Hussain Abdul-Hussain reports in Kuwait’s Arabic-language daily Al Rai that the Obama administration has quietly decided not to return an ambassador to Syria as promised. He quotes unnamed officials who say president Bashar Assad is blackmailing the United States and its neighbors while conceding nothing in negotiations.
“Assad had started to count the American eggs in his basket before offering anything in return,” said an administration official, according to Tony Badran’s translation from Arabic. “Assad fires a rocket here or there [in south Lebanon] and expects us to run to him. . . . This kind of security blackmail no longer works on the United States.”
Syrian blackmail, though, has been working for decades. Bashar Assad’s government, like that of his late father, Hafez Assad, is an extortionist gangster regime that demands—and usually gets—the diplomatic equivalent of protection money. “The basic line is ‘Do what we want or we will kill you,’ ” said Barry Rubin, author of The Truth about Syria
There’s a case to be made, albeit a weak one, for buying off rogue regimes if they’ll behave. The biggest problem with bribing the Syrians, aside from the fact that it encourages more blackmail later, is that Assad won’t even hold up his end of the deal. “The Syrians,” Lebanese blogger Mustapha explained on his blog Beirut Spring, “try to sell, for a high price, water for fires they cause themselves, then they don’t deliver.”
No matter what the Syrian government is offered—normal relations, a looser sanctions regime, trade agreements—it has never rolled back support for international terrorist organizations. Syria refuses to hold peace talks with Israel or close down the local branches of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Assad won’t stop obstructing the formation of a new Lebanese government nor will he shut down his terrorist pipeline into Iraq.
Lebanese politicians and journalists have been under siege by Syrian assassins and car bombers since 2005. Iraqis have been blown apart by Syrian-supported suicide-bombers since 2003. And Israelis have been under assault by terrorist groups backed by Damascus since the Assad regime came to power decades ago. “This is how Syria negotiates,” Lee Smith wrote in 2007 after Syrian agents blew up a bus on Mount Lebanon, “with its knife on the table and dripping with blood.”
“The impediment to real change in the Syrian regime’s behavior in a manner that would satisfy American decision-makers is structural and systemic,” wrote Tony Badran in NOW Lebanon. “Syria cannot abandon its support for violence and subversion, or its alliance with Iran, because those are the only tools allowing it to bolster its relevance above its political weight.”
Indeed, Assad and his father have made Syria an indispensable nation in the Middle East, despite its utter dearth of economic and military power, by exporting terrorism and suicide murder to neighboring countries. Henry Kissinger’s famous formulation, “No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria,” would be negated at once if Assad ceased and desisted his support for Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iraqi terrorist groups. Syria would become just another failed Soviet-style state with no more geopolitical power than Yemen.
The Obama administration has been a bit more accommodating of Assad than it should have been, but the same can be said for every American administration in recent decades. Barry Rubin warned about this possibility long before Barack Obama was even elected. “The next U.S. president might try to engage Syria and spend a year or so finding out that it doesn’t work,” he told me in 2007.
Bashar Assad does not play well with others, and he never has. Neither did his father. The Syrians, according to a U.S. official quoted by Abdul-Hussain, “don’t know the difference between normalizing relations and behaving like they’ve defeated the US in a world war.”
President Obama’s conciliatory nature meant a temporary rapprochement with Syria was likely, if not inevitable. Assad’s nature all but ensures it won’t last.
Yet further example of how the Left is more outraged by our response to terrorism than terrorism itself. At the heart of it is that they really do think one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Who are we to judge?
if you bump up against the constiutution you made a wrong turn. We are not willing to become a police state so we must give up our foreign empire. there’s no other way
Cutting Daniel Pearl’s head off was torture. Killing nearly 3000 was torture. If we had a radical Muslim with possible info about a terrorist event about to occur in this country that could tens if not hundreds of thousands, it would be completely appropriate to do ANYTHING to get that information from him. Anything less and you’d be putting your own people at risk of death.
George W. Bush was completely correct in approving the tactics that resulted in 0 American deaths or casualties over 7 + years. Sorry, but I’ll save my sympathies for the victims of terror, not for those plotting it, carrying it out or with knowledge of it!
“Anything to which Christopher Hitchens is willing to submit himself in pursuit of a Vanity Fair article is not torture.”
That’s actually as good a standard as I’ve ever seen.
I hereby name this standard “The Christopher Hitchens Torture Test” in the hope and expectation that, with other such nominations in comment sections and blog posts throughout the ‘sphere, and with a heavy assist by Google, this test will become widely known and heartily accepted throughout the United States.
Oh I see lester, “our foreign empire” is the legitimate justification for the war of terrorism against us. Give up “our foreign empire” and islamic terrorists will no longer have their valid gripe. Islamic terrorists are merely acting defensively and understandably against our awesome oppressive power. In essence, we are to blame.
Lester, if you can find the US Constitutional provision that, e.g., waterboarding violates, I’ll PayPal you $5.
And use capitals. You’re not a poet; you’re just a semi-literate commenter.
Sullivan is not intellectually serious, and show me the evidence that his readership is significant. His discussion of alleged Israeli war crimes during the Gaza fighting was lazy and useless. (The Catholic Catechism, which he didn’t even interpret correctly?). As to whether these techniques are harmful, the memos discuss in detail how all of these techniques have been used training tens of thousands of US soldiers under the SERE program. (A point made in the memos is that based on experience with the SERE program, waterboarding works even where the subject knows no actual harm will result). So the comment Sullivan highlights shows that he has not bothered to read what he is responding to with predetermined outrage. Shocking (Not really).
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“. . . it is in our success that we are to find our deepest shame.”
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A great line because it not only refers to “torture”, but also every other activity encouraged by the remnants of the free market that differentiate us from the hapless drudges of so much of the rest of the world.
lester’s “Constitution” test is actually meaningless to the point of vacuity. Americans have repeatedly bumped up against the Constitution in the last 220 years, which is why we have over two dozen amendments to it. The US Supreme Court made sure that eliminating slavery required “bumping up aganst the Constitution” — an invalidation of that formula as an all-purpose retort if ever there was one.
However, Brian’s query at #6 is the pertinent one. What part of the Constitution has been violated with waterboarding? Meaningless allusions to “foreign empire” are not an answer.
“If we had a radical Muslim with possible info about a terrorist event about to occur in this country that could tens if not hundreds of thousands, it would be completely appropriate to do ANYTHING to get that information from him”
fair enough. but what if he is just some guy?
I don’t think anyone is all that concerned about khalid sheik muhammeds health and well being. I’m certainly not. Eveyone knows who he is and what he has done. the problem is when you make it legal some auhtority can conceivably just pick up someone he doesn’t like and torture him. NO, I don’t trust our government to hire people who won’t do this.
you don’t trust the government to make distinctions like that, that’s why we don’t give them all the power they want.
5- “Give up “our foreign empire” and islamic terrorists will no longer have their valid gripe.”
correct. every action has an equal and opposite reaction. the soviets got driven out of afghanistan by the mujhadeen. the mujahadeen didn’t go around for the rest of their lives trying to bother russians here and there. they wanted them out of their country.
“lester’s “Constitution” test is actually meaningless to the point of vacuity. Americans have repeatedly bumped up against the Constitution in the last 220 years, which is why we have over two dozen amendments to it.”
that’s diferent. so you want to have an amednment to allow our government to use torture when it sees fit? go ahead and campaign for it.
Torture in the US is defined under a US statute, which modified the standard in the CAT. The pertinent question is not whether “torture” violates the Constitution, but whether the conduct at issue meets the definition of torture in the statute.
You know why Commentary should institute registration: to get rid of bandwidth bandits like lester and the rest of the merry bandwidth bandit trolls.
It’s worth wondering a little why “torture” – parsed to the nth degree – receives so much attention, but other military and penal policies and practices are hardly discussed, even though they inflict far more pain and injury on much larger numbers of people, many of them as innocent as can be. Pretending that this debate is wholly or even mostly rational is probably a mistake.
As it stands it would appear that some people in this country would be willing to kill someone who broke into their homes and tried to kill their families but would not slap the intruder with an open hand because the latter constitutes an act of torture. Can anyone get it through his head that the proper object of moral evaluation is an act token not an act type. Torture is wrong just like killing is wrong, except for all the times when it isn’t. Personally, I’m moral enough to be opposed to every morally wrong act of torture, to be OK with every morally permissible act of torture, and to absolutely insist on every morally obligatory act of torture. I’m also smart enough to know that there’s no reason to think any of those categories must be empty.
As for the law, what makes crafting a law difficult is that it must apply to act types. Ideally you’d like the law to rule out all and only the unacceptable behavior, but it’s hard to do.
Consider a couple of guys who go zipping through a thickly settled area at 70 mph. Eventually, they get a cop on their tails, but they continue to move along. The driver seems to slow and look around when approaching stop signs, but he doesn’t stop for them. In other words, he violates loads of traffic laws. Imagine also that, at last, he pulls into a convenience store. When the cop asks what the hell he was doing, he says he and his friend were really thirsty, so he had to get to the store fast.
Now imagine another pair where the story is the same except that, in the end, they pull into hospital emergency parking because the passenger had accidently cut some fingers off.
Combinatorially, there are 4 things we could do: prosecute both pairs, prosecute neither pair, prosecute the thirsty guys but not the emergency guys, or prosecute the emergency guys but not the thirsty guys. The most obviously insane option is the last one. Notice that Dems and Contentions trolls are in the analog of that position when it comes to dealing with Islamist terrorists, i.e. they are firmly in the insane camp. Please stop it.
Lester’s been commenting a lot, and reveling in his own illiterate writing style (which I take it is a mark of Lester’s individuality), but he still hasn’t named the US Constitutional provision that waterboarding violates.
Lester, given the lack of skill (or skillz) you’re demonstrating, it looks like you might need the $5.
I don’t think anyone is all that concerned about khalid sheik muhammeds health and well being. I’m certainly not. Eveyone knows who he is and what he has done. the problem is when you make it legal some auhtority can conceivably just pick up someone he doesn’t like and torture him. NO, I don’t trust our government to hire people who won’t do this.
To the contrary, the waterboarding that was done was done either to KSM or to his underlings who led us to him. There were three people waterboarded (aside from our pilots during SEAR training) and all were related to KSM.
This is simply disingenuous. The people protesting see this as a way to continue to punish Bush and Cheney and, like Edwards, believe the war on terror is a bumper sticker. ACtually, it is kind of a dumb name but the names Obama has come up with are even worse. “Man-caused disaster” ?
My son, who is a trial lawyer and inflicts regularly worse things on his adversaries and boasts of them, asked me if I supported waterboarding. I said yes. That’s all there is to it.
Someday, I fear, they will learn what they have given up so willingly.
14_ It’s kind of traditional to inflict pain and suffering on an armed enemy attempting to inflict the same onto you.
Also traditional to not find honor in tormenting those already rendered defenseless.
Not one of your more logical posts Mr. Greenwald. That’s a cute line about Christopher Hitchens; but the fact remains that waterboarding works because it induces the terror of drowning in the subject. Since Hitchens knew that he was not going to be drowned and had a means at his disposal to stop the procedure at any time, there is scant comparison with an actual waterboarding.
This is, unfortunately, one of those situations in which we can’t have it both ways. There are some circumstances wherein we should and will torture to get critical information from a very select group of suspects. We can deny the methods as torture all we want; but wishing won’t make it so.
The solution is to grant the President, and him alone, the authority to order torture on a case by case basis; with required full publicization of each case and the reasons for his giving the order at some reasonable time in the future.
Abe, It’s always a pleasure to read the work of such a clear thinker.
fuster, you’re advancing a false moral equivalency. Any pain or suffering incident to waterboarding is not the goal of that interrogation technique. Information is the goal. Getting that information is the most honorable of activities, because it saves American lives.
All of this blather about what constitutes torture. I know torture when I see it. It’s kind of like pornography. You know, like what the judge said when asked the question of what constituted pornography.
If the prisoner leaves the interrogation room alive with all his body parts still attached and intact and not bleeding or bruised then from my perspective (of course I’m not a federal judge, although I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night) he was not tortured.
If we don’t treat our enemies as the devils they are then they will win this war and destroy us. The real issue here is that the disloyal once opposition is now in charge and is still disloyal to our country. Why else would they release this critical piece of information about how the CIA gets critical information from our enemies. The dems don’t believe that we are at war and never did. They think that America is evil and responsible for most of the trouble in the world, and that Israel is responsible for the rest.
I am for torture when that is what separates innocent people and a stubborn captive who wants them grievously wounded and dead. I’d rather see his humanity violated than the humanity inside a crowded building, bridge or subway train.
But I think Abe deserves the lashing he has been receiving. Denying that water boarding is torture is ridiculous, and this “caterpillar” mocking is dishonest and low.
fuster, let’s see if you can suck in enough people to get at least 130 posts. I know you can do it.
Apart from the moral grandstanding going on with this issue, something else has struck me lately about whether what we were doing constitutes “torture” or not. Ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is there any interrogation technique outside of the Army Field Manual that we could do against an enemy combatant (either a combatant as recognized under the Geneva Conventions or not)?
1a) If yes, what is it (how do you draw the line between what is torture and what isn’t)?
1b) If no, what is about the Army Field Manual’s interrogation techniques that make them *uniquely* qualified to be used against an enemy combatant (that is, there are no other techniques available for interrogation that could possibly be considered non-torture)?
“It’s kind of traditional to inflict pain and suffering on an armed enemy attempting to inflict the same onto you.
Also traditional to not find honor in tormenting those already rendered defenseless.”
Such a line, for instance, would negate surprise attacks against enemy combatants on the field (since they are not in the process of attempting to inflict harm) as well as drone attacks in Pakistan. And I’m not exactly certain that anyone has “found honor” in interrogating prisoners of war, nor that those who received “enhanced interrogation techniques” could possibly be considered defenseless if they still have information on further actions against the United States that they have not voluntarily divulged. This statement, in other words, is just a non-sequitir (sp?).
#19
You’re nominated and elected as boob of the thread.
The point of war is rarely to “inflict pain and suffering” on the enemy, but rather to defeat the enemy at the risk of one’s own pain and suffering. The former is mere violence.
In many cultures, declining to torment those rendered defenseless would be considered dishonorable. In some cultures the lack of torture has been thought to render information untrustworthy.
There are many reasons why we choose to define ourselves as a non-torturing culture, or why an anti-torture ethos was reinforced over generations. The moral and historical issues are complex, and inevitably touch on how we define ourselves as Americans, including how we have defined and justified ourselves in comparison to our enemies – including “savages,” slavers, Nazis, “Nips,” Saddamists, Terrorists. We’re hardly the first to focus on the bad guy’s atrocities in order to whip up war fever, but the conventions and assumptions of warfare have a long, varied, and often contradictory history: Why waterboarding and caterpillar emplacement can transform us in the eyes of some into a “terror state,” but collateral damage from aerial bombing doesn’t, just to give one example, may not have much to do with intrinsic morality.
I’ve put the argument elsewhere as follows (http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/04/18/obamas-never-again-on-torture-means-lots-more-soon/ ): The Bush Administration met spectacular terror, and the threat of unlimited follow-ons, with precision-guided terror, adjusted pragmatically, terminated at the earliest opportunity. Unintended but inevitable collateral effects, including a certain contagious moral corrosion (Abu Ghraib, perhaps), were limited, but still quite painful. It’s a mature standard, as imperfect and difficult and as superficially contradictory to our “core values” (Obama’s phrase) as any wartime exigency – and it’s what we’ll probably try next time, too.
What the Bush Administration did following 9/11 was a pure come-as-you-are expression of consensus American ideology under crisis – what most of us could live with in order to achieve what almost all of us demanded. What the Obama Administration is now doing, and what people like Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald are asking for, strikes me as dangerous and hypocritical posturing – an overcompensation in one direction that is setting up a host of countercompensations.
“If we don’t treat our enemies as the devils they are then they will win this war”
To the Left, there is no such thing as “devils”. Bomb-strapped Palestinians = pizza-enjoying Israelis. Ahmadinejad and Chavez are elevated, bedamned their blatant hatred of Israel, Jews and America (read: FREEDOM).
Harry Reid was giddy at the prospect of us losing Iraq when, in April 2007, he declared that we lost the war in Iraq. And Americans put these idiots –Reid, Pelosi and especially Obama in total and complete control? Whatever happens to America, I am so deeply sad to say, we had it so coming. You feel safer under this troika of blame-America firsters? Or would you have felt safer under Dick Cheney, the man who should be president? It’s not a fair question since the answer is so completely obvious to anyone who still has a semblance of reality left in them!
You should consider making the following offer to Mr. Sullivan:
You will be willing to undergo the torture methods outlined in these memos that was done by the US on terror suspects; if
He is willing to undergo the torture methods that was/is being done for us by our allies in Jordan Egypt, etc. on terror suspects via rendition under Clinton and Obama.
mike k- that’s not true. There was a book a few years ago I believe called “masterminds of terror” that related the story of how the US and pakistan apprehended KSM and Ramzi Binalshib. I believe the latters problem was he could not stop talking on his satellite phone.
I dn’t recall reading that water boarding led anyone to khalid sheik muhammed specifically. I do know that it was used on him after he was apprehended and again, who cares he’s obviously a huge terrorist.
also, if you’ll recall from another book ” how to break a terrorist” Zarqawi was caught using entirely different carrot-heavy means.
brian- cruel and unusual punishment
21-Brian I don’t understand what you’re saying. Of course the goal is useful information, but if you use methods that invariably cause pain and suffering, how can that be said to be incidental.
If I want your money, and decide to stick a knife into you in order to get it…..
“Waterboarding is quick, bloodless, painless, and uniquely effective; if explicitly overseen by competent appointees, it would doubtless become more of each.”
painless?
24_you got the name right,thanks.
I don’t see much of a point in getting into an argument about what is and isn’t torture. It is unlikely to carve out any common ground or lead anywhere.
I think a better focus would be on how one side is arguing that extraordinary circumstances might require extraordinary actions (and always have) — while the other is insisting that any and every circumstance is ordinary and governed by the rules established to handle routine events.
For example, the Geneva Conventions: as I have argued on another thread, in my reading of the Conventions, by going to such lengths to spell out who is to be considered a legal combatant or civilian or government official, and how each of these categories are to be treated — the authors clearly intended for the irregular fighters and covert operatives, that they knew were often employed to some extent in the conflicts of their day too, — would NOT fall under the provisions of the Conventions — that they meant for those type of operatives to be left out of the Conventions.
People wailing about the Bush memos are following a line that says the Conventions covered every possible actor in a conflict — so — if the person isn’t a POW due to their irregular fighter status or being a covert operative – they must be treated under the statutes for a civilian by default — and if you want to do something with them, it should be in a criminal court.
I think the different authors of the GC over time would be dumbstruck by such thinking…
I also think the type of people wailing the loudest against the Bush memos — wouldn’t blink an eye if they read where some CIA operative carrying out some covert action in some rogue nation X had been captured and much worse was done to him.
I certainly can’t picture those people screaming that the UN should arrest the leaders of nation X and bring them before the International Criminal Court to be tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
In fact, in the past, the US has quietly accepted the fate of such CIA operatives, because of the nature of their position and actions, and that is how I imagine most people would view the situation.
If I found out a CIA operative trying to carry out some operation in a nation like North Korea, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Iran, or similar country — had been captured — and was treated with the same exact techniques as spelled out in the Bush memos — I’d be pleasantly surprised. I’d have taken it for granted much, much worse would have been done to the person and that the US would have had no recourse but to accept it.
You know — I think that’d be a great CNN moment I’d want to see ——- to see how these people so aghast at the Bush memos would react ——– if they saw Condi Rice on television lambasting the United Nations and – say – Syria – about the treatment of a CIA operative who had been caught red-handed, say, trying to blow up that unfinished secret nuclear reactor North Korea was helping Syria build….
….I’m sure I’d see all these Bush torture critics up in arms agreeing with Rice and screaming how that American operative should be treated like any other common criminal would be in the United States or France or Japan……..and that the leaders of the Syrian government must be brought before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity because they treated that CIA operative as harshly as the Bush memos spell out (or worse).
I’m sure that is how they’d react to that, right…..
“I don’t see much of a point in getting into an argument about what is and isn’t torture. It is unlikely to carve out any common ground or lead anywhere. ”
I agree. my point was why not just avoid the issue entirely by not having wars or interventions in other regions. by being like THE AMERICA OF OLD IN THE GOOD OLD PERFECT DAYS
How long can circumstances be “extaordinary”? A month? a year? two years? SIX?
I find this whole conversation about waterboarding to be fascinating. The fact is, before it became known that we were using waterboarding in our interrogations, it was widely accepted here in the US–not to mention the rest of the world–that waterboarding was torture. Virtually all major human rights organizations (most clearly articulated by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) have declared waterboarding to be torture. The same conclusion has been come to by most veterans organizations, retired military judges, and a number of prominent Republican Senators (including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham). In fact, waterboarding was even declared illegal to be used against enemy combatants in the Vietnam War, because American Generals considered it torture (soldiers were even court-martialled, and subsequently discharged for waterboarding prisoners). In addition, virtually all of our allies (including the UK, our closest ally in the War on Terror), have stated that waterboarding clearly constitutes torture.
Waterboarding was used in the Spanish inquisition (and was called “Spanish water torture”). In World War II, it was a technique applied by both Japanese troops and the Gestapo. It was used by Pinochet in Chile against political prisoners, and in the Khmer Rouge against prisoners as well. To claim that waterboarding is not torture requires a shocking ignorance of the history of this practice. For anyone who truly believes this, I would highly suggest reading any of the great number of accounts from prisoners who have been waterboarded in the past. They all point to the same conclusion–that waterboarding is a cruel and inhumane practice, and is a technique that we should not be using under any circumstances.
Being extraordinary, it’s hard to say. We judge things on a case by case basis.
So, Lincoln suspending habeas corpus seems to be generally accepted given the circumstances of the time but Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese in America isn’t.
For myself, given what I know about what the Bush memos reveal, I can generally accept it.
Let fuster and lester talk to each other. They make a nice couple and richly deserve each other.
I know many of you, even the best, can’t resist answering them, but if you think about it for a second, I’m right.
39- okay then its settled
40 I agree
39- How will you know when these extraordinary circumstances have ended? Is there something substantial that you can point to?
“Waterboarding is quick … painless”
Reminds me of the old MASH theme song: “Suicide is painless….”
#3: “Cutting Daniel Pearl’s head off was torture. Killing nearly 3000 was torture.”
No, it’s murder.
I believe that the AIG officials experienced torture when they were interrogated by the House Commiittee chaired by Barney Frank. Indeed, any appearance before these Inquisitors is torture. Just watching them work is torture.
#38
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“To claim that waterboarding is not torture requires a shocking ignorance of the history of this practice. For anyone who truly believes this, I would highly suggest reading any of the great number of accounts from prisoners who have been waterboarded in the past. They all point to the same conclusion–that waterboarding is a cruel and inhumane practice, and is a technique that we should not be using under any circumstances.”
————–
What’s the connection between the claim that “waterboarding” is or is not torture and it’s history? How does its use in the past have any bearing on what we consider it now?
The fact is, if someone has information that you want and refuses to disclose it, you might have to do something to that person that he does not like so that in exchange for information the discomfort will be ended. We haven’t heard anything much about red hot needles stuck in eyeballs but in the matter of degree that seems to be a long way past waterboarding. By making a person feel, even though he knows better, that he is drowning is a far cry from the kind of treatment that we know has taken place. If you think history is meaningful in this particular discussion, read Lloyd Bucher’s book.
Didn’t that same nation (the US) who so clearly identified waterboarding as torture before now – use it as a training method for some of its people? That is what I’ve heard…
So, if it makes the user administration the same as the Nazis or the Spanish Inquisition, I guess a number of US administrations were Nazis when they used it as a training method against our own people.
Also, you specifically mention enemy combatants in the Vietnam War example and you mention veterans groups and the like —- meaning the kind of people who clearly fell under the Geneva Conventions statutes covering legitimate soldiers and treatment of them as POWs…
I agree — when it comes to clearly defined legal combatants – soldiers – captured on the field of battle, waterboarding should never be used and that doing so clearly breaches the GCs.
…but you also say “They all point to the same conclusion–that waterboarding is a cruel and inhumane practice, and is a technique that we should not be using under any circumstances.”
Here, I wouldn’t agree, and having been around some veterans, I doubt you would get most of them to agree that — a technique the US government has used to train its own people — should never be used even in a circumstance where a major terrorist strike might be in the works or to root out a terrorist network that had staged a major strike.
If you believe waterboarding is torture and thus inexcusable under any circumstance, that’s fine.
— But I believe you’ve grossly over extended yourself in claims about how some of the groups you mentioned think. And, if we could ever prove it, I’d bet a pretty penny nations far better than Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge – like those democratic allies you mention — would use waterboarding or similarly harsh techniques if faced with the same set of circumstances. — I doubt very much they’d use them on POWs in a war, but against leaders of a terrorist network carrying out attacks against them, yeah, I’d bet money on that….
I would combine Lester’s #10 and parts of CK’s #27. The saying goes that the puritans banned bear-baiting not because it was cruel to the bears but because the people enjoyed it. And Golda Meir is said to have said something like she could forgive the Arabs for killing Israelis, but not for making Israelis kill Arabs. This torture thing isn’t about existential morality, about how waterboarding compares to Dresden: it’s about how we govern ourselves and how we feel about ourselves.
Whether or not we permit torture could depend on whether torture is effective or moral, but that issue is trumped by the question of whether we are willing to delegate to some among us the power to torture the rest of us in pursuit of the maguffin du jour. And that’s because the power cannot be selectively given. Oh, we can write a law that gives that power selectively, but laws get “interpreted” all the time by the very people they regulate, and authorizing torture of anyone is authorizing torture as an institution, and we need to be awfully wary of that.
Of course, if we decide that we will ban torture in order to be safe from it, then we need to define it, so it matters what constitutes “torture.” But it does seem a more sterile inquiry in this context than in the context of extracting intel from terrorists.
Beyond “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” is the matter of self-esteem. Each of us feels differently about torture – as one poster put it, some torture is morally obligatory – but the lines can never be maintained, and most of us – enough of us to form a polticial center of gravity – will eventually come to see ourselves as a people who tortures or as a people who doesn’t. And we will like ourselves more if we come to the former conclusion. So we need to find a way not to condone torture, but if possible, reap its beenfits. The best way to do that, until Youtube, was to have it done in secret by rough men who stand ready to do violence in our name. Now, there is no way to get it done and preserve the fiction that we don’t do it.
Undersatnd that I’m not talking about self-esteem in the psychobabble “every kid’s a winner” trophy sense. National self-esteem accounts for an enormous amountof political and international history. I don’t have the learning to make the case, but I’ve seen it made, and I believe it. Indeed, I would argue that the principal driver of this debate – what brings people out to argue about torture – is not their feelings about it, but their feelings about being responsible for it.
I’m late to this discussion, but my national self-esteem depends to a great extent upon whether I know my country is determined to do whatever it needs to in order to protect innocents from savages. My piece of the national self-esteem has been plummeting lately because it seems we care more about what the savages and those who appease them think about us then we do about the innocents at their mercy, and about what those putting their lives on the line to help them might think of us–however few and for the moment unheard as they may be.
Drivel, endless drivel, including from Kramer, who is a thoughtful guy.
It comes down to this. We are on an airliner at 30,000 feet with our families and it is revealed that the passengers in 89B has secreted a bomb somewhere in this 400 passenger jumbo. It can go off any minute. Who among us will not be willing to inflict as much pain as necessary including gauge out his eyes, pullout his fingernails, and cut off his testicles, to get at that bomb before it kills us all?
In emergencies, and certainly in war, all civility breaks down. A few years ago it was revealed that the British ran brutal torture cells in London for high value Nazi prisoners with special information. Later those same facilities were used to question Cold War captives.
In WWI patrols were routinely sent out by both sides at night to capture prisoners so as to know what was going on in the opposite trenches. Does anyone think those prisoners, whose capture often cost casualties, were not squeezed as hard as necessary to make them talk?
Are we seriously going to constrain a man given responsibility for keeping our cities safe, when he has a culprit by the throat with information which if unreavealed, can cause a major catastrophe?
My answers to Lester & Fuster (sounds like and slip-and-fall law firm: “If you’ve been injured in an auto accident, call Lester &…)
Lester –
Amendment 8
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Thanks for answering, but I don’t think there’s even a left-wing constitutional scholar sympathetic to your viewpoint who would cite “cruel & unusual” because that clause governs wrongful conduct in an exclusively criminal context. Conservatives used to argue that it applies only to sentences handed down by judge or jury, but they lost that argument, and now it applies to, e.g., abuse of the prisoner by the jailer.
The Eighth Amendment has never been cited in the non-criminal context of war, and believe me, there are enough top-rank left-leaning lawyers who would try it if they thought there was a 5% chance of success (Example: The American lawyers for Gitmo detainee, many of whom are top-rank, never forwarded that argument.)
Hester –
You’re right, “incidental” isn’t the right word, because the waterboarder is intentionally inducing psychological terror to get information. My point was that in evaluating the honor of this action, the purpose or goal of the action in dispositive. The purpose is not to cause suffering as an end in itself, but the get information. Once placed in this context, waterboarding KSM was honorable.
This post is from the other thread ‘Evidence to the Contrary”. I though that it would be useful to post here as some may have missed the earlier thread.
Summary post.
The debate is not even close. Had this debate been taken in the 1970’s or 1980’s, you cons would be considered insane. People would say ‘we fought the Nazi and we will never be like them’ . But today, you call me insane! How people have degraded morally since then.
Fundamentally, you cons presume that we are in a state of war so that examples of captured German soldiers abound. Really preposterous! First, we are not in a life and death struggle with terrorists unlike our struggle with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Second even allowing for some similarity, captured German soldiers ARE NOT mixed in with civilians. The civilians are let go!!!
In the end, lacking argument, people like Joe NS say, ‘They are enemy combatants and don’t deserve the time for us to fins out if they are guilty or innocent’. Purely hateful argument, nothing else. Such people has degraded so much that even new immigrants are more respectful of the American ideal of innocent until proven guilty.
I am accused of name calling: calling someone’s views un-Amedrican and another’s thinking barbarian. Well, NO. They are my objective determinations. To raid some house and then lock up people for years without charges is just not what we are about. But to support such behavior can be objectively called un-American.
I called a senior intelligence analyst who calls for bombing Iran to a failed state condition as thinking like a barbarian. Iran has claimed, back by the UN, that they are pursuing nuclear work for power generation. They also denied that they are directing terrorist activity. They do say that they give moral and financial support to Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran’s claims have checked out, especially since the US do not have solid evidence to the contrary. For a smug analyst with a lot of clout to urge an attack on a non-beligerent nation is nothing short of madness or if not madness a kind of barbarian thinking. It is these ‘the smartest and brightest of us’ that have cause us so much grief, blood and treasure in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am also accused of not interested in the details of torture but am interested in only bashing conservatives. In my defense, I gave out 1 article (out of perhaps hundred that one can find). It was immediately put down as unreliable and followed by posts that said “there is no evidence for torture that the liberal can point to”. Even when a liberal shows that Japanese waterboarding was ruled a war crime, the cons come back to say, they were right in any case. Amazing!
That article from the Guardian was backed up by Dyer’s reference with regard to the taxi cab driver who was beaten to death hung from the ceiling. It will take some deep psychological research to answer why cons believe that this is not evidence for torture.
So I did give out details but the response of the cons themselves exposes their depravity. I did not have to point this out directly.
There is some deep psychological process going on. I am pretty sure that if it was a liberal president who took us to war in Iraq, say Obama, I am quite confident that such torture and abuse would not be so common. For example, the torture memos are meant to legalize harsh techniques but are written in a contorted fashion to cover up that intent. I really doubt that Obama would sign such a banal and depraved document.
The fact that after Abu Graib was exposed, Bush did not come out on national TV to announced that we will tolerate no more abuses shows that in his heart he thinks the thing that went wrong was the exposure, not the abuses.
So my conclusion is that the attitude from the very top was what gave life to all the abuses. Certainly we cannot fully blame the interrogators on the ground who were only doing what they were told. This I agree, no prosecution for HONEST interrogators. But how about those who are sadist who use the opportunity afforded from Bush to do their sadist things. For those, I say prosecute. Yet, even liberals here are shy from the next question: are we going to prosecute those at the top who gave the go ahead? The obvious answer is YES, for our nation’s sake!
Reading over the report on the deaths and homicide of detainees, I was struck how almost in every instance, the army would deny any wrong doing, and often covered up the details. That is why I urge prosecution of those who are guilty of homicide but not those who were properly following orders. We have degraded to a nation with fully 1/2 the population who condone torture. If we ignore this problem our army will soon behave like the German army of 60 years ago. As it is the army culture is to automatically deny abuse even when the evidence is in front of the army investigator. Reading the responses from the cons in this forum reminds me of these same army people who would deny evidence even when shown to their face. As a society we cannot go on denying.
This debate is not even close. And I will not take up more of your time.
Mr. Greenwald:
It takes equal measures of temerity and lucid thinking to assert that the United States has a mortal obligation to defend itself against the avowed asymmetrical threat of radical Islam.
To segue from your sturdy premise to President Obama’s fatuous remarks in Europe, it’s an apt non sequitur he issued, viz., that America is not at war with Islam. The truly caustic question is whether Islam is at war with America, but you’ll never hear him ask it, nor will you hear Brown, Sarkozy, or Merkel inquire.
The truth is that success is today’s imperialism, which lugs along with it horrific assertions of moral, economic, and military superiority, all of which the U.S. has in spades. But you can’t say those things today, rather you must make a priori concessions, as did Obama, and assure the radically odious nations of the world that America has learned its lesson, that it will prostrate itself among the other nations of the G20 and won’t flex its economic or military might on the world stage.
And, of course, we’ll close Gitmo and we’ll schedule some coffee klatches with Ahmadinejad, and we’ll torch the agreement to site missiles in Poland.
Torture? Let’s ask Stalin and Saddam about that. Waterboarding is not torture, it’s a decidedly unpleasant experience reserved for those who are deemed enemy combatants, which is well under one-hundredth of one percent of our enemies.
Get over it.
Good lord, I am tired of you people. You’re the real traitors. And cowards. I lived a mile away from the World Trade Center, and could see the smoke from my apartment. Nonetheless, eight years later, I can still maintain a level of rational thought.
You people on this website — I won’t say conservatives, because I still believe that real conservatism stand for something — but you, all of you, you, you, would sacrifice all our moral standing, everything this nation was founded on, for nothing. You visualize terrorists as being like bad guys in a movie, like Cobra from “G.I. Joe.” You lack the ability to handle complex thought-processes, and really, I give up.
Terrorism is a much worse and more complex problem than you think. Torture won’t solve our problems; people lie when they’re under torture. There are many logical arguments that can be made here, citing facts and statistics — about how torture fails to work, about how we killed people for no reason, about how we captured civilians at random — but you don’t want to hear those, and reciting them for the hundredth time won’t change anything.
You people; I don’t even know what to say to you. You represent the worst of America. This country can be a shining city on a hill, everything that you want it to be. But, really, you people are scum. You would destroy America and everything that it stands for. You would sell out every hard-fought right that we have created, in your paranoia and your ignorance. I cannot say enough bad things about you. Slime; you’re slime. You talk about slicing prisoners’ arms off — COWARDS. None of you would be so horrible, none of you would be so disgusting, I hope, I pray, to actually have the terrible will to do such a thing in the first place. Cutting off arms and ripping off testicles? That’s what I’ve heard in this comment section so far. You disgust me. The only thing that comforts me is that you’re just armchair warriors, talking out of your asses. You would never stand up and actually do such a malevolent thing in person. You’re just bored, and cranky, and writing stuff on the internet. Thank god.
But seriously, to fight terrorism, we must slice people’s arms off? God, what a horrible, un-American thing to say. Don’t you think that we can defeat terrorism without resorting to evil? And if you don’t, then what is the point?
You’ll never be in power again. I thank God for it.
I agree with much of the sense of your post, but the tone is gratuitous (“drivel”), and even your seemingly all-simplifying bottom-line questions implicitly concede that torture is morally costly to the torturer, and especially dangerous and disfiguring if embraced by the state: Otherwise, we’d torture the passenger in 89B on suspicion, or just for the fun of it.
So, the answer to the last question is an emphatic “yes,” in America. We will constrain the authorities. One hopes we will do so “seriously.” What the administration and its utopian supporters are advocating doesn’t qualify as serious, in my opinion, except in the sense of being seriously delusory and dishonest.
Mr Kramer’s and Adam’s posts need to be taken together as regards national self-esteem, since feelings of one’s own weakness, impotence, and cowardice can be at least as corrosive to self-esteem as a sense of guilt or moral uncertainty. That has much to do with why some cultures or at least their warrior castes have effectively embraced torture or kinds of torture, from the tribal to the imperial. The unwillingness to inflict pain is seen as unmanly fear of experiencing pain. The refusal to inflict pain therefore becomes a sign of disrespect for the enemy. Such perceptions may seem alien initially, until you consider how much they inform our perceptions of honor and worth in many realms of modern life- what makes a great athlete or a great debater or a great politician, and so on.
It’s also notable that this national agony over torture takes place during a period in which so-called “torture porn” has been one of the “hot” genres of popular art. There is undoubtedly somewhere some pierced and tattooed torture troll whose favorite blogger is Andrew Sullivan, whose favorite movie is SAW. The elements that attract people to this topic undoubtedly include prurient interest, fear, sadomasochistic identification with both the torturers and the tortured, and other inchoate and complex emotional investments. It’s clear that the torture campaigners get a kick out of psychologically torturing the supposed torturers – it’s part of the narcissistic economy of trolling and blogging, and probably a topic for another day.
Yet, if the compulsiveness of torture aficionados causes us to treat their statements dubiously, at the same time it reinforces their theme: Torture always threatens to unleash forces that are difficult to control and take account of. We have every good reason to be treat it like the psychologically and politically radioactive substance that it is, without indulging in fantasies about eliminating it and the moral issues it raises from our lives.
Andrew, re-read your rant in post 55, when you’re not flustered or crying or in some other unstable mental state, with a single question in mind:
Is there any moral reasoning on all these paragraphs?
Nope. Get used to it or remain a child forever. Your dear leader indulges in a wide range of lesser evils, or supposed lesser evils, in order to achieve supposed greater goods.
And what I’ve been saying is — the nature or characteristic of the detainee is also dispositive.
In using the term “extraordinary” I’ve mainly had in mind the immediate aftermath of an attack or in rooting out the network that carried out an attack – thinking specifically of the handful of individuals on whom these techniques were actually used.
But in referring more generally to the Geneva Conventions, I’ve meant “extraordinary” in the context of legitimate vs illegitimate actors.
As in — a CIA operative caught trying to blow up that hidden nuclear reactor in Syria before the North Koreans could finish building it — has placed himself outside the ordinary mechanisms of a civil society and the United States would have little to no recourse for pretty much anything the Syrians did to him, regardless of whether they were trying to prevent a follow up attack on the reactor or just to punish him for the attempt.
That doesn’t mean I personally would give the US government the leeway to do absolutely anything to an individual who has placed himself outside the normal bounds of the legal system or international agreements.
— It does mean that I believe individuals can place themselves outside those bounds by what they do. I bring up the CIA because I believe the typical left-leaning intellectual I’ve run across at college and the like would fairly easily agree that the US would have no grounds with which to complain at the UN or the International Criminal court if the hypothetical CIA agent in Syria got caught and tortured.
…..but they seem to have a terrible time extending the same consideration to rogue agents trying to organize terrorist strikes on our own soil.
This whole discussion is sadly necessary- necessary because too many Americans, including well-meaning people not given to blaming American first, fail to see that our ideals and our security are sometimes in conflict. This is a basic understanding to try to convey to people(and I don’t mean unhinged types like Andrew Sullivan who can’t even be bothered to do close and accurate readings of what people like Abe write), even as we also make clear the distinction between rough interrogation techniques and torture.
Good old Andy Sullivan has so little credibility after first being totally for the War in Iraq (praising Professor Bernard Lewis’ assessment of Islam) it does not add up how he did a complete about face after AG. And then there is the troublesome fact that Mr. Sullivan, who is HIV positive, solicited on some web sites for “bare back” partners and was subsequently outed. He has also supported legalizing drugs to the point where I took him to task soem years ago for his complete lack of common sense in praising the aphrodisiac qualities of ‘ecstacy” which I reminded him was a date rape type drug and very dangerous. That said, can you really be impressed by his opinions. He has been wrong so many times already what is another completely misguided view of AS except for the fact that a certain segment of the U.S. community apparently ascribe to his opinions. I love his prose but, like everyone else in media, he has an agenda and a buck to be made. I for one, think that “torture” should not be defined and should be left to the judgment of the CIC for the sole purpose of protecting the citizenry. End of BS.
It’s counterproductive to respond to accusations from liberals who claim to be conservatives. Or liberals who proclaim moral outrage. The blind liberals who are members of the Democrat plantation, as much a plantation now as it ever was, home of the Ku Klux Klan (Byrd, Fulbright, etc.). The liberals who ostentatiously hate blacks who aren’t Democrats.
Treat the liberals with the contempt they deserve. Ignore their bait.
I’m not going to get into what is or isn’t torture. What bothers me about Andrew Sullivan’s moral indignation regarding what he calls torture is that he, as a Catholic, is perfectly willing to compromise on abortion. Every once in awhile he’ll say something like “every abortion is a tragedy” or “abortion should be limited to the first trimester”. But he’ll denounce politicians or “Christianists” who would overhaul the current abortion laws. If Sullivan believes that every abortion is a tragedy, then he should use his bully pulpit to uneqivocally condemn it as he does torture. And if feels the need to show images of torture to make the case for his outrage, then he should have the courage to show images of abortions.
Abe mentioned Sullivan’s obsession with Sarah Palin. I can see why people may not be attracted to Sarah Palin. But Sullivan’s crusade against her is the most embarrasing, shameful episode in contemporary journalism — and that is saying a lot.
What moral standing and where and what consequences now that it is gone? In nations like Iran? North Korea? France? Japan? They are now going to treat us differently? How? To what effect? And I take it you believe France and Spain and Japan would never use such techniques under the same circumstances, right… and that the United States has also never used until Bush — as you imply somewhat half-assedly as in:
“Everything the nation was founded on”?
So, you believe things like this were not done in the past or do you believe we’ve near lived up to what the nation was founded on?
Well, hell, why not have it both ways:
It’s both what the nation was founded on and what people like you had to fight so hard to establish —- give me my cake and let me eat it too…
My — we are jumping around a heck of lot here, aren’t we?
– we go from using coercive interrogation techniques like those spelled out in the memos — to — what for Pete’s sake!!! killing people for “no reason” — to rounding up “random” civilians.
It’s hard to take you seriously at all when you jump to all hell and back like that…
So, those are the examples you want to cherry pick to define us all…..neat…
I’ve stated the government shouldn’t have the option of doing absolutely anything it wants in these circumstances but that I can live with what I read in the Bush memos given the circumstances. — and being called ignorant scum by you for that opinion does absolutely nothing for me.
I have a couple of questions for you that would help nail down your thinking far better than the leaps you make in this comment:
What is your opinion of John F. Kennedy?
Is he un-American scum for some of the things his CIA did when he was a Cold War warriror? (Or do you somehow believe that the actions described in the Bush memos are far beyond anything the CIA was involved in under Kennedy?)
What is your opinion of Jimmy Carter? the Human Rights president?
If I remember correctly, a good bit of the things that happened that Noam Chomsky and crew use to argue that the United States has long been a gutter nation routinely practicing things that make it just like – no, worse than – the Soviet Union or some Cuban dictatorship —- happened on Carter’s watch. (Or, would you again try to tell me that nothing the CIA was/might have been involved in under Carter was close to being as bad as what the Bush memos show?)
What about my hypothetical scenario: What if a CIA agent had been caught trying to blow up that incomplete nuclear reactor in Syria?
Would you be blogging about how Bush and Rice were absolutely correct in demanding that Syrian leaders be brought before an international tribunal for torture techniques they would use on that CIA agent? Or would I be reading on your blog about how the United States has absolutely no grounds to bring such charges given the nature of what the CIA operative was trying to do?…
I think Noam Chomsky is a hack and that if I had written research papers anywhere close to as loose and full of holes as his books are, I’d have failed out of college…
….but…you know….I can actually give him more credit for consistency than I can you from what your comment shows.
You seem to be rather selectively blind about American history (and that of other democracies), and blind to those same nations in today’s world, and blind to what some of us against your way of thinking have been saying here at Commentary on a number of threads — threads that specifically focus on the Bush memos.
If you want to equate us all with the ones who advocate even measures like chopping off limbs — and pretend you’ve actually lived all this time in a make-believe world — fine, I guess that can work for you…
Torture, schmorture. While we are sitting at our keyboards arguing about what constitutes or doesn’t constitute “torture,” our enemies are busily planning on taking over the world. That we worry and compulsively torture ourselves over an America that must remain pristine when it really isn’t and never was is almost a joke.
How funny it must seem to those who so easily and eagerly beheaded Daniel Pearl that we keep questioning ourselves and fruitlessly hold ourselves to some “higher standard,” as if we are soooo godly. Please. While we debate about insects in boxes and bust terrorists against walls that aren’t really walls, but make sure we cushion the blow so the poor soul doesn’t get whiplash. What a hoot this must be among those who are sitting in caves planning our demise in any way they can.
9/11 is regarded by many Islamic extremists as a huge mistake. Al Quaeda, in its inquenchable thirst for blood and publicity, brought down the wrath of the sleeping giant. Stupid. The smart ones know they can achieve their ends in patient ways. They will simply outbreed us. We worry about the planet, about the health of mother earth; they simply plan to take over. Numbers. Look at Britain. Look at Holland. Look at all of Eastern Europe. If it weren’t for the illegal immigrants, look at us.
Our idea that we are somehow above it all, that we are incorruptible, is a problem for us, but not for those who seek to destroy us. While we argue about what does or doesn’t constitute “torture,” our enemies are smiling broadly, laughing at our very circuitous circumspection. Waiting. Patiently.
In an America where relativism is rampant, where there seems to be a need for no objective good or evil, just different belief systems – why are we taken up in an endless loop about what constitutes torture? One man’s torture is Hitchen’s device to a new column at Salon.
There are “bigger fish to fry,” as my mom would say. Again, torture, smorture.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden Slams Obama, Calls Gibbs “An Inconvenient Truth” on Fox News Sunday”
The problem with the sort of toughness urged by nacl et al. is that it cannot serve as a national mindset. We need our tough guys, and we need the people in charge to be tough-minded. But for us to operate as a civil society, we need mostly to be slow to anger and disdainful of violence. Condoning, much less extolling, torture makes that meaningfully more difficult than it need be.
Torture may sometimes be a good thing to do, but it is never a good thing to have done. We must have it, and we must condemn it. The trick is to be able as a state to inflict pain but as a people to eschew it. That’s why I reject all of these calls for torture as an exercise in virtue. It’s at best a necessary evil, and the right strategy for dealing with necessary evils is to lie about them (itself a corrupting thing, but not so corrupting as denying that they are evils).
Hell, we lie to ourselves about all sorts of liberal sacred cows. What’s the problem with lying to ourselves about how we win our wars?
CK MacLeod
I stand corrected on my tone, certainly with respect to Kramer who is among the most interesting posters anywhere. But regarding my “all-simplifying bottom-line question”, yes, it comes down to a simple live or die, dead end, noble statements and endless moralizing notwithstanding.
Furthermore, the issue is not whether torture should be “embraced by the state” any more than whether the state should embrace bombing cities until the asphalt in the streets leap into flame. It is what happens in extraordinary situations when the state must defend itself.
That there are states that use torture and police power to govern, and that embrace censorship and propaganda to retain power, is an entirely different matter and has no role in the debate here. Here it is about how to respond to operatives planning to exolode our infrastructure at rush hour. That is not reducible to the inadmissibility of “torturing the passenger in 89B on suspicion, or just for the fun of it”. That does not even work as an “all-simplifying bottom-line”.
Nor is the bromide, that torture is “morally costly to the torturer” applicable. Anyone employed as a torturer has long ago lost all decency. So too any employer, any institution, any govt that employs torturers. The issue is completely different. It is about individual crises situations where our society is threatened with bloody wounds unless the information available inside one man, is revealed. To get that information does not require a callous sadist good at inflicting horrendous pain, but an warm and intelligent human being desperate to protect his friends, family and society.
And yet that circles back to my argument on the “moral cost” of torture that you dismiss as a “bromide.” Can there be any doubt that the “warm and intelligent human being” who is driven to inflict pain, even extreme and lethal pain, on a defenseless individual will be made a victim, too – will sacrifice, too? That afterward he’ll likely be more “calloused” (or ruined)? And that the cost to him will radiate outward? That among some number of good men, the experience of having used physical compulsion the first time will make it easier the second? That having gone “this far,” some will be readier to go further?
And won’t it be the same among those who command, support, justify, encourage, and defend him? Isn’t a state that in any sense becomes comfortable with the idea of “rough interrogations” closer to comfort with torture? That a state that tortures its foreign enemies will already be better prepared to torture its domestic ones? That a state that tortures on certainty will be better prepared to torture on near-certainty, then on suspicion? That a state willing to torture a few will be better prepared to torture many? That a state willing to torture in a crisis will be willing to torture to prevent a crisis, or to preserve normalcy?
There are a hundred spots on the slippery slope where we could draw back – but there are at least as many where we could fall beyond return. I say all of this as someone who’s come down, I think, strongly on the side of our interrogators. In suggesting that there’s anything easy or simple about the issue, we do them an injustice – underrate the painstaking care they applied to their attempt to stay within precedent, and underestimate the personal as well as professional risks they were taking. It should be difficult to torture, and clearly was for the Bush people: It should be one of the most difficult decisions our public servants ever take upon themselves, and in this way, perhaps only in this way, the torture mavens do us a service.
For the above reasons and others, I also side with Alan Dershowitz, if not necessarily with his idea of “torture warrants,” and oppose Mr. Kramer’s idea that “it” merely needs to be lied about.
The Golden Rule applies here (Mr. Kramer, you should like this): Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. usinkorea has put his finger very precisely on a critical issue. If water-boarding is the worst we may expect from our foes in response to our water-boarding them, then speaking for myself, I can well live with that. Call it karma or justice or proportionate recompense, if you rob, says the sage, you will be robbed, and if you murder, you will be murdered.
If we deal with captive, defenseless, and illegal enemy combatants by water-boarding them or slamming their towel-wrapped heads into a flexible Fiberglas wall, then we expect – and will not complain unduly if they water-board or slam the towel-wrapped skulls of our captive, defenseless, and illegal combatants – namely, spies, for I cannot think what other category of agent we deploy that might qualify as “illegal” under the laws of war – into flexible Fiberglas walls. If we deprive their would-be suicide bombers of sleep, then they are welcome to deprive our secret agents of sleep.
If we play heavy metal or set Alsatians to barking and growling, then, to Al Qaeda I say, blow your oudhs and and incite your hounds until your dizzy. While your about it, feel free to wave the bloody Kotex, strew panties, and deface the Good Book from Genesis through the Apocalypse (I believe that our secret agents would be the first to agree.) Knock yourself out. You will of course have doctors and nurses on hand? . . . Good. I thought so.
As uinkorea asks, who will be outraged if all of that and even a bit more of similar barbarousness turns out to be the tactics pursued by our foes? We are talking about war here, I assume. High-velocity rounds through the head and chest. Bombs deliberately targeted at living human beings. 106-mm artillery shells aimed and fired with malice prepense, as the law books say. With utter confidence that as much will come the way of our soldiers in the field.
Lawrence is absolutely correct: What our secret services do and have done to illegal enemy combatants should NEVER have become public. That’s why they’re SECRET. All that was and is necessary, in my opinion, is that they are answerable to someone, which does not include the editors of the NY Times.
Obama’s decision to release the memos ranks as one of the most contemptible, most reprehensible, and cowardly actions that it is within the compass of the human mind to imagine a sitting President doing.
Abe Greenwald take a bold stance – he’s not for torture. he’s just for extreme physical and mental distress.
after all, if the Hitch can do it – how bad can it be?
Of course, Hitch lasted about 15 seconds before he cracked.
Maybe Abe should try it and write of his experience…
“Obama’s decision to release the memos ranks as one of the most contemptible, most reprehensible, and cowardly actions that it is within the compass of the human mind to imagine a sitting President doing.”
Good thing you didn’t vote for him…
The rest of us: pretty proud of our president.
Why do I have a feeling that a president who had no qualms about having working relationships and friendships with the Bill Ayerses of the radical 1960s and 70s — and who has described his admiration for the radical movements of those days — and who took inspiration for his career field from the likes of Saul Alinsky — won’t have a problem believing he has the right kind of moral fiber to decide to put many of these same techniques into use when/if he faces a terrorist crisis or a top terrorist leader is captured somewhere by our authorities? — and would reference Lincoln and Roosevelt and Kennedy in justifying that decision – if the media and critics happened to decide to attack him for it?
Why is it I get the feeling the tune for Bush on the left-leaning blogs would be almost universally different for that president if he is the one who makes such a decision in our near future?
In 1941, Jeanette Rankin was the only person in Congress to vote No on declaring war on Japan after Pearl Harbor. I don’t know a whole lot about the woman’s background, but I believe her position was one strictly of pacifism – as she had also voted against the declaration for WWI.
Why is it I get the feeling that 90%+ of those I see putting on sackcloth and throwing ashes over their heads because of what these Bush memos say will — if we learn one day Obama has ordered the very same techniques in much the same circumstances against much the same type of detainee – will be uncharacteristically quiet – or – will come out swinging in Obama’s defense?
“The rest of us: pretty proud of our president.”
Alas, there is no shortage of contemptible, reprehensible, and cowardly members of the voting public. And when has it ever been different?
All well and good, but you go off the track here, Abe:
“I do not think torture should be used in special circumstances; I do not think torture should be employed unofficially; ….”
Krauthammer has the better of the argument on these points.
One issue I haven’t seen come up here (though I may have missed it) is that of demoralizing the military and intelligence forces upon whom we rely. Like experts in any field, and as people who have chosen a dangerous and usually thankless position out of love of country, they are ultimately best positioned to determine how to perform the duties they have been charged with. The lines of accountability have not been broken–those in the field have kept in close contact with the political branches and legal advice, and interrogation methods have been used purposefully and within limits. To disown these people, to treat their actions as shameful, as the release of these memos ultimately does, is to start on a path that, if pursued over the long term, will make us defenseless–and we will deserve whatever we get.
CK MacLeod wrote:
Ask that of any soldier who in battle has thrust a bayonet at an enemy or fired a bullet at a living target, or an artillery shell, a bomb, a torpedo – and saw the resulting carnage.
Did that disable the moral fiber those people, ruin them? Sure, some exulted in the exhilaration of killing and wounding and causing mayhem, but with the exception of those so predisposed, most did not turn into brutes. Most who saw intestines dangling out of bellies, heads sheered off by shrapnel, black flesh peeled away to expose white bone, recoiled in horror. It disheartened them. They came home unwilling to even think or talk about it, let alone yearn for more.
Sure, those tasked with coercing fanatics into revealing their plots must not be motivated by malice or inclined to sadism. But if they are psychologically healthy their job won’t damage them any more than firing an anti tank shell at an enemy, armored personnel carrier.
At the end of the day, the release of the “torture” memos (the very name is a prejudgment) will rank with the release of the John Henry letters as an empty political ploy to smear perceived opponents carried out in the supposed name of some high minded principle. It provides a news cycle of titillation, an initial defensiveness from the alleged targets, then indignation in reverse when people start reading the offending documents and realizing that critics have shot first, established facts later. To those deeply invested in the torture narrative, facts of course are secondary. Plus there is the added kicker that US national security has been severely compromised.
I don’t believe that how we treat Al Queda suspects will have change how they treat ours, or at least that gentleness on our part will be reciprocated. That concept is what the Geneva Conventions are about, and, as of my last Google search, OBL has not signed on. We honor the conventions as to soldiers, as far as I know.
CK’s opposition to “merely” lying is understandable. I put lying to the electorate in a democracy where Churchill put democracy itself: superior only to the other available options. If CK would elaborate on how a regulated approach would work, maybe the matter would become clearer.
I’m ambivalent about the release of at least some of what’s in some of the memos. The “how-to” parts need to be redacted. But the legal analysis behind the Unitary Presidency is itself a how-to manual for usurpation, and We, the People really should know how that game is played. Indeed, one of the reasons I want the government to lie about torture is that I don’t trust the legal implications of the theories that would have to be advanced to legitimize it.
My thanks to nacl for his friendly words.
80- “Indeed, one of the reasons I want the government to lie about torture is that I don’t trust the legal implications of the theories that would have to be advanced to legitimize it.”
This is a great point, and I think you underscore perfectly what’s so disturbing about these memos. Instead of admitting the obvious–that these techniques are torture–and either using them secretly or using them openly, what the Bush administration did was far worse. They took techniques that clearly constitute torture, and hired an army of lawyers to give any plausible legal justification for the use of these techniques. The whole thing was very Orwellian, and very disturbing.
I think most Americans would have been much more comfortable if Bush had said: “yes, waterboarding is torture–however, these are terrorists who intend to take American lives, and I think it’s necessary to torture them to get the information that we need and stop them from doing so.” At least this an intellectually honest argument.
73
Dogg Says:
The rest of us: pretty proud of our president.
Dr Phil, is that you?
To 6 Brian, if you can find the US Constitutional provision that, e.g., supports waterboarding, I’ll PayPal you $5. If not you PayPal me $5.
And use capitals. You’re not a poet; you’re just a semi-literate commenter.
As for you other challenge to Lester e.g. that US Constitutional provision that, e.g. waterboarding start with the 8th Amendment. Googling helps here.
#78, nacl – I’m not even sure whether you really disagree with me on the question of whether the desperate, intrinsically humane interrogator forced to push the limits of “rough interrogation,” much less go all the way over the line into torture, wouldn’t be offering a sacrifice on the altar of duty – a real sacrifice. My larger point has to do with the familiar slippery slope argument in all of its ramifications, but I think it’s also wrong to underestimate the personal or spiritual cost to the people at the sharp end.
Also, regarding those soldiers you mention, it’s worth remembering that we (not just Americans) reward them with public honors, medals, and other benefits not just as expressions of gratitude or as incentives to serve, but also to help restore them to the community after asking them to do things that are incompatible with normal civil life and that we raise citizens to condemn. Despite our efforts, many suffer negative aftereffects of different types to the ends of their days. Our interrogators – and your future torturers – would run similar risks, but, instead of being honored and rewarded, would, if history’s any guide, run the further risks of being vilified, ostracized, possibly arrested. There’s been talk of impeaching Judge Bybee, who authored one of the interrogation memos.
LK: Lying to the electorate may be justified in war, but we need to be prepared for when the truth comes out. In this instance, with so much attention over such a long period on the interrogation issue, it’s too late to start protecting us from the basic knowledge, even if there’s a good reason to do so, something I don’t concede.
As for how a regulated system would work, Dershowitz has spoken and written on his “torture warrants” idea – I’m not sure how much detail he’s gone into it. I think instead we’ll continue to have the kind of work the Bush people did – which I think you exaggeratedly indict as some novel contribution to the 50 ways to leave your democracy. Well-documented Americanized investigations – Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Nixon were all leading experimenters – go way beyond anything “unitary executive” theory.
On the other hand, though I don’t consider myself a constitutional scholar, or even an interesting amateur on constitutional law, I have been convinced by others much more well-versed than I that at least some of the legal reasoning and positions emanating from the Bush Justice Department were equal parts embarrassing and dangerous. Even “arch-conservatives” like the Powerline guys were unable to defend them.
Actually Powerline did defend the memos. To quote from one of the site’s contributor’s comments about the impression created by reading the memos:
“If you do, you will see that DOJ’s lawyers grappled carefully and fairly with issues that are, by their nature, both difficult and distasteful. I find much to agree with in the memos and little, if anything, with which I disagree from a legal standpoint. Several things about the memos are striking: the concern that is shown for the health and well-being of the detainees; the very limited circumstances under harsh interrogation techniques were used (only when the CIA had reason to believe that the detainee had knowledge about pending terrorist attacks, among other limitations), and confirmation of the fact that thousands of American servicemen have been waterboarded and subjected to the other techniques in question, as part of their training–a practice that continued at least up to the dates of the memos.
I think the opinions were correct in substance; in any event, CIA officials were obviously justified in relying on them. In this context, the Obama administration’s announcement that it will not prosecute the CIA personnel involved is evidently grandstanding. Of course they won’t be prosecuted: to do so would be a double-cross of the worst sort, and the likelihood of getting a conviction would be nil. The fact is that the CIA officials who extracted valuable information from captured al Qaeda leaders–information that we have every reason to believe prevented successful terrorist attacks–are heroes. Their task was a thankless one, but, based on all the information we have, including the newly-released DOJ memos, they performed it well.”
I agree with this assessment. I think people are so browbeaten by the ceaselessness of criticism and the desire not to be linked to scary words like “torture” that they qualify any defense of the Bush Administration interrogation program almost as a matter of default. It appears that the Bush Administration is thoroughly vindicated, taking an eminently reasonable position and limiting enhanced interrogation to high level detainees only after carefully consideration the issues. (For example, why waterboarding was only used three times). This is hardly the riot of lawlessness that critics endlessly try to present.
consideration=considering
Ian – in re Powerline, I wasn’t referring to these memos. Sorry for the unclarity: I was referring to earlier events/cases. I agree with the analysis you quote.
Those who condone torture are morally responsible for the suffering of anybody it’s inflicted on. Those who oppose torture are morally responsible for the suffering of any innocents who are harmed because it was eschewed.
I know which I’d prefer to be responsible for.
Obamaton -
Add responsibility for the PTSD of those who inflict it, and you’ve stated most of the situation nicely.
If I read you right, you are already feeling responsible for the ones on whom torture is being inflicted. Yet, you cannot know how many lives you’re saving. And, if the torture you condone continues indefinitely, you will need to keep alive the belief that you are saving lives indefinitely, too. As a practical matter, I believe that takes a level of psychic energy that is not sustainable by enough of us for it to be a sound national strategy. And that’s the key here – not how a nation of “me” clones would handle the problem, but how the actual nation of “us” can handle it given who and what we are.
I have complained in other places about the elitist feminists, who advocate “equality” because, privileged and talented creatures that they are, they don’t need the assistance of life-long gender specialization. Some of us are blessed as well with the sterner stuff needed to accept torture with eyes wide open. But I suspect that most of us are not, and it the most of us whose repsonse to living in a country that tortures and is proud of it that concerns me.
Meanwhile, you have ignored the whole issue of power corrupting. Your analysis is dynamic, and assumes that if torture were condoned, the range of people being torturered would remain as tightly controlled as it was in the Bush years. Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps the practice was as limited as it was precisely because it was being kept secret, and secrecy is best protected by rarity. These things are all part of the policy mix. If you “condone,” torture, you need to condone not the institution but a specific regime for its application. Absent that, youre talking not walking.
Sorry – “dynamic” in my last paragraph of #89 should be “static.”
Once you start torturing, how likely are you to know when to stop?
49 “I’m late to this discussion, but my national self-esteem depends to a great extent upon whether I know my country is determined to do whatever it needs to in order to protect innocents from savages.”
no, unfortunately your country is letting it’s leaders become tyrants.
50- this isn’t 24. there is no scenerio where there is some bomb that is going to go off if we don’t torture someone. obviously if some terror mastermind is going to risk getting caught he will tell the other terrorists to make sure they blow the thing up if he’s not able to. these aren’t hijackers who are using terror to get prisoners freed or something.
The “legal” arguments are ridiculous. we are a religious country led in no small part by the bible and specifically by the constitution. you wouldn’t say “thuo shall not covet thy neighbors wife…unless he is not an american citizen” the laws are moral and apply to everyone and everybody
BP
JED is too kind to you. In repeating your “definitive” rant from the previous thread, you’re still railing against the vague “harsh techniques”. You are not a serious person.
Mickster #83
Why would you think that a Constitution would have a provision “supporting” torture or, for that matter supporting anything which one would consider a crime or an offense? You’re out of your league here.
And as I’ve noted on a previous thread regarding the Eighth Amendment argument as applied to the type of waterboarding used in Gitmo (or possibly elsewhere by the CIA), you must not be aware that the SCOTUS interpretations of the “cruel and unusual” clause in the U.S. Constitution, have been described as “meandering”. See Comment # 52 for another explanation of this non-starter argument. Even if you do not understand or agree with either explanation, they should tell you that, at the very least” merely saying “Eighth Amendment” to anyone is not a gotcha.
BTW Brian # 52, in 2003 the petitioners in Gherebi v. Bush, a Ninth Circuit case, did assert that the detention of some perps in Gitmo was a violation of the “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” Clause, but the Court did not reach the merits of that assertion. (See Footnote 6.) I’m not up to speed as to who’s on first here so I don’t know whether any or all of these guys are back beheading Americans or not.
Lawrence Kramer,
what torture are you referring to? American interrogation methods do not meet our legal definition of torture. Period.
Again, I would be willing to take moral responsibility for the torture of terrorists and would even accept the responsibility of personally inflicting it, but I am not willing to take responsibility for the victims that mollycoddling terrorists produces.
Control of interrogation (and torture if it is legalized,) is a fantasy. Rules can be broken and control can be abused. You said as much yourself when you wrote: “If you ‘condone,’ torture, you need to condone not the institution but a specific regime for its application. Absent that, you’re talking not walking.”
I suspect that the majority of Americans would favor the torture of terrorists. Why do you suspect otherwise?
Obamaton -
By “torture” I mean anything an ordinary citizen would consider “torture” if called upon to inflict on someone else. I am concerned with the implications of being a country that does actual things, not things that are legally defined as falling in a particular category. Defining “torture” as it suits us is no more effective in assuaging the national conscience than renaming Russia would be at ending those awful Russian Winters.
You did not say you would take responsibility for torturing terrorists. You said you would take responsibility for the torture of “anyone it is inflicted upon.” That strikes me as a broader class than “terrorists,” as opposed, say, to suspected terrorists or their suspected supporters.
I agree that regulation of torture is a fantasy. Where did I say otherwise? That’s why I want it to be illegal and, where it is necessary to be done, hidden. The need to keep it secret strikes me as the best way to assure that it is rarely used.
A majority of Americans may indeed favor “torturing terrorists,” but I don’t believe they favor torturing suspected terrorists and anyone else some DHS operative thinks it might be useful to torture in their name. More important, as I said before I ventured my guess about the public mood, I don’t care. The majority of Americans preferred that Mr. Obama be President. Does that shake your confidence in your contrary view?
The logical destination of the anti-”torture” frenzy…
Abe Greenwald:
[T]he effectiveness of interrogations has now itself become a negative, according to anti-Bush cul……