Should civilized nations use "Enhanced Interrogation" techni

[Jester]

Sorry, should have been clearer. The comparison needs to be *to* Hitler or the Nazis. For instance, "you are a vegetarian, so was Hitler, thus you're wrong" or "the Nazis were against private ownership of guns, so are you, thus you are a Nazi and therefor evil".

I don't think that distinction holds water, but I'm sure you're right about the glue.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

I don't think that distinction holds water, but I'm sure you're right about the glue.

I think it does, and that seems to be supported by the Wiki article I linked to. In addition, there's the related concept of Reductio ad Hitlerum which has some bearing on the subject. But, yes. Poor Jimmy.

--Pete

EDIT: PS You just caused me to change my sig:)

[--Pete]

Hi,

Going back to the original topic, for a second. The question is "Should civilized nations use 'Enhanced Interrogation' techniques?"

That question has no answer, for it is incorrectly formed. One of the characteristics of civilized nations is that they do not use barbaric techniques. Thus the question is oxomoronic and meaningless.

--Pete

[Thecla]

Unfortunately, we will probably never get to see the *real* evidence, and all I've seen are allegations, which might be true, or might be propaganda to convince those who want to believe the worst. Me? I'd like to see an investigation into any possible misconduct.

Well, I certainly agree that we''ll probably never get to see a proper accounting of what went on at Guantanamo, but even now it is not a matter of just "allegations," and there is plenty of corroborating evidence that the accounts of the people released from Guantanamo are not made up.

The FBI agents at Guantanamo (who actually were professional interrogators) complained early on about the things they saw the military intelligence officers doing, prompting the FBI to launch an enquiry among it's own agents. Here is one report from an FBI agent:

I am responding to your request for feedback on aggressive treatment and improper interview techniques used on detainees at GTMO. I did observe treatment that was not only aggressive, but personally very upsetting, although I can’t say that this treatment was perpetrated by Bureau employees. It seemed that these techniques were being employed by the military, government contract employees and [redacted].” Reply asked for more details. Response: “Here is a brief summary of what I observed at GTMO. On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand a foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night. . . .”

This lead to the Schmidt report by the Army which concluded that "only three interrogation acts" were "in violation of interrogation techniques authorized by Army Field Manual 34-52 and DoD guidance". In sum, the report "found no evidence of torture or inhumane treatment at JTF-GTMO". Well, perhaps you are happy to have this investigation (even if it was not within its scope to examine the techniques that the DoD had authorized, only to see if they'd been followed) and will find the conclusion persuasive; I can't say I do. The report did, incidentally, confirm that a female interrogator smeared "faux" menstrual blood on a prisoner.

Among other possible propagandists is Judge Susan Crawford, who concluded that Mohammed al-Qahtani could not be prosecuted since he had been tortured at Guantanamo. Interestingly enough, the Spanish judge who has been probing the use of torture at Guantanamo did so because he had to drop charges against former detainees whom he was trying to prosecute for terrorism after he also concluded they had been tortured.

Now Qahtani was a real terrorist, and I dare say the the four suspects in Spain were also (I don't know anything about them). But I'll point out that that there is no conclusion of guilt by imprisonment, or even by confession in the case of Guantanamo. Most people incarcerated in Guantanamo were not terrorists (how many were innocent we'll probably never really know either) so they have no reason to produce propaganda, (unless, I suppose, for some strange reason, they somehow fail to understand the necessity of locking them up for however many years with no effective means of protesting their innocence, and hold an entirely unjustified sense of bitterness against the US).

[kandrathe]

Well, I certainly agree that we''ll probably never get to see a proper accounting of what went on at Guantanamo, but even now it is not a matter of just "allegations," and there is plenty of corroborating evidence that the accounts of the people released from Guantanamo are not made up.

Look, I'm not saying that there would not be abuse, or maltreatment at this prison. There is some level of guard on prisoner violence at most prisons as I understand it. So, this clouds the issue of what is or is not a part of the "enhanced interrogation" and what is just cruel and inhumane treatment at the hands of a person who should be answering to a court martial.

Also, your example of the judge in Spain would be the case that even unsubstantiated claims of evidence by torture, or the probability of coercion would make much of the legal evidence inadmissible. As Pete said, there is a big difference between treating a conflict as "war" as opposed to building a legal case. The aim of Gitmo, right or wrong, was not to dispense justice, it was to extract actionable intelligence on potential threats. Trying them was an afterthought. In all those other barbaric nations that use "enhanced interrogation", there usually is not a problem with trials afterwards.

[Thecla]

Look, I'm not saying that there would not be abuse, or maltreatment at this prison. There is some level of guard on prisoner violence at most prisons as I understand it. So, this clouds the issue of what is or is not a part of the "enhanced interrogation" and what is just cruel and inhumane treatment at the hands of a person who should be answering to a court martial.

From that perspective, then, the April 2005 Schmidt report which found that

Detention and interrogation operations at Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) cover a three-year period and over 24,000 interrogations. This AR 15-6 investigation found only three interrogation acts in violation of interrogation techniques authorized by Army Field Manual 34-52 and DoD guidance.

is especially damning. If correct, the report would mean that essentially everything that went on was part of the officially authorized "enhanced interrogation" methods.

Also, your example of the judge in Spain would be the case that even unsubstantiated claims of evidence by torture, or the probability of coercion would make much of the legal evidence inadmissible.

I doubt that unsubstantiated claims of torture make legal evidence inadmissible. In this case for example, the judge tried to extradite two former Guantanamo detainees who had been returned to the UK, but dropped the request when British doctors examined the men and found that they suffered severe mental and physical effects as a result of their detention in Guantanamo and elsewhere and were not fit to stand trial. I don't particularly insist on the Spanish judge, who sounds like a somewhat controversial figure --- I only mentioned him because I thought it was ironic that his concern about torture at Guantanamo came from trying to prosecute terrorists in Spain (and certainly Spain has plenty of reason to worry about that).

As Pete said, there is a big difference between treating a conflict as "war" as opposed to building a legal case.

That difference might affect the legal status of the detainees. But the question here is whether they were tortured. As far as that's concerned, the difference is completely irrelevant.

[--Pete]

Hi,

As Pete said, there is a big difference between treating a conflict as "war" as opposed to building a legal case.

Not quite. I said that there are activities, terrorism being one, that are not suitable targets for the military. To declare a 'war on terror' is great rhetoric but poor strategy. It is a poor strategy not because of morality. It's a poor strategy because, as has been shown over the past seven years, it does not work. The military is the wrong tool for the job. A better tool would be what Israel is reputed to have done in the aftermath of the Munich massacre. Assassination teams are equally illegal, probably equally immoral, but effective. And the effectiveness is what counts. The ends often do justify the means, but only if they're achieved.

--Pete

[Zenda]

A better tool would be what Israel is reputed to have done in the aftermath of the Munich massacre. Assassination teams are equally illegal, probably equally immoral, but effective. And the effectiveness is what counts.

Are you suggesting that, if Obama fails to adequately punish the torturers, other nations should send assasination teams to deliver justice? I don't think that will happen soon. Most other nations still believe that even those who committed such cruel crimes have the right to a fair trial :whistling:

Btw, operation Wrath of God was not as effective as you seem to think. In the end, they only got one man directly connected to the Munich massacre, but killed at least 5 innocent people. It also didn't work too well as a deterrent againt terrorism: in response, 7 Israelis were killed.

[kandrathe]

Are you suggesting that...

He didn't come close to suggesting that. This is where you infuriate people. Are you suggesting that armies of Technicolor clowns should come swooping out of the sky riding their helium filled hoppity hops while playing various ukulele's, harmonica's and banjo's?

Also, you need to understand events in the context of the greater political struggle. The question is not whether "Wrath of God" was perfectly successful, but rather did the Israeli response (all of them) to Arafat eventually result in Arafat pulling back from sponsoring international terrorism? Where is the PLO today? Did BSO have anything but negative consequences for the Palestinians?

[--Pete]

Hi,

Are you suggesting that, . . .

I'm suggesting that you are a troll and should be banned.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Not quite. I said that there are activities, terrorism being one, that are not suitable targets for the military. To declare a 'war on terror' is great rhetoric but poor strategy.

We agree on the "rhetorical wars" front. We should ends the "War on" everything except for those nations that we have declared war upon. Everything else is merely a "program" or "agenda" of interest. A program to end hunger, a program to reduce crime, a program to reduce drug use, and a program to make the USA safe from terrorism.

It is a poor strategy not because of morality. It's a poor strategy because, as has been shown over the past seven years, it does not work.

I went one step past what you said, and included my own spin on it. The objective of war is to crush your enemy until they either submit or are destroyed utterly. Usually those strategies are less concerned with collateral damage, and the rules of civility are set aside. A moral nation, like the USA, or Britain, or Canada, can reflect back in disgust at those things that were done during the war to achieve victory. For the US, we imposed on civil liberties of citizens, we bombed cities (including unleashing nuclear weapons) killing many civilians, and we turned a blind eye to what our soldiers did to Japanese soldiers in the Pacific theater. We brought to the enemy the level of hell and horror that they brought against us, and maybe more.

So, when I connect that to the war on terror, what I saw the Bush administration doing was to go into "war mode". But, rather than having a nation, and an opposing army wearing black uniforms, what we have is mostly a hidden enemy with no defined territory. Again, using the twisted logic and rhetoric, they began to do those things that happen in a war, such as restricting civil liberties, bringing extremes against the enemy, and engaging in the "war" no matter whose territory we violated. I also *do* buy the Dick Cheney argument from his speech to the AEI, in that, this is not exactly a law enforcement exercise either. We can't just wait for "crimes" to happen, then go arrest the ones who did it, then build a case against them, then perhaps put some of them in prison. Rinse repeat, until the middle east runs out of young martyrs, and we run out of prison space.

What we agree upon, I think, is that the challenge is to convince all the would be martyrs that terrorist actions against the "west" are useless. Israel does this actually in a number of ways. They tear down the houses of any martyr's family, they engage in "eye for an eye" retaliation with guided missiles into the apartment complexes of their enemy, and they perform up close assassinations outside of the middle east. They provide extreme consequences against those who commit crimes against them, but they also work to prevent attacks as well. Also, the people of Israel have numbed themselves to the violence, so that the market that was bombed yesterday reopens and business carries on as usual. They hardly flinch anymore when a bomb explodes, which denies the terrorists the "terror" upon which they need to demoralize their enemy.

I believe that the liberal approach is to make friends with the terrorists. If we hug them enough they will stop killing us. If we change our policy to condemn our good friend Israel, and if we help them kick our good friend Israel off the Palestinian land, then they will be our friends. If we capitulate to their "no infidels can step on our sacred soil even when invited by the legitimate government" dictum, and make smooth the way for their expansion of "The Jihad" into every nation, then maybe they will stop killing us. The Islamic terrorist message to me seems to be, "do everything the way we want", or the consequences will be a random bombing. It seems to me that the "terror" has worked upon the liberals (or they already agree with them), and they are ready to give in to their demands.

So, there probably does need to be a third way which; A) works to prevent terrorist attacks, B) utilizes appropriate parts of law enforcement, C) utilizes parts of the military for covert missions to gather intelligence, destroy a stronghold, or capture an enemy, D) respects our alliances and works to build a network of interdependence, and E) communicates clearly to the people what is happening and why. Mostly, the resistance to terrorism will not be something that is completed in seven years, or seventy years. The mindset of people in the US needs to change from the innocent open borders and wide welcoming arms of Lady Liberty, to one that scrutinizes the actions of their visitors, neighbors, strangers, and even friends. I'm not thinking the extremes of McCarthy, but just the mature recognition that not everything may be what it appears to be.

I think we might also petition all sides to adopt a shorter memory, and try to forgive their enemies for the things that happened decades, centuries, or eons ago. In Judaism and Islam, you have two religions whose mechanisms for forgiveness are very strict where there are usually conditions to be met before forgiveness is given. Which is why, it seems, that the US always needs to step in between and negotiate the conditions for forgiveness between Israel and her enemies.

But, whatever happens, I don't see that there will be an end to terrorism until the problem of Palestine is resolved. Secondary to that, we need to be concerned about the spread of radical and fundamentalist Islamic philosophy. If you view the Palestine issue as the tumor, radical Islam is the metastasis of it. I believe that even if we eradicated the original problem, the cancer will remain.

[--Pete]

Hi,

We can't just wait for "crimes" to happen, then go arrest the ones who did it, then build a case against them, then perhaps put some of them in prison.

You make it sound like the *only* alternatives are to do nothing or to arrest them for life on suspicion. There's a lot of room between those extremes, including tracking, intelligence gathering, blocking travel, etc. And, yes, all we can do is try to anticipate and foil their attempts and punish them *after* they've committed a crime. Right now, we're not doing too well on either front.

What we agree upon, I think, is that the challenge is to convince all the would be martyrs that terrorist actions against the "west" are useless.

Close, but not quite. The 'would be martyrs' are already past convincing. The challenge is to change the society that generates those martyrs from one that champions that behavior to one that condemns it. We have our home grown lunatic fringe that generates the rare act of terrorism, but we do not condone it.

Israel does this actually in a number of ways.

And they've been successful against terrorist, but not against terrorism. As long as there are *governments* that support terrorists (even passively by ignoring terrorist organizations on their soil), so long will terrorism be a major problem. And in dealing with governments, small threats and threats to their populations have little effect. If one is going to go the hard core line, then one needs to be ruthless enough to engender great fear. The USA could have threatened Afghanistan with the destruction of one of their cities every week until Bin Laden was turned over. The thing is, it could not afford to be a bluff. And if the threat was carried through, the world would have known that we meant business. The number of countries willing to support terrorism would have dropped drastically. And the number of terrorists would have increased astronomically. Harsh measures can subdue a population, but they don't solve the problem. The prime example is the Balkans -- look at their history, it is very illuminating.

I believe that the liberal approach is to make friends with the terrorists.

Then you believe wrong. The liberal approach is to not further make enemies of the moderates and to try to turn some of the supporters of terrorism to moderates. And to be willing to talk to our enemies. Unless you have the ability and ruthlessness to force almost total suppression, then retaliation leads to escalation. And if you are sufficiently ruthless, then eventually the situation will explode, a Serbian nationalist will shoot an Austrian archduke and hundreds of millions will die over the next forty years. Or something similar.

If we hug them enough they will stop killing us. If we change our policy to condemn our good friend Israel, and if we help them kick our good friend Israel off the Palestinian land, then they will be our friends. If we capitulate to their "no infidels can step on our sacred soil even when invited by the legitimate government" dictum, and make smooth the way for their expansion of "The Jihad" into every nation, then maybe they will stop killing us.

Hyperbolic ultra conservative natural fertilizer.

So, there probably does need to be a third way which; A) works to prevent terrorist attacks,B)utilizes appropriate parts of law enforcement, C) utilizes parts of the military for covert missions to gather intelligence, destroy a stronghold, or capture an enemy, D) respects our alliances and works to build a network of interdependence, and E) communicates clearly to the people what is happening and why.

Yep. But you left out the most important element of all. Remove the underlying causes for terrorism. And that is something that will need honest effort from both sides. As long as the attitude of *either* side is 'you're either with us or against us', then the conflict will continue. Ask the Irish.

. . . but just the mature recognition that not everything may be what it appears to be.

Bah. I've been told by many travelers, and this was long before 2001, that the only nation that routinely treats random tourists as criminals is the USA. And, no, these weren't Dutch euro-trash American haters. These were citizens of the USA and good ol'boys.

I think we might also petition all sides to adopt a shorter memory, and try to forgive their enemies for the things that happened decades, centuries, or eons ago.

Every real world problem has a simple, easy to understand, wrong solution. What makes this one wrong isn't that it is bad, but that it is impossible.

--Pete

[Zenda]

He didn't come close to suggesting that.

Good. I assumed as much at first, but had to be sure it wasn't meant as general solution;)

That still leaves us with the problem though. If assasination teams are no good, and neither are US or International Law, how should we deal with this? :unsure:

The question is not whether "Wrath of God" was perfectly successful

You are right, that is not the question.

[Occhidiangela]

That still leaves us with the problem though. If assasination teams are no good, and neither are US or International Law, how should we deal with this? :unsure:

First step, send the assassination teams for you. If they succeed, see if they can handle a tougher missions. And so on, until their limit of effectiveness is reached.

"And neither US nor international law are no good"

You seem to have a problem with equivalence and scope. The very problem of international law is its failures in scope and enforcement, and accountability to the people it is meant to subjugate, rather than serve, which is the purpose of US law for all of its imperfections. THe US law, by limiting itself a bit in scope, and having both checks and balances, as well as structured means of revision, rejection, and improvement, is so far ahead of international law that the two cannot be put into the same sentence unless a deliberate "apples to dog collars" comparison is being made.

To give you an example of how International Law is used as a bludgeon, I offer you lines on the map, Wilsonian Era, being enforced by GHW Bush and his UN Security Council (and other) allies under the pretext of international law in 1990 and 1991.

From Saddam's point of view, it was an absurdity backed up by a massive sledgehammer. His problem was that he was a member nation, and as such had allegedly agreed, by lineage, to abide by this arbitrarily dervied structure.

Sucked to be him, I guess. It was the law of might makes right, which he had tried to enforce on Kuwait. It worked until someone with more might was more right.

That is your international law: might makes right.

Does that answer your foolish question?

Occhi

[--Pete]

Hi,

That is your international law: might makes right.

But. But. That can't be right. Throughout history, the good guys *always* won!!

Oh, wait. The winners write history. :unsure:

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Oh, wait. The winners write history.

I wonder how many people have ever heard of the Carthaginians, the Dacians, the Sassanids or the Habeshans?

[--Pete]

Hi,

I wonder how many people have ever heard of the Carthaginians, . . .

Elephants and Alps.

. . . the Dacians, . . .

Count Saint-Germain, vampire, born in Dacia circa 1500 BCE (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro). Say three millenia before Dracula, but same neighborhood. Also some characters in Spartacus were from Dacia, IIRC.

. . . the Sassanids . . .

That's almost cheating -- one dynasty in Persia (Iran); 400 out of about 5500 years.

. . . or the Habeshans?

Sounds like a hot pepper from Cuba. OK, I give. Never heard of it and had to Wiki it.

--Pete

[eppie]

Does that answer your foolish question?

Occhi

Well probably you think it does. You continue to look at things from one side. This whole rant about international vs US law, if we look at the Iraq invasion...it seems very clear that UN law was doing fine. Of course you will start telling me how bad a person Saddam was (because I don't know that yet :blink:). It seems that you, Pete and Kandrathe often get angry just because your discussion oponent (Zenda) is a non-US citizen.

At the same time I saw in Pete's last few post several things I am saying always in these kind of discussion (and we had many the last few years). Apparantly it is more true if you come up with it yourself compared to when your opponent writes it. A pity however that you and Pete always find it necesarry to start swearing and saying that people are trolls (or was that a joke Pete).

Zenda's remark about the Israeli team that went on to hunt down was a perfectly valid one. I must say, I agree with what they were doing, but I also realise that I wouldn't be so happy if there was e.g. a hamas team going around hunting down Israeli soldiers that bomb libanon or the gaza strip for example.
We should in a discussion about using secret assasination squads not think about the reason why the squads are used, and the country/regime they come from, but just about if it is a valid option.


I think it is a valid option, especially when done correctly (and not by just assisinating random people and later claiming they were terrorist for example). That said I would rather have Iran setting up a assisination squad to kill some of the responsible for these torture instead of using terrorism to kill innocent people. And just to be clear about it (because it seems that I have to tell this every time) I am on the US side in this conflict.

[kandrathe]

It seems that you, Pete and Kandrathe often get angry just because your discussion oponent (Zenda) is a non-US citizen.

Nope. It's more the propensity for him to say, "You said A, so that must mean that you support B, so I'll argue against B." In this case, Pete said Assassination teams are illegal and immoral but effective -- which Zenda then replied, so what you are saying is that should Obama fail to prosecute the torturers in Gitmo, then it would be justified for assassination teams to go after them.

That topic had strayed into "How do you stop terrorism?", because it is obvious that the way the US stopped torture was to elect a new administration. The topic was not "How to we get revenge for being tortured?", or even "How do the tortured get justice?"

Pete was kind of going down the Colonel Kurtz (Apocalypse Now), where in order to win you need to be willing to step over that legal and moral line to bring your enemy the horror necessary to entirely demoralize them. Another movie inspired strategy (Wargames) is that the only way to win, is to refuse to play the game. But, I think in this case Joshua is a MF who won't stop playing the game even though he cannot win.

My theory is based upon "Snakes on a Plane". Will we land in L.A. alive?

[Zenda]

which Zenda then replied, so what you are saying is that should Obama fail to prosecute the torturers in Gitmo, then it would be justified for assassination teams to go after them.

No, I was *asking* if Pete's possible solution was also intended for dealing with these torturers. And no, there was no implication that it would be justified. Rather the opposite, actually. Reading carefully is harder then it looks, especially if emotion blinds your vision, isn't it?

where in order to win you need to be willing to step over that legal and moral line to bring your enemy the horror necessary to entirely demoralize them.

Funny, I would have expected that having the biggest military spending, the biggest fleet, the largest army, and the availability of even nuclear weapons would help to win wars. I thought that crossing legal and moral lines are things that (civilized) nations would only do as a last resort, like when faced by extinction by a superior enemy, for example.

Btw, who is Joshua and what is a MF?

My theory is based upon "Snakes on a Plane".

That makes sense. The problem in that movie could have been solved by simply lowering the temperature to make the snakes less aggressive. However, that would have made a boring movie, which is not good for profits.