When All Else Fails

Experts note that the Bush administration's reliance on "enhanced interrogation methods" hasn't worked: "a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable."

And of course they are. These are the methods that have historically been deployed by authoritarian regimes looking to generate false confessions (think the Spanish Inquisition or Stalin) for the purpose of cowing the population into submission, they're not real investigative techniques.

Comments

While I agree, your analysis only is correct if the purpose of the torture was to gain information to stop terrorist attacks. It's clear instead that the real purpose was to satisfy certain abnormal psychological needs by members of the administration and their supporters to look "tough" and prove to the terrorists that we can be just as inhuman as they can.

Posted by Ron | May 30, 2007 1:11 PM

To this administration, that critique must seem self-contradictory. To them, the amateurish and unreliable can never be outmoded.

Posted by QR | May 30, 2007 1:26 PM

...seems my first post didn't go through, maybe because of the html tags...

Has everyone read Andrew Sullivan on "Verschärfte Vernehmung" - German "enhanced interrogation techniques"? It's a great, if frightening piece, one of the best I've read in a while:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html

Posted by DivGuy | May 30, 2007 1:51 PM

I'm not sure you are being fair to the Spanish Inquisition. IIRC, they had pretty elaborate evidentiary rules, designed to ensure that the confessions--although tortured--were not false. This is standard cop stuff even with non-tortuous interrogations: don't trust the target until you hear nonpublic stuff that only you and the target should know.

Yes. If I am correct, Bush is worse than the Spanish Inquisition.

Posted by Joe S. | May 30, 2007 2:08 PM

These are the methods that have historically been deployed by authoritarian regimes looking to generate false confessions [...] for the purpose of cowing the population into submission...

Sounds to me like the methods are working perfectly.

Posted by Mr. E. Meat | May 30, 2007 2:09 PM

If you tasked Bush with finding your stray dog he'd set about kicking your cat hoping for helpful clues to the disappearance.

Posted by steve duncan | May 30, 2007 2:37 PM

While they are certainly not succeeding in "cowing the population into submission", you've hit it right on the head that this is the unspoken reason why the administration and their supporters are so gung-ho on torture. It's absolutely baffling to them that a tyrant like Saddam was able to keep most of the Iraqi population in line, but that they are so badly failing. Of course, there are a number of serious flaws with this comparison, but in their simplistic view they're hoping that maybe if they keep upping the brutality of the occupation that maybe the insurgents will finally be cowed into submission.

Posted by Will Hutchinson | May 30, 2007 3:17 PM

in their simplistic view they're hoping that maybe if they keep upping the brutality of the occupation that maybe the insurgents will finally be cowed into submission.

Nah. In their simplistic view, they're hoping -- or at least, the louder and more batshit elements of the right are -- that there'll be a reason to use it on their political opponents at home.

But it's an interesting point of comparison. What Saddam had, on the other hand, was structure: a bureaucracy, a party organisation that served as gatekeeper for lots of jobs, and brutish demands of loyalty the higher up the ladder--

Oh. Perhaps the Pentagon and the DOJ need to compare notes?

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 30, 2007 3:43 PM

These are the methods that have historically been deployed by authoritarian regimes looking to generate false confessions (think the Spanish Inquisition or Stalin) for the purpose of cowing the population into submission, they're not real investigative techniques.

Possibly they're both real investigative techniques and methods used by authoritarian regimes to generate false confessions, but we associate them (rightly) with the latter because there's no point in publicizing real investigative techniques but there's every point in publicizing that which cows the population under an authoritarian regime into submission.

Posted by Tyrone Slothrop | May 30, 2007 5:27 PM

Cowing the population into submission? I'm not sure that the Iraqi population is the population they have in mind . . .

Posted by rea | May 30, 2007 5:31 PM

I thought someone had shown at one point that the evil things they do came from a manual designed to help our servicemen and women resist the evil things that might be done to them by the USSR (etc)-- regimes that wanted confessions not truth? Too awful for words.

Posted by Doh | May 30, 2007 7:11 PM

The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Posted by whitey | May 31, 2007 1:59 AM

Everything the Bushies do is because of domestic politics. Torturing Canadians is just a step away from torturing liberals.

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