Best Argument For A Formal Investigation Of The Bush Torture Policy
Mark Danner continues to serve us as the best source out there on the issue of "enhanced interrogation techniques." But his latest piece for the NYRB goes beyond informing us. It offers the most compelling argument I know of against Obama's "let's look forward not backwards" position. I have always wanted a day of reckoning for Bush officials who were behind the torture policy, of course, but I've been a bit squishy about it. Until now.
Squishy why? Well, first of all, as so many on the traditional left have come to realize - it's hard to oppose Obama with sustained energy. It's easy to register disagreement, but you can't really go after him; he means so much to so many disenfranchised and discouraged people. A more specific source of squishiness? When Obama called for "reflection, not retribution" before those cheering CIA employees I understood why he felt he needed to do that. At the same time, I had to admit that I do want retribution. Not so much against the grunts who did the deeds, but against, say, Rumsfeld? Hell yeah.
That realization distracted me, made it more difficult to think it through as a policy question. Not at the level of moral outrage but in practical terms, at the level of - would a formal investigation be good or bad for the Obama administration in particular and the country in general? I used to shy away from that question precisely because of moral outrage. Without actually putting it into words I was thinking "these bad men ought to be accountable regardless of the broader consequences, justice must be blind," etc. At the same time, I was rooting for Obama overall and he obviously didn't want this, so the net effect was - squishy.
Danner set me straight. He explains why a formal investigation would be good for Obama and good for the country. He focuses on another question I have always shied away from, to wit: did torture "work?" As in, did it yield intelligence that helped foil another attack? Why did I shy away from that question? Same moral outrage reason. That torture policy was wrong whether it happened to "work" or not in some particular case. But this issue is at the heart of the Cheney position and Danner shows how carefully and cleverly he is putting it out there. First the claim that the torture did work followed by a call for the release of mysterious classified documents that he says will back him up. The fact that FoxNews pops up first on a google search for this story only buttresses Danner's point.
Cheney and Fox (and Friends) are setting us up. They are gambling that another attack on American soil, perhaps a very serious one, is highly likely in the next few years. Are they hoping for it? I'll report, you decide. But in any case, they are right. It is highly likely. And if and when it happens, then Cheney and Fox (and Friends) are going to be in a position to lead a Rightist Renaissance based on the claim that Obama Democrats have been soft on terror whereas, after 9/11, Bush and Company were tough on terror - and so prevented attacks. Movement conservatives and the Republican Party will be redeemed at a stroke.
Unless.
Unless a full investigation of the whole torture issue yields a credible official conclusion, graven in the historical record, a conclusion that says: torture did not in fact yield any information that prevented another attack. That has to become the conventional wisdom before there's another attack - or it will be game over.
Danner provides solid reasons for believing that torture did not "work," that there is no evidence for Cheney's claim (what else is new?). But he also argues convincingly that, as long as there is no official conclusion to that effect, this groundless claim will continue to be reported on by journalists mindlessly committed to telling "both sides" of a story so long as it remains in play. It will be out there as a possibility. And then, when the shit hits the fan, it will be too late.
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There was no hesitation at Nuremberg.
What's the difference now? Failure to go forward will strip us of our humanity.
The difference is that the winners don't historically punish themselves; they write the history books.
This month of May 2009 had been very hectic for the Obama administration on many counts
Ist. Israeli PM's arrogant, insolent mannerism, vicious utterances, and stubborn attitude in regard to Palestinian and Israel's two state solution, and Israelis hatred against Christine and Muslim hurting the religious sentiments with regard to Jerusalem the Holy religious sit for all three. His insolent behavior must have forced the Present Administration to raise their eyebrows in surprise.
2nd. Sudden emergence of the most hated personality in USA Politics Cheney and his ugly announcements in support of his creation, the Guantanamo interrogation policy which was as inhuman as Cheney himself is , that needed to create this stupid interrogation technique. Never in any sense interrogation technique is designed to extract false confessional statements, but on the contrary to obtain the truth with much sophisticated amicable means. The Republicans dumbs like Cheney and Ramsfled did not know this.
Then the stoppage of fund in US Senate needed for abandoning the Guantanamo prison. These acts indicate to a very dangerous collaborated action that is cooking up for the very near future. The enemies of Obama administration is contemplating to swoop down on the Democrats Government under foriegn country's intelligence agency's collusion with Bush Cheney Gong in, with the plan like 911, and attack as before they did and blame Obama's sincere efforts for the Catastrophe etc. My Friends take time to observe then comment over this. CIA TO BE VERY ALERT.
Don't forget Obama taking time out to legalize guns in our national parks, a most important national security concern, right?
As per the Senate Armed Services Committee (Inquiry on the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody), the torture techniques used were based on the SERE training given to US military personnel to enable them to resist torture. The SERE training is based on techniques used by the "Red" Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean Conflict to obtain false confessions from US military personnel.
If you think about the logic, the answer is very clear. Torture works. It's highly effective in getting the tortured person to give the answer you want. It may not be true, but as any good "interrogator" knows, the point at which you stop is the point at which you get the answer you were looking for.
The answer Dick Cheney wanted was that al-Qaida was supported by Saddam ... he knows it is not true.
al-Qaida is supported by the bin-Ladens and other Saudis; the bin-Ladens are partners of the Bsuh family.
The US and Israel have a long and distinguished history of supporting "fundamentalist" Islam.
It began as a way of "divide et impera".
When the US was bed wetting scared of "socialists" and "secular regimes" in the ME (Nasser, etc), it used fundies to oppose these very scary leftists.
Imagine instead if we had embraced them. What a different world the ME would be now.
Same with AlQaeda - born of the USA's jihad against them pesky Ruskis in Afghanistan.
The point in your first paragraph doesn't seem to lead to your conclusion in the second. If US military personnel are trained to resist these methods of torture, why do we think such methods would "work" when applied on our adversaries? Wouldn't they be just as capable of resisting as our soldiers?
And the very fact our techniques are based on those used by Red Chinese and North Koreans should tell us which side of the moral scale we're on now.
One small objection to your post, your use of the word "now" in the last sentence.
If you have a minute, Google School of the Americas (in business continuously since 1947).
Also Rutland Herald and Vermont State Hospital. http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081130/NEWS/811300299
Also MKULTRA.
Also Dr. Cameron, McGill University, "psychic driving" and CIA.
Or maybe again don't. You might not like what you find.
Thanks.
I believe my second paragraph is consistent with the first. In the first para I point out that using these techniques the "Commies" were able to extract false confessions from our servicemen.
In the second paragraph, I state that torture works in that it will help you get the answer you want (e.g. a false confession). It is not however a consistently reliable tool for determining truth.
Torture is used (a) to break/brutalize captives (b) to put a suitable level of fear into those not yet in custody, (c) to provide an outlet for those with severe mental issues (those who do the torturing), (d) to obtain "evidence" to support pre-determined conclusions. It is also used by those who are themselves subject to great fear that their project (the Revolution, the Republic, Constitutional Govt) may fail. And so it is the refuge as well of the scared and the unintelligent.
If this were a partisan chess game, then your strategy of using investigations in order to achieve some political advantage would make sense.
But chess assumes two opponents matched against each other in competition.
That is not the case in America today. These events--911, the runup to the Iraq War, torture--have the fingerprints of too many from both "parties" all over them. While you want justice to be done and punishment meted out to the implementers of torture--the men an women who gave the actual word--what will happen is that the names of the enablers who knew and supported those acts will also be made public.
Too many careers, and too much money from their corporate masters at stake for that to be allowed. While I agree that we need this cleansing more than anything, other than perhaps the prying of the fingers of Wall Street off the mechanisms of our Republic, I do not think that under this president we will see either.
Then we are a sham.
Obama is a sham.
We have a government of, by and for criminals.
You are being "set up".
Yes, it is apparently true that torture never or nearly never works.
Agreed, that should make it much easier end torture.
But even if it worked in a few cases,
Torture is evil.
Torture loses hearts and minds,
Torture turns the world against us,
Torture corrupts.
The absolute power to torture prisoners into saying anything you want,
causes the torturer to project their fantasies into the words of the prisoners.
If you torture, you believe it works, because you get the prisoners to say whatever it is you wanted to hear. Confessions, accusations, plots whatever.
I think Bob Cesca said it best:
"If we can't protect ourselves with our morals intact, we don't deserve to be protected in the first place."
The Project for a New American Century, the organization formed by Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other members of the past Junta had a document in their site posted prior to September 11 2001 in which it was stated that a Pearl Harbor type attack would galvanize the Americans to support a new weapons program.
The document is no longer in their site.
The catastrophic events of 9/11/2001 was a God send for Cheney and other members of the Junta.
We now have Cheney and his gang are making the same predictions. We have the leader of the GOP asking for an attack on America to advance his economic agenda.
When are we going to wake up?
"The catastrophic events of 9/11/2001 was a God send..."
I don't think god had anything to do with it...and the fact that the patriot act had been written some years before the attacks makes it even less likely that this was a sneak attack...
The word God was used as a figure of speech ... agree on the rest.
It's still there. In a .pdf document titled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", page 51:
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
That idea came from a paper written years earlier ( http://www.hks.harvard.edu/visions/publication/terrorism.htm#About%20the%20Authors ) by Philip Zelikow, who was on Bush's transition team, then served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, was appointed executive director of the 9/11 Commission and was one of Condoleeza Rice's deputies when she was Secretary of State.
Recently Zelikow has come forward to say that he wrote a memo critical of the White House's torture program, but all copies were gathered and destroyed by the administration. Zelikow was a supporter of the Iraq war, not for any of the reasons stated by the administration at the time (WMD, nuclear capability, etc.), but because he believed and stated publicly that we went to war in Iraq to protect Israel. http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083
To me it's incredible that you would even ask if torture "works", does bank robbery "work", does murder for hire "work", i guess anything can "work" depending on how low you will stoop to achieve your objectives, but i was raised to believe that the the United States was supposed to set a higher moral benchmark for civilization, apparently not if the only reason we havn't previously tortured people is because we didn't know if it would "work".
your argument is faulty at it's core...bank robbery and murder for hire are not means in which to gain information on an enemy, they are just crimes centered on greed and/or rage/jealousy/etc.
and if you by any means believe that 'we haven't previously tortured people' you are highly mistaken.
The reason why this is such a big deal now, is that the Bush admin, in an effort to explain and prove to the american people what they were doing to combat terrorism, and keep our homeland safe, admitted to these practices (almost bragging about them). Due to the extremity of sep 11, they felt that the american public would accept these practices if it meant keeping them safe.
New regime, new mindset now.
the bush administration was never concerned with "keeping us safe". please get real.
"The reason why this is such a big deal now" is that the United States of America, instead of being a beacon of liberty and justice for all, has morphed into an hypocritical, amoral, xenophobic bully. I want my country, America the Beautiful, back.
I am sure that in the time of the Spanish Inquisition, those torturing individuals believed they were also receiving valuable information. Whether or not torture WORKED is not the issue. The issue is under our system of law (which includes international treaties signed by the US), torture is illegal, period. How can we accept that our legal system was circumvented by a group of lawyers who set out with the sole objective of twisting our system of law to legalize the inhumane treatment of others? These folks will have openned Pandora's Box if we do not prosecute them. Take away their right to practice law? Oh no! Jail time pure and simple.
"Jail time pure and simple."
Unless I'm mistaken, I think you mean prison time, not jail time.
"They are gambling that another attack on American soil, perhaps a very serious one, is highly likely in the next few years. Are they hoping for it? I'll report, you decide. "
Methinks they are not gambling on it ... methinks they are working on it.
When our troops on the ground go into combat and encounter resistance, they either have to (1) kill or incapacitate everyone that they encounter or (2) reduce the resistance by encouraging those who they encounter to either surrender or at least become non-participants.
A torture policy makes the second approach less likely. People who know or suspect that they are going to be tortured put up more resistance. Some will fight to the death. And some who might have been non-participants chose to fight instead of doing nothing. Instead of otherwise minding their own business, they make fighting their business.
The ones who favor a torture policy or who favor overlooking a torture policy have never been in combat. They can favor it because they never had any skin in the game and they don't expect to.
Overlooking the actions of the war criminals is not only morally wrong, it will make all of our future ground combat missions more difficult.
It's an insane policy. There is no practical benefit to overlooking the torture policy even if that policy originated with a political predecessor of another party.
Overlooking a torture policy is not only morally wrong, it is stupid. It is the least practical thing that Obama can do. If he continues with it, he is neither “practical” nor “brilliant.”
the bush/military/cia torture program is the biggest lapse in ethical behavior by americans since the tuskegee syphilis experiment.....bush and everybody else involved should all go to jail.....
http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207598
there is no grey area on this. WE EXECUTED japanese soldiers for waterboarding.
if waterboarding is so awful that we executed people for doing it to us, then those who authorized this practice are equally guilty and should be held accountable. THERE IS NO ARGUMENT.
being "scared" is not a justification. making a mistake is not a justification. sure, we all make mistakes. BUT SOME MISTAKES ARE ILLEGAL AND HAVE CONSEQUENCES. NO ONE IN AMERICA IS ABOVE THE LAW!
spot on....excellent post
Go to the syndicated comics section and look at today's "Candorville."
Check that--yesterday's Candorville.
One option that may be overlooked is that the purpose of the torture was not necessarily to get information that would be used against future attacks (as the Cheneyites insist), but to generate data supporting lies such as the connection between Al Quada and Saddam Hussein, or the existence of WMDs, etc. ad infinitum.
I have learned to take everything that the Cheneyites say with a 10 pound block of salt, so I have to look at what they say and ask "What did they really want?". Validation for their lies??? Only an open and thorough investigation (not a whitewash) into the affair will produce the necessary information.
Recently a study came out which pointed out that persons who go to church regularly are more inclined to condone torture than those who don't attend regularly, and that those who self-identify as evangelicals are the biggest supporters of torture. This would seem twisted to most of us until we realize that these folks think that theirs' is the ONLY way to salvation. Once you feel that your way is the only real way, then everyone else becomes "other" and somehow less legitimate, not "real" people. it's a small step from "not real christians", or not "real" americans, to seeing all you feel opposing you as less "real" or " heretical" and heresy can be punished to bring these heretics in line with what they feel is god's teachings. If god is on our side, then anything we do to win is sanctioned by god and thus OK, particularly since the evangelicals are the only one's who know what god really wants done. Faith beats facts every time in their outlook.
The driving force of Christianity in America is the fear that somebody, somewhere may be enjoying their life.
Sadly LOL.
I'm fairly sure they'd be less eager to torture if the victims weren't Muslims, the ultimate "other." Doesn't it seem odd that folks who are so convinced they're going to heaven are the ones who are so terrified of dying?
Hannity last week said America is only one event away from a return to Conservatism.
If Hannity stands to gain politically from America being attacked, it makes sense that he would be rooting for such a disaster.
Therefore Hannity should be wiretapped - to make sure he isn't planning a false flag attack.
I always recommended FISA should be enforced so Hillary Clinton wouldn't one day have the power to listen in on Hannity's private correspondence, but Omama has so far agreed with Hannity that we should pre-emptively spy on US citizens.
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