It's telling that in a news conference today John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, referred to some of the Bush Administration's terrorist-suspect interrogation methods as "torture"--as reported just now on the Huffington Post by Ryan Grim. Boehner uses this honest word as part of a defense of these methods, but the diction says more than the defense--a point that Grim has rightly seized on as the real news from the press conference. Boehner is not lying on my analytic couch, thank God, and my guess is that he is not lying on anyone else's analytic couch, either, unfortunately--as he is a politically benighted man and also seems singularly sour and joyless--but his use of "torture" was an
ur-Freudian slip of the tongue. It shows a man in moral conflict about these methods, whether or not he would admit to or is even conscious of that conflict, because it is an inescapably horrific and negative word, no matter how couched and cushioned it may be by its surrounding rationalizations, and the law says that the practice of torture is a crime.
Almost as telling, in another way, is the word "tecnhiques," as used by Boehner in this instance and by many others on this subject in many other instances. It is a word that implies finesse and expertise, if not actual art, and it is a chilling unconscious effort to normalize and cosmeticize the awful and gross reality of real-world torture. "Methods" and "practices" seem more straightforward. And "torture" standing on its own two monstrous feet without any other noun following it would be more straughtforward yet. You don't need to go to school to know how to torture. To imply otherwise is to torture our language.
The moral high ground is the only ground worth fighting for!
Food for thought!
As the various arguments and bits of evidence mount for viewing in the public eye, this nation must take its stand on such questions. But they boil down to: “Was it legal?” “Was it moral?” “Was it useful”, and finally, “Was it worth it?” And in the end, what's the right approach in formulating and conducting anti-terrorist policy, Barack Obama's scalpel or Dick Cheney's hammer? With the potential for terrorist-scale WMD brewing in the background, these issues are sure to be revisited again and again.
E.g., regarding 2), a series of legal opinions initiated by the previous administration have now been put into question by Congress and probably later our courts.
Regarding 1) carefully monitored waterboarding is used to help special forces military personnel resist enemy interrogation. Then again, when does quantity become quality? Single instances of waterboarding in controlled training may not be torture, but 183 times by one's enemy in a month? If that isn't torture, what is it? WWII enemy soldiers were convicted of war crimes in an American court, under American laws, for waterboarding. Whether a particular administration considers waterboarding to be torture seems more fungible than whether it really is torture.
Are harsh but presumably limited interrogation techniques like waterboarding really torture? 2) Were such techniques legal at the time they were employed? 3) Are such techniques effective in obtaining actionable intelligence? 4) Did such techniques obtain any actionable intelligence? 5) If so, could less questionable techniques be equally effective? 6) Were such techniques employed to produce actionable intelligence to counter critical threats, or were they used primarily to coerce confessions consistent with a narrative consistent with the foreign policy agenda at the time? 7) From a strictly amoral, geopolitical perspective, does the use of such techniques now tend to incur negative military and/or political consequences that outweigh the usefulness of any actionable intelligence thus obtained? Does it serve to scare our enemies and give us pre-emptive intel, or does it further inflame them, turn world opinion against us by undermining our image as leaders of the civilized world, and raise risks for our current military personnel? What if it happens to be all of the above? What then? How do you decide?
2. No (See the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Nuremburg and Tokyo War Crimes trials)
3 No. Some intelligence may be developed, but it is buried in a mass of misleading results and probably will not be recognized unless it fitswith the preconceptions of the interrogator. On the other hand, false answers which fit the interrogator's preconceptions (which will stop the pain) may be acted on with potentially disastrous results; see Guns of Navaroe for a fictional example.
4. So far, mainly unsubstantiated claims by people not known for close association with the truth. Should be balanced by another question, How many soldiers were killed by people radicalized by the torture of friends or family?
5. Plenty of Intel professionals say yes.
6. Probably instances of both.
7 You cannot scare an enemy with a martyr complex.
You forgot one question to ask of all conservative proponents of torture - What would Jesus do? If they answer torture, ask to see their Bible - Cheney seems to be operating on the basis of a translation I have never seen.
AG Holder has said he would "follow the law". If he does so, I believe we will see justice done here. Otherwise, I am ready to take it to the streets, along with a very large number of other people!
to something like " comfort deprivation " -
it sounds so " less bad "...
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McCain COWARD on enforcing Torture