You mean that dogs are allowed to be let loose to maul prisoners, or that dogs are allowed to be used to intimidate prisoners—say, by keeping them from trying to escape or attack their guards? The latter use is, I would say, pretty common in prisons, and I’m hard pressed to see what’s wrong with it.

Or are you talking about the canine equivalent of the “crazy man” tactic, where the interrogator threatens to do something rash, without actually doing it? Sheesh—that’s not even causing physical harm—it’s a psychological tactic to fool subjects into cooperating. It’s not nice behavior, I grant you—but frankly, I’d be appalled if US interrogators didn’t use it.

As for the methods that have “gone much further”, I’m under the impression that said methods are reserved for a very few, very exceptional cases. If the deliberate infliction of extreme pain, for example, is a routine form of treatment, then I’m inclined to believe that many innocents, or unnecessary victims, are bound to be caught up in it, and that would be a terrible thing. But I’m not aware that that’s happening.

I don’t accept your “less torture than under Saddam” criterion (assuming it’s correct, which isn’t clear, given that both sides in the current war are using torture). The long term damage to civilisation from the reintroduction of legalised torture by supposedly civilised and democratic countries outweighs almost any short term gain.

Well, that’s the kind of unpredictable long-term prognosis on which we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m completely confident that the introduction of democracy to Iraq—even a fledgling, insecure one—far outweighs the “damage” done by the occasional rare resort to torture under extreme circumstances. I’m willing—just barely—to concede that reasonable people might conceivably believe otherwise, but I hope you’ll grant that my position is not, as you previously suggested, completely untenable.

By the way, are you referring here to the supposed long-run damage done to civilization done by US interrogators threatening their subjects with dogs? How did you feel about “mutual assured destruction”? What, exactly, do you think the very existence of, say, bomber squadrons threatens? Isn’t this “damage to civilization” stuff just a tad overwrought, if that’s your definition of torture?

Also, if the “reintroduction of legalised torture by supposedly civilised and democratic countries” is so dangerous, what about increased economic and political traffic with countries that are still habitual users of torture? Are you as upset about, say, the proposals to drop of sanctions against Iran? Or the integration of China with the world economy? If any contamination by any level of torture is disastrous for “civilised and democratic countries”, then what about contamination through relations with countries that practice it routinely?

And, in any case, if you take a short-run consequentialist viewpoint, the massively increased death rates since the invasion outweigh any immediate benefits.

Why on earth would anyone take a short-run consequentialist viewpoint about any of this? Surely one thing we can all agree on is that in an incredibly dynamic situation like the past few years of Iraqi history, long-run effects are going to be far more important than short-term ones—no? Otherwise, why would you be getting so worked up about the “reintroduction of legalised torture”—whose short-term upside potential pretty obviously swamps its short-term risks?

Actually, asleep, but no matter.

Dan, if you’re not aware that methods of interrogation officially allowed under US rules have included such options as the use of savage dogs to terrify naked prisoners, and that unofficially sanctioned methods have gone much further, you haven’t been reading the news.

I don’t accept your “less torture than under Saddam” criterion (assuming it’s correct, which isn’t clear, given that both sides in the current war are using torture). The long term damage to civilisation from the reintroduction of legalised torture by supposedly civilised and democratic countries outweighs almost any short term gain.

And, in any case, if you take a short-run consequentialist viewpoint, the massively increased death rates since the invasion outweigh any immediate benefits.

I am astounded that reasonable people can defend torture.

My instinct says that you are probably right that Saddam tortured more Iraqis than the Americans have. However, the amount of brutality going on in Iraq seems pretty constant to me, so I’m not sure I’d concede that that represents real progress, which is why even people who were unhappy with Saddam could be unhappy with the war. Just like you don’t have to be pro-torture if you are pro-war, you can be both anti-Saddam and anti-war.

As far as the IRS is concerned, there is a body of law that gives the federal government the authority to collect taxes (and information about my income) from me. So there’s due process and rule of law. But no one has been able to point me to a law that covers detentions and interrogations for so-called “enemy combatants.” There are laws covering criminal interrogations (can’t do it under the 5th Amendment unless the accused participates voluntary) and there are laws covering the interrogation of captives in war (Geneva conventions, which limit interrogations). The Bush administration seems to have invented this third category of enemy combatant out of thin air and claimed, essentially, that these captives have no right to any due process other than what the Bush adminstration deems appropriate. This seems to be a really dangerous precedent to me—one that should seriously upset small-government conservatives as much as it upsets liberals.

I don’t like torture in any situation, but it seems silly to me to discuss in what circumstances torture might be justifiable until we resolve the broader issues of when the government can detain and interrogate so-called enemy combatants and what laws and due process apply to those detentions and interrogations.

I am, to be sure, making a few assumptions here. For one thing, I’m assuming that the amount of torture not involving either the US or Iraq was unaffected by the Iraq conflict. That may be in error, but the outbreaks of democratization that have occurred in several previously very repressive countries since then suggest that if anything, its collateral effect was to reduce the incidence of torture elsewhere, rather than to increase it.

As for Iraq itself, specific cases of torture have been widely propagated in the press, but they have involved at most some dozens of victims—and the attention they have gotten strongly suggests that if there were many more, we’d have heard about them as well. On the other hand, if you’re familiar with the situation in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, you’ll know that torture used to be routine there, with literally thousands of victims tortured in ways that go far beyond the humiliations and discomforts that have been so widely discussed in the last year or two. Again, my assumption that the reports that have reached the public are representative could be wrong. But unfortunately, they’re all we have to go on.

Torture is the emotional issue—but the real important issue is what right does the government have to demand any information at all from me or anyone else, with or without the use of coercive methods?

Well, all I can say is that I hope you arrived at this position after April 15th of this year. I’m given to understand that the IRS is quite unimpressed by such arguments.

Fair enough. Just to put my own opinion on the initial issue of the thread on record, I don’t agree with either of the following positions:

1) Everyone who supports the Iraq war must be also be pro-torture.

2) Everyone who is against the Iraq war must also acknowledge that it has reduced the incidence and severity of torture.

I have seen empirical evidence that the first statement is wrong and seen no empirical evidence that the second is right. (True, Saddam is not doing the killing and torturing anymore, but there are still an awful lot of people in Iraq and around the world being killed and tortured—how would you reliably measure and compare?)

My post at #56 is, in my opinion, a direct response to two issues you raised in #54:

The distinction between torture and lesser forms of coercion—I simply believe that this distinction is irrelevant until the broader question of the authority to interrogate is answered. We first have to establish that the government has legal authority to interrogate before we can argue what methods of interrogation are acceptable.

The circumstances in which torture is acceptable—again, in my opinion, the primary issue is defining the situations in which interrogation is acceptable. Once we’ve established that, we can move on to a discussion of what methods of interrogation are acceptable in which situations.

John Quiggin originally so claimed. I responded that on the contrary, even people who do seek the complete abolition of all torture—let alone those who merely want to see the use of torture reduced to a few extreme cases—have good reason to applaud the American military action to topple Saddam Hussein. Moni then mockingly ridiculed that position.

Subsequently, John asked about my general position on torture, and I obliged. John has since been silent, while Moni and RSL have shifted the debate to criticizing my specific opinions on torture. May I infer from this silence and change of subject that all three of you concede my point, and recognize that—everyone’s specific personal views on torture aside—celebrating the effects of the American military action in Iraq on the incidence and severity of torture in the world is quite a reasonable thing for all of us to do?

It seems to me that before we debate the fine line between torture and mere coercion, we need to ask the broader question: what gives the government any legal authority to interrogate anyone against their will? The 5th Amendment gives everyone the right to remain silent in criminal cases. The Geneva Conventions I believe prevent coercive interrogation of captives seized in war. I’ve heard no one cite any law that grants the government power to interrogate in other situations. The Constitution simply doesn’t envision the federal government capturing people and forcing them to divulge information outside criminal cases (and maybe war). So how can any coercive interrogation (with or without torture) be legal in the U.S.?

Torture is the emotional issue—but the real important issue is what right does the government have to demand any information at all from me or anyone else, with or without the use of coercive methods?

Yup… good post, hairyman. I believe once, before the rehabilitation of lawless imperialism through scaremongering, those things were self-evident to all people of sound mind and good faith.

Dan Simon – I don’t know where the exact line should be drawn, but I believe it should be somewhere between these two extremes—and not include, for example, meager-but-sufficient rations, uncomfortable ambient temperatures, reduced sleep hours, and so on.

Hey Dan, why not draw the line to what you would personally comfortable with, should you be arrested as a terrorist supect?

I’d like to see you expand on the harmlessness of reduced sleep hours and uncomfortable temperatures after they’ve been deliberately inflicted on you, while you’re being kept indefinitely in a cell without legal counsel.

But again, you forget, that the lines are drawn clearly in law anyway. So whatever you say on the subject tells us a lot about yourself and your worldview, but it doesn’t tell us anything about what’s permissible and what’s not.

As for what I would consider actual torture, I’m not willing to rule it out under all circumstances, although I’d like to see it confined to very rare, extreme cases, and subject to some kind of procedural limitations to prevent its overuse. Designing and instituting such formal procedures is of course made more difficult by the agitation of activists who oppose all forms of less-than-gentle treatment under any circumstances, and who therefore consider the creation of such procedures to be a dangerous concession rather than an important safety measure.

I don’t know how my position compares with that of the Bush administration, so I can’t answer your last question. I should note, though, that even if it turns out that I disagree with the details of the Bush administration’s policy on torture, that doesn’t mean I think the Iraq war to have been a bad idea. Among its many benefits, in fact—as I pointed out—was that it did sharply reduce the frequency and severity of the use of torture in that country. I consider that to be a good thing—don’t you?

I’m not a lawyer or legal scholar, but I think you are right that the Supreme Court has held that citizens and non-citizens have different rights. I’m not certain of the details, though, and would need to spend some time in the law library to learn more.

I do think, though, that the actual wording of the Constitution doesn’t really support this distinction. In the Bill of Rights, for example the words used are “people” and “person” not “citizen.” For instance, the 5th Amendment begins: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless . . .” and continues “nor shall any person . . . be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In the actual body of the Constitution (Article III), we have “The Trial of all Crimes, except in the Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.” The 14th Amendment is interesting because it does use the word “citizen” in places, but when it talks about rights, it uses the broader term “person”—e.g., “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

So . . . it seems to me that any distinctions the Courts have made in the application of due process or the Bill of Rights to non-citizens vs. citizens seems to be a form of judicial activism—reading into the Constitution what one would like it to say rather than what it really says.

I’m not sure what laws are on the books dealing with treatment of captives. I imagine there are some, but I think the Geneva Conventions are the main laws that apply (treaties have the force of law once ratified by the Senate). Again, though, not being a legal specialist, I’d need to do a lot of independent research to be able to answer this with any confidence . . .

Also, we have a Strategic Defense Partnership with Uzbekistan, meaning they are a signed ally of ours with preferential economic status. This has not, as far as I know, been repudiated.

There is some evidence that the CIA has been fond of sending people to Uzbekistan to be tortured (“rendition”). This certainly makes him “our SOB”, if true.

Finally, the White House, in comparison to, say, the British government, has not so far roundly condemned the Uzbek government, always very circumspect and asking only for “more openness”, and expressing their “regret” that so many people were killed. (Imagine: “We regret sincerely that Mr. Hussein has invaded Kuwait.”) They have not come out strongly in favor of demands for UN investigation of violence, or other, serious measures to put pressure on Karimov’s government to reform.

This suggests that Karimov is very much, still, our SOB, and we are looking out for him as best we can without coming off like complete assholes.

Moni, are you seriously doubting my assertion that the Iraq war reduced the total amount and severity of torture in the world? Do you know anything, anything at all, about the torture practices of the former Iraqi regime?

And did you even read my comment—in which I explicitly refuted John’s drawing of a necessary connection between supporting or opposing the Iraq war and supporting or opposing the complete abolition of torture?

Rsl raises an interesting point. For the US, the Constitution could require providing terrorist / spies a standard list of rights.