Gregory Djerejian has an excellent commentary on our government’s recent announcement that detainee treatment practices have changed for the better. In particular this ending paragraph stands out:
Note this is not about knee-jerk detainee rights absolutism, as some would have it. Ensuring torture is totally banned under American law is a touchstone issue that defines our very civilization, to include its continued embrace of Englightenment values, a belief in progress in the face of adversity, and ensuring that our most odious enemies are not successful in having us sully our human rights leadership, one so hard earned through the Cold War. In short, we must all remain seized and vigilant with regard to the great import of regaining our moral leadership on the world stage with respect to these foundational issues.
Nothing to add.
Relatedly, Kevin Drum looks at the practices used at the now-defunct secret prisons (I thought those were a myth?) and observes:
Is this torture? There’s an easy question that provides some moral clarity here: If someone else did this to American prisoners, would you consider it torture? If you would, then it’s torture when we do it too.
Steve Benen points out that the administration has hardly given up on torture yet, despite the fact that even our own military believes that it is ineffective at gathering useful intelligence. Really warms your heart.
Zifnab
This would be comforting except THEY’RE LIEING. They lied during Abu Garab, they lied during Gitmo, and they’re lying now. It’s systemic. Don’t believe a word out of this administration’s mouth until a Democratic(ly) elected President can confirm it.
I don’t mean to sound paranoid, just realistic.
Sstarr
Here’s the thing about torture: it may not be effective, but it sure is fun! It’s so satisfying to beat someone – anyone – to a pulp, especially when the rest of the GWOT isn’t quite as completely successful as you would wish! Yep, weather you are an actual CIA Torture Specialist, an Administration Official or a frequent poster at LGF nothing helps to assuage impotent fury like torture!
waddayaknow
“Defunct”??????? There has been no indication that the ‘prisoners’ pulled out of some black hole are the only ones who were in the ‘secret prison/torture place(s) that does not exist, trust me’. Not only do we not know how many still are in secret captivity we do not know how many of those ‘non-existent’ prisons remain in operation. like the Dub said, “…duh, we won’t get fooled again…” Right!
The Other Steve
Operation Enduring Bullshit will not be stopped.
If we back down now and admit we were wrong, that’s just giving aid and comfort to the terrorists!
Tsulagi
Let’s see if we can discern a pattern of action here.
McCain pushes for an anti-torture amendment. The bold president rails that it would help the terrorists and issues another impotent veto threat. In between farts, he sees the amendment is going to pass despite his manly threats so then he’s all for it. His idea all along. Good for America. After it passes and he signs it into law, Bushy issues a Gonzales prepared executive finding that he doesn’t have to follow one word of it.
Later, Supreme Court considers a case concerning torture and trials for detainees. Bush admin rails against a possible judicial activist type decision. Decision comes and they don’t like it. Something about following the “quaint” Geneva Conventions that Gonzales breezily dismissed as not applicable.
Now the previous pattern would suggest going straight to executive finding and adding in the Supremes as those they don’t have to listen to. But why overlook an additional tool? Use the now-claiming-to-be-independent-of-Bush-in-an-election-year Republican congress. Surely there are some Specters and other clones to retroactively approve torture, right? 9/11 9/11 torture torture good.
Even though it’s conclusively known that torture as an intelligence gathering method is ineffective and usually counter productive, why does this administration have such a hard on for torture? Simply, it’s meat for The Base. It’s so every fat ass Purple Heart bandaid wearing Republican patriot warrior like Cheney can envision themselves as Jack Bauer saving the day in a 24 episode. Shot off a knee, save a country. Can they be anymore pathetic?
Zifnab
They’re doing one better. Bush is moving all the Al Queda captives from secret military prisons around the globe (you know, the prisons that don’t exist), dropping them into Gitmo and saying, “But these guys blew up the World Trade Center. Surely! Surely, we can do whatever we want with these people, right?”
So they get to wag their fingers at the SCOTUS, beg off the FISA rules in Congress, and play the innocent victims of Terrorist-hugger abuse all in the same go. Brilliant move.
Keith
I would have gone with “A Farewell to Broken Arms”, but then, I’m a big fan of Evil Dead 2
Darrell
Oh my, not just known, but ‘conclusively’ known that torture could never yield valuable intelligence..
Well that explains everything. It’s all a pander to the blood lust of those Karl Rove fellating fatass Republican chickenhawks. You liberals are clearly quite sophisticated and insightful.
Darrell
That’s right liberals, it’s not just terrorists who should be worried.. Bush is coming for YOU!
Tsulagi
I’m sure I’m going to regret responding, but thank you Darrell for agreeing. There may be hope for you. Now go polish your CTU badge and put more batteries in your weapon to light it up.
chopper
of course corky believes torture works. bill clinton said so on larry king once, so it must be true.
slickdpdx
Nice post, like the Drum quote. However, Tsulagi, an honest debate about torture requires conceding that it can be effective but arguing that it is still wrong even when it can. And, I think most people, maybe I’m wrong, would agree with that argument (assuming that torture is defined as Drum has defined it.)
Darrell
Well said.
I’m not sure most people would agree with Drum’s proposal to equate the treatment of child killing terrorists with honorable US servicemen and women caputured in battle. It’s a thought provoking definition for sure, but it doesn’t recognize the real rub of the debate – do terrorists who target innocents and chop the heads off their own hostages, warrant the same civilized treatment afforded honorable soldiers?
jg
I ageee except that I think your statement ends the debate. Whats left to discuss?
jg
Why wouldn’t they? Other than the pure satisfaction of toruring the fuck out of a piece of shit human being, what is the point of not treating them like we would WANT to be treated if captured?
Darrell
jg, as you have already acknowledged in your 3:58 post, torture in some cases can yield effective results. That is to say, results other than the sadistic pleasure of “pure satisfaction of torturing the fuck out of” someone. Please do try and keep up.
Tsulagi
Even if he said that, that doesn’t make him an expert in torture. Well, maybe he is in the self-torture sense given his choice in extra-curricular playmates.
Krista
Tsulagi
I make no such concession. It’s not from some bleeding heart position.
Not directed toward you, slickdpdx, but there is this bizarre belief among many, particularly strong among the faux patriot warriors, that if you inflict enough pain, truth must come out. Where is that written? In their Bible of Truthiness?
Maybe given this retard administration it’s now changed, but military interrogators and those in civil intelligence agencies have always been taught that when it came to torture, don’t do it. Not because of some sense of compassion. But because it wastes time and IT DOESN”T WORK, plus often there are costs. To stop the pain, they will tell you anything they think you want to hear. That knowledge gleaned from decades of lessons learned.
Our special ops forces are trained that if captured and interrogated under torture, continue to fight the enemy. Make them waste time and resources responding to your disinformation. Gee, you think that thought hasn’t occurred to the evildoers? What makes some believe that if pain reaches a certain threshold, the detainee cannot prevent the truth from rushing out of his mouth?
Darrell
Krista raises the point that if it turns out terrorist suspects were innocent, then use of torture makes it worse. She’s right of course, but the same logic would hold true in tying our hands with regards to ANY military action, as war is hell, and bombing raids and other military attacks are not always made with perfect intelligence or always executed flawlessly, and can result in the maiming and killing of innocents.. not only in Iraq, not only in Afghanistan, but in the bombing of Serbs in the Balkans and in every war
That we cannot know their guilt with absolute certainty is not a serious argument in my opinion.
jg
Did I acknowledge that or was I acknowledging that its never the right thing to do regardless of its effectiveness? You stopped reading my sentence halfway didn’t you? And you consider yourself a serious poster? Someone who deserves a response to your ‘substantive’ posts?
Darrell
You said that you agreed with this statement which you blockquoted:
You agreed that :
1. Torture can be effective, not just for sadistic pleasure as you suggested later
2. Torture is wrong
We know you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer jg, but if you concentrate hard, you may be able to keep up.
RSA
If you want to go this direction, you might further ask what the probability is that torture gets you useful information, not just that it might in some hypothetical situation be effective. Further, you have to decide what you mean by “effective”. Does effectiveness mean getting information in a single instance? Would having a reputation for torturing suspects reduce effectiveness in future cooperation with others?
jg
I would certainly regard you as the expert on non-serious arguments.
Was there a memo circulated recently amongst right wing trolls that recommended using the word ‘serious’ to dismiss arguments you don’t like? Every lefty site has a right wing troll running around saying, ‘you’re not serious’, ‘that’s not a what a serious person would say’.
Darrell
I can’t see why it would. If anything, some would likely spill the beans earlier to avoid the likelihood of torture. There are plenty of good arguments against the use of torture, but that one seems pretty whacky.
Darrell
I’m perfectly willing to define ‘effective’ results as lifesaving information.
jg
Without even asking why I think its effective in some cases you just leap to the conclusion that I’m contradicting myself by saying its purely for sport thats its done? Well done.
Let me help you a little. 2 cancels out 1. Get it. Effective in some cases doesn’t matter at all. Even if it was effective it was wrong. Especially if you try to justify using it because they cut off heads, its wrong.
Darrell
No it doesn’t. Just because something is wrong, it doesn’t necessarily make it ineffective. Cheating on a test is wrong, but it may get you a better grade.
See how easy it is to keep up when you use your brain jg?
jg
Only.If.They.Had.The.Information. If by some remote chance we rounded people who only look like the guys who did terrorism, what are they gonna spill?
RSA
I wrote:
Darrell:
Think of it not from the perspective of a suspected terrorist, but of a civilized government: “We’d like to help with your investigation, and we’ll let you talk to our prisoners, but we have reservations in giving you access because you’re known to torture people.” I mean, that’s the way I’d expect our government to behave.
jg
Huh? What the fuck are you talking about? Who sais it did? I said its wrong, the fact that in some cases (again you don’t seem to be interested in what I mean by that) it will work notwithstanding.
Sometimes I forget to just ignore your dumb ass, thanks for the reminder.
Darrell
Ok, I misunderstood your earlier comment. Thing is, the French and Brits have harsher, less transparent interrogation and detention procedures. So do the Russians, Chinese, and the entire middle east.. in other words, just about every other country in the world does far worse, and is in no position to say to us honestly “we won’t give you access to these people because you might torture them”
Darrell
But ‘effective’ can mean saving lives. In fact, I would argue that systems or procedures which hamstrings the saving of lives aren’t usually a very moral system
jg
Jesus Christ, now he’s imitating Col. Jessup. “We save lives!!!”
Stem cell research may save lives. Is it moral to hamstring the process of funding that research?
Perry Como
That was from Lt. Gen. John Kimmons. But maybe Jack Bauer knows something that the Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence doesn’t.
jg
He knows that half the country will believe anything said from an approved right wing source. Its all about ‘how it plays out in the heartland’. Right Darrell? People are scared, terrorists are scary, Jack Bauer doesn’t take shit from anyone and doesn’t play by the rules. He’s no sissy liberal. No way. He gets it done and shows torture works.
Tsulagi
What Kimmons said is just common sense knowledge that has been known to the military and intelligence agencies for decades. But now they are under the direction of the fart worshippers who just know the truth is what randomly spills out of their mouths. God is speaking through them. Jack Bauer too.
Bruce Moomaw
Kimmons wasn’t the only high-ranking Pentagon official who said that during that press conference yesterday (transcript, “Defense Department News Briefing on Detainee Policies”, in the Washington Post). So did Deputy Asst. Sec. of Defense Charles Stimson. And Kimmons himself said some more worth hearing on the subject. To wit:
Kimmons: “Even classified techniques, once you use them on the battlefield over time, become increasingly known to your enemies, some of whom are going to be released in due course…
“No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that.
“Moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress, through the use of abusive techniques, would be of questionable credibility, and additionally it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can’t afford to go there.
“Some of our most significant successes on the battlefield have been — in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically all of them, have accrued from expert interrogators using mixtures of authorized humane interrogation practices in clever ways, that you would hope Americans would use them…We don’t need abusive practices in there. Nothing good will come from them.”
Stimson: “As a prosecutor in my former life, and when I spend time in Guantanamo talking to the interrogators there, they’ll tell you that the intelligence they get from detainees is best derived through a period of rapport-building, long-term rapport-building; an interrogation plan that is proper, vetted, worked through all the channels that General Kimmons is talking about, and then building rapport with that particular detainee.
“So it’s not like Sipowicz from the TV show where they take them in the back room. You’re not going to get trustworthy information, as I understand it, from detainees. It’s through a methodical, comprehensive, vetted, legal and now transparent, in terms of techniques, set of laydown that allows the interrogator to get the type of information that they need.”
And, of course, these are precisely the reasons why we didn’t authorize torture in the Revolutionary War or WW II, which were also against enemies who intended to flat-out destroy the US and (at least in the case of Imperial Japan) ultimately mass-murder our citizens, and who didn’t reciprocate by not torturing our POWs.
So, can we at least agree that — if torture is ever necessary — it should be allowed only in extremely rare instances of flat-out national emergency? And that any decision to allow it must be made by MULTIPLE members of a military/judicial committee meeting on an emergency basis (something like the FISA Court), rather than by the fiat of one man — whether it’s the single twerp currently in the Oval Office, or the single twerp currently running the Pentagon?
RiverRat
It’s been stated that it can’t be torture if we’re willing to accept such treatment of our military without calling it torture. We do. We actually train our elite forces via using the following techniques on them. Although it was 38 years ago, I went through SERE Training on Whidbey Island. WA. Many of these techniques were employed.
The training provides an introduction to harsh and abusive interrogation techniques. The current SERE program has been reported to involve the following elements:
extreme temperatures
water-boarding – being tied to a board with the feet higher than the head and having water poured into the nose
noise stress – playing very loud and dissonant music and sound effects. Recordings have been reported to include babies wailing inconsolably, cats meowing, female orgasms, and irritating music (including a record by Yoko Ono)[1]
sexual embarrassment
religious dilemma – being given the choice of seeing a religious book desecrated or revealing secrets to interrogators.
flag desecration
prolonged cramped or restrictive confinement
sleep deprivation/starvation
excrement familiarization/humiliation
mock execution
overcoming food aversion (eating bugs, roadkill, dumpster diving, urine drinking)
height/water/enclosed spaces
mild physical beating
“stress inoculation”
So,if we’re willing to do it to our own it can’t be torture, right?
RiverRat
One further note: SERE students are all volunteers.
Tsulagi
That still leads to the false supposition that invariably the detainee will be truthful if enough torture is allowed.
Let’s take your scenario. A country has been savagely attacked. That’s a known. Understandably it wants to come out swinging. Months later, a president who has sworn an oath to protect the country says another country and its leader acted in collusion. Warnings are made of mushroom clouds. Chemical warfare, and more. The situation is dire. Action must be taken.
You pick up a senior al Qaeda operative in Pakistan. Multiple high-level government officials know he could tell you what you already know if it could be forced out of him. You render his butt. You lean on him.
Low and behold, he tells you exactly what you suspected. Not only was the evildoer leader supporting the dastardly terrorist group, he was providing chemical weapons and training to attack your country. Though regrettable, thank God torture provided the means to get the truth out.
That’s what happened with al-Libi. We picked him up, we tortured his butt. Powell used the information he provided as part of the rationale to whack Iraq in his U.N. sales presentation. Saddam was linked to and aiding al Qaeda with training and chemical weapons.
Problem was, everything he said was bullshit. Two years later CIA and DIA came to the conclusion that what he provided was false either to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear, or that he deliberately fed them that to draw us into a war with Iraq that al Qaeda believed would help their cause.
Oops, but hey, what’s a war on false pretext? No whoop.
eclipse
Isn’t torture the ultimate in Ends Justify Means strategies?
Assuming that it is, can anything based on Ends Justify Means ultimately be compatible with democracy?
bago
Why does everyone forget the existin safety valve for the ticking time-bomb?
No jury in the world would convict me.
slickdpdx
I just wanted to hit the thread and acknowledge jg and tsualagi’s arguments that torture is quite likely to yield bad information. Great points. I only wanted to point out that its fudging to say don’t torture because the information is unreliable. The argument against torture is not really about its reliability because then you are already down a road that what works might be okay even if its odious. Instead, the conceded unreliability works best as an argument that makes it far more difficult for the “pro-torturers” to set forth a coherent and civilized position. Once the pro-torturer concedes unreliability, its really hard to maintain the pro-torture position.
slickdpdx
River Rat – interesting point but Drum actually formulated the position differently. He wrote that – if we would consider it torture if they did it to our guys then its torture when we do it to them. QED.
jaime
Jesus Christ. Now there’s the posterboy for. Screw this cattle prodding to the genitals, waterboarding or forced homoeroticism, bring out the steel cat-o-nine tales. That’ll make those muzzies ask why Allah has forsaken them, huh! Huh! Am I right? If it’s good enough for Jesus, It’s good enough for America.
CaseyL
Oh, if only that were true.
But it’s not. The bedwetting sadists who post here are a good representative sample of the pro-torture position in general.
First, they try to refute the argument that torture is unreliable. They refer to TV shows and movies to show that torture “works.” Obviously, script writers know a lot more about effective interrogation techniques than people in the real world who have actual expertise and knowledge on the subject.
Then, they come up with the “what if a terrorist is about to detonate a nuke within 24 hours” scenario. I have no idea why this scenario comforts them. In a race against time, the advantage is all on the side of the interrogatee. All a prisoner has to do is lie, and keep the cops and agents chasing wild geese while the clock ticks down. And that’s assuming, one, the prisoner is someone who actually knows anything useful; and, two, that the other plotters don’t have a fallback plan if one of them is captured for questioning.
(Something I find very amusing about wingnut fantasies of Saving the World By Waterboarding is how they like to puff up and claim that, if they were ever captured by an enemy and tortured, they would never ever break. The wingnuts really went to town vilifying the journalists who were captured by terrorists, because the journalists did and said whatever might keep them alive long enough to be freed. Wingnuts were outraged by this and, from the safety of their computers in their nice safe homes, offices, and subsidized thinktanks, called journalists – who work every day in a warzone – “cowards.” Where wingnuts get this outsized idea of their own courage and tenacity is a marvel of pathological psychology.)
While it’s distinctly possible wingnuts are simply incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy, I think the truth is that, succinctly, they just like torture for its own sake. Makes ’em feel vicariously powerful, or righteous, or something.
Darrell
WTF? My comments “still in moderation” after 4 hours? Care to offer an explanation TimF? Because based on past experience, comments left in moderation ALWAYS disappear. I hope this is a technical problem, not anyone asserting editorial censorship.
Darrell
Since you’re a pretty ‘bi-partisan’ poster, then why don’t you make that argument rather than asking other posters to do so? You’ve already admitted that in some cases, ‘torture’ yields effective results. So make the case how the “pro torturers” have such difficulty maintaining a civilized position.. I’ve already made the point, unrebutted as of now, that policies which hamstring the saving of lives, are not necessarily ‘right’ or ‘moral’. That is the debate we should be having, rather than smearing ideological opponents as I hope you’re not trying to do.
Larry
Are the results what determines whether we accept it or not?
Darrell
Why not? Are you deluding yourself that we are taking the moral ‘high ground’ by abandoning interrogation procedures which yield results that save lives? Is that moral to you?
Darrell
Wow, my 5:29pm post “still in moderation”, 5 hours later, with zero embedded links in the post. TimF is clearly trying to “stifle” honest debate.
eclipse
Well, what is moral to me is having all the facts before trying to make a moral choice. There’s only “high moral ground” if you suppose that there is “lower moral ground.” That appears to be the essence of moral relativism. So I don’t get your question.
The very first thing I do if trying to construct a moral choice is make sure that I am not being pressured into a sense of it that is somebody else’s. And right now your insistence that there are “interrogation procedures which yield results that save lives” and at the same time are classifiable as “torture” seems to me to be based on facts not in evidence. Do we have examples of torture having been used to “save lives” and doing so at a rate more effective than could be accomplished without the torture?
Larry
Torture is not moral to me.
jg
It doesn’t matter how long your pie is in the oven, relax.
This is the ramblings of a very unserious mind. Whining about how long pie takes to cook, imitating fictional marine colonels. Its sad.
Darrell
Even if it saves innocent lives? Are you an absolutist pretending to be moral?
Larry
I don’t know what you mean by “pretending to be moral.”
I take morality to be a matter of making difficult choices, not a state of being. So we might have a problem there.
But to give you an idea what I would do:
Suppose that some madman had buried you alive and you had an hour of air left. I am holding the madman and I have less than an hour to get him to tell me where you are buried. Should I torture the madman?
This question presupposes a lot of things, one of which is that I must think that torture will get me the answer while other methods may not. That’s a huge assumption, which I am putting aside for the purpose of this example only.
Anyway, now I have to make a choice. Do I do something I consider wrong, in order to try to save you?
Probably. If I think it will work, I will probably try it. However, if I do, and even if it works, that doesn’t make it “moral.” Moral-ness is not a stamp of approval that you get to put on an act because you got what you consider a good result. A bad person can make me do something bad to prevent something worse from happening. But that does not make the thing I do “moral.”
I make the distinction because the subject matter here seems to be grounded in policy decisions. Just because we can imagine a tv show or movie where a bad guy is tortured to save lives doesn’t make torture a moral act. It certainly doesn’t justify making torture a policy.
jg
Larry,
You are arguing with an ‘ends justify the means’, pie loving, unseriuos, jackalope tossing wingnut with no intention of either winning or losing an argument.
Just an FYI.
Darrell
That sounds like a sincere comment to me, a scenario that most of us would hopefully follow. So given that you would ‘accept’ torture in that case, can you also acknowledge that ‘torture’, if it saves lives, is not necessarily immoral compared to the alternatives? just asking..
Larry
I think that extraordinary, immediate danger to innocent life may extraordinary choices.
However, the idea that such extraordinary circumstances, where we can assume that torture is going to immediately save a lot of innocent lives, is mostly the stuff of fiction, tv and Hollywood. I would not try to codify that into policy which guides a wide range of activities. I’d write policy to force that decision way up the chain of command, first, and then, hold the decision-maker accountable for the decision later, so that the thing is not done in secrecy. And I would demand the highest possible level of extraordinary circumstances to justify the act of torture, holding the choice to the highest possible standards. It would have to be literally the exception that proves the rule.
Darrell
Well, I think common sense and facts say otherwise. The argument that torture could never result in fruitful results has always struck me as an extremely disingenous argument.
Larry
Well, a topic like this lends itself to emotional argument, but sooner or later, people have to agree on where the moral lines are drawn. Or at least agree to disagree. Otherwise, civilization won’t work.
I read an interesting article today, which said in part, one difference between science and religion is that when scientists disagree, they don’t try to blow each other up.
Larry
Perhaps, but I’m not making that argument. I am making quite a different argument.
Darrell
Oh really? Let me quote you verbatim..
I think I’ve represented your arguments quite accurately and honestly on this thread, quoting you verbatime actually. It seems quite dishonest on your part to assert otherwise.
Larry
Also, Darrell, your cited article contains this:
I think the writer of this somewhat breezy treatise is onto something with the “extraordinary circumstances,” obviously, since extraordinary circumstances are at the core of my example to you. However, when he says that “you, too would have tortured in their shoes” I think he is way off target.
If I am faced with that kind of extraordinary choice, I am not going to make it on the basis of what someone else would do in my shoes. If I do that, I am basically surrendering my own moral foundation to some other person. I am the one who has to live with the choice, not you or some other person. And I won’t live with it by looking for cover. I’ll either find it acceptable, or I won’t.
That’s why I emphasized the accountability factor in writing a policy. The first step in asking people to make a choice like that is making sure that they have the capability of making it themselves once they have all the facts. In other words, take full responsibility.
For example, if I am the general who gets stuck with the decision to torture a prisoner, I should not make the decision to torture unless I know that my career may be held in the balance later. If I can’t put up that much collateral, I shouldn’t be making that decision.
What do you think?
Darrell
What I think is that you’re unwilling to take a principled position or admit any of the inconsistencies in your “moral” stand that you asserted earlier. I’ll ask again (not that you or others will answer honestly), if results from ‘torture’ saves lives, how can you dismiss it as immoral? Not trying to give you a hard time.. I’m just pointing out inconsistencies in your position which you’re obviously avoiding.
Larry
No, I don’t agree. I said this:
…and you represented it as this:
What you said is not what I said. What I said is exactly what I said, nothing more or less. I was not arguing that torture under various circumstances might or might not produce “fruitful results.” I deliberately argued almost the opposite …. not “fruitful” results, but the saving of presumably plural innocent lives, and immediately, so that the pressure of time and imminent death create the extraoridinary circumstance. It is that aspect which makes the thing the realm of fiction.
I presume that I could get a lot of things from a lot of people if I torture them, but the idea that I am going to heroically save a lot of lives by torturing someone into something right away is, as I say, the stuff of fiction.
You might believe otherwise, but I will leave it to others to judge whether you are right about that. I certainly don’t think so. I have never seen any evidence to support the idea. And more importantly, it’s not relevant to the topic here. We are talking about policy, correct? If so, I can’t possibly support construction of policy to handle the most unlikely and extreme case unless the policy is narrowed to the most unlikely and extreme case.
Larry
Well I don’t agree with you that there are inconsistencies.
We have slightly — but profoundly — different ideas about what is moral and what is not. Any moral choice, made on a moral basis to the best of ability, is moral. To say otherwise puts us into the Taliban category, intolerant of others’ values.
You are drawing a broad example where “torture saves lives.”
I am drawing a very narrow example. I am saying that a broad example cannot work in the arena of policy. You can’t give that kind of authority to a lot of people out in the field and expect anything but a disaster to happen. You have to narrow the parameters and force the decision to the highest practical level of command. You have to make the standard extremely high.
Larry
Sorry, Darrell, gotta run. We’ll continue this another time.
Have a good evening.
Pb
Ugh. Of course he’s lying. Need I compose a list of people who suffered under these programs, and/or were improperly abused, tortured, killed, etc.? I’ll just name a couple off the top of my head–Maher Arar, and Spc. Sean Baker.
jg
See, here’s your problem. No one ever said that torture would never result in fruitful results. You had to invent that extreme position, that’s completely nuts, and pin it on ‘the left’, in order to justify your right wing position that torure should be allowed because sometimes, in the ticking time bomb scenerio as an example, it would ‘save lives’ (was A Few Good Men on a TNT loop recently?).
No one feels the least bit bad for the GUILTY guy who had to be roughed up to make him talk. Its the non-guilty ones that sting. And the wasted man hours chasing down either made up stories told because they think its what we want to hear or the made up ones told by people trained to withstand torture and to actually mislead us intentionally with bullshit. It simply isn’t effective enough.
lard lad
The problem with this argument is that, if we accept it at face value, it justifies inflicting torture on anyone at any time, provided they have been established as a potential enemy. “Torture saves lives” is a blank check for interrogators. A pity Charles Graner never thought to use it in his defense.
(Reminds me of the South Park hunting episode where you get to shoot any animal on sight, as long as you yell, “Look out! He’s coming right at us!” first.)
“Torture saves lives” is an all-purpose rationalization that works no matter who you’ve got in the hot seat, from a member of Saddam’s upper echelon to a shoeshine boy picked up in the melee after a bombing.
You’ve been questioning your suspect for an hour, with no tangible results. He doesn’t answer – or his answers leave you dissatisfied. “Hmmm… time to save some lives,” you think, reaching for the pliers you’ve left heating on the stove…
Darrell
Sure that argument was made. On this thread Tsugali posted:
and he went on to assert that the only reason for possible torture would be ‘red meat’ for the ‘fatass’ hick Republican base. He aggressively argued that position causing slickdpdx and me to comment
Darrell
Ok, so you agree that fruitful intelligence may be gained from torture, but you assert that those circumstances are so rare and farfetched that they are almost all ‘hollywood fiction’.
That’s quite a position for someone to hold given the number of Al Queda in Iraq and Afghanistan.. all of whom likely have actionable intelligence which could save lives, not only in the form of planned terrorist plots, but also important info regarding deadly attacks on our troops and Iraqi innocents. Not at all ‘farfetched’ to say that information those terrorists have would OFTEN be able to save lives.
Darrell
Yes, there is a slippery slope risk with torture that it could get out of hand. I don’t think that risk outweights the potential intelligence gains in some circumstances, especially regarding use of it on terrorists who are murderous savages
Darrell
Torture has saved lives
and
More here
chopper
i think you’re taking too strict of an interpretation of ‘ineffective’ to argue that it and ‘usually counter productive’ means ‘never, ever produces results’.
just because torture is ineffective as an intelligence gathering tool doesn’t mean that it never produces a result, ever.
Richard 23
Darrell may have some useful information about terror networks. Don’t believe his denials. Maybe we should torture him because it may be fruitful.
Come to think of it, everyone’s got some kind of useful information, some of it may even save lives. Let’s torture everybody suspected of anything!
Pelikan
I’m suprised no one else has said it, so I will.
If we cave in to Darrell’s arguments and approve of torture, then we’ve just weakend our case (hopefully the case of the good guys) in a near-future debate about allowing something even worse. God only knows what, use of nerve agents, nuclear first strikes, secret police forces in U.S, etc. etc. I’m sure you all have your own list of nightmares.
This future opponent, let’s call him Meryl, is even more gung-ho than Darrell, but he’s being taken seriously beacuse now that Darrell’s position regarding torure is mainstream, and we’ve all gotten used to it. (It was barely a blip on the evening news.) Meryl doesn’t look like such a kook.
Maybe Darrell is horrifed by the idea of Muslim registration, but he sure doesn’t want to agree with us damn liberals so bam! he’s all for the next horrible idea.
The along comes Gerald and..
It’s a goddamn slippery slope, and I don’t want any part of it. I grew up believing in a country that wears the white hat, and I’m tired of seeing this kind of shit smeared on it.
-Pelikan
Perry Como
But it’s the inevitable result when policy is being set by people that have their heads up their asses.
Evilbeard
There’s also the fact that torture hurts the war on terror when we are unable to prosecute terrorists because the evidence we have about their complicity in terrorism was obtained through torture and therefore inadmissable.