Say Anything Blog

Torture works.

This is a huge setback to our ability to prosecute the war on terrorism. Now when we watch a Boeing fly into the Empire State Building on CNN we can all know that, while we weren’t able to stop the attack, at least Abul down in Gitmo was comfortable while he was asked questions.

Yeah… because torturing would have stopped 9/11, right?

Torture does not make America a safer place.  It doesn’t work.  I can’t believe you’re even promoting torture as a peacekeeping tactic.  It’s just incredible the USA has sunk this low, that we actually need to spell out, in writing, that we don’t torture.

Ryan G spits, Yeah… because torturing would have stopped 9/11, right?

Torture does not make America a safer place. It doesn’t work. I can’t believe you’re even promoting torture as a peacekeeping tactic. It’s just incredible the USA has sunk this low, that we actually need to spell out, in writing, that we don’t torture.

Learn to read bro. Your manufactured outrage and indignation is getting really tiresome, not to mention your dripping condescension as you ignore the important points.

Rob said -

Well great. Now we have a confusing, undefined ban on “torture” that will leave our troops second guessing the tactics they employ as they try to extract intelligence from detainees to keep us safe. Is music played at top-volume “cruel?” Is sleep deprivation “inhumane?” Is making a detainee sit in a cold room “degrading?” We don’t know, and neither do the troops. Its all open for interpretation.

I emboldened the important bits for you. Perhaps if you start to address those open questions, you’ll see why people like Rob and I are opposed to McCain’s tacked on amendment.

(Now you’ve got nowhere to run. You can’t logically make your same points again.)

Now, the taking of prisoners will be classified as torture. Mark my words, this day in the year of our Lord, 15 December 2005. Are you moonbat fucks happy now? No. You will not be happy until America is dragged down into the shit and destroyed. Fuck you, Fuck You very much.

I agree with the problems on the definition of torture or cruel and degrading punishment.  The only way I know to do it is to give a list of practices that are proscribed, and stipulate that any practice that is tantamount to that same practice be considered equivalent.  It’s the old “spirit of the law” thing.

2Hotel9: 

Torture works.

Seriously, the science indicates that torture in general is no more effective than mental coercion in obtaining intelligence.  And there is plenty of data that neither are particularly effective at obtaining reliable data.

One of our biggest blunders with respect to the Iraq intelligence was that coerced from Ibn Al-Shaykhal-Libi. 

Here’s an excerpt from a recent Newsweek article that illustrates what I think the real problem to be:

In the case of al-Libi, however, the Bush administration was only too glad to make use of the “take” from al-Libi’s interrogation, helpfully provided by Egyptian intelligence. Under questioning by the Egyptian authorities (techniques unknown, but not hard to imagine), al-Libi confessed that Al Qaeda terrorists, beginning in December 2000, had gone to Iraq to learn about chemical and biological weapons. This was just the evidence the Bush administration needed to make the case for invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam Hussein. In his famous, now discredited speech to the United Nations in February 2003, the then Secretary of State Colin Powell cited the intelligence extracted from al-Libi, referring to him not by name but as a “senior Al Qaeda terrorist” who ran a training camp in Afghanistan.

There was only one problem with al-Libi’s story: after the Powell presentation, he recanted it.

I personally think that there are specific and very exceptional cases where “aggressive interrogation techniques” may be necessary (example, stopping a suicide bombing).  But these exceptions need to be laid out in the law, and individuals given permission to use these special methods only with a court order, or by signing a sworn statement stating the urgency of the need.  (Similar to the way an emergency search warrant is obtained.

Carrick, according to McCain’s definition every person in jail in America is being tortured. Trial lawyers are loving this, gives them a new tactic. This is going to blowup in our faces. And yes, torture does work. It is not the opening gambit, nor the only method. McCain and the other prisoners held by NVA were not tortured for intel. They were coerced into signing confessions. Comparing them to prisoners who have intel that must be obtained is a redherring. This is a very bad idea. The definition of tortured will now be changed to include any and all activity prisoners are involved in. Mark my words, this is goig to bite us in the ass, very quickly.

"the science indicates that torture in general is no more effective than mental coercion in obtaining intelligence”

Ok Carrick, I’ll give you that point if you give me one explanation.

What is the difference, and how does the bill in question clarify (or even acknowledge) the difference?

Isn’t “mental coercion” cruel?  Yes?  Then it IS TORTURE according to the new dumbass ruling.

Hey, being arrested by police and drug off to jail is quite “degrading” so I think being arrested is torture as well.

I can’t imagine how they define “inhuman” but it really isn’t a clear-cut definition; and without a clear-cut definition they either:
A) didn’t really pass anything that makes a difference, as a Judge will rule that whatever they’ve been doing “isn’t cruel, inhuman or degrading” by whatever ruling he chooses.
B) rules out anything that could ever possibly be considered “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” to any person anywhere who might get to have any influence on the situation.

A is useless, and B rules out any possible method of handling a situation.

And Ryan G, if you know “torture doesn’t work” you can of course give me a clear and definitive definition of torture, correct?  One that is more specific that “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” please, that really doesn’t rule out several part-time jobs I’ve had.

Ok, since its always philosophically easier to tear down a position than to uphold it, here’s my opinion.

1) We should outlaw “torture” under a specific definition. (permanent physical damage of any sort, likelyhood of lasting psychological damage, etc.)

2) The punishment for violating the aforementioned rule should be severe (5-10 yr. incarceration minimum).  No execptions.

3) There may in fact come a time when our interrogation experts decide they “have to” use whatever the definition of “torture” is to handle a crisis situation.  In that case, if they truly believe that, they also should be entirely willing to take the punishment for violating the rules.

Having rules in place won’t stop it from happening if it ever “really needs to happen”.  But having unclear and undefined “rules” in place that nobody really udnerstands means it will happen, sporadically, due to misunderstanding and misapplication of the rules.  It also means people who ought to be innocent of violating the rules will be found guilty, as the actual definition of the rules aren’t in place.

2Hotel9 & Gekkobear, thanks for the comments.

I’m not really addressing McCain’s bill, which I admit I haven’t read, so there isn’t anyway I could have an informed position on what it says or doesn’t say.  I agree with the problems with proscribing an ambiguously defined action.  In cases like this, it is my understanding that the Justice Department will end up being responsible for drawing up the list of proscribed interrogation methods, and these are openly reviewed by the appropriate House & Senate panels, so it isn’t quite as general and open-ended as it sounds.

I also said I thought it should be recognized that there are extreme cases when all means necessary are justified, though I suspect even if illegal, they would still get applied.  Plenty of people still get confessions illegally forced out of them after all. Not that I think this is the most desirable state of affairs.

2Hotel9:

McCain and the other prisoners held by NVA were not tortured for intel.

According to the accounts I have read from POWs, including McCain, this is not strictly true.  According to McCain was being asked for the names of the people in his squadron, remember?  That’s when he gave them the names of the Green Bay Packer linemen.

[...] Man it would have been nice to get Zarqawi. We could have put him in a cell in Gitmo. Given him a nice prayer mat and holder for his Koran. Stuff him with some hearty grub. Clean him up a bit. Attend to his medical needs. Then give him a lawyer and have a nice, sensitive session of questioning about his terror network. [...]

Carrick, gathering intel of immediate tactical value was not the point of the torture that was applied to American prisoners during Vietnam, with the exception of higher ranking officers who had knowledge of ground operations in the south and Cambodia,Laos areas. We currently have in our possesion terrorist assets who have operational intel concerning cell structure and inter-connection, sources of supply and finance, positions of caches in several countries. In the majority of these cases torture is not required. Sleep-dep,dehydration, and cross comparetive interogation are quite sufficient. In those cases where it is required, we must use it without pity or remorse. To limit our ability to gather intel, and to advertize to the entire world what those limitations are, is stupid. And we will pay in blood for this stupidity. As we already have paid for the limitations placed on our military and intel operations by the Church Commision and Jaime Gorelick’s wall between agencies.

2Hotel9, are you advocating gathering intel via torture or inhumane treatment for tactical purposes only?  Just want to make sure I understand what you are saying.

Seems to me that there are always people who ultimately are unbreakable.  It’s not because they are supermen, it’s just you don’t know enough to “wrap your mind around them”.  You also have to be smarter than the subject or you’re plain screwed.  If the interrogator is facing a person much brighter than him, he’s not likely to get much useful information by coercion alone.

Interrogation done properly is an iterative process, but it assumes you have some accurate knowledge of the subject at the start.  I think the McCain example is one extreme (ending up with fake names) and the al-Libi the other (you get what you wanted to hear, but it’s either false, or the subject had no firsthand knowledge).  At least from what I know of interrogation techniques, where torture would work and give accurate intel, less severe methods of coercion, manipulation and even bribery, artfully applied, work as well or better.

It seems to me that you have a problem:  There is an indirect and negative consequence to the application of torture: The unquestioning hardening of the remaining enemy that you face.  Unless the intelligence is of very high value, it just doesn’t seem to me it’s worth it on a purely analytical scale.

Carrick, as I have said many times, not just here, F**K their intel value. Want to put the fear of God in their ass? Kill them. No quarter asked, none given. Run them to ground and kill them. Period. We do not have the moral or political resolve to do that. Hence the taking of prisoners. No one is unbreakable. Superman is a myth. Taken to the 3rd level, you will give everything that is in you. Every thought,word, and deed. Wahabist deathworshippers are not human, by their own choice. The only right they have is to a swift death. As to the question of torture, we are unwilling to destory our enemy, and are unwilling to exploit them to the fullest, we have already lost. The political left is dragging us all into their moral cesspool, our children and grandchildren will pay the price, though not in my life time.