"The War" vs "24"
In a comment responding to a recent post of mine regarding the definition of torture and current administration policy, someone asked me to "tell us, specifically, what's the worst thing you can do that's not torture?" Channeling the spirit of my mentor CG, I responded with something both glib and wholly accurate, which I've learned is his very effective way of saying Mu. Because I have not yet learned his ability to thereafter shut up, I'll give my further views on the topic.
I suppose my real answer is that I don't care precisely how nasty one can get before violating the law, because it wholly misses the point: i.e. that once you go down that road, you've already lost.
Here's a good summary from last year of the view of the accepted (by the left, anyway) wisdom that even "highly stressful" techniques that don't rise to the level of clear torture are occasionally useful for effective interrogation, but usually do more harm than good. More interestingly, a group of World War II US military interrogators has now taken the same position.
Against those questionable benefits of such techniques, you must weigh the unquestionable downsides, which I can't express any better than John McCain did. In other words, Jack Bauer wouldn't have made the cut at Fort Hunt, and shouldn't be our standard now.
posted by QueensGuy @ 10:01 AM
5 Comments:
You're still evading the question. If you're going to say torture is illegal (as Bush has, by the way), then you have to define what it is so you know when you're doing it. (The question of whether you have to explain what it is officially is separate, because you may still want to use the threat of very tough interrogation techniques--unless you define that as torture, too.)
The claim it doesn't work is also an evasion. It's answering the easy question rather than the hard one--you have to say what do you do if it does work. (Some say it does, some say it doesn't. To say it rarely works is to say it does work.)
Even McCain's position, which you seem to support, is "use torture, just so rarely that we won't officially recognize it."
I'm still trying to sort out whether I'm a dog or whether I knowingly committed a deliberate violation.
While I work on that, I'll channel QG and not shut up:
Here's what I want to know: Do mobsters do the torture thing? They are unencumbered by moral qualms, but presumably are acting in economic, if illicit interest. If they find it effective, and of course I'm guessing they do, then isn't it an argument that, in fact, it works?
Shortly after Sept. 11, nearly everyone, Hillary included, I believe, said the ticking time bomb scenario was an exception to the general idea that we don't do this thing. Isn't that hedging of the first order?
It seems to me that this is precisely what we elect the president to do; make these decisions as he (or she) will. Whether you are happy or unhappy with Bush (or Hillary) is entirely beside the point. He (or she) is the president, and has the job.
SWMB--holy crap! I'm signed in?!
I've seen an article by a military officer arguing that not only does torture not work, but the "ticking time bomb" scenario is where it works least. Because in that scenario, the terrorist knows that all he has to do is to remain silent (or spout lies) for seventeen hours more and then he will win.
Under such conditions, the terrorist will always manage to hold out. He knows that time is his ally.
I know I'm evading the question. I explicitly acknowledged that I'm evading the question, because I think if the subject is handled properly, the question shouldn't even arise, let alone require so many memos. Other civilized countries don't have fights over releasing memos like these because in the normal course they stay so far away from "very tough interrogation techniques" that it doesn't come up, and therefore doesn't provide propaganda ammunition to their every enemy. In the rare, exceptional case, they use good judgment, and it never comes up. It's only when you want to make it a wholesale policy of being as abusive as possible without crossing your own self-drawn line that it becomes a major problem.
And to say it rarely works is not to say it does work. Anything that works less than 50% of the time, without means to immediately verify whether it has worked, is no better than flipping a coin.
Re mobsters, I think there are other factors in play. E.g. they can't use indefinite isolation (or even captivity). It may well be that if I need to kill you before dawn, the best method for the few hours until then is torture. Which leads to Lawrence's point, which I believe is correct.
Any interrogation is unpleasant. So is any imprisonment. Unless you think the only solution is to either immediately kill or set free anyone we capture, the question of how far to go has to be answered, and not after the fact by saying "that was too hard."
Trying to get answers from vicious killers who wish to destroy your country is guaranteed to be tricky, even if it's done in a country that pretends it would never do anything worse than hold back tea time a few hours. Avoiding the issue of how far to go isn't an option.
We know lives have been saved--probably thousands--from the information we've gotten from these interrogations, so this isn't a dry intellectual exercise either.
As for propaganda, the enemy creates the propaganda, not us. Their war against us is based on nothing but lies, in fact. (Regarding this particular matter, you wouldn't know the US actually has better due process for Muslins arrested in this country than Europeans have in their countries, or that the US generally comports itself better in war as well.)
Let's say tough interrogation techniques work only 3% of the time. That means you figure out when they work and that's when you use them (assuming it's okay to ever use them). Needless to say, corroboration always plays a large part
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