The Problem's Bigger Than We Thought

The liberal Boston Globe is good for at least one thing -- showing us how deeply entrenched America-hatred is among the nation's elite. It's even buried into elements of the military:

All of the approaches to interrogation supported by President Bush as "nontorture" (head slapping, freezing temperatures, water boarding) qualify as torture under international law (Bush backs interrogation of suspects," Page A2, Oct. 6).

During my last year in Vietnam, 1968 to '69, I was in charge of US Air Force interrogation of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army prisoners. None of what Bush labels as legal was legal under the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States is still a signatory. US Army, Marine, and Army of Republic of Vietnam personnel were constantly amazed at the interrogation results produced by the Air Force, and we were never allowed to touch prisoners, let alone head-slap them. Every human being has needs, and we learned those needs and exploited them. Neither Bush's bullying approach in the Mideast nor his unlawful interrogation program has worked. Sophisticated psychological methods are not being used by the Bush people, so the alleged "nontorture" bullying will continue.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, but systematic torture is not a policy you find associated with polities experiencing crime-fighting success (the FBI's crackdown on the mafia, say) or war-fighting success (the US military during the second world war). Rather, when the ideological needs of the powers that be run in the direction of creating demand for false confessions (Stalin's Russia, witch hunts, the Spanish inquisition) out comes the torturing.

UPDATE: Also see here where Mitt Romney's campaign staff emails Marc Ambinder to brag that their man will be more cavalier in his disregard for Americans' civil liberties than will his GOP rivals.

Comments

looks like a is missing.

Posted by crack | October 13, 2007 10:50 AM

We don't get off so easy in Vietnam. We turned most prisoners over to the VN military and they did the torture. We are culpable there to, because we could have prevented it.

Posted by John Bennett | October 13, 2007 11:15 AM

I doubt we were that amazingly successful, but the point is correct.

OTOH, Bush and his guys just like beating up Muslims, so any actual information about terrorism is just a bonus to the real payoff.

max
['Kinky and stupid is still stupid.']

Posted by max | October 13, 2007 11:37 AM

It's possible, I guess, that those on the ground (military interrogators, CIA agents, etc.) are persisting in policies that don't work because of pressures from the White House, and that a Harvard B.A. with no actual experience in law enforcement, military operations, or any other relevant field can see this where others can't, but it isn't plausible. It's like when a blogger argues that Goldman Sachs's stock market forecasts are ideologically tainted or corrupt and therefore inaccurate.

None of which has anything to do with what is right or wrong, but only with the question of what works. Why don't we examine the Israelis and the Russians: they have had quite a few military and intelligence successes, and I didn't hear that they had strict "no mistreatment" policies.

Posted by y81 | October 13, 2007 11:43 AM

It's possible, I guess, that those on the ground (military interrogators, CIA agents, etc.) are persisting in policies that don't work

I think it is more likely that the people in command of the program retained people who had very little connection to the institutional memory of the interrogation infrastructure which did not use torture and was against it. After all, MattY is merely deferring to the expert opinion on torture, while Bush is listening to a discredited faction on the matter, in a similar way that MattY defers to experts on the topic of evolution while most Republicans follow the "folk wisdom" that favors creationism.

In any case, the point was not whether torture gets information, or whether any other methods work as well or better. The point is to prove one's toughness by terrorizing the enemy. If you believe that terrorizing the enemy in this way pays off some kind of dividends, even if they have nothing to do with information, then you likely have reason to support it.

But the final point is that Bush's claims that "we do not torture" are false,because the methods that he claims are not torture are, in fact, torture. So why doesn't he simply say, "yes, we use torture, as it is defined under international law" ?

Posted by Tyro | October 13, 2007 12:03 PM

"Why don't we examine the Israelis and the Russians: they have had quite a few military and intelligence successes, and I didn't hear that they had strict "no mistreatment" policies."

Soviet-Russian foreign policy doesn't strike me as a study in success. Yes, the Soviets managed to win their part of the Second World War and establish a post-war empire, but their repressive (and at times barbaric) methods planted the seeds of their empire's destruction. These methods scared the hell out of Western Europe and pushed it into the American orbit, and they created millions of dissatisfied Eastern Europeans, who had to be periodically put down by force and systematically deprived of basic civil liberties. Sure it took nearly fifty years for the empire to fall apart, but it did fall apart and, in the meantime, it created a dismal polity with a low standard of living. In short, any "military and intelligence successes" might best be viewed as symptoms of a failing governing order, which is probably what Matt is getting at.

By the way, this type of analysis not totally grounded in hindsight. A whole bunch of Americans saw it in the 40s and 50s; Eisenhower based US foreign policy on this vision.

Posted by Unreal Veal | October 13, 2007 12:04 PM

"In any case, the point was not whether torture gets information, or whether any other methods work as well or better. The point is to prove one's toughness by terrorizing the enemy. If you believe that terrorizing the enemy in this way pays off some kind of dividends, even if they have nothing to do with information, then you likely have reason to support it."

That's the thing. I think Bush has this fragile ego that gets propped up by putting on the tough guy image. He's like the bully on the playground. Everybody knows he is a scared little boy on the inside, but he puts on the show of being big and tough and pushing other people around. He does it so he doesn't have to face his insecurities. Unfortunately for us, Bush isn't a bully on the playground; he is a bully on the world stage. Is it 2009, yet?

Posted by Captain Noble | October 13, 2007 12:26 PM

" or any other relevant field can see this where others can't, but it isn't plausible."

Are you seriously under the impression that the Bush administration is seriously invovled in self evaluation of it's policies based on evidence?

There are tons of people with relevant experience that think torture doesn't work.

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | October 13, 2007 1:17 PM

Why don't we examine the Israelis and the Russians: they have had quite a few military and intelligence successes, and I didn't hear that they had strict "no mistreatment" policies.

Now there's two countries that are certainly excellent models for the United States. I can't wait until we can enjoy the same "success" in Iraq that those two have seen over the last decade in Lebanon and Chechnya!

A light onto the nations indeed. I'd vomit, but there's nothing left.

Posted by Doctor Memory | October 13, 2007 2:30 PM

There is a quantum difference between a dedicated Nazi or NVA cadre and a religious fanatic who believes he betrays his honor, his tribes honor, and betrays his religion and assures his fate in hell if he talks. 11 of the 12 highest value Al Qaeda operatives we took into custody resisted all coercive interrogation techniques until they were waterboarded.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, holds the "record" for longest time before breaking in waterboarding - 2 1/2 minutes - better by almost 2 minutes from what the average CIA operative, SERE candidate, Navy SEAL could endure. He highly impressed his captors with his dedication and will.

Of course torture and the "less than real torture techniques" the US practices, works. Every nation with security needs and threats employs interrogators - have done so from the dawn of history - because interrogation works and saves lifes and enhances your side's odds of victory.

If it didn't work, you would see some power or nation going back to the beginning of recorded history that rejected it's use, and put the significant money and elite manpower allocated to that capacity into better use in war. But no nation or power ever did. Or maybe one or two did, but did not survive long enough for their objections to interrogating an enemy out to destroy them to be noted in any historical record.

In 6 years, the US has employed "enhanced interrogation techniques" on under 100 unlawful enemy combatants, with under 33 waterboarded. Few outside the terrorist-rights activists and human rights Lefty lawyer bunch consider the discomfort and humiliation of coercive interrogation "real torture". Real torture is what Algerians, Palestinians, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans say is what radical Muslims do to their captives.

And it is wrong to focus on the value of iterrogation for various defensive scenarios - "ticking time bomb" and such. It's far greater value is on offense. Getting the Jihadis to spill on who their fellow Network members are - so all the scouts, financiers, document forgers, weapons and bomb designers, intelligence operatives, recruiters, religious mentors, travel agents, safehouses - can be ID'd and rolled up.
Europe's criticism of Americans questioning poor little freedom fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan has muted as interrogators have found the "ratlines" then traced back Jihadis to networks of violent Muslims in Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, Bosnia, Chechnya, the UK, Sweden, France, Belgium, etc. Many of those nations had no clue of the venomous nests of Muslim militants at work until Americans bagged members of those networks in Iraq, generating hundreds of arrests in Europe, some in Canada...

Posted by Chris Ford | October 13, 2007 2:37 PM

US Army, Marine, and Army of Republic of Vietnam personnel were constantly amazed at the interrogation results produced by the Air Force, and we were never allowed to touch prisoners, let alone head-slap them. Every human being has needs, and we learned those needs and exploited them.

This is the thing. Interrogation is generally pretty easy, and the idea that a) the terrorists are *so* hardened and sophisticated, and b) that you can't get these "terrorists"/terrorists to talk - as sophisticated and hardened (or not) as they are - is nonsense.

I'm a criminal lawyer, so I have a fair bit of experience with interrogations and their techniques (including in the context of "terrorists", at least as far as we've had them in Canada). People talk. Criminals - maybe *especially* criminals, talk. Because they want to. Because it's part of the human condition.

You would not believe how hard it is to get a client not to talk to the police - no matter how much you drill it into their heads that it is contrary to their interests, that the police are not on their side, etc. This applies to even the "smartest" of clients - hell, they might be the worst of all.

I use scare quotes because the fact is, there is perhaps no such thing as a truly smart criminal defendant (eg. exhibit 1: their refusal to take my advice not to talk...). I say all this in the context of normal criminal proceedings, where the police opportunity to question a defendant is pretty limited, given the requirements to bring an accused before the court shortly after arrest, etc. Outside this context (eg. Guantanamo), I can't imagine even the most intelligent, hardened criminal not giving up the farm within a few days of a well run, non-coercive Q&A.

To the extent that "terrorists" are holding out (some *years* after apprehension), this signals one thing only: they have nothing to say.

Given the insistence of BushCo to persist with torture and other coercive interrogations, they can't possibly be interested in actual (ie. true) information. And since it has been going on so long, I begin to doubt even the motive, akin to the USSR, that they want to extract confessions. Rather, I can only think it is a pure power play. They do it because they can. Because they think it makes them tough, and because they think it is perceived as tough - hence the clamour within the GOP presidential candidates to adopt and expand the policy.

Posted by McKingford | October 13, 2007 2:39 PM

But the final point is that Bush's claims that "we do not torture" are false,because the methods that he claims are not torture are, in fact, torture. So why doesn't he simply say, "yes, we use torture, as it is defined under international law" ?

That would countenance some sort of judicious assessment of international law from DOJ top lawyers and white house counsel. In reality, if the administration does not express outright hostility to international obligations, the best we can expect is that it believes the U.S. already meets its international obligations. The consensus interpretations of the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture are simply wrong, the product of an effete, militarily neutered European perspective.

Jack Goldsmith, despite his resignation from the DOJ over disagreements with the legality of torture policies, nevertheless was hired as head the OLC in part because he believes that customary international law, which has its basis in international consensus and longstanding practice, cannot bind the U.S.

When the president says the U.S. does not torture and that its methods fall within the limit of the law, he is simply parroting the tendentious legal analyses providing to him by administration lawyers. They're not just stretching interpretation of international law and domestic statutes far past the breaking point -- they're also hewing to a constitutional theory that says that anything that substracts from the president's wartime authority, including duly enacted statutes implementing international obligations, are unconstitutional. The executive is truly the embodiment of law itself, whose every wartime action is a performatory utterance of the law. It is impossible for the president to violate the law because according to the president, VP, and top administration lawyers, the president IS the law.

Posted by StJoe | October 13, 2007 2:44 PM

There is a quantum difference between a dedicated Nazi or NVA cadre and a religious fanatic who believes he betrays his honor, his tribes honor, and betrays his religion and assures his fate in hell if he talks.

I know that this is the narrative of the pro-torture fans, but it is folly. It is, quite simply, false.

It also misses another point: the overwhelming majority - if not *all* - terrorists, lack the training and/or expertise of a "dedicated Nazi or NVA cadre". Has anyone paid attention to what's actually happened around the world in the last few years? The London Tube bombings, the failed attack in Scotland, Canada's "17", etc...These guys are all CLOWNS! And yet, even clowns can be successful terrorists.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, holds the "record" for longest time before breaking in waterboarding - 2 1/2 minutes - better by almost 2 minutes from what the average CIA operative, SERE candidate, Navy SEAL could endure. He highly impressed his captors with his dedication and will.

I must not have an up-to-date Guinness Book of World Records, since I can't find this "record". Of course, comparing an actual terrorist with a covert agent-in-training is folly, since the trainee *knows the torture is a drill that can be ended, and in any event, has no terrorist information to give up*.

Not to mention, any accounting of information obtained from US torture is suspect anyway. It, by definition, originates from the torturers who may have an interest in spinning the results of their interrogations. Where is the documentation of these intelligence successes? Were they as successful with KSM as they were with Abu Zubaydah, who sent US agents panicking on one false trail after another, from nuclear plants, to malls, to the Statue of Liberty, all so he could end his torture?

Posted by McKingford | October 13, 2007 3:08 PM

Hey Ford, what's the date that KSM was first waterboarded? Who are the 33? How do you know it isn't 133?

What's your source for the whole comment?

(This is an honest question -- I'm looking for actual unclassified evidence about this.)

Posted by CharleyCarp | October 13, 2007 4:40 PM

And Ford, when you call people "unlawful enemy combatants" you're using a term no court has endorsed applying to a particular person, and which the Court of Military Commission Review found (in US v. Khadr, decided on Sept. 24, 2007) can't be applied, for legal purposes, based either on the President's proclamation, or on findings (to date) of any of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

Posted by CharleyCarp | October 13, 2007 4:48 PM

Hey Ford, what's the date that KSM was first waterboarded? Who are the 33? How do you know it isn't 133?
What's your source for the whole comment?

Source is General Hayden, head of the CIA about special methods used in interrogation, of which, considerably less than 33 had to be waterboarded, and then only to save substantial numbers of innicent infodel lives.

More Carp - And Ford, when you call people "unlawful enemy combatants" you're using a term no court has endorsed applying to a particular person, and which the Court of Military Commission Review found (in US v. Khadr, decided on Sept. 24, 2007) can't be applied, for legal purposes.

No Court has endorsed the "unlawful enemy combatant designation of terrorists, spies, and saboteurs? Try the Supreme Court, who endorsed that unanimously, in Ex Parte Quirin. The only reason the Court of Military REview said it couldn't be applied is because the 5 geniuses of the present court, led by Stevens, ruled in Hamdan that in Steven's and Ruthie's minds - AQ is not pursuing an international conflict, so they are free to disobey Geneva laws of war, and yet keep the protection of innoenst under GEneva as the Lefty lawyers say Article 3 applies them as "civilians"

Posted by Chris Ford | October 13, 2007 6:57 PM

"In reality, if the administration does not express outright hostility to international obligations, the best we can expect is that it believes the U.S. already meets its international obligations."

Ah, yes, the soft bigotry of low expectations...

Posted by Rihilism | October 13, 2007 9:24 PM

"Why don't we examine the Israelis and the Russians: they have had quite a few military and intelligence successes, and I didn't hear that they had strict "no mistreatment" policies."

We also do not know that any such "successes" they may had have anything to do with intelligence extracted by torture.

If you have specific cases to cite, cite them. Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke out your ass.

As far as I know, the Russians lost in Afghanistan despite using torture - just like the US is losing in Iraq despite using torture.

Not to mention that AFAIK the Russians were big on using sex as their main method of "turning" people on to assist them. The Mossad is reputedly big on that, too - that's apparently how they got Vanuunu arrested.

But, of course, we can't have uptight American Christian soldiers using sex to recruit spies for us, right? Not to mention that they'd be fucking incompetent at it...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 14, 2007 6:25 AM

"Getting the Jihadis to spill on who their fellow Network members are - so all the scouts, financiers, document forgers, weapons and bomb designers, intelligence operatives, recruiters, religious mentors, travel agents, safehouses - can be ID'd and rolled up."

Chris Ford - the moron who wants to sound like he knows this stuff, but has never heard of the "cell" system.

Nitwit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 14, 2007 6:29 AM

I'll add to that the fucking obvious:

Despite all the Guantanamo crap, and the CIA helpfully "rendering" captives to countries where torture is regularly practices...

just WHERE does anybody SEE ANY evidence that ANY of that has "rolled up" ANYBODY?

Are we WINNING the "war on terror"?

Does anybody SEE us "winning"?

So are these morons simply saying that we need to torture people HARDER so that we CAN win?

We've BEEN torturing people. It has NOT worked!

So why are we even discussing how it's SUPPOSED to work?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 14, 2007 6:33 AM

McKingford - "there is perhaps no such thing as a truly smart criminal defendant (eg. exhibit 1: their refusal to take my advice not to talk...)"

Well, I'd say that's true. I, however, am an exception. When I was arrested (and my case was totally open and shut, so I really had no reason not to talk), the FBI came in and laid down a form in front of me that was the Miranda form.

The form said that I waived my rights to an attorney before questioning.

They wanted me to sign it.

I said, "As I read this, it says I waive my rights to an attorney before questioning."

They said, "No, it doesn't really say that. It just says we told you your Miranda rights."

I told them, "Sorry, I can read. There is no separation of material between this top part, which says I waive my right to counsel before questioning, and this bottom part which is the Miranda warning. I'm not signing."

They had to cancel the interrogation because I refused to sign it. Your average criminal moron probably would have signed it - or refused to because he didn't understand it at all, or simply couldn't read.

I get sent to the Federal Detention Center in Dublin, California. There, the intake psychologist asks me, "What were you intending to do to these former US Presidents?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna give you material for more Federal charges against me - ones that carry life imprisonment - NOT."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 14, 2007 6:42 AM

You lost me, hack.

Fraudulent inducement to sign a waiver form is troubling, but it falls a little short of torture, don't you think?

On the larger point, I think it's pretty dangerous to try to conjure up consequentialist arguments about torture. They may be valid in the abstract.

But in the room, when you have a guy in front of you who you think has information that will save lives, consequentialism starts to argue the other way. In the room, you need to have a principle that torture is wrong, inhumane, and unworthy of the ideals for which many Americans have died.

Otherwise, there's nothing to overrule Krauthammer's marginal utility argument that you can torture this one guy, save scores of lives, and come out ahead on the scoreboard..

Posted by southpaw | October 14, 2007 7:24 AM

Tell us more, Richard Hack. THis sounds interesting. Were they arresting you for a blog comment or something?

Posted by mq | October 14, 2007 12:28 PM

Right southpaw, the consequentialist view has some appeal in the abstract, but the problem is that the ideal situation never exists. For torture to have a chance, there are so many impossible assumptions that have to obtain: the torturer must be correct in his guess that the detainee has vital information; the torture must actually lead to the detainee divulging said vital information and not simply lying or inventing things to halt the torture; the torture must be more effective than any other interrogation methods available.

The rhetoric about torture focuses on giving American servicemen and women all the "tools" they could possibly need. The folly of the present approach is that it is obsessed with accumulation of tools for its own sake without regard to quality. Extending the range of legal interrogation methods deeper into brutalism is seen as an end in itself, something that will automatically make America safer. It's like the administration made the logical error that because in national emergencies America sometimes must sacrifice liberties, that therefore all we need to do post-9/11 is find some liberties to sacrifice.

Posted by StJoe | October 14, 2007 6:52 PM

"Fraudulent inducement to sign a waiver form is troubling, but it falls a little short of torture, don't you think?"

Where did I say that? I was commenting to McKingford's comment about criminals willing to talk. Try to read the posts before commenting.

Here's what Larry Johnson has to say about the CIA and torture over at TPM today:

"I know from Gary Berntsen, author of Jawbreaker, who cornered Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001, that he did not wrest info from Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists by employing torture. Another friend of mine, who is still undercover, told me a similar story of his time on the ground in Afghanistan. Both men realized that the mission of getting good, reliable info from terrorists was not achieved by using torture. Building rapport and trust was the name of the game."

Consequentialism (who invented that bullshit term) is irrelevant. Torture is not the way to go. It has nothing to do with morality and ethics. It's simply incompetent. The fact that it might get you what you want one percent or even ten percent of the time is irrelevant. You don't do incompetent things as a matter of SOP. You do things that are known to work and work well. Torture isn't, despite Ford's love of it and his notion that because the rest of the world's despotic governments throughout history like it, it is somehow competent to use it. Those regimes aren't around any more. And if the US continues its downward slide, it won't be around much longer either.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 15, 2007 12:03 AM