Apologies for the light posting today; it's just been one of those days that isn't very conducive to blogging. But I wanted to comment briefly on the apparently contradictory polling result from Gallup which suggests that, while most Americans think "harsh interrogation techniques" against suspected terrorists are justified, a 51 percent majority also want a federal investigation into the use of these techniques.
Gallup's interpretation is that this isn't really about torture -- rather, it's about investigations. We Americans like to investigate!
While a slim majority favors an investigation, on a relative basis the percentage is quite low because Americans are generally quite supportive of government probes into potential misconduct by public officials. In recent years, for example, Americans were far more likely to favor investigations into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys (72%), government databases of telephone numbers dialed by Americans (62%), oil company profits (82%), and the government's response to Hurricane Katrina (70%).I don't necessarily debate this interpretation, but I think it's somewhat incomplete. Although many people regard torture as a moral absolute, for others (perhaps most others) it is more of a sliding scale: certain types of torture may be permissible against certain types of persons in certain -- presumably fairly extraordinary -- circumstances. A Pew poll released last week, for example, has 15 percent of Americans saying torture is "often justified" against terrorism suspects and 25 percent saying it is "never justified". The majority of 56 percent are somewhere in the middle, saying torture is "sometimes justified" (34 percent) or "rarely justified" (22 percent).
Thus, people may want an investigation into the torture so that they can see whether or not this was the "right" type of torture. They want the details, because they think the details matter.
This is perhaps compounded by the fact that Gallup used the deliberately ambiguous phrase "harsh interrogation techniques" rather than "torture". An ABC-Washington Post poll, which did use the phrase "torture", did not show as significant a number of people who were inclined to think the interrogations were OK but nevertheless wanted an investigation into them.
69 comments
Nate, please make a post about black voters in the 2008 Democratic primary and in the general election.
I believe this is the crucial question concerning torture: A country that partakes in torture gives up the moral high ground.
What if the question were asked thusly: Would you support torture if you knew that it would make the use of torture against Americans more likely?
Perception is everything, and the way a question is phrased guides the perception. I'm sure this is well know to all pollsters.
Yeah "harsh interrogation technique" sounds sort of watered down (no pun intended). To a layperson who is a bit of a ditz they may just think it means yelling at them or something. In the poll the word "torture" should clearly be used with perhaps an explanation of one such type of said technique.
The polls back in January were much higher in favor of investigations.
I think a lot of people have torture fatigue and want to move past the Bush era.
If Bush was still in power, the numbers would be much higher in favor.
I also think the fact that Obama doesn't favor investigations influences people.
Many of those who 'support the use of torture' really do think that torture gets valid and honest confessions of true information out of people. Look at the popularity of '24', and how they 'get a confession' out of every suspect just in the nick of time, all by using 'enhanced interrogation techniques'.
The above thinking is similar to those who believed the harsh methods of the Inquisition extracted confessions of 'heresy'; or the people who believed stoning and 'chairing' (where a person was tied to a chair, then repeatedly immersed into water for longer and longer periods of time until they 'confessed') extracted accurate confessions of witchcraft.
I think a lot of people who support 'harsh interrogation methods' and investigations will be surprised if/when accurate information becomes available about the lack of accurate information obtained by the use of 'harsh interrogation methods'.
As to those methods, one of them was sleep deprivation - more than one week without sleep, then 8 hours of 'normal' sleep, then another greater than one week without sleep, 8 hours of sleep, repeated and repeated. Most people would be hard pressed to go 24-36 hours without sleep without making some 'confession' just to get some sleep, let alone more than a week without sleep that is repeated over and over again.
In other words, they do not consider that 'harsh interrogation methods' are torture because they don't want to think about what torture actually is, and/or think that since it won't happen to them, they have a 'they deserve it because they are the suspect', similar to a belief of 'the police arrested him, therefore he must be guilty' attitude.
I would fall in the 22% "rarely justified" muddle.
Basically, torture is a near worthless intelligence gathering tool, that has been used historically for the express purpose of eliciting false confessions. I see torture as extremely counterproductive in the long term struggle against Islamic extremists. However, in the field, facing a "ticking time bomb" scenario, it may have some application.
It is doubtful that the torture policies of the last administration produced actionable intelligence that preserved american lives. But there is no doubt that the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and Bagram have soiled american prestige internationally, and have served as powerful recruiting tools for those that would do us harm.
However, as bad as these torture policies were, the only question worth investigating is why they were implemented in the first place. After all, there is no question that the U.S. tortured prisoners. And there is no question that said torture was directly the result of orders originating from the White House. But we do not know "why" they tortured.
The only real debate is wether the White House approved torture in a foolish attempt to protect the homeland? Or did if they implemented torture for the same reason as every other oppressive regime before them, that is to elicit knowingly false confessions? To put it bluntly - Did they use torture in a desperate attempt to forge a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda? Was it all about selling an unnecessary war?
I'm appalled by torture. I'd oppose any torture program. I'd prosecute anyone culpable in the Bush Administration. I'd...you get the idea.
Still, would I torture someone as a last resort to save lives? I would, if I knew it was the only way to obtain vital information in time. Except, you can't ever know with certainty if torture is necessary.
So, people oppose torture, unless they need to torture to save lives, but they can never act with certainty. A bloody mess.
When polling on this question, maybe we need to distinguish torture of the sadistic, weak, bullying kind, and "it's morally the right thing to do, probably" torture.
I don't want the Bush-Cheney torture program but still, I'd like Obama to have torture as on option, as a last resort.
I don't give a flying fig what the American people think because all of the polls are iffy.
If polls matter on this, then they matter on a lot of issues of human rights or moral imperatives. Let's ask whether people think adultery, stealing, or killing people are "sometimes justified."
Questions asking people about the euphemism "harsh interrogation" (like the Vietnam era euphemism "pacification" -- killing people) are even worse than asking about killing or stealing, because the key concept itself is a euphemism that many respondents will not understand. But even when the word "torture" is used, the question needs to be contextualized for us to understand what people actually think.
No single-item survey question can allow us to understand what most people think about these subjects.
In the meantime, while running these meaningless polls, the MSM is failing to call out the poor logic in which Dick Cheney and his apologists want to find a couple of instances in which torturing somebody allegedly yielded actionable intelligence -- as if that has any probative value whatsoever about whether torture was or is justified.
Such evidence will have no bearing on whether torture was necessary to obtain the information in those instances, how many people were tortured in an effort to get apparently useful information from two people, or whether the information was really critical for anything.
The media need to understand that even if those two characters yielded to torture, that is no proof or justification for the use of torture. Furthermore, once the "justification" turns to a simple utilitarian calculus (was the gain worth the cost?), that is an incredible slippery slope to be on. Why not torture 500 people in hopes that 2 of them will "talk?" If the information that is sought is especially critical, why not up the ante to torturing 1,000 -- or a whole village?
And if we think we can justify torturing a multitude (which I think there is evidence we have actually done), then where does that leave us when we try to argue that our own captured soldiers should "never" be tortured? Where does that leave us when we seek to uphold international codes and laws?
There has to be a better way to phrase this poll. "Harsh interrogation techniques" really just doesn't cut it.
The presumption in a lot of these questions is that the torture is being conducted against guilty parties.
This presumption of guilt allows people to bring in a 'torture as punishment' perspective into play.
The question should be asked more directly: do Amercians support the use of torture in order to _determine_ whether a person is guilty or innocent (or in a related question, in order to _determine_ whether or not they know somwething).
Even this question can't be asked without a certain amount of bias. The way torture has been presented to Americans by a compliant media, it is presumed that torture is used only against guilty parties.
Indeed, in the case of a Canadian who was sent by the Americans to Syria to be tortured, the presumption on the part of some was that he must be guilty of something _because_ he was tortured.
Separating out the mythology built around such techniques by pervasive media (both dramatic and news broadcasting) bent on legitimizing it will be difficult in the years ahead.
A silly poll.
Almost everybody can handle "Harsh Techniques" while almost nobody condones torture.
Let's be honest Gallup has shown itself to be just another poor polling service - they know how to word their questions. ala Frank Luntz.
Torture never produces valid information and is always amoral.
It is extremely good at producing false confessions for show trials, which is ostensibly not what the Bush administration was using it for.
It would be unfair to speculate that Dick Cheney or other administration members may have been partly motivated by the desire to move on to torturing domestic critics into false public "confessions" of terrorism or treason.
I agree with others who note that the question confuses people by not being clear. I think most Americans would say they are against torture. But, unless you are clear what these interrogation techniques are, most do not know if you mean torture or not. This was made worse by the Bush Admin using the "we don't torture; so, whatever we are doing, it is not torture" nonsense argument.
If Gallup wants to get good data, they need to ask people to rate various techniques as torture or not, and then ask if those are acceptable.
The issue of effectiveness is a separate one; that is made more complex by the fact that traditional relationship methods (as used by the FBI for example) are *more* effective, work for as long a period as you want, and have far more reliable results. That is, Cheney may say that waterboarding "worked" in some specific case, but that does not refute that traditional methods work faster and better. So, those kinds of questions are really not very meaningful.
torturing does NOT provide valuable intelligence. end of story.
if america really wanted intelligence answers they would use other techniques.
all america wants when we torture is to Punish- Harm-and Humiliate another person or that persons group.
we are sick as are all the other peoples in history who tried it too.
I'm disgusted that this has turned into a debate on whether torture is 'effective' or not, as if torture being effective is justification for using it.
Show trials are an effective way of jailing people you consider dangerous. Assassinations are an effective way of eliminating political opposition. Mass murder is an effective way of protecting yourself against an uprising, or eliminating an unwanted minority. Do they get to be legal because they are 'effective'?
Torture is a war crime. Conspiring to torture or assisting torture is a war crime. They are war crimes under US law. If they cause the death of the torture victim (and the US has indeed tortured prisoners to death), they are capital crimes, punishable by death.
I honestly don't care what Obama or the bloodthirsty right wing want. These crimes need to be answered for. These war criminals need to answer for them.
Shma wrote: "I'm disgusted that this has turned into a debate on whether torture is 'effective' or not, as if torture being effective is justification for using it."
I agree with you 100%. That's one reason I also don't give a damn what the average American thinks.
To those answering "rarely justified" for the sake of the ticking time bomb scenario:
It does not happen. Period. Because it's a setup where you have enough information to
a. know a crime is planned
b. know the person you're torturing has what you need
c. be immediately able to verify whatever they tell you
but not enough information to prevent the crime!
I'm not much of an absolutist, so I think there are exceptions to almost every rule. Can I conceive of circumstances in which torture is justified? Sure. But I can also devise scenarios that not only justify but pretty much mandate killing an innocent person.* That does not mean that I am about to legalize the killing of innocents. Torture should not be institutionalized. Torture should not be legal. That may (very, very, occasionally) leave times when it is necessary for somebody to break the law to prevent something catastrophic, like a nuclear bomb exploding in the middle of New York City. When and if that happens, the incident should be investigated with the mitigating circumstances being taken into account. This may (very, very occasionally) suck for an interrogator who is just trying to do the right thing, but the alternative is far more damaging.
Torture is wrong, and if you start endorsing the use of torture, you have very little right to complain when your enemies start using torture against you. War is a terrible thing, but there are international rules that govern even its application. We are not barbarians. We are not some petty third world dictatorship. So why is it that we're on the fence about this? And, while we're at it, why were we ever ambivalent about holding American citizens indefinitely without charging them with a crime? Do you know what kind of company this puts us in? This is supposedly the land of the free, but there seems to be a brutal authoritarian streak just below the surface of our society that belies all our lofty ideals. And frankly, I'm tired of the hypocrisy. It's time that we either abide by our rhetoric, or shut the fuck up about liberty and how awesome our country is.
* If you have to kill an innocent person to stop a nuclear bomb from destroying an entire city, you pretty much do it. But you'd better be really damn sure that it will actually stop the bomb.
@Insect Litany-
I think there is definitely a "brutal authoritarian streak just below the surface of our society that belies all our lofty ideals".
It's that streak that led to internment during World War II and ended up costing the US several million dollars down the road. Some would say that same streak ran through President Lincoln when he suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
Scared Americans can justify almost anything that gives them the appearance of safety. That streak apparently existed during Ben Franklin's time, preceding his utterance about liberty and security.
Mark Danner has a somewhat anguished article in the current (April 30) issue of the New York Review of Books. He argues that public opinion will be divided on the issue of torture by Americans as long as some believe that it has been effective in warding off some terrorist attacks, as Cheney and others strenuously maintain. Danner therefore calls for a thorough Congressional investigation into that claim. Fortunately, the Senate seems to be gearing up to do just that.
You can read Danner's article on his website, www.markdanner.com.
Secor314...
Lincoln's supension of habeas corpus was not due to a "brutal authoritarian" impulse. When first exercised, the state of Maryland was fulminating revolution and was on the road to secession. This would have put the capital of the Union smack in the middle of secessionist territory (surrounded by Maryland and Virginia) and thus would have brought a speedy end to the Civil War, with the South as victor.
Lincoln said, regarding the war, "I will not quit this game leaving any card unplayed." There are provisions in the Constitution for the suspension of the writ in case of rebellion, although it is unclear if the president himself can order the suspension. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, (he earlier authored the Dred Scott decision) said he couldn't, but Taney was ignored.
Lincoln asked "Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" Pretty strong argument, one that clearly demonstrates Lincoln was answering to no authoritarian impulse.
My neighbor used to lock his wife in the basement for months at a time and just about starve her and not let her sleep for a week at a time, then almost drown her for a month straight after he thought he overheard her say she was going to get a girl to kill him. Ends up she was going to get a girl to thrill him. Now he lives with his new wife and I figured well, that was in the past, why turn him in?
Lets just move on.
I did the right thing no?
Stat-Wall...
THanks for the Susan COllins info. I sent her a stinging email via her website.
l_d_f...
Perhaps the time to get involved is when the abuse is going on. If anyone can forego reporting such behavior when it's happening, it seems moot to argue that they would report it afterward.
Okay, so silly "ticking time-bomb" thought:
Wouldn't such a situation make torture less likely to be effective? If you know that it's only a matter of time before the information your interrogators are asking for becomes a moot point (thus giving them no more reason to torture you), couldn't you just attempt to bear it and/or spew false information (that may or may not be able to be verified in time) until the kaboom?
And since we know torture is ineffective even when there is no race against time, when the person being tortured doesn't even know if it will ever end, would it not be right to say that torturing in such a scenario is even worse than ineffective? And then could you not conclude that torture is not only sick, inhumane, and cruel, but utterly frakking pointless?
It is sickening that this is even a subject for debate. Regardless of the details of this poll, it is disturbing and sad that any significant number of Americans would gladly see their leadership not only in the business of torture and extrajudicial detention, but doing it legally, openly and even proudly. And this isn't torture of the worst convicted criminals that we're talking about here (although that also would be a betrayal of the principles espoused in the US Constitution and elsewhere), but routine torture of anyone who happens to get swept up in the terrorist-bogeyman witchhunt at the whim of some government employee.
And why do these people want their nation to behave like a caricature of its "evil" Cold War enemies? From here it looks like they're a pack of pathetic, puling pussies who would trade away absolutely anything to cling to the illusion that big strong Jack Bauer would chase away all the scary bad men, if only he were totally unfettered by silly notions of civilization and ethics and rights and other such trivia. Luckily, Jack is OUR big strong sociopath, so a legal system and political culture which endorses the torture of suspects could never bite US in the ass ... right?
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We — even we here — hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.—Abraham Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, 12/1/62
American exceptionalism is the issue and it's a question of whether we (our government) tortured. Last best hopes don't torture. Ever. They also don't do a number of other things—enslave, relocate populations and intern citizens based on ethnicity. Still, it happens and then it's a question, it having happened, of how to restore that last best hope.
Denial is easy and dishonorable. Justification is disgusting and dishonorable.
If it requires an open and full investigation with possible legal jeopardy attaching to those involved to silence the deniers and discredit the justifiers then so be it. Never again.
Interesting and off-topic question sent to Nate already, but I want to get some reader feedback:
looking at the case in MN and the narrowness of the victory, what sort of implications could one see if our country adopted a popular vote decision at the presidential level.
@ loner
Well said.
If my family were being held against their will and their lives were in danger, I would torture the living hell out of someone if it would lead to their safe return.
And most Americans (including people on this website) would do the same.
GROG-
How would torturing someone ever lead to your family's safety?
I know analogy is a weak form of argument, but replacing danger with anything other than "terrorism" makes the argument for torture sound even more insane:
Your family is in a lot more danger from drunk drivers than from terrorists. Do we torture bartenders on the assumption that they served alcohol to people who then got behind the wheel? I'm sure the bartenders would name names.
Bottom line is that the world got together and worked really hard to define what is and isn't torture (and to say that torture is never okay). It seems silly to have the discussion again because we feel insecure.
@GROG:
I sympathize with the sentiment. However, I don't think that continually behaving like a desperate individual under enormous stress should be official United States government policy.
And sympathy for the motives of that desperate personally-involved torturer should not translate into a lack of legal consequences, let alone any sort of general endorsement of torture. If you committed cold-blooded murder to save your family, you would nonetheless have to answer for that murder. I'd put torture in the same league.
You say you would torture someone "if it would lead to" the safe return of your family. In the real world, it's unlikely that torture would prove necessary and effective, and in any case you couldn't know that it would be.
First of all. Nate great post. I think you are at your best when you analyze flaws and fallacy in polling data and questions.
I hate to do this but most of you have no idea what the heck you are talking about. None of you know about all the threats we are facing including at this very moment. None of you know what is and isn't effective regarding torture and intelligence tactics in general. Ok so we have government policy that says no torture.... Thankfully, people will continue to do what needs to be done to protect and defend this great country.
If you want to make a case for torture, do so.. but pretending you're a government agent with access to secret information about the torturing of suspects doesn't really help you.
Or was that satire? You should really choose a name like Jack_Bauer_Rulez, and let us in on the joke.
I think it's neat how they tortured some guy to get a confession to the link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Of course they never found it. So, after they found no WMD, then their al-Qaeda link fell through, they paraded around what a bad guy Sadaam was in the past.
Thing they never mention was how the U.S. ignored the actions they now condemn. In fact, during Reagan's presidency, Iraq was actively gassing Iranians and the Kurds. Of course nobody cared back then because the U.S. was mad at the Iranians. Heck, we probably supplied them with the technologies that allowed them to build the chemical weapons. But none of that really matters to today's Republicans that still blindly support Iraq.
I see what's going on with this torture. It's such a disgusting thing, many are so ashamed of their own country partaking in it they would rather just play it down or ignore it and pretend it never happened.
Donald…
I think you made your true agenda pretty clear in this line— “But [Nate] seems to have hit a plateau, and I expect he will never exceed that point and remain on the fringe so long as he continues to pander to and provide another forum for the Kos/MoveOn crowd.”
So to you neither PeteKent foaming at the mouth nor the explicit murder threats of Mule Rider are anything to complain about. The true villains are those whose opinions stray from the Bible according to Ronald Reagan.
Sounds to me like you’re just another cranky Republican, pissed off because your guys were tossed out in the snow.
Bye, don’t let the door smack you on exit.
Hey, Donald; don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Well Donald, don't let the door hit you. I don't see anybody spewing "hate" here, nor do you give any examples of such. It disturbs me that people seem to live in separate realities with wildly differing perceptions of what is going on.
A lot of Americans have fought and died for the ideal that is this country. And part of that ideal is that AMERICANS DO NOT TORTURE.
It's a matter of honor.
"...I've never seen so many hate-filled, hate-mongering imbeciles... utter filth and drivel...a pack of hyenas vomiting bile...disgusting bile on top of steaming manure. It's nothing more than internet graffiti...Let him wallow in the filth along with the knuckle-draggers...
I'm outta here. For good."
It's going to be a real loss, not having you around to raise the level of discourse.
Irony of ironies
It took all of 15 minutes for all of Donalds points to be made
Donald,
This was one of Nates better posts. Its best when he looks/crtiques the methodlogy of a poll. Unfortunatly of late he is more inclined to pimp the latest D issues. In Nates defense he has admitted on multiple occassions he is a partisan democrat with some curveball libertarinesque leanings occassionally.
There are some good people here. Markymark is a great example along with others.
Individuals who claim to know whether or not torture or harsh interrogation techniques work are lying to themselves. They have truly taken a stance based on their own political biases. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer is on the record as saying torture is ineffective. While former CIA director Michale Hayden has publicly promoted the effectiveness of torture.
Since we are unlikely to get "torture" experiments ok'ed by any HRB or IRB we cannot state, with any scientific certainty, whether or not torture increases the effectiveness of our intelligence community.
In my view this reason enough to ban the practice-- since we cannot reach any conclusions in regards to the merits of torture. So please, Mike in Maryland and others, let's not get drawn into a debate where we state false conclusions and use "24" as any kind of reference. People who do this come off as grossly misinformed and haughty and arrogant at the same time. Not a good combination.
Update your Senate rankings. Spector is changing to the Democratic Party.
Specter intends to switch to Democratic Party
Senator Arlen Spector is no longer a RINO.
Yee-haw!!!
Now it's time to crush the Norm Coleman foot-dragging conspiracy. Let's get those 60 votes working now.
We pay the CIA to do our damn dirty work.
If they think torture is the best way, then they ought to do it.
Illegally.
And answer for their bloody war crime.
I believe this provides the proper amount of disincentive for using it.
Rebecca,
there's no need to verify correctness, if you can dump manpower on the issue. Causing chaos and disrupting plans is rather easy. Let's say that the person gives you 101 plans, and that you've got about a 50% chance of having the actual plan among them. Well,you set your 1000 agents to work on bollixing up those 101 plans, and you succeed on maybe 90% of them.
Net, you've probably saved lives.
Now whether this is worth killing yourself over... well, that's the question i want our scumbags to be asking.
Now from the sublime to the ridiculous...
Doesn't the government have better things to do than nanny-watch the airwaves for vulgarities?
Hey Nate, have any comments about Areln Specter switching parties? Any predictions as to how this will shake up the 2010 elections?
The DSCC said it will not support a primary challenge to Arlen, so any opposition on the left would have to come from a grassroots recruitment effort. I think they are officially playing nice with Specter in order to get cloture votes and possibly to entice some of the remaining New England Republicans to caucus with the Dems, also.
Arlen is one of the twistiest politicians in the mix right now, so it wouldn't shock me to see him migrate even further leftward as he rediscovers a progressive view of most government functions. He was a Democrat longer than he was a Republican, and I expect he wants to be liked more than he wants to stick to principles he adopted only to get elected by Republicans.
Collins? Snowe? Put your fingers in the wind, and see which way it's blowing..
Thank you, Matthew Peter.
I too was distraught at some of the absolutist posts, e.g., Torture never produces valid information.
It stands to reason that some person, at some point, gave someone valid information under torture or the threat thereof.
I also take issue with those separating the moral issue from the effectiveness issue. If torture is effective in ways that no other techniques are, choosing not to torture has serious moral implications in terms of putting lives at risk. It's not the argument I would make, I don't think I would support waterboarding in any circumstance, but I think it's incorrect to treat the two as unrelated.
A slow day when Arlen Specter changes party affiliation?
smk22-
Without trying to nitpick, I see several problems with your position:
1) There is minimal evidence that torture works at all.
2) There is no evidence that torture works better than traditional interrogation techniques.
3) Thus, if effectiveness is made a part of the moral argument, then one could argue that torture is immoral simply because it appears to be less effective.
As for the Arlen Specter news:
We can all expect the GOP to double down on their efforts to delay the seating of Senator Franken.
Has intrade established the odds of T-Paw signing the election certificate after the MNSC confirms Franken as the victor in the election? Whatever the odds were, they are likely to be significantly less now.
Saint Dude,
That was exactly my point. I agree with all three of your bullets. There is not sufficient evidence that torture works to make it worth the moral costs.
I took issue only with those who said that effectiveness is completely unrelated to morality. There are moral dimensions of effectiveness.
Wayward Son: Collins? Snowe? Put your fingers in the wind, and see which way it's blowing.Neither Collins nor Snowe is facing a primary for 2010 that they seemed certain to lose. Specter's defection seems to me not only ideological, but also political: it was his only real path to reelection. So I wouldn't expect anything from either of the Mainers.
But the PA Democratic primary could get very interesting.
smk22 & Saint Dude,
I think you are both arriving at the same conclusion... one I have come to as well.
I don't mean to speak for anyone but I believe smk22 was taking issue with the fact that people bolster their arguments by talking in absolutes. This does several things-- not the least of which it allows others to easily refute your argument since there are few if any absolutes in the world (in the case of torture there are practically none).
I feel you fall into this trap in your second bullet by stating "There is no evidence...". You can't possibly be sure there is no evidence since we are dealing with highly classified matters and a subject that science cannot explore empirically.
These polls are almost as disheartening to me as the actual revelations of torture. Count me as one of those who feels torture is so wrong that only a ridiculously far-fetched situation, probably involving the Death Star, could make it advisable to consider it.
I had thought Americans would have more moral rectitude on this issue. Something has got to be done.
Matthew Peter said...
"There is no evidence...". You can't possibly be sure there is no evidence since we are dealing with highly classified matters and a subject that science cannot explore empirically.
The burden of proof is on those who want to legalize war crimes, not on the people who want the law to be applied.
smk22 said...
I also take issue with those separating the moral issue from the effectiveness issue. If torture is effective in ways that no other techniques are, choosing not to torture has serious moral implications in terms of putting lives at risk.
An 'ends justifies the means' argument is a recipe for barbarism. You need only look at the Bush administrations application of torture to see that. There was never any case where they saved lives by torturing, yet they did it anyways.
Fantasy scenarios that have never happened don't justify the real deaths that have occurred under torture.
These dumb Dems forget the mood of the nation after 911: We would have willingly ripped the nipples off these bastards just for sport had we caught them. This incessant focus on torture (a caterpillar in a box? come on!) only goes to prove how out of step the left is with the rest of the nation and will make many remember why they reject the Democratic Party ideologically as the party of weakness and appeasement.
Pelosi will wind up more damaged than Bush over this. He is after all out of office and the inquiry will only serve to remind us that he kept our nation safe during the rest of his presidency. Obama, on the other hand, pursues unilateral disarmament.
"This man will be tested", Joe Biden warned of Obama during the campaign. I suspect he will. And he will lack the tools to pass that test.
America will not then be forgiving and it maybe Obama who winds up with the "purple nurple" and not our enemies.
PeteKent01 (on twitter)
PeteKent: These dumb Dems forget the mood of the nation after 911
I see. How does that justify the 2005 torture memos? Does the smoking gun last four years?
And focusing on a so-called "caterpillar in a box" ignores, well, 183 waterboards in a month. The point isn't that some of what was in the memo wasn't toruture (though anything can be torture if that's what your greatest fear is); the point is that some of what was in the memos clearly is and violated our own and international law.
If we care about rule of law anymore, that is.
And if people want to ignore all the statements by those who actually do interrogation that "enhanced" techniques usually won't get information that you wouldn't get otherwise, that it gets all sorts of bad information that we can act upon to our own detriment (e.g. a "confession" that there was a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda), that our use of those techniques cause others to join the cause against us (confirmed cases of Iraqis joining the insurgency because of Abu Ghraib, which extended the fight and cost lives), well ignore away. But I'd think a cost-benefit analysis would have to look at costs too, not just isolated instances where, maybe, information was obtained that might not have been acquired otherwise.
And that's before we get to the question as to whether we'd rather live at some minimally greater risk in a nation that stands for something than perfectly safe in a nation that stands for nothing. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and all the others put their lives on the line for principles, even though they could have lived in much greater security under the British. Are there any principles we're willing to do anything for today?
@ Pragmatus,
I don't think Lincoln was over the top. I included that reference because, as I said, I have seen others refer to that. My reference wasn't intended to indicate agreement, just that as now when Kit Bond will go on Hardball and declare "America does not torture", that multiple points of view exist.
Thanks, PeteKent, for reminding us of the Republican view that governing the nation is something that should be done according to reactionary gut feelings and vengeful impulses (and personal profit motives, of course), rather than ethical principles, rational policy, or federal law.
Insect Litany said...
I'm not much of an absolutist, so I think there are exceptions to almost every rule.
nova_middle_man said...
I hate to do this but most of you have no idea what the heck you are talking about.
Matthew Peter said...
Individuals who claim to know whether or not torture or harsh interrogation techniques work are lying to themselves.
On April 27, Mike Ritz, former army interrogator, former SERE School instructor (the SERE School is where they teach American soldiers how to withstand 'harsh interrogation techniques, aka torture), and one of the SERE School personnel who appeared in some of the videos demonstrating how water-boarder was done, appeared on Countdown. Keith was discussing how Hannity volunteered to be water-boarded, but has since backed down.
Ritz volunteered to water-board Hannity. When Keith asked him why, Ritz responded that he would guarantee that Hannity would admit to Countdown being Hannity's favorite show on all of television.
So all of you stating that torture brings results - you are probably correct. The question is, are the results correct, or are they only what the torturer wants the torturee to say?
Video on Keith's page at MSNBC.com, then click April 27, and then click #1 'Hannity still afraid'.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
shma said:
"The burden of proof is on those who want to legalize war crimes, not on the people who want the law to be applied."
I agree... this is one of the reasons I oppose the use of torture. Please take the time to both read and understand the message of my original post. Which of course was to attack the use of using absolutes in a debate on a topic that has none. You fall into this trap again shma by saying "There was never any case where they saved lives by torturing, yet they did it anyways."
How can you possibly state there was no case where torturing saved lives? In the immortal words of Wolfgang Pauli, "Not only are you not right, you are not even wrong."
Mike in Maryland, I am not stating that torture brings results, correct results, or no results at all. I am stating that we cannot know for certain the effectiveness of torture. Experts clearly disagree on its effectiveness (see my first post), so providing one example (and a horrifically poor one at that, having a SERE instructor obtain a willfully incorrect statement relates to obtaining correct intelligence how? It is merely a theory, and the theory's core belief is that people can be broken and forced to lie under torture. It doesn't refute the claim that torture can produce valid information.) does not prove your case.
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