The Spectator has graciously run a musing of mine on how some of the subtler decisions required in Iraq may be getting drowned out by the Democrats' shrillness and hyperbole.
Here is the merest morsel to clean your palate:
Even if the military obstacles are eventually breached, we are caught in a subtle conflict that simultaneously challenges our political, governmental, legal, and moral sensibility. Say we determine, as hitherto we have, that the peculiar morphology of modern terrorism requires the suspension of certain precious mores. It allows, even demands, that we imprison people for years with less-than-due process, or torture people who have urgent knowledge of pending or impending horrors. What, then, do we tell the new government of Iraq? Can we allow it to behave in this manner?
16 comments:
This is the most flawed logic I have ever read:
"For a nation such as our own, grounded in centuries of altruism and fair play, the emergency torture option can be employed in special instances without introducing a culture of sadism. But if the fledgling democracy of Iraq opens for business from Day One with torture chambers "reserved for terrorists," it is almost a cinch to segue into Saddam redux."
No, Jay. Torture is still ineffective and still wrong. Anyone who makes such an argument is on the side of torture, Jay. They will never be able to wash those stains from their hands, no matter their moralizing. Torture isn't about information gathering. Torture is about vengeance, and vengeance is among the pettiest of human emotions. This brand of cheap dime-store jingoism hurts the country, not calling Iraq a quagmire.
An over 60% disapproval of the way the war is being waged is not a "vague sense of disapproval," Jay. It's pretty damning.
"We are here because Saddams may no longer rule by crushing the human spirit."
This is only true in Iraq. We actively prop up others who do the same, something I have pointed out repeatedly.
"We are here because even if Saddam was not saber-toothed, he was a saber rattler, and in the desert when you hear a rattle you shoot first and ask questions later."
Ah, I see. Let's conduct foreign policy with all the nuance of a tantruming three-year old in a candy store. That seems bully to me. [/sarcasm] Of course Saddam was rattling his empty saber scabbard! He had little else to hold the Iranians at bay! Such a view as the above is about as nuanced as the above three year old.
I would like to see an actual enumeration of how anyone who thinks the situation in Iraq as it is currently being prosecuted is untenable is wrong. I've never heard an actual rebuttal from any hawks.
Is waterboarding torture?
If a technique is effective in obtaining accurate information, then ergo, it must not be torture since torture is ineffective.
Sweet, Keith.
Yeah, Saddam had nothing in that saber, but an Army,
Not of any quality, and not that could stand up to the 3 million strong standing Army in Iran. That was kind of what we did in the first Gulf War, and then kept blowing up every few weeks, remember?
terrorists,
Again, nope.
SCUD missiles,
Let me tell you a little something about the SCUD. It's the crappiest missile ever constructed. It's so crappily constructed that it explodes passing through the turbulence left by a Patriot (which, by the way, was the only way we could shoot them down).
other missiles,
Please elaborate, for your intelligence must be better than, you know, the military's.
and at least the capacity to produce chemical weapons.
So do we. "Capacity" is not stockpile. "Capacity" is not "imminent threat." We actually have NCB weapons. Should Canada invade us? Let's not forget who gave him that capacity: Ronald Reagan, delivered by Donald Rumsfeld with a bow and a hand... shake -- all in exchange for a promise to use them on Iranians. Maybe we should invade Donald Rumsfeld's office, as he had a hand in giving Saddam that capability? No? Hypocrite.
Is waterboarding torture?
Let's see: It was in WWI when an American officer was sentenced to ten years in prison for using it. It was in Vietnam when the military declared it so. Are you wiser in the ways of war than they? Didn't think so.
If a technique is effective in obtaining accurate information, then ergo, it must not be torture since torture is ineffective.
Tell you what, Keith. I'm going to kidnap you, put you somewhere, do all the same stuff to you, and if you can walk away without urinating on yourself when a stiff chilly breeze, an elevator, or a swimming pool comes your way, I'll say it's not torture. Cool?
Death squads, torture chambers, sectarian based targetted assassinations... sounds like they are off to a real good start in matching Saddam's proclivities.
In one, T-man.
Never forget, Keith, Tom. You are on the side of torture. All arguments excusing such behavior boil down to the worst kind of relativity: "It is good when we do it, because we are good. It is bad when they do it because they are bad."
That's not bad, Buzz. Thanks.
I've never bought the "Iraq as a front in the War on Terror" thing. First off, it wasn't a front until we conveniently made it one by destabilizing the country. Second, the connections between al Qaeda and Iraq under Hussein are dubious. (Remember Rummy's oft-purported and nonexistent Berlin connection?) Third, how does one have fronts in a war on an abstract emotional concept?
Now, that's a good rebuttle, and a good starting point for getting down the brass tacks of actual hashing out solutions. You have to take the rebuttle with a grain of salt, of course. For example, soldiers of my own acquaintance - a communication specialist on convoys and a captain in charge of an infantry company - have told me what goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it isn't as rosey as Rummy would have us believe. The most common email could be summed up thusly: "This is f-----d. They don't want us here. We're not doing any good. We should just leave." I'd say the truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle.
But to answer your question: Did you actually read Murtha's statement? He didn't call for a pullout, he called for a restructuring, repositioning American forces. The man's a decorated Marine CO. I'll listen to what he has to say.
I like how Rumsfeld shifts the blame to the reporters, especially since really good reporters put the lie to some of his assertions, such as the number of troops actually trained and the Iraqi performance in places such as Fallujah (cut and run) and Tal Afar (remained under the command of frustrated US Special Forces who couldn't get them to do squat).
My only proposal is that there should be solid benchmarks, conditions that must be met for troop reductions. We don't have those. I'm not one of the "we should pull out" Dems, but this was the first substantive point for the other side that I'd heard.
But I digress. Back to the topic at hand: Faux-patriot jingoists' support of torture.
"Never forget, Keith, Tom. You are on the side of torture."
And you are on the side of calling everything less than tea and cookies "torture."
And you are also on the side of letting your children die because you're too squeamish to rough somebody up a little. Happy moral self-congratulations.
My actual position is more, um, nuanced. I was mostly admiring Keith's logic in demolishing a current talking point.
Actually, what you were admiring was sophistry and what you are engaging in is creating a straw man. But enjoy your tiny little moral triumphalism devoid of intellectual honesty.
James: Torture is still ineffective and still wrong.
Could you please provide some facts (evidence) to substantiate the ineffective claim.
Define ineffective.
Thanks.
CLA, I know you've been here for the multiple threads in which I have pointed commenters to counterterrorism and interrogation experts who have explained that torture is an ineffective means of information gathering. I have included the two best Pacific theater interrogators of WWII, the FBI's interrogation instructor who practically wrote the manual on interrogating Muslim extremists, and instructors from the Army whose job it is to teach interrogation techniques. I'm not going to trawl through months of comments just to find them for you if you weren't paying attention in conversations you were participating in. You can search back issues of The Atlantic, Mother Jones, Foreign Affairs, etc. on your own.
Define ineffective: An unreliable means of garnering intelligence or confessions. You know why they say "Anyone will admit anything under torture?" Because they will literally say anything. They will make stuff up just for you to stop. Go at someone long enough, they'll tell you Osama bin Laden is their mother wearing a false beard to get you to stop. Information given under torture must be more rigorously fact-checked than any other form of information gathering. Don't be swayed by what you see on "24" and "Alias." It's BS.
Know what works best with a Muslim fundamentalist? A copy of the Koran, a prayer rug, and some figs, and an interrogator who speaks his dialect, know his culture, and sits down to talk to him. I kid you not.
Thanks James ...
Your argument has some merit ... if the application of torture is designed to extract information from those being tortured. However, the culture of fear caused by the enemy thinking that he may be tortured has been shown to be useful in obtaining information.
If torture were shown to be effective, what would your position be on the "ticking time bomb" problem?
1) The ticking time bomb is a myth perpetuated by television. It is a wholly theoretical construct.
2) That said, I do not think torture, or any other mechanism, could be effective in that scenario. I do not believe a fanatic can be broken in enough time. He knows he has something you want. He knows that it is the only thing standing between you and preventing his victory. He keeps that little nugget, or keeps you running in circles by telling lies, for just long enough, and he wins. When the goal is in sight, people are highly resistant to coercive and persuasive techniques, more so than when it is not. Torture is an indication that you don't know crap. He knows that the harder you hit him, the more you shock his testiculars and push his head underwater, the farther you are from what you need to know. He knows that the more you torture him, the more desparate you become, the more damage you will do to his body, and the more likely he is to accidentally die, thus sending him to the bosom of Allah and leaving you with nothing to show for the darkening of your soul but dead citizens.
However, the culture of fear caused by the enemy thinking that he may be tortured has been shown to be useful in obtaining information.
What this sounds like to me is the idea that people have been sodomized with nightsticks so other people might be afraid it will happen to them. I find that even more repugnant than torturing someone for information or a confession.
I have never been a fan of the ends justifying the means, not only when the means are unethical but when they lower us to the level of that we wish to combat. Cause terror to fight terror, is your solution above. Who, then, is the terrorist?
My only proposal is that there should be solid benchmarks, conditions that must be met for troop reductions.
James, I would also support setting benchmarks for reductions - for the purpose of communicating that we won't be leaving until we are successful. The problem is that no one else is calling for such a commitment. In fact, they are calling for quite the opposite.
In my opinion, the destabilization created in Iraq by Saddam's overthrow demands our best effort to 'fix' the situation. Al Qaeda has calculated that Iraq is the opportunity of a lifetime, and used our attack as their opportunity to take over. Allowing them to scoop it up because we are unable to match their will power is ridiculous.
BTW, I don't have a problem with bashing Bush all day long for how things have gone, for his reasoning for going to war, etc. - as long as it does not undermine the commitment to getting things right in Iraq. From a practical standpoint, I think all of us have to acknowledge - regardless of how anyone felt at the time - that we (politicians from both sides voted here) got into this mess, and walking away just doesn't cut it.
I take you at your word when you say you're not a 'we should pull out' Dem - but I don't get that sense from the rest of the Dems.
More to the point. Here is a portion of the testimony of a woman in Saddam's trial the other day. She is testifying about what was done to her back when Abu Ghraib was his:
"They forced me to take off my clothes," said the woman, referred to only as Witness A by the court. "They kept my legs up. They handcuffed me and started beating me with cables. It wasn't just one guard, it was many guards." ...
"I agree that things in Abu Ghraib were, until recently, bad, but did they use dogs on you? Did they take photographs?" asked one defense attorney, attempting to raise the issue of U.S. prisoner abuse at the prison.
"No," she replied.
Now, under the legal guidelines for torture that the United States operates under currently, guess what: What happened to that woman is not torture. According to John Yoo, the drafter of the torture memo, former Deputy Attorney General under Alberto Gonzales, and legal scholar for AEI, the man whose definitions Bush, Condi, et al. use when they say torture isn't occurring, that's not torture.
So, Saddam's being prosecuted for, among other things, having people tortured, and yet that testimony would not fall under torture according to the Bush Administration.
She wasn't even water-boarded, she wasn't exposed to hypothermia, barking dogs, nor was she sexually abused. Indeed, if we were to take what has been said by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, she was only subjected to "coercive interrogation techniques."
It boggles the mind. Truly, the only thing left is the poorly relativistic (and stupid) "But... but... he's Evil ! So it's Bad when he does it! But we are Pure and Righteous, so it must be Good when we do it!" I wonder what a head exploding from internal pressures sounds like.
"I would not endeavor to show that their lives are valuable to us, because it would suppose a possibility that humanity was kicked out of doors in America and interest only attended to ... But is an enemy so execrable that, though in captivity, his wishes and comforts are to be disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible. The practice, therefore, of modern nations of treating captive enemies with politeness and generosity is not only delightful in contemplation but really interesting to all the world, friends, foes, and neutrals."
--Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Patrick Henry in 1779.
James,
You have an awful habit of putting words into my mouth (perhaps others too).
Cause terror to fight terror, is your solution above.
This was not my solution ... never was. Read my posts.
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