For Love of Torture
The OLC memos released today make for chilling reading. They also make it clear that we’re talking about interrogation methods that were whipped up by a group of people who were incredibly eager to torture some of their fellow human beings. They reflect the mindset of a group that regards the legal prohibition on torture as really sad, and thus something they need to find a way to get around. They achieved this by first concocting this weird definition of torture and then deviously coming up with all kinds of ways of torturing people that don’t fit the definition.
But all that this business about trapping someone in a confined box with insects shows is that the definition is wrong. The bug box, the slap, the stress positions, the waterboarding, etc. have all the hallmarks of torture. If they were done to your dad, you would call it torture. But some folks who are both creative and demented managed to come up with a bunch of ways of torturing people that didn’t fit the weird definition of torture they dreamed up.
204 Responses to “For Love of Torture”
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April 16th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
The bug box, the slap, the stress positions, the waterboarding, etc. have all the hallmarks of torture. If they were done to your dad, you would call it torture.
What are the “hallmarks of torture?” And lots of people might call lots of things torture. That doesn’t mean anyone else is obliged to agree with them. Some people think solitary confinement is torture. Some people think waiting to be executed on death row for 10 years is torture. Some people think being sent to prison where there is a significant chance of being raped is torture.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
The bug box is legit creepy.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Hey Mixner, you torture loving freak, no one should bother answering your tortured arguments.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
The real enemy here, of course, is Dick Durbin.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Three points to consider:
1) No useful information was gotten through the use of torture. This is an important point to make right away, because there are a lot of people who understandably would excuse it, IF it helped to protect America. But it couldn’t and it didn’t — so defenders of these crimes are left with: well, so it was ineffective, it was still cruel and illegal!
2) There’s a difference between making all this about Obama’s decision, and doing the right thing. That is, SOMEBODY may prosecute up the food chain — and it might be enough that the President lets it happen. The guy has a lot on his plate; cut him some slack for wanting to pick and choose his fights. And finally:
3) Bybee is a Federal judge. Can he be impeached for this, even though it happened before his confirmation?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
charles, the definition from the UN Convention Against Torture, quoted at the head of this Wikipedia article, seems to cover Matt’s examples and not necessarily yours. No call to get all relativist.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I’ve been reading one of these memos, and what seems to be the crux of their argument is that these things may cause mental and/or physical pain and suffering, they don’t constitute “severe” mental and/or physical pain and suffering, so therefore, it’s OK. What struck me about the memo I read (to John Rizzo from Stephen Bradbury on 5/15/05) was the assumption that the detainees they interrogated must have actionable intelligence, and if they didn’t then they get tortured. If they are that certain of their information, then why go through the trouble of torturing? Why am I asking rational questions of actions that are so asinine?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Hey DTM, you terrorist-loving freak, no one should bother answering your tortured arguments.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I’m not going to sit around and have a conversation with something that wants to talk about government inflicted torture or whatever you want to call it. I’d sooner sit around and discuss the merits of raping babies with someone.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
For what it is worth, Not as Stupid as Mixner is not me.
By the way, I am almost said, “I am not Not as Stupid as Mixner,” but I didn’t like how the logic of that played out.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
charles, the definition from the UN Convention Against Torture, quoted at the head of this Wikipedia article, seems to cover Matt’s examples and not necessarily yours.
How does it “necessarily” cover any one them? A “slap” is “necessarily” torture? Really? A saw a woman slap her child in the street the other day. That was “torture,” was it?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
‘The worst thing in the world,’ said O’Brien, ‘varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.’
He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three
or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.
‘In your case,’ said O’Brien, ‘the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.’
In Abu Zubaydah’s case it happened to be insects.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I don’t know who you think you’re kidding, DTM.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least, in fact, if they got this “insect box” idea directly from 1984. After all, the Bush admin. mined Soviet, Chinese, and Nazi “interrogation techniques” (and legal justifications) for much of the torture they committed.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
1) No useful information was gotten through the use of torture.
How do you know?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I seem to recall from my days in law school that one excuse that can be used regarding the ignorance of the law is if the actor has a letter from the AG saying that the conduct is lawful. If that’s the case, then these guys have a legit excuse, even if the AG was a complete tool. So, its not entirely surprising that the CIA operatives aren’t being prosecuted here. At the same time, if I was one of the guys who did this, I wouldn’t be traveling abroad any time soon.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
“charles” is really looking forward to spending the next eight hours repeating the same old pro-torture bullshit, especially the bits about rape.
How about we treat all of that as said and done? Mixner gets off on trolling, and making him find other ways to fill the time will be his idea of torture.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘Mixnerspotter’.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Charles, why so intent on proving bin Laden right about America? What’s wrong with you?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
…saw a woman slap her child in the street the other day. That was “torture,” was it?
Whatever you label it, it’s fucking evil. The impact of violence on childhood brain development is profound and plays a huge role in increasing the chances that the child will become violent/abusive/addictive in adulthood. This puts your example into the same neighborhood as “torture”.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
@ Charles: Its not that no information could be gained from torture, but rather that it was phenomenally unlikely. Once news broke that any of these guys were captured (and the Bush Admin made sure that each arrest was publicized), Al Qaeda simply changed what was needed to insulate itself.
More importantly, torture doesn’t get the person to confess his sins, so much as it gets the person to confess the sins you think he has committed. So if some a terrorist has plans to blow up a bridge, but the torturer thinks he’s going to blow up a building, the torturer is going to ask about the building, and torture the terrorist until he confesses about the building.
No, the true idiocy of this whole affair is that every minicipality in the country employs interrogators who, even after informing a suspect that keeping quiet is in his/her best legal interest, gets confessions from criminals on a regular basis. We call them police detectives.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
People have a lot of different ideas and standards about what terms such as “babies”, “rape”, and even “merits” mean. It can also be difficult to establish whether someone is actually a “someone” or not. These things are really up in the air. I insist that you express yourself entirely in the form of symbolic logic so that I may be perfectly clear what you may be discussing, or even if I exist at this moment.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I am still reading through these memos, but what I have read so far is not unbiased legal analysis, but rather a self-serving, post-hoc rationalization of torture.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
How stupid is Mixner that he can’t tell the difference between me and DTM? Well, then again, he’s a big fan of torture, so he can’t really be very smart.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
No, the true idiocy of this whole affair is that every minicipality in the country employs interrogators who, even after informing a suspect that keeping quiet is in his/her best legal interest, gets confessions from criminals on a regular basis. We call them police detectives.
I hear they even had a TV show about that once. Maybe even twice…
April 16th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Re: A saw a woman slap her child in the street the other day. That was “torture,” was it?
That’s a good point, but it won’t wash ultimately.
Useful distinctions can be made, I think between corporal punishment and torture. (Corporal punishment meaning everything from slapping an ill behaved kid to whipping of criminals as part of the legal system, as in Bolivia or Jamaica). Torture, unlike corporal punishment, is imposed on people who are merely suspected of a crime, and haven’t necessarily been convicted of anything. Furthermore, it ultimate purpose is for _our_ good (the gathering of information) rather than for the correction of the criminal. Therefore corporal punishment and torture are different, and the fact that one is justified (in my view) can’t necessarily justify the other.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Charles, why so intent on proving bin Laden right about America? What’s wrong with you?
rea, I was just thinking the same questions about you.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Whatever you label it, it’s fucking evil. The impact of violence on childhood brain development is profound and plays a huge role in increasing the chances that the child will become violent/abusive/addictive in adulthood. This puts your example into the same neighborhood as “torture”.
The next time you see a woman slap her misbehaving child in public, do please call the police and demand that they arrest her on suspicion of torture.
How is life in Crazytown these days, D?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘Not as Stupid as Mixner’.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Re: How is life in Crazytown these days, D?
Charles,
You appear to be new to this blog, but D is just another of the dime-a-dozen hipsters who fill up the Yglesian comment boxes with their tiresome odes to political correctness, sexual nihilism, and late-capitalist decadence.
A just society based on natural law would, of course, make sparing and judicious use of both corporal and capital punishment in its legal system.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
No, the true idiocy of this whole affair is that every minicipality in the country employs interrogators who, even after informing a suspect that keeping quiet is in his/her best legal interest, gets confessions from criminals on a regular basis.
It is very unfortunate. I never quite understood why people couldn’t keep their mouths shut when it is in their interests. Especially when they can ask for their lawyer.
And the stranger thing is that police detectives aren’t supposed to be very clever beings at all. If they were, they wouldn’t be working for the police in the first place.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Charles: Its not that no information could be gained from torture, but rather that it was phenomenally unlikely.
Again, how do you know this?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Thanks for the warnings and pointers to the earlier threads: sure enough, a well-worn troll routine.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Oh wow, all the usuall suspects are crawling out of the woodwork for this thread.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I dunno, Charles, you could probably pour water down his nose for awhile and bang his head off a wall with a plastic collar and try and get to the bottom of things.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Here is Atul Gawande’s recent New Yorker piece arguing that solitary confinement is torture. He cites various research to support his argument, including:
According to Gawande:
In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement—on our own people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a thirty-minute drive from my door.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
And the stranger thing is that police detectives aren’t supposed to be very clever beings at all.
Myles, Myles, Myles. The thing is that your average police interrogator has likely interrogated dozens if not hundreds of people. Your average criminal is probably being interrogated for the first time. And if you don’t think that the person who does something as a professional, day in and day out, is going to be better at it than the person facing the situation for the first time, then you’re in for a big surprise when you step in to a car dealership.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I dunno, Charles, you could probably pour water down his nose for awhile and bang his head off a wall with a plastic collar and try and get to the bottom of things.
Or, he could just tell me. Or admit that he doesn’t know and is just making stuff up.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Charles and Hector,
If it was up to me, the two of you would not merely be tortured but would be impaled (look it up – 3 days of the most excruciating pain imaginable before death). And then you would spend eternity in hell being ass raped by satan.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Wait – Charles are you now trying to make the case that you think solitary confinement is torture? Surely if the US Military thinks that solitary confinement is torture, than it is torture – or are you saying the the military lives in crazytown?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
If it was up to me…
That’s why you’re locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Charles is in for a penny, in for a pound I see:
1) solitary confinement is horrific
2) solitary confinement exists
Conclusion: Bush’s henchmen can inflict any evil they wish.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Wait – Charles are you now trying to make the case that you think solitary confinement is torture?
I think his point is that the nature of torture is subjective and controversial. Do you think solitary confinement is torture?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
“charles”: What is it about that makes you wake up in the morning excited about defending slamming people’s heads into walls; “stress positions”; hypothermia; starvation; days of sleep deprivation; waterboarding; etc.? Is it an erotic thing? Is it just a sort of misguided loyalty to Bush/Cheney? I suppose I can imagine someone sorrowfully, regretfully concluding that this type of treatment of prisoners is necessary to protect people. I disagree, but I can imagine it. But for you and Andy McCarthy, using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspects is an unqualified good that’s worth fighting for. That type of enthusiasm for the suffering of others is horrifying.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Because ignorance is preferable to making people uncomfortable
Like this…
April 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Re Charles’ quotation of Gawande at 36: “In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement—on our own people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a thirty-minute drive from my door.”
————
Well, when late night comedians joke about institutionized anal rape in prisons, you are probably wasting your time trying to appeal to their better natures. There ain’t any.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Mixner tried (and failed) to get a troll going on solitary confinement last month as the sockpuppet “johnson”.
One of his more recent trolling efforts on torture, again as “johnson”, can be found here. Participants in this thread can expect the same bullshit to follow if they mistakenly think he’s arguing in good faith.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Do you think solitary confinement is torture?
I suppose so. Of course, these things are very subjective and I think a reasonable person should make his decision based on contexts. A mom slapping their child is normally not torture in my opinion, but tying a dude to a chair naked and slapping him repeatedly would probably be torture. But my individual beliefs aren’t really the point. We have laws on the books about this stuff, and it will likely be up to the judiciary to decide what crossed the line and where.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
“Led”: What is it about you that makes you wake up in the morning excited at the prospect of millions of innocent people suffering horrific deaths at the hands of terrorists? Is it some kind of kinky snuff-film thing?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
You appear to be new to this blog…
Mixner’s been polluting this space since forever ago.
D is just another of the dime-a-dozen hipsters…
My only claim to hipster status is the fact that my wife toured the country playing drums in an all female hard core punk band back in the mid-nineties. And although I feel that riding someone else’s coolness coattails really doesn’t qualify as “hip”, I’m willing to concede the argument that my hipness exceeds yours by any margin you wish to postulate.
The next time you see a woman slap her misbehaving child in public, do please call the police and demand that they arrest her on suspicion of torture.
Way to miss the point. It’s as if you’re proud of your ignorance.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Re: voice of reason Says:
Ah, the blog’s resident Jew-hater crawls out of the woodwork.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
1) No useful information was gotten through the use of torture.
How do you know?
Because the Bush administration would have released it. They released confidential information blowing ongoing investigations for short-term political gain. They leaked like a sieve any time it suited their purpose. The idea that they would not have released information that was beneficial to them in this case is simply not credible. Experience shows us that the burden on proof must be on them, and you, Charles. Affirmative proof or it doesn’t exist.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Back when “charles” was plain Mixner, he trolled in support of the ticking time-bomb canard in this thread last July.
He’s trying all his greatest (s)hits in this one.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
“Led”: What is it about you that makes you wake up in the morning excited at the prospect of millions of innocent people suffering horrific deaths at the hands of terrorists? Is it some kind of kinky snuff-film thing?
God, is this the best you can do? The logical fallacy there is so blatant its almost embarrasing you’d even try it. Not to mention that taking someone else’s post and changing a few words is the internet equivalent of “I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?!” arguing.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
charles Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Charles: Its not that no information could be gained from torture, but rather that it was phenomenally unlikely.
Again, how do you know this?
Read the nuuspapers! Many (many many) articles quote intelligence sources and others advising that torture elicited no useful info. But….you and Cheney continue to deny this!
As to the philosophical point: Get a brain, Moran.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I suppose so.
So, the alleged torture of a few terrorists justifies endless ostentatious expressions of moral outrage and demands for prosecutions, but the ongoing torture of thousands of inmates in America’s prison system every year just gets a shrug and an “I suppose so.”
Yeah, that makes sense.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Mixner isn’t even a very good troll. Part of the art of trolling is to get everyone else riled up and then giggle when it happens. Mixner, here, is getting actively pissed off when people like Mixnerspotter mock him, and he feels the need to lash out in kind. That’s poor troll behavior.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Man, these torture posts really get the resident cranks all het up.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Way to miss the point.
On the contrary, your claim that a slap to a misbehaving child is “torture” is precisely the point, you great big pile of lunacy.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Experience shows us that the burden on proof must be on them, and you, Charles.
No, the burden of proof is on Jim T, since he made the claim.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Person 1: “Oh no, someone tortured Charles’s balls off!”
Person 2: “Yes, but solitary confinement exists.”
Person 1: “Oh. G’day then!”
April 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
What is it about you that makes you wake up in the morning excited at the prospect of millions of innocent people suffering horrific deaths at the hands of terrorists? Is it some kind of kinky snuff-film thing?
As soon as I post a couple hundred blog comments arguing in favor of the terrorist murder of millions, I’ll let you know. Who knows, maybe if I just put in the effort I’ll develop your feeling of arousal at the suffering of others.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
If I saw some woman belt a kid in the face with an open hand, I’d call a cop. You have weird issues, and you need to deal with them instead of project them on to public policy.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Charles,
I told you so. To some people, it might seem strange that the hipsters are so concerned about vicious criminals being flogged or shot in the name of justice or morality, but not at all concerned about the legalized butchery of infants in defence of their right to use women for casual f*cking. But of course it is no surprise. Many medieval gnostics hated war, and they also hated procreation. As did Tolstoy. History teaches us that those who begin by hating death end by hating life, and in this the curious mystery of the universe is revealed at its deepest.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
For my part, I applaud the decision of the Bolivian People to throw out Western postmodern-hipster late-capitalist concepts of ‘justice’ and return to the Inca methods of corporal punishment.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
WTF Hipsters?
Who the fuck are “hipsters”?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Man, these torture posts really get the resident cranks all het up.
Yes…there’s clearly something about torture that deeply excites them. They love thinking about it, they love talking about it, and would certainly love doing if it given the opportunity.
Unfortunately, that’s just the way people are. Every society has a fair number of deeply troubled freaks like this.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Fencedude,
I use it as a deliberate term of abuse. It is meant to be as insulting and demeaning as possible. The connotation of course is that these people hold their views because they want to be ‘hip’ or ‘cool’ at cocktail parties in lower manhattan, and not because they really believe them.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
On the contrary, your claim that a slap to a misbehaving child is “torture” is precisely the point, you great big pile of lunacy.
Torture is evil. Violence against children that results in a host of self-perpetuating social ills is evil. I know this is hard for you, but there it is.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I use it as a deliberate term of abuse. It is meant to be as insulting and demeaning as possible. The connotation of course is that these people hold their views because they want to be ‘hip’ or ‘cool’ at cocktail parties in lower manhattan, and not because they really believe them
…what?
Thats…beyond moronic.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Tyro: the reason why Mixner only trolls as “Mixner” now on other blogs and engages in sockpuppetry here is simple: creating a long record of one’s methods, tactics and stock bullshit is crippling to a troll. It’s a bit like having OLC memos hanging around.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Re: Torture is evil. Violence against children that results in a host of self-perpetuating social ills is evil.
Corporal punishment against vicious criminals is not evil, it is good. You may want to educate yourself a bit about moral philosophy. Begin with St. Augustine’s “Treatises on the Epistles of St. John.”
It is tiresome to me that your moral compass as well as your intellectual abilities appear to be, in the words of Benedict XVI, gravely deficient, but that isn’t my problem.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
If i were as awesome as Richard Steven Hack I’d post a comment about how Summer Glau’s River Tam was tortured.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Yeah, it’s about as old hat as Hector reaching into the medievalist bag o’ tricks and trying to find new and interesting ways to rewind The Enlightenment for attention. Next week, geocentrism!
April 16th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Led,
As soon as I post a couple hundred blog comments arguing in favor of the terrorist murder of millions, I’ll let you know.
Okay, and as soon as I wake up in the morning excited about defending slamming people’s heads into walls, I’ll let you know.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
If I saw some woman belt a kid in the face with an open hand, I’d call a cop.
I might do that, too, depending on how hard she hit the kid. She probably wouldn’t be arrested for the crime of “torture,” though.
You have weird issues, and you need to deal with them instead of project them on to public policy.
No, you have weird issues, which revolve around a pathological hatred of the Bush Administration. You need to let go of that.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
You’re not fooling any one, ‘Mixnerspotter’.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Corporal punishment against vicious criminals is not evil…
“Turn the other cheek”, dude. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, asshole. Stick that in your St. Augustine and smoke it.
Of course this leaves aside the question of whether or not the person you’re punishing is, in fact, a vicious criminal.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Okay, and as soon as I wake up in the morning excited about defending slamming people’s heads into walls, I’ll let you know.
You just do it for the money, eh?
April 16th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
She probably wouldn’t be arrested for the crime of “torture,” though.
That’s sure to disappoint all the zero people on this thread who think she should be arrested on charges of torture, then.
I am ,however, gratified to note that after only 75+ comments we’ve come to an agreement that hitting children is a bad thing.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
DMonteith,
How tiresome. Have you forgotten this “And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.” Or this: “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” Or this: “And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”
I would assume you’re not a Christian, so I will not hold your ignorance against you, but I would advise you that Our Lord was not a hippy-dippy, feel-good, can’t-we-all-just-get-along pacifist. I think He would fully approve of corporal and capital punishment. Not for adultery- that’s the message of that story with the adulterous women- but for many other crimes, yes.
And I would not punish criminals until after they had been convicted of crimes. Thats what separates corporal punishment from torture.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
To the secular nihilists, of course, death and pain are the ultimate evils, since it doesn’t occur to them that there is a life beyond the grave and worse possible things than physical pain. It’s a pity that the hipster nihilists’ view is so impoverished, but that should not give their petulant burblings the right to dismantle a civilized discussion between men knowledgeable of the natural law.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Torture is evil. Violence against children that results in a host of self-perpetuating social ills is evil.
Trying to move the goalposts, as always, D. The issue is whether a mere slap to a misbehaving child counts as torture. You claim that it does. I think your position is absurd. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of people would agree with me. This is a good illustration of the general absurdity of your beliefs.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
What a surprise. The bible contradicts itself, allowing the righteous to cherry pick their preferred version of morality. How convenient for you.
Our Lord was not a hippy-dippy, feel-good, can’t-we-all-just-get-along pacifist.
“Was”? Hipster rationality seeping in around the edges there, bro?
April 16th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
That’s sure to disappoint all the zero people on this thread who think she should be arrested on charges of torture, then.
So you think slapping a child is justifiable torture? Is that it?
Keep digging that hole, D. It’s always fun. You never know when to quit.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
An insect in a box? This is Room 101 from George Orwell’s 1984.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
The heavy redaction I predicted is not there. It’s refreshing. I like the single slashes through “Top Secret”.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Trying to move the goalposts, as always, D.
Because Mixner can’t hold an argument in his head for more than 10 seconds I’ll quote myself from #20:
The impact of violence on childhood brain development is profound and plays a huge role in increasing the chances that the child will become violent/abusive/addictive in adulthood. This puts your example into the same neighborhood as “torture”.
Here I am at #69:
Torture is evil. Violence against children that results in a host of self-perpetuating social ills is evil.
The fact that you see goalposts moving means that you should maybe slow down on the substances, not that they’re actually moving.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Re: “Was”? Hipster rationality seeping in around the edges there, bro?
Sorry, ‘Is’. You should be aware of where your attempt to rationalize the story of Christ leads, Monteith. The nation which invented higher criticism also invented the Nazism.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
That’s Hector’s game, and you’ve caught him out. He’s a troll in the classic, original, usenet sense of the word. He wants reaction. He throws this shit out there because he’s bored and lonely. I hope I didn’t blow his cover throwing out geocentrism, because that’s where he will be after he runs out of material running the clock back theologically six months from now.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
So you think slapping a child is justifiable torture?
It’s really not hard Mixner. Torture is unjustifiable. Striking children is unjustifiable. Try and keep up.
Maybe draw yourself a Venn diagram. Draw 2 circles, one labeled “striking children” and one labeled “torture”. You can overlap them or not as you see fit. Now draw a bigger circle that wholly encloses both prior circles and label it “unjustifiable”. There you go.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
This comment thread was dumber than usual. Must be the fact that the idea of torture gives people like charles a big boner, causing all the blood to leave their brains.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
The nation which invented higher criticism also invented the Nazism.
Yawn. Jonah Goldberg has already written “Liberal Fascism”. You’re gonna have to do better than that.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
It is interesting to see which of the trolls jumped into this subject feet first and which ones avoided it entirely, even while being active in other comment threads at the same time.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Torture is unjustifiable. Striking children is unjustifiable
No, D, you didn’t claim that a slap to a misbehaving child is merely “unjustifiable.” You claimed that it’s torture.
Does anyone agree with DMonteith that a mere slap is torture? Let’s get all the other crazies on record, too.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
You’re certainly dumber than usual, bob.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I didn’t realize that a simple slap – like one a mother might give to a child – was all it took to get a prisoner to spill the beans. Why do they bother with waterboarding etc. if that’s all it takes?
April 16th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Who cares what you think, Chuckles? You support torture.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
The subject of what is and is not torture is incredibly difficult, and subjective, and impossible to define by any sort of “international law”, and liberals forget that fact.
Unless, of course, some foreigner is doing it to a U.S. soldier, like John McCain, in which case it’s clearly torture, because a foreigner does it, and we can’t stand for this outrage.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Nobody agrees with you that he said that.
Why do you do this, Mixner? Everyone who’s reading your comment will have read through the thread, so they’ll know you’re misrepresenting the statements you’re referencing. What the hell is that supposed to accomplish?
April 16th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Mixner:
You claimed that it’s torture.
me:
This puts your example into the same neighborhood as “torture”.
Reading comprehension much?
Look, there is a multiplier effect on violence against children due to the negative impact it has on developing brain chemistry, so any difference in the actual amount of physical harm between “torture” and “slapping your misbehaving child” is diminished by the considerably greater long term ills that stem from the latter.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Hey charles you satanic piece of shit – I think you miss the point. Torture being so subjective, reasonable people can disagree about whether impaling you would be a bad thing.
But I think we can all agree that your mother probably shouldn’t be impaled for your sins, you fucking evil freak.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
1) I would suggest you virgins read the KUBARK Interrogation Manual of 1963 — that was John F Kennedy’s Administration, wasn’t it? KUBARK was the CIA’s codeword for itself at the time.
2) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KUBARK_Counterintelligence_Interrogation#CIA_manuals
Manual is here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm#kubark
——
“You’re wading into deep shit, Pamela. And I don’t think you have the shoes for it.”
April 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
But his was a victim of both torture and capital punishment as I am sure you heard in last week’s liturgies.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
1) There is some possibility that the OLC memos and the associated stories we are being fed are bullshit. Or not the full story.
2) The right wing and Alan Dershowitz often cite the “ticking bomb” scenario to justify torture. But that example is bullshit. No competent intel service would leave its operations vulnerable to disruption by “24″ Jack Bauer fantasy bullshit.
3) Whatever someone knows has a half-life of days. If you don’t get something out of him within 3 days, what remains is unlikely to be of much value. Because what he knows would have been limited to need to know, his capture should have been detected immmediately -or within a hour — and contingency plans should have rendered attempts to exploit info extracted from him of little value. He should, for example, have only known people in his cell by their Code names, not their real names. Their lodgings should not reveal who they really were.
4) The need to rapidly extract info makes it unlikely that CIA largely depends upon the leisurely , la de da “make him uncomfortable and play mind games” approach. A rapid-fire rough wooing is more likely.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
But He was a victim of both torture and capital punishment as I am sure you heard in last week’s liturgies.
Leav
April 16th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Don Williams: That KUBARK manual is interesting. There are, of course, techniques in there that I find deeply troubling and would not want U.S. officials engaging in. The most interesting thing, however, is that it largely discredits the most troubling techniques authorized by Bybee/Bradbury/Yoo. It concludes that inflicting pain, sustained sleep, sensory and/or food deprivation, and threats of death are counterproductive. Although defined as “coercive,” the techniques the manual says are most effective are the ones that convince the subject that he wants to cooperate by triggering feelings of guilt and disorientation.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Best. Thread. Ever.
Sorry I’m late; please continue.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Don, there you go, falling for the same old canards. Nothing in Gitmo was happening within 3 days, so your half-life rationale is meaningless. And more importantly, none of these techniques is likely to garner effective, confirmable information within your allotted time frame. If I only need a few hours or days before I break, that’s a mental and physical hurdle I can contend with. I can also start a rapid disinformation campaign that is unlikely to be unraveled within the allotted time. So your arguments don’t support your conclusion.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
DMonteith,
What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
“Impaling”, I lanced a boil the other day, was I “impaled”? I had a metal object stuck in me, should my doctor have been charged with “torture”?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Joe from Lowell, what’s it like being confined to an asylum for the criminally insane? Are they feeding you enough? Does Lowell have good asylums?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Charles, we waterboarded a couple people to death on accident. There is no criminal statute for “torture” that I’m aware of, but doing that is specifically designated under the War Crimes act of 1996. The penalty is death in torture that results in death.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
The right wing and Alan Dershowitz often cite the “ticking bomb” scenario to justify torture. But that example is bullshit. No competent intel service would leave its operations vulnerable to disruption by “24″ Jack Bauer fantasy bullshit.
That’s right, Don. Couldn’t possibly happen. Just as terrorists couldn’t hijack airliners and use them as guided missiles. It’s all just a fantasy out of “24″ and Jack Bauer. Sure.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Charles, give me a credible scenario where we detain somebody who reveals information, through torture, of an imminent attack with hijacked airliners. Spell out a scenario where the captured person has this information and the plan is going to go forward nonetheless, despite the fact that the other terrorists are aware that the mission has been compromised by the detention of the co-conspirator. Please explain this ticking-time bomb. You can’t.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Charles, we waterboarded a couple people to death on accident.
We killed hundreds of thousands of people in Germany and Japan during World War II. There are probably lots of innocent people in our jails, wrongly convicted of crimes they did not commit. We might even have executed some innocent people.
Do you agree with Atul Gawande that solitary confinement is torture? If he’s right, we routinely torture people in our own prisons.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
I agree with Gawande and think we should stop using solitary confinement in the manner in which we currently use it (the article, if you had read it, does not conclude that solitary confinement for any amount of time is torture, by the way).
April 16th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Please explain this ticking-time bomb.
We capture a terrorist, torture him to get the location of his ticking time bomb, the bomb squad goes in and defuses the bomb, millions of lives are saved. The nation celebrates.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
The best part of this thread was the Christian defense of torture and corporal punishment launched by various fascist wingnuts. I use the word “fascist” deliberately here, since “ultra-nationalist torture enthusiasts who worship executive power (but only when they get to wield it against their numerous imaginary domestic enemies)” is really just the textbook definition of “fascist.” Whereas “someone who cuts taxes for 95% of the country and spends less than a Republican” is, you know, not the definition of “fascist.”
April 16th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I think if you torture people to death, you deserve to die. If you write up legal justifications to torture people you deserve something worse, because you are a party to destroying civilization itself and a descent to barbarism. If you get incensed enough to commit yourself to a day of defending this on a blog, you deserve some sort of shunning from decent society.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
We capture a terrorist, torture him to get the location of his ticking time bomb, the bomb squad goes in and defuses the bomb, millions of lives are saved. The nation celebrates.
and the bomb has an alarm clock for a timer, right? You provided political cover to kill a bunch of people for this made for tv bullshit. I’ve avoided utilitarian arguments because I feel dirty making them, but you spent a day running on about torturing people because you watch too much 24?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Charles, if we’ve captured the terrorist, we already have enough information. Or else how would we have known he was a terrorist and how would we have known about the bomb?
More importantly, why the fuck would the terrorist tell us the code on the drive over to the waterboarding room? All he has to do is wait until the bomb goes off. He can tell us anything he wants until it does.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean?
Well, for starters, not “exactly the same thing as torture”, you idiot. And, for a chaser, how ’bout “really (really!) fucking bad”?
How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
Before I can continue, I’m going to have to insist that you ask a question that proves that you’ve read and understood what I wrote at #101 and at #20. The question above, sadly, reveals no such understanding of my reasoning, and I’m disinclined to repeat myself. You should also carefully reread the instructions for the Venn diagram I gave you at #91 (pay special attention to the “overlap or not as you see fit” part). Cheers!
April 16th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I agree with Gawande and think we should stop using solitary confinement in the manner in which we currently use it
So you think we routinely torture criminals on a mass scale in our prisons. Then what’s all this fuss over a few terrorists. Where are your priorities? Why aren’t you demanding that the Democrat congress and Obama Administration put an end to this mass “torture” of American citizens?
(the article, if you had read it, does not conclude that solitary confinement for any amount of time is torture, by the way).
I didn’t say it does. I doubt Gawande believes that a few minutes of solitary counts as torture. He does believe that we “routinely” torture people through solitary confinement in our prisons, though.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Charles, we waterboarded a couple people to death on accident.
We killed hundreds of thousands of people in Germany and Japan during World War II.
This is so stupid and fallacious on so many levels that Charles just opened up a worm hole.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Charles, if we’ve captured the terrorist, we already have enough information.
No we don’t. We don’t know where the bomb is.
Or else how would we have known he was a terrorist and how would we have known about the bomb?
Because he had detailed plans of the bomb on him.
More importantly, why the fuck would the terrorist tell us the code on the drive over to the waterboarding room?
What “code?” He didn’t tell us anything on the drive over. We had to torture him to get the location of the bomb.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Charles, whether you have, humanity has continued to evolve and redefine acceptable conduct. We decided as a society that the techniques involved in the torture memos are unacceptable. We did that decades ago after enduring ever greater atrocities in war. The evidence presented by Gawande is only beginning to percolate through the public conscience and I suspect (as Britain has already done) we will agree that interminable solitary confinement is a form of torture.
The outrage for one and not the other is a factor of the break in public trust over previously settled principles of human conduct.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
DMonteith,
Well, for starters, not “exactly the same thing as torture”, you idiot.
Non-responsive. Stop evading and answer the question. What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Charles, whether you have, humanity has continued to evolve and redefine acceptable conduct. We decided as a society that the techniques involved in the torture memos are unacceptable.
No, we didn’t.
The evidence presented by Gawande is only beginning to percolate through the public conscience and I suspect (as Britain has already done) we will agree that interminable solitary confinement is a form of torture.
Then why aren’t you focusing on that, since that “torture” is ongoing and is happening right now on a massive scale? Why are you so obsessed with a few past acts of “torture” and ignoring the ongoing “torture” of thousands of people in our prisons?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Quit trying to be a human, charles.
What would it matter, why not stick a bag of rats on the guys face or give him a lead enema? If you *really* had this ticking time bomb scenario that can’t happen that you are bullshitting about, why not do whatever? Rape his kids, whatever it takes.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Charles, this is a thread about the torture memos. The torture memos. Not solitary confinement. When presented with a thread about solitary confinement, I will make many compelling arguments evidencing my outrage.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Trolls.
So many trolls.
This has got to stop. I’m serious. The comments are becoming unreadable. You need to start banning the worse trolls. A good-faith disagreement is great. Hijacking a thread for the purpose of hijacking is not. These threads are valuable and there need to be some rules.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
ed marshall,
and the bomb has an alarm clock for a timer, right?
Probably not, no.
You provided political cover to kill a bunch of people for this made for tv bullshit.
9/11 was a real event, not a tv movie. Perhaps you hadn’t heard.
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Why is my name in quotes, “Charles”?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Andrew,
Charles, this is a thread about the torture memos. The torture memos. Not solitary confinement.
This thread is about several things, one of which is what counts as torture. You’ve already admitted that you think solitary confinement is torture. So why aren’t you focusing on that, since that “torture” is ongoing and is happening right now on a massive scale? Why are you so obsessed with a few past acts of “torture” and ignoring the ongoing “torture” of thousands of people in our prisons?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
If you *really* had this ticking time bomb scenario that can’t happen
What makes you think it “can’t” happen?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Why is my name in quotes, “Charles”?
Because you’re really “Andrew,” “Andrew.”
April 16th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
In some different circumstance, I could care about solitary confinement and it’s use as a punitive measure in the penal system.
You are defending torturing people to death. Is this something you imagined yourself doing? People you don’t even know the slightest bit about the ebil, hapless, federal government plunked into a secret system?
Religion got brought in this somewhere, you better pray there is no God.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
er…pretty neat, though petty neat works too!
April 16th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Non-responsive. Stop evading and answer the question.
Before I can continue, I’m going to have to insist that you ask a question that proves that you’ve read and understood what I wrote at #101 and at #20, and at #123. The question above, sadly, reveals no such understanding of my reasoning, and I’m disinclined to repeat myself.
(I bold faced the part that I added to the cut and paste from #123. The irony of being called ‘non-responsive’ here is petty neat.)
April 16th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Um, not ignoring it. Do I need to do some positive act to satisfy you? Do you want me to write a letter to somebody? I haven’t actually been instrumental in getting the torture memos released, truth be told. So I’m not sure I’m demonstrating a lot of inconsistency here.
I already explained my reasoning for why the torture memos have upset so many people – they condone acts that have long been agreed-upon as torture. The science over solitary confinement over extreme lengths of time is relatively new. I think we could all relate to the sensation of drowning, but it’s much more difficult to imagine the suffering one feels in the absence of people for long periods of time. It’s not intuitive. But I think as more evidence surfaces, we will agree, like we did in the Geneva Conventions, that this practice should no longer be tolerated.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Ed Marshall,
In some different circumstance, I could care about solitary confinement and it’s use as a punitive measure in the penal system.
Why don’t you care about it now? What “circumstance” would have to be present for you to care about it, and why is that “circumstance” necessary for you to care?
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
You are defending torturing people to death.
No I’m not.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
DMonteith,
Before I can continue, I’m going to have to insist that you ask a question ….
No, you don’t have to insist. You’re just evading because you can’t figure out what you think torture even really means.
What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
Also, do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Charles, I got to roll. But I’ve got a quick question. Do you think you did a good job, here? Do you feel satisfied with your work, reading over your comments? I don’t think you fared very well, frankly.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Andrew,
Um, not ignoring it.
Yes, you are. You didn’t even mention it until I raised it. Why aren’t you demanding that the Democrat congress and Obama Administration put an end to this mass “torture” of American citizens? Why are you obsessing over a few acts of past “torture” and ignoring the ongoing, routine “torture” of thousands of Americans in the nation’s prisons?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Andrew,
Charles, I got to roll.
Of course you do. Run away! Run away!
Do let us know when you’ve figured out the reason for your hypocrisy and double standards.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Re Charles at 126: When asked “More importantly, why the fuck would the terrorist tell us the code on the drive over to the waterboarding room?” Charles replied
“What “code?” He didn’t tell us anything on the drive over. We had to torture him to get the location of the bomb.”
—————
Well, what if he gave you the WRONG location, Charles? Tick tick tick…
OR gee — what if the bomb was delivered to an unknown group who have taken it to who knows where? And who have orders to trigger it immediately if attacked beforehand?
Intel groups use something called cutouts, charlie. Also dead letter drops. Also “compartmentation” –where the guys who made the bombs don’t know who ship the bomb and the guys who ship the bombs don’t know who received it and where it’s going.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:03 am
What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
Before I can continue, I’m going to have to insist that you ask a question that proves that you’ve read and understood what I wrote at #101 and at #20, and at #123. The question above, sadly, reveals no such understanding of my reasoning, and I’m disinclined to repeat myself.
Also, do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
Non responsive. Evasive.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Charles is going to great lengths to prove that the US has tortured, maimed, and killed millions in the past. He seems to think that this somehow how proves that present and future torture, maimings, and killings are justified and good. Logic isn’t his strong suit.
So, if a group of soldiers ever murders and gang rapes a group of defenseless women in some remote village somewhere, fear not. Charles will point out that soldiers have done this before, thus completely obliterating your claim that it is wrong for soldiers to murder and gang rape defenseless women.
Also, Charles can’t quite grasp the difference between, say, beating a helpless, shackled prisoner to death and the deaths that result from bombing another country in a conventional war. We have words like “murder,” “manslaughter,” “suicide,” “genocide,” and “accidental death” to differentiate the circumstances of people’s deaths for a reason. He can’t fathom that reason.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:05 am
It seems it would be educational for the public to have a trial, if nothing else, so I am inclined to favor convening a grand jury and seeing if an indictment could be brought, the higher up the food chain the better. A several month trial which illuminated all practices of the U.S. Government, and whatever results those practices produced, once and for all, is something I would tend to favor. Let the accused mount a defense and let a jury decide what the weight of the evidence is.
However, the notion that torture in the United States is something uniquely introduced by the Bush Administration is really quite silly. Every day in this country, testimony is compelled by the implicit, and sometimes explicit, threat of prison rape which supposedly lawful authorities conciously tolerate, or even promote, as a means of prisoner control or just for sadistic entertainment. Hell, the fine people of New York thought Eliot Spitizer was just swell, prior to his history of hooker banging being revealed, despite Spitzer bragging in public as AG about how he was going to put an accused person in a New York prison that had a “certain edge” that was lacking in many Federal lock-ups. I’ve had some people maintain to me that Spitzer was merely referring to bad food or worse mattresses with that remark. Denial on these matters is a bi-partisan phenomena.
On the larger issues of war crimes in general, people like Andrew Sullivan have consistently revealed themselves to be either dishonest jackals or ignorant fools. The single most determinative factor as to whether a war crime will be prosecuted is not whther one was committed. That’s a given. No, what matters is how successfull in prosecuting a war the side which includes the war criminal was. If Japan had won it’s war with the U.S., FDR and Stimson would have been executed, and the Japanese could have honestly employed the exact rationale the U.S. and it’s allies employed in executing Japanese and German war criminals.
No, I’m not saying the U.S. was morally equivalent to those regimes, but, for instance, Stimson’s approval of a propaganda campaign for consumption by American military personnel, deliberately designed to reduce Japanese to subhuman status, and thus encourage atrocities (like removing gold teeth from wounded yet still concious Japanese soldiers with a bayonet, or using captured Japanese for target practice) on the battlefield or to the immediate rear areas, was the sort of policy that some Japanese and German officials were executed for. The principal difference between Stimson and Rumsfeld (other than WWII being more popular) appears to be that Stimson set about producing his war crimes in large numbers on the battlefield or close to it, whereas Rumsfeld was more selective in targeting war crimes, and set about producing them in areas far to the rear of the battlefield. I’ll let others debate as to which practice is more despicable.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Jim,
Instead of attributing to me beliefs that exist only in your wild imagination, you ought to try reading my posts more carefully. Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:10 am
One question: since the American Right has been gaming this ticking time bomb scenario every day for the past 8 years, haven’t the super-ninja Terrorists figured out by now that they shouldn’t set up a ticking time bomb scenario in which one person could be caught and tortured into giving the Great Satan the location of the ticking time bomb?
Or is part of the scenario that the super-ninja Terrorists are just as hillbilly moronic as the people constantly masturbating over the ticking time bomb threat?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:11 am
DMonteith,
What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
Also, do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Don Williams,
Well, what if he gave you the WRONG location, Charles?
Then we’d keep torturing him.
OR gee — what if the bomb was delivered to an unknown group who have taken it to who knows where? And who have orders to trigger it immediately if attacked beforehand?
Then there might be nothing we could do to stop it.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Jim,
One question: since haven’t the super-ninja Terrorists figured out by now that they shouldn’t set up a ticking time bomb scenario in which one person could be caught and tortured into giving the Great Satan the location of the ticking time bomb?
I don’t know. I’m not sure how you think they could preclude that situation, or why you think we couldn’t possibly capture more than one person.
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Mixner,
What is “not in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “not in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
(hint: Reading and understanding my points from #20 and #101 might help you answer these questions. Your welcome!)
April 17th, 2009 at 12:27 am
DMonteith,
Reading and understanding my points from #20 and #101 might help you answer these questions.
Your posts #20 and #101 contain no answers to the questions. Here are the questions yet again:
What is “in the same neighborhood as torture” supposed to mean? How does it differ from torture? How much less of a crime is an act that is “in the same neighborhood as torture” than torture?
Also, do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:29 am
As always, I will note that I would be perfectly fine with having the legal theories in the OLC memos put to the test in the federal courts, because I am confident they would be rejected. Strangely, I have never seen Bybee, Yoo, Addington, Cheney, or so on express the same confidence in the fate of their opinions should they actually be subjected to the judicial power of the United States.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:31 am
Re Charles at 154: “Then we’d keep torturing him.”
———
Then what if he sends you to ANOTHER wrong location, Charles?
Tick Tick Tick …
Ever hear of a rehearsed cover story?
Of course, Al Qaeda is not quite in the same position as the past spymasters and so the classical tactics don’t always apply. For example, the British officers running ops against the Nazis in France in WWII did so from the safe offices of London. Same for CIA officers running ops against the Commies in Russia.
Al Qaeda supposedly has no safe areas. Although I would not be surprised by reports of a very tall Muslim walking around western China where it abuts Pakistan. After all, China and Russia are the ones who have greatly benefitted from George Bush’s stupidity over the past 8 years.
But some things from WWII still work. Encryption with One Time Pads is still unbreakable. You can still send messages a thousand miles from safe areas with shortwave radio and sleepers can still listen to those broadcasts with no possibility of being detected.
Condi Rice twisted TV CEOS arms to shut down US broadcast of Bin Laden’s speech after Sept 11 — but she did that more to keep the American voters in ignorance re why the attack occurred. Bin Laden had no need to depend upon ABC News to transmit a “when i tug my ear bomb Cleveland message”.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:32 am
One question: since super-ninja Terrorists have proven more than willing to blow themselves up, why would they set a timer on a bomb that they could conveniently be tortured into blabbing about? Why not just detonate the bomb as soon as you reach your desired location? Why set a timer?
Oh, yeah! Without the timer, we can’t torture him to get the location of the bomb and “prove” that torture works.
This hypothetical needs some work.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Don Williams,
Then what if he sends you to ANOTHER wrong location, Charles?
Same answer as before: we keep torturing him.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Jim,
One question: since super-ninja Terrorists have proven more than willing to blow themselves up, why would they set a timer on a bomb that they could conveniently be tortured into blabbing about?
Because these terrorists are not willing to blow themselves up. Most bombers, in fact, do not seem to be suicide bombers.
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:43 am
DTM,
How’s your campaign for the prosecution of “war criminal” Dick Cheney coming along? Any sign yet that anyone in the Obama Administration has any intention of pursuing it?
No, I didn’t think so. Your frustration must be growing daily.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:44 am
Well, I was right in thinking that Mixner, being Mixner, had nothing to occupy him on a Thursday evening, just as nothing occupies him on a Thursday morning, a Friday afternoon, or any day of the week.
Cheering on child-rape, though, is such a predictable tactic. What separates Mixner from classic trolls, of course, is that classic trolls considered child-rape abhorrent, instead of amusing.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:45 am
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘Mixnerspotter.’
April 17th, 2009 at 1:08 am
It’s bleakly funny to watch the puppet dance whenever its strings are pulled.
Every day that Mixner spends fifteen empty hours trolling is a day closer to the one where he wakes up with real purpose for the first time in his life, walks into the three-car garage, sticks a bunch of towels over the vents and fires up the SUV engine that will send him into desolate carbon monoxide oblivion.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:11 am
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘Mixnerspotter’. And why are you cheering on mass murder?
April 17th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Dance, puppet, dance.
tick… tick… tick…
(keep hitting refresh, won’t you?)
April 17th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Your posts #20 and #101 contain no answers to the questions.
Facts/arguments to be gleaned/inferred from #’s 20 and 101:
1)Torture is the infliction of severe pain/suffering on someone for the purpose of coercing them to comply with your will.
2)Striking your “misbehaving” child is the infliction of less physical trauma than would usually be considered “torture” on someone who is completely physically and emotionally dependent upon you* and who has incompletely developed and easily disrupted/damaged cortical regulation of the amygdala for the purpose of coercing them to comply with your will.
So, having re-repeated myself, I’m not quite sure how to help you determine whether or not these two things are “in the same neighborhood”. You can lead a horse to water, etc.
*note that the exploitation of this dependency trades in physical trauma for psychological trauma. Thus the scare quotes around “torture”: severity of trauma is extremely difficult to quantify and is therefore a not entirely useful guide in defining torture.
P.S.: In case you’re interested, the evidence indicates that it’s repeated exposure to shaming/physical discipline that has the most detrimental developmental effects, rather than an isolated incident or two. The woman you witnessed may never have slapped her child before, and if that’s the case then it would fall well into the “not torture” (though still firmly in the “not justified”) category as far as I’m concerned. I’m betting, though, that anyone who’s happy to hit their child in public isn’t too shy about it at home either, and again, that’s just fucking evil.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:42 am
DMonteith,
Striking your “misbehaving” child is the infliction of less physical trauma than would usually be considered “torture” on someone who is completely physically and emotionally dependent upon you
I didn’t ask you what you think torture is “usually considered” to be. This is about YOUR claim regarding torture, not anyone else’s, so stop trying to run away from it. YOU claimed that a slap to a child is “in the same neighborhood as torture.” How close to torture do you consider a slap to be? How much less serious a crime than torture do you consider a slap to be? What criminal charge do you seek against parents who slap their misbehaving child, if not the crime of torture? What criminal penalty do you seek to impose on them?
And you can stop with all this “damaged cortical regulation of the amygdala” nonsense. No one said anything about that. The act in question is A SLAP. Matthew wrote “slap.” I wrote “slap.” A “slap” is the act you claimed to be “in the same neighborhood as torture.” So stop pretending we said something else.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:43 am
DMonteith,
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 3:55 am
DMonteith,
Torture is the infliction of severe pain/suffering on someone for the purpose of coercing them to comply with your will.
Why do you limit torture to that purpose? Why don’t you consider severe pain/suffering inflicted for other purposes to be torture? If a prisoner is made to suffer agonizing pain for the purpose of punishing him, or for the gratification of his captor, why don’t you consider that to be torture? What term would you use to describe such acts, if not torture? What crime do you think people who engage in such acts are guilty of, if not torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 4:33 am
These memos are truly disgusting.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:40 am
I think it is important to note that under the UN Convention against Torture and the U.S. War Crimes Act, torture is not limited to acts of interrogation or coercion. Specifically, under the Convention it can include:
Similarly, under the War Crimes Act it can include:
As for parents and their children, I certainly think it is true that a parent can “torture” a child in a non-legal sense. However, such a case would likely not fall under either the Convention or the War Crimes Act. The Convention requires the act be “at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity” (and this would likely not be interpreted to apply to a parent who happened to be a public official but was not acting in their official capacity). The War Crimes Act applies to torture in violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which in turn applies only to detainees in cases of armed conflict.
Instead, a case of a parent causing what would have been torture in other circumstances (e.g. a parent intentionally causing severe physical or mental pain or suffering for the purpose of punishment) would likely be prosecuted under state child abuse laws. Unfortunately, many states have corporal punishment exceptions to their child abuse laws, and predictably this leads to many line-drawing problems. Indeed, all too often cases of prosecutable child abuse start off with the parent doing what was probably nonprosecutable corporal punishment, which then escalated.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Who cares what charles thinks? He’s an advocate for torture. What possible useful insights are you going to get from someone like that?
April 17th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Sorry, I forgot to include 18 USC 2340, which independently makes torture a crime. It applies only to “a person acting under the color of law”, so again, that statute would most likely not apply to a parent abusing a child.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Then he dies, and we get no useful information whatsoever. Which seems likely since the 9/11 guys were willing to martyr themselves. Why would that change after they’d been captured?
Alternately, we could use tried-and-true interrogation techniques from the start and possibly gotten the ticking time bomb info plus a lot more.
But all of this is beside the point. As someone pointed out earlier, if you’d object to a technique being used on a family member then there’s a good chance it’s torture.
Lots of assumptions being made about the amount of valuable info derived from torture, but not a lot of consideration of how torture affects our ability to influence the behavior in the world. Some people think it doesn’t matter what the world thinks of us because we’re the lone superpower in the world, but recent events demonstrate pretty clearly America’s power is both limited and transitory. Which leaves only moral power as a means of influence.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!
April 17th, 2009 at 10:43 am
No one said anything about that.
Well, dipshit, I said something about that, and what I said about it is crucial to understanding my argument. It’s really bizarre to argue with someone who claims that you never made an argument that you’ve just made.
Which, of course, leads me to say that before I can continue, I’m going to have to insist that you ask a question that proves that you’ve read and understood what I wrote at #101 and at #20, and at #123, and at #169. The questions at #170, as you admit in the body of the comment and as noted above, sadly, reveal no such understanding of my reasoning, and I’m disinclined to repeat myself.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:45 am
As someone pointed out earlier, if you’d object to a technique being used on a family member then there’s a good chance it’s torture.
Or if you object to a family member performing them.
Hey, Chuckles, do you have a little girl? A daughter, who used to look up with her big eyes and ask if you want to dance with a princess?
How about if she comes home from school and tells you that she’s applying to be a CIA interrogator? Wouldn’t that be kewl? She’ll be standing there with something in her hand, and some guy is chained to the ceiling or tied to a chair, and he sees what’s in her hand and screams, “No! Noo!!! No, no, please!” She just walks towards him and he starts thrashing and screaming even louder. “Please! Please, no!”
Awesome, huh? Your little girl.
The torture question isn’t about the terrorists. It’s about us, and who we are.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I didn’t ask you what you think torture is “usually considered” to be.
OK. So let’s just call what torture is ‘usually considered’ to be “milkshakes” and we’ll call whatever you think we should call torture “torture”. Could you provide a link to the Mixner Standard Dictionary because without it I’m considerably handicapped by my grasp of English.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:01 am
The fact that child molestation is often hard to define means that it really can’t be prosecuted or even declared illegal. In fact, the whole legal system apparently rests on “judges” and other non-computer programmers interpreting words and stuff (”evidence”) presented by other people (”prosecutors”, “attorneys”, etc), and then deciding along with some randomly selected group of know-nothings (a “jury”) whether some human violated some “law” vaguely and briefly written.
If everything were just written out as computer code by some sort of purely symbolic logic evolved species, we wouldn’t have this ridiculous nonsense; until then, it’s silly to think that so-called “people” will be “tried” for “crimes” when it’s all so ridiculously vague and interpretable.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Impale charles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_III_the_Impaler
The neat thing about it is that under Charle’s reasoning, impalement would be … okay. Those definitions are so imprecise, after all.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Why are you folks talking to Charles? They guy is a torture apologist who thinks changing the subject and fudging the definition of torture equal some kind of winning argument. Yes there is some pleasure to seeing someone so stupid be so full of themselves, but trying to actually elicit conversation with this slug is beyond futile.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Don Williams,
Then he dies, and we get no useful information whatsoever.
No, he doesn’t die. We’re torturing him, not killing him.
As someone pointed out earlier, if you’d object to a technique being used on a family member then there’s a good chance it’s torture.
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I didn’t ask you what you think torture is “usually considered” to be.
How close to torture do you consider a slap to be?
And another thing. How the hell can I answer the question in the second quote without violating your edict as outlined in the first quote? Shall I play basketball without touching the ball too?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
DMonteith,
Well, dipshit, I said something about that,
But, fuckface, the question you were answering doesn’t say anything about it. I asked whether a slap to a misbehaving child is torture. You answered that you think a slap “is in the neighborhood of torture.” No one asked you about “damaged cortical regulation of the amygdala” or any of your other nonsense. The question referred to a SLAP, period.
How close to torture do you consider a SLAP to be? How much less serious a crime than torture do you consider a SLAP to be? What criminal charge do you seek against parents who SLAP their misbehaving child, if not the crime of torture? What criminal penalty do you seek to impose on them?
And why do you limit torture to the purpose of coercing someone to comply with your will? Why don’t you consider severe pain/suffering inflicted for other purposes to be torture? If a prisoner is made to suffer agonizing pain for the purpose of punishing him, or for the gratification of his captor, why don’t you consider that to be torture? What term would you use to describe such acts, if not torture? What crime do you think people who engage in such acts are guilty of, if not torture?
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The snark wafting out of El Cid’s comments is burning my nose!
April 17th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
DMonteith,
How the hell can I answer the question in the second quote without violating your edict as outlined in the first quote?
There is no “edict” in the first quote. I don’t care what you think torture is “usually considered” to be. This is about your opinion of the meaning of torture, not anyone else’s.
Stop evading, stop changing the subject, and answer the question. How close to torture do you consider a slap to be? How much less serious a crime than torture do you consider a slap to be? What criminal charge do you seek against parents who slap their misbehaving child, if not the crime of torture? What criminal penalty do you seek to impose on them?
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Hey, Chuckles, do you have a little girl?
Hey, Josephine, do you have a little girl?
How about if she gets blown up in a terrorist bombing? A terrorist bombing that could have been prevented if the bomber had been tortured. But instead the bombing succeeds because torture wasn’t used. Your little girl dies slowly in excruciating pain, screaming in agony as you look on helplessly. How about that, Josephine? Awesome, huh?
Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Ah, “charles” has finally emerged from his desert slumber, and cracked open the laptop that slept beside him overnight.
Nothing to do, then? Planning on spending all day here? Or will you be looking for another thread to occupy your time with the same tired old bullshit?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
You’re not fooling anyone ‘Mixnerspotter’.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I asked whether a slap to a misbehaving child is torture. You answered that you think a slap “is in the neighborhood of torture.” No one asked you about “damaged cortical regulation of the amygdala” or any of your other nonsense.
I’m confused. Why did you ask why I think something if you are going to pay no attention to the reason why I think something? Please forgive the discourtesy I’ve perpetrated by answering your question.
I’m certainly not going to risk giving further offense by answering any more questions until I receive from you your guidelines as to what constitutes proper content and style for query response.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
How close to torture do you consider a slap to be? How much less serious a crime than torture do you consider a slap to be? What criminal charge do you seek against parents who slap their misbehaving child, if not the crime of torture? What criminal penalty do you seek to impose on them? Do you agree with Atul Gawande and “Andrew” that solitary confinement is torture?
Let’s try this. I think that the answer to these questions is whatever Mixner says it is! He’s so smart! No other facts exist other than the ones he has approved. Oooh baby! His ratiocination sooo large!
Better?
April 17th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I see. Try telling that to the family of Dilawar, the Afghan man who was beaten to death at Bagram. Only later was it learned that he was innocent and turned in by the real culprits (they mortared a base) who wanted the reward money.
(And before you respond that those interrogators weren’t trained or something, face the reality that once the torture cat is out of the bag there’s no getting it back in. Once it’s okay to torture, then anyone and everyone can do it, trained/experienced or not.)
April 17th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
1) The DOWNSIDE of torture in combatting an insurgency is not usually noted –but has significant negatives.
2) To combat an insurgency , you want the general population on your side — or at least neutral and willing to give up terrorists via a phone call for the rewards/bounties. To do that, you need to have a decent reputation –because You need thousands of snitches to keep track of what’s going on and for early warning. That’s true of police in our urban neighborhoods, but even more true if you are in a foreign country.
3) But when word gets out that you use torture, you are viewed as a monster. An object of hatred. Even if people don’t join the insurgency , they will give it the help they can safely give. If they won’t risk housing a wanted man, they will at least not give him up and they will pass warnings to him if you get close to the neighborhood.
4) George W Bush fucked the war on terror when he lied to this country and told us that Sept 11 occurred because “they hate our freedoms.” Ever motherfucker in the Islamic World KNEW that was deceitful bullshit — Bin Laden had given us clear warnings in 1997-98 re why Al Qaeda was going to declare war on us: the killing of 600,000 Iraqi children via waterborne disease (blocking purification supplies with sanctions), the decades long support for the tyrannical Saudi regime in order to loot the oil deposits of the Saudi people, and the long time support for Israeli extermination of the Palestinians.
5) Rumsfeld and Cheney fucked it even further with their support for torture.
6) We have been down this road before. We supported the Shah and his Savak torturers in the 1970s. As a result, Iran — a country with many strong reasons to be a close ally of the USA — hates our guts. And are probably developing nukes.
The CIA bureaucracy ain’t all that bright — but even the KUBARK manual notes that if you torture someone, he is going to try to strike back if he ever gets free.
Even the most amoral pragmatist would argue that if you ever do torture, it should only be under the most dire necessity and on only a few occasions. Because otherwise you can not keep it covered up and the blowback on public exposure will be non-trivial.
Cheney and George W Bush are extremely stupid in the way that only ass-licking parasites can be.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I would prefer the exceedingly small chance that she will be the victim of a terrorist attack if we ban torture to the 100% chance the she will live her life in a society screwed up enough to countenance the use of torture.
Of course, she is several thousand times more likely to be killed in some other type of violent crime than in a terror attack. I do not countenance the use of torture against suspected members of drug gangs, suspected members of Satanic cults, suspected pedophiles, or suspected drunk drivers, either.
There, I’ve answered your question. You still haven’t answered mine. What’s the matter, are you so ashamed of your beliefs that you refuse to discuss them?
You should be.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I would prefer the exceedingly small chance that she will be the victim of a terrorist attack if we ban torture to the 100% chance the she will live her life in a society screwed up enough to countenance the use of torture.
This comment is a complete nonsequitur. The scenario is that she is the victim of a terrorist attack. Your little girl dies a slow, agonizing death from a terrorist attack that would have been prevented if the terrorist had been tortured.
And in case you haven’t noticed, you already do live in a society that countenances the use of torture. Polling data has repeatedly found that almost 70% of Americans believe the use of torture is justified in some circumstances. Americans elected and then re-elected George W. Bush, despite his administration’s use of what you claim to be torture. Just yesterday, the Obama Administration affirmed that it will turn a blind eye to what you claim to be crimes of torture by CIA interrogators. We also routinely subject prison inmates to conditions such as solitary confinement and the threat of rape that clearly meet the standard of “severe mental suffering.” There is no public outcry against these practises. They are an accepted part of our criminal justice system.
It has also become clear that you yourself countenance the use of torture. You’re just too dishonest to admit it. In all your endless self-righteous blather about torture, you haven’t raised any objection to the use of solitary confinement, the threat of rape or execution, or other such practises common in our penal system.
The fact that you refuse to answer my question on solitary confinement demonstrates that you are all too aware of the hypocrisy and double-standards in your own position on torture, you lying moron.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
The fact that you refuse to answer my question on solitary confinement demonstrates that you are all too aware of the hypocrisy and double-standards in your own position on torture…
That’s a very cozy cocoon you’ve got there Mixner. I love what you’ve done with the whole failure to show hypocrisy is proof of hypocrisy thing. I also approve of the choice to go with your own ignorance as indicative of the unreasonableness of others. It’s truly an excellent way to go for maximizing thought avoidance. Tres chic!
April 18th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Your little girl dies a slow, agonizing death from a terrorist attack that would have been prevented if the terrorist had been tortured.
I also see no reason to accept your naked assertion that rejecting torture increases the chances my daughter will be killed by terrorism, since our own military and intelligence have long told us that the torture that took place in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo was the primary motivation for people joining anti-American militant groups.
I suppose you know better than them, though. After all, there’s those years you spent in the Special Forces, and then that long career you had as an intel analyst with the DIA, right?
Why do you want to make Americans less safe, charles? Just to satisfy your sick revenge fantasies? Sorry, I love my daughter too much to ever let short-sighted torture enthusiasts like you endanger her by allowing America to become a torture state. You should watch fewer movies, and make an effort to acquaint yourself with the facts of the matter as they exist in the real world outside your mom’s basement.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:31 am
When I don’t allow you to hijack threads into irrelevant diversions, it only demonstrates that I don’t with the discussion to be diverted into irrelevant diversions.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:34 am
“…want the discussions to be diverted into irrelevant diversions,” that is.
Perhaps someday there will be a solitary-confinement thread; if so, I won’t be shy about expressing my thoughts on the subject.
Perhaps someday there will be thread about pie, and I’ll be happy to discuss my thoughts about pie on that thread.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:46 am
charles: lying, or ignorant?
Polls show what now, Chuckles?
Q. Obama has said that under his administration the United States will not use torture as part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism, no matter what the circumstance. Do you support this position not to use torture, or do you think there are cases in which the United States should consider torture against terrorism suspects?
By a wide margin — 58-40% — Americans say that torture should never be used, no matter the circumstances.
Polls say what now, Chuckles?
By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Even as Americans struggle with two wars and an economy in tatters, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds majorities in favor of investigating some of the thorniest unfinished business from the Bush administration: Whether its tactics in the “war on terror” broke the law.
Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done.
As in so many other areas, the American people have left you behind.
Ooh, sorry, no. Yesterday, the Obama administration – which already forbade the use of torture in his first act as President – exempted only CIA interrogators who relied in good faith on legal advice from the OLC from prosecution. He said nothing about those who actually established torture as policy.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
And another thing. The premise here is that this is a ticking-time-bomb situation, and we have to torture the prisoner in order to get information in a tight time frame. If our interrogators “know” that an attack is imminent yet continue to get bad information from the prisoner then it’s difficult to believe that the torture applied will be so finely calibrated – and the emotions of the interrogators so restrained – that said torture wouldn’t result either in death or psychological damage severe enough to make the prisoner useless.
Also worth noting is that people like “Charles” are defending the use of torture almost solely as a tool for these ticking-time-bomb situations. By all accounts these situations are rare, but since torture is approved, it may be applied to all manner of situations much less imminent in nature. Will interrogators use restraint when dealing with these less-imminent situations? Perhaps. But more likely the use of torture will become more commonplace. That is in fact what happened at Bagram, Abu Ghraib and other places. One can’t assume anything like the perfect implmentation of a nuanced policy on the use of torture once it’s determined that, in the end, torture is okay.