Torture Again
In his confirmation hearing yesterday, CIA Director presumptive Leon Panetta said that the Obama Administration will not prosecute CIA officers who participated in harsh interrogations that most agree crossed the line into torture. He did reserve judgment on whether or not those at the top of the food chain who ordered the torture might in the future be required to account for their decisions. Panetta is clearly sending a signal to his new colleagues that there will be no witch hunt, which is commendable, but he is also signalling that there will be no accountability for engaging in what is essentially a war crime.
Liberals on a number of websites looking at the torture issue tend to want it to go away. Do not do it in the future, but don’t go after those who carried it out in the past. One blogger on Daily Kos noted that the CIA officers who tortured would have been court martialed if they had refused orders to carry out the waterboarding. Well, that analysis is not really accurate. CIA officers are not under military discipline and can either refuse orders or, in a worst case, resign if told to do something that goes against their conscience. To my mind, those who legitimized and ordered torture (George Tenet, John McLaughlin, Cofer Black, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney) should be facing prison time, but no one should walk away from this one.
Panetta is right in seeking to create a counter-terrorism environment in which CIA can detain and question suspects without torture, but he also has to establish a principle of accountability so that in the future no one will even consider “enhanced interrogation” to be acceptable. Far too many people in the United States believe that torture is okay if applied to “terrorists,” forgetting that the system for determining who is actually a bad guy is deeply flawed, based as it is on testimony that is almost always uncorroborated. All of which is why we have had a constitution and a rule of law, to restrain those in the government who would do something stupid. I am not saying that we should bring back hanging for CIA officers who waterboarded, but, at the same time, they should not have a get out of jail free card. John Yoo’s pontifications that torture was legal notwithstanding, they surely knew that what they were doing was wrong.
CIA officers are not under military discipline and can either refuse orders or, in a worst case, resign if told to do something that goes against their conscience.
It’s also true that a serviceman has no obligation to obey unlawful orders.
It’s also true that a serviceman has no obligation to obey unlawful orders.
Technically true, but it is much less likely to end well than in the civilian services.
One tires of those that neither understand history or torture language.
First off torture works. Every government uses it, why because governments are all sadists? No because torture works.
How do we know it works. Because the USG had to revise the USMCJ twice to recognize no US soldier could resist torture and that if he provided information under such methods he wasn’t a traitor nor should be prosecuted.
What about the moral issue of torture. Well I find it amusing that those who would oppose the use of torture have no qualms about using a nuclear warhead to kill millions of innocents while interogating a terrorist get lectures. Why?
So some people can lecture us from the moral high ground composed of the corpses of thousands of their fellow citizens?
Cheap morality remains just that. The toxicity of such ideas rveals neither humanity nor concern for the ruile of law but rather reveals the caterwauling cresecndoes of those who are concerned neither about justice nor the protection of their fellow citizens.
We see it in the same cheap debates regarding political assination. Those who object bring out the same trite excuses and slogans. Yet they condon the use of bombs that would destroy an entire apartment block and kill countless innocents. Such humanity.
I have little time for such hyppocrisy and self deception. Those who would rather posture than protect us are most adept at sending others to their deaths and then lecturing us safe in the knowledge that they will sacrifice little, risk little, and certainly offer little when their nation calls. In fact such individuals will develop a severe hearing loss at such times.
Boy do I hate this subject. Especially given its non-hypothetical quality now, and particularly given it has that quality vis a vis our Mideast adventuring.
I.e., is there any subject other than torture upon which it can be so difficult to express any uncertainty about in polite political society? Even amongst friends? Even amongst those not posturing as either tough-guy Rambos anxious to smash the odd kneecap or those chronically anxious to advertise the superiority of their moral finery?
Even despite what can seem to be an easily demonstrated vagueness as to just what torture is? (Granting that waterboarding clearly qualifies.)
Even despite what Tom Wolfe might call an apparent Halusian gulf between what everyone seems to say who talks or writes openly about it in that polite society, and the general public’s seeming endorsement of what might be called Jack Bauer rules?
Even despite what can seem to be human-kind’s long historical acceptance of its at-least-occasional morality (via it’s engaging in it), and what can seem the ease of constructing a hypothetical that also can appear to support same?
Even despite the probable factual history showing its possession of at least *some* utility, and the seeming logic of the existence of that utility too?
Even despite what can seem the probable ease of constructing a hypothetical use of it today in this age of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons where you know damn well no one would really object to its use?
Even despite our utterly unthinking acceptance of modern conventional weaponry that unavoidably inflicts horrific suffering on *numbers* of people when used? Land mines, anyone? Flechette weapons? Napalm? Small-caliber bullets designed to tumble and tear? Fuel-air weapons?
Even despite our (supposedly lesser) acceptance of the use of nuclear weapons? (Demonstrated by the fact that if we categorically didn’t accept them we wouldn’t be keeping them.)
Boy do I hate this subject.
That said, yeah I suspect that there wasn’t any near justifiable use of it by us in our recent Mideast adventure, and I think that Giraldi’s distinction between those who “legitimized” it and others is a very keen one. Except … I don’t quite see how you go about prosecuting *anyone* for it unless you also include Bush, and indeed include Bush *especially.*
I.e., starting at the lowest level, as Phil notes, can you really feel good about prosecuting some field person who was told that the powers that be had decided waterboarding was okay and was then ordered to do it when you don’t hold accountable those above who *did* decide it was okay?
But, then, can you really feel much better about prosecuting even any of those “legitimizers” unless you include Bush too? That is, since he *did* know about it, and since he therefore can hardly say that he didn’t approve of it’s ordering, he thus in effect ordered it himself. And I doubt that it could be proven that it would have ever taken place without that, no matter *how* much any lower-level “legitimizer” wanted it.
In every conceivably important way, shape or form then it was *Bush’s* decision. Without it, it would not have happened.
So, given that the public pretty clearly decided it didn’t want to investigate this in the course of an impeachment trial of Bush, and at any rate its representatives in Congress clearly decided the same in the public’s name, why isn’t prosecuting others simply the clearest and greatest consecration possible of the idea that Presidents are indeed above the law?
On the other hand maybe it makes some sense in having future potential legitimizers tell their Kings that they aren’t Kings and aren’t going to be able to order them to *either* do or legitimize such things.
But I still think that falls considerably short of being fair for no good reason. And this means that if you wanna just prosecute only the “legitimizers” I think you gotta go after Bush too.
Cheers,
If we just forgot about this, nothing is going to change. Some president will possibly end up issuing a denunciation or apology down the line, as Reagan did for the internet of Japanese by FDR. What’s to stop this from happening again after another terrorist attack? We need to have a framework to make sure people think twice.
I think Thomas Jackson makes an uncomfortably valid point. If torture didn’t work, we wouldn’t forgive our own people for succumbing to it. We all know of examples of people who have broken under pressure. Frankly, I think we are denying some history here. There is plenty of evidence that in WWII, some enemy combatants were brutalized and occasionally subjected to the sight of fellow prisoners being shot, in order to extract timely information. In the heat of battle, “Things Happen.” I do not believe that this goes on today, at least not by regular units.
What appalls us now is that torture was regularized in practice by higher authority. Bush bungled this. We cannot incorporate torture into law or standard practice in our legal system. It is simply alien to our cultural ideals.
I do think that, in the atmosphere following September 11th, our agents of one kind or another acted in the spirit of righteous vengeance. We need to show some leniency toward such people. As to the nitwit lawyers who gave them encouragement, social and professional ostracism should suffice.
Finally, I think there is a tradition in American History mentioned by Theodore Roosevelt that holds that when dealing with savages, the gloves come off. Roosevelt was referring to the Indian Wars. I detect a certain over-punctiliousness in our debate regarding Al Queda. It is if our own lack of certitude about our own culture precludes us from discriminating between civilized opponents and barbarians. This is the decadence of multi-culturalism manifesting itself in policy. By all means let us not torture, because it is barbaric. But let us let us not confuse the deference we owe to a civilized enemy with the tough and unpleasant tactics necessary to crush barbarians.
Thomas Jackson is correct that torture works, but I think that most experienced interrogators would agree that it is better at obtaining confessions than at getting information. Many third world police services are more interested in the former. The question for Americans is whether it really works in the context of security threats directed against the US and I have to think the case has not been made that it does, moral issues aside. The horrific nature of some weapons currently being used against civilian populations might well require a new Geneva convention of some kind to determine what is humane in warfare and what is not, but I think that torture as a deliberate and calculated act by a government against an individual should be eschewed by everyone. I take TomB’s point – yes, Bush should be on the list of those being looked at for war crimes, even if he didn’t know the details of what was being carried out in the name of the government he headed.
I recommend an op ed that appeared in today’s NYT by former CIA station chief Donald Gregg…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08gregg.html?ref=opinion
First off, Thomas Jackson, The Blitz is the best damn football wrap-up on television. Well done, and give our best to Mr. Berman. I am distressed, however, to witness this shocking evidence of some sort of degenerative condition, likely produced from too many blows to the head during your football career. At least you have the means to get first-rate rehabilitive attention. Good luck, we’re all praying for you.
I’m firmly convinced torture works. So what? I’m also convinced that adopting it is nonetheless immoral and ultimately does more damage to the rule of law than its use can ever justify.
Those who oppose torture by arguing against its efficacy are misguided. The question doesn’t turn on this (at least it shouldn’t) but on its morality, and the longer-term, broader implications of its horrible compromise.
Arguing against torture because it doesn’t work is like arguing against motorcycle helmet laws because they “don’t work”; lots of things work, after all. We could probably save lives mandating pedestrians wear helmets and elaborate personal airbags, too (maybe I shouldn’t speak this aloud, unless we give someone ideas).
We accept a lessened degree of safety every day for our liberty and rights before police authority and–unlike this dubious terrorist threat that has the weak-kneed among us engaging in embarrassing, ironic tough-talk as witnessed above–people die every day from street crime. The appalling and dramatic nature of terrorism in general and 9/11 in particular has turned us into a nation of paranoid schizophrenics, but it’s been long enough now since that awful day that we can finally start to pick up the constitutional pieces. It was a braver nation that accepted a certain amount of uncertainty and insecurity inherent in retaining our ideals.
But that’s just the start of it–consider that we’re acquiring prisoners of interest as “terrorists” now entirely as a result of our occupations of Iraq and Aghanistan; those radicalized thereby and those who never would have found the means or motivation to act on their hatred of us; people who we never would have had to concern ourselves with otherwise.
To quote Col Mathieu, in The Battle of Algiers:
The word “torture” does not appear in our orders…The problem is: the NLF wants us to leave Algeria and we want to remain. Now, it seems to me that, despite varying shades of opinion, you all agree that we must remain… Therefore, to be precise, I would now like to ask you a question: Should France remain in Algeria? If you answer “yes,” then you must accept all the necessary consequences.
Is torture a “necessary consequence” of our remaining in the Middle East? Is it becoming a necessary consequence of the occupation of Iraq? Of Afghanistan?
Lots of things would work toward eradicating the terrorist threat (that looks increasingly hyped specifically for the purpose of making them acceptable). So would nuking entire regions, as the aforementioned TJ, suffering as he does his unfortunate condition (oh look at the comely nurse he’s got, wiping the drool from his chin; hey, there’s Bill Pearlman on the other side of the ward, mumbling something about “the Caliphate”), seems to vaguely understand, even if he’s lost the faculties necessary to distinguish this from an imagined widespread acceptance of nuking “millions of innocents” on the part of those who oppose torture. Where is this great approbation of nuclear holocaust?
Maybe the man is just getting ahead of himself; he does seem poised to demand it as the price of “keeping America safe.” He stands ready to support it, should the combination of circumstance and lunatic leadership deem it necessary.
Phil Giraldi wrote:
“yes, Bush should be on the list of those being looked at for war crimes….”
Boy Phil, I just don’t know. And I’m saying that as one whose scorn for Bush admits few competitors if any.
It’s not that I think it would be unfair to him. Nor even really that you have to wonder about its fruitlessness given the enormous emotion he could appeal to—with some reason—by invoking his constitutional duty as CinC to protect the country from harm. (Which duty he could also argue—again with some logic—is clearer than and superior to all others, including obeying mere laws passed by Congress.)
It’s the pragmatics of the thing. Do we really want to start a precedent of each new President going about prosecuting the last? Do we really want to devote to same all the incredible time and attention and psychic energy that it would inevitably command? With all the partisan rancor it would provoke and involve, probably lasting at least years and years? And remember that one almost certain aspect would not just be a prosecutor attacking Bush, but Bush and the Republicans attacking the prosecutor—Obama—just as Clinton attacked Mr. Starr. (And forget even that especially right now it would seem we have some substantial other problems demanding our attention.) And then throwing all the fighting into the mix dividing us about what the Constitution really means, and on and on….
I don’t know Phil, I just don’t know. It’s like starting wars in that you should always remember you never really know where they are going to lead, true.
And say in the end, after a few years of all that you nail him with a charge of waterboarding the probable only handful of people it was done to, right?
“O.k.,” you might then end up lying back exhausted thinking, “all this was worth it proportionally? Really? In the 2009 election it seems that to a significant degree the huge principle was established that a Party doesn’t go about getting the country into needless, stupid wars which they had to fib about up and down to wage, right? The got chastened pretty damned good, true?
But then, instead of celebrating that huge lesson, no, we had to go and obscure it with years and years of non-military civil warfare on what can seem some pretty technical issues, involving a mere handful of people, tearing up whatever common civic ground had been had before established before and indeed ripping some brand new huge holes in it,” and on and on and on.
Seems to me that Bush and Bushism was repudiated about as much as is possible short of impeachment. And in retrospect can’t it seem that rather than launching that impeachment attempt against Clinton where the boor was able to emerge with the ugly main facts of what he did obscured and claiming victory and even vindication due to other issues, it would have been better to just let those ugly facts stand in the spotlight and let disgust do its work?
I don’t know Phil. I just don’t know.
TomB is making a good point and if you look at my first posting I did not name Bush. That was deliberate as it was a can of worms I did not want to open, for the reasons that TomB cites, but TomB’s earlier posting convinced me that I was wrong (possibly because I misread his intent) and that trying Cheney without trying Bush would be a miscarriage of justice. We live in a country that likes to think that there is a rule of law in place. If that is true, then everyone is subject to the law, no exceptions. Torture is a crime, one of the worst crimes that I can imagine. I find it astonishing that an American president might have ordered someone tortured. If the allegation is true, something must be done to right the ship and the gravity of the offense and the consequences must be clear for all to see.
Phil Giraldi wrote:
“but TomB’s earlier posting convinced me that I was wrong (possibly because I misread his intent)….
Geez I’m sorry. My “intent” was I didn’t really have one! There’s been so many smart points made I was just using the great back and forth here to try to think things out as opposed to trying to persuade anyone of the rightness of this side or that. (E.g., just alone your pungent point about the idea of a U.S. President ordering someone tortured and bequeathing that legacy on that office … yeesh!)
No matter what side they came down on I could respect anyone on this issue that’s for sure. (Until they turned out wrong, in which case I’d be tempted to call ‘em fools from the get-go. And maybe even argue to prosecute them for being fools. Or not. Or….)
Cheers,
MattSwarz said:
Technically true, but it is much less likely to end well than in the civilian services.
Not techinically true–legally binding. You’re obviously right about pressure nonetheless coming to bear upon anyone who questions orders (which must be intense in a war zone), but a serviceman is obligated to refuse illegal orders, and can’t expect protection from prosecution (or support from those issuing orders). Note Abu Ghraib.
I’m willing to bet this informal pressure on intelligence personnel is far greater than that on servicemen, particularly non-careerists.