trish said...
Many, besides just the left, argue that torture does not work. A certain poster here with past connections to interrogations and present connections with the CIA makes that claim.
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I cite such people as examples of the creeping political correctness, and Psychologizing under the influence of the dominate culture and institutions.
10/19/2007 07:32:00 PM
Past connections to interrogations, yes. Present or past connections to CIA? No.
Waterboarding isn't torture, by the way. Unless the admin has decided it is, which I don't believe it has. The USG doesn't undertake torture in any of its agencies nor sanction such, so it's a moot debate, manufactured for your entertainment. Because it's a matter of US Code, you can only fiddle with the definition, as there's a certain amount of unavoidable, cultural subjectivity involved, but you can't get very far with that tack. Good Guy is our schtick, broadly speaking, and we're schtickin' to it. (Jihadists will disagree, but jihadists don't like being leisurely strip searched by female soldiers, either.)
Trish proposes that every American attend a short, unclassified course on interrogation - taught by those who do it for a living - so that every American would have a better understanding of what it is, and what it is not; what it aims to accomplish and what it aims to avoid; its many, and universal, methods and its inherent limitations. Trish's course would end with videotape of actual (obvious, rather) torture, so that everyone has a vivid image in future discussion of the matter. Better yet, it would end with videotape of a high level detainee abjectly weeping, then agreeing to cooperation, after relatively brief interrogation employing approaches decidedly this side of torture. But as a practical matter that'd never be declassified.
In any event, she'd make special provision for Doug, who would also attend a full SEAR course, thereby making him acquainted with both ends of the business and leaving him an all round better human being.
Mon Oct 22, 08:12:00 AM EDT
Trish is a commenter and ex-director of The Elephant Bar, amongst possible other things unnamed.
Trish is a commenter and ex-director of The Elephant Bar, amongst possible other things unnamed.
ReplyDeleteI hope someday to work myself up into bar management again. I'm already moonlighting at two other bars, and I put in a shift every night.
Torture, interrogation or mental manipulation.
ReplyDeleteIs the criminal's lawyer present during these interrogations?
As things are developing, that will soon be required. Exemplified by the MNF news release that announces:
Sunday, 21 October 2007 UPDATE: Coalition forces target Special Groups leader, 49 criminals killed
Waterboarding criminals?
Not done by the USA.
The "Enemy" has been degraded, or elevated, to crimal status.
He is no longer a combatant, legal or illegal. The enemy are now common criminals, to be afforded the protections that definition implies.
JFKerry's 2004 position prevailed.
He is no longer a combatant, legal or illegal. The enemy are now common criminals, to be afforded the protections that definition implies
ReplyDeleteYou are quite protected in federal SuperMax prison, but it is rather like being buried alive.
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ReplyDeleteOnly after conviction, in a US court of law. As many wish for the detainees at Gitmo.
ReplyDeleteThe standards of evidence will not be relaxed, no indeed.
Just ask the Blackwater boys, or the Haditha Marines. Without CSI standards of evidence being met, there will be no convictions.
Without Mirandizing the detainees, they cannot even be charged.
In Iraq the criminal justice system revolving doors are the rule, not the exception. Lack of evidence and procedural protocols take precedence over criminal intent.
If the enemy are not lawful combatants, they are criminals, which in the US, is a protected class.
"In Iraq the criminal justice system revolving doors are the rule, not the exception."
ReplyDeleteIf it's anything like Afghanistan, revolving doors are only a part of it. The other part is the Roach Motel, which natives will try to avoid at all costs. (That can help in US interrogation, no doubt about it.) Many, perhaps most, in host custody are lucky to even make it to detention. Those who do make it, will often pay dearly before they even get there.
NATO has only added to this dilemma, asking despite all wisdom that potential death penalty PUCs be transferred to Afghan custody rather than kept in ours.
Oops!
ReplyDeleteI posted my response in the other thread, I'll go get it after unloading this paste here first, fwiw.
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PBS - frontline: saudi time bomb?: analyses: madrassas
A madrassa is an Islamic religious school. Many of the Taliban were educated in Saudi-financed madrassas in Pakistan that teach Wahhabism..
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The Madrassa Myth - New York Times
There is little or no evidence that the Muslim religious schools produce terrorists capable of attacking the West.
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Pakistan's Islamic schools in the spotlight
Trish,
ReplyDeleteMaybe we are about two different things:
I object to the assertion,
"Torture doesn't work."
Not your argument here, that as a policy position for our side, we don't do it, and there are other effective methods.
I'd be interested in your thoughts about Wretch's pretzel logic about who volunteers for what, and so forth, and any other of the wringing of hands there about the horrors of waterboarding as such.
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My objection to the flat assertion
"Torture doesn't work."
concerns individual cases, where you do not have the luxury of time, and the threat is manifestly imminent.
IOW, I find it hard to believe that any of us (excluding the genius handwringers at BC) if confronted with an individual situation with an immediate deadline, and with a certain outcome ranging from the death of a loved one to the incineration of a city, would eschew all physical violence, and resort only to some kind of verbal jujitsu, which, given a short enough time window, would boil down to:
"Please tell me where the bomb is and how I can disarm it!"
The wringers would argue in the affirmative, I hope you won't.
"NATO has only added to this dilemma, asking despite all wisdom that potential death penalty PUCs be transferred to Afghan custody rather than kept in ours."
ReplyDelete---
Could you elaborate on that?
I don't get it, why is it such a bad idea?
The US has ignored the PKK's presence in Iraq since 2003, despite it being on the "list" of terrorist organizations.
ReplyDeleteWe have allowed this terrorist group to find sanctuary in US controlled Iraq, poisoning our relationship with the couuntry that the US is most dependent upon to continue on, in Iraq.
The resupply route through Turkey is essential, it seems, to a continued US presence in the region.
Now the US is faced with taking substantial action, within a "few days". Meanwhile the Iraqi refuse to cooperate, as evidenced by Mr Talabani's statements, regarding the Kurdish terrorists, from the NYTimes:
For their part, Iraq officials offered a mixed response. While denouncing the Kurdish ambush and expressing the wish for good relations with Turkey, they rejected Turkish demands that militant leaders be captured and handed over to Turkey. “We are looking for peace, not war, and to solve problems peacefully,” said Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president. But Mr. Talabani, who is himself a Kurd, added tartly, “We will not hand any Kurdish man to Turkey, even a Kurdish cat.”
Someone needs to clear the area of those Kurdish terrorists, either US, the Iraqi or the Turks.
As per Mr Bush's 2002 State of the Union:
First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. ...
...
My hope is that all nations will heed our call, and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own. Many nations are acting forcefully. ...
But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will.
The Turks are not being timid in the face of terror, the United States is.
To bad, really.
We will see what the next "few days" bring.
"Could you elaborate on that?"
ReplyDeleteSunday's WaPo.
Go fetch, guy.
Maybe it was Saturday.
ReplyDeleteMy objection to the flat assertion
ReplyDelete"Torture doesn't work."
concerns individual cases, where you do not have the luxury of time, and the threat is manifestly imminent.
***********************************
Torture takes time.
Often it gives time to the other guy.
Back to the standard Trish "answer."
ReplyDeleteI was looking for your opinion, not the WaPo's.
"Torture takes time."
ReplyDelete---
How long does it take to cut off someone's finger?
What's wrong with it, Doug? Gee, I dunno, we don't have the same damn legal codes maybe?
ReplyDelete'Rat,
ReplyDeleteAnd we all complained about Bubba kicking the can down the road!
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To be followed by the can-can dancer supreme, GWB.
"I can't even count the cans."
tm
But, as a nation of (dumb, uneducated, illegal) immigrants, he knows he can put anything over on us.
So, is the object to win the war, or observe legal codes?
ReplyDeleteSeems I was right about US jurors believing anonymous Israeli agents... they do not.
ReplyDeleteDALLAS (Associated Press) -- Jurors found three former leaders of a group that was once the nation's largest Muslim charity not guilty of funneling illegal aid to terrorists, but the panel was sent back to deliberate on the other defendants after three jurors said the verdicts read in court were wrong.
Because of the confusion, the judge has not officially accepted those verdicts, which aquitted chairman Mohammed El-Mezain on all counts and two other defendants on most: Mohammed El-Mezain, the group's New Jersey representative, and Abdulrahman Odeh; and fundraiser Mufid Abdulqader.
Jurors were deliberating again on charges against Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development as well as former chief executive Shukri Abu Baker and former chairman Ghassan Elashi.
When jurors came into the courtroom earlier Monday, the judge read the verdicts, but three jurors said those findings were not correct. U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish sent then back to resolve the differences.
The jury forewoman said she was surprised by the three jurors' actions.
"When we voted, there was no issue in the vote," she said. "No one spoke up any different. I really don't understand where it is coming from. All 12 made that decision."
Good thing the US did not torture those officers of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development accused of sponsoring terrorists in Palistine, since it's been decided by a jury of their peers that they did not.
doug wrote:
ReplyDelete"and with a certain outcome ranging from the death of a loved one to the incineration of a city, would eschew all physical violence, and resort only to some kind of verbal jujitsu, which, given a short enough time window, would boil down to:
"Please tell me where the bomb is and how I can disarm it!""
lordy, we've been down this path before doug. Your argument is tautological - the conclusion is contained in your premise - "when faced with certain..."
The world is uncertain and the knowledge one seeks through torture is not certainly there but simply assumed to be there. Why not use torture in every investigation? The greater good is what you are driving at are you not?
Yeah, those 3 weren't esp prone to future imagined torture, at all.
ReplyDeleteVirtual Patton clones, they were.
...or Rosenburgs.
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ReplyDeleteYour a dumb ass out of your league, Ash!
ReplyDeleteAl-Rosenberg, that is.
ReplyDeleteWhy not use torture in every investigation? The greater good is what you are driving at are you not?
ReplyDeleteMon Oct 22, 12:20:00 PM EDT
Compartmentalization is a fine thing.
PBU Al
ReplyDeleteRiddles are a fine thing:
ReplyDeleteHow long does it take to cut off someone's finger?
(try 2)
Is not the object of the "war" to spread those self-same "Legal Codes"?
ReplyDeleteWhich is hard to do, if we violate them.
Bush's Neo- Imperialist War
Our Iraqi occupation not only rejects American foreign policy since Wilson, it's a throwback to the great power imperialism that led to World War I.
John B. Judis
Quite an interesting perspective
The world tends to be compartmentalized in various ways, Trish:
ReplyDeleteSuch is life,
for non-lifers.
Desert Rat: Someone needs to clear the area of those Kurdish terrorists, either US, the Iraqi or the Turks.
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to advise the Turks there's a new tactic in warfare: The bad guys don't wear uniforms, and melt into the civilian population. If the Turks fancy being part of the enlightened EU someday they better not target civilians like "War Criminal Bushitler" does.
But what the Turks realize, what many of the enlightened EUers miss, is that the EU is joining Eurabia, not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteThe Turks have lasted quite a while without EU membership, they will value their soverignty more than they value EU membership.
They could swing to supporting the Iranians and the Syrians, with tacit support from Russia.
The historic norm for the region.
As exemplified by the "Charge of the Light Brigade" and Gallipoli.
"Why not use torture in every investigation? "
ReplyDelete---
Why not quote something STUPID, and act like it's not?
...a 'liberal,' 'libertarian' ploy, perhaps?
Doug: How long does it take to cut off someone's finger?
ReplyDeleteYou remove things that hurt (like teeth). If you want to make things hurt, you don't remove them, you peel them like an orange.
"There is no definition of conservative."
ReplyDelete--
"Conscience of a Conservative was never written."
There is the evident LOSS, however:
ReplyDelete"Hmmm, 9 fingers!"
(8 to go for 1)
ReplyDelete"How long does it take to cut off someone's finger?"
ReplyDeleteIs there all that is to it? If only we had known.
"But what the Turks realize..."
ReplyDeleteWhat alota garbage, Rat.
Just tell me if your son's life was at risk, that you would not exceed verbal messages, with 20 minutes to work with.
ReplyDelete...or feed us more pithy riddles.
Garbage in, garbage out.
ReplyDeleteThe Turks are not docile US sevants, ask the 4th ID.
The French have sealed that EU deal, for the Turks.
It ain't happenin' and the Turks know it. If you think that is "garbage" there you go.
The Islamists have gained power, in Turkey, through the ballot, not the bullet.
To think that they will continue to assist US, in our crusade against Iran and in Iraq, while they take casualties from US controlled Iraq, silly.
Are you asking me?
ReplyDelete?
ReplyDeleteAbout my son.
ReplyDeleteWho else?
ReplyDeleteHe complains about the time it takes for me to answer a question. So does his father.
ReplyDeletedoug, are you suggesting that we should base interrogation policy for the US military on what a mother fearing the death of her son would do?
ReplyDeleteRing, ring. Hello, hello. Radio Moscow here. Tucker hospital here. Tucker Telephone
ReplyDeleteA quick search of 'torture' shows the human race in all times and places is very creative when it comes to causing pain to the fellow members of our species. The old metaphor of living in a fallen world seems to have real meaning.
The Chinese seem particularily adept at working over members of the Falun Gong. Won't stop us--or the Canadians--from trading with them, however.
ReplyDeleteAsh, we're all trading with a country that practices systematic torture. Should we stop trade? Serious question. How could one ever certify that a country isn't violating human rights in a systematic fashion?
nothing like being hypocrits:
ReplyDelete"The Inspector General report notes that the Army Field Manual defines “physical torture” to include “electric shock, forcing an individual to stand, sit, or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time, food deprivation, and any form of beating.” It describes “mental torture” as “mock executions, abnormal sleep deprivation, and chemically induced psychosis.” In other words, JTF-170 was requesting, and received, authorization for the military to engage in what its own field manual defined as torture.
Many of the new torture techniques came from the CIA and from a military program known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. According to the New York Times article quoted above, “Because the training was developed during the cold war, the techniques later adopted by the CIA and Special Operations officers in Iraq were based, at least in part, on how the Soviet Union and its allies were believed to treat prisoners. Such techniques included prolonged use of stress positions, exposure to heat and cold, sleep deprivation and even waterboarding.”
The Inspector General report states that SERE training “incorporates physical and psychological pressures, which act as counterresistance techniques, to replicate harsh conditions that the Service member might encounter if they are held by forces that do not abide by the Geneva Conventions.” Having itself repudiated the Geneva Conventions, it was only logical for the US government to employ these same methods.
The report relates that the methods used in Guantánamo were then transferred to Afghanistan and Iraq, though it does not mention the fact that this was done under the direction of Rumsfeld and, ultimately, the White House."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/tort-j05.shtml
bobal,
ReplyDeleteProving a negative is pretty nigh impossible so placing the onus upon nations to prove their not doing something wouldn't be very productive. You do raise a difficult issue though on how do you deal with nations that do things to people that we don't like though the irony of US now doing it as well mucks it up even more. Should we engage in mutually beneficial trade and try to influence them to be 'better' or should we shun them. Both approaches are fraught with difficulties and lack of success.
It's torture here. Just as I thought, the parking garage, and casino too, collapsed on 'The Young and the Restless'--thin cocrete, cheating contractors. But Vic Newman wasn't there at the time.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Torture can be tough to decide I guess but a figure a good yardstick would be "Do you mind if they do it to our troops, to our boys and girls?" I can live with subjecting the poor sods to Y&R each day but not waterboarding.
ReplyDeleteHabu on a roll. Fourth comment down. Says to pass it on, so I am.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who claims that the US tortures prisoners should spend some time in the real torture chambers of the world.
ReplyDeleteAsh's link about torture was to the World Socialist Web Site which was quoting a NY Times article about "secret plans" to loosen torture rules for the military at Guantanamo.
"Do you mind if they do it to our troops, to our boys and girls?"
ReplyDeleteThe few soldiers of ours that they've managed to capture alive have ended up sliced and diced. Captured civilians get beheaded in front of cameras. But wrapping their head in a towel and pouring water on it, now, that would be wrong!
Treatment of prisoners of war should be handled as a reciprocal arrangement. If they are not bound by the legal niceties, then they should be at our option as well.
If they are not bound by the legal niceties, then they should be at our option as well.
ReplyDeleteMon Oct 22, 11:44:00 PM EDT
You're just not going to get much out of it, Raymond. You'll destroy the brand in the process, and we count on that brand. You're not going to get much out of it EPW-wise, either. With the most important sources, physical methods fall flat.
Most of our intel comes from recruited sources anyway. Not to say that interrogation is unimportant. It's not the end-all be-all of the war.