When Torture is the Only Option

Los Angeles Times ^ | 11/11/2005 | DAVID GELERNTER

[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.

[bigeasy_70118]

Torture serving Justice. That is the most distorted attempt at logic I have seen in a long time.

Tell me then, what would constitute justice for OBL and KSM?

[secretagent]

Thanks for the link, but it crashes my browser. Darn.

[Allen H]

"The Russians & Chinese also had plans to use nuclear weapons to kill tens of millions. Should we have used torture to obtain their secret plans?"

Are you really serious? If smacking around someone who had information about those plans and that information contributed to making sure that tens of millions were not killed in nuclear holocaust, yes, that is justified. Would you be willing to have everyone you know and love be killed, because you refuse to do what I outline below? Come on. Get real. The insanity and incompetance would be in not doing what it takes to get information from people who have it. People, by the way, who as terrorits, have no protections under the Geneva Conventions, as I said before, which says CLEARLY people dressed as civilians, not fighting in uniform not fighting under the flag of a nation, are terrorists and have NO PROTECTIONS and may be shot on sight and have NO reason to expect quarter or capture. THAT is the paraphrased version of what the Geneva Convention says, the terrorists do not respect that towards our troops, and we respect it with the terrorits even though we do not have to. You are just flatly wrong. about this. Just because you voted for algore and f'ing kerry doesn't mean you can disregard fact, just because it's inconvenient to your political ideology. If you think you're right, read my whole post and my previous post and just try to prove me wrong.

You are grossly mislead. You and people in America who speak so strongly against "torture" are lumping together with torture ways of extracting information that does NOT involve physical abuse. Loud music, denial of sleep, only the most basic food and water requirements, hot or cold rooms, intimidation, threats, barking dogs, psychological techniques, etc, ARE NOT torture. The liberal left has spun those things to be torture and the simple fact is, they just are not. The military using those techniques to extract information, does NOT make us as bad as our enemies. The fact that you claim it does really saddens me as an American, and as the son of a Veteran who did suffer real torture from an enemy who didn't adhere to the Geneva Conventions, it angers me and is grossly insulting. You seriously need to do some research and rethink your comments. What you are saying just does not jibe with reality.

[secretagent]

...it is insulting for anyone to suggest that using intimidation, coercion, psychological techniques, and mild physical abuse is out of line and should not be allowed, when time has PROVEN that most of the time, such methods provide good intelligence and prevent the needless deaths of troops in the field.

Perhaps. Any links to studies?

[Redcloak]

The threat of torture is often more effective than torture itself. ("Room 101") Of course, that threat is empty if the goblin knows beforehand that the CIA isn't allowed to actually hang him up by his toenails.

[Allen H]

So then, I have to ask. If it was your loved ones lives on the line, would you refuse to accept information that would save their lives, if in order to get that information, you had to smack someone around, use the techniques I described, but not killing them or doing any permanent damage? Or would you sit there, proud in your moral self-righteousness, and let your loved ones die? You represent a kind of person similar to another kind I have yet to run into in my life. A person who is against the death penalty who has had a loved one brutaly murdered. I have yet to meet someone who is opposed to all forms of psychological and minimal physical techniques, to save someone, even someone they love personally. What the CIA and military does is not torture, what the terrorists does, IS. And if the CIA is doing something like that to the terrorits, the fact still remains, they have NO protections under the Geneva Conventions, as they are ununiformed terrorists and have no protections and can be shot on sight. The terrorists we have captured are only alive because we CHOSE not to shoot them on sight as the Geneva Conventions SAY WE SHOULD. Go read the Geneva Conventions and then tell me what protections the terrorists have.

[bigeasy_70118]

The Russians & Chinese also had plans to use nuclear weapons to kill tens of millions. Should we have used torture to obtain their secret plans?

If there is an immiment threat against the United States, then yes we should.

How about the Nazis and Japanese? They used torture, should we have used torture on them as well?

You have your head in the sand, if you don't think the United States has committed acts during past wars that would be loudly condemmed today. That didn't make us as bad as our enemies. Remember in WWII, the Germans were killing innocents. There is a distinction and that distinction applies equally in the conflict that we are now engaged.

There certainly is a gray area with respect to low level Al Qaeda and Taliban, who may be nothing more than misguided conscripts. That being said, you are completely amoral, if you don't believe torture should be used in the ticking bomb scenario.

[Allen H]

No studies. Just 50 years of historical documentation I have read over the years, and first hand accounts from my father and older friends of mine who served in previous wars. There are things being lumped in with "torture" that simply are not torture, and the willingness to call them such is obscene. Don't need a case study to show that denying sleep, minimal amounts of food and water, loud music, barking dogs, etc, is not torture. It's common sense in a time of war. If it was my butt on the line in a war, I would hope my friends would do those things to minimize the threat out in the field. I still suggest that people so opposed to any kind of psychological or mild physical techniques, have never had their butt on the line, or that of a loved one.

[beaver fever]

If you're on IE try deleting your cookies and temp files then try again. Make sure cookies are enabled. You might want to try lowering your security settings just to load the page and return to your old settings

Or try using firefox. That's how I viewed it.

[mrsmith]

"torture has been used by states for thousands of years. "
And for thousands of years it's been known to work:

"Then the herdsman, as they were dragging him to the rack, began at the beginning, and told the whole story exactly as it happened, without concealing anything, ending with entreaties and prayers to the king to grant him forgiveness." ca 540 BC
Herodotus' History

[Allen H]

Exactly, which is why it was so important that President Bush made the threat to terrorists that if they use a nuclear device in the United States or in the field, we well respond in kind. It isn't actually "doing" an act that is the most important thing. It's the stated willingness to do a thing that is more important. If an enemy knows you are all in, and will do whatever it takes, history has proven that the enemy is not as welling to go to the bring. Like the Soviet Union.

However, if you prove categorically, like liberals would, that nukes are totally off the table no matter what, then there is no reason for the terrorists to NOT use nuclear devices in America. Why not? If liberals were in charge and did just that, the terrorists have nothing to lose by using nuclear devices in American cities. That is what liberals don't understand with "torture". It's not actual torture that gets people to turn over information. It is the threat of torture without laying a finger on them that can, and has in the past, made them break.

I have two close friends who, one in the past, and one currently, serve/d with the IDF and it's common knowledge that just the threat of torture gets information out of terrorists. They're not battle hardened, they're not well trained, and most of them shoot machine guns with "spray and pray" mentality. From what I have seen, here and other places, everyone on the "anti-torture" side has a fundamental lack of facts and information on the subject, and uses the simplistic argument that "if we do such and such we're as bad as them". Bull. The fact that the government allows debate and the military has the rules it has, PROVES that we're NOTHING like the terrorists. And given that all these terrorist captives we've captured WERE captured are still alive and not shot on sight, as the Geneva Convention states, that also shows that we are NOTHING like the terrorists.

I would suggest that Senator McCain actually read the Geneva Conventions before he starts telling the military what they do or do not need to adopt. He couldn't even cut his book tour short to appear for the vote which would have put military personnel in jeopardy of war crimes trials during a time of war. Although, perhaps we should incorporate ALL Of the Geneva Conventions into military protocol. Then, we won't have to take any of them prisoner, we can just shoot them even if their hands up. That, plainly and clearly, is what the conventions say Geneva Convention signatories have the right to do to terrorist fighters conducting a gorilla war, while in civilian clothing against uniformed combatants. So by all means, lets incorporate the Geneva Conventions into the U.S. Military, then we can shoot them all even if they surrender and this argument will be moot.

[secretagent]

Thanks. Have you read about Sherwood F. Moran's approach to interrogation? He rejected even mild deprivation, and apparently got fantastic results during WWII.

I got this link from beaver fever's #79:

http://tianews.blogspot.com/2005/05/enlightened-hard-boiled-ness.html

[LPM1888]

if you don't believe torture should be used in the ticking bomb scenario

Comparing secret prisons to dragging someone in the back room to extract information under the ticking bomb scenario is an insult to peoples intelligence. The two scenarios are not even remotely equivalent.

[secretagent]

Thanks for the tip. It works with my IE 5.1, which I normally don't use.

Great link for getting an account of Moran's method.

[beaver fever]

Cheers

[Allen H]

Did he ever try that on radical islamists who think death in defying us would get them god-status and eternity with 79 eternal virgins? islamic fanatics are not the same as nazis and japs. Most germans were not nazis, and even though most japs were fanatical, they are not as bad as the islamic terrorists of today. I still contend, based on information from first hand sources, that people like the terrorists are much more likely to talk if pressed, than if they're given three hots and a cot at the Marriot.

[Allen H]

Are you not going to respond to any of the facts I put before you? Just discrediting what someone else says as an insult of intelligence does not disprove what was put to you.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>No, I haven't. That is your problem, I will never accept the propaganda that we are being fed from Washington.<<<

You are talking in riddles. Are you implying the Administration authorized torture, that there is someting sinister about secret prisons, or that there is a cover-up of some nature authorized by the Administration?

[Allen H]

Okay, I've already got one problem with something he asserts. He suggests that Reagan was "passive" in dealing with Gorbachov and things would have been worse if Reagan had been "stronger" against him. Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and challenged Gorbachov by name at the Berlin Wall to tear it down, and people on the left cursed him as a mad man who was going to provoke nuclear war. I don't see how could be described as weak in dealing with the Soviets. Responding positively but firmly to Gorbachov's gestures does not chnge the fact that Reagan was a hard conservative who did not compromise when it came down to the line. 8)

[LPM1888]

Based on the info leaked from the Senate, it appears all three are true.