Nance has been discredited, thoroughly, by the SEAL’s.

Here at HotAir and over at the old Captain’s Quarters, and a few other sites, after he came out with his “pouring quarts of water into the lungs” explanation of what waterboarding was allegedly.

Those networks that initially had Nance on as an “expert” soon had their own producers pull Nance from any further coverage and punditry as other facts of his Navy career came to light.

Like a bad penny, Nance pops up now and then…heavy on the rhetoric, light on the facts.

With the release of documents that reveal the origins of the legal authorization to use what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” it has become patently clear that the U.S. government engaged in methods that amounted to torture.
…
As a former instructor at the Navy school in Coronado, Calif., I too was subjected to everything it had available when I underwent the process. But I knew what was coming. Before learning how to pick an edible plant or understanding why one is being slapped in the face, the student is given a highly detailed history of the SERE program.

SERE originated in the 1950s to raise the survivability of prisoners of war (POWs) after they died in droves during World War II and the Korean War. Soldiers back then were unprepared for a harsh Nazi, Japanese, or communist captivity and did not yet have the code of conduct that helped U.S. prisoners, such as Sen. John McCain, survive the Hanoi Hilton a decade later.

To help students steel themselves for captivity, SERE used a variety of “stress and duress” techniques. The military’s encyclopedic knowledge of these techniques was paid for in American blood because it was gleaned from former POWs tortured by totalitarian regimes. One technique, waterboarding, was a historically well-known torture. I saw the waterboarding device in Cambodia’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh and did not see another until I was strapped down on an identical one at SERE. Waterboarding was administered as a “stress demonstrator” to show that an enemy could make one say anything. And one does.

Reporting in the New York Times this week, however, suggests that Bush administration officials, including the director of the CIA, claim to have been unaware of the origins of the SERE program and the history of the techniques involved.

If this is true, a whole myriad of CIA and Defense Department personnel need to be fired. It is virtually impossible for the administration not to know the origins of SERE methodology. It is the magnum opus of professional torture methods, drawn from the 230-year history of the American POW experience. SERE is a classified program, but every person informed of it is “read in” to the details of the program. Even the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which administers SERE, starts its PowerPoint presentation with a slide outlining the agency’s origins.

Former Bush officials are feigning collective ignorance in this regard. As sworn elected officials and appointees, they had an oath to uphold and protect the U.S. Constitution. In this, they failed miserably. One former CIA official quoted by the New York Times called it “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm.” If so, it was willful ignorance and unbridled enthusiasm to mimic tough-guy torture techniques popularized on the TV show 24, and certainly not anything grounded in the reality of using proper interrogation techniques.

http://experts.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/23/torture_what_did_they_know_when_did_they_know_it

Colonel Karpinski has yet to provide details as to how many units of the 800th she visited or had direct contact with as Brigade Commander. Abu Ghraib? She never set foot in the place. For a brigade commander of any branch of the Army this is unforgiveable.

i’ve never been a fan of hers. but what she says about pressure from the top for increasingly rough treatment sounds more plausible today.

As for our caterpillar friend…I loathe snakes…detest them. Irrational, according to a number of herpetologists I’ve known over the years. In training, I was placed in a trench, bound and blindfolded, at night, and had a snake tossed in the trench with me. Scared the bejeezus out of me. But, I was able to calm myself and control myself. What the purpose of that training exercise was designed to do.

i respect that. i have had a similar cathartic experience before. but you have to see the totality of things these people experienced, from being deprived of sleep for days, then waterboarding, then some beating and slamming around, then the insects – the regimen was designed by morally depraved psychologists to inflict the greatest amount of mental suffering to break those guys. it is because of this obvious intent that we can be sure torture is the right description.

What is your professional suggestion as to best a) obtain actionable or operational intelligence from them,

well, first of all, use FBI interrogators experienced in organized crime. as far is i understand – you obviously have a more sophisticated view on this – interrogation whereby the interrogator works to earn the detainee’s trust, not to mentally-physically break them, have produced great results. including, according to ali soufan, almost all of the actionable info from zubaydah about KSM and padilla.

and b) deal with them as they pose threats to the well-being of those men and women placed in Gitmo to protect them, protect other detainees from tribal justice,

i’m not against solitary confinement if a detainee is dangerous. we already have tons of those in regular jails, and we don’t have to use controversial methods to restrain them. we have a long experience incarcerating organized crime figures, and have long dealt with prison gangs and the like.

and c) to determine bona fides of them so a determination can be made for eventual repatriation or release?

i think that burden is on us, to solve this problem without systematically torturing them…

Colonel Karpinski has yet to provide details as to how many units of the 800th she visited or had direct contact with as Brigade Commander. Abu Ghraib? She never set foot in the place. For a brigade commander of any branch of the Army this is unforgiveable.

I know EPW operations. Karpinski has far less knowledge of such than I. The Brigade Commander sets the tone for the entire chain of command of those under him/her. She set the tone. Hands off command. That in itself can be a violation of the UCMJ, given the circumstances.

These were/are not your run of the mill detainees.

The “good” ones have their own camp at Gitmo, and they have been afforded far more than the average POW, in any war, for their being cooperative. There are several camps at Gitmo, segregated by status and potential for harm…to us, to themselves or their compatriots. In the minimum or light (comparatively speaking) security camps, this is where most of those who have been repatriated, released, or allowed to go to third countries to start a new life, have drawn from.

We’ve also repatriated a number of hard core detainees, a number of whom have been captured or killed in other encounters after t heir release. This suggests that they were a danger well before their release and were a danger still until re-capture or being killed. Hell of a way to run a war.

As for the hard core detainees. What is your professional suggestion as to best a) obtain actionable or operational intelligence from them, and b) deal with them as they pose threats to the well-being of those men and women placed in Gitmo to protect them, protect other detainees from tribal justice, and c) to determine bona fides of them so a determination can be made for eventual repatriation or release?

Bearing in mind, that under Geneva, they could have/should have been executed summarily upon capture. This whole Gitmo imbroglio being based on our not following the letter of Geneva, as we sought to gather actionable or operational intelligence from those captured.

As for sleep deprivation, I have gone several days, four or five, without sleep, in order to fulfill a mission or task that involved real lives, real risks. SEAL training, of which I have not taken part, but have worked alongside those who have, has sleep deprivation as one of its training tools in the making of a SEAL. What is the Navy’s official doctrine as to this training methodology? Not in a lab, but with real live US Navy personnel in the toughest training program known to the Armed Forces?

Having spent a lot of time with lawyers over the years, I can easily amass a slate of “experts” who can testify convincingly as to anything a defense team or a prosecutuion team wishes to drive home to a judge or jury. And an equal number of “experts” to refute the first.

But, this is not a trial, this is reality. We have thousands of persons who will willingly die, willingly kill themselves, in order to kill others along the way. Other than Japanese soldiers and officers in the Pacific during WWII, we’ve never encountered anything similar.

These are not rational and reasonable suspects…they are dedicated and trained killers until proven otherwise. And few have proven otherwise, unless or until they are convinced otherwise, broken, in the lingo of interrogation.

As for our caterpillar friend…I loathe snakes…detest them. Irrational, according to a number of herpetologists I’ve known over the years. In training, I was placed in a trench, bound and blindfolded, at night, and had a snake tossed in the trench with me. Scared the bejeezus out of me. But, I was able to calm myself and control myself. What the purpose of that training exercise was designed to do.

Torture? No. Uncomfortable? Yes. Did I learn to love snakes afterward? Not a chance.

The point being…we’ve expanded the definition of torture to now include anything that might cause discomfort, might cause pain, might cause one to be scared out of their minds. Thanks to a growing number of “experts” on torture who never got near a real interrogation, never went through SERE let alone SEAL training, and only know what they read in the media, we’ve expanded the very serious definition of torture to our disadvantage and to our enemies’ gleeful observations.

You’ve offered some interesting citations, and I’ve gone through and have attempted to find the various sources for what you have presented.

I’ve no doubt you are sincere in your position, I am equally sincere in mine.

With the exception of Abu Ghraib, and a small handful of incidents in Baghram, where all direct parties were prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and rightly so…Most got off too lightly. If I were the Courts Martial judge, I’d have given all of them a lot more.

you still refuse to see abu ghraib as part of a pattern?

“I will tell you that when I read those memorandums, when they were first released a few days ago, I did — I did feel this sense of being able to exhale after five years,” [Army Col. Janis] Karpinski said.

“That is what we have been saying from the very beginning, that, wait a minute, why are you inside pointing the finger at me, why are you pointing the fingers at the soldiers here?”

i used to be unsure whether she told the truth. now i know.

Is putting a terrorist in a box with a caterpillar severe pain and suffering?

yes, especially since zubaydah has a phobia of insects and he was told it was a stingy one. you know very well it can be a near-death experience. that was the point.

Is sleep deprivation? Is force feeding a prisoner to maintain life torture? Can be severe and painfully discomforting. Torture?

as part of a daily regimen of various methods, including near-death experiences, intense pain due to extended time in uncomfortable positions, and for the rest of the time, complete sensory deprivation, is indeed torture and should not be done to anyone.

consider this:

In a 2005 memo, Bush administration lawyers argued that it was okay for CIA interrogators to keep terror suspects awake for seven and a half days straight — because “even very extended sleep deprivation does not cause physical pain.” The attorneys backed up the claim by citing the work of a number of leading university researchers on sleep. Now, those professors are saying that their work was horribly misused.
…
In fact, the scientists say, the psychological stress caused by sleeplessness may be more dangerous than the physical impact – despite the lawyers’ conclusion that “extended sleep deprivation cannot be expected to cause ‘severe mental pain or suffering.’”

After days and days of sleep deprivation, “the mental pain would be all too evident, and arguably worse than physical pain,” Dr. Horne notes. Dr. Kundermann adds, “It can result in psychosis.”

Sleep deprivation has been shown to have extreme effects in lab testing. One 1983 study on rats to find out the consequences of continued sleep deprivation pushed this to the limit: “stimulus presentations were timed to reduce sleep severely in experimental rats but not in controls. Experimental rats suffered severe pathology and death; control rats did not.” Researchers believe that the same effect will occur with humans.

I guess I could accept my country might have to torture in EXTREME need.
But I want it to be extralegal and very very rare.

strangelet on April 23, 2009 at 7:15 PM

As it was. And should be…not torture, but the ability to deal with a horrible situation without making our law, and our Constitution, what was that term? A suicide pact?

Other nations have legislated their way to disaster. Other nations have allowed the unthinkable to happen within their own borders because they felt that trying to stand up to it was too difficult, or would divide their nation, or they might have to have their own armed forces fight their own people…as is happening inside Pakistan as I write.

Very very very rare…and in only the most extreme of cases. On that, I fully agree.

What bothers me a lot….is that torture was systemized. A whole beaurocracy is invested in torture, memos, legal descriptions and definitions, medical and legal personal, suppressed dissenters, uber TOPSECRET clearances.

I guess I could accept my country might have to torture in EXTREME need.
But I want it to be extralegal and very very rare.

Bad law written for all the best of reasons is still bad law.

Take a careful look at Article One, Section 1:

See the inherent problem with that paragraph?

What qualifies as severe pain and suffering?

Then read the recently released AG memos, paying close attention to those portions that seek to define severe, among other things. Then take a look at the citations of current law.

Is putting a terrorist in a box with a caterpillar severe pain and suffering? Is sleep deprivation? Is force feeding a prisoner to maintain life torture? Can be severe and painfully discomforting. Torture?

Then, put all of this in context.

And, as for the detainees who urinated and defecated in their own cells, their own choice…self-inflicted. Not torture. As subsequent investigation demonstrated, such was part of a mass protest, designed to upset their handlers, and play into international sympathy for their cause.

As for the chaining, hand and foot, go visit some of our own prisons, and see how they deal with violent recalcitrant prisoners who threaten staff and other prisoners, and themselves with bodily harm.

Torture? Or securing a prisoner to prevent harm to others and harm to the prisoner?

With the exception of Abu Ghraib, and a small handful of incidents in Baghram, where all direct parties were prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and rightly so…because in those cases, each and every perpetrator did so for the sole purpose of inflicting pain, or arousing wanton fear, or to denigrate and debase the prisoner under their control.

Most got off too lightly. If I were the Courts Martial judge, I’d have given all of them a lot more.

Not so much for what they did, which was heinous enough, but that their actions caused the deaths of fellow soldiers after such treatment made it on the international news wires.

Lastly, let’s go through all the nations that are present signatories to this UN Convention on Torture…let’s look at the record.

You might be surprised that many of those nations who signed off on this thing still, to this day, as a matter of course, allow their law enforcement officials, local magistrates, and their military to engage in far more heinous torture than anything done by us, by the Agency, after consultations with the AG, and immense attention paid to the law, under US Code.

Lastly…how many detainees were subject to EIT’s? Out of a total population of all detainees ever held?

I’ll grant there is still an ongoing debate as to what constitutes torture and what does not in this nation, at levels far above my own pay grade. And this is a good thing.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty…but it is still hindsight.

Given what we had to operate at the time such transpired, under the conditions such transpired, and within the strictures provided…it is my fixed opinion that we did not engage in torture.

Therein, lies the problem with Article One, Section 1.

No definitive classification of what does or does not constitute torture, and what is merely inflicting discomfort. Thus, bad law. Poorly written law.

Having worked as an interrogator, I never had to even consider EIT’s…but at times came close to making life uncomfortable…nothing at all like EIT’s…just discomfort…as a matter of establishing control over a subject who wanted everything but would co-operate on nothing, and at times was prone to violent outbursts.

I appreciate your insights, honestly, in all sincerity.

I haven’t all the answers. I am merely drawing on an adult lifetime of having to deal directly with the subject matter at hand.

that law, as ratified, is the law of the land.

indeed.

United Nations Convention Against Torture

Article 1.
1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2.
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

signed by the US in 1988, ratified in october 1994.

If we afforded, granted or provided Geneva protections to bandits, brigands, saboteurs, and yes, terrorists, the result among all signatories to Geneva would be?

I asked for a supportable reason under law or treaty that puts brigands, bandits and saboteurs on par with a prisoner of war. No response, other than deflection.

This is the overall problem with any debate on the actual issue of how to deal with a sensitive legal topic…the baseline is constantly moved by those involved.

My baseline is the law, and treaty to which we are a signator, and which has been ratified, under law, by Congress, and upheld by the USSC.

I believe that is a rational baseline from which to discuss the issue.

The so-called loopholes, well, they are there for an intended purpose. To grant pirates. brigands and bandits POW status under law, as one example, would gut a major portion of centuries-old Admiralty Law. And intercourse on the high seas would be imperiled as nations would seek to make it up as they went along to their own particular advantage, in the absence of a common law.

Don’t like the law? Change it.

But, ignoring the law in order to placate one’s feelings, might be a nice thing from a personal civil-disobedience standpoint a la Henry David Thoreau, but in the real world, as nations attempt to civilly settle differences…it simply gets in the way and complicates trifles into major international incidents and crises.

The law has made provisions to deal with non-uniformed non-state actors engaged in violence against nations.

Until we withdraw from Geneva, that law, as ratified, is the law of the land.

That we have chosen as an affirmative stance to grant the detainees the niceties that might be found among POW’s, does not translate into granting them POW status. It is simply humane treatment as deemed by our government ad hoc.

tell me your supportable reasons under law and treaty that make brigands, bandits, saboteurs on par with prisoners of war.

we’re both familiar with this debate so there’s no need to regurgitate talking points. it is eminently reasonable that we would protect everyone from inhumane treatment, not only civilians and those carrying the insignia of an established national military. the geneva conventions were obviously not intended to provide loopholes for states to torture prisoners.

they are no different than other prisoners of war.

sesquipedalian on April 23, 2009 at 1:27 PM

But, as a matter of law, and treaty, they are different. Very different.

Read Geneva, and also read the several USSC cases that stem from Geneva, to keep it in a US context, particularly Johnson v. Eisentrager, as it relates to the present detainee situation, and then tell me your supportable reasons under law and treaty that make brigands, bandits, saboteurs on par with prisoners of war.

They are outlaws. Parse that word. Outlaw.

i think most people would agree that the protections of the geneva conventions were designed with the intent of protecting every human being from mistreatment. just because a captured fighter does not belong to the military of an internationally acknowledged government, they are no different than other prisoners of war.

They are outlaws. Parse that word. Outlaw.

That we chose, as an affirmative stance, to provide for these detainees far in excess of what is required by Geneva…summary execution at the local commander’s determination…does not mean that we, as an affirmative stance, have accorded them ANY protections of Geneva.

We can interrogate them any way we choose to do.

If one follows the letter of the Law.

Now, if you wish to argue morality vis-a-vis law…plenty of fora for that sort of thing, but not germane to the subject at hand.

i assume you agree that it is prudent to have the approved and disapproved techniques outlined for whatever the scenario is (including ’24′ scenarios). i understand that according to you, the army field manual does not go far enough in the approved techniques, as it clearly forbids many that have been afflicted on these people by the bush administration. so i ask you again, if you were to re-write the manual of the specific purpose of interrogating suspected terrorists, which techniques do you think you would forbid, regardless of what kind of information we seek to extract? what is a reasonable limit beyond which only a person you’d consider a psychopathic sadist would go (i.e. drilling kneecaps)?

I believe that the Bush Administration – in my understanding to this point of what took place – did the right thing.

i have a hard time believing that you read jane mayer, the red cross report, or the latest congressional report that detail the interrogation program beyond the bush administration’s propaganda. i have no conclusive answer whether everyone involved acted within legal limits. if they didn’t, the public should know about it. there’s only one way to determine what happened: congressional hearings with testimony from CIA interrogators, private contractors, medical personnel, red cross observers and so on. but you can’t say they did the right thing because information you’d need to determine that is only coming to light now.

They consulted precedent and the law, they relied on expert request aiming for the the least harmful sufficient and timely compulsive measures, they consulted with top members of both parties, they maintained complete records.

if so, fine. at this point it is hard to see how this could be true – legal advice, for one, doesn’t seem to have been given in good faith, and the known atrocities such as abu ghraib should at least give you a pause about the measures and techniques that were directly or implicitly encouraged by the administration.

I wouldn’t draw a specific line against specific acts, or play a numbers game. I have no reason to believe that gouging an eyeball or drilling a kneecap would be arrived at by the minimum necessary compulsive force standard I outlined above. This isn’t a SAW sequel, and, no offense, I believe that a lot of anti-torture people are obsessed with the lurid details and tend to lose their sense of balance.

so you take the position that the chief executive has the power to apply interrogation methods considered by the geneva conventions as torture on any human being he believes to be dangerous? as in “keep pushing him until he tells you where saddam’s WMD is” ?

and at how much human suffering would you draw the line? gouging an eyeball? would you drill somebody’s kneecap if there’s a 50-50 chance you can save lower manhattan?

First, on the Manzi article, I consider it poorly conceived, since, as far as I know, no one of significance is calling for “conducting systematic torture as a matter of policy.” What is under discussion is exigent application of minimal necessary physical compulsion. The current discussion of EITs also is different from the larger subject of detainee treatment, and tends to confuse incidents “in the field” (or literally in connection to a battlefield) with incidents in controlled situations under monitoring and review by higher officials.

2. “If, in an emergency situation, it’s justifiable to apply true torture to someone honestly believed to have critical information, failing to extract the information in time wouldn’t remove the justification.”

i take this to be your jolly joker pro-torture argument. “honestly believed?” by whom? is that a generally accepted standard in law? even if they do know, we have absolutely no reason to give them the decision whether to torture or not.

It’s a moral standard, not a legal one.

Perhaps you’ll be able to absorb it more easily if you remove the issue of torture and just move to everyday “sin”: If I attempt to mislead you, I’m still a liar even if the information I give you turns out to be true: The old “he went thataway” where the fleeing thief turns around without his accomplice’s knowledge and really does go “thataway.”

Stating the moral problem requires that we assume someone, somewhere, with responsibility. We should probably just drop the pretense and use George W Bush as the imaginary actor, since he in the end has executive responsibility over everyone concerned. Therefore, I could say: If George W Bush had a good faith, reasonable belief that plucking the eyes from KSM’s eye sockets was the only way to save 1 million American lives, and so personally plucked out those offending eyes, whether his decision was morally correct is a different question from whether his action was effective.

That does not mean that I’m “uninterested,” as you seem to presume in your #1, in the effectiveness of whatever methods are under discussion. It may be crucial in several ways, including the question of whether the responsible individuals or individual can be thought to have had a good faith basis, at the time, for the decision to apply physical force.

I’m happy to await the full story, if it’s ever to be forthcoming, on what was or wasn’t learned by way of the interrogations. Until we know the facts, efforts like Mr. Noah’s are a waste of time, and serve mainly, on either side, to feed the prejudices of whoever is conducting or assessing them.

Additionally, the definition of “torture” remains critical. Under too broad a definition – i.e., infliction of humiliation, use of threats, creation of severe discomfort, etc., in exchange for cooperation – then much of the penal system in the US relies on torture. If threatening to place someone in a situation of grave discomfort and danger in order to extract information or confession is “torture,” then a large percentage of successful criminal prosecutions in the United States would have to be overturned.

(By the way, I’m strongly in favor of penal reform, and am much more disturbed by accepted standards of inmate treatment and conditions in the US than I am by the waterboarding of KSM.)

in case of an impending attack, i’d of course hope that they would do whatever to stop it, but if they break the law, i’d see their punishment afterward as sad but proper. by torturing terrorists to stop an attack, they’d make themselves tragic heroes who compromised themselves for doing “the right thing,” that is, defending the country. immediately afterward, bizarre as it may sound, our priority becomes that they are brought to justice.in those extremely rare cases, if indeed it has ever even gotten close to that, there really is a bomb ticking somewhere, as a human being i’d expect them to go beyond the limit, but i’d consider it one of the great tragedies of life, when someone compromises himself to save something greater. he becomes corrupted by his act.

It’s amusing that you throw out a shot against 24 earlier, since what you describe is the predicament the writers came up with for Jack Bauer – Mr. Ticking Time Bomb – at the beginning of this season, willingly facing the music.

Otherwise, we differ about how the world works and how it should work, and how a policy of the sort you describe – to the extent it isn’t in effect the current policy – would play out. Majority opinion need not be controlling, especially in the absence of a fair political decisionmaking effort, but you may wish to keep in mind that most polls, including ones taken long after 9/11, show significant majorities in America in favor of preserving the option of “torture” at least in “rare instances.” I’ve seen some contrary results that strike me as outliers – a lot, as ever, has to do with how and when the questoion is asked.

Finally, if Ticking Time Bomb is too cliche for you, try to imaging the pages of a calendar fluttering away as in an old movie, and an interrogation team whose members don’t know, but have strong reason to believe, that a range of world-historal acts of mass murder are in train – they could occur at any moment, they could be in critical late stages, they could be in their “boost” phase… Meanwhile, there’s a miserable murderer being held like a dangerous animal (in keeping with international standards) looking forward to a life of misery until he’s finally executed, who probably can help save hundreds, if not thousands of lives directly, and possibly keep the nation from heading off a cliff of political panic and overreaction, resulting in countless further deaths, immeasurable destruction, and putting the fate of the republic as a republic in jeopardy… Giving him a few seriously uncomfortable days, as coldwarrior described could make a major difference.

If they hadn’t acted, and major attacks had taken place, arguably as a result of information never having been collected and dots never connected, one wonders how many people would blithely say “Oh well, it wasn’t really the fault of the authorities that they didn’t try anything else. They had to play strictly by the rules. Never mind.”

To address the rest of your arguments, I would end up having to repeat things I have already explored in prior posts, at length, in particular at http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/04/18/obamas-never-again-on-torture-means-lots-more-soon/

don’t equate the deliberate, sadistic torture of people with accidentally hitting civilians. of course sometimes there are no good choices. but by supposedly increasing the risk of an attack by not torturing people, we are choosing the lesser evil.

Is the U.S. better able to achieve these objectives by conducting systematic torture as a matter of policy, or by refusing to do this? Given that human society is complex, it’s not clear that tactical efficacy implies strategic efficacy…

We might have done even better in WWII and the Cold War had we also engaged in systematic torture as a matter of policy. Further, one could argue that the world is different now: that because of the nature of our enemies, or because of technological developments or whatever, that torture is now strategically advantageous. But I think the burden of proof is on those who would make these arguments, given that they call for overturning what has been an important element of American identity for so many years and through so many conflicts.

1. the effectiveness of torture. that is the side of the issue that, like you, i’m not really interested in. so far, it has not been made clear what the value of the information was that they gained by making prisoners go through a regimen of abusive treatment. there’s no evidence that any major plots were foiled, with the liberty tower story apparently discredited.

2. “If, in an emergency situation, it’s justifiable to apply true torture to someone honestly believed to have critical information, failing to extract the information in time wouldn’t remove the justification.”

i take this to be your jolly joker pro-torture argument. “honestly believed?” by whom? is that a generally accepted standard in law? even if they do know, we have absolutely no reason to give them the decision whether to torture or not.

taking the long-term view, it is not justifiable to torture anyone, even if there’s an impending attack (the ‘ticking bomb scenario’ phrase is so ’24′ it’s a parody). does it mean that i do not expect one to do it when there’s grave danger? if you’re an interrogator and you know for sure that the person has the key info while a bomb is about to go off, of course you’ll go rougher as the situation gets hotter, to the point of probably even killing the guy if the bomb actually explodes. on the other hand, even if you get the key info in time, it is fair that you have to face the consequences of your actions, however repellent it sounds. it is a tough call, because we at the same time feel grateful to you for protecting us, nonetheless the laws are laws, and our sympathy and debt to you is overridden by the need to uphold the laws that provide basic protection against cruel and inhumane treatment that any human being deserves. the need to eliminate torture from our repertoire is therefore greater than the need to stop an impending attack. a nuke goes off? we should have stopped it long ago. if it’s already hot, it’s not too late only if you’re jack bauer (macgyver!).

if people are found to have broken the law – and i’m looking forward to finding out and reaching as nearly a consensus as possible on this as a legal issue – it is fair that they have to face a trial and receive a proper sentence for their actions. it is not the job of the interrogator to decide whether the situation warrants going beyond the legal confines. it is the job his superiors. they have produced very clear, internationally accepted guidelines for what they can or cannot do, no matter what the gravity of the case. i’m not happy about this, and i’m certainly not smug and self-satisfied. in fact, the reason i addressed you so rudely was because of your convenient assumption that opposition to torture can only be mere moral posturing.

if an event could have been stopped by torturing someone, it’s a catastrophe, but the responsibility belongs to the perpetrators, not to those who chose not to torture.

in case of an impending attack, i’d of course hope that they would do whatever to stop it, but if they break the law, i’d see their punishment afterward as sad but proper. by torturing terrorists to stop an attack, they’d make themselves tragic heroes who compromised themselves for doing “the right thing,” that is, defending the country. immediately afterward, bizarre as it may sound, our priority becomes that they are brought to justice.in those extremely rare cases, if indeed it has ever even gotten close to that, there really is a bomb ticking somewhere, as a human being i’d expect them to go beyond the limit, but i’d consider it one of the great tragedies of life, when someone compromises himself to save something greater. he becomes corrupted by his act.

a fair analogy would the case of a father whose daughter gets raped, and he stalks down the rapist and kills him. if you’re in the jury, your heart breaks for the guy – but you’re sending him away for life. what you do is uphold the law because ultimately laws bind the society together. even if you consider the father was a perfectly normal person whose reaction to a horrible event is understandable, your and society’s long term interests demand that he be dealt with the full force of the law.

3. torture is wrong to begin with. right now, i feel for the interrogators who followed orders and were pushed from above for results, and i hope they won’t have to suffer consequences. i’m abhorred at those who planned out this system of interrogation that have for long been viewed around the world as torture, and therefore illegal, and one that goes way beyond what the US has ever been known to have done. i’m also disgusted by those who continue to build arguments why we should be allowed to inflict these techniques on people.

let us, if you will, treat these prisoners as human beings. and when i’m talking about these people, i don’t just mean KSM or zubaydah, but the hundreds of others in gitmo, bagram, and all the secret sites wherever they are. we know there have been many hundreds interrogated, some of them innocent bystanders who in now way deserved to be treated that way even if it somehow, in a microscopic way, served our interests. i do not see how collecting “mosaic” information, small, often completely irrelevant details that may one day give us a clue to a larger picture, is worth systematically torturing people and sullying our reputation.

i think rejecting torture in all cases is a tough moral choice, especially if an attack indeed happens. but i believe that a nation with a defense budget that surpasses the cumulative total of the next 19 out of the 20 most powerful nations ought to be able to ensure its security, even in this age, without resorting to sadistic interrogation techniques. rough interrogation techniques are fine – as outlined by the army field manual. but if we have to be pushed beyond the acceptable techniques, it means that we failed elsewhere.

CK MacLeod on April 22, 2009 at 1:47 PM

A seasoned interrogator would understand that certain admissions made under duress, or the fear of duress, are questionable. Likewise, a seasoned interrogator would also understand that any admissions made at all to the interrogator are questionable.

I used a lot of paper and a few maps now and then, to ascertain the basics. One day one, the subject would admit that he worked at a particular location, doing something like, say, building nuclear warheads in Sana, Yemen.

Feigning interest, I’d ask him to go on, and then put a blank piece of paper and a pencil in front of him. Ask him to simply draw a map of where he lived. This done, I’d ask him how he got to work. Again, draw me a map, I’m slow. If on foot, I’d ask for certain details. If by bus, I’d ask which bus line or route number. If by car, I’d ask him to describe the car, the things he saw on the way to work. After a while I’d have a pile of information in front of me…all of it checkable…which I did before the next session. I’d ask a lot of mox-nix details that had nothing to do with nukes or other technical subjects…just basic lifestyle and daily interactino questions.

A new or unseasoned interrogator would focus in on the sexy nuke stuff…and take it all in…and then try to check the uncheckable somehow.

After a few sessions we’d get into his actual workplace…and the blank sheets of paper and pencil would appear…and I’d ask simple questions. From where you get off the bus, out of your car, how do you get to your workplace? On the way in, where is the flag pole or main sentry point where you show your pass…what color qwere the buildings, stone or brick or stucco, maybe wood, and as we went along it would prove that either the guy was fabricating everything…hoping that by saying he had access to nuke info he’d get a better ride to the States, or that he was actually involved in something that had something more to it than the subject even realized.

The guys who handled the interrogations of KSM and company, were seasoned interrogators, not fresh out of school kids.

And, the reason for multiple sessions getting KSM’s face wet was because he most likely gave erroneous information at first, hoping to trick his American friends, or bluster trying to show them he had bigger stones.

But, after a session or two or more, when faced with an interrogator who appears to know more than you do about a subject, and can ascertain lies or inconsistencies in your oral presentations…one either clams up completely and has a very clean face at the end of the day…looking forward to other clean face days….or one caves and starts at the beginning, hoping that his interrogators will not be p’d off enough to do him more or possibly permanent harm.

the torturers made the comparison realistic.

That is insane. Get back to me when the next set of memos describes the rape rooms, broken children, bloody wood-chippers, and mass graves that the American Baath kept going 24/7 to preserve their rule and squelch dissent. Until then, I’ll remain grateful for your disapproval.

i take this position based on my life experiences and a basic understanding of human nature.

Which is why it can always be assumed to affect both sides, and is irrevelant to the discussion.

yes, but i assume you’re aware of the phenomenon whereby individuals tend to agree with anything, or are willing to provide false information, if they believe that will please their tormentors and end their suffering. the more intense the suffering, the more pressure is on the individual to come up with anything plausible. this is why the reliability of the information gained this way is inversely proportional to the amount of pain and mental stress the source endures.

I’m aware of the phenomenon you refer to – as would be any interrogator. The “inversely proportional” relationship you describe is a fanciful abstraction: Sounds good, would make things simple if true, but, like most abstractions, it doesn’t survive a collision with human reality, just as your arguments do not answer the ones already advanced by myself and others.

I’m fully aware that there are those “on my side” who disagree or dissent on this topic. Until you actually respond on the facts and arguments, and with some sense of proportion and civility, you and they are welcome to your shame and your smug self-satisfaction. It doesn’t interest me very much, frankly. You can take the last word or however many you want, but if you don’t start adding to the discussion, and taking account of the replies to your previous statements, then I’m done with you.

Apparently you take the position, based on nothing other than your suspicions and presumptions, that everyone who disagrees with you does so out of self-interest.

i take this position based on my life experiences and a basic understanding of human nature.

All information – even the information gotten from willingly cooperative witnesses honestly striving to tell you everything they know – is unreliable until checked.

yes, but i assume you’re aware of the phenomenon whereby individuals tend to agree with anything, or are willing to provide false information, if they believe that will please their tormentors and end their suffering. the more intense the suffering, the more pressure is on the individual to come up with anything plausible. this is why the reliability of the information gained this way is inversely proportional to the amount of pain and mental stress the source endures.

My argument would be that life on Earth generally, and warfare especially, always involves acceptance of the lesser evil against the greater one. It’s sad, but grown-ups get used to it. It may be the definition of being a grown-up.

i appreciate your kind and condescending answer, but you’re wrong. the problem is that even though we’re sanitized to human suffering when it doesn’t affect us directly, we still have a responsibility to uphold our values. we have a responsibility not to inflict torture upon a human being. that is why we’re not saddam’s iraq or the pol pot regime.

so my answer to you is this: grow up already and accept the fact that not torturing people is the lesser evil compared to not torturing any last bit of information (that may or may not be useful) out of anyone we choose to imprison. you will not be allowed anymore to torture anyone in my name. we do not need that kind of protection, because it’s not really a protection at all.

Comparing the rough interrogation of a handful of indisputably guilty terrorists to the massive and systematic depravity of Saddam’s Republic of Fear, you demonstrate just how dangerously nonsensical argument by phony moral absolutes can be in the real world.

the torturers made the comparison realistic. i’m terribly ashamed of this. you should be too. as for systematic torture, read zelikow if you only trust bona fide cons.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/22/memo-obamas-intel-director-said-interrogations-yielded-high-value-info/

Does this mean that Dennis Blair is also lying out of personal interest? Apparently you take the position, based on nothing other than your suspicions and presumptions, that everyone who disagrees with you does so out of self-interest. There’s no end to that form of ad hominem. It applies or can be applied to all sides. I take it as a given, for instance, that you yourself are posting to this discussion out of some form of self-interest.

it is clear that torture produces unreliable information. unreliable information is basically useless information.

It’s pretty to think so. It would be wonderful if the world was that simple. There’d be nothing to argue about.

All information – even the information gotten from willingly cooperative witnesses honestly striving to tell you everything they know – is unreliable until checked. At the same time, even lies can yield useful clues in the context of interrogation. A lie can be checked. The truthful elements of an effective lie can lead to further questions. A story that a captive believes to be innocuous to his cause can provide critical background.

Many of these methods work because they get a button-lipped subject to begin talking. Once he begins talking, even if he starts out with lies and fabrications, the investigation begins. It can take a very long time using the DR PHIL school of interrogation to work, if ever, on a resistant subject. Our interrogators didn’t feel they had months or years or never to break KSM and Abu Zubaydah.

In the vast majority of cases, other methods of interrogation probably would be superior. In a critical minority of cases, that’s not the case. There is in fact a vast amount of experience with the interrogation methods used and on treating the information gained from them. The reason there’s so much experience with them is that they have been used in training.

Again, that the interrogations were effective isn’t the same as saying they were morally justifiable. To the extent it’s true, it does strongly support the contention that the interrogators weren’t just seizing an opportunity to inflict pain on the enemy or enjoy some sadistic thrills.

so your argument is that human history has always been violent, so we shouldn’t be repulsed by torture?

My argument would be that life on Earth generally, and warfare especially, always involves acceptance of the lesser evil against the greater one. It’s sad, but grown-ups get used to it. It may be the definition of being a grown-up. There are many things that we – citizens, the nations of the world – accept as exigencies of war or even just as exigencies of normal social and economic life that cause for more pain and grisly death to far more people, innocent people, than the sleep deprivation, humiliation, discomfort, and fear-intensifying episodes inflicted on terrorist detainees.

Obama and pals’ posturing on the rough interrogations and unhappy confinement of high level terror suspects won’t change that. As I argued in a previous post – http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/04/18/obamas-never-again-on-torture-means-lots-more-soon/ – in my opinion it ensures that more pain, including real torture and other atrocities, will take place, first in places that we find it easier to look away from, second in the future during the next phase of cyclical overcompensation.

let me remind you that the last remaining justification for the iraq war is that saddam was a sadistic dictator who made his people suffer. so would you excuse saddam, too? afterall, he was just protecting iraq from existential threats.

Comparing the rough interrogation of a handful of indisputably guilty terrorists to the massive and systematic depravity of Saddam’s Republic of Fear, you demonstrate just how dangerously nonsensical argument by phony moral absolutes can be in the real world.

As a matter of fact, in the community of the man who originated the phrase, many practices that people would today consider torture, or in any case cruel and unusual, were normal.

so your argument is that human history has always been violent, so we shouldn’t be repulsed by torture? let me remind you that the last remaining justification for the iraq war is that saddam was a sadistic dictator who made his people suffer. so would you excuse saddam, too? afterall, he was just protecting iraq from existential threats.

since the ‘city on the hill’ phrase was born, we tackled slavery and fought against slaughter, oppression, disease and starvation around the world in pursuit of our interests and our ideals. we believe that the world may be a a violent place, we must strive to be better and to live by certain principles that distinguish us from others, including rejecting the cruel and inhumane treatment of any human being for any reason. this is what has allowed us to remain the shining city on the hill.

As for the effectiveness of waterboarding and the other techniques, we’ve heard claims by people in a position to know that they were highly effective in gathering intelligence, stopping plots, and apprehending terrorist leaders.

the only people who say it’s effective are those whose legacy depends on how this period will be interpreted, so they’re prone to stretch facts or flat out lie. it’s essentially taking a suspect’s testimony at face value who says that there was no crime committed.

it is clear that torture produces unreliable information. unreliable information is basically useless information. to still use torture, in a systematic, dehumanizing way over extended periods, is deeply immoral.

the moral question would be unaffected by anything short of gross negligence. If, in an emergency situation, it’s justifiable to apply true torture to someone honestly believed to have critical information, failing to extract the information in time wouldn’t remove the justification.

it is not morally justifiable. it’s wrong and it’s un-American. our principles justify the failure. i say this as a new yorker whose friend died at the wtc and i have a family member dying from a lung disease he picked up while cleaning the rubble at ground zero.

but i know you wouldn’t listen to trolls teaching you about morals. so how about some logical reasoning:

US law defines torture as the infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” Susan Crawford, the lawyer appointed by President Bush to oversee Guantanamo Bay trials, refused to refer one detainee’s case for prosecution, because the combination of these techniques “met the legal definition of torture.”

But don’t take her word for it. Read the descriptions military personnel provided of prisoners’ reactions to “enhanced interrogation”: “Detainee began to cry. Detainee bit the IV tube completely in two. Started moaning…. Yelled for Allah. Urinated on himself…. Trembled uncontrollably.” Does that meet the statutory definition? Gosh yes, that’s a tough legal question.

The point here isn’t to make you shed a tear for Al Qaeda prisoners; mass murderers (actual or aspiring) are pretty hard to feel sorry for. But anyone who understands the issue ought to feel some remorse over the damage our policy did to the rule of law and American interests abroad.

Obama has announced that he won’t prosecute CIA line officers, and it’s unlikely that anyone else will face criminal sanctions for their role in the program. Even so, it’s clear that the policy was, at the very least, criminally stupid.

Imagine if, shortly after 9/11, someone had told you that the US government would adopt an interrogation policy based on Chinese Communist techniques designed to elicit false confessions. You’d have thought that person was pretty cynical. But he’d turn out to be exactly right.

As for the effectiveness of waterboarding and the other techniques, we’ve heard claims by people in a position to know that they were highly effective in gathering intelligence, stopping plots, and apprehending terrorist leaders. However, those of us who support the interrogators, the lawyers, and their superiors would do well to keep in mind that, if it was morally right to apply those interrogation methods, it was right even if they produced no useful intelligence.

We might conclude that aspects of the operation were ill-conceived and ill-considered, but the moral question would be unaffected by anything short of gross negligence. If, in an emergency situation, it’s justifiable to apply true torture to someone honestly believed to have critical information, failing to extract the information in time wouldn’t remove the justification.

The facts on the effectiveness of the interrogations would be of great interest, and will potentially be of great practical political effect if the Obama Administration honors Cheney’s demand, but they do not and cannot by themselves resolve the underlying issue either way.

i don’t believe there was ever a ticking bomb scenario. they would have trotted it out long ago with great fanfare. they have no cards left.

it’s despicable, whether or not you’re a christian. it’s unpatriotic and against our values. shining city on the hill, say fuckin goodbye to that. you keep telling yourself that they didn’t suffer, that it was just a little roughing’em up – it wasn’t. it was planned, systematic torture, as described above.

you believe former bush people that torture worked. so far, no evidence, only hearsay. you want to believe them, because you can’t face the truth. that we senselessly tortured people, and gained very little from it. we tortured people not just to stop a ticking bomb, but to gather the “mosaic” info, random data that may be useful one day. we tortured people for that.

history will not be kind to these people.

This is a disgusting rhetorical trick and you should be ashamed of yourself for posting it.

torture is disgusting. anyone promoting torture is despicable, no matter who the victim is. i don’t care about your rhetorical tricks trying to reconcile having jesus in your heart with actively advocating the systematic torture of human beings. face your shame:

The focus on water-boarding misses the main point of the program.

Which is that it was a program. Unlike the image of using intense physical coercion as a quick, desperate expedient, the program developed “interrogation plans” to disorient, abuse, dehumanize, and torment individuals over time.

The plan employed the combined, cumulative use of many techniques of medically-monitored physical coercion. Before getting to water-boarding, the captive had already been stripped naked, shackled to ceiling chains keeping him standing so he cannot fall asleep for extended periods, hosed periodically with cold water, slapped around, jammed into boxes, etc. etc. Sleep deprivation is most important.