Recently, a significant number of previously classified CIA documents detailing our treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere were released.
They described systematic torture - I say torture, because water-boarding is defined as torture by U.N. documents, documents which we signed and agreed with.
Past that, since when is beating someone, nearly killing them by drowning, denying them food for days, keeping them awake to the point the enter an hysterical state NOT torture, NOT objectionable, not ugly, not beneath the standards we demand of ourselves?
These are not 'enhanced interrogation techniques', they were and they are, nothing less than what we've objected to when conducted by friend and adversary alike over the past 50 years. In short, they are precisely the kinds of 'techniques' we define as in use by thugs, by police-states, by criminals.
The response from Dick Cheney and other members of the rabid-right has been, "But look, it worked, we got good data."
As if that matters one iota. As if killing 100 people is okay as long as we can say there was 'some benefit'.
But that's not the main point - the main point is this, they didn't 'enhance' one-damned thing. Torture works, that was never in doubt, it works to get data, but it mostly (according to numerous experts including our own CIA interrogators) it mostly gets you BAD information. It mostly gets you MUCH LESS than you'd get otherwise - and much less reliable information than that which is given voluntarily, or gleaned from misstatements, over time. We were in no rush, but even if we were, the odds were and are, that any such information gained would be essentially valueless as it was more likely (as not) to be a lie, to be flawed, to be in a word - ironically 'unenhanced.'
The bottom line is, we actually got less, not more.
And then there's this, we, as a result of compromising our ethics also:
- Gave our enemies more ammunition to recruit with
- Embittered the families and friends of those we mistreated
- Shattered our reputation throughout the world
For what? For nearly valueless information that almost certainly could have been gotten without torture.
No, this is about our own arrogance, our own sense of needing to 'show them who's tough' by beating prisoners, by drowning them leading to the deaths of probably 10-15 captives due to heart failure (as reported) - we decided that despite the advice of our best experts, we (meaning the likes of Cheney within the Pentagon and the CIA - with Cheney's approval and Gonzalez's legal hijinx) WE were going to show them that the wimpy Democrats weren't in charge.
What they (and we ) didn't get is that no one was a wimp, it's just smart people don't due stupid, ineffective things, and ethical people don't achieve their goals by unethical means. Civilized nations abandoned torture not only for ethical reasons but for smart ones too, and it's time, high time, to take those who are too stupid to govern within the law, and hold them accountable to it, in the same way they said they were going to do with the prisoners they held. In short, it's time the courts meeted out justice long overdue, but not for the prisoners, but the captors.
As I discussed earlier with Penigma, one of the worst long term effects of our treatment of prisoners is going to be one which makes America less safe, not safer, contrary to what Sub-Fuhrer Chaney and his ilk believe. By our actions, the US has almost certainly opened the door for other regimes which are already inclined to use torture to use those methods on captured American service men or women in the future. In the past we could and did hold the moral high ground, but no longer. Due to the actual damage done to the US reputation by this repugnant act, the US is in a much worse position in world affairs, and for this, one can only blame Chaney and the rest of the republicans who so blindly support him to this day.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
ReplyDeleteFrankly your point may be the best one of all.
Specifically, the 'wrap themselves in the flag' crowd don't get that whatever very limited positive (net) benefit was achieved vis a vis data obtained, the longer term impact of risk to our soldiers and citizens FAR outweighs that on the negative side. In short, we have invited our soldiers to be tortured without ANY recourse on our part.
This debate is a joke.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do is work, live, and pay taxes in another (ally) country and it becomes clear how myopic (in about a half-dozen ways) we are here. If you refuse to do that, the tendency is that you will bluster like a hick. And that's that.
I'm not making fun of certain folks. I'm simply making fun of anyone who refuse to engage with anywhere else in the world. Pathetic.
We can bluster about one thing or the other. I suggest that some doofs who scream about this or that actually travel abroad (and avoid the tours that are set up for North Americans, and, yes, many are), and actually encounter the cultures there.
Holy crap!--they might not be commies.... Yah knooooooow.
Hass,
ReplyDeleteI saw a post from some guy named Rowdy on CBSNews.com reacting to Condi Rice getting grilled by Stanford students over torture.
His comment was that 'Our intelligence services should not be limited in any way in gather information needed to protect this country."
First thought - "Really, so gouging the eyes out of children with hot spoons is ok?" - if not, then, please let us know where the limit is.
My second thought - "Since torture is LESS effective, gets you LESS information, the only limit should be that you cannot use torture because it sucks and LIMITS your information."
But my third one is, "It is ignorant creeps like that which make it possible for Condi Rice to torture people and still not be in jail. My God! ANY MEASURE?! How about gas chambers?" When the right accuses others of 'fascism' it is clearly only to deflect that same criticism rightfully being applied to itself.
ToE, the US has tortured in other eras. We tortured during WWII. Just an example, we captured Nazi soldiers who during he Battle of the Bulge, under orders, executed allied prisoners instead of treating them as POWs. When the survivors of those Nazi units were captured, we tortured them for their confessions, as did the Russians.
ReplyDeleteThe Russians executed their Nazi prisoners afterwards. Ours went through a further series of legal proceedings, where first they were sentenced to death, then to life imprisonment, and finally were released in the 50's. Our courts acted not because the Nazis were not guilty, but because we admitted to having tortured them.
It is unreasonable to assume that we will never behave badly - although we need to try not to do so, obviously. The high ground is also about what we do about it when those lapses happen.
While I don't think it should be an acceptable excuse to follow orders, those lower ranking Nazi soldiers were in the ultimate no-win situation. If they refused an order, they would have been shot and the allied soldiers still would have died.
A provision for refusing an illegal order is essential to any high ground.
DogG,
ReplyDeleteIn truth, the members of Kampfgrouppe Peiper were tortured, but it was not systemic. Clearly, in the heat of battle, or the heat of having newly captured soldiers which you feel have mistreated your friends, or even just the opportunity to exact vengence upon ANYONE for the treatment of your commrades, the risk to a newly captured soldier is VERY high for not just torture, but revenge killing.
The Escape and Evasion classes you take a soldier tell you that the likelyhood of death is inversely proportional to the time of capture, however, the likelyhood of escape is DIRECTLY proportional - meaning, if you're going to escape, you nearly always will do so within the first 24 hours, but any such attempt is pretty likely to get you shot.
Nevertheless, torture in a distressed emotional state is one thing, and yes, Kampfgrouppe Peiper members were tortured, but in reality only the two or three highest ranking officers stood trial, and as you pointed out, all were released in the 50's after serving only a small fraction of what was rightly their due. Peiper was the last released if memory serves.
Nevertheless, systematic, calculated torture by a nation state is a wholely different matter. It doesn't work HALF as well as subversive cooperation techniques, yields highly suspect data, and of course has that teeny tiny side-effect of destroying your soldier's moral sense of self worth AND your national integrity.
It's a fools errand, only pursued by hubris addled idiots. Not (chiefly) because it is morally wrong, but because it's morally wrong WHILE also being a net/net failure against other methods. The idiotic writing today of Charles Krauthammer shows the exact stupidity of it all, his supposition is "suppose someone's life is in jeapordy, what do you do?" Well, assuming I have time, I give them a coke, maybe a cigarrette, a cup of coffee, a donut - I convince them I'm going to treat them well, let them off more easily, help them, etc.. I start asking easy questions, I gauge their response against what I know to be true - and I start tearing away lies - THAT's how you interrogate - and if I don't have time, then MAYBE, as the VERY LAST RESORT, I'll use coercive means - halucinagens, photographic lies, etc.. but that's the thing, it wasn't the last resort, it was the first, which says our leadership was more about ego than national security. If they were worried about security, we'd never be talking about this. What's going on now is just bluster and cover.
There are two pretty good articles over on Wikipedia about both the Malmadey Massacre and the massacre by allied forces of Nazi prisoners in retaliation. It is also a pretty good idea to become familiar wih our treatment of the Japanese during and after WW II who had participated in torture.
ReplyDeleteI learned about it in school; but too few people are familiar with it.
It is worth a read, to understand the very real escalation that takes place in response to mistreatment of an enemy. Somthing to keep in mind when discussing torture.
Perhaps you could link those articles? I'm also at a loss to determine how those past actions by US forces reflect on the current discussion? I never claimed that the US hasn't violated various laws that we consider today to be torture. Our treatment of our own citizens in some cases, (the Japanese Americans for instance) was repugnant.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I believe my earlier statement still stands: the US, by indulging in torture, sanctioned as it now appears by the highest echelons of the US Government, demeaned the US and the men and women who serve our country.
Yes, ToE, torture did certainly demean those in our armed forces who participated.
ReplyDeleteIn bringing up past actions, I sought to correct the impression that we had never previously tortured anyone. That was not true - but we did not condone it afterwards, or sweep it under the rug, as some would have us do now.
Further, the proof that in the past treating prisoners badly has caused subsequent escalation of bad treatment of prisoners - by both sides - argues strongly against the notion that torture makes anyone safer. Quite the opposite.
You can find the Wikipedia article under: Malmedy Massacre. That article has most of the pertinent links in it, so I won't post them here. Another interesting article, not linked under Malmedy massacre, is the one on the War Crimes Act of 1996, which contains links to the Wiki article (fair, not great) on the Geneva Convention.
I defer on that topic to our host here, Penigma. He has a greater depth on the topic than I do.
Hasslington said...
ReplyDeleteThis debate is a joke.
All you have to do is work, live, and pay taxes in another (ally) country and it becomes clear how myopic (in about a half-dozen ways) we are here. >>
I'm not clear on whether you are arguing for or against torture. And as someone who both multilingual and fairly widely traveled in other countries, I have always tried to manage at least a minimal mastery of local languages as part of NOT being 'tourist-y'. There have been a few times when I even relied on being mistaken for a citizen of South Africa rather than an American for my safety.
But I have yet to find any kind of foreign experience that results in a single, consistent opinion, so I don't quite follow your point.
DG - he was arguing against torture, and for that matter, the higher level ignorance question which provides us with all too many citizens who don't get why torture is bad.
ReplyDeletePenigma said:"he was arguing against torture, and for that matter, the higher level ignorance question which provides us with all too many citizens who don't get why torture is bad."
ReplyDeleteI had hoped that was what Hasslington meant, but being relatively new here, didn't want to presume where a meaning was not clear.
Interesting notion, that a lack of global experience, or what I would have thought of as a lack of more cosmopolitan sophistication, increases the support for terrorism. Does being more worldly-wise DEcrease the support of terrorism? I don't know. Certainly broader experience is better than narrow.
Certainly I find a contradiction in those who yell the loudest that they support family values, the value of life, and yet seem to be the first to favor the death penalty despite the demonstrated high number of false convictions, or to favor torture, equally for the innocent and for those not ever tried and found guilty.