Comments on: Bad Apples Also Grow in Afghanistan

By: tombo

tombo — Sat, 15 May 2004 07:28:16 +0000

Jeremy, Thanks for your insightful and (until the last, sarcastic sentence) courteous reply. I’d be grateful for any links you can provide to the interrogators’ views you cite. You’d be interested in this article by Phil Carter, a lawyer with extensive military service prior to law school, that gives specific jurisprudential reasons to back your view: http://slate.msn.com/id/2100543/ Rgds, Tombo

By: Tom Doyle

Tom Doyle — Sat, 15 May 2004 07:13:14 +0000

Rick Freedman wrote: “I’ve just posted a piece on the “climate of permissiveness”, supported by conservative senators and commentators, that enabled these abuses to occur. Please take a look…” I read the essay (and many of the previous ones as well). It was excellent and you’re right. So is Barr, on this issue. bryan asked: “Is something happening to my country?” Yes. Something bad. Some argue that the US has been bad seems like forever, and they have a point. But I’d still say we’ve gone from bad to worse.

By: Jeremy Leader

Jeremy Leader — Sat, 15 May 2004 02:33:07 +0000

Tombo, I’ve read a number of US military interrogation experts stating flatly that for information-gathering purposes, torture DOES NOT WORK. If you torture someone, either you won’t break their will, in which case you get no more information than you already had, or you do break their will, and they tell you whatever you want to hear. Either way, you’re not going to get the truth. So if my sisters were on a plane, and Khalid Mohammed knew the details of a plan to attack that plane, I’d want to see a team of competent interogators sent in to get the information out of him in such a way that we could be reasonably certain that it was accurate. I would NOT want his usefulness to our cause destroyed by torturing him. But hey, I guess I’m just selfish that way.

By: tombo

tombo — Fri, 14 May 2004 23:29:07 +0000

Interesting that Matt, who likes to accuse others of changing the subject, persists in pretending that this discussion of torture was all about the Bush admin’s effectiveness at counterterrorism rather than the morality of torture. Perhaps you wish to change the subject because you can’t contribute a serious and intelligent response to the Khalid M situation being discussed? Please, Matt, tell us why war is dangerous to humans and other living things. But don’t bother to strain yourself and address the Khalid M issue.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Fri, 14 May 2004 22:50:27 +0000

Tombo, I’m sorry, I can’t try to have a serious discussion with someone who keeps changing the subject. Apropos of nothing whatsoever that I could tell, you posted a screed on media bias I think; I responded (nastily) to that, and said some things about Bush’s ineffectiveness at counterterrorism; you “respond” by talking about the humanitarian case for war on Iraq, which is worth discussing but also completely irrelevant to what I said. It’s almost as though you change the subject whenever you don’t have a good argument. You certainly didn’t say anything to demonstrate that GW Bush has had a decent counterterrorism policy. Also, I defy you to say anything that implies I think you condone the torture at Abu Ghraib. You do seem to favor the torture of Khalid Mohammed, and I think that condoning sets the stage for the Abu Ghraib abuses. Nor have you provided a reason to doubt that “this is a problem that can[not] be solved by military force alone.” If it’s an embarrassing cliche, that’s because it’s true.

By: tombo

tombo — Fri, 14 May 2004 15:01:52 +0000

Jeremy, Clearly, neither one of us is expert in—nor do I have any serious interest in—specific interrogation or torture methods. The presumption behind your response is that any coerced statement cannot contain valid information or that such valid information as was revealed would be indistinguishable from false information. I seriously doubt that is always the case. Obviously, whatever information KM divulges would have to be analyzed, checked against other sources, and perhaps field-tested, so to speak, through some kind cat-and-mouse, feedback loop involving indirect signaling to KM’s people in the field. I don’t have complete information or solid expertise in this area; neither do you or any of those I’ve seen blogging or posting here. My paramount interest is in saving thousands of innocent lives, which leads me to conclude that some forms of torture are warranted in some instances in order to save those lives. Obviously, we need extremely stringent internal oversight and training processes within our military to prevent stupid and self-defeating Abu Ghraib abuses AND to yield effective information-gathering from known terrorist senior operatives such as Khalid M, Zarqawi, and Zawahiri. To me, arguing for both of the above is the consistent liberal and humane position. Which is why I say, again, we must investigate, punish and make necessary corrections to prevent future Abu Ghraibs AND we must win this war. I hope you share these goals; I fail to see how any realistic and liberal person would not. Best regards, Tombo

By: pepi

pepi — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:07:51 +0000

On the topic of the tortures and the political management of the scandal, I think it would be interesting to compare the behaviour of the US government with the one of the UK government. I don’t know if anyone else is seeing significant differences there. Maybe just a matter of style – apart from the fact the UK allegations are not as bad (or real?), so, Blair has got it luckier – but still, seems to me he is coming off as doing a better job of it. Of course he’s also being greatly helped by the fact the Tories are, well, the Tories, and Piers Morgan is scum. But couldn’t Bush take a little lesson there? Or am I being naive about Blair? What do others think?

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Fri, 14 May 2004 03:50:44 +0000

Tombo—let’s take your hypothetical. So we have KM in the interrogation room and we want to get from him the details of the hijacking that we know is planned for next week. But he won’t talk. So we tie him to a board and duck his head under water repeatedly til he has a little taste of what it would feel like to drown. Still won’t talk. So we start tearing his fingernails off with pliers. Ah, that’s better—now he’s talking. But what is he telling us? How can we use the information? Is information extracted under these circumstances more liable to be true than otherwise?

By: Scorpio

Scorpio — Fri, 14 May 2004 03:09:43 +0000

Your country—and mine—was given away in 2000 by a vote of 5-4. Maybe we’ll get it back soon, not that I’d put any kind of cheat past them.

By: tomboq

tomboq — Fri, 14 May 2004 02:08:31 +0000

Tee hee—cute link! You funny, Matt Other than lame sarcasm that sails wide of the mark and embarrassing cliches like “this is a problem that can[not] be solved by military force alone,” I’m not sure what, if anything, Matt wishes to get across here. He seems to think that I condone the idiotic and appaling atrocities at Abu Ghraib, which neither made us safe nor showed our troops stationed at Abu G. as worthy of anything other than contempt and disgust. Thus he responds to a deeply serious issue with venom and childishness. But since he seems to have my sister’s safety in mind I’ll respond, and begin by noting that I don’t view this as a partisan issue in the slightest. I voted twice for Clinton and supported his war on Iraq. I support this war and anyone who’s determined to win it, be it Hillary, McCain, Lieberman, or if necessary, Bush. Matt seems to have forgotten that: —Bush’s war continued Clinton’s war; —Clinton and his top security officials, including Dick Clarke (who notes this in his book) identified Saddam’s agents as behind the spread of chemical weapons to east Africa in the late 1990s; —Clinton, arguing that “Saddam is determined to get WMD and if he gets them, I guarantee you he will use them”, unilaterally and pre-emptively attacked Saddam’s regime in 1999; —Clinton, with the overwhelming support of leading Democrats, legislated “regime change in Iraq” as “the official policy of the US”; —Bush broke with the failed, cynical pseudo-realism of his father’s circle and embraced Clinton’s regime change policy —Bush made good on Clinton’s committment. All of which was just and necessary because the sanctions were an abject, cruel failure that Saddam and his French and Russian pimps manipulated so as to cause the deaths by starvation and illness of thousands of Iraqis EVERY MONTH. Given Matt’s expressed humanitarian concern, we know that he would have opposed such a vile regime as the Franco-Russian-Annan Oil-for-Food program. And he appears to loathe the US invasion. Which leaves the only remaining option for dealing with Saddam, the oil execs’ favorite: ending sanctions and doing business with Saddam. This option would of course have avoided the need to deal with difficult issues of war and intelligence-gathering, and would have left people like Matt the freedom to utter cliches about “hearts and minds” and so forth. If you care to be serious OTOH, I’m happy to discuss this. Regards, Tombo

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Fri, 14 May 2004 01:05:18 +0000

Someone did a search of ABC News reports on Abu Ghraid between 4/29 and 5/11 and found 58 instances. He then searched ABC News reports for instances of mentions of Saddam’s mass graves from January 2003 to the present and found 5 instances. Mark A. R. Kleiman explains why this might be, in words even Tombo ought to be able to understand. If you’re interested in your sister’s safety, you might want to look into which candidate is actually serious about reducing terrorism. Hint: It might not be the one whose past six counterterrorism advisors have resigned, at least three out of frustration at the ineffectiveness of his policies. As for torture, I don’t know whether it gets the most information out of a suspect and you don’t either. We do know that opening the door to a little torture seems to let a lot through (forget who I’m quoting), and that this is not helping win hearts and minds in the Arab world. Which is important, because this is a problem that can be solved by military force alone.

By: tombo

tombo — Fri, 14 May 2004 00:53:21 +0000

More reassuring, but still avoiding the not-so-hypothetical instance. Let me be a bit more clear. This is not a hypothetical tossed about in an academic seminar lounge. At this moment we have in our custody Khalid Muhammed, the Chief Operating Officer, as it were, of Al Qaeda. Khalid Muhammed is believed to be the one who devised the 9/11 mass murders and the masked terrorist who sawed off Danny Pearl’s head. He has confessed to plotting to repeat the 9/11 mass murders, spefically by hijacking and blowing out of the sky numerous airliners over the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the only hypothetical part: say that a) we know that this week, as per Khalid M’s plans, his fascist operatives are planning an atrocity on a scale even larger than 9/11 and that b) my (or let’s say, your) sister has urgent business that will require her to board an airliner crossing the Pacific this week. Khalid M refuses to release any details other than that the atrocity will take place this week. Do you torture Khalid M for this information that can save many thousands of innocent lives?

By: isabel

isabel — Fri, 14 May 2004 00:29:54 +0000

Re: tombo’s hypothetical and the ideas that torture is flat-out wrong and there must be a better way to get information: Torture (and many other actions of varying controversiality) is not committed in isolation. Say torture alone is wrong; is it still wrong as part of a situation like tombo’s hypothetical? Do other factors influence the wrongness/acceptability of torture when considered as part of such a situation? Perhaps there are better ways to get such information. What do we do until these better ways exist? (And if they already exist, until they are publicized, accepted and adopted?) Do we do nothing further if the potential informant refuses to answer questions? Do we intensify the interrogation until the information is gained, including, if necessary, torture? It’s reasonable that torture by itself is ideally wrong. I’m not so sure that this translates to torture being wrong in all situations.

By: Lance Boyle

Lance Boyle — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:17:30 +0000

A.D.M.- “…what is in the news right now is strictly being done to humiliate and demoralize people on a broad basis with no particular purpose…” Unless the purpose is exactly that. To humiliate and demoralize. The pictures themselves are doing exactly that. Maybe the mission really was accomplished – not the stated mission, which is all just P.R. anyway – but the real reason this all is going down. To de-stabilize and cripple Iraq. With oil being a serious by-product and motivator for the moronic greedheads whose co-operation was necessary to make it happen. Remember the sacking of the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities? There was this loud outcry from academics and nice people everywhere. How could this happen? It was so irresponsible. Yeah, unless it was done on purpose. Now why would someone do that? I’m suggesting that viewing all these seemingly incompetent bungles and ineptitudes as intentional acts of cunning and manipulation makes a lot more sense. Everyone on the planet is looking at images of Iraqi(Arab) men degraded and humiliated by a woman. Smells like victory to me. Creepy honorless victory. So far.

By: tombo

tombo — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:15:09 +0000

adm, Thanks for your sincere response. As one who sincerely worries about his sister’s chances of being blown into bits on one of her trans-Pacific flights, however, I don’t find your answer either persuasive or reassuring. “It seems to me there must be better ways to get information.” With Khalid Muhammed in one’s custody—as will be the case when we capture Zarqawi, the one who sawed off Nick Berg’s head for the video camera, all the while screaming “God is Great!”—I don’t think better ways exist. “From the little I’ve seen (i avoid the pix) and the lot I’ve heard, though, what is in the news right now is strictly being done to humiliate and demoralize people on a broad basis with no particular purpose. I don’t really understand the impulse to do that, either.” It seems pretty clear to me. Editors so far have been given two sets of grisly and morally repellent photos. Photo-set A consists of images that horrify Americans (and anyone else) of good will, enrage arabs and Europeans of less than good will, and cause many Americans to oppose the war against Islamist fascism. This photo-set harms Bush’s re-election chances. Photo-set B consists of images that enrage and horrify Americans (and anyone else) of good will and cause many Americans to rally behind the war against Islamist fascism. This photo-set helps Bush’s re-election chances. East coast US and European and arab editors have given exhaustive play to photo-set A while in nearly all cases refusing to give any play to the photo-set B. Someone did a search of ABC News reports on Abu Ghraid between 4/29 and 5/11 and found 58 instances. He then searched ABC News reports for instances of mentions of Saddam’s mass graves from January 2003 to the present and found 5 instances. Does that help answer your question? Best regards, Tombo