"2 -- Unless you hold that all interrogation is illegal (immoral..), you must draw a line between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable (moral, legal, ...). Or rather, if you don't draw a line, you're just blowing partisan smoke out your nether orifice. "

The Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture are both quite specific... as are legal decisions made on all levels of the federal courts. I leave it to you to find the information.

I don't have to draw a line... the line already exists. Do you think that we as a people are just now coming to grips with what constitutes torture?

I mean, I know what you are doing. You want us to present our ideas of what constitutes torture and then poke holes in it and create reasonable doubt. I think that you should do a little mental exercise and do the research for yourself.

Just because I am not playing your game doesn't mean I am blowing smoke. I tried using my personal experience as a point of reference and you labeled it specious. Now I am returning the favor.

Wow, you are pretty far afield on this. I think the post may set a record for the number of different fallacies employed to advance a single premise.

I still haven't seen a viable answer to Zipperupus' first observation. Asserting him irrational is hardly an intellectual response to what appears a fatal flaw in the framing premise.

I'll add that an individual must be a prisoner for the issues we are discussing to apply in ANY legal sense. An individual who isn't a prisoner has no standing. This fact is the underlying reason for the attempted creation of a legally unsustainable "enemy combatant" non-person designation.

Further undermining your later assertions is the fact that the SERE program's very definition indicates the techniques employed would be considered a violation of the Geneva conventions if conducted subsequent to a serviceman's capture.

But IMO the fatal blow is that the Bush administration itself concluded the memos were based on a flawed interpretation of the law. They were repealed. This is important to bear in mind because it is what led to the NEED to define "enemy combatants". Once the techniques were accepted as unquestionably in violation of the law, a need arose to ensure the law did not apply to the detainees subjected to the techniques.

A legal argument requires more than simply providing a clever interpretation of a few words to be sustainable. It must also be in harmony with existing precedent. The memos are very light on supporting case law references. They MUST be assessed not only under the laws of linguistics but also as a continuity of interpretation in the halls of jurisprudence.

These memos were produced as definitive basis for policy, not for the sake of academic discussion. This was not an "arguably" premise published in a law review to be debated. There is a defined legal responsibility associated with producing such a document and standards by which to judge the methods used to draw the conclusions. If the process did not follow the standards, these guys are going to be toast.

In my mind the question of criminality on the memo author's part will hinge on what actual precedent they can point to in sustaining their position. They need to provide historical proof that the interpretation given has prior basis in the annals of justice; in the face of a century's worth of precedent showing torture convictions meted out to people who engaged in or authorized these same practices.

Update: WTF does your update have to do with the price of tea in China? I don't get the point.

eds,

When I visited you in the County Jail last week, first, they searched me and then, no shit, they actually locked the doors behind me!

I'm suing for false imprisonment! I know, I know, I was only "detained" for the time it took to try and reason with you, but it seemed like an eternity to me. Now, don't try to talk me out of this. I'm looking for some big bucks here :)

The signed memos from lawyers that were used as green lights for torture surely aren't valid. Could you rob a Convenience store at gunpoint then give the judge a note from your lawyer whereby he gave you permission?

Torture? Anyone who wants to test the techniques, just jump out of the shower, then sit on your porch for 5 minutes buck naked when it is 50 degrees outside. Then imagine doing that for 48 hours. (I am talking to you country folk. City people, please find an alternative)

If the enhanced interrogation techniques described by Bybee to Rizzo (Aug 2002) are torture, then the whole SERE program is torture.

This is the stupidest post on this topic yet! Do you know anything about Iraq? There aren't any clean clinical offices where lab-coat-wearing professionals politely and carefully waterboard people while reading from the manual.

Why don't you volunteer to be waterboarded and then write us up a little post about torture, hmm? You need to get some experience under your belt because you haven't got a clue about the fundamentals of the discussion. Therefore, your hypotheticals are meaningless. I'll give you one example of your fundamental cluelessness early in your argument:

build up character of soldiers

The SERE program is not for building "character"! Jesus Christ!

FYI, not all "interrogators" actually had SERE training. Some didn't even have U.S. military training.

That's because some of the interrogators were contractors, and others were put into positions of responsibility without any training whatsoever. Iraq was/is chaos.

Here, watch this interview with Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib. You can learn a lot of technical details from it.

But whether you watch that particular video or not, catch up already! We've been in Iraq for 6 years! Why don't you know anything about it? And why can't you discern that this isn't actually an intellectual debate? It's real.

You build this blog on the faulty premise that SERE training and what was done to these prisoners are on par with each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. These guys were systematically broken over long periods of time through the use of physical and mental torture.

SERE lasted for six days, most of that spent in the field learning not to get captured in the first place and how to live off the land. We spent a grand total of 22 hours in the "POW camp" most of that time held in concrete boxes about 5' by 5' by 3' to keep us separated. Or we did stupid little jobs to give them an excuse to scream and holler at us maybe grab us by the lapels and shake us around a bit. A couple guys were "boarded" but it usually stopped short of the actual treatment. SERE was meant to introduce us to what could be done by our enemies, not break us with it.

You simply have no idea what you are talking about.

*stumbles in*

Um, all I know is, if you got 25 comments and not one freakin' rec, then you know you done screwed up somehow, some way.

*skips out*

Most justifications of "harsh interrogation" are exercises in sophistry, and this one is no exception.

To the extent that "harsh interrogation" can be said to "work," it works through pain and terror.

And here is where the apologists have a problem.

The pain and terror have to be so bad that the victim will have no choice but to say what the interrogator wants to hear, but not so bad as to be "severe."

The pain has to be enough, but not too much.

But how can it be "enough" if it is not "too much"?

Seriously .... you brought this thing back from the dead because someone on the Daily Show agreed with it?