McClatchy has now found a most intriguing (and, in retrospect, a most predictable) connection.
The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
Read more about it at Koz. And also check out the new disclosure that the Bush Administration did its damndest to destroy a memorandum highly critical of the legality of its decision to torture prisoners.
And now we know that Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney personally approved waterboarding.
Finally, consider this conversation involving FOX’s Shepard Smith and Judith Miller (the Judith Miller), who unrelentingly attack the memos for trying to justify torture. Maybe Miller is in a redemptive phase . . .
THEN, listen carefully at exactly 5:07 of the video to hear a walloping Freudian slip by the conservative think-tanker, Cliff May, a guy who claims that waterboarding is fun and games, who accidentally admits that the Bush-approved techniques WERE torture (listen for the critical word is “it”). Yes, Cliff, it was torture and you (and everyone else in the country) know it. Miller raises the point that even Israel, which knows a thing or two about interrogating prisoners, outlawed waterboarding long ago because it is torture.
But there’s still more. Consider Republican strategist and Cheney-admirer Phil Lusser’s “magic eyeballs” in a conversation with Lawrence O’Donnell and Norah O’Donnell. Go to the end of this video and you’ll hear Lawrence O’Donnell clean Lusser’s clock.
It’s all falling apart like a house of cards. After years and years of insanity, it’s finally happening. Yes, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
That's the really frightening thing about the Bush administration using torture to gather "intelligence." Tortured prisoners would tell them whatever they wanted to hear, and they wanted to hear that al Qaeda was a dangerous international organization that was a huge threat to American security (because that's how the Bushies could maintain the backing of the gullible American public). So, the Bushies tortured prisoners to generate the political capital needed to enhance their power, then they used that power to kidnap more prisoners, thus perpetuating the cycle of murder and deception, conveniently lining the pockets of their political supporters in the process.
Gary Kamiya tells it like it is at Salon.com:
He also notes that torture sometimes works to elicit useful information (citing Gestapo tactics), but that it is always wrong.
Rachel Maddow had a piece yesterday evening (again – watched at the gym!) indicating the fact that real interrogators know that torture is only useful if you want false confessions for propaganda purposes – reliable intelligence comes from 'relationship' interrogation techniques (such as those practiced by the FBI).
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torture is not, and has never been about getting accurate information. It is all about power and punishment.
Boehner uses the word "torture" to describe the techniques described by the newly-released memos:
Listen to what then-presidential candidate John McCain had to say about waterboarding in 2007:
Cenk Uygur provides some disturbing mortality stats regarding U.S. prisoners.
Uygur's full post here.
Not to minimize the horror that the Bush administration inflicted on its "detainees," but we also need to look at the bigger picture of what Bush's policies represent: the belief that the ends justify the means. They used means-end thinking to justify torturing helpless prisoners on the declared, but unsupported, assertion that it might save American lives. Likewise, they used means-ends thinking to justify invading Iraq — an essentially helpless country compared to the military strength of the U.S. — on the declared, but unsupported, assertion that it might save American lives. Warrantless wiretaps, indefinite detentions, extraordinary rendition, self-serving legal opinions from the Justice Dept., etc., were all similarly justified.
What still amazes me is that so many Americans fell for it. That's what makes this a much bigger issue than just the immorality of torturing helpless people. When the most powerful nation on our planet can be shanghaied by a thugocracy as blatantly deceitful as the Bush administration, the fate of our entire planet could be in jeopardy. When powerful people declare that the ends justify the means, we should all feel as though we've been shocked with a cattle prod.
perhaps some history books in the future will have better details of the "American Inquisition".
First, torture is horrendous in all it's forms. Ends do not always justify the means.
However, for the sake of deadening the echo chamber, I'll ask the question, "in reality, is there ever such a situation as us-or-them?" and "if you had strong evidence that a detainee had knowledge of a terrorist attack and if they didn't divulge information, then thousands of Americans would be murdered, would you ever resort to torture after exhausting all other means?"
If you believe these scenarios as possible, then could torture ever be justified?
Or, do you agree that these scenarios are possible but that ethics require that we never torture even if the most likely outcome is a terrorist attack?
Or, do you disagree that these scenarios will ever present themselves and there will ALWAYS be a means of saving people outside of torture?
Or, am I not addressing all the possibilities?
No one, including me, wants to torture or enjoys torturing another (no dignified human, that is). We ought always pursue the option that inflicts no harm on anyone. But if ever faced with the choice of two evils (e.g., torture someone for life-saving information or passively allow murder) then I can't imagine myself idly allowing one's inherent human rights at the expense of another's.
But alas, I'm open to hearing the arguments…
Danny asks, "Or, do you agree that these scenarios are possible but that ethics require that we never torture even if the most likely outcome is a terrorist attack?"
The scenario seems very possible, but it is not merely a matter of ethics: it is also a matter of political reality. Torture is, arguably, never morally justifiable, but that fact will not stop some politicians from demanding it anyway. They will simply do what the Bush administration did: carefully redefine the word "torture" to exclude whatever they want to do.
Andrew Sullivan quotes Ronald Reagan's signing statement regarding the 1984 UN Convention on Torture. It's a real eye-opener. Read it extremely closely and ask (as Sullivan asks) what happened to conservatism:
Whenever someone presents me with a binary choice, and suggests I should choose the one that is the "lesser of two evils" I always ask myself this. Why do you think the choice is binary?
Such thinking is indicative of poorly applied intelligence and thought, or the result of manipulation. Any time someone presents me (in a professional capacity) only two choices, I know they have a personal agenda associated with the least abhorrent choice.
So I'll turn the question back to you, Danny. What circumstances would lead you to believe that the choices are ever limited to 'torture and save American lives" or "don't torture and cost American lives".
In my opinion, suggesting torture is ever on the table is an abrogation of duty and of common humanity. It indicates someone who truly believes that 'they' are lesser beings than 'us'.
Frank Rich weighs in on the significance of the torture in the NYT:
What's surprising to me is that everyone is acting as though we didn't know these things enough to write about them like this, until recently. The circumstantial evidence was everywhere. And contrary to common misconceptions, legitimate circumstantial evidence can make for an airtight case.
Tony said: "Such thinking is indicative of poorly applied intelligence and thought, or the result of manipulation. Any time someone presents me (in a professional capacity) only two choices, I know they have a personal agenda associated with the least abhorrent choice."
First, let me grant you Tony that I too am suspicious of binary options. That is the reason that in my questioning I gave four options: 1: accept my scenario and accept possible torture, 2: accept my scenario and reject possible torture, 3: reject my scenario as being unrealistic, 4:offer up your own scenario.
So, it sounds like you opted for option 3 after lobbing an ad hominem argument with little to no unraveling of my case. If you thought my scenario too simplistic then I was asking for an answer "why."
The reason I posed the question the way I did is because that is the nature of the dilemma (excuse me, dilemma is binary, let's call it a polylemma, if I may coin the term). People that justify torture do it as an ends-justifies-the-means. People who commit torture are often operating under the evidence that it will spare countless lives. So my only question is, if torture is always out of the question, then there must be alternatives to these decision makers or we must accept the fallout no matter how heinous (and please recognize that I have not condoned any position yet because they are all detestable and I'm still on the fence about this issue).
This reminds me of the debate in another post regarding abortion. You stated that no one wants an abortion, but it's considered when it involves saving the life of the mother. Likewise, I say that no one wants torture. But people rationalize it along the same lines of it saving other lives.
You said: "In my opinion, suggesting torture is ever on the table is an abrogation of duty and of common humanity. It indicates someone who truly believes that ‘they’ are lesser beings than ‘us’."
First, thank you for qualifying that with "in my opinion." Secondly, after looking up "abrogation" on dictionary.com (I basically understood from the context) I wondered "what duty" and "what common humanity?" It's difficult to play by the rules of common humanity when one may be dealing with someone who's already rejected the very same rules. Though, I know that can beget a "well he started it" modus operandi.
Danny: I condemn torture as a national policy (and I do consider many of the tactics authorized by the Bush Administration to be torture). When torture is allowed, it almost always ends up being used for purposed other than obtaining information for purposes of national security. Simply read of the accounts of torture of which we are aware, whether it be by the Japanese or Germans in WWII or by the US recently. The driving motive seems to be sadism and retribution, not evidence gathering. I simply wouldn't trust any government to use torture based on this sordid track record.
On the other hand imagine this hypothetical. Imagine capturing a kidnapper who claims to have YOUR child and claims that YOUR child is buried in a box with only an hour's worth of air remaining. I would assume that most parents, many of them as anti-torture as me, would put no limits on the physical pain they'd be willing to inflict on that person to rescue their child.
I can't reconcile these examples worth a damn. That one is private and the other is government doesn't seem like an impressive distinction. I merely recognize these two types of situation as fodder for further discussion.
Danny, if you think about, the scenario would be unrealistic. Here are the possibilities.
1 your other intel about the terrorist attack is false. The prisoner has no knowledge, and makes something up to get the torture stopped.
2 You intel is good, but your prisoner doesn't know the details you want, same result as number 1.
3. The intel is good and you have the right man. torture results in him giving the attack plan. However, knowing he has been captured, the rest of his cells changes the attack to different target.
Niklaus. Well done.
Erich, I have to agree with you that I would inflict whatever pain necessary to free my child in your example. If, of course, inflicting pain would grant me the information necessary to do so.
I also agree that trying to reconcile that with government torture is impossible – but I would also suggest that it is unneccessary.
In your example, the potential torture victim has already admitted to the heinous act, pre-torture. In completely pedestrian parlance, he's asking for it. And your willingness to inflict it upon him has everything to do with protecting the innocent life your very existence on the planet is about protecting – YOUR child.
The government, on the other hand, while it can be argued exists to protect its people, proposes torture as a way to get someone to admit to being a perpetrator. Which, as Nik pointed out, they are likely to do simply to stop the pain, whether they are or not, and whether they have the information wanted or not.
It is this gamble that makes that scenarios different, is it not? Or am I simplifying the question?
Mindy: Many of the people who want to retain torture as a tool for national security propose a scenario that is analogous to my example regarding a kidnapped child. The hypothetical goes something like this. A captured terrorist credibly announces that he has planted an atomic bomb that is timed to explode in X hours and that it will kill millions of people. But he refuses to say where it is. Is torture acceptable? If presented with this scenario, would you do "whatever it takes" to get the guy to disclose where the bomb is? To be frank, if I really found the terrorist to be credible about planting the nuclear bomb in the first place, I'd be tempted to do whatever it takes to obtain the information I need to save millions of people.
None of the torture that has been done in our name has been done for such an alleged purpose, however, or for anything similar. If such a situation really and truly arose, I would suspect that many of us anti-torture people would carve out this situation as an (an extremely narrow) exception to a general prohibition of torture.
Danny – you're confusing choices made during sequential steps in a process with parallel choices.
In your scenario, you only ever have a binary choice at the outset. Your statements (your poly-lemmas) are all predicated on a binary choice: Torture is acceptable – Yes/No.
If No, your plausible scenarios reduce to what is actually possible – and you need to accept the fact that you may not save 'all those American lives' no matter how hard you try. Real life is not '24'. You must rely on normal intelligence gathering, and reasonable security precautions.
Surprises happen. We need to recognize that and live with it. The way to avoid most negative surprises is to work against alienation and segregation. If you engage in witch-hunts, you shouldn't be surprised that the 'witches' want to hide stuff from you, or would want to 'hit back'.
So you need to 'engage' with your enemies. That does not mean appeasing them. It does mean working as hard as you can to find common ground for meaningful dialog. It most definitely does not mean labeling them as members of an 'Axis of Evil'.
If Yes, your options devolve to those outlined by Niklaus above. You may assume that your torture-derived intel is reliable, but that is not the consensus among interrogators, so even with torture, you are no further along.
So – tell me again why torture would ever be justified? It seems to be nothing more than a "Pascal's Wager" for dummies – since we can actually see the results of torture here-and-now, and those results reliably indicate that torture does not work*. Torture is not a "we've tried everything else, so this MUST work" option. Unfortunately, that's how it has been sold.
* unless your goal is getting false confessions for propaganda purposes – history clearly shows that torture is admirably suited to the generation of such 'evidence'.
Erich, even in the situation you describe, torture is not likely to work. If the bomber is not upset about his capture, then either he is lying, or he believes his cause is just and he death in necessary. What kind of people are suicide bombers? those with nothing to live for and those with everything to die for.
In reality, the best way to get intel is through deception, observsation and detailed knowlege of psychology. In hacker circles this is known as "Social Engineering".
Agreed, Erich. And you're right -that is the kind of hypothetical that is used to make torture sound like a viable option.
I would say that a rule is not a rule unless it has exceptions, and agree that this would be one of those very few exceptions that I, too, would probably make.
Our head of school wisely included this quote from sociologist Cheryl Carpenter in his most recent parent letter: ""The answer to most adult questions is: 'It depends.'"
Because the world is not black and white, and because rules always do have exceptions.
Think Progress has a link-rich article on the myths of torture apologists.
The myths covered are:
1. We didn't torture.
2. Harsh interrogation worked, and
3. There's no need for accountabilty.
Mark Danner reminds us that we've known about the problem for five years.
This delay in understanding and dealing with that which we already know reminds us that real-world knowledge is not just about evidence. It's also about political power.
Mindy, Erich:
I still don't see the value of torture. I may feel viscerally tempted to pursue torture in the personal scenario – but that would be more from the perspective of 'lashing out' than from 'soliciting information'. I don't think the situations are necessarily equivalent. I do think torture has been proven to be useless at getting reliable information. Why rely on a useless tool (other than from visceral satisfaction at causing the instigator pain and suffering)?
Torture has been multiply disproven as a source of reliable information. In your (or Danny's) 'doomsday' scenario, the culprit need only survive for 'X' hours (however long that may be). During that time, it is expected that (s)he will provide disinformation during torture interrogation (as our own airmen have been trained to provide, using SERE techniques).
But regardless of expectation, every lead proffered needs to be pursued. Every single one. Not even the US has enough agents to chase down disinformation to 'de-qualify' it in such short time-frames.
Again – life is not '24'.
Torture has no place in a human (not simply humane) society.
Tony: I know that you can sense my ambivalence. My hypothetical involved lots of vagueness. In real life, there are often options that hypotheticals downplay.
I would suspect that torture would almost never be justified in real life, though Hollywood has given us some vivid cases where some degenerate is punched and threatened until he blurts out a bit of information that saves lives. I could imagine a situation, but that doesn't mean that torture has ever yet been justified in the real world. So much so that I would never trust the government to engage in torture, especially given its track record in employing torture. I would take it totally off the books and outlaw it in plain language. If some well-intentioned agent tortures someone to save many lives, let him/her do it at substantial risk of going to prison. If they did it to spare us a Hollywood-type disaster, they can tell the story to the judge and plead for mercy, just as I would if I beat the shit out of someone, allegedly to save a child's life.
What Erich said, Tony. In the parental hypothetical, I admit that my motivation would come as much from a need to hurt someone who would dare hurt my child as anything else. Hence my "he had it coming" comment.
Honestly, I can't really imagine what I would do in such an entirely unimaginable situation. Should someone really bury one of my children in a box to die, I would most likely be rendered almost immediately insane. Torture would be exercised not by a rational woman but by a completely psychotic mother bear, out to save her cub at any cost or die trying.
Do I ever want my government behaving that way? No. I do not.