Torture Lite
Teaser: The recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate offers evidence that the war in Iraq has caused an increase in terrorism, fostering anti-American sentiments and giving credibility to al Qaeda's cause, retired generals are lambasting the administration, Republican senators are trying to reign in their overly-ambitious president, and even Colin Powell is outraged at the prospect of the US engaging in torture. Everything we know points to what our guts should already be telling us: it's wrong. Period. No ifs. No buts. The most nauseating factor in all this is that we've actually bandied about as if there's something redeeming about torture.
I really tried to avoid writing about this, because it's such a heavy topic and more than a little nauseating. My coping mechanims for dealing with something of this nature are two speeds: darkness and dour and painful sarcasm. I lean toward the latter because I must; I simply cannot get my head around the idea that we're actually talking about if/when torture is okay. BUT -- it was either this, or more crazed ranting about OnBalance commentors, and I opted for the more substantive, if depressing, choice.
Ahhh those silly little Geneva Conventions -- always getting in the way of our plans. I bet some namby-pamby liberal, terrorist appeaser came up with them, anyway -- OBVIOUSLY a bunch of civilians who have never seen actual combat and are in desperate need of some SoCom face time know better anyway. So let's get to the meat of it.
Really, the conversation around torture as it relates to terrorist suspects has two points: does it work effectively to save lives (eg, do the ends justify the means) and are there in fact situations in which its use is warranted? To me, the first question is a non-starter: nevermind the fact that there is, at best, a lack of consensus on the immediate benefits of torture and, at worst, a growing body of evidence that shows its ineffectiveness, there are just some things that are beyond the pale. BUT, I'm one of those namby-pamby liberals, so in the interest of open and honest debate, we'll pretend that it's actually a valid question.
I spent some time trying to Google evidence relating to torture and the information it produces. Two articles and one oped stood out: this MSNBC piece from last week, a BBC article from last April, and this January 2005 WaPo column.
The MSNBC piece and the WaPo oped present a pretty startling case that torture doesn't work, the information it produces is unreliable, and just isn't worth the cost of diminished reputation abroad, the loss of "moral superiority," and the risk of retribution exacted from American soldiers. The BBC article takes the other route, trotting out former torturers who sing the praises of their craft, solidly stating that anyone, anywhere can be made to talk with the right "pressure." What strikes me the most about the BBC bit is that the interviewees are all former torturers of regimes that a) no longer exist and b) are regarded most unkindly by history. An example is Paul Van Vuuren, the man who tortured South Africans in order to uphold the apartheid regime. Yes, please, I totally want the US to be catagorized with apartheid. Apparently, their torture techniques were so effective that it couldn't protect the very governments that authorized/allowed the practice in the first place. In the long run, it was pointless, and it turned people against the machinations that brought forth the torturers.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), the al Qaeda operations chief who has been subjected to "aggressive interrogation tactics" -- aka Torture Lite -- that included waterboarding (a simulation of drowning) has been singing like a canary. Only we don't know how good his tune is. He has spouted a litany of names and plots, including a plan to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch. With. A. Blow Torch. We're supposed to believe this is credible, coming from an organization as highly sophisticated and advanced as al Qaeda? At what point do we acknowledge that a person will say whatever you want to hear just to make it stop? And how much time will be wasted chasing down false leads, grasping at ghosts in the wind?
The FBI has long experience with softer (and more legal) forms of gaining information, and this brings up a point. An American citizen has knowledge of a bomb that is going to go off, causing immense destruction and inflicting mass casualties. In this hypothetical, our fictitious captive is under the auspicies of American law, and could not be tortured to elicit information. We have encountered situations like this before, and our enforcing agencies, such as the FBI, have had considerable success in getting the suspect to talk without electrocution or waterboarding.
I feel that the above scenario is a bit of a strawman argument. We're talking about fanatics, convinced of the sanctity of martyrdom and willing to blow themselves up for a cause. When it comes to dedication to the fight, al Qaeda has been prepping for this much longer than we have. If an attack was so imminent that torture was believed necessary to get the details in time...do you really think this al Qaeda operative would give it up? Do you not think that they haven't prepared for this? What's to guarantee that he would tell the truth -- and not some lie that would simultaneously stop the torture and protect the plan? And if it was some underling -- such as the majority of those in Gitmo -- do you really think that he would have such intimate knowledge as to be of any use?
In the end, what will we have accomplished?
The second point in the discussion regards situations where torture would be appropriate. Anyone who thinks the war in Iraq and the greater war against terrorism is solely comprised of bombs and boots on ground is deluding themselves. Both of these efforts are as much a PR campaign as they are military, and while we may have superior machinery, we're losing the battle for public opinion, both here and abroad. We crave to be viewed in the Arab world as benevolent liberators -- who torture and maim and imprison innocent people. That certainly would make me want to trust us too.
Let's not forget that Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's number 2 man, was also tortured while imprisoned in Egypt, and reportedly became all the more violent -- and all the more convinced that all secular governments, Arab or otherwise, were evil -- because of it.
The recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate offers evidence that the war in Iraq has caused an increase in terrorism, fostering anti-American sentiments and giving credibility to al Qaeda's cause, retired generals are lambasting the administration, Republican senators are trying to reign in their overly-ambitious president, and even Colin Powell is outraged at the prospect of the US engaging in torture. Everything we know points to what our guts should already be telling us: it's wrong. Period. No ifs. No buts. The most nauseating factor in all this is that we've actually bandied about as if there's something redeeming about torture.
So debate the semantics and academics all you want, but at the end of the day, there is a line in the sand that as a nation, as a society, as a culture, we either have to cross or not.
We have to ask ourselves: Are we the kind of nation that tortures people?
I really tried to avoid writing about this, because it's such a heavy topic and more than a little nauseating. My coping mechanims for dealing with something of this nature are two speeds: darkness and dour and painful sarcasm. I lean toward the latter because I must; I simply cannot get my head around the idea that we're actually talking about if/when torture is okay. BUT -- it was either this, or more crazed ranting about OnBalance commentors, and I opted for the more substantive, if depressing, choice.
Ahhh those silly little Geneva Conventions -- always getting in the way of our plans. I bet some namby-pamby liberal, terrorist appeaser came up with them, anyway -- OBVIOUSLY a bunch of civilians who have never seen actual combat and are in desperate need of some SoCom face time know better anyway. So let's get to the meat of it.
Really, the conversation around torture as it relates to terrorist suspects has two points: does it work effectively to save lives (eg, do the ends justify the means) and are there in fact situations in which its use is warranted? To me, the first question is a non-starter: nevermind the fact that there is, at best, a lack of consensus on the immediate benefits of torture and, at worst, a growing body of evidence that shows its ineffectiveness, there are just some things that are beyond the pale. BUT, I'm one of those namby-pamby liberals, so in the interest of open and honest debate, we'll pretend that it's actually a valid question.
I spent some time trying to Google evidence relating to torture and the information it produces. Two articles and one oped stood out: this MSNBC piece from last week, a BBC article from last April, and this January 2005 WaPo column.
The MSNBC piece and the WaPo oped present a pretty startling case that torture doesn't work, the information it produces is unreliable, and just isn't worth the cost of diminished reputation abroad, the loss of "moral superiority," and the risk of retribution exacted from American soldiers. The BBC article takes the other route, trotting out former torturers who sing the praises of their craft, solidly stating that anyone, anywhere can be made to talk with the right "pressure." What strikes me the most about the BBC bit is that the interviewees are all former torturers of regimes that a) no longer exist and b) are regarded most unkindly by history. An example is Paul Van Vuuren, the man who tortured South Africans in order to uphold the apartheid regime. Yes, please, I totally want the US to be catagorized with apartheid. Apparently, their torture techniques were so effective that it couldn't protect the very governments that authorized/allowed the practice in the first place. In the long run, it was pointless, and it turned people against the machinations that brought forth the torturers.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), the al Qaeda operations chief who has been subjected to "aggressive interrogation tactics" -- aka Torture Lite -- that included waterboarding (a simulation of drowning) has been singing like a canary. Only we don't know how good his tune is. He has spouted a litany of names and plots, including a plan to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch. With. A. Blow Torch. We're supposed to believe this is credible, coming from an organization as highly sophisticated and advanced as al Qaeda? At what point do we acknowledge that a person will say whatever you want to hear just to make it stop? And how much time will be wasted chasing down false leads, grasping at ghosts in the wind?
The FBI has long experience with softer (and more legal) forms of gaining information, and this brings up a point. An American citizen has knowledge of a bomb that is going to go off, causing immense destruction and inflicting mass casualties. In this hypothetical, our fictitious captive is under the auspicies of American law, and could not be tortured to elicit information. We have encountered situations like this before, and our enforcing agencies, such as the FBI, have had considerable success in getting the suspect to talk without electrocution or waterboarding.
I feel that the above scenario is a bit of a strawman argument. We're talking about fanatics, convinced of the sanctity of martyrdom and willing to blow themselves up for a cause. When it comes to dedication to the fight, al Qaeda has been prepping for this much longer than we have. If an attack was so imminent that torture was believed necessary to get the details in time...do you really think this al Qaeda operative would give it up? Do you not think that they haven't prepared for this? What's to guarantee that he would tell the truth -- and not some lie that would simultaneously stop the torture and protect the plan? And if it was some underling -- such as the majority of those in Gitmo -- do you really think that he would have such intimate knowledge as to be of any use?
In the end, what will we have accomplished?
The second point in the discussion regards situations where torture would be appropriate. Anyone who thinks the war in Iraq and the greater war against terrorism is solely comprised of bombs and boots on ground is deluding themselves. Both of these efforts are as much a PR campaign as they are military, and while we may have superior machinery, we're losing the battle for public opinion, both here and abroad. We crave to be viewed in the Arab world as benevolent liberators -- who torture and maim and imprison innocent people. That certainly would make me want to trust us too.
Let's not forget that Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's number 2 man, was also tortured while imprisoned in Egypt, and reportedly became all the more violent -- and all the more convinced that all secular governments, Arab or otherwise, were evil -- because of it.
The recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate offers evidence that the war in Iraq has caused an increase in terrorism, fostering anti-American sentiments and giving credibility to al Qaeda's cause, retired generals are lambasting the administration, Republican senators are trying to reign in their overly-ambitious president, and even Colin Powell is outraged at the prospect of the US engaging in torture. Everything we know points to what our guts should already be telling us: it's wrong. Period. No ifs. No buts. The most nauseating factor in all this is that we've actually bandied about as if there's something redeeming about torture.
So debate the semantics and academics all you want, but at the end of the day, there is a line in the sand that as a nation, as a society, as a culture, we either have to cross or not.
We have to ask ourselves: Are we the kind of nation that tortures people?