Friday, September 29, 2006
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FAQ - Torture!
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Posted by:
Dean Barnett at
3:37 PM
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1) Let’s get right to it. Do you support torture?
Let me say what I do support: When it comes to high value targets in the war on terror, wannabe evil-doers who possess or might possess important information, I support any measures necessary to extract that information.
2) So you support torture! I am gobsmacked and filled with heartache.
There you go again, making erroneous conclusions without really knowing what you’re talking about. What is commonly considered torture – the rack, breaking kneecaps, bamboo under the finger-nails - is useless for extracting actionable information. Such techniques can get the victim to confess to anything under the sun but if it’s intelligence you seek, they’re not very helpful. And if you read a book like “Confessions of an Innocent Man” which details the hell a North American went through in a Saudi Arabian prison, you know these techniques spring from deeply sadistic souls, not committed professionals.
3) But I watch Jack Bauer on “24” and see him getting everything he needs by brandishing a pistol and with a judiciously placed blow. What gives?
It may have escaped you, but “24” is not a documentary, nor is it a scholarly inquiry on effective interrogation techniques.
4) So what does the actual scholarship say?
The key to gathering information is to disorient the subject. If you disorient the subject enough, he lets go of his secrets. Discomfort is actually much more useful than pain.
5) What’s the best way to get information?
Unquestionably water-boarding.
6) Gosh, I live in an intellectual broom closet and determinedly try to avoid any enlightenment on this subject. Please, please, please – don’t tell me what water-boarding is.
No dice. In water-boarding, the subject is strapped to a board with his feet above his head. A sheet of cellophane is placed over his face. Since the technique has existed and been used successfully for centuries, cellophane wasn’t always the face-covering tool of choice. It used to just be a cloth. The interrogator pours water over the cellophane. This triggers a gag reflex. The prisoner feels like he’s drowning. He feels that way because the combination of everything causes supreme disorientation. If one speaks with intelligence agents who openly used this technique like the French, Germans or Russians, they swear by it. It also works quickly. The rumor is that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad broke in under a minute.
7) But Amnesty International and the left say the information gleaned from this technique is unreliable. Is it?
Amnesty International is either confused, dishonest or both. Some people do say it’s unreliable. But the undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool.
8) That’s a very clinical way of putting it. Why don’t you go have yourself water- boarded and see how you like it.
No thanks. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it. I’m sure it’s extremely unpleasant. Does it rise to the level of “torture”? That’s for each individual to decide.
9) What do you think?
I don’t care. If some body of linguists or semanticists convened a weekend retreat in Cambridge, impartially studied the issue and labeled it torture, I still wouldn’t care. The welfare of terrorists is not my concern. Even if all the Jack Bauer-type crap you see on “24” was the best way to go, I’d still be okay with it.
10) But it’s not just terrorists. It’s suspected terrorists. Surely that bothers you.
It does. It’s inevitable that innocent people will be subjected to this kind of treatment. But this is war, and in war we make moral compromises. For example, normally we don’t like to kill people. In war, we try to kill people by the thousands. That Amnesty International guy that I was on TV with last night kept whining that we wouldn’t be having any of this if it weren’t for 9/11. Duh. If we weren’t at war, we could comfortably remain in the moral sphere that we aspire to. But right now, that’s not an option.
11) But we didn’t do stuff like this in World War II, did we?
I don’t know. But I do know we fire-bombed Dresden. I know we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I know that in doing these things we knowingly engaged in actions that killed tens of thousands of innocents. When you’re at war, moral compromises are part of the deal.
12) But tell the truth – you and the others who support the measures we’re talking about, including the president, don’t seem particularly broken up about these so called “moral compromises.”
With you, I always tell the truth. Look, it’s a grim reality. It stinks that we have to do this. It would be nice if all those Jihadist lunatics would give up on their dreams of a global caliphate and leave us alone. I think what we have to do is clear, so I’m unbothered by the administration’s direction.
13) But wouldn’t you like to have a president who is more bothered by (or at least cognizant of) such things?
Definitely not. Bush 41 was so bothered by the ugliness of war that he enshrined the Powell Doctrine and refused to topple Saddam. People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men are ready to do violence on their behalf. I’d rather these rough men not be contemplating their navels and flagellating themselves over doing what needs to be done.
14) Now I know you’re on a little bit of a high because you debated this issue on TV last night. How’d it go?
The guy I was debating, the head of the local chapter of Amnesty International, had three points he kept raising. They were Abu Ghraib was bad, Bush is bad, and giving field-agents carte blanche to torture is bad. Since all three of these were irrelevant and just partisan talking points, I didn’t really address them.
15) How do you see the politics of this playing out?
The Democrats hate this issue. Abu Ghraib, which truly was a national disgrace, didn’t move public opinion because the public just doesn’t care about the welfare of these people. The fact that a guy like Sherrod Brown, one of the most liberal members of the House who’s running to become one of the most liberal members of the Senate, supported the bill tells you that the smart Democrats don’t like this issue one bit.
16) Smart Democrats? Heh.
Heh indeed.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.
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Blue Sun makes an excellent point. The whole rationale for torturing Al Qaeda operatives has been that they don't wear uniforms and don't follow the Geneva convention. While a significant legal distinction, it does not really get at what motivates desire to justify torture, which is the asymmetry of the risk/ benefit analysis. Let's assume that the U.S. has captured Russian Air Force General in uniform, following all of the "rules of War," as it were. Assume the general knows where the exact trajectory of a Russian ICBM traveling towards the United States. Assume, further, that the US has some primitive ABM system, which just might be able to intercept the ICBM with that trajectory information, but otherwise has little chance of doing so. Would you torture the general if that would generate the accurate information you need? See, it really isn't about the uniforms, is it? |
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So, I established a scenario where a bomber had been caught after an attack and his captors had reason to believe that he had information about the next attack. By the rationale being offered for torture - it is necessary to save future lives - he is a prime candidate for interrogators who will do "whatever is necessary" to extract that information and protect those lives.
Only I left out a detail or two. The bomber did not put an IED on the side of the road or in the trunk of a parked car. He flew overhead in a jet and dropped the bomb before being shot down. And he probably knows when and where the next bomb run will be. Are the North Vietnamese within their rights to torture, say...John McCain?
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At least Barnett is honest that he supports torture. The President is totally dishonest about this. He repeatly says "We do not torture," when clearly we do. He also says we act "within the law," which he means only in the Nixonian sense, i.e., that if the President approved it, it is by definition legal.
I think it is very questionable whether this change in policy is an overall good, but, even if one assumes it is good, the President repeatedly lies to the American people about this. |
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The crux of the argument for "aggressive interrogation" is the assertion that it is justified if it is useful for extracting information that can be used to protect ourselves, both soldiers and ordinary citizens, from future attacks that the detainees might already know about - whether this is information about actual plans or simply about the names and locations of other jihadist leaders who are a threat to plan and execute future attacks. This is sometimes referred to as the "ticking timebomb" scenario.
Lets consider the case where a bomber has been caught after an attack. He is responsible for an explosion that has not only killed soldiers but a significant number of civilians. He is part of a group of bombers and is presumed to have information about his compatriots, their location, and possible additional attacks already scheduled. To what lengths should the interrogators be permitted to go to extract this information and protect the military as well as the innocent from the next bomb?
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In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, there is a former Khmer Rouge prison/torture chamber, called Tuol Sleng Prison, that has been turned into a museum. In the exhibition, the central torture device is a slanted wooden platform with wrist and ankle restraints. Sitting on the platform is an oversized watering can. On the wall is a painting done by one of the Khmer Rouge's former prisoners of himself on the board. He is lying on his back, with his head lower than his feet. He is restrained at wrist and ankle, a towel or cloth is over his face, and a Khmer Rouge interrogator is steadily sprinking water onto the towel from the waterning can. This is, down to the smallest detail, the description that our government has given for our own waterboarding technique.
Jonah Blank, anthropologist and former Senior Editor for U.S. News and World Report and an anthropologist, was in Phnom Penh a month ago and took pictures of the device and the painting.
http://tinyurl.com/g7fy8
http://tinyurl.com/jmtav
Blank wrote that the reason the Khmer Rouge relied so heavily on waterboarding is that "it was one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised."
US interrogators tried out waterboarding on each other to gauge its effectiveness, and reported that the average length of time they could endure the experience before pleading for it to stop was 14 seconds. KSM was subjected to at least one session lasting somewhere in the range of 2.5 minutes.
The other favorite method of "aggressive interrogation" favored by the Cambodian Communists involved suspending prisoners from outdoor chin-up bars (the prison was originally a school). There was a container of water nearby to be used to revive the prisoners each time they passed out. The same technique, with the disingenuously innocuous name of "stress positions" is currently approved by the United States. In Baghram, an Army report into the deaths of two detainees (one later found to be innocent) described the way detainees were hung suspended from the ceiling of their cells using two pairs of handcuffs for hours, even days on end. During this period, guards, interrogators, even off-duty soldiers looking for amusement, would stop in and deliver "lower peroneal strikes," which involved kneeing or clubbing the hanging prisoner in the side of the leg above the knee joint.
- Friedrich Nietzsche once observed:
"He who fights monsters should look into it that he himself does not become a monster. When you gaze long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you."
Is the fight against terrorists and terrorism make it necessary to give up our humanity?
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This post is nothing more than an ends justify the means argument. A complete lack of morality. If Barrett wants to justify evil in the name of good then where does one draw the line? "Do whatever it takes to whomever needs it?" That's a recipe for a totalitarian, Saddam style government if ever. Saddam gassed the Kurds after a civil insurrection. How is that any different than the fire bombing of Dresden morally? Terrorism was used to supplicate the populace.
Finally, I don't believe any of the so called facts Barrett puts forth.
"Amnesty International is either confused, dishonest or both. Some people do say it’s unreliable. But the undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool."
Why would I believe Barrett? He has no source to back up any of the claims.
To wit, this is hyperbole without fact used to justify evil in the name of good.
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I give Dean credit for being partially honest about his position.
While I disagree, it is essentially the same
argument Krauthammer made months ago--when do individual rights get trumped
for public safety.
Dean is arguing why is torturing a few score of alleged terrorists (some
who may be innocent) any worse than killing thousands through aerial bombing
or other military means (many of the casualties will be completely
innocent). It is a legitimate argument.
If this was just about the CIA waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we
probably would not be having this discussion. This is about a policy that
the Administration authorized and allowed to get out of control--resulting
in scores of homicides and rapes (I am estimating about 12-30) and perhaps thousands of cases of sexual abuse and assault. It definitely set back the mission in Iraq and fueled
the insurgency there--resulting in hundreds of U.S. soldiers being killed. It severely damaged our foreign policy position and set us back in
prosecuting the GWOT. While many around the world think the worst about us anyway, we definitely do not help our cause by giving them actual real examples to confirm their allegations.
I would agree that our adopting an anti-torture policy is not about how our troops will be treated. Our enemies will show no restraint no mater what we do with our detainess and prisoners. That, however, does not justify us adopting their barbarity.
Did KSM disclose some terrorist
plans--I am sure he did. I doubt the Administration forestalled a catastrophic attack (we would have heard about it) and may have hamstrung us from finding out about the next attack coming down the pike (although I could be wrong about this).
Beyond some arguably useful information we got out of a dozen high level al Qaeda members, we are still facing Iran on its way to being a nuclear power, OBL and Zarahiri still hiding in Pakistan, and an ongoing civil war in Iraq. Our "taking the gloves off" policy does not appear to have make us any safer. I also think we are better than this.
So getting back to Dean's point--I would argue that an agressive military policy that attempts to kill as many al Qaeda on the battlefield makes more sense and better policy than capturing an torturing a few. A policy officially justifying torture just isn't worth it.
If the Administration is absolutely committed to doing this (and I admit I don't know everything), then I would ask they show restraint.
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Mr. Barnett supports any measures --presumably including extreme torture-- against totally innocent individuals. This conclusion is based on 1) Mr. Barnett's assertion that innocents will sometimes be tortured, and 2) on his assertion that he approves of "any measures necessary to extract information". Knowing whether or not the person is a an innocent or a terrorist makes no difference to him.
Any person who can hold to this view is simply not a fully developed human personality. It is an objectively moral evil to fail to consider the complete innocence of a prospective torture victim.
In Iraq, in the U.S., in Germany, in Russia,
and in every other country in the world, there are people like Saddam Hussain and Mr Barnett who justify the torture of innocents in what they see as an effort to make themselves secure. Saddam's torture was done in his own effort to seek security --to root out those who would do harm to him. Mr. Barnett would similarly torture to root out those who would do him harm. Not a wit of difference.
It's this class of individuals who are ordered toward an objective moral evil who keep evil alive in the world. They simply cannot see their contribution to world evil... yet they are very much a part of it. Those who are evolved enough to know that torture is wrong can only try to show the others the error of their ways... but sadly they are incapable of understanding. So the macabre merry-go-round of world history continues on.
Those who know. Those who don't.
Dan in Baltimore |
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The semantics of whether this conflict we're involved in with certain branches of Islam should be called "war" or not are pointless. Pierre said it well from the prevention standpoint. What happens if we cripple our ability to fight these guys and encourage them to press their attacks. For example, make warrents for foriegn to US wiretaps required, pull out of Iraq, according Geneva Convention POW status to captured terrorists?
The people we fight will not hesitate to cause as much damage to us as they can. There really is no limit beyond what is technologically possible on the magnatude of an attack that they would launch if they can. The fatwas have already been issued.
There is a point at which the gloves would come off. What happens when another 3000 Americans are killed, or 10,000 or 100,000 or more? What happens when a US President has public support to do what needs to be done to prevent further attacks, up to and including using our nuclear arsenal? How many muslims would die?
The simple fact is that the coercive interrogation techniques, up to and including waterboarding, that we've used so far in the Global State of Emergency on Terror have yielded good information that has saved lives. The cost has been temporary discomfort and the humiliation of having been broken on the part of the terrorists, the stern disapproval of the UN and the left, and the emnity of people who already hate us. Good trade.
I don't suggest that waterboards and a blank check be issued at the platoon level. Froggy noted a while back that there is a small percentage (2% of the already small SOF population) who have the temperment to cooly deal out just enough punishment to elicit the necessary information. These guys should be assigned to interrogation with guidelines and limits, but plenty of latitude within them to do their job. That would include deciding when to stop if they think they've got an innocent on their hands. Who they should interrogate would be a decision made by others, who should be accountable for their decisions. Details of all this to be decided.
However, the word on the terrorist street should be that the US is willing to do what it takes to get them to sing arias. If they know that if captured they WILL talk then they are less likely to hold out until waterboarding, and the information they give will be more likely to keep innocent people on all sides from being maimed and killed. |
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It is my firm belief that if the Islamic Warriors want to win this war they will avoid hitting us again. Instead hit those countries we have been using to help in the war. Make them stop fighting. Isolate us. Turn one of us against the other, Democrats are either a 5th column or the dumbest bunch of Politicians in history to not know they are being used. Hitting us again hard will only destroy the inroads they have made in turning us against each other.
But in case they don't act rationally then I am all for torture. Yes the busting kneecaps, throwing one prisoner out the helicopter while the other one watches and the rest of the evil stuff. Wanna know why? Because not one single serviceman or one single American should die because my moral squeemishness prevents me from getting information that might save them. No I am not an interogator...but if they have shortage of people willing to use whatever method works then I volunteer. More bluntly...
I value each of my soldiers lives as I value my own dear children because I know that their parents love them as I do mine. I am not willing to sacrifice even one of my soldiers, however unknown to me, to unreasonable rules so that I can feel myself acceptable to those around the world who consider themselves civilized.
I am not willing for them to be badly led because that leads to the sort of useless abuse of Abu Garib. Abu Garib was terrible not because of the treatment of the prisoners but because it contributed nothing to victory. Simply put I am for winning and anything that furthers that cause is good, anything that hinders it is bad.
My definition of winning is killing so many of our foes that their children rue the day their fathers took up arms against us. Would I torture a suspect myself? Absolutely if the choice was between saving American lives or saving my honor, my honor would fly out of the door. Why, because I know how much I love my children and the parents of those soldiers I saved love them just as much. Perhaps I would live in shame for the rest of my life but it is a small price for saving even one of my country-men’s lives.
From this post
http://pierrelegrand.net/2005/12/17/moral-preening-regarding-torture-idealism-with-someone-elses-family-is-such-an-ugly-thing.htm |
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I've done it and it has been done to me... in training. Cellophane is NOT used during waterboarding. Putting cellophane over somebody's face and then pouring water on it is redundant. Cellophane WILL suffocate you water or no.
All you need is to use the target's t-shirt. I got a Navy Commander to tell me where the "terrorist" was hiding on his ship by pulling his own t-shirt over his face and pouring one canteen of water over it while some of my pals held him down on the bridge of his own vessel. It works that fast.
By the way, the only evidence of it having been done is the water in the target's hair so...
Froggy |
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The soviet archives documented a near 100% success rate of "forceful" interrogation of captured U.S. soldiers by the Norks and NVA (often with russian "advisors"), as well as U.S. citizens spying in russia. i.e. any significant secret our men held (and many airforce pilots understood our nuclear doctrine and deployment), the Russians obtained. Competent interrogation uses facts that the prisoner doesn't know you know to punish lies. After a while a stressed (and less than extremely well trained) captive can't keep his stories straight and gives up, often convinced that the interrogator must have already known from someone else what he is telling them, because lies often resulted in beatings, truth did not. Note a beating need not be physical.
The body teaches the mind in these settings in a very primal way (our heritage as a pack animal). Breaking a person's will to resist can vary from little discomfort to a lot, depending on the person's life experience and hardening.
I think our society is poorer, i.e. less civil, for the passing of the "third degree" without public argument and pushback. Another gift from our courts acting-as-legislature. And an example of our willingness to sacrifice 10, perhaps 100 good people to avoid a single mistake. |
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I for one would like to see Snap respond to Steve's point. I'll be monitoring the thread. |
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It's a 1400 year old cage match to the death. Only one side will emerge, the muslims, or everybody else. But, heck, I'm in my mid 50's, it will be put off 'till after I'm gone. |
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Islamic terrorism will exist as long as there are Muslims.
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snapdigger, what makes me think you would be one of the first to scream the loudest and longest if a conservative like Rick Santorum (or (gasp) Pat Robertson) said this very thing.
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Terrorism will always exist. Islamic terrorism will exist as long as there are Muslims. If the objective is to get rid of all Islamist terrorism, then yes, it's forever. And I haven't heard any other definition of the War on Terror (it's all "An End To Evil" and such). This isn't like the Cold War where we knew it was over once the Soviet Union collapsed. Terrorism isn't about state actors, no matter how much the Bush Administration thinks it is. We could replace every government in the Middle East and there would still be terrorism.
You're right, war is a conflict between opposing parties/states. But terrorism isn't a party, and it's not a state, it's a tactic. Even if you define it as "Islamist terrorism," it's still a tactic that can be used by anyone in the name of Allah. It will be around forever and we have to deal with that fact.
Blu: Bush is not protecting me. He is making me less safe from the people who want to kill me, and one of the ways he does that is by denying the nature of the conflict -- pretending that it's a "war" instead of the less glamorous and exciting conflict that it actually is. He also does it by using techniques like torture that make more people hate us and want to become terrorists. The reason I oppose Bush is precisely because I don't want the bad guys to kill me. Isn't it instructive that people who live in places that got attacked by terrorists are more likely to vote for Democrats? Maybe they understand something you don't.
And I don't really care if the nutters think they're fighting a "war." They think lots of crazy things. They're really just a bunch of thugs, not an army. |
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I agree that if you declare war on "terror," it might as well be permanent, as you can never fully guarantee that some extremist, someday, might let off a bomb or two. If not jihadists, then Maoists, or neo-Nazis, like in the cop-out Hollywood version of "The Sum of All Fears."
But most everyone knows that what's being called a "war on terror" is actually a war on a particular movement -- the loosely-organized restore-the-caliphate bunch of Islamic extremists typified by Osama bin Laden and his merry men. That is a more discretely-defined enemy than "terror" generally, and I think it's reasonable to hope that that movement may eventually be beaten and discredited to such an extent that it will be proper to declare the war over and won.
I think it's an error to say that because this war is dissimilar to past conventional wars, the whole "war" concept shouldn't apply. It's hard to find examples with which to compare the jihadist enemy, especially in the post-1648 era of the sovereign nation-state. You have to look back to the Dark Ages, I think, to find comparisons. The threat the West faced from the Vikings is probably most analogous: hit-and-run invaders, largely ungoverned by any central authority.
Snap, it seems to me your logic goes like this: "Al-Qaeda isn't as organized as Nazi Germany. Therefore, the contest with al-Qaeda isn't like World War II. Therefore, it shouldn't be called a 'war'. Therefore, our response should be like the European response to the Communist terror groups of the seventies, or the ETA or the IRA -- increased internal security, and a determination to simply endure the occasional bomb."
I think the place that logic break down is in the fact that while the jihad movement might not be Nazi Germany, it's not the Baader-Meinhof gang, either. It's broader and more powerful. Killing 3,000 Americans is simply categorically different from murdering the occasional German industrialist or cop.
To the extent jihadists are sponsored or supported by states, war is the appropriate description of the relation between such a state and its proxies' targets. To the extent jihadists are capable of causing damage it used to take an army to do, war is the only reasonable description of what's going on.
The Viking threat was finally defused through a mixture of military defeat, cultural influence (Christianizing the Vikings tended to calm them down), and cultural factors -- specifically, the organization of the Viking homelands into responsible, accountable nation-states. (The process did, however, take a couple of centuries.)
It isn't inconceivable that the jihadist ethos might eventually recede in the same way, and for similar reasons, as the Viking raiding ethos did. I do think, though, it's going to take a generation or so for this to happen.
First, jihad has to be demonstrated to be a lost cause -- it must be clear that the objective of a restored caliphate is not getting any closer. The "we're only creating more terrorists" theme notwithstanding, the number of true bitter-enders who relish fighting a lost cause to the end is smaller than the number of people who feel they're on the winning side. Recall Osama bin Laden's "strong horse/weak horse" concept.
Second, there has to be an attractive alternative to the lost cause in the Islamic world. Marx notwithstanding, people crave meaning nearly as much as they crave wealth. We can't force Muslims to adopt our form of democracy, but people who claim we're imposing democracy at gunpoint seem sometimes to think that the marketplace of ideas in the Arab world is freer and more open to entry than it is. I don't believe it's impossible that a humane, noble form of Islam, compatible with modernity, could take root in the Middle East, or even that the Middle East might render its religious heritage a footnote as Europe has done, and seek meaning instead in...whatever it is Europeans do. (European unification, or transnational progressivism, or whatever.) But the ground for such an alternative to grow hasn't exactly been free from thorns. If it's possible to eliminate some of the reactionary forces in the Middle East under color of international law (as Saddam's violation of his cease-fire conveniently allowed us to do), it would be a good thing. (Unfortunately, the expensive example of Iraq suggests that it may not be possible.)
So I guess what I'm saying is that I agree and disagree. Agree that this war isn't as total as World War II, but disagree that this means we should necessarily take all the tools of war off the table. Dribbling water on someone just doesn't seem so extreme as to be disproportionate to the kind of conflict we face. |
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Really, I thought war was a declared, armed conflict between opposing parties/states. Understood properly this would include the conflicts we find ourselves in. At least, I seem to remember something about the Congress authorizing the POTUS to do so. (I guess that's the declared part) I'm not sure who claimed the GWOT would last forever and ever much less who defined it as such (my guess would be you) I have heard Bush say that it will likely last beyond his presidency, I have heard others suggest years or even decades. I haven't heard anyone breathlessly claim "forever."
Since you begin with a faulty definition of war and a timetable attributed to God knows whom, your conclusion is pointless. |
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Do you read anything besides your own posts? Go read and contemplate the "The Looming Tower" and tell me we are not at war. I'll let you in on a secret: The bad guys think there is a war going this very second. And, you know what Snap, they'd like you, yes you, dead. So, you go bury your head in the sand and pretend we are not at war. The adults that aren't living in fantasy will do their best to protect you and yours. |
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I do not really have much disagreement with what Dean says, I think it is mostly correct (at least factually). Actually it took 2.5 minutes to break Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the CIA agents were impressed how tough he was (since they all broke under a minute when they tried the technique on themselves). Think about that--the CIA agents waterboarded themselves. Special Forces troops are also trained by being waterboarded.
Is waterboarding torture? Yes, it is torture. It is intended to cause physiological panic. It is a controlled form of mock execution intended to solicit information. Is it more humane than old fashion torture--absolutely. Obviously if our own personnel use it as a training exercise. That does not make it right.
I know very few people who are upset that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured. I know I am not shamed he was tortured (if any case justified it, his did). But I know this--when Rumsfeld authorized the DoD to "take the gloves off" and the night shift at Abu Ghraib went off the reservation and started taking pictures--it was a moral Chernobyl (and I am quoting from Hitchens). It was also a tactical Chernobyl for the Iraq Mission. It fired up the insurgency and that led to hundreds of American deaths.
Our troops also engaged in some cases of full blown old fashioned torture, murder and other felonies. A few detainees were beaten to death or sufficated by accident during interrogations. Some died from imposed hypothermia. Mostly it was because the interrogations were uncontrolled and got out of hand. I recognize war is h*ll, but Americans doing that to detainees is shameful.
Was the intelligence gained in Abu Ghraib worth that price? I do not think so and I am very angry about that. Ultimately it took many months to find and kill Zarqawi and it was not the result of any intelligence gained at Abu Ghraib. I suspect we would have found that monster sooner had Abu Ghraib not happened.
As Hitchens said:
[the Jihadists] are not superhuman: They can be infiltrated, bribed, and turned. You don't have to tell them what time of day it is, or where they are, or when the next meal will be served. (Though it must be served.) But you must not bring in that pig or that electrode. That way lies madness and corruption and the extraction of junk confessions. http://www.slate.com/id/2102373/
Because I am a conservative, because I think human beings are flawed and things can get out of hand, and because as Americans I think we are better than this, I was against permitting waterboarding and coercive force to solicit information from detainees (I am completely forgiving by the way of excesses that happen in the heat of battle--such as Col. West's case and others). I also admit given the threats we are facing it is a close call. I may disagree with Dean but I can't say he is not acting in good faith in expounding his position. But I will say this, even if you support allowing waterboarding and other more than moderate coercive techniques for high level al Qaeda--non-coercive force interrogations should still be the standard for 99.9% of all detainees.
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This is where we differ, I guess. The "War on Terror" is no more a real war than the Cold War. War is a state of emergency, but by definition, the War On Terror will last forever. The things you describe are acceptable in an emergency, but we cannot declare ourselves to be in a state of emergency forever and ever and ever. And as such, we should recognize that the War on Terror is a combination of military, intelligence and police actions, not a war -- and the measures simply can't be as extreme as they are during a real war.
And I can't believe you think Bush I was *wrong* not to topple Saddam. If there's one thing we've learned from what happened in the last three years, it's why Bush I was 100% absolutely *right*. And it wasn't that he was too squeamish, it's that he knew toppling Saddam would actually make things worse for us, not better. |
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