With Torture In The News...

The NY Times magazine had a long, inconclusive, but interesting article on torture last June by Joseph Lelyveld, a former executive editor of The New York Times.

I had long, inconclusive excerpts, and I will repeat my takeaway right here:

- the experts think that the threat of physical coercion is a useful interrogation tactic but they offer few examples of torture itself providing actionable inteligence.

- The US is new to this, and not very good:

Israeli security specialists are amazed by the multiplicity of commands engaged in the American interrogation scramble, by the short tours of duty and high turnover of interrogators, by the reliance on interpreters and outsourcing to contractors and foreign governments. ''Unprofessional'' is the mildest word they use.

- An effort at Harvard to draft legislation to codify the procedures under which the US would employ "torture lite" failed due to a lack of interest in Congress, and presumably  amongst the public.

And let's re-link to this, as a "Best of Belgravitas" on torture.

Comments

[kim]

I wonder if the man who died, apparently by his own hand, in the British 'sexed-up' scandal was an interrogator of Iraqis? I've heard that he was a very effective one.
=====================================================

[Sue]

I wonder if Jordan was a location for one of our 'secret' prisons.

[Creepy Dude]

I honestly don't understand. That cute little dominatrix Private Lyndie England was convicted of what exactly? I assume whatever she was convicted of is illegal under our laws since she was, well, convicted.

If laws are already on the books to convict Ms. England-what exactly is McCain seeking to accomplish? Is Cheney seeking to have the CIA declared exempt from whatever laws for which Ms. England was convicted? And if so-why?

Presumably the CIA is not exempt from our current laws-so in these "secret prisons" we are to presume no one has yet done anything worse than what the little dominatrix of Abu Ghraib did?

How did we take such a wrong turn to even be discussing this sordid business?

[JayDee]

TM's link above made a very eloquent case against torture - by a US conservative - which does indeed crumble the generalizations that all US conservatives are closet S&M freaks. (Of course the ensuing comments more or less prove all the stereotypes true, but ... whatever.)

Another unanswered question which rarely gets much play is this one: Do we know who we are holding? If there's no due process, not so much as habeas corpus, how do we know we are not torturing Hakim Schmoe, the local kabob griller, or some such? Does that matter to anyone? It isn't just about whether or not torture/abuse/humiliation is acceptable US behavior when engaged in against enemy combatants. It's how do we even know that's what they are? Key word here being: KNOW. Since we frequently read about mass prison releases of thousands of prisoners at a time, and since estimates are that as many as 85% of those held in Abu Ghraib were innocent - How blind is our trust in this proven untrustworthy administration supposed to be? And why exactly should any other nation have this same blind trust?

[Sue]

I know. Let's build the prisons for captured combatants next door to Jay Dee, that way he can check in every day and make sure the local kabob griller isn't being held. I'm sure he won't mind it being in his neighborhood.

[JayDee]

I have a different idea, sue. Instead of hiding behind ridicule in your safe haven, why don't you state openly: It doesn't bother me if we hold captive, abuse, torture or even kill an undefined amount of innocent people, if it means we also get to hold captive, abuse, torture or even kill one enemy of America. And the reason for this is....(fill in the blank here).

Be honest.

[Creepy Dude]

Sue-you put a leash on me. With words.

[Sue]

Simple, Jay Dee, I don't believe we would go to the expense or trouble of hiding a prisoner that grilled kabobs. I take it you don't like the idea of a 'captured combatant' prison in your neighborhood? I don't want one in mine either. Nor do I want them to let them go. So, if your question is am I willing to trust that the government would only be hiding those they are certain about, then yeah. I'm willing to trust them. As for torture, you are assuming something you have no evidence of, as usual.

[kim]

Back shortly after 9/11 one of my favorites was "What we need now are a few extremists."
==============================================

[The Unbeliever]

I think the question JayDee really needs answered is, why was the local kabob griller captured with an AK-47 and an unexploded IED on the battlefield in Afghanistan? Do you really need an AK-47 to grill kabobs?

[BumperStickerist]

out of place for this thread - put me down in the 'Yea! Torture!! column though -

Andrea Mitchell was on Don Imus this morning at 7:10AM and gave a thorough complete account of the 'Everybody Knew Valerie Plame Was a CIA Agent' quote.

I don't have the transcript, but she made the issue one of "The confusion came from my answering a question in October and the Novak column was in July so when I answered the question I was only talking about the press corps and the parties they attended between July and October" (paraphrased)

.

[JayDee]

See, Unbeliever, that would be proof, or at least evidence. But you're "assuming something you have no evidence of", aren't you? Sue doesn't like that, but it's probably ok with her when it serves her argument, such as it is.

How do you explain the frequent mass releases of (presumably innocent) prisoners from hellholes like Abu Ghraib and the deaths in captivity of those we couldn't find charges for, even in death?

[JohnH]

JayDee:
Your question was how we know that we are not holding the innocent in the secret prisons? In order to make this an actual debate, you need to say what you propose as an alternative to the present structure. Of course it is true that YOU do not know who is being held. But there is an established structure in the military for reviewing who is being held. Maybe you think that the military wants to hold everyone they capture, and that we need civilian oversight to make more balanced judgments. Then say that. Who would perform this oversight? Why would you trust them any more than you trust the current system?
My own feeling is that we already hold the military to a high standard to be fair, and that they have a structure to enforce this fairness, as evidenced by the prosecution of Lynie England et al., and that further oversight would likely be too political.

[Sue]

Jay Dee,

Abu Graib is not a 'secret' prison. I have no evidence one way or the other. That is why I said I trust the government is holding those in the secret prisons who are not just kabob grillers. The kabob grillers are in Abu Graib and being released in the masses you spoke of.

[owl]

Yes Sue, Jordan was a location. Went back last night and read Priest article again. Jordan was listed.

[JayDee]

Sue, I realize Abu Ghraib isn't secret, mention it only to demonstrate the relative inefficiency encountered in trying to capture the truly dangerous people in Iraq.

As for John's question - I don't believe in secret prisons. Simple. Although I believe it's the CIA, not the US military, holding them, the fact remains that the only prison system an open, free democracy should accept is one which provides for independent oversight. Who can we trust in our currently deviant government? Good question, but no excuse for this kind of practice. At the very least, they should be registered with the international Red Cross.

Molly Ivins makes the point much better than I:
A string of prisons in Eastern Europe in which suspects are held and tortured indefinitely, without trial, without lawyers, without the right to confront their accusers, without knowing the evidence or the charges against them, if any. Forever. It's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." Another secret prison in the midst of a military camp on an island run by an infamous dictator. Prisoner without a name, cell without a number.

.... "The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have 'disappeared,' like the victims of some dictatorships." -- The Washington Post.

Why did we bother to beat the Soviet Union if we were just going to become it? Shame. Shame. Shame.

Did 9/11 change everything so much that America had to turn against everything we always stood for?

[Neuro-conservative]

Speaking of torture, here is Andrea Mitchell's tortured explanation for her famous comments on Capitol Report (10-3-2003).

I can sympathize with her. I am a very bad liar, and I tend to stammer a lot when I am trying to deceive.

[JohnH]

TM:
We need a new thread to talk about the Andrea Mitchell spin. It reveals something new: that NBC wants to stifle this talk about people knowing of Wilson's wife before Novak's column. Before NBC was only silent. Now it looks like they are going to be as uncooperative as possible.

[Syl]

I think Sue's got it right:

I don't believe we would go to the expense or trouble of hiding a prisoner that grilled kabobs.

and JohnH:

there is an established structure in the military for reviewing who is being held.

They will be sorted out at Abu Ghraib or wherever, as Sue points out.

I'd add that the CIA looks for specific people, it does not grab just anyone.

And one of the reasons these prisons are secret is that al Qaeda (up until the leak) doesn't know they exist or where to look for them. I'm sure they've heard rumors.

The deal would be that one of their own disappears. Now what is al Qaeda supposed to think? Is this disappeared one just dead and they don't know where his body is? or is he being held by the U.S. and they're getting information from him?

Better roll up some operations and move underground for a while. Get on the phone and let xxxx know. Whammo.

The possibility of the latter works in our favor. If everything were transparent, if the world knew who we had captured and where they are being held (this place--no problem, that place--oh oh), and what they are accused of, the confusion and possible mistakes made because of the murkiness of the whole thing most likely wouldn't happen.

Our operations would bear no fruit.

This is what you have to do in war. Keep it murky. And if it means keeping it murky to American citizen eyes as well, so be it.

[Syl]

JayDee

Did 9/11 change everything so much that America had to turn against everything we always stood for?

I didn't know we stood for mass suicide.

[Syl]

JayDee

How do you explain the frequent mass releases of (presumably innocent) prisoners from hellholes like Abu Ghraib

Lots of them are Iraqi's and there's not enough evidence to prove without reasonable doubt that they are directly involved in operations against the coalition or against innocent Iraqis.

Releasing them is good for PR.

But we're not out to make people love America, one of our goals is to make it clear to muslims that the insurgent goons and al Qaeda fanatics do not have their best interests in mind.

'Those damn Americans blamed ME for what those idiots are doing!'

That result is fine by us.

[The Unbeliever]

Considering your kabob griller was fictional in the first place, JayDee, I have no problem giving him a fictional AK-47.

Especially given the places those released detainees seem to hang around...

[TM]

We need a new thread to talk about the Andrea Mitchell spin.

I am on Andrea like a cheap fedora on Matt Drudge, in a post that is up now.

I do *not* use the phrase "lying weasel". But no fair using ESP.

[owl]

Good articles TM. Color me unconvinced except I do feel strongly there should always be allowed the "threat". McCain's solution strips power, publishes a training manual for the terrorists and hands off legal authority to courts and internationalists. Easy to make rules when dealing with competing armies, where one can reasonably expect to receive equal treatment and the end of conflict....or at least the hope. You can never expect the same from people who would willingly kill themselves, in order to deliberately kill women and children. When they are willing to chop off HEADS on camera, you will never sign a treaty with this. It will either kill you, make you subordinate or you will kill it.

I do not have a solution, so I vote for a Commander In Chief to have my proxy vote. The one that has to make the decisions and sleep.

[JayDee]

It is truly amazing that we now are required to believe that these amorphous, omnipresent, undefined terrorists have this amazing power to KILL US ALL!!!!!!!! and the only thing standing between us and them (aside from a massive Mideast US troop presence, the Atlantic Ocean and hopefully some marginally competent intelligence, INS, port security, and other such silly things) is a web of secret prisons and brutal interrogation practices.

You know, this inexcusable fear mongering and irrational hysteria still worked in 2004, but I think we are starting to come back to earth now. We are rational, intelligent, enlightened human beings in the 21st Century. We are NOT characters in the television show 24. We can comprehend our problems, elect leaders competent enough to deal with them, hold oversight over those elected representatives and ask any damn question we please of them regarding what kind of barbaric practices are being done in our name. The childish argument that modern democracy can no longer embrace "quaint" treaties because THEY'LL KILL YOU ALL IN YOUR BEDS! is about as adult as the theory that science is just too limited to understand the physical world, so IT MUST BE MAGIC, as they like to think in Kansas.

[Syl]

JayDee

You're hysterical again.

[JayDee]

I didn't know we stood for mass suicide

Looking for hysteria, Syl? Get a mirror.

[The Unbeliever]

That's odd, I don't recall seeing anyone else posting an "OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" argument before JayDee did. That's a pretty big leap from the rest of us simply noting that preventing terrorism is, by definition, a matter of life and death.

In case you missed it, 3 hotels got bombed in Jordan yesterday. 57 dead, 200+ wounded. Not because there was torture going on in them, but just because they were "Western hotel chains". Are you going to tell me that if we captured the Jordinian al-Qaeda cell leader last week, you'd rather he gets his down pillow and comforter, instead of a less-than-polite interrogation?

[owl]

Yep, I seem to have this effect on Jay Dee so I will leave it for now.

[Gary Maxwell]

Oh my god JayDee and MollyIvins in the same post. Damn it now my meter measuring insufferability buried in the redzone and is now stuck. I feel like torturing somebody...

[Sue]

Jay Dee,

You lost me the minute you posted a quote from Molly Ivins. I have spent years reading her drivel and when my hometown newspaper quit running her column, I vowed never to do so again. Your post, which mentioned her, was a SOB as soon as her name appeared. :)

[arthurize]

the problem with the reductio ad absurdum technique is that it loses effectiveness the more it's used. The point is not that they will kill us in our beds, but that they will if they can kill us in our planes, buses, trains and tunnels,i.e., all the things that civilians, not soldiers, rely upon.Beyond that, they will if they can kill our children who have the audacity to, for example, choose to study abroad, and will in that event be vulnerable to attack in the London tube or the Paris Metro.Apparently this is Bush's fault. All the people who do such things would have stayed quietly in their homes, attending their universities, if only we hadn't invaded Iraq ( either now or in 1991) or Afghanistan,or the Spanish hadn't evicted the Moors from Andalusia.I think it's nearsighted not to recognize that the tactics of such people breed a coarseness when responding to them that probably accounts for most if not all of the prisoner mistreatment.The left now likes to say that if you or your child hasn't fought in Iraq you have no right to support the action. In that case, those on the left who have not fought or inetrrogated have no right to criticize the actions of the interrogators, however brutal. Those 2 assertions are equally wrongheaded. Worse, they're not even provocative.

[Sue]

Jay Dee,

Classic example why democrats scare me to death in charge of national security. They worry too much about feelings, your's and Europe's. I worry about body parts flying off. You can't fight AQ with your hands tied behind your back. They will laugh you off the battle field.

[JayDee]

I understand about the Molly Ivins thing. It hurts your heads to have to listen to those with differing points of view. So just ignore, ignore. It's a great strategy...just like this last election was a "status quo" election. This head in the sand strategery is going to be very good for your country down the road. Let's see: Even Fox poll has your baby at 36% now. Guess your fellow Americans just stopped responding to incessant fear mongering, and yikes! started using the sense that God gave geese. Bad news for y'all. (Even weirder, since "no one cares" about the Libby Leak - 2/3rds want to "know more" and 4/5ths think it's "extremely important to the country". How did you guys suddenly get it all so wrong? I thought you braggarts were going to have a permanent majority!!! )

[TexasToast]

‘Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a ‘state of public emergency’) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.’ (Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, February 9, 2000, para. 6.)

I dont see any exception for "torture lite".

Classic example why republicans scare me to death in charge of national security. They dont worry enough about laws, domestic and international. I also worry about body parts flying off. You can't fight AQ with your morals tied behind your back. They will propagandize you off the battle field.

[Sue]

Wrong, Jay Dee. I got tired of Ms. Ivins name calling, just as I get tired of your's. Goodhair Perry. (I admit he has good hair, but what the hell does that have to do with the issues?) Think about it, I'm sure you'll see why she would bother me and not bother you, Mr. Namecaller Yourself. :)

[Sue]

Go ahead TT. Your morals will probably keep you safe at night.

[boris]

The libs sure come up with "absolute morality" quick when it comes to defense. One might ask "What is the basis for this absolute principle ?"

I sure haven't noticed a reluctance on the part of militant leftists to employ whatever works best and religous morality be damned.

So where is the justification for their fellow travelers demanding that our military play by rules that disadvantage safety and victory? Why listen to them when they so clearly advance the propaganda of the enemy and then sneer like hipocrites ....

They will propagandize you off the battle field

[Syl]

People, let's get serious about what we're dealing with in these secret prisons. These are al Qaeda mid-level operatives. Not Iraqi insurgents pulled in off raids.

Bin laden is the head but his neck has been cut off. It's the mid-level operatives who have the knowledge and expertise to carry out attacks against America.

The lower echelon, the disparate groups that claim allegiance to al Qaeda are operating independently from bin laden. Without these mid-level operatives, the neck, the organization has lost its top-down structure and is flailing about. They're making strategic mistakes.

Zarqawi is important because he, himself, is one of these mid-level operatives though his direct connection with bin laden and zawahiri is severely limited.

No member of the leadership, no mid-level operative, of al Qaeda has ever signed or given any indication they would sign the Geneva convention. And each one we take out of circulation, yes for an indefinite amount of time, makes us safer.

If you want to argue we should send in human rights groups, open up the prisons to scrutiny as to who is there, why they're there, what we're doing, force us to release some of them because we don't have enough evidence to convict in an American court of law...well then...

screw you.

[Sue]

Syl,

Amen, sister. :)

[Syl]

TT

Your outrage is so selective. You wish to grant al Qaeda leadership the rights of every human on earth yet you decry Bush giving Iraqi's their individual freedom.

When al Qaeda goons are deemed more important than families just trying to live their lives is when your outrage turns to hypocrisy.

Not all recipients of your concern are created equal.

[Bill Arnold]

Sue, re Classic example why democrats scare me to death in charge of national security. They worry too much about feelings, your's and Europe's.

I believe, honestly believe, that we will more effectively fight AQ (et al) without torture than with torture.

This is for various practical reasons of effectiveness (here we should be learning from Israeli methods, not winging it), but mainly because it is unwise to belittle the propaganda value provided to our opponents by our use of torture. I shudder whenever I see the "on the Arab street" cartoons of the hooded figure holding jumper cables. It's mind-boggling that some yahoos (though bad apples don't fall far from the tree) could do something so easily drawn, take pictures of it, and manage to have the pictures escape to the world.

-Bill Arnold

[Syl]

We're just assuming this is about torture. That's what the Democrats want it to be about.

No. It's about holding al Qaeda in secret prisons. That's the point, not torture. And why we have to keep them there, away from the prying eyes of the NGO's is what this is really about.

[TexasToast]

Not following our own rules hands our enemies a potent weapon. My saying it or not has miniscule effect as propoganda as compared to our doing it. I never thought I would see the day when our President had to actually say, "We don't torture." I had always thought that was a given.

Silly me.

[Rick Ballard]

Syl,

When did clandestine detention locations become "secret prisons"? Didn't the initial report identify 30-100 terrorists being held in multiple locations? If we're using a villa on the Caaspian to hold 10 individuals - does it qualify as a "secret prison"? The detainees forfeited any status as "prisoners" in a POW sense by their own conduct. They are potential war criminals until a tribunal determines their status and become prisoners awaiting trial before a military tribunal should they be determined to merit such treatment.

It does not make sense to accept the Demsm definition of the detention facilities given that the definition was chosen for its negative connotation and impact. Holding detainees with potential intelligence value at clandestine locations isn't a new idea. Calling such locations "secret prisons" is just more lefty rhetorical twaddle.

[Gary Maxwell]

TT

He almost had to shout it to be heard over the din of Democrats saying we did.

[TexasToast]

Sue

Its interesting that you have no compunction about labeling those of us who oppose "clandestine detention facilities" (good one Rick!) and "ultimately ineffective interrogation techniques" (you like?) as fools, yet take umbrage at those of us who actually think this country stands for something (like minimal due process and an open society) labeling you in an equally pejorative way. Words can hurt, can't they?

Syl

We have no way of knowing just who is in these "clandestine detention facilities", now do we? The administration is saying, "Trust us!" How I wish I could, but the evidence is making it more and more difficult.

[Syl]

TT

but the evidence is making it more and more difficult.

What friggin' evidence?!?!?!?

What the dems say?

Get real.

[Syl]

TT

like minimal due process and an open society

We have that, TT.

Al Qaeda is not us. Nor part of our society. Is, in fact, at war with us.

When they surrender, then we'll talk, okay?

[Syl]

TT

Not following our own rules hands our enemies a potent weapon.

And that would be what, exactly?

Chopping off heads? Blowing innocents up with car bombs? Piloting planes into buildings full of civilians?

[narciso]

Do we have to bring up the leaks by Senator Hatch, about NSA surveilaance of Osama, or
leaks from the 1996, and 1998 prosecutions;
the fact that even from jail, Sheik Rahman
and Ramzi Yousef, seemed to be able to communicate with other in the outside world

[Syl]

Rick

clandestine detention locations

Roger that.

I'll try to say it right, next time. But I'll be able to remember the phrase only if I associate it with Valery Plame being a clandestine detention guard!

Ah..that must be it!

[Rick Ballard]

TT,

Under the rules of war a person's status and the privileges associated with it are determined by their conduct. They must be treated humanely but they possess no "rights" as they pertain to US citizens within the United States any more than a US citizen would possess his or her rights in Iran.

It is they who have forfeited, not we who have stripped.

[Bill Arnold]

Syl,
And that would be what, exactly?
Chopping off heads?

Free, potent, advertisement for recruitment.

[Syl]

Bill

Free, potent, advertisement for recruitment.

Ah. The bogeyman recruitment tool.

For a gang that considers the loss of Andalusia a recruitment tool, an extra jihadi here or there doesn't matter much.

And there's a difference between anger or resentment, and being so committed to the cause that you get yourself a bit of martyrdom.

I doubt anyone recruited even over the piss Koran crap. Angry demonstrations by those angry at us already. whoopie.

We cannot be afraid to offend. We need both hands to fight this war, not one tied behind our back.

[kim]

What we need now, is a few good extremists.
=============================================

[kim]

If Islamic extremist terrorism persists, there may well be a reaction. It would not be unprecedented.
====================================================

[kim]

Il sera Francais.
==================

[TexasToast]

No. It's about holding al Qaeda in secret prisons. That's the point, not torture. And why we have to keep them there, away from the prying eyes of the NGO's is what this is really about. -Syl

You keep saying this - and its just wrong. Its about exempting the CIA from the rules prohibiting torture in light of secret prisons with no oversight.

If a prisoner screams in the woods and nobody hears, is it illegal torture? Cheney wants the answer to be no.

What evidence?

Where do you want me to start?

[Syl]

TT

Is this a war, or not?

As I said, if al Qaeda surrenders, then we'll talk. Until then, take your concern for the poor oppressed al Qaeda guys and shove it.

[Syl]

TT

Did you elect the NGO's? Do you find their concern for al Qaeda prisoners as opposed to thier concern over al Qaeda's murderous actions a little offensive?

Making this whole legalistic allows the NGO's to interfere in our business. It does not mean we are torturing the guys, it just means keep those busybodies away.

[TexasToast]

If we are not torturing, why do we care who sees that we are not torturing?

We have been round and round on this board about the application of the laws of war - so I'll refrain from repeating old news. But Lindsey Graham just attached a provision removing habeas jurisdiction at Gitmo.

Even less oversight? "Trust us"?

Meanwhile, Condi goes to Mosel to plead for Sunni participation as the mini-states loom larger and larger. We are going to have to be there, dodging bullets, for a very long time to come.

[Creepy Dude]

Khalid Sheik Mohammed-fat guy with a hairy back. This is who is going to destroy the United States?

We don't need secret prisons/torture/'Patriot' Act nonsense. We'll be like the scared ninnies who put impregnable burglar bars on their house and then die trapped in a fire.

It's laughable-we need to quit acting out of fear-and act based on the values enshrined in our founding documents.

[Syl]

TT and Creepy

Is this a war or not?

If not, why not?

And why do you think there has not been an attack on American in four years? Luck?

We have rendered bin laden irrelevant by capturing or killing his lieutenants and mid-level managers. One being the fat guy with the hairy back. And where are we holding them?

Who cares!

I predict another Osama message soon!

[Creepy Dude]

Syl-it would be more honorable (and more effective) to execute these men in the open air than hold them incommunicado in secret prisons.

[The Unbeliever]

TT: If we are not torturing, why do we care who sees that we are not torturing?

The problem with revealing clandestine prison locations is that now al Qaeda knows where to aim its suicide bombers. I'm sure you've read the reports coming out of Iraq about the incredibly heavy security that's necessary around the prisons because of the repeated attacks on them; now we have to replicate that security everywhere. The leak forces previously secret "soft" targets to bulk up into highly visible "hard" targets; not only that, it jeopardizes the Army/CIA's security procedures because al Qaeda now knows of more places to watch and glean information from.

The various terrorist organizations are capable of striking other countries, as the recent Jordan hotel bombings illustrated. Each and every one of those revealed prison locations is now on a hit list for similar bombings, some in countries that al Qaeda, up until now, never thought to look in or establish a presence in. The question of torture is really just a side issue when it comes to the prison location leak--if you believe the US tortures prisoners, then they could torture them in any base or prison, and don't need to ferry them around.

Leaking the locations is not striking a blow for human rights, or further oversight, or anything of the sort. This leak seriously harmed our security and operations, and the leaker should be punished, period.

[TexasToast]

UnB

I'm not defending the leak - I’m questioning the policy. Are you suggesting that we don’t have enough un-secret prisons to house these people? Why not put all the eggs in one basket at Gitmo? If security was the purpose – could not the need for security be met by less sinister means?

Syl

I’ll just quote Andrew Sullivan back at you.

“My argument would be that you cannot raise or lower the moral status of mass murderers with respect to torture. The only salient moral status with respect to torture is that the mass murderers are human beings. And what this hideous policy has necessarily done is to create a new class of prisoners that are regarded as sub-human, i.e., beneath the most basic of Geneva protections for even illegal combatants. My second argument would be that this is not about the moral status of terrorists or mass murderers. It's about us, the moral status of the West, and places where as a civilization, we simply will not go as a matter of policy. I guess others will differ and I am glad at last that they are now prepared to say so. But for me, this is a clear line. And we cannot cross it, by enshrining the right to torture into law.”

Our being “at war” does not make this good policy.

[Syl]

TT

CAN YOU READ. THIS IS NOT ABOUT TORTURE!

[TexasToast]

Gee Syl

This post is titled, "With Torture in the News...."

So, yes, it is about torture.

Need some help with that anger management?

[Bill Arnold]

Syl,
Ah. The bogeyman recruitment tool.
Your intuition is wildly different than mine. Are you suggesting that a significant number of jihadis were not moved from the all-talk middle to the all-gun center, or from the center to the bomb-belt core, by revelations of american mistreatment/disrespect?

[kim]

So what is this torture? I suspect it is a lot like pornography; you know it when you see it. Or is it when feel it?
==============================================

[kim]

Or is it when you inflict it? Intent surely has meaning here.
================================================

[kim]

And what about that British interrogator who 'killed' himself in the 'sexed up' affair?
===================================================

[kim]

BA, these revelations pale in comparison to what the jihadi minded are told five times a day, so yes, I would argue that there were no significant numbers of jihadis so moved. Remember, what they know of respect they've learned from the likes of Zarqawi.

The Islamic diaspora has taken note of the fact that al Qaeda used to toast infidels with dramatic and daring pyrotechnics, but that now they are cravenly blowing up poor Muslims. Some recruitment tool.
=================================================