[Aramike]

Actually, you repeatedly made the silly argument that becuase the CIA was doing it, it must work. Letum just showed how your reasoning was fallacious. Only later did you expand on it to try and get out of that sinkhole....by an appeal to authority.

Not at all. I was making an argument based upon the idea that it only makes sense that the CIA would act logically. Logically speaking, they wouldn't use the techniques if they didn't work.

Now, if you want to argue that the CIA is illogical then you should provide reasonings and motives.

Letum's argument is a failure (and subsequently, so is yours) because he's trying to reduce a matter of justifiable opinions into an absolute construct. First of all, to even try that is foolish. Secondly, he's only doing it to distract from the actual discussion, because he can't actually counter the point.

History is full of instances when groups of experts have screwed up royally. You have to provide something more than your appeal to the authority of the CIA, how they are in a special position and are therefore suitably immune to confirmation bias, and are not simply the latest in a long line of experts who have been dead wrong.

We're not talking about a behavior being employed with long lasting, unforseeable implications. We're talking about a behavior that either works relatively immediately and verifiably, or does not.

The burden of proof is on you because torture had previously been thought to be ineffective. You have to show why now it magically works and is perfectly justified, now that the US is doing it.

It cracks me up when lefties with weak arguments try to assign a burden of proof. Torture either works or it doesn't. Both are verifiable claims. Therefore, in a debate, the burden of proof falls onto BOTH sides to show why they're right. This isn't a discussion on theism where neither side is verifiable, but only one side is positing a claim.

Regarding the charge of hypocrisy against those who decry torture in America but who are supposedly silent when it happens in places like China: baloney. there was a thread about torture in China, I would register my disgust there. It's only hypocrisy if you oppose it in one instance, while actively supporting it in another instance without suitable justification.

Don't make me laugh. Your reasonings are flawed.

We're not talking about a thread that just magically appeared here - we're talking about a thread that the individual in question started. Furthermore, he's shown a clear bias, and instead of making the general moral argument as a foundation for his disgust, he only frames it within a certain context.

It's just, gosh, I hold the US to a higher standard than the People's Republic, silly me.

Unfortunately your standards don't make the world turn.