Say what you will about President Obama—and some here say he’s the worst President ever—he’s promoted the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on post-9/11 torture that will be be released later today. The report is said to recount graphically how the CIA dealt with prisoners (waterboarding, etc.) in Guantanamo and elsewhere.
Obama has also called for the Cuban detention facility to be closed, and for prisoners to face trials on U.S. soil, but he’s been blocked by the House of Representatives. In other words, Obama’s been doing all the right things, but Republicans have blocked him at every turn. Is he really worse, than, say George W. Bush, who ordered the torture in the first place?
Bush acted with the complicity of CIA officials, and his policies are now being defended not only by Bush and ex-CIA staffers, but by Dick Cheney and the Republicans in Congress. They oppose the release of the torture report, not because it will incite unrest (which it will) but because it makes the Bush administration look bad. Even Secretary of State John Kerry seems to have advised Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Committee that produced the report, to hold back its release, for he fears a Middle Eastern meltdown when the dirty facts are revealed. And indeed, Marines are standing ready all over the Middle East, prepared for some nasty violence.
That violence will happen, and my response is this: too bad, for we brought this on ourselves by violating the law. The U.S. is not supposed to torture people, period, even under the euphemism of “enhanced interrogation.” We need to get the facts in the open. The base at Guantanamo is a travesty and the torture didn’t work. As CNN reports:
The long-delayed report on the use of torture — “enhanced interrogation techniques” — by the U.S. government is expected to be released Tuesday morning and it concludes that the CIA’s use of torture did not lead to “actionable intelligence,” Sen. Angus King, a member of the committee, told CNN.
“Did we torture people? Yes. Did it work? No.,” King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said on CNN’s “New Day.
This won’t be the full report, but its 480-page executive summary that will be released. There will also be a shorter Republican counter-assessment and the CIA’s own assessment. The complete report totals more than 6,000 pages.
But I’m proud of Feinstein, her committee, and Obama for making this go forward, and shedding some light on the illegal and unethical practices of the U.S. Yes, those who attack us in and from the Middle East don’t themselves refrain from torture, executing kidnapped American and British civilians, beheading children, and committing other war crimes, but we’re supposed to be better than that.
So what about those who broke the law? Should Bush and others be charged as criminals? I go back and forth on this, but see a lot of sense in today’s New York Times op-ed by Anthony Romero, head of the liberal and admirable American Civil Liberties Union. Romero once urged prosecution, but now sees that this won’t fly in today’s political climate. He urges instead a “formal” pardon rather than just a “tacit” pardon (a failure to prosecute), as the formal pardon emphasizes that the conduct was illegal. As Romero said:
That officials at the highest levels of government authorized and ordered torture is not in dispute. Mr. Bush issued a secret order authorizing the C.I.A. to build secret prisons overseas. The C.I.A. requested authority to torture prisoners in those “black sites.” The National Security Council approved the request. And the Justice Department drafted memos providing the brutal program with a veneer of legality.
. . . An explicit pardon would lay down a marker, signaling to those considering torture in the future that they could be prosecuted.
Mr. Obama could pardon George J. Tenet for authorizing torture at the C.I.A.’s black sites overseas, Donald H. Rumsfeld for authorizing the use of torture at the Guantánamo Bay prison, David S. Addington, John C. Yoo andJay S. Bybee for crafting the legal cover for torture, and George W. Bush andDick Cheney for overseeing it all.
While the idea of a pre-emptive pardon may seem novel, there is precedent. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers as a step toward unity and reconstruction after the Civil War. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon for the crimes of Watergate. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft resisters.
The spectacle of the president’s granting pardons to torturers still makes my stomach turn. But doing so may be the only way to ensure that the American government never tortures again. Pardons would make clear that crimes were committed; that the individuals who authorized and committed torture were indeed criminals; and that future architects and perpetrators of torture should beware. Prosecutions would be preferable, but pardons may be the only viable and lasting way to close the Pandora’s box of torture once and for all.
We can argue about that, but what is not in doubt is that this report must be issued—now. Americans and citizens of other countries need to know that our nation will not tolerate torture. And we need laws forbidding that explicitly, even with an executive order like the one Bush issued. (Good luck getting such laws through a Republican-controlled Congress!)
As always, the Republicans are showing their true colors (that of aposematic snakes) by opposing the issue of this report, and they continue to defend the use of torture during the G. W. Bush era. Ceiling Cat bless Senator Feinstein, who said this:
“We have to get this report out,” she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Sunday. “Anybody who reads this is going to never let this happen again.”
Let us hope so.
Criminals should be granted pardons in this case if – and only if – they ask for them.
Leave a warm spot open in The Hague for those who continue to insist they did no wrong.
I’m no international lawyer, but I don’t see how a presidential pardon for the purposes Romero makes clear would prevent later action in The Hague.
That’s right. Pardons would be an interesting way of making a statement, but crimes against humanity are an international concern. It’s inconceivable that charges would ever be brought in The Hague against U.S. officials – or against NATO, Russian or Chinese officials – for their actions. If the ICC can’t even get its investigations of the Taliban and Sadaam-era Iraq off the ground, there is no way they would even look at the actions of the U.S. or its allies against the thugs from those regimes.
I believe that the US has not signed up to the ICC,and has said its citizens will never be required to answer to it.
The UK has signed up. But I also understand that the ICC has jurisdiction only where a signatory state refuses, fails, or has no process to pursue allegations within its own system.
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be charged with treason and violating the constitution and be incarcerated for life after conviction.
I feel the same way. And not just because of the torture, though that would certainly be sufficient all by itself.
Obama’s administration has tried multiple times to get the release date delayed (and note that a successful delay until after January 2015 would probably kill it, because then the GOP-controlled Senate would just decide never to release it). And not just in some hazy, early stages – their last attempt at delay was last week. So the administration publicly speaks in favor of release, but their actual political actions run the other way. Remember also that the CIA is executive branch; all the redactions are his administration’s decision. Add to this the administration’s support for warrantless searches started in 2011, under Obama, see here, and I think its fair to say that Obama has been extremely bad in terms of 4th amendment rights and government secrecy. Some (but not all, and I’m ambivalent) would also cite Edward Snowden’s treatment as more evidence of how this administration pursues secrecy with a vengeance. After all, while he leaked classified material about legal foreign surveillance programs (a bad and damaging act), much of what he leaked was about the NSA pulling telecommunications records from Americans without a warrant – exactly the sort of indiscriminant searching the 4th amendment is supposed to prevent. Isn’t that the sort of whistleblowing the administration claimed it wanted to support? When your government boss does something illegal, turn them in? Well, the NSA was doing somethnig arguably illegal. He turned them in.
I think Obama has been a decent foreign policy president and I support the ACA and pretty much all democratic party social policies (like on abortion, support for welfare, education spending, and other poverty reducing programs). However, on the expansion of law enforcement powers and secrecy I think this administration has been extremely poor. I think, Jerry, that the real story of what you’re interpreting as the administration being open is more like that they fought tooth and nail against being open, and in the end lost to a Senate which got very ticked off when the executive branch literally, actively spied on them.
All of that. Plus the fact that Obama only had to issue one executive order to close Guantanamo and it would have been done. To say, in the face of completely unquestionable and unprecedented reliance on a daily basis on executive power by the President, that he dearly wanted to close it but that this pesky Congress blocked him would be, to put it as mildly as possible, extremely badly informed.
Excuse me, the Congress expressly included legislation prohibiting the administration from spending a dime to close Guantanamo.
They probably don’t agree with his orders not to pursue illegal immigrants, but that hasn’t stopped him. Nor any previous president.
When was the last time congress approved a budget?
You cannot simultaneously celebrate a president’s ability to work around congress and blame congress for things that are within the executive branch. CIA, NSA, the military, drones.
After six years, a president owns foreign policy, regardless of what went before.
Might I also mention my pet peeve. The war on drugs, which continues at the federal level. Where is the executive order to reconsider the scheduling of marijuana, or at least a scientific reassessment?
Property is still being confiscated on the basis of federal regulations. Where is even the lip service? This is a travesty that has led to the incarceration of a huge percentage of the black population and is directly responsible for the militarization of the police, and all that has followed that.
Where is the opposition to dumping military hardware on local police departments?
What is even worse is the disparity of sentencing for crack cocaine (urban black drug) vs powder cocaine (white business man drug).
I don’t have a major issue with Guantanamo staying open for the reason colnago says…though it would’ve been nice to see a bit more political capital being expended to close it.
But CIA and FBI policy is clearly within the President’s bailiwick, and when they torture (under Bush) and spy on Americans (under Obama) and even spy on Congress itself (Obama again), then he’s either ignorant of what his employess are doing and therefore not in control, or he’s complicit. My personal WAG on those three cases would be complicit, complicit, ignorant, but no matter what, Obama does not coming out smelling like a rose on the executive power, secrecy, and 4th amendment issues.
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Torture acquires a Mr. Pink truth: I can say I definitely didn’t do it because I know what I did or didn’t do.
Retributivists say they do not seek revenge and that their motives are for the greater good. People who believe this have little idea what humans are capable of doing both as torturer and torturee.
“People who believe this have little idea what humans are capable of doing both as torturer and torturee.”
How does a gov’t train people to be torturers? I’ve not served in the military, not sure I’d be a good soldier, but how do you train somebody to become inhuman, or at least inhumane?
What scars are the torturers bringing home, and what has the gov’t done to help them?
I’m stunned at what gov’ts think they can and should do.
There was a famous study where subjects were asked to press a button that would ostensibly cause pain to another person, and were told that this is needed for some useful purpose (research of something, I believe). Many subjects agreed and pressed the button – so no training is apparently needed.
I was in the army and although we never considered combat a real possibility/risk I can attest to how easily young boys with guns can be manipulated.
If you’ve been trained to above all, obey orders, and you add the potential social pressure then I can guarantee that a sufficient number of people will do whatever they think it takes.
Scary part is that I can’t exclude myself from being one of those people. I can imagine situations were I’d be so dehumanized that doing something horrible to another human being wouldn’t be out of the picture.
To paraphrase Jacob Bronowski:
“It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false.”
“We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”
Otherwise people will continue to act and justify acts without moral review of the consequences.
If I correctly recall, during the climax of an episode of his BBC-produced “The Ascent of Man,” he said this just before or just as he waded into a concentration camp pond and thrust his hand down into the ash remains of those who died and were cremated there.
The fact you’re capable of seeing that would perhaps make the difference if the situation arose.
I’d hope to be long gone before things would get that f*cked up.
And pretty damn lucky never to have been put in such a situation.
I do not envy veterans of any conflict
Me either. Even without PTSD, the effect of war on the mind must be so very difficult to handle. I, of course, can’t really imagine it myself, but it must be so hard.
Aye, it’s hell when there’s just no escape no matter where you go and what you do.
Better not to dwell on that. 🙂
I can perfectly well see myself doing some truly horrible things if I was convinced of the need and effectiveness of the horrible things. That “if” is very important though. I really cannot conceive of how, short of some pretty powerful hypnosis and/ or drugs, I could be so convinced.
Me too. I don’t have kids, but I could easily imagine myself doing something beyond awful to a person that had seriously harmed them.
Especially if it could prevent further harm coming to them.
I shared this before, but I will share it again as it’s pertinent to the torture subject. There was a post in a private mommy group last year showing a picture of a prisoner in a orange jumpsuit standing outside the medic office. The area covering his rear was covered in blood and dripping down his legs. He had been repeatedly raped, stitched up, raped again. For weeks. Hard to not feel a pang of sympathy right? Until I learned why he was in there. This guy was a blackbelt in martial arts who raped and beat his 2 yr old toddler son to death. However much pain this man received is NOTHING compared to what he put his baby through. I am glad that I live in a society where institutional torture and rape is considered beneath us ( Or at least it was on the surface)as we strive to rise above our vigilante instincts. Because I have zero fucking sympathy for the likes of him. The primal mommy part of me thought “Good. I hope it hurts. I hope he gets raped every day for the rest of his life.” Maybe that makes me a monster too. My mind can justify torture to save a child. Or children. Or a village. Or a country. But that is the “clean” good guys vs bad guys superhero fantasy. We are humans with biases and prejudices and horrible memories and torture as a military strategy can not possibly be effective, as the report admits.
I agree. As a strategy or policy it is repulsive.
But, imo, it’s justifiable depending on how f’ucked up a situation it is.
For example, if that person knew where my kids were and I knew they would be seriously harmed unless that person spoke, then ffs, it’s only human.
I would do whatever I thought it would take.
That last part sounds awfully like applying intellect to what (many people believe) should be an act of pure, unadulterated emotiion.
Ummm … oh yes, the “Gimli Glider.” Damned near turned into a full scale aviation disaster (ohh, new toy, odd results from keyboard software) disaster because IIRC pounds of fuel were loaded instead of kilogrammes. Cue a large passenger plane gliding into a retired airfield.
By all accounts, a cloth-touching event.
But if you apply intellect to the questions raised you’d possibly leave some of the pilots and ground crew involved alive, instead of just killing everyone involved and nuking the airports (from orbit). That sort of intellection about threats to children erves a rope around the neck and an Air Fandango.
Some people seem to think that using brain cells in matters involving child safety is a sin. I don’t think so. Where’s the lynching tree? I think I’ll be there for a dance soon.
I’ve been told of a situation where the maternal grandfather killed his son-in-law (separated or divorced from his wife) because the latter had been sexually abusing his own children, having so killed because a judge had refused to issue a restraining order against and/or revoke joint custody of the son-in-law.
The grandfather went to the penitentiary for ten years. One gathers that he thought it not too great a price to pay.
Milgram Experiment.
Yes, that’s the one, thanks.
“What scars are the torturers bringing home, and what has the gov’t done to help them?”
Fuck ’em. Their scars are as nothing compared with those of their victims.
But it might be that the torturers are themselves *also* victims: “do this or else” type orders can do that. (Particularly if a recruit and poor.) This doesn’t completely exonerate them, but it should give pause at the lover levels.
Not to mention that their own life might depend on it.
I suspect that most of the commentators on this blo^H^H^Hwebsite “wouldn’t make good soldiers”. Too questioning.
I’m told that in the days of conscription (“National Service”), the professional soldiers used to hate the amount of time they had to spend on training the revolving door of conscripts of varying degrees of willingness, bolshiness and stupidity, and it became a huge drain on morale and material of the Forces.
I agree that the release of this report is a good thing, but also I agree with Eric that President Obama does not deserve a great deal of credit – the fact of the matter is that his administration did try to delay the release. In my opinion, it is Sen. Feinstein who deserves most of the credit; she is the true patriot in all of this.
She’s also not so great in this. I think eric in an earlier comment (#3) nailed it. The senate (and her in particular) became pissed only when they found out the NSC was spying on THEM.
oops, “NSC” ->”NSA”
Gerson’s editorial in the WaPo suggests a possible motive for Feinstein:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-releasing-the-feinstein-report-in-the-middle-of-a-war-would-be-reckless/2014/12/08/e1dd1268-7f15-11e4-8882-03cf08410beb_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
That may be reaching…
Oh, so the US has legally declared war on someone, then?
Cuba? Grenada? Some world power like that?
Well, that’s a whole ‘nother topic…
We’ve been technically war-free since…what…Korea?
No, wait; Korea was a famous not-war.
In case you think I’m disagreeing with you on major policy points, I’m not. I agree with all three points you make above. I’d actually go further on your first point – we needed the report months ago, when the Congress actually had a chance to respond to it and pass laws to fix the problems. Now it won’t do any good (because I agree with your third point on that). And we needed it without the CIA getting to chop it up and redact it as severely as they did, which the administration could’ve have prevented, but didn’t. And finally, yes I am in full agreement that we need laws preventing torture. While we’re at it, how about the administration repair some of the damage that’s been done to the 4th admendment, by it and by the prior administration, so that not the FBI, nor NSA, nor any other executive branch agency can search or seize nonpublic data on Americans without a warrant. Heck, he could do that with an executive order, since those agencies work for him. But he won’t, because he wants them to have those powers.
I think you are exactly right in all of your above comments. That’s not to say that Obama is worse than Bush; there would probably never have been a report on torture under Bush or his compadres. But Obama has consistently betrayed the people who voted for him and lied straight-faced when he proclaimed his administration would be the most transparent in history and would protect and encourage whistleblowers. What a farce.
I think we probably already have laws against torture; what we need to do now is to OBEY them!
Obama’s been a major disappointment on national security, as mentioned above. And while DiFi may be right on releasing the summary of the torture report, I wonder how much of her ire is because the CIA was spying on the committee staff – she also has been a major supporter of the NSA spying programs. What is needed is for a senator to just read the whole report into the Congressional Record. I don’t mind if they redact the names of lower level employees, or the names of those in the “host countries” of the black sites who facilitated their use – that’s a problem for those countries to solve; but let’s have the whole country see what has been done in its name and perhaps, just perhaps, there will be meaningful changes.
One push to get the report released was that senator Mark Udall from Colorado said if it wan’t released, he would read it into the Congressional Record. Though I think it was the redacted version, not the whole report which is over 6,000 pages long. Too bad Udall was defeated in the last election. I agree with you that a senator should still read it into the record though.
once the bush admin has been charged with war crimes then they can be pardoned
I’m asking this as a student, a learner: Ford pardoned Nixon, who was never charged with anything, eh? Ergo, Obama can similarly pardon someone (regardless of whether he wants to be pardoned, and regardless of whether he agrees that he’s done anything pardonable). Or not?
I hope, perhaps unrealistically, that this will embarrass enough people in Washington to finally close Guantanamo — to at least get this sordid story into our history. I expect this is one of Obamas’ ulterior motives in having this report released.
It won’t, because many believe the torture was justified and provided useful intelligence. It didn’t of course, but those who claim it did will continue to be believed.
This report has to come out if America is ever going to reclaim its credibility as a great democracy. As soon as it allowed torture it lost the moral high ground. It has to draw a line under that episode.
Being a very small country, NZ didn’t have a large presence in Afghanistan, but our SAS was particularly effective and worked closely with elite American troops. However there was a major problem – our soldiers captured many insurgents, but didn’t have the facilities to imprison them. They were supposed to hand them to the Americans but refused because of the likelihood they would be tortured. Eventually there was a work around where those NZ captured were transferred to a non-American base.
If America wants to hold the moral high ground and promote democracy around the world it has to eschew things like torture, or even any unnecessary violence. Further, torturing enemies makes them feel justified in doing the same to you. Around the same time a NZer and an American (journalists) were kidnapped together in the Middle East. When the kidnappers found out one was a NZer, they decided to kill only the American. Thankfully both were released in the end, but it shows the difference a country’s reputation makes.
“It won’t, because many believe the torture was justified and provided useful intelligence.”
I wish that people were so principled. I have a dimmer view of this. There might be a few people who support torture if and only if it provides useful intelligence. Such an animal probably exists. I think most people who support the torture program, though, don’t actually give a damn if it worked or not because they don’t care what anyone does to ‘terrorists’. For them, inflicting suffering on our enemies, and whatever collateral we happen to scoop up with them, is justification enough.
So, with two UK passports, I’m stuffed?
I really should get that dual Irish citizenship sorted out.
Actually, considering the increasing threat from UKIP and other branches of the UK Nazi Party, I think I need to get the citizenship backup in place regardless of the odds of waking up in Somalia.
One of my distant relatives in Germany was a POW during WWII. Since he was young and it was obvious he was a conscript, the Americans who captured him tried to be nice to him – bringing cigarettes and such. When some of the first revelations of torture and mistreatment came out in the current situations, he was appalled and wondered what had happened to the country who knew that “enemy” comes in degrees and that one can still give someone their dignity. I realize he probably didn’t see what happened elsewhere in WWII, never mind pay attention to Korea or Vietnam, but …
I *think* you’lve left out a “moved to the US” n between the “fortress Europa” and “recent” legs of your anecdote.
And on second reading (am I a subversive?) … I’m not so sure.
I suspect that your anecdote relates mre to the rise of absolutist propaganda masqueradng as reportage. Everyone who has dealt with other cultures knows that people come in different sizes, shapes, colours, textures, and opinions. But a significant set of forces in several countries (US, U K Russia, …) don’t like that knowledge and would prefer a “foreign = bad” kneeee jerk reaction, and no-one able to refute the State Opinion.
Nope, the distant relative still (or did – I think my mother said he died recently) lives in Germany.
And I think you’re right about the propaganda, in a way – I suspect that many German POWs were *not* treated so well. (Chomsky mentions some that were held, strangely, near his high school or the like, who seemed in sorry state – not the least of which is that they were on “public display” – shades of “gitmo”.)
Actually, thinking about “Uncle Richard” – he arrived in Britain as a POW, I assume from the Western Front, and eventually took up with a “Land Girl” who he met when he was doing (non-compulsory, it just relieved the tedium of being a POW) agricultural work. He stayed on in Britain instead of going back to what became East Germany. He didn’t get to return home to visit his remaining family until the late 1970s.
“What an odious and reprehensible group the GOP is.”
Isn’t that being a little mean to odious and reprehensible groups of people by comparison?
Jerry’s comparison involving snakes was also very mean and unfair. (To venomous reptiles, of course.)
Well, I hate to be the party-pooper here, but maybe it’ll be good to hear a dissenting opinion. I’m from the UK, so this isn’t directly relevant to me, but I have to say that I’m entirely unmoved by the likelihood that some Islamic extremists may have been given a bit of rough treatment. I consider these people to be the mortal enemies of the western world, including my own country, and I really don’t care what’s done to them. If a spell on the waterboard makes them sing like canaries, then it’s fine with me. It’s a war, and we should be fighting to win it, using whatever methods are necessary or expedient.
I do agree that Guantanamo should have been closed years ago – after the execution of the remaining inmates. Hopefully in future conflicts taking of prisoners will be kept to a necessary minimum, and the problem won’t arise again.
I predict this will not be a popular opinion, but so be it.
War crimes? What a ridiculous concept, eh?
Hey pal, the US executed Japanese officials after the end of WWII for waterboarding POWs.
Okay, but how do you know that every person tortured was indeed a dnagerous extremist?
Just based on CNN’s ticker feed, the report mentions 28 people who were tortured who were both innocent, and would not even have met regular army or civilian standards for being detained, let alone harshly questioned.
But we knew that from Guantamamo, too, where the Uighurs spent years (longer than a decades) in prison for the crime of being unwanted immigrants, fingered by corrupt locals as terrorists just to get rid of them.
Dave, you’re thinking of a system like what you might see in a TV drama: good people relying on solid evidence, with known suspicious persons in custudy, trying to stop a bomb going off in the next few minutes. The real system seems to be more like someone gave Joe Arpaio a 00 license to kill, planted him in San Diego, and told him to be sure he ‘only’ kills the illegal hispanics. Indiscriminate mayhem ensues…and the people who did it feign surprise.
Exactly. The West is supposed to hold the moral high ground, and not only because of potential blowback to our soldiers and agents. The rights of evil people are not the primary reason for the war crimes convention, it’s the rights of the innocent or otherwise falsely-charged that demand restraint.
Lawful behavior by superpowers and their allies does not guarantee other nations will follow the law, but unlawful behavior on our part totally undermines the legitimacy of the convention.
I’m having trouble understanding this viewpoint. We know these methods aren’t expedient, and don’t provide actionable intelligence.
Hitchens wrote eloquently – as usual – on this, way back in 2001:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/14/afghanistan.terrorism2
I wish that what Hitch said was 100% true.
There is an implicit assumption in the training of UK forces ( the ones I know the best) that someone captured WILL talk under duress ( it is known as “conduct under capture”) and, special forces in particular, are only given as little information as possible in the assumption that even the toughest SAS soldier can only hold out for 24 hours or so if violence is used to make them talk.
Update. I also find torture morally repugnant and I also believe that we are lowering ourselves to the level of the terrorists if we use it.
I just want to clarify that.
From the report:
The operative word there is “imminent”. It does not say that no intelligence was gained.
I am not under any circumstances ( as I said I find it morally repugnant ) justifying what happened but I am pointing out that the UK military does believe that someone will provide useful intelligence to an enemy if torture is used.
What has happened, though, irrespective of whether any useful information had been gained, is that constraints that might have been present on groups such as ISIL have been removed.
“but I have to say that I’m entirely unmoved by the likelihood that some Islamic extremists may have been given a bit of rough treatment. I consider these people to be the mortal enemies of the western world, including my own country, and I really don’t care what’s done to them.”
Why you’re wrong: This isn’t about their morality, it’s about our morality. You don’t judge someone by how they are treated, but by how they treat others. Torture is immoral.
“If a spell on the waterboard makes them sing like canaries”
It doesn’t even matter if torture works or not*, we shouldn’t do it because its immoral.
* It doesn’t. They will sing like canaries whether their song is true or not.
And many were innocent!!!
You win more hearts and minds by being fair than by violence.
I’m from the UK too, and I did not approve this message from Dave.
That’s all right, nobody approves of Dave. I think we should thank him for displaying the mindset that promotes places like Guantanamo (and gets Al Quaeda more recruits).
The evidence (an important word around here) from the report is that it doesn’t make them sing true songs.
In the light of that evidence, the rest of your statement ceases to have any relevance.
Taking and processing prisoners is a considerable drain on the resources of any army that is attempting to follow the Geneva Conventions. So, should we just shoot them? Gas, maybe? Or hanging – you can re-use the rope. A garotte, if you don’t have a convenient tree; crane or artillery piece?
By all accounts, including the US Senate report in question, torture does not produce actionable, reliable intelligence.
It’s not really about sympathy for extremists it’s about due process accountability for violating US law and producing reliable intelligence which torture does no do.
I agree that islamic extremism is a legitimate threat to the western world. I do not agree that torture is an effective technique in combating it.
But I commend you fro expressing that opinion. Even though I disagree, it takes guts to be honest in a discussion forum when you know you’re in possession of an unpopular opinion.
“That violence will happen, and my response is this: too bad, for we brought this on ourselves by violating the law.”
except no one involved in the breaking of the law will suffer, but then ‘we’ will replace ‘we’ with ‘they’ and ‘violating the law’ with ‘attacking the U.S.’ or ‘our troops’, or ‘our interests’ and ‘we’ and ‘they’ will be able to continue on with this forever, which really is “too bad”
I also would say good job to Feinstein for finally getting this out in the open air so more people get to know about this.
I see there are couple comments above that look like they may have come from Dick Cheney and that is to be expected. The total harm done to the United States by George and Dick will not all be known for a long time. They will eventually take their place in History somewhere below Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan as some of the worst we have had at the top.
Just to throw in another thought – the CIA is something we should have discarded long ago. The damage they do is far worst than any good.
I am not so sure the CIA should be discarded, if by that you mean we don’t need any of the capabilities that such organizations have. Control and accountability of it, and its mandate, sure does need a major overhaul though. And some of its capabilities undoubtedly should be discarded.
Funny how all of that seems to be the case with our governmental entities at nearly every level, federal, state, etc., these days.
Well, Harry Truman stated in one of his memoirs that setting up the CIA was one of his biggest mistakes as president,.
I’ve been saying this for a long time.
Bush II:
Two bad wars (best way yo get re-elected!)
Torture, generally wiping his behind on the Constitution
Drives the economy into the ditch with the foot to the floor
Acts like a moron on the international scene
Tries to privatize Social Security
Obama:
Presides over the economy righting itself
Gets the US out of two bad wars
Almost gets universal healthcare
Acts presidential
Acknowledges issues such as income inequality, immigration
Comes out in favor of same-sex marriage
Oh yeah, we’d be better off with a Romney or McCain /sarcasm.
If Rmoney or McCain had been elected, we would still have thousands of boots on the ground in Iraq, in addition to more in Syria. I guess we will never learn from the debacle that was Vietnam.
Indeed. And we’d be in the 6th year of The Great Depression II (the Sequel).
The credit system (the life blood of the economy, like it or not) was virtually totally frozen in late 2008. If Congress and then-President Bush II hadn’t stepped in, we would certainly have seen another great depression. Check out a plot of monthly job-losses for 2008-2009. Things were in free-fall.
Well if we don’t get some real leaders elected (I’m thinking Bernie Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren) the Sequel will inevitably happen. Our financial institutions are corrupt and untenable…just like our political institutions. sigh.
I’ve been thinking that a real leader would be Jon Stewart. He is more kinowlegable and more intelligent than any current politician. He also calls out bullshit.
Next: Al Franken
Notice a trend here? 🙂
Don’t forget Colbert!!!
I like your thinking on this.
Alas, in reality you would have to also have sizable percentages of the House & Senate taken by intelligent, decent people as well, to be able to start really straightening things out. Adding considerably to the improbability of it all. If it happens it will be a long, tough slog through ripe sewage.
Please don’t for a minute think I am patronizing you. I’m just complaining that reality won’t let my dreams come true.
Don’t give up the dream, man! 🙂
I hear you, and agree with the slog, but the trip begins with the first step.
One could be quite reasonably sure that those boots on the ground would never be on Romney offspring feet.
Is it that particular agency with which you have an issue or do you not think the United states should engage in covert intelligence gathering?
I suspect the fallout isn’t a result of our breaking the law, it’s for engaging in this activity, law or no law.
Which I’m sure is what Jerry is saying.
A couple of things.
First, while we absolutely SHOULD have behaved better a nation, the issues in the Middle East are only mildly affected by those actions.
Do you think for one minute that ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood, etc would be behaving any differently if that torture had not occurred? No, torture is a way of action for them to attain their political aims and setting a good example would not change that.
I doubt ANY criminal charges will ever come of this. Both parties are painfully aware of what that precedent would do, and neither side wants that precedent. There will be a lot of huffing and puffing, perhaps some low level individual will get a show trial, but there is no way the Dems would dare actually bring charges. They know what happens next election switch.
Forgive me for sounding naive, but how does premptively pardoning Bush & Co. send any message other than, ‘if you are in the political elite and you break the law, you can get away with it’?
The message I received when Ford pardoned Nixon was that, ‘Don’t worry, your friends in high places will protect you, the public won’t even get to find out everything you did’.
My Canadian perspective on U.S. politics is that there is a significant amount of corruption, and a strong tendency to avoid holding political or economic executives responsible for their illegal actions. (eg. How many senior banking executives were prosecuted for tanking the world economy?).
If you want to send a message that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated, then you actually have to hold people accountable for their actions. So if Bush & Co. made illegal orders, they should be prosecuted for it, not given a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.
My thoughts exactly. You beat me to it.
+1
The problem is partisan politics could (and would) swing the other way. Instead of corrupt pardons, you would have corrupt indictments every time the other party took power. Elected officials and appointees(of the outgoing party) being thrown in jail every two- or four- years, on trumped up charges.
We already see some evidence of this happening. I think everyone agrees Nixon’s impeachment was deserved. Clinton’s…not so much. At least there is disagreement across the poltical spectrum on that one. Now the GOP is talking about impeaching Obama, supreme court Justices, pretty much anyone they don’t like. Now, the good news is they probably won’t actually do it, because it will be seen as absurd. But the only thing holding them back is the fact that the court system still retains a semblance of political impartiality. If sitting Democrat presidents start indicting previous GOP presidents on war crimes, all bets are off, and I’d bet we’d see impeachments and retaliatory criminal prosecutions every single election cycle.
This is basically right.
Treason (with good reason) is a very high bar. Unless there is a very large popular support, like it or not, there is a lot of latitude for the president. (Torture is no prohibited in the Constitution). International rules of war are not addressed in the Constitution
After the fact crimes, especially when they are perceived by a substantial component of the population as retaliatory, can become potentially destabilizing as each party has strong incentive to become more and more extreme to hold power.
As much as I dislike our two large parties, there is a degree of restraint. They yell and scream, but there are limits. Pushed too far and this system could degenerate into coups and counter coups.
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law<; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This appears to forbid it to me.
Yes, the 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments:
The US Constitution is binding on US officials and protects persons, not (just) US Citizens.
Not to mention that fact that we should always strive to hold the high moral ground, not the gutter.
“(Torture is no prohibited in the Constitution).”
Well, it ought to be, whut with all our bloviating about our “Amuricun Values” and our “Amuricun Ecksepshunulism.”
+ 3
“Forgive me for sounding naive, but how does premptively pardoning Bush & Co. send any message other than, ‘if you are in the political elite and you break the law, you can get away with it’?”
It doesn’t it sends exactly that message. But heads of state are reluctant to embrace any rule or law which may eventually win them an all expenses paid trip to the Hague.
You are absolutely right, but Bush & Co. won’t even get a slap ion the wrist and be told not to do it again.
‘“We have to get this report out,” she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Sunday. “Anybody who reads this is going to never let this happen again.”’
Sadly optimistic. History says otherwise.
Well, she’s got history on her side: Dutch Tulip Mania ended financial bubbles; the Neuremburg Trials totally prevented future genocide; and the Vietnam debacle kept the U.S. from engaging wars-of-choice in Asia.
My fear is that the whole torture episode will be deconstructed as an object lesson in how not to get bad publicity for criminal government action. That’s not an argument against releasing the report, just against Senator Feinsteins naïve optimism. She’s way too smart to actually believe what she said. A carefully placed “I hope” or “should prevent” would have made the statement more plausible.
We would never try to convict anyone for corruption or driving the economy into the ditch. Heaven forbid.
However, if you have a little sex in the white house we will impeach in a heart beat.
Sexual predation by employers is a serious issue, which is why it was not the grounds for impeachment.
Jut to add, I sleep better knowing Martha Stewart spent a year in jail for making dumb investment decisions. Don’t tell me the government doesn’t have priorities!
Reblogged this on My WordPress Notepad.
I strongly recommend that all of you read Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side which tells the story (in a very enjoyable (if I can use that word in this context) and readable way) of how the Shrub admin. fell into this black pit.
Very enlightening. And Damning of Bush, Cheney, and two big lawyers at Defense and/or Justice who pushed the legal veneer to a thinness that defies understanding. David Addington and John Yoo.
I read “500 Days”. Don’t remember the author. Also “enjoyable” and absolutely horrifying. The scene where Bush “explains” to Chirac that the whole thing is about Gog and Magog is unbelievably scary. Chirac didn’t know what the hell Bush was talking about. IIRC, the French seriously wondered if Bush had gone round the bend.
Yeah, Chirac had to ask his aides what the hell Bush was on about.
“seriously wondered” – aloud they may have wondered, but in private I’m sure they had no doubt.
Say what you will about President Obama—and some here say he’s the worst President ever
Not even close. Consider George W. Bush, James Earl Carter, Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan, Millard Filmore just to name a few who are worse by any definition.
Jimmy Carter was the only decent human being to hold that office since I have been alive.
I agree; but he was not successful as a President.
But also think on Gerald Ford. He was a decent guy.
I personally think Obama and Clinton and Bush I were decent. Not great; but decent.
I wonder if Carter would have been more “successful” as President if he had employed what more than a few senators and representatives have termed “The Johnson Treatment.”
I gather that LBJ surely was one of the more efficient Presidents; he would have staff meetings while seated on the toilet.
Say what you may about Carter, but he did broker the Camp David peace deal between Egypt and Israel and negotiated the treaty that turned the Panama Canal back over to Panama.
He also managed to not send the troops off to invade someone. No small task among presidencies.
Excuse me, peanut brain did nothing of the sort. He bribed the two sides into behaving themselves, bribes which are still being paid some 34 years later.
Since leaving office, he has turned into a world class Israel basher, rivaling Max Blumenthal, Glenn Greenwald, and Noam Chomsky. His hatred for Israel is visceral.
Never understood the unyielding worship of Israel.
Another voice protesting your inclusion of Carter in that group.
Same here. Though I am open to specific, positive rational reasoning and documentation in support of the claim.
Inclusion of Carter in this list is absurd. His worst quality is political ineffectiveness. He probably was the best president in my lifetime when it came to avoiding war – didn’t start a war, didn’t bomb anyone, and made more progress (sadly, incomplete and impermanent) towards middle-eastern peace than any president before or since. All of his economic problems were inherited, and in appointing Paul Volcker to head the Fed, he is actually the president whose actions led to controlling inflation – not Reagan. Reagan was a very effective politician, but he was effective in changing the course of the country in mostly terrible ways – his presidency did far more lasting damage to the country than Carter’s.
He also made it a condition of foreign military aid that the recipient country had to respect human rights. This was especially important to Central America and helped change our reputation for aiding brutal right-wing dictators around the world. That’s the America that I loved, the America that is really worth loving. Alas, Reagan undid all that. Haven’t felt patriotic since then….
Carter was also the most sincere environmentalist who held that office since I have been alive.
I absolutely agree with y’all (except colnago, obviously!) about Jimmy Carter. A thoroughly decent person, I think. The amazing thing is that he ever made it to Washington. [/cynicism]
“Inclusion of Carter in this list is absurd. His worst quality is political ineffectiveness. . . . Reagan was a very effective politician . . . .”
Yes, Reagan was a better human herd manager than Carter.
Let me add that Ronald Reagan is responsible for setting the Republican party in direction it is still going. While decrying “class war”, Reagan was a quintessential class warrior. The theocratization of the GOP coalesced into the cancer that afflicts the GOP and the country during the Reagan administration.
Well, I don’t think Reagan was, exactly. He was the poster-boy, for sure; and also an enabler.
For the real people behind the shift in the GOP, look to: W. F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Milton Friedman, the American Enterprise Inst., The Heritage Foundation, Brookings Institution, etc.
The Conservatives in the US mounted a complete campaign to reconquer following: The New Deal (especially) and the legal changes that happened in the 1960s, and also especially the cultural shift in the 1960s.
The mega-church goin’, Reagan-votin’, neo cons of the 1908s and beyond were the result.
My Dad was a founding member of the Minnesota Conservative Union, back in the early 1970s. They built this stuff from the ground up.
I recently spoke to one of those old MCU people (my Dad made me do work for them — helping with newletters and crap like that – hated it, became a liberal as soon as I became fully aware of things) and she looked me right in the eye and said, “Obama is the devil!” And she meant it!
Wing nuts one and all.
While this is current and fresh in everyone’s memory — I would highly recommend a book,
The Black Banner by Ail Soufan for some first hand knowledge of what this is about.
‘some here say he’s the worst president ever’ Outside of the US of A, and of course some areas in Islamic Middle East, I think he’s generally considered the best president since Rooseveldt, Teddy that is. (and, despite his shortcomings, I’d personally agree with that assessment).
George W should actually stand trial: if innocent he can clear his name, if guilty he should spend his time in the dungeons, immo.
FDR would be my vote for the best president since Teddy Roosevelt. Although Obama has had extraordinary opposition, I recognize that he has tried hard to be a good president.
Yes, FDR.
My list, in order is:
Lincoln
Washington
FDR
TR
Jefferson
….
Seems I have read somewhere that TR was (if did not head) the committee selecting the images to be sculpted on Mount Rushmore.
Believe he also called Thomas Paine “a filthy little atheist.”
Given the horrors the report relates (such as prisoners with broken legs forced to stand in “stress-inducing positions”, and that numerous clearly innocent people were tortured), as well as the fact that no actionable intelligence was acquired, “ticking time bomb” scenario or no, I wonder whether Sam Harris will reconsider his position?
And I wonder if people will reconsider their position on Sam Harris? This report is the logical, inevitable conclusion of his views.
I was going to post about Harris as well. No doubt he will have something to say about this. I hope.
I had re-reviewed Sam Harris’ articles on torture because of the release of this report, and so I knew this would come up.
His advocacy for torture under certain circumstances is pretty convoluted, and b/c of that it has been vulnerable for distortion. Unless I missed something, I think he did say that torture was ok, even if that meant that innocent people were tortured on some occasion. That part of his argument is the most problematical one, but I do not think I can summarize it in a single paragraph.
So I too would like to learn what he says about this report.
I think you may have that wrong. His argument presumes a known terrorist.
But I also hope that he addresses the report.
He was mainly contrasting people’s “meh” attitude about “collateral damage” due to conventional bombing, missiles, etc. (killing, maiming, making homeless large numbers of people) in the course of war, versus making a single (known) terrorist uncomfortable (maybe very uncomfortable) for a limited period of time.
His link on these subjects is here:
Sam Harris on controversial issues
His basic point is: Torture should remain illegal but may be permissible in certain very well defined circumstance. (Most of his critics ignore nearly every word in the sentence I just wrote, except for “torture” and “permissible”.)
Unless you can rule out torture in every conceivable case, then you are not actually disagreeing with him in principle.
Even the Stanford Univ. Philosophy Dept. apparently agrees with him:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/
Oh, that’s easy.
Evidence that torture has ever been the most effective option available is every bit as scarce as the evidence for the gods, and the evidence that torture has always caused far more harm than even any hypothetical good it might have been hoped to have caused is as common as evidence that gravity at the Earth’s surface is roughly 10 m/s/s.
That should make any rational person a 6.9 on the Dawkins scale for torture, at which point arguing that we should hold out for the possibility of that remaining 0.1 is as silly as arguing that we should also consider the effectiveness of farting in the general direction of invading armies.
b&
Ben,
I fully agree that the torture performed under the Shrub Admin. was wrong then and wrong now (as outlined in “the report” and probably more that isn’t). Just as the Iraq invasion was wrong. (It really says something (gawdawful) about the middle east that leaving Saddam in power was a preferable option.)
It’s highly questionable, at the very least, that anything useful came from these actions. And it’s very clear that much bad came from them. We (USians) got a black eye from this, and should have. We should be ashamed of this.
However, I am not convinced that torture can never be justified.
Yes, this torture (and it was torture, let no one question that, “enhanced interrogation” my ass) was unjustified. As was the “disappearing” people and moving about for torture by third parties and the whole rest of the package.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is not all by Stanford staff; it is just hosted there and edited by one of their faculty. According to that article, it was written by a Australian.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, rather.
I think Harris’ position is quite clear: torture should *always* be illegal, even if in some hypothetical ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario it could be argued to be ethically justified.
I do not see how the events the report refers to could possibly be construed as resulting from Harris’ stance.
1 – no ‘ticking time bomb’,
2 – even if, illegal, hence amenable to prosecution.
I do not see at all why our position on Harris would need reconsideration.
The baffling thing to me about the ticking time bomb scenario is that, if legitimate, it is unlikely to matter if torture is legal or not. Harris is a smart guy, surely he realizes this. If some government agent with the terrorist in-the-know in hand really knew that and a hidden nuke was going going off in Manhattan in a few hours, or a day, or whatever, who really believes they would say, “We can prevent this horrific unprecedented tragedy except for those pesky laws against being harsh to detainees?”. In any situation clear enough to begin to fit some kind of “ticking time bomb” justification of torture, no one would care what the law was. Hell, I have the impression we can barely restrain a lot of yahoos when nothing is on the line. And if someone did save Manhattan in this way, no prosecutor would ever bring charges, no jury would convict if charges were brought, and no president or governor would fail to pardon if convicted. The law provides very little risk to anyone who wants to try to use torture to protect the public from a legitimate “ticking time bomb” scenario.
The only argument for legally sanctioning torture must, therefore, depend on the “ticking time bomb” situations not being the actual scenario where torture is used. It must depend on us not really knowing who has the information we need, or whether there is an “imminent” threat of sufficient magnitude. Any argument for legal sanction of torture must, perforce, be an argument for the routine use of torture, completly contra the “ticking time bomb” it’s sold as, because that scenario is already covered by human nature.
Thought provoking, and I seem to agree with you.
An element universally overlooked in the “Ticking Time Bomb Scenario” is that anybody competent enough to pull off a major attack in the first place is competent enough to proof it against being foiled by torture. Everything would be compartmentalized such that the person who armed the bomb wouldn’t know where it was going, the person delivering the bomb wouldn’t know it was a bomb, and so on. Even the mastermind wouldn’t know the exact location, and might not even be aware which city was actually the chosen target.
And anybody who would be “persuaded” by torture would be lucky to even manage something as big as what Timothy McVeigh pulled off. That sort of thing is an awful tragedy, sure, but nowhere near worth turning our ostensible protectors into the exact type of sick fucks they’re supposed to be protecting us against.
Who needs terrorists when the torture cops’ll fuck you up just as bad, if not worse?
b&
Exactly.
The whole Harris et. al. pretense on this is that they just wanting a rational discussion about the ethics of torture, but the discussion I’ve seen is based on a cartoon view of how the real world works. The argument for torture I see presented is full of ideal pulleys and massless rope and frictionless surfaces. It’s full of pure hearted government agents rationally applying only the most ethically balanced amounts of human suffering to just the tiniest number of definitely guilty subjects who for sure can tell us what we desperately need to know to save hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives. There are no sadistic bastards in this story, mission creep, incompetence, or spreading moral corruption.
In other words, it’s a fairy tale, and a comedy to see this fairy tale bandied under the banner of “rational discussion”.
Now I agree with you & Ben…
Harris says that torture should be illegal in all cases without exception. He’s making a moral argument which applies only to highly idealized circumstances, not a legal argument.
I think the question still stands: What does Harris think about the morality of what the US did? And does he think that sanctioning torture in the limited sense he does gives cover to the far more extensive use reported?
That last question is critical. The torturers are objecting that they’re blameless because bombs were ticking and they used the torture to stop the ticking. Sam’s only recourse if he wishes to keep torture on the table is to object that, yes, torture is justified in these types of cases but the torturers are lying about these actual cases fitting the type.
If Sam could identify but a single example of an actual (not hypothetical) real-world case where torture was justifiable, used “responsibly,” and the results were effective and worth the hideous cost of torture, I’d have more sympathy for his position (though that still wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to sway me to his position). But, as we see here once again in the actual real world, the set of those who could hypothetically be trusted to make such judgements about torture would never even think to use it, and the set of those who would use torture can’t even theoretically be trusted to make good judgements about when to use it.
And that’s all granting the hypothetical that it’d even work in the first place, which, again, we have hard empirical evidence on the scale of what the LHC produces that it doesn’t work, period. People who would reveal secrets with torture would reveal them without, and once the torture begins the only responses are whatever the victim thinks the torturer wants to hear, anyway. Scenarios in which torture would produce actionable information are at least as scarce as magnetic monopoles, and every actual observance of torture is that it’s been ineffective at the goals claimed for PR purposes and has instead brutalized everybody even tangentially involved.
b&
I keep going back and forth on this because torture or interrogation is a grey area on a continuum to me.
I hope most of us would agree that physical torture is wrong and by many accounts useless.
But what in those situations where there’s a fine line between interrogation/ mental torture?
How do we decide how much manipulation is acceptable?
A guy like Breivik, for example, how far should we go to make him realize ( if possible ) the severity of his crimes and would it be torture to manipulate him to the extent that he would break down?
I guess I’m just having a hard time looking at it as a right/wrong issue.
In those situations, you’ve already stepped over the line — at least, in terms of what is and isn’t actually effective, if that’s all you care about.
Being captured (an epic fail to begin with and an huge blow to the ego) and kept in jail is already far more than enough of a “stressful situation,” especially when you add on the possibility of trial, conviction, and punishment. Just give the poor schmuck a cup of coffee and lay the bare reality of the situation on the table. In almost all cases, that’s plenty. In almost all remaining cases, remind the schmuck about the poor defenseless women and children he’s presumably about to kill. And the last remaining fraction of a percent? Even torture wouldn’t do any good.
Torture, or even “stressful interrogation,” just hurts your own cause. The people you’re torturing are already set to think that you’re the modern equivalent of the Nazis; acting the part isn’t going to win them to your cause. But if you show them that they’ve been fed a bunch of bullshit from their handlers, and that we really are the ones on the side of justice…suddenly their whole worldview comes crashing down.
And that’s why we so desperately need to prosecute our own for their heinous crimes against humanity.
But, in not doing so, all we really do is provide all the more evidence that, as with all other empires, all we really care about is Orwell’s perpetual boot to the face.
b&
I assume we’re both talking about situations where there’s actually some potential information to be obtained, but nonetheless yes
I would imagine so in the vast majority of cases.
But do we know that torture never have saved any lives or do we simply not know of the cases where it did?
And how to decide how many soldiers/civilians to potentially sacrifice on operations that could have been avoided with more information, if those informants had been manipulated to a degree that might constitute mental torture by your definitions?
Btw, if it’s irrelevant whether or not it’s effective then I’m not quite clear on what the discussion is about.
Again, I can’t say always no and never yes on this one.
Reality is too messy in my experience.
Honestly, that’s rather like asking if we know that there aren’t any moons made of green cheese anywhere in the galaxy, or if we simply haven’t found any yet.
You’re not getting it.
We know that people on Earth can’t fly by flapping their arms. We know lots of other ways that people on Earth can fly…so why the insistence that, maybe if we just flap our arms a bit harder with a different arrangement of feathers we could fly that way after all?
Torture is ineffective, period, and even in the hypothetical fringe cases it’s significantly less effective than standard non-torture interrogation techniques (including the aforementioned cup of coffee).
Even if you could figure out some space-age wingsuit that let you barely stay aloft within ground effect if the wind and the slope of the ground are just right, it’s still a stupid way to try to fly.
b&
I take it our senses of proportions are somewhat out of whack, but so be it. 🙂
Do you really know that, though?
Forget about imaginary scenarios for a sec and think back through the messy history of our species.
Can you honestly say that in no conflict in the history of mankind has torture ever yielded any life-saving information that could not have been obtained through other means?
To me it sounds a bit like your main objections is primarily based on ideal principles of human nature.
Not on how complex real situations might be.
It’s not just me. It’s the entire US security apparatus before Bush Jr. Look up some of John McCain’s very moving speeches on the matter, or Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee reports, or just about any authority you can think of outside of Bush and Cheney and John Woo.
The CIA had done away with torture as being worse than ineffective. The military had long since abandoned it. Nobody even knew how to go about doing it; the last Americans to practice it (the CIA in the 60s, notoriously to their own internal chagrin) had long since retired or died.
Then “the world changed on 9/11” even though it didn’t, and the authoritarians decided that they’d drag us back to the dark ages. With too-predictable results.
b&
I largely agree, Ben.
Adopting a policy of torture is of course beyond stupid and, well, kind of evil, and of course those responsible should be held responsible.
Policies doesn’t dictate reality, though, especially in war.
The Geneva Convention should be every soldiers constitution.
That just doesn’t mean that I could never justify it.
How does your insistence that you might be able to justify torture square with your confidence (or lack thereof?) that the gods are imaginary?
Are you applying the same standards in either case?
Do you have some reason to think that justifiable torture is more (or less) real than Jesus?
b&
Fairly reasonable, I reckon. At least I know torture is real as opposed to gods.
That’s a good start, I think.
I certainly hope I’m not using the same standards, though. It’s two different subjects.
Yes. History and again the fact that torture is a reality.
But let me ask you again in return: In the history of mankind, do you think there’s never been a situation where torture was justified?
Of course torture is real.
But justifiably effective torture? That beast is as rare as any god.
I have yet to see any evidence of such — that is, where the information could not have reasonably been obtained without torture and the evil allegedly prevented by the torture was significantly greater than the evil of the torture itself. Can you present any evidence?
Outside of spy thriller fiction, of course.
And, even if you do present even one example that rises to that standard…you’ve still got the overwhelming body of contrary evidence, of the ineffectiveness and unjustifiable brutality of torture, from this one single report alone, never mind the mountains of evidence from every other use of torture.
Are you really willing to go to the mat for torture based on an un-evidence hypothetical potential negligible fraction of cases?
And, if so, once again, how is that any different from Pascal’s Wager?
b&
Depending on your definition of torture, of course.
Once again, as a policy or strategy it’s repulsive and its effects questionable.
That just doesn’t lead me to conclude that it never can be effective or justifiable.
Again, Ben, I don’t have to go into science fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II
As I said. It’s a continuum to me. What constitutes war crimes or unjustified torture is not simply a question of right and wrong.
The old cliché about winners writing history is also applicable here.
At a quick glance, I don’t see anything on that page that supports the efficacy and justifiability of torture. Perhaps you could point me to the specific case you have in mind…?
But, since you’re citing WWII as a good example, here’s a perfect experiment.
We know that torture was a big thing in Nazi Germany, and we also know that not all Nazis were comic book villain caricatures. If ever there would have been a legitimate use of torture, it must have been by a Nazi — somebody who captured some terrorist hellbent on blowing up a German school, for example, and only torture revealed the plot and saved the kids. Or maybe caught an American soldier, tortured him, and in so doing saved an entire German brigade based on the information.
If you can find a single example of such a case, where a Nazi was charged with torture and did not dispute the charge but successfully defended against the charge because the torture was justifiable…well, it certainly wouldn’t convince me, but I’d at least have to stop accusing you of betting on Pascal’s Torture Wager.
b&
That’s fine, Ben. My point simply was that our definitions of torture and justified might not be attuned.
I just can’t make a proclamation about it never being effective and never being justified.
“Allied war crimes include both alleged and legally proven violations of the laws of war by the Allies during World War II against either civilians or military personnel of the Axis Powers.”
I don’t have one particular case in mind, but if we assume torture goes under that umbrella then it would be fairly reasonable to conclude that some cases were borderline.
And now I really must get back to the barca game. 🙂
Then I’m again left mystified about how you’d ever feel comfortable making a proclamation that there aren’t any faeries at the foot of the garden, seeing how you still can’t do anything more than vaguely hand-wave in the direction of maybe some possible evidence subliminally hinted at in a Wikipedia page.
b&
That’s cool. Think of it as a torture theism.
I suspect it is hard to separate out what one is likely to feel and do from what is the better approach. If I were personally affected by something vile someone did (and I have a lot of empathy so that could be a big circle), I’d probably want to really hurt them for information or just as payback.
I recognize that this isn’t rational or acceptable in a modern society so we shouldn’t have laws that allow it but o don’t apologize for having base human instincts.
How could you possibly know such a thing?
I don’t know, but should we assume it’s impossible to know?
Ben, I admire that your retain a civil “tongue” in these discussions when (it seems to me) you are very passionate about these issues.
If you can describe a way that such a question might be answered IN PRINCIPLE, I’ll consider it a reasonable question. Otherwise…
Was that for me, GB? 🙂
Yes, Jesper.
WordPress reply mechanisms don’t always work the way you’d like.
Cool.
In principle we’d have to know about all those instances where what happens doesn’t enter the lines of communication.
As far as war ( and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it outside that context ) goes, not everything is reported.
So I simply can’t conclude that torture always has, is and will be wrong.
How could you possibly ever know if you knew you had identified ALL of them?
Maybe it worked in Patagonia in 2000BC. You’ve got no possible way to gather such evidence. You CAN’T know.
Well, we could start by talking a bit more with our veterans of war and try to understand ( this is of course assuming they want to talk about it ) what drove them there.
If they committed torture/war crimes then I think we should try to help them and figure out why.
I think you just might see that the idea of torture is not really that alien to many human beings and, depending on the situation, some cases might even be justified.
War is hell, man. 😉
I think you miss the point, which has nothing to do with torture or war. It has to do with the impossibility of gathering exhaustive evidence to say that such-and-so NEVER happened within a data set that is far larger than you could possibly ever evaluate.
You can interview people till the cows come home but there will always be some event that you haven’t been able to evaluate. You can reasonably conclude, at some point, that there isn’t any evidence that you’ve found. But you weren’t able to look at events in Patagonia four thousand years ago.
Ignore me. I’m being pedantic.
Ah, okay then I misunderstood. 🙂
I absolutely agree that we probably never will get all the facts in that respect.
Just yesterday I read about a case when it was effective. I’ll look it up when I have time..
I retract that. It was apparently a right-wing source and the statements are widely disputed.
Yeah, I’d like to see him address those questions.
I have only read one of his pieces on this an it was some time ago, so I take your word on this point.
Why even make such an argument then? Does he imagine that we will teach government agents that torture is illegal but sometimes morally justified and let them sort it out in the field? Or does he imagine that in an actual ticking time bomb situation someone is going to consult the best moral thinking about what they should do? Torture is not a private decision like, say, deciding how much to give to charity, so that you can divorce legality from morality, is it?
The context of the public debate was a discussion of 1) is it legal and 2) should it be legal and 3) is what we have actually done acceptable. If he’s not discussing 1) and 2) and hasn’t answered 3), and I don’t think he has, what is he doing?
It seems like a very cheap dodge to say “I’m only discussing morality, of course it should be illegal”.
Now if he’s saying that torture should always everywhere be illegal but that society could, in some circumstances, forgive it, well I agree with that. Torture can never be part of policy. But if someone did save Manhattan from a nuke who would convict them? Probably not me. But the key reality is that if you aren’t willing to put your freedom and life on the line when you decide to torture someone, you’re not sure enough of the stakes and probable outcomes to be doing it. If that’s what he’s *really* saying, why not actually, you know, say it?
Because questions of law and questions of ethics are not isomorphic. It is reasonable to explore ethical issues by constructing purposefully edge-case examples. And it is reasonable to do so without mandating laws that don’t incorporate theoretical edge cases.
Exactly
Sub
Reblogged this on FLATULENT EXPRESSIONS OF TORTOISES.
Late to the party….
Yes, Obama deserves a small amount of credit for no longer preventing the release of the report.
But, if ever there were a case of damning with faint praise, that’s it.
The real thing for him to have done was to have delivered the report in confidence to the Hague, and then ordered the FBI to enforce any and all warrants the Hague might choose to issue in response. Even if that means arresting individuals who normally would have Secret Service protection.
As it is, all he’s doing is the traditional whitewash dance of cronyism formally instituted by Ford. If ever there were a textbook example of corruption and privilege, it’s the American Presidency since Nixon. And, of course, Obama’s also laying the groundwork for his successors to pardon him for all the shit he himself is currently pulling.
And that the corruption has even taken hold at the ACLU…damn, but that makes me sick to my stomach….
b&
But wasn’t the ACLU at least partly responsible for effecting the release of the torture papers?
Sure, but calling for blanket pardons kinda outweighs any good the report otherwise could have done.
What good is the report if we’re just going to pat the thugs on the head and hand them lollipops?
We don’t need the report to know that “mistakes were made.” Like, duh — we already know enough of what went on to know that these “mistakes” were mostly the same shit we hanged a bunch of the Axis officers for.
A report like this only makes sense as a prosecutor’s blueprint.
It’s not like we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission or the like. These aren’t the actions of a sizable fraction of the population that had engaged in systematic oppression for generations. Rather, this is the textbook definition of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors, the actions premeditated and committed with malice aforethought. Garden-variety conspiracy, thuggery, and corruption of public officials.
We’re always up in arms whenever some horribly brutal serial rapist / torturer / killer gets caught, right? What is it that these sick fuckwads did that’s less heinous than those other sick fuckwads?
How can somebody even pretend to be “tough on crime” and yet turn a blind eye to the most notorious crime spree in modern American history?
b&
I agree with you that the perpetrators should be tried and convicted. All in all, though, I don’t think this one opinion piece means the ACLU has been corrupted.
I honestly can’t see how Romero thinks pardons will assure this never happens again. I think just the opposite.
Maybe I’m overreacting about the ACLU, but your second paragraph is why I jumped to the conclusion you’re questioning in the first.
This is about as core and bedrock as civil liberties gets — the right to not have your government torture people and then get away with it. Really, all other civil liberties are secondary to that. After all, if your government can torture people and then get away with it, then they can certainly do whatever the fuck else they might feel like doing. What’s a little suppression of speech or imposition of religion compared to a pleasant bit of crucifixion, after all? Cruel and unusual punishment? All in a day’s work. And the stated purpose of the “exercise,” after all, is to get people to bear witness against themselves…and not that there was any process of law, let alone due process…and…and…and….
b&
Hard to argue against anything you say. Wonder if the release of this report coincident with the Garner protests will spur young people to be more political? Of course, I hoped for that when Occupy Wall Street arose, too, but then it fizzled away.
Recent protest movements have fizzled because they’ve let the cops cow them into staying at the back of the bus. I mean, in the “designated First Amendment zones.” Until they’re ready to do what’s right, not what’s comfortable, we’re stuck with the status quo.
Not that I’m one to talk…not much on crowds, myself….
b&
I don’t see it as corruption of the ACLU. Unless I missed it, I don’t believe Romero actually argued against prosecutions for torture in his Op-Ed. He seems to just assume that prosecutions won’t happen, and I think he’s almost certainly right about that. His argument is that pardons are the next best option, because they at least reaffirm that torture is illegal. I think he’s probably right about that too.
Still, on an issue as important as this one, the ACLU shouldn’t be so quick to give up on first-best solution. Even if prosecutions will never happen, it’s still the right thing to do. If I had the opportunity to write an Op-Ed for the NYTimes, I would feel obliged to say that.
I saw Romero on Rachel Maddow’s show last night. He is passionately in favor of prosecutions. He also recognizes reality. He clearly advocates pardons as the second best option but the only realistic possibility at this point. The ideal-world option would be trials. The real-world choice is between pardons and nothing.
I just watched the segment. His naïveté was unbelievable. As in, I don’t believe that he’s as naïve as he acted.
b&
Someone has said that America always ends up doing the right thing . . . after trying everything else. Last month the United Nations voted a Resolution (A/c.3/69/L.58/Rev.1) with the title “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” The outcome (http://www.un.org/en/ga/third/69/docs/voting_sheets/L56.Rev1.pdf) was 115 yea’s, 3 nay’s and 55 abstentions.
Almost all Latin America and much of Asia and Africa voted for the UN to set itself against neo-nazi hero worship. There were a few abstentions – e.g., Chad and D.R. Congo – and some no-shows such as Iran, Somalia and lesser-known players (think Tonga and Liberia), although most Asian Islamic states (Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, but not Yemen or Iran) joined with Israel and voted yes in support of the measure. Many populous North-African Islamic nations (Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) did likewise. The Russian and Chinese blocks also voted to combat nazi glorification.
Germany however abstained, as did all the former Axis allies/collaborators (Finland, Bulgaria, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Italy and the small change) together with most of the rest of Europe (Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, etc, etc., Sweden, Norway, the Baltic states, Poland, etc., etc., on to Greece, and Turkey). England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand also abstained from voting to condemn the promotion of neo-nazism, as did Japan. (Imagine, if you will, if it were a vote to condemn communism!)
The stopper is that the Resolution, despite 2/3 approval, and only 3 countries casting nay votes, was defeated. Nazism will not be condemned. The United States voted against and thus vetoed the resolution. Voting with the US against the resolution was Canada and, who would have thought it (irony), Ukraine. More info (admittedly not unbiased) is given at http://saltspringnews.com/?ssnews_post=canada-and-the-nazi-thing.
Is this just a an anti-nazi law or is it one of those “xenophobia” laws that prohibits speech offending cultures/religions?
That was my reaction. I would imagine a lot of the European abstentions and esp. the US veto were based on Free Speech principles.
I’d suspect that too, since not only the erstwhile Axis countries but also their erstwhile Allied opponents abstained from voting.
“other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of …. related intolerance” could be stretched to apply to an alarmingly wide spectrum of opinion.
I see that Professor Ceiling Cat is in a generous mood today! That’s considerably nicer than the things my friends and I say about them.
“While the idea of a pre-emptive pardon may seem novel, there is precedent. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers as a step toward unity and reconstruction after the Civil War. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon for the crimes of Watergate. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft resisters.”
I would object to that comparison, it seems bizarre to me. Confederate soldiers were fighting for ‘their’ country. The draft resisters were protesting an unjust war, as far as I’m concerned they were heroes. Nixon is a very different and more difficult case, he lost his moral compass, but the crimes he was accused of didn’t (so far as I know) include atrocities. Pardoning all those is in no way a precedent for pardoning torturers.
Surely, the point of such a proleptic ‘pardoning’ as seems to be envisaged is to make the moral point (since, clearly and for politically expedient reasons, Bush, Cheney, et al aren’t going to be brought formally to book) that the people so ‘pardoned’ are in fact guilty of ordering torture to be used against the laws of their country.
“worst President ever”…?!
There is arguably long list of people ahead of him…! Bush junior for one. Perhaps we live in an age of mediocrity…
As a non-US citizen of `the West’ I feel betrayed. I could always say that at least we never tortured. Now, in the eyes of the world, we are all associated with the evil of torture. It seems the terrorists have won, and degraded our culture.
Exactly.
Yes.
Just think of all those 70s-80s movies where you can tell the “commies” by their treatment of the (American) hero …
(Sure this is a naïve idealization, but …)
It’s definitely not the time to be proposing pardons for torturers and murderers. First prosecute, then convict. Pardon for convicted criminals should be exceptional and highly specific, except in cases where the crime no longer exists (e.g. gay sex in many jurisdictions, use of harmless drugs in some) in which case it should be automatic and total.
I agree with your article. There is a clear proof that Obama is doing something. This release is groundbreaking and has no historical precedent. It is time that US admit that it used violence and torture towards people, who were not even convinced in the first place. I share with Obama many similar views – be it climate change or Obamacare. He did something in order to lower the inequality. On the other hand, there is a bunch of things I cannot stand. Ongoing wars, bank bailout, and no strong response towards the police violence.
I’m curious here: “we need laws forbidding that explicitly, even with an executive order like the one Bush issued.”
Why is an executive order able to bypass the constitutional laws? I don’t think you can get that to work in some, or all, european nations. (But I’m no expert.)
Curious. That is what research on torture seems to find.
What was that folk definition of insanity again? Repeat the same actions and expect different results, I think…
Because we are no longer a nation of laws and have instead become a nation of men. A tyranny, to use the classic Greek term.
With, of course, the disastrous results pretty much anybody should have been able to predict, but that so few wish to admit even in the face of evidence as overwhelming and damning as this report.
b&
http://web-images.chacha.com/images/Gallery/5877/what-are-the-ugliest-dogs-in-the-world-702636517-jun-5-2013-1-600×450.jpg
Whoops, wrong thread.
Time for coffee.
What happened to that poor houndie’s teeth? Guantanamo?
The little pooch does look a bit worn out.