What's At Stake in the Torture Debate
The debate over McCain-Graham has morphed into multiple sub-debates. These include:
-- what the law is and should be (see Juliette's recent post)
-- the morality of torture,
-- the constitutional reach of the President's power (an issue equally critical to this week's disclosures about wiretapping of Americans),
-- judicial oversight of detainees, and
-- whether even if we ban torture, are we willing to use its fruits as evidence.
The best source for lawyers and readers wanting to know about the legal details of these debates remains Marty Lederer's and Scott Horton's posts on Balkinization (see particularly Lederer's recent posts on The McCain Amendment: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). But for a more general audience, I will try to summarize the state of the debate with links to some of the key sources (plus my own views) in a series of posts over the next week or so. Not exactly fun holiday fare, but critically important.
To begin with, let's start at the most abstract level, with the question that Andrew Sullivan poses in the first sentence of his piece in this week's New Republic : "Why is torture wrong?" To many if not most of the readers of this blog, I suspect that is a question that you think does not need asking, but as Sullivan goes on to note: "perhaps the greatest failing of those of us who have been arguing against all torture and `cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment' of detainees is that we have assumed the reasons why torture is always a moral evil, rather than explicating them." He is responding directly to Charles Krauthammer, whose recent piece in The Weekly Standard is titled: "The Truth about Torture: It's time to be honest about doing terrible things." Also weighing in is Michael Kinsley, who responded directly to Krauthammer last week in Slate, in a piece well worth reading but infelicitously titled "Torture for Dummies."
Here are the key points of this debate:
Krauthammer argues for "a ban against all forms of torture, coercive interrogation, and inhuman treatment, except in two contingencies: (1) the ticking time bomb and (2) the slower-fuse high-level terrorist (such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed). Each contingency would have its own set of rules. In the case of the ticking time bomb, the rules would be relatively simple: Nothing rationally related to getting accurate information would be ruled out. The case of the high-value suspect with slow-fuse information is more complicated. The principle would be that the level of inhumanity of the measures used (moral honesty is essential here--we would be using measures that are by definition inhumane) would be proportional to the need and value of the information. Interrogators would be constrained to use the least inhumane treatment necessary relative to the magnitude and imminence of the evil being prevented and the importance of the knowledge being obtained." These exceptions would not apply to soldiers, who would be allowed to keep their hands clean, but only to highly trained CIA agents.
Krauthammer gets to this position by acknowledging "the monstrous evil that is any form of torture" but nevertheless arguing that there are situations - the classic ticking bomb scenario in which New York is about to be blown off the map and the only way to stop it is to torture a terrorist who has the information about where the bomb is - in which torture would not only be morally permitted, but would actually be a "moral duty" on the part of any public official charged with protecting the citizenry. If it would in fact be a moral duty, then it is sometimes permitted, which means that we cannot hide from it and pretend that we don't do horrible things. We must be honest about what it takes to protect ourselves in "this real world of astonishingly murderous enemies," and rather than indulging in dishonest "moral preening."
Krauthammer claims that McCain's standard, properly parsed, actually allows a "sliding scale" of coercive treatment that would ultimately authorize "torture or torture-lite" in exactly the kinds of cases he singles out for exceptions. The value of being honest about what we are actually prepared to do is that we "can then begin to work together to codify rules of interrogation for the two very unpleasant but very real cases in which we are morally permitted--indeed morally compelled--to do terrible things." It should be noted that Alan Dershowitz advanced a similar argument shortly after 9/11 arguing for the creation of a "torture warrant," in which the conditions under which our officials would be prepared to engage in coercive techniques would be spelled out and subject to judicial scrutiny.
Michael Kinsley attacks the initial premise of Krauthammer's argument: that there are circumstances - the ticking bomb scenario - in which any of us would sanction torture and therefore it is sometimes permissible. He points out the dangers of "salami slicing" - "you start with a seemingly solid principle, then start slicing: If you would torture to save a million lives, would you do it for half a million? A thousand? Two dozen? What if there's only a two-out-of-three chance that person you're torturing has the crucial information? A 50-50 chance? One chance in 10? At what point does your moral calculus change, and why? Slice the salami too far, and the formerly solid principle disappears."
Kinsley then argues that although Krauthammer himself wants to license only two fairly narrow exceptions, why should we stop there? If an innocent person who happened to overhear a conversation among terrorists had the information necessary to save a city, why not torture him? If thumbscrews proved to work better than waterboarding, what's the moral difference? And who are we going to trust to draw these lines? From this perspective, Krauthammer's honesty is an almost certain road to brutality. (As Kinsley notes, salami-slicing is a staple of legal education, to show law students the dangers of exceptions swallowing the rule and hence the value of bright line rules; another similar technique is "the slippery slope.")
In my view, Kinsley's argument has already been demonstrated. When Dershowitz originally made his argument, the very mention of "torture" as something that could or should be openly debated by Americans was horrifying. Yet two years later, our own Vice President has publicly called for an exemption for a ban on torture and cruel and inhuman treatment for CIA officials. We have already slid well down the slippery slope.
But Kinsley does not directly confront what I suspect Krauthammer would say is the core of his argument: the point, originally advanced by Machiavelli, that leaders cannot afford the comfort of individual morality. They must be prepared to do things in defense of their people - and live with the moral consequences - that they would never do as private citizens. As Krauthammer makes the point: a decision to authorize more than psychological pressure on a detainee with information "would not be made with an untroubled conscience. It would be troubled because there is no denying the monstrous evil that is any form of torture. And there is no denying how corrupting it can be to the individuals and society that practice it. But elected leaders, responsible above all for the protection of their citizens, have the obligation to tolerate their own sleepless nights by doing what is necessary--and only what is necessary, nothing more--to get information that could prevent mass murder."
Andrew Sullivan tackles this issue more directly, arguing that torture contains the seed of totalitarianism. He writes: "Torture is the polar opposite of freedom. It is the banishment of all freedom from a human body and soul ...." "Torture uses a person's body to remove from his own control his conscience, his thoughts, his faith, his selfhood." In turn, "the very concept of Western liberty sprung in part from an understanding that if the state has the power to reach that deep into a person's soul and can do that much damage to a human being's person, then the state has extinguished all oxygen necessary for freedom to survive." Standing against torture, even in the situations of the greatest threat, is protecting this nation just as surely as extracting the information about where a bomb might be placed is. And with a much higher degree of certainty.
Sullivan cites David Hackett Fischer's book Washington's Crossing for the point that George Washington himself, facing the question of whether our young nation would survive or not, steadfastly resisted urgings on the part of some of his men that Americans treat British and Hessian prisoners the way the British treated their American captives, arguing that the American army was an "army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies."
This parable is often told these days. To me, it offers the best answer to Krauthammer's gloss on Machiavelli. Our leaders have a not only a moral but a political duty to stand against torture, even if the public as a whole were to endorse it. Krauthammer has it exactly wrong. In a nation whose earliest rallying cry was "Give me liberty or give me death," a nation willing to sacrifice its soldiers' and civilians' lives for universal values, a nation welded together not by race, ethnicity, or religion but by the Constitution, our leaders must hew to our principles as the source of our greatest long-term strength, even against pressures to show short-term results in a war on terrorism or any other war. That is what we elect them for, what they are legally bound to do under the Constitution, and morally bound to do as Americans.
In fact, of course, no great tide of public opinion is swelling in support of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as the original 90-9 vote in favor of McCain-Graham attests. And it is retired military leaders - not least McCain - and former military prosecutors - Lindsey Graham - who have faced battle, whose troops are most threatened by terrorist attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, on destroyers in the Gulf of Aden or in barracks in Lebanon - who have pushed hardest to hew to our traditional standards of interrogation and treatment of prisoners of war. All the more reason that our leaders are bound to recognize that there are in fact values more valuable than life itself, and that they are temporary custodians of those values, and that the moral consequences of betraying those values are far greater than the moral consequences of authorizing torture.
But don't take my word - or, in Krauthammer's phrase - my "pieties." Listen to Ian Fishback, the West Point graduate and member of the 82nd airborne who tried to get his military superiors to respond to his complaints of witnessing beatings and abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan and finally had to go all the way to Senator McCain: ""Will we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals, or will our courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of sacrifice? My response is simple. If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is 'America.'"
I made this argument in another thread but would appreciate your take. I totally agree that torture is immoral and unacceptable in a free society. There would always be a temptation to expand its scope and to use it for the convenience of those with power.
However, there is also the question of personal responsibility. As a society we all seem to want a freepass no matter what the actions. If there were a ticking bomb it might be that a interrogator might feel torture was the lesser evil. Should we as a society say if he commits torture even for the greater good he must bear the consequences?
It seems to me what is wrogn with Bush's argument for warrantless spying. Nothing seems more reprehensible that his claim to virtual unlimited executive power. If I understand the Bush Administration they believe they can destroy the letter and spirit of the Constitution in order to save, what lives? Wouldn't Bush be truly be protecting the Constitution as he is sworn to do by acting and then explaining and his defending his actions not as legal or allowed but as necessary?
December 20, 2005 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have enormous respect for the quality of Prof. Slaughter's intellect and prose, but I am disappointed that she (like so many others, including many on the right such as Charles Krauthammer) characterizes the debate about the McCain amendment as a debate about torture.
Under both domestic and international law, there is a recognition that torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment (CID) are different things. Smacking a prisoner's belly, making it difficult for the prisoner to sleep, and similar tactics probably constitute examples of CID, but they don't constitute acts of torture--something far more extreme (e.g., repeated severe beatings, forced games of Russian Roulette, and possibly waterboarding). Nevertheless, all such acts will be absolutely prohibited under the McCain amendment. I don't think the general public (or most of Congress) is aware of this; they think the McCain amendment is simply about "torture."
It would be much more useful to discuss the pros and cons of prohibiting CID, and not simply those regarding torture, because the McCain amendment bans the former, not just the latter.
December 20, 2005 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are we exporting our values or importing values alien to us from other nations?
I think USA imported the belief in torure as a valuable method when we were propping dicatorships in Central America. We supported death squads and we train troops of those countries to torture and to conduct pacification campaign that were at times genocidal. As our personel and politicians worked with Central American military and political leaders, they seem to absorb the beliefs about torture and, at occasion, genocide, being a useful, nay, "indispensible", tool.
In the curent adventure, we started from nominating Saddam to be our benchamark adversary and our methods were assured they moral superiority by comparison with his method. E.g. we were beating people to death much less frequently than Saddam. (Exact stats were not offered, however. )
On the other hand, Saddam seemed to have an unabridged power as a President, a fascinating concept indeed. Could we emulate it here?
The import of values is quite extensive. Bernard Lewis described how Muslim world went wrong by insularly concentrating on religion (or more precisely, on a narrow minded concept of religion) and neglecting sciences, history etc. Pretty much the sentiments prevalent in GOP nowadays.
To be sure, I am not talking about concepts that were UNKOWN here. What we imported is the value judgement that they are a GOOD thing.
December 20, 2005 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
How sad has my country become? We now spend our time debating whether or not torture should be permissable. For the past few years I've noticed this isn't the country I grew up in, and every passing year the feeling only grows.
December 20, 2005 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember when your mother used to say in dark tones "that's what the communists do in the Soviet Union"? Well that's now what we do. Secret prisons, torture chambers, indefinte detentions without charge, domestic spying, propoganda operations, a meaningless constitution, absolute power vested in the executive branch, one-party rule, etc. Which leads me to ask, who really won the cold war?
December 20, 2005 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Piotr
"I think USA imported the belief in torure as a valuable method when we were propping dicatorships in Central America"
Oh come on now. Is it your position that torture wasn't practiced in Central America before U.S. got in bed with certain heads of state, and that it was only practiced by Central American factions who we supported?
Do you honestly believe that the U.S. "imported the belief in torture" to the Soviet Union, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East? How about Ancient Rome?
Say what you will about its recent compliance with treaties, but the U.S. has done A LOT to reduce torture in the world, including by playing an enormous role in the adoption of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture by most of the world.
December 20, 2005 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, so we against torture should nevertheless look at the whys and wherefores and so on.
Ok, so for a "thought experiment" (ONLY!) we decide torture is warranted just this once. Now comes the very important question: Who do we authorize to do the torturing? Will we take volunteers, even though anyone who would volunteer might be a sadist? Would we instead conscript people? If so, how do go about turning them into a torturer and what are the consequences of that in terms of morality?
You could go on and on. Do you hire (or conscript) people such as myself to watch over the torturers and make sure they are neither turning into sadists or becoming numb to what they see or beginning to have symptoms of PTSD? Then, who's watching me for signs of the same? And on and on.
To me the basic problem is what happens to the torturer - to the person, the supervisor, the authorities, the society, which has come to accept evil within itself as expedient or necessary. I just can't get around this problem in my mind - just as I cannot get around the problem of anyone willing to use violence in their effort to make a point or bring about revolution.
To me, as a psychologist, the idea of torture is terrible for the one tortured and perhaps even worse for the torturer - who has also forfeited a conscience and empathy in the face of horror.
Sometimes I think we are asking the wrong questions. And my sticking point is "who does the torture?" I don't trust any answer you can come up with - when it comes to that question.
December 20, 2005 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the past few years I've noticed this isn't the country I grew up in, and every passing year the feeling only grows.
December 20, 2005 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Luigi, you're right; that we are debating whether torture is wrong is the scandal. And. you know what? I'm tired of the what ifs. We can conjure up hypotheticals ad nauseam, but torture is flat wrong.
What's the guarantee that you will get the truth out of a person from torturing them? What if there is a ticking time bomb and you torture someone, and they give you the wrong answer? Then what do you do? Torture them some more until it's too late? What have you gained if they never tell you the truth? You see, I can come up with hypotheticals too.
December 20, 2005 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let us be clear, that the change you are noticing, a change most of us are probably noticing, started not with 9/11 but with 1/20 in the same year.
Just another symptom. Ugly, foolish, debilitating, and the most salient, but still, just another symptom. People are going to have to realize that the problem is us, not just Bush or loathsome creeps like Krauthammer. If the things they did and said weren't accepted by wide swaths of the population, they wouldn't dare to do or say them.
December 20, 2005 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the reason that most discussions gloss over these distinctions (to the degree that the do - I'd say that most articles I've read refer explicitly to CID) is that the distinctions aren't, ultimatley, very meaningful.
In fact, international law prevents CID as much as torture (the UN Convention Against Torture and other forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment I believe it'sc alled). A good reason for this is that there is every reason to think that CID tactics often slip over into torture, and that when a government authorizes such 'torture lite' tactics, the practical result is going to be pressure to go over the line. Don Q links to a good Op-Ed that made this astonishingly clear: the writer recounts in nauseating detail how Soviet doctors force-fed him to end his hunger strike.
Maybe, to humor you for a minute, there is a line to be drawn somewhere in the middle: maybe some forms of humiliation aren't so bad. I've never been interrogated by the police, but I suspect that part of what they do is make you feel kind of bad about yourself. But they don't keep you awake for ten days straight (well, in Japan they do, but that's another story), and the reason they don't is that there is little to be gained - at the end of that, like at the end of more brutal interrogation, most people will sign any confession. So, on both a practical and a moral level, I just can't see how this kind of sub-torture treatment is any different than waterboarding (mock execution), shin-screws or any other. I just don't see what it buys you that makes it worth saying, as a nation, that we want to prevent torture, but lesser cruelty is just fine with us.
December 20, 2005 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh come on now. Is it your position that torture wasn't practiced in Central America before U.S. got in bed with certain heads of state, and that it was only practiced by Central American factions who we supported?
No, I take it the point is that, when you decide to collaborate with people who torture, to further your geopolitical ends, that decision will have a morally corrosive effect on you, and what you are willing to do. Who practiced torture in Central America, and when it started, is irrelevant.
December 20, 2005 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, we've done a lot to reduce torture in the world until we started training Latin American torturers at the School for the Americas, and Bush/Cheney after 9/11 started torturing our language and laws to avoid compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
December 20, 2005 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Fifth Amendment says that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Under this standard not only is torture unacceptable, but any sort of involuntary interrogation is invalid. Now I know this amendment refers to criminal cases and many argue that the word "people" in the constitution really only means "American citizens"--but it's worth contemplating that the founders found the concept of forcing someone to testify against himself (even without any torture at all) reprehensible. That's how much respect our founders had for the sanctity of the individual and the limits of government power. I guess all I can say is "we've come a long way baby." And man, do we seem to have gotten ourselves badly lost along that way . . .
December 20, 2005 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the reasons I know torture is evil is that I was told Saddam was an evil man because he tortured people.
December 20, 2005 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Krauthammer posits that America should torture someone if such an act could save the lives of an unspecified number of Americans. The US already deliberately does not do things that would save the lives of far more Americans than are likely to be threatened by a ticking-bomb scenario.
One third of Americans do not have access to healthcare including access to treatments that could save their lives. The US chooses to not make affordable healthcare available even though it would save the lives of many Americans. The American right that is so concerned with the Americans who would die in a ticking-bomb scenario does not seem so concerned with providing affordable healthcare to the Americans who actually die each year because of lack of access to healthcare.
The American right prefers the sin of torture to the virtue of universal healthcare.
December 20, 2005 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Purple State is getting closer to what to me is the real issue.
Once you start down the slippery slope of torture, you have unwittingly started down another slippery slope of perhaps much greater importance.
One of the defining characteristics of our society is that a person is considered innocent until proven guilty.
Are we willing to abandon this concept?
To torture a suspect is to throw this out the window. That person is only a suspect until due process does it's thing. To torture is to proclaim a person guilty (of what, free association perhaps?) without due process.
Oh, OK, the right to free association would be another slippery slope trod upon by virtue of starting down the torture slope. Where will it end? Well...tyranny.
Those of you who read TPM closely know I have been on a quotation kick lately. Let me lay two on you.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety" ~ Ben Franklin...a paraphrase of this quotation can be seen at the Statue of Liberty; and...
"It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives" ~ Dorothy Thompson.
Finally, remember that strange comment GW made after 9/11 that we should go shopping and carry out our normal lives, because if we don't the terrorists will have won.
Well, if we condone torture under any circumstances, the terrorists may not have won, but we will have most certainly lost a great deal.
Make no mistake, if our government tortures...then you, me and every American tortures. WE are America, not the transient, expediency-minded politicos in the White House or Congress. It would be on OUR heads.
Torture is not a place we wanna go, no way, no how, not to ANY extent....wknjh
December 20, 2005 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
To me the basic problem is what happens to the torturer
Freudian, you mentioned an important aspect of torture that we don't hear enough about: that those who do the torturing are seriously damaged in the process. Even those who did not participate, but observed and did not report - perhaps out of fear - could suffer psychological damage. I think we're going to have many emotionally troubled troops coming out of this war.
Your sticking point, "Who does the torture?" is one of my sticking point too.
December 20, 2005 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wknjh, you bring up an excellent point. Lots of these arguments get bogged down in debates about what the law allows and doesn't allow. But when we do that, we spend too much time in the trees and can't see the forest. What really counts is not what the law says, but what is right. What does America really stand for and what is consistent with our highest values? Innocence until proven guilty. The right not to be subjected to government searches without a warrant issued on probable cause. No denial of life, liberty, or property without due process. The right not to be a witness against oneself. Whether these rights technically apply under the law or the Geneva conventions to particular individuals isn't really most important. What's most important is what's right for America.
December 20, 2005 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
See <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/law/fed-soc/otherfiles/wald
ron.pdf">here</a> for a discussion on how being anti-torture is a sort of "archetype," a model and very basis, of our democratic institutions as well as int'l human rights law.
December 20, 2005 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: No, I take it the point is that, when you decide to collaborate with people who torture, to further your geopolitical ends, that decision will have a morally corrosive effect on you, and what you are willing to do.
So we shouldn't have entered WWII on the same side as Joe Stalin?
Sometimes we do have to admit that we can't change the world and while we should never, never torture, we are not infinitely powerful and cannot prevent every other government on Earth from doing so.
As has been said before, the art of diplomacy requires one to shake hands with butchers-- and with torturers too.
December 20, 2005 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't see what it buys you that makes it worth saying, as a nation, that we want to prevent torture, but lesser cruelty is just fine with us.
Once again Bush has us debating using his definition of terms. Torture is not a quantifiable term. It is torture to treat prisoners as subhuman. That includes sleep deprivation, fear inducement, and all the way to chopping off hands. The issue, as others have said, is that we are Americans, and Americans treat other people as the human beings they are. We do not mistreat prisoners, whether POWs, criminals, or fellow citizens who are labeled in some way by our government. Any president who disagrees with that statement is undeserving of either our respect or our allowing him to remain in office. Those who make excuses for such a president deserve nothing more than our utter contempt.
December 20, 2005 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, for one thing, we didn't make common cause with Stalin because he was a ruthless human rights abuser. We didn't count of Stalin to do our dirty work, because we weren't so much using the dirty work in WWII (isolated instances being, I guess, isolated). We didn't facilitate Stalin's crimes. Pinochet, I think, is a somewhat different story.
December 20, 2005 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find Andrew Sullivan's opinion to be the most compelling position.
Torture is the polar opposite of freedom... Torture uses a person's body to remove from his own control his conscience, his thoughts, his faith, his selfhood.... very concept of Western liberty sprung in part from an understanding that if the state has the power to reach that deep into a person's soul and can do that much damage to a human being's person, then the state has extinguished all oxygen necessary for freedom to survive.
The realist in me, however, wants to understand if it became US policy where would we be. I cannot answer my own question so I need the knowledge of a host of others.
Here's an exercise I would like to see:
--Assume that Sullivan's position is US policy
--First get intelligence, military, interrogation specialists to construct interrogation rules, procedures, etc that would work to implement that policy.
--Second get policy makers, leaders, experts to assess the risks and benefits of making this exercise a reality for the US.
Does my approach have any value to anyone else?
December 20, 2005 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do we need to philosophize whether saving a million lives is worth torturing??? I for one do not want to be protected at the cost of someone getting tortured. Why wouldn't we ask the people if they agree to pay this price for their security?
"I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket."
"That's rebellion," murmered Alyosha, looking down.
"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.
"And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"
The Brothers Karamazov
December 20, 2005 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gene123, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Under both domestic and international law, there is a recognition that torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment (CID) are different things. Smacking a prisoner's belly, making it difficult for the prisoner to sleep, and similar tactics probably constitute examples of CID, but they don't constitute acts of torture
This is the precise opposite of the truth. Here is Article 1 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the U.S. and therefore having the force of law in the U.S.:
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
In fact the definition of "torture" under international and domestic law is far WIDER than the discussion in the US envisions. It encompasses the infliction of any physical or mental "severe pain or suffering" for the purposes of extracting information. The only exception is pain resulting from lawful sanction - e.g. that endured by convicts in Singapore sentenced to strokes of the cane, or mental suffering by US felons due to long incarceration, say.
None of the cases that have come up of US mistreatment involve anything so mild as "making it difficult to sleep". They involve deliberate sleep deprivation (shaking people awake), deliberate hypothermia, etc. You seem to be talking about some other debate occurring in some other country under some other circumstances.
December 20, 2005 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
How sad has my country become? We now spend our time debating whether or not torture should be permissable. For the past few years I've noticed this isn't the country I grew up in, and every passing year the feeling only grows.
Over simplification for dramatic affects aside. The debate is not about whether tourture should be legal, but what constitutes torture. The problem, if you actually cared enough to look at a couple of facts, comes in whith the whole POW status. Someone who is a POW under the Gen.Conv. cannot be questioned at all, beyound name rank serial # and date of birth. Any additional questioning is illegal. A person in civillian clothes, who is not a member of a recognized army and takes up arms against us, has no protection under the Gen.Conv. so can be legally questioned by authorities. So during that questioning can he be yelled at? Can his shirt be grabbed? Can he be left in a room without a chair and rap music playing? These are the things human rights watch is charging us with torture over (the actual artists were Eminem and Dr. Dre if you're interested in the sound track). So stop tearing your clothes and whailing in the streets about what this country has come to. Look at yourself and your party, and figure out how far down the river you're willing to sell the country to try and win the next election.
December 21, 2005 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Remember when your mother used to say in dark tones "that's what the communists do in the Soviet Union"?
Dude, your mother didn't really say that did she?
Well that's now what we do. Secret prisons, torture chambers, indefinte detentions without charge, domestic spying, propoganda operations, a meaningless constitution, absolute power vested in the executive branch, one-party rule, etc.
The reason it feels like one party rule to you is because you guys keep making wild allegations that turn out to be a bunch of wild allegations and nothing else. If you guys would look at things before you run off with the propaganda machine screaming "She's a witch burn her, burn her!!" maybe you wouldn't end up with egg on your face and less seats in Congress every time.
Which leads me to ask, who really won the cold war?
The good guys won, you were just rooting for the wrong side.
December 21, 2005 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"A person in civillian clothes, who is not a member of a recognized army and takes up arms against us . . ."
Christ, you sound like a redcoat after Lexington and Concord. "Damned colonists--no army, no uniform, sniping at us all along the road to Boston . . ."
December 21, 2005 4:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone who is a POW under the Gen.Conv. cannot be questioned at all, beyound name rank serial # and date of birth.
I'll admit that I'm not sure about this, but I don't think it's that you can't ask them, it's that they can't be required to say anything more than Name, Rank, Serial #. You can't ever require anyone to say much more, in a certain sense - you can offer inducements, threaten punishments, or use force. But it's not as if the Geneva Conventions state that non-POWs are required to spill the beans. So in a certain sense, I'm not so sure how meaninful the POW distinction is, in terms of gathering intelligence.
These are the things human rights watch is charging us with torture over.
Wallace, I'll grant you that the U.S. isn't running the Hanoi Hilton, but your continual underestimation of what is happening is getting rather sad. It's pretty well established that we've used watterboarding, and I fail to see how this is so different from putting an empty gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger. Two dead men in Afghanistan had their leg muscles smashed apart. A Canadian was picked up in JFK, questioned in Brooklyn, sent to Syria where he was tortured and asked the same questions. An intelligence officer confirmed to the Washington Post that such things happen (" 'We don't kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them.'"").
And Alberto Gonzales signed off on a memo claiming that treatment that doesn't produce sensations as of major organ failure or death doesn't constitute torture. So on the one hand, you have numerous accounts of brutal treatment - more than just bad music (if that were it, I'd say turn Gitmo into a Karaoke box), reports that, as they continue to emerge, are consistent with one another. On the other, you have authorization for such treatment from the highest levels.
I wish it was just hysteria, but it seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion to me.
December 21, 2005 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, your mother didn't really say that did she?
She did. I grew up before people called each other dude, dude. . . .
December 21, 2005 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
John McCain understands first-hand the hard-power and soft-power implications of this issue. He was a raised by a father who didn't parse the distinctions between CID and Tortue. He was trained at an academy where "The American Way of War" was more than a slogan. In his day as a soldier the offical policy was simple: "All Persons In Your Hands, Whether Suspects, Civilians, Or Combat Captives, Must Be Protected Against Violence, Insults, Curiousity, and Reprisals Of Any Kind"
When McCain suited-up on the morning of October 26, 1967 for his 23rd (and final) bombing mission over North Vietnam in an A-4 Skyhawk he carried in his pocket a laminated card, signed by our Commander in Chief Lydon Baines Johnson. I carried that same card as did all of us who fought in Indochina. Our Commander in Chief's orders were unambiguous:
The Enemy In Your Hands
As a member of the U.S. Military Forces, you will comply with the Geneva Prisoner of War Conventions of 1949 to which your country adheres. Under these conventions:
You Can And You Will
Disarm your prisoner
Immediately search him thoroughly
Require him to be silent
Segregate him from other prisoners
Guard him carefully
Take him to the place designated by your commander
Mistreat your prisoner
Humiliate or degrade him
Take any of his personal effects which do not have significant military value
Refuse him medical treatment if required and available
1. Handle Him Firmly, Promptly, but Humanely
The captive in your hands must be disarmed, searched, secured, and watched. But he must also be treated at all times as a human being. He must not be tortured, killed, mutilated, or degraded, even if he refuses to talk. If the captive is a woman, treat her with all respect due her sex.
2. Take The Captive Quickly To Security
As soon as possible evacuate the captive to a place of safety and interrogation designated by your commander. Military documents taken from the captive are also sent to the interrogators, but the captive will keep his personal equipment except weapons.
3. Mistreatment Of Any Captive Is A Criminal Offense.
Every Soldier Is Personally Responsible For The Enemy In His Hands
It is both dishonorable and foolish to mistreat a captive. It is also a punishable offense. Not even a beaten enemy will surrender if he knows his captors will torture or kill him. He will resist and make his capture more costly. Fair treatment of captives encourages the enemy to surrender.
4. Treat The Sick And Wounded Captive As Best You Can
The captive saved may be an intelligence source. In any case he is a human being and must be treated like one. The soldier who ignores the sick and wounded degrades his uniform.
5. All Persons In Your Hands, Whether Suspects, Civilians, Or Combat Captives, Must Be Protected Against Violence, Insults, Curiousity, and Reprisals Of Any Kind
Leave punishment to the courts and judges. The soldier shows his strength by his fairness, firmness, and humanity to the persons in his hands.
**
McCain met an enemy that October morning who did not subscribe to these international standards. Yet he concluded that America's strength lies in preserving the distinction between us and them.
Are these standards so antediluvian in 2005? Does the Global War on Terror demand a standard less civilized than the standards with which we fought the Axis? The standards we took to Indochina?
Would Al Qaeda prevail if our present
Commander in Chief were to put his name to instructions akin to those signed by LBJ?
John McCain is almost certainly in a stronger position to answer these question than Dick Cheney or Alberto Gonzales.
John Stuart Blackton
December 21, 2005 5:23 AM | Reply | Permalink