The Observation Deck

I can't believe that we are debating whether torture is okay. I can't believe that our president vetoed a bill outlawing it! I fear that we may not be able to overide a veto.

General Clark - wrote one of the best articles that I have read on the subject. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801.clark.html

We have known this from the outset of the Republic. General George Washington emphasized the proper treatment of Hessian prisoners during the Revolutionary War, reasoning that we might win them over. In many cases, we did just that. During the Civil War, we issued the Lieber Code, emphasizing that torture to gain confessions or information was never permissible. Ever since, it has been the standard to which the American armed forces have adhered. During World War II, we trained interrogators to elicit voluntary information from our adversaries, and it worked. Today, the FBI is firm in its belief that proper interrogation doesn't require torture and that better information can be obtained without it.

Something in the American soul has always demanded fair treatment and respect for the individual. Perhaps it was our flight from the repression of the Old World and the practices of European monarchy. We were different. We expressed it in our Declaration of Independence. We captured it in our adaptation of English common law, in our trials by juries of peers, and in our spirit of justice. We were a better nation for it, more respected, more influential, and more secure. Certainly, we committed historical wrongs that today we wish we could set right, but overall we advanced, step by step, striving to live the values we professed.

Until now. Until weak, fearful leaders had so little belief in our values and principles that they gave away our birthright and proud claim in order to follow a shadowy emulation of the very dictatorships and tyrannies we had struggled against. For shame, America, that we aren't brave enough and strong enough to live our values.

Today, in the struggle to finish off the extremists plotting against us, it won't be torture and fear that win the day for America. Far from it. Nations that torture end up despised and defeated. No, to win we'll have to live up to the values we profess, the belief in human rights, equal justice, fair trials, and the rule of law. These ideals are potent weapons. They will give us allies, friends, information, and security—but only if we live them.

While I am not for severe torture - water boarding and other forms of interrogation are debatable from what I have read on the subject.

The other issue that has changed all this is that our enemies have changed as well as our war techniques.

When we captured a "soldier" in the past he had no knowledge of much except their orders. When dealing with these freak radicals many of them seem to have more knowledge and many that we have had to "press" for information were much higher up than simple foot soldiers following orders.

As soon as our enemies lost all respect for their life as well as the lives of those around them, our techniques for dealing with them had/have to change in my opinion.

We value life thats why we don't leave anyone behind, the terrorist would blow up there mothers, kids, wives, or anyone to get to their target.

This type of evil doesn't deserve 3 squares cable tv and entertainment, and they also probably don't respond to traditional forms of interrogation, in my opinion.

When we publicize what we are allowed and not allowed to do to prisoners to me that is simply a training guide for their recruiters to use.

I would hate to have another 911 repeat if we had a prisoner who knew details but we couldn't get him to talk because we valued his "rights" too much.

Ryan,

I beg to differ.

In WWII, we fought against Hilter and his soldiers who was systematically killing entire groups of people like the Jews in death camps. They were doing horrible experiments on living people. You think these people are better than terrorists?

We have seen evil throughout history, it is nothing new. But when we become as evil as they are - they win. And the irony of the situation is that under torture people will say what they think they need to - to stop the torture - not the truth.

Lynn,

Why is serious torture wrong in your opinion?

What do you base those beliefs on if you don't mind, I am curious.

-Ryan

What an interesting philosophical question Ryan.

From a personal standpoint, I could answer that all major religions of the world teach us to respect life, especialy human life. I could cite scripture that supports this - but you know them. The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith are all based on the Old Testament. The Christian and Muslim incorporate the New Testament as well. Buddhist certainly respect life as do Hindu. We are admonished to love our neighbor as ourself. We are told to turn the other cheek. We are told to be just and show mercy.

But what if we aren't religious? Why then would we refrain from torture? One, it doesn't work. General Clark states in this article "Today, the FBI is firm in its belief that proper interrogation doesn't require torture and that better information can be obtained without it. " That is reason enough.

How about we want to not win the battle - but the war. Here again, General Clark states, "Nations that torture end up despised and defeated." Even if we got a short term gain - which the FBI says we won't with torture - the long term loss isn't worth it.

What about honoring our word in our constitution and in the agreements we have made? We as a nation have always valued justice and the rule of law. Once again General Clark states" to win we'll have to live up to the values we profess, the belief in human rights, equal justice, fair trials, and the rule of law. These ideals are potent weapons. They will give us allies, friends, information, and security—but only if we live them. "

Great post Lynn!

So now the question is what is torture?

Some human rights groups consider blindfolds and hand cuffs torture. The US after 911 defined it as something that causes permanent physical harm or severe pain. Then it was revised that severe torture was a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure.

Obviously strategic interrogation programs are preferred but those typically require time to build relationships. Sometimes we do not have that time.

George Tenet and Michael Scheuer said enhanced interrogation was effective in obtaining useful information, so I guess there is conflicting "proof" of what works.

Remember, only specially train CIA officers are allowed to use any of these enhanced techniques and they have to follow extensive legal reviews.

Also, should we make public what exactly we can and cannot do, or will this just help our enemies prepare for it?

Ryan Salo wrote:Also, should we make public what exactly we can and cannot do, or will this just help our enemies prepare for it?

The Geneva Convention clearly spelled out prisoner treatment...

I love the new name for torture....."enhanced interrogation".....

Just think of all the potential enhancements! Drugs, hot pokers.....maybe the rack?

Since the Geneva convention only applies to treatment of captured soldiers, we can side step its niceties when dealing with guerilla forces. And the current thinking seems to be that the means justifies the ends.

Remember when the USA provided world wide moral leadership through its example? Now, it seems, that it is appropriate to abandon the moral high ground for our own preservation, thereby reducing us to the very level of that which we are fighting.

Jeff

Jeff Endress wrote:thereby reducing us to the very level of that which we are fighting.

So, if I am reading this correct, water boarding is the same as having mentally disabled people strap bombs to their backs and walk out into public with no clue they are going to die? Or cutting off our soldiers heads with 4 inch knives while they are still alive? Or burning people alive that are masked? Or cutting out the eyes of small children to get their parents to talk?

Have we really gone to there level? Just asking...

Ryan

So, I guess youre saying that as long as we only engage in humane torture, that should be acceptable? A bit like being a little pregnant.

The USA will now endorse torture, but, we won't stoop to barbaric methods.

To answer your question, No, I don't equate waterboarding with beheading...eye gouging, etc. But I'm also not willing to accept a departure from our accepted norms of civilized behavior. Once you are willing to accept that departure, everything else becomes a matter of degrees on a very slippery slope. And you have then established expediency as the test for acceptability. As long as your the winner in those conflicts, the damage is only to your reputation. The same expediency usually ends up with the loser charged as war criminals.....

Jeff

Ryan Salo wrote:
Have we really gone to there level? Just asking...

We are much closer than we were. We like to think that because these are evil times we need to do everything we can to ensure that evil-doers are stopped, but in the process, we become evil doers.

If we proceed down this path, we endorse everything that happened at Abu Ghraib.

In my life time (since born in the late 60's), our nation has made one of the most monumental changes to right some of the most abhorrent human rights abuses of the 20th Century. Immediately, what do you think of?

Is it treatment of people with disabilities?

I bring this up because in the 60's, state institutions housed thousands and thousands of people with disabilities and mental illness in conditions that, honest to god, could easily be compared to work camps in Nazi Germany. Without a doubt. We have pictures to prove it. Children strapped to cribs 24/7, food scarce, clothing more scarce, rape, floors covered with feces, urine and blood. Eventually this treatment saw the light of day and the people of the US were moved to make changes.

Now the same sorts of people who were sent off to institutions soon after birth because of being 'different' are now living lives in the community, some on their own, some with a little help and those that need it, care around the clock. These are lives worth living.

Why do I bring this up? Because just before I was born, our nation found it far easier to do the wrong thing for expediency and hid the results behind closed doors for decades. When we finally found out about it, we hung our heads in shame and have tried to do the right thing ever since.

Do you really want us to head down the path that our enemies have chosen for us? Do you really want your children and children's children to look back on history and see the horrors we committed in the name of 'expediency,' 'fear,' and 'protection?'

Our nation will be here, regardless of the aims of madmen with bombs in the rest of the world. We sacrifice far more lives in the US to our worship of cars, fatty foods and cigarettes than any terrorist will extract from us. Our own war on terror has cost us more lives than the event that supposedly kicked it off. It isn't defeat to admit that there are those in the world that want to kill us. That will always be the case. The way we treat nations earns us that hatred. Being the good guys will make bad people hate us, to be sure. Being the bad guys will make not only the other bad guys hate us (there really is no honor among thieves) but the good guys as well.

We adapt to each new threat in each new generation and have done so since this nation was born. The day we start to adapt by becoming the thing we fear is the day the US might want to let in a little light and look at what it is doing.

It seems if we reduce torture to a legalism and then wage a battle for the definition, we come to the place we're already at as a country.

"We don't torture because our harsh methods aren't torture."

Circular and self-serving...

Meanwhile, short of defining torture, some are moved to provide context without defining what is at the center.

For example,

When we captured a "soldier" in the past he had no knowledge of much except their orders. When dealing with these freak radicals many of them seem to have more knowledge and many that we have had to "press" for information were much higher up than simple foot soldiers following orders.

If you have any data for either of these points, Ryan, I'm listening. But I won't hold my breath.

It would seem, the interrogator doesn't know what the prisoner's knowledge is beforehand.

We value life thats why we don't leave anyone behind, the terrorist would blow up there mothers, kids, wives, or anyone to get to their target

.

We don't leave our own behind because we value the body. But so many hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed by our own wish to strike a target, that we've had to conjure a euphemism, 'collateral damage' to coverup the moral cost.

they also probably don't respond to traditional forms of interrogation, in my opinion.

Opinion based on data or mere sentiment?

When we publicize what we are allowed and not allowed to do to prisoners to me that is simply a training guide for their recruiters to use.

Neocon talking point! Imagine the training required to survive partial drowning.

Of course one's opinion is propped up by where one wishes to draw whatever line is to be drawn.

The US may not torture but it has found it expedient to out-source interrogation to Syria, Egypt, perhaps to unemployed Romanian secret service persons, to fly subjects to those so-called black prisons in which the techniques may be harsh but at least they aren't the handiwork of Americans.

Is torture wrong? Well, maybe it can be justified even if the moral questions begged start to fade away to black.

Here's a couple of secondary questions.

What do harsh interrogation techniques do to the interrogator?

If we leave morality almost completely behind, what then is the morality left over able to cover torturing an innocent by mistake; having one of our sons or daughters tortured by an enemy; torturing a person, even to death when they--in fact--had no information?

Tough questions.

On the other hand, being adept at the dark arts of interrogation does allow the US to join the company of all those who are similarly adept. It's a small but elite group. All of this group's members invented elaborate rationales while, at the same time, abandoning the instrumental principles that separate the civilized from the barbarian.