Questions for Attorney General Nominee Eric Holder,
in The New York Times, from Jack Goldsmith, Jeffrey Rosen, Noah Feldman, Charles Stimson, and me.
Questions for Attorney General Nominee Eric Holder,
in The New York Times, from Jack Goldsmith, Jeffrey Rosen, Noah Feldman, Charles Stimson, and me. |
Is it justifiable to torture a high-level terrorist source like KSM to save American lives? Why or why not?
Will a victim of of torture lie to prevent or stop further torture? If not why or why not?
The nominee should be rejected for any answer other than "As soon as she realized people read her columns."
Isn't the pervasive citation of the "ticking time bomb" scenario one of the things that has really led us down a distorted path in the debate over torture? The continuing and widespread reference to the FICTIONAL Jack Bauer and '24' style scenarios seem to obscure what are some real facts about this:
TORTURE DOESN'T WORK. It doesn't produce reliable intel and ultimately yields far less than relationship building in an interrogation setting. Can you name any situations in REAL LIFE (i.e. not involving Habib Marwan) that have successfully demonstrated that torture is effective? Or indeed, any real-life situations that even slightly resemble the mythical ticking bomb in the sky? Cause if not I think you're contributing, shamefully, to the continued misperception that torture yields anything worthwhile at all. I refer you to Susan Crawford for the most recent example of this...
If this site wants politicians to be asked real questions, it should urge its readers to go to any public forum where Holder will be appearing and ask those questions on videotape. Then, that can be uploaded to Youtube. I tried to get major bloggers to do that with Obama before the election (and before JTP), but they refused for one reason or other. Asking Obama a real question on video would have had a major impact on the election, but those major bloggers had other things to do or something.
Compare asking real questions on video to the scam they ran at change.gov, where weak questions were submitted and then voted up, while the ones that Obama should have been asked were ignored (link).
Simply posting questions doesn't work that well unless there's a way to get them answered.
Sometimes Academics really do seem to exist in ivory towers among the hypotheticals and the wishcasters.
All good questions that I'd like to see answered, though.
I think he's already answered this question quite forcefully in the negative.
See http://tinyurl.com/7t38ur
A pesky, 5-4 Supreme Court decision to the contrary ain't bloody likely to dissuade him.
I don't see him doing the Bush jurisdictional hokey pokey - I'm thinking court packin' in 09! Welcome to the Court, Justices Wright, Ayers, Rezco Co-Chief Michelle!
Torture and threats of death do produce reasonable and actionable intelligence in this case. No "24" about it.
Its very easy to confuse the use of torture in a military context (where it can have some utility) and the law enforcement context (where it is completely useless and, in fact, counter productive).
The bigger question is, are we ready to prosecute and imprison soldiers who utilize these techniques in the field if they need to, in order to save the lives of their compatriots? There have already been a few prosecutions for this.
You have a recent cite for those 'videos'?
More to the point, that's not really what the good Prof. is asking... doesn't his question imply a law-enforcement context (or, not a situation like you are describing)? Waterboarding of the KSM-style seems to be more along the lines of what he's getting at (though, Prof. Volokh, if you're reading, perhaps you could clarify)? I suppose it is fruitless to ask the assembled here if we think that torture is advisable under ANY context... I would have thought the answer to that question was apparent but the last 7 years have certainly proved me dreadfully wrong.
Do you have any indication that he will go all Andrew Jackson on it and ignore the ruling? I think he'll disagree (forcefully) and then faithfully execute his duty.
Endless detention and warrantless surveillance probably belong in the same category.
People deserve to know what the law is, and what kind of country they have. If some eggs (or careers) must be broken to get there, I can live with it, particularly in a context short on apologies, remorse and the like.
The French were highly succesful using torture to elicit information about terrorist organizations and plans during much of the colonial war in Algeria during the late 1950s. (The Battle of the Casbah, Paul Aussaresses)
Don't be surprised if his actual appointees don't differ much from your cast of characters! And now that he will begin filling up all the circuit vacancies that Leahy and his cronies on the Senate Judiciary Committee have kept open for years, look to see the likes of Pregerson, Reinhardt, and Paez as far as the eye can see.
Obama is more practical than Rosen wants him to be, and this is an easy way for Rosen to express his desire that Obama begin to toe the race/gender grievance line.
Well, now that the ruling is out, we can see that it does no such thing, so "No."
One would hope that Professor Volokh, being himself a refugee from a regime with a sorry history of torture and which offered the ticking bomb rationale for it, would know better.
The author of this seems not to be familiar with Rosen's views.
TNeloms, there was the case of Lt Col Allen West, who used threats against an Iraqi prisoner to coerce information about an ambush. He fired a weapon near the guy's head, the guy talked, the ambush was thwarted, and West was relieved of command."
Your fictional Jack Bauer is very much on the "liberal" side of the legal issues. He is quite explicit in calling for public disclosure and hearings about what he has done in violation of law and that he is also willing to accept punishment. He is also willing to appear before a Congressional committee under oath without counsel and without asserting privileges. What Bush administration person (Rove, Gonzalez, Addington, etc?) is willing to follow in his footsteps? Accordingly, all of these characters who invoke JB as a role model or example are just poseurs.
Would you strangle a puppy to death to prevent a nuclear bomb from going off in NYC? What about ten puppies? If so, will you pledge not to enforce animal cruelty regulations?
"WHO IS JOHN GALT?"
Offtopic, but tomorrow is January 16th. The Night of January 16th is one of Rand's lesser known works, a short play and a good read. Consider getting a few friends together, add liquor, do a reading.
Remind me, how did that turn out for the French again?
Because whatever the majority of Americans might like to tell themselves about their ethical standards, if it ever came out that the President could have stopped an attack and didn't do everything possible to save American lives, that man's presidency will be over.
Obama knows that. He saw the accepted wisdom that developed from the August 2001 UBL memo, and surely can extrapolate to the fallout from the scenario outlined above.
There are probably good arguments against torture. That it is not an effective tool for quickly obtaining useful intelligence from recalcitrant subjects is not one.
I highlighted the difficulty in your proposition above. The fact of the matter is that act of omission will not be revealed; any such story will be immediately spiked by the Obama-worshipping editors of the MSM, and any dribs &drabs of information that do get out will be poo-poohed as "right wing wingnuttery."
And those loser French just didn't have the balls to torture their way to victory in Algeria! This one sort of example of success PROVES not only that torture totally works in America but also that we need to mock the French, cause they have not the balls to fight back.
You mean if the President saw a memo entitled "OBL determined to attack inside the US and sat it" he wouldn't get reelected?
No one can deny that the media has, and will continue to, shield the public from news which might take the shine off of Mr. Obama in specific, and the Left in general.
We should probably keep an eye on the Mexicans, Russians, Georgians and Uzbeks, too.
Shabby shortcuts -- engaging in unlawful, immoral and/or easy overreaction -- may appeal to some (the dogma-driven, the simple-minded, the overly emotional?) but seem likely to be revealed as unwise, particularly when they are used in circumstances when measured and skillful judgments and methods would have been most needed.
Too true. It was just a few weeks ago when the media was covering up a story about the corrupt DemocRAT governor of Illinois. Instead of being a national story that dominated the headlines and all of the cable news channels, you had to look hard to find any coverage of Blagojevich in the leftist dominated EM-ES-EM.
There is no such thing as a ticking time bomb scenario in real life-- rather, it's just an excuse used to create loopholes in torture laws so that the technique can then be used in non-ticking bomb scenarios and there will be an arguable ambiguity in the law that the torturers can seize on.
How is this for a ticking time bomb scenario:
That is a clear case of a time bomb ticking down with 25 days to go. In this case the investigators didn't have (develop?) enough information to know that there was a ticking time bomb. But according to Moussaoui's own testimony, while he didn't know all the details of the plot, he did know enough to derail it:
It would have been worth torturing Moussaoui, and I mean real torture, not waterboarding, to prevent 9/11.
RPT, the fact that you quote me suggests that either your are responding to me or you would like me to respond to you, but I don't see any connection between what I said and what you said."
Here's the connection. Much of this argument is about whether the conduct of torturers (whether or not you put Col. West in that category) should be legalized or excused because it is "successful", an assertion with which apparently most if not all interrogators and people with relevant experience have disagreed, or prosecuted and punished. I believer you are asserting the former position. Jack Bauer takes the opposite position. If I am wrong about your position, I apologize. Certainly the armchair operative guys like Cheney, Addington, Yoo, etc. (perhaps even Justice Scalia?), who have never set foot outside the protected confines of academia or various "undisclosed locations", and have no real world experience, are all in favor of torture without recrimination, not because it works, but for some other reasons about which others can speculate.
Of course, it would have been much easier to follow up on the August PDB, and the various earlier warnings. Too bad the leadership was asleep at the wheel.
Of course, it would have been much easier to follow up on the August PDB, and the various earlier warnings. Too bad the leadership was asleep at the wheel.
Stuff like this is why I guarantee the Obama Admin will be torturing someone before the end of this calendar year. It'll probably be the one thing I agree with Obama on.
If ya don't like torture, argue honestly against it.
The "torture doesn't work" canard is just plain silly, a-historical and pure wishful thinking. Like most (I daren't say all) sweeping generalizations, it is bovine excrement.
Obviously it doesn't always work. It probably doesn't mostly work - where work means: provides important, timely intelligence. But sometimes it does work.
Why else has it been used for thousands of years specifically for extraction of intelligence?
I used to think torture worked, but capitalization convinced me of my error.
What are the "other reasons..." and why can "others" only speculate about them? Say what you mean, please.
Those who assert "torture does't work" have a big problem: they can't explain why people do it and have always done it, in the context of intelligence gathering.
So the try to wave away this problem.
They also try to claim that "experts" say it doesn't work (which, of course, is true). However, other experts say it does. They negelect that.
RPT means that there are mysterious reasons that these evil people resort to torture that they know will be unsuccessful.
How is this known? Why else would they do something that won't work.
This of course is used to somehow validate the assertion that "torture doesn't work."
It would have been worth torturing Moussaoui, and I mean real torture, not waterboarding, to prevent 9/11.
No, it isn't a "ticking time bomb" scenario as the essence of that scenario is that investigators know there is a bomb somewhere.
In August 2001, investigators had been alerted there was a Moroccan man who had poor piloting skills but insisted on training directly on Boeing 747s. After checking on his immigration status, they determined he either did not have a student visa or had allowed his visa to expire (I forget which) and so picked him up and detained him.
Is it your position that people picked up for visa violations should be subjected to "real torture" just in case they have terrorist connections we don't know about at the time?
The broader point is that statisticians have a concept called "Type II error" which means the probability of accepting a false hypothesis as true. How much time is wasted and diverted away from real anti-terror efforts by investigators following false leads obtained through torture?
Doesn't this example rather prove Dilan Esper's point? The "ticking time bomb" scenario generally assumes that the torturer already knows that (1) the timebomb is ticking somewhere and (2) the person to be tortured knows information which, if disclosed, could foil the plot. But the authorities didn't know either of these things in the Moussaoui case. If you extend the "ticking time bomb" rationale to the Moussaoui situation it justifies torturing everyone picked up on immigration charges who is behaving in any way suspiciously. That's exactly the problem with the "ticking time bomb" rationale that Dilan Esper writing about.
I'm sure there are people who would have no problem torturing all illegal immigrants. You know, just to be sure.
Assume, for the moment, that torture "works;" i.e. that useful, correct, actionable information can be obtained through torture.
Assume, further, that you have rounded up 50 suspects, among whom, you are quite sure, are three or four who have information that could lead to the prevention of the imminent deaths of thousands of innocent American civilians.
And assume that "non-coercive" techniques have not proven effective in even figuring out which among the 50 are the real "bad guys."
Is it o.k. to torture all 50 of them, in order to get the information you need from the 3 or 4 who have it? (And if it helps, you may even assume that the other 46 or 47 harbor "anti-American" sentiments, but have not been actively involved in plotting these imminent activities.)
This seems like a different question, not a refinement of the original (it doesn't seem to be a subset of the original).
One can always dream up the hard cases for any policy. Your attempt is the equivalent of those who find car companies assigning a dollar value to death, and then crying foul.
It doesn't add to the debate, as the "slippery slope" is obvious already.
Perhaps, but that scenario is in fact what we face in the real world. Of all the Gitmo detainees, some are like KSM who have a known history of fantasizing about inflicting maximum carnage on Americans (before 9/11, he masterminded a failed plot to hijack trans-Pacific flights from Asia bound for the U.S. and to crash them into the ocean). Other detainees included a child from Kabul who was selling dates from a cart when a fire-fight broke out and a Turkish-German man who decided to study the Koran in Pakistan after marrying a woman much more devout than he was.
The child was never mistreated and seems to have been held primarily due to bureaucratic idiocy. In the second case, though, the man alleges he was mistreated if not tortured. Those allegations are pretty difficult to dismiss knowing what we know now.
As to the Battle of Algiers - I know a person whose father was tortured in the Algerian War. Her blunt answer to this kind of analysis is that the French lost. I was referred to two books by Holsinger on the Algerian War. I got them from the library and I read the relevant sections. One was "The Savage War" and the other I have forgottent the title. The French success in the Battle of Algiers was related to a number of things 1) the division of the entire city into strictly overseen zones where the non-French Algerians were controlled and verified at numerous checkpoints, 2) non-French Algerians in each of these sectors were personally held responsible for any violence that developed, 3) non-French Algerians loyal to France who provided human intelligence on what the rebels were doing. The accounts I read in those books - not by persons like Aussaresses and Massu who admit torturing and have a vested interest in saying what they did was effective as part of absolving their conscience - was that the torture was not effective. In particular, it radicalized the non-French Algerians further against the French and this contributed to making the French hold on Algeria untenable. The effect also of the revelation of torture by the French back in France was to destroy popular support back in the mainland for France keeping Algeria.
As to the story of Lt. Colonel West and the gunshot, I hope those who cite this would be willing to also say what was painfully obvious to the people who relieved him of his command - he violated his UCMJ obligations as an American soldier.
I would also ask you to look at the testimony of the former Vietnam Vet on the City Council of Berkeley about his experiences in Vietnam in an area of Vietnam with the local South Vietnamese commander who was the torturer of all kinds of people. You will hear from a grunt with clearly an interest in actionable intelligence one of the strongest statements against the use of torture.
If torture supporters are now at a level where they are saying that torture in violation of US law is OK, then we are really down a rathole in this country.
I have looked for ticking time bomb scenarios and have not found one of that kind where torture was done and it worked to avoid the bomb exploding. References in these posts usually refer to situations of the threat of torture and those checked out again do not end up with the happy result (the happy end) that are blithely presented here.
As to experts in favor of torture, torture working means breaking someone, it does not mean that reliable actionable intelligence has been gotten.
Each story that you have heard over the past years from this administration about torture working is just like the stories from this administration that the torture that was done was just the work of a few bad apples. It was a systematic process authorized from the President down my friends.
As to criminal prosecution, nice to see Jack Goldsmith trying to plead to cover his own butt for his efforts in organizing torture during his time at Justice. Anybody remember Charles Graner and Lynndie Englund. They and other low-level grunts were court-martialed and dishonorably discharged for betraying their oaths in doing the bidding of these high-level SOB's. So prosecution has already occurred, we are now only discussing how high we want to go. I say and have said for five years we need to go up to the top with criminal proseuctions in US domestic courts of the high-level US civilian authority and military generals for torture and cruel inhuman or degrading treatment.
I am overjoyed to say that after some 14 months in a Law Review my 165 page article on this point has finally come out this past week at 23 St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary Volume 3 (2008) entitled:
"Refluat Stercus: A Citizen's View of Criminal Prosecution in U.S. Domestic Courts of High-Level U.S. Civilian Authority and Military Generals for Torture and Cruel Inhuman and Degrading Treatment"
It also names names of the persons of interest for criminal prosecution. I have about 50 names, I name the potential crimes and on and on.
Best,
Ben
Sorry, but I can't even see the vaguest of similarities. I don't even know that I cried 'foul.' Nor is it, in fact, a "slippery slope" situation; it's an attempt to bring the hypothetical closer to the real.
Again, there will always be some degree of uncertainty, and the more pressing the urgency, the greater the likelihood of uncertainty.
You assume way too many things:
1. That there was no way to prevent 9/11 that didn't involve torturing Moussoaui. (Such as, for instance listening to Richard Clarke.)
2. That Moussoaui will actually know the information necessary to prevent 9/11.
3. That he will give up that information under some sort of torture.
4. That he will not give up that information under some other form of interrogation.
5. That his interrogators will know the right questions to ask to get the information to prevent 9/11.
6. That he can be singled out under a criterion that won't involve torturing all sorts of other detainees who have no knowledge of 9/11 plots.
7. That the information Moussoaui gives will be reliable and will be perceived to be reliable by interrogators.
8. That the benefit of preventing 9/11 will not be outweighed by all the costs of torturing, including (1) costs spent investigating fabricated plots given up by tortured detainees, (2) costs to US' standing in the world, (3) additional torture and maltreatment of Americans in the future, (4) inability to prosecute people in the future because evidence gained through torture is inadmissible, (5) inability to prosecute people in the future because other countries will not cooperate with us because of our torture policy or will not deliver suspects to us, (6) terrorist blowback resulting from outrage over our torturing of detainees, (7) civil judgments paid to innocent victims of torture, and (8) additional terrorist acts committed by terrorists who we are unable to prosecute due to our torture policies.
And that's just a partial list of things I can think of offhand.
Yeah, that "ticking bomb" scenario looks real plausible, doesn't it?
I think someone is taking arguments too literally here.
Obviously, anything is possible. It is possible that a gamma ray burst will hit the earth tomorrow and most life will be extinguished. However, I think you would agree that it would be silly to be making policy based on the singular goal of surviving a gamma ray burst.
When we say there's no such thing as the "ticking bomb" scenario, what we are saying is that in the normal course of things, this scenario is offered as a justification against an absolute ban on torture. Once the absolute ban is lifted or clouded, however, the actual scenarios in which torture occur turn out not to be ticking bomb scenarios. And even if interrogators attempt to limit the use of torture to actual ticking bomb scenarios, it turns out that they cannot do so because you almost never know that you are in one and even if you are in one, it is quite likely that either (a) conventional interrogations will work; (b) torture will not work (either because we have the wrong man, because the detainee would have given the information up in a conventional interrogation, or the torture yields either no information or bogus information); or (c) the threat isn't nearly as great as was believed to be the case.
So what you have is a scenario that has a vanishing likelihood of ever materializing that is being used to drive the entire policy apparatus and legitimize some extremely heinous conduct. That's what we mean when we say that it isn't a real scenario. Not that it COULD never materialize, but that it's probability is so small (once you set the parameters correctly and require an ACTUAL circumstance where torture will be effective to prevent imminent great loss of life and no other method will do so) that it simply cannot be a factor in determining the policy.
Well now we know where you stand. And it's pretty much opposite of everything normally considered “civilized.”
I expect you'd be a real popular dinner guest with the families of the >3,000 people who died on 9/11.
You mean torture has always been used solely to gather vital intelligence throughout history? You know, Spanish Inquisition, feeding Christians to the lions, Salem witch trials, like that sort of thing? Because, as you say, it is only used in VITAL intelligence gathering-type situations? Is it just possible that the whole 9-11 thing made us a bit reactionary and myopic here?
You mean torture has always been used solely to gather vital intelligence throughout history? You know, Spanish Inquisition, feeding Christians to the lions, Salem witch trials, like that sort of thing? Because, as you say, it is only used in VITAL intelligence gathering-type situations? Is it just possible that the whole 9-11 thing made us a bit reactionary and myopic here? Or am I just being bovine?
Straw man.
The fact that torture has other uses than for intelligence gathering is often used to confuse the discussion about it's use for extracting information. It is a mere diversion, and has no meaning other than as a rhetorical ploy.
@Ben,
I am sorry to see that so far, Obama and his appointees have been very vague on whether they would prosecute high ranking officials of the Bush Administration. If they mean to bring about a new way of governing, and cooperation in Washington, they would signal that no such witch-hunts will be undertaken.
Your attempt to prosecute high officials, especially by the many harrassment techniques advocated by your allies, will be very injurious to the American polity, and bring a terrible discredit to the whole cause of civil liberties.
Of course, again, nobody in the government had no idea he was involved in the 9/11 plot beforehand. All anybody guessed was that he was yet another single Arab man from a poor background trying to immigrate to the U.S. It's quite possible even he didn't know exactly he had signed up for before arrival. This just goes to show in the real world, things are much more murky and complicated than "ticking time bomb" scenarios that belong more in a college philosophy classroom than in formulating actual policy.
The ironic postscript is that Qahtani was arrested and sent to Gitmo after 9/11 and was tortured after the fact at the admission of Susan Crawford. Charges against him have been dismissed -- and may never be refiled -- as most of the evidence of his guilt consists of testimony obtained under torture.
Well said. And in the unlikely event it does materialize, the appropriate legal response is to abstain from charging. Or jury nullification. Or pardon. Like you said, accommodating such an exception into the law itself would be an invitation to making the exception commonplace.
(BTW, I'd suggest you spend a few extra words at the outset making clear what you said the second time around. Because it wasn't obvious to me that you meant "no such thing" hyperbolically. And saying it sucked you into arguing over what's essentially a distraction from the real point.)
Agreed, though the point more was that Mr. Matthews made some awfully sweeping generalization about the historical use of torture. Indeed, examining something like the Salem witch trials might be of value here... to whit:
Trails were conducted in the atmosphere of extreme fear and with the general purpose of 'intelligence' gathering regarding devil possession in their midst. Coercion or torture (the rack, stones on the body, etc) was used to obtain "confessions" of pacts with the devil, thereby "eliminating" the pressing threat in their midst. Of course the confessions were bunk as there is, you know, no such thing as witchcraft. So while it might seem pressing, dire and wise-- there are at least as many historical examples of torture producing results exactly as we have been discussing here (unreliable and ultimately counterproductive). You all were the ones who wanted to go down the historical road here-- why not learn from the past to build a better future where we DON'T TORTURE OTHER PEOPLE! For any reason!
We the people want to know when you are going to sack up and marry Oprah, already.
I'm sure the Gestapo, KGB, Khmer Rouge, the Shah's SAVAK and Pinochet's Secret Police would concur with your assessment.
--Cobra
Old Fart:
So if torturing Muslims leads to an anti-American popular revolution in a Muslim state, and the new government puruses a policy of developing and eventually delivering nuclear weapons, killing 10's or 100's of thousands of people, you would say that you would rather have this and not have a 9/11?
I realize 9/11 was very, very, very bad. But that doesn't mean I can't think of many things that could result from torture policies that would be much worse.
You are ignoring that: (1) often times (including in the current debate) the asserted need for information is used as a justification for torturing people outside the ticking bomb scenario (and indeed, that is exactly what the Bush Administration did), and (2) even if the policymakers have absolutely pure desires, legitimizing torture is almost certain to put us on a slippery slope where torture is turned to in non-ticking bomb scenarios. Indeed, that will almost certainly be the almost exclusive use of torture in any scenario where it is legalized, because the ticking bomb scenario is so unlikely to occur.
A ‘ticking time bomb” scenario doesn’t have to be a literal ticking time bomb. It can be a situation where an interrogator needs to get actionable information as quickly as possible to prevent an attack such as ambush, the location of a terrorist cell, etc.
Your example is interesting, but no determinative. We already know that false confessions can be obtained by torture - the Communists used this de rigeur. So what? It just means that torture *works* for those means.
@Cobra
Yes, they probably would. They knew full well how to use torture for both of its practical uses: to obtain information, and to punish and create terror. The fact that they did the latter says nothing about the former. How about trying to apply some elementary logic to your argument, eh?
@Dilan Esper
Your first point is irrelevant. The use of torture for non-intelligence means is not what we are discussing. Your second point is, in fact, relevant. The slippery slope must be dealt with.
Just as we recognize the danger and moral cost to us (and our personnel) of using torture, we must recognize the danger of the slippery slope. These are factors in the argument to be weighed, but are not conclusive.
You assertion of what the Bush Administration did is incorrect. They did have a ticking bomb scenario - there were multiple major attacks in planning, and some were thwarted as a direct result of the "torture" (if you can call something which thousands of our servicemen volunteer for every year to be "torture"). Furthermore, if you call 3 interrogations "often times," you are a bit confused. Additionally, the strict ticking bomb scenario is an extreme case should be unnecessary to justify coercive interrogation (including waterboarding) or even torture. However, everyone recognizes that a dramatically higher standard of need is required for these techniques than for normal interrogation methods.
Keep and bear.
And so the slippery slope begins.
Note that the initial ticking bomb scenario involves a certain great loss of life if you don't torture.
But now we are just talking about the location of a terrorist cell (which may or may not ever pull off a terrorist act and which may or may not ever kill even one person, let alone cause a massive loss of life) or even just an ambush (which may be nothing more than a few injuries).
The ticking bomb scenario is just a way to try to open the door for torture. Once the door is open, the real scenarios where people envision using torture (or inevitably will use torture) bear no resemblance to it.
The falsity of Bush's claims, as well as his general untrustworthiness and willingness to lie on issues involving terrorism and interrogation practices, is well documented. There is no reason any informed American should believe this claim.
I assume you're looking at someone else's comments. I made no comments at all about the historical use of torture.
Psychiatrist Dr. Charles Krauthammer has a diagnosis for you: Bush Derangement Syndrome.
John, to simplify this...if you don't have a problem with operatives of the US Government engaging in behavior practiced by the Gestapo, KGB, Khmer Rouge, the Shah's SAVAK and Pinochet's Secret Police, that's YOUR mind trip.
God bless you.
If you think, for some reason, that these universally despised and reviled organizations spared it's own citizens from torture and cruelty, you're ill-informed.
If you don't believe that slippery slope could happen here in America, a nation with a history rife with barbarism and oppression upon people they didn't deem as full citizens, (ie. Native Americans, African-Americans), or that you have some congenital immunity to such treatment, maybe you should review Section 501 of the Patriot Act Part 2. The "expatriation of terrorists" and "enemy combatant" parts are very interesting, IMHO.
--Cobra
They also engaged in shopping for goods and going to the toilet, and I don't mind the US Government engaging in those behaviors.
In other words, when you use the evil deeds of a group to define some of the methods as wrong, you are committing a logical fallacy. You are engaging in guilt by association.
....
I read the entire Patriot Act. It looked like a pretty good thing to me.
If you are going to drag out American history, perhaps you should also notice the dramatic progress we made in the areas where we were so bad.
Finally, humanity has its share of evil people - every society does. However, you take the slipper slope argument to its extreme, and that is inappropriate.
I am a conservative. A liberal with many leftist ties (his EPA nominee is a socialist, for example) is about to take power - an ideological opponent. I hope he uses these techniques also, and I don't fear that he will use them on me.
When you drag out the reviled organizations and imply "it could happen here too," you miss the dramatic differences between the times, the societies and the political ideologies of those regimes vs our country. It would not happen here unless there were radical changes in our society, in which case we are all in deep trouble anyway.
Get it?
I am sure that you would have said that anyone who disbelieved claims made by the Nixon Administration had "Nixon Derangement Syndrome".
For the record, I didn't believe Clinton's denials of a relationship with Monica either. Presidents who repeatedly lie to us and mislead us aren't entitled to a presumption of credibility when they tell us that classified information that they cannot reveal vindicates their policy choices.
http://law.case.edu/centers/cox/content.asp?content_id=77
Bassiouini's lecture is in the last set of speakers (panel IV).
You are wrong about that.
If you have a comment about spelling, typos, or format errors, please e-mail the poster directly rather than posting a comment.
Comment Policy: We reserve the right to edit or delete comments, and in extreme cases to ban commenters, at our discretion. Comments must be relevant and civil (and, especially, free of name-calling). We think of comment threads like dinner parties at our homes. If you make the party unpleasant for us or for others, we'd rather you went elsewhere. We're happy to see a wide range of viewpoints, but we want all of them to be expressed as politely as possible.
We realize that such a comment policy can never be evenly enforced, because we can't possibly monitor every comment equally well. Hundreds of comments are posted every day here, and we don't read them all. Those we read, we read with different degrees of attention, and in different moods. We try to be fair, but we make no promises.
And remember, it's a big Internet. If you think we were mistaken in removing your post (or, in extreme cases, in removing you) -- or if you prefer a more free-for-all approach -- there are surely plenty of ways you can still get your views out.