In a good piece on the liberal delusion about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), Jennifer Rubin gets at the nub of the issue.
Williams is simply being untruthful when he says EITs didn’t contribute to bin Laden’s death and that we could have gotten the information by other means. The latter is unknowable (although certainly unlikely), and the former is factually incorrect.
Pretty much sums it up. Read the whole thing.
Even Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledges the information needed to track down Osama came from “mosaic of sources.” A number of the “tiles” used to complete that mosaic came from EITs. Thus, by using the word, “mosaic,” even the man busy prosecuting those who used EITs on a handful of high-value incarcerated terrorists acknowledges that such techniques helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden.
Hi Dan,
Juan Williams says: “But to somehow say it’s because we were engaged in enhanced interrogation, and that led — and it’s a very uncertain path that it leads directly to the murder of Osama bin Laden — it seems to me petty, and it seems to me an attempt to diminish President Obama. . . . it’s not in our values to pull out people’s teeth and eyeballs. And secondly, you know what? We can get that information in other ways.”
Let us grant that the “eyeballs” comment is a cheap shot. But the issue that Mr. Williams alludes to—that water-boarding is torture—is not an issue that has been settled in favour of those who defend its practice. Further, what is not a cheap shot is the statement that “it’s a very uncertain path that it leads directly to the murder of Osama bin Laden.”
Ms. Rubin’s reply is to take that claim: “Its very uncertain” and make it equal “he says EITs didn’t contribute to bin Laden’s death.” The truth of the matter is that we do not know how it really contributed. We don’t know because the counterfactual exists: If we hadn’t tortured/EI’d him, would he have given up information later, with less garbage and misdirection surrounding such nuggets, so that we would not have been sent on wild goose chases. Ms. Rubin claims that this is “certainly unlikely,” and gives no evidence to support her claim.
When Ms Rubin says it is problematic to claim that: “….EITs didn’t contribute to bin Laden’s death and that we could have gotten the information by other means” she asserts that “The latter is unknowable (although certainly unlikely), and the former is factually incorrect.” It is incorrect because Mr Williams never said any such thing (at least in the part of the transcript Ms. Rubin was quoting. One problem with these claims is that we do not know the causality of events. When Panetta earlier said: “I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I’m also saying that, you know, the debate about whether– whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always gonna be an open question,” he is reiterating Juan Williams position, as far as I can tell. He is also making the rational point that a valid counterfactual argument exists.
After all, we are told that: ’” One detainee who apparently was subjected to some tough treatment provided a crucial description of the courier, according to current and former officials briefed on the interrogations. But the two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled interrogators on the courier’s identity.” http://www.arabnews.com/world/article382153.ece. OK, that is a piece of the mosaic.
And,
“Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110502/ap_on_re_us/us_bin_laden_hunt_for_bin_laden. Is that a piece of the mosaic?
One can argue that the Mohammad conversation took place because of the earlier waterboarding/EI/torture (ensuring future compliance, perhaps)? Yes. But why be as confident in asserting this as true, when one could equally assert that this useful information was procured as a result of standard interrogation techniques? One could also assert that the “harsh” techniques just slowed this process down. Did it? I have no idea. Could the first person “broken” have given the same information without the “coercive” techniques? I am unsure. So, why so much confidence that the EI/torture was crucial to the “mosaic”?
When you add this to the only academic evidence I have been able to find (admittedly, it left some cold when I mentioned it in an earlier thread) and it rejects the positions that favour these EI/torture techniques, http://www.scribd.com/doc/20252219/Trends-in-Cognitive-Science-Shane-O%E2%80%99Mara, I do not see the great support for the use of these techniques that others do, on this site.
One possible reason why people want to argue for these techniques and their success today: because we might be ashamed we used them (even if we believed in their efficacy at the time), and we now defend that which we would call unacceptable, if it had been done to US citizens today, by another country. Henninger claims that bin Laden’s death makes Holder’s CIA investigation “politically, emotionally and morally moot” Really; how so? Because the bad guy is dead and the ends justify the means? That is not a good enough reason for me.
The “enhanced interrogation” techniques we used are considered torture by the international community, and fit the definitions of torture (e.g., Part 1, Article 1, UN Convention Against Torture), and were seen this way quite consistently in this country, legally, in act up to 2004 (e.g., Major Glenn, Masatoshi Sawamura, etc). For example of this consensus, newspapers, from the 1930s right up to 2004, when knowledge of these techniques went public, described these techniques with a high consistency as torture (NY Times, 81%; LA Times, 96%; the WSJ and USA Today had small or zero pre 2004 samples. After that time, these papers started using “softer” terms like “harsh interrogation” to describe these techniques, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/publications/papers/torture_at_times_hks_students.pdf. Why this is so is an open question.
Whether or not people give information under torture is not the issue and never has been. I’ve been repeating myself for days now, so let me provide a quote from another source who may be more succinct than I am;
But even if it were the case that valuable information were obtained during or after the use of torture, what would it prove? Nobody has ever argued that brutality will never produce truthful answers. It is sometimes the case that if you torture someone long and mercilessly enough, they will tell you something you want to know. Nobody has ever denied that. In terms of the tactical aspect of the torture debate, the point has always been — as a consensus of interrogations professionals has repeatedly said — that there are far more effective ways to extract the truth from someone than by torturing it out of them. The fact that one can point to an instance where torture produced the desired answer proves nothing about whether there were more effective ways of obtaining it.
That’s all. Torture can only be considered effective if you entirely disregard all of the extremely negative consequences and focus exclusively on a final result. You can’t dismiss the possibility that our collective intelligence agencies were lead on wild goose chases for the better part of a decade, gobbling up valuable resources and allowing Bin Laden to regroup. If the best you can do is claim that torturing someone might have provided a tiny piece of the puzzle in an investigation that took ten years, then you don’t really have anything to celebrate. Your policy was not effective, and it is much more likely to have been counterproductive.
Republicans argued for years that torture was justifiable because of the ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario… I wonder why anyone isn’t making that argument anymore? Wasn’t torture supposed to be this super effective method that provided all kinds of information almost immediately? I thought we didn’t have the luxury of taking our time because threats were everywhere?
So much for all that bullshit, I guess. Another Republican argument contrived purely out of convenience is discarded and forgotten at the drop of a hat. It must be really nice to never have to worry about consistency.
Just all the pussy liberals that are totally cool with it as long as it’s their guy doing it.
Two quick points:
(1). EIT may have contributed to the info that was gathered, but has certainly has not been shown to have been vital in gathering a specific, key detail, that had not been learned from any other source, in relation to the killing of Bin Laden. This is an important detail in this discussion. The nickname of the courier was learned many months before KSM was captured. In fact, it certainly looks as if it was the OMISSION of information under duress – both KSM and al-Libi, that suggested the courier, someone the CIA already knew was known to these men, was important. Under EITs, neither gave the real name of the courier.
(2) EITs… Many of the techniques ARE torture. Let’s just put it this way. If Iran were to shoot down an American pilot, and subject him to the same types of treatments advocated under the moniker of EITs, we would call it torture.
PS. Henninger wrote this:
Maybe not officially, but bloggers are on the case. Mary Wheeler, the blogger who broke the KSM waterboarding story is doing a fine job of following and rebutting the mis-information concerning the success, and lack there of, of torture that for some reason the right is so willing to embrace.
This is going to come back and bite you in proverbial butts.
Let’s just put it this way. If Iran were to shoot down an American pilot, and subject him to the same types of treatments advocated under the moniker of EITs, we would call it torture.
Of course. We’re not at war with Iran, nor have we just caused the deaths of thousands of their civilians, nor are we planning actions to cause hundreds of thousands more.
Al-Qaeda? We ARE at war with them. They’ve killed thousands of our civilians already and they’re planning for thousands more. They aren’t signatories of Geneva and certainly aren’t operating under its rules.
Furthermore, given the history of John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and the current Obama Party, a good half of the country would be justifying the torture of an American pilot in the first place.
That’s what makes this really funny, Sonic.
This is going to come back and bite you in proverbial butts.
Really? Want to see what Levi and the Barack Obama Party are now claiming is torture?
If I was being held in a cell, given three meals a day, time to exercise, and not being physically abused in any way – I would consider that torture, wouldn’t you?
Hi TGC,
“liberals that are totally cool with it as long as it’s their guy doing it.”
No. Obama lost my support when I found out about the mistreatment of Bradley Manning.
Exactly. Pussy liberals.
I’m wondering when you and Levi are gonna start bitching about the union crony run NLRB torturing Boeing and what not.
Irrelevant. Either it’s torture or it’s not. But lets for a moment use your own metric. Are we at war with Afghanistan? With Iraq? With Saudi Arabia? We are not at war with any specific country in the region. So, by your standard, what we did is even worse than torture…
And yes, I’m saying this in jest.
But, of all the countries we would like to be at war with, and do some more nation building, Iran would be on the top of the list. And if all you have to do is declare someone a terrorist, well, there is Teheran’s golden opportunity should the chance arise.
Sonic,
I do understand your concerns. However, EIT is used on our troops, as part of SERE. it is also carefully monitored and applied exactly as it was to KSM and friends.
EIT and torture are two different things. To Levi, remanding someone over for trial is torture. Holding someone in the drunktank is torture. Holding someone convicted of a crime is torture, because they might be innocent. Not to mention in international law… we can do whatever we want with terrorists.
Cas,
Re Bradley Manning, it’s my understanding he’s on suicide watch. That’s why the methods appear, extreme.
Arguing with Levi is a waste of time. He refuses to admit that Saddam was involved with terrorists, he refuses to admit that EIT saved lives. He refuses to admit that there were chemical weapons found in Iraq. He refuses to admit that some of the intel to catch OBL came from Iraq.
And if this is true, he refuses to admit that the diplomacy for bagging Bin Laden was established by President Bush, and continued by Bin Laden.
Most of these arguments are backwards. The reason that you wear a uniform is the protection afforded against torture or EIT, not the other way round. There’s a reason that members of an Army or Navy were captured…and bandits and pirates were summarily hung.
The Iran argument is irrelevant. You can not conflate the use of EIT against a declared terrorist to the use of EIT to a member of a uniformed military of a Sovereign Power. Nor can you conflate the status or a terrorist with that of a civilian, or even a member of an irregular partisan band. You might make the argument that the Afghan Taliban are legal partisans when they strike against lawful military targets, but illegal non-military actions by the Taliban and by Al-Qaeda places them in the category of bandits and outlaws…and the original Common Law use of “outlaw” meant that one was outside the legal protections of the Law, and typically meant you could be slain-on-sight. Similarly the legal distinction between “pirate” and “privateer”.
I would extend the same distinction to the freedom fighter or Resistance member vs. the terrorist in cases like Palestine, Ireland, Central America or WW2’s Philippines, France or the Eastern Front.
Those like OBL or KSM are terrorists, bandits or Pirates…and should be slain-on-sight, and have forfeited by their actions the protections of a civilized society against torture, no less EIT.
I read this blog often, but comment rarely. The in house whining liberals are boring. Their comments drone on forever. and they flit from topic to tpoic to topic in the same post. Levi truely is the worst. I feel sorry for the conservatives that try to argue with Levi – A WASTE OF YOUR TIME!!!
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 86-92
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time
Therefore, since BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad….
Levi is Polonius!!!!
You libs should pay more attention to William. I think he has a good
point. Brevity is the soul of wit. Droning on is witless.
Now to the topic at hand. I have had great fun watching a lib rationalize, argue, and hang in the wind when attempting to explain that a bullet in the eye is not torture, but a simulated drowning and other EIT’s are reprehensible. Please dont use the old lib saw that “it’s different,” “it was authorized and legal,” etc…. So lets see, I have a choice between a bullet in the eye or getting wet, hmmm – a bullet in the eye vs getting we – well I think I’ll take the torture and spill my guts vs having what little brains I have splattered on the wall.
End of story. End of argument.
Are we at war with Afghanistan? With Iraq? With Saudi Arabia? We are not at war with any specific country in the region.
But of course, al-Qaeda is at war with all three of those countries and has in fact carried out attacks against their governments, civilians, and armed forces.
So what exactly is the point?
Meanwhile, I take a very straightforward tack: regardless of what the United States does, Levi and his fellow liberals globally will scream torture and whine about the victims, like they’re doing with bin Laden.
I see no reason why the United States should care about appeasing the global community when nothing that the United States does is ever considered positive. And since there’s no need to appease the global community, there is no need for us to act with any restraints greater than we choose to impose.
al-Qaeda operates under no restraints whatsoever and has the full sympathy and support of the Obama Party, Levi, and his fellow idiots, who want George Bush and Sarah Palin imprisoned and tortured but are wailing over bin Laden’s death.
Why should we refuse to defend ourselves?
One quick point on SERE… Yes, we do subkect our soldiers to that training. I have no problem with that. What are it’s origins? To help our soldiers and pilots deal with the possibility of getting the same treatment many of our soldiers received at the hands of the North Koreans during the Korean War. At the time, the treatment was called torture.
It’s funny, when liberals try and redefine a term more to their liking, Conservatives rightly throw a hissy fit about it. When Conservatives do it….
Oops… Sorry about the typo’s. My dogs were jumping all over me when i was typing this.
Hi TGC,
I have no idea what the point is that you are trying to make at #7.
Hi SF,
“Re Bradley Manning, it’s my understanding he’s on suicide watch. That’s why the methods appear, extreme.”
I take as my source for this the ongoing work of Glenn Greenwald at Salon, at http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html. He has written extensively on this issue; I started following his reports on Manning since December of 2010, and I think the following links may be of some interest to you:
“But it has long been vital for Obama officials and the President’s loyalists to distinguish Ellsberg from Manning. Why? Because it is more or less an article of faith among progressives that what Ellsberg did was noble and heroic. How, then, can Nixon’s persecution of Ellsberg continue to be loathed while Obama’s persecution of Manning be cheered? After all, even the hardest-core partisan loyalists can’t maintain contradictions that glaring in their heads; they need to be given a way to distinguish them….
That Obama has to resort to the most brazen hypocrisy and factually confused claims to defend Manning’s treatment should hardly be surprising … Those engaged in purely unjustifiable conduct can, by definition, find only incoherent and nonsensical rationale to justify what they’re doing. The President’s remarks yesterday provide a classic case of how true that is.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/23/manning/index.html (Obama’s inappropriate remarks regarding case; and efforts of Administration not to link Manning to Ellsberg leak))
” Manning was held in maximum security at the Marine Corps brig Quantico, Va., for more than eight months where he spent 23 hours a day and ate all his meals in an isolated cell, was permitted no contact with other prisoners, and was forced to wear chains and leg irons any time he was moved. He also was often forced to strip naked at night and stand nude in his cell for early morning inspection.
The Marines claim they took his clothes to prevent him from injuring himself. Military and Pentagon officials insist the action was punishment for what the Marines considered disrespect from Manning. Such tactics for disciplinary reasons are against military regulations. . . . U.S. military officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity, deny Manning was tortured, but one said “the Marines blew it” in terms of how they treated him.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/20/manning/index.html (transfer out of Quantico and summary),
and,
“For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). ”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning (the original article)
Whoops,
Sorry TL and SF, I got mixed up on who wrote what, my apologies.
Although we neither have first-hand experience nor research to support this notion, we strongly suspect that since time immemorial, certain forces of EVERY state have used tactics which clearly constituted torture (no matter how defined) and shocked the conscience, although many (for various reasons) have chosen not to do so openly.
However, that we live in a society capable of public introspection may be just good enough, for now, especially with other issues on our plate.
It’s what helps form the “collective conscience” that all societies need, but do not have.
I take as my source for this the ongoing work of Glenn Greenwald at Salon,
Well, so much for your credibility. Greenwald is a left-wing hack who is so lame he has to resort to creating multiple sock puppets so he can have make-believe supporters defending him.
Not that Ms. Passive-Aggressive-Threadjacker had any credibility to begin with, but SRSLY? Gleen Grenwald? Master of Sockpuppets? ROFLCOPTER.
SF,
We engage in Waterboarding in SERE for the purpose of exposing our troops to the minimum they might face, true. Of course this would never happen because our enemies always honour Geneva, right? There’s a difference between the EIT waterboarding, and the Japanese style waterboarding done to our men in WW II.
It doesn’t change that the EIT done was carefully monitored to achieve a specific result. A result that saved lives on the West Coast, and helped us bag OBL.
One final reason we know EIT isn’t torture? Eric Holder said so.
Cas,
Here’s some info on Blackfive for you about Bradley Manning.
Manning jokes about suicide and then is surprised he’s on suicide watch.
More on Bradley Manning.
Another post his point about the Haditha Marines holds true too.
Yes, and it used to be called torture, even by Ronald Reagan.
Doesn’t matter what our enemies do. In the GWOT, they typically purposely target civilians. By your standard, we should too?
Yes, we don’t continue until the prisoner dies…. But it’s still torture.
The plan to attack the West Coast was aborted in 2002 BEFORE we even captured KSM. Though the plan was not yet in the training stages when it was abandoned, Bush’s aggressive response to 9/11 did force al Queda to abandon them, something liberals should acknowledge, but won’t. On the other hand, watervoarding or EIT’s DID NOT stop that attack, and that is something Conservatives should acknowledge, but won’t..
Sonic,
You just proved my point. It’s not ‘torture’ since it is applied, used, and monitored in the exact same method we apply to our own troops. Or are you saying the US tortures its own people?
As to the link I posted. Relevent portion here:
[EMphasis mine]
From my other link:
Or are you saying the specific intent wasn’t to get information, it was to drown him for the hell of it?
Final quote from my second link:
Well-done, TL.
We don’t inflict discomfort on terrorists out of vengeance, or sadism. We do it in a very controlled way with the explicit goal of saving innocent life. That alone should be enough to absolve us of any charge that pouring water on a terrorist’s nose, or depriving terrorists of sleep, or making terrorists uncomfortable by putting them in a room with women or dogs… somehow reduces us to the same moral plane as the guys who dismember and behead our soldiers.
Did EIT lead to Osama bin Laden? This is a basic “cause and effect” question leveled by simpletons with an agenda. Said simpletons have no mission other than to carry on their amorphous battle over what constitutes “torture.”
Juan Williams and some commenters above can not abide the thought that their despised waterboarding may have played any practical role in helping to locate Osama bin Laden. They are obsessed and their moral relativity is outraged.
Here is Chris Wallace:
This is actual simplistic “cause and effect” in action. To paraphrase Wallace: Does the CIA practice rogue torture (“undue force”) techniques?
It has to be “rogue” in order to shield the Director, the intelligence supervisors and the President. However, the politically charged moral relativists see EIT as their gateway to war crimes charges against Bush and Cheney and the neocons on their hit list. Therefore, “rogue” must be carefully shown to be not “rogue,” but acting on the repugnant orders of the vile leadership. Clear?
Therefore, the left must keep EIT in the spotlight in order to continue its persecution of its targets until they can prosecute them. This is no different than going after the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a moral equivalence basis with the planned and supervised atrocities committed by the Japanese and German commands.
But on a previous Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon:
When Donilon wandered off about the danger of bin Laden, Wallace dragged him back to the point. Wallace said it was not about justification, but why it was permissible to shoot bin Laden in the face and waterboarding is not permissible in bringing a “dangerous” bin Laden to justice.
So, this is not really about “cause and effect” at all. It is about moral relativity.
Waterboarding of KSM, as I understand it, was supervised by a doctor. The rather mythical Hippocratic Oath is often short-tracked to something like: “First, do no harm.” Unfortunately, “harm” and “torture” are common bedfellows to the moral relativist.
There is no breaking of bones or gouging of eyes or slave labor in our Geneva Conventions guided interrogation regimen, because those are clear violations of torture rules and clear actions that cause permanent damage (harm.)
EIT is under attack while Bill Clinton, the Godfather of rendition, gets a pass. Those people Clinton permitted to be “questioned” in rendition interrogation were out of his sight and removed from his immediate control and not subject to any rules by our domestic moral relativists. What took place in those prisons is not very secret. But, from the standpoint of moral relativity, Clinton has sufficient cover to whistle and chuckle his way past the true morality of it all. And, the highly partisan moral relativists refuse to see the difference between looking the other way as brutes pummel and EIT under careful supervision and medical monitoring.
Therefore, leftists have “a lotta ‘splainin’ to do” when they uphold shooting an unarmed man in the face, but go after CIA employees who engaged in EIT.
What, pray tell, is the equivalency between waterboarding and shooting an unarmed man in the face? I ask, because moral relativity is totally based on equivalency. That is why it is relative.
We may count on certain commenters to miss the point entirely and return with countless “what if’s” and declarations based on probable possible “counterfactuals” and guiding unknown principles of chaos theory.
Live… From your link:
Probably????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
was considering???????????????
Those are guesses and not clear indications that the specific West Coast attack was still operational. Yes, the US was able to capture these other terrorists as a a result of the torture, but, as is indicated in this piece, the attacks were in no way imminent.
This is why I stopped reading NRO years ago. This reads worse than some of the alarmist global warming scare tactics used to push the radical leftist environmentalist agenda. The plot might not have been quite as dead as dead, but your link of this testimony does not indicate that the LA attack was in any way imminent.
Sonic,
Bin Laden was “probably” planning to have members of cells for US operations fly airplanes into the WTC on 9/11. In fact it was “likely” he “was considering” such a plan.
Though thank you for conceeding that “Hambali admitted that he was grooming members of this cell for US operations” So you do admit that the EIT worked in getting the information that allowed us to detain cells being ‘groomed’ for US operations.
Hi TL,
Thanks for the information. First on Holder: “If Holder is correct that the military trainer does not commit torture because it is not his intent to inflict severe pain but to “equip” our military to deal with what he calls “illegal acts… his intent is not to inflict severe pain but to collect life-saving information.””
The question I have with this distinction you (and apparently Holder) have drawn is this: How are you actually supposed to separate the infliction of pain from the intent to get life saving information? After all, there is little doubt that the interrogator is relying on the physical and psychological pain (or the fear of it) to get the “subject” to cooperate with him or her. So, why should I privilege your notion of “intent” here? After all, couldn’t a member of the Gestapo or Kempeitai make the same argument. It looks sadistic, but it isn’t, because, we as interrogators have only one object in mind–to get the information. Our intent is not to mindlessly hurt the individual–after all, we are human too, and we feel empathy for our “subject.” I understand that this might sound disingenuous, but, what grounds allow you to reject this interrogator’s claims? After all, why can I not argue, using Holder’s thinking that breaking someone’s arm to elicit information is OK, as long as my intent is solely to get information? Is it because there is verifiable damage? But there is verifiable damage in those who are exposed to trauma and stress at levels one could associate and expect when someone is water-boarded with the intensity of Mohammad, for example. Most of it might be internal and mental, but it is still damage.
If we were to view the tapes of terrorist suspects being “interviewed” using EI/torture, might we come to the conclusion that these acts were the result of sadistic minds? We won’t ever know, because the CIA illegally destroyed those tapes. I can fully understand how someone in CIA land might think that viewing these tapes “out of context” might lead someone who isn’t “fully knowledgeable of the practices” concerned to get “the wrong idea” about what we did to those folks. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7919579.stm But I think that is the point. I think most people, if they saw those tapes, would conclude that we had gone long past “rough” interrogation, into something else instead.
Yes… And, pre 9/11, there was a HUGE train of evidence that, if the dots would have been connected, would have CONFIRMED with HARD EVIDENCE there was a plot to fly planes into the World Trade Center. There is nothing of the kind in the West Coast plot.
Yes. That is clear and can’t be denied. But this is not the same as preventing an imminent attack, which was the original rational thrown out to justify torture. The goal posts have been moved.
There is nothing of the kind in the West Coast plot.
Really? Are you privy to all the classified intel that’s out there related to the West Coast plot?
Or are you making a comparison between the 9/11-related information as viewed in hindsight and released/declassified because of the 9/11 Commission’s report, versus the trickles and dribbles that came out after the West Coast plot was revealed?
Lack of publicly-released information does not indicate lack of information overall.
Also consider Bush’s perspective. How much of this information do you want to release in regard to how panicked and crazy you could make the American population? This is post-9/11, where airlines were already going bankrupt left and right and the economy was staggering towards an abyss.
Furthermore, how much do you want to release in terms of letting the people involved know that you’re on to them? This is why police use undercover operations; it’s not just nailing the specific crook, it’s also utilizing the connections the crook has to your own ends in identifying more crooks.
Seriously, Sonic: what would have been the benefit of the Bush adminstration suddenly leaping up and yelling, “HEY EVERYBODY! WE JUST IDENTIFIED THAT TERRORISTS WANT TO HIJACK MORE PLANES AND HERE THEY ARE!”
Sonicfrog,
You state in #8:
I totally agree that gouging out a person’s eyeball is torture. I can think of no method that involves “gouging” in the general sense of the term and the removal of an eyeball that would qualify as “borderline” torture in which a panel would examine the facts and make a determination.
We do not clearly know what EIT entails. We have some small window provided to us into how our people conduct waterboarding and what precautions we take to prevent “harm” from befalling the person subjected to the waterboarding.
Therefore, we enter the murky realm of “borderline” torture. It is “borderline” because we have a legitimate debate as to whether using our techniques and precautions we can answer your statement: “Either it’s torture or it’s not.”
You said in #23 that Ronald Reagan called it (waterboarding) torture. That is not exactly correct. Mostly, but not exactly. The waterboarding issue arose over a DOJ determination concerning state police officers who used the technique to extract a confession.
I use the word “technique” because our “borderline” torture conundrum very much involves how the waterboarding is conducted.
All over the world, our special ops people in the military and the CIA spy, break in, steal, lie, position for advantage, manipulate and on and on and on. So, if we are engaged in a debate about moral purity and willingly committing immoral acts for the greater good, then let’s have the debate.
The problem with situation ethics is always the famed “slippery slope.” That is why, over the millenia, we have evolved a separate set of “rules” for war and the preservation of the homeland.
The Geneva Conventions are unenforceable, except by full cooperation of the signatories. They have had a profound, positive influence except on those who choose to violate them. The United Nations has shown itself to be the great eunuch in enforcing or even paying lip service to its own charter and the World Court is a political circus.
So we attack ourselves for not being “better than ourselves.” OK. I can do that. But first, move “borderline” torture in the “no ifs, ands or buts” square.
I recently read that 85% of the SEAL’s do not finish the grueling 120 hour all out qualifying assault on their ability to withstand punishing obstacles. Sounds like torture to me. But is it? Perhaps most would say that it is not, because the participants asked for it. See how “borderline” torture works?
Cas,
I think it can be objectively argued that the experiements of the Gestapo and the like were more for their amusement than any valid information gathering (not to mention the Germans were signatories to Geneva, and that unlike Al Q have not forfitted their protections, or obligations.)
Amusingly, the ‘Holder Definition’ came up with John Demanuk (sp) where his family argued it would be torture to return him to Germany to face war crimes charges. He said the intent wasn’t to torture.
As to breaking someone’s arm (or, Jack Bauer style, shoot them in a knee) to better get information… Against an American that’s criminal assault, against a captured uniformed combatant protected under Geneva (say Iraqi soldier) that’s a war crime. Against KSM or other AQ members, that’s fine. They’re not uniformed combatants, they’re not fighting by Geneva’s rules. They have no standing.
By saying that the ’emotional trauma’ is there, you stray dangerously into Levi-Loony-Land. Do we lock up suspected criminals before trial to inflict suffering on them? Do we lock up convicted criminals to inflict suffering? Think carefully before you answer.
Even that analogy is flawed. AQ members aren’t criminals. They aren’t soldiers. The closest analogy I read is they’re pirates. And we hang pirates too.
Hi TL,
Thank you for the Blackfive links.
Bottom line: Don’t tick off the marines!
You were right–BM was on suicide watch for three days earlier this year.
What do you make of the Prevention of Injury restriction on him?
The Haditha marines are an interesting case. Do you know if they had a Prevention of Injury restrictions on them whilst they were in the brig? I can understand the pressures on the brig commander, but what do you make of this:
“He also describes the experience of being stripped naked at night and made to stand for parade in the nude, a condition that continues to this day. “The guard told me to stand at parade rest, with my hands behind my back and my legs spaced shoulder-width apart. I stood at parade rest for about three minutes … The [brig supervisor] and the other guards walked past my cell. He looked at me, paused for a moment, then continued to the next cell. I was incredibly embarrassed at having all these people stare at me naked.”
Is that a consequence of the POI restriction?
“The legal letter was addressed to the US military authorities and was drawn up in response to their recent decision to keep Manning on a restriction order called Prevention of Injury (PoI). It means he is kept in his cell alone for 23 hours a day and checked every five minutes by guards including, if necessary, through the night.
The letter contains excerpts from the observation records kept in the brig which consistently report that Manning is “respectful, courteous and well spoken” and “does not have any suicidal feelings at this time”.
Sixteen separate entries made from 27 August until the records stop on 28 January show that Manning was evaluated by prison psychiatrists who found he was not a danger to himself and should be removed from the PoI order.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/11/stripped-naked-bradley-manning-prison
After all, there is little doubt that the interrogator is relying on the physical and psychological pain (or the fear of it) to get the “subject” to cooperate with him or her. So, why should I privilege your notion of “intent” here? After all, couldn’t a member of the Gestapo or Kempeitai make the same argument.
Of course.
And it would be shot down by the fact that the Gestapo and Kempeitai openly stated that torture was to be used even on willing subjects, especially those of inferior races.
Which is exactly the same attitude espoused by al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
So what we again have here is Cas comparing our use of EIT under tight supervision on an extremely limited number of people who have made it clear that they are unwilling to cooperate under any circumstances as a last resort as an exact and complete equivalence to the wholesale use of torture on an epic scale on virtually all of the limited number of prisoners they take alive instead of killing outright by the Gestapo, Kempeitai, al-Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein.
Put bluntly, in Cas’s mind, the waterboarding of KSM and the torture of Daniel Pearl are exactly morally equivalent.
And that more than anything else shows the degree of irrationality with which we are dealing and what the true motivations of such “torture opponents” as Cas are.
I can understand the pressures on the brig commander, but what do you make of this:
I make of it something very simple.
You automatically assume the brig commander is lying and is acting in an unjustified fashion, while Bradley Manning, a confessed traitor and liar who has stated that his goal was to smear and attack the United States and the military, is telling the gospel truth.
And you are using the quotations from a proven liar, Glenn Greenwald, who has already demonstrated that he lies to slant stories in his direction and smear the United States and the military.
In short, you’re just demonstrating your usual tendency to support and endorse anyone who criticizes the United States military and the United States itself, regardless of how dubious their record and reliability are.
Hi TL,
“I think it can be objectively argued that the experiments of the Gestapo and the like were more for their amusement than any valid information gathering”
I am talking about what happened in places like Gestapo Headquarters, Warsaw, not experimentation in the concentration/extermination camps. They were dealing with what they considered were “terrorists,” and what the Poles called “freedom fighters.” They wanted information, and if they were going to save German lives, that information was time sensitive… From their perspective, the key issue isn’t hurting people, it is getting the information. I will grant, that for many of these guys, the infliction of pain was an added bonus.
When I visited there a number of years ago, I saw a small piece of graffiti in Polish scratched into the wall, in the corner of one of the cramped cells. I asked my father what it meant in English. He looked at it, paused for a bit in deep thought, and said, “Oh God, it hurts!”
“As to breaking someone’s arm (or, Jack Bauer style, shoot them in a knee) to better get information… Against KSM or other AQ members, that’s fine. They’re not uniformed combatants, they’re not fighting by Geneva’s rules. They have no standing.”
But the question I have for you–is doing this torture? Whether it is a terrorist or a citizen of the US, I just want to get clear on what this constitutes for you. It’s justification is an issue as well, I agree, but whether you think they have “no standing” or not, is it torture?
Hi NDT,
“And it would be shot down by the fact that the Gestapo and Kempeitai openly stated that torture was to be used even on willing subjects, especially those of inferior races.”
Could I have a link to read your source for this, please?
The testimony link provided by Livewire, intended to justify torture, clearly indicates the government had no hard proof that the West Coast attack was actually going forward. If you have that hard proof, though you don’t necessarily need to reveal exactly what it is, you don’t say they were “probably” going to continue with that plan or or they were “considering” pursuing the plot…. You say we definitely thwarted the attack. There is no reason to use word like “probably” if there was hard evidence to confirm the attack was in play.
Lets put it this way. If I said I was looking for a job, telling that to all my friends on Facebook, but I’m not going out there and filling out applications and going to temp agencies… Well, I’m not really looking for a job. I’m just talking about it. That is analogous to the testimony provided by Livewire’s link. They were talking about continuing the plan, but there was no proof that the plan was in motion.
Thank you for demonstrating your hypocrisy once again, Cas.
I am talking about what happened in places like Gestapo Headquarters, Warsaw, not experimentation in the concentration/extermination camps. They were dealing with what they considered were “terrorists,” and what the Poles called “freedom fighters.” They wanted information, and if they were going to save German lives, that information was time sensitive… From their perspective, the key issue isn’t hurting people, it is getting the information.
No links to be found anywhere in there. So once again you demonstrate that you are a complete and total hypocrite who demands standards of others that you will not enforce or follow yourself.
And that is the whole metaphor for this conversation, Cas. You demand that the United States follow arbitrary and capricious rules that you enforce or demand of no one else. That demonstrates that your regard is not for the rules, but for attacking the United States.
Meanwhile, what are your sources for Manning’s treatment? The liar Glenn Greenwald, and the terrorist-supporting newspaper The Guardian, known for lies and smears, and both partisan sources.
Cas,
I’d have to look through MM’s coverage on the (aquitted) marines to find the exact link, and it’s blocked from work.
Without the links my memory says they were kept confined, shackled and had very limited freedoms, and none of them joked about killing themselves.
So, Cas is comparing American interrogators to N-a-z-i-s now?
So you’re saying that the information gained by EIT pointed out operatives that the Government didn’t know existed?
Bravo!
“No links to be found anywhere in there.”
Politeness matters. Would you like links? Then ask, NDT. I notice you don’t offer any for your claim in any case. I don’t know what your claim actually means, so I ask for a link to go read and gain clarity concerning your claim. The main link I claim is my father’s experience during WWII in Poland, and the way he and others of the Home Army were branded “terrorists” for participating in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (and for other AK operations).
TL,
“none of them joked about killing themselves”
Fair enough.
The main link I claim is my father’s experience during WWII in Poland, and the way he and others of the Home Army were branded “terrorists” for participating in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (and for other AK operations).
Which is interesting, because your statement, which you claim is first-hand information with your father as the source, was made from the point of view of the Nazis, not of the Poles — as you yourself admitted:
I am talking about what happened in places like Gestapo Headquarters, Warsaw, not experimentation in the concentration/extermination camps. They were dealing with what they considered were “terrorists,” and what the Poles called “freedom fighters.” They wanted information, and if they were going to save German lives, that information was time sensitive… From their perspective, the key issue isn’t hurting people, it is getting the information.
Was your father a collaborator?
And if not, if he in fact was a member of the Home Army, how on earth would he have ever known what was taking place inside Nazi headquarters, what they were thinking, or what their motivations were? You might as well be citing a front-line al-Qaeda fighter as an authoritative and accurate source on the motivations and interrogation tactics of the US military.
Oh, that’s right — you do.
NDT,
“Was your father a collaborator?”
You are trying to be disgustingly inflammatory, aren’t you?
As to what happens in Gestapo headquarters and why, one can turn to the Nuremburg War Trials. You may have heard of them:
“It is an extract from the Danish Memorandum of October, 1945, concerning the German Major War Criminals appearing before the International Military Tribunal. Page 5, under the title “Torture” we read, in a brief resume, everything that concerns the question with regard to Denmark:
“In numerous cases German police and their assistants used torture in order to force the prisoners to confess or to give information. This fact is supported by irrefutable evidence. In most cases the torture consisted in lashing or beating with sticks or with a rubber bludgeon.
But much more serious forms of torture were used, including some which will have lasting effects. Bovensiepen had stated that the order to use torture came, in certain cases, from the higher authorities, perhaps even from Goering as Chief of the Gestapo, but, in any event, from Heydrich. The instructions were to the effect that torture might be used in order to force the victims to give information that might serve to give away subversive organisations working against the German Reich, and not only to force the victim to confess his own acts.”
A little further on: “The methods prescribed were, among other things, a specified number of blows with a stick. Bovensiepen does not remember whether the maximum was ten or twenty blows. An officer from the criminal police was there, and also, when circumstances so required, there was a medical officer present.””
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-05/tgmwc-05-43-04.shtml
By all means make a connection or not. Or go to Poland, and visit the Warsaw Museum of the Gestapo HQ. It is quite… “interesting.” And, since not every individual who enjoyed Gestapo “hospitality” died or did so without smuggling information of their ordeal out http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERthalmann.htm, I can imagine (even as you cannot) how news of Gestapo methods might actually filter into the general populace of a country like Poland, with its well-organized resistance force. When you add Nazi propaganda posters warning the Polish populace that “bandits, parachuters, members of illegal organizations and everyone at all who destroys or foils the German Deed of Rebuilding in General Government, or helps their helpers, or does not give them away to the German authorities, will be punished by death” I am sure that even you would get the point about what a trip to Gestapo HQ might mean and what they want.
http://anglopolish.com/index.php/en/archive/2-history/128-nazi-propaganda-during-ii-ww-addressed-to-the-poles
So, I am still trying to understand what your claim meant (as I asked at #39), as you “use” it to grandly sweep away arguments you don’t like without further explanation.
Hi! Cas @#30 drops this clusterbomb:
1. “How are you actually supposed to separate the infliction of pain* from the intent to get life saving information?” [Hi! Cas adds the following qualifier about *pain: “the interrogator is relying on the physical and psychological pain (or the fear of it) to get the “subject” to cooperate with him or her.”]
Notice that “the infliction of pain” in the question morphs to physical or psychological pain or the fear of it to get the subject to cooperate. This is a wide-open definition of pain. (When the SEAL’s blasted loud, obnoxious music at Noriega, he gave himself up. Under the Hi! Cas words above, it would be because the SEALs inflicted “pain” on Noreiga and not for any life saving information they needed from him, but merely to drive him into open surrender. There really no life saving information involved in the Norieaga event, but Hi! Cas style “pain” was incorporated.)
2.” ….couldn’t a member of the Gestapo or Kempeitai make the same argument. It looks sadistic*, but it isn’t, because, we as interrogators have only one object in mind-to get the information.” [Note the introduction of the concept of being “sadistic.”]
The moral equivalence posed between CIA waterboarding of KSM and the techniques of interrogation uses by the Gestapo is the core issue here. Once again, we must examine the process involved.
3. But there is verifiable damage* in those who are exposed to trauma* and stress* at levels one could associate and expect when someone is water-boarded with the intensity of Mohammad, for example. (3 a) Most of it might be internal and mental, but it is still damage.
Wow. The *”verifiable damage” is hockum. There are opinions all over the board on this, but just opinions. (Post traumatic stress disorder among veterans of Iraq has significantly more research and credibility.) But notice that we have morphed once again from “the infliction of pain” to “trauma and stress.” And then, we are told that the effects of waterboarding might be “internal and mental” but that the effects cause “damage” to the person waterboarded. (“Damage” is yet another shift from “infliction of pain” and “trauma and stress.”)
Let’s go back to the Gestapo, shall we? Every person with a reason to fear the Gestapo knew what a visit there meant possibly. The Gestapo had the power to summon citizens and break them apart, assign them to slave labor, send them to internment camps, etc. There is no viable defense of Gestapo tactics I have ever read. Furthermore, I have not read among the comments of Hi! Cas how we come to discuss the Gestapo in connection with how KSM was interrogated. The only relationship I can readily summon is that the CIA and the Gestapo were both government sanctioned agencies tasked with interrogation.
Hi! Cas has not stated a premise or reached a conclusion. We have psychobabble that is hogtied by some tenuous thread of moral equivalency between the CIA and the Gestapo and interrogation in general.
If waterboarding as practiced by the CIA in the case of KSM is torture, then lay out the defining reasons that it is torture. That is the crux of this issue and all the ambient noise about stress, trauma, the Gestapo, sadism, etc. is just noise.
Either there is a case to be made that waterboarding as used on KSM and the protections accompanying the waterboarding is torture, or there is not.
Oh, I see, Cas; so now, instead of your father, when his recollections are questioned, you try to drag out other sources.
Which is exactly what I was hoping you would do.
Let us again refer to your statement above:
After all, there is little doubt that the interrogator is relying on the physical and psychological pain (or the fear of it) to get the “subject” to cooperate with him or her. So, why should I privilege your notion of “intent” here? After all, couldn’t a member of the Gestapo or Kempeitai make the same argument.
Now, after your lurid description of the Gestapo and its tactics and alleged motivations here to illuminate the point, let us be absolutely clear: you and your fellow Barack Obama Party members are stating that the United States military is exactly morally equivalent to the Gestapo and that the United States government is equivalent to the Nazi Party.
That shows the degree of delusion under which you operate, Cas. You are drawing equivalences between the Gestapo and the United States military. That is, besides being completely untrue, disgusting and repulsive to the vast and overwhelming majority of Americans.
You have learned to lie your way around it. But now you are caught. You have laid out the Gestapo’s tactics, and I have produced your own statements proving that you insist there is no difference between our armed forces and the Gestapo, and that there is no difference between our government practice and the Nazis.
Meanwhile, I understand, why you can’t answer, Cas; your family is ashamed of the fact that your father collaborated with the Nazis. That’s why you can’t simply answer that question. No worries; we understand that, at the time, all he was thinking about was survival.
Cas,
Here is Michelle Malkin’s article
Hi HT,
Let me take your points one at a time:
1. “Notice that “the infliction of pain” in the question morphs to physical or psychological pain or the fear of it to get the subject to cooperate.” Fear of pain is part of the deal. Isn’t that one of the points that those who support the use of EI techniques use as a justification?–the recent NPR overview of this issue made this clear. Having showed our “subject” that they can be EI’d, they are more likely to cooperate in the future, given the fear we have helped instil in them of the consequences if they don’t. SO, I don’t buy the distinction you want to wedge into my claim. Also, as for what might be considered painful, there are plenty of people who have experienced waterboarding and who have written about it being very painful, and frightening. If it wasn’t, why would we use it as an EI? The medical evidence that I mentioned in #1 also makes the case that this is also physically damaging because of the stress it causes the “subject.” You don’t see it in the form of broken bones,
3. “But notice that we have morphed once again from “the infliction of pain” to “trauma and stress.” ”
Out of curiosity, are you saying that there is no causal relationship between the infliction of pain and trauma/stress? Because, it would seem to me that one leads to the other–pain leads to stress/trauma; alternatively, trauma can lead to pain.. Throw in “damage.” Pain and trauma lead to damage and vice versa. I grant that this does not have to happen, but the causation is clear when it does.
“There is a large literature on the effects of extreme stress on motivation, mood and memory, using both animals and humans. To summarise a complex literature briefly: chronic, prolonged and extreme stress: (i) inhibits long-term potentiation (LTP; the biological process believed to underlie memory formation in the brain) and facilitates long-term depression (the inverse of LTP)[1]; (ii) causes hippocampal atrophy and, hence, impairs learning in humans and animals[1–3,5,6]; and (iii) is implicated in many neuropsychiatric disorders (especially anxiety, depression and post- traumatic stress disorder)[5]. Nota- bly, repeated chronic exposure to uncontrollable pain (e.g. electric shocks) causes many effects similar to those found under severe but non-painful stress.”
2. “[Note the introduction of the concept of being “sadistic.”]”
No, this was raised earlier in the thread, and I was responding to the implied notion that “sadism” equals “intent to cause pain for its own sake” which would violate Holder’s claim regarding torture.
The moral equivalence posed between CIA waterboarding of KSM and the techniques of interrogation uses by the Gestapo is the core issue here. Once again, we must examine the process involved.”
I will grant that examining the practices is part of the puzzle. But my point is this: given Holder’s claim about “intent” as the basis for whether or not something is torture or not, why cannot a representative of a vile group-Nazi, Khmer Rouge, Japanese militarist use the same argument to say that what they did isn’t torture or designed to needlessly inflict pain. (as was the case in Norewegian trials after the war)? Its about intent, after all. Assume they really do believe that they only inflicted minimal pain as a byproduct of getting useful information (and after all, waterboarding’s effect doesn’t appear externally), are they practicing torture when they use their techniques? I grant, again, that we would have to examine the situations. Do you have the comparisons for us to look at?
“Once again, we must examine the process involved.” It would be great to do this, but what the CIA says they do and what they actually do do is up for argument. It would be less of an issue if they hadn’t destroyed all of those tapes that they were not supposed to destroy. My guess as to why they were destroyed is because the interrogations were not pretty, probably terrifying and sickening, and would have left the impression that we were “sadistic” to the casual, untrained individual.
“The only relationship I can readily summon is that the CIA and the Gestapo were both government sanctioned agencies tasked with interrogation.”
That is in fact an important tie in. I am not saying that the Gestapo and the CIA are morally equivalent. Or that we are the same as the Nazis, no matter how wild the speculation NDT makes. What I am saying is: It is not enough to say–Gestapo evil, US good, as a reason for justifying our use of EI/torture, when those we rightfully think of as murderers and butchers can apparently use the same argument. “We are nicer and more democratic, and have doctors present” doesn’t cut it for me, I am afraid. I think Holder’s views are dangerous, because there doesn’t appear to be anything to stop its application to more extreme situations.
Hi TL,
Thank you for the article. Illuminating. There is something pretty seriously screwed up when a person can be held in solitary for 24 hours a day (was she mistaken about that–did he have one hour for exercise?). In any case, they should have moved them to a place better able to deal with these soldiers, rather than keep them in single cell confinement. Do you know if they got compensated in any way for their long imprisonment?
HC
1. Dear me. If it is pain, you call it torture. Correct? Taking a pacifier away causes psychological pain, therefore, it is torture. Your words, “the infliction of pain,” are totally assessed by the “victim” who is free to call torture whenever he likes. Correct? You are with Levi in supporting a temper tantrum prone miscreant who is made to sit still and remain quiet is being subjected to torture simply because it “pains” him to have to obey a force he dislikes. Correct?
Are you, HC, capable of setting a simple standard of any sort? Or do you only deal with the amorphous concepts of word meanings which wriggle into the realm of absurdity?
2. It would be pure stupidity to assert that the inconvenience of punishment is not effected in part to induce cooperation. I think that is at the lowest levels of the Kohlberg’s scale of moral development. Why have an inane “conversation” about punishment and reward? KSM “learned” how to avoid further waterboarding. We need not equate that with brain surgery.
3. Stress is a real weasel word. You use it as if wino’s don’t feel stress. Stress is ever present. You can not escape it. You can not subdue it. You can only cope with it. But you choose the word because like trying to staple Jello to the wall, you can not pin it down. It is a perfect word for your type of eely “conversation.” I can hear you now: “I may not know what stress is, but I will know it when I encounter it.” Blah, blah, blah.
4. Of course there is a relationship between the infliction of pain and stress and trauma. What an idiotic question you have posed. You are so desperate to miscast what I wrote that you act the total fool. Once again, you enjoy being nonspecific and continually widening the definition of your half stated premise that you can stretch it to cover the universe. Mindlessly mind boggling. It is almost the blathering of imbecility.
5. You were addressing separating “the infliction of pain” from the “intent to get life saving information.” Remember. I pointed out that you make “pain” cover so much territory, that “inflicting pain” of any sort becomes the object of your point. Therefore, the “inflicting of pain” is not permissible for any reason at any time. Forget what the “intent” was for inflicting the pain. But you have taught me that you doubtlessly can not understand your own silly logic.
6. I am not interested in switching to what Holder thinks. You are the one who made the comments. The “intent” in waterboarding is clear. The technique of waterboarding is not. If all waterboarding is torture, then so be it. But, what makes it torture and differentiates it from some other form of “enhanced interrogation?” It is highly probable that carefully supervised waterboarding by the CIA with a doctor on site is far different from the waterboarding that some goon squad might conduct. Therefore, waterboarding as a term has several meanings. Words and context do matter.
7. “We are nicer and more democratic, and have doctors present” doesn’t cut it for me, I am afraid. This is the only sensible thing you have written. You have an opinion. You are welcome to it. I assume you rule waterboarding as torture and it is taboo no matter what the circumstances. Fine. That is a real breakthrough for someone who sits and sits and sits on the pot.
Please, HC, don’t belabor your opinions. Your thought process is so convoluted and full of short circuits that you are a danger to catching your own hair on fire.
Your response to my comments is classic and would be a wonderful textbook example of evading the obvious. What can not be readily determined is whether your response in a true measure of your wit and skill or a unique moment of overachievement.
HT,
Thanks for the reply.
“If it is pain, you call it torture. Correct?”
No. What definition of torture are you working off?
Definition of torture: “.any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.”
“are totally assessed by the “victim” who is free to call torture whenever he likes. Correct?”
No. As I said before, based on what I have read, the physical/mental effects of waterboarding are real, no matter how much you want to label it a matter of “opinion.” Self-reporting is one modality, but not the only one. You don’t like and have not read the evidence from the survey of the literature that O’Mara has done. That is your choice. If you come up with better evidence that supports your position, I will review it, and (golly!) change my stance.
2. “We need not equate that with brain surgery.” Good, then we are in agreement that fear of pain (and if you prefer–severe pain) is an enticement to cooperate.
3. “Stress is a real weasel word.” If you want to hold that, then why stop there–why not call “pain” a weasel word? Or “trauma” for that matter, or any of the other words we all use in trying to get a handle on what is going on?
4. “Of course there is a relationship between the infliction of pain and stress and trauma.” Good, something else we can agree on. You don’t want to read about possible causalities that O’Mara talks about, so we argue at cross-purposes. As for me, if O’Mara is right, then if interrogators know that what they do can cause pain and physical/psychological damage, no matter how empathic and careful they are, what then? We seem to be arguing about ignorance of the affects of our interrogation methods, and how that might make it OK to use them. That cannot be right.
5 “I pointed out that you make “pain” cover so much territory, that “inflicting pain” of any sort becomes the object of your point.”
No, I don’t see this claim.
“Therefore, the “inflicting of pain” is not permissible for any reason at any time. Forget what the “intent” was for inflicting the pain.”
There is a difference between inflicting pain and inflicting torture., which I think the UN quote above makes clear. Inflicting pain can be a byproduct of arrest or imprisonment, for example, and is not the object. It can be regrettable, but as when a cop arrests a running suspect, it might be necessary to bring the suspect in a bit the worse for wear. With torture–the object is the use of pain as a direct means of getting the confession. After all, in the past, police used “interrogation of the third degree.” Sorry, that was torture. One problem with this issue is simply that we can never be clear on intent, even when we have all kinds of structural fail-safes (like doctors present, nice restraints, regulated timings between episodes, etc), because we cannot look so easily into the hearts of men. Maybe video evidence of what went on would help with this issue of intent, but again, CIA employees destroyed that evidence.
6. “Therefore, waterboarding as a term has several meanings. Words and context do matter.” I agree- but even you appear to concede that you are not certain as to whether or not what we did was EI or torture. I agree with that position, but I lean more to the “sounds like torture to me” faction.
7. “You have an opinion.” Yes I do, but I still feel my way forward on these things, because I am unsure.
Finally, if you are going to shorten my appellation, I would prefer H!C, since I can recognize that. When I saw HC, I had no idea who you meant at first, till I saw the quote. Still, HC is like a mini-HT, even rhymes… Cas or C work as well.
Cas,
While I’m not much on intruding in Heliotrope’s smacking down of your arguments… I wanted to highlight one part of your definition of torture.
Since terrorists have no protections under Geneva, and since we’ve had *two* administrations define torture in a way that excludes EIT (three if you count Clinton’s approval of rendition) you’ve conceeded that Guantanamo and EIT are both fine and dandy.
The cynical part of me points out that this also absolves North Korea’s abomitable actions since they are “pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.”
HC
Pain, torture, stress, trauma, protecting a woman’s health, privacy, liberty, justice, fairness, equality, probable cause are all weasel words and phrases. That is the essence of the debate.
It “pains” me to go to the dentist, because it is stressful. Now, shall we tiptoe onto talking about the dentist as torturer?
The doctor comes from the patient’s room and says: “It pains me to tell you this …..” Words concerning torture?
To use a weasel word is to fracture logic at the premise stage. You must be precise or you have no grounds for “conversation.”
KSM was waterboarded. KSM had medical supervision and protection in the process. KSM “learned” that he really, really, really did not like waterboarding, even though he knew it would not injure him, because the doctor would keep that from happening. KSM then decided to chat with is interrogators. He decided to outfox them and chatter on “safe” ground and avoid waterboarding. KSM didn’t succeed in outfoxing the interrogators.
Waterboarding was reserved for a precious few high value known terrorists and permission to waterboard was only obtained from high levels with a lot of documentation.
That implies, to me, that waterboarding is enough of a concern that the Bush administration was paying close attention to its use.
Your dedication to O’Mara is laughable. Where and how do you assemble such a study? First, you assemble a sizable control group and you study their psychological make-up. Then you proceed to waterboard them in varying sets of length of sessions and repetition of sessions to determine when the usual onset of “damage” occurs and how long it can take before the onset of “damage” occurs. Then you work with each “damaged” person to see if the “damage” is permanent and you stay with the longitudinal part of the study for a lot of years.
Next, you round up people who were waterboarded by others in the past and you evaluate them and attempt to determine if any known “damage” was present before they were waterboarded.
I am not reading your O’Mara stuff, because I am no missionary for making waterboarding an internationally recognized form of “torture.” If you are, fine for you. Just get your facts and proper vocabulary lined up and preach away.
You are sounding much more like Levi. People who have spent a lot of time in prison encounter stress and trauma along the way. Locking people up to protect society is also “torture” to the prisoner. Correct?
You should be able to drag this type of rambling, shifting “conversation” on for ever. I am about to drive for eight hours for a meeting. I am sure you will still be stretching your logic when I check in.
So, HC, have a terrific time playing decision maker on words that have perplexed and challenged great minds for the millenia.
Drive carefully HT!
Hi TL,
“The cynical part of me points out that this also absolves North Korea’s abomitable actions since they are “pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.””
You raise a good point. The only question I have is whether the way we or others treat prisoners is an “incidental or inherent part” of the incarceration process or designed to “break” prisoners or ease their way into compliance with interrogation.