Patterico's Pontifications

2/14/2008

Dafydd ab Hugh’s Waterboarding Hypo

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:04 pm



Well, the whole waterboarding thing is coming up again with the recent vote to limit the CIA to interrogation techniques permitted by the Army Field Manual.

And when there is a waterboarding discussion, hypotheticals can’t be far behind.

Dafydd ab Hugh asks:

You are a CIA station chief in an undisclosed, secret CIA prison in Poland (with Warsaw’s consent). A prisoner is brought to your location, picked up by the Germans in Afghanistan and transferred to U.S. custody six days ago. We’ll call him Mahmoud.

Mahmoud was not previously known to any intelligence agency before his capture (he was not the main target of the raid). He doesn’t appear to be a big fish. But when he was grabbed, he had a laptop with him, and he was in the process of trying to erase the hard drive. Most of the information is irretrievably gone, a little bit remains; and within that remaining little bit, your techies manage to extract references to a huge attack planned for somewhere on the American mainland. From the timeframe discussed, it appears to be one to three months away. You don’t know anything more than that.

You do not know for sure whether Mahmoud has more detailed information about the attack, but he evidently knew enough to try to erase the drive, even at risk of his own life. He has already been interrogated by the Marines and by CIA personnel where you are, but it’s clear he has more information that he’s holding back. The timeframe is tight enough that you must make a decision immediately, but not so tight that there would be no time to act on any information.

So what you know is this:

  1. A major attack is planned somewhere in the continental United States;
  2. Mahmoud may or may not be a major player, but he appears to know something significant about it;
  3. However, he might not know enough to allow authorities to thwart the attack. But on the other hand, he might;
  4. He would not talk under ordinary interrogation. You might be able to break him given time, but every week that passes makes it less likely his intelligence can be used to stop the attack.

We add one more point:

  1. You already have solid evidence that he participated in some attacks on American troops that resulted in fatalities. So if we want to try him later at a military tribunal, we don’t need a confession to convict him; we already have ample forensic evidence.

You ask the DCI whether you can waterboard him; word comes from the White House via the DCI that you are authorized to waterboard Mahmoud, but you must use your own discretion whether you actually do it: You are the only one close enough to the scene to make that call. You get the impression that the president will stand behind you, whatever you decide… but of course, that only applies to this particular president. You don’t know who will be president in 2009.

So the question is, do you order Mahmoud to be waterboarded?

This doesn’t seem hard to me. I would do it — if I believed it was the most effective way to get the information.

Dafydd’s question is interesting because it’s not an unthinkable scenario. So far, the voting at his place is going something like:

Pro-waterboarding: everybody
Anti-waterboarding: nobody

Give or take.

I’m putting it up here because I suspect the answers here won’t necessarily be quite so lopsided.

Also, it gives liberals a chance to prove how they’re morally better than I am, and that’s always fun.

So what say you?

128 Responses to “Dafydd ab Hugh’s Waterboarding Hypo”

  1. Yes.

    And then I would have them waterboard AJL, just for fun.

    JD (fd9a5b)

  2. No. Waterboarding is not a harsh enough technique. The terrorists are very media savvy, and know all about waterboarding. They know that it is a simulated drowning and causes no real damage. A dedicated terrorist can fight through it, knowing that he will be alright.

    Do whatever it takes to get the information.

    fugazi (3053fe)

  3. Sure. I signed on with the CIA [editorially] knowing, or even hoping, that I would be doing things no soldier, policeman or private citizen would be allowed to do. I surrendered my morality, queasiness and qualms to my fellow citizens who created my job and gave me this power in order to make them safer. I [editorially] am a professional. I am not exactly Pontius Pilate but my hands are no more dirty than theirs. Let the sin be on their heads (and on the heads of their children).

    nk (616f8b)

  4. Get the board, get teh bucket, we’re goin’ dunkin kids…

    We know he’s got more info. How much more we aren’t sure, but even if it isn’t much, it might be enough to open other avenues to help thwart it.

    Start with the light stuff, and work on up to the hard stuff. Ignore the chance to get a confession on the things you KNOW he did, except to establish a baseline for his answers…

    His information could save American lives. Get it from him.

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  5. The CIA chief will NOT order it.

    He can CYA if NYC vanishes. His career won’t be affected in any way. No one was fired or went to jail or was even derailed for failing to stop 9/11.

    There is NO ZILCH NADA ZERO downside for the CIA chief to do NOTHING. This is reality. Much as you might not like it.

    Meanwhile, even if he SUCCEEDS in preventing NYC from being nuked, he WILL go to jail. His career WILL be ruined. He WILL lose everything. And that’s if he’s RIGHT.

    This again is reality. Why?

    Because Dems have been very successful in persuading most people that: 9/11 never happened, and if it did it was a “government conspiracy” or was caused by people “not loving us” and we deserved it “anyway” and it can never happen again … well because Dang It!

    This is reality. You won’t like it. I’m sure we will lose a city just because of that. And then be forced by the logic of nukes (it will happen again unless we make it too terrible in consquence to contemplate) to wipe out most of the Muslim world.

    No one takes the threat seriously. Therefore all incentives are to do nothing and that is EXACTLY what will happen. See: Munich 1938 and “Peace in Our Time.”

    Jim Rockford (e09923)

  6. The terrorists are very media savvy, and know all about waterboarding. They know that it is a simulated drowning and causes no real damage. A dedicated terrorist can fight through it, knowing that he will be alright.

    Right, because KSM held out for what? 90 seconds? I guess he wasn’t a dedicated terrorist. (What does the dedication ceremony for a terrorist entail?)

    In this instance, I would do it. I’d try for about a week or so to break him with sleep deprivation and loud noise (basically, send him to live in a college dorm). It would be my last resort, but if it came down to it, I would do it.

    Steverino (3cbef4)

  7. Where are you seeing that “you” would go to jail for waterboarding?

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  8. Steve, it wouldn’t be my FIRST option, but it wouldn’t be the last either. About number 3 or 4… Sleep dep, environmental changes (sound, light, temp), maybe a slap or two, and then the waterboarding…

    If you get results, good. If not, then you re-evaluate. If you still reasonably think he knows something, then you start weighing your options for something more…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  9. No, I won’t order waterboarding. (Partly it is because I view waterboarding as closer to torture than to ‘vigorous interrogation,’ and I don’t want to weasel out by arguing the converse.)

    This is a good hypothetical that Dafydd has posed, because (1) there are reasons to argue for and against, and (2) it properly reflects the uncertainty that we will always face in such circumsances. E.g. we think we know certain things about Mahmoud’s state of knowledge and culpability, but the hypothetical is vague enough that we have to allow the possibility that we are wrong.

    The Slippery Slope is troublesome.

    For those who would waterboard: what changes to Dafydd’s hypothetical would make you change your vote to “no”?

    * Mahmoud was in the room while some other guy was erasing the hard drive
    * Mahmoud is an American Citizen (John Walker Lindh)
    * Mahmoud is captured on U.S. territory, not in Afghanistan (Jose Padilla)
    * Mahmoud is suspected of some other activity besides planning a terror plot (murdering a gang rival, arranging for an enemy to be beaten up, smuggling drugs, making an illegal campaign contribution, under-reporting capital gains).

    Where’s the bright line, where on one side waterboarding is allowed (or mandated), and on the other side, it is not?

    Until I can define that line, I don’t want to empower government agents to waterboard suspects. Even when it’s “obviously” the right thing to do

    AMac (ca25c4)

  10. No change from any of those.

    I don’t care where he was, I don’t care who he is, I don’t care where we got him, and I don’t care if he raped and killed the family dog.

    There exists the very real chance he has information that might save American lives.

    And while it’s extreme, I don’t consider Waterboarding to be torture, so I have no issue with arguing for it’s use.

    If after the waterboarding we haven’t gotten him to talk, and we still think – based on trained and professional assessment – that he might still have that information, then we go for the harder stuff…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  11. Mahmoud agrees to squeal as soon as he gets to sodomize your children.

    Is it morally compulsory or merely acceptable to give him your children?

    As I said last thread, a lot of sick pervs creating little fantasies of homemade torture p0rn.

    Sorry you guys hate civilization so much.

    Andrew J. Lazarus (1d167b)

  12. Sure… We’ll give in to his demand…

    If waterboarding, hot pokers, fingernail pulling, and boltcutters-to-digits fails to get useful information.

    Sorry you hate America so much, Andie…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  13. AJL sez:

    Mahmoud agrees to squeal as soon as he gets to sodomize your children.

    Is it morally compulsory or merely acceptable to give him your children?

    As I said last thread, a lot of sick pervs creating little fantasies of homemade torture p0rn.

    Sorry you guys hate civilization so much.

    As I said in my post:

    I’m putting it up here because I suspect the answers here won’t necessarily be quite so lopsided.

    Also, it gives liberals a chance to prove how they’re morally better than I am, and that’s always fun.

    Patterico (4bda0b)

  14. Luckily, nobody in the CIA will ever have to face these sorts of questions again. So there’s no need to discuss it.

    And/or if they do, the answer is obvious: any civilized person will just let the major terror attack happen.

    /self-righteous liberal

    Patterico (4bda0b)

  15. Btw: Thanks, AMac, for showing how you can take up a position that opposes waterboarding in this hypo, without coming off like a smug prick.

    Other waterboarding opponents should read your comment and learn how to persuade.

    Patterico (4bda0b)

  16. Waterboarding is torture. Do it.

    lynndh (a20f74)

  17. I’ll admitt, AMac’s is at least reasonable.

    Well, it would be, if it weren’t completely wrong… 🙂

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  18. Done this thread weeks ago.

    At least Dafyyd put SOME uncertainty into his hypo. The computer makes it too easy tho.

    AMac sez it right.

    EdWood (a3c7be)

  19. After somewhere like Baltimore disappears from Google Earth, even Pelosi, Boxer and the rest will be thinking, if not saying, “What the hell were we thinking?” One disastrous wake up call.

    PLC14 (f74534)

  20. Andrew, would you sacrifice your anus for America?

    No….

    Well, we’ll give you to Mahmoud anyway after we finish with him…

    Now, for a reasonably serious answer to your post…

    No, I would not let him sodomize anyone because that is allowing him to inflict pain or suffering on others to gain the information. It is a line I would not cross. I would waterboard him for the information, since I believe that saving lives is morally higher than hurting his life. I will not kill him, because I don’t want to take his life. But, I will put his at risk to save others.

    I was watching “Batman Begins” this evening (shows how really shallow my home life may be, but, what the heck?) and the ending included this line from Batman to the evil Henri Ducard as they were fighting at the end of the train ride. The train is about to crash, and Ducard has already told Batman earlier in the movie that is compassion will be his downfall. So, as Batman is prepared to apparently kill Ducard, he hesitates…

    “I won’t kill you….but I don’t have to save
    you.”

    I respect the morality of that train of thought….

    reff (99666d)

  21. Now now, reff, AJL can’t help being a troll…

    I would wonder, and encourage others to wonder along with me, some issues, then, to be answered by others such as AJL.

    1. What would be the harshest thing you would be willing to inflict on such suspects, in order to get this information?

    2. Would your answer be any different assuming you were personally affected?

    3. Given the proposition AJL listed, would that not mean Mr Hypothetical Terrorist Suspect has pretty much just confessed to possessing that knowledge? And won’t you now pretty much be justified in giving him the punishment prisoners levy on child molesters? Is not waterboarding better?

    4. Seeing as you would protect even terrorist suspects, how much moreso would American lives be worth? What formulae would you use to balance the pros and cons?

    5. Given that the enemies go even further and for ‘crimes’ even slighter, why is not as much noise generated? Further, why isn’t the sauce good for the goose also good for the gander?

    AMac poses some really good issues. Allow me to answer. It is my belief that military (and hence national security) concerns are necessarily separate from civilian concerns, especially when talking about death on a massive scale.

    I will say this much, in broad generalities. Torture should ALWAYS be permissible when we are talking about a
    (a) proven/self-confessed hardened serial murderer/rapist/terrorist (IOW his past guilt is unquestionable),
    (b) the issue at hand involved human lives at stake (that should be the litmus test) and
    (c) his denials take the form of ‘you’ll never get that from me, you [American pig-kaffirs]’ (which indicates he KNOWS the information)

    It is my belief that even the most progressive of socialists/leftists should approve torture under these circumstances. Take note; this assumes that waterboarding is a form of torture, which I might not agree to – not having experienced it, I cannot say.

    Gregory (f7735e)

  22. ‘a lot of sick pervs creating little fantasies of homemade torture porn’

    But…Mapplethorpe’s work is considered great art by those who perceive themselves more civilized than others.

    I think interrogators should have Jane Fonda read The Vagina Monologues over and over until the terrorist can’t help but break due to tortureous boredom.

    syn (eb1ff1)

  23. Leaving aside the issue of whether water boarding is or is not torture, there is an assumption to the above comments that i believe is false.

    That is, that torturing the suspect will get you to the truth. Torture is not, and never has been a method for getting the truth out of someone. Rather, torture is a way of making someone confess to something, whether they did it or not.

    So you torture your suspect, and you can get him to admit to killing JFK if you torture him enough. What have you benefitted?

    chris (6cbae9)

  24. If a field agent honestly believes that torture will prevent a disaster, then let him take his chances at his trial or court martial. If you take an Al Queda operative to tiny little pieces and save a city in the process, you can expect a presidential pardon.

    I don’t get the debate on this. Torture is illegal and wrong by any standard. If you aren’t willing to bet your career and your freedom, then you have NOT found one of the rare exceptions where you will be excused a horrible act.

    Mike Llaneza (0ae8f2)

  25. #24 —

    Not exactly, because it may turn out that while the terrorist has info, it’s not certain that he has all the information required to prevent the attack.

    If an attack takes place or if it is thwarted through other means, the CIA officer will be second-guessed by all the usual politicians. This in turn would make it problematic for a President to issue a pardon — especially since the CIA officer knows in advance that all three viable candidates for office in 2008 are on record opposing waterboarding.

    Good faith probably won’t matter either — look at the difficulty GWB is having getting immunity for the Telecoms in the FISA bill.

    And, yes, I would do it, but then I’d be honored to do the right thing and accept the consequences. If my name were Wilson or Plame, I might have a different calculation.

    capitano (03e5ec)

  26. Torture is illegal and wrong by any standard.

    No, yu mean it is wrong in your opinion.

    What this comes down to, frankly, is selfishness. Which do you value more: your peace of mind, or the lives of fellow citizens?

    If you refuse to do what is needed to get the info because you would feel bad, you are maybe the most selfish person ever. You are possibly sacrificing the lives of others – not to avoid physical pain yourself, but emotional pain.

    I’m sorry, but MY well-being is not more important that the well-being of others…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  27. That is, that torturing the suspect will get you to the truth. Torture is not, and never has been a method for getting the truth out of someone. Rather, torture is a way of making someone confess to something, whether they did it or not.

    I’m assuming that you consider waterboarding to be torture. In that case, KSM and Abu Zubaydah would beg to differ. And remember, you’re not looking for a confession, you’re looking for information about a pending plot.

    Mahmoud is going to have a wet afternoon if I’m making the call. And he’ll be in the same shape when we’re done that he was when we started. Hell, I’ll even give him a towel. No harm, no foul.

    Pablo (99243e)

  28. Patterico,
    In this case I wouldn’t waterboard the suspect. There’s too much uncertainty that it would be useful, let alone necessary. If I had more confidence that there would be an attack and that this person had the information I needed to stop it my answer would change. I don’t think torture is a good and reliable way to get information from the guilty. Given it’s unreliability I don’t want it used knowing that it will be accidentally used on the innocent to one extent or another. I’m also concerned about a slippery slope with the use of coercive techniques.

    btw, is it okay with you to feel morally superior to the people who comment about how they’d be cut a person bits if there’s any chance they might have useful information? I’m surprised that don’t have more to say about, but your blog and you can say what you like.

    joe (33ce8e)

  29. I start with waterboarding. If that doesn’t work, I start cutting off body parts and doing whatever is necessary to gain the information to save fellow Americans from being killed in a terrorist attack.

    Scott (#26): seconding your point, my ‘well-being’ wouldn’t take a hit by doing this; on the contrary, I would sleep just fine knowing that X number of Americans were safe as a result of my actions. Having an opportunity to prevent an attack and passing? That is what would hurt.

    steve sturm (40e5a6)

  30. My take on the torture question is that I have no problems with it being used to extract information that we are sure a suspect has. Torture should not be used to probe a suspect in hopes that they know something. I do not find this case to meet that simple criterion. The very first premise posed in the hypothetical is incorrect:

    So what you know is this:

    1. A major attack is planned somewhere in the continental United States;

    No, that’s what we think, based solely on partially deleted information found on a laptop owned by effectively some random person.

    Judging by the jovial nature of some of the responses, I don’t think many people are taking this very seriously. I wouldn’t put much stock in their value as true measures of public perception.

    Justin (652530)

  31. Justin, it’s not some random person. you’re pretty sure you have a bad guy, and that the info has some relevance. But I agree with your point that we don’t have enough certainty in the situation described.

    joe (33ce8e)

  32. To get down to basics….I’m a mother. My son believes I will do ANYTHING to protect him, just as I believed my parents (and, at one time, my government) would do ANYTHING to protect me.
    I want a president (and congress) to look me square in the eye and state THEY WILL DO ANYTHING to protect my family, me, and my country. Dems will never do that (although, judging by personal stories, they are not above doing anything to protect themselves). Dems have left this country open to attack over and over again, I’ll never vote dem.

    Judith (e1ca5f)

  33. Scott, You’ve said several times that you would use real-honest-to-god-can’t-quibble-about-the-details torture if you suspected a person might have information that could possibly make you safer.

    I’m not ‘risking’ the safety of others because I want to avoid emotional pain. I’m ‘risking’ the safety of others because
    1. I don’t think torture is a reliable way to get information.
    2. I’m certain that if it’s our policy to use torture to get information that we will at some point torture the wrong person by mistake. (In fact, there is good reason to believe we’ve already done this)
    3. I think that a policy of torture for national security emergencies could too easily be expanded to include less urgent situations.

    Basically I don’t think a potential reduction in risk is worth the cost.

    joe (33ce8e)

  34. Judith, I do not think the government is in any way a stand in for my parents. I do not WANT the government to be my parent. I fear the power that government already has and I’m very scared of what a government willing to do ANYTHING to protect me would do. I’m pretty sure that Janet Reno went in to waco because she was willing to do ANYTHING to protect the children. I’d rather keep that sort of mindset out of the government. I’d rather not have a president willing to do ANYTHING to protect me from say; global warming, getting ill, or being unemployed.

    joe (33ce8e)

  35. First of all, “Erasing” the disk. short of destroying the hard drive, there is no such thing as erasing the disk to where data cannot be salvaged from the drive. You just have to be in the business long enough at a low enough level to know.

    Would a Station Chief have that sort of authority to waterboard? I think not. If the waterboarding occurs, the ORDERS come from “a higher pay grade”.

    To answer the base of the question, you have AlQaeda who appears to have needed information. I say waterboard him if other techniques do not work like offering him Lazarus’ rear end.

    PCD (c378fd)

  36. Mahmoud agrees to squeal as soon as he gets to sodomize your children.

    As I said last thread, a lot of sick pervs creating little fantasies of homemade torture p0rn.

    Speaking of sick perverts creating fantasies….

    You have become tedious. This is the last time I’ll respond to any of your posts.

    Steverino (3cbef4)

  37. “Torture doesn’t work” is a forlorn search for a way to finesse the question. The Gestapo rolled up resistance networks throughout Europe. It wasn’t because their prisoners were dying to tell them what they wanted to know. Or maybe it was.

    AMac (c822c9)

  38. Let me pose Dafydd’s hypothetical in a different way.

    We in the Executive Branch are proposing a deal with you, the American people. We will keep the Homeland safe, if you give us the green light to do what we think needs to be done.

    We promise that we will only waterboard bad guys who are non-citizens in foreign countries–and only for the best of reasons.

    But the deal is that this must be done under cover of darkness: without supervision, without oversight, without accountability.

    Trust us.

    Is that a fair restatement?

    If it isn’t, how so? In the hypothetical, what are the roles of the Legislature or the Judiciary (or the Press, NGOs, other people/institutions)? Do they set procedures; provide Checks and Balances? Does anybody outside the Executive even know that Mahmoud is in Poland, being waterboarded?

    If it’s society’s decision that there will be Mahmouds who must be waterboarded, then we have to set up the procedures for it, ahead of time. For instance, there have to be performance evaluations of the agents doing the waterboarding: if they become too jaded and enthusiastic over time, there have to be ways to retrain them or remove them from the job.

    An Executive Branch, unfettered, the tools of coercion in hand, saying, “Trust Me.”

    No.

    AMac (c822c9)

  39. Andrew J

    Let’s give you a real case…something that did happen.

    You’re a police chief in on an interrogation of a kidnapper. It is without doubt that this is the kidnapper (evidence plus confession). The alarming thing is not only will he not tell you where the young child is that he took, what he does tell you is that he has buried the child alive in a box somewhere. You are now under a time constraint to find that child before he dies. So you do something forbidden by law, you get into the kidnappers face and convince him you WILL beat the crap out of him until he reveals the boy … indeed, you put a gun to his head.

    He confesses where the child is buried.

    What should happen to you?

    Say in the above scenario that waterboarding is still “illegal” regardless of circumstance, but the agent in question does the moral thing and waterboards the terrorist and averts a major attack.

    What should happen to the agent who has acted morally even if it has been against statute?

    Darleen (187edc)

  40. What fascinates me about waterboarding is that it tests the willingness to die spiting your enemy. It seems to me that a jihadist’s reaction to waterboarding would be disappointment in that it did not in fact kill him. (And now he is back to being naked in a 4o degree cell, chained upright by his ankles or hung by his arms behind his back, with bright lights in his eyes and loud rap in his ears, and only a long interrogation session punctuated by “attention slaps” to look forward to.)

    I wonder whether waterboarding would have worked on a man like Cato the Younger. According to Plutarch, after Julius Caesar’s victory in Utica, Cato attempted to kill himself by stabbing himself with his own sword, but failed to do so due to an injured hand. One of Cato’s slaves found him on the ground and called for a physician to stitch up and bandage Cato’s wounds. Cato waited until they left him and then tore off the bandages and the stitches with his fingers and pulled out his own intestines, thereby ending his life.

    nk (616f8b)

  41. Amac, At the risk of invoking Goodwins law, I don’t think “it worked for the Nazi’s” is a compelling argument. I have a different definition of ‘worked’ than they did. I hope you do as well. I’m sure that torture makes people talk. I’m also sure that it will make them say whatever they think you want them to say to make the pain stop.

    joe (33ce8e)

  42. Which, BTW, makes comparing waterboarding of prisoners with waterboarding of Special Ops as part of their training entirely nonsensical.

    nk (616f8b)

  43. That is, that torturing the suspect will get you to the truth. Torture is not, and never has been a method for getting the truth out of someone.

    What a canard- of course waterboarding gets the truth. Or, at least it got the truth out of Khalid Sheik Mumbojumbo.

    MTF (6c030c)

  44. nk –

    Not entirely. Everything I’ve read about waterboarding says that a medic is always standing by to make sure the prisoners won’t die in the process. If the prisoner seems to be willing to die to deny information to the enemy, then simply explaining the presence and role of the medic would deny that psychological avenue of resistance.

    At which point the waterboarding of prisoners for interrogation, and the waterboarding of Spec Ops personnel for training, becomes entirely similar. Both know they won’t die, both know that this will produce no lasting harm, and both still suffer the same “can’t breathe, oh crap” panic attack in the brain once the waterboarding actually starts.

    Robin Munn (cc08f2)

  45. Joe #41, sorry about brushing against Godwin’s tripwire in my #37, you’re right. My bad.

    You wrote in #33 —

    1. I don’t think torture is a reliable way to get information.
    2. I’m certain that if it’s our policy to use torture to get information that we will at some point torture the wrong person by mistake.
    3. I think that a policy of torture for national security emergencies could too easily be expanded to include less urgent situations.

    I agree with points 2 and 3 (obviously). Re: #1, waterboarding, carefully applied has yielded valuable information e.g. in KSM’s interrogation. People do break down under harsh interrogation and give up actionable intelligence. Yes–of course–they also give false information, to “make it stop” and to confound their enemies.

    The position that “torture is unlikely to yield useful information” is a convenient intruth. I concede that it will, at times, advance the investigation, as in Dafydd’s premise. But I still say No to waterboarding Mahmoud.

    AMac (c822c9)

  46. MTF –

    What a canard- of course waterboarding gets the truth. Or, at least it got the truth out of Khalid Sheik Mumbojumbo.

    Not necessarily. Waterboarding may get someone to talk. Whether what they tell you is the truth or just something blurted out to stop the harsh treatment, well, that’s different. I don’t believe waterboarding to be torture, but it can have some of the same “they’ll say anything to get you to stop” reliability problems. Which is why I would agree that admissions obtained by waterboarding cannot and should not be admissible in court — you can’t be certain that they’re true, even if the person swears to them.

    On the other hand, it (demonstrably) can produce reliable information. So any intel obtained by waterboarding should be double-checked against other sources if at all possible before acting on it — but it’s still quite possible that it’ll be good intel.

    Robin Munn (cc08f2)

  47. Update on the scenario:
    Turns out that the terrorist know that Mahmoud was captured. (He didn’t show up at the weekly “I Hate America” meeting, and he’s the one that brings the chips.)

    They don’t know that he managed to erase most of the laptop, and reasonably assume their plan has been exposed. They change the plan slightly (altering cities, targets or other key aspects).

    Mahmoud gets waterboarded, tells original plan. US forces/resources go on the alert in original cities and are pulled from other cities. Intelligence information on the new (actual) plan is ignored as less credible that the “waterboarded” info, thus giving the terrorists an even bigger opening in the newly targeted cities. Thousands dead. Film at 11.

    Some additional note:
    The selective erasure of the hard drive is a little “too” convenient in this fantasy scenario even in a Hollywood script. One need only think about what the TSA can recover and scale up to what the NSA can recover to realize the entire laptop could be recovered, including IP addresses, emails, sites visited, etc. (including the secret dip recipe that goes with the chips).

    So, I’m against waterboarding. All the pro-waterboarding arguments assume perfect extraction of reliable information from the correct someone with no permanent damage. They never seem to take into account that they may have the wrong person, or that the person may give false information long enough to distract our efforts, or that the person’s knowledge is still relevant in the wake of his capture. Oh, yeah, and that the United States has prosecuted these same acts as war crimes.

    David (6d0e03)

  48. My answer to the hypothetical is: I’d probably try to pursue other avenues of intelligence first, for maybe a week or two. Knowing that a major attack is planned and a two-month window might help make sense of other things. Volume of enemy chatter, and so on.

    But if nothing turned up and I was still convinced that Mahmoud knew more than he was saying, I’d eventually order the waterboarding.

    Of course, it’s not a hugely difficult decision for me, since I don’t consider waterboarding to be torture. Harsh treatment, certainly — definitely a step above slapping someone around. But causing panic and feelings of “oh crap, I’m really going to die” isn’t, in my opinion, torture.

    Suppose I tied you up and suspended you above a hundred-foot drop, head down. I then showed you a mechanism that would cut the rope above you, sending you plummeting to certain death, once all the sand was gone from a five-minute hourglass. If you don’t talk in five minutes or less, you’re going to die. That’s harsh treatment, the threat of certain death — but not torture. I consider waterboarding to fall under the same category, given its nature. To be actual torture, it would have to inflict real pain, not just panic and the fear of death. And torture — inflicting actual pain — is where I draw the line of what should be permitted.

    Robin Munn (cc08f2)

  49. David –

    Oh, yeah, and that the United States has prosecuted these same acts as war crimes.

    Citation, please? Because if what you say is true, then we inflict actual war crimes on our own soldiers as part of their training. I need to see some evidence before I can believe your assertion.

    Robin Munn (cc08f2)

  50. Actually, David’s post reminds me of another line I would draw.

    I would be against waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques being used on actual prisoners of war. That’s clearly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, which the U.S. is a signatory to, and therefore a war crime.

    Using it on people not covered by the Geneva Convention (because they deliberately break its rules, fighting without any uniform, targeting civilians, hiding among civilian populations, the works) is a different story. There, I would still draw the line at actual torture, but would allow waterboarding.

    Robin Munn (cc08f2)

  51. Crazy Andy proves what a sick perveted mind he has by offering up a hypo involving sodomy, yet he still has the effrontery to insult others over his views of what they think. Unbelievable yet again. He is a warped, twisted individual, yet will not admit it, sot of like that progressive talk show host in San Fran who got busted for kiddie porn who now claims he was doing “research” for a book. Sure.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  52. It is not just that people like AJL are “self-righteous”, if that was all they are then they would be an immense improvement. No, look at AJL’s statement: “a lot of sick pervs creating little fantasies of homemade torture p0rn.”

    This is not just self-righteousness, this is a vicious hatred. That is the danger, the kind of hatred that AJL has demonstrated for years. It is a toxic affect on our polity. Moreover what is hilarious is that this kind of hatred that AJL demonstrates is the very kind of hatred that has created the largest atrocities in our history. So AJL does not understand how it is his hatreds that are the seeds of the evil that he falsely thinks he is fighting.

    So it is not merely a case of oily self-righteousness, and it is not even just a case of the kind of juvenile behavior and prattling that Democrats engage in over that last decade or so that has destroyed rational debate.

    It is the beginnings of a dangerous fanaticism.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  53. …and if waterboarding didn’t work, I’d rip his frikken fingernails off!

    John425 (eae6ea)

  54. Yeah, I think there’s plenty of silly smug to go around on both side.
    “I would never sully my morals to cope with a least bad situation you barbarian”
    vs.
    “You selfish coward how dare you balk at ANYTHING to save American lives. You must not really love our country.”

    joe (33ce8e)

  55. SPQR – Don’t some people speak of liberal fascism?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  56. Those willing to waterboard —

    What about the anti-waterboard arguments some of us have advanced on this thread? Their merits or lack thereof aren’t a function of the people making them, y’know.

    How about the slippery slope? To what extent do Dafydd’s hypotheticals have to be changed before you say, “No, I wouldn’t waterboard in under those circumstances.”? If there’s a line, how do you draw it?

    What of the unfettered power we’re granting to the Executive? And that the President is granting to the Poland CIA Station Chief: “No laws, no oversight, no precedents, no SOPs or policies or procedures. Fly by the seat of your pants, do what you think is best.”

    What about when things screw up (things always screw up, sooner or later)? E.g., there are reports that Interrogator W is a little too enthusiastic. X seems to have become too timid in his work. Y is careless with the paperwork. Z can’t sleep at night and is mumbling about talking to al-Jazeera to clear his conscience. How is the Station Chief–acting on behalf of the President–to handle these situations?

    AMac (c822c9)

  57. Waterboarding may get someone to talk.

    No, no Robin- waterboarding did get someone to talk. And the intel it cause Khalid to provide saved lives (“many lives” if you are willing to believe Bushitler and Satan Cheney).

    Arguing against waterboarding because it doesn’t work is a false argument. Arguing against waterboarding because we, as Americans, shouldn’t use torture (assuming you believe this is torture) is a better argument. Not one I find persuasive in this particular hypo, but a better argument.

    MTF (6c030c)

  58. How about the slippery slope? To what extent do Dafydd’s hypotheticals have to be changed before you say, “No, I wouldn’t waterboard in under those circumstances.”? If there’s a line, how do you draw it?

    Fair questions. The only answer I can give is it depends on what is changed and how much. I don’t think there’s a slippery slope, at least not in the implication of an inevitable slide to a thoroughly evil set of circumstances. But in my gut I know there’s a line I won’t cross…I just can’t tell you where it’s drawn until I see it.

    I’m not trying to dodge your questions, AMac, just stating that there is some ambiguity as to where the line lies.

    Steverino (e00589)

  59. Mahmoud agrees to squeal as soon as he gets to sodomize your children.

    Is it morally compulsory or merely acceptable to give him your children?

    As I said last thread, a lot of sick pervs creating little fantasies of homemade torture p0rn.

    Sorry you guys hate civilization so much.

    Interesting how you have to change the hypothetical into something else in order to try to refute it. Classic red herring/straw man. The question is waterboarding. Period. Not breaking bones, electrical shock, or any other thing. You can’t seem to deal with the question as actually posed. You are consistently unable to say anything intelligent on this topic, yet you keep saying things anyway. Just give it up already.

    Gerald A (b9214e)

  60. I should add in post 59 the ad hominem rears its ugly head. Typical idiocy.

    Gerald A (b9214e)

  61. Poor AMac. He treated this hypo as if it really mattered, analyzing how it was too far down the slippery slope. Which it is. The people who signed treaties banning torture in all cases “whatsoever” knew all about the excuses (Judeo-bolshevik conspiracy, etc.) that perverts would concoct to do their dirty work. Torture is prohibited. (I can’t imagine what you would think of this thread if it were in Farsi—well, I can…)

    You see, you guys see yourself as Really Serious Keyboard Kommandos, doing a magnificent cost-benefit analysis of torture. I see a bunch of overgrown boys fantasying what they will do with their triple-oh License to Torture cards that they don’t realize are make-believe. Case in point: Scott Jacobs is the first person in forty years to think he is wickedly insulting me by calling me a girl’s name. What psychological age does that correspond to? Just a little insecure in your masculinity, Scott?

    So I thought I’d turn it around and see how committed you are to gathering that precious intelligence when the cost was not torturing the other guy, but offering up your own children. The results are about what one would expect: the whole idea makes no sense to you at all. Orwell pegged it: “The purpose of torture is torture.”

    Andrew J. Lazarus (7d46f9)

  62. #7. Where are you seeing that “you” would go to jail for waterboarding? – Scott Jacobs, referring to #5

    The public statements of the Majority Leadership of Congress, plus editorials by the NYT, et al.

    My flip, but not totally unserious comment. Waterboarding is fast. Chinese water torture is relatively slow. But it works too. Its going to be harder to claim that it’s actually torture. Of course, it’s not going to be in the Army Field manual either.

    I have to admit, if I knew the target was San Francisco, Berkley, Boston, or Washington DC, it would be hard to make myself take any risks to extract information from even a known terrorist.

    LarryD (feb78b)

  63. Given this hypothetical, I wouldn’t do it. There’s a reasonable doubt in my mind as to the morality (or necessity, or efficacy) of torture… and make no mistake: waterboarding is torture under the definitions provided in past posts, just like holding an empty gun to someone’s head is torture (even though there’s no possibility of “lasting” damage).

    Given an extremely clear-cut, personal scenario, I’d probably do it… but who knows? Honestly, I don’t think an intellectual assessment of the question is going to be worth much; no one really knows what they’d do in such a situation until they’re actually in that situation. There are so many factor’s you’d have to take into account at a personal level, in the field, that I don’t think the question can ever be decided hypothetically.

    I agree with AMac: I don’t trust our government enough to give them the power to torture whenever they think it’s necessary, with legal immunity.

    Personally, I think the solution is to leave waterboarding illegal, and investigate it thoroughly. Since the question of use, in my mind, is one of morality rather than legality, I think the decision ought to be made on the ground, on a moral (rather than a legal) basis: that is to say, the decision to torture ought to be so clear-cut in the mind of the interrogator that he or she is willing to go to prison for it. If an interrogator isn’t THAT SURE, then he or she has no business torturing anyone.

    I doubt anyone would be willing to prosecute an interrogator whose efforts, distasteful as they may have been, staved off a major attack. But we ought to be willing to prosecute torture that served no purpose, even if it was done with the best intentions.

    All that said: having tortured someone, obtained the information necessary to stave off a major attack, saving lives, all that… I’d still worry whether or not I’d damned myself, in one way or another… to a life of doubt, if not an eternity.

    It’s an extremely difficult question. I don’t envy Bush, Cheney, or any of them for having to deal with it, and I think dismissing them as monsters is shallow, at best.

    Leviticus (b987b0)

  64. Your alternate *hypothetical* was nonsense, Andrew. I would let every living thing in the world, myself included, die in a nuclear holocaust before I would let a hair on her head be harmed. And “torture” is not adequate to describe what I would do to somebody who would harm her. I know the jihad monkeys have a different view — they send their children out as suicide bombers. Well, we’re not like them. If we were, we would not be at war with them.

    nk (616f8b)

  65. nk…

    Andrew tries to take a moral high ground, but, he fails miserably. I already pointed that one out in #20, which of course he ignores….

    In Andrew’s moral world, terrorists would be put in prison for 10-20, while their victims, found after the terrorist escaped responsibility, would be buried….sometimes alive in the rubble….

    And, he believes that gives him the moral high ground….

    reff (bff229)

  66. The problem, ANDREW, is that you believe that your definition of what constitutes torture is the only legitimate one here. Opinions are like an anus, everyone has one. Unlike scientific facts, it isn’t easily determined if waterboarding constitutes torture. Does applying it for 90 seconds make it an act of torture? For 30 seconds? Sixty? If it’s applied long enough and the person passes out due to lack of oxygen, then it seems that comes closer to the definiton of torture in that it causes physical trauma.

    You don’t want to respond to the hypothetical situation, without dramatically changing the setup. How about just sticking to the scenario that was given? Can you answer that?

    Given the fact that he’s an illegal combatant. He has already participated in the killing of Americans, and has had access to plans to kill many more. If after a week of other intensive interrogaton, he fails to respond, then get the hose and cloth and let’s get going. Time’s a wasting.

    Meatsss (9e143b)

  67. Comment by Leviticus — 2/15/2008 @ 9:48 am

    Totally, totally agree w/ Leviticus’ post. Thanks for saying it much better than I could. Keep illegal. Then if the operative is sure enough of getting results that will save lives, he can waterboard with a clear conscience even if he has to go to jail to do it.

    Despite listening to (reading) all the discussions on waterboarding on this site – always very interesting on both sides – am not fully convinced it’s torture, despite the very harsh nature of it, for three reasons:

    1. we know that the person won’t die
    2. we know the person suffers no permanent damage (it’s not like lopping off digits w/ bolt cutters)
    3. (this is the biggie) the libs waterboard each other much more than the CIA does, so how bad can it be? As others have said, they aren’t shoving bamboo sticks under each others’ fingernails.

    The fear of accidental death however would make me panic though, were I being waterboarded, in addition to the biological-level panic experienced by my brain.

    So I stay quiet during these discussions mostly. But…

    IMO those calling for cutting off fingers, etc. on the chance of getting some usable info are very, very wrong. That IS clear cut permanent damage and torture to people and we shouldn’t be doing that. We aren’t savages.

    C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength offers a really awesome book-length dramatization of what happens to people who, in his words [paraphrase], “do all kinds of atrocities on the off chance of averting some possible evil far in the future” and how truly wicked they become.

    That said, I honestly don’t understand AJL’s last post at all.

    How is torturing, permanently physically and emotionally harming innocent children, equivalent to forcefully, yes, with torture, getting information out of a bad guy? I think a better example from AJL might be: Mahmoud agrees to give up info if YOU (not innocent children) agree to be waterboarded while he watches. Would you do it?

    no one you know (1f5ddb)

  68. I would, BTW, to answer my own question, provided I got assurances from the ops that they wouldn’t let me die.

    no one you know (1f5ddb)

  69. C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength offers a really awesome book-length dramatization of what happens to people who, in his words [paraphrase], “do all kinds of atrocities on the off chance of averting some possible evil far in the future” and how truly wicked they become.

    To clarify, it was, people who say “the end justifies the means,” Lewis says, even if the end seems really good, if unchecked end up eventually being those kind of people committing horrible atrocities for really dubious reasons. And they never see the transition in themselves.

    no one you know (1f5ddb)

  70. That waterboarding has produced information does not prove that it is reliable.

    My car starts sometimes, but, in general it is not a good source of transportation.

    I’m against torture. I don’t want to give them carte blanche to torture our troops, and it is unreliable.

    quasimodo (edc74e)

  71. “I’m against torture. I don’t want to give them carte blanche to torture our troops, and it is unreliable.”

    Hehehehehe ha ha… do you read the news, watch TV or generally breathe oxygen?

    Do you understand just what it is they ALREADY do to our troops that you ‘care’ for?

    Take your hump and go home.

    Verlin Martin (899dce)

  72. AMac, I’ll make an attempt to answer your question about the “bright line,” but I don’t have a very good way to describe it. In civil trials a juror is instructed that his verdict should be based on the preponderance of the evidence, and that if you believe that over 50% of the evidence points towards guilt you should vote guilty. In a criminal trial the standard is raised to beyond reasonable doubt having to be overcome in order to vote guilty. So in the case of your line, I would paint in between those two standards. In other words, I would have to be convinced that there was more than a simple preponderance of evidence in order for me to advocate waterboarding. I think Dafydd’s hypothetical manages to cross that line and I would go with the waterboarding in his scenario, but it would not take much change in his stipulations for me to come down the other way. In my mind Dafydd’s case just barely rises to where I would be comfortable with waterboarding, and I would add that I do not consider waterboarding torture. So my problem is that while I have a pretty good idea of where that “bright line” is in my own mind, I have problems trying to describe it.

    I do not agree that by allowing a president to make a decision on something like this gives him unfettered power. I will agree that it gives him a lot of power, but not unfettered power. I will further state that in Dafydd’s scenario the president passed the buck and I disapprove of that. However, I will phrase my answer to this in the form of questions. Would those who are against waterboarding be willing to sacrifice, say, New York City simply in order to say they took a higher moral ground? And is it truly higher moral ground to allow millions of your own citizens to be killed when you might have been able to stop it? Frankly, there are always trade-offs and I would come down on the side of attempting to defend my fellow citizens as opposed to being what I see as overly protective of the rights of someone from another country who is attempting to kill them or me. Take that to mean that while I don’t wish our government to run around torturing lots of people, that is if you consider waterboarding torture, I am willing to allow it in limited instances while knowing it will occasionally be used wrongly.

    In a more perfect world people would be willing to discuss such subjects and come up with workable solutions which would help assure that such techniques as waterboarding were better controlled. Sadly the hyperbole on both side of the question prevents such from taking place. Most people on both sides are so assured of their own moral superiority that they are unwilling to to compromise and reach a workable solution as to when and under what supervision it can be used. I personally don’t think it should be used often, but I do feel there are instances when it should be permitted. Our congress has just now preened by voting to ban it, but I wonder if they will feel the same way if something terrible happens and it is later discovered that someone in custody knew about what was going to happen and we also had more than sufficient reason to suspect he knew.

    Fritz (c162ae)

  73. No, do not waterboard. The lives of a few thousand americans is not worth the international scorn we would receive from waterboarding a murdering butcher. Plus, the DEMs would be upset.

    Sometimes it takes the death of a few 1000 citizens wake the country to the fact that the DEMS will not defend the country against terrorists.

    Rich (b8fdd1)

  74. The slippery slope argument is a red herring. Leviticus hits it correctly in his comment. I fail to see how the slippery slope reservation is different than relying on rules of engagement for our troops. You could argue that the rules of engagement provide a slippery slope for escalation, but we have seen that violators are punished. If we have established rules for interrogation methods such as waterboarding, including a chain of command with required authorizations and oversight, I fail to see how people can make the slippery slope argument with any intellectual honesty. What they are really talking about is a total lack of trust in the government, not a slippery slope and they should phrase it that way, not disguise the argument.

    No interrogator would be willing to use waterboarding techniques without some legal protection if they risk a party coming into power with attitudes such as the these posters evidence on this thread. The hindsight heroism and morality never ceases to amaze me, along with Crazy Andy’s demented fantasies.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  75. “So my problem is that while I have a pretty good idea of where that “bright line” is in my own mind, I have problems trying to describe it.”

    – Fritz

    That’s perfectly fair. I have a feeling that we each have a scenario that we feel clearly constitutes a “bright line”; at the very least, I feel we would each recognize our “bright line” scenario if we saw it.

    “Sometimes it takes the death of a few 1000 citizens wake the country to the fact that the DEMS will not defend the country against terrorists.”

    – Rich

    Hate to break it to you, Rich, but George “I-Ignore-Intelligence-Briefings” Bush was president in 2001. Rudy Giuliani was mayor. Both of them are Republicans. How do you figure the fault lies solely with the Democrats, again?

    Leviticus (68eff1)

  76. Leviticus – That’s pretty good. Are you suggesting there were concrete steps that Bush could have taken with the security infrastructure he inherited from Clinton to prevent 9/11? What were they?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  77. My answer is no waterboarding. Waterboarding is not just forcing the guy to wash his hair for the first time in three years, as Scott and others seem to think: waterboarding is based on threatening to drown the person being questioned, and that means it involves a threat of imminent death–which means according to the USC, it is torture.

    As to why I say no–that boils down to this simple fact: by waterboarding this man, YOU REDUCE YOURSELF TO HIS LEVEL. You are announcing that that you don’t really believe that the rule of law and respect for other human beings as your equal can really protect the American public. You are saying that Mahmoud is right; our only real quarrel is over who gets to be the torturers, and who gets to be the tortured.

    Besides which, I think there are a number of techniques which are not torture that would probably work well–or at least should be tried before waterboarding. Some of them have been mentioned–sleep deprivation, Jane Fonda reading the Vagina Monologues ad infinitum. There is also (part of the sleep deprivation) round the clock interrogation by relays of interrogators. I think these would get the same results as waterboarding, or possibly even better.

    kishnevi (a4ca0a)

  78. Fritz #72 —

    Thanks for addressing the bright-line issue. In answer to your question

    Would those who are against waterboarding be willing to sacrifice NYC simply in order to say they took a higher moral ground?

    No.
    And

    is it truly higher moral ground to allow millions of your own citizens to be killed when you might have been able to stop it?

    No.

    But are you willing to countenance any action in pursuit of a Good? Examples from the 20th Century are manifest; one ol’ favorite was the absence of street thuggery in the Soviet Union. When it comes to fighting crime, a police state has huge advantages over a society in which citizens have rights. Worst of all, Rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

    Is it pro-crime to demand the right to bear arms, to be secure in one’s home, to demand to have a search warrant produced? No, it isn’t. “Security” isn’t the solitary, absolute Good. There are other, competing Goods.

    In this hypothetical, as well.

    Unless your Magic 8 Ball is much better than mine, you don’t know that waterboarding Mahmoud will spare NYC, and you don’t know that not waterboarding him will lead to its destruction. You have a suspicion or a belief that this is likely or possibly the case.

    But life in general and counterterrorism in particular is full of uncertainties. How many Mahmouds will have to be waterboarded to make NYC truly safe from terrorist attack? Even assuming that these actions taken in the name of homeland security didn’t themselves endanger US cities?

    Two more points.

    (1) I’m not concerned with the well-being of Dadydd’s Mahmouds, except to the extent that some of them are innocent (and some small proportion will be). I’m concerned with “us”–US citizens and our Government.

    (2) The right discussion to be having isn’t, “what huge injection of unaccountable power should we deliver to the Executive,” it’s “what laws should we insist that Congress make about under what conditions coercive measures may be employed.”

    Some commenters have made pretty good stabs at stating where to draw the line between permitted and prohibited. The problem is that, in Daffyd’s hypothetical, what we might think as citizens doesn’t matter. Only the Guards’ rulemaking counts. And we ought to know what happens over time when a society trusts the guards to oversee the guards.

    AMac (c822c9)

  79. It is people like Andrew that should be barred from being in any position where his decision could affect the well being of others.

    His absolutism is the kind of amorality that results in injustice.

    Darleen (7aa593)

  80. Levi…

    The 9-11 hijackers were in flight training for their attack as late as October, 1999, while Bill Clinton was President.

    Now, that your strawman has been set afire by hijacked airliners crashing into your post, try again…

    reff (bff229)

  81. Oh, and just so you know, I think that the blame lies solely with the Democratics, since they controlled the security of this country for the 8 years previous to January, 2001.

    reff (bff229)

  82. AMac, I think the main problem I have with the arguments you make, is that somehow you appear to me to be assuming that there is something unique about the potential for abuse in the subject of coercive interrogation. The executive branch already has a lot of power that can be abused, and occasionally is abused, that do not differ as markedly as people want to claim.

    This does not mean that is is necessarily “ok” to add in these practices, and it does not mean that we should allow them to be employed without check/balance. I just think that the line between coercive interrogation and other government powers is not the bright line that its being treated as.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  83. SPQR #82 —

    Yeah, in the context of the usual US government functions carried out by gov’t employees, I think there is something special about the potential for abuse when it comes to coercive interrogation. Is it unique? No, e.g. going to war (soldiers killing people) is already pretty darn high.

    But are you suggesting that there isn’t something special about coercive interrogation?

    And with soldiers and war, we have institutions, the UCMJ, IGs, laws, budgets, congressional oversight. Where is all that apparatus when it comes to coercive interrogation? Doesn’t exist–it’s just the President’s Men and Mahmoud, in a cell in Poland.

    “[This] does not mean that we should allow [coercive practices] to be employed without check/balance.”

    I agree completely.

    So:

    * What checks and balances exist in Dafydd’s hypothetical?

    * What checks/balances exist currently, non-hypothetically?

    * What are the bare minimum of checks/balances that would be required in order to countenance waterboarding?

    My answers:

    * Virtually none

    * Virtually none

    * Legislation and Institutional oversight of practices and personnel.

    AMac (c822c9)

  84. Whoops, forgotten [/b].

    AMac (c822c9)

  85. waterboarding is based on threatening to drown the person being questioned, and that means it involves a threat of imminent death–which means according to the USC, it is torture.

    Where does the threat come into play, kishnevi? There’s an autonomic reaction, a panic created, but no threat is made.

    Is a punch in the face a threat that you’ll be beaten to death? No.

    Pablo (99243e)

  86. SPQR, You seem to be saying that since the government already has lots of power that it abuses there’s no reason not to give it more power if we think it’ll make us safer.

    Hillary could win in 2008. I don’t trust her. I doubt I’ll trust her pick as AG. I think it’s likely that they’ll be just as focused on domestic terrorists as they are on foreign. I’m also pretty sure that her constituents will think that many pro-life organizations are ‘terrorist sympathizers’ at best. I’m sure it’ll make perfect sense to them to spy domestically and use any means at their disposal to protect a woman’s right to choose.

    joe (33ce8e)

  87. joe, nope did not say that.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  88. Case in point: Scott Jacobs is the first person in forty years to think he is wickedly insulting me by calling me a girl’s name. What psychological age does that correspond to? Just a little insecure in your masculinity, Scott?

    No, I just think you’re a worthless pile of crap. I’m not the one who concocted the child-rape fantasy… 🙂

    And AMac (sorry for lumping you into a response with Andie), I would have to say that I do understand that you don’t find waterboarding appropriate. There are people who would refuse to lift a finger to protect their children’s life they are so against violence.

    That I understand you hold that view doesn’t mean I understand the view itself. When judging on person’s terror and discomfort against the potential loss of life of many americans, that one person is going to have a very rough go, because I would rather ACTUALLY torture and feel bad about what I did to someone who in the end was actually innocent than wake up one morning to Chicago disappearing in a nuclear blast from a suitcase nuke and the guy we captured saying “Ha! I knew this day was coming!!”.

    The former would have me very, very depressed. The latter would have me putting a pistol in my mouth and pulling the trigger.

    To those who fear what would be done to those the enemy captures were it known (it isn’t now?) that we torture, I have to ask “What do you think they could do besides beheading them and putting the video (complete with audio) on the internet??”

    Trust me, they don’t care how WE treat their guys, and they already murder the people they grab. What are they going to do, murder them twice?

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  89. AMac, how much of that lack of checks/balances is because the debate has been poisoned by partisan posturing?

    But you are quite wrong when you state that there has not been any checks and balances currently. I think that there has been a lot of oversight going on behind the scenes that the Democrats have poisoned since. That is why we found out recently that the intelligence oversight committee’s were actually told of the waterboarding long ago. Go back and look at the stories about how Pelosi and Reid have undercut adult Democrats like Jane Harmon. Likewise, the NSA surveillance programs were all disclosed to Congressional oversight long ago. It was only later, sometimes years later, that the Democrats decided to politicize those events.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  90. Scott #88 —

    I would have to say that I do understand that you don’t find waterboarding appropriate. There are people who would refuse to lift a finger to protect their children’s life they are so against violence.

    I don’t recall stating that I’d refuse to lift a finger to protect my children’s lives. Which # comment was that, again?

    SPQR #89 —

    I’ll google intelligence committee and waterboarding, thanks. Unless any links spring to mind?

    AMac (c822c9)

  91. I know you didn’t. I was citing another examples of a viewpoint that I understand people to have, but that I absolutely can understand myself.

    Didin’t mean to make it sound as if I was suggesting I was talking about you.

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  92. OK, Scott, whatever, girl’s name indicates a worthless pile of crap. Ever told your mommy that? You’ve got serious issues with misogyny and sexual insecurity.

    Andrew J. Lazarus (7d46f9)

  93. You’ve got serious issues with misogyny and sexual insecurity.

    This from a ‘girly-man’ who has no problem with sacrificing the lives of millions for the comfort of one terrorist.

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  94. And Andrew, the all seeing psychotherapist makes yet another internet diagnosis. We should all be honored to have suck a skilled pratitioner of long distance psychiatry on board.

    Or not, depending on whether you’ve got any common sense.

    Pablo (99243e)

  95. Where does the threat come into play, kishnevi? There’s an autonomic reaction, a panic created, but no threat is made.

    Is a punch in the face a threat that you’ll be beaten to death? No

    If enough punches are repeated, you will be beaten to death.

    If it was only a momentary panic or an automatic reaction, then waterboarding couldn’t work, because it wouldn’t be sufficiently break the subject’s will. If that is all waterboarding is, then KSM and the others were paper tigers who didn’t needed to be waterboarded in the first place. Dunk me a thousand times in a row, and I’ll be pissed at you, but not scared into cooperating. Dunk me with the knowledge that one of these times I won’t let you come up for air, however, and the situation changes dramatically.

    However, at least now I understand your assertion that waterboarding isn’t torture. That the assertion is obtained only at the cost of a serious distortion of reality is, apparently, something you have not yet reckoned with.

    kishnevi (ba7408)

  96. kishnevi (77):

    YOU REDUCE YOURSELF TO HIS LEVEL. You are announcing that that you don’t really believe that the rule of law and respect for other human beings as your equal can really protect the American public.

    Sorry, but no, no, no. ‘His level’? not a chance. They are crazies who want to kill us because we refuse to submit to them, and our taking measures to defend ourselves in no way lowers us to that low level. As to ‘rule of law’, that what this debate is about, what the law should allow in situations like this. As for ‘respect for human beings’ I am under no obligation to show respect to those who are trying to kill me. And as for the last part ‘… as your equal can really protect the American public’, that has got to be, no offense, one of the most misguided things I have heard in a long time. One doesn’t protect America by showing respect to those trying to harm it, one protects America by killing and neutralizing those who seek to do us harm.

    And because I’m in a good mood tonight, I’ll see and raise those who would waterboard the terrorist. Forget about simulating drowning, I’d throw his a** into a lake, telling him he can pull on the attached rope just as soon as he’s ready to talk. If he pulls on the rope, I’ll pull him up and listen to what he says. If he doesn’t pull on the rope, there’s one less terrorist to worry about. And if I find out he is lying, I’ll throw him back in, this time without the rope.

    steve sturm (40e5a6)

  97. Says the person distrotng reality…

    The fear-response from waterboarding causes absolutely no physical pain. It is not repeated blows, it isn’t even dunkings in water, it is water poured thus giving absolute control as to amount and duration.

    It isn’t a beating, and it – and this is the key part here – simulated drowning…

    I realize the difference is lost on you, but it is not, in fact, drowning…

    And Andie, it isn’t misogyny, merely my beliefe that actually using someone’s name confers a certain level of respect. You call someone by there last name to be formal, first name to be informal, nicknames to be familiar, and by a name chosen on a whim to display contempt.

    So I’ll just keep calling you Andie, if that’s ok with you.

    Or, frankly, even if it isn’t. Obviously it bothers you to be confused in any way with a woman, or you won’t bother to try and associate not just a hate of all women o me, but also some level of homophobia.

    You’re so cute when you try and project. 🙂

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  98. YOU REDUCE YOURSELF TO HIS LEVEL. You are announcing that that you don’t really believe that the rule of law and respect for other human beings as your equal can really protect the American public.

    Nope. I’m not actually KILLING them, just scaring the shit out of them. I’m not videotaping their brutal murder to then display it to the world.

    If you think discomfort/fear is the same as killing a man, we really have nothing to discuss…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  99. Isn’t it amusing how much name calling AJL does and how indignant he gets when its returned? I think we really know who is still really demonstrating his own character best.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  100. During WWII, when the americans were advancing across France, the germans would hide a panzerfaust team along a road american tanks would use. They would destroy the lead tank, then standup with hands in the air to surrender. Following tanks would machinegun them where they stood.

    There was a very, very small number of enemy snipers ever captured alive.

    That was all over 60 years and we haven’t descended to barbarians and those were illegal acts against covered combatants.

    Terrorists are criminals, like pirates of old, and rate the same protections, none.

    If withholding their second cup of morning coffee, putting them in a cold room, smacking ’em around or waterboarding them “might” get useful information, then use it.

    And I remember reading somewhere that the US Constitution isn’t a suicide pact.

    Gerald A (8ff8cc)

  101. Mr. Sturm and Mr. Jacobs: it’s not a question of merely inflicting temporary degradation or whathaveyou by us versus inflicting death by his side. It’s this: his side says they don’t have to respect us as their fellow human beings. You then say you want to respond by refusing to respect him as your fellow being. If you want to, go ahead. Just realize that you’ve admitted he is right, that we don’t need to respect all human beings as our equals no matter what. The only argument you have with him is over which side gets to be the stronger side: which side gets to decide who gets respected and who doesn’t.

    I am under no obligation to show respect to those who are trying to kill me.

    On the contrary, you are. He is a human being. Your blood is not redder than his (to quote a proverb which is apparently longstanding and widely known in the Mideast).

    And as for the last part ‘… as your equal can really protect the American public’, that has got to be, no offense, one of the most misguided things I have heard in a long time. One doesn’t protect America by showing respect to those trying to harm it, one protects America by killing and neutralizing those who seek to do us harm.

    That’s got nothing to do with the point I’m trying to make.
    This is essentially a war of ideas. We are trying to show that the American idea–the rule of law, human rights, etc. etc–is better than the jihadi’s idea. That means that if you want to win the war, you need to stick to the idea, because that’s the only way you can show people that’s it everything we say it is. If we don’t abide by our own ideals, why should anyone else?

    And if waterboarding is what you say it is–then it’s something completely different from what every published description of it says it is.

    kishnevi (5a9ca2)

  102. If withholding their second cup of morning coffee, putting them in a cold room, smacking ‘em around or waterboarding them “might” get useful information, then use it.

    Witholding the second cup of coffee is good for their health. Putting them in a cold room is not torture. Smacking ’em around is borderline torture, and waterboarding is definitely torture.

    kishnevi (6273ad)

  103. If enough punches are repeated, you will be beaten to death.

    That’s not an answer to the question, kishnevi. Does a single punch in the face constitute a threat of being beaten to death?

    If it was only a momentary panic or an automatic reaction, then waterboarding couldn’t work, because it wouldn’t be sufficiently break the subject’s will.

    And yet KSM broke in approximately 90 seconds…and he lasted the longest of the three. Your assertion is rebutted by the facts.

    If that is all waterboarding is, then KSM and the others were paper tigers who didn’t needed to be waterboarded in the first place.

    Danny Pearl might beg to differ, if his head were still connected to the rest of his body. There’s another 3,000 or so folks who would join him if they were still here.

    That the assertion is obtained only at the cost of a serious distortion of reality is, apparently, something you have not yet reckoned with.

    I’m looking directly at such a distortion of reality, and making an effort to correct it.

    Pablo (99243e)

  104. Just realize that you’ve admitted he is right, that we don’t need to respect all human beings as our equals no matter what.

    Are we respecting out fellow human beings when we shoot them on the battlefield or bomb their encampments, kishnevi? You seem to be missing the distinction between civilians and combatants.

    Pablo (99243e)

  105. AMac; I thought I made it pretty clear in the whole post what my views are, but apparently I did not. You ask if I would be willing to countenance any action in the pursuit of good. The answer is no, and I would hope that most readers did not get that impression of my beliefs from what I wrote. I even went so far as to say that I wish we were all able to sit down and discuss the subject to where we could agree as to how and when to use such techniques, and I thought that was sufficient to convey the impression I am not in favor of using “any” action in my definition of the pursuit of good. However, since you ask the question and I can see I did not spell out in detail what I deem proper, I will attempt to explain it more fully.

    In my mind there are three types of interrogation. There is level one or soft interrogation in which no force or threats are used. In it the questioner simply asks questions and notes any answers and that is it. Then there is level two or enhanced interrogation in which the person being questioned might be subjected to such things as being kept awake, kept cold, subjected to noise, threatened, and even waterboarded, but all of the methods can leave no physical injury or damage. While many people consider some of those as torture, I do not and those are the methods I was referring to when I said I would allow them to be used in limited instances. The third type or level three is where actual physical damage is done to the person being questioned, and I would include such things as physical assaults through death in that group and I am against doing such things.

    Next, no I do not have a magic 8 ball, but I never said that I had to know that using such techniques would extract information which would protect New York, only that I had to be convinced beyond my bright line that there was sufficient reason to believe that it might. I even stated that I was willing to allow such things even though I knew there would be times when they were used improperly or in error, so that question seems to have been already answered in my previously posted comment, but since you ask the question I am forced to conclusion that it was not clear to you. Therefore, to amplify, I will flatly state that I recognize that it will be used at times and will not produce the information that was being sought. I will further state that it will almost certainly be used against innocent persons at some time, but I am willing to accept that for my level two interrogation methods. Since I am already on record as being against what I term level three interrogation, I see no need to say more on it.

    On the part about Constitutional Rights, I question the premise that our Constitution grants our rights to citizens of other countries. If it did it would be impossible to fight a war such as WW 2. So it follows that if Mahmoud is a citizen of the United States it is against the law to torture him, or even take him to a CIA prison in Poland without due process. In this case I will have to confess that I am still wrestling with what I would find acceptable in dealing with Mahmoud if he were a U.S. citizen. One part of me says treat him as I would any other enemy of our country, and the other says he is a citizen and should be accorded all the rights our Constitution promises us. I suspect that when it came down to the nitty gritty I would come down on the side of treating him as if he were a citizen of another country and go ahead and subject him to enhanced interrogation, but I’m still debating that with myself. Sorry I can’t give a hard and fast answer, but I’ve been debating that with myself for quite some time and have still not come up with an answer. That I haven’t been able to answer that question to my own satisfaction is why I wrote that I wished we could sit down and work out an acceptable answer as to when such techniques are acceptable and under what supervision. I am left falling back on the words attributed to a rather well known president when he said, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” for my statement that I would probably come down on the side of subjecting a U.S. citizen to enhanced or level two interrogation in a situation where I deemed there was the risk of a large loss of life and I had sufficient information to cross my bright line.

    I totally agree that our congress should be working on laws on how to handle such a situation, but they are so busy preening and posturing themselves in hope they win their next election that it is ridiculous to expect them to do so. Very frankly I think our congress has betrayed us on this issue by the way they have framed and presented it. However, we have only ourselves to blame because we are the ones who elected them. Count me among those who have no confidence in congress to do that proper thing. I truly believe that there are members of congress who have demonstrated by their words and actions that they would rather see many of our citizens killed and the country under the rule of Sharia law simply to improve their chances of winning their own or their party’s next election, but that is another subject which I won’t bother to amplify upon now or later.

    Fritz (49662d)

  106. And yet KSM broke in approximately 90 seconds…and he lasted the longest of the three.

    He’s a coward, afraid to die, in my opinion. If he weren’t he would not have been a prisoner in the first place. I think we, the public, know a lot less about waterboarding than we think we know and, chief among the things we don’t know, how the CIA picks the candidates likely to talk under waterboarding.

    nk (616f8b)

  107. kishnevi 101:

    This is essentially a war of ideas. We are trying to show that the American idea–the rule of law, human rights, etc. etc–is better than the jihadi’s idea

    You’re right in that we’re at war because we disagree, but we’re not trying to show them our ideas are better. If that were the case, this war would be fought in a debating hall, with campaign slogans, testimonials and television commercials. What we are trying to show them is that they won’t win, but not because our ideas are better than theirs, but because we’re stronger, smarter and more willing to do what is necessary to protect ourselves than they can do in trying to kill us. No war has ever ended because the loser woke up one day and said to himself “hey, those Americans are right, a republican form of government and Victoria’s Secret is the way to go”, wars end because the loser lacks the means and the will to carry on the fight.

    And as such, taking weapons (such as harsh interrogation) off the table makes the other side think that we’re not willing to do whatever it takes to win; it very much falls into the category of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

    stevesturm (8caabf)

  108. Fritz #105,

    Thanks for the thoughtful response. To be clear, some of my earlier questions weren’t directed at you, Fritz as much as at you, those arguing the “pro” position on this thread. But you took the bait and came up with some pretty good answers. Your idea of Levels 1, 2, and 3 has merit. In an earlier conversation over at Winds of Change, somebody (AJL? Armed Liberal? I can’t recall) pointed out that, in the not-distant future, science will deliver tools that will make the suspect want to cooperate in the interrogation. Rendering the definition of torture as “infliction of some high level of threat/pain” moot… but replacing it with even thornier problems of autonomy and free will.

    Anyway, for now, you’ve come up with a line that could conceivably be used in bureaucratic guidelines as to allowable and disallowed use of force. That’s helpful.

    AMac (d0efce)

  109. Robin: Reference to US prosecutions:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

    The United States has a historical record of regarding waterboarding as a crime, and has prosecuted individuals for the use of the practice in the past. In 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II. Yukio Asano received a sentence of 15 years of hard labor.[31] The charges of Violation of the Laws and Customs of War against Asano also included “beating using hands, fists, club; kicking; burning using cigarettes; strapping on a stretcher head downward.”[74]

    In its 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. Department of State formally recognized “submersion of the head in water” as torture in its examination of Tunisia’s poor human rights record,[75] and critics of waterboarding draw parallels between the two techniques, citing the similar usage of water on the subject. On September 6, 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense released a revised Army Field Manual entitled Human Intelligence Collector Operations that prohibits the use of waterboarding by U.S. military personnel. The department adopted the manual amid widespread criticism of U.S. handling of prisoners in the War on Terrorism, and prohibits other practices in addition to waterboarding. The revised manual applies only to U.S. military personnel, and as such does not apply to the practices of the CIA.[76] However, under international law, violators of the laws of war are criminally liable under the command responsibility, and could still be prosecuted for war crimes.[77]

    David (6d0e03)

  110. David,

    As your Wikipedia link notes, even if we assume that Yukio Asano’s actions were identical to CIA waterboarding (and I doubt they were), Asano was convicted for more than that. It’s disingenuous to focus on “water torture” to the exclusion of the other claims.

    DRJ (3eda28)

  111. Also, Waterboarding is not “submersion of the head in water”…

    Since the report’s language is what is used as the basis of the international law, Waterboarding is NOT an international crime.

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  112. Perhaps I should not have made the “I’m a mother” statement. Instead I will quote my father, a WWII veteran. They protected this country, not as a “parent” (sorry joe, didn’t mean to offend) but as men who realized what was on the line and were determined to protect the USA. He said war is very ugly (with a great deal of emphasis). That generation was down to earth and new enough to realize the USA is a great country and should be protected. This generation is consumed with protecting the evil that tries to destroy us….I know whose side I’m on.

    Judith (e1ca5f)

  113. Judith’s comment is a great example of the ‘conservative smug’. I don’t think that pro-torture policies (like a number of posters here have proposed) will be effective in either the short, or long term. So, to judith, that means that I’m consumed with protecting evil.

    joe (c0e4f8)

  114. Warerboarding? Well, it’s such an unfriendly term. I prefer to think of it as bobbing-for -information. C’mon Mahmoud, let’s get this party started!

    Jephnol (e547e8)

  115. I don’t think that pro-torture policies (like a number of posters here have proposed) will be effective in either the short, or long term.

    Then what do you suggest instead, joe?

    All you’ve been doing on this thread is keeping score over who has the most ‘smug.’ Propose a common sense, effective solution.

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  116. Paul,
    I’ve also posted a number of (imo) reasonable objections to torture (or unfettered use of coercive interrogation if you prefer that term.)

    If we need to use waterboarding to get info we should clearly legalize it. We should codify when and how it can be used as well as what the information gained can be used for.

    joe (c0e4f8)

  117. Let’s see: Allegedly we didn’t consider waterboarding a war crime because when we convicted a Japanese guard, water torture was only one of the counts. Ah, if waterboarding isn’t torture then they wouldn’t have included it in the charges at all. I’m still waiting for the Bush Remnant to call for a pardon of Asano, now that we realize abusing detainees is justifiable.

    The torturers’ creed:

    But altogether we can say: We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have taken on no defect within us, in our soul, or in our character.

    [Aside to Scott: So, it’s disrespectful to call me by a girl’s name. Are you sure your support of torture isn’t rooted in fear of emasculation? Each explanation is more revealing than the last! Likewise Paul at 93. Supporting torture isn’t about intelligence; other techniques work better. It’s about avoiding the dread girly-man label. That explains a lot about this whole war.]

    Andrew J. Lazarus (988f7a)

  118. Joe:

    If we need to use waterboarding to get info we should clearly legalize it. We should codify when and how it can be used as well as what the information gained can be used for.

    That’s a start, joe. Problem is, we would have to write in every possible situational permutation into the legislation, and I don’t think there is anyone on Earth, let alone in the US Congress, that can forsee every possibility.

    Andrew J. (Andie Jo) Lazarus:

    Supporting torture isn’t about intelligence; other techniques work better.

    Like what? Care to list them and links to statistics that prove that point?

    It’s about avoiding the dread girly-man label.

    No, it’s about keeping millions of people alive…you know, the ones that you would wantonly sacrifice for the comfort of one terrorist.

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  119. Let’s see: Allegedly we didn’t consider waterboarding a war crime because when we convicted a Japanese guard, water torture was only one of the counts. Ah, if waterboarding isn’t torture then they wouldn’t have included it in the charges at all.

    Is it your position that what Asano did is equal to the waterboarding method that the CIA has employed?

    If so, you’re wrong.

    Steverino (e00589)

  120. Is it your position that what Asano did is equal to the waterboarding method that the CIA has employed?

    Good catch, Stererino. I missed that moral equivalence in the first reading.

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  121. *Steverino*

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  122. On September 6, 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense released a revised Army Field Manual entitled Human Intelligence Collector Operations that prohibits the use of waterboarding by U.S. military personnel.

    No one seems to have noticed the implications of that. The DOD thinks that waterboarding is either not actually effective in gaining information or that it is torture–if it was effective and it wasn’t torture, then why would they forbid it?

    Mr. Sturm (in 107)
    Your point is correct, but I wasn’t thinking about trying to convert any jihadi to our POV. Perhaps I should have been a little clearer.

    There are an enormous number of Muslims who are not jihadis, but who might be sympathetic to them because the jihadis are, after all, their co-religionists, or who refust to disagree with the jihadis out of fear of the consequences.
    To win the war with the jihadis, we need to convince those millions of people–or at least a non trivial number–that our ideas are better, and they are ideas by which a society can not only survive but prosper. But every time we torture, we contradict ourselves–we admit that deep down the jihadis are correct, that might makes right and nothing else really matters. You can’t win this war that way.

    kishnevi (2dbd61)

  123. AMac; With regards to your post #108, understand that I in no way felt that you were picking on me or insulting me. If I had not been willing to defend my ideas, I would have never jumped into the discussion in the first place.

    Upon looking over my first posted comment again, I apologize for the tone of the second one. Most of the points you brought up were indeed not covered in the first one, but in my impatience I never took into account that you don’t know me or anything about me and so had no way to read between the lines and understand some of my positions. I was arrogant and unthinking and I apologize for it. You treated me respectfully and I did not do the same for you and I am ashamed of that.

    While I regret the way in which I answered you, perhaps some good will come of it as I assure you that I will attempt to do better in the future.

    In the meantime, I suspect that were it left to just us, we could probably work out our differences and come to a workable policy regarding when the use of enhanced interrogation should be used and under what conditions it could be done. I think it a given that with a little thought a large majority of the people could be presented with a scenario in which they would favor it, so the question, as I see it, is not so much do we do it, but more a question of under what terms and conditions we do it. Paul in comment #118 makes the comment that we would have to define each and every scenario under which it would be allowed, but I think that wrong and that instead we need to define the process under which the decision will be made and what factors need to be taken into consideration in making that decision. Unless I have misunderstood you, I think you and I agree on this. We would also need to work out how we arrive at what we consider acceptable techniques, but I suspect that would also be possible. I agree that leaving it in the hands of only a few people without giving them guidelines and processes to follow is asking for abuse. Unfortunately, I think the well of political discourse is now so poisoned that such a discussion amongst the citizens of the country is unlikely to take place.

    Fritz (84e69b)

  124. Fritz wrote:

    Paul in comment #118 makes the comment that we would have to define each and every scenario under which it would be allowed, but I think that wrong and that instead we need to define the process under which the decision will be made and what factors need to be taken into consideration in making that decision.

    Fritz, your intentions are laudable, but writing open-ended legislation is an engraved invitation for creative interpetation.

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  125. Is it your position that what Asano did is equal to the waterboarding method that the CIA has employed?

    That our waterboarding was more technically proficient? Is that like a computer-controlled rack? Or that what Asano did was in the interests of black hats, while of course the CIA torture is in the interests of the guys in the white hats?

    Moral relativism like this didn’t use to be a conservative value.

    Andrew J. Lazarus (663b8c)

  126. Moral relativism like this didn’t use to be a conservative value.

    HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

    Andie Jo, you crack me up.

    Now that I’ve enjoyed a good laugh, how about answering my question…you know, the one you avoided and skipped to the very next comment?

    Where I quoted you: Supporting torture isn’t about intelligence; other techniques work better.

    And I asked: Like what? Care to list them and links to statistics that prove that point?

    So, are you going to answer it?

    Paul (bcc0a7)

  127. Andrew,

    I guess I’m an immoral conservative by your standards. I don’t think we know what Asano did so it’s difficult to use him as a rebuttal for CIA waterboarding.

    DRJ (3eda28)

  128. The DOD thinks that waterboarding is either not actually effective in gaining information or that it is torture–if it was effective and it wasn’t torture, then why would they forbid it?

    Uh, politics? There’s been a whole lot of screeching about this very rarely used technique. Clearly, you should be intimately familiar with it. The assumption that excluding it from the military’s arsenal of options has only two possible rationales is false.

    Pablo (99243e)


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