Mark Danner has declared with categorical certainty that the Bush Administration authorized the use of torture on at least a dozen high-level terrorists at secret overseas prisons, so-called "black sites."
For the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to figure out how many times I've been tortured. So far, I've come up with three clear instances: There was a high school gym teacher who made my entire class stand with our arms outstretched for a half-hour because one boy had giggled while he was talking. There was a burly cop who shoved me up against a brick wall and waited for a crime victim to ID me. (The victim came by a minute later and shook her head; no, I wasn't the guy who robbed her.) There was a camp counselor who kept dunking my head underwater after I sassed him during free swim at the local pool.
There might have been a fourth, but I'm not sure: During my freshman year in college, a calculus professor told me I'd fail his course if my grades didn't improve in the second half of the semester. (They did, and I passed.)
According to the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a signatory, torture is defined as "any act by which severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a male or female person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
The gym teacher, the burly cop, the camp counselor and the math professor were all persons "acting in an official capacity." All caused me "pain and suffering, whether physical or mental." The pain and suffering certainly seemed "severe to me at the time. It seems less severe now, in retrospect. Then, again, pain and suffering always seems more severe when you're undergoing it.
I mention this because a furious little fellow named Mark Danner who teaches journalism and writes for the New York Review of Books and the New York Times is currently engaged in a media blitz, declaring with categorical certainty that the Bush Administration authorized the use of torture on at least a dozen high-level terrorists at secret overseas prisons — so-called "black sites" — run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Armed with a classified report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, Danner has chronicled treatment of detainees that includes twirling them by neck collars and slamming them into walls, stripping them naked and dousing them with cold water, forcing them to stand in stress positions for long periods, confining them in coffin-like boxes, depriving them of solid food for over a week — and, perhaps most controversially, waterboarding them.
The treatment of the detainees, of course, was much more severe than any of the abuses I've experienced. But it was much less severe than, say, the treatment meted out to the Scottish revolutionary William Wallace (who was drawn and quartered in 1305) or the Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Kyd (who was racked in 1593) or the Jesuit priest Edmund Campion (who was racked, twice, and then drawn and quartered in 1581). Therein lies the problem. If torture is defined as "any act by which severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted . . . by a public official," then the question of what constitutes torture depends, in the final analysis, on what counts as "severe." I came out of my "torture" intact, both physically and mentally. So, apparently, did the black site detainees mentioned in the Red Cross report. Wallace, Kyd and Campion — well, not so much. Indeed, if you think of severity as a continuum of axis points, the detainees' experience of torture tracks much closer to mine than to Wallace's, Kid's or Campion's.
Which is the reason the Bush Administration and the CIA sought to clarify the meaning of torture early on in the war against totalitarian Islam. After a series of now-declassified 2002 memos from the Administration's Office of Legal Counsel, authored primarily by John Yoo, President Bush green-lighted the CIA to adopt a stricter definition of torture — one which boils down to a narrowing of the word "severe" in the 1984 UN definition. For physical pain and suffering to rise to the level of severity associated with torture, Yoo wrote, it "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Mental pain and suffering "must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years" and can include threats of physical torture and the use of mind-altering drugs.
The CIA black site interrogations Danner has made public seem to have been conducted with the new, narrower definition of torture in mind. Bush himself acknowledged as much in 2007, referring to "an alternative set of procedures" used by the CIA on terrorist leaders. "These procedures," Bush maintained, "were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful."
With that acknowledgement, Danner argues, President Bush "set out before the country America's dark moral epic of torture, in the coils of whose contradictions we find ourselves entangled still." Danner's conclusion is equally feverish: "What we can say with certainty . . . is that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush Administration, including the President himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact."
Danner's idea of certainty seems about as liberal as his idea of torture.
On the contrary, the 2002 memos indicate that there was a serious debate within the Bush Administration as to what constitutes torture, that the President had received legal advice that sought to define the concept more precisely, and that he acted on that advice in the belief that he was not authorizing torture — unless, of course, he was eternally bound by the absurdly broad definition contained in the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture.
All of which leads to the overriding question: Why? Why did Bush want a more precise definition of torture — in effect, a working definition — and why did he authorize the CIA to utilize enhanced interrogation procedures that approached but ultimately skirted torture, as re-defined?
Either the administration was populated by outright sadists (which, I'm guessing, would be the favored explanation of Danner and his ilk), or the Bush team had come to the realization that the Age of Military Deterrence was at an end, that a new method for taking down a superpower had emerged, and that America's enemies now had the weapon of suicidal yahoos in their arsenals. Is it too farfetched to suggest, in such a climate, that members of the Bush Administration actually believed that these enhanced interrogation procedures might enable them to thwart future terrorist attacks of the magnitude of September 11th 2001?
Curiously, Danner is now calling for a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into what benefits resulted from the CIA's rough treatment of the black site detainees. I say curiously because, from Danner's perspective, I don't see how a full catalogue of such benefits, or lack thereof, is even relevant. Suppose the enhanced interrogation techniques yielded intelligence which enabled the CIA to quash a plot that might otherwise have killed ten million Americans. President Bush could not have known that in advance, when he first gave the CIA a green light. In other words, how would saving ten million lives affect the morality of Bush's decision to authorize, as Danner insists he did, "torture"? Either the decision was morally defensible, at the moment Bush made it, or it was not.
George Orwell once said of Rudyard Kipling: "He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them." Perhaps Mark Danner might be slightly less furious nowadays if he read a little Kipling with his morning croissant.
Could not having to listen to the constant caterwauling about the Bush Administration by Mark Danner, Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink et al; be defined as 'torture'?
Note to Mark Danner; Drop pants; remove head from butt, begin to breathe normally.
Many people opposed to abortion attempt to link it with breast cancer. Why? I mean, either it's "morally defensible" or it isn't, right?
Sometimes, even if people aren't persuaded by a moral argument, they can be persuaded by a practical one. And so far, the practical case for torture isn't looking so hot.
——Sometimes, even if people aren't persuaded by a moral argument, they can be persuaded by a practical one. And so far, the practical case for torture isn't looking so hot.—–
Well put.
If in the future America decides to jump back into the moral and legal cesspool of torturing our enemies, it will be good to document that not much of any use came of it. Just one more piece of evidence to refute potential arguments in its favor.
Oz
I'm not quite sure why all the conservative defenders of these practices seem to be so invested in minimizing the mistreatment by various methods. Like somebody joking that they're being tortured by their wife's complaints, or this writer humorously comparing his minor life hassles with torture.
Or people saying that waterboarding is nothing more than 'splashing water in somebody's face'.
If someone doesn't think it all amounts to 'torture', fine. (Perhaps relying on Yoo's cocked-up, post hoc definition). But why not at least admit that these prisoners were treated brutally and painfully, just for a little intellectual honesty?
This is stuff from the Red Cross and a couple other sources:
———————————————————
(If you don't mind, I'd like to preface it with this:
The Geneva Convention, which reflects elementary considerations of humanity, stipulate that persons taking no active part in the hostilities “shall in all circumstances be treated humanely”, and that “cruel treatment and torture”, “outrages upon personal dignity, in particularly humiliating and degrading treatment,” are prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever.)
During the four months…when not kept in the prolonged stress standing position [with his hands shackled to the ceiling], his ankle shackles were allegedly kept attached by a one meter long chain to a pin fixed in the corner of the room where he was held.
…on several occasions the diaper was not replaced so he had to urinate and defecate on himself while shackled in the prolonged stress standing position. Indeed, in addition to Mr. Bin Attash, three other detainees specified that they had to defecate and urinate on themselves and remain standing in their own bodily fluids.
“Beating by use of a collar”, that “was placed around their necks and used by their interrogators to slam them against the walls.”
Mr. Abu Zubaydah commented that when the collar was first used on him in his third place of detention, he was slammed directly against a hard concrete wall. He was then placed in a tall box for several hours
Beating and kicking, including slapping, punching, kicking to the body and face…
Prolonged nudity…periods ranging from several weeks to several months…
Sleep deprivation…through use of forced stress positions, hosed down with cold water…
Threats of ill-treatment to … his family…
Deprivation…of solid food from 3 days to 1 month…
In each case, the person to be suffocated was strapped to a tilting bed and a cloth was placed over the face…Water was then poured continuously onto the cloth, saturating it and blocking off any air so that the person could not breathe. This form of suffocation induced a feeling of panic and the acute impression that the person was about to die. In at least one case, this was accompanied by incontinence of urine.
In all three cases this caused considerable pain, particularly for Mr. Abu Zubaydah who had undergone surgery just three months earlier…Zubaydah reports: “…the pressure of the straps on my wounds caused severed pain. I vomited…I struggled without success to breathe. I thought I was going to die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine under stress.”
…during the two weeks he was shackled in the prolonged stress standing position with his hands chained above his head, his artificial leg was sometimes removed by the interrogators to increase the stress and fatigue of the position.
…alleged that…he was threatened with sodomy, and with the arrest and rape of his family.
Conclusions:
…they were subjected to systematic physical and/or psychological ill-treatment. This regime was clearly designed to undermine human dignity and to create a sense of futility by inducing, in many cases, severe physical and mental pain and suffering…
—————————————————-
Question: if we saw an Al Qaeda video in which some of our boys were being subjected to the treatment described above, would we not say that our boys were being tortured? Or would we laugh it off, and compare it to our whiny wives or insensitive gym teachers?
In a previous thread on this topic, I have laid out numerous reasons why our treatment of these detainees was indeed torture, and why it is is apt to be self-defeating, and that it represents an abdication of our principles and moral standing in the world. Certainly I saw nothing in this essay that changes my analysis.
I think we need a truth and reconciliation committee. If the conservatives are correct and the torture was not torture and gained us a lot of valuable information, then surely the committee will vindicate them. Agreed?
I think it will be great for America and the world to watch the CIA videotapes of the interventions above, so everyone can decide for themselves whether it was brutal and wrong.
Oh wait, I hear the CIA destroyed those tapes. I guess they needed the space or something.
Oz
Impressive argument Ozzie, but who enforces the Geneva Convention on the terrorists? I would love to know why they are exempt.
Terrorists are lawless. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goal, no matter how cruel, hateful, or illogical. Nobody exempts them from Geneva–they choose to exempt themselves from it, by their own monstrous actions. Most can be deterred only by guns, not laws.
That is supposed to be the difference between us and them, isn't it? We restrain ourselves. We are proportionate. We realize that some means cannot be justified by the ends. We follow laws.
We try not to lower ourselves to the level of our most barbarous enemies. At least, that has always seemed to be the American ideal. I hope we will always abide by it.
Oz
All this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie about “torture” was covered ad nauseum in the comment section to http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/
'Dissemble'
——————————————
1. to give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or real nature of
2. to put on the appearance of; feign: to dissemble innocence.
——————————————-
Have I dissembled, Dr. Jackson? ("concealed the truth; feigned; given a false appearance")? I assure you I am trying to be entirely truthful and straighforward, as far as one can accomplish such things.
Perhaps the concealment was unconscious. If so, it is certainly something I should be made aware of.
What have I hidden, concealed, or feigned? What dissembling, fakery or lying have I perpetrated? Please, be specific.
Oz
Ozzie understands the meaning of dissemble.
Again, all this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie about “torture” was covered ad nauseum in the comment section to http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/
Again, Dr. Jackson, in what respect did I dissemble? Can you point to any specific posts where I demonstrated dishonesty in my comments, or sought to conceal something important about the topic?
I could be factually or philosophically wrong about the definition of torture and how it applies (though you've not given me any cause to believe so). But dissembling? When?
Oz
Ozzie, as you may have noticed, Raymond and I disagree about many things, but I still consider him to be a man of substance, so I consider my exchanges with him to be worthwhile. When the person is a lightweight, there’s really no point in addressing their obvious questions, particularly when all of it was covered previously ad nauseum.
That’s what ad nauseum means. There’s no point in going over old ground when it’s already been laid out by me, Inwood and others in the comment sections to http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/
This is particularly the case when you give a definition of dissembling in comment 8 that you apparently don’t even understand when referring to it in comment 10. I didn’t accuse you of “dishonesty.” Naivate, convoluted logic, feigning ignorance about obvious matters, even occasional stupidity — yes. But I didn’t say you were “dishonest” when I said you dissembled about torture, just like you’re dissembling now about me saying you are dishonest
Pardon me for inferring some degree of dishonesty from your use of the word 'dissembling', which is defined, in part, as "to give a false or misleading appearance; conceal the truth".
If your comment is not the very definition of quibbling about semantics as a way of avoiding the issue, I don't know what it would be.
Well, put 'dishonesty' aside. When did I dissemble? Did I conceal some truth about torture, or give some impression that I knew to be false?
I do hope this has not been another of your baseless charges, Dr. Jackson. You guys certainly make a lot of them.
Like the time that you alleged that I use only ‘feelings’ in my opinions about the torture issue, then declined to substantiate it in any way whatsoever, despite repeated requests.
Or that time Mountain Man suggested that I ‘ignore the substance of posts’, but could not identify a single instance, across a hundred posts.
Or, most perplexingly, when you accused me of slippery debating, using a whole cornucopia of ‘classic dodges’ rather than speaking forthrightly.
For example, here is a passage from the apparently nauseating thread you reference above:
Dr Jackson says:
——————————————————
Again, another classic dodge. The person does not address the direct statement, but instead changes the subject to the philosophical nature of abstract truth. This allows them to conclude that some things in the universe are not knowable. This generalized statement is then re-inserted into the discussion of a specific, concrete example, to suggest that since some things are inherently unknowable, calling THIS particular statement (which, by the way, is knowable) “stupid”, is simple “name-calling” and somehow violates reasoning.
——————————————————-
That might be insulting, were it not impenetrable. I can’t really tell. But I’m pretty sure we didn’t cover that one in Diabolical Lib’rl Debating Tactics 101.
Anyway, enough rehashing the past. I'm sure the billions of people across the world reading these posts are becoming impatient with the squabbling. If you guys ever come up with any substantiation of your charges, feel free to post it, and I'd be happy to reply.
Oz
Well good. Apparently one can actually do what I said and follow the link back to the original discussion and read it in its entirety.
It's worth another 30 seconds to post again my original comment above. All this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie about “torture” was covered ad nauseum in the comment section to http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/
My lightweight response time quota is now up.
—————————————————-
"[E]ndlessly repeating [a] belief is not an answer to any questions raised about that belief."
—Dr. Phil Jackson
—————————————————-
DR JACKSON: I said you dissembled about torture
OZZIE: Have I dissembled, Dr. Jackson?
DR JACKSON: All this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie
OZZIE: Again, Dr. Jackson, in what respect did I dissemble?
DR JACKSON: Again, all this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie
OZZIE: When did I dissemble? Did I conceal some truth about torture[?]
DR JACKSON: All this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie about “torture”
OZZIE: What dissembling, fakery or lying have I perpetrated? Please, be specific.
—————————————————
"[E]ndlessly repeating [a] belief is not an answer to any questions raised about that belief."
—Dr. Phil Jackson
—————————————————-
Ozzie: Giving you a link to the conversation is not avoiding an answer. [It's also not a "belief"].
We discussed this issue ad nauseum before. It's not my fault you can't (or won't) remember it, particularly when it contains comments from you like:
"In answer to your suspicion that I haven't 'thought this through', you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along."
This is why you don't want anyone to read that previous conversation in its entirety.
There's no point in debating a fool, fraud, or troll, particularly one stupid enough to tell us all, in his own words, that he makes things up.
My thirty seconds lightweight response quota is up.
—-"In answer to your suspicion that I haven't 'thought this through', you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along."—–
Well it's true, I'm only putting about 10% of my capabilities into these little diversions. Yet STILL, it seems to rapidly reduce you guys to eruptions of sputtering, name-calling , and hostility.
"…lightweight "
"…a fool, fraud, or troll"
"…stupidity — yes…"
Just imagine if I really tried…
Once again, you've proven that one of us is in the grip of wild emotionalism, mistaking opinion for fact, and blindly repeating assertions instead of reasoning. Too bad it's not the Liberal.
Oz
Give Ozzie a bag of excrement, and he’ll step in it every time:
Ozzie: “When did I dissemble? Did I conceal some truth about torture, or give some impression that I knew to be false?”
Ozzie: "In answer to your suspicion that I haven't 'thought this through', you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along."
And none of this takes into account the comments from Inwood, myself and others that address this issue that Ozzie doesn’t want you to read in http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/
Once again, the 30 second lightweight response limitation is up, so I can have enough time to debate serious people.
Let’s try it again with the correct coding.
Give Ozzie a bag of excrement, and he’ll step in it every time:
Ozzie: “When did I dissemble? Did I conceal some truth about torture, or give some impression that I knew to be false?”
Ozzie: "In answer to your suspicion that I haven't 'thought this through', you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along."
And none of this takes into account the comments from Inwood, myself and others that address this issue that Ozzie doesn’t want you to read in http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/
Once again, the 30 second lightweight response limitation is up, so I can have enough time to debate serious people.
Clearly, "I am making it up as I go along" meant that my political debating performance was improvisational, rather than practiced and polished.
For you to isolate the words 'I am making it up' and imply that I was *admitting to fabricated facts*(!), is even more preposterously unfair and illogical than what I have come to expect from you.
The fact that you so baldly and wildly misinterpreted this simple passage means that (if intentional) you are unable to engage in a rational manner when your emotions are engaged; or (if unintentional) that you are quite poor at interpreting written communication. Either way, that post is an embarrassment.
Oz
By the way, what gives you the impression that I don't want our devoted audience to read the Hopelessness of Debate thread? I'm completely in favor of it. That's why I keep quoting your abusive comments and such. Kind of a 'teaser', really. Please, I hope everyone reads it.
Ah yes. We now get into the ‘that’s not what I really said phase’. You only think that “I’m making it up as I go along” means that “I’m making it up as I go along”.
And, then there’s the indignation of quoting only one of Ozzie's phrases instead of reading the entire previous conversation on torture. Doing that, in Ozzieland, is very unfair. Ozzie would never do anything like that. [Just don’t look at comment 12. Nnot that I care. The quote is pretty reflective of what I think, even as a stand alone exerpted from a larger discussion. I just like pointing out the dual nature of reality in Ozzieland].
Like Ozzie said, he really really really wants everyone to read the previous conversation, which answers all his questions about his dissembling, which he said haven’t been answered by telling people to read the previous conversation which answers all his questions about his dissembling.
And you wonder why no one takes this guy seriously.
My thirty seconds are up.
——And you wonder why no one takes this guy seriously.—-
I don't even take me seriously, Dr. Jackson. (I'll spot you that one for future use.)
I guess you're saying your thirty seconds are up. I heard you twice the first time, man.
Unlike you, I've imposed no artificial expiration dates on my participation. But all the same, I think my work here is done.
Ozzie
Ah yes, a self-described non-serious Liberal, who demands serious answers to the non-serious questions he raises, assures us that he's going to be around to hold us all accountable for serious debate.
I wouldn't have it any other way. Why go to the trouble of exposing the vacuity of Liberal thought when they’re anxious to do it for you?
My work here is done.
Is it possible that the question "is waterboarding torture" cannot be answered?
Here's how: it depends on the psychological inclinations of the recipient: person "A" tells himself, "they're pretending they're going to drown me to get me to talk. But they won't, because these people are not bona fide torturers. It's a bluff."
Whereas person "B" tells himself "what if they're crazy? I know the law, I know their government, but I don't know these men."
And since the ambiguity is deliberately exploited by the people holding the prisoner, they are practicing torture, but since they have never yet drowned anyone, they're not.
The thing that makes waterboarding different from things that we agree are torture is that it is not the experience, but rather only what the prisoner decides to predict, that determines the psychological effect.
My theory, if correct, doesn't solve anything, but it explains why neither have 100+ posts.
Ruminator:
You pose the right question. “Torture” is a name assigned to certain practices, where the actions themselves are the key issues, not the label.
These practices can be viewed as legal matters (see Inwood’s comments in http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/), where regardless of what you label the action, it is either legal and/or acceptable (via national law or international convention), or it is not. It’s why one of the contributors to this discussion could arrive at the convoluted conclusion that (a) waterboarding is torture, and (b) torture doesn’t work, but (c) if Congress passes a law permitting torture, then it’s okay to do it.
Conversely, we can look at the actions themselves. Certain activities like waterboarding have been part of US military training for decades, while other practices (like beheadings soldiers) have not. Labeling both practices as “torture” muddles, rather than advances, any discussion of torture. But here again we have to look past the surface to analyze the action. The 18th and 19th century British navy routinely practiced brutality on its own conscripts. Just because the government does it to its own people, doesn’t automatically excuse it.
The problem with the conversation about torture today (not just Ozzie’s fuzzy logic, but the debate in general), is that people want to substitute their own personal beliefs and feelings about the matter for any real analysis of the issue. Lumping waterboarding together with beheading and calling both “torture” doesn’t do anything to advance the conversation, unless the person is willing to acknowledge that there may be “degrees of torture” — much like there are different degrees of lawbreaking in general. Both jaywalking and murder are “crimes”. But we recognize one as a misdemeanor, and the other as a felony capital crime. One we give a ticket to (if we even bother to make an arrest). The other we organize manhunts to capture the offender, and when captured, ultimately put them to death.
Unfortunately, those waterboarding-is-torture advocates never want to discuss the issue this way, because to recognize the legal/moral complexity of the issue would be to undercut their main theme: Both waterboarding and beheading are “barbarous”, because both are “torture”, and thus ends their analysis.
Hmmm. Well, I'm not going to formally unpack all of that, because I responded repeatedly to similar statements in the other thread. If anyone is remotely interested, they can see my responses over there.
But although I may be a fool and a troll (per Dr. Jackson's estimation) I wouldn't want to be portrayed as a complete and utter idiot, as Dr. Jackson's post above would suggest.
Just for the record, I have never, ever, "labeled both waterboarding and beheading as torture."
I *specifically, repeatedly* rejected that formulation. Dr. Jackson seems to be the one who persistently brings up beheading. Beheading should be evaluated in its own right, depending on the context and circumstances, etc.
I'm only saying that *waterboarding* (and the other mistreatments) are torture, according to the very prominent, customary UNCAT definition. Read the definition, y'all, and the Red Cross text I quoted, and decide for yourself.
Dr. Jackson also implies that I (or somebody, somewhere) doesn't grasp that there are "degrees of torture," with some being worse than others:
—Lumping waterboarding together with beheading and calling both “torture” doesn’t do anything to advance the conversation, unless the person is willing to acknowledge that there may be “degrees of torture” — much like there are different degrees of lawbreaking in general—–
I understand that. A precocious five-year-old understands that. I don't know who the heck he is talking about when he implies somebody doesn't understand that. I also understand that the sky is blue, that circles are round, and that the Earth travels around the sun.
Dr. Jackson, will you ever stop using these bizarre straw man arguments? You attribute foolish nonsense to your opponents, and then you give those nonsense views a thorough thrashin'. Well and good, but when will you begin to address the arguments that actual people in the actual world are making?
It could be that although he mentions me by name, Dr. Jackson is referring to arguments made by the other fellow that was opposing him. I'll let him speak for himself if he wants, but Dr. Jackson's representation of his views seems also to be full of cartoonish distortions.
Oz
Ruminator asks:
—————————————————————————
Is it possible that the question "is waterboarding torture" cannot be answered?
Here's how: it depends on the psychological inclinations of the recipient: person "A" tells himself, "they're pretending they're going to drown me to get me to talk. But they won't, because these people are not bona fide torturers. It's a bluff."
Whereas person "B" tells himself "what if they're crazy? I know the law, I know their government, but I don't know these men."
—————————————————————————-
Ruminator, I think your point is that the psychological state (expectations, beliefs, traits) of the individual will make a significant difference in the subjective severity of the mistreatment. Someone who believes they are fundamentally safe (such as our soldiers undergoing training) will not suffer the extreme psychological stress as someone who believes they might be killed. Is that about right?
If so, I think your are clearly correct. Any number of variables will determine the *subjective* severity of waterboarding, including expectations, the person’s culture, his training, his psychological strength, his physical stamina, even his ideology.
I just think we need to look at it in the circumstances in question, though. Read the Red Cross report. These detainees had no reason to think they were safe from being killed (in fact, some may have been killed). In addition to the waterboarding, they were being harassed, mistreated, threatened, and sensory-deprived, and totally isolated. Under those conditions – the only relevant ones for this discussion – the psychological terror and physical stress would certainly appear to rise to the level of ‘severe’ – ie, torture.
What is ‘severe’? That is the main and central question, as the writer of the essay points out. But I don’t agree with how he reached his conclusions about it (neither does the Red Cross, or John McCain, or many others).
First, the writer seems to be referencing Mr. Yoo’s definition of ‘severe’, which means that only lasting physical damage or nearly intolerable pain would apply as ‘severe’. But that definition seems to have been tailored to prevent legal exposure by the Administration, and is hardly a consensus view outside of hard-right circles.
Next, the writer inappropriately (in my view) attempts to ‘anchor’ the severity discussion by saying that waterboarding is not as terrible as other imaginable treatments (being drawn and quartered, etc). But that seems fallacious. Why use that anchoring to frame the discussion? It’s largely irrelevant what things might be worse than waterboarding. Many things are worse. That doesn’t mean that waterboarding (and the associated mistreatments described) are not ‘severe’.
And if the treatment is ‘severe’, then you have to conclude it is torture per UNCAT.
So, how do we know what is ‘severe’ and what is not? Well, it’s not easy. But laws are made every day in the US that make those tough distinctions, and draw those lines. I hope that following this sad episode that better, more specific laws will be made. In the meantime, I hope that the courts get a chance to determine whether unlawful torture occurred—that’s what courts do. They interpret definitions, draw distinctions, and make tough decisions.
If it turns out that the courts cannot or will not judge the matter, I guess it is up to the court of public opinion, and I believe when the facts are known these actions will be widely repudiated. Hope so, anyway.
But again, ask yourself, if you saw our boys being hung by their wrists for days, doused with icy water in cold rooms, naked, isolated, battered, kicked, threatened, left in urine/feces, and periodically near-drowned, would you not call that ‘severe’ mistreatment?
John McCain would, and he’s a guy who has been there. I wonder if John McCain is considered as much a fool and a troll as Ozzie?
Oz
Ozzie has, and always will be, in a category by himself.
Dr. Jackson and Ozzie, thanks for your replies. My speculation involved the point that perhaps this debate will never be resolved, and not because either of you has anything lacking in his argument, but because of the peculiar nature of this punishment. My thought was, suppose you have 20 detainees. You give them the waterboarding treatment.
Ten of them reached a point where they felt certain that they were going to be murdered for the hell of it. Whereas, they weren't, but they endured severe emotional trauma.
The other ten are soldiers who've been around, they've heard about this, they believe if they keep their cool, they'll most likely they'll get through it.
The stage is now set for Dick Cheney to claim that waterboarding isn't torture. Not a lie; a half-truth.
While someone else says waterboarding is torture. He's approximately as accurate as Cheney is.
That was my thought process. However, it is increasingly clear to me that making an honest attempt to examine a subject with imagination and reason is not the same as having researched it. I defer to others to take it from here.
Ozzie: McCain is a liberal, didn't you know?
Rummie, it most surely will not be resolved here … :-)
—–Ozzie: McCain is a liberal, didn't you know?—–
Ha. I don't know how to characterize McCain's place on the spectrum. Defends on where you're sitting, I guess. He's a great American, and a powerful voice against torture.
Bye now,
Oz
Another one acknowledges what is completely freakin’ obvious: waterboarding and the other mistreatments amounted to torture.
Here’s Richard Armitage, undersecretary of state in the Bush Administration:
“In hindsight maybe I should've [resigned]. But in those positions you see how many more battles you have. You maybe fool yourself. You say how much worse would x, y, or z be if I weren't here trying to do it? So torture is a matter of principle as far as I'm concerned. I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign.”
But of course, like Colin Powell, Armitage is a wussy, soft liberal, right?
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—-According to Captain Kiem Do, a Republic of Vietnam Navy officer who served with him in Vietnam, Armitage "seemed drawn like a 'moth to flame' to the hotspots of the naval war: bedding down on the ground with Vietnamese commandos, sharing their rations and hot sauce, telling jokes in flawless Vietnamese."[2]
According to President Musharraf, of Pakistan, shortly after 9/11, Armitage presented Pakistan with demands for assistance in the campaign against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The demands were non-negotiable. Should Pakistan accept, it would be considered a United States ally. Should it decline, Pakistan would be considered an enemy. According to Mussharaf, Armitage further averred that, should Pakistan decline, the United States would bomb it 'back to the Stone Age.'
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Oz
[i]i[/i]
In other news, finally pundits are catching up with Ozzie. Here's Andrew Sullivan:
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"Does anyone believe that if Iran, say, captured an American soldier, kept him awake for eleven days straight, bashed his head and body against plywood walls with a towel around his neck, forced him to stand and sit in stress positions finessed by the Communist Chinese, stuck him in a dark coffin for hours, and then waterboarded him, that the NYT would describe him as a victim of "harsh interrogation techniques"?
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If Al Qaeda did to our boys what we did to these detainees, I'm pretty sure the conservatives here would be popping aneurysms decrying them as midieval barbarians.
Or maybe not. I can see it now. Our soldier on a videotape, being waterboarded by Islamic fanatics, gasping for breath, moaning. Beaten, blindfolded, naked, and starved. Hands shackled to the ceiling for days, stuffed in a wooden box.
"Grow up," the conservatives would say. "No lasting tissue damage. He's not being tortured. Haven't you read John Yoo's memo?"
Yup.
Oz
OK Oz, you've convinced me. Broke my promise by posting again. If anyone wants to say I would have discarded my theories had I done more research, or if I were not stupid, then they will. It's a free country.
Since writing it occurred to me that I answered my own question. Even if waterboarding is not torture in all instances, if it is torture in some instances, and if the psychological makeup of the prisoner is a factor with undetermined consequences, then waterboarding is prohibited by a rule prohibiting torture.
Here's what I think: the Bush administration was not opposed to torture. If you gave Dick Cheney truth serum, he would have said "the humanist pity for a prisoner subjected to torture is a luxury of the ultra-civilized which you could make a case for. However, in our present circumstances, we cannot afford it. We are interested in waterboarding because it is torture. Enhanced interrogation means torture, even if not the most sadistic kinds. Psychological torture may be just as useful as prolonged physical pain and injury. Waterboarding is the path of least resistance because there is some debate about whether it is torture; this is our window of opportunity."
More reactions to the torture memos, from the Right Wing of the Republican Party (Ed Morrissey of Hot Air.com)
Mr. Morrissey quotes the law, defining torture:
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(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from–
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe
physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.
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Says Mr. Morrissey:
“I’d like to defend Bybee, but in this case, with this memo, I have to agree with the critics. Bybee turned 2 (C) on its head in order to justify the waterboarding request. Given the deep fears of further attacks, one can understand why Bybee wanted to give interrogators the greatest latitude possible, but this reasoning is insupportable.
….I agree that Bybee’s memo reads like BYBEE STARTED OFF WITH THE FOREGONE CONCLUSION THAT ALL OF THE REQUESTED TECHNIQUES WOULD BE APPROVED AND TRIED TO JUSTIFY THEM BY WORKING BACKWARDS (CAPS Ozzie’s). The waterboarding leap especially smacks of that.”
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Morrison derides the reasoning Bybee used to claim that the treatment was not ‘severe mental pain or suffering’.
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Says Mr. Morrissey:
I’m puzzled by a passage on waterboarding and Bybee’s legal conclusion afterward. On page 15, he writes:
>>>>>>>“We find the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death. … Although the procedure will be monitored by personnel with medical training and extensive SERE school experience with this procedure who will ensure the subject’s mental and physical safety, the subject is not aware of any of these precautions. From the vantage point of any reasonable person undergoing this procedure in such circumstances, he would feel as if he is drowning at the very moment of the procedure due to the uncontrollable physiological sensation he is experiencing. Thus, this procedure cannot be viewed as too uncertain to satisfy the imminence requirement.
****Accordingly, it constitutes a threat of imminent death and fulfills the predicate act requirement under the statute.***** (Emphasis Ozzie's)
Although the waterboard constitutes the real threat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result to violate the statutory prohibition on infliction of severe mental pain or suffering. … We have previously concluded that prolonged mental harm is mental harm of some lasting duration, eg, mental harm lasting months or years.”<<<<<<<<
—————Back to Mr. Morrissey:—————
If Bybee had rejected the notion that a subject felt the fear of imminent death in waterboarding, then his approval of it might be defensible. However, that’s not the case. Bybee specifically states that it does meet that definition.
But because it only last a few moments or minutes, depending on the number of times the procedure is applied during a single session, the “imminent death” clause is supposedly immaterial.
This makes no sense at all. Using Bybee’s reasoning, the “threat of imminent death” part of the statute would have to last for months or years in order to qualify as torture. What could possibly qualify in section 2 (C)? We’d have to make a subject smoke for several years and threaten him with cancer.
Imminent threats, by definition, are short-term situations. If one ignores that, all sorts of actions commonly considered psychological torture would be approved. False hangings, for example, could be permissible as long as they didn’t cause serious physical injury. Faked firing squads would also be permissible. Gas chambers, injections, one could go on and on, and all of it would be legal because it doesn’t last for “months or years”.
*****The more obvious conclusion from the statute is that procedures creating an “imminent threat of death” in and of themselves create lasting severe mental pain, which is WHAT MAKES THEM TORTURE.****** (Emphasis Ozzie's)
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Over to Ozzie:
We TORTURED detainees, unlawfully, immorally, and recklessly. It is not only biased liberals who think so.
The Bush Administration committed crimes. We need a Truth and Reconciliation committee.
Oz
Ruminator says:
Even if waterboarding is not torture in all instances, if it is torture in some instances
–and–
Enhance interrogation means torture, even if it is not the most sadistic kinds.
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Exactly.
Oz
It was nice to see John McCain come out on Fox News today and re-affirm, bluntly, what is blindingly obvious:
"Waterboarding is torture." And it's "unacceptable". And it's a fabulous recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.
Does it matter to Sen. McCain whether KSM was waterboarded 183 times, as has been reported?
No–'once is too many'.
Conservative, hard-nosed warrior, American hero, and survivor of torture at the hands of the enemy. Who has better moral authority or perspective to pass judgment on this issue?
Or maybe he's just 'dissembling'…no doubt Rush Limbaugh is a more reliable source on the issue.
Oz
Conservative Rod Dreher:
"One thing that nobody should ever be permitted to say again, after reading these memos: "The United States didn't torture."
Oz
More 'dissembling', this time from conservative Jonah "Liberal Fascism" Goldberg:
"I've always been on the fence about whether waterboarding constituted torture. But if the reports are true that the CIA used it scores of times in a single month on a single prisoner, than I think the threshhold has been met. Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts. But I think waterboarding someone 183 times in a month does amount to torture no matter how you slice it."
Oz
America's Pastor, Rick Warren, another 'dissembling' right-winger:
"Well, and you know what – some of the stuff I saw looking at Guantanamo looks like clearly it was torture. To me, if you torture someone, you put yourself no better than the enemy. We must maintain the moral highground. You have no right to condemn the immoral actions of others if we're doing the same thing. And we should expect that others will torture our people if we're torturing them."
—-Rick Warren
Oz
Here ya go. Peggy Noonan, conservative columnist, of the Reagan administration, 'dissembles' as follows:
Torture is bad, and as to whether the procedures outlined in the memos constituted torture, you could do worse than follow the wisdom of John McCain, who says, "Waterboarding is torture, period." This is something he'd know about. Abuse is wrong not only in a specific and immediate sense but in a larger one: It coarsens and damages the nation that does it while undermining its reputation in the world and its trust in itself.
Oz
Steven Bradbury, one of the architects of the torture program, admits that we most likely tortured innocent people:
"According to the IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information," Bradbury wrote in his May 30, 2005, memo. "On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques.
Of course, he also points out that there is no real evidence that the program produced any meaningfully useful info that could not have been produced in other ways, in case anyone here is still clinging to that pathetic canard.
So, it really looks like you guys are on the losing side of this argument. Our mistreatment of detainees, widely viewed as conforming to any rational definition of 'torture' (even by some responsible conservatives quoted above) produced nothing.
And was very likely inflicted on people who knew nothing, and may have been guilty of nothing.
We tortured detainees, against the Geneva Convention and a variety of laws, thus abdicating the moral high ground, and increasing the likelihood that our boys will get worse treatment when captured.
Read the treatment described by the Red Cross–if it had been done to our boys, even the most rabid torture deniers would have screamed 'torture!' to the heavens. Wouldn't they? Anyone willing to deny that?
It is only when it is done to de-humanized 'enemies' that they minimize and ridicule the significance of the torture by calling it 'splashing water on somebody's face' and so on.
Mr. Danner appears to be completely vindicated in every particular. The previous administration behaved in a thuggish and criminal manner, unnecessarily, and should be held accountable. These actions are a permanent stain on America's reputation and standing in the world.
Above, I've stood accused of 'dissembling' on this issue, and yet, when asked, the authors of those accusations can never provide the slightest support of their baseless claims, nor any of their other accusations. In what sense have I dissembled?
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DR JACKSON: I said you dissembled about torture
OZZIE: Have I dissembled, Dr. Jackson?
DR JACKSON: All this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie
OZZIE: Again, Dr. Jackson, in what respect did I dissemble?
DR JACKSON: Again, all this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie
OZZIE: When did I dissemble? Did I conceal some truth about torture[?]
DR JACKSON: All this dissembling by Raymond and Ozzie about “torture”
OZZIE: What dissembling, fakery or lying have I perpetrated? Please, be specific.
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Oz
As a senior interrogator in Iraq, I conducted more than three hundred interrogations and monitored more than one thousand. I heard numerous foreign fighters state that the reason they came to Iraq to fight was because of the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. Our policy of torture and abuse is Al-Qaeda’s number one recruiting tool. These same insurgents have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of our troops in Iraq, not to mention Iraqi civilians. Torture and abuse are counterproductive in the long term and, ultimately, cost us more lives than they save.
—-Matthew Alexander, Air Force, who led the (non-torture) interrogation team that ultimately killed Zarqawi.
As always, I am making a concerted attempt to quote knowledgeable and responsible individuals, including thoughtful conservatives, not persons of the far Left.
Oz
Oz, your argument is correct, not because some of the people who agree with it are on the right, but because your argument is correct. When you quote thoughtful conservatives who agree with you, what you establish is that the people on the "right" believe they are complaining about the "left" whereas what they don't want to say is that they are complaining about the majority.
There's a retort coming for that one too, or course: the majority have been listening to the leftist media, and no longer think clearly. Whereas, the right have been listening to each other, and think more clearly than ever.
When I say this argument won't be resolved, that's not to say the question hasn't been answered, it's more to say that people who don't like the answer aren't persuaded.
It stands to reason that torture wouldn't work. The initiation of force never gets real work done. But the cost is extremely high: renewed hatred towards America as well as loss of respect among friendly nations. I'm always wary when the great collective is hauled out as the recipient of the sacrifices. Whether it's future generations or the current present population, the broad sweeping justification of "possibly" saving millions strikes me as a rationalization for behaving extremely badly. The torturers don't have to even elicit worthwhile information; all they have to do is wave the "what if" flag: what if we hear about a terrorist plot and we thwart it and save millions? It comes across as shady.
Rumi, you are correct. It doesn't really matter to me whether an idea is embraced (or not) by either the Left or Right. The consensus of neither side confers any truth value on a claim. My only goal in quoting the conservatives is to point out that 'We Didn't Torture' is becoming an increasingly untenable position, among reasonable people across the spectrum.
AMA, I don't know to what extent torture 'works' or not. In fact, I assume there have been and will be situations where torturing someone may produce useful information, and may even save American lives. My point is, the downsides of using torture far outweigh any speculative benefit.
But, as a further nail in the coffin of the torture enablers–nobody has produced any evidence that this whole torture program produced any real benefits. Even if it did, it's still a supremely bad idea.
It really does appear that the Abu Ghraib torturers were simply following the general guidelines and directives of the Bush Administration. Yet, the low-level flunkies went to jail. Shouldn't the higher-ups in that adminstration answer for any of this? I don't want jail for them, necessarily, just a truth commission. Let's just get it all out there in the light of day.
Oz
Here’s another one for y’all, Jesse Ventura. Now, Jesse describes himself as a fiscal conservative but social liberal, so clearly not a doctrinaire conservative, but he’s a SEAL, and went through waterboarding, and such:
Lest anyone miss the point of me quoting all these conservatives who acknowledge the obvious (that we tortured detainees), it is not that I am using them as evidence. (In reality, the fact that people like Jonah Goldberg believes something doesn’t give me much confidence in its truth value) – but only to kick the legs from under the silly contention that only liberals are concerned about torture, for partisan reasons.
And if there are liberals like Nancy Pelosi implicated, so be it. I’d be disappointed, but it doesn’t change a thing. We need a Truth and Reconciliation Committee, at minimum, to formally investigate (and hopefully repudiate) this shameful chapter in our national history.
Oz
This is fun, by the way. It's kind of like having my own IC blog. "Ozzie's Torture Blog." Kinda like the sound of that.
Ozzie’s Torture Blog (OTB), in which Ozzie Mandies chronicles the craptacular descent of once-proud America into the morally bankrupt gutter of torture and brutal mistreatment.
Here at OTB, my staff and I sift through the daily news, struggling to understand how we came to this ghastly crossroads, and attempt to influence the public debate on the issue by ‘creating buzz’ and ‘winning the news cycle’ and so on. I am just like Matt Drudge, if Matt Drudge were an overweight narcoleptic pinhead who rarely shaves or bathes.
The other distinguishing feature of OTB is that it is the only blog on the internet, as far as I know, that has no readers, and doesn’t really care about that issue. Yes, we’ve been told that sounds a little ‘solipsistic’, but here at OTB, we don’t really know what that word means so it doesn’t make any difference.
More to come, I promise. Bookmark me! Blogroll me! Trackback me! 'Subscribe to my RSS Feed!' Whatever that means!
Oz
Today’s entry on OTB: Let’s take a look at the Zimbardo prison study, and reflect upon what it might mean for the torture debate.
As all of this blog's readers know, we have opposed torture on a variety of grounds, including 1) its likely impact on the treatment of our own boys if captured; 2) further inflaming the Muslim world (potentially costing lives); 3) its apparent ineffectiveness when compared to other tactics; 4) the loss of America’s perceived moral standing in the world, among both friends and enemies; and 5) the overwhelming likelihood that innocents have been tortured, given the slipshod and unaccountable implementation of this government program.
I’ve referred in passing to another concern, although not really elaborated upon it: the powerful tendency of mistreatment to magnify and drift over time, when absolute power is vested in the torturers. This is a human characteristic, not anything specific to Americans, or CIA agents, or anyone in particular.
For those who never took Psych 101, here is a very simple summary of the Zimbardo prison study:
There’s still a good deal of debate over what happened at Abu Ghraib (the obvious parallel). A few cling to the notion that the mistreatments there (which appear to have included outright murder) were the actions of a few deranged flunkies. Others contend that the similarity in mistreatment to many of the actions at Gitmo suggest a commonality of instructions from on high (the sexual humiliation, stress positions, etc). That will be most interesting to discover. But what strikes me about Abu Ghraib was the gusto and enthusiasm with which the mistreatment was carried out. Surely, even if said flunkies were given instructions (as they contend) to soften up these prisoners, the instructions could not have included ‘naked pyramids’ or the extensive voyeuristic cell-phone photography. No, these seem to be acts of inventive malice. These actions smell petty, vindictive, and gratuitous. Just the sort of actions taken, writ much smaller, by the Zimbardo ‘guards’.
Zimbardo has a book out, by the way, called “The Lucifer Effect”, documenting 30 years of research on how good people can turn to evil. The relevance of his research to Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, of course, is not lost on him.
Treatment of helpless enemies requires special attention in a truly moral and lawful nation. A mature and civilized society scrutinizes its treatment of the most despised and powerless, and guards against the propensity of each of us to turn bestial when the circumstances are right. The advanced societies – and I do hope we’d like to number our selves among them – are ever-skeptical of unchecked power. Not because certain people are ‘bad’ (the CIA, the soldiers, Halliburton, or Dick Cheney) – but because we are ALL bad, not far under the surface, and our veneer of civilization is so easily stripped away.
Oz
Man, this blogging stuff is addictive.
Here are a few musings on Saberi from Andrew Sullivan, a fellow big-time blogger:
This is a variation on an argument I have raised previously on the pages of IC. The laws and conventions are vague on what constitutes ‘severe’ mistreatment (and thus becomes torture). I hope the Courts have the opportunity to clarify, and that more specific laws are written.
I find it quite likely that the writers of the laws and conventions in question would agree with the Red Cross that yes (of course) the treatment of detainees under the previous administration is precisely the type of mistreatment they had intended to prohibit. I’ll have to look into that one – see if there are any choice quotes from those folks out there.
But lacking (yet) a legal clarification, I do believe that we have to use other means to determine whether repeated waterboardings, starvation, shackling to the ceiling for days, enclosure in cramped boxes, etc, inflicts 'severe' mental and/or physical suffering. I think thought experiments of the type above are instructive.
My version of this thought experiment is to visualize the above mistreatments inflicted on one of our boys in an Al Qaeda videotape, followed by a ‘confession’. Would we not say the soldier had been tortured into giving that confession? Would not the friends, military comrades, and family of that soldier view his suffering as ‘severe’? Would not the soldier himself describe his experience similarly?
My memory is notably impaired, probably due to my heavy drinking and multiple resulting brain injuries, but I vaguely recall being ridiculed on previous occasions for having the temerity to suggest that the determination of ‘severity’ must inevitably contain both subjective and consensual dimensions, since we lack the capacity to enumerate all conceivable torturous acts within a statute. I don’t recall any counter-arguments that were non-fatuous.
So who decides? Who can say what is ‘severe’? The Courts, I hope, and there will be some element of subjective judgment. And I do hope they consider such counterfactuals and thought experiments as those above in making their determinations.
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Ozzie's Torture Blog welcomes reader feedback. Feel free to post a comment or observation. Constructive criticism is welcome, although responses will be edited for clarity, appropriateness, and length. Vulgarities and hate speech are strictly prohibited. —OTB
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OTB pretty much approves of President Obama's decision *not* to release any more photographs of mistreated prisoners.
The Left wing blogs are up in arms, and the staff here is split, but I think he's called it exactly right. This stuff needs to be decided in the courts, not by releasing inflammatory pictures that could potentially radicalize even more Muslims and put our troops at more risk. Why do we need more than we already have?
The Abu Ghraib photo montage, the Red Cross reports, the reverse-engineered 'legal opinions' that provided a fig leaf of cover for the Bush Adminstration's lawless acts. It's all out there already, and the important thing is that it be followed up upon, and not forgotten. But if Mr. Obama is hearing from his commanders on the ground that further images could present a hazard to our troops, then he is right to withhold them at this point.
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Ozzie's Torture Blog