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The Illogical Torture Debate
The killing of Osama bin Laden has, as The New York Times notes, re-ignited the debate over "brutal interrogations" -- by which it's meant that Republicans are now attempting to exploit the emotions generated by the killing to retroactively justify the torture regime they implemented. The factual assertions on which this attempt is based -- that waterboarding and other "harsh interrogation methods" produced evidence crucial to locating bin Laden -- are dubious in the extreme, for reasons Andrew Sullivan and Marcy Wheeler document. So fictitious are these claims that even Donald Rumsfeld has repudiated them.
The discussion of what led to Bin Laden’s demise has revived a national debate about torture that raged during the Bush years. A rally against torture was held in Washington in 2008. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
But even if it were the case that valuable information were obtained during or after the use of torture, what would it prove? Nobody has ever argued that brutality will never produce truthful answers. It is sometimes the case that if you torture someone long and mercilessly enough, they will tell you something you want to know. Nobody has ever denied that. In terms of the tactical aspect of the torture debate, the point has always been -- as a consensus of interrogations professionals has repeatedly said -- that there are far more effective ways to extract the truth from someone than by torturing it out of them. The fact that one can point to an instance where torture produced the desired answer proves nothing about whether there were more effective ways of obtaining it.
This highlights what has long been a glaring fallacy in many debates over War on Terror policies: that Information X was obtained after using Policy A does not prove that Policy A was necessary or effective. That's just basic logic. This fallacy asserted itself constantly in the debate over warrantless surveillance. Proponents of the Bush NSA program would point to some piece of intelligence allegedly obtained during warrantless eavesdropping as proof that the illegal program was necessary and effective; obviously, though, that fact said nothing about whether the same information would also have been discovered through legal eavesdropping, i.e., eavesdropping approved in advance by the FISA court (and indeed, legal eavesdropping [like legal interrogation tactics] is typically more effective than the illegal version because, by necessity, it is far more focused on actual suspected Terrorism plots; warrantless eavesdropping entails the unconstrained power to listen in on any communications the Government wants without having to establish its connection to Terrorism). But in all cases, the fact that some piece of intelligence was obtained by some lawless Bush/Cheney War on Terror policy (whether it be torture or warrantless eavesdropping) proves nothing about whether that policy was effective or necessary.
And those causal issues are, of course, entirely independent of the legal and moral questions shunted to the side by this re-ignited "debate." There are many actions that the U.S. could take that would advance its interests that are nonetheless obviously wrong on moral and legal grounds. When Donald Trump recently suggested that we should simply take Libya's oil and that of any other country which we successfully invade and occupy, that suggestion prompted widespread mockery. That was the reaction despite the fact that stealing other countries' oil would in fact produce substantial benefits for the U.S. and advance our interests: it would help to lower gas prices, reduce our dependence on hostile oil-producing nations, and avoid having to degrade our own environment in order to drill domestically. Trump's proposed actions are morally reprehensible and flagrantly lawless despite how many benefits it would produce; therefore, no person of even minimal decency would embrace it no matter how many benefits it produces.
Exactly the same is true for the torture techniques used by the Bush administration and once again being heralded by its followers (and implicitly glorified by media stars who keep suggesting that it enabled bin Laden's detection). It makes no difference whether it extracted usable intelligence. Criminal, morally depraved acts don't become retroactively justified by pointing to the bounty they produced.
Read the full article at Salon.com
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They're trying to rehabilitate the idea of torture. It had gotten a bad name so it looked like they were going to have to never (openly) do it again. But if they can make a case that waterboarding led the Death Squad right to OBL, then they can say that all of us who opposed and continue to oppose torture were wrong. We're not wrong, torture is, and this fake attempt to give torture partial credit is a travesty and I hope the meme dies quickly.
I haven't noted in the media reports any regrets on the part of the officials responsible for assassinating bin Laden over the loss of a major source of intelligence (bin Laden).
It's very odd indeed that they would slaughter the old man being defended by his young wife and then make such a big deal about all the computers, hard disks, etc. seized that will be used to figure out how to defeat al Qaeda. Obviously if the U.S. really believed torturing detainees was good for anything other than revenge and terrorism, they would have captured him.
Maybe a good idea would have been to capture him and claim he was killed and buried at sea. That way they get his information without anyone knowing, nobody knows where he is and no messy trials and such.
It could have woked. Maybe it is working.
“He is correct to point out the rehabilitation of torture's wholesome goodness being played out in the media.”
What I heard is that torture allowed the acquisition of a nickname that was used to identify a courier who led them to OBL, almost 10 years after 9/11. That seems a pathetic comment on the efficacy of torture. The main thing I noticed supportive of torture of detainees is the MSM’s total disregard of the fact that such torture is against U.S. and international law.
I like your observation about Trump’s proposal to seize Libyan oil. That’s telling it like it is! Even more disgusting was the idea, which gained widespread approval at the time, that Iraq pay for our invasion of that country with its oil. Just seizing Iraq’s oil would have been a blessing compared to what the U.S. ended up doing.
“I wish we had a functioning press in the US because it would help to know who these people are--the people who have turned our nation and the earth upside down for power and wealth.” We do know, sort of – the military industrial complex. But the exact individual names and what profits they’re making every time a bomb or bullet is dropped on Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., is kept under wraps.
Trump can and does shoot off his mouth articulating mindlessness nonsense. What if Libya is more about the 144 tons of gold that Ghadaffi reportedly has stashed away, than about the oil. Trump doesn't have to be responsible for what he says. He just wants the free publicity he's getting and does so even if what he says has any meaning or is relevant to anything. Their is simply no need for Trump to be responsible or thoughtful about what he says, in fact he may get more free publicity by just being the narcissistic loudmouth he is since the USA is a society of narcissistic, consumerist, gluttons instilled with mindlessness, the inability/or knowing to discern.
Thanks for another insightful and incisive comment, Jill.
Glenn is invariably criticized and challenged in his always-lively comments threads at Salon, and (to his credit) often responds directly within the thread. So your criticism may have been mounted and met there.
But since I've gotten burned out on Glenn's comments threads lately, and have (at least temporarily) stopped visiting them, I'll offer an edumacated guess instead:
I'll bet that Glenn would defend his description in the narrow, literal-minded, lawyerly way that is characteristic of his thinking. That is, I expect that he would simply say that the "Bush NSA program" and "lawless Bush/Cheney War on Terror policy" WERE instituted by Republicans, and that these policies have been most enthusiastically defended, supported, and admired by Republicans.
I very much like and respect Glenn, and he has evolved over the years-- "radicalized" may be too strong a term. But he still has a habit of being indisposed or disinclined to see the forest for the trees.
As you know, and I never get tired of repeating, I also think that employing a partisan frame and dwelling on partisan politics has long since reached a point of diminishing returns.
Even where party affiliation remains meaningful and relevant, it would behoove writers to be more careful about giving the appearance of associating policies and motivations common to the political elite in both "sides" of the mobius-strip duopoly to one particular party.
excellent!
He doesn't drive an escalade. He drives a honda civic.
Nice work, Jill. I don't think anyone can argue your point. As many of us in the forum realize, by placing an obvious IMBECILE like Trump as potential Republican candidate, almost anything looks good (Obama) in comparison. As you well know, it's this idea of styling. Trump is the local con-man who made it big and many uneducated Americans identify with him. Obama is the Ivy League (Manchurian Candidate) who is pleasing to those with established academic credentials... especially if they don't peer too closely behind the curtain. If they did, as you and I both know, they'd have to face the unspeakable fact that both teams are playing for the same infinitely corrupt "owners." I like Alan Macdonald's explanation of Empire, and I forget which poster expanded on that to suggest that even Empire is a term better linked with earlier historical periods BECAUSE today's powerbrokers are playing for the entire globe, and owe no allegiance to any particular piece (i.e. nation) on their grand chessboard.
Because our media is captured, as are our "representatives,' as are the vast majority of professors (for their jobs depend upon a certain "going along with the flow").... it is largely in forums like this one, where we get to regularly hear the cases of those who have studied the issues and dare to depart from official narratives, that key truths emerge. So many of our friends, family members, peers, and co-workers do not really understand how deep the deceptions go. When I try to educate them, most think I am exaggerating because what I seek to reveal is NOT found anywhere that the news takes them. This is why Truth, which substantially departs from official story-lines, has itself become marginalized and quite difficult for many to discern. That makes any case raised that differs from the ones endlessly recited in media considered as a conspiracy theory. Only!
This whole PR event around Osama will send American consciousness back decades. The analogy of the roar of the crowd marking another "goal" for our (US) "team" is one that I've pointed out repeatedly in this forum. Sports, fundamentalist religions, the MSM are all conditioning people to accept very narrow bases for analysis, if that. It's a bi-polar world view that only sees Left or Right, good or bad, wrong or right, my team or enemy, etc.
Fast food is to nutrition what the MSM is to food for thought... in both cases, it's all EMPTY faux filler, and the national psyche reflects that.
There will be a karmic price to pay. Every time floods begin, or massive fires, or tornado outbreaks, or direct hurricane hits... I reflect on how these forces do their part to try to wake people up. The universe grows through the awareness of its intricate facets... when Divinely intened growth is impeded or impaired, a form of Cancer sets in to the Spirit of life itself. Instead of thriving, it's left to cannibalize itself. Isn't that what war is? Especially when the nation's stated empty treasury calls for no examination of what all the $ is being wasted on?
As Dave Lindorff says, "This Can't Be Happening."
Wheeler's approach...pointing out the internal inconsistancies, contradictions and inanities in the pro-torturer's arguments...seems to me much more effective and productive here, as against Greenwald's arm-waving invocations of morality against amoral arguments and arguers.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/05/04/jose-rodriguez-brags-that-he-got-terrorists-to-deny-things-using-torture/
Wheeler demonstrates how what they say (or what they're said to have said) does not hold up under close analysis, avoiding subjective invocations of right and wrong, good and evil. If their claims of the efficacy of tortured information in the taking of OBL collapse under examination, you don't have to get into the holier-than-thou territory Greenwald's operating in here.
How, why and when to torture people. The ongoing debate. Alas.
Hmmm
According to US and international law toture is illegal period. And it is important to note that water boarding was specifically declared a form of toture during the Nuremburg trials and used to prosecute Nazis for war crimes. Funny how times change! So there is NO debate here people. Either we are a country that believes in basic human rights and the rule of law or.....we are just a larger more powerful version of the "terrorist" states we have been busy invading for the last decade. Clearly we in the latter group at the moment. The only difference between us and them right now ? Nucleur weapons and total control of the Western Media and finance.
"no person of even minimal decency would embrace it no matter how many benefits it produces."
are there such people in DC?
*
Interesting. All we know regarding Bin Laden is what FOX News told us. None of us have seen any evidence. It's disturbing that so many people are taking this at face value, blindly believing everything they hear or read.
So with that in mind, if these people are told that torture is necessary they will certainly believe it.
War is brutal and sucks, if water boarding makes it end quicker, it's best to use it.
yeah war sucks.
manning120 : Your posts on torture are very good. Why did they shoot Osama bin Laden, an unarmed criminal, instead of taking him prisoner if torture does result in obtaining important information that will save American lives?
"Nobody has ever denied that. In terms of the tactical aspect of the torture debate, the point has always been -- as a consensus of interrogations professionals has repeatedly said -- that there are far more effective ways to extract the truth from someone than by torturing it out of them."
Sorry, The point is not that torture is ineffective in comparison to other methods of intelligence gathering. The points are (a) that torture is ethically repulsive and commonly motivated not to gain intelligence but to intimidate populations, and (b) that torture is illegal under domestic and international law. Indeed, the U.S. hanged Japanese soldiers for water boarding U.S. troops. We should not be a nation that tortures like the Nazis or the Soviets or some despotic barbarian kingdom in ancient history. The point is not that torture is ineffective.
Does anyone know if Bush or Cheney or Rummy tortured small animals as children? The point of torture is to derive enjoyment from inflicting pain. Rational and informed people know tortured people will sign anything, and say what ever to get the torture to stop. Sadists are not really interested in results, it is the process that matters. Does anyone suspect that the video tapes from gitmo were made so that the folks in the White House could enjoy watching the torture they had ordered inflicted on prisoners. I'm sure they would have liked to have some real blood spattering hands on time themselves, wonder if they did.
You've hit the nail on the head. Torture is just the "grownup" version of sadistic play that Dubya enjoyed doing to animals when he was a "kid." Of course, fast forward to when he was governor and laughed sadistically as he mimicked the pardon pleas of death row inmates. No doubt, Rummy & Darth Cheney had similar quaint childhood memories. It is the same torture that Roman spectators watched with delight as the Christians were being torn by lions. Today, we have the media "coliseum" to transmit and replay gory images 24/7.
There is no debate, OBL was dead since 2001 , fact.
Infowars.com may 4 2011 interview,
Alex Jones talks with Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, the U.S. government insider who said last week that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.
You cant get current information from the use of torture , when you already know that the person of interest you are looking for has been dead for 9 years.
Our government is full of shit, and as a victim of fusion center community watch gang stalking for 4 years, because they have me on a watch list, the announcement of a global terrorist alert to the see something say something stasi brain dead zombies, means that I will not be going out much for the next 2 weeks.
Why? Obvious, I am not going to help put one penny in the pockets of the stasi or their leaders by going out so they can play with me. 4 years , 24/7 , constant surveillance and gang stalking pshy-ops torture have taught me when to come out and play , and when to shut down my movements. This will be a dangerous week for all innocent Americans that have been placed on watch lists by the stasi. Fuck Them.
No, the next two weeks, these over aggressive, torture freak gang stalking bastards will be on high alert , watching me not leave my house. F- Them.
The damage these bastards have cost me financially is over 100 thousand, and if I could sue them, punitive damages would be millions, any good jurry would not like the torture they exposed me too.
But Bush , Cheney, and now Obama , with the support of the Patriot Acts , knew that torture and gang stalking conducted by the military industrial complex contractors, infragard, the DHS and law enforcement would not work to build the nation wide stasi needed to kill the American Republic and the constitution without the immunity from law suits.
To hell with the DC, the district of criminals and the Supreme court, thanks for honoring your oaths and protecting that witch matters most, the constitution.
It's not about what might have been a little more expedient.
It's about who should be hanged at Nuremberg with the NAZIs.
"When Donald Trump recently suggested that we should simply take Libya's oil and that of any other country which we successfully invade and occupy, ..."
This sounds similar to how Exxon took all of the US oil after a successful invasion & occupation of congress.
My apologies for repeating part of something I posted on another thread, but so many of them are dealing with the same topic and I'm too tired to try to rephrase these first couple of points.....
Apparently, timing IS everything. It is no surprise to me that the voices of our fascist/military/corporate government were so quickly heard through MSM news...in the form of open support of torture and its obvious usefulness in getting the baddest guy of all...immediately following the joyous news of his murder...I mean, of justice being served.
When there are throngs of misdirected and dumbed-down citizenry cheering and dancing in the streets over bin Laden's much awaited demise, they are ripe for being convinced that torture is ok, after all...for the US, anyway, 'cause we're so special...and the people of the US were so wronged. The almost laughable part about that...there are probably few Americans who could definitively identify any of our most fearsome and feared 'bogeymen'...even if they were standing right next to one of them in the check-out line at a grocery store.
Jill (thank you for the excellent post!) brought up this point...
"I don't know why this idea is greeted with derision when outlined by Trump but not greeted with derision when being carried out by the US govt. It is exactly what the US is doing and has done. Therein lies the intellectual and ethical failure to look at actions to decide right from wrong. Instead too many people look at who is engaging in the action, and make up their mind from there."
And as siouxrose (thanks for the directions, btw, am enjoying your writings!) stated...
"This is why Truth, which substantially departs from official story-lines, has itself become marginalized and quite difficult for many to discern. That makes any case raised that differs from the ones endlessly recited in media considered as a conspiracy theory. Only!"
I agree it's a lot to do with who is engaging in actions or using words that sway people to believe a lie is the truth, but it's more than that. It seems also to do with the fact that, in our efforts to conform to the most recommended, successful and most subscribed-to means of accomplishing goals, mainstream methodology has been subverted, manipulated to almost demand some degree of deception...ranging from acceptable 'little white lies' to ruthlessly exploitative, prosecutable distortions and cover-ups. Siding with the perceived little white lie gives one the illusion of innocent participation...many are perfectly comfortable with the too often encouraged small 'insignificant' twisting of a truth even while loudly proclaiming an equally common righteous rejection of in-your-face immorality. Unfortunately, the herd seems quite comfortable with THAT hypocrisy.
While the masses may seem unable to grasp when and how seriously they are being manipulated and/or lied to, it may be that many people DO realize it...and know on some level that our government is already conducting business in much the same manner as Donald Trump was loudly proclaiming he would as his presidential right...to just go take what the US wants or needs from whoever has it. It's a lot easier to profess innocence while being a complicit partner in a lie if it has been deemed an acceptable or patriotic lie...especially if it can be made to look even a little like the truth.
I have not, for years, had the endless drone of television and MSM in my ears that many choose to have...but even when that was more a part of my daily life I wouldn't be buying the boatloads of crap coming our way these days!