Hang Your Head in Shame

[AuntieEmma[$]]

drmomentum said

What if, by experimenting on 4 suspected or known terrorists, we could get some information that might save many American lives from the flu? Or from deaths related to cigarette smoking or automobile accidents?

What if the most they will suffer from these experiments would be catching a bad cold, or experiencing the equivalent of a pack-a-day smoker (something that many people actually pay for the privilege)? If we knew we could save a lot of people, and we knew these were bad criminals who would do the country harm if they could, why not do medical experiments on them?

Performing medical experiments on prisoners?? That's in the not-so-grand tradition of the Nazis and the Japanese Unit 731. If your question wasn't tongue in cheek, why would you want to even consider reviving such a practice?

[erik_kosberg]

FWIW, I have a hard time imagining any other U.S. administration embracing torture quite as gleefully as GWB's has. Can anyone really think that Clinton's would have done so? Carter's? Bush Senior's? Reagan's? Hell, even Nixon's?

BTW, let's assume for the moment that none of these guys are covered under Geneva Conventions 'cause of lack of uniforms in combat (as an aside, exactly how many of them were actually captured on the battlefield?). Why are we then not allowed to use ANY form of torture? And if they aren't protected, what right do we have to complain if our CIA agents or quasi-civilian contractors (not wearing military uniforms after all) are captured in Iraq or Afghanistan and then slow-roasted over an open fire?

[drmomentum[$]]

AuntieEmma said

Performing medical experiments on prisoners?? That's in the not-so-grand tradition of the Nazis and the Japanese Unit 731. If your question wasn't tongue in cheek, why would you want to even consider reviving such a practice?

If the Nazis were well known for using water boarding, I'm willing to bet it would be off the table.

However, I think that part of this debate is not about the actual practical nature of the techniques we're talking about, but the perception. You can't talk about medical experiments without the Nazis being dragged into the discussion immediately, even though Nazi Germany has nothing practical to do with the question.

I think Stokes is right that we'd benefit from a better definition of torture, but I'm not qualified to give that definition. I don't know for sure if giving someone a cold is torture. Or making them breathe cigarette smoke. Or water boarding. It seems to me that water boarding is more torture than having a cold or breathing cigarette smoke.

If we're going to say "you can save 5,000 people if we use this guy" then I think it's dishonest not to recognize that there are practical similarities to answering other questions by subjecting people to other sorts of discomfort, and treating them like less than we would treat a citizen.

I am not trying to be cute or sensationalistic. I see people saying "these are very bad men who want to hurt America." Ok, let's say I accept that as a given. Now, what are we willing to use these people for? If we can get info about terrorist attacks, that's one thing. What if they don't know anything about a specific attack? They're still bad men. And there are problems this country faces that have nothing to do with terrorist attack information. So is it merely that the Nazis did it that stops us from experimenting on them?

Lets say we do it in a way that is more humane than the Nazis did, then. We're much more humane than they were, right? We can get the information we need in a much more humane way. If one of these detainees starts to die of cancer, we can give him painkillers and whatnot. We won't do pain experiments. Or, if we do, we'll let them know when their life is not immediately in danger.

Why should we be squeamish about this? These are bad men.

-JP

[rmthunter]

OK -- here's one about an American citizen, picked up in Chicago as an "enemy combatant," held incommunicado for three and a half years, the original "charges" against him dropped.

Please, someone defend this treatment, especially in light of all the critical information we got from this guy.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

drmomentum said

If the Nazis were well known for using water boarding, I'm willing to bet it would be off the table.

Ok. I think I see your point.

JP said

Why should we be squeamish about this? These are bad men.

Erik said

let's assume for the moment that none of these guys are covered under Geneva Conventions .... Why are we then not allowed to use ANY form of torture?

I have a similar question. If we have a feeling that a detainee has information that could prevent another 9/11 type attack, why not tell him that we will beat him to death unless he gives us useful information, and then follow through on that. Don't make it an idle threat. If that were our standard policy, to beat detainees to death, stopping only when and if they volunteered useful information, then our reputation for toughness would spread throughout the world, and that would make future interrogations more fruitful. And it would be a win-win situation. If the detainees volunteered useful information, that would obviously be a win because it would save many lives. If they refused to talk, and instead chose to be beaten to death, that would be one less terrorist in the world, so that would be a win too.

I'm serious. Cindy, Stokes -- I think that you are saying that even though you believe the line drawn by the Geneva Conventions doesn't -- and shouldn't -- apply to enemy combatants, you think that we should draw a line somewhere. But why? Why draw any line at all? What is the value or principle that you are trying to protect by drawing lines?

Also, Stokes, it sounds to me as if you are talking about an idealized situation, where you can have a regulation which draws a very precise line, which says you can go this far and no further, and then you would expect interrogators to abide by that. But would they? So much of this interrogation stuff is apparently going on in secret. Could we really count on the regulations to act as a brake?

[erik_kosberg]

If we have a feeling...

Feelings, nothing more than feelings...

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

If we have a feeling that a detainee has information that could prevent another 9/11 type attack, why not tell him that we will beat him to death unless he gives us useful information, and then follow through on that.

And if he has no useful information? Say he's just some schlub who had a neighbor who didn't like him who "ratted" him out by lying about him and his supposed terrorist activities. You're willing to beat a man to death who had nothing to do with anything?

[erik_kosberg]

Just a guess, but Emma was probably doing the over the top devil's advocate a-go-go.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

Yeah, but I'd also love to have an answer from the people who were so vehemently against the Geneva Conventions applying in this situation. In other words, I wasn't trying to be snide, but was trying to use my imagination to understand a viewpoint that is different from my own and that I am having trouble understanding. (So, while playing devil's advocate, I actually wasn't trying to go over the top with it.) Also, there is a certain logic to it. If one thing is true (if these are people who do not deserve any humane treatment), then why wouldn't certain other things necessarily follow (such as that there should be no limits whatsoever placed on what can be done to them)? And if people do want to break that logical chain -- if they believe that detainees deserve no humane treatment, but seek to act humanely anyway by setting limits -- what is their motivation for doing so?

[wivabef]

I always believe in the old addage "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar"

And I always tell my daughters to "kill 'em with kindness."

I honestly believe that if we were to treat the prisoners with superior respect and kindness ... not luxuries or anything like that... but allow them to communicate freely with their families, provide them with a comfortable environment and respect their culture and religion that we would get so much farther than waterboarding and deprivation techniques.

And they would have no rational cause to "retaliate," which would have put an end to international blame that the United States is responsible for the Civil War and hence every senseless, brutal death of Iraqi citizens caused by Iraqi citizens.

But, we blew that kinder, gentler nation thing. Too bad 43 isn't listening to 41.

If one fears for their life, if one believes they are going to die, it's torture. I don't give a rat's ass what the Geneva Convention says or how it is interpreted. We are supposed to be human beings. We are supposed to be above all that crap and set examples. We can't go in to "save" people from torture of Saddam Hussein by torturing them.

This is not about getting information, this is about a predominately male organization getting their rocks off just like they did when they were boys and stuffed firecrackers in the mouths of frogs or pulled the legs off crickets.

[hadassahchana[$]]

wivabef said

I always believe in the old addage "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar"

My grandpa, the one fromTexa by way of Mississippi, always said "You can catch more flies with sugar'n with shit." I always thought that was funny, eve if I did get in trouble for saying it.

I honestly believe that if we were to treat the prisoners with superior respect and kindness ... not luxuries or anything like that... but allow them to communicate freely with their families, provide them with a comfortable environment and respect their culture and religion that we would get so much farther than waterboarding and deprivation techniques.

Google the name 'Margaret Hassan'. Her organization offered money right away, her husband sympathized with the cause of her kidnappers, she begged them to look at her as a fellow Muslim, and she was aa Muslim convert who'd lived in Iraq for more than twenty years. After they tortured her for more than a month, they "cut" off her head. 'Cut' being defined as sawing away until she was finally dead. If we "tortured" those kidnappers by waterboarding, we could still claim to be that "kinder, gentler nation." I didn't see her snuff video (the videos of Westerners being tortured then killed are top-sellers in that part of the world, including Saudi Arabia, who are supposedly our good frineds ).

And they would have no rational cause to "retaliate," which would have put an end to international blame that the United States is responsible for the Civil War and hence every senseless, brutal death of Iraqi citizens caused by Iraqi citizens.

Um, the WTC? Those people weren't retaliating for anything- not in attack #1, not in 9/11. We have this picture of terrorists being poor, illiterate, representing some legitimate beef with us. That just isn't the case, not if you keep reading about each new attack and each sucide bomber. Sorry, but I still don't buy that line of reasoning. I wish it were true, but compare the aid $$$ the U.S. gives everywhere from the tsunami in Thailand to Palestinians. We supposedly are no longer a superpower -until it's time to whip out the ole checkbook.

I agree, it would be great to elicit info over tea and a warm rappor with terrorists. However, if you read the al Qaeda manual which was captured (it's available in many places online) there are instructions on how to fool interrogaters, along with directions for claiming mistreatment in prisons. If you think that waterboarding doesn't get valid results, why would you believe that getting them to warm up to us would be an authentic and useful response?

[hadassahchana[$]]

AuntieEmma said

And if people do want to break that logical chain -- if they believe that detainees deserve no humane treatment, but seek to act humanely anyway by setting limits -- what is their motivation for doing so?

Easy answer for me - the interview of the grandmother whose first grandbaby was on the first plane to hit the Towers.


I don't believe waterboarding is torture, so I can't answer your question about why setting limits at mild torture is ok and even necessary. I don't believe that actual torture is ever ok, even if we caught OBL. Ok, we could shoot him like a dog and leave him to rot, but that's a different thread. I can't speak for Stokes, but I never said they don't deserve any humane treatment. I just don't think that they deerve a whole lot of sympathy from us.

[erik_kosberg]

I don't believe waterboarding is torture...

I don't believe that today is Wednesday.

[drmomentum[$]]

If the point is retribution, not information, then the desire to torture makes a lot more sense.

-JP

[theworm[$]]

I don't know. It seems like most people here agree that there are some limits to what we should or should not do, but that there is no agreement on a definition of what constitutes torture and where to draw the line.

I find this thread really depressing.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I can't get past that first logical link of "They are detainees, so therefore they are bad guys who have information we need." Too many of the detainees who have been released have turned out to NOT be bad guys and had no information of any use to us, and I can't stomach applying torture (or the stuff that falls into the this-looks-and-feels-really-really-bad-and-will-scare-you-into-saying-whatever-you-can-think-of-to-make-it-stop non-torture) to people who may be innocent. And the whole Who Would Jesus Torture question and all that. But that's just me.

[theworm[$]]

That and what are we willing to do?
Are we as a nation willing to do things that we would otherwise find abhorant because we percieve someone else to be an enemy? Like MJ said we could be wrong, but don't we start to erase the line between what we as a civilized nation will do vs what the terrorist barbarians will do. Don't get me wrong - I know you can't fight terrorism with polite warfare, but the whole think raises a lot of questions and flags.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

mjfrombuffalo said

I can't get past that first logical link of "They are detainees, so therefore they are bad guys who have information we need." Too many of the detainees who have been released have turned out to NOT be bad guys and had no information of any use to us,

I think there are two separate questions. One question is what do you do about people who are innocent? There will always be mistakes in any kind of system that judges guilt. There are mistakes that say that innocent people are guilty, and there are mistakes that say that guilty people are innocent. You can never get rid of mistakes, but you can adjust things so that there are more of one type of mistake than the other.

So, in our regular criminal justice system, we adjust things so that there will be more mistakes of the type that let guilty people go free than mistakes of the type where innocent people are convicted. That's done by setting up a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through before someone can be convicted and punished.

But with the enemy combatants, the situation is the opposite. The administration has deliberately removed many of the safeguards which tilt the mistakes towards the guilty-go-free side. No right to a lawyer, no right to see the evidence against them, no right to habeas corpus -- all of these decrease the number of mistakes where guilty people go free, but they also increase the number of mistakes where innocent people are deemed to be guilty. You can't have one without the other -- it's like a seesaw. If one side goes down, the other has to go up.

I consider this a separate question from the torture question because it could be changed independently of whatever punishment or interrogation techniques are used on those who have been deemed (correctly or not) guilty.

The torture question IMO is how harsh do we want to be? Even if we knew with complete certainty that someone was truly a terrorist, would there still be limits that we would want to place on ourselves as to how far we would go? IMO, I don't want to be the kind of person, and I don't want my country to be the kind of country, that indulges in brutality, even if, or maybe especially if, the people on the receiving end of that treatment are themselves brutal.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

drmomentum said

If the point is retribution, not information, then the desire to torture makes a lot more sense.

-JP

It does seem to me that it's both. With maybe the search for information being used as an excuse for the exercise of retribution.