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« Friday Cephalopod: Best buddies | Main | Torture — what's it good for? »
Category: Politics
Posted on: December 28, 2007 10:07 PM, by PZ Myers
Someone was willing to try waterboarding on himself — he was in complete control, but he still found it a terrifying experience.
Now we just need to get all our representatives who claim it is not torture to try it themselves.
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Comments
Now we just need to get all our representatives who claim it is not torture to try it themselves.
since they don't consider it torture, they must also not consider it illegal.
why wait for them to do it to themselves?
there was some indication in that thread that it is included as "training" in some US military camps. why not just send them there for some "training"?
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 28, 2007 10:20 PM
also, I rather took notice when the self-tester stated afterwards that he would rather have all his digits smashed by a sledgehammer than go through it again.
now THAT'S effective torture.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 28, 2007 10:21 PM
We had a discussion about this over at Pam's House Blend when Senator Bond claimed that it wasn't torture. I'm convinced that the majority of the congress critters are mouth breathing wastes of space so I thought that perhaps he and the vast majority of them are confusing water boarding with kick boards. There just isn't (aside for money) another explanation. Utter stupidity seems to win every time with these guys.
(Yes, I'm still verrrry bitter about Fermilab funding being cut to "support the troops", bah.)
Posted by: Mena | December 28, 2007 10:25 PM
I'm convinced that the majority of the congress critters are mouth breathing wastes of space
having dealt with many directly over a period of about 10 years or so while working with NGO's, I came to the same conclusion.
not ALL, but enough to where it becomes a dicey proposition to think that it is worth spending effort on evidentiary discussion in order to get a large enough clique of these folk to support a particular bill. Most times, I and others I was working with got much further talking with Staffers than we ever did with the congressionals themselves.
OTOH, I've also sometimes thought that the difficulties of lobbying might be a "blessing" in disguise.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 28, 2007 10:34 PM
Torture is about as effective in gathering information as the death penalty is in deterring crime. They're both worthless.
Torture is about power. Toss in a little bloodlust and eroticism as well, but power mostly.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 28, 2007 10:40 PM
that is a strikingly terrifying description of a procedure that doesn't sound nearly so bad from the summary descriptions i've read before. A must read link that eliminates any doubts in my mind about whether waterboarding is torture.
Posted by: harley gee | December 28, 2007 10:44 PM
Torture is about as effective in gathering information as the death penalty is in deterring crime.
just to be clear:
Torture is about power.
was indeed what I was thinking when I said it looks like waterboarding is effective.
obviously why it was used so often during the Spanish Inquisition, where the goal was most certainly not "the truth".
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 28, 2007 10:52 PM
Ichthyic, I wasn't responding to you with my "effective" comment (I knew where you were coming from)...it was just a general comment.
I'm just sick of torture apologists. They get their willies harming others. I also see it in the same folks "complaining" about how fundamentalist Islam treats women and gays, while their own writings barely disguise their own desires to be able to get away with similar activities. You can hear the heavy breathing, the erotic charge, in their descriptions of the hanging of gays or rape of women. They're jealous.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 28, 2007 10:57 PM
I'd be more interested in knowing if it's _effective_ torture.
Posted by: Janus | December 28, 2007 11:23 PM
I can't imagine how it's possible to believe that torture is alway unethical. I, for one, can imagine scenarios in which ethics would positively require the use of torture.
Add to that the fact that we as a nation seem able to accept civilian collateral damage during conflicts and it's hard to understand how it would be unethical to torture someone who is almost certainly not innocent and possesses information which will save innocent lives.
I don't think torture should become a matter of policy, but I can't imagine how a moral person can categorically deny that torture can ever be used ethically.
Posted by: Matt | December 28, 2007 11:23 PM
It's mind numbing to me that the argument has turned to "is it torture or not?" Of course it is.
Daniel Levin, then the acting Assistant Attorney General under Gonzales actually had himself waterboarded on a base outside DC. Before he was forced out by Gonzales, he wrote the "torture is abhorrent" memo.
Posted by: Preston | December 28, 2007 11:27 PM
it appears the Jack Bauer devotees have arrived.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 28, 2007 11:30 PM
Of course it's effective torture. The effect of torture (and its intent) is to cause horrible pain and suffering. It works, it's effective.
Now, if you mean does it extract useful information, well... that's different. Sort of like asking if throwing your remote control at the wall is an effective way to change the channel.
It might work sometimes.
Posted by: craig | December 28, 2007 11:30 PM
"I, for one, can imagine scenarios in which ethics would positively require the use of torture."
I can imagine a purple pony. Isn't imagination fun?
Posted by: craig | December 28, 2007 11:34 PM
That's like saying that the effect and intent of killing someone is to end his life. Well duh, of course it is, but there's usually more to it than that. You can kill someone to defend yourself, or to defend a family member, or to steal the victim's money, or to have fun if you're a psycho, or for a hundred other reasons.
But of course you know that. So why are you pretending that you don't?
Really. If you're right, then I would say that the real crime here is incompetence, not torture.
Posted by: Janus | December 28, 2007 11:40 PM
Well, here come the straw men.
But just in case you weren't being disingenuous, I'll restate:
It is conceivable that there may arise a situation where the consequences of not torturing are much worse than the consequences of torturing. In this case, morality seems to necessitate torture.
I think that torture is awful and should never become routine. But to deny that there are some cases in which it would be required seems absurd to me.
Posted by: Matt | December 28, 2007 11:48 PM
It's not torture, it's just enhanced interrogation!
Posted by: Alex | December 28, 2007 11:51 PM
and that brings up the question: how would you torture a sadomasochist?
Posted by: overcaffein8d | December 28, 2007 11:53 PM
Again, the Jack Bauer scenarios pop up.
Torture doesn't work as a mechanism for gathering information. It works as a mechanism for getting people to say anything to make it stop.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 28, 2007 11:53 PM
I'm not pretending I don't know that. I'm realizing that the question is stupid.
Let's take you killing for money as an example. Is killing John Smith for his money an effective way to get money? It depends.
1. Does John Smith have any money?
2. Is this the right John Smith?
3. Did John Smith's friends lie when they said he had money?
4. Is John Smith's money actually of any use to you? (information that is not of any help, etc.)
5. Does John Smith have counterfeit money that might confuse you? (false info)
6. Does John Smith have $5 in his pocket to make you think you got all his money when in fact you did not?
etc.
Will killing John Smith get you money? Maybe. It is 100% effective in ending his life though, and 100% effective in making you a murderer.
Torturing people is 100% effective in making the United States (and all of the citizens it represents) torturers.
Personally its not worth it to me to be a citizen of a barbaric country even if there's a miniscule chance that might result in my own death.
Kinda the same way our justice system was originally designed to accept the risk of the guilty going free to minimize the chances of convicting the innocent.
I know some people see things differently. Oddly enough some people are willing to be a citizen of a country that officially allows torture based on scenarios they've seen on tv. Based on their imagination. Some people imagine a lot of things that scare them and look to organizations and power structures that coddle their scary imaginations, take money from them and use it to build tall pointy buildings.
I've never understood that.
Posted by: craig | December 29, 2007 12:02 AM
MAJeff,
Just because 24 unrealistically exploits tourture for entertainment does not change its morality in the real world.
It seems to me that you might refute someone arguing that police are sometimes justified in using deadly force by bringing up The Terminator or something along those lines. There actually is a serious ethical argument here that you seem to be willfully ignoring.
-------------------------
I recently read this blog post by someone at The Economist. I recommend it to anyone interested in this debate, in particular, I recommend reading the interview with the CIA agent that is linked-to from there.
Posted by: Matt | December 29, 2007 12:03 AM
"and that brings up the question: how would you torture a sadomasochist"
Masochist: Beat me! Whip me! Make me scream!
Sadists: No!
Posted by: Ferrous Patella | December 29, 2007 12:06 AM
It is conceivable that if we performed vivisection and other medical experimentation on humans, we could learn how to cure many diseases, and save many more lives that such research would cost. Interestingly, most civilized societies don't think that such pure utilitarianism is justified.
Posted by: Tulse | December 29, 2007 12:07 AM
"Well, here come the straw men."
No, you started with the straw man. You posed the scenario in such a way that unless we can prove beyond a doubt right here and now that torture could never possibly save a life, then we must accept it as not only allowable but also ethical.
I admit that my pony answer wasn't very serious and wasn't all that direct of an answer, but sometimes I choose fun over simply telling yet another amoral sociopath to go fuck himself.
Posted by: craig | December 29, 2007 12:09 AM
This one makes me think -- forget torture, imagine a drug that made a person completely cooperative yet otherwise fully functional. You could give it to Osama Bin Laden and he would have an unnatural desire to answer any question you in a way would maximally satisfy you. And an hour later he would revert back to his original state with no lasting physiological or psychological effects. A side-effect free compliance serum (and to be explicit: while magical (hey, it's a thought experiment,) this is not a truth serum, merely a compliance serum.) How much value is there in the systemic use of such a tool?
Posted by: Craig Pennington | December 29, 2007 12:16 AM
There actually is a serious ethical argument here that you seem to be willfully ignoring.
No I'm not. Torture doesn't work. This has consistently been shown in the literature. No matter how many ticking time bomb scenarios you want to put in place, it doesn't work.
Additionally, Kirakou never witnessed waterboarding and in the case he sites, others have noted that the prisoner provided pretty much nothing.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 29, 2007 12:16 AM
I was drafted in 1971. I was in AIT (Advanced Infantry Training), which came after Basic Training if you were chosen to be an infantry grunt. (As most of us were then). I went through a very serious waterboarding simulation experience after being "captured" by "Viet Cong" in AIT. It was quite real.
Let me just say that had I gone through it in a "real" situation, I would have given out every bit of information asked for.
It is clearly torture....no question about it. It just makes me sick to my stomach to read about people in our govenment who think this is not torture......
They belong in hell.
Desert Dog
Posted by: Desert Dog | December 29, 2007 12:26 AM
"I think that torture is awful and should never become routine. But to deny that there are some cases in which it would be required seems absurd to me."
I don't think I've ever read a single true account in which torture has actually saved innocent people.
I've read plenty in which torture has ruined innocent people.
So there's my stance toward torture. Some of you smart folk can set me right.
Posted by: notthedroids | December 29, 2007 12:27 AM
Here's another little thing to think about.
We forbid cruel and unusual punishment of people who have actually been convicted of a crime - who are proven guilty (supposedly) because we consider that to be uncivilized and barbaric.
It would seem to follow that we wouldn't allow it for people who haven't even been charged with a crime let alone convicted.
(And please remember that punishment of criminals is to a great degree intended to reduce future crime, so the situation IS comparable.)
Incidentally, comparing your imaginary scenarios with 24 and Jack Bauer is absolutely fair game. The current pro-torture political rhetoric that is intended to increase acceptance of torture is FULL of references to "Jack Bauer."
Several of your presidental candidates have used that specific example. The platform of the GOP, or at least of most of its candidates, is openly based on a fantasy, a TV show. That's the unreality of the current reality whether you like it or not.
Posted by: craig | December 29, 2007 12:31 AM
Water boarding is torture, and has been used as such for centuries! The whole question is absurd, but not surprising in a nation of superstitious, evolution-doubting dimwits. Whether it should be used is another issue, but from what I've heard from people who are experts on torture, is that torture simply is not a useful means of gathering information.
Posted by: Kerry Maxwell | December 29, 2007 12:32 AM
What. The. Fuck?
Are some people here actually using the stupid "what if he had info you needed" fantasy?
OK get this the fuck straight:
Torture.
Does.
Not.
Get.
Reliable.
Information!
Ok? got that?
I bet not, as any rational human would see this right away.
If i am causing you intense pain and distress till you will do anything to get it to stop (I.E. torture) then you are not going to tell the truth, you are going to tell ANYTHING to get it to stop.
Anything.
Now do you get it?
The torturer asks what your next target will be. You haven't picked one yet. They say, "yah right" and break your thumb slowly. You scream and start making crap up till they stop.
This is how ALL torture works. there is no magical way to make someone only say the truth this way.
Now then, I hope to heck, I never hear a statement of:
"But to deny that there are some cases in which it would be required seems absurd to me."
Thank you and goodnight.
P.S. sorry i'm ranting, but i hear this bullshit all the time and it's so PATENTLY ridiculous.
Very sorry.
-A P.O.'d cat
Posted by: Cat of many faces | December 29, 2007 12:44 AM
I've thought for awhile that if this abomination didn't have such a sanitized name and people understood just what it was, nobody would stand for it. The thought of trying it for oneself is terrifying. The whole thing is abhorrent and I can't believe I haven't got off my butt and stormed the White House. And the Justice Department. And Congress. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with all of us? And now what do we do?
Posted by: Heather | December 29, 2007 12:45 AM
Keep in mind that Solzhenitzyn (who I am willing to assume was familiar with torture) says that three methods of torture were enough to break nearly everyone who was ever arrested by the NKVD: isolation, stress positions, and sleep-deprivation. All of these methods are accepted by the US government as normal parts of interrogation, decades after they were exposed as ways, not to glean information, but to destroy a person's ability to do anything but accede to their captor's demands.
Oh, and the first step in the creation of the Gulag was the establishment of "special military tribunals" for the trial of those deemed exceptionally dangerous.
To quote "Easy Rider", "This used to be a hell of a country".
Posted by: autumn | December 29, 2007 12:50 AM
There might be a situation in which torture is required (might is stressed here, has there ever been one that couldn't have been resolved without torture? I don't know of any... ever) to save civilian lives. But does that mean we need to actually make a legal exception? NO! Should such a situation arise, then the proper course would be to procede, and then attempt to justify your actions openly later, and take responsibility.
As an analogy, speeding is illegal, but if you came across someone who was hurt and needed to get to a hospital, you would be justified in speeding to the hospital. We don't need to write a legal exception to this, thats the point of an intelligent legal system.
Also, torture is always unethical. Its just that there might conceivably be a situation where not torturing someone would create a worse situation (though no one has ever believably described such a situation to me).
Posted by: Robert | December 29, 2007 1:01 AM
Here is a believable situation: Based on good intelligence, the CIA has arrested a terrorist--during the arrest they find bomb building materials and schematics of hospitals and schools. He does not surrender any information under normal questioning. Despite lack of actionable intelligence, you know from interviews with him and others that an un-captured terrorist is soon going to attack a school or hospital.
Admittedly, this sounds like an episode of 24, but I am summarizing the interview I linked to in comment #21. I don't understand how torturing an admitted terrorist to get information to stop the deaths of many innocent children is unethical.
I think I basically agree with you argument, and I can reasonably believe that the only way to prevent torture from becoming routine is to make it illegal. But I still don't understand how it is unethical in these situations.
The major difference between this and other 'cruel and unusual situations' (I don't know what else to call them) is that there are real, defined victims, the person being tortured is admittedly guilty, and there is no other way to get the needed information in time.
Posted by: Matt | December 29, 2007 1:20 AM
I disagree with physical interrogation methods (they DO work, but you're just as likely to confess to riding in a UFO piloted by leprechauns as anything else), but nevertheless I call bullshit on the tale in the link. Just my opinion, but it sets off my Sagan2000 Baloney Detector.
Posted by: Some Guy | December 29, 2007 1:23 AM
I'd be more interested in knowing if it's _effective_ torture.
uh, suggest you read the man's responses to it in that thread, where he out and out states he would sell his children before being exposed to the same thing again.
IOW, he would say or do ANYTHING to avoid said torture again, which is exactly why it is so ineffective as a method to acquire accurate information.
as a method of intimidating others into doing what you want, however, it's typically pretty effective.
so is holding a gun to a loved one's head, etc.
People who think torture might actually have a use in information retrieval might want to read the CIA's own research into it sometime.
...or maybe they should think about tracking down Terry Gilliam's old movie "Brazil".
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 1:26 AM
I still stand by my assertion that Bush and Cheney sit around Friday nights in latex body suits watching these torture tapes while getting some sort of sick pleasure out of the suffering and humiliation before their eyes.
Aside from that, I still can't believe that there are Americans here on this blog actually advocating the use of torture. How hopelessly bent and twisted must you be to actually feel proud at the notion that your nation, a nation of laws and of freedom, commits atrocities so horrific they've been branded illegal and inhumane by our own fucking courts? People have been tried and convicted of this crime in the past. Has that law changed? NO!
Then again, considering waterboarding was a favorite tactic of the Inquisition, perhaps that is what these morons mean when they puke out their tired old drivel that America is a "Christian Nation."
And, if that's the case, perhaps it's time to let some lions loose in church and bolt the doors from the outside. I, for one, would like my moral, law-abiding, secular nation back.
Oh! And the first one of you gutless assholes who mentions 9-11, please, go kill yourselves now. Bush rendered that battle-cry irrelevant and worthless the second he stopped pursuing those responsible and decided to embark on this blood-soaked folly in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan | December 29, 2007 1:26 AM
I disagree with physical interrogation methods (they DO work, but you're just as likely to confess to riding in a UFO piloted by leprechauns as anything else)
exactly.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 1:27 AM
The major difference between this and other 'cruel and unusual situations' (I don't know what else to call them) is that there are real, defined victims, the person being tortured is admittedly guilty, and there is no other way to get the needed information in time.
indeed, you've been watching too many episodes of 24.
*psst* it's just a TV show.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 1:30 AM
What is wrong with me? What is wrong with all of us?
we saw the failure of the hippie movement.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 1:32 AM
Matt, your scenario does indeed read like a TV show. My imagination is pretty good, and I really think that anyone who would "need" to be tortured to give up information "in time" is likely to be beyond caring whether they live or die anyway. The "information" would be no more trustworthy in such a situation than in any other.
Further, a lot of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that we as a society have been allowing our government to use in our "defense" are illegal, and they're all pretty routine. Horrendous cruelty can always be justified in the minds of people who believe themselves to be absolutely right. I work hard every day to make sure I will never be that "right."
Posted by: Heather | December 29, 2007 1:34 AM
This may come as a shock to you, but there are ethical systems other that strict utilitarianism.
Posted by: Sophist, FCD | December 29, 2007 1:36 AM
Matt you seem to have confused right with expedient. Torture is never right or moral, it might be expedient, it might be the lesser of two evils, but it will never be right or moral. No matter what hypothetical scenario you create there will always be better and more reliable options than torture, but they might not be as expedient. Expediency is the main reason for using torture if you claim to also be civilized (and it is just as claim because a civilized nation does not torture), it is fast and easy and cheap, it punishes those you hate, and occassionally you might get useful information. But by and large torture is not a reliable way to extract information, it more often creates a situation where your victim will tell you anything they think you want to hear to stop, assuming you don't kill them or shatter their mind in the process. If your main goal is to get more people and you don't care if they are innocent or guilty to torture then it works great, but if you want reliable information then there's much more effective means. They take longer, cost more, and require more effort, and most of them don't punish, so they don't get called for as often. I won't deny there are scenarios where I might allow the use of torture, threats to my loved ones being an example, but that wouldn't make it right, and I could in no way consider myself innocent again.
Posted by: Venger | December 29, 2007 1:40 AM
Matt, given that I agree for the moment that a situation could arise in which a suspect in custody is known to have vital information which no legal interrogation could possibly ascertain, but which some form of force could draw out, it remains an issue of legality. If the interrogator is so certain, then the torture of the suspect will go forward, and the interrogator will subsequently be prosecuted to the extent of the law. There exists the possibility that, having extracted vital information (a long shot, but possible), a judge may see a mitigating circumstance, but in all cases torture as a means to extract information is a decision made by a legally culpable individual, and as such, that individual must be so sure of their conviction as to not fear their conviction.
Posted by: autumn | December 29, 2007 1:43 AM
Oh, and as to your little scenario:
Read the names of the schools/hospitals off of the schematics, genius.
Also, lets say you do torture the chap, and he says the target is school Foo. You go and evaccuate the school, but the other terrorist never shows and you don't find a bomb.
Did he give you the wrong school on purpose? Did the other terrorist chicken out? Had they not picked out a target yet? Did the other terrorist see the cops evacuating the school, and change the target to a school the torturee doesn't know about? Did they have a backup plan if one of them was captured?
Hey, maybe you can torture the answer out of him! Lather, rinse, repeat.
Posted by: Sophist, FCD | December 29, 2007 1:50 AM
Dear Leader says "We don't torture." Therefore waterboarding is not torture. QED.
Posted by: jeh | December 29, 2007 1:51 AM
"The major difference between this and other 'cruel and unusual situations' (I don't know what else to call them) is that there are real, defined victims, the person being tortured is admittedly guilty, and there is no other way to get the needed information in time."
No, there are no real and defined victims, you suspect there are real and defined victims, but you don't know for sure, or else you wouldn't be trying to get that info in the first place, you'd already have it.
Which also points out why information gleaned that way is unreliable. Without corroboration, it's just a coin-toss.
I hate making that argument though because I don't fucking CARE how useful the information would be. Torture is wrong and immoral.
"Guilty until proven innocent" might conceivably save lives on balance. Executing drunk drivers might save lives. Sterilizing Republicans might save lives. "Kill all of them before they kill all of us" might.
It doesn't fucking MATTER. That's not what morality and ethics are about.
There was a time in this country when discussing the merits of torturing suspects would be seen in the same light as discussing the merits of raping small children.
I knew when 911 happened that the whole country was going to go fucking insane and things were going to get ugly, but PLEASE get a fucking spine, grow a set of balls and stop seeing boogeymen everywhere. It's been over 6 years, you can calm the fuck down down and STOP making living in this country a worse nightmare than 911 ever was.
Posted by: craig | December 29, 2007 2:09 AM
Well, I am not so certain of my position that I can't be argued away from it. Although I don't think I stated it explicitly, I entered this debate thinking that in certain circumstances, torture should be legally permitted. autumn and Robert's posts have led me to believe otherwise. I accept that legalizing torture may not be wise. I am still uneasy with accepting laws we know to be flawed because our legal system seems to have trouble making exceptions (witness California's three strikes law) but with the torture issue, it seems to me this is unlikely to be a problem.
Venger, I understand that distinction you're trying to make but I don't find your argument convincing. Perhaps you would feel guilt, but your feelings don't mean that you were guilty. I know that a lot of police officers that are forced to kill people suffer emotional distress afterwards, but this does not mean that they are guilty of an immoral action.
For those of you rejecting my argument on the grounds that it is based on a utilitarian framework, I have to ask you, by what other measure would you develop laws?
Posted by: Matt | December 29, 2007 2:18 AM
The United States does not torture. Therefore, waterboarding isn't torture.
Love the logic?
I'm tired of hearing about waterboarding though. Its a horrible method, but you would be naive as hell if you thought it was the only method being used. Its just one thats been confirmed.
I would like to know what the Beacon of Freedom(TM) uses to defend our freedom when it comes to interrogation techniques. But what the hell do I know, I'm just a baby eating liberal appeasist who wants the terrorists to win.
Posted by: Geral | December 29, 2007 2:23 AM
Sophist, though I think thought experiments do have value in debates on ethics, this was not a thought experiment. I cited my sources, that situation was described by a CIA agent who was involved in the operation. Although it might get a laugh, I really didn't get the sense that the man interview was unintelligent or immoral. To my understanding, the CIA is pretty careful about who it recruits. I will accept the truth of what he's saying because, since he comes out against torture, he doesn't seem to have any reason to make up the details that, from my point of view, justified it.
Posted by: Matt | December 29, 2007 2:26 AM
If one does things that are terrifying to the average, rational person, then the perpatrator has no reason to express surprise or incredulity should same impose upon his world view or his precious ass.
I am more offended by protestations of offense than I am of being personally offended. How this is possible I cannot say. Maybe it has something to do with the observation that no matter how loud it is said it is merely said. Or my utter apostacy. Who'll gimme a dollar on apostacy? Step right up, young man!
If there is no evidence there is no point in wasting time. Unless you like magic more than breathing.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | December 29, 2007 2:27 AM
The current pro-torture political rhetoric that is intended to increase acceptance of torture is FULL of references to "Jack Bauer."
Several of your presidental candidates have used that specific example. The platform of the GOP, or at least of most of its candidates, is openly based on a fantasy, a TV show. That's the unreality of the current reality whether you like it or not.
How scarey is the statement about rhetoric? I never caught the very probability that the pro-torture rhetoric is to increase acceptance of torture. This administration is more like a mafia if you ask me and they have to go.
Posted by: MCullen | December 29, 2007 2:40 AM
the platform of the GOP, or at least of most of its candidates, is openly based on a fantasy, a TV show.
well, not JUST a TV show.
the platform is based on a lot of other imaginary things as well.
I often enjoy picking out the imaginary things the folks who signed on to the PNAC site base their ideologies on.
fantasies make great defenses for flawed rationalizations, though. don't expect them to stop utilizing them any time soon.
just go back to Dan Quayle's bit of horrid rationalization based on commentary and actions by the fictional character "Murphy Brown".
oh, wait, that's still a TV show.
damn.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 2:47 AM
Oh, and the first step in the creation of the Gulag was the establishment of "special military tribunals" for the trial of those deemed exceptionally dangerous.
To quote "Easy Rider", "This used to be a hell of a country".
Posted by: autumn | December 29, 2007 12:50 AM
Tajmahal comes to mind, "If you ain't scared you ain't right". I believe was the statement.
Posted by: MCullen | December 29, 2007 2:48 AM
Where do people get the idea that any information gained through torture is reliable in any way? Take the recent FBI report on the information Zarkowi (sp?) gave to the CIA. After waterboarding, any information he gave was unrelable...because he was confessing to everything to make the torture stop. Torture is not good for reliable info. It's good for ringing out confessions. Take the inquisition. The torturers have already made up their minds about guilt, they just needed to force a confession. Torture historically has been used AFTER convictions. It was used more as a punishment and a deterent than an interrogation toon. Twentieth century dictatorships of all stripes are notorious for torture of not just dissadent elements, but of average people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who often confessed to being involved in numerous plots to undermine the dictatorship, when they were only out shopping or something and never wanted to get involved. That is what torture is. It is a method of controlling the populace through fear. Torture is nothing more or less than terrorism.
I'm sick of the way the media (both newsreports and fictional books and movies) presents torture as interrogation, even if used only by The Bad Guys.
Posted by: JakeS | December 29, 2007 3:05 AM
How long have many of us argued the Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzo and the many other people in this administration lacks basic humanity and live in a fantasy world? It is very sad that the facts about water boarding are so muddied that people debate about if it is torture. But it is to be expected when there are the caliber of people we have in charge.
Posted by: Janine | December 29, 2007 3:11 AM
Waterboarding (along with several other torture techniques currently in vogue) was lifted from a CIA manual intended for training American troops to resist torture if captured. North Koreans waterboarded captured GIs until they confessed to nonexistent war crimes.
Waterboarding has a pedigree extending all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. It has been used, every time, to extract false confessions from the tortured. The idea that waterboarding can produce 'actionable intelligence' is absurd.
The Spanish Inquisition didn't care because all those sinners were guilty of something anyway. The Communists didn't care because all those capitalists were corrupt criminals anyway. The Republicans don't care because all those Muslims are terrorists anyway.
Waterboarding is about crushing a few unlucky people and terrifying the rest. It is terrorism at its most literal. Anyone who says otherwise is, at best, fooling himself.
Posted by: Sideways | December 29, 2007 3:16 AM
Waterboarding is about crushing a few unlucky people and terrifying the rest
IOW, waterboarding is terrorism.
yup.
wait, I keep losing track... who are the terrorists again?
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 3:19 AM
I just totally respect and admire that guy for having the guts to perform such an intimate investigation.
Listening to the AG confirmation hearings on C-SPAN with the AG saying "I can't comment on whether waterboarding is torture..." over and over again, I guess what he meant was "...unless it's being done correctly..."
I wish I'd been able to introduce this guy's testimony.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | December 29, 2007 3:26 AM
Posted by: Hank | December 29, 2007 3:44 AM
Duh, it's the guy getting not-tortured by buff alpha males while a clock ticks ominously and the camera pans to a school yard where kids play with puppies and unicorns.
ah, thanks.
?
!!?
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 3:48 AM
Given the "terrorist bomb out there" scenario, you have ask yourself this: If he's a committed terrorist and knows all he needs to do is remain silent for 12 hours and the bomb will go off, you aren't going to get anything out of him, even with waterboarding. Or you will get lies. Plausible, detail filled lies.
John McCain may be the least favorite politician in these parts, but when he says "waterboarding is torture", I agree with him.
Posted by: DLC | December 29, 2007 4:07 AM
Been there, done that. Suburban gang initiation rites.
Posted by: wildcardjack | December 29, 2007 4:24 AM
Seems to me the important question is not whether whether waterboarding is torture, or whether it's effective at extracting reliable information, or whether the information thus extracted is crucial for saving the lives of schoolchildren. The important question is what effect a policy of institutionalized torture will have on the causes of terrorism. Will acting like thugs persuade people not to hate us? Or will it simply confirm their worst fears about us, thereby fanning the flames of terrorism and putting even more schoolchildren at risk?
Posted by: Gregory Kusnick | December 29, 2007 4:30 AM
I have to wonder, given the entire pharmacopeia available to the psychiatric profession, isn't it simpler and more efficient to just drug the hypothetical terrorist-with-immediately-relevant-information and get him to spill his guts that way?
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | December 29, 2007 4:34 AM
Well, to the people whose imagination can stretch far enough to conceive of a situation where torture is necessary, how much further does the imagination stretch? If one believes that the person you've captured won't talk under torture, do you go after his family? Pick up his mother, daughter, and 8-year old son, build a rape room according to some official government specification, call it something less scary, like "water-bedding", and see if that works?
This is actually what I wonder when I see people defending the use of physical torture. They don't appreciate the horror, it's too removed. They don't have relatives who've been tortured, the closest they come to it is in mass-market entertainment, written by people who have no more experience of the issue than the viewers.
People aren't horrified, because they don't grasp it. Torture isn't something that they live in fear of, they don't understand what it's about.
Posted by: Christopher | December 29, 2007 5:06 AM
"The Republicans don't care because all those Muslims are terrorists anyway."
Exactly. And it's not just torture; the U.S. government has kidnapped and held men captive for years based solely on their religion and skin color. Sure, some of the Gitmo captives are actually terrorists, but the Bush administration has actively blocked any attempt to accurately determine who is and isn't guilty.
If it's okay to use waterboarding in the war on terrorism, why isn't it okay to use it in the war on crime? If you take for granted that waterboarding is effective, it's far easier to imagine scenarios where the police could save lives by waterboarding criminals than it is to imagine scenarios where waterboarding a terrorist would be effective. And yet, I don't see any torture advocates making this argument. Could it be because they know if the police make a mistake it could be them or someone they care about who gets tortured? Implicit in the pro-torture advocate's position is the knowledge that it's only going to be used on an inhuman "them". Even Matt, who has actually been pretty reasonable on the subject, started off by arguing that torture victims were "almost certainly not innocent".
Posted by: JustAnOutsider | December 29, 2007 5:26 AM
"the platform is based on a lot of other imaginary things as well."
What, you mean like "illegal aliens are taking the jobs and ruining the economy?"
Posted by: craig | December 29, 2007 5:44 AM
isn't it simpler and more efficient to just drug the hypothetical terrorist-with-immediately-relevant-information and get him to spill his guts that way?
They haven't got a really reliable truth drug, that's the problem. You can disorient the hell out of someone, but the same problem exists as in the torture scenario.
Imagine you took someone and jacked them up on some kick-ass disassociative and then had an actor show up pretending to be a sympathetic partner. Maybe they'd talk - they might spill operational plans, but then again they might be talking to their own ear-wax. The problem becomes, again, how do you tell?
So the trick would be to have a drug that made someone tell the complete truth the first time. That does not exist - if it did, we'd see dramatic social consequences (think "Fast penta" from Lois McMaster Bujold's sci-fi books) So in the absence of a perfect interrogator's drug, there's stuff in the pharmacopia that would be handy. I'm thinking specifically of something like Fentanyl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl What it can do is mess with your neuroplasticity - you lose the ability to move things from short-term memory to long-term. For an interrogation, you can see how this would be useful - you get the victim disassociated but able to speak, short-circuit their short-term memory, then get them talking and you could cross-index all the different stories they told you during the session. My ex-wife had surgery under Fentanyl and it was mind-boggling to talk to her afterward: she told me the same thing about 40 times, because she couldn't remember having told me. A large part of lying under interrogation is keeping your story straight... A really scary scenario would be to give a victim something like fentanyl and MDMA or fentanyl and demerol, then when they wake up the next day with no memory, achy and feverish, tell them you gave them "forget me" drugs and water-boarded them and that they spilled everything. Give a while for the notion that they broke under interrogation to soak in, and repeat the process.
I've had a few experiences with psychoactives that have shown me how easy it is for the meat robot's perception of reality to get completely derailed. The downside is that memories that are laid down are just as "real" as any other "reality" so if you tripped someone out and convinced them they were burning in the eternal fires - and it was real to them - is it torture? (hint: yes) But what if you chemically disorient someone and they think they're talking to the almighty and getting a pat on the head? Is that torture? "It depends what you mean by 'is'"
When I first saw that thing about the guy self-waterboarding, I fact-checked with a friend of mine who is a serious diver and he said this:
Once you have a scare like the one he describes - and I've had one or two in my lifetime - you are always terrified of drowning.
When you're tripped out on certain chemicals, if you have a mildly aversive experience, it can become a life-long haunting memory. It's amazing how well we learn under certain conditions.
Opening up the medicine chest to aid in interrogation is a real pandora's box. I could quite easily see people walking out of an interrogation looking perfectly normal on the outside but being completely f*cked in the head, permanently.
At this point, "THE US TORTURES PEOPLE IN SECRET" is going to be the global perception for the forseeable future, no matter what we say. Remember when those pilots of ours were captured by the Iraqis? And we complained, because they were being exposed to possible humiliation?
"America is angry about this," said an irritated President Bush. "If ((Saddam)) thought this brutal treatment of pilots is the way to muster world support, he is dead wrong." Saddam's tactics also aroused disgust in Europe. "He's a man without pity," said British Prime Minister John Major. Both Bush and Major hinted that they might seek to prosecute Saddam for war crimes if the prisoners are mistreated in any way.
I wonder if waterboarding is 'mistreatment'?
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | December 29, 2007 5:45 AM
The goal of waterboarding is to simulate drowning without the actual drowning or inhalation into the lungs.
I don't know where he got that idea. Waterboarding isn't just simulated drowning, it always involves inhalation of water, as he found out. The Wikipedia article is a good source of information.
Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 5:50 AM
I don't understand how torturing an admitted terrorist to get information to stop the deaths of many innocent children is unethical.
Uh, because torture is inherently unethical, and that is compounded by the fact that the idea that torture will produce information that stops the deaths of many innocent children is an illusion that can only be maintained by a deeply immoral person.
In addition, this is a dishonest strawman -- virtually no real instance of waterboarding is this sort of situation. Those who present these sorts of scenarios to justify torture know full well that they are actually justifying much more "casual" uses.
Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 5:56 AM
For those of you rejecting my argument on the grounds that it is based on a utilitarian framework, I have to ask you, by what other measure would you develop laws?
I reject a framework that would justify forced sacrifice of maidens to marauding dragons. If no maiden comes forward voluntarily, it would be better for us all bravely perish fighting the dragon; there are far worse things than not maximizing one's lifespan. And that's the underlying reason that utilitarianism fails -- in the end, we're all dead anyway; acquired utility is invariably lost.
take the risk of the drag
Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 6:06 AM
I don't understand how torturing an admitted terrorist to get information to stop the deaths of many innocent children is unethical.
What has an admitted terrorist admitted to? In this country, people are being convicted as terrorists for just for sending money to some organization on some government list. And how does someone admitting to some past action justify doing something horrible to them? What if the person has never done anything wrong but you think they have information that can only be gained through torture -- what's the difference to a utilitarian? Oops, you just slipped down the slope. What if many-1 children are at risk ... oops further down the slope for each child eliminated.
Torture is evil. If you don't understand how it is always wrong, you're broken.
Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 6:24 AM
You have overlooked that people commonly lie under torture. People will say anything under torture, just to make it stop. Thousands of people confessed to have had truly bizarre sexual relations with the devil...
Also, what happens if you catch the terrorist of the famous short-sighted example and he tells you where he put the bomb? For all you know, he could be sending you to the other end of the building, so that you'll be there evacuating and looking for the bomb while it goes up somewhere else.
Comments 13 and 14 are spot-on.
Posted by: David Marjanović | December 29, 2007 6:25 AM
Add to that the fact that we as a nation seem able to accept civilian collateral damage during conflicts and it's hard to understand how it would be unethical to torture someone who is almost certainly not innocent and possesses information which will save innocent lives.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki