Cheney Succeeding In Shifting Torture Debate?
In case you’re wondering whether Dick Cheney and other former Bushies are succeeding in shifting the torture debate on to the narrow question of whether torture has “worked,” take a look at this headline, photo, and article in today’s New York Times (click to enlarge):
This is precisely what Cheney and other Bushies want the debate to be about: Whether torture has stopped terror attacks, as opposed to whether it’s moral, or detrimental to America’s global image, or a boon to Al Qaeda recruitment, or whether the architects of the policy broke the law and should be prosecuted.
The Bushies want this question — “did torture stave off terror attacks and save lives?” — hovering in the air. There’s plenty of evidence that torture hasn’t worked at all and has done more harm than good. Even some former Bush administration officials have conceded it hasn’t done anything to stop terror attacks.
But it’s easy for the Cheney camp to muddy the waters and turn this into a matter of debate by citing unspecified classified info that supposedly supports the claim that it has saved lives — info that we’ll never see. Having the debate focused this way also lays the groundwork for the Cheney camp to say “I told you so” in the event of another terror attack.
One more time: Cheney and the Bushies have mounted a relentless campaign to shift this debate that shows no signs of abating. Whatever the downside of Cheney’s re-emergence for the GOP, it may be working. Where’s the push-back on this from the White House, or at least its allies in Congress and elsewhere?
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One thing that many in the media are not focusing on which is kind of buried in the article
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So the question remains, did they even TRY regular interrogation of KSM? And if not doesn’t that undermine the whole premise of the torture in the first place? That it was used because they weren’t cooperating. Its really simple, either they started waterboarding him from almost the day he was captured OR they were waterboarding him like 30 times a day. Either explanation is d@mning.
Greg – As I noted earlier, I think you’re right on this. And of course, the “We kept them safe from further attacks” is a meme they’ve been pushing as a/the central component of the Bush Legacy Project, so it has a six month history now.
There are several legs to the PR strategy they are using: what was done wasn’t torture at all; it wasn’t illegal; and as it kept America safe, it clearly isn’t immoral, even if disagreeable.
And there’s an over-arching theme here as well…each of those charges against the Bush policies above have no discernible objective reality – they are merely matters of partisan bias.
Cheney and the pro-torture right may be shifting the debate among media elites, but as we’ve seen before, that doesn’t mean they’re changing the minds of ordinary Americans. Heck, even Fox News’ Shep Smith gets it: “I don’t give a rat’s *** if it helps. We are America! We do not ******* torture!”
Sure Cheney is twisting the debate. He is the former VP and has the power to do so. The MSM is a failure, as usual, but I never expected anything less. The thing is, as much as Cheney-Rove try to spin this, it won’t be decided in the media. Cheney-Rove have been winning the daily media battle for years, but they are losing the war. Team Obama doesn’t pay attention to the daily news cycle and I grow more thankful for that with each passing day. Team Obama should not allow this to take over their entire agenda and I am pleased to see they are not.
I still want a study done on how many jihadists (intersting, this word isn’t in my spell check but the alternative is jingoists) where recruited by using America’s use of torture against Muslims as a recruiting tool and how many of those people blew up and killed our soldiers over seas. I think that is the conversation that should be taking place.
The WH may sound dismissive of cable chatter, but over at the DOJ things may be different. All the frenetic stuff by Cheney & Co may allow the Joe Scarboroughs, the Chuck Todds and the David Gregorys to blow smoke by blaming the hard left. But a large majority of the American people can smell ****, even if it sanitized with Village-speak. When Gregory quotes an editorial in the WSJ you know that man has become an a##hat. Tweety is ambivalent, I am not quite sure where he stands. Joe Klein seems to have decided to put some distance between his colleagues in the Village Chorus and himself.
The American people get it: there is one law for the Village Establishment, and another for the rest of us.
But, WADR, I’m thinking Mr. Blair, given his position in the current administration, has done as much as anyone to shift the debate to this point.
The NYT is becoming the national media’s biggest joke, close on the heels of the WSJ. How can you say “it’s working, Greg?” It’s only working in that it’s getting the same paper that produced wunderkinds like Judith Miller to put up articles like this. At the end of the day, I don’t think the American people are stupid to fall for this, and that’s what this is about. As long as we keep the pressure on the government to uphold the law, none of this charade matters.
PS – Until we see an actual poll that shows that Americans feel differently about torture/investigating torture than they did a few months ago (and for the record, majority of Americans abhor torture and support investigations/prosecutions of those who allowed it) then let’s not say Cheney and the GOP’s attempt to push back “is working.”
My, my, one looks for support wherever they can find it I gather. George Tenet, former CIA director appointed by President Clinton is on record in saying that the fruits from these interrogations were invaluable in saving American lives. Now, just to make it personal for a moment, imagine one of those lives was well, your’s.
If we’re going to use “it works” as the standard, why not pay them for the information? Why not ply them with prostitutes? Why not give them cake and ice cream?
If we’re going to chuck out all moral, ethical, and legal question I don’t see why we have to go directly to torture, bypassing bribery, flattery and any other number of methods that “work.”
In the end it won’t be Cheney’s efforts that crush the possibility of torture prosecutions, it will be Obama’s. Obama is obsessed with the idea of a transformational presidency. He worships Lincoln. During the primaries he ***** slapped Bill Clinton, claiming Bubba’s presidency hadn’t changed the nation like Reagan’s had. Having observed what partisan combat did to Bubba’s agenda, Obama fears torture prosecutions like the plague. I won’t be shocked if he leans on Holder.
In reality, shall we, Obama disclosed heavily redacted memos. And, what, pray tell, was redacted? The positive outcomes from the interrogations. Hey, I’m for looking at the entire folder sans redactions. How about you?
Captain America
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That wouldn’t be the same George Tenet who actually ORDERED the torture would it? Its a wonder he would have that opinion about torture. Especially with his “slam dunk” case for WMD in Iraq.
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Whereever you can find it indeed.
Friends, unless you have lost loved ones (as I have) due to a terrorist attack, you have no firm basis of complaint. Which loved one from your stable are you willing to sacrifice at the foot of “progressive” justice?
What effect do you think Dennis Blair had on this debate?
“Friends, unless you have lost loved ones (as I have) due to a terrorist attack, you have no firm basis of complaint.”
Logical fallacy, special pleading.
Not to mention that others who have lost loved ones in terrorist attacks do no find their way to your same conclusion.
Following the Constitution is now “progressive justice”, who knew?
“Where’s the push-back on this from the White House?”
Perhaps they know that the fabled Cheney success memos do indeed exist?
It’s lose-lose for the WH. To engage in this argument, even to say it’s not relevant, will not stop the media adoption of a partisan he said/she said frame. In fact, we’ll soon see “the White House and the dirty hippies, for their part, say efficacy doesn’t matter, while the tough minded former Bush officials say efficacy is the entire point.”
Bernie — I don’t begrudge anyone who has also suffered a loss to terrorists to their opinion. Only those who have not had to sacrifice attempting to take a moral position in the matter. Which of your loved ones do you plan to offer up?
sfwhiteinfla — It was “progressive” justice, as in justice to those who choose the progressive to liberal label or whatever. Let me pose a question to you: Suppose that a second attack had occurred, who would get the blame. Answer: Bush. So, the way you and your colleagues would have it is that the “Bushies” are guilty either way. No?
It may have succeeded in the short term, but as more and more stuff comes out (Zubaydah giving up KSM without torture), Cheney’s status as American Monster will be further cemented. Plus, as Hillary said, is Cheney really a credible source? Do people think he is? No on both counts.
Herb, that was an amazing post. Kudos!
Captain America
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I blame Bush for 9-11 because he didn’t take the f*cking PBD that said “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike Inside The US” Seriously. Guess what, we got the intelligence for that PDB without torturing numnuts. Stop being afraid of your own shadow and realize that we don’t have to torture to stop attacks. Or have you forgotten that?
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Let me flesh out the absurdity of your concern for you. Bush and Co claim that only 3 people were ever waterboarded, then turn around in the next breath and tell you that we need to be able to torture to keep the US safe. So after we got done waterboarding those 3 that they actually cop to, what kept us safe after that Captain America? How could we have possibly fended off attacks for 7 years if we didn’t waterboard anymore since you think thats the only way for us to stay safe? When you can answer those questions holla back.
sgwhiteinfla — why the meanness? the condescension? Can’t you forge your positions based on logic instead of bombast? Besides you don’t answer my questions at all, you merely revert back to tired shop-worn lefty rhetoric. You should save your anger for those who have and are now plotting American deaths or have you forgot?
Captain America, even if your argument weren’t a tiresome fallacy barely worth a 2am college sophomore discussion, I have a perfectly good response to who in my “stable” I’d sacrifice to uphold the rule of law.
Me.
The rule of law — even as imperfectly as we hold to it — is one of the things that make this country worth dying for.
(In fact, given that the results of these torture sessions were so oh-so-valuable — if oh-so-conveniently hush-hush — one wonders that those responsible are so unwilling to pay a much smaller price … )
I wonder if we did get that info from the infamous PDB without torturing. Weren’t we engaged in extraordinary rendition at that time? Do we know what the intelligence sources were for that PDB or the means by which the intelligence was gathered? And isn’t it possible that ‘enhanced interrogation’ helped prevent what we thought might be an imminent attack on LA? But since that time we have not found ourselves in the same circumstances to warrant the use of such harsh techniques? Did I misread – I don’t believe Captain America said enhanced interrogation is the ONLY way for us to stay safe?
Captain America said: “Bernie — I don’t begrudge anyone who has also suffered a loss to terrorists to their opinion. Only those who have not had to sacrifice attempting to take a moral position in the matter. Which of your loved ones do you plan to offer up?”
As another said following your post, “me”. I’ve only recently moved out of Manhattan and that move marked no change in opinion.
As I noted earlier, you’re guilty of a particular logical fallacy here. Does one need to have had a loved one raped or dragged behind a car in order to have (or voice) a valid moral argument against those acts?
sbj — thank you for not injecting worthless stuff (..”barely worth a 2am college sophomore discusson”..) into your comment. You speculate about whether or not other means (verified or not) wouldn’t have just as well kept us safe. To wit, “enhanced interrogation is the ONLY way for us to stay safe?
Who knows. What we do know is that several people who are better informed than you and I (Tenet, Hayden, Blair, etc.) have confirmed that these methods worked. Now, if you propose to place your’s and your loved ones’ safety on a roulette table and hope that some other methodology would have worked just as well, good luck. But we do know based interrogation memos (which will eventually be leaked in total) that the enhanced interrogation methodologies worked.
We don’t know if Shepherd Smith had a loved one die through terrorism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEtFMj6ZiHM&eurl=http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/fox-news-figures-slam-torture-on-online-show-when-will-fox-let-them-on-cabl&feature=player_embedded
Hey Captain America, I didn’t lose loved ones to a terrorist attack, I lost the America I knew and loved from the response of the Bush Administration to a terrorist attack.
On June 26, 2003 Pres Bush issued a call to all nation to follow the US example and refrain from using torture. If the argument is that torture is a necessary part of what we need to defend our country then don’t lecture others. The State Department issues an annual report on human rights abuses and torture in countries abroad. Did you hear the hollow laughs from Europe and Asia; the chuckles from Russia and China and Bin Laden’s guffaw?
Captain America – “confirmation” from those involved in the decisions to torture or involved in the commission of torture have the credibility of an accused speaking to a judge. Their own interests leave them outside of the range of objective opinion. On the other hand, their credibility is greater where they voice the opposite – that what they were involved in was wrong, illegal, immoral or ineffective. Eg… http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/zubaydah-interrogator-torture-was-unnecessary-and-ineffective.php
Wasn’t there a Captain America eons ago in a comic book? I recal he was a dashing fellow.
the reason congress isn’t “pushing back” in because many of them (dems included) were aware of it – and did nothing.
Bob — you are absolutely correct. Madam Speaker just now gave the “I didn’t inhale” excuse of having participated in the 2002 briefings.
Bernie–whether or not you accept the confirmation of the individuals I mentioned is irrelevant except to you. There simply are no better sources of information on this subject than those who held the intelligence director’s seat. But I don’t expect that you would change your opinion.
gdunn–sorry you lost your country. Maybe you should seek out a replacement?
alan– I’ve been referred to as dashing (and not from the police).
Folks — isn’t it nice to have someone who doesn’t always agree with you, isn’t part of the normal echo chamber, and tries not to attack you personally or question your intelligence?
The question of the “morality” of torture is as irrelevant, as is its effectiveness and the post 9-11 perceived exigencies.
The only relevant facts are that the infliction of torture by agents of the USA government is clearly illegal and that agents of the USA government have in fact inflicted torture.
The only questions now are who of the Cheney administration, which members on Congress, and which government employees and/or contractors should be brought to account. Not that I hold much hope that such will come to pass.
They will argue it worked and they will also continue to try to redefine torture -that has been the primary defense they set up to start with.
It’s two-pronged and you see both right now being used.
BUT – the idea that it “worked” is going to resonate with a lot of Americans.
I’m sorry to say –
Americans aren’t overly concerned with how prisoners are treated, in general. Some of us are, clearly, but I don’t know that a majority is because I hear that “country club prison” **** all the time and it’s a big fat urban legend.
Tena – Let’s see what the polls have to say. Based on the latest, the majority of Americans want investigations and prosecutions (because clearly they think torture is wrong). I hear the “country club prison” thing a lot too, but I also hear a lot of “we don’t stoop to the level of our enemy” as well, which is essentially another way to look at torture.
I am surprised that Greg is not quoting the recent Pew poll regarding attitudes toward ‘torture’:
http://people-press.org/report/510/public-remains-divided-over-use-of-torture
“Nearly half say the use of torture under such circumstances is often (15%) or sometimes (34%) justified; about the same proportion believes that the torture of suspected terrorists is rarely (22%) or never (25%) justified.”
54% of Independents feel that torture is often or sometimes justified . . .
If we use the argument “it worked” then wouldn’t it follow that torture should be used against Americans if they might have information that could save a life? Where do we draw the line on when torture is used?
And as the mother of three wonderful children, I can say emphatically no I don’t think my life or my children’s life are worth the principles of this country. Too many people have sacrificed their lives for those principles for me to be so arrogant to believe mine is so much more worthy than theirs. This is the result of the “me generation,” previous generations would never have placed their life at such high value over their country.
The world looks to us for leadership, that’s what we all need to remember. We must not turn coward and give up our principles out of fear. If we do, we are no longer the “good guys” in this struggle against terrorism.
I made this point last year at unbossed. com: Does it matter that torture “doesn’t work”?
>>I’ve no doubt that ["Matthew Alexander" is] right that prisoner abuse has inflamed passions against the US around the world. It’s also true that torturers become blinded to what motivates their victims. And though he doesn’t say so, practicing torture endangers our troops in the longer term by seemingly justifying the abuse of captured American forces. On their own, each of these are important to take note of.
Each of those things are true, but just as with the fact that torture produces unreliable testimony, they should not be used to make the case against the use of torture. Because the argument against torture really is quite simple.
It’s illegal.
Adding anything further to that argument clouds an issue that desperately needs clarity. Indeed, the advocates for torture would want to debate it in terms of utility and expediency. That is the only grounds upon which they could ever win such a debate. What’s more, it’s far from certain that with an average audience anybody can assume they’ll win that debate…
The utility of torture is an issue best set aside until the day that somebody actually dares to come out in the light of day to try to change the laws against torture. Even George Bush couldn’t bring himself to do that. May we never live to witness such shamelessness.
Meanwhile, let’s not open the back door to justifying a torture regime by quibbling over torture’s utility. Strictly speaking it’s irrelevant.<<
If torture worked and was so important to our country’s safety, why did they stop using torture in 2005?
This is just Cheney again saying he has evidence to mislead us and control the debate, just as he did about the Iraq War. But I say fool us once shame on him, fool us twice shame on us. Nobody should believe anything Cheney/Rove tells the country after the lies they told us about the WMDs in Iraq and the Talibans ties in Iraq. They are proven liars.
Its easy to look back years later, after the shock of these attacks have faded away, and point at how things were done. But remembering the times and public opinion then, things were clearly different. You wouldn’t have seen so much support for investigating the administration for torture then. There was absolutely no indication soon after 9/11 that Al Qaeda was done, and had no more attacks planned… Just let it go and move forward.
Republicans learned long ago never to engage in battles revolving around morals and ethics. They refuse to enter any battle unarmed.
It isn’t the past that we are worried about, we recognize that what Bush/Cheney did can’t be undone. What is important is the future. Will my grandchildren inherit a country that believes torture is acceptable. That’s why people don’t think this can be just swept under a rug and forgotten. It’s the decisions of future administations that is our concern.
I disagree sharply. The Bushies are in tactical steady retreat. At first they claimed, “There was no torture.”
Then the Abu Ghraib pictures happened. Take a step back: “OK, sometime we torture, but it’s only bad apples than torture. Our POLICY is not to torture.”
Then the OLC memos came out. Take a step back: “OK, our policy is to torture. But torture WORKED.”
And you can already see the next line of defense being prepared: “OK, torture didn’t work. But we thought in GOOD FAITH that it would work.”
Captain America – I believe I might finally be getting your point re an individual’s post in government and how that relates to knowledge and the sharing of it with citizens. For example, we could then go on confidently to to state that Alberto Gonzales and Janet Reno did both speak equally truthfully and are that their comments on government operations are to be granted full and equal credibility.
Do I have you right now?
What WIMPS Obama, the NYT and the Democrats have turned this Country into in less than 100 days !!
Osama Bin Laden must be celebrating in his cave. We are destroying this country from within, people !! Bin Laden has been trying to destroy this country for years and we do it ourselves in less than 100 days !! Bin Laden cuts heads off and we are all up and arms about waterboarding and bugs !! For goodness sakes, we waterboard our own military ….do we torture them ??
Get real people, we are at war with these terrorist – it’s us or them !! All this torture over torture ….is just that !!
The bottom line ……waterboarding saved American lives and that is all that matters !!
Get Real you WIMPS !!
Greg, did you read the DNI Blair memo? Obama’s own guy Blair says the interrogations worked. Stop lying to appease your base.
SavingLives
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Yeah, waterboarding someone makes you tough. I bet you are the kind of guy that goes around picking on kids and old ladies and kicking kittens huh? Give me a break you frikking coward. Stop being scared of your own shadow.
“Captain America’s” arguments as well as those of SavingLives are predicated on the assumption that “torture works.”
Greg Sargent’s post points out that we shouldn’t be arguing whether torture “works,” but rather what concessions we are willing to make (to our country’s traditions of liberty, honor, and the rule of law) in *pursuit* of enhanced safety.
As a physician and educator, I’ve found it necessary to follow the arguments very closely on both sides; I’ve even set up a web site for my students, exclusively considering both sides of the debate over “enhanced interrogation methods.” Time and again, I have been struck by how intelligence PROFESSIONALS (not contractors, or political appointees, or policymakers, or pundits) almost uniformly agree that such methods are counterproductive, that the same (or usually more reliable) intelligence can be procured through traditional methods of interrogation, and that the damage to our country’s 200+ – year traditions (dating back to General Washington’s policies in the Revolutionary War) vastly outweighs any perceived gain that might have resulted from use of such techniques.
In other words: torture doesn’t work – but even if it did, our the previous administration’s policies of detention and torture (and occasional execution due to overzealous methods) are antithetical to our country’s identity and national character. The fact that the “enhanced interrogation program” was based on techniques adopted from our SERE courses – which in turn were created to innoculate our soldiers against methods used by totalitarian regimes in China, North Korea, and Vietnam / Cambodia – is in itself very revealing.
Nearly eight years ago, two dozen young men armed with box cutters and fanaticism slashed a deep wound in our nation’s spirit. We all suffered some degree of loss on that day, and I cannot imagine the pain of family members like Captain America and others who have lost loved ones to terrorism and war. The dramatic scenes and heart-wrenching loss on 9/11 weakened our nation’s self-confidence and sense of invulnerability–yet such an attack could never strike deep enough to reach America’s heart. Only we ourselves have the power to do that, by allowing fear and anger to overwhelm us, causing us to cast aside our deepest values and beliefs.
“SavingLives” claims that “The bottom line ……waterboarding saved American lives and that is all that matters !! Get Real you WIMPS !!”
In my opinion, the true “wimps” are the people who are willing to compromise our nation’s honor and traditions of the rule of law in order to buy a small (and highly debatable) degree of increased safety for themselves and their loved ones. The eagerness of such people to surrender their freedoms and privacy, to compromise the rule of law, and to embrace ever-expanded governmental powers has convinced me that our free society would not survive a truly devastating terrorist attack…not because of the loss of life and disruption of society, but because we as a people no longer value our freedom more than our comfort, our safety, or our lives. The doomsday predictions made by Cheney and others have one purpose only: to enable them to say “I told you so” if such an attack comes to pass, and to ultimately regain political control as a panicked society flees toward the false safety of an authoritarian state.
As Benjamin Franklin so famously put it, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
The quote is featured on the stairwell of the Statue of Liberty.
The Times has now changed their headline; your screen capture is the only record of it – and the only way my blog, which referenced it, now makes sense!
http://celebratingtime.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/dick-cheney-and-philip-markoff/
I would recommend everyone read a NYT article from a former person involved with this. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?em
Worth reading. He comments on how torture didn’t really work.
More importantly, he says, let’s move on. Stop with the politicized nature of this. It’s harm outweighs the benefit at this moment in time. It’s not the right environment to go about further right now.
Geoff and Captain America…re your claims on Blair…
“CNN obtained the Blair memo from Republican officials who accuse the Obama administration of failing to tell the public the potential benefits of the interrogations.
The charge was hotly disputed by Blair’s office. It suggested that the interrogations did yield some valuable information, but that value was outweighed by the negative aspects of the tactics.”
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And, in Blair’s own words this Tuesday…
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“The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means,”
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/22/obama.memos/
Hey SG”white” in FL
With all that HATE maybe you could get a job as a suicide bomber !!
The MUSLIMS will love you, WIMP !!
Cheney’s right. Torture is like slavery. Sure, it’s not nice but it had benefits too.
Concentrate on the beneifits.
Is anyone here familiar with Latin? I’d be interested in a translation to the English of “The US of A – we are torturers and we’re proud of it”
It should be on the flag, and probably on our currency as well.
‘from’ that ought to be
Greg, if we were actual war criminals, we’d likely try to change the terms to be considered. It’s the only way, short of a pardon, to avoid prison time.
They have no evidence to disprove the illegality of their actions. They’ll be hard pressed to find support for their choices from the majority of the intel community. And temporary insanity would be easily disproved.
So they lobby, publicly. They can’t win in court. They can only win by preventing their prosecution from occurring.
Are they succeeding?
Not yet. And when Americans realize how much danger they put all future American POWs in, they’ll resist the lobbying efforts of these vicious, crooked men.
“Time to build rapport.” We just learned there were 4 pirates. And, 3 were shot. While the one guy with the hand wound left the little life boat, to get his hand treated. Before it just rotted off with gangrene. Oh, yeah. He was the leader.
This “issue” only has a down side for Obama. There is no such thing as “squeaky clean.” Nor do people elect presidents as if they’re just buying another brand of detergent.
Obama’s been badly served by his political cronies. Hands down, Cheney wins.
Folks, the reality is that waterboarding is not torture. Yep, that’s right, we do not torture when waterboarding. Just ask the military who has undergone waterboarding as part of their training program. So, good news, you can now relax realizing that we didn’t do anything that we don’t do ourselves when it comes to waterboarding.
As to the merits of interrogation, how can you dispute the record? There has been no attacks on our country since 9/11. Oh, we can hide behind our venom and pretend that there were no merit in what we did over the past 8 years. But the case is closed: there has been no similar attacks on our homeland since 9/11.
Oh, did I tell you that we captured several significant AQ players in the intervening years? Yes, we sure did. And we learned more about AQ methods and network? Just ask the Obama appointed Blair.
Bernie, Bernie, Bernie–I’m disappointed in you. “CNN obtained the Blair memo from Republican officials who accuse the Obama administration of failing to tell the public the potential benefits of the interrogations.”
Of course Blair is going to change his tune to coincide with our Dear Leader. But his initial letter to his department had been disseminated and he did state the obvious: our interrogation had merit.
I know you are grasping for a counter argument, but to no avail. No attacks under Bush/Cheney’s watch after 9/11. Can’t beat success.
“But it’s easy for the Cheney camp to muddy the waters and turn this into a matter of debate by citing unspecified classified info that supposedly supports the claim that it has saved lives — info that we’ll never see”
Cheney has specifically asked for declassification of that information. Information which the Administration has chosen to conceal.
Don’t you read the newspapers?
Captain America
You’re playing a game here which doesn’t interest me. The argument you make above (an official who holds a post within an administration will be, inevitably, suspect in his comments) is exactly the argument I made to you previously. I don’t mind (actually, I like) a discussion with folks who hold different views. But where simple logical principles (consistency) are junior to some notion of partisan gamesmanship, there’s no value to me in engaging.
Reading Captain America’s comments, I’m reminded of the wife of a cop that was killed in Georgia. Someone who obviously was not the culprit was convicted on perjured testimony elicited by the cops who didn’t want to have to do a real investigation. When people complained about it, she went nuts. She just wanted someone to die and it didn’t matter to her if that person was guilty or not.
The same syndrome applies to C. America. It doesn’t matter to him whether or not torture is appropriate, functional or moral. All he wants is that someone suffers because he did. It doesn’t matter who it is or their relationship with C. America’s relatives. Somebody has to suffer.
My belief is that we do not torture Americans, terrorist, or anyone else. Therefore waterboarding is not torture. Thousands of American Service Personnel, a few journalist, and some other fools, have volunteered to be waterboarded. There are plenty of videos on youtube where is can witness torture. Peace.
The short answer? No.
Captain America,
Your arguments are better suited to Stalinist Russia than the USA. Did the Gulag camps work? Does that make them moral? Did torture work? Does that make it moral? It is extremely ironic that the Christian Right who supported GW is the most vociferous in arguing that the ends justify the means. Where is that moral indignation that stopped stem cell research for 8 years and created a furor over whether to keep a brain dead Sciavo alive? There is no legitimate moral system that endorses the precept that the end justifies the means. Definitely not Christianity in any of its many incarnations. The most slippery slope of all is the one created when governments make their own morality.
“There’s plenty of evidence that torture hasn’t worked at all and has done more harm than good. Even some former Bush administration officials have conceded it hasn’t done anything to stop terror attacks. “
Nice try. To be accurate, you should admit that even Obama administration experts have admitted that the enhanced interrogation techniques (including the waterboarding of exactly three people) actually resulted in the disclosure of important information, but the dishonest miscreants in the White House redacted that admisssion before it was made public. Dennis Blair made the mistake of telling the truth in his intial report that the enhanced interrogation had resulted in “High value information” being obtained. Liberals are liars. They know what they know even though it’s false.
Jumping,
Since you are so ostentatioulsy moral, I am sure that you were and are outraged by the Clinton Administration’s implementation of extraordinary rendition. Unlike the last eight years when the US waterboarded all of three people and made them stand for long periods of time, etc., Clinton and his feckless foreign policy team kidnapped people with no due process and handed them over to the Egyptians and Syrians who really did torture and maim the people they interrogated. Democrats never said boo about that which shows how full of it they are. If you didn’t protest the real torture meted out as a result of Clinton’s extraordinary rendition policy then you are just a political hack.
The torture perpetuated by the Bush administration did NOT stop terrorist attacks. Actually, I would argue that they both 1) increased terrorist attacks and merely 2) relocated them. The torture engaged in by the Bush administration was in large part the reason for much of the attacks that US troops have been facing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has served as an effective recruiting tool for terrorist organizations that seek to bring harm to the US and US interests. If you combined all the terrorist bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, you would have to conclude rather than stopping attacks on the US (after all, our military does represent us AND we have catalyzed terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in these areas as well), the Bush administration has done more to promote terrorisms, in large part motivated by our torture activities, than any previous US administration. There must be prosecutions. Pardon later if you must, but there must be accountability.
To call waterboarding torture as if were all that clear is a slander (agains the Bush administration.) The rack, the iron maiden, and being drawn and quartered was torture. These fit the dictionary (and many legal definitions) of having to cause extreme physical pain. I discount anyone who automatically calls waterboarding torture as simply bitter partisans.
This argument that water boarding is not torture because we do it to US service personal is ridiculous. First, the moral evaluation of an act is not merely dependent on the act it self being done “all the time.” Imagine the response if a rapist made the following argument: Look your Honor, I stick my ***** in my wife’s ****** all the time when we make love. When I forcibly stuck my ***** in this stranger’s ******, it could not have been rape because I do it to my wife all the time.” It would be laughed out of court, as it very well should be.
Context is critical to making many if not all moral evaluations. After all, the only reason we allow service personnel to be willingly water boarded in SERE training (yes, I have known about this for years as I had many friends at the USAFA; I went to high school on the base 30 years ago) is that we consider it torture and we what our service personnel to know what they may face and how it can affect them. It does not mean we think the practice is ethical in a “real world setting.” Every one who goes through SERE KNOWS he or she will get out of the training one way or the other. Moreover, they are NEVER water boarded 183 times in one month.
Of course the enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and prevented attacks. This was covered in the news a couple of years ago.
Most of the enhanced interrogation techniques by the way are pretty much conditions I went through in the Army. Uncomfortable positions -check Sleep deprivation – check (one of my peers voluntarily went three days on an exercise without sleep once and I observed him hallucinating – it was a command culture (don’t ask me) Exposure to cold -check Exposure to loud noises – check
Focusing on the legal debate about torture within the Bush administration is another example of liberal’s obsession with inputs rather than results. ‘Ohh we spend so much more on education, it must mean the kids will learn better’ ‘Ohhh we spend so much more on welfare for innercity residents, it must mean the quality of their lives is improving’ Meanwhile the results are disastrous. Well ‘we had good intentions’.
Congressman Hoekstra has many times described the briefings about torture provided to all the top congressional leaders. If you want to prosecute the administration lawyers, you will have to prosecute San Fran Nan, Bob Graham, Rockefeller and all the other liberal dunderheads who not only sanctioned but approved of measures to protect our citizens lives.
I can see that posters here who are absolutists about the soft treatment of terrorists in the end really hope for the success of our terrorist enemies (am I allowed to say terrorist now? Am I allowed to say enemy now?). Bush made it all up, its all a right wing climate of fear. Well fine. With Obama blithely ignoring the pirates, and putting our interrogation techniques on billboards, and appointing an ignoramus as head of Homeland Security, it won’t be long before the attacks come. You guys are great! Keep it up.
Dear Liberals:
What we are having now is called a “debate.” It means that you have your position, and other people — such as the former VP — have theirs. At issue is what constitutes “torture” (does keeping Ahmed awake all night really qualify?), and yes, whether or not it worked to provide us with invaluable information. Weighing out the pros and cons and finding a consensus position is important. Yet you liberals seem to think that it is untoward to even have the conversation. In your view, we should give terrorists full constitutional rights and go straight to the show trials for Bush & Co. Well that’s not the way it works here, at least not yet. Maybe during The One’s second term.
Negative encouragement is not torture. Torture will permanently alter or end your life. Through the miracle of modern communications, I had long middle of the night phone conversation a few years back with my son in Iraq as he pulled guard duty on a group of hajis captured that day. Stripped, zip-tied, dressed in American tee shirts and underwear, and held over night in the air-conditioned computer center, they were anxious to talk in the morning. Discomfort is all it takes sometimes. For hard cases, there is rendition.
“I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. . . . It is easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used, but when you are in the foxhole it is a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect the fact that the President is in the foxhole every day.” — Sen. Chuck Schumer, 2004
“[T]here are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals, an emergency situation, and I will make that judgment at that time.” — Sen. Barack Obama on whether he would authorize torture; Sept. 26, 2007 presidential debate
“Look, if the president needed an option, there’s all sorts of things they can do. Let’s take the best case, OK. You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States or some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy knows it. Right, that’s the clearest example. And you think you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full of some drugs or water-boarding him or otherwise working him over. If they really believed that that scenario is likely to occur, let them come forward with an alternate proposal. We have a system of laws here where nobody should be above the law, and you don’t need blanket advance approval for blanket torture. They can draw a statute much more narrowly, which would permit the president to make a finding in a case like I just outlined, and then that finding could be submitted even if after the fact to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.” — Former President Clinton regarding what the president can authorize
Before the liberal Dems can do anything on this issue, it appears they need to figure out what exactly it is that they believe. Clearly, their position seems to “evolve” as dictated by the pressures of their far-left interest groups.
My man Dr. Cheese. How do you make the comparison of doing your wife, to an innocent person being raped? KSM was the mastermind behind 911. Waterboarding was all we did to him? Good God ya’ll.
Thanks for pointing out those exceptions, RCJ. Your quotes support the exact view held by most Americans (neither the conservatives who support ceding any or all of our freedoms and military traditions in the pursuit of safety, nor the “far-left” who would never consider extenuating circumstances, even in exceedingly rare, one-in-a-million “ticking time bomb” situations).
Maybe more folks turned away from Republicans last year because the Democratic position is so much more in keeping with Americans’ values and traditions: never using torture as a defined government policy, lest we betray our American commitment to liberty, military honor, and the rule of law, and ride the slippery slope straight down to Abu Ghraib and beyond, on a true “Taxi to the Dark Side.”
And isn’t it funny how so many advocates of torture, of random imprisonment on little or no evidence, of wretched conditions for captured enemy fighters (whether in or out of uniform) are almost always “chicken hawks” like Dick Cheney, or Paul Wolfowitz, who never actually served in the military? Like the advocates of “enhanced interrogation” who insist it works–yet never actually worked in intelligence, or conducted interrogations (but saw that torture worked on “24″ – and slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night, besides!).
“RED”:
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Likewise, “Red” – you’re the ones who are hoping – PRAYING – for Obama to fail…even if it means something horrendous for our nation. You accuse us of treason and treachery, yet you’re the ones who are praying for the attack to come (as long as it doesn’t strike YOUR family, of course)…just so you can say “I told you so,” and “Bring back Dick Cheney!”
The quote from “RED” that I was referring to–cheering for America’s downfall–didn’t come through in the previous post…
“Well fine. With Obama blithely ignoring the pirates, and putting our interrogation techniques on billboards, and appointing an ignoramus as head of Homeland Security, it won’t be long before the attacks come. You guys are great! Keep it up.”
Very great information.