To me the justifications for legalizing torture have always seemed extremely strained. Experts in the field have pointed out that circumstances in which brutal treatment might be justified – the famous ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario – happen so rarely that for all practical purposes they essentially don’t happen. So why institutionalize abuse for the one in ten million chance that it might be needed? Once we permit abuse interrogtors will always use it, in fact they will be expected to do so. The gulf that separates America from the countries that we claim to hate will grow that much smaller. Are we really in a clash of civilizations? Maybe so, although that sound simplistic to me. But if we are then gratuitously degrading our detainee standards will hand the terrorists a victory without them having to fire a shot.
At any rate for basic practical reasons the debate always struck me as completely misguided. When that once-in-a-decade event comes arounds where an interrogator does bend the rules and save a million lives that person can pretty much count on a presidential pardon, if the prosecutor even bothers filing charges. Codifying this rare, arguably effective and unquestionably degrading behavior into law seems like a perfect case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, at least as far as the debate is currently framed. In that vein Josh Marshall has a reader who more or less sums up my feeling about what is actually happening:
Besides prosecutorial discretion and jury nullification, there is always the presidential pardon option. To me, this demonstrates that Bush doesn’t have in mind rare cases of torture- which, if proved vital, or event useful, could be pardoned. He wants it to be a regular procedure, for which pardons would be unwieldy given the number of people needing them.
The president does not want to reserve the right to torture on the rare occasions when it might help. He wants torture to become who we are.
cd6
Laws are useless.
Bush does what he wants regardless of laws. If Congress passed a law tomorrow that said “Torture is illegal” Bush would signing statement away and keep torturing. Didn’t he already do that?
Why are we wasting all this time nitpicking “laws” anyway?
I think this is time better spent trying to curtail the homosexual agenda.
Par R
ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross says all his CIA agent sources — a portion of whom opposed controversial interrogation methods on legal or moral grounds — agreed the methods worked to break all 14 high value Al Qaeda leaders in custody. In some cases Al Qaeda members and plots were revealed, saving countless of lives.
Ross didn’t use the term “torture,” but rather the phrase “aggresive interrogation methods.”
Richard Bottoms
All well and good. I am appropriately outraged that Bush fights for the right to torture. I am a liberal after all.
But back on planet Earth we have an election to win.
May I suggest that Demicrats winning the Congress would go a lot farther in stopping Bush’s tarnishing of our values that demanding the Democrats commit political suicidesix weeks before people go to the polls.
What I’d much rather hear is an elected Democrat asking every single day from the well of the House why the Army is not prepared to deploy in the event they are needed.
I’d rather you spend your time excoriating Jim O’Beirne’s litmus tests for personnel sent to rebuild Iraq. I want to hear anecdotes about questions on abortion trumping expertise in actual nation building. Make him a subject of ridicule from one end of America to the other.
Screw Iraq, we’ve tried to make people care that Bush lied for three years.
What people will care about is we are FRAKING losing Afghanistan, that their poppy harvest is the largest in history, and the the Taliban are now strong enough again to engae in stand up fights with our troops.
Sixty thousan Ford workers are about to lose their job, the FDA just got slammed in a report about safety, the hiusing market is crashing.
For the love of God would you spend time beating Bush up about issues the public cares about.
It is the right thing to fight Bush on wiretapping and torture. It is the wrong thing to make it issue #1 right now. Move on dammit.
EL
I’d like to preemptively answer one argument, common to many boards, for torture or “agressive interrogation techniques.”
Proponents point out that the terrorists are much harsher, beheading captives, etc. That is supposed to mean that if they behead, it’s fine for us to use a much lesser evil.
What such proponents are ignoring is the goals that each side has. The terrorists’ methods serve their interests: get publicity, inspire disgust and horror, show how tough they are. So what are our interests?
Aside from getting accurate information, which we often won’t, foremost of our stated goals is creating peaceful, stable, democratic societies in the Middle east. So will these methods help or hurt? Consider classic counterisurgency teaching.
Suppose you are the Muslim “man in the street” who starts with a prejudice against outsiders, but isn’t sure who will best serve his family’s interests. If the extremists are beheading people, and the US authorities are insisting on correct treatment, there’s a good chance to bring these people closer to our goal. OTOH, if the US authorities are torturing, no question a lesser offense than beheading, it permits the average person there to see little difference. We may see a big difference, but they won’t.
I’m reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s famous conversation with a lady at dinner: He asked if she would sleep with him for an enormous sum. She answered that she might. He then asked if she’d sleep with him for 5 pounds, and she indignantly asked, “”What do you take me for!” He answered: “We have already established that Madam. Now we are merely haggling over the price.”
If we go down this road, we have become torturers, merely haggling over distinctions among barbarisms.
“Madam, we have already established what you are…we are now just dickering on price.”
(I’m putting aside – for this argument – purely moral considerations, and the pride I have/had in American honor in this matter. I remember reading about the Germans who were desperate to surrender to Americans and not the Soviet army in WWII, and the Iraqis who easily surrendered to American troops in the first Gulf War. I don’t think we’d have that today.)
EL
Sorry for the doubled last line of the anecdote – I checked a few different sources and was planning on using the one that seemed more accurate. Sadly, I forgot to erase the first version I found.
Larry
Oh my. Countless? That’s like infinity, then?
Every expert I’ve heard on this subject says essentially the same thing: Most torture results in the target saying whatever he thinks will stop the torture, making the results worthless.
Dennis
My questions are: how many countries have a law on the books that allows torture? Who are the members of this select club? Not only are we discussing it we are discussing it in the worlds view, is America proud of this?
While I have serious moral issues about this legislation. I think anyone who signs it will be seriously embarassed by it down the road. It will stand as one of the worst events our Government ever undertook beating out internment, the red scare, black lists, watergate, everything. The only redeeming thing is everyone who signs-on will have their names forever associated with publically approving of torture.
This will not end well. Some future public disclosure is going to destroy the public’s perception of ourselves.
mrmobi
Actually, Tim, I think it already IS who we are. No one really knows how many people have been tortured to death by the military of the greatest nation on earth, and if the Congress of the United States has anything to say about it, no one ever will.
So, I reluctantly agree with Mr. Bottoms, whose call to move on strikes just the right tone, given our inability to hold anyone, anywhere in this administration accountable.
Hundreds of billions of dollars spent on Iraq and NOT ONE SINGLE OVERSIGHT HEARING on how the money was spent, or thrown away. That has never, ever happened before. They might as well be burning the cash in front of the Capitol building.
Maybe the most depressing thought I’ve had recently is that winning in Iraq, winning in Afghanistan, torturing or not torturing, global warming and whatever disaster du jour this administration perpetrates just won’t resonate with the American people, as long as gas is cheap and FOX News says we’re winning and Democrats are traitors.
Can we start drinking heavily now?
Zifnab
In the months leading up to 9/11, according to the commission report, the FBI and the White House had a number of leads suggesting that the US was going to be targeted with an attack and how it was going to be carried out. To obtain this information, how much torture was used?
When the Seas of David were apprehended in Miami, plotting to blow up the Sears Tower, and the Ontario terror cell of 17 was busted up last August, how many of them were interrogated via torture by the US Government to obtain their information?
When the Canadian citizen Maher Arar was kidnapped from JFK airport, flown to Syria, and tortured for ten months, how many terrorist plots were foiled?
So you’ve got three questions: Does the government have a history of functioning without torture? Can the police/FBI/CIA currently do their work without resorting to torture tactics? Are there any serious societal dangers in the free and unlimited use of torture?
I mean, Maher Arar is one guy. One guy who spent 10 months in a Syrian prison. How many other guys have been rotated in and out of said prisons? How many have been intimidated into remaining silent or will not be returned for fear of the political backlash to the agencies involved?
When faced with the prospect of a secure life as an English colonist or the dangerous profession of American rebel Patrick Henry once uttered the phrase, “Give me liberty or give me death!” When faced with the prospect of another 9/11, the new America must ask itself this old question. Live in the cradle of King George, protected by cruelty and sin, or stand by our virtues as free men, trust the wits and the skills of our police and our military, and – if they, in the end fail, as they did five years ago – know that we who die have died with honor intact and a clear road to heaven.
Tsulagi
Yep.
Al Qaeda translates to The Base. Then in this country we also have The Base. While one of the few differences between them is their clothing fashion statements, one is far, far more effective in tearing at this country.
Bin Laden in some of his speeches has mocked our values, said our freedoms and rule by secular law mark us as infidels. Said we would have to give up those freedoms in order to fight him. So here we have a president of the U.S. doing his best to prove a piss-ant piece of garbage like bin Laden correct.
In this legislation, Bush has turned his back not only on those serving in uniform and those that will, but also the country. No doubt The Base will follow his lead. Get dressed up in the preppy school cheerleader outfits he used to wear then show their mettle by how loud they ditto.
Guess it’s only fitting the Statue of Liberty was left off the DHS list of targets to be protected from terrorist attack. She has no place in a neo-Republican democracy.
Par R
What a bunch of brain dead, moralizing phonies. Who the Hell has said that the aggressive interrogation techniques amount to “torture?” Being forced to listen to loud rock music, for God’s sake. Beyond that fact, it’s worth noting that not a single one of the current “enemies” arrayed against us is a signatory to the Geneva protocols, and has never abided by any aspects of the Conventions…think, for example, of Nick Berg, to name but one single example out of many.
Par R
And Berg was a civilian as contrasted with the American soldiers brutally murdered in Baghdad.
Jimbo X
“ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross says all his CIA agent sources—a portion of whom opposed controversial interrogation methods on legal or moral grounds—agreed the methods worked to break all 14 high value Al Qaeda leaders in custody. In some cases Al Qaeda members and plots were revealed, saving countless of lives.”
I just want to see ONE interrogator with any credibility come forward and say specifically who we tortured, what we learned, and what plots were foiled.
Until then, all they’re offering is “trust us, it works, but all the details are top-secret.” And I call bullshit on that, just like I would if some telemarketer tried to sell me over-the-counter stock with the same pitch.
Richard Bottoms
>What a bunch of brain dead, moralizing phonies.
What’s phony about opposing torture for its own moral sake? So, Republican Psyops won’t work here. Go sell crazy some place else.
Further it is possible for torture to work sometimes, mean we get good intel and for it to also not work, we get bad intel. It’s not a mutally exclusive proposition.
I am simply saying with 6-7 weeks to go before the election there are better things to beat George Bush over the head with. Move on until November 8th when we might be in a postion to do something about it.
Spending our time whining “Where’s the outrage” is dumb.
Asking why all our Humvees are broken and troops don’t have bullets to train with is a winning set of questions.
Everyone STILL remembers William Proxmire’s $400 toilet seats, even if they don’t remeber him.
Surely there are lots of such examples, so much so that one new one each day could be brought out for the administration to be force to explain.
Pick a congressman, make it his or her job to ask that question every day in the House.
Make them explain every day why we are losing Afghanistan. And for God sakes, do it using Cable advertising so you reach your target audience.
I almost never see Budwiser comemrcials because I don’t watch anything their target audience does. Lot’s of Heniken ads come my way though.
Richard 23
I picked the wrong week to quit shooting heroin!
Richard 23
And Par R: you suck.
Birkel
You went from “torture” to “brutal treatment” to “abuse” without skipping a beat.
Words matter. Definitions matter. The debate cannot be joined when one side refuses to agree that the language it uses must be more precise.
Zifnab
I think it was Bill Maher who was joking about the bumper crop causing the bottom to fall out of the opium market.
Tsulagi
Yeah, wouldn’t want to do any moralizing would you, Par. A scary guy says boo to you and you drop your morals and what this country has stood for faster than Bushy can run on 9/11. You’re a brave patriot like that.
The Other Steve
I think you mean “Alternative Discussion Methodologies”.
Agressive interrogation sounds kind of mean. Our methods are warm and fluffy, like a live bunny being shoved up your ass.
capelza
But does that constitute torture for the bunny? I think so!
EL
ParR, in my book waterboarding is torture. Placing a naked person in a 50 degree room and dousing them with cold water is torture.
But don’t take my word, listen to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the soviet tortures. He lists stress positions, sleeplessness and loud noises, among others.
capelza
El…don’t forget being strapped to a board, feet elevated above your head, face covered with a cloth and then doused with water to the point where breathing becomes difficult and you feel as though you are drowning…it isn’t just a chilly room and water.
Tim F.
As everybody already knows that statement dishonestly minimizes what our interrogators actually do. Rock music does not kill people, and yet our interrogators somehow found a way to do so. Think on it.
This has to be my favorite pro-torture argument in existence, because of how much it shows about the person making it. Anybody who argues that America is great as long as it is detectably better than the worst people on Earth has awfully low standards. If we are better than al Qaeda but worse than, say Syria, is that ok? Morocco? Bolivia? Maybe we are better than those countries but that is not the comparison that folks like Par choose to set up. They merely think that we should be better than a mass-murdering terrorist outfit. Don’t know about anybody else, but I prefer to shoot higher than that.
Kirk Spencer
We called what the North Vietnamese did to our pilots and soldiers torture. Here is Tom Noe’s account of his experience.
What we’re doing is torture. Dancing around the description is, well, I can’t decide if the dancers are trying to fool others or themselves, but it’s certainly trying to fool someone.
I believe torture to be wrong – morally wrong. It is something to be avoided and condemned.
One of the constant red herrings I see – and see here – is whether torture works. In reality, it sometimes does work – the people being tortured do tell what is wanted. However, the information must be validated to ensure it’s accurate – that it wasn’t “telling what the torturer wanted to hear”. And a significant number of people take time to ‘crack’. In other words, the total time and effort involved is, in the end, comparable to the total time and effort involved in NON-torture interrogations. Comparable, but still slightly less. Yes, torture works, but it’s not a magic wand.
In counter to the “realists” who say we should use what works (torture) however distasteful and is a bit more efficient, I often point out that in addition to the moral weakness torture has another flaw. That is the fact that for the small short-term gain you pay a much larger long-term loss. The persons you tortured will never trust you again. They’ll never look on you as friends and allies. When it’s time to vote or act on something that involves you, they will vote and act against you — and they’ll go a long way toward convincing their friends, families and acquaintances to do the same.
In other words, the torture maybe gets some terrorists. In the process, the friends and families of the victims we’ve tortured will never be our allies. And people who have to make decisions based on what they know about us will know, in addition to everything else, that:
These people torture others.
Practically, it makes torture pyrrhic. Morally, it’s … President Bush said, way back at the beginning of this, that we must act to stop evil. And one of the things he used to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein was evil was the fact he had people tortured. Stop the evil.
mrmobi
What Kirk Spencer said. Well said, brother.
Darrell
What’s dishonest is pretending that the definition of torture is cut and dried
Speaking of favorites, I pray you leftists repeat this assertion out loud… that you are willing to sacrifice lives, life saving intel gathered from harsh interrogation, in order to claim moral superiority. And btw, what’s moral about NOT taking actions (such as torturing terrorists) which have a record of saving American lives?
Richard 23
Par R drops his panties at the drop of a hat. Or something like that.
Yeah, Skynard! Crank it up. Oh boy, The Devil Went Down to Georgia is cued up. Woo hoo.
And you’re a dishonest fuck. Nobody’s complaining about rock music you sick little monkey. Pee your pants in silence and leave the rest of us alone you little Nazi! (oops, Godwin)
Darrell
How nice it must be in your world to hold such absolutist views. Was is “morally wrong” to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Because as many deaths as those bombs caused, they saved lots of American and Japanese lives. See Okinawa for evidence of that.
How the hell can anyone claim something so absolutely immoral if it saves the lives of innocents? By all accounts, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others gave up valuable intel under interrogation methods many define as torture
Richard 23
Oh and welcome back Darrell. You’re dishonest as hell, so reread this thread to see how unhinged you are.
Darrell
No one is advocating carte blanche use of torture, just as no one advocates wholesale use of ‘daisy cutter’ bombs in every military conflict. But both can prove useful in some situations.
Darrell
Gotta admire how Richard23 stays on message
Richard 23
May I electrocute your nutsack then, Double D? It will only tickle just a little bit. Then your nuts will be cut and dried. Don’t worry though, it’s for the good of our freedom. I suspect you know more about terror cells than you’re letting us know about. Nothing personal, of course.
Yawn. Haven’t you learned any new darrellisms whilst you were exiled, as you richly deserved? That old chestnut is as stale as your lack of ideas and patriotism.
Pot, Kettle. Kettle, Pot. Oh my God, he’s black.
Black like your heart, pervert.
Don’t wear out your welcome, Darrell. You aren’t.
Pb
Yes.
Darrell
Who are these “experts” you cite Tim? Seems to me that MOST valid intel obtained from these terrorists would save lives.. try a little independent thinking instead of reciting talking points. Think about it – info on weapons caches, where bombs (IED’s and others) are planted, details on terrorist attacks, details on planned ambushes on troops or civilians etc, etc. Most all of it is valuable to saving lives. How ridiculous to assert that only in a “ticking time bomb” scenarios where brutal interrogation might be justified. Not a well thought out argument. At all.
Birkel
Pb,
Would it have been morally wrong to land an assault on mainland Japan in which many times more people (both American and Japanese) would have died?
Given that the war wouldn’t have ended without some offensive maneuver in which people died, would you advocate never forcing Japan to surrender?
Richard 23
Birkel, should we have instead invaded Canada? It would have made as much sense as attacking Iraq. And it would have saved plenty of Japanese lives. Damn those socialist Canadians!
Darrell
But Dems told us all what a threat Iraq was
Birkel
I’m talking about WWII, Richard 23.
Try to keep up.
ThymeZone
Two things.
One, Larry is right. Torture is basically useless as an intelligence tactic. And one doesn’t accomplish much by making the game into teasing the line between torture and almost-torture other than convincing onlookers that cruelty has acceptability. Once you cross that line, you are into the territory of my second point. Which is …
Two, torture is the ultimate in Ends Justify Means. And as I have said before, Ends Justify Means thinking is not compatible with liberal democracy. It’s Kryptonite. That kind of thinking will destroy democracy.
There are a hundred ways to explain that, but let me try this one: William Buckley said that democracy depends on the submission of the minority. You cannot construct a model of self governance in which a competant minority is going to submit to a majority that embraces cruelty and torture as means a to preserving the union. You can use me as an example: I refuse to be governed by those who embrace torture. Period. Argue all you want, that fact will not change.
EL
It’s a matter of short-sighted vs. long term success, Darrell. Long term success is a stable, peaceful, middle east. Torturing Muslims is a propaganda weapon against us, far more potent in spawning new terrorists than most actionable intelligence would be helpful. Especially when at least some of those tortured are innocent, which we know occurs. (See recent news from Canada.)
Here’s an analogy for you – there’s a large group of teenagers hanging out at a corner. You know some of them are drug dealers. Shall we arrest them all? Maybe torture them all to find out? After all, if some kids are therefore prevented from getting drugs, it would “save American lives.” I can come up with lots of other analogies, probably equally silly, but the point is that “saving American lives” has to take the long term consequences into account – which is more terrorists, fewer allies, and far less credibility.
Go check with the military, and see what they think saves more American lives. Oh, and read Richard Clark’s “Against all Enemies,” or read some counter-insurgency literature.
Darrell
I disagree. The extremists who are ripe for being recruited by terrorists are already angry at us for simply being “infidels” who are setting foot on “muslim soil” and who also let their women vote and drive cars.
Regarding that example you cite, since when do we cooperate with Syria (or vice versa) regarding interrogation of suspected terrorists? Syria is listed by our State Dept. as a state sponsor of terrorism for chrissakes.
Darrell
Here’s a better, more ‘reality based’ example for you. We capture Kalid Sheikh Mohammed and he’s not talking under friendly interrogation. What next?
Two men are caught red handed planting a bomb in a market or roadside. They have cell phones with numbers of known Al Queda operatives on it. After a hot meal and shower, they’re not talking either. What then?
Richard 23
Hahaha Darrell! You know DemoRATs can’t be trusted. Why do you, America hater?
Haha! Lookie, Birkel is trying to speak!
Darrell Says: nothing. As usual.
ThymeZone
“Al Qaeda operatives” have known phone numbers? Explain.
Can you cite an example of the scenario you made up?
Perry Como
Kirk Spencer Says:
Bah. Waterboarding? Stress positions? A quick slap on the face? Solitary confinement? Fraternity pranks!
But I guess Mr. Noe is living proof that torture can work. He was ready to sign a confession that he was sorry he particapted in the war.
Congratulations Darrell. Your point has been made.
ThymeZone
Darrell might do better than to base all his tactical thinking on Soldier of Fortune magazine.
Pb
Birkel,
I’ll keep this simple–murdering innocent people is morally wrong. That includes nuking cities full of innocent people, just as it would include shooting them at point-blank range. No “greater good” argument can be made that would excuse or erase that taint, or make those murdered innocents any less dead.
Tsulagi
How about this plan for the Bushtards, those with the strength of their convictions anyway.
Next time a terrorist organization or a state captures U.S. service members or citizens, classifies them as enemy combatants, renders them to a secret location where they’re tortured into confessing they planned to vaporize the world’s oceans with ray guns, then on the basis of that confession and other secret information they’re sentenced in extra-judicial tribunals to death, you step up. You and others who support this kind of bullshit proposed by the idiot ayatollah offer to trade yourselves in a prisoner exchange. You take their place. No? I didn’t think so.
Tsulagi
Stand in front of a mirror and repeat that over and over. When you think you got it, start over.
Here’s something for you. Even though the Israeli Supreme Court could not find a real life example in their country of a ticking time bomb stopped by torturing someone in custody, they left an out for it after banning torture. Appropriate high-level authorities can immediately authorize torture. No limits. But if they’re wrong, they, not the interrogators are subject to prosecution.
Propose that to your swinging dick president. Then after he shrivels at the thought of just once in his life accepting any level of responsibility and accountability, you and Par can take turns trying to revive him.
Fwiffo
Democrats are moral cowards for not fighting this aggressively. Polling shows a majority of Americans oppose torture, so it’s even good politics on top of being the right thing to do. Fucking idiots.
Tsulagi
Bush tots are so cute when they go to toughy mode. I bet your mommy can’t resist just pinching your cheeks when you get like that. Later, when you grow up and find a pair, you can wear long pants.
Par R
Tsulagi – I just read your comment on this same subject over at one of the Kos diaries. I still don’t think that you being declared a “complete degenerate” for having unprotected sex with your neighbors cat excuses your behavior. I think you should apologize, and do so immediately.
Tsulagi
Par, no matter how much you flirt, we’re not swapping spit.
Good to see the keen ability of intelligence gathering remains consistent as I’ve never posted at kos to date. Maybe you’re confusing me with the sweet whisperings of your Republican bed mate, Neal Horsley.
You guys really need to work on the vision thing. In all applications of the word.
Par R
Tsulagi – The world awaits your abject apology.
ThymeZone
Don’t think so. I think what the Rovians want is to pick a fight, any fight, over national security, so that they can get talking head time on the yackshows and climb up on their little soapboxes and make their phony speeches.
I think that turning away and changing the subject is just the right thing to do at this point. The GOP is trying to hand out shovels, and the Dems are not being fooled into taking them, and digging. Smart move.
I usually admire the chutzpah over at places like DKos but on this topic, they just don’t get it. Best thing to do here is to let the Republicans swing in the wind with this subject.
chopper
the whole idea of ‘winning hearts and minds’ isn’t about convincing the hardcore extremists that we’re good people trying to help them. those people have neither hearts nor minds to give us.
its about convincing regular muslims to marginalize those that commit terrorism in their name. and we’ll never be able to pull that off if we torture other muslims, especially innocent ones.
chopper
to those people that argue that we shouldn’t uphold geneva-based rights for prisoners because our enemies don’t, what exactly is going to happen in the future when we end up in a war against a state signatory of the geneva conventions?
will they ignore geneva rights for our prisoners on the same basis? well, the US ignores geneva rights for prisoners, so why shouldn’t we?