Torture, Accountability and Name-Calling

A post by Larisa Alexandrovna entitled "Alan Dershowitz: Was He Against Nazi Practices Before He Was for Them?" dated November 11, 2007, well illustrates how some blogs endanger rational discourse and substitute name-calling for serious debate about controversial issues. Alexandrovna purports to be responding to an op-ed piece I wrote in the Wall Street Journal in which I stated unequivocally that "I am personally opposed to the use of torture." That is my normative position. In making an argument for political accountability if torture were to be used in extreme cases involving the risk of mass casualties (the so-called "ticking bomb scenario"), I quoted former President Bill Clinton and current Senator John McCain. I then dealt with the demonstrably false factual claim that some make that torture never works.

In responding to this wholly empirical claim, I said the following:

There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works - it only produces false information. This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.

Alexandrovna distorts this factual evidence into an "endorse[ment]" of torture as moral matter, despite my clear statement of my personal opposition to the use of torture. She then begins her name calling, analogizing me to "monsters", "a multinational crime syndicate", "political parasites", and "political prostitutes." Going even further she blames me for the increase of anti-Semitism around the world and challenges my commitment to Jewish values. These ad hominem attacks distort my position and that of President Clinton and Senator John McCain. I am against torture on moral grounds despite the empirical evidence that may sometimes produce life-saving and self-proving information. I also believe that since torture is being used and would be authorized by any president in a real ticking bomb situation, democracy requires accountability rather than deniability. Understandably her blog does not link to my article in the Wall Street Journal, because the last thing she would want anybody to do would be actually to read what I have said. For those readers who prefer facts to name calling, here is the link and here are the cites to other articles I have written about this contentious and difficult choice of evils that all democracies must face. Why Terrorism Works, Ch. 4, by Alan M. Dershowitz and Torture: A Collection by Sanford Levinson.

Now a word about the censorship policies of Huffington Post. Your readers may not be aware that the Huffington Post sometimes refuses to print ad hominem attacks and other times prints them with relish. Several weeks ago I submitted a blog about a debate being conducted by the Oxford Union regarding the one-state versus the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My main point was that the Oxford Union had shown anti-Israel bias by selecting as one of its speakers supporting the two-state position, a virulently anti-Israel writer named Norman Finkelstein who supports Hezbollah which demands the military destruction of Israel. In making my point about the bias of this selection, I had to show the readers who Finkelstein was and what his positions on Israel were.

Colin Sterling refused to post my blog on the ground that "we are not prepared, for a variety of reasons to host bloggers' personal attacks on others, in the manner of the section on Norman Finkelstein, whether or not they're true." They were true since most of them came from Finkelstein's own website and his own words. Fair enough if that is the consistent policy of Huffington Post, although it certainly denies readers access to controversial allegations. But now I read Larisa Alexandrovna's much more personal and much more ad hominem attack on me. This follows many other similar personal attacks based on my support for Israel and the two-state solution. This leads me to the following conclusion: your censorship policies seems to be heavily skewed in one direction when it comes to discussions of certain controversial matters. I would be interested in whether readers agree and if so, whether they think this serves the interest of truth and objective debate.

___________________________________________________________________

Editors' Note: The Huffington Post has a stated policy of not posting blogs focused on our editorial decision-making process but, in the interest of transparency, we've decided to publish Prof. Dershowitz's comments -- even though they misrepresent the facts about what occurred with his submission on the Oxford Union debate and Norman Finkelstein.

We have allowed Mr. Dershowitz to continue his personal battle with Mr. Finkelstein on a number of occasions (see here and here), but because he laced his argument about the Oxford debate with unprovable and potentially libelous charges against Finklestein, we chose not to run it in that form and offered him the opportunity to revise his piece. He opted not to.

As for the suggestion that HuffPost is somehow institutionally opposed to Prof. Dershowitz's views on Israel (a claim he has made elsewhere), this is simply not true. We publish a wide range of viewpoints on Israel, including many that are unabashedly pro-Israel, including this recent post from Mort Zuckerman, which got very prominent play on our site. We have also published a post from Prime Minister Olmert, among many others.

Exercising our editorial prerogative had absolutely nothing to do with censorship or Alan Dershowitz's position on Israel, but rather our desire not to have the Huffington Post become a forum for unending personal battles and potentially libelous charges.

As for Larisa Alexandrovna's criticism of Prof. Dershowitz's views on torture, we leave it to our readers to decide if it is, as he claims, an ad hominem attack on him. We don't believe it is.

Comments

[midtown]

Amazing that Mr. Dershowitz, who is a college professor, occasional practicing attorney, and author, is soooooo much more knowledgeable about the effects of torture than President Eisenhower and his military officers, President Kennedy and his military advisors, President Johnson and his Vietnam War Generals, President Nixon and his Cold War military, Presidents Ford and Reagan, none of whom sought to strike down the Geneva Conventions because their military cited "ticking bomb scenarios" that had to be addressed by a torture-card.

In all that time, we had the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Honduras, and the first Gulf War. Plus airline hijackings and Iran-Contra.

None of the great generals in that time period retired in disgust and excoriated the President on Meet The Press for not allowing them to torture. Why?

Because they didn't know what Dershowitz knew?

Or is it that Dershowitz has identified an uber fear he wants us all to see his way, why he states terrorism works: a state of terror that lives in the mind that only torture can extract, a continual state of fearfulness that he wants us to buy into (like Horowitz's Islamofascism) so that the threat of torture, like the death penalty, will be accepted as an acceptable deterrent to whatever evil Dershowitz would like to see the world engage in. As if we didn't have free will and imagination to make it otherwise.

[KevinHayden]

it sure looks like hairsplitting to attack Ms. Alexandrovna's posting with weak defenses as you have.

You say torture worked against some French Resistance fighters. I would ask "according to whom?" Did the Nazis have the information beforehand? Which Resistance members cracked? Kids? Women? I don't suggest those groups are more prone to cracking, but in the current use of torture, the subjects would be men. And men who we are told are trained to resist torture. Were Resistance fighters similarly trained?

Further, if you insist that the two are valid comparisons, cite your sources, please. Readers are not all historians. I don't even know what proof exists than Resistance fighters cracked.

And could the Nazis have gained the info without or prior to the torture? Professional interrogators often claim they get better information faster via other means and methods.

If you find discomfort with the terms Ms. Alexandrovna uses in her analogies, it might be worth considering whether nitpicking the technicalities is really useful to the maintenance of your reputation or whether people will be prone to judge you on your insistence to suggest there's meritorious arguments to be made in defense of torture, rather than confining yourself to the moral certainty that torture is defenseless.

The ticking time bomb scenario is a television fiction, unworthy of inclusion in the discussion at all. But I certainly have to wonder what makes a guy like you tick.

[Ravenlea]

I think you have rather proved Ms. Alexandrova's point. Claiming to oppose something at the same time you strive to legalize it, is at best self-delusional and at worst dishonest.

Legalizing something like torture would put us on a slippery slope to a very bad place. (Unfortunately we are governed by scofflaws at the moment who have already dragged us repuslively far down that slope.) Beyond the inherent immorality of it, legalizing torture supposedly for the ticking time bomb situation is fraught with danger. Who decides what qualifies as a "ticking time bomb." The idea that of a ticking time-bomb with such a long fuse that it allows one to move through legal channels and get presidential approval has the smell and feel of disingenuousness.

Someone facing a true ticking time bomb who feels that torture would work is unlikely to be deterred from acting. He or she would more likely save the world (if as you claim torture works) and deal with the legal consequences after.

Lastly, I read Ms. Alexandrova's post and it hardly read as an attack on you. Rather it was a serious discussion of a profoundly important legal and moral issue facing this country today. Your own words today seem to me to confirm her observations about where you stand on this issue.

[timm0]

If I call a person an idiot after that person insists that 2 plus 2 equals 5, is it "name calling" or is it a "logical conclusion based on prima facie evidence"? Hmmmm... tom-ay-toe, to-mah-toe, I guess....

[LITU]

Perhaps the real point in denouncing torture, as it pertains to detainees in the hands of the U.S. is that nearly all of them are illegitimate detainees. And those handful who might have actually had strategic information are now so far removed from the dynamics, any information is historical at best. To compare the members of the French Resistance to captives of today, is ludicrous.

[Dap]

==

For those who have an interest in this subject of torture and conscience Professor Gordan Marinno had a post back in October, that pretty much covers it, it's worth a read. Agape, to all.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gordon-marino/separating-the-moral-from_b_69449.html

[coffeelover]

my plan is the same in spirit as Mr. Dershowitz'. If a president feels he must torture to save thousands of lives in that unlikely 'ticking time bomb' scenario, I say torture. But because you're breaking the law, you must be a noble civil-disobedient, You must stand trial for the crime and go to jail if so sentenced. But saving all those lives, Mr. President, it would be a small price to pay. You did it for your country. You're in jail, but that's how civil disobedience works.

[piniella]

The ticking time bomb scenario drags Prof. Dershowitz down to the level of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity adn that is no mistake. His partisan attacks on Democrats who oppose the immoral war in Iraq are both false and unjustifiable.

For example, he asserts that "tens of millions want the Moores and Sheehans of our nation as far away as possible from influencing national security policy." He cites no polls about this specific issue so I can only fill in what I know about the countries' attitude: About 50% of the country trusts the Democrats to handle Iraq and only 30% trusts the GOP. In addition, over 60% feel the Iraq War was a mistake. (ABC News/WaPo poll, 10/29 - 11/01)

[OTOH]

Alan Dershowitz's position on torture (opposing it but wanting the law to recognize that it can be useful in extreme circumstances) is tortured logic which would lead to the effective legalization of torture -- because every prisoner can be assumed to possess information that could potentially save thousands of lives. It is not hard to see that any such law would be misused, since the torturers would also be the witnesses that would explain why they thought that torture was needed in each case (and of course their testimony would be secret, as it would touch on classified matters).

However, I see no purpose being served by refusing to print an attack by Dershowitz om Finkelstein -- as well as the latter's response. These two gentlemen have been involved in bloody debates before, and to the extent that they are spokesmen for their respective positions I think that HuffPo should be giving them space.

We, the readers, can decide who is playing fair and who is not. We don't need editors doing that. (Isn't this what the web was going to be about?)

[JudyGee]

Mr. Dershowitz,
I agree with you regarding the bias policy of censorship. Fake history, and invectives not just thrown at you, but now Charles Schumer, are commonplace. What is more disturbing is the tone. A kind of rant, like a mob. It's a waste of time to supply facts or attempt to open a discussion on any matter that is not approved by the majority opinion, regardless of how misplaced. Israel is always maligned and Jews are mentioned in that creepy way, with which we are all familiar.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

I applaud the HuffPo editors for their "Editors' Note" above.

Indeed, re Ms. Alexandrovna's critique of Mr. Dershowitz's essay on torture, how can it be an "ad hominem" attack to use someone's own words against them?

[Chefrad]

Alan Dershowitz is now intimidating critical correspondents by telling them he is printing their remarks in an upcoming compilation of anti-semitic rants. In other words, some of you may end up "sharing" space with Dr. Mengele. If Dershowitz makes use of even a fraction of his critics, this will be a multi-volume work.
But Dershowitz has done us all a public service by making the antisemitic impulse understandible, if only in his own case. A picture of AD is probably David Duke's favorite screen-saver.
Do listen to the Dershowitz-Finkelstein debate and try judging it by manners alone. The "Distinguished Harvard Professor" droned on, interrupts and resembles nothing so much as an antisemitic cartoon. Dershowitz makes Ruth Wisse sound like Noam Chomsky and Cynthia Oznik look like Paul Newman.

Conrad Black could not have a more appropriate advocate.

[grendl]

I've been waiting to ask this question for twelve years.

You've told us what you think of torture, Mr. Dershowitz. Could you please tell us what you think of double homicide????

[avergejoe]

"I am against torture on moral grounds"

Unusually unequivocal statement, little Al.
I'm sure we all would love to hear your STRONG condemnation of these crimes against humanity!

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865212.html

Report: Shin Bet, police severly tortured Palestinian suspects

In a harsh report released yesterday, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel accuses the Shin Bet security service and police of severely torturing Palestinian security suspects, including one that charged police investigators with severe sexual abuse.

The report says the doctors at the hospitals and prisons ignore the prisoners' complaints or treat them with contempt, thus enabling the security services to continue torturing the prisoners.

A 24-year-old prisoner from Nablus testified that during questioning a police investigator held his legs in the air, and inserted an object into his rectum.

"While the investigator inserted the 'object' into my rectum and removed it, he pulled my genitalia, as if he wanted to rip it out," he said. "He told me that he wanted to cut it off and throw it to the dog - this lasted at least 10 minutes. The whole time I yelled out in pain."

This prisoner's examination by an Abu Kabir Forensics Institute doctor revealed signs of sexual abuse, the report says.

Another prisoner, Louay Ashkar, 27, of Saida village, said he sat during questioning on a chair with a bent back, both hands tied behind the chair and each leg tied to chair leg.

"The interrogator Effi would push my chest backward until my head reached the floor, then grab my bound hands and pull me to him," said Ashkar. "I lost consciousness because of the pain, especially in my back."

The report says Ashkar's legs are paralyzed due to the spinal damage caused by the torture.

One of the complaints alleges forceful use of iron shackles "until the iron cuts into the flesh and you felt as if your hand was being cut off," said Amin Shakirat.

The Shin Bet responded that its methods were "legal" in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.

[1LESSUV]

The ticking bomb argument is SOOOO 2003.... The idea of developing standards, reporting mechanisms, and techniques for a practice that is outlawed is ludicrous. Officials faced with a ticking bomb scenario will use their best judgment, and if they engage in outlawed practices they will accept the legal consequences of their decisions. A just society can be trusted to judge mitigating circumstances in such cases.