I figured out what was bothering me. UPDATED
The past couple of weeks Obama and the Dems and Cheney and the Goppers have been sniping at each other about torture, with Cheney most recently demanding that Obama release records showing that the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used during the Bush years were fruitful.
(It isn't relevant to the post, but I have to smile when I think about Cheney, he who spent most of his eight years in office in undisclosed locations, demanding public disclosure of anything.)
This headline today at NYTimes.com focused me on what's been bothering me:
At the Core of Detainee Fight: Did Methods Stop Attacks?
We are witness to some slight of hand here as Republicans are shifting the debate and Democrats are taking the bait. Should the public discussion be about the effectiveness of torture; or, should it be about whether torture should be used?
If the ends justify the means, are the means noble rather than criminal?
Jack Bauer has seduced us. We want heroes arriving just in the nick of time to save the world in the last act. To set up that last act, it's perfectly OK for Jack to wring the truth out of one of the bad guys to find out where the missile is located so that he can arrive to fire a well placed shot from the other end of the abandoned plant into the back of the head of the really bad guy just before he pushes the button to launch.
Torture has been with us and will stay with us for the foreseeable future. We are a cussed species. That that is true does not mean that we should condone it, whether or not it is effective.
Alternatively, torture away. But don't rationalize your atavism, embrace it. You want something, the location of the missile or the cache of mastodon meat, and someone stands in your way - beat the bloody hell out of them until you get what you want.
UPDATE:
It seems I scooped the NYTimes.com. Here's a follow-up to the article I linked to with a time stamp after my post. The comments are interesting and make some of the points I made. Yes, I'm a bit full of myself.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/is-cheney-winning-the-torture-debate/
17 comments:
All the Bush-era lawyer memos dealing with justifying torture remind me of the rationalizations that many bright CPA's and MBA's came up with to justify the insane financial products and hokey financial reporting that resulted in our tanked economy.
Both groups sold their souls to please their masters and share in the power or money that came with doing the despicable deeds.
Both groups should pay for abdicating their professional responsibilities.
I think the real question should be, "Were the techniques used by the CIA torture?".
Unfortunately, the definitions are so subjective that it makes for a legitimate argument concerning waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, etc
Dale, for purposes of culpability, what is torture is decided by application of the law at the time of application of the "enhanced techniques." My understanding is that the techniques used were indeed torture as defined by applicable law. If the legal definitions are subjective, a court will through out the cases. If not they are guilty.
I think one of my big concerns with torture is that it's rarely the people giving the orders who are being tortured...it's the foot soldier carrying out orders. At least that's my perception...I could be very wrong.
Think about it. If some other country captured one of our guys, like maybe a CIA agent not in uniform, and then did to him what we have done to these detainees, Faux News would be screaming "Torture, Torture!!!".
But when we do it, Faux News says it's just fine.
It's torture.
But, let's get on with life. Nobody died from it, and we're not going to do it again (unless Obama says so and doesn't tell us about it). Let history be the judge of these Bushly scumbags that approved it.
You may be right LF. I go back and forth on the accountability front.
I really don't care if anyone from the Bush years goes to jail or not.
I would like though to know just what all they did, though I don't think I will.
Lifehiker says it all. "No body died from it."
Can that be said of Daniel Pearl??????????? Or any number of others.
These bastards get all worked up over a cartoon. Do you think they give a shit if we water board one of their leaders with a doctor standing by??? I doubt it.
They are pissed at us because we allow women to drive, vote and expose their faces. Do you think a few minutes listening to bad music standing naked bothers them???
What bothers them is that we don't live under sharia law. A "stress position or two" is not an issue. Remember they strap bombs to their chest to make a point.
Our pansy ass approach will get us all killed. Maybe even one of your family. Will you be so concerned then. DAVE - for Pete's sake rememer 9/11.
Oh and by the way all the demos were well aware of this in 2002.
And oh by the way. Where is the leftist outrage at your messiah ordering the assasination of the 3 poor black teenagers just looking for their next meal in the
Gulf of Aden???????????? Where is the usual "couldn't they have just wounded them?" I guess those questions were all used up with Bush.
Evil gets what it deserves sometimes.
A couple of points.
"No one died" - that we know of.
Not engaging in torture doesn't make you a "pansy ass."
Jay, torture makes us them. It reduces the issue to which of us will prevail with no holds barred. The contest has no moral underpinning. The el Quada view of life becomes as legitimate as is ours.
Intellectual honesty requires application of the new rule (no rules) to all dealings.
I want security, whomever and whatever stands between it and me needs to be taken out in the most efficient manner.
They want their way of life imposed on the rest of us, whomever and whatever stands between dominance and them needs to be taken out in the most efficient manner.
Without a moral component there is no difference between the two wants.
Dave, thank you for your calm response to anonymous Jay. I fear, however, that Jay will not understand that if we use tactics like the terrorists use, we become savages like them. Maybe some of us are already savages.
What really perplexes me is Jay's reference to the killing of the three pirates. "Where is the leftist outrage...?", he asks. Good question, Jay. There wasn't any outrage, simply because it was a clear case of self defense. The captain's life was in jeopardy, so his captors were killed. Sad, but there was no alternative.
Jay, why don't you start a blog of your own? Tell us about yourself and what you believe, and why you believe it. We'll think about what you have to say. It's the American way.
LF, Jay's a friend of mine, a bit more to the right, but quite often right in his views. He and I skew a bit differently when it comes to foreign policy. You'd probably find him to be more kindred than not in a conversation.
I can't agree that the "torture" we used makes us them. It is a question of degree.
We don't cut off heads of reporters. We turn the a/c way up and play loud music.
We don't hang burned and decapitated bodies from city bridges. We have women and dogs stand too close to them.
We don't strap bombs to our bodies and blow up a pizza parlor during a Bat Mitzvah. We take terrorists to a prison where they receive religion-appropriate food, health care and reading materials. Oh yeah, I forgot about the trial they get, but don't give.
The moral component is in the difference between the belief systems of the US vs. Radical Islam, as well as the way in which those systems are advanced.
We are not them and it is not even close.
Dave - The SC did weigh in and the practices were stopped, before that the definitons were by no means clear... which, I believe, underscores Obama's reluctance to prosecute.
Hey Dale,
Your second point first. You may well be right; but, that is a matter for prosecutors and courts if necessary.
Your first comment: No, we are not them; but, as we blur lines, our morality slips towards theirs.
I note that you don't mention water boarding (over a hundred times in a month in one instance by recent reports), slamming into walls, etc.
What trials they have been given, were given only after extreme legal pressure and only in the last year, after five years of "cushy" living in cyclone fenced cages at Gitmo.
And I'm talking of what we know. I've been around long enough to know that what I know isn't near the story.
We are not them, but again, we move towards them when we act immorally.
For an interesting article on an aspect of this, check out this article at Slate.com:
http://www.slate.com/id/2217002/
I didn't mention water boarding, so feel free to replace any of my other examples with yours. The moral equivalency is still not there and it is not even close.
I understand, and sometimes agree, that many of the techniques are reprehensible. Obviously, I do not agree that the disclosed techniques rise to the level of torture. Reasonable people can disagree about that.
What I vehemently oppose is this whole argument that our treatment of our prisoners lowers us to their level.
The cyclone fence cages were used for approximately 90 days until more suitable structures could be built. They were temporary jails used because Gitmo was not designed to house that many people. Fenced cells are "cushy" compared to a cave. My point was not that they are living a life of luxury, but that we treat them far better than they treat us. We feed them healthy and religion-appropriate food. We give them excellent health care. We allow them the Koran or other religious texts. We permit inspections by organizations like the Red Cross. Our enemies do none of that, yet our actions "makes us them".
Respectfully, no it doesn't.
Dale and Jay,
With more humor than I can do:
http://ragebot.com/?p=2688
that's pretty funny
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