Torture isn't patriotic
Today's Boston Globe ran an editorial with the above lead line. It was a reasonable statement to point out that Dick Cheney and his friends are putting out bad information about the utility of torture. Here is a link to that editorial.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/05/16/torture_isnt_patriotic/
I was deeply disturbed by the number of comments on the editorial that had been made by torture apologists who clearly knew nothing beyond the same talking points used by Cheney and Limbaugh. Below is my reply to them.
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I'm very sorry to see the number of comments from people who clearly know nothing about interrogation and torture. My information comes from both the study of history and talk with people who have been interrogation specialists for the US military.
Call it torture or "enhanced interrogation," the techniques are the same. The procedures that are such a topic of current talk have been in well-documented use since the early days of the Spanish Inquisition, were used against US prisoners by the Japanese during World War II, the Chinese and North Koreans in that action, and by the North Vietnamese. In every one of those last three places, these techniques were branded correctly as torture, and the practitioners faced prison or execution.
Beyond the issues of pain infliction, there is one serious problem with torture.
IT DOES NOT WORK DEPENDABLY.
That is not a "liberal" bias speaking, it is historical record. Apply these techniques, or worse ones, for long enough, and you can get Dick Cheney to admit to being the gunman on the grassy knoll, just to get the questioning to stop. It is true that torture can, very rarely, get useful information. The effort to verify information extracted through torture often takes so long, or is so costly of other resources, that it makes useful information valueless. Most of the product of torture is made up, slanted to appease the torturers, or slanted to reflect the bias of the person being tortured.
Torture is used only because someone wants to punish the subject, or produce fear in the community from which the subject came. The problem with this second factor is that, while it may produce fear, it also causes anger. In the past, news that US prisoners were being tortured led to surges in enlistment. The same applies to other countries whose people have been tortured by our operatives.
The US military has established procedures for interrogation based on many years of practical experience, and the observation of the best interrogators other countries have developed. More useful, readily verifiable information can be gotten by talking to a prisoner for an hour or two in a peaceful environment than by a month in which that prisoner is being waterboarded every four hours.
In the last few days the apologists for torture have suddenly declared open season on Nancy Pelosi for what she may have known and when she may have known it. If they feel so strongly about it, why are they simultaneously so defensive of all the people who encouraged the practice, ordered its use, and tried to cover it up?
I feel very strongly that this country requires a complete investigation of the situation, with legal action taken.
The United States is better than this. We are now in the unenviable position of having to prove to the rest of the world, and to ourselves, that we are better than this, and that it will never happen again.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/05/16/torture_isnt_patriotic/
I was deeply disturbed by the number of comments on the editorial that had been made by torture apologists who clearly knew nothing beyond the same talking points used by Cheney and Limbaugh. Below is my reply to them.
-----------
I'm very sorry to see the number of comments from people who clearly know nothing about interrogation and torture. My information comes from both the study of history and talk with people who have been interrogation specialists for the US military.
Call it torture or "enhanced interrogation," the techniques are the same. The procedures that are such a topic of current talk have been in well-documented use since the early days of the Spanish Inquisition, were used against US prisoners by the Japanese during World War II, the Chinese and North Koreans in that action, and by the North Vietnamese. In every one of those last three places, these techniques were branded correctly as torture, and the practitioners faced prison or execution.
Beyond the issues of pain infliction, there is one serious problem with torture.
IT DOES NOT WORK DEPENDABLY.
That is not a "liberal" bias speaking, it is historical record. Apply these techniques, or worse ones, for long enough, and you can get Dick Cheney to admit to being the gunman on the grassy knoll, just to get the questioning to stop. It is true that torture can, very rarely, get useful information. The effort to verify information extracted through torture often takes so long, or is so costly of other resources, that it makes useful information valueless. Most of the product of torture is made up, slanted to appease the torturers, or slanted to reflect the bias of the person being tortured.
Torture is used only because someone wants to punish the subject, or produce fear in the community from which the subject came. The problem with this second factor is that, while it may produce fear, it also causes anger. In the past, news that US prisoners were being tortured led to surges in enlistment. The same applies to other countries whose people have been tortured by our operatives.
The US military has established procedures for interrogation based on many years of practical experience, and the observation of the best interrogators other countries have developed. More useful, readily verifiable information can be gotten by talking to a prisoner for an hour or two in a peaceful environment than by a month in which that prisoner is being waterboarded every four hours.
In the last few days the apologists for torture have suddenly declared open season on Nancy Pelosi for what she may have known and when she may have known it. If they feel so strongly about it, why are they simultaneously so defensive of all the people who encouraged the practice, ordered its use, and tried to cover it up?
I feel very strongly that this country requires a complete investigation of the situation, with legal action taken.
The United States is better than this. We are now in the unenviable position of having to prove to the rest of the world, and to ourselves, that we are better than this, and that it will never happen again.