The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

And yes, Flippy, I just listed some prominent dems....my point wasn't the specific people, but simply trying to point out that there were people on left side of the aisle that certainly knew and didn't speak up until it was to their political advantage to do so.

A point I wouldn't have argued with at all.

So, just to be clear, there aren't actually any Democrats you feel should be waterboarded, right?

To my understanding, the reason that waterboarding is part of military training is to prepare soldiers in case they are ever captured and waterboarded. So, yes, in a sense, SERE training involves torturing recruits. I presume that the exposure to these techniques is relatively brief, done with full disclosure beforehand, and with careful attention to making sure no one is truly harmed. Emerging information seems to indicate that our detainees underwent endless hours of the procedure, in one case over one hundred times in a month. We don't yet know what, if any, useful information was obtained by these means, but indications are that conventional interrogation techniques have been far more effective.

If there really is a 24-style ticking bomb scenario that we avoided thanks to waterboarding, we should know about it. (Cheney insists there are documents that would vindicate the procedure - but even if they aren't released, surely there are people involved who could give us at least SOME information about this hitherto-unknown breakthrough in national security.)

I've got to go back onstage, but, as always, pleasure tossing the ideological volleyball around.

[Alex]

SERE was not torture. Torture is not consensual. The tortured are not given a safe word or signal they can use to stop things whenever they want. And the fact that waterboarding was included is a pretty solid indicator that the military considers it torture. The point, after all, was to expose soldiers to a flavor of what it would be like to be tortured. It wasn't "here are perfectly legal and reasonable -- though tough minded -- extreme interrogation techniques you might experience if captured training" it was "here're are some of the things you might experience if you're captured and tortured" training.

SERE gave a taste of what it might be like to be tortured but psychicly it is fundamentally different from toture. On another board someone who has been through SERE said it well, I think. It was torturous, not torture.

And to pre-empt the eventual question that comes up. If torture was the only thing standing between us avoiding another 9/11, it would still be wrong to torture and that would be, in my view, and acceptable price to pay for standing by some very important principles.

That said, I certainly understand the pressure that leads to torture and after the fact society may decide to forgive or only lightly punish a transgession if the evidence is strong that it did do just such a thing (currently there is little such evidence for the torturing we did do). But still, you don't pre-emptively exonerate people for immoral acts that they might commit under the pressure to succeed.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

So, just to be clear, there aren't actually any Democrats you feel should be waterboarded, right?

I don't think so. I tried (and not very well) to make a rhetorical point.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Alex

And to pre-empt the eventual question that comes up. If torture was the only thing standing between us avoiding another 9/11, it would still be wrong to torture and that would be, in my view, and acceptable price to pay for standing by some very important principles.

Something on which I do not doubt your sincerity at all, because you are not someone seeking political advantage.

No one would ever convince me though, that should something horrid have happened (say the LA 9/11 thing), Pelosi, Reid, Durbin, whomever, would all be on the other side asking why we didn't use more agressive techniques to find out whatever we could.

And this is what disturbs me about politics, really. I don't consider myself innocent of it in the least. EVERYTHING can be spun in hindsight to make a political opponent look inept. With rare exception, I do believe (Obama included) that politicians have the best interests of America at heart, but each politician wants to be the one who is credited with making the decisions that have bettered America. Should Kerrey or Gore have been President and made some of or all of the same decisions, the left would be all for them and justifying or downplaying the significance of just what they are now condemning.

[Alex]

Possibly, though you didn't realize anybody demanding torture-in-hindsight following 9/11 and we did have access.

But certainly politicians will sway to some degree with the political breeze. And to the extent that Democrats in positions of authority to intervene were aware and did nothing then they are deserving of the same response (though Pelosi or Hastert being told about it in a meeting she wasn't legally allowed to talk about and Bush making sure the legal office produced exactly the CYA guidance they wanted are not the same thing. And while Pelosi may have remained silent (she claims to have not actually be told while committee chair) the next minority chair of the intelligence committee, Jane Harmon, did write a letter of protest in February 2003 when she was told waterboarding had been used. So while you can claim she should have done more, her position (Harmon's) has been consistent.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

No one would ever convince me though, that should something horrid have happened (say the LA 9/11 thing), Pelosi, Reid, Durbin, whomever, would all be on the other side asking why we didn't use more agressive techniques to find out whatever we could.

Opinions based on "what if" and hypothetical "shoe on the other foot" scenarios have got to be the least convincing rhetorical device ever!

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Alex

And to pre-empt the eventual question that comes up. If torture was the only thing standing between us avoiding another 9/11, it would still be wrong to torture and that would be, in my view, and acceptable price to pay for standing by some very important principles.

I would disagree with that as a theoretical matter. It arguably is another species of exigent circumstances, a familiar doctrine that says police don't need a search warrant if they have reasonable belief of an imminent or ongoing harm. Also, in such situations, I would draw both a moral and legal distinction between what might properly be done to save lives and what would be appropriate to admit in a criminal prosecution.

The problem that I have with the argument is that is akin to the capital punishment defense, "Well, would you execute Hitler?" in that it has little basis in reality. So far, no one executed in the U.S. actually has been Hitler, and so far, there's no evidence that we tortured anyone with a focused and reasonable belief that they knew where the bomb was.

I also heard someone say that a problem with torture is that it is bad and lazy intelligence gathering in that the torturer generally has an answer in mind that he wants to hear in order for the torture to stop.

[scaeagles]

Interrogation is not an issue of only finding out new information. A good interrogator will always ask many, many questions - by far the majority - that they already know the answers to. When the subject lies, they inform the subject of the real answer.

And Flippy.....hypotheticals are dealt with ALL the time. And really, I don't see this as exceptionally hypothetical. It is not difficult to surmise that political parties spin the decisions of their party members in one way and identical actions of the other party in the complete opposite.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

I would disagree with that as a theoretical matter.

I agree. When we live in a world where it is possible to know with absolute certainty that Person A absolutely knows Fact B which will prevent Catastrophe C and torture is the only way to get it, then my view will change.

So I should have written "if we believed that torture was all that stood between preventing another 9/11..."

In the real world I don't know that the requistie perfect knowledge is possible but if you're holding a prisoner and believe it to be so then go ahead and torture, but do it knowing your violating our principles and very well may be punished for it. If it is so important it is worth torturing then it is important enough to live with the consequences.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

And yes, Flippy, I just listed some prominent dems....my point wasn't the specific people, but simply trying to point out that there were people on left side of the aisle that certainly knew and didn't speak up until it was to their political advantage to do so....

Again, you missed the point. We were listing people on the right who are quite vocal in denying that waterboarding is torture, not people who might have known we were diong it.