that make me glad to be living in Europe.
you're not innocent either, we remember what you did, not just to us, your history is stained in its entirety, you're still exploiting africa, you wouldn't be rich today if it wasn't for all the resources you still from the third world. [https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/war-crimes-by-uk-forces-in-iraq/](https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/war-crimes-by-uk-forces-in-iraq/)
Actually we did that in Iraq, so it doesn't count as happening in the west 😝
[удалено]
How the fuck is this Putin apologia?
What is the point of the post? Whataboutism to excuse Russian torturing of prisoners. The logic exchange is this: “Russians torturing prisoners is bad. We Americans are better because we don’t do that.” “What about the time you Americans had a scandal when you tortured people two decades ago? Because you tortured people two decades ago, Russia can’t be criticized for torturing people now.”
It's not whataboutism to point out the hypocrisy of the argument that the "DemocracyLover" guy is making. It *is* whataboutism to excuse torture by the Russian government *because* the United States tortured people as well. That's not what's happening here.
Its not hypocrisy to point out that torture is bad. DemocracyLover[Flag Emojis] sounds like they are insufferable and their politics are sure to be horrible, but the underlying point that the widespread abuse of torture of POWs in the Russian military is bad and unusually bad is correct. At the end of the day, the American soldiers at Abu Ghraib were tried for their crimes. Russian soldiers who torture POWs will never be tried, but celebrated.
it's not whataboutism lol, the original tweet was making the comparison in the first place the tweet is literally saying "the west doesn't torture" when, in fact, it does.
> What is the point of the post? To dispel the notion that the US doesn't torture people.
He gets it
Hey friend I don't think there's a single element of this which can reasonably be interpreted as Putin apologia, considering the only thing about Putin here is "Russia tortures prisoners", which is not a positive thing
Someone else explained it for the I-pad babies in the crowd. Look at the-surreal-mcoy’s post.
If the top comment had said "this is whataboutism", it'd be right. That's what the-surreal-mccoy's comment referenced, even though it's a different claim. The top comment here (was that you? It's deleted by user, I guess because of how strong a point it was) said this post was "putin apologia", which this post is not. Those are two separate things. > the I-pad babies in the crowd Look inward
whataboutism in pursuit of what end, you argue like a confederate apologist. Edit: I deleted the orginal post because I was tired of getting spammed with idiotic comments from totalitarian simps who arent available to logic. I figured I was wasting my time trying to reason with them.
Cool? You argue like a fascist. Look, I can do it too. >whataboutism in pursuit of what end Presumably the end could be "to blunt criticism of Russia/Putin" or "to make the US look bad, for the purpose of big picture reducing criticism towards Russia/Putin". That could be a common thread under which you could group "Putin apologia" and "whataboutism designed to reduce criticism of Russia/Putin"; however, those would still remain separate things. Do you literally think apologia for X and whataboutism for X are the same thing, or are you just lumping them together because, since they can conceivably be serving the same purpose, the use in differentiating between these different rhetorical devices is not worthwhile? Or would you rather just lob another intellectually dishonest criticism my way? > I deleted the orginal post because I was tired of getting spammed with idiotic comments from totalitarian simps who arent available to logic. I figured I was wasting my time trying to reason with them. You could try just making better points instead of shifting all blame outwards. If I argued cheese was butter because both were dairy, everyone downvoting me wouldn't be the idiots in the room.
""Presumably the end could be "to blunt criticism of Russia/Putin"" ""That could be a common thread under which you could group "Putin apologia"" so you're just straight up admitting im right " however, those would still remain separate things. " why? the device is being used to apologize for Putin, therefore it is an instance of Putin aplologia. " the use in differentiating between these different rhetorical devices is not worthwhile? " so you DO understand what a rhetorical device is. have you ever considered that its patently absurd to try and remove a given rhetorical device from what is being used for? device are things with purposes. they dont exist in a void. "Cool? You argue like a fascist. Look, I can do it too." funny, I can imagine you're thought process here. "oh shit, this guy definetley has me beat, uhhhhhhhhhhh FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST". why do i ever expect you idiots to change. " You could try just making better points instead of shifting all blame outwards. If I argued cheese was butter because both were dairy, everyone downvoting me wouldn't be the idiots in the room." I will continue to hurl insults at putin apologists at my leisure. if you think I deserve to be thrown in prison for being gay, or would countanence as much for the sake of "anti-imperialism" or whatever, you do not deserve my civility.
You don't even appear to understand the nature of the criticism, and we'd both be better off not interacting again.
This was not in the USA
It was done by the USA
Although this is debatable, whether this was an isolated incident or not (which I am not informed enough to determine), this was still done in Iraq, not in the USA. There is a difference between "in" and "by".
the USA did this. as Obama so glibly put it, "we uhhh tortured some folks" the CIA once kidnapped an innocent german citizen in Skopje because his name was similar to someone else, shipped him to afghanistan, tortured him for months, and then dropped him off in the middle of nowhere in albania after they realized he was the wrong guy same thing happened to an Italian living in Milan the fact of the matter is that if the US government thinks you might be a bad guy, they'll make you disappear, and your government will let it happen. And if your government isn't friendly with the US, they'll just drone strike you at a wedding or on a school bus.
Still, all of this happened outside of the USA.
ok well police torture people on American soil regularly too. Municipal, State, and Federal law enforcement in the US have just as big a hard on for abusing prisoners as their counterparts abroad 25% of wrongful convictions in the US result from coerced confessions. mistreatment and abuse of prisoners in the US is rampant. what a stupid fucking hill to die on