31 Responses to “Stop Me Before I Torture Again!”

1. Shaun P. Says:
   June 3rd, 2010 at 10:03 am

   Sadly, though, it will never happen. And that, AFAIC, will be the biggest black mark on this President’s record. He taught Constitutional Law for over a decade - he knows better! Sigh.

   Bruce Fein had an interesting point after we first heard about the Boston policy regarding crimes committed by the Bush Administration. (You know, the “Don’t Look Back” policy.) If Holder isn’t going to indict them and prosecute them, then Obama should pardon them. Its devilishly brilliant, though not as satisfying as a trial would be.

   The problem is, we don’t seem to care to have these kind of discussions in this country, except on the Intertubes.

2. ConstitutionNotRevolution Says:
   June 3rd, 2010 at 12:56 pm

   If you REALLY thought that waterboarding was torture, you would be more concerned that all US Navy and Air Force pilots are put through it.

   Then again, maybe you wouldn’t.

3. David in Cal Says:
   June 3rd, 2010 at 1:35 pm

   We have been told that the water-boarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led to information that prevented another terrorist attack. Any discussion of this topic should include that trade-off. Would you prefer the US not to have water-boarded KSM if the trade-off was that your spouse and children had been killed in a terrorist attack?

4. Hantu13 Says:
   June 3rd, 2010 at 2:33 pm

   CnR,

   Do you really believe that or are you just repeating conservative talking points?

   SERE training is, of course, completely different than waterboarding prisoners for information… As pointed out in the memo’s by Yoo’s successor, Steven Bradbury in 2005… You can find the memos here-

   http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/04/16/bradbury_to_rizzo_memo_40pg.pdf

   http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/04/16/bradbury_to_rizzo_memo_20pg.pdf

   http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/04/16/bradbury_to_rizzo_memo.pdf

   Here’s the money quote-

   “the experience of the SERE psychologist/interrogators on the waterboard was probably misrepresented at the time, as the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant….Consequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe.”

   BTW, what would Murray Rothbard do?

   Dave,

   While there have been unsubstantiated comments from those who perpetrated or supported the torture, there’s been no evidence provided to date about any prevented terrorist attack. Given the Bush administrations tendencies towards actively publicizing (and sometimes exaggerating) this sort of thing- the speak loudly and carry a small stick approach- one would think that they’d eagerly have taken credit, no?

   There have been a couple of well documented investigative reports which suggest something altogether different…

   http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812

   http://www.ronsuskind.com/theonepercentdoctrine/

   This is very similar to reports that the British Army, which waterboarded some captured IRA prisoners in the 70s, found it and other torture techniques to be not very useful… As have the Israelis…

   This leaves aside the moral issue and our values..

5. David in Cal Says:
   June 3rd, 2010 at 4:23 pm

   Hantu, the people who were there say water-boarding worked. It induced KSM to provide details of another plot. The people who weren’t there say it didn’t work. I believe the people who were there.

   BTW that Vanity Fair article says, “a surprising number of counterterrorist officials say that, apart from being wrong, torture just doesn’t work.” That quote looks ridiculous on its face. First of all, there are reports from any number of people that various prisoners have talked after being water-boarded.

   Second, how could anyone prove that water-boarding could never work? Even if one could show that it never had worked (which is not at all the case), it would still be conceivable that it might work in some future application.

   Third of all, common sense tells us that some prisoners will give up some secrets under torture. I think many of us commenters would not have the fortitude to keep silent in the face of sufficient torture. That’s why spies carried poison in order to commit suicide if necessary.

   If water-boarding were useless, there’d be no moral dilemma. It should never be used. However, based on what we know, water-boarding is quite useful. Maybe we shouldn’t use water-boarding anyhow. But, I think we’re kidding ourselves if we pretend that there’s no cost to banning that technique.

6. Hantu13 Says:
   June 4th, 2010 at 7:10 am

   There is a moral issue here, which we are completely ignoring, and it’s surprising that so-called Christian conservatives can remain silent about it.

   From a utilitarian perspective, I don’t think anyone’s saying waterboarding or torture never provides information, but that information elicited under torture is generally not reliable because the prisoner will say anything to get the pain to stop. This was true during the Inquisition and is true now. This is why most countries stopped the practice so many years ago, not because it’s immoral (which it is), but because it’s not as effective as other psychological techniques that have been used countless times with a lot of success.

   Your assertion that people who were there claim it worked is just not true. As is typically the case, the facts are somewhat ambiguous and people spin it to fit their preconceived notions. KSM didn’t really provide much information, was waterboarded 183 times in a month, and then started providing a lot of information.

   Two questions- if the technique is effective, why did it need to be applied 183 times? Which, btw, is about double what the OLC memos originally proscribed. And the obvious follow up, how much of the information provided after 183 applications of torture were accurate?

   The only authoritative statement on the entire affair comes from a report by the CIA Inspector General, and it doesn’t say what you think-

   http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/04/24/66895/cia-official-no-proof-harsh-techniques.html

   Also, the FBI Director himself, who would have been involved in any activity to break up a terrorist attack says pretty clearly in the article that none were broken up as a result of information gained from torture in the last paragraph of the VF article. BTW, Mueller is no liberal ACLU softie- he was appointed by President Bush.

   I’ll leave you with Ronald Reagan’s views on the matter. From his signing statement when he signed the UN Convention Against Torture-

   “The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

   The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution”

   Shame on conservatives (and idiotic democrats like Joe Lieberman) for not standing up against this.

7. ConstitutionNotRevolution Says:
   June 4th, 2010 at 7:54 am

   hantu,

   How funny that you refer to “conservative talking points”, when you and Steven are two of the most intellectualy dishonest political ideologues I have ever seen.

   No posts about Sestak.

   No posts about Romanoff.

   No posts about Blago.

   If these three had ties to an administration with an “R” after the names of the major players, you both would be frothing at the mouth.

   You then go on pretending you have some knowledge of what “Christian Conservatives” should think and you completely fake indignation about Bush, all the time ignoring:

   A) Nancy Pelosi and House Dems knew about it; and

   B) The original “Boy Wonder” developed extraordinary rendition in the 1990’s. Gee, I wondered what happened during those interrogations in Kazakhstan? A tea party?

   According to Clinton administration official Richard Clarke:

   “ ‘extraordinary renditions’, were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government…. The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: “Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, ‘That’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.’”

   http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/bill-clinton-extraordinary-rendition-torture-in-egypt/blog-79511/

   Call for the arrest of Clinton, Gore, and Pelosi and THEN maybe you and Steven can be taken seriously as people who care about anything other than “R” and “D”. Until then, you both live under the umbrella of “ideological clowns.”

8. Hantu13 Says:
   June 4th, 2010 at 9:25 am

   To be honest, I really don’t see the big deal with Sestak or Romanoff. This sort of thing happens all the time and is part of politics…. Sestak was offered a non-paying job that he was qualified for, and Romanoff approached the Administration about a job! Nothing here…

   http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/news-alert-president-endorses-democrat-is-impeached/57653/

   Blago is a disgrace, and should be in jail if the allegations are true… The administration had an arms length relationship with him and weren’t involved as was pointed out by the special prosecutor who investigated the case…

   As for Pelosi and the Dems who supported it, as I said in my post, they’re just as culpable… I do think it’s extremely unusual that a Christian (as so many Republicans constantly point out they are) could find this sort of activity in any way in keeping with the teachings of Christ.

   In any case, we’re not talking about extraordinary rendition, or kidnapping terrorists, or even assassinating them… We were talking about whether the systemic torture of prisoners is acceptable (or useful) activity for America to be conducting…

   Also curious about the cognitive dissonance about worrying about Presidential authority and overreach while trying to give the office the right (or even the requirement) that they seize and torture anyone, anywhere at any time…

   BTW, I do disagree with Steven about arresting President Bush or the others… Though the inept lawyers who wrote the memos should have been disbarred.

9. David in Cal Says:
   June 4th, 2010 at 9:59 am

   Hantu, you raised quite a few interesting points. I will only respond to a couple of them.

   Other lawyers may disagree with John Yoo’s advice in the torture memo, but it’s defensible. I’ve heard him answer questions on the memo and his legal reasoning is pretty convincing.

   As you say, the stuff with Sestak and Romanoff happens all the time and is a part of politics. The reason it’s a big deal is that it’s illegal. It seems odd that Congress decided to make it illegal. Nevertheless, it’s a big deal when the White House breaks the law.

10. Hantu13 Says:
    June 4th, 2010 at 10:28 am

    Dave,

    I guess I don’t see what’s illegal- With Sestak, the administration asked him if he’d be interested in a post advising the President on intelligence matters. It’s an unpaid position, and he is certainly qualified for the role.

    With Romanoff- he reached out to the administration and applied for the position before announcing he was running for the Senate.

    Here’s a good recap of what actually happened-

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/job-offer-artificial-smoke-no-fire-in-colorado/57625/

    If you want to make the point that the Obama administration should hold itself to a higher standard after all their rhetoric about transparency, you’d have a defensible point….

    There’s really nothing here.

    There is BTW, a broader question of whether we have too many politically appointed roles. I think we do, but not sure that the alternative- a stronger bureaucracy- is the lesser evil. and yes, I know that you and CnR have a third alternative which involves shutting down everything other than defense and roads, reverting to the gold standard, etc., but you should know what I think of that by now

11. ConstitutionNotRevolution Says:
    June 4th, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    hantu states: “To be honest, I really don’t see the big deal with Sestak or Romanoff. This sort of thing happens all the time and is part of politics…. Sestak was offered a non-paying job that he was qualified for, and Romanoff approached the Administration about a job! Nothing here…”

    Two points.

    First, it is telling that you are quick enough to believe without an ounce of critical thought the story told by the WH months after the initial allegation. Not to mention, Sestak was not even eligible for the position as a member of the legislative branch.

    Like I said prior, either Sestak told a huge fib to get the support of Democrat primary voters or the WH committed a crime. Either outcome would deserve a guy with a “D” getting creamed, something neither you nor Steven are willing to do.

    Second, it is a crime REGARDLESS if it is a paid position or not.

    Regarding Romanoff.

    Whether or not he made an overture prior to an offer is irrelevant. The Denver Post stated: “The White House denied any such offer, but sources told The Post’s Michael Riley: “Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency.”

    That is a quid pro quo and is illegal. Again, you have to uncritically believe that TWO candidates are liars (and a Denver Post source) and the WH stonewalled telling the “truth” for months.

    Good luck with those intellectual contortions.

    Hantu stated: “In any case, we’re not talking about extraordinary rendition, or kidnapping terrorists, or even assassinating them… We were talking about whether the systemic torture of prisoners is acceptable (or useful) activity for America to be conducting…”

    First, you are basing your assessment on an unproven premise, that waterboarding is “torture.” The case can be made for either side.

    Second, the OP referenced criminal charges against the Bush administration, so it is completely relevant. It is even more relevant because the alleged happenings in extraordinary rendition cases are far worse than mere waterboarding.

    Hantu stated: “Also curious about the cognitive dissonance about worrying about Presidential authority and overreach while trying to give the office the right (or even the requirement) that they seize and torture anyone, anywhere at any time… ”

    I never did any such thing. Debate me rather than a strawman please.

    Hantu stated: “BTW, I do disagree with Steven about arresting President Bush or the others… Though the inept lawyers who wrote the memos should have been disbarred.”

    Disbar men/women for a legal opinion that is in disagreement with you? Keep telling us there is no Stalinism in the American Progressive movement…

12. Hantu13 Says:
    June 4th, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    http://www.legalethicsforum.com/blog/2010/05/joe-sestaks-bribe-scandal-another-ethics-sideshow.html

    I have nothing to add to the above and Ambinder’s posts in the Atlantic I posted before… There’s really nothing here… Stating that this is somewhat hypocritical of the Obama Administration is one thing, the rest is just nonsense.

    To be clear- until John Yoo’s memo in 2002, waterboarding has been considered torture as far back as the Enlightenment. It has been considered illegal in the US since the Spanish American War. We have prosecuted our own people for doing it, and we’ve prosecuted foreigners for it.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html

    John Yoo and Jay Bybee overthrew historical precedent in their memo in 2002. This is why the DOJ’s investigation found them both guilty of professional misconduct. The Deputy AG overturned those recommendations in light of the “climate of emergency” prevalent at the time. But the ethics lawyers who actually conducted the investigation found them both guilty of professional misconduct.

    So, I have no issue with lawyers vehemently making an argument I disagree with. I am offended by lawyers ignoring jurisprudence and precedent in order to come up with a pre-ordained decision to please their client. And apparently, the Office of Professional Responsibility in the DOJ was offended as well.

13. ConstitutionNotRevolution Says:
    June 7th, 2010 at 10:57 am

    Hantu stated: “So, I have no issue with lawyers vehemently making an argument I disagree with. I am offended by lawyers ignoring jurisprudence and precedent in order to come up with a pre-ordained decision to please their client. And apparently, the Office of Professional Responsibility in the DOJ was offended as well.”

    LOL For some reason, I suspect that you have far less heartburn about “ignoring jurisprudence and precedent” in cases such as Roe v. Wade or a million other decisions that abandoned the constitution in favor of Progressive societal goals…

14. John Says:
    June 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    If you subsituted “killed”, the rationale would not be the same. The truth is that KSM was not killed. He was waterboarded. Warboarding is painful, but it does not inflict permanent damage.

    Besides, we actually waterboard are some of our own troops as part of their training. If waterboarding is so inhumane, then why would we do that? And why are so many people upset about waterboarding terrorists yet they have no problem with our own troops being waterboarded? Someone needs to explain this to me.

    The bottom line is this. Terrorists violate the rules of warfare set up by the Geneva conventions (they don’t wear uniforms, they don’t represent a country, and they target civilians), therefore they aren’t entitled to the protections normally given to prisoners of war.

    Hey, war is hell. It shouldn’t be, but if you want to survive, you need to deal with the world the way it is, not the way you think it ought to be. For those who think America is compromising its values, I completely disagree.

    Thousands of American lives have been saved due to the intelligence we got from KSM and other terrorists using interrogation methods. The idea that letting Americans die is preferable to waterboarding Al Quaeda terrorists (who happen to be the most evil, despicable human beings on the face of the earth) is ludicrous. Those who say there is some kind of moral equivalence between us and these terrorists are crazy.

    Personally, I am sick of the hyprocrisy of those on the left. If we had not waterboarded KSM and then been hit by more terrorist attacks as a result, I guarantee you that the left would not have have congratulated Bush and Cheney for “taking the high ground” and letting Americans die. Instead, they would have viciously attacked them for not doing more to protect us. No matter what Bush had done, they would never have given him event the slightest bit of credit. And that’s the truth.

15. Mike K Says:
    July 1st, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    I know I should let this one sail by (and let cooler heads prevail) but I can’t resist today…
    1. If you can’t see how waterboarding troops who are volunteers and know their trainers won’t possibly let them suffer serious harm is different from Guant. Bay, I don’t know what to tell you. Not to mention that what prisoners at Guant. Bay endured FAR exceeds the duration and frequency that our troops undergo. It was torture anyway you look at it.

    2. Set aside whether they are covered by Geneva or not–that’s some heated legal ground–and just consider the morality. We shouldn’t torture anyone, not because of what it inflicts on the prisoners, but because of what it does to *us*, both in terms of the torturers themselves and also in terms of our larger society.

    3. Whatever your justifications about these men being terrorists and therefore without normal rights, the fact remains that many individuals were wrongly accused, tortured, then later released. Does it get any worse then that?

    4. “Thousands of American lives have been saved due to the intelligence we got from KSM and other terrorists using interrogation methods.” Prove it. Better yet, let Bush, Cheney and Co. prove it during a trial. And don’t forget that numerous experts, including the military’s own trainers of interrogators , have concluded that torture is counter-productive.

    5. Al Qaeda is a tiny, tiny force of men. The *only* way they can beat us is by provoking us into overreaction. This includes abandoning the core principles that make this country as great as it is.

    6. I don’t believe we have to choose between basic morality and more attacks. But accepting your premise, yes, I’d refrain from torture even if it meant innocents (American or otherwise) would be killed. That’s the price of a free and open society. And that’s said as a born-and-raised New Yorker.

16. John Says:
    July 1st, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    I will respond to the above statement and answer each of your points one by one. This could make for a fun debate.

    1. We only waterboarded 3 terrorists since 9/11. If I remember correctly, 2 of them were waterboarded for less than one minute each. KSM was waterboarded for less than 2 minutes before he broke. These are the reported facts.

    2. You say we shouldn’t torture because of the morality. Actually, I agree with you that we should not torture. But I disagree with you on what torture actually is. I don’t consider waterboarding torture because it does not inflict permenant damage. To me, torture would be gouging out an eye or burning someone with a cigarette. The interrogation methods used besides waterboarding include sleep deprivation, playing loud music, and shoving the terrorist against a wall that is loosened to ease the impact. If you consider these methods to be torture, I think you’re crazy.

    3. Who was wrongly accused? Give me some names. I’ve never seen any of this in any legitimate news program or publication, and I’m a person who closely follows the news.

    These men weren’t randomly picked off the street in New York City. They were caught on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan. You seem to want the same proof of guilt that would be required in a civilian court. That isn’t realistic during war. A civilian trial would allow vital intelligence to become known to the enemy and give them a huge advantage over us. It would also be almost impossible to get a conviction because military personnel rarely are able to gather evidence on the battlefield in the same way that the police would for a crime scene.

    4. Prove that thousands of Americans’ lives were saved? Okay. This was reported by the former director of the CIA. I don’t remember his name off-hand, but he did write a book about it. And there are many experts, including the former head of the CIA, that have said that enhanced interrogation techniques do work. For example, after KSM was waterboarded, he gave up all the information he knew about Al Quaeda’s attack plans. We tried talking to him and reasoning with him. But he simply wasn’t going to give up the information any other way.

    5. “Al Quaeda is a tiny, tiny force of men.” Well, this tiny, tiny force of men succeeded in killing almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11. You may consider our response an overreaction, but I don’t. I remember how fearful the country was after 9/11 and how it seemed certain that we would be hit again. The fact that the Bush administration prevented any more attacks from happening is such an amazing feat, and I’m simply stunned that so few Americans will give him credit for that.

    To me, the only way Al Queda can beat us is if we refuse to take the necessary steps to defend ourselves. And I don’t believe we’ve abandoned any of our core values in doing so.

    6. If you would refrain from waterboarding a terrorist and let Americans die as a result, I’m simply stunned by that. If a member of your family was killed in a terrorist attack and you later found that a captured terrorist knew about it and the government failed to get the information from him, would you feel the same way?

    To wrap it up, the problem with this debate is the same that I see with so many debates when it comes to waterboarding. We have a fundamental disagreement as to what constitutes torture. I don’t consider waterboarding torture. Clearly, you do. Do you also condemn sleep deprivation, playing loud music, and shoving the terrorist against a loosened wall? If so, then I’d like to know what interrogation methods you WOULD allow. What is left that we could do? Yell at the terrorist? Scold him? Call him nasty names? How exactly would you get information from these people? If you’re going to oppose all the methods I’ve mentioned, then you need to explain exactly how you would get them to talk.

    The other problem with this debate is that the simple question of who you’re willing to trust when it comes to information. I’m willing to believe the CIA and the military when they say they only waterboarded 3 people in 7 years. I’ll take their word over the various propaganda outfits out there that have attempted to demonize the military, the CIA, and the War on Terror. I know that the terrorists say that they were tortured, but these aren’t exactly reputable individuals. In their training, they’ve been told if caught to say that they were tortured. So if I have to take the military’s word or the terrorists’, I’m going to go with the military.

17. Mike K Says:
    July 2nd, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    Sadly, I don’t have enough time to give a proper rebuttal. My fairly short version:

    I wrote quickly and sloppily earlier, and you are right to call me out. On the numbers, I should have said “more often” rather than “longer”–those prisoners were waterboarded dozens and dozens of times. And I conflated two facts–prisoners were waterboarded at Guantanamo, and innocent civilians were wrongfully imprisoned there and at other detention centers and later released–as far as I know, none of the waterboarded prisoners were among the wrongly imprisoned.

    In any case, you’re right to identify the definition of torture as our fundamental difference. I’ll point you to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding#Mental_and_physical_effects It’s not clear to me how you can say it does “not inflict permenant damage.” Sleep deprivation (often provoked by playing loud music) will literally drive a person insane in a matter of days of weeks. Again, I don’t know how you look at that and don’t see torture.

    I don’t want to occupy the gray area of near-torture. I don’t want to do anything that sniffs of torture. As for what I would do instead, I would refer you to the many excellent articles the New Yorker and The Atlantic have featured on torture–I don’t have the source at hand, but I’ve read from an experienced interrogator (I believe he was a military trainer of interrogators) who had practiced being humane to prisoners. Expecting torture and instead being treated as humans, many subjects developed a bond with their interrogator and revealed all. I realize that’s not going to work with everyone. Tough. The rule of law should stand.

    Re: 4. Yeah, why *wouldn’t* I believe everything George Tenet wrote?

    Re: 6. I imagine I’d be full of rage. But that’s why the decision isn’t, nor should be, up to me. I feel the same way about capital punishment. We don’t make policy to assuage the grief and anger of victims and their families. We pursue what’s in the best long-term interests of our nation. And when experts that I trust say that torture is counterproductive (because a man will say anything under when tortured, and there’s no good way to sort out the false leads), I believe them (shrug).

    Questions for you: if you think none of the acts you describe are torture, would you be alright with police using them on an american citizen? Suppose it was a kidnapper and you were trying to locate a still living victim? Or perhaps a domestic terrorist? Where’s the line for you?

18. John Says:
    July 2nd, 2010 at 5:07 pm

    I would not want any of these interrogation techniques to be used by police on American citizens. There is a difference when it comes to context. Terrorists are enemy combatants caught on a foreign battlefield and thus they are handled differently than common criminals who are American citizens and thus are entitled to civil rights. I think we can keep the two seperate. Giving the military the right to waterboard a terrorist does not mean that the police have the right to do the same to American citizens.

    There are many experts that say that coerced interrogation DOES work (waterboarding, etc.). If you need proof, KSM was broken with waterboarding and he gave out information that proved to be true and helped us to stop a number of planned attacked (one such attack involved flying a plane into the main tower building in Los Angeles).

    If a terrorist gives false information, he knows that eventually it will be discovered that he lied, and thus he is likely to punished again for lying. So there is the motivation for telling the truth. This seems pretty obvious to me.

    I can’t deny that it’s possible that a person who is waterboarded or suffers sleep deprivation might suffer some psychological effects. But the way I see it, if you decide to become a terrorist and murder innocent people and you wind up getting captured and waterboarded and you suffer psychological trauma as a result, that’s just too bad! I don’t feel sorry for these people in the least. Actions have consequences. Deal with it!

    You say the rule of law should stand. Well, the courts have ruled all of this to be legal. You can argue that they are wrong, but you cannot say that the law has been violated because it hasn’t.

    Finally, the rules of war are different than the rules that apply to peace. In war, you are often forced to choose the least of two bad options (making a terrorist suffer in order to break him or allowing innocent people to die).

    A good analogy would be a military leader who must decide if he should risk his entire regiment in order to save the life of one soldier. These decisions have to be made. It’s similar to the decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Japan. The bombs killed 450,000 people. Yet if we had not dropped them, then we would have been forced to invade Japan, and it’s been estimated that 7 million people would have been killed, included 1 million US troops. Also, it was revealed recently by a History Channel documentary that Japan was only 30 days away from developing its own nuclear weapon which it definitely would have used against us. Considering all the facts, it would have been immoral not to drop the bombs.

    It’s an ugly situation, and I personally take no glee in waterboarding terrorists. But I’ll do it if that’s what to takes to save your life or the life of any other American.

19. John Says:
    July 2nd, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    One other thing.

    If you honestly believe that you could sit down with a terrorist like KSM and convince him to give out information using mere logic, reason, and persuasion, I think you are incredibly naive.

    You can’t reason with people who are not reasonable. And these terrorists are not reasonable. It may be true that “many subjects” have given out information under these circumstances, but I’ll bet you a million dollars that not a single Al Quaeda terrorist ever has (at least no info that’s true).

20. Mike K Says:
    July 6th, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    Suppose an American citizen was captured on the battle field in Afghanistan? Equally relevant, what if a suspected terrorist was apprehended by the police/FBI on American soil, not in a war zone? I think the citizen non-citizen distinction is overblown–all that matters to me is that they are human beings. Despicable ones to be sure, but still deserving of the most basic humane treatment. Again, not for their benefit but for ours.

    “You say the rule of law should stand. Well, the courts have ruled all of this to be legal.” Not quite. What has mostly come before the courts are questions of jurisdiction and habeus corpus rights. It’s no mistake that Guantanamo is located outside of US territory proper, on a military base–the Cheneyites knew the endless legal challenges they’d face in the US.

    “In war, you are often forced to choose the least of two bad options (making a terrorist suffer in order to break him or allowing innocent people to die)” Agreed. And I choose the latter, knowing that it’s not unfair but it is just.

    “Considering all the facts, it would have been immoral not to drop the bombs.” Again, accepting your statements as given, I still disagree. Others’ immoral actions (hypothetical or otherwise) don’t justify one’s own immoral actions. In fact, this is the rationale used by AL Qaeda–the injustices perpetrated by their enemies’ governments justify the targeting of otherwise innocent civilians. Assuming that A, we HAD to invade Japan and that B, the estimates are accurate, sacrificing 1 million Americans would have been horrible. But they would have been American *troops*, not civilians. Failing to make that distinction is, again, the same thing we abhor terrorist for.

    “If you honestly believe that you could sit down with a terrorist like KSM and convince him to give out information using mere logic, reason, and persuasion, I think you are incredibly naive.” I didn’t say *I*, but I believe there are professionals capable of just that. And while we might not crack the top-level guys, surely some of the more fringe ones might have been susceptible. If you can’t crack some of the guys except by torture (a proposition I’m not willing to concede) I still say we should not do it. We should have real airport security, we should proactively disrupt terrorist organizations around the world, we should bribe, blackmail, and threaten our way into HUMINT, we should have a powerful, coordinated, domestic/international counterterrorism agency, we should do any number of things to make our citizens as safe as possible. But we should not sacrifice basic morality in the name of hypothetical safety.

21. John Says:
    July 6th, 2010 at 10:06 pm

    If an American citizen is captured on the battlefield in a foreign country, he is loses his constitutional rights and can be treated as an enemy combatant. I’m almost certain this is the case. If an American citizen becomes a terrorist and is captured on US soil, then he still retains his constitutional rights.

    You argue that Guantamino Bay should be illegal. Even if we assume that you’re right, the fact remains that right now it is *officially* legal. The courts have ruled so. It they had ruled otherwise, then the Bush administration would have been forced to close it down or they would have been impeached for not doing so. Also, when you consider that Barrack Obama has not closed it down, wouldn’t that make him part of the crime if he is continuing Bush’s “illegal” policies? I think it would.

    I still believe you’re not grasping the idea that the rules are different in a time of war. I think it’s strange that it’s acceptable to kill terrorists on the battlefield, yet if we capture them then we have to treat them so delicately. I just think there’s a certain lack of logic in that argument.

    You fight a war to win. One of the keys to winning any war is getting intelligence. If you fail to get the proper intelligence, it means that American soldiers could die.

    “Others’ immoral actions (hypothetical or otherwise) don’t justify one’s own immoral actions.” As far as invading Japan in World War II, you seem to be suggesting that there was a moral equivalence between the United States and Japan. To me, that is just absurd. We had every legal and moral right to do so after all the atrocities Japan committed, including the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking. This is even moreso when you consider that Japan was only a month away from developing it’s own nuclear weapon which it certainly planned to use against us. If we had backed off and not dropped the bombs, we might well have lost the war or at least suffered incredible catastrophe.

    Let’s say you’re walking down the street, and a mugger comes out of an alley and hits you. Then you hit him back in order to defend yourself. Are your actions immoral? Absoutely not. But the logic of moral equivalence that you employ would suggest that they are.

    In my view, the biggest mistake that the left tends to make is that many of them believe there is a moral equivalence between us and the terrorists. You have said that the terrorists are despicable, so I don’t think you believe that. And yet your arguments still use the same logic of moral equivalence.

    Because the United States is fighting for freedom against terrorists who would slaughter the entire world if they could, we can use coercive interrogation methods without losing the high ground.

    “But we should not sacrifice basic morality in the name of hypothetical safety.” Hypothetical? There is nothing hypothetical about the dangers we face. These terrorists want to kill Americans, and they will unless we stop them. Period.

    I don’t know how else to put it. The problem with most debates on the War on Terror seems to be one of context. People fail to understand that you live by different rules in a time of war than you do in a time of peace.

    And war unforunately presents one of the great paradoxes. Sometimes, the only way to preserve longtime peace is to go to war. And war is often brutal, something that many of the left simply aren’t willing to accept. They seem to think that war should be humane. Maybe it should be, but it’s not. We all need to learn to accept the world the way it is rather than pretend that it’s something it isn’t. This often leads to underestimating dangerous enemies and has resulted in disaster throughout human history.

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