If It's Good Enough for the CIA

Torture advocate Bret Stephens makes the case in The Wall Street Journal for pretending that waterboarding isn't torture:

For the record, count me as one who does not object to the interrogation to which KSM was reportedly subjected, including waterboarding. This is not because I take the use of waterboarding lightly (although I have a hard time concluding that a technique, however terrifying, to which CIA officers are willing to subject themselves experimentally can properly be counted as torture). It's because I take the threat posed by KSM seriously.

As Matthew Duss points out "CIA officers subject themselves to this torture as part of their training to withstand torture." Stephens would have us believe, I guess, that the CIA does it for fun. Or maybe that since members of the military volunteer for duty that involves being shot at that guns aren't really weapons.

Comments

Police officers often subject themselves to Tasers, tear gas, dog attacks (yeah, I know, wearing a protective suit, but still....) and other forms of violence. All to get to know what they're inflicting on suspects. If the right is going to downplay CIA torture and justify it thusly maybe a whole bunch of people ought to get wailed on, drowned, deprived of sleep and thrown in a meat locker other than just field operatives. You know, Bush, Cheney, Hadley and just about anyone with an office in the White House or the "R" side of the aisle in Congress. If it's good enough for the boys in blue it's good enough for Bushco.

Posted by steve duncan | October 9, 2007 1:24 PM

"I take the threat posed by KSM seriously."

This is odd. A man completely under your control, a man denied any contact with the outside world, poses a threat?

Posted by Henderstock | October 9, 2007 1:30 PM

Why, we liberal hawks (and by that I don't mean neocon (and by that I don't mean Zionist)) regularly waterboard each other!

Posted by Roger Cohen | October 9, 2007 1:42 PM

Given all the endless neocon "not-conspiracies" in recent years, from the "not-forged" Niger documents on down, I will personally be very, very interested in what Bret Stephens, Michael Ledeen, Roger Cohen, and all their numerous friends reveal to our American interrogators under "not-torture"...

Posted by RKU | October 9, 2007 1:54 PM

Really? I mean, are cops/CIA guys who subject themselves to waterboarding doing it until it matters? I mean, do they--to invent a lurid example--bring the CIA guy's young daughter in and say they're going to waterboard him until he gives them his permission to rape her? Because that's what torture is about--inflicting it until the victim breaks. And the kind of retard-macho rhetoric Bret Stevens is offering misses the point entirely.

Posted by James Gary | October 9, 2007 1:59 PM

I agree that waterboarding is a mild form of torture. I also have no problem with using it on unlawful enemy combatants (this opinion is technique-specific, so if you try to generalize my position into a braindead term like "torture-advocate" you are an idiot).

If Al'Qaeda et cetera want to avoid waterboarding, they can don uniforms and quit killing civilians.

You see, my moral sympathies are distributed on a gradient, something I expect adults to understand (as opposed to the moral adolescence consistently on display here). People who would saw off my head and deliberately slaughter schoolkids don't even register a blip.

And yes, I'm willing to tolerate occasional combatant-designation error which leads to waterboarding so long as the error is consciously minimized by a dependable process (i.e. the way it works now). This, of course, is just another way of saying that I'm reality-based.

Posted by JA | October 9, 2007 2:09 PM

I can't believe we're even having this fucking debate.

Posted by Ugh | October 9, 2007 2:10 PM

...and it's perfectly OK to beat and sexually abuse them too, because my girlfriend is into kink! I mean, sure she trusts me not to actually harm her, and maybe she knows I'll stop if she wants me to, but seriously, IT'S THE EXACT SAME THING!

fatuous arguments are great, thanks matt duss!

Posted by Jack | October 9, 2007 2:15 PM

JA, if you advocate torture, then by definition you are a torture advocate, regardless of who you call "braindead." You're the one making yourself into a torture advocate; man up and accept it.

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 9, 2007 2:23 PM

Dr. Handjob,

I tolerate the species Waterboarding which is in the genus Torture (and my qualifications for tolerance are as expressed above). I do not advocate torture tout court.

Obviously not a sophisticated reader, yes?

Posted by JA | October 9, 2007 2:31 PM

I'm willing to tolerate occasional combatant-designation error

Good. Let's designate you as the first "error" and see what your opinion is like afterwards.

Since the designation "unlawful enemy combatant" is a fantasy of the present American executive, with no force in international law or the law of any other country, that should be easy to arrange. The day after she's elected, President Hillary Clinton can designate you by executive order as an "unlawful enemy combatant" and, according to right-wing logic, she can then do with you pretty much as she pleases without interference from the courts. And there wouldn't be a thing in logic or law you could use to argue against it.

Remember that little speech from A Man for All Seasons made to another enthusiast for extraordinary measures?

And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

On the other hand, I confess that a part of me would be so lost in sin as to enjoy the spectacle of your whining, sniveling collapse after a few minutes of mild discomfort, because I've never seen anyone who writes the way you do about torture who isn't also an arrant coward.

Posted by sunsin | October 9, 2007 2:37 PM

Call me unsophisticated if you like, but at least I take responsibility for my own positions instead of playing semantic games. You "torerate" a "species" of torture. You could certainly be *more* pro-torture, but the existence of more extreme positions does not change what you are, which is pro-torture. Just own up to it, JA. Don't add "weasel" to your already heavy burden of sins.

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 9, 2007 2:43 PM

Dude, your logic-chopping here is incredibly weak. Please explain to us how tacit approval of torture is somehow morally better, or different, than active support of it.

(In your answer, do not use the argument that if you werea real torture advocate, you'd want to see it used more. This is known as the "middle ground fallacy" and the readers of this blog do not want to waste valuable keystrokes refuting it.)

Posted by James Gary | October 9, 2007 2:46 PM

JA,
OK, I understand. If you tolerate one form of torture, you are not a torture advocate. Does that apply to any form of torture? How about 2 forms. If we limit ourselves to 2 forms of torture are we advocates? How about 3.

I almost forgot. We must limit ourselves to torturing the guilty...well, the guilty and those who would be assumed to be guilty in good faith...or what passes for good faith...or what can be technically not proven to not be good faith, or at least, not discovered.

Posted by Njorl | October 9, 2007 2:47 PM

Obviously, my last comment was addressed to JA.

Posted by James Gary | October 9, 2007 2:47 PM

Here's the thing about Stephens' article that I just can't understand. On the one hand, in describing those opposed to the administration's torture regime, he says:

Taken seriously, it says that the civilized world would be better off sustaining a nuclear 9/11 than tarnishing its good name, that righteous victimhood is a finer thing than an innocent life saved through morally compromised methods, and that self-preservation is not the most fundamental requirement of democratic life.

So, we have to do these things in order to avoid a "nuclear 9/11." And yet,

It all but goes without saying that torture, properly defined and in nearly every circumstance, is wrong.
...
Torture is a word that preserves its moral force only when used precisely and consistently to denote uniquely barbarous acts. "The needle under the fingernail" is one example. Simply to mention it causes most people instinctively to shudder.

By which he presumably means that he would not shove a needle under KSM's fingernails in order to avoid a nuclear 9/11 (though he doesn't explicitly say so). Well, why not?

It's stupid contradictions like this that make me suspect that either (i) they do in fact approve of needle shoving and the like and just won't say so in polite company (if the WSJ editorial page can be described as such); (ii) they think waterboarding et. al. is torture but are shilling for the administration in order to preserve their precious tax cuts and gutting of the Treasury; or (iii) they're scared witless morons.

Really, if this is WWIV, why aren't we torturing the shit out of people?

Posted by Ugh | October 9, 2007 2:58 PM

By which he presumably means that he would not shove a needle under KSM's fingernails in order to avoid a nuclear 9/11 (though he doesn't explicitly say so). Well, why not?

The BS of the ticking bomb theoretical is that it's used not to justify torturing to extract info about a ticking bomb. It's used to justify quotidian torture. Apparently, everything's a nuke if you just look at the right way.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 9, 2007 3:05 PM

Dudes, JA said he just favors mild torture.

Like, you're waterboarded in a spa. By girls in bikinis. Who towel you dry and caress you ...

... after each desperate incident of gasping for breath, your body involuntarily convulsed in panic and straining against the straps that are holding you to the table, your every reflex screaming to you that you're drowning.

Who could object to that?

Posted by Anderson | October 9, 2007 3:20 PM

This, of course, is just another way of saying that I'm reality-based a sadist.

Fixed your typo there.

And yes, people -- and states -- torture because they can. And because they like doing it.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 9, 2007 3:28 PM

Oh, strikeout needs to be added back to the mix.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 9, 2007 3:30 PM

How bad a (relatively) mild form of torture is varies wildly with the circumstances.

If you don't know when it will end and you expect them to kill you, it's much worse than your buddies doing it to you.

I doubt that they give each other half the full effect they would give a terrorist. Friends in the police forces have been tazered as part of training -- but they do it once, with warning, and they are all healthy. In the wild, suspects are tazed repeatedly while panicked and could be frail.

Dave

Posted by Dave | October 9, 2007 3:45 PM

Yep. A friend of mine is a NJ State Trooper. He had to endure being sprayed in the face with pepper spray during the academy. He described it as one of the worst things that ever happened to him. I would say that's torture, but he did it willingly for his job, so that he would think twice before spraying someone else.

The answer to this "what is torture?" question is very simple to answer. If you saw X (let's say waterboarding) being done to an American by an overseas government would you think it was torture? If you answer yes, then torture it is. And don't give me that shit about "but they're terrorists." It's all in the eye of the beholder -- or torturer as the case may be.

Posted by Mr. Dave | October 9, 2007 3:54 PM

Waterboarding is unpleasant. It's agonizing. It's also impermanent.

Just in case you were wondering, I would also tolerate using the Bene Gesserit test for the Kwitsatz Haderach -- on properly designated unlawful enemy combatants.

And please note, I approve of waterboarding to extract information, not to punish, as some here seem to be assuming. Also note, waterboarding has been very successful at doing this.

Toughen up, guys. Trade-offs are a part of life. If we suffer another major attack, the momentum will be toward more privacy invasion, more militancy, and less mercy. To avoid that, waterboarding is a small pill to swallow, no? (This is a strategic point, which means if you respond to this point by trying to personalize it -- "why don't you swallow it, then!" -- you are an idiot.)

Finally: In biology "robustness" measures how many specific environments an organism can flourish in. In that sense, moral absolutism is a high-specificity strategy, no? It feels great, but it doesn't exactly map well to the sound and fury.

Posted by JA | October 9, 2007 4:10 PM

The other question to ask is when the Soviets were doing it to people, did you consider it torture? Because the current administration has taken a page right out of the KGB torture book with their techniques.

Lastly, who has determined the guilt of any of these individuals? How do we know that we aren't torturing thousands of innocent people?

Posted by JordanT | October 9, 2007 4:11 PM

Let's see, JA has now said:

1) torture's okay if it's impermanent
2) torture's okay if it's used to get information and not punish
3) torture's okay if it's used to prevent further erosion of civil liberties due to a terrorist attack
4) accuses torture opponents of lacking toughness and "robustness."

Unsurprisingly, all of those statements underline the clear fact that JA is pro-torture, plain and simple, but is too weaselly to admit it. Why be a torturer AND a weasel, JA, when you can just be a torturer?

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 9, 2007 4:19 PM

"Just in case you were wondering, I would also tolerate using the Bene Gesserit test for the Kwitsatz Haderach -- on properly designated unlawful enemy combatants."

Currently, an unlawful enemy combatant is whoever George W Bush says is one. Or any person our seedy allies hands us and tells us they are a terrorist. What is this method you talk about anyways, we make them eat a fictional spice and see if they live?

"And please note, I approve of waterboarding to extract information, not to punish, as some here seem to be assuming. Also note, waterboarding has been very successful at doing this."

First off, many interrogators disagree that torture is a way of extracting useful information. In fact many agree that this is a great way to extract false information in an effort to make the torture stop. Secondly, we don't know if the person is innocent, guilty or even possesses information we need. Lastly, this hasn't stopped at waterboarding and has gone on to more sinister versions of torture. Do you really think that the grunts at Abu Gharib learned those torture techniques themselves? That the same techniques we saw pictures of aren't currently being used today? That we haven't killed prisoners with our torture techniques?

Posted by JordanT | October 9, 2007 4:24 PM

This isn't a matter of squeamishness, JA. I was taught, and believe, that this country is bound together by (and worth fighting for because of) the ideas it upholds. We believe in the rights-bearing individual. We believe that men should not be imprisoned except by due process of law. Indeed:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The sanctioned use of torture, however expedient in the short term, is fundamentally corrosive to the republic it seeks to defend. And on the fundaments of the republic, we should not be willing to accept tradeoffs.

Posted by southpaw | October 9, 2007 4:26 PM

JA's reference to the Bene Gesserit tactic is just nonsense. It was not used to "torture", it was used to "test". An entirely different process. The mere infliction of agonizing pain may be a positive or negative depending on its purpose, even if the recipient is not aware of the purpose.

Every one knows that "gurus" and martial arts masters have been known to subject their students to extreme conditions as a means of training and enlightening the students. Many militaries also use extreme training methods which are painful and difficult to train their troops.

As SEAL Team leader Dick Marcinko puts it, "You don't have to like it. You just have to do it."

This of course doesn't make such training "torture" - just "tortuous". The purpose is not to torture but to train.

In a combat tactical situation, say, busting into a compound with terrorists holding hostages somewhere nearby, and beating a captured terrorist right then and there to try to derive the location of the hostages, while hardly the most effective method of dealing with the situation, certainly can be justified due to the immediate threat to innocent lives. This may well be "torture" and if suggesting that it is a valid (if not particularly competent) approach makes me a "torturer" than I don't mind accepting that.

As I've said before here, the more effective method is to threaten DEATH, not pain. As somone once said, "This works wonderfully to concentrate the mind" of the opponent.

JA might have also mentioned that any attempt by the candidate to resist the Bene Gesserit test would result in DEATH - the poisoned needle was held to the throat of the candidate.

Thus, I'm not really an advocate of torture, I'm an advocate of a quick, clean, efficient and effective death. Make of that what you will. But that technique has been shown to work many times where torture has not worked.

So an opposition to torture is not a symptom of being a "whiny liberal" (although it can be.) It's merely a recognition of what works and what doesn't.

In terms of the "nuclear 9/11" scenario, this sort of "tactical torture" might well be justified - again, if the time frame is in fact actually "immediate" and the situation is tactical.

But this is not what the torture advocates are advocating. They are advocating the use of torture at all times and in all places merely as a means of extracting strategic OR tactical information - and in preference to the more effective means such as "turning" an informant, "brainwashing" an informant (which can be done without torture techniques), "tricking" the informant, infiltration by double agents, HUMINT, and ELINT, etc.

So it demonstrates the hallmark of the typical statist: both maliciousness and incompetence.

There is almost never a justification of the use of torture because 1) it almost never works; 2) it's almost never useful; 3) it demonstrates incompetence at coming up with a real solution to a problem.

Advocating torture is like advocating the "lifeboat solution". In other words, the notion is that there are no proper means of conducting oneself in a "lifeboat" or extreme circumstances of some sort. The problem with this notion is that in virtually every situation, "two heads are better than one" - even when it seems two heads are worse than one. In a similar sense, even when it seems torture is the only solution, there probably is a better solution (the threat of actual death, for one.)

Certainly it is possible to imagine extreme circumstances in which some form of torture might actually be the only way to salvage a situation. Such a scenario is hardly grounds for justifying it in LESS than such a situation, especially given the weight of counter-evidence against torture's use in lesser circumstances.

Not only does it not follow, it simply can be established to be a WORSE solution than others.

But the bottom line is: the people who come up with these sorts of advocacy are the same people who regularly engage in intellectual dishonesty and intellectual cowardice in all areas of discourse.

JA is an excellent example of both.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 9, 2007 5:34 PM

I came close to going to SERE in 1991 as part of an upcoming duty assignment. I was NOT enthused. Luckily a Gulf War bailed me out.

But I do know people that have gone through it. Tens of thousands have.....SERE is Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Part of it's goal is to train people to resist interrogation long enough to avoid much of the serious damage a quick release of intelligence to the enemy would cause. All organized military or spy cells have plans in place where they assume a time limit before the intelligence value of a captured comrade is compromised by the enemy and counters like code-changes, redeployments, escape of compromised spies must be implemented.

waterboarding / dunking
physical and psych abuse
stress positions
cramped in a bamboo cage
water deprivation
food deprivation
cold therapy (water hoses and cold cells)
not fun, but "character building"
number one lesson: "everybody talks", just try to hold back operational material till it expires.

Everybody reaches limits and talks. Everybody.

And it is a myth that the enemy is usually deceived by lies. They cross-check data and know enough psychology to catch most lies and go at the interogatee again until they coerce enough to get the truth.

(And, John McCain is lying his ass off when he claims torture never works. It worked on him. As would have the "less than real torture" the US dishes out to its Servicemen and to the likes of KSM)

Posted by Chris Ford | October 9, 2007 7:18 PM

Somehow the intro to this part of my post was clipped. It came from a Forward Air Strike Controller who went through SERE in 1997.

In confirmation of Chris's comments, I have been to the SERE short course. I was subjected to:
waterboarding / dunking
physical and psych abuse
stress positions
cramped in a bamboo cage
water deprivation
food deprivation
cold therapy (water hoses and cold cells)
not fun, but "character building"
number one lesson: "everybody talks", just try to hold back operational material till it expires.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 9, 2007 7:25 PM

I think in this debate-- and I can't believe we're stooping to have it-- about whether or not torture is ever justifiable public policy, we're forgetting the question of legality. Waterboarding is torture. Whether you think it "ought" to be legal under some circumstances or not, it is torture, and therefore illegal. The men who have done this are criminals who have broken the laws of our country. Somehow we're pretending like the legality of this is still open to discussion.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | October 9, 2007 7:34 PM

I think in this debate-- and I can't believe we're stooping to have it-- about whether or not torture is ever justifiable public policy, we're forgetting the question of legality.

Well then don't "stoop" to it. It's beneath your dignity to even address the issue, other than to keep saying things like "I can't believe we're even debating this!" over and over again, right? So just ignore it. The argument from incredulity. Just keep pretending that you don't have to make any kind of real argument against torture, on the grounds that it's not "open to discussion" or some other such bullshit.

Meanwhile, I suspect that most people will continue to share my view that there are certain circumstances in which torture is ethical.

Posted by Mixner | October 9, 2007 9:54 PM

First off, many interrogators disagree that torture is a way of extracting useful information. In fact many agree that this is a great way to extract false information in an effort to make the torture stop.

Torture does not need to be a reliable method of interrogation to sometimes be an effective one. If the bomb is ticking and the prisoner isn't talking, torture may be the only option for preventing a catastrophe.

Secondly, we don't know if the person is innocent, guilty or even possesses information we need.

We don't "know" that a criminal is guilty when we send him to prison or the gas chamber, either. There are probably thousands of innocent people in America's jails. We don't "know" that bombing raid #47 on Hamburg, Germany during WWII saved more lives than it destroyed. The real world isn't about such certainties, it's about estimates and probabilities and tradeoffs. We may have strong evidence that a prisoner possesses the information we need. He may even have confessed to having the information to taunt his captors.

Posted by Mixner | October 9, 2007 10:09 PM

Once again, Ford and Mixner are merely embarrassing themselves,

First of all, there are plenty of cases where torture did not and does not work. Plenty of people have died under torture without revealing whatever critical information they possessed. It's merely a matter of motivation - and perhaps one's natural pain threshold.

Second, someone who IS trained to resist torture knows that the best way to avoid revealing critical information is to reveal non-critical information. This game can be played for sufficient time to allow the critical information value to expire.

Ford says that any good interrogator will detect the lies and continue the torture. Yes, and it will still take longer to get the information than it's worth. It all depends on how well trained, and how motivated the prisoner is, and how much he actually knows.

One major problem with torture, which Mixner ignores, is without prior intelligence about the identity and rank of the prisoner, you don't KNOW what he knows. It's not a question of innocence or guilt - you don't torture a person based on that, unless you are torturing to get a "confession" - which is the LEAST reliable result of a torture session. Anybody will "confess" under torture - the Inquisition proved that. The question is whether an individual has useful information.

Mixner also ignores all the previous points made that torture is the least likely way to derive useful information compared to more effective methods that I listed earlier - especially in time-critical situations.

In other words, if you absolutely, positively, need to know something NOW, torture is not the way to get that information. Against a motivated opponent, it's just too time-consuming.

The threat of death is the way to go in that situation.

But if the situation is that critical, you need to have taken the necessary steps beforehand to generate the necessary intelligence. Failing to do so, and having to resort to an incompetent method like torture, merely underscores your incompetence.

And again, as I said before, which Mixner also ignores (he's good at ignorance), reducing the argument to the "ticking bomb" scenario merely renders the argument irrelevant to the more common cases. It doesn't logically follow AT ALL that using torture in such a scenario has any relevance to using it in any other circumstances.

Which is the point of the torture advocates. They WANT to use it in ALL cases, not just the "ticking bomb" scenario. They simply are too intellectually dishonest to admit it, and thus they use a cover story about "ticking bomb" scenarios.

It's just another example of intellectual dishonesty and intellectual cowardice - the hallmark of these people.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 9, 2007 10:42 PM

Hack,

You haven't presented any evidence whatsoever that torture never succeeds in cases where conventional interrogation techniques are tried and fail. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. If you have such evidence, produce it. If you don't, your assertions are worthless.

As I said, torture does not need to be a reliable method of extracting information in order to be an effective one in some cases. "Unreliable" does not mean "never works." You don't seem to understand the distinction.

Posted by Mixner | October 9, 2007 11:15 PM

At this point, anyone who seriously talks about the "ticking bomb" is a fucking moron, and that means you, Mixner, and no, more serious engagement with your "argument" is not warranted. What's warranted is to point out that you should go fuck yourself with your ticking bomb.

Thanks!

Posted by not jennifer | October 10, 2007 3:13 AM

I am with Yglesias on this issue. I read the opinion from the WSJ and I felt that Mr. Stephens was is in serious need of some lessons on torture.

"hours held naked in a frigid [50 degree Fahrenheit] cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding"--come progressively closer to the line, and perhaps they cross it."--Stephens

Yes all of the above are torturous. Has Mr. Stephens ever heard of Chinese water torture? It is a simple idea, which in theory is harmless, but in practice can make a man wish for death.

the best method of torture are never physical; but mental. If you were to give those enemy combatants a choice between being in that 50 degree F cellfor days without sleeping or getting the crap beat out of them for 5 hours straight, my money is on them would welcoming the beating. I would. That is true testament to the power of psychological torture. The pain is deeper and longer lasting.

If Mr. Stephens insist on thinking that waterboarding is not torture, I would gladly invite him to have it done on him and not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. Mr. Yglesias should perform the waterboarding on Mr. Stephens. I know that he would be screaming (in between the sensation of drowning) for his mother and for needles under his nails.

If we want to torture prisoners to save lives let’s just say that, but let’s not play rhetorics with the word torture to make ourselves feel better about it. We are not doing the prisoners any favor by waterboarding them instead of electrocuting them.

http://www.youtubethis.blogspot.com

Posted by coolrepublica | October 10, 2007 4:10 AM

"As I said, torture does not need to be a reliable method of extracting information in order to be an effective one in some cases. "Unreliable" does not mean "never works." You don't seem to understand the distinction"--Mixner

Mr. Mixner, would you be willing to torture 10 people so you can get one person to divulge reliable information?

The question people should ask themselves when it comes to torturing Islamist militants is: If a guy was willing to blow himself into peices for his cause, what make the interogators think that he would japordize that cause to avoid torture by giving away his group's plans?

Let me make it even juicer. Pretend for one second Mr. Mixner that you are a soldier during the second world war and you are captured by Hitler' army. You have important information that could shift the balance of power. You know for instance that the Allied troop would be landing on June 6, 1944 in Normandy. You are being tortured asking information about allied plans. The war depends on you Mr. Mixner. Do you a) Let them torture you for the cause and keep your mouth shut?
b) Tell them of the plan for the invasion of Normandy complete with dates and times?
c) Give bad information to your German interrogators and hope they fall for it?

Winning or losing WWII is on your shoulder Mr. Mixner. What is your choice?

Posted by coolrepublica | October 10, 2007 4:31 AM

If we suffer another major attack, the momentum will be toward more privacy invasion, more militancy, and less mercy. To avoid that, waterboarding is a small pill to swallow, no?

This is an interesting argument inasmuch as I suspect JA would be one of those favoring "more privacy invasion, more militancy, and less mercy" in the event of another attack. It's essentially argument by extortion. Accept some creeping fascism now or we'll be forced to go all out next time.

I'd prefer that we preach courage -- both physical and moral. That we do everything consistent with American values and ideals to minimize the risk of terrorist attacks but accept that the risks cannot be completely eliminated. And that we proclaim loudly that it is our ability to withstand those threats without compromising our fundamental ideals that makes America great. Not every American can go to war and risk his or her life to defend America. But every American can face the much smaller risk to his or her life posed by terrorism to uphold what America stands for. And that, my friends, is fucking patriotism.

Posted by Led | October 10, 2007 12:32 PM

coolrepublica,

You're not thinking about the ticking time bomb scenario carefully enough. Unlike the date of D-Day in WWII, the location of the bomb is verifiable, so the terrorist has a strong incentive not to lie. Suppose you're the terrorist. This is what the interrogator says to you:

"Give us the location of the bomb. As you soon as you do, our agents will immediately go to that location. If you've lied to us, or if you refuse to speak at all, we will torture you. If you keep lying or remaining silent, we'll keep torturing you, more and more harshly, until you give us the true location of the bomb."

What do you do?

Posted by Mixner | October 10, 2007 3:16 PM

Mr. Mixner,

That is way too easy. If I am fighting for a cause I believe in, I let the interrogators torture me. In between the torture I would give them fake information until they get so frustrated they kill me. I would die happy knowing that my head was not the only one that was being fucked with.

People with no conviction make bad terrorists and bad soldiers. That is why you have to indoctrinate them whether they are in an army camps or an al-Qaeda camps so they would be willing to die for the cause.

People who sign up to be terrorists or soldiers for adventure, or because the have nothing to do on Saturday night need to be told to go home when they want to sign up. The will be sloppy and fold easy under pressure and be of no use. A "efficient" terrorist like a "good" soldier need to be disciplined, ready to die, ready to suffer, and ready to cut his/her own tongue off if need be.

Posted by coolrepublica | October 10, 2007 4:56 PM

If I am fighting for a cause I believe in, I let the interrogators torture me.

You might feel rather differently after a few rounds of waterboarding or needles-under-the-fingernails.

Posted by Mixner | October 10, 2007 6:52 PM

Mr. Mixner,

I might feel rather differently after a few rounds of waterboarding, but if I'm disciplined,have a strong sense of duty, and I'm slightly sadistic, I doubt I will.

The mind is very powerful, and that is why psychological torture methods are worst than corporal ones. I gave birth to two kids, drug free, and I did not make a sound during labor. Was it painful? You bet. Needles under the fingernails would have been less painful. But I told myself I would not scream and followed through with my goal.

Of course, a high pain threshold is important if you are going in the terrorist business and you have to be good a playing mind games with your interrogator as much as they are with you. That's the only way to survive torture for information. You have something they want and as long as you don't give it to them, the pressure is really on them.

Posted by coolrepublica | October 10, 2007 7:44 PM