Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe adopts what I think is a morally sustainable position on the use of torture. He declares himself against it even if its use were necessary to save a city. Unlike other pundits, Jacoby allows for the possibility that coercive interrogation will work; that it might save the lives of innocent people. He is simply unwilling to pay the moral price that is necessary to save them. Jacoby writes:
On this page a few years ago I wrote several columns arguing that torture was never acceptable – not even “as a last and desperate option” in the war against jihadist terrorism, a war I strongly support. At a time when not only conservative hawks but even some notable liberals were making the case for using torture to thwart Al Qaeda, I contended that the cruel abuse of terrorist detainees was something we could never countenance – not just because torture is illegal, unreliable, and a threat to the innocent, but because it is one of those practices that a civilized society cannot engage in without undermining its right to call itself civilized.
Torture very often does work. When Dick Cheney “urged the CIA to release memos which he says show harsh interrogation techniques such as water-boarding work,” according to the BBC, he did with the certain knowledge that some al-Qaeda members divulged critical information under duress.
“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is that they put out the legal memos… but they didn’t put out the memos that show the success of the effort,” Mr Cheney told Fox News. “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified. I formally ask that they be declassified now.”
But I didn’t need Mr. Cheney to tell me that. When I ran safehouses in the anti-Marcos days the first order of business whenever a cell member was captured by the police was to alert the surviving members, move the safehouse and destroy all links to the captured person. That’s because everyone knew that there was a great probability that the captive would talk under duress, however great his bravery and resistance. Nobody I know, or have heard of who has had experience in real-life situations has ever said, “our cell should continue as usual and the safehouse should remain open, despite the fact that one of our own is being tortured by the secret police, because I read in the New York Times that coercion never works.” The probability is that torture works and for that reason its use constitutes a moral dilemma; and the reason why Jacoby believes he is expressing a noble sentiment when he forswears it even as “a last and desperate option” in the War on Terror.
But there was another oath everyone in the underground tacitly made, which is structurally identical to Jacoby’s own. It went something like this: “I promise never to reveal the whereabouts of my companions to the secret police however brutally they torture me.” We all accepted this charge as a moral statement of intention, without deceit or mental reservation, yet without having the slightest certainty that we could carry it out. And the reason for the uncertainty was simple. Nobody actually knows how long he can last until he’s actually in the situation. Anybody who tells you different is probably a liar or fooling himself. Some will go further — much further — under duress than they think. Others will break right away. But nobody can predict it in advance.
It is not often realized that the oath not to break under torture is very similar to Jacoby’s promise never to use coercion even as “a last and desperate option” against a brutal enemy. Fighting terrorism, like the promise never to break under duress, is a test of how much one can endure without crossing a line. And when fear and survival are stake, I am not sure at all what lines people won’t cross.
How desperate can people be under stress? Kidnapping for ransom is a common occurrence in the Philippines and I’ve received personal requests by some victims to put them in contact with “honest” police officers after they’ve lost touch with kidnappers or after being given the run-around by crooked cops. Desperate people are willing to do anything to recover their child, their husband, their father or mother from the clutches of cruelty or death. The anxiety they feel is inexpressible. You can’t put it into words. Here’s a flavor of what it is like. One victim was the sole support of a dying old woman who was desperate to see her loving son for the last time. Another victim I know about was a beautiful woman in the clutches of Muslim rebels. None, thankfully, were children, though it is very often the children who are kidnapped and held to the phone to plead with their parents.
It is hard to quantify just what will inhibit desperate relatives in these situations. If parents believed they could rescue their children by undergoing water-boarding themselves, let alone by water-boarding the kidnappers, I think many of them would do it in a heartbeat. Just like the oath never to speak under duress, the value of an oath never to cross certain lines, is like a pudding whose proof is not in the undertaking but in the eating. Now I agree with Jacoby that it is moral to refuse to use coercion even as “a last and desperate option”. But just as I myself undertook never to betray my companions under even the worst duress, the question I must ask is how long can you do it? How long can Nancy Pelosi hold out; how long can Barack Obama hold out, if it is not somebody else’s child, but their own children who they could save by waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who when he is not spilling the beans, is laughing in your face?
It is intellectually feasible to argue, as Jacoby did, that we ought not to use torture under any circumstances. In the same spirit, we could undertake not to employ Clinton-era “extraordinary rendition”, to which Guantanamo Bay was actually proposed as a more humane alternative; nor accept information from foreign intelligence agencies which use coercion as a method (any more than you would buy shoes made with child labor); and simply rely on such intelligence gathering methods as meet our moral standards and willingly endure the sacrifices implied. That would be a perfectly moral and consistent position. But I am afraid that morality will shatter in the face of duress; that one day a biological weapon or a dirty nuke might be set off in one or a number of American cities and as the scale of the suffering and carnage becomes clear, that many — including the persons who are now so willing to sit in judgment of the persons who drafted the legal memos which guided Bush administration interrogation policy — will demand the authorities do something, anything, to put a stop to it.
It is one thing to swear that you will not divulge secrets to the Marcos police under any circumstances, while sitting safe in a bolthole, with a .38 in your lap. It’s quite another to say nothing when your interrogator is prying your eyeball out with a penknife. It is one thing to say I won’t use coercive methods even as “a last and desperate option” in the War on Terror, but entirely another matter to maintain that stance when your child is gasping for breath through his anthrax ridden lungs. Anybody who tells you different is probably a liar or fooling himself. Some will go further — much further — under duress than they think. Others will break right away. But nobody can predict it in advance.
There is one sense in which I unreservedly sympathize with Cheney’s request to reveal the “successes” of the coercive interrogation program: we ought to know all the facts before making up our minds about moral stances. We ought to look everything in the face. I find it curious that a society which thinks that the CIA’s destruction of the video record of the water boarding sessions is immoral can simultaneously maintain that showing the video of Daniel Pearl being beheaded is inflammatory or inappropriate. Let’s see it all. They are two sides of the same coin.
I fear that one day, perhaps soon, and perhaps under Barack Obama’s Presidency, that an attack on US soil will be made which will dwarf 9/11 both in destructiveness and brutality. And I predict that when it happens, many of the people who are now baying for the prosecution of Bush era officials will be demanding that they be protected — at all costs. They demand protection not because they are morally inferior, intellectually infirm or ideologically corrupted, but because survival is the first rule of life. Anybody who has gone through a hospital ward and heard the patients, request and then demand their pain medication knows that to the question “how far can you go?”, there is no easy answer. Nobody really knows the meaning of “last and desperate” until he’s been there.
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224 Comments
1. blert:A ‘hospital war’ may be in our future if H bestows single-payer procedures upon the land.
Apr 22, 2009 - 1:38 pm 2. Jbl:I remember how, after 9/11, the fools in hollywood wanted to do their awards shows at military bases because they were afraid of being targets of terrorists.
You could argue that George W. Bush did too good a job of making us feel safe and secure. He did it so well that we now feel morally able to crucify him for it.
Apr 22, 2009 - 1:47 pm 3. Charles:The most cockied thing about this whole discussion is that they have redefined torture to mean anything that causes fear, discomfort or humiliation — which places torture in the same category as hazing or some of the really hairy amusement park rides.
Apr 22, 2009 - 1:53 pm 4. wildernesscalling:At no time in history has “torture” (by the lose meaning of today) not been used by any authorative entity, The sad fact is they can’t even come to a absolute meaning of what “Torture” is in the most advanced culture/society in the worlds history.
Apr 22, 2009 - 1:59 pm 5. wretchard:The more humane the society is the more acceptable brutal methods would be use to stop innocent deaths from the cruelty their murders. Torture is what perpetrators of violent crimes do, Torture is what homicidal maniacs do to their victims and to the victim’s relationships left behind, Torture is what insane megalomaniacs do to those that do not do as they want.
Torture is what a victim goes thru, a murderer (weather directly responsible or part of the planning party) is never a victim and can never be tortured, they are simply being allowed to live long enough to give up the information needed to prevent the further torture of truly real victim’s weather it has already been done or is a future event.
It is possible to keep the Jacoby promise. One of my dad’s friends, who we called “uncle”, after fighting in Bataan joined a guerilla unit in Bulacan, about 60 km north of Manila. One day the Imperial Japanese Army surrounded Calumpit, a town in Bulacan, and lined up the military-age men on the bridge. “Uncle” was in the line, right beside the guerilla unit commander, as a matter of fact. “Uncle” knew because he was the second-in-command.
A Japanese officer was led to the guerilla commander by an informer, who had a straw bag over his head with eye holes cut in it for vision. The Japanese officer took out a katana and said he would he cut him up, little piece by little piece, unless he pointed out his men. And he proceeded to do just that. “Uncle” watched his commander lose all the pieces of his face and his extremities without uttering a word. When telling the story, he told us that it would have been the simplest thing for his commander to point him out, because he standing right next to him. Finally the Japanese officer took out a Nambu and shot the silent guerilla commander in the head. He had betrayed no one, even to the last.
I wish I knew that guerilla officer’s name. Some people, I think, won the Medal of Honor unknown in some ditch, or forgotten on some bridge. And they won the Medal of Honor of the kind that is awarded in some sense to any man who makes it that far for the love of his friends. I’ve often asked myself if I had even a small fraction of the manhood that guerilla officer had. Honestly, I don’t think so. Some of us have it in them. But I think no one knows beforehand.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:10 pm 6. Ken S:Good post Richard. I’ve argued this with several people. And when you ask about if it was their child you usually, if you push enough, get the “of course I would do anything, but that’s just a hypothetical question, and it hasn’t really happened.” Or there’s the, “Of course I’d give in for my child, but that’s why we put people wiser than us in charge.” As if they’d be ok with the president saying, “We’re not torturing even if it would save your kid.”
And a lot of what they describe is not real torture. Not necessarily things you’d do to everybody, but then it wasn’t done to everybody.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:13 pm 7. Bill in NC:When it comes to protecting its people, a government’s legitimacy and claim to sovereignty (exclusivity on the use of force) will have to depend on sucessful results.
What Jacoby’s position fails to account for are the second or third order consequences of the government’s failure to succeed in preventing the loss of a city, when it may well hold the necessary actionable intelligence in the case of suspects in custody. Were the general population to learn that a) the government had suspects; b) who had relevant information about impending attacks; c) declined for abstract moral reasons (I’ll stipulate with Jacoby that these might even be good and desireable reasons) to coercively interogate the suspects; and d) the catastrophic loss of one or more cities results, then as surely as day follows night, the survival instincts of a critical mass of the population will trump Jacoby’s moral position and anyone who looks anything like the suspects will be “screened” out of the neighborhood.
Perhaps a lesser calculus would obtain with lower stakes, but I’m just using Jacoby’s parameters here. A civilization will not abide a govenment monoploy on the use of force if it will not be employed to save the civilization itself.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:15 pm 8. Walt:Jesus, Wretch, that is powerful stuff. I tremble for my country.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:22 pm 9. jjmurphy:I guess I am against torture as I sit here in my comfortable chair, in my air-conditioned house, drinking a nice cold soda and snacking on chips.
Now, tell me that my town will be annihilated in a nuclear blast unless we get some intel from a captured terrorist and I’ll be first in line to torture the hell out of him.
That probably sums up most people. What is that quote?
“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” – Winston Churchill
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:24 pm 10. Gaffe Prices:The enemies of humanity can break every standard, rule, or law regarding the treatment of human beings. The are pardoned in advance of their crimes, because they choose to operate outside the foundations of civilisation they seek to destroy.
The superstitious, the tribal, the primitive all trump any standard of law the enemies of humanity deem heretical.
They force conscription on children. Force them into indoctrination schools, force taliban law against women now in Afghanistan, because the euro-delegation that set it up that way, when they set up the new government there, but contributed paltrily to its liberation, and less so to its security. They wanted it that way: it celebrates diversity.
Lets do what we have to do and cite Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, as justification: Bagman 0bama does, and has for years
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:24 pm 11. Bill in NC:Approaching the question from a somewhat different angle, Mr. Jacoby could have had an interesting discussion with Union General Sherman (circa 1864) or General Patton (or nearly any allied general in WWII). Not for custodial interrogation torture per se, though I have little doubt that a lot of that occurred, but for the more general notion that these wars (to name just two) were prosecuted with very little regard -especially toward the end — for “innocent” civilian sensibilities. Whole regions of the American South, as well as France and Germany, Holland, were levelled in furtherance of war aims.
When the stakes get high enough, war cannot be made pretty. but the record suggests that in time, “civilization” does reassert its norms.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:33 pm 12. Gaffe Prices:Oh, and btw, House of Rep’s d’himms were briefed 20 times on interrogation techniques, and some said- “Is that all?” And pushed for more, ‘creative’, shall we say, solutions.
If administration officials are indicted, will they be able to subpoena House representatives responsible for formulation of interrogation techniques? In the cherry picked, kangaroo courts picked by terrorist liberator Jeffrey Holder? (FALN terrorists pardoned by Holders recommendation to Clinton admin. (FALN terrorists, filed no applications for pardon, it was a first in the history of pardon’s: some even refused to leave prison))
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:44 pm 13. Standing in the Shadows:The argument against torture is not so much a moral stance as it is a moral wager. It’s a bet that we can both keep our hands clean and not suffer any significant loss while doing so. If we abstain from torture and there are no terrorist attacks on our soil, then the bet is won. If we abstain from torture and we are attacked on a 9/11 scale or smaller, the best is lost but the losses may be acceptable as the cost of morality. However, if we abstain from torture and terrorist successfully launch a massive attack (such as using a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon,) not is the wager lost but the losses may be so great to dwarf the moral gains and, quite possibly, open up other moral options that are currently unthinkable.
The reason why we are fighting the GWOT(tm) is not only to prevent another attack on US soil, but to also keep this fight from escalating and make sure those unthinkable options remain unthinkable.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:53 pm 14. Benj:The justifiers seem to have moved from “We don’t/didn’t torture” a la Bush’s famous statement to “Torture is necessary/effective”…Saw the extreme version of that from Bush’s speechwriter Thiessen in the Post today who claimed the waterboarding saved L.A. Definitively debunked in Slate here?
http://www.slate.com/id/2216601/
Mclatchy is reporting that KSM and Zub were waterboarded dozens of times in part because and Dick and Rummy were desperate to get word on (non-existent) operational connections between Baathists and Qaeda…
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:54 pm 15. Gordon:I’ve been a fan of Jacoby but the first morality is survival against enemies and protection of self and loved ones, especially children.
Those who proclaim to follow a higher morality than this are usually the first to go, unless of course it’s their child who’s in peril, as suggested above. It’s simply feel-good self-flattery to say otherwise.
The person who intends you harm is the one in the wrong; he’s given up any ‘right’ to your morality and the government that fails to try to protect its citizens gives up no ‘right to call itself civilized’; it gives up the right to call itself a government. Civilizations have the same duty toward self-protection as individuals. A civilization is the collective culture of a mass of individuals and for the same reason needs protecting.
To refuse to use the means necessary is narcissism and self-important posturing, a flaw your enemies don’t have.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:54 pm 16. Herb:JJ @ 9 I think that was Orwell
Part of the calculus of this decision is the part that the moral narcissism of the decisionmaker takes in the process. Given a preener like St Jimma or what the current Dear Leader seems to be like, it is entirely possible that he can not be pushed to allow rough measures and will prosecute those who ignore his order.
I suspect that there are people who will say devil take the hindmost and do what needs doing despite the Orders of the National Command Authority.
But that so complicates a really simple mission; to keep this nation safe. Complications in missions cause failure (see Delta in the Desert – All services, no common comms or even hand signals) As the threat is as defined (bio, nuke) there is no error margin. They only need to be lucky once.
As was said the country’s in the very best of hands.
Christ have mercy.
Apr 22, 2009 - 2:59 pm 17. winslow:“Torture” is an indefinite term which is farther down the scale from “reprimand” and “hard close.” The preservation of a society is necessarily of more importance than noble ideals. Otherwise, there are no noble ideals. If Jacoby’s noble ideals were to rule his society, it would not survive. Which pains me both because I admire Jacoby and because I share his society.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:01 pm 18. Topics about Barack-obama » Blog Archive » Terrorism and moral torture:[...] Belmont Club placed an interesting blog post on Terrorism and moral tortureHere’s a brief overviewJeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe adopts what I think is a morally sustainable position on the use of torture. He declares himself against it even if its use were necessary to save a city. Unlike other pundits, Jacoby allows for the possibility that coercive interrogation will work; that it might save the lives of innocent people. He is simply unwilling to pay the moral price that is necessary to save them. Jacoby writes: On this page a few years ago I wrote several columns arguing that tort [...]
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:04 pm 19. jjmurphy:Herb – #16 Very true. As I searched for the quote I discovered it was attributed to quite a few people, Orwell included. I figured I would pick the Churchill one. What the heck. It is a great and true quote, whoever said it, and very appropriate for the overall torture discussion.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:09 pm 20. aaron:A quote comes to mind:
We don’t know who we are, until we find out what we can do.
Does anyone know the source? Or did I get it from a fortune cookie…
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:10 pm 21. Unsk:The Geneva conventions were set up to “civilize” warfare. Those who don’t play by the rules should not get its protections. Period.
Is it immoral to save lives of innocents when one has the chance?
Is it moral to choose not to save lives when you have the chance, because of some silly leftwing definition of torture?
I think not. Is that not a sin of omission to choose not to save lives because of one’s own vanity? Are those who protect the terrorist with their sanctimonious perverse morals not an accomplice to the terror?
Isn’t Jeff Jacoby another of the left’s phony hypocritical moralists, who are willing to let thousands die by the hands of a Saddam or Terrorists like the Taliban, but who claim the moral high ground for themselves supposedly to save the life of a murdering terrorist who will only kill again?
Warfare is never pretty, or safe or civilized in the end. It is only right that those called on to protect, sacrifice and fight need to be given the weapons necessary to protect. We can try to civilize war amongst civilized parties, but when dealing with the grotesque terror of Al Qaeda, tougher measures are necessary. I don’t remember a commandment ” thou shall not torture” . I do remember ” Love thy neighbor as thy self”. That command involves choosing what is the most humane and loving, and is particularly difficult when the choices are all inhumane and bad. These choices of treatment are not easily resolved in these days of terror, and certainly should not be left to hypocrites of the pacifist first left or sickos like Obama.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:21 pm 22. MG:Mr. Jacoby is entitled to the equation of civilization with “no torture”. I don’t share it. I am civilized, but I also know that the dark powers of Man beat in my heart, just as they do in all.
Torture? Sure, depending on why and how. Does that make me somehow less “civilized”?
If my position damns me, then I am damned. If I am thus to live a justly damned life, then I would console myself knowing that innocent will live, who otherwise would have unjustly died.
The mantle of Isaiah’s “suffering servant” is a mantle that all can bear.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:28 pm 23. NahnCee:It must be a lack in my own moral upbringing, but I simply do not understand why we can’t do the same thing to them as they do to us.
If jihadists are poking holes in people with drills then we should be allowed to poke holes in jihadists with drills.
If jihadists are beheading people, then we should be allowed to (slowly) behead jihadists.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
It makes no sense to me to not only invite these people into our country as visitors or as students or as immigrants, but then when they *do* do something bad, not to reply in the same language.
Somehow in the United States of America, we hide behind the thought that Bubba in Cell Block C will make it all better by raping who-ever we can get it together to actually convict and incarcerate. But really, why are we depending upon Bubba to be the arbiter of justice and retribution?
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:29 pm 24. Armeggedon Rex:An Infantryman’s / Field Operatives definition of torture:
Can the interrogation technique be reasonably expected to leave scars or otherwise cause some form of permanent damage?
If so, it is torture. Don’t do it!
Otherwise, it isn’t! Use some common sense and watch out for each other. Even good people may start to enjoy making the dirtbag who just maimed their buddy suffer! You aren’t supposed to be in it for your jollies. The mission comes first!
The hand held Taser is your friend, and Tabasco sauce has other uses than making MREs palatable.
It doesn’t sound to me like anything done at club Gitmo really constituted torture….
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:30 pm 25. pharmaguy:The expression “War is Hell” comes to mind.
I think we all know the difference between gratuitous sadism and the need to get valuable information to prevent disaster or to protect troops in battle. The Catholic Church debated and defined the terms of a just war. But even a just war is hellish. Jeff Jacoby is a fool if he sees a moral equivalence between keeping his hands and conscience clean and the death of hundreds or thousands. I hope his children, should he have any, don’t find out how cheaply he values their lives. We sleep soundly at night because there are those willing to do violence in our names to keep up safe. I am grateful to those whom Jacob would call evil and criminal. Jacoby is naive, self rightous fool.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:32 pm 26. E. Nigma:I think that whenever we start to refer to what Khalid Sheik Mohammed endured as “torture”, then we have already lost half the argument.
I have not been apprised of all the interrogation techniques used against those captured, non-uniformed combatants, but how much of it was just that: harsh or intensive interrogation, and how much was real “torture”?
Torture seems to excite the voyeur in some people who are critical of the whole excercise (not Jeff Jacoby), as they revel in the sadism that seems to dwell in the souls of some people, and enjoy their temporary moral superiority.
And if KSM was badly treated, what to do with him now? Pay him off and let him go with a pat on his head? And how about his nephew, Ramsi Yusef, now in a supermax prison for his crimes? These men, and men like them, are not “animals”, but cunning, dangerous, amoral men who would not hesitate to kill again if given the chance. There is probably no limit to the crimes they would commit if given the chance. And yet, we are forbidden to make moral judgements about how they are treated?
Harshly interrogating 12 year old school girls for the names of their friends they text? Ridiculous and sadistic.
Harshly interrogating grown men that have plotted the murder of thousands, and would do it again? Necessary.
Can’t we tell the difference?
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:36 pm 27. Cooldog:Wretchard said: “the people who are now baying for the prosecution of Bush era officials will be demanding that they be protected — at all costs. They demand protection not because they are morally inferior, intellectually infirm or ideologically corrupted, but because survival is the first rule of life.”
Because their actions will cause greater death and destruction and suffering of innocents, I contend that people who are now baying for the prosecution of Bush era officials indeed do it *because* they are morally inferior, intellectually infirm or ideologically corrupted. Or possibly all three at once.
Does anyone here think I’m too harsh in this judgement?
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:38 pm 28. Habu:In the last thread I promised to pass along any intel that I might get regarding whatever. Several threads ago I outlined what happened to the CIA during and after the Pike and Chruch televised hearings on CIA activities. I mentioned “ THE MEMO,/B> and it’s chilling effects on the agency.
Well one thing I did not mention was the tremendous loss of HUMINT we suffered. Well I’ve been informed today that another MEMO of ‘go get your own lawyer is circulating at CIA.
I also learned that by the dozens, assets we have developed in the ME at a very high price are doing what happened in the 1970’s after the hearings. They are simply walking away, disappearing after hearing that Congress is once more considering open investigations.
So there you have it. obama has managed to destroy in his first 100 days our financial system, what was left of our laissez faire economy, reduce military expenditures and assault our intelligence apparatus. He is a clear and present danger.
On the matter of torture. Once again I’ll be happy to employ the word naive to those who believe it doesn’t work. It may not work on the first guy, or the second or third, but as word gets out of true horrors awaiting those who do not cooperate then it becomes very effective. In becoming effective and as a check it is much like a lawyer never asking a question in court he doesn’t already know the answer to…if guy number nine starts to spill the beans you ask him questions you know the answers to as a means of testing his veracity. It’s far from foolproof but torture is an art form and can be very,very effective. As far as morality coming into play in the question I personally think applying “morality standards” that are far from universal is hogwash. To my mind,morality in war is a question best left to G-d. In the interim it is your moral duty to WIN. There is no substitute for victory.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:40 pm 29. Jim Nicholas:Richard,
Your humility, even after all of your experience, humbles me. I wish more of us were less certain and absolute in our judgment about the subject.
Of the scores of articles and commentaries I have read about torture, yours is the most powerful and rings the truest.
Thank you,
Jim
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:41 pm 30. exhelodrvr:Torture is not OK, but firebombings and nuclear weapons are? Inconsistent.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:43 pm 31. Habu:“Jacoby allows for the possibility that coercive interrogation will work; that it might save the lives of innocent people. He is simply unwilling to pay the moral price that is necessary to save them.”
And whose morality is Mr. Jacoby applying?
It is unbelieveably narcissistic for him to say he would allow thousands or millions to perish for a philosophical and religious concept to keep his conscious pristine.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:48 pm 32. davod:The next step will be the release into the US population of ratbags no-one else will take.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:49 pm 33. Maetenloch:I recall reading in ‘Escape and Evasion’ by Ian Dear that during WWII in europe, it was generally accepted that any allied agents captured by the German abwehr would eventually talk. But the expectation was that they would hold out for at least 12-24 hours to give the rest of the cell members time to escape. Many didn’t talk at all even at the cost of their lives.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:51 pm 34. whiskey:Wretchard —
I take issue with your post on a number of parts.
First, it is IMHO IMMORAL to suppose that an Elite’s moral vanity (which is all that it is) of a man like Jacoby who faces (he fancies) no real threats or threats to his family, to his own preening sense of moral superiority over that of the lives of his fellow country-men, who are lower on the economic and social scale.
After all, no celebrity, Big Shot, or tragically hip newspaper columnist ever died on 9/11.
Second, Jacoby and Obama are both HOPING for an attack. They hope and pray that several will come on the scale of Madrid and London. That they may institute the abolishment of the First and Second Amendments, for Obama make Islam and Sharia law of the land, and submit to Islam so that the submission might destroy their REAL enemies: the White working/middle class.
It is likely however that there will be either a wave of attacks drumbeat like Bombay, day after day, with the CIA, FBI, and every other agency not doing ANYTHING because they won’t trust Liberals and the Elite and the President to punish them afterward. Since punishment for stopping further 9/11’s is already in the works.
And if not a drumbeat of attacks, several cities vanishing in a nuclear cloud.
Now, you are dead wrong about what the Jacobys and Obama’s would do. They would welcome the attacks, and celebrate them as punishment for America’s and the White Working/Middle class sins. They did so after 9/11 and there is no reason to think they’d change. After all, even if NYC vanished in a nuclear blast from their view it would take most of those working class White guys from Queens and Brooklyn with them and that’s always been their aim. Jacoby no less than Obama hates the White Working/Middle Class and wants them dead, dead, DEAD.
What is likely to happen is not the elite demanding things but the PEOPLE. And the people are a sledgehammer. The people in fear and desperation, knowing they were betrayed by the elites in alliance with Muslims, will come to one conclusion: for themselves to survive, Muslims and the Elites most both DIE. All of them. Every one. From the lowest Jihadi scum to the nice, kind urbane Management Professor at my University. All one billion plus Muslims, and all of the Elites. From Katie Couric to Keith Olberman to John Stewart to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Them too.
There will be some man on the White Horse. He might be Ron Paul (God Help Us). SHE might be Sarah Palin (let’s hope). Or Petraeus. Or someone like him. But there will be someone, who will part of a populist coup, who will lead a “TOTAL WAR” ala the Pacific 1941-45 against ALL MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE. IT will be a war of people against people, with the aim to exterminate the other people. With all resources mobilized, nationally, and nothing spared. Just as in WWII. It will be Nuclear. It will be biological. It will be chemical. It will be other things as well perhaps. Rods from God and whatever other nightmare can be dreamt up.
Because that will be the only thing left to do for SURVIVAL. And it will be the PEOPLE not the elites who will drive survival.
I have feared this for years after 9/11. The people are a sledgehammer not a scalpel.
Obama’s dream is to turn the US into a Sharia-lite nation like the UK or Spain, after a “light” series of attacks he is doing his best (as a not very secret Muslim) to enable. He’s rolling the dice big. Gambling on his ability to talk his way out of anything even if US cities start dying. IMHO, the latter or a series of unstoppable mega-attacks amounting to the same will have a coup in place by a desperate and ANGRY people who know they’ve been betrayed.
Regardless, Jacoby and Obama will both never call for protection. They hate Americans and America as much as Jihadis do.
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:54 pm 35. Armeggedon Rex:Habu 30:
With respect sir, Jacoby is a yellow bellied coward.
Yet another example of a sanctimonious “progressive” twit.
He is aware of the awful price others may pay for his failure to do what must be done, but he still won’t find the courage to take responsibility….evidently, for anything, yet he will attempt to shame the people who have the balls to protect him.
If he doesn’t like the way we’re protecting western civilization, perhaps he should give it a try, personally.
Yes, I know how judgmental all that sounds.
I’m a perfect example of a sanctimonious “reactionary” twit.
Whiskey:
Scary….very frightening. If you weren’t on DHS’s list yet (fat chance), I think you made it with that comment!
Apr 22, 2009 - 3:59 pm 36. Triton'sPolarTiger:As much as I’ve enjoyed Jacoby over the years, I must disagree with his stance here. He’s got it precisely backwards.
Western civilization, especially as we enjoy it in the United States, is truly a gift from God. Now, if you’re a Libtard reading this, gleefully rubbing your hands together as you prepare to type out for me a litany of the West’s sins, don’t bother, because I’m not listening to such trash. Even in the Age of Obama (spit), we live in a land of amazing freedom and opportunity when compared to every other time in human history. Charitable giving, even in tough times (and you’ve all seen the numbers), dwarfs that of those who sit in other places and look down their faux aristocratic noses at us. Ours is a kind and gentle society, deserving of our best efforts to preserve it.
The height of nobility is NOT found by refusing to stoop to the level of our enemies to preserve what we have. What we have is such an amazing thing, that the only truly noble course available to us when our very existence is threatened, is TO DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO PRESERVE IT.
If we allow this incredible opportunity that God has blessed us with, one that millions of men and woman have built upon with the essence of their very lives, to go quietly into the night… well… then we never deserved it in the first place…
Allowing such a wonderful inheritance to pass from this planet, rather than fight to preserve it to the day when the entire globe has been brought into its sunny embrace, ISN’T NOBLE. IT’S EVIL.
This sort of thinking is an express lane to the Three Conjectures realized in our time.
For the sake of all that’s good and true, stand up people! NO MORE!!!!
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:03 pm 37. NahnCee:While we’re all feeling sorry for the CIA, aren’t these the same dudes who leaked Bush to death over the past 8 years while he was trying to kill terrorists and protect us?
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:06 pm 38. Armeggedon Rex:NahnCee 36:
I’ll let Habu go into detail if he feels so inclined, but you must realize the CIA is a HUGE organization. Because of compartmentalization, very often the left hand doesn’t know everything (or sometimes anything) the right hand is doing. There have been a series of “walls” between field ops and most of the analysts who have lunch pals at the Washington Post and Grey Whore for decades. The Agency folks risking their asses both covertly and openly in the Middle East on a daily basis are quite a different breed than the seditious bastards who undermined Bush.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:13 pm 39. sgi:To understand positions I often have to reduce them to their smallest equivalence.
If my son was a victim of a kidnapping and a member of the gang who had kidnapped him was caught but refused to cooperate with police, I would want the police to torture him to get the information that they needed to retrieve my son. I would also be willing to do it myself, even if I had to break the law and suffer the consequences.
I don’t think there is a moral equivalence between a terrorist and the lives of innocent men, women and children that a government has pledged to protect. To not do what must be done to save millions of lives in order to spare one life some temporary discomfort and fear is repugnant.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:16 pm 40. Martin McPhillips:My position is that in the hands (the mind, really) of a terrorist information is the weapon, and that moral defense of the country requires you to take that weapon away from him. Recall that any terrorist is a criminal in the act of attacking civilians. With terror the criminal conspiracy to commit murder is always in furtherance. This is asymmetrical warfare, not the warfare of clashing armies with uniforms and insignias and true military objectives. A captured terrorist who holds information is holding his weapon at the heads of civilians. You disarm him any way you can.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:18 pm 41. Sgt. Mom:About three years ago, I wrote the following, about hard choices in hard places that are forced upon people, and how you can never tell in advance what anyone will do in extremis. Dear little Mr. Jacoby, of the serenely clear conscience, floating above it all! So many other people dead – but his conscious is clear. How very cavalier he is, with other peoples’ lives!
Sometime in 2006, I wrote at the Daily Brief – “… it’s all about what you’ll give up, when someone points a gun at you. And as to what you’ll do in that circumstance, the truth of it is no one really knows what they would do. All we know is that other people have done, in some analogous situation. And some of those people have been most amazingly brave, have exhibited a degree of heroism and moral clarity that approaches – well something beyond what we have come to think of as merely human. And some people have been craven, and most of the rest of us have muddled through, and the great unifying principal of this kind of moral score-keeping is that one really never knows for sure, until one has actually faced the experience.
A story, from the Warsaw Ghetto, c1942-43: a party of German soldiers, SS or Gestapo, or whatever, amuse themselves by going into the Ghetto and make sport with the Jewish prisoners in it (and they were prisoners by the time of this story) by going to a coffee-shop next to a synagogue, rounding up the patrons and holding them at gun-point, while they ransack the synagogue and bring out the Torah. One by one and at gunpoint, they order each of the coffee-shop patrons to desecrate the Torah. One by one, each of them does: old-fashioned devout Jew, or modern and secular intellectual, young or old, each of the coffee-shop patrons does what they are bidden to do by the men who are holding guns at their heads, who have given every indication that they will shoot any Jew who refuses. Shamed, unthinking, embarrassed or otherwise, the coffee shop patrons do as they are bidden by the men who hold guns at their heads. Until they get to the one man, who is neither devout, nor intellectual – but he is modern, in that he is a notorious gangster, and has been for most of his life. A bad hat, a criminal, a dissolute menace, a frequent and enthusiastic violator of the laws of man and God – and when in his turn he is ordered to desecrate the Torah, he looks at them calmly and says, “I’ve done many things in my life – but I won’t do that.” He is immediately executed, at point-blank range. Alone of all the cafe patrons, he had an idea of what he wouldn’t do – and something innate led him to refuse, absolutely.
So, what would any of us give up at the point of a gun? Wallet, or handbag – absolutely. PIN? For sure. We’ve been told over and over, those are only things. You notify the bank and put a stop on the cards, get a replacement drivers’ license. All that stuff, sure, they can be replaced. Car keys? Jewelry ? Yeah, those too. That’s what insurance is for.
Slightly tougher question: They point a gun at you and say – “Give us the kid.” Or maybe “I’m taking the woman.” Or maybe, if you are a women, the person with the gun ties your hands and says “Don’t make a fuss.” Do you give them the kid, or the woman, or come along without making a fuss?
Now, the big question: what intangibles would you give up, under threat of violence, civil, nuclear or whatever?
We’ve already seen how swiftly most of our legacy media, newspapers and television stations quickly redefined intellectual freedom, in the wake of the Affair of the Danish Cartoons. The swiftness with which they capitulated to threats of violence if the cartoons were published , after decades of posing as fearless champions of the public’s right to know at any price was revealing. And cause for some dismay, for we are left to wonder what other concessions might be extorted in future by a nuclear threat – and that some of our most cherished traditions, principals, laws and allies would be yielded up with dispiriting speed by those whom we had expected to show a little more spine.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:31 pm 42. vb:Jim Nicholas said exactly whar I was thinking. This post is one of the most honest and humble things I have read in a long time. Thank you, Wretchard.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:32 pm 43. Cincinnatus:Mr. Jacoby, suppose you lost your two front teeth, would you undergo a painful procedure to have then restored?
“Yes.”
Mr. Jacoby, if you could be tortured the place of a terrorist so that information could be had, would you?
“Uh, no.”
So it’s more important that Jacoby not be tortured then a terrorist. And Jacoby’s two front teeth are more important then a city.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:40 pm 44. Barnabus:A very thought provoking post, thank you for sharing it.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:44 pm 45. RWE:Perhaps the most chilling thing about an absolute “no torture” stance is what it implies. Such an individual is almost certain to also be against the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – despite the fact that it no doubt saved millions of lives, most of whom were Japanese. And they are also likely to conclude that the non-nuclear bombing of other Japanese cities, which killed far more people, were also morally indefensible. To them, we should have beaten Japan and then just walked away – and have to fight another war a generation later.
Modern Leftism is not a belief system but instead a trendy designer bag in which they cart around their latest modern trendy ideas. The outrage over torture is one of these. They would rather have their beliefs than face what sometimes has to be done – they are first and above all, selfish.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:48 pm 46. Habu:34. Armeggedon Rex:
Hey I’m with ya. I don’t read the guy but our hosts thread position did not square with what I know and he preicated his opening with a moral position he thought was defensible as posed by Mr Jacoby. I din’t need to read any more.
Actually I agree with Whiskey and believe that culling 100 million Islams from the Earth would have a very salutary effect on the world as a whole.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:52 pm 47. Lucy:I believe Jacoby considers himself a Jew. In what way would that be? He apparently doesn’t know anything about the teachings of Judaism. Life is valuable. You must do everything you can to protect it. If someone threatens life, you do everything you can to prevent them fulfilling their goals. A terrorist’s life is not more valuable than the life of a child, or a mother, or a grandmother, or a farmer or a….Duh.
Apr 22, 2009 - 4:55 pm 48. Habu:36. NahnCee: 37. Armeggedon Rex
NahnCee you’re right. No doubt the leakers were the residue of the Carter and Clinton years. As you are aware it’s just a big game to those sitting in the easy chairs. It’s life and death in the field but they never get there and could care less in most cases. They just want the power. Not a blanket indictment but true enough for the real world.
AR, You are correct as bove I pointed out what you already stated. CIA is highly compartmentalized and even within diffferent Directorates huge battles are waged..or at least use to be and I imagine the ego’s are still on par with what I dealt with.
That is why I finally left in 83. Carter and the Democrats had made the world a more dangerous place, I’d done my duty and that was that.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:03 pm 49. Habu:“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” – Winston Churchill…
George Orwell not Churchill.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:05 pm 50. RDS:Don’t forget this case of “torture” from Germany in 2003 (from the NYTimes):
The two most important facts of the case were readily accepted today by the prosecution and the defense as the trial of a 27-year-old law student named Magnus Gäfgen opened in a standing-room-only courtroom here.
The first fact is this: on Sept. 27, Mr. Gäfgen kidnapped Jakob von Metzler, the 11-year-old son of a prominent banker, and murdered him by wrapping his mouth and nose in duct tape.
Four days later, Mr. Gäfgen was arrested after the police watched him picking up the ransom, but after hours of interrogation he was still refusing to disclose where Jakob was being kept.
That is what produced the second undisputed fact: imagining that Jakob’s life might be in imminent danger, the deputy police chief of Frankfurt, Wolfgang Daschner, ordered subordinates to extract the necessary information from Mr. Gäfgen by threatening to torture him.
Mr. Gäfgen was told, his lawyer later said, that ”a specialist” was being flown to Frankfurt by helicopter and that he would ”inflict pain on me of the sort I had never before experienced.”
A few minutes after being threatened, Mr. Gäfgen told the police where Jakob was — at a lake in a rural area near Frankfut — but when officers arrived there they discovered that Jakob, his body wrapped in plastic, was already dead.
The murder, involving a member of one of this country’s oldest and best-known families, horrified Germany and obsessed the media for weeks.
But in the months and weeks leading up to the trial, it has not been so much the murder itself but the police resort to the threat of torture that has aroused intense and heated debate about means and ends: whether the case against Mr. Gäfgen should be dismissed because the police themselves broke the law, or whether in this particular case a resort to torture was justified.
One answer was given at least partially in court today when the presiding judge, Hans Bachl, denied a defense motion to dismiss the case. But Judge Bachl did agree with one demand of Mr. Gäfgen’s defense, ruling that because of the torture threat, all the information that the police obtained from Mr. Gäfgen himself was inadmissible.
But the case also involves broad questions about when procedures created to prevent abuses of power become hindrances to justice. Certainly some here, including the deputy police chief, Mr. Daschner, have argued that under the circumstances, it would have been immoral to fail to threaten Mr. Gäfgen with torture.
”I can just sit on my hands and wait until maybe Gäfgen eventually decides to tell the truth and in the meantime the child is dead,” Mr. Daschner said in one of several interviews he has given to the German press, ”or I do everything I can now to prevent that from happening.”
German law clearly forbids torture, though it seems to allow for some instances in which it can be used.
The criminal code and the Constitution explicitly forbid the use of force or the threat of force against a suspect. But there is also a provision to cover what is called ”a life-threatening danger,” when the police can ”overstep the legally protected interests of the person affected.”
Interior Minister Otto Schily said in an interview with the newspaper Die Zeit that there could be no ‘’softening” of the rules prohibiting torture.
”If we begin to relativize the ban on torture,” he said, ”then we are putting ourselves back in the darkest Middle Ages and risk putting all of our values into question.”
But when asked whether the ban on torture is absolute and should apply even when the life of a child might be at stake, Mr. Schily said: ”The police official in Frankfurt did not have any bad intentions when he made his threat. He was acting out of concern for the child, and that is honorable.”
Those who have criticized Mr. Daschner include Amnesty International and members of the Greens, the leftist partner in the national coalition government, but also legal specialists and professors.
”The most insidious aspect of the introduction of torture in a criminal case is not that it will crush its victims,” Michael Pawlik, a law professor in Rostock, said. ”It’s that the knowledge it might be used threatens to destroy confidence in the integrity of the rule of law.”
But in the courtroom today, some spectators muttered, ”Incredible,” and ”How many rights does he want for this guy?” as Mr. Gäfgen’s lawyers presented their case for dismissal.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:06 pm 51. RDS:Of course, to me, deputy police chief Wolfgang Daschner deserves a medal.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:10 pm 52. jjmurphy:Habu:
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
* Alternative: “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”
* In his 1945 “Notes on Nationalism”, Orwell claimed that the statement, “Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf” was a “grossly obvious” fact. “Notes on Nationalism”
* Notes: allegedly said by George Orwell although there is no evidence that Orwell ever wrote or uttered either of these versions of this idea. They do bear some similarity to comments made in an essay that Orwell wrote on Rudyard Kipling, when quoting from one of his poems. Orwell did write, in his essay on Kipling, that the latter’s “grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.” (1942)
o “Yes, making mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep” – Rudyard Kipling (Tommy)
o “I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it.” – Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men)
* Alternative: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” – Winston Churchill (miscellaneous quotation, no date)
I don’t care who said it, it is still a great quote!
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:13 pm 53. RWE:ExHelo #29: Yes, my point exactly. Where do you stop if one man can’t be tortured? The answer is that you stop at one man.
Triton#35: You make a very good point. This is not our civilization to give away. No free man lives and dies in vain, in the words of Tom Paine “Everyone’s mite is in that mass” but they would all have lived and died in vain if we let it all go.
Habu#46: But regardless who said it, Jacoby essentially argues that having rough men do rough things is unacceptable to him so he does not want it done. And unfortunately, we can’t cut him loose in a rowboat and let him take his chances without us. Just as the city fathers of Cambridge, MA voted themselves as a nuclear free zone in the 80’s, they could at the same time be sure that Charleston SC, and Minot ND, and Yuba City CA and a host of other places that played home to our nuclear forces would nonetheless protect their sorry pacifist asses.
Like I said. They are selfish.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:18 pm 54. Annoy Mouse:In the movie, “Body of Lies” the head of Jordanian intelligence says in reference to somebody being ‘tortured’, “we do not torture, he is being punished”.
The term body of lies tends to fold around itself.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:36 pm 55. Tom Holsinger:Well said, Richard. Lefties play sanctimonious games here. Few, if any, would let their children or spouses die rather than use torture. Only the real old-style pacifists had that sort of courage.
http://www.donaldsensing.com/2003_02_01_archive.html#90317403
“… The true roots of pacifist theology lie in individual salvation – the objection to war is not so much that war is evil but that it is evil to kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it. People should refrain from killing other people to save their own souls, not to save others or to make society better. True religious pacifists deem any killing or use of force by themselves as a mortal threat to their own souls because they might be mistaken about the moral consequences of such acts. Use of force is wrong in its own right as well as being the start of a slippery slope which might lead to killing.
So religious pacifists won’t use any force at all, let alone kill, to save their own souls. The early history of the Brethren in America included one ghastly Indian massacre in which most of a German village in Pennsylvannia was hacked down while lined up and praying, en mass, “Gott mit uns” (God is with us) over and over. The survivors high-tailed it east to the protection of the “English” militia.
It was a tough world. Holsingers and other Brethren came here because the penalty for refusing conscription in many German states was the murder of one’s children. My grandmother told me folk stories about 17th-18th century soldiers crying while turning baby carriages over so they wouldn’t have to look at the babies’ faces while running them through with bayonets.
… IMO a distinction should be drawn between religious and philosophical objections to war and killing. The latter’s objective is always improving this world. Old-style religious pacifism/objections to war focus on getting to the next world; their concern is their personal salvation. Since about 1965 a lot of people with so-called religious objections to war have equated religion with philosophy – they don’t see a difference, but there is one. They think spirituality is the same as salvation. Attitudes towards personal responsibility have a lot to do with this.
It is easy to refute the opinions of those whose pacifism and/or objections to war are based on this world. It is much more difficult, if not impossible, to refute such when it is based on personal salvation as that is a matter of personal faith, but those people are really rare even in my church.
I personally doubt it is possible to justify pacifism or objections to war based on this world.”
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:36 pm 56. john lynch:Torture is a good example of how verbal people fool themselves. You construct a good, self-serving argument, then collect evidence. Then you ignore the contrary evidence. Voila! You can create an argument that can convince people despite being complete bullshit.
I think it’s still only effective because we live in a free country. An Egyptian or a Russian would never believe it, because the reality exists in living memory.
Reality is a harsh place, and we’re always trying to escape.
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:39 pm 57. Pajamas Media » Terrorism and Moral Torture:[...] the entire story here [...]
Apr 22, 2009 - 5:40 pm 58. Thrasymachus:No, it is not a moral position. I can’t say suicide is immoral- if Jacoby decides his life is not worth living and wants to kill himself I can’t really say he shouldn’t. But he cannot demand other people commit suicide.
The first rule of morality is survival. A moral system that doesn’t permit its adherent to survive is unacceptable. The idea that a moral system proves its superiority by being disadvantageous to its holder, by proving it is not self interested, is just dumb. What is in one’s own self interest is generally moral.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:02 pm 59. Carl Sesar:Inveterate liar and con man Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, is a firm believer in torture, whatever he may say. His holier-than-thou stance is a splinter of bamboo in the brains of his victims to inhibit their instinct of self-preservation, while he sets genocidal maniacs free to murder and rampage all over again. There isn’t a moral bone in his body.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:11 pm 60. Oscar the Grump:This is an example of what we are up against. Torture would be justified to prevent this
http://www.flurl.com/video/38192563_grafic_beheading_by_taliban.htm
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:12 pm 61. Gaffe Prices:#27 Habu:
If its detainee #9 who starts spilling the beans merely because its the threat of torture that causes him the most “fear, dicomfort, and humiliation”( #3 Charles) …
Then with that newly updated intel you can work on the other detainee’s and get them to cough up, because now you can game them with their own plans, again without torture.
#47 RDS:
again, it’s even the very threat of torture that causes the most outrage (in the west), As though as a result of narcissism, and latent solipsism, one can only imagine the imagined tortures being done to themselves.
As another pointed out, once you get the critics off their high-minded [abstract] principles i.e. with threat’s to their children, will they concede the importance of efficient techniques (not always involving torture, but with the threat of torture), but only just barely.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:13 pm 62. jimpres:Yes, the question is what if there kids were threatened and the person who knows something to keep them safe won’t talk. What do the people against getting the info do. Army field manual. Get a lawyer. We ruined the CIA via Jimmy Carter and now Obama is going to do the same thing the wonder why we can’t get good human intelligence. I’m sure our enemies are licking there chops.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:21 pm 63. one of my own:Since we executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American soldiers, were we wrong then or are we wrong now?
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:25 pm 64. Joshua:Thrasymachus, #56: The first rule of morality is survival. A moral system that doesn’t permit its adherent to survive is unacceptable. The idea that a moral system proves its superiority by being disadvantageous to its holder, by proving it is not self interested, is just dumb. What is in one’s own self interest is generally moral.
Slightly OT, but two things occur to me about strictly pacifist religion:
1) In the event of an attack, it provides its follower(s) and their attacker(s) with a perverse sort of win-win scenario: By not acting to protect oneself, a pacifist gives his attacker what he wants (to kill the pacifist), but the pacifist himself also gets what he wants (a one-way ticket to heaven).
2) Its followers have a vested real-world self-interest in laws disarming or otherwise dissuading non-pacifists from fighting in self-defense. If the law permits acting in self-defense, law-abiding non-pacifists are free to do so but religious pacifists still are not, lest they invite moral reproach in this life and damnation in the next. Even the dumbest would-be criminals would quickly learn to identify and target only the pacifists. On the other hand if the law discourages or expressly forbids self-defense, that applies to pacifists and law-abiding non-pacifists alike, thus leveling the playing field in this regard by making them equally likely targets. Such laws would effectively insulate pacifists from the real-world consequences of their beliefs.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:26 pm 65. Ebuddy:The left WILL torture when it is in their interest … after all, Hitler did. The relativism of the left means that they will eventually resort to torture.
The nice thing about the torture debate is that we have them on record of being against it.
… but, hey, we all know they are hypocrites. How many election commitments has Obama renigged on?
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:35 pm 66. Herb:JJ @ 49.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:37 pm 67. MarkJ:I bow to better research.
Wherever found, I agree on the expression.
I fear that one day, perhaps soon, and perhaps under Barack Obama’s Presidency, that an attack on US soil will be made which will dwarf 9/11 both in destructiveness and brutality. And I predict that when it happens, many of the people who are now baying for the prosecution of Bush era officials will be demanding that they be protected — at all costs.”
If or, May God Forbid, when the above event comes to pass, the braying about “torture” and “sensitivity to Islam” will quickly be rendered irrelevant. Millions of Americans are already stocking up on arms and ammunition, so do the math. I daresay I wouldn’t want to be a Muslim, a lawyer, a judge, a Democratic politician, or a “community activist” on the day after a Super 9-11. If they think local law enforcement or the National Guard will automatically come riding to their rescue, well shucks, they may be in for a very rude surprise.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:44 pm 68. Blackwater:This isn’t a movie or a TV show. Real peoples lives are at risk. A lot of my friends and family were working in the Pentagon on 9/11. I’d rather save millions of lives than care about the image of America in Finland. I have no problem torturing terrorists if it helps prevent future attacks and leads to the killing or capturing of other terrorists and their supporters. CIA operatives should be able to do whatever is necessary to prevent future attacks. We did that during the Bush administration and we weren’t attacked again for almost 8 years. Now we’re trying the liberals method under Obama. Time will tell if it’s effective or not. But if it isn’t then the innocent American blood will be on their hands due to their naive idealism. And if one of my friends or family is killed this time I’ll demand impeachment.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:48 pm 69. Anodyne:@ 60:
Sources?
@ 61:
Interesting. So too the pacifist’s version of martyrdom vs. that of the Islamist’s.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:51 pm 70. Eggplant:IMHO, the terrorist should be hauled before a military tribunal and prompt judgment made whether or not he was guilty of a capital crime, e.g. conspired to commit mass murder against US citizens. After following due process and condemning the terrorist to death, he is given the option of cooperation, coercive interrogation or immediate execution. If he opts for immediate execution then interrogate him anyway and execute him. I add my usual caveat that I’m morally confused about whether or not a government should have the power of capital punishment. However I’m not confused about the importance of killing Islamic fascists (an obvious ethical contradiction).
By the way, as the MSM distracts the sheeple about the supposed crimes of George W. Bush, our economy is going down the toilet.
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:56 pm 71. Old Soldier:I see the lefties all wringing their hands on TV – safe and sound in their DC digs – because people like me and Habu and others did their dirty work.
All I can think of is the Star Trek episode in which a planet was fighting a fake war. Whenever fake bombs were dropped on a city, citizens were rounded up andI see the lefties all wringing their hands on TV – safe and sound in their DC digs – because people like me and Habu and others did their dirty work.
All I can think of is the Star Trek episode in which a planet was fighting a fake war. Whenever fake bombs were dropped on a city, citizens were rounded up and disintegrated.
Why does this administration value American lives less than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s comfort?
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:09 pm 72. TmjUtah:I believe the trite declaration “we won’t go that way in order to defend ourselves” is a long way to say “we surrender”.
How ’bout that American Idol?
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:15 pm 73. JWT:Jacoby thinks he is so morally superior?
“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, thou hast put His soul to grief.” Isaiah 53
God allowed His innocent Son to be tortured to redeem a multitude no man can number, yet Jacoby is morally superior, and could not accept the torture of a slime ball beheader to save his wife or a city or a nation?
Wow, Jacoby, do you expect everyone to bow down and worship you, with your moral superiority?
With all due respect Wretchard, shame on you for falling for Jacoby’s pious sophistry.
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:17 pm 74. Lifeofthemind:When the community agreed, after much debate and soul searching, to permit some members to decline to participate in the communal duty to defend against a threat that the democratic and lawful authorities had designated it was done with certain understandings. Conscientious Objection could only apply to the individual who had a clear preceding basis to avoid violence. It did not absolve them from the expectation of being placed in another position of discomfort and danger, such as combat stretcher bearer. Also it was understood that the CO would not attempt to impose their position on the greater community that assumed the burden of protecting them. The Amish have rarely voted, understanding the entangling implications of so doing.
What has happened here is a game changing event in two ways. First because the values of a parasitical pacifist minority are being imposed on the majority and second by the use of administrative fiat, memo leaking and the violation of confidences. Finally it is of greater even Constitutional significance because the novel threat to prosecute Justice Department lawyers for having given their best professional advice is another ex-post facto act. This rewriting of the rules after the election is truly revolutionary. It partly serves to nail the Democrats loyalty to Obama’s mast because they now know that if they ever lose another election they cannot predict the consequences. They are now in the position of the Senators who all were splattered by Caesar’s blood. Once some crimes are committed you can’t turn back.
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:35 pm 75. Marie Claude:Tortures were practiced in Algeria war. Evidently they weren’t questionned on the moral ground, but on the pragmatical’s. They weren’t advertised in the medias, and soldiers who could witness of them remained silent, I dunno if the raison was because they felt somewhere bad with their conscienceness or rather because it seemed to them that they had lived in a parallel world, that had no equivalence in a normal civil life. Some tortures practicians loose the limits of their faculty of reasoning.
This video “Intimate enemies” (”l’ennemi intime”, means in the french title : one’s conscienceness) shows it :
http://tinyurl.com/c7gbd8
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:41 pm 76. Marie Claude:the whole movie can be seen here :
http://tinyurl.com/canx2k
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:46 pm 77. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Considering Torture:[...] … Mr Fernandez points out a big reason why it is likely that torture works and that those who think it isn’t actually effective live in ivory towers wearing rose tinted [...]
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:46 pm 78. DaveinPhoenix:Do we really want to take the chance ?
Terrorist raghead on the left, a large American city on the right…hmmmmm, I think I’ll not take a chance with the terrorist raghead. Do we want to proactively stop an attack before it happens, or pick up the dead American bodies afterwards ? We made our choice in the last election, America. Good Luck !
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:57 pm 79. Moogie:#9 jjmurphy: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” – Winston Churchill
Excellent quote that quite sums up this entire debate. Leave to the militia to do what the militia does; leave to the lawyer to do what the lawyer does; leave to the politician to screw everything up.
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:07 pm 80. starling:It seems not many here have read a Jacoby column before. The man is a terrific writer and a solid conservative, something very rare in Boston. I read Jacoby’s columns regularly during my seven years in Boston and while I think he’s got it wrong on this issue, it’s beyond beyond inaccurate to confuse him with Leftist pacifists and other moral preeners.
As for torture, I have a new definition and policy. Anything that is regularly done in the training of our soldiers, even our best and elite soldiers, does not constitute torture. Any conditions, discomforts, and harsh interrogation techniques that our best and elite soldiers endure as part of their training is not torture. If enemy combatants and terrorists are unable to endure this treatment, then they prove nothing other than that they are weaker- emotionally, physically, mentally- than our own best fighting men.
Now I am guessing that we do not, as part of our training, stamp on our private’s private parts, break their bones, make them “play” Russian roulette, or otherwise engage in acts of outright brutality and sadism. And I wouldn’t want these things done to anyone in my name. But the brutality is only part of the reason why I object. One reason I object to brutal methods is that I suspect that there are less bloody and equally effective ways to obtain information.
Secondly, I have concern for the emotional and mental well-being of the person who would apply such methods. I have a sense that truly brutal methods like gouging out the eyes, cutting off extremities, etc. damage the moral integrity of person who inflicts this harm on our behalf. I am willing to ask, even require, another human being to do violence on my behalf-be that cop, soldier, or intelligence operative. But I am not so sure I can require them to sell their soul to keep me safe.
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:09 pm 81. Alexis:As a rule, one should assume that the enemy’s torture will be effective. Operationally speaking, one should also assume that torture by one’s own side will be ineffective. There are two reasons why. The first is that torture is an excellent means to gain false leads from people who really don’t know anything. The second is that the potential damage in public relations becomes too high once people learn the horror stories.
Is torture effective? In some situations, yes. Hollywood movies and television shows certainly promote its value. If Hollywood really wanted to discourage torture, fictional torturers would never get the information they want through threats or brutality. Be that as it may, torture has serious drawbacks that go further than prison or the battlefield.
How does one keep someone who tortures prisoners at work from bringing his expertise into his family life at home? Some men are able to compartmentalize their lives. Some men are able to stay sane. What should our society do when a man uses the torture techniques he learned at work on his wife, his children, or even his own mother?
As a democratic society, the American people have decided that we would rather get horribly attacked by al-Qaeda than accept the moral burden of gaining a temporary advantage by torturing prisoners. However, there may be some form of coercion that would induce discomfort for our enemies while also not passing the laugh test in the courtroom. Would the ACLU regard playing heavy metal rock as torture? Is playing the Barney song torture? Okay, perhaps al-Qaeda prisoners should be made to listen to a complete archive of speeches by Barack Obama. That can’t possibly be torture, can it?
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:18 pm 82. Lifeofthemind:No, no no no no no.
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:20 pm 83. Meryl:The answer is not a Militia. It is wrong, it is not just a possible legal or moral wrong if it becomes a cry for violence, it is a waste of time and energy. The answer to our problem is not found by putting on camouflage and running around in the woods telling your friends, who are probably telling ATFE or the FBI what your dreams are, that you are a Colonel in the Unorganized Militia. The answer is to get yourself elected to the local school board and your local political party’s County Committee. I am not arguing against the 2nd Amendment or saying that competent people who know what they are doing can’t train and I even thought the Minutemen observing on the border seemed to be trying to do right but the focus on revolution or withdrawal from the legal order is not only legally dangerous, and a great discourtesy I would think to others who do not want to be associated with it but it is sure to discredit the conservative opposition. Try winning some elections for a change.
Soetero is such a lying coward. And so is his SOS. Both of them speak with such pristine disdain of those who do the real work.
I hope he doesn’t lose track of where he’s at of an evening and make the mistake of wandering by the Vietnam Wall and making a stupid remark to the buddy of some Name on the Wall. On the other hand, maybe I do wish exactly that.
Soetero is a coward. A sniveling, lily-livered coward who not only can’t deal with the realities of the price of freedom, but then wants to ride the high horse of dismissing the valiant lives (and sometimes deaths) of those who ARE willing to deal with those realities.
But he will still send bobby gibbs out to make jokes and lame excuses about the sausage-making processes in this slaughter house of a White House. What these yokels are doing this week is going to result in American deaths.
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:24 pm 84. starling:Marie Claude, I did not see your links when I was writing my comment. What the videos describe is what I meant about having concern for the well-being of interrogators.
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:28 pm 85. Lifeofthemind:Today I heard Lindsay Graham use waterboarding and eye gouging in the same sentence, implying we had done both. The sad thing was that the man was trying to head off proceedings by the Democrats to indict Bush era lawyers.
Everyone breaks under torture. That is why every pilot, I was not an aviator as you can tell by my ability to use two syllable words, goes through SERE school where they will learn their breaking point.
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:29 pm 86. Alexis:I’ll ask the question another way.
Let’s say we have a high level terrorist in custody, someone as high as abu Zubaydah or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Imagine if it were found that terrorists would be more likely to cooperate, give us full details, and save American cities from getting blown up if there were supplied with prostitutes. The question is, even if it brought results to American security, should American taxpayers subsidize prostitutes who would loosen up the terrorists’ lips?
Let’s go further. Even if it meant the difference between American liberty and a UN war against the United States, should the United States buy votes at the United Nations? Yes, it’s bribery. But what if bribery were necessary for promoting American foreign policy?
It would seem to me that some of the same people who would approve of torture would oppose hiring prostitutes to soften up terrorists or change votes at the UN. And vice versa. Yet, it is essentially the same question.
Are we willing to violate moral taboos in order to ensure the safety of our civilization? If we are, are they really moral taboos anymore?
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:36 pm 87. Lifeofthemind:Alexis,
Apr 22, 2009 - 8:40 pm 88. Marie Claude:The start of that slippery slope was when laws were instituted criminalizing defense contractors bribing foreign officials.
“If Hollywood really wanted to discourage torture, fictional torturers would never get the information they want through threats or brutality. Be that as it may, torture has serious drawbacks that go further than prison or the battlefield.”
I don’t think that this is Hollywood purpose, but of making money, like certain papers do in exploiting the “diverse facts” or the “the chronicle of the smashed cats”, the more it is bloody and horrible, the more people are attracted, even in children tales we have monsters, it’s because people like to get scared.
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:04 pm 89. newscaper:Regardless of the moral argument, the “torture doesn’t work” argument is bogus on its face.
If a psychologically astute interrogator can hypothetically get better results [with enough time], compared to sheer simple-minded brutality — surely he can be even more effective if he at least has the *fear* of pain as part of his toolkit?
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:07 pm 90. Derek:All these people are trying to fake a moral superiority. Obama not torture? He’ll lie, cheat, destroy an opponent. He won’t torture? Bah.
It is the same as pacifism. No one likes war, almost everyone will march for peace, and tut tut when watching TV about some fight or other. But when it comes to fighting or dying, very few will choose on principle to die rather than kill their fellow man. Very few indeed.
But there are some.
Same in this mess. As someone said, how can torture be defined as something Hitchens tried for Vanity Fair magazine? First off, define the terms. It seems the terms are defined to preen morally. Nothing else.
Derek
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:07 pm 91. Fat Man:Tutti Respecto Don Wretchard. You are my master. I ask only that you allow me to relay the following story from the Wikipedia article on the Categorical Imperative.
“… the Swiss philosopher Benjamin Constant, who asserted that since truth telling must be universal, according to Kant’s theories, one must (if asked) tell a known murderer the location of his prey. This challenge occurred while Kant was still alive, and his response was the essay On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives … In this reply, Kant agreed with Constant’s inference, that from Kant’s premises one must infer a moral duty not to lie to a murderer.”
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:34 pm 92. Benj:Alexis, Life of the Mind, Starling – ya’ll are fearless heads – though I’m not the one to tell you! – You deserve more in the way of an exemplar of moral seriousness than Wretch – the great evader? – provides.
Thanks for zeroing in on the real difference between gouging out eyes/ball-breaking and, say, sleep deprivation or (even) waterboarding. NO Irony!!. For real. Still I’d urge you to focus on the details in any one of the reports of what happened to prisoners under the aegis of the military OR the CIA in the Age of Enhanced Interrogation. Most of the official ones are online. And there’s also FEAR UP HARSH – the first-person account of an army interrogator’s shameful little outrages in Iraq (before and after A. G. scandal) FEAR makes it clear “enhanced” interrogation was the antithesis of good counterinsurgency practice. (See Petraeus’ famous memo re American honor at the top of the Surge.) BTW – found FEAR through Michael Yon’s website…Just the facts…
My guess is that there are details that will get under your skin IF you’ll let yourself take them in. And after today, it might be time to retire the ticking timebomb scenario offered up by Dick C. and so many others on the Right. The new reporting that seems to confirm Diok and Rummy’s SERE Show was ON in part to cultivate intelligence that would prove (non-existent) pre-OIF operatonal links between Qaeda and Iraqi Baathists. The Senate report underscores that motivation…
I’d urge you to read the fnal chapter of Susskind’s “Way in the World.” Amazing story re attempted news manipulation by the Administration before the invasion of Iraq – Didn’t make me renounce my support for OIF. Did make me WONDER at Dick C and co.’s contempt for truth and democracy…
Not that I’d give Pelosi and Reid a pass. (OR all those dems who turned HARD against the War after supporting it!) They had a shot to complain about waterboarding back in the day and put a sock in it. Hope they pay some dues along with the DIck.
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:40 pm 93. Oh, bother:Per Alexis: As a democratic society, the American people have decided that we would rather get horribly attacked by al-Qaeda than accept the moral burden of gaining a temporary advantage by torturing prisoners.
Oh? When was that decision made? I am an American and I believe your assertion is incorrect.
As it happens I do not believe my “moral burden” is more important than those who would be injured by another horrible attack from al-Qaeda. If that makes me relativistic, then so be it. I’d rather be relativistic than narcissistic. Finally, I believe more Americans side with me than with you.
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:42 pm 94. Tamquam:55. Thrasymachus: “But he cannot demand other people commit suicide.” True. The position of the radical pacifists is morally bankrupt precisely for that reason, adherence to those principles is suicidal.
“The first rule of morality is survival.” False. By this definition Wretchard’s guerilla commander did not act morally because his actions precluded his survival. Morality transcends mere survival, else the most moral would be the most brutally self serving, a ridiculous idea.
Torture is a particular application of violence. Violence is inherent in the human condition. Sets of rules called culture limit and channel the propensity to violence thus enabling human relationships, whether in small or large aggregates to exist and, by extension, society to function. A society in which violence is totally disallowed is either in a symbiotic relationship to a surrounding culture with no such proscriptions or is in a state of subjection and surrender to a dominant culture wielding the threat of instant and extreme violence.
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:42 pm 95. Hot News » What Is Waterboarding Torture:[...] Other Me » I have a question about water-boarding…Torture Fiends Don’t Want to Give Up…Belmont Club » Terrorism and moral torture…Torture Torture and More Torture: Now is the Time to Prosecute the Bush Administration | [...]
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:50 pm 96. fred:I oppose the alleged morality of Mr. Jacoby’s position. In the defense of human life, we are allowed to extract timely intelligence from reprobates. If human life has no defense save a lame, preening pretense to moral superiority, then we cheapen life as we congratulate ourselves. This arrogance will not do. Who here will put his life in the hands of the likes of Mr. Jacoby? Any takers?
Have we gone mad?
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:57 pm 97. fred:When one is dealing with the armed combatants of nations who are signatories to various conventions on the treatment of enemy prisoners, of course “torture” is out of the question. But the type of enemy who is on jihad often targets civilians, not armed military. Who the hell is Mr. Jacoby to foreswear violence that might protect non-combatants from random murder? I have had the arguments with some people who call themselves fellow Christians. I tell them that they may flatter themselves by calling them followers of Christ, but they aren’t fooling me.
Apr 22, 2009 - 10:04 pm 98. fred:If I am unwilling to use aggressive interrogation techniques all the way to waterboarding in order to forestall the murder of innocents (whom Islam does not consider to be innocent at all), then I am the one who does not value life. I deserve to be condemned for selfishness and cowardice.
And the man or woman who would not lift a finger to defend my life and liberty commands neither respect nor obedience from me. None whatsoever. I consider such a person odious, in fact even evil.
Apr 22, 2009 - 10:07 pm 99. Alexis:OB:
You didn’t vote for the present regime. Guess what? I didn’t either. The fact remains that a majority of American voters did. The present regime’s view is that it is preferable for Americans to withstand another terrorist attack than it is for the government to use torture. If the voting public really wanted a different regime than they one we are presently getting, Americans should have voted for somebody else.
Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote for Obama.
Apr 22, 2009 - 10:21 pm 100. Cincinnatus:I am struck by the fact that no one can seem to explain to me exactly what the moral problem is with torture. If death can be inflicted on the battlefield and death can be inflicted with legal due process, how in the world can there be any objection to non-mortal and not even destructive torture.? Torture for the sake of getting a confession is simply silly. Anyone will confess under the proper level of duress. But when you are trying to learn something, and what you are trying to learn is something of substantial military and civil defense significance, just what is the issue? It seems to be, at the very best, a kind of adolescent romanticism. I simply don’t get what the problem is when one is trying to gain important information of life or death significance to inflict the degree of pain necessary to gain compliance.
Apr 22, 2009 - 10:24 pm 101. Alexis:What the hell kind of infants are all of you?
By this definition Wretchard’s guerilla commander did not act morally because his actions precluded his survival.
I’m not so sure. The guerrilla commander had no reason to think that the Japanese wouldn’t kill his co-conspirators and then kill him anyway. It is not particularly unusual for traitors to get murdered by the very people who profit from their treason.
Apr 22, 2009 - 10:31 pm 102. Karen Yvonne:I recall reading some of Jeff Jacoby’s columns shortly after 9/11 and thinking he was an imminently sensible and sane person. Maybe he’s changed since then…
In Romans 13:4 we read that the state does not bear the sword for nothing. According to Jacoby, the state does indeed bear the sword for nothing. Absolutely nothing, as far as this goes.
Living with the knowledge that we now have a president and administration and congressional majority that is not at all serious about defending the country and the lives of every one of us is already horrible enough without also having to swallow the self-righeous abstract moral posturing and relativism from this so-called conservative who apparently regards himself as some sort of little mini-god.
Although I always hope I’m wrong, I find myself fully expecting we will suffer another attack or series of attacks. Soon.
Apr 22, 2009 - 10:38 pm 103. terry:i just read an article on this subject before coming to this site. the site for news is irnnews.com article is cnsnews.com it is about the cia restating as fact that the enhanced technique of waterboarding resulted in intel to avoid a planned attack on l.a. not fiction or conspiracy but fact. this is what mr. cheney was referring to i would assume. this is a 42209 article from 2005 material. myself i do not have a problem with using techniques to find out what a terrorist knows that is on par with ksm. my gut reaction after 911 was to download them. the wall street journal had a report a day or so after about a 5th plane with excited arab passengers on a plane that failed to take off because of delays and then grounding. yeah i said download them as in a truth machine. see touching history book about air traffic control and pilots experieces on 911. lynn spencer. have fun! cia confirms waterboarding 9/11 mastermind
Apr 22, 2009 - 11:06 pm 104. Professor Guvinoff:We all draw a line somewhere between what we are willing to consider and what we are not, and reality is this pesky thing forcing us to move the line, whether we asked for it or not. Perhaps the visit of a slaughterhouse would lead one to abstain from eating meat for a while, but for how long? Can you really avoid the question by becoming a “perfect” vegetarian? Grandstanding over torture is just as reasonable as rejecting the existence of evil. Are both behaviors evidence of the same blind spot? Blissful ignorance for some is a luxury for those who found the courage to dig deeper.
Apr 22, 2009 - 11:07 pm 105. wretchard:My position on torture, if you’ve read my past posts on the subject, is essentially the same as Jacoby’s. Where we differ, I think, is on whether I can impose those views on others as public policy. On a personal level I am entitled to accept whatever level of risk I choose to live according to my moral code. What I am not entitled to do in this slippery matter, is to impose my judgment on others in name of righteousness.
The public of course, is entitled to make its own judgments and can accept whatever peril they wish to maintain a certain standard. They too can reject torture, even when they could save their own children thereby. It’s a choice that’s open to anyone. However, to be fair, they should understand that upholding morality comes at a price. It has always come at a price. You can be as free as you want; you can rise on wings of liberty in the midst of the most repressive dictatorship. All you have to do is be willing to pay the price.
My concern, and the whole point of this post, is that some politicians have told the public that we can have something for nothing; that you can absolutely prohibit coercive interrogation and still remain safe. Well I think you can’t. You give away real advantages every time that you constrain yourself. It’s almost always the case that the unbounded solution is easier to achieve then the solution under constraint. That doesn’t mean you can’t choose it — as Jacoby does — but it does mean you should not expect a free ride.
Now if the public is told they can have safety and morality too, which person wouldn’t choose both? Who doesn’t want to have his cake and eat it too? But if you told them that accepting limits on interrogation meant tradeoffs in security, you might get fewer buyers. I think, and this my personal opinion, that if a mass casualty attack happens, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will say, “I didn’t sign up for this. Nobody told me this could happen.” And human nature being what it is, a frightened people will demand action. Bureaucrats, being who they are, will provide it.
In any case, America as a society has to draw the line somewhere, beyond which it is not licit to go. The lines the Bush administration drew are described in the memos. Some people think the line is in the wrong place and want to put it somewhere else. But wherever they put it, it’s still a line; it still represents a tradeoff between operational necessity and social values. And like any line, you may find that you have drawn it too far one way or the other. What I don’t think is helpful is to draw a line that shifts back and forth without a basis in informed consent.
To recapitulate: I think it is legitimate to voluntarily inhibit oneself with respect to interrogation techniques. But once the challenge comes, once the pain and loss become unendurable, can you hold the line?
Apr 22, 2009 - 11:22 pm 106. Dave Surls:“I contended that the cruel abuse of terrorist detainees was something we could never countenance – not just because torture is illegal, unreliable, and a threat to the innocent, but because it is one of those practices that a civilized society cannot engage in without undermining its right to call itself civilized.”
O.k.
Then I’m uncivilized.
BFD.
Apr 22, 2009 - 11:24 pm 107. trangbang68:A suitcase nuke is set to go off in Manhattan.KSM or some similar filthy dirtbag nihilist knows where it’s hidden. Let’s check his Wahhabi creds. Draw blood from a pig ,roll up his sleeve tie off his vein and at the count of ten, he gets the hotshot.
Apr 22, 2009 - 11:25 pm 108. starling:Hell yeah, it’s torture. So what, he’s a sub human piece of offal not worth the life of the lowest crackhead in Spanish Harlem.
FWIW, a line from the Lord of the Rings, from a scene where Gandalf cautions Frodo about his contempt for Smeagol/Gollum:
“Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:05 am 109. Bridget:What an awesome article and set of comments. Tamquam’s post is interesting in that it brings up the human condition which has a set of variables which haven’t changed much over the years – violence being one of them. How that variable is managed determines the state of society. He sets up the precursor to the wonderful quote by Churchill or Orwell or Kipling – underscoring that in order for some in society to be shielded from the violent propensities, there must be some who are willing to engage for them. In other words, one must balance the equation.
Thanks to all for the education.
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:36 am 110. Dave:Well now, I think I speak with more authority
on how to interrogate than anybody else here. Last tour I was a 96C. Interrogator.
A little over 200 POWs fell to my charms, along with several “hoi chans” (ralliers). And I never lifted a finger. What? Never? No, Never. What? NEVER? Well, hardly ever.
Waterboarding? Didn’t do it myself but did stand by and watch it being doine. Met with my hearty approval. I was a moderate. Used only the field phones. Didn’t go hooking tu binhs up to a 15KW. Didn’t toss any of them out of a Huey unless they were properly dangling at ropes end for the ride. So forth and so on. Most of the time I just slick-talked them out of the information I wanted.
I had the responsibility for the reports I submitted, so I excercised the authority over what techniques were used in producing the information.
And that is the crux of what is going on today. Those who cannot, repeat, CANNOT, shoulder the responsibility insist on excercising the authority.
No interrogation is ever successful unless the person being interrogated is convinced that non-cooperation will cause greater distress than cooperation.
Therefore, by the standards being bandied about, any successful interrogation consists of “torture”.
By reasonable standards however, torture is limited to practices which wilfully maim, mutilate, cause death, and can be considered to have been done primarily for the emotional gratification of the torturer.
I have no indications that the United States has sanctioned, or encouraged, torture in this war, or any other in American history. Such incidences that have occurred have always been, and remain, aberrations to our norm.
Those that say otherwise are either willingly deluded (that means you, Benj) or knowingly duplicitous.
PS: The troll, one of my own, repeated a falsehood. Court Martials/War Crimes trials
were N-O-T for waterboarding but for the “water cure”. That refers to the unholy practice of forcing a prisoner to drink excessive amount of water and then jumping up and down upon his distended abdomen. No way anybody was going to get a lick of useful info that way.
PPS: The boys have been doing right well. We should all let our congresscritters know that and let it be known that we shall not tolerate their being persecuted.
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:48 am 111. Karen Yvonne:But, starling @104, the issue is not one of dealing out death in judgment. On the contrary, efforts were made to ensure that death would NOT be the result of any of these “enhanced techniques.”
The word, torture, brings to my mind something like the last scene in the movie Braveheart, where William Wallace was subjected to excruciating agonizing pain upon pain. That’s not the kind of thing that was going on during the interrogations. Obviously, a line was drawn – safeguards were put in place in order to avoid real bodily harm, although experiencing such treatment had to have been an ordeal and very frightening. Apparently, it was effective in preventing the L.A. attack. Had it not been effective, would they have moved the line? And would they have been justified to move the line?
When Jacoby says that torture “is one of those practices that a civilized society cannot engage in without undermining its right to call itself civilized,” what he seems to be saying is that the civilized have no right to prevail against the uncivilized. Because, in a contest between a civilization bound by restraints and one for whom nothing is off-limits, then there can be no question which one is going to die. This is crazy unjust. For Jacoby, the blood of many innocents must unfortunately be sacrificed – to those whose whole purpose is the destruction of as many innocents as possible – in order for us to maintain our morality. I’m sorry but this is just plain crazy. The government holds legitimate power to protect innocent life from those who would destroy it. If it willfully refuses to do this, because it’s tied itself up in knots over the meaningless relativistic idea that we’d then be just as bad as they are, then most Americans will conclude our government is worse than worthless. After that, it’ll be every man for himself. Then where’s your civilization? Before we get to that point, why can’t we let our government use their power to protect, understanding that it was NOT a William-Wallace-type torture fest of being literally pulled apart on a rack or being flayed alive – oh, never mind, I forgot our methods have already all been revealed so they’re useless now.
Apr 23, 2009 - 1:22 am 112. Gaffe Prices:There are secondary and tertiary considerations. Attacks on lives and property vis a vis Khalid Sheiks plan (9/11) were little more than theatre, for the folks at home. and the effectiveness (of attacks) as Islamic propaganda unfolded and drove some to abandon Islam or convert, but the vast majority intensified their zealotry in the eyes of their peers, lest they seem less than devout- donations to “Islamic” “charities”, defensiveness where Islam was concerned, moral equivalence, etc.
We were horrified and terrified by such slaughter, but Khalids Sheiks plan is par for the course for violent tribal “pride”, the scale was just a bit larger.
The intent, beyond the “theatre” for the folks at home, was to damage U.S. economy and cause suffering in a collapsing economy, but as with the Soviet crashing of the economy in 1997, these plans we too narrow and small time to effect the damage they fully intended, leaving the Islamic Middle men financiers and facilitators of terror not only angy-er, but humiliated as well, at least as far as Islamic drama goes.
This means Islamic Terror is on a learning curve and the larger scale attacks that are possibly within their reach become more and more of an obsession, again dramatically speaking.
It is above the pay grade of the Islamic Terror manager, to contemplate whether or not a nuke here or a nuke there (and its attendant economic fallout) will be as effective as an 0 in the white house (again, dramatically speaking), but it does not mean that the Islamic Terror top down organizer lacks the shrewd ability to measure if not perhaps the 0 regime is a comparable substitute for the nuke or chem/bio scenario, in the meantime.
jacoby sounds like the more muted form of the evangelical atheist, and his peacock, oh so conspicuous, self conscious self righteousness is the “new tone” of this pernicious fad amo=ng celebrities, as is the evangelical atheist’s stance on same sex marriage is among the celebitty gay and lesbian demograghic, but I digress.
Indiscriminate slaughter never satiates the bloodlust of the Islamic satanic Majesty’s Request’s, but the Jacoby’s only contemplate the either/or scenario of “the terror” of us being the ones to be “the torturers”, or being left standing from the safety of his Eloi parapet, “grieving” the newly slaughtered, without the secondary effect of economic, cultural, and civilisational extermination fitted into his selective abstraction.
Which is the nihilist objective of both the Islamic madman, and the evangelical atheist, whether both can or will admit it at all, in public, or at the same time, in the same argument. The Islamic madman can cite taqquiyah and takfiri for Kuffars as Koranically mandated, but what excuse for the secular evangaelical atheist?
I would say, or ask, why do we give a Ramsi Yousef the satisfaction of seeing Khalid Sheik succeed and follow through with his original plan? Whereas the atheist thinks that if Ramsi Yousef had been executed he would have been spared the suffering he goes through serving a life sentence. and the Islamist thinks that- kill him now, or let him live in his life sentence, he will still know the glory of his (satanic) deed.
an Atheist is willing to risk going to hell, because he thinks: at least there will be justice there.
Beware the evangelical atheist, and his moralising, for he is willing to risk going to hell, because he thinks: at least there will be lots of “social justice” there.
I hope he will enjoy all the time he gets to spend there with Ramsi Yousef and Khalid Sheik.
Apr 23, 2009 - 1:39 am 113. Edgewise.Sigma:Thought these recent posts by the Catholic blogger Mark Shea might be of interest to you folks:
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/04/harry-blackmun-friend-of-torture.html
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/04/from-deepest-darkest-bubbledom.html
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/04/straining-at-gnats-swallowing-camels.html
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/04/awesome-human-capacity-for.html
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/04/thats-thing-about-committing-war-crimes.html
Much more, and on related matters, can be found under his blog’s tag of “Salvation Through Leviathan By Any Means Necessary”:
http://markshea.blogspot.com/search/label/Salvation%20Through%20Leviathan%20By%20Any%20Means%20Necessary
I invite you folks to *especially* take note of the commentaries/discussions in the posts’ comboxes (as lively and spirited as anything found beneath any Belmont Club posts, IMHO). And within these comboxes, *especially* take note of the comments by one “Richard W. Comerford”, who claims to be a vet. He’s been a regular in Shea’s comboxes for *quite* awhile, and I suppose that if he wasn’t for real Mr. Shea would’ve found out and banned him a *long* time ago.
I would like to know what you folks think of these takes on the whole “torture” thing.
Apr 23, 2009 - 1:41 am 114. Fletcher Christian:Might they be raising any good points?
Perhaps one could be more subtle in the methods used, in the case of jihadi in particular. Such as keeping them indoors, with no clue as to where the direction of Mecca might be, and in any case not allowing them to pray. Such as giving them nothing but bacon to eat and nothing but beer to drink.
In any case, it might just be that the choice might be between torturing one jihadi and the death by fire of a billion or so of his co-religionists. What price morals then?
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:04 am 115. Gaffe Prices:#88 Fat Man:
I don’t care what Kant or anyone else said regarding the truth, and/or any “obligation” one has to tell a murderer where to find his prey. This is sophistry.
You do the right thing. Whether or not you did the right thing will impress itself on you soon enough, after the fact: that is, if you have a conscience.
If you don’t have a conscience, then you are a liar, and will make up anything to justify doing something, such as being accessory to murder, by telling a murderer what he wants to know, based on some abstract set of ethical sophistry, as you are trying to do.
In his book, “Civilisation and Its Enemies”, Lee Harris asserts, that it was the protestant Reformation that first brought the first consciousness of an individual conscience to the individual him/or/her self: by stressing literacy, the protestant argued that one must read the gospel (or philosophy, for example) for himself, and make his (own) judgement(s) based on his (own) reflection(s) based on his own, g-d given conscience, not the refraction of someone else’s triangulated set of ethics: the choice(s) in life was/were yours.
Leftist have perverted this concept for their own purposes many times and in many ways; an example is white guilt, or this torture question, in the abstract.
The protestant revolt was a reaction against the Catholic church, who educated only a select elite, who were literate, and kept the rest illiterate and dependent on them to read them (the congregation) the gospels, or on panels painted by Giotto, or Duccio that did not require literacy to learn from.
The Reformation, and its establishment of the conscience of the individual, was as monumental as the printing press was in making bibles available to read. Catholicism was influenced by this because it is a christian religion, and Catholics are often raised in protestant states and contexts.
Believe it or not, Muamar Khadaffi, stressed in his Green Book, that individuals must read the text and make up their own minds what to do. This undermines the imam, because the imam is consulted in almost every life question or situation, especially, and entirely with illiterate moslems, of which there are still more than a few: this empowers the imam with private intrusion into everything that he can worm his way into, and stokes his demagoguery, and literacy undermines him. Khadaffi is an apostate, I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten a fatwa filed against him
The individual conscience is nonexistent in the void that is Islam, and it is shunned by Islam’s superstitions. and it threatens Islam’s very existence.
Apr 23, 2009 - 3:30 am 116. Gaffe Prices:#’s 96, 98, 106- all excellent
recurring words- ‘relativistic’, and ‘abstact’, ‘meaninglessly relativistic’, ’self-righteous’
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:24 am 117. Tomp:Jack Bauer or Jeff Jacoby? You pick.
Apr 23, 2009 - 5:40 am 118. Terry Gain:Jacoby’s thinking is upside down. It lacks insight as to what is moral. It is frankly a naive and childish view. And it is morally depraved.
The government has a responsibility to protect innocent human beings. The rights of innocent human beings to life itself takes priority over the right of terrorist to freedom from abuse, discomfort and even torture. These methods (of interrogation) should never be used as an end in themselves, however if we are reasonably satisfied that we must use them to save protect innocent human life we should not hesitate to use them.
The failure to choose between the lesser of two evils will result in the embracement of the greater evil.
Apr 23, 2009 - 5:48 am 119. joe buzz:Lets view this from the perspective of the victim. Should you be the one that has the vital information that could save lives, would you rather be in the hands of the CIA or those that interrogated Daniel Pearl or Bill Buckley?
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:22 am 120. RWE:Tomp 117:
When we need Jack Bauer we instead get Ally McBeal.
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:22 am 121. Glenmore:Wretchard, Habu,
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:42 am 122. johnclubvec:Torture for torture’s sake is flat wrong.
The THREAT of torture, and ‘harsh’ interrogation are in a gray area to me. Not right, but not exactly wrong, and potentially quite useful. The biggest problem I see with them is their use desensitizes and leads to the use of real torture. (The second biggest problem is using the issue for political gain.)
I would guess that today torture, pseudo-torture, and threat of them are most useful as distractions to keep the subject off guard so the actual interrogation techniques (I could make some guesses but probably best not, in case I am correct) can be more effective.
What Karen Yvonne #111 said, so very well.
Mark Shea’s irresponsible ‘Catholic’ anti-’torture’ fancies make me almost – almost – willing to forgive foolish old canards about all those nice Protestants who didn’t actually eviscerate the heart of the Christian faith by their ‘reasonable’ elimination of the pesky doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and who didn’t gain traction due to support from ambitious new elites out for their own purposes, but who instead were really all about reason and education for The Little Guy.
For me, a large part of the evil of the current politicization of torture is that, unlike the discussion here, it is fundamentally unserious. It consists of status games for the benefit of elites. The ‘principles’ espoused, even the ‘people’ to be so concerned about, are completely fungible. If they exist at all, they exist as plenipotentiaries in the drama orchestrated by the Real People, the ongoing soap opera a sage thinker has begun to call Stuff White People Like.
In the small, we use the techniques deployed by Whiter People to make us feel nicer than somebody else; in the large, they are chits in the political war.
The acceptable collateral damage is not just the deteriorating HUMINT Habu refers to, but all sorts of people, among them, all the lawyers in the Bush Administration who (according to former Washington attorney Laura Ingraham, who knows some of them), gave up $3-4 million a year in Washington law firms to, you know, serve their country, and actually tried to grasp the nettle of what is ‘civilized,’ and ended up approving only those interrogation techniques used in training our own armed forces, only those which had been proved in long experience to inflict no permanent physical or mental damage.
Now the $3-4 million they gave up, they may end up paying out, in legal fees to defend themselves.
As Mr. Shannon Love points out at the Chicago Boyz site, the American Left has long been playing this game: “Leftists like to talk big about how horrible and murderous America’s military and intelligence services are, but history has shown that they are just hypocritical cowards when it comes to acting on their hysterical rhetoric.”
He reminds us that:
“The Left won sweeping control of the federal government in 1976, in the wake of Watergate, so a naive observer who believed in leftist sincerity would assume that they would move aggressively to root out the evil that had spread throughout the American military, intelligence services and government in general. It would be insane to leave lieutenants who started their careers committing war crimes on a “day-to-day basis” in the military so that 30 years later they could rise into the ranks of top generals.
“Instead, they dropped the war crimes allegations as quickly as they could and moved to protect people like John Kerry from prosecution from the many laws he’d broken.”
Officers like Dave #110 are just chips in the game, of no more intrinsic importance than Global Warming or Hating People Who Wear Ed Hardy.
It’s the Fungibility, Stupid.
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:52 am 123. Charm:Thank you for the article. I have found the “torture doesn’t work” argument ridiculous. I know myself and I would have a tough time standing up to just the threat of torture. Most people don’t want to admit to themselves, yet alone to others, that they would succumb to torture. They see it as a moral and personal failure and fear how others will view them. Maybe now we can put our defensiveness about these fears aside and have a real discussion about using torture.
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:02 am 124. The Torture Travesty « The View from Alexandria:[...] position, too, “that torture is literally always wrong,” on the basis of Vatican II.
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:10 am 125. Benj:Dave – Thanks for your comment – you do speak with authority. I’m just reading stories from a million miles away – you’ve been through it. So let me be a student to a Witness. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about the # of waterboarding incidents reported re KSM and Zub. Short of a ticking timebomb scenario (which does not seem to be in the equation) – are you fine with waterboarding somebody dozens of times a day for a couple weeks? Would that rise to the level of torture in your mind?
I’m wondering re deaths of prisoners in American custody (CIA and Mili)?- I think there were 30 homicide investigations back in the day of Abu G. (Which always seemed to me to be a bigger deal than A.G.) Not sure how that fits into the “torture” issue. Any thoughts?
Do you know FEAR UP HARSH? – THere are no revelations of absolutely Nazi style behavior. But mucho evidence of a lot of pointless brutalizing. If you were in Iraq at the start of the Surge, did you see any changes in interrogation practices connected with Petraeus’s famous memo and new modes of counterinsurgency?
Slightly off-topic here – But I just read Ralph Peters taking a position on all this that seems close to yours. Striking to me – because I rememeber him dammning Rummy at the time of A.G. for “outsourcing America’s honor.” Do you see a connection between A.G. and the devolved use of enhanced interrogation tecks described in FEAR UP HARSH…
THANKS in advance for considering these questions – basically be interested in WHATEVER you have to say on this subject…
Wretch’s bottom line – “To recapitulate: I think it is legitimate to voluntarily inhibit oneself with respect to interrogation techniques. But once the challenge comes, once the pain and loss become unendurable, can you hold the line?”
As I say, the great evader! – “To recapitulate” …Wha? Check that lawyerly prose “with respect to” – worthy of Alger Hiss!!!!! Truth to tell, though, Wretch HAS a tiny point earlier re the idea that O and co. may be slipping the ticking timebomb challenge. Still – there is no response from him – and I DO hope there are other takers here – re the news that Thiessen’s explicit (and Dick C.’s implicit) claims re waterboardiang saved L.A. don’t hold water. We’ll have to wait for all the evidence, but I hope it would matter to some of you if KSM and Zubi got waterboarded dozens of times because they weren’t providing back-up for Chalabi’s assertions re Qaeda-Bassthist connection…
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:54 am 126. Anodyne:Dave @ 110:
“PS: The troll, one of my own, repeated a falsehood. Court Martials/War Crimes trials were N-O-T for waterboarding but for the “water cure”. That refers to the unholy practice of forcing a prisoner to drink excessive amount of water and then jumping up and down upon his distended abdomen. No way anybody was going to get a lick of useful info that way.”
Thanks for clearing up what the troll wouldn’t. Likewise for your service.
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:59 am 127. not so fast:125 vis a vis 110 . . . Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors. At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified “Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I’d get my breath, then they’d start over again… I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death.
More recently John McCain said, “We prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II.
And one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they water-boarded Americans.”
Water cure, they did that too. They did both and more. Stay with the facts. They’re your only true ally.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:15 am 128. Al Reasin:When I try to evaluate what is torture, I aways go back to SF and SERE training. Yes, those experiencing the training, from my understanding could include everything outlined in the memos, knew that they were not going to be intentionally killed and the terrorist didn’t have that understanding; so, what! The constitution and our legal system do not constitute a suicide pact. Just as justifiable homicide charges can be subjective, so can the use of torture. If it were me, I would force in some manner Pelosi and Rockefeller to testify or publicly explain why they felt it was just fine to perform what was done when they were briefed on the rules and techniques being used. While their legislative constitutional protections may prevent them from being prosecuted, they do not prevent them from explaining their actions. That would be interesting to hear.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:17 am 129. Pastor of Muppets:Most of the pro-torture arguments here are dependent upon a very specific and very unlikely situation in which a loved one is being held by terrorists or in which a nuclear bomb is minutes from detonating.
The truth is that the vast majority of those we tortured were not in any position to hurt anyone’s loved ones or know the location of a nuclear bomb. Because of the very sloppy record keeping done by the Bush administration, we have very limited records of what exactly were the crimes committed or vital information harbored by many of the tortured, so it’s really impossible to even say what exactly they were being tortured for.
Bottom line, if torture is going to be necessary, it ought to be used only in necessary cases. However, with each passing day, it becomes more apparent that just as Iraq was a war of choice and not necessity, so was torture a strategy of choice and not a strategy of necessity.
Memos clearly show that the administration tortured key assets in the lead up to the war and throughout the war not to gain critical knowledge of an upcoming attack against the US, but rather to get forced confessions, through torture, that Iraq had operational ties to al Qaeda. Of course, the CIA was telling the admin that there was no link, but rather than take the advice of the best intelligence bureau in the world, the Bush administration instead chose to waterboard the bejeesus out of a bunch of Iraqis until they told them exactly what they wanted to hear.
The purpose of waterboarding in this case was to get a knowingly false, forced fabricated confession. This was exactly what the Communists used waterboarding for – to generate propaganda through violence – and exactly why we should be wary of using it.
So, waterboarding may be effective in the scenarios in which we are zero hour and the clock is ticking. But it is clearly evident here that the torture done against Iraqis, many of them civilians with no ties to Al Qeada or the insurgency, had nothing to do with any ticking time bomb or beautiful woman in the clutches of radical Muslim terrorists.
To the Bush administration, torture was just another tool at their disposal to use to help them fabricate a story in which Saddam had ties to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, which they knew was false. But they sold the story to the media and the public anyway, and you folks totally bought it.
So, from the perspective of the Bush administration, torture was totally effective, because it allowed them to create propaganda that they could easily sell to an ingorant and uncritical American public. From the perspective of Democracy, however, this has been a total failure.
America was founded on the principles that no man should be held without charges and no man should be subject to torture. This was a founding principle because many of those who fled England to America were escaping British tyranny, in which any a subject could be detained by the king without charges and without a trial, and tortured until a false confession was received.
So it is one thing to argue that torture may be an entirely practical strategy when the clock is ticking and we have no other alternatives. In these cases, I don’t see what the alternative is. But regardless of its practical value, torture remains a betrayal of the principles of our founding fathers. America was created by our founders as a State where every man is entitled to the dignity of a fair trail before punishment.
Finally, there is no basis for any argument that the brand of torture that the Bush administration practiced was justified. It was widespread, it was rampant, it was disorganized, and it has galvanized an entire generation of Muslims against us. There was no ticking time bomb that could have justified waterboarding an individual nearly 200 times. In the end, torture was not a strategy that Bush employed cautiously as a last resort because there was a clear and imminent danger; far from it. The use of torture was just another tool at the administration’s disposal, to use at their pleasure, and they were chafing to do it.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:24 am 130. DoctorT:It is an interesting phenomenon that we can
1. use drones to attack AlQueda or Taliban by remote with significant collateral damage, such as wives or children or anyone else that might be in the way
2. that we can execute three pirates with extreme prejudice on the high seas.
3. that our police can use sleep deprivation or other tactics to extract information from our own citizens
But, we conveniently take the moral high ground of taking umbridge, if not outrage against people charged with preventing attacks against our country, by terrorists.
I’m sorry to be forced by our government to have to say it in defense of those protecting our country, but I’m glad they are doing whatever they have to do to protect us.
I’m even happier that President Bush was there over the last 8 years as this president shows every sign of rolling over, laying down and letting our enemies roll right over us.
I understand that Pakistan is at risk of falling to the Taliban. What is to stop Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from being deployed against the United States. We should be teaming up with and defending Pakistan from the threats being posed by the Taliban.
Given the damage being caused to the US by this administration’s military (cuts), border security (not being adequately addressed), the Presidents fawning overseas for hios personal approval (and weakening of our posture and position in the world), and finally undermining our CIA and other internal agencies with this attempt to discredit the prior administration. This doesn’t even go into the : us vs. them internal civil disturbances that the administration is creating (poor vs wealthy, and employee vs. employer), the debt that we are creating for personal socialist goals, the attempts to take over the banks the attempts to redefine healthcare without an open discussion (with the likely result of alienating physicians and shutting down healthcare for everyone).
At what point do all of these actions, which are combining to create distrust, civil unrest, and a fertile environment to permit and encourage a new 911 type event or worse, get to the level that the President needs to get impeached. I love my country and do not want to have us go through a revolution in order to protect our country and the societal beliefs that we have (which I believe our President does not share).
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:24 am 131. DoctorT:If we are going to go after anyone who performed torture of authorized torture then we need to get a full disclosure of all documents surrounding torture, current and previous. It is unconstitutional to do otherwise. Providing only a miniscule information to throw supicion or doubt is unethical and does not allow for a defense.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:28 am 132. Glenmore:Doctor T (130),
“Providing only a miniscule information to throw supicion or doubt is”
Standard behavior in politics, which is really what this is all about.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:30 am 133. Lynne:Here is something I’ve been turning over in my mind. I genuinely don’t know what to think about this.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:43 am 134. Terry Gain:When you start trying to define torture downward- by that I mean including activities not previously classified as torture- don’t you start crossing legal lines with other situations? I mean, don’t you have to apply the same severity of punishment to everyone who does what is now referred to as torture?
Here’s why I say this: I personally have been slammed against walls, dashed with cold water, been forcibly threatened with drowning, forced to hold ’stress’ positions and deliberately deprived of sleep.
The only difference is that I didn’t experience these things in a government holding cell. I was a battered wife.
Now, does that mean that in the future other battered wives can classify their experience as ‘torture’ instead of ‘domestic abuse’?
And if so, what might that change?
@128
Your entire post is vile conjecture. Clearly you prefer the comfort of terrorists to the right of the rest of us to go about out lives without fear of another 9/11. A government that wouldn’t use waterboarding to get whatever information it could out of 9/11 mastermind KSM would be grossly irresponsible and unfit. Your heart bleeds for the wrong side.
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:01 am 135. Terrorism and moral torture « ACT Northern Virginia/Richmond/DC Metro Chapter.:[...] Source: Pajamas Media [...]
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:10 am 136. Terry Gain:125 vis a vis 110 . . . Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors. At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified “Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I’d get my breath, then they’d start over again… I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death
Please provide some additional facts. Did the Japanese have a doctor preside over this exercise to ensure the prisoner wasn’t harmed? Was the American airman, Chase J. Nielsen, the mastermind behind a large scale attack upon innocent civilians? Was the questioning administered to prevent more attacks or for punishment?
Are you able to make rational distinctions? Or are you a liberal?
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:10 am 137. Terry Gain:Now that CIA methods have been made public – for partisan political purposes – by the current Dummy-In- Chief, President Bush should demand 9/11 Commission Type Hearings into his Administration’s Policy and Practices regarding the questioning of terrorists. The hearings should:
1. Be open to the public (other than those with a history of disrupting public hearings, e.g. Code Pink).
2. Be televised in their entirety.
3. Be bi-partisan.
4. Be subject to the Gorelick rule. No one whose conduct is or should be investigated, or who may be called as a witness (e.g. Democrats who approved the use of certain questioning techniques) should be eligible to serve on the panel.
Let the public learn first hand: the efforts of the Bush Administration to balance the rights of terrorists against the right of the public to be protected; the information learned from questioning and the attacks prevented; and, the role of Democratic Party politicians in the process.
If we are lucky enough to have such hearing be prepared to see your Hypocrisy Alert Meter burn out.
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:20 am 138. Marie Claude:#125, in your wikipedia link, it is written “More recently, water cure was used by the French military on Algerian prisoners during the Algerian war of independence.”
never heard of that, besides, water was a rare commodity in Djebel
umm, “gègène” was rather used, as shown in the movie “l’ennemi intime”
as for the debate is still on, my 2 cents of appreciation :
it’s rare that “torture” fullfils consensus, precisely because it was mainly practiced in wars that had not been/aren’t consensually acknoledged as rightful too, thus not of life and or of death question for a nation, but to insure preeminence over an exoteric enemi, thus of a occupation army. I don’t remember (or I ignore) that resistants to “occupation” ever practiced torture in my country, as the goal was to physically eliminate enemies, but the Nazis used torture to disband resistants’ networks
In Algeria, the persons that had to practice “torture” under their authorities cover, generally felt “bad” as long they also weren’t convinced that their “fight” was worth the goal, something they felt like it was already a lost cause, unless they were insensible butchers, or became the kind’s after having experienced what the enemi could make to them too.
Then if we consider that FLN rebels were resistants, they practiced torture to, but rather in retaliation and were more crual
So, a mere soldier who is doing his duty, and doesn’t have to argue the rightfulness of a war like his government, that sent him to fight, should have done before, if he knows that the enemi that he is facing is even more malicious and or pervert than him, his duty is still to try to win the war, and a torture may happen to be the useful response in the given context. Therefore, I don’t want to judge the persons that had to practice torture, unless I had to be exposed at the same situation, I don’t know how I could have reacted then.
Now it’s easy to condamn torture according to “universal principles”, but were/aren’t our universal principles of equality condamned for being at the “origin” of ideologies that generated genocides, so in the same logic, I am doubtful that a universal idea can be the unique solution to concrete situations.
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:21 am 139. Pastor of Muppets:Terry Gain:“Your entire post is vile conjecture. Clearly you prefer the comfort of terrorists to the right of the rest of us to go about out lives without fear of another 9/11. A government that wouldn’t use waterboarding to get whatever information it could out of 9/11 mastermind KSM would be grossly irresponsible and unfit. Your heart bleeds for the wrong side.”
You moron. I was arguing that torture ought to be used only when necessary. KSM should have been waterboarded. Apparently, like the Communists, you think we should be using torture daily. So please tell me, genius, what smoking gun of intel do you think we got out of KSM on the 185th waterboarding attempt?
Torture will never, ever eliminate the possibility of another 9/11, no matter how many Muslims we slam into walls. But if you want to spend your life cowering in fear at the specter of terrorism, that’s your problem, buddy.
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:33 am 140. Terry Gain:You moron.
More vile conjecture.
I was arguing that torture ought to be used only when necessary.
And not very well. Any you were aguing a lot of other things of which you have no clue. Pastor to your emotions Muppet Man.
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:45 am 141. Anodyne:@ 126:
Please point me to the source(s) employed by John McCain in regards to his statement regarding prosecution of WWII Japanese for water-boarding. That is, why don’t you be a little more forthcoming regarding those facts which you claim to hold dear. Ditto for one of my own @63.
@ 135:
“Please provide some additional facts. Did the Japanese have a doctor preside …”
Amen – a little context, not so fast, please. And clearly “water cure” is “waterboarding” taken to the extreme. Have we done exactly as the Japanese did?
@ 128:
“To the Bush administration, torture was just another tool at their disposal to use to help them fabricate a story in which Saddam had ties to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, which they knew was false. But they sold the story to the media and the public anyway, and you folks totally bought it.”
And we should buy your story, why? You seem to be merely working your way backwards (via the “torture” route) from a falsehood about the Bush Administration linking 9/11 to Iraq. And one need not have a “zero hour” for torture to be an option: mess with one’s loved ones and it’s a natural road to take.
@137:
Provided that link to Wikipedia for its definition of “water cure”, not to indict (or un-indict) France regarding Algeria. Gommen nasai!
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:11 am 142. Sam:1) Too much freely available information
2) Narcissist who think they know the answer
Information is power. When releasing information such as “we’re waterboarding people”, those that release it should know that they’re providing a lot of power to “smart” people who thinks they know better.
This type of navel gazing “America does not torture” rhetoric is only useful in stirring up the easily distracted base and acts only to distract the public from the out of control spending. Seems like it is working really well.
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:23 am 143. starling:Karen @ 111: Yes, I know the discussion was about torture, not death. (see my comment at #80). My quote from Lord of the Rings was an indirect reply to people who think that killing millions of Muslims would beneficial. This link explains in pictures why I find such actions untenable (to put it charitably). http://bit-sand-pieces.blogspot.com/
Lynne @132: I am very sorry to hear that you ever had to experience any of the things you described. As for your questions, I do think that the “legal lines” you discuss do get crossed and that important distinctions get blurred, the result of which is that we are all the worse for it.
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:26 am 144. not so fast:140 on McCain . . . he said it more than once . . . here you go . . . from the Associated Press Nov 29, 2007
(AP) Republican presidential candidate John McCain reminded people Thursday that some Japanese were tried and hanged for torturing American prisoners during World War II with techniques that included waterboarding.
“There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that as torture otherwise we wouldn’t have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans,” McCain said during a news conference.
He said he forgot to mention that piece of history during Wednesday night’s Republican debate, during which he criticized former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney after Romney declined to publicly say what interrogation techniques he would rule out.
“I would also hope that he would not want to be associated with a technique which was invented in the Spanish Inquisition, was used by Pol Pot in one of the great eras of genocide in history and is being used on Burmese monks as we speak,” the Arizona senator said. “America is a better nation than that.”
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:27 am 145. Benj:National Review’s Mansi on why it’s “conservative” to reject the “enhanced” interrogation techniques…http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGQ3MzM5YzBmZWY3MjBhMzRlYTBlNWE5NTQ2MTZkMGM=
Here’s FBI Director Mueller denying last year that waterboarding has prevented terror attacks…
“Now that Bush administration officials have launched a major campaign to persuade us that torture “worked,” perhaps it’s worth recalling that George W. Bush’s own FBI director said in an interview last year that he wasn’t aware of a single planned terror attack on America that had been foiled by information obtained through torture.
Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Bush in 2001 and remains FBI director under Obama, delivered that assessment at the end of this December 2008 article in Vanity Fair on torture:
I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?
“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”
That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:38 am 146. Marie Claude:#140 to #126
http://www.2008electionproc…
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:42 am 147. Anodyne:Thanks, not so fast. Any links or sources dealing with the trials to which McCain was referring?
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:43 am 148. Marie Claude:http://www.2008electionprocon.org/pdf/asano_case.pdf
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:46 am 149. Tom Holsinger:The claim that torture does not work as an interrogation tool is a lefty article of faith. It does work. This is a matter of record and well known recorded history. That it is unreliable when used by unskilled personnel means nothing. Such is true of any interrogation technique.
The single most effective indicators of the reliability of information produced by interrogation are the skill of the interrogators with whatever interrogation methods they happen to be using (which includes torture), and the interrogators’ familiarity with the prisoner’s culture.
Coercion and torture are not the same. Lefties love to equate the two.
The distinguishing features of torture are:
a) its ease of use relative to other interrogation techniques, which is why it is so often resorted to unnecessarily, particularly by unskilled personnel (lack of disicpline by the using group is another major cause);
b) its dramatic emotional effects on the victims plus, though obviously to a lesser degree, the interrogators, and;
c) its tendency to be misused as a tool of political coercion on subject populations (the “slippery slope to hell”, which really does exist). Use of torture on a large scale as a means of political coercion often, and possibly usually, leads to a backlash which is thoroughly counter-productive to the users’ interests. French misuse of torture in the Algerian War of Independence is probably the best documented example of the latter, and is certainly ghastly.
I recommend the following two books on that war, particularly the footnotes in the former. They well illustrate the slippery slope to hell when official approval of torture as an interrogation technique spreads to its use for political coercion:
Insurgency and counterinsurgency in Algeria, by Alf Andrew Heggen, and A Savage War of Peace, by Alistair Horne. The latter is probably in your local public library.
Torture is an effective interrogation technique when used properly, which generally requires both training and experience in the interrogators.
The price of developing that sort of expertise is certainly high, and arguably horrid.
Torture, when used more than occasionally for interrogation, particularly when used by non-experts, almost invariably starts the using side down the absolutely for real slippery slope to hell into its widespread use as a means of political coercion of whole populations.
The French experience in Algeria shows the absolute disaster that will befall a democracy if it allows torture as an official policy. IMO this could not present a better argument against ever letting torture be legal.
And I repeat, torture is an effective interrogation tool when used by properly trained and experienced interrogators. It is less effective when used by inexperienced interrogators. The problem is that torture is more effective than other interrogation techniques when used by inexperienced personnel, and it produces results much, much faster. Skilled interrogators using techniques other than torture will produce more effective and reliable results than less experienced personnel using torture, but producing those more effective results will take the experienced interrogators far more time than the less experienced torturers.
I.e., when you want results fast, torture is more effective.
So ease of use by non-specialists, and speed in producing results, are the major, and compelling, advantages of torture over other interrogation techniques. That is why torture has been used so widely in interrogation throughout recorded history.
Which lefties cannot admit as a matter of faith.
But the French experience in Algeria shows what happens when a democracy goes there.
IMO Marc Bowden’s two articles on the subject in Atlantic Monthly are the most thoughtful and informative available pieces on line concerning this subject. His general conclusion is that torture must remain available as an option in emergency situations, with draconian official penalties for its use to discourage personnel from using it except in true emergencies.
The links for his articles are:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200310/bowden
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200309u/int2003-09-11
The elephant in the living room for his pieces, though, is that, for torture to be an effective interrogation technique, it must be used by suitably trained and experienced interrogators. And I repeat what I said above:
The price of developing the necessary expertise in torturers is horrid. For them to have that expertise when emergencies arise, they must either practice torture on unwilling subjects in non-emergency situations, or develop it the hard way in the field.
Another alternative is to out-source it to, as Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley put it, “our cannibal allies”. Which we seem to have done.
There is a reason why there is no evidence, from the American experience in the war on terror, that torture is an effective interrogation technique:
We haven’t used it. At all.
Ourselves.
A more informative question would be, “Have non-American interrogators, working for their own governments but in cooperation with American interrogators, used torture to produce reliable intelligence information concerning terrorist activities?”
IMO the answer to that question is “Yes. Many times.”
I.e., we’ve out-sourced it to cooperative foreign governments.
If lefties are sincere on this subject, they’d focus on our out-sourcing of torture to foreign governments. Listen to their telling silence about that.
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:36 pm 150. Gaffe Prices:No Japanese defendant was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced on the bugaboo of “water boarding” alone.
Shame on McCain for presenting this so out of context.
None of McCains torturer’s have ever been so much as indicted. They all got clean away with it. And vietnamese torture, under the tutelage of cuban stalinists, included alot more than ‘water boarding’.
No court, international or otherwise, has been applied to viet nam or its shameful record. Pol Pot was deposed by vietnamese army because Pot ridiculed viet nam and china as unclean, impure totalitarian marxism, and that his (Pot’s) was pure. Viet nam got a little snippy with Pol Pot, but thats all. Viet nam made no accounting, and tried no one there for crimes of torture, crimes against humanity; Pol Pot died of natural causes a free, however power-reduced man.
Ditto for cuba. You have to ask their permission, apparently. And you gotta ask reeeel nice, and you gotta … you gotta…
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:38 pm 151. Paul -Indiana:#8. Walt, the key difference now is that we have weapons and the will to use them. That won’t go down so easily here.
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:47 pm 152. Gaffe Prices:“Torture will never, ever eliminate the possibility of another 9/11, no matter how many Muslims we slam into walls.”
No one has ever said that it would.
Yours is a Straw man argument:
We want to ‘eliminate’ the probability of its success by those organised to perpetrate it.
Case in point: Khalid Sheik, without so much as a single sliver of bamboo rod.
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:52 pm 153. Gaffe Prices:“The truth is that the vast majority of those we tortured…”
Name one.
Apr 23, 2009 - 1:02 pm 154. always right:I have a simpler solution.
Let’s get the names of those who are against ‘torture’, and send them one of the soon-to-be-released Gitmo boys as their responsibility. The people who decry against torture under any circumstance somehow believe the ‘tortured victims’ as normal human beings. Given the right encouragement and reasoning, they can be ‘reformed’ back into society. Here is their time to show us the truth then.
Apr 23, 2009 - 1:37 pm 155. not so fast:148. Gaffe Prices: WADR . . . I think the issue isn’t who got what punishment for waterboarding who, but whether waterboarding is torture or not. Admittedly, we’ve strayed a bit from the original article, but it seems to me (without endorsing any particular view) that the prevailing opinion is that, yes, waterboarding is torture, both historically and today. If you feel it is torture, that brings in other questions about its impact on America’s moral commitments inside our borders and our moral standing beyond our borders. Did it produce intelligence that saved American lives? Maybe. But I think the Bush administration needs to prove that rather than merely claim it based on what can reasonably be called dissembling on the part of the administration on may issues pursuant to the war. if we remain dispassionate about the politics of the matter, we stand a better chance of getting to the truth. And I, for one do not fear the truth no matter where it leads.
Apr 23, 2009 - 1:55 pm 156. Bart:#129 Pastor of Muppets
What would have done in response to 9/11?
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:13 pm 157. Tcobb:I am sorry, but I have a deep suspicion that most of the people who take the “moral high ground” are just posturing idiots. It is easy to take the “moral high ground” when doing so entails no cost or pain to yourself. Its amazing how the High and Pure change their tune when the policies they advocate do, in actual practice, tend to burn THEIR tender little hides.
I doubt that very few of these people would object to “torturing” someone for information that they knew would be essential to saving their own lives, its only different when it affects them. “Morality” is kind of like a commodity. When its very cheap everyone can have it, but when it gets expensive few seem to be able to afford it.
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:32 pm 158. buddy larsen:i wonder, if George Soros was causing the Russian Federation as much trouble as he’s causing Uncle Sam, would he still be breathing?
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:39 pm 159. Pastor of Muppets:Bart: “#129 Pastor of Muppets
What would have done in response to 9/11?”
I would have waterboarded plenty of terrorists, however I would like to think that I would torture to get good intel, and not to get fake confession of a fabricated link between Saddam and al Qaeda so I could use it to dupe the public.
But moreover, I’d like to think that I, or any other competent leader, would have paid attention to the memo, titled “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.,” that was dropped on Bush’s desk a month before 9/11 and which he conveniently ignored. Perhaps then we wouldn’t even have to be having this discussion about what I would have done in response to 9/11.
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:49 pm 160. Christian:This was a very fine post. Thank you.
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:58 pm 161. Captain Ramen:Pastor,
I see your Bush and raise you Jamie Gorelick. We can play best of 9 in this spectator sport called Assigning Blame but it is ultimately unproductive. Unless you’ve invented a time machine and haven’t told anybody.
You have claimed repeatedly that the point of waterboarding the detainees scores of times was to get a confession about a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. I have searched for such a news article but have come up with nothing. Do you have a link supporting this claim?
Apr 23, 2009 - 3:31 pm 162. Terry Gain:I would have waterboarded plenty of terrorists… blah, blah blah
Then why have you added to the hue and cry over the waterboarding of the top 3 terrorists captured.
But there it is, the answer.
I’d like to think that I, or any other competent leader, would have paid attention to the memo, titled “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.
The Memo? Get serious. But leaving that aside. Having paid attention to the memos of this type that appeared on your desk every day, what would you have done then? Torn down Gorelick’s wall? Profiled Muslims at airports? Fired Richard Clarke? Warned the nation?
Apr 23, 2009 - 3:32 pm 163. buddy larsen:PoM/157; as you are well aware, such memos had been coming to two different presidents’ desks thick, fast, & furious ever since oh, Khobar Towers and the twin African embassies. We both know you’ve cherry-picked the same one other enemies of Bush fastened onto years ago –which makes you not even a cherry-picker but a rather lazy regurgitator. Perhaps you can shake off your evident torpor and tell us what Bush should’ve done with that one of so many warnings.
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:06 pm 164. NahnCee:CHarles Johnson has a video posted at LittleGreenFootballs of a bunch of white-robed Arabs torturing some schmuck in the desert. (One of the torturers is alleged to be a UAE royal.) THAT is torture. Waterboarding just strikes me as … pansy … after watching what real torture is.
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:12 pm 165. Evanston1:Thank you Wretchard, best commentary I’ve seen on this subject by far. Really hits you where you live, your hopes and fears.
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:30 pm 166. Nine-of-Diamonds:Good to see that the resident Magic Negro tools are up-to-date. They honestly think that the likes of “National Review” and “John McCain” still have credibility with us? Me, I give the Dems credit for honesty. As opposed to the faux populist “Grand” Old Party, which recently acquired its own underqualified Affirmative Action Wunderkind.
@ Captain Ramen’s 159: Don’t engage the muppet. Instead, ponder what the Benj’s and PoM’s in America would have said had Bush and Cheney preemptively arrested the 9/11 hijackers.
Sit back, cheer up, and attend to your own affairs. Take comfort in knowing that, once that Pakistani shipping container or Nork ICBM arrives, it’s going to be mainly SWPL’ers and 0bama’s minority leeches that have a front row seat for the fireworks.
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:35 pm 167. JWT:Wretchard:
“My position on torture, if you’ve read my past posts on the subject, is essentially the same as Jacoby’s. Where we differ, I think, is on whether I can impose those views on others as public policy. On a personal level I am entitled to accept whatever level of risk I choose to live according to my moral code. What I am not entitled to do in this slippery matter, is to impose my judgment on others in name of righteousness.”
Wretchard, by analogy, I would say your view is more akin to the view of the Conscientious Objector who will gladly serve his country as a battlefield medic.
Jacoby’s view is more akin to that of the anti-war passivist who hates the military, and self-righteously thinks himself morally superior no matter how much blood guilt is on his hands.
But I still hold your feet to the fire (@ 73)on letting yourself be hoodwinked and seduced by Jacoby’s reasoning.
As soon as you holler “Uncle”, Wretchard, I’ll go easier on you.
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:36 pm 168. Gaffe Prices:#153 not so fast,
I consider what our military service personnel, (not to mention Habu and the other foreign service operatives) at Gitmo have to endure at the hands of ambitious news people and congress people to be…. [fill in the blank].
All this abstract ‘torture’ crap and what-iffing, and second-guessing obscures what this filth, these enemies of humanity do to our military medical personnel, and what they endure while trying to administer “free” health care to detainees, in the espirit of egalitarian french hypocracy. (no offence Marie Claude, I use this as much as metaphor for the culture of complaint in general, coming from europe, and the “progressive”s in this country)
Apr 23, 2009 - 4:55 pm 169. Gaffe Prices:Worth repeating:
#119: joe buzz:
“Lets view this from the perspective of the victim. Should you be the one that has the vital information that could save lives, would you rather be in the hands of the CIA or those that interrogated Daniel Pearl or Bill Buckley?”
So just who is the humanitarian here, in this example?
Apr 23, 2009 - 5:08 pm 170. George Ditter:If your sense of morality would allow you to let a million people die rather than “torture” whatever that means in this context one person, then I would hope that you would have the decency to load up your family in the car and drive to Ground Zero to share in the those people being sacrificed on your altar.
Apr 23, 2009 - 6:04 pm 171. buddy larsen:For the “How Sweet & Kind Uncle Sam is” file, Yassir Arafat is on tape, a taped radio transmission, giving the Buckley death order, and chortling over the results. And afterwards, for years and years and years, we treated with him exactly as if he weren’t a murdering pig.
Apr 23, 2009 - 6:06 pm 172. fred:Buddy @156
“i wonder, if George Soros was causing the Russian Federation as much trouble as he’s causing Uncle Sam, would he still be breathing?”
Would that one of the world’s wealthiest, most powerful men could be neutralized with what is materially the cheapest solution. It only costs $.05. Not including labor, of course.
Apr 23, 2009 - 6:23 pm 173. Tcobb:If your sense of morality would allow you to let a million people die rather than “torture” whatever that means in this context one person, then I would hope that you would have the decency to load up your family in the car and drive to Ground Zero to share in the those people being sacrificed on your altar.
Apr 23, 2009 - 6:37 pm 174. Captain Ramen:EXACTLY
No blood is too precious to be shed unless the ultra-virtuous think it might be their own.
NineofDiamonds,
I’ve seen this clown PoM troll the PJM front page before. I get a thrill out of baiting the troll every once in a while… ever since that anti semite lunatic cedarford left it just hasn’t been the same.
Sit back, cheer up, and attend to your own affairs. Take comfort in knowing that, once that Pakistani shipping container or Nork ICBM arrives, it’s going to be mainly SWPL’ers and 0bama’s minority leeches that have a front row seat for the fireworks.
Wish I could, but my family and I live in Los Angeles. I am sorry, but it is this attitude of ‘let’s do nothing but stockpile ammunition’ that is killing us. Yes they won, but that is no excuse for us to be passive and lazy about it.
BTW I went to a gun store yesterday, there’s nothing there but SA revolvers and .22lr target pistols. Thanks a lot survivalists!
Apr 23, 2009 - 6:53 pm 175. buddy larsen:Tcobb, yep, the moral air is sweet up there perched atop the fence.
Apr 23, 2009 - 6:56 pm 176. buddy larsen:captain Ramen, lethality-wise the 22LR leads the pack. Of course, that’s a gross statistic but still, nobody but nobody wants to get hit by a 22LR. Plus, ammo is cheap so you can get good without breaking the bank. And a SA revolver is better for keeping that last round ready when there’s no time to reload.
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:02 pm 177. Terry Gain:I’m guessing that not one of these weenies whose hearts bleed for terrorists has ever muttered a word against partial birth abortion.
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:08 pm 178. Tcobb:Captain Ramen
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:08 pm 179. Benj:Its been a long time since I’ve been connected with such folk, but the people I knew who were in the special forces basically favored pistols that were chambered for the 22LR or the .45 ACP. Of course, one of the reasons for the 22LR popularity was that it was really effective with silencers.
161 – Just a quick repsponse to your line on cherrypicking – Might try this critique of the 9/11 commission. http://harpers.org/archive/2004/10/0080234
I know you dig W so this may hurt – IF you find it convincing – but as per “not so fast” – let the record speak? – I’m biased toward this 9/11 Commish critic (he was fam) but I think he went out of his way to say it plain – surely wasn’t sucking up to the Dems on the Commish – he thought the whole report amounted to another of America’s many relativizing refusals to judge. How to find a way out of self-righteousness without giving up on doing the right thing…Not easy. God knows that 9/11 Commish REport didn’t even try…
BTW – I did read Chambers’ “Witness.” Wow!!!!!!!! – That’s a HELLUVA book – hope to write something about it…Here’s the nut section of that 9/11 critique but hope you’ll give the whole thing a shot some one of these days…
THE NOBODY TOLD ME SCAM
There’s little mystery about why the Commission is tongue-tied. It can’t call a liar a liar.
The most momentous subject before the 9/11 Commission was: What did President Bush know about the Al Qaeda threat to the United States, when did he know it, and if he knew little, why so? The Commission reports that on several occasions in the spring and summer of 2001 the President had “asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States.” The Commission further reports the President saying that “if his advisers had told him there was a [terrorist] cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it.” Facing his questioners in April 2004, the President said he had not been informed that terrorists were in this country.
Conceivably it was at or near the moment when Bush took this position that the members of the Commission who heard him grasped that casting useful light on the relation between official conduct and national unpreparedness would be impossible. The reason? The President’s claim was untrue. It was a lie, and the Commissioners realized they couldn’t allow it to be seen as a lie. Numberless officials had appeared before the whole body of the Commission or before its aides, had been sworn in, and had thereafter provided circumstantial detail about their attempts—beginning with pre-election campaign briefings in September, through November 2000, and continuing straight through the subsequent months—to educate Bush as candidate, then as president-elect, then as commander in chief, about the threat from terrorists on our shores. The news these officials brought was spelled out in pithy papers both short and long; the documentation supplied was in every respect impressive.[22.NOTE The papers directed to Bush, including discussion of possible terrorist use of hijacked planes, ranged from National Security Council briefings (e.g., those of March 19, 2001, and May 17, 2001) and National Security Council memos (e.g., that of December 29, 2000) to email direct from Counterterrorism Security Group Chief Richard Clarke to Condoleezza Rice (on March 23, June 28, and June 30, 2001), as well as a blizzard of CIA Senior Executive Intelligence Briefs (SEIBs) bearing such titles as "Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks" (June 30, 2001).] The congressionally appointed U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, cochaired by Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, presented its report to the White House in February 2001. The document contained “stark warnings about possible domestic terrorist attacks.” Bush did not meet with either of the cochairs. The officials who did manage to brief Bush in person on these matters included John McLaughlin, the CIA acting deputy director, Ben Bonk, the deputy chief of its Counterterrorist Center, and the outgoing president of the United States.
Nevertheless the chief executive, seated before the Commission, declared: Nobody told me. And challenging the chief executive as a liar entailed an unthinkable cost—the possible rending of the nation’s social and political fabric.
The interior mind of the 9/11 Commission is closed to intruders; only the arrogant would presume to “know” its inner response to this denial. But you cannot grasp the meaning of the Report without trying first to understand that response. And it’s no mistake to start by imagining the content of any ordinary person’s feelings who had been present at the denial and was well informed, prior to the meeting, on the relevant subjects. Incredulous embarrassment, surely. Pity. A glance turned protectively away, to the middle distance, from the witness. A dawning of helplessness in the face of the insuperable obstacles now blocking the path to clarification of responsibility and thorough analysis of the causes of the tragedy. We cannot know with any certainty what emotions or disappointments the Commission members actually felt, but the pertinent facts underlying their probable dismay lie far beyond dispute—far beyond off-the-rack accusations of prejudice and preconception. The record speaks. George W. Bush met reluctantly with the Commission, and on condition that the Vice President be permitted to accompany him, that the interview not be recorded, and that it take place in the Oval Office. [NOTE 33. A small group meeting with the country's chief executive in a White House locale rich in historical associations and consequence can have intimidating power even for those who aren't strangers to Authority's purlieus. The present writer, holder of no public office and never admitted to the Oval Office, can remember a White House meeting with President Lyndon Johnson, held in 1968 in the Cabinet Room, to which a half dozen teachers with decent professional qualifications if no reclame brought pressing questions about the Vietnam War. The power of the place, not solely of the man's presence, worked strongly on each of us; none of our pressing questions found voice.] A significant portion of the Commission’s questions during the session, which occurred on April 29, 2004, dealt with what the President made of the Presidential Daily Brief, headed “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US,” that he received, in Crawford, Texas, on August 6, 2001, less than five weeks before the 9/11 disaster. (See page 40, where the relevant text is reprinted in its entirety.) In accordance with the agreement, the Report sets forth the President’s reflections in indirect discourse, as follows:
“The President told us the August 6 report was historical in nature. President Bush said the article told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become President. The President said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America. He recalled some operational data on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way. As best he could recollect, Rice had mentioned that the Yemenis’ surveillance of a federal building in New York had been looked into in May and June, but there was no actionable intelligence.
He did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened.”
The depersonalizing steno-stream mode in which these remarks are reported represents them as proceeding fluidly from topic to topic, consecutive and reasoned, and rousing no impulse to interrupt. But open a space, line by line, sentence by sentence, for informed response (after months of earnest study, the Commissioners qualified at the very least as informed), and questions flow in—and with them a sense both of the urgent need for critique and of the barriers preventing that need from being met:
“The President told us the August 6 report was historical in nature.”
Each paragraph of the Bin Laden briefing is directed not at the past but at the present or the future. Talk of “bring[ing] the fighting to America,” or of “planning . . . to mount a terrorist strike”—together with the comment that “Bin Ladin . . . prepares operations years in advance” and that “Al-Qa’ida . . . maintains a support structure that could aid attacks”—focus on today and tomorrow. If the Commission means to serve fact, it will have to speak in its Report to correct the presidential error and to establish that the briefing clearly aimed to warn him of what lay ahead. But how can it speak to that end? In what language or tone can an attempt be made to apprise the country of a fateful error by the leader pledged “faithfully” to protect us—a leader still evidently incapable even of recognizing the error?
“President Bush said the article told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become President. The President said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America. He recalled some operational data on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way.”
The Commissioners’ absolute imperative here and now is to proceed cautiously. Their obligation as citizens charged with telling the truth to their fellow citizens is to compare and contrast what the President is saying with what the Commission already knows. The Commissioners must not silence their questions. As self-respecting leaders aware of the trust their vouchers will bear, they must affirm their own habits of self-doubt, their willingness to check their memory, their readiness to concede that they could have misheard or misconstrued. But they must not self-censor appropriate questions, must insist on candor, must not accept words for deeds. What then were the main assertions?
“The President said that the briefing paper told him “al Qaeda was dangerous,” that he had known this since he became president and known too that “Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America,” and that he was heartened by news of “70 investigations” under way.”
The Commissioners have heard that Bush received more than forty briefings naming Al Qaeda as a danger. They have learned from authoritative inquiries conducted in 2002 that nothing remotely resembling seventy investigations had been launched by the FBI. They are well informed about the surprisingly relaxed presidential response to the danger—a danger of which Bush claimed full cognizance. They know this response consisted of two letters to the recently installed leader of a foreign country and the voicing of irritation to aides about his thwarted yearning to “take the fight to” the insect life called terrorists. The letters the President signed were addressed to the president of Pakistan, were drafted for him by the State Department, and dealt with “a number of matters,” including a request for “support in dealing with terrorism.” The President expressed himself to National Security Adviser Rice in March or April of 2001 as “‘tired of swatting at flies’” and, on the same occasion, declared that he wanted “to play offense. . . . [wanted] to take the fight to the terrorists.” In May 2001 the President announced that the Vice President would head a task force to review “general problems of national preparedness,” including management of any domestic attacks by WMD.
Nothing happened. No task-force review had begun by 9/11. Musharraf’s response to the letters was negative. No flies were swatted. The Commission knows, in other words, that no “action” was taken for the purpose of protecting the American citizenry from the fresh dangers fully described to the President over the immediately preceding months. It knows, in addition, that before 9/11, and in the frantic days afterward, departmental secretaries and undersecretaries were pressing—inexplicably but unrelentingly—for the bombing of Iraq, in meetings with, and in briefings written for, the President. And it knows that Bush himself was seeking justification, from his counterterrorism chief, for an attack on Saddam.
If the Commission means to serve fact, it simply cannot avoid addressing in this Report the gap between avowed presidential awareness of domestic terrorist danger and actual presidential impassivity. It will have to draw on its own resources for insight into whether the President assessed Bin Laden as a toothless blustering braggart, whether he shared Attorney General Ashcroft’s reported view that warnings about Al Qaeda were tiresome and needless, whether he now understood that he most assuredly should have asked questions about the “heartening” seventy investigations, and—most excruciating—whether the President as they questioned him had yet come to realize that the hijackings, the collapse of the Towers, the enormous toll at the Pentagon and elsewhere, might have been prevented had more dutiful, responsible attention been paid to the urgent exhortations from the experts in his service.
“[The President] did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened.”
The President asserts that no adviser told him about a cell and, further, that on several occasions in spring and summer 2001 he “asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States.” The August 6 briefing paper states without ambiguity that a cell—people behaving as members of a cell—existed at that time. The record clearly establishes that George W. Bush was told repeatedly, from September 2000 onward, of precisely such threats. The Commission knew that experts—terrorism specialists who worked around the clock (often taking three meals a day at their desks)—had composed hair-burning tirades, had dared at length to “scream” unavailingly for attention, and had finally begged in despair to be relieved of posts rendered utterly meaningless by their superiors’ unresponsiveness.
In September 2000, before the election, John McLaughlin, then acting deputy director of the CIA, camped at Bush’s ranch in Texas with a CIA team bringing the harrowing message. Ben Bonk, deputy chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, was among the experts who told Bush that Americans would die in terrorist acts led or inspired by Bin Laden during the next four years. Authoritatively assembled material was submitted to the Bush/Cheney transition team spelling out the fact that “al Qaeda had ‘sleeper cells’ in more than 40 countries, including the United States.” An attachment to this paper, submitted in January 2001, focused on “al Qaeda’s presence in the United States.” When James Pavitt, CIA deputy director for operations, briefed the president-elect at Blair House, he described Bin Laden as “one of the gravest threats to the country.” Bill Clinton told Bush in a two-hour session on national security: “‘I think you will find that by far your biggest threat is Bin Ladin and the al Qaeda.’” Clinton spoke as one who had lived through a rain of jihadist bombs—the Black Hawk Down incident, the African embassies, the Cole, the Millennium Threat, among them. Bush later said that he “felt sure President Clinton had mentioned terrorism, but did not remember much being said about al Qaeda.” All this is in the Report for anyone to see.
Given the evidence, the Commissioners who meant to serve fact—meant truly to foster the future security of this country—would have had to confront, through words and acts, the gap between the President’s absurd, nobody-told-me assertions and the plain record before them of repeated attempts to draw his attention away from Iraq to the threat that closed the very street on which he and his family lived. They would have been forced to raise the question, to themselves and to their audience, of whether this level of ignorance and obliviousness, this much incontrovertible proof of neglect and indifference, could be passed over in silence by men and women of patriotic good conscience. They would have been forced to admit to themselves that they knew what they knew.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:14 pm 180. Captain Ramen:Thwip! Maybe I’ll buy one of each. I really want a m1911 variant chambered for .45acp. Too bad it is impossible to find around here. I am not a big fan of plastic guns but I would settle for the Springfield Armory XD.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:31 pm 181. Tcobb:Gosh Benj—
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:15 pm 182. buddy larsen:Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Bush isn’t the President anymore. We have a new moron at the wheel. And all the Bush-haters who have come before us have set the new standard. As you have judged and trashed ChimpyBushHitler (dissent is patriotic is it not?) anyone else is surely justified in criticizing ChimpyObamahMussolini? Get with it Dude, its the patriotic thing to do.
Benj. the commish stunk before it was even convened. The precedent was the Pearl Harbor Commission –which was convened soon after VJ Day.
The most memorable thing I can recall was the quick glance Gorelick and Tenet exchanged in the greeting line the day of his testimony. It was the look of mutual fear and desperation –only lasted a split second but i saw it live on tv and it cut me a backflip outta my La-Zee-Boy.
oh yes, and the preview & coda — the Saga of Sandy Burglar –about which Bill C when asked, laughed and said Sandy was SO disorganized, a real messy-desk man!
Feh.
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:02 pm 183. buddy larsen:Captain Ramen, have heard good things about the Springfield XD. I’m sure you know this but –especially if the little woman may need to handle the thing and is not a gun familiar, that semi-autos can jam and are a little trickier to handle than revolvers –important in the midst of an adrenaline rush. Revolvers never jam and are about as tricky as a toothbrush. A .38 Special is a good cartridge, anyone can handle it comfortably and the pistol, with a short barrel and small handle, fits in a pocket or purse very well and it thus more likely to be at hand if needed. Cartridge effectiveness is no .45 but no slouch, about like a 9mm. Carrying a .45 can be like carrying a cinder block –it won’t be in the back pocket of your Levis –where say one of these rides very easy. just imho.
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:20 pm 184. GerryP:One of my own @ #63 said:
Since we executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American soldiers, were we wrong then or are we wrong now?
Where in the world did you get the idea that the Japanese “water-boarded?” All you had to do to check it was to ask any Greatest Generation veteran about it.
“Water-boarding” as Americans do it, does no permanent harm. It does not drown anyone. It is meant to frighten, not kill or injure. It gives the feeling of drowning, though.
But the Japanese used, not “water-boarding” but water-torture. Like using a hose to force water in through the victim’s nose, filling the stomach with water until it was big as a bushel, then beating the person on the his swollen stomach. Or actually drowning the victim, a little at a time. What we call “water boarding” was never done by the Japanese. That sort of thing was way too mild for them. They were serious about torture!
Those of us old enough then read everything, but everything, during and about WWII. We remember. “Waterboarding” did not exist then.
I notice the left is claiming that now, but it is not true. Apparently they don’t mind making things up. Check it out.
Apr 24, 2009 - 12:00 am 185. Gaffe Prices:Gong!
old chinese proverb:
“no one know, big pink elefant in living room, ’til pong from big pink elefant poop reach nostril.”
Make of that what you will.
Gong!
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:32 am 186. buddy larsen:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009113529_memos24.html
Here we go –Obama comes out in full, an ally of America’s adversaries. Good show, Democrats, you horde of blinking morons, you.
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:41 am 187. Dave:Buddy, how shocking! You mean somebody actually pointed WEAPONS at our enemies?????
Got a link to an Aggie target pistol? I have a list of people who should be issued one.
That Smith you linked to: A Centennial, I suppose. Haven’t seen one of them for some time.
My backup out in the bush was the venerable Chief’s Special. Loaded it with wadcutters,
accidentally inserted upside down. Aerodynamics limited effective range to 7 yards or less. More than what I needed and it was a surefire stopper. Came in handy on one occasion.
Gee, wonder what kind of war criminal this makes me?
BTW: Since those days, would now recommend 3-inch barrel. Just as portable, bit more conceable if on the person and point-shoots
Apr 24, 2009 - 2:13 am 188. Terry Gain:better.
@178
Verbosity is no substitute for proving facts, but it does help to mask unsupported assertions. Your use of unsourced quotes makes you a silly poseur. If you want us to consider an allegation, have the courtesy, to provide the evidence in support of it. Post chapter and verse
I do like that Bush defended the country, especially in the face of vicious opposition and you have not posted anything which leads me to believe he did anything but his duty.
It seems to me that you have a virulent case of BDS which is demonstrated by this silly conspiracy statement.
There’s little mystery about why the Commission is tongue-tied. It can’t call a liar a liar.
Apr 24, 2009 - 4:41 am 189. not so fast:183 Gerry P . . . “Those of us old enough then read everything, but everything, during and about WWII. We remember. “Waterboarding” did not exist then . . . Apparently they don’t mind making things up.”
consider this from #126
Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors. At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified “Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I’d get my breath, then they’d start over again… I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death.”
That’s waterboarding. Let’s not fear the facts. Let’s deal with the facts.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:49 am 190. Benj:181 – Budddy – re – the commish stunk from the jump – that’s what a pub friend with inside dope said too – Still, if you can bring a little, ah, innocence to it – or a novelist’s imagination – it is humanly interseting to think on what must have gone down in some folks’ heads – was everybody in on the game right from the jump? – when Bush decided to simply brazen his way through that interview…As it happens, it turned out to be the template for his, ah, leadership style. The absolute faith in willing your way to alternative realities – because as per that famous Susskind quote fromt the unnamed Admin official – “We’re an empire now, we create our own reality” – I know you blame Bush’s willfulness on the press who were out to gotcha him to death – But in the case of the commish – Wow – they let Bush (ane everyone else) off the hook…What a world – between the GOTCHA and S’ALL GOOD/BAD relativism falls the shadow…-
187 Terry Gain – “Your use of unsourced quotes” – Work on your reading skills Terry – As I indicated at the top of my post – I didn’t write the swatch of prose that I posted. It came from a 2004 critique of 9/11 commission in Harpers – I posted the link above – here it is again. http://harpers.org/archive/2004/10/0080234
The piece comes with notes/citations for the quotes (Folded two of those notes into the text I posted above). I’ve never had BDS – Allowed in print in 2005 that I probably should’ve voted for Bush to keep the faith with the soldiers who were about to move into the second battle of Fallujah. In 2004 – when folks on “my” side tended to claim that Bush/Kerry was the most importatn election of our lifetime…I argued the elections that counted were Obama’s senate race and the upcoming vote in Iraq. I’m not right that often so allow me to bask in a retro glow…
Tcobb- Happily edited the sharpest known critique of that silly phrase “dissent is patriotic.” Try O’Brien on E.L. Doctorow’s clunky attack on Bush at the FIRST OF THE MONTH website. Need no lessons from on this front. But – for clarity’s sake – I was responding to a specific post by Buddy L. re what Bush knew and when did he know it pre-9/11. Didn’t bring the subject up myself! If you have something useful to say about that issue, spit it out…Otherwise you’re just being… verbose…Dude.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:59 am 191. buddy larsen:Benj, nice para, i wish you’d bring that wizardry to the right side. Well somehow i knew you’d be familiar with the concept of the willing-into-being of alternate realities. Remember tho, the operative word is ‘realities’ –sooo the argument is just over ‘whose do we use’ –IOW we’re just haggling over price –right?
Anyhoo, the Bush admin frustrated me in a whole lot of ways but i can’t find many of those that weren’t bent into historically unnatural shapes by an unprecedented tidal wave of Cloward-Piven deliberate (at the sources) BDS. The admin’s eff-ups were but an acorn of that mighty oak.
Also, i CAN bring innocence to the topic –unlike the “pub with inside dope” –in that anyone with the merest dribble of discernment can see the Joe & Jane optics were all for “Klutz DC” –IOW the party-in-power when the message arrives gets the no-confidence. That’s why as i mentioned the only precedent we have, the Pearl Harbor Commish, was postponed wordlessly until after the war: because of the “war effort” (as it was until recently quaintly known).
There’s just simply a fundamental disconnect between the two parties as to where the politics should end and the “nation” begin. And alas per Gresham’s Law means we all must fall toward the lowest common denominator. What you see as Bush’s airy disconnect I see as his trying to fall toward that LCD as slowly and stubbornly as possible. Either way it’s not a governing princple so I guess you win –which of course is my point.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:11 am 192. buddy larsen:PS, as you know, the commish was whipped into being by a collection of Dems, rhinos, and broken-down old beltway brokers for the express purpose of assigning blame to a system so that a man –Bill Clinton –could skate out from under. Witness Berger, the telling detail that almost invariably foils the too-clever plan. Only in this case, due to the twist (MSM having become an arm of your party –or vice versa), the foiling didn’t get much of a run on the plains of observable reality. Would have, though, like a hydrogen bomb watergate, had the shoe been on the cloven hoof –i mean, other foot.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:27 am 193. buddy larsen:Dave, yessir, the short barrel and so-called ‘lady’s handle’ makes the pocket-sized man-stopper no-jam EZ handle point-n-shooter that gets my vote for all-around best, including the vasty intangible of having the durn thing with you if you need it. that illo i just grabbed off the net –i actually like an exposed hammer for safety. the Smith’s hammer is so low it won’t snag and with it even your most excitable neophyte knows at a glance what condition the condition is in. A hollow point ain’t ‘zackly a reversed wad-cutter but heck the cops used the off the shelf .38 Special for years before the 9 fat clips got so sexy.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:44 am 194. DoctorT:Glenmore 131
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. Our president who has pledged to uphold the constitution is denying those he is throwing suspicion upon their rights. This is a clear violation of our constitution. This is not the only example of having done so.
He is also undermining our security organizations. Today he is releasing documents that will likely do the same to our military. People need to make their voices heard before we are victims of nuclear bombing or a new world war, with the United States as the target.
Talking about what is going on is important, but there will be no change unless the people speak out.
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:07 pm 195. tammy12:When I said to my liberal friends last November: “the day Obama won, Osama won”, they went on a frantic insulting mode directed at me. The list and ‘quality’ of the insults too long to list and unsuitable for all audiences. After 8 years of conservatives swallowing in and dealing with the most outrageous, disparate comparisons, blown-out of proportion smears, insults, vitriol, etc coming out of the foul mouth of liberals, lefties, BDS sufferers, etc, I thought they would have the guts and courage to deal with some of the vitriol coming out of the conservative side directed to them. After all, they won. They are the ones in power. But who knows, maybe Hillary Clinton was right after all: “if you can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen”.
Ok, ok. I admit 4 months ago I was just in dépêche mode or better in a “it’s pay-back time” mode. Like most Republicans and Conservatives, despite of all our ‘sore losers’ laments, I really (secretly) wanted nothing more than to be wrong about Obama; about the insecurities, discomfort, and plain worries we had about him. There was nothing I wanted more than to be proven wrong about our fears of a closet socialist, and America apologist; we were ’hopeful’ that when he talked about ‘change’ he meant fixing things that were on the wrong track – there was always lots of questions about what he meant by ‘change’; MSM never asked of him, never scrutinized his words of ‘change’ ;no one knew, so we trusted. Now we know.
Most of all, we wanted to be wrong about Obama’s abilities to deal with our National Security and Defense. Well, he maybe a Liberal, I though, but American Presidents (of whatever political leanings) never fail to watch first and foremost to America’s Interests, America’s Security and most of all, America’s Exceptionalism continuity.
Well, seems I was spot on regarding my fears, and wrong to have dream otherwise. As it turned out, Obama is indeed a socialist, an US apologist, a member of the ‘Blame America First’ club, a Muslim-lite whom uses (or don’t use) his middle name, ancestry and upbringing depending on when it is politically expedient to do so, an appeaser (and fast becoming a puppet) of US foes; but all that is irrelevant, almost insignificant when compared with the issues regarding National Security. Never have I seen such a huge break from all the great things that have made of America the most prosperous, successful and powerful nation in World’s history. One thing is to be angry at Bush and reverse ‘HIS’ policies; another one is to turn America, history and all, upside down by remaking its entire infrastructure, the solid base and principles upon which America was built, survived and thrived. Here is where the big difference lies: Obama may change and reverse some, most, all of Bush’s policies – no problems there – in fact that is exactly what he was elected to DO; but DONT change America. If America is indeed the most powerful, successful and influential nation in the World; if it is the Political, Economical, Military, Cultural, Scientific and Technological Superpower of the world, then it is obviously, because it has done something right from its very inception. It is sad and pathetic the gullibility and blindness of his ardent followers have missed this wider view of things; that their hatred (rational or irrational) of Bush have squared and narrowed their perspective to the point of missing America all together during the Big Obama’s Train voyage.
Which takes me back to my first comment about ‘The Day Obama Won, Osama Won’.
Let’s just take a look at the Torture Memo Scandal, and I’m not getting into the details of when torture is or isn’t acceptable, or who agrees/disagrees, was it right or not to publish them, should there be or not be prosecutions, Obama back and forth on the torture issue saying one thing first then changing that position to something else, only to change it again, etc. There’s plenty written on all that already. Take whatever position you’re most comfortable with and stand by it.
Now, imagine for a second, Osama Bin Laden and his AQ friends looking at this spectacle from the comfort of their caves. What are they thinking about it? I’ll take a guess. They are LOL! ROTFL! DTFL!– for the readers not so familiar with internet slangs, that means LAUGHTING OUT LOUD! ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHTING! DRYING TEARS FROM LAUGHTING! That’s what they are doing as they see how America is stumbling down; at war within itself… in petty partisan and political dispute and blame searching regarding: not how to protect this country better, not how to correct past policies that didn’t work,… this is not a new government blaming its predecessor for NOT finding (dead or alive) Osama Bin Laden or for NOT avoiding MORE terror attacks; you know as in “It is good you stopped the 9/11 part 2 in Los Angeles, but why coudnt you stop or do more to stop the attacks on our allies (like Madrid and London)? “
…Oh no! Instead, the whole polemic is about … GULP!… why we werent nicer to our enemies!
It reminds me of a soccer game. Team A is already 3 goals ahead of Team B in the last 7 minutes overtime period. Team A knows the chances of team B scoring 3 goals in overtime are slim. So in its desperation, team B starts changing strategies. To the observer, and that include the players in Team A, the assumption would be that B players are debating about which is the best strategy to win: a defensive type strategy or an aggressive one. Of course, time’s running out and neither strategy will have sufficient time to be implemented during this game; maybe for the next one. But imagine, if instead, Team A finds out that the reason for the ‘internal’ fight among the Team B players was not about a winning strategy but about how and why the ‘kicking’ that a Team B player gave to a Team A player had to be so hard thus earning Team B a ‘red card’ instead of a ‘yellow card’ type penalty or even better, NO PENALTY at all? Or in more simple terms, Team A finds out that Team B was more concerned with the well being of their opposing team player than with winning the game all together?
Ok. Don’t even say it, if you are an American like me, I know exactly what you are thinking: “In Soccer, you just neead a feather touching a player for him to fall down and twist and scream like a baby” so maybe I shouldve used Football instead, but I happen to be a girl, and everyone knows Soccer is a girl’s game.…but you get the idea.
In any case the conclusion is the same: Obama punishes Bush for defending the country with the tools that were considered the most appropriate at the time given the severity and urgency of the situation while Osama laughs all the way to his cave!
No laughting matter!
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:33 pm 196. buddy larsen:Amen, sister –tell it –
Apr 24, 2009 - 4:09 pm 197. Wadeusaf:First of all I have no doubt that I’d be singing like a bird once the drowning sensation hit. But I don’t know anything, and anything is what my interrogators would get from me.
From elder DeMott’s piece, “Because it is continuously engaged in scotching all attempts to distinguish better from worse leadership responses, the Commission can’t discharge its duty to educate the audience about the habits of mind and temperament essential in those chosen to discharge command responsibility during crises. It can’t tell the truth about what was done and not done, thought and not thought, at crucial turning points.”
This quote from your fathers critique of the 911 Commission declares above the very failings of both the commission, and the writers critique. For your dad the commission did not damn enough, it was not convened for that purpose. For you I infer that the commission appears to not have split enough hairs, or split too many unfavorably, again it was not convened for that use.
Please note that the Commission was not set up to be a barber shop or gossip house. Bipartisan entities place limits on people and should by definition limit our expectations of them. (Only thirty more some years till the Warren Commissions findings were scheduled to be released), and even Castro by then may be dead).
Torture as defined by the UN conventions on torture was adopted by the General Assembly in December of 1975. The US is not a signatory to that definition. The one we are a signatory to is much more stringent in its definition of torture which water boarding again falls under as torture due to the lasting psychological impact. Because the folks at Gitmo are not civilians and are not legal combatants, I could care less what happens to them. I figure the modern equivalent of a keel hauling is more than adequate, as they are pirates at best. But I do believe that the information we require is better solicited in other ways. And with only one exception that I am aware of, the time urgency senario does not apply to the conditions of torture outlined in the memos.
I am still frosted by what occurred in AG. Not just because of the recklessness of the garbage going on. But also because it was not even close to being effective in obtaining information about the enemy. Placing our troops in such a quandary was not a legitimate use of US assets. Placing a fictitious seal of approval in the “sounds like an order and sounds like it got approval from the AG, and and the JAG, does not excuse any of the persons at AG for misconduct and what is in my opinion a gross dereliction of duty. I quite honestly do not care a whit about the gits in Cuba, I do care about the lives of our soldiers in harms way, and the effect of the actions at AG had on their ability to complete the mission. In this day of leaks, it seems obvious that if you don’t want something to get out to the public, don’t do it is rule, I still find it difficult to believe the occurrences at AG were sanctioned. The amount of suffering visited on the homes of a brave few, make hearsay and rumor not nearly enough to prosecute.
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
Water Boarding as defined by the Member of the Doolittle raid, was only a part of the torture inflected on them by the japs. The descriptions indicate that both Boarding and ingestion were applied and are consistent with the legal letter and intent of torture because of the tendency to leave lasting emotional or psychological trauma and the danger of death from 12 to 24 hours following.
Such physical methods had no business in Iraq, and with the exception of AG for a brief did not exist there.
Apr 24, 2009 - 5:10 pm 198. bogie wheel:*sigh*
Okay, let’s dispense with the big lie first.
Here it is in big, bold letters for those who don’t want to read this whole post:
The United States did NOT execute Japanese soldiers after WWII for waterboarding American prisoners.
McCain, simply put, was just regurgitating the lefty kool aid.
Here are the facts:
Those who talk about Japanese // “waterboarding” // “water torture” // war crimes are referring to one or both of the following cases:
United States of America v. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata, and Takeo Kita (U.S. Military Commission, Yokohama, 1-28 May, 1947)
and/or
Trial of Lt. General Shigeru Sadawa and three others (United States Military Commission, Shanghai, 27 Feb. – 15 April, 1946)
In the case of Asano, Hata, and Kita, the specifications of the charges included:
… the “beating and kicking” of prisoners
… “fastening [prisoner] on a stretcher and forcing water up his nostrils”
… “forcing water into [prisoners'] mouths and noses”
… “pressing lighted cigarettes against [prisoners'] bodies”
… “fastening [a prisoner] downward on a stretcher and forcing water into his nose”
Please note that (a) the Japanese on trial were accused of kicking their captives, beating them, and burning them with cigarettes, in addition to the (b) water-based punishment which is NOT consistent with, and is much more severe than, the current “waterboarding” being debated.
Hata was convicted and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor; Asano, 15 years; Kita, 15 years. No executions.
Sawada’s case involved the eight captured Doolittle raiders, three of whom had been executed by the Japanese in October 1942. (The remaining 5 didn’t have so hot a time in captivity, either.)
Sawada, who had been Commanding General of the Japanese Imperial 13th Expeditionary Army in China, was tried for his role in causing the eight Doolittle raiders “to be denied the status of Prisoners of War and to be tried and sentenced by a Japanese Military
Tribunal in violation of the Laws and Customs of War.”
He was found guilty by the United States Military Commission of the following:
(i) that he constituted and appointed (but not “knowingly and willfully”) a Japanese Military Tribunal and directed this Tribunal to try certain “United States Army Personnel on false and fraudulent charges”
(ii) that the Tribunal set up by him tried and sentenced to death certain United States Army Personnel and Prisoners of War upon false and fraudulent evidence, all under Sawada’s authority …
(iii) that he “den[ied] the status of prisoner of war” to one particular prisoner and authorized him “to be imprisoned as a war criminal, to be denied proper food, clothing, medical care and shelter, and did allow cruel and brutal atrocities and other offences to be committed against” that prisoner …
(iv) that he caused the other seven victims “to be denied the honourable status of Prisoners of War and wrongfully caused them and each of them to be treated as war criminals”
Sawada was sentenced to 5 years in prison as a war criminal and was released in 1950. (Again, NOT executed … his trial and sentence far more legal consideration and mercy than the Doolittle Raiders were given.)
The excerpted testimony of Chase Nielson, one of the four surviving captured Raiders, that we see frequently bandied about on the internet, including in this thread, is a HIGHLY SELECTIVE description of the 40 months of hell Nielsen (and Hite, Barr, and DeShazer, the three other survivors) endured, and the hell that Hallmark, Farrow, Spatz, and Meder suffered before they died at the hands of the Japanese.
In addition to the waterboarding, Nielsen testified that his Japanese captors also beat him, shoved bamboo splints under his fingernails and lit them on fire, burned the soles of his feet with hot coals, and handcuffed him and suspended him, with his toes barely touching the floor, for long hours (overnight). He was also starved and kept in solitary.
Jake DeShazer also recounted being beaten, starved, and strung up from a wall while handcuffed.
Hite withered away to 80 pounds. Meder died of starvation, abuse and disease.
The most compelling case I have read by the opponents of waterboarding is by Evan Wallach, who at least brings some credentials to the table (though being a friend of Harry Reid wouldn’t be one of them) … but … in his discussion of the WWII cases above, Wallach appears to consistently highlight the mention of water-based torture and de-emphasize or completely exclude all the other myriad brutalities, thereby allowing himself to conclude that the US Military Tribunal’s umbrage was being taken especially at the water-based punishments of our prisoners and that, therefore, that makes the current waterboarding practice both morally and legally indefensible.
In Wallach’s own words, the US Military Tribunal in finding Sawada guilty “accepted that [the trial and convictions of the Doolittle Raiders as war criminals] were false and fraudulent, based on evidence which in very large part showed the prisoners’ confession had
been obtained through torture. A key aspect of that, was the water torture applied to Captain Nielsen.”
“in very large part”
“a key aspect”
This editorial focus is Wallach’s.
But is Wallach’s emphasis on the water torture, in isolation from all the other torture, a proper historical and contextual reading of the US Military Tribunal’s verdicts?
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:10 pm 199. Rob:What The Obama is doing is political thuggery. He is slyly threatening political show trials of his political enemies. The CIA will be crippled and those who have kept us safe demoralized.
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:32 pm 200. Dave:These are exactly the things that President Bush refused to do in the wake of 9/11.
We are in the midst of a War on Terror that The Obama will not admit is a war. Historically this mentality gets people killed.
This is suicidal as well as stupid.
Wade: In dealing with the Algerian insurgency,
the Frenchman, Roger Trinquier (spelling approximate) concluded that unlawful combatants could be and should be “tortured”
until needed information was extracted. After that they should be afforded the same treatment as POWs (PIM in French parlance).
For “torture” read “coerced”. In theory at least a uniformed POW cannot be forced to give any information other than Name, Rank, Service Number and Date of Birth. This is for two reasons. First is that his actions are a result of lawful orders. Second is that
information deemed vital by his captors can
(most of the time) be obtained by non-coercive
and/or alternate means.
The unlawful combatant on the other hand does not act under lawful orders and information about his version of “Order of Battle” can often be had solely through interrogation.
By applying his guidelines, French Union Forces in Algerian were successful in suppressing the insurgency, saving numerous civilian lives in the process—-both Arab and French Colonial.
While the post-French Algerian government has been no prize, it is in all probability preferable had the FUF not done what needed doing.
Forty years later, there were attempts to prosecute some French soldiers, but I do not beliueve anything came of it.
Our guys have followed the same path. The one publicized abberration—-Abu Gharib—–
had nothing to do with interrogation and everything to do with half-baked guards indulging themselves. And most of that would not have been a crime had the towelheads not been prisoners.
All I am seeing in this latest outcry is a
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:15 pm 201. Dave:treasonous effort at ex post facto vengeance.
It is conducted by those that want the terrorists to prevail. Final answer.
Having gotten the light work out of the way, I now proceed to more serious matters.
I refer of course that that Larsenous preference for obsolete old wheelguns over
proper self-loaders.
I must now do for Buddy what the late—-and extremely lamented—–Jeff Cooper did for me and countless others. This will teach Buddy that he should not have played hookey while class was in session.
By setting up realistic courses of fire, Unca Jeff and company found that that the piece that was the least jam-prone, most controllable, etc etc etc. was that tried and true battle-axe of inumerable bloodlettings, Old Ugly herself, the indomitable symbol of successful imperialism, the Model 1911A1, caliber .45 Automatic Colt Pistol, and may all hail her father, John Moses Browning.
Lessons learned with the 45 Automatic led to
the development of other auto-loaders that will not jam and which are more impervious to the elements than are revolvers.
Today, Milady can find a purse-sized pistol
in .40 S&W, whose ballistics equal that of the venerable 38-40 so beloved of the Texas Rangers.
And for those who need really close concealment, I say look at the new Kahr P380
which is a .380 the size of the old Beretta .25.
So forth and so on. Buddy, stop leeting your nostalgia Benj you, blind you that is,
to superior forms of hardware.
Well, at least our Beloved Buddy has stayed away from those wonder-nine spray and pray
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:36 pm 202. buddy larsen:crunchentickers with the bulgin magazines.
Hope fer him yet, I reckon.
t
it is conducted by those who have never gotten their hands dirty, never farmed or ranched or built anything with their hands. They know they’ve missed something important, and so have decided the the USA must become third world, so it can be real. And in this way they feel they are making a sacrifice. the rest of us, we’re just the furniture in the scene on the stage.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:43 pm 203. buddy larsen:haw haw –yep, olde fashion must have crept like cat’s feet into the fog of the pet shop of my eyes. However, milady knows if there’s a round chambered in a wheelgun whose safety is always on unless the big old hammer is open. and them range testers couldn’t handle a clip semi wrong if they tried, i don’t think. All that said, my old uncle Lewis’s 1911 which he owned as an arty ossifer in pershing’s army, is in my grateful possession, and it is indeed the nonpariel of pistolery. i should keep it in a a nitrogen flushed glass box on display, instead of laying around nearby loaded and ready except for a hand cock, but i’m not that civilized nor smart yet.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:54 pm 204. buddy larsen:PS, i had one of them wonder-nines for awhile –a stainless steel double-action 15 (i think) shooter Smith which on paper looked like the answer-all dream handgun –but which in practice was like holding onto a mid-size fence post –and i don’t even have a little hand. i couldn’t trade it off fast enough. I did trade for a nine (c’mon, you have one too, right?) but a Browning with a normal size clip and the usual Browning strawberries & cream buttery-clickety perfection.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:25 pm 205. buddy larsen:all that said, the pocket .380 does sound useful –a 25 except for the center-fire feature is not much more a stopper than a 22. but the .25 pistol size is real close convenient conceal. you can drop one in a bandana or even a hankie and leave the tail a little ways out of your pocket. In a hurry –say opening four a.m. fence gates trying to get out to a rig in Zavala County and something comes up out the brush –left hand yanks the bandana and right hand grabs pistol bandana and all –why, it’s Quicks Draw McGraw!
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:44 pm 206. buddy larsen:…and most important yore hand is never stuck in yore pocket possibly mucho inconveniently
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:52 pm 207. Karen Yvonne:Hey Buddy and Dave, appreciate and am taking note of your opinions because I’ve got one of those jam-prone clunkers and always hated it. Bought it a long time ago when it was all I could afford. Might be time for an upgrade.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:14 pm 208. Dave:Karen Yvonne: Exactly what make, model and caliber do you have?
Some old timers were “jam prone” because of a lack of quality control in size of parts and/or putting them together. At times, these problems can be solved with Minuteman Gun Oil, etc.
Other times, the problem is the feed ramp. Bullet gets hung up trying to make it from magazine into chamber. A frequent problem especially when other than full-jacketed round-nosed bullets were used. A competent gunsmith can generally “throat” the pistol so that there is a smooth connection between magazine and chamber.
Other times it is merely that the piece in question should be donated to the other side. Don’t know which of these it is with you.
Some general recommendations: With pistols,
the Single Action is preferable so long as the piece is carried in a holster. Pulling it out and taking the safety off is NOT a problem.
However, if carried in purse, pocket, clipped to brassiere, etc. a double-action seems to be in order. That is because safties tend to snag, get disengaged, etc when carried in an irregular manner. Having said that much, I hasten to add that the astute buyer will look for a double action only design. That is so you get the same trigger pull each time. Most DA autos are DA first shot and SA thereafter, making them a bit awkward.
Unless you need something tiny for real close concealment, do not go below caliber 9mm Parabellum (.359) and the 40 S&W (401) is better and fits into the same package.
If you want a revolver, caliber .38 Special
with “Plus P” loads is minimum and along with its twin the >357 is about all currently available. Do try for a 3 inch barrel instead of the more common 2 inchers. They are quite a bit easier to handle.
I hereby note that the “Ladysmith”ine by Smith and Wesson have been real popular with
the distaff side. If you get one of the stainless steel models, do work it over with Minuteman or Gun Lube. Stainless expands more rapidly when hot and that can cause revolvers and pistols alike to bind. Minuteman smoohs out the rough parts and cures the problem nicely.
I gotta go to bed. Will check back tomorrow and see what you have to say. Not to mention what Buddy chimes in with.
PS: You do reqalize that all this is pure torture for Dianne Feinstein, don’t you?
Apr 25, 2009 - 12:53 am 209. buddy larsen:I LOVE it when a plan comes together.
well it’s late here too & i gotta quit staying up so late –ever since the Rus went into Georgia last August i’ve been stayin up way too late –like i’m 10 and it’s Christmas eve and somewhere in this pile of manure there’s GOTTA be a pony, as the great RR loved to quip.
(speaking of RR i saw a clip of him tonite on tv, someone was replaying old Dean Martin Show clips –o’reilly? –and there he was speaking at a Bob Hope roast in the early 70s. he said, deadpan, “Tonight I was asked if I was honored to’ve been asked to speak tonight. Actually I was annoyed.” bob Hope sitting there broke up. later Don Rickles was at the dias, saying “I’m really enjoying being here at the Dean Martin Show,” –then he looks over at Martin, and says “…and Dean, if you knew you were here, you’d be enjoying it too!”
anyhoo, Karen Yvonne (what a pretty name is Yvonne, with that exotic spelling), what dave said plus, try differnt ammos –go for quality, read the box or ask, get the highest grain count you can get for the model. Could be your ammo –often is, especially with 22 semi-autos that jam. hollow points often jam semi-autos, try some ball ammo, and in that category try lead as well as copper-jacketed bullets. you might find what the old clunker ‘likes’. if not, off to the gunsmith with dave’s list. and by then you’ll have four or five boxes of different ammo, so you’ll need a *good* smith –no just kidding –a well tuned pistol will accomodate them all.
Apr 25, 2009 - 1:48 am 210. buddy larsen:oh fer sher try the good oils dave mentioned before anything else –
Apr 25, 2009 - 1:51 am 211. buddy larsen:dangit, nuther goof, more powder i meant, not more projectile weight necessarily (tho they may come twinned, i dunno yo details).
Apr 25, 2009 - 1:56 am 212. buddy larsen:but no ‘magnums’ without it say the word on the gun, or someone expert says ok –i ruined my first shotgun, well several times, a sears 12 pump not chambered for magnums, by shooting magnums in it anyway. finally it gave up and took ‘em. i was just a kid and wanted a duck & goose long-reacher.
Apr 25, 2009 - 2:00 am 213. Karen Yvonne:Well this thread is about to scroll off the page by now but thanks, Dave and Buddy, for all the info.
Dave asked exactly what make, model and caliber I have. Gah I’m embarrassed to tell ya but nevermind. It’s a Jennings semi-automatic, model J-22, .22 cal. long rifle. It was probably the cheapest gun in the store. I had in fact always used the hollow point ammo, maybe that was the problem. I thought the .22 caliber was wimpy and that the hollow point ammo would compensate. Back in those days I used to carry it every where I went and it did make me feel safer, like I had a chance now. It’s a great confidence enhancement. As the years passed and my personal situation changed (no longer poor, no longer living alone, etc.) I stopped carrying it around all the time and eventually almost forgot I even had the thing. Needless to say, the dawning of the Obama era finds me revisiting this whole issue.
Apr 25, 2009 - 5:49 pm 214. The Shadow:Based on the comments here, I think the gun nuts here are going to be more of a danger to their family, friends and neighbors than anyone else!
Apr 25, 2009 - 7:26 pm 215. Karen Yvonne:Shadow, maybe one day you’ll understand.
Apr 25, 2009 - 8:59 pm 216. Dave:Karen Yvonne: Google up Jennings J22 and look for the two entries by Mr Completely.
Tips on what to do to get some reliability out of it.
At any rate, it sure was better than nothing for you, now wasn’t it?
Thinking about a new one? Well, I am here to give you all sorts of good advice. You in a CCW state?
BTW: What DOES The Shadow know? How I handle my end of smokepoles is not part of his knowledgeability.
Apr 25, 2009 - 10:33 pm 217. Benj:Hey Bud and Wade – this is probably too late for y’all but just a couple quick points – …My pop should’ve zeroed in the Sandy and the “bi-partisan” blamelessness game. I would have LOVED to pass on Bud’s line re that look between Gorelik and Tenent…For what it’s worth, his piece was probably informed by hearing me and a couple others in my crew complain fiercely about the failure of the liberal/left to JUDGE the perps of 9/11 and Baathist crimes and Iraqi “resistance” – He was turning our plaints re “progressive” blankness against the powers that be. Given that our baddies – Chomsky, Sontag, Said and their minions – were/are pretty marginal types, I think his preferred bete noires earned the turnaround just as ours did…
You’ve said all that needs saying re George – I’m one of those guys who hopes to hell his time – meaning IRAQ!!!! – looks better in 10 years…But…Then I get sent passages like the following – GWB in 2003:
“Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere… I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture.”
198 – I think the distinctions between waterboarding and water torture matter as does the fact that the WWII wb came with a set of other tortures – but you may be misunderestimating the other dimensions of “enhanced” interrogation…- Did you read the cryptic stuff in the Senate report about the guy who got the dog collar and was forced to do “animal” tricks (whatever that meant) – He’s the guy they let out and OFF in 2008 because they couldn’t bring the unmentionable stuff up at trial. There’s also a fair amount stuff re forced standing — Rummy’s famous line re “I stand at my desk for hours” isn’t really to the point – I remember the story in the IRC report re one guy – his hands shackled over his head – for days at a time – had an artifical leg. They removed that in order to put more pressure on – he’s naked too and shitting himself as he falls asleep – and jerks awake – hanging by his hands – I think that amounts to torture…
ONe more thing – I heard Bill Bennet say – it can’t be toture – we use the SERE tecbniques on our own people. BB forgot to mention they’re given a pass-word that allows them to cry uncle if the training gets too rough (and of course they KNOW it’s training!) The justifiers for “enhanced” interrogation do seem to be verging on dishonorable argufying…
Wade – The accounts of interrogation in FEAR UP HARSH suggest a fair amount of random brutalizaton went on outside Abu G. That’s one reason why Petraeus held forth in that memo on the necessity for “humane” behavior among America’s warriors – The senate report uses his words at the top…Doubt those crazies at A.G. were quite as far from the pre-2006 norm as you might hope…PS Did you notice that ALL the services resisted the Administration’s first offer of “enhanced” interrogation techniques. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force ALL asked for a “Review” of the legal rationales as they were NOT buying in. Myers (and Rummy) shut that down – General M. was/is no Petraeus…
Apr 25, 2009 - 10:54 pm 218. Greta:I like the arguments on this blog. I note that many other anti terrorist torture sites like Mark Shea Catholic and Enjoying It ban anyone that argues effectively against their point of view. When you post there, you need to agree with Mark very soon or you will be banned from any more comments.
For me, the school is still out on torture during war which we are currently fighting worldwide. According to Mark and his supporters, there is nothing worthwhile that you can obtain from torture. I used the same argument about the french resistance making rapid changes to their network when anyone was captured because no matter how brave, they would break and give up everything. If torture were not effective, it would have ended centuries ago.
Is it ethical in wartime? Is it OK if a city is saved from attack? It would seem if you can legally and morally protect your family from someone breaking in even to shooting them in their defense, then there has to be some argument about obtaining information in this war to save thousands of lives. But Mark Shea says no and if you try to reason why, you are banned. What does Mark fear in argument? why so timid on debate.
Apr 25, 2009 - 11:28 pm 219. Karen Yvonne:Dave, thanks for the google tip.
Heck yeah it was better than nothing!
Not sure what CCW means. I am in a concealed-carry state but I wasn’t planning to carry it around with me. Just want something better for here in the house. But who knows, I may be rethinking that in time too.
Poor Shadow. He’s aptly named. What can one say to someone like that? He thinks he knows we’re just a bunch of dangerous dolts – who don’t even know how kooky dangerous we are – and we need the elites to force us to behave. As you said, he has no idea of my, or your, or any gun-owner’s level of commitment, responsibility or maturity but he has to communicate his disrespect anyway. I’ll guess he’s never been mugged by reality.
So many complacent Americans, who’ve long been blessed with such a high level of safety and comfort, left to go about their lives in peace, living on the dwindling capital built up for us by those who went before but forgetting what those who left us this legacy knew… barring a miracle, it’s all fixing to change. The majority of Americans asked for change and their request was granted.
Apr 25, 2009 - 11:47 pm 220. supercars:Everyone deserves a protection and security. if survival is the rule of life. people are given a chance to make choices according for what they believe for. it’s everyone’s right.
Apr 26, 2009 - 12:48 am 221. Karen Yvonne:Greta: “According to Mark and his supporters, there is nothing worthwhile that you can obtain from torture.”
This can only be true when the torture victim is innocent. A confession obtained by torture of an innocent person is, of course, not going to be worthwhile. Do Mark’s supporters suppose Khalid Sheik Mohammad is innocent? Maybe they do; after all, we haven’t put him on trial yet!
The information obtained from KSM prevented another 911 in LA. IMO, what was done to him doesn’t qualify as torture – I’d call the beheading of Daniel Pearl torture – but even if these techniques do constitute bona fide torture, I still say the state’s duty is clear: to prevent the shedding of innocent blood of thousands of people when it’s in their power to do so.
This does not make us “bad.” It doesn’t mean that the end justifies the means.
On one side you have terrorists whose avowed purpose is killing innocents and the more the better. On the other side you have legitimate agents of the state conducting interrogations with doctors standing by, for pete’s sake.
Frankly, this should not be a hard call. Let’s see, which shall it be, thousands of dead innocents or KSM subjected to distress? Only a hopelessly decadent society would be wringing their hands over this.
To tolerate mass deaths of innocents as the price we must pay in order to call ourselves morally superior is evil to its core. And even Wretchard, much as I respect his opinion, can’t convince me otherwise.
Apr 26, 2009 - 1:19 am 222. Wadeusaf:Karen Yvonne: If a person is innocent, torture will produce all the information required to make the torture stop. If a person is guilty, torture will produce all the information required to make the torture stop. No difference. Confessions, details and everything you could ask for, you can and will get just so long as the terror stops.
There have been too many innocents housed on death row to believe otherwise. Acceptance of such methods creates its own bubble of sorts.
Apr 26, 2009 - 6:15 am 223. Edgewise.Sigma:FYI:
“TORTURE AND MORAL ISOLATION”
by John Robb, 4/25/09
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/04/torture-and-moral-isolation.html
Apr 26, 2009 - 1:45 pm 224. Karen Yvonne:Edgewise, your link describes a grand strategy of isolating the enemy morally, mentally and physically, from their external/reference environment, which essentially imposes insanity on them, which then causes a destructive cycle of internal dialogues, which then eventually causes dissolution and defeat. That’s what it says.
Okay, but how would all that have applied to the KSM case? KSM boasted to his captors of his knowledge of another coming attack, and when asked about it, he taunted, “You’ll see.”
What to do? Waterboard KSM to obtain information that would preserve thousands of innocent lives? Or isolate him morally mentally and physically until the resulting “insanity” causes him eventually to admit defeat (meanwhile Los Angeles goes up in smoke)?
Next John Robb, in the link, says that, while weakening connections of terrorists, the U.S. should be doing the opposite of strengthening its connections to its own referents by abiding by standards of conduct we profess to uhold, i.e., don’t torture. By not upholding these standards, we set up internal opposition which then ruins everything we’re trying to accomplish. IOW, we shouldn’t be hypocrites. Okay fine. Let’s let innocent people die so that we won’t be open to charges of hypocrisy. Can this really be what we call moral?
John Robb’s “grand strategy” may be great in a broadly general kind of way but in regard to it’s applicability to the singular particularity of the KSM case, it sounds more like a bunch of useless gobbledegook to me.
I get no pleasure at all from thinking about the suffering of anybody, even a vile creature like KSM, so if there were an equally effective way of dealing with cases like this and with these killers who delight in killing, I’d be all for it.
If we had never touched KSM, because we’re too moral to do so, if we had allowed him to keep his little secret and the LA attack had proceeded as planned, I think Satan himself would have been pleased as punch with all the death and destruction. But then, I think our society has cultivated a lot of sympathy for the devil over the last 40-50 years.
I also find it rather odd that a society so in love with the concept of nuance and shades of gray suddenly can find no room for anything but a rigid absolute.
Apr 26, 2009 - 3:15 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.