Posted on 11/11/2005 9:07:04 AM PST by SirLinksalot
When torture is the only option ...
DAVID GELERNTER
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN's proposed legislation incorporating into U.S. law the Geneva Convention ban on mistreating prisoners. The bill, which bans cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, passed the Senate 90 to 9. To say it's got momentum is putting it mildly.
But President Bush says he will veto the bill unless the CIA is exempted. Vice President Cheney has led the administration's campaign for the exemption. It's a hard sell; pro-torture politicians are scarce around Washington.
But of course you don't have to be "pro-torture" to oppose the McCain amendment. That naive misunderstanding summarizes the threat posed by this good-hearted, wrong-headed legislation. Those who oppose the amendment don't think the CIA should be permitted to use torture or other rough interrogation techniques. What they think is that sometimes the CIA should be required to squeeze the truth out of prisoners. Not because the CIA wants to torture people, but because it may be the only option we've got.
McCain's amendment is a trap for the lazy minded. Whenever a position seems so obvious that you don't even have to stop and think — stop and think.
SNIP
Michael Levin published an article challenging the popular view that the U.S. must never engage in torture. "Someday soon," he concluded, "a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them."
Suppose a nuclear bomb is primed to detonate somewhere in Manhattan, Levin wrote, and we've captured a terrorist who knows where the bomb is. He won't talk. By forbidding torture, you inflict death on many thousands of innocents and endless suffering on the families of those who died at a terrorist's whim — and who might have lived had government done its ugly duty.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The way I see it. If a nuke is planted in a major City and it took torture to find out where the nuke was planted then I would say yes, then do it.
I know something that would really work. About 12 hours of loud Korean television shows. It's a long story, but suffice it to say, my wife thought it up. It has been tried and tested.
well yes.....I agree with all that...but the military will still treat prisoners accordingly.....that is what makes us civilized and makes them SCUM of the earth.....however, what the CIA does behind closed doors to protect me is of a different nature as far as I'm concerned......
This isn't really about torture. This is about subjecting military personnel, during wartime, to civilian courts.
Its a mistake. The civilian courts are pushing for jurisdiction over US foreign policy and US military operations. You can see it coming, it is transparent.
It is also transparent that there is a push to subject US foreign policy and military operations to international courts, and if we go down that road the results will be disastrous.
We don't use torture, and if we do, our people are subject to military courts martial. We have a tradition that people should be judged by their peers, and in wartime, soldiers should only be judged by other soldiers. Any effort to put soldiers on trial in civilian courts for actions undertaken in a warzone is a grave mistake.
Suppose a nuclear bomb is primed to detonate somewhere in Manhattan, Levin wrote, and we've captured a terrorist who knows where the bomb is. He won't talk. By forbidding torture, you inflict death on many thousands of innocents and endless suffering on the families of those who died at a terrorist's whim — and who might have lived had government done its ugly duty.
BTW: If torture is utterly intolerable, then you MUST totally oppose war - right?
Laws have limits. War (and related activity) is doing what needs to be done when law is no longer helpful. Law is the result of some people bending others to their will.
...through consequence or threat of force, that is.
If you threaten to feed someone into a wood chipper, they'll tell you all kinds of things. Maybe true, maybe not. Tactics like that are both barbaric and inaccurate. That's not what the CIA is looking for.
One problem with this debate is that "torture" is a loaded word. It can apply to -
1. Inflicting pain to gain information.
2. Inflicting pain for no reason whatsoever.
3. Inflicting pain as punishment or to terrorize others.
4. Depriving someone of sleep and then asking them questions in a rapid-fire manner.
If you're for any of the above, then you are for 'torture'. Incidentally, all of the above are used in survival training in SERE school for military personnel. We can't even do to terrorists what we do to service members during training.
Exactly. War is by its very nature extra-legal. War is the state of affairs that exists when you are beyond rule-of-law; the purpose of war is to change circumstances such that a return to rule-of-law becomes possible.
While normal civilian law remains effective, you are not yet at war. When civilian law in unable to manage a conflict, or when your attackers are beyond its jurisdiction, or simply refuse to respect the limits of the rule of law, then you send a few stout men to kill them and anyone standing near them. For a period of time the gloves come off, and you do whatever you have to do to create a new status quo, so that you can return to rule of law.
What happens during this time that you are doing "whatever it takes" is dependent on your own moral character, the codes of military discipline, and the demands of the war itself. If you are winning, you can sometimes afford to be more restrained; if you are losing you will ramp up your response as the level of desperation rises.
If you can win with precision munitions that leave the building next door intact, great, but if we are scared enough we will use nukes and wipe out entire towns. That is reality. We can't afford to predict in advance what level of desperation we may find ourselves in, and we can't afford ever to treat war as a normal peacetime endeavor.
It isn't. We sometimes use the military in what is essentially a law enforcement role, but that isn't war. War is always a breach in the rule of law, and its purpose is to eliminate that breach by whatever means necessary.
What do you consider torture? The word means a lot of things, and I'm curious what you would and wouldn't be in favor of, as far as interrogation techniques.
As far as secret prisons - Imagine we capture someone who knows where UBL is. Do you announce his arrest, or send him somewhere quiet for interrogations? Terrorist networks are very decentralized, so it's not like they get a company mass-email telling them 'Abu Hassan was captured, so if he knows where you are, move now'.
I completely agree that we need to take every reasonable precaution against becoming what we fight against. I also think that there should be reasonable exceptions for truly extreme situations. In rare cases relating to foreign terrorist leaders planning on killing innocent civilians, is concealing the fact of their arrest so we have time to interrogate them really that bad?
Apparently a lot of people have less than half a brain, then.
Nobody here is advocating torture in anything other than extreme cases. The concern is that certian acts are being prohibited in ALL cases without exception - including extremes - and setting up a system whereby necessary actions are hindered or impossible in light of imminent attacks: people will be relegated to standing around bickereing about what's legal and worring about being punished for doing what needs to be done. Those who oppose it under all conditions obviously hasn't considered all conditions.
Actually, it does. If you are fighting while out of uniform, you have no rights under the Geneva Convention, and can be executed on the spot. Uniforms save civilian lives; that why the Geneva Conventions made them mandatory. Our own rules of engagement prohibit us from executing prisoners, so it doesn't happen, but it would be entirely legal.
Instead, we send them to Abu Ghurayb, where they become hardened and radicalized, and then they are released a few months later to rejoin the insurgency and kill more innocent civilians. Which is a great plan, if you're into that sort of thing.
Imprisonment SHOULD be degrading and cruel.
If wiring a terrorist's scrotum would save one life, American, Iraqi, or even French, I would say ... "Red is positive, black is negative..."
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