perfidy

Couple of things -

First, I'm no fan of torture. Period. Ross's comment about assuming it will never happen to oneself is telling, and is, I believe the fundamental backdrop for any pro-torture stance.

Metaphorically speaking, it never occurs to me that my house might be taken from me, or that my Dr. might prescribe marijuana for one of my ills, only to have the federal government claim otherwise. But Kelo & Raich made it clear that perhaps either could happen. Quite troubling, and, I'd add, far more likely than my being tortured, but they're both arguments for ensuring that clear injustice is unleashed neither on me nor my fellow man.

Second, I, like GL, make a distinction between torture and coercive interrogation. They're not the same, and they don't deserve to be treated with the same broad brush. Both their utility and their ability to disgust the public conscience is quite different. Treating them the same devalues any discussion on the matter.

Third, if one is against any level of coercive interrogation, one should be against it on some explainable basis. One shouldn't rely solely on claims such techniques absolutely don't work, because since that's falsifiable, then so is the (otherwise valid) argument.

Fourth and finally, concerns about coercive interrogation based on the worry about "how our boys will be treated" are demonstrably bullshit. Throughout history, the only enemies the US has had that could be counted on (treaties, understandings, or whatever else notwithstanding) to treat captured soldiers fairly were European. Elsewhere, what we do and how we act and how we treat their people couldn't have mattered less.

This is NOT an argument on my part for torture; it's a simple refutation of a totally lame counter-argument.

On torture, coercive interrogation, and a host of other issues, the reason we don't reach consensus has less to do with the hardness of opposition on both sides than it does the completely shitty arguments made, and easily dismissed, by advocates of one course of action or another.

"GL, do you really want to excuse immoral and illegal activities by saying that the other side does it too?"

No, I don't want to excuse anything. Whoever's wrong ought to be accountable, to whatever extent law or custom requires. I just want to know why no one else but the US has to.

Does it not strike you the least bit peculiar that decades of abuse, conducted within the course of normal domestic policy in any number of countries, is glossed over; but when the US gets it wrong we're Frankenstein and the rest of the world is the townies with torches and pitchforks?

How does it come to pass that perpetual despots get standing ovations in the General Assembly? How is it that Bu$HitLer is the true enemy of the world, yet Castro, Chavez, Ahmedinijad (and his predecessors), et al, are the true champions of The People and paragons of virtue?

mapgirl,
What does it mean to be a "religion of peace"?

It is no trouble whatsoever to find people who kill in the name of Islam. It is not hard to find imams who command large audiences to call for the destruction of Israel and Jews. And we're not talking weird splinter groups here- we're talking about mainstream populations.

For every imam who preaches peace and tolerance, there is another who calls for destruction. And that's all before we start to plumb cultural or tribal underpinnings of anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, or anti-everything-but-me-ism.

I would argue that the ratio is significantly worse than 1:1.

But for torture, I tend to agree with you GL, about what constitutes torture. And it is true that America gets dinged for the least transgression while others are ignored. But, amusingly enough, I don't care - at least beyond minor annoyance. We should do what's right because its right.

Physical torture is bad, we shouldn't do it. And we shouldn't outsource torture, either.

My fundamental problem with this entire discussion is that “torture” means different things to different people.

If only we had signed some sort of treaty or convention regarding its definition, said signing making that definition the equivalent of US law. If only!

Phil,
The problem with the federal code, Hague, and Geneva is that so much of the language refering to torture is modified by adjectives like "cruel" or "severe", which are readily open to interpretation. And taken to utterly ridiculous ends.

Phil -- you nailed it. ;)

This discussion has already taken place, and the laws are there already, as are all the legal definitions we could ever need.

What we're witnessing is the _retroactive justification_ for lawbreaking committed by this administration, disguised as mewling about not knowing "how to proceed" when the laws are "grey". They're not.

Does the Bush Administration want to prepare the powerpoint slides for the next group of US soldiers who may be captured by an enemy? Will those slides contain anything about what they can expect if they are treated according to the geneva conventions?

The GOP argues extensively over what the meaning of "is", is. There doesn't seem to be any corresponding dispute over the meaning of the word "waterboarding", though, is there?

GL, do you really want to excuse immoral and illegal activities by saying that the other side does it too?

Like I said, it gets back to penetrating the veil of anonymity. WHO made the decisions? Who ordered it?

And Johno has a very good point -- something I've been wondering about for a long time. If an illegal act is perceived to be necessary for the greater good, do we really want to give a free pass? Maybe torture really was necessary to get the information, and maybe that means you end up in jail (or the guy who ordered it does, but not likely; see Abu Ghraib). An individual can _elect_ to break the law (and suffer the consequences) if they perceive that the greater good is worth the sacrifice.

Soldiers pay this kind of price all the time. They elect (in the macro sense, at least) to be fielded into battle, and some of them die. They are making the ultimate sacrifice, and they do so for the greater good, on an individual basis.

This administration wants a free, unquestioned hand to do anything it wants in the name of "safety". Free nations recognize that liberty lives in balance with the rule of law. We do not seek to maximize "safety" by minimizing freedom. Indeed, minimizing freedom carries with it a new set of risks.

It is ironic that Bush seeks a third way -- the way of chaos, against both liberty AND the rule of law. Have we seen this before?

Filthy utilitarian. You better get right with Jesus.

If it does work, and I'm sure it has in the past, we need to have a moral framework for it. I've recommended in the past that torture be flatly illegal. Any American who does torture someone, better have real proof that the knowledge he gained saved lives or thwarted evil, else he goes to jail for a long time.

I'll do you one better - AND goes to jail for a long time. If the information to be gained is that important, it should be worth some time.

B,
My fundamental problem with this entire discussion is that "torture" means different things to different people.

To me, it means gross physical destruction of bodily parts or functions: broken bones, burns, ruptured organs, and the like. More mental attacks, like solitude or lack of sleep, do not mean torture to me. They just don't- I'm not arguing that my interpretation of the word is suprior, only that that's what it means to *me*.

Now.

What seems to have happened is all perceived slights are now "torture". For example, it is now against the law to have a dog in the interrogation room. Not threatening, not attacking, not unleashed and tearing for the throat. Simply present in the room. And why? Because they make prisoners uncomfortable, for a variety of cultural reasons.

Where we are today is that it is not only illegal to physically abuse prisoners, which I agree with, but it is also illegal to play on cultural fears or superstitions that could have been used against them, which I disagree with- those are precisely the levers that should be exploited.

But today, it's ALL torture. I don't get how the gap between being inconvenienced and being tortured was bridged, and I doubt I'm ever going to. And I damn sure don't get how every pissant dictator gets a pass on gross human rights violations committed on a daily basis, on a wide scale, as a matter of state policy, but the US has a clutch of malefactors and civilization unravels.

The important thing to me is not just whether coercive interrogation works, but whether it's beneath us. Because if we can't hold the high ground in a fight over whose worldview is more universally applicable, what's the point of fighting that fight anyway?

I'm afraid that I have to weigh in with Johno and Colin Powell. We are losing the moral high ground in this effort. Debasing ourselves by resorting to torture means we lose our moral authority to impose our standards of society upon others.

NPR ran a story this morning about drug violence in Mexico and the horror of simple murder has been escalated to live decapitations. It's disgusting.

I was about to write the phrase 'I am afraid' once more, because there are genuine consequences to torture for a civil society and I am fearful of them.

Often we ask ourselves, 'Why do they hate us?' They hate us because we will do unspeakably cruel things like torture and hide behind executive privilege and legal machinations and then expect our enemies to treat our citizens with kid gloves.

Now to throw in the molotov cocktail of religion, you can say that the flavor of Islam behind all these beligerent actions is warped and not true Islam at all for it is a religion of peace. And I would say to you that the reply is to stick to faith and realize that an eye for an eye is wrong. I believe there is a time for war and a time for peace, but never a time for torture.

In the previous discussion on Ross' post, I dropped the argument that coercive interrogation is not reliable, and therefore a good argument against it. Which is true - if you're making the argument for torture on the basis of expediency, it falls apart immediately, without recourse to other arguments.

The argument that we lose the moral high ground by resorting to torture, is oddly, another argument of expediency. That's saying that we shouldn't do it because, for whatever good we might realize from torture, the downside is far greater.

All well and good. But I feel that it is simply wrong, immoral. We just shouldn't do it. Even if there was no international repurcussions, even if it was a uniformly reliable method of gaining information.

There is a bit of grey area - we shouldn't ensconse prisoners in luxury hotels and put mints on their pillows. But beating, electrical implements, starvation, near drownings and the like should clearly be right out, as should farming them out to vile dictatorships who should, in a perfect world, be visible in our bombsights rather than as "partners" in the war on terror.

I am curious about the _ratio_, and the _criteria_. When do you torture and when do you not? What are the tests? Should you torture as a general principle, just to see if there might be more information there?

Here's my bottom line on this subhuman crap. I believe that the people who are FOR torture believe in it because they also believe that it will never happen to them, or anyone they know. The phrase "I don't look like a terrorist" comes to mind.

Should the friends, family and associates of Timothy McVey have been tortured to discover what they knew?

Empire uber alles.

Even though I come to the same conclusions on purely filthy utilitarian grounds, what B said. Squared.

Sly joke? Hardly. It was a mild Latin-geek attempt at humor. (He shoots! He fails to score!)

But then, I never took Quaker Latin, only "regular". Oh, wait - perhaps you also took "regular" Latin, but from a Quaker?

Seems I don't comprehend English perfectly, either.

Oh, and I must not get out much - the concept of "eating candied baby Jesus" is both new to me and hilarious.

Patton,

If you diagram my sentence, you'll see I was trying to modify the teacher as being Quaker and not doing a great job of it. But lack of endings is one of the vagaries of English, but I don't think you'd notice a difference in Latin since the ending would also be the same. Point was that she's religious but with a sense of humor.

Go back and read the EuroVision music awards post. I even made Rocket Jones snarf his beverage.

Which reminds me. It's time to look my boss's candy dish for you know what...

Patton - I can't tell if it's some sly joke or not since it appears everywhere in different media.

But as far as declining 'Jesus', yes, plural might be 'Jesi' if they were the subject. But since Jesus is a modifier of the candies which are a feminine gender object, you want use 'Jesas' as in 'ego infantas Jesas cuppedias ceno', lit: 'I eat baby Jesus candies.'

I am sure there is something wrong with that construction since technically the candying is a participle, but I can't quick search a verb for making candy since I'm supposedly doing something else right now.

But really what I should do is ask my former Quaker Latin teacher. I think she'd just laugh at me and then re-teach me 9th grade grammar.

GL - I have no idea what 'religion of peace' means. I just hear that all the time to describe and be nice to Muslims. Frankly aren't all religions about peace whether it's inner peace or outwardly not taking another life?

Anyhow, it is very disturbing that mainstream imams preach violence of any kind.

But oh well. I'll just sit at my desk eating candied baby Jesuses and read blogs.

Yum. But wouldn't they more properly be called "baby Jesi"?

(God, I hope I didn't just offend any fundies)

And, speaking of offending fundies, calling Islam the "Religion of Peace" is true, in the same sense that calling me "The guy with a full head of hair" is true, namely, totally false, and surely meant as joke or derision.