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 ...
Like it or not torture has been used by states for thousands of years. Until someone says that torture never works and can back it up with empirical evidence not supposition we may need to go the extra mile or fingernail some day to save American lives. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Incredibly naive statement that demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the problem with torture. The problem arises when the torturer won't believe that the tortured doesn't know anything. The tortured, not having anything of real value to give up, will begin to fabricate things that the torturer wants to hear in order to gain relief.
The possibility of future punishments don't even enter into it. The tortured is only seeking immediate relief.
Thank God that I'm not alone. I swear I keep getting a twighlight zone vibe these days.
The problem with that argument is that it is predicated on the assumption that the person being tortured has the whereabouts of the nuke. While that sounds good, it's unlikely. If you knew for certain that your prisoner knew were the nuke was, chances are that you would know where it was anyway. Worst case scenerio here is that you would torture a man who knew nothing, and the bomb went off any way. I would have a hard time explaining that one away.
Are you suggesting torture has never produced results?
Yeah, you're right. A hundred thousand Americans have just been wiped out by a ten kiloton nuke and the first thing we're going to do is have an investigation on the torturing of a terrorst who might have known the bombs location.
Get real.
Please, give me some credit, and don't erect such strawmen and expect me to treat them seriously.
I'm saying that torture doesn't yeild results that are in anyway consistantly reliable. In the absence of working crystal balls, there is no way to tell beforehand if torturing a prisoner would yeild positive results. With such spotty chances would any reasonable human being truly advocate the descent into barbarism? I would hope not.
We have entered an era of insanity and incompetence in Washington.
One word: war.
One word: No.
War is barbarism. Fire bombing Tokyo was barbarism(but necessary). I don't advocate torure for sadistic pleasure and not for any and all terrorists. But there are times when it might be necessary to forget the rules, turn mother's picture to the wall and do what has to be done. I know I won't lose any sleep over it.
"Six months before the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison broke into public view, a small and fairly obscure private association of United States Marine
Corps members posted on its Web site a document on how to get enemy POWs to talk. The document described a situation very similar to the one the
United States faces in the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan: a fanatical and implacable enemy, intense pressure to achieve quick results, a brutal
war in which the old rules no longer seem to apply.
"Marine Major Sherwood F. Moran, the report's author, noted that despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile
and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had
one thing in common in the way they approached their subjects. They were nice to them.
"Moran was writing in 1943, and he was describing his own, already legendary methods of interrogating Japanese prisoners of war. More than a half
century later his report remains something of a cult classic for military interrogators. The Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association, a
group of active-duty and retired Marine intelligence personnel, calls Moran's report one of the 'timeless documents' in the field and says it has long been
'a standard read' for insiders. An MCITTA member says the group decided to post Moran's report online in July of 2003, because 'many others wanted
to read it' and because the original document, in the Marine Corps archives, was in such poor shape that the photocopies in circulation were difficult to
decipher. He denies that current events had anything to do with either the decision to post the document or the increased interest in it."
http://home.comcast.net/~drmoran/home.htm
Not just Washington. I spend a lot of days wondering what the hell is going on in Free Republic these days. I'm literally tripping over threads that call for one kind of barbarism or another. Sick comments about genitals and tree stumps in one thread. Torture of suspected terrorists in another. Yet another is riddled with comments from cutting the limbs off of someone. It's pretty sick.
>>>Question : What have we found out regarding torturing of prisoners ? Has it really been known to yield vital and life saving information?<<<
McCain admitted that when he was a POW he succumbed to torture and gave up military information.
The secret to using torture is the prisoner must understand that the torture will be 10 times worse each time he lies.
>>>I am disgusted. Anyone who has authorized torture, secret prisons or participated in their cover-up should face a long prison sentence.<<<
You have been brainwashed.
Yeah, "say no to war" is really effective.
No, not no to war. You can be forced into war. No to torture.
Yup. Works very well - when, quietly, everybody knows what the viable alternative is.
Not according to Moran. No threat of torture, ever, in his method.
Soldiers in a legitimate army from a country that has signed the Geneva Convention should never be tortured. I think even admirers of Josef Mengele would support that position.
On the other hand, take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for example. He planned 9/11, he has knowledge of future attacks. What if he knew of a ticking bomb that would kill millions? You would have to be morally retarded to suggest that he not be tortured. Torture for KSM would not only serve the purpose of gaining information, it would also serve justice.
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