Why Waterboard?

James Fallows linked to an old David Corn post showing some photos from Phnom Penh where you can see a waterboard in action as part of something the Cambodians use to illustrate the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. The attached email makes a point that I've made before but that can't be made often enough:

As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Over and over again, you don't see the world's great geopolitical successes -- the twentieth century USA, 19th century Britain, 18th century France -- torturing their way to the top of the heap. Instead, you people who for whatever reason feel it's important to generate some false confessions.

Comments

I've been thinking about this today, and I wanted to make a point that came up during a law school exercise recently. Waterboarding, by definition is simulated drowning. In other words, it's simulated death. In some cases, as I understand it, the victim actually drowns and has to be revived...and therefore endures the actual process of death, or murder, and repeatedly. The Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture prohibit "extreme physical or mental pain". Now, I don't know if anyone has taken the time to "quantify" this, but I have to assume that the experience of simulated death or murder qualifies as "extreme mental pain". But what do I know, I've never experienced it.

Posted by Tom Joad | October 19, 2007 8:57 PM

I don't think the false-positive argument against waterboarding is a winner for you, Matt. It's vulnerable in the same way that Bush's "attack them over there so they don't attack us over here" argument is vulnerable. Your entire platform can be destroyed by subsequent events (e.g. KSM giving up actionable intel).

The only way you win this argument is by appealing to the moral instinct, as Tom Joad did (though I disagree with it). Should you persist in appealing to utility, you're likely to find that fate has sawed the limb from beneath you.

Posted by JA | October 19, 2007 9:15 PM

One more thing. You highly underestimate the difference between an interrogator seeking an imposed confession and an interrogator seeking truthful, actionable intelligence. The differences of intent create large differences in tactics and results.

Posted by JA | October 19, 2007 9:20 PM

One more thing. You highly underestimate the difference between an interrogator seeking an imposed confession and an interrogator seeking truthful, actionable intelligence. The differences of intent create large differences in tactics and results.

You know this how exactly?

Posted by WillieStyle | October 19, 2007 9:25 PM

I disagree. The main reason for the silent acquiescence to torture that a large chunk of the American population provides is the supposed utility derived from torture. The only way to win politically is to win the argument on the non-utility of torture.

Everyone knows the moral case and virtually everyone agrees with it. The problem is the silent acquiescence.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | October 19, 2007 9:27 PM

I disagree. The main reason for the silent acquiescence to torture that a large chunk of the American population provides is the supposed utility derived from torture. The only way to win politically is to win the argument on the non-utility of torture.

Everyone knows the moral case against and virtually everyone agrees with it. The problem is the silent acquiescence.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | October 19, 2007 9:27 PM

Is there any historical precedent for a country having an internal debate about the legitimacy of torture? I can't think of one.

Posted by southpaw | October 19, 2007 9:46 PM

The differences of intent create large differences in tactics and results.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Posted by Stu | October 19, 2007 9:47 PM

Nick, I think that's right. Most Americans tolerate torture only if they think it has utility.

But that's the problem. An example is always available where torture yields true, significant information.

A useful model is that used by Prof. Pinker when delineating between morals and preferences. Moralizing an issue gives you the opportunity of creating a blanket taboo. Arguments from utility, however, are relegated to the realm of preference. Should circumstances change, preferences might change.

Moral issues can retreat to preferences over time (child out of wedlock, e.g.) and preferential issues can level-up into moral ones (cigarettes?). Moral issues, once they've surpassed a specific threshold, are largely immune from circumstance in a way preferential issues are not.

Thus, Matt et. al. are playing a weak hand with their argument from utility, especially since they are addressing a public that's convinced of its essential goodness. The Feminist Movement didn't win on utilitarianism, it won by moralizing the issue of women's rights. Same thing for Civil Rights and Gay Rights.

Shame is the only thing that will win the day. It's what the Left is good at, and you need to use it if you want to win.

Posted by JA | October 19, 2007 9:49 PM

Stu, I'm waterboarding you. I need to know if you took my daughter, and where she's being held. You break and say yes, you took her, and she's at 1021 T. Place.

Soviet Union? You're executed, and that's that.

War on Terror? Agents are dispatched to 1021 T. Place. If she's not there, we start all over again.

Do this over time, and you develop 1) LARGE DIFFERENCES IN TACTICS, and 2) LARGE DIFFERENCES IN RESULTS.

It's inarguable, bub. It may be immoral as hell, but it is inarguable -- inarguable -- that tactics and results depend on intent.

Posted by JA | October 19, 2007 9:58 PM

JA,

You're saying that if the Soviets or Cambodians got concrete, actionable information from torture, they wouldn't have gone and checked it out?

Posted by southpaw | October 19, 2007 10:16 PM

Agents are dispatched to 1021 T. Place. If she's not there, we start all over again.

Well, if you torture him, he's going to admit it and give you an address whether he did it or not. So, if you "start all over" whenever he tells you the wrong place, you'll end up torturing a guilty person only once and an innocent person over and over again. This is why, unless you're at least as smart as John Stuart Mill, you probably shouldn't be a utilitarian.

Posted by Bo | October 19, 2007 10:28 PM

18th century France did not 'torture its way to the top of the heap'? You realize, you are talking about the country that famously staged the execution of Damiens the regicide, and I don't think his case was that unusual.

One could argue of course that if any kind of torture is ever justifiable, it's precisely the corrective, punitive kind (like the authoritarian states) and not the interrogative kind. Since punitive torture is at least in principle intended to create the moral reformation of the criminal, and not simply to achieve good for society as a whole. One could convincingly make the argument in other words that while it may or may not be OK to torture someone for his own good, it can never be OK to torture him for ours.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | October 19, 2007 10:28 PM

"Your entire platform can be destroyed by subsequent events (e.g. KSM giving up actionable intel)."

Exactly what would that "actionable intel" be? I'm curious. I've seen a lot of claims of the wonderous information that he provided, but every one of those has been shrouded in "We can't tell you because of national security."

Which is to say that I don't see that much of a difference between the tactics and results of the U.S. torture program and that of any other thuggish regime.

In my view, the "practicality" of torture is a fig leaf covering the fact that torture advocates really are just indulging in power fantasies. It's important to deny them that fig leaf. They are not "tough minded realists;" they are sadist wannabes who lack the courage to even face up to their own desires.

Posted by James Killus | October 19, 2007 10:37 PM

"But that's the problem. An example is always available where torture yields true, significant information."

The First Five-Year Plan in Mao's China worked out well. By your logic, we should embrace communism.

Posted by Reality Man | October 19, 2007 10:44 PM

The differences of intent create large differences in tactics and results.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

No, it's true. To force a confession, any confession, you do things that the prisoner will do anything to stop. You want them to be willing to do anything, to say anything, to get you to stop.

To get useful information, you want them to cooperate, or to slip up in conversation or volunteer info or whatever. Forcing them to say what you want to hear is precisely what you don't want them to do.

The main thing is to get them in conversation. If you see actual police interrogations one of the most effective technique is to insist you want to help them to get them talking, acting polite and respectful. The more they talk, the more they're likely to let something slip or even to begin to identify with their captors. Using Stockholm Syndrome to your benefit, in other words.

The recent news stories about the WW2 interrogators who used those techniques and got information demonstrates the difference.

Posted by Keith | October 19, 2007 10:46 PM

I agree with JA on the whole argument from morality vs. utility thing.

My slightly pedantic issue with this post is with Matt's history -- Britain became the hegemon around 1760, I would say, and was so until 1914; France was no longer the power it was under Le Roi Soleil by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714. So to talk about the British 19th and French 18th Centuries is somewhat too neat.

As for the substantive issue of their using torture, England had so many hanging crimes at the beginning of the 19th Century that it scandalized the Benthamites and Evangelicals, and certain social institutions -- the Navy, and, ahem, Slavery -- were rife with what would today be considered torture.

Similarly, France in the Eighteenth C. routinely relied on torture to elicit confessions; witness Voltaire's campaign to exonerate Jean Calais, who under torture confessed to a murder of his son that he did not commit.

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that arguing from a 'national greatness' perspective is sort of a strange tack to take; I think it's more important to argue from the basis that WE ARE A HUMANISTIC SOCIETY, and you just don't do certain kinds of things in that society, such as Torture.

For ethical reasons it's important to argue from this humanist standpoint; the utility (or lack thereof) is an ancillary point.

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 19, 2007 10:56 PM

Evidently the stakes are so high for terror arrests given the PR rollouts that accompany them that the government cannot afford to do them without generating confessions, however implausible when held up to the light.

Posted by matt | October 19, 2007 10:56 PM

Evidently the stakes are so high for terror arrests given the PR rollouts that accompany them that the government cannot afford to do them without generating confessions, however implausible they turn out to be when held up to the light.

Posted by matt | October 19, 2007 10:57 PM

I really have to marvel at this absurd discussion in here in which all these anonymous internet trolls argue for the utility of torture on the basis of personal experience, when all the experts in the field stand shoulder to shoulder against them.

Posted by matt | October 19, 2007 11:02 PM

The problem with the morality argument is that it doesn't work on anybody who doesn't already agree with it. Those who argue in favor of the utility of torture are morally barren. The thought of torture just gives them a nice stiffy.

Posted by jimbo | October 19, 2007 11:15 PM

...argue for the utility of torture on the basis of personal experience, when all the experts in the field stand shoulder to shoulder against them.

Hey, maybe if you say this enough times you might make it true.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 12:22 AM

Having been to Tuol Sleng, I can tell you that it's pretty disturbing. But the most disturbing part of it was that every technique used there is now part our torture regime. Of course, we have better technology now, so we have added a few techniques. And our medical knowledge is such that we can bring a detainee much closer to death and still be able to revive them. We apparently think that's progress.

Posted by fostert | October 20, 2007 2:23 AM

Jeez, Mixner, why don't you just repeat the "I'm rubber, you are glue thing?"

Posted by James Killus | October 20, 2007 2:39 AM

Mixner is a fucking troll - ignore him.

The notion that an argument for torture is valid because it might occasionally produce useful intel is just ridiculous.

We're talking about SOP here - not the one in a million times when there's a "ticking bomb" or some other horseshit.

We're talking about consistently and predictably seizing people who supposedly know something about some organization and routinely torturing them to reveal what they know. This is what rendition is about. This is what Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were about. There were no nukes or ticking bombs or any other "imminent threats" involved in any of these situations.

I'd heard NO ONE in the Administration say, "Oh, we'll ONLY do this when there's a nuke to be found."

So it's utterly irrelevant whether torture can occasionally produce useful intel. It's also true that occasionally a defector will simply tell you what you want to know. Do we rely on defectors as SOP?

The argument is simply stupid. It's like saying you can't prove the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" doesn't exist because you haven't seen the whole universe and it COULD exist somewhere.

The proper answer to that is: "Wrong. We KNOW where the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and originated - in your head. We don't NEED to see the entire universe to know that it doesn't exist anywhere else."

It's the same thing here. We KNOW torture doesn't work in most cases, and even if it did, the operational negatives from using it outweigh the limited value of the intel gained in most cases.

It has nothing to do with morality or ethics, which are bogus in most cases anyway. It has to be with simple competence. You get more intel out of people by either engaging them or tricking them than you do torturing them. It's only ignorant thugs who believe otherwise.

Period. End of story.

However, Matt's referencing England and France was pretty dumb. Anybody who knows what went on between England and Ireland knows torture was used in the past in England. I'm not that familiar with France, but I DO know that their prison conditions a couple decades back would qualify as cruel and inhuman, so I really doubt torture was beyond the French as well.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 4:04 AM

By the way, if you want to know where this predilection for torture comes from, look at the US prison system. Most of the Abu Ghraib clowns - especially the one soldier, Graner, who was convicted - were US prison guards.

In fall of 2004, IIRC, there were several riots in the US Federal prison system. At one prison, Bureau of Prisons Correctional Officers attacked inmates who were in "The Hole" - inmates who, being in "The Hole" already, had nothing to do with the riots.

The prison guards first instructed the inmates to cuff up. Then they Maced the inmates in the face. Then they entered their cells, dragged them out, and threw them down a couple flights of stairs. Then they picked them up bodily, slammed their heads into the walls, and beat and kicked them repeatedly. Then they forced the inmates to lie for eight hours motionless in their own blood, vomit, and faeces, and if anybody moved, they beat them again.

These actions were VIDEOTAPED by the prison guards in the presence of the Warden and the Captain, IIRC.

13 inmates filed suit against the B.O.P. However, the videotapes showed only prison guards masked in protective gear, so no positive identifications of the specific officers involved could be made. Also the FBI apparently tampered with the videotapes, rendering them almost useless.

The inmates were advised by the pro bono legal counsel to accept a settlement.

When inmates - who were not involved in the rioting - from one of the prisons involved in the rioting were transferred to Leavenworth Penitentiary, they were hauled out of the buses on their arrival, beaten with nightsticks, then told to stand with their noses against the wall for hours on pain of being beaten again if they moved
or spoke. This was done to make it plain to them that no disobedience would be tolerated at Leavenworth.

Older inmates who have been in the Federal system for decades told me that it was standard SOP in earlier decades to beat an inmate immediately on arrival at a facility to ensure that he knew that no resistance would be tolerated. That practice appears to have stopped during my time in the system.

You want to know where torture in the US originates - look to the US prison system, county, state and Federal alike. It is tolerated there and has been since the systems were put in place. And nobody cares to find out about it, except prison reformers, because "they're just criminals".

The same logic is now applied to "terrorists".

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 4:18 AM

These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS.

Maybe in North Korea these techniques were designed to elicit confessions only, I don't know, though I'm skeptical about this claim.

But I have no doubt that the same techniques can be designed to elicit information. Watch The Battle of Algiers, it's been a while, but I seem to remember the movie starts with a guy giving up the location of the last resistance leader after being waterboarded.

It seems so, so very stupid (and kinda offensive) to argue that we shouldn't torture because "torture doesn't work"; it's like saying that we shouldn't engage in cannibalism because human flesh has low nutrition value or that we shouldn't exploit children because it won't generate enough profit.

Posted by abb1 | October 20, 2007 4:27 AM

"But I have no doubt that the same techniques can be designed to elicit information. Watch The Battle of Algiers, it's been a while, but I seem to remember the movie starts with a guy giving up the location of the last resistance leader after being waterboarded.

It seems so, so very stupid (and kinda offensive) to argue that we shouldn't torture because "torture doesn't work"; it's like saying that we shouldn't engage in cannibalism because human flesh has low nutrition value or that we shouldn't exploit children because it won't generate enough profit.

Posted by abb1 | October 20, 2007 4:27 AM"

During the events portrayed in the Battle of Algiers, whenever the French tortured FLN members, they were pretty much unaware that FLN members had been told to give the names of members of more moderate or pro-French Algerians and say they were FLN members. The French would then go out and torture their local supporters and/or the moderates, thus radicalizing them. Many scholars, including officers who teach at West Point, believe the use of torture was instrumental in the eventual French defeat (winning the battle to lose the war). When the French did "learn" from a tortured messenger where the FLN head was located, this was old news to them. What they did learn was that the French civilian government in Paris had been engaging in negotiations with the FLN to cede sovereignty back to Algeria. The French troops, feeling betrayed, invading Corsica and prepared for an attack on the mainland. Paris panicked, jettisoned the constitution, thus ending the Fourth French Republic, and gave de Gaulle the unilateral power to write a new constitution with a stronger presidency. I doubt this is what the French civilian and military leaders had in mind when they started torturing. To make matters worse, those French officers had a better understanding of guerrilla warfare and what it's like to live under a hostile occupier since many of them were veterans of the French Underground.

Posted by Reality Man | October 20, 2007 4:54 AM

I'm confused, which side in this debate is the "moral relativist" position?

Posted by Steve V | October 20, 2007 6:17 AM

The burden is on the torturers to prove that they could not have obtained better or more timely intelligence (or even the same intelligence) using some other interrogation methods. The burden is not on those opposed to torture to prove that it does not work, or that other methods are superior.

Just because KSM gave up some intelligence under torture does not mean that had we simply been humane to him, that he wouldn't have given us even better information. [See, Scharf, Hans]

The use of torture by the Bush administration, in my view, has much less to do with obtaining actionable intelligence than it does with punishing your enemies and causing them suffering. Or as a means of seeking revenge.

And, I think that most of those (if not all) who believe in using these methods are really out to seek revenge or punish people, and are using the intelligence gathering aspect of it as a smokescreen or an excuse.

Posted by hesiod | October 20, 2007 7:43 AM

Another method for gaining intelligence from a captive is to give them a fake lawyer. They will, then, spill their guts to their lawyer and that information will be provided to the captors.

This is, I think, what happened to Jose Padilla while in US custody. And why he did not trust his attorneys.

Posted by hesiod | October 20, 2007 7:51 AM

Bugger Cambodia. James Reston's "Dogs of God" http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-God-Columbus-Inquisition-Defeat/dp/0385508484 has, as part of its historical charm, instructive diagrams from an Inquisitor's handbook showing novice interrogators how to waterboard, use "stress positions", handcuff suspensions, and other neat little tricks to, ahem, control the flow of conversation.

Considering the level of dialogue in this thread, all i can say at this point is plus ca change, etc.

Posted by jonathan | October 20, 2007 9:59 AM

Those who argue in favor of the utility of torture are morally barren. The thought of torture just gives them a nice stiffy.

Which means that arguing non-utility isn't going to work either, because they're not so much morally barren as actively thrilled by the thought of torture.

And RSH makes the important point that the prison system is America's laboratory of torture.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 20, 2007 10:56 AM

I don't think that Matt here is arguing against torture on purely utilitarian grounds. He isn't saying that we should accept torutre if it works.

What he is saying rather is that not only doesn't torture work, but the people promoting it know it doesn't work. So their advocacy of torture is not due to some moral blindspot caused by fear and good intentions, it is the result of conscious evil.

Posted by Glaivester | October 20, 2007 12:38 PM

What he is saying rather is that not only doesn't torture work, but the people promoting it know it doesn't work.

He doesn't know that it doesn't work. He thinks he knows that the Soviets and North Koreans used it for getting confessions. Obviously it doesn't prove that torture doesn't work for extracting information.

Posted by abb1 | October 20, 2007 1:08 PM

The burden is on the torturers to prove that they could not have obtained better or more timely intelligence (or even the same intelligence) using some other interrogation methods. The burden is not on those opposed to torture to prove that it does not work, or that other methods are superior.

No, the burden is on anyone making an empirical claim to substantiate that claim. If your claim is "Torture is never effective at extracting true information," then it's up to you to substantiate it. Of course, you could not prove it. The best you could do would be to show that torture has never yet been effective at extracting true information in any case in which it has been used. But no one making the "Torture never works" claim has produced evidence to substantiate even that weaker claim "Torture has never worked YET." It's all just dogmatic assertion.

Of course, the reason the anti-torture absolutists do this is that they know full well that their only real chance of persuading most people that the use of torture is never justified--never, ever, EVER--is by first persuading them that torture never works--never, ever, EVER. And since that latter assertion is so clearly counterintuitive and so thoroughly lacking in empirical support the case for opposing torture in all cases is extremely weak.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 3:14 PM

Oh, I'm perfectly aware that torture works. For example, at Abu Ghraib, torture succeeded in turning an entire country against us nearly overnight. It was spectacularly effective, really. For all those people who are judging torture by their fevered imaginations or episodes of 24, please remember those things aren't real; Abu Ghraib is the reality of torture.

Posted by Bo | October 20, 2007 3:40 PM

abb1:

He doesn't know that it doesn't work.

Agreed. But I was explaining the argument he was making, not evaluating its acuracy.

The point being that Matt is not saying that torture is okay if it works.

Posted by Glaivester | October 20, 2007 4:10 PM

For all those people who are judging torture by their fevered imaginations or episodes of 24, please remember those things aren't real; Abu Ghraib is the reality of torture.

No, Abu Ghraib is but one example of the use of torture. It is obviously not the only way in which torture has been used or could be used.

The point being that Matt is not saying that torture is okay if it works.

Well, he previously said that if torture is used to extract information that successfully thwarts a ticking time bomb, then the torturer should not be punished, which certainly sounds like he thinks torture in such cases is okay, or least not a very serious wrongdoing.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 4:17 PM

No, Abu Ghraib is but one example of the use of torture. It is obviously not the only way in which torture has been used or could be used.

So, what in the real world are your counterexamples? If we're going to judge this, shouldn't we hear your real examples of real torture that really got us real information that really stopped a real ticking bomb or some such. For someone who keeps whining about evidence, you sure are taking your time providing any.

Posted by Bo | October 20, 2007 4:25 PM

So, what in the real world are your counterexamples?

The use of torture by Israeli, British and American security forces to extract intelligence information.

If we're going to judge this, shouldn't we hear your real examples of real torture that really got us real information that really stopped a real ticking bomb or some such.

I never said it has been used to stop a ticking bomb, although it may have been. I am merely saying that the claim that torture could not be used to achieve that outcome has not been substantiated. You haven't produced a shred of evidence to substantiate the claim that torture fails in all cases to extract true information.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 4:35 PM

The use of torture by Israeli, British and American security forces to extract intelligence information.

Your real-world example of which is? The anti-torture advocates have given real examples of torture hurting our interests, so you should give a real example of it helping our interests rather than abstract hand-waving. For example, here's a real world example of that American interrogation you're so fond of:

According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

You haven't produced a shred of evidence to substantiate the claim that torture fails in all cases to extract true information.

Seriously, how much of an idiot does someone have to be to write that sentence? It's been amply demonstrated that torture has irrevocably harmed our interests in Iraq and around the world. OTOH, your counterargument is that, some guy somewhere, who may exist only in your imagination, might tell the truth under torture. It really has been amazing the extent to which the anti-torture advocates have been providing actual real-world evidence, while the pro-torture ones have been talking completely out of their ass.

Posted by Bo | October 20, 2007 4:57 PM

OTOH, your counterargument is that, some guy somewhere, who may exist only in your imagination, might tell the truth under torture.

In case you haven't encountered it, demanding that a negative or a hypothetical or an overly broad assertion be backed up or shot down with evidence is the calling card of the professional troll known as Don P/Mixner. He doesn't accept from others the sort of reasonable inferences that real people use in real world, everyday discussions. He is, however, allowed to make such inferences himself. You're wasting your keystrokes. His M.O. is to stick around for a few weeks inserting bad faith into blog threads, and then disappear for a while until he returns with a new nom de blogue.

Posted by Don P's Proctologist | October 20, 2007 5:16 PM

The point is that the fact that torture has irrevocably harmed our interests doesn't contradict the obvious fact that useful information can be obtained by torture. The interests have been harmed because torture is barbaric and wrong, not because it's ineffective. What is so complicated here?

Posted by abb1 | October 20, 2007 5:37 PM

Seriously, how much of an idiot does someone have to be to write that sentence?

Seriously, just how stupid are you?

It's been amply demonstrated that torture has irrevocably harmed our interests in Iraq and around the world.

Then you should have no trouble producing this demonstration. Please do so. I'm especially interested in the "irrevocably" part. Remember, assertion is not demonstration. Uttering the assertion "torture has harmed our interests around the world" is not a demonstration that the assertion is true. For that, you need evidence. Where is your evidence?

In any case, your assertion is completely irrelevant to my point. Obviously, there is no contradiction between the premise "torture has harmed our interests" and the premise "torture can produce true information."

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 5:47 PM

Your real-world example of which is? The anti-torture advocates have given real examples of torture hurting our interests, so you should give a real example of it helping our interests rather than abstract hand-waving.

You're not listening. I didn't claim that torture has helped our interests, although it may have. I am saying that torture could help our interests. There is no reason to believe that torture could not produce true information that would thwart a ticking time bomb plot. Whether torture has already been used in this way is irrelevant. On 9/10/2001, no one had ever hijacked an airliner and flown it into the World Trade Center. But that obviously does not mean someone could not do that. In fact, we know someone could do it because they did, the very next day.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 5:53 PM

What is so complicated here?

Reality. As in reality is more complicated. As in "His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons." and "it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment."

Blahblahblah no actual evidence of anything but an active imagination blah blah

Tell you what, Mixner, we should outlaw real torture and keep imaginary torture legal. That way we both win.

Posted by Bo | October 20, 2007 6:14 PM

Bo,

See if you can understand the difference between the following statements:

1. Torture has not yet been used successfully to thwart a ticking time bomb plot.
2. Torture could not ever be used successfully to thwart a ticking time bomb plot.

See the difference? We don't know whether statement 1 is really true, but even if it is true, that still wouldn't mean that statement 2 is true. Comprendez?

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 6:41 PM

Anyone who believes that there is a dire and urgent need to torture someone in order to "stop the ticking time bomb" or whatever, should do what any heroic soldier does in battle: take the hit. Sure, go on, torture the guy. Then be prepared to go to jail afterwards, regardless of outcome. Crap, if you expect men to risk their lives in battle, surely they can risk a little jail time for a noble purpose, right?

The point of making torture legal isn't to allow the use of an important interogation method (or indeed, any kind of interogation method at all); it's to let the creepy little sadists get their jollies without fear of oversight, and to allow the creepy little sadist wannabes (you know who you are, but you'll never admit it, so bugger off) to get their jollies by proxy.

Torture is a punishment, not an interogation method. I've got my own little list of those I'd waterboard just for fun. I mean, who doesn't?

Posted by James Killus | October 20, 2007 7:44 PM

The utilitarian argument against torture is compromised by the reluctance of opponents to define what torture is, and by blind dogmatic assertion that "torture never works" while strong evidence it does is not rebutted but deflected by calling the people offering historical and contemporary evidence it does work - evil monsters.

1. Many anti-torture advocates take a position that it is anything the enemy prisoner dislikes. Being queried by an infidel female is a grave humiliation and covered under the UN Treaty on torture barring "humiliation". Any discomfort - lack of sleep, psychological stress, cold cells - is called "torture" by certain Lefties and lawyers. Physical acts that cause no lasting pain or harm are lumped in by enemy rights advocates as indistinguishable as torture from gouging eyeballs out....

If just being stressed and talked to by a woman can be called torture, what is left that coercive interrogation can employ? It seems the enemy rights advocates wish to say interrogating terrorists operating outside Geneva protections is in itself repellant and should be banned, and it should be up to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others to talk only if they want to because they like us enough....and of course, only with their lawyers present if anti-Americans had their way.

2. Contrary to assertions that "being nice to enemy and make them like you and tell you stuff out of friendship" works, history shows that approach is very limited. Apocryphal tales of Geman-Jewish refugees playing chess and ping-pong with Nazis at war's end and "getting them to talk", ignores that Nazis being cooperative to cut deals in 1945 are different than Nazis on the march captured in 1941, who were described as hardcases that rarely broke unless the Soviets got them....
The most recent example torture works, outside the top 12 captured AQ spilling their guts and that info saving thousands of lives - is Vietnam. Where the Soviets got enough intel on carrier ops from N Vietnam grilling the POWs to start building their 1st carrier in 1971, where ECM, radar frequency codes downed pilots knew were busted in 3-30 days.....and many other examples. As they say in SERE school, it is not a question of IF you will break and reveal valuable intel to interrogators - it is only when.
In spycraft, as in terrorism, spies are arrainged in cells. They are only expected to hold out on giving names and details for a few hours up to a day - to allow the cutout person and hopefully other cell members time to escape the manhunt...

The moral argument against coerced interrogations of the enemy to save lives is also hard to make.

1. It is made by people completely conditioned by peacetime morals and values who argue the Boy Scout way (outside the "homophobia" they hate the Boy Scouts for) is the best way in war. That wars are won by convincing enemy to love us.

They ignore:

a. You kill people in war without trial. You take prisoners when you can, when practical and a reasonable observor would conclude circumstances allowed making a reasonable effort to spare enemy. But conditioned on their Geneva, Hague behavior, many lives are disposable w/o due process.
For example, we fought the Japs on several islands with No Quarter granted.
Not only do you freely kill combatants that are a threat, you kill those that are no present threat, and you kill civilians that are unfortunately too close to combatant forces, or too close to legitimate infrastructure targets you are attacking - all without a shyster agreeing, all without
"shysters dressed in robes", consenting.

b. When possible, it is better to deliberately maim enemy. Which hurts a hell of a lot more and lasts longer in damages, many permanent, than torture. Many of our weapons are designed to maim more than they kill. Same with Chicom and Soviet-designed ordnance.

c. In war, you follow Hague Conventions on humane treatment of enemy civilians (as Hague said, the best you practically can)- but all sorts of "rights" go away in war. You can blockade food and utilities to them, you can search their homes and persons w/o warrant, arrest w/o warrant, block their roads, impose curfews, even conscript them for forced labor. It is very unlike what peacetime-habituated enemy rights advocates here in America or in the Lefty Euroweenie ranks think should be the reality.

d. Unlike the hypotheticals Lefties make, field commanders absolutely know that if they break the owner of the house that suicide bombs are found in, and quickly, American lives will be lost in death and IED maimings. They want to save our side's lives by breaking such illegal combatants, not defer to "precious terrorist civil liberties and paramount agreement of civilian lawyers dressed in black robes".

Posted by Chris Ford | October 20, 2007 8:12 PM

See, this is why Mixner is truly a joke.

"If your claim is "Torture is never effective at extracting true information," then it's up to you to substantiate it. Of course, you could not prove it."

This is exactly what I disproved in my post. We don't HAVE TO "prove it". We know from experience that it doesn't work and we know WHY it doesn't work and we know WHY people who want it to work believe that it works.

And primarily we know that it's completely irrelevant as to whether it MIGHT work in any given situation. The point is that it's not a valid policy to use it because the cost/benefit analysis shows that even if it DID work, the costs of using it would exceed the benefits.

Mixner makes dogmatic assertions, ignoring all the relevant points, then accuses everyone else of making dogmatic assertions.

He's a joke - completely unable to reason.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 8:15 PM

Killus,

Anyone who believes that there is a dire and urgent need to torture someone in order to "stop the ticking time bomb" or whatever, should do what any heroic soldier does in battle: take the hit.

Why? Why shouldn't the decision be made by a judge after reviewing the evidence, or a high-ranking government official? What you're suggesting is like leaving the decision about whether to shoot down a hijacked airliner to a low-ranking FAA official instead of the president or the secretary of state or some other top official.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 8:33 PM

As usual, Ford weighs in with his usual ranting nonsense.

Nothing he said is valid.

Point by point, here is how he is an idiot:

1) "If just being stressed and talked to by a woman can be called torture, what is left that coercive interrogation can employ?"

How about every other technigue that coercive interrogation employs? Namely, the non-physical, non-humiliating techniques that are regularly employed by law enforcement and intelligent agencies everywhere.

Which are known to work better than torture...

Q.E.D.

Moron.

2) "The most recent example torture works, outside the top 12 captured AQ spilling their guts and that info saving thousands of lives"

Evidence? Specific cases? I thought not. Oh, sure, we can't tell you about them because we'd have to kill you.

Right, sure.

Take your "24" nonsense somewhere else.

"- is Vietnam. Where the Soviets got enough intel on carrier ops from N Vietnam grilling the POWs to start building their 1st carrier in 1971,"

Say WHAT? You're telling us that the Soviet Union could only build a carrier once they tortured PILOTS from the carrier? Say WHAT? Are you totally fucking deluded? Scratch that question, we know the answer...

"where ECM, radar frequency codes downed pilots knew were busted in 3-30 days.....and many other examples."

And the codes would of course be changed immediately, as anybody in the military knows.

"In spycraft, as in terrorism, spies are arrainged in cells. They are only expected to hold out on giving names and details for a few hours up to a day - to allow the cutout person and hopefully other cell members time to escape the manhunt..."

Which is precisely why torture doesn't work.

You want a counterexample? The CIA told Pakistan where a bunch of Al Qaeda/Taliban camps were. Probably got the info by torturing captives at Quantanamo. So sure, torture "works"...Yeah, right. Got the coordinates, looked at them with satellites.

Guess what? They've been empty for months.

The "moral argument" - which I don't use BTW:

1)."It is made by people completely conditioned by peacetime morals and values who argue the Boy Scout way...is the best way in war. That wars are won by convincing enemy to love us."

No, I don't know anybody using THAT straw man. Which makes YOUR use of it typical.

2) "Not only do you freely kill combatants that are a threat, you kill those that are no present threat, and you kill civilians that are unfortunately too close to combatant forces, or too close to legitimate infrastructure targets you are attacking"

No, you do that latter 2, you're supposed to get hanged by the neck until you are dead for violating the Geneva Conventions.

Not to mention that you only do that shit if you're too fucking incompetent to defeat the enemy with better strategy and tactics.

And in any event, this is irrelevant because fighting "terrorism" is not "war" except in your deluded brain. "Terrorism" is a law enforcement, counterintelligence - and, occasionally, special forces - problem, not a military problem.

Equating the use of torture in espionage with large-scale combat in "war" is just ridiculous.

3) "b. When possible, it is better to deliberately maim enemy."

Again, irrelevant. What has this to do with dealing with captured enemy? Again, anti-war moralism has nothing to do with torture or its use in espionage. Equating the two is just stupid.

4) "c. In war, you follow Hague Conventions on humane treatment of enemy civilians (as Hague said, the best you practically can)- but all sorts of "rights" go away in war. You can blockade food and utilities to them, you can search their homes and persons w/o warrant, arrest w/o warrant, block their roads, impose curfews, even conscript them for forced labor. It is very unlike what peacetime-habituated enemy rights advocates here in America or in the Lefty Euroweenie ranks think should be the reality."

And you ignore the list I posted elsewhere as to what you are NOT allowed to do with civilians. None of the things you list entail "torture." Trying to cite the Geneva Conventions in support of a pro-torture position is decidedly stupid.

The last assertion has zero evidence to prove that anyone with bomb-making materials is in a position to prevent any use of any bomb already planted. This statement is so ridiculous it doesn't need any further comment.

Ford, go away. You're clueless about anything and everything.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 8:43 PM

Mixner again:

"Anyone who believes that there is a dire and urgent need to torture someone in order to "stop the ticking time bomb" or whatever, should do what any heroic soldier does in battle: take the hit.

Why? Why shouldn't the decision be made by a judge after reviewing the evidence, or a high-ranking government official?"

Five minutes ago, he was arguing that we HAVE to torture because we don't have time NOT to torture. Now he's saying, in response to the question of why someone who believes it is necessary to torture despite the law shouldn't go ahead and risk prosecution to do so, that we should take the time to "review the evidence".

See - he can't even remember what he argued before.

Troll. He doesn't believe this crap he's writing, he's just trolling.

That, or he's a complete idiot who doesn't even understand what he's saying from one minute to the next.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 8:49 PM

Killus - Anyone who believes that there is a dire and urgent need to torture someone in order to "stop the ticking time bomb" or whatever, should do what any heroic soldier does in battle: take the hit. Sure, go on, torture the guy. Then be prepared to go to jail afterwards, regardless of outcome. Crap, if you expect men to risk their lives in battle, surely they can risk a little jail time for a noble purpose, right?

No problem, Killus, as long as the flip side is true. Terrorists get in and kill US troops or anthrax several cities, the survivors get told that blood is on the hands of the Sulzberger family running the NT Times, Senators Boxer & Schumer, 16 named members of Harvard's faculty...and more deaths will come if they stay.
That way, if the son of a Spec Ops soldier or the survoving officeworker of an Anthrax attack whacks a Sulzbeger or a Koppel or a Boxer kin in payback, Pro-terrorists rights activists can choose to accept the downsides of there love of enemy liberties.....
Bar anyone else who sympathizes with the enemy from any job that involves power or influence. Or after a preventable mass death attack, file "aid and comfort to the enemy charges" and take away those people's property and freedom.

Killus - The point of making torture legal isn't to allow the use of an important interogation method (or indeed, any kind of interogation method at all); it's to let the creepy little sadists get their jollies without fear of oversight, and to allow the creepy little sadist wannabes (you know who you are, but you'll never admit it, so bugger off) to get their jollies by proxy.

Sure, just ignore the interrogation methods of 3,000 years of policework - and military methods. Countries commit the resources away from combat troops or Mandela's, for example, bank accounts --not to honor sadists with jobs - but because they work.
And to me there is nothing creepier than a man who would let a kidnapped child of theirs die rather than coerce the child's location from a kidnapper. Nothing more traitorous than a Lefty who thinks losing any number of American lives is justified if it saves just one enemy civilian.

Torture is a punishment, not an interogation method.

Far easier to just pump a M-16 round through the lower intestines of an enemy. 6 months of agony and recuperation if they aren't just left to die slowly in the desert. If torture, or more accurately, methods of coercive interrogation for combatants not protected by Geneva - was punishment, cops and soldiers would just maim
instead. It is far easier.

Killum - No, if punishment is the goal I've got my own little list of those I'd waterboard just for fun. I mean, who doesn't?

I've got a list of Lefties than range from enemy rights lovers to traitors...If ever the enemy attacks America and achieves death equal or greater than 9/11, and that carnage was later found to be preventable, I support treating them like sex offenders. Special license plates, registering with employers, town officials, neighborhood watch programs the rest of their lives.
Enemy rights lovers and worse have crawled out on a limb that could be sawed off. It is unlikely an FBI Agent will risk loss of all he or she owns and most of the rest of their lives in jail to thwart a mass death attack by Islamoids. Better they follow the rulebook, CYA, and then use all police and Homeland Security colleagues to blame all the carnage on terrorist rights sympathizers and Lefties in a position of influence.
Lefties, again, are out on a limb....and the sawing has already started setting them up for blame in an enemy defeat, a mass death terrorist attack...

Posted by James Killus

Posted by Chris Ford | October 20, 2007 9:01 PM

Mixner,

I don't know why I'm bothering, but look...

The issue isn't whether the *logical possibility*
exists that torture might be used successfully
to thwart a ticking time bomb plot. Obviously,
it does.

The issue is: if a legal loophole allowing
torture were to be instituted, would it be reasonable to expect the net utility to exceed the net utility of not legalizing? To answer that question, you have to look at the possible *costs* of legalizing (resp. not legalizing) as well as the possible benefits, and make an evidence-based judgement about the probabilities.

But I've said this before, in response to someone else, over at Ezra Klein's site :-

---

You're only considering the potential benefits of legalizing torture, and not the potential costs.

The potential benefits are that you'll prevent some heinous act of terrorism that you couldn't
have prevented otherwise - strangely, no clear actual instance where torture has had this result comes to mind.

The potential costs are that
the political/administrative/judicial mechanism that decides when to go ahead and apply the electrodes will break down and tend to OK the torture of innocents, or those only tangentially involved, due to the fact that the incentives for the officials who decide these things will suddenly have shifted. In strategising how to cover their own asses, the officials won't have to worry much about what will happen to them if they OK the torture of the wrong person, and will only have to worry about what will happen to their career if they let a terrorist plot succeed. (Yeah, yeah, I know, this is purely hypothetical; no panic-driven decisions - like, say, starting an unnecessary war - have ever been made in the course of the Global War on Terror.) The outcome: torture against innocents and bit-players becomes routine, which I hear has a really positive effect on the average person's sense of being a free human being. (Luckily, ordinary joes not involved in anything have *absolutely nothing* to fear - except for that Canadian guy, and that German guy, ...)
The difference, of course, is that the potential
benefits are a pipe-dream - pure potentiality - while the potential costs are already beginning to be actualized, before any clearly acknowledged legalization has even occurred! You do the math.

---

But what's the use. Richard Steven Hack has pretty much already made this point on this thread, and you just ignored it!

(Of course, even if the cost-benefit analysis alone would allow torture, a non-utilitarian will have *other*, non-prudential, reasons for disallowing it. But the argument here applies whether or not such reasons are valid.)

Posted by Amit | October 20, 2007 9:14 PM

Hack, your credibility is shot by you being a Fed ex-con who hates the American government and the people they represent.

I'm like every future person or employer you will ever meet the rest of your life. You destroyed your own credibilty as a dumb asshole, caught and convicted, and people are inclined to file whatever you say in the circ file. You will accept your place on the margins of society as payback for what you did....can't vote, can't be close to money, can't own a weapon, aren't trusted around certain people's children.

And there you are, reduced to being a con who argues that "cops and soldiers" would never question and get the better of the likes of a Smart Guy like you! Torture! Torture! My loi-yahs agree, my rights and human dignity were trashed when I was caught with the loot!

Next thing you know, you are staring through bars, counting days down, and bending over for cavity searches, Real smart...

Suck on that, my felon friend.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 20, 2007 9:21 PM

Amit,

The issue isn't whether the *logical possibility* exists that torture might be used successfully to thwart a ticking time bomb plot. Obviously, it does.

It's not a mere "logical" possibility, it's a real-world possibility. Before we can go any further, your side needs to acknowledge that.

The issue is: if a legal loophole allowing
torture were to be instituted, would it be reasonable to expect the net utility to exceed the net utility of not legalizing?

Well, that's one issue, and I certainly agree that it's an important one. But another issue is the ethics of torture. It is certainly possible to take the position that torture should be banned without exception in law, but that torture may nevertheless sometimes be ethical, and that in such cases the law should not be enforced, or the violator should be pardoned.

To answer that question, you have to look at the possible *costs* of legalizing

I agree. You need to do some kind of serious cost-benefit analysis before you can make a rational decision. You haven't done that. No one here has done it. Simply listing potential or actual costs, without any attempt to quantify those costs or compare them with the benefits or potential benefits of alternative torture policies is not cost-benefit analysis. It's just grandstanding.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 9:27 PM

Amit,

The potential benefits are that you'll prevent some heinous act of terrorism that you couldn't
have prevented otherwise - strangely, no clear actual instance where torture has had this result comes to mind.

It's not strange at all. Torture is generally illegal and stigmatized, and that obviously provides a strong incentive to keep instances of the use of torture secret. Who knows how many times it's been used that haven't been made public?

You'd agree, presumably, that the potential benefit of torture could be very high indeed--millions of lives saved, perhaps.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 9:36 PM

BTW, I gotta hand it to Chris Ford. Here I was having a good lark at Mixner's paranoid fantasies, and he comes along and shows us how paranoid fantasy is really done, with a side of revenge. Shine on you crazy diamonds.

Posted by Bo | October 20, 2007 10:03 PM

Nothing more traitorous than a Lefty who thinks losing any number of American lives is justified if it saves just one enemy civilian.

BTW, this is kinda funny, since currently it's the Righties who are throwing away American lives (soldiers even) just to keep Iraqis from working this out themselves. Maybe Cindy Sheehan should be allowed to kill you to make herself feel better.

Posted by Bo | October 20, 2007 10:12 PM

Mixner does the exact thing he accuses everyone here of doing yet again:

"You need to do some kind of serious cost-benefit analysis before you can make a rational decision. You haven't done that. No one here has done it. Simply listing potential or actual costs, without any attempt to quantify those costs or compare them with the benefits or potential benefits of alternative torture policies is not cost-benefit analysis. It's just grandstanding."

Right - you're grandstanding. You haven't come up with one single reason why torture as a policy is a good idea, and you've ignored a number of reasons why it isn't.

Worse, you've just said that even listing ACTUAL costs - without "quantifying" them - is inadequate. This is just stupid. It has been established what the actual costs are - and they exceed the potential benefits even without "quantifying" them. There is no need to quantify a cost/benefit analysis if it's obvious to any rational person that the costs exceed the benefits on the face of them.

Another stupid statement:

"You'd agree, presumably, that the potential benefit of torture could be very high indeed--millions of lives saved, perhaps."

You'd agree - probably not - that the potential NEGATIVE of torture could be very high - indeed - millions of tortured innocents, with NO lives saved, perhaps.

Comparing a rare and unlikely case of torture being used to save anybody's life, let alone "millions", with the probability of torture being used on people with no useful information at all is just stupid.

You're just a troll. You have nothing whatever useful to say on this issue. You just keep re-asserting points that have been discredited completely already, both in the media by experts in interrogation, and by responders to your posts.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 10:39 PM

Chris Ford,

During the Revolutionary War, should Patriot forces have persecuted John Adams because he defended the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre?

At the very least, I'd say you show little familiarity, and less understanding, with the liberal, Anglo-American legal and normative standards which undergird the country.

Isn't there a Freibootkorps you can join somewhere?

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 20, 2007 10:53 PM

Ford, incensed that I have taken his arguments apart point by point over and over again, rants thusly"

"Hack, your credibility is shot by you being a Fed ex-con who hates the American government and the people they represent."

Gee - and I thought that my hating the American government and the assholes like you that they represent would embellish my credibility.

Was I wrong?

Nope.

"I'm like every future person or employer you will ever meet the rest of your life."

Kinda doubt that. Those individuals who know my background - and there are quite a few over the last six years - haven't really cared.

And they damn sure weren't as stupid as you, so don't insult them that way.

"You destroyed your own credibilty as a dumb asshole, caught and convicted, and people are inclined to file whatever you say in the circ file."

Reminds me of the guys who founded the Web development firm RazorFish. One of them showed up at a meeting wearing purple hair and some weird clothes. Corporate suit asked him how he got people to take him seriously with an outfit like that. The guy responded, "I open my mouth."

What I say and do stands on its own merits and has nothing to do with my background. If you can't see that, that makes YOU an asshole, not me. I did my time. You can read what I say and consider it on the merits or not. I couldn't care less about ad hominem attacks.

"You will accept your place on the margins of society as payback for what you did....can't vote, can't be close to money, can't own a weapon, aren't trusted around certain people's children."

Don't want to vote. I can't own a gun legally, but I can own other weapons - and if I ever need a gun, I'll get one regardless. My case had nothing to do with kids, not that I care to be around them anyway. True, I can't work for a bank, either - again, not that I'd want to.

As for being on the "margins of society", I always was - so that doesn't bother me either. The "margins of society" have more interesting people on them than clowns like you, anyway.

"And there you are, reduced to being a con who argues that "cops and soldiers" would never question and get the better of the likes of a Smart Guy like you!"

Never said that. Don't know where you got that impression. What I said was that I wouldn't sign a "Miranda statement" that waived my rights.

You would, I guess. 'Cause you just KNOW those "cops and soldiers" have your best interests and the law at heart.

I also clearly didn't know what I was doing when I robbed that bank, or I would have known about homing devices in bait money. My mistake. At least I acknowledge my mistakes - you don't. In fact, you can't - your ego is clearly too fragile to take the shock.

"Torture! Torture! My loi-yahs agree, my rights and human dignity were trashed when I was caught with the loot!"

Never said that either. My case was open and shut. I never expected to be treated differently than I was. Never expected to survive being a terrorist, either. Got lucky on that one - only did some time. Now I'm back in business.

Score one for me. Now you gotta deal with me here. Tough noogies, fella.

"Next thing you know, you are staring through bars, counting days down, and bending over for cavity searches, Real smart..."

Actually, never had a cavity search the whole time I was in. They only do that if they think you're holding drugs. Since I never had any connection with drugs, they never did it.

"Suck on that, my felon friend."

I'm still here - and you still gotta deal with me taking your arguments apart point by point day in and day out.

Suck on that.

Have a nice day, Ford. Write some more that I can take apart tomorrow, okay?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 20, 2007 10:56 PM

that should be "Freikorps." Sorry, my German's not so great.

Also, Chris, I'm wondering what your whole take is on that Jesus Christ guy -- surely the Romans got some actionable information out of him that prevented Zealots from ambushing legionaries, no?

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 20, 2007 10:58 PM

Or, if you want to be technical, they strangled the incipient Judaean rebellion in its grave.

Those Zealots came later.

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 20, 2007 11:28 PM

--- It's not a mere "logical" possibility, it's a real-world possibility. Before we can go any further, your side needs to acknowledge that. (Mixner)

Agreed, the claim that torture might successfully thwart bomb-plots is a real-world possibility in the sense that it doesn't conflict with the laws of nature. But then so is the claim that crucifying enemy women and children from conquered villages by the side of the road *might* so demoralize the enemy as to lead to tactical military victories. My point was that there is no positive evidence that either claim is true; in *that* sense they're merely hypothetical possibilities.

----

"The issue is: if a legal loophole allowing
torture were to be instituted, would it be reasonable to expect the net utility to exceed the net utility of not legalizing?"

Well, that's one issue, and I certainly agree that it's an important one. But another issue is the *ethics* of torture. It is certainly possible to take the position that torture should be banned without exception in law, but that torture may nevertheless sometimes be ethical, and that in such cases the law should not be enforced, or the violator should be pardoned. (Mixner)

Yes, but it's the most salient issue because it's the one where you can most easily be attacked on a relatively straightforward empirical claim. It's relatively easy to argue that the expected utilitarian advantages of having a law against torture outweigh the utilitarian disadvantages. Also, it's more salient because it relates to public policy decisions, decisions that all of us are involved in.

It's harder for me to argue that the purely utilitarian expected downstream consequences of an individual act of breaking such a law will always be worse than obeying it. But even if we agree with you that those consequences will *not* always be worse and will sometimes be better, that doesn't settle the ethics of the matter. Because non-utilitarians won't accept that this fact - that the expected consequences of performing this act (of breaking the law) will be better than those of not performing it - in itself implies that it is right to perform the act. But arguing about that would probably be even less fruitful than what I tried to restrict the argument to.

--

You need to do some kind of serious cost-benefit analysis before you can make a rational decision. You haven't done that. No one here has done it. Simply listing potential or actual costs, without any attempt to quantify those costs or compare them with the benefits or potential benefits of alternative torture policies is not cost-benefit analysis. It's just grandstanding. (Mixner)

Sure, just like I haven’t done a double-blind test of whether the benefits of crucifying kids by the side of the road as a military tactic would be net beneficial. But I kind of doubt it.

--
“The potential benefits are that you'll prevent some heinous act of terrorism that you couldn't
have prevented otherwise - strangely, no clear actual instance where torture has had this result comes to mind. “

It's not strange at all. Torture is generally illegal and stigmatized, and that obviously provides a strong incentive to keep instances of the use of torture secret. Who knows how many times it's been used that haven't been made public?
You'd agree, presumably, that the potential benefit of torture could be very high indeed--millions of lives saved, perhaps. (Mixner)

Yes, if successful torture is happening, it might be kept secret. And if the Elders of Zion were manipulating world politics, it would probably be a secret too. The fact remains that there is no positive evidence in favour of either claim.

Yes, the potential benefit of torture could be very high indeed. As could the potential benefit from crucifying kids in war. “potential benefits could” doesn’t mean “actual benefits would”. To say nothing of the costs.

Posted by Amit | October 21, 2007 12:01 AM

There's absolutely no doubt that useful information can be easily obtained by torture.

If
1. I know that you definitely have the information I need and
2. the information is easily verifiable
then I can quickly and easily extract it from you using torture, no question about that.

Information like your ATM PIN, for example. I am sure it's been done a million times.

Posted by abb1 | October 21, 2007 4:55 AM

Sorry: "there is no positive evidence that either claim is true; in that sense they're merely hypothetical possibilities" would be better put as "there is no positive evidence that either tactic *will or would actually* be successful, as opposed to *could possibly* be successful; in that sense success is a merely hypothetical possibility". (I meant "either claim" to refer to the underlying "will or would actually" claim, as opposed to the original "could possibly" claim.)

Posted by Amit | October 21, 2007 4:59 AM

Just saw the movie "Rendition" this evening.

Recommend it highly.

Not for Mixner, though - might give him a hard-on.

Some critics didn't like it, but I thought it was both well scripted, well directed and well acted. The critics basic complaint appears to be that the characters portrayed by Meryl Streep and Peter Sarsgaard didn't elucidate the specific issues in more than a one-dimensional manner, which is a pretty weak argument given that the script itself pretty well lays it out in detail.

It even has a couple of babes in it - not including Reese Witherspoon, whom I've never liked that much - bad chin...

Go see it.

Not you, Mixner.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 21, 2007 5:02 AM

abb1 4.55,

Well, you might be right, but even if you are, the question then is: do preconditions 1 and 2 practically obtain in actually existing ticking bomb cases? Maybe they do and maybe they don't. Which is why I'm not arguing that I have watertight real-world evidence that torture is never successful in eliciting information (watertight evidence of absence). All I'm saying is that we been presented with no positive evidence, i.e. actual cases, that torture has been practically successful in achieving that end (absence of evidence). In that sense, the benefits are merely hypothetical.

But the main point is that even if torture is sometimes successful in getting information, the expected costs of allowing a legal place for it outweigh the expected benefits. I'm sympathetic to the view that we should argue against torture on deontological grounds, but arguing against it on prudential grounds as well does not require arguing that it can never succeed in eliciting information.

Posted by Amit | October 21, 2007 6:19 AM

What, I might be right? Come on, why deny the obvious?

Torture is barbaric and for that reason it should be illegal.

One can imagine a hypothetical situation where torture is the least worst course of action, but it's seems so highly unlikely that it doesn't make sense to create a special legal exception (like we do for killing in self-defense, for example).

Posted by abb1 | October 21, 2007 6:47 AM