Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktInterestingly enough this was a difficult book for me to read. Next month will be the five year anniversary of my father’s death. He was a bombardier (First Lieutenant) in WWII and flew over Germany in support of Patton’s Army. Their B17 suffered from structural problems, not unlike the B24.
Part of a passage from my father’s diary reminds me how dangerous their mission was:
Al and I were looking up records of previous missions of the Group. Since they started B-17’s they have had three times as many “major aircraft damage” in half as many missions. Ratio-six to one. That isn’t good.
A couple of years ago I received a copy of a letter my father wrote to one of his buddies after arriving in Europe that never reached his friend. He went down with the plane and the pilot during a terrible fire on the plane, originating in the bomb bay, while most of the crew was able to abandon ship. His nephew tracked me down and I sent him a copy of my dad’s diary and he sent me a copy of the letter my father wrote to his uncle.
My father was also raised in Southern California, not far from Torrance, and graduated from USC. He attended college after the war however, taking advantage of the GI Bill. Reading Louie’s story occupied my time with a lot of reflection and comparing and contrasting stories. It was very strange for me. I kept wishing I could ask my dad what he knew about Louie, if anything.
My father was also an athlete, although not in the same league as Louie (football and swimming), and always stressed participation in athletics as a character building exercise and that the discipline needed to succeed in sports would be useful in fighting life’s adversities. It’s one of the lessons I tried to pass on to our children. Reading Unbroken, I couldn’t help but believe that Louie’s passion for, and commitment to running taught him how to survive in some of the worst circumstances we can imagine.
Anyway, it was an odd experience for me reading the book, even down to the description of the crew flying the Enola Gay and dropping the bomb over Hiroshima. One of my father’s best friends, Rick Nelson, was the radio man on that flight. Reading how the pilot desperately tried to maneuver the plane away from the blast and how the fillings in his teeth tingled gave me chills. I sat around a dining room table on many occasions listening to that story and more.
Luckily my father had a much different experience than Louie. Even though there were bomb bay door fires, feathered engines, blown tires, damaged landing gear, hot flak breaking through the skin of the airplane, and even one emergency landing in Belgium, he flew his 36 missions and came home without suffering the terrible conditions many of these young men did, if they were lucky enough to survive at all.
Another reason I had trouble reading the book was because of the awful conditions the POW’s suffered from. It was a very vivid reminder of why we used to be so careful in our treatment of enemy combatants, at least I thought we were. That kind of brutality and suffering is difficult for me to read about.
This passage from the book really resonated with me.
Few societies treasured dignity, and feared humiliation, as did the Japanese, for whom a loss of honor could merit suicide. This is likely one of the reasons why Japanese soldiers in World War II debased their prisoners with such zeal, seeking to take from them that which was most painful and destructive to lose. On Kwajalein, Louie and Phil learned a dark truth known to the doomed in Hitler’s death camps, the slaves of the American South, and a hundred other generations of betrayed people. Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty.
I’ll be curious to hear what the rest of you thought of the book.
Filed under: 2012, Book Review, Unbroken, WWII |
All Things in Moderation 
I won’t be around much this weekend, as it turns out, because I have to work. But I’ll drop in when I can!
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Probably the only time I will be here until tomorrow evening.
She did something in Unbroken that worked for me. She described much of the book through the eyes and thoughts and words of LZ, some through a few other family members, crew members, and the enemy, and some through her own prism, as in the comment about breaking human dignity Lulu posted. That comment stuck with me, too. But the shifts in perspective did not interrupt flow and they gave the moments intimacy, for me.
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Ah, the passage about the importance of dignity resonated with me as well. As did the well written portrayals of the conditions in the Japanese POW camps. I truly appreciated that these passages were written with an eloquent understatement; the writing well portrayed how gruesome life in the POW camps was without being gratuitously graphic.
If we can condemn (as I think we all do, but maybe I’m wrong) the treatment of POWs in the Japanese WWII camps, how do we now justify our own use of torture techniques, Gitmo, et al.? I see no difference.
I also was intrigued about the state of technology, although I’m pretty ignorant about that topic, and the effects of technology on the war effort on both sides. And beyond technology, the description of the practical utility of the provisions on life rafts dismayed me. I hope we are better now from that perspective.
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If we can condemn (as I think we all do, but maybe I’m wrong) the treatment of POWs in the Japanese WWII camps, how do we now justify our own use of torture techniques, Gitmo, et al.? I see no difference.
I oppose torture techniques.
What happened in Japanese POW camps is quite different than what has happened to AQ/AFG detainees. What happened to Allied POWs in Japanese custody was gratuitous pain, inflicted for the purpose of breaking their spirits. Waterboarding of selected AQ was done for the narrow purpose of soliciting information.
It is still against the laws of war and I condemn it. But it is quite different, in survivability and in stated motivation.
OTOH, we did send numbers of detainees who were not being held for their information value to be maimed and killed in foreign prisons. That was of the same or similar quality.
Assuming in good faith that we obtained valuable information from water boarded detainees, that fact would mitigate punishment, but not guilt, at the [theoretical] courts martial of the inquisitors. The worst of our inquisitors having been CIA, they were not subject to that mainly rational military justice system, and they were cloaked by national security otherwise.
Gitmo prisoners get three square meals and a warm dry place to sleep and are not treated harshly. They should be repatriated when we leave AFG, unless they can be tried on specific war crimes. I know the Afghanis will probably shoot them, or more likely sell them back to their families if their tribes will pay, but we really don’t have authority over them when hostilities cease.
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okie:
I see no difference.
I like to pretend that the truth is worth pursuing. And one part of that truth is that conditions at Guantanamo are vastly superior to those at any maximum-security prison on the U.S. mainland. – Joseph Margulies
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Should Guantanamo be closed and the prisoners transferred to the mainland United States, their detention conditions will be considerably worse. Every proposal I’ve seen discussed in the press is for the equivalent of a SuperMax prison for them.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-12-16/guantanamo-inmates-to-be-sent-to-illinois-supermax/1180368
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/23/guantanamo-prisoners-could-go-colorados-supermax/
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Thanks to all. Mark, I appreciate the distinction you draw about use of torture, but I think it is wrong no matter the motivation.
When I included Gitmo, I was thinking less about the physical conditions and more about the number (although I do not know what that currently is and may have a misperception) of detainees about whom it is questionable that they actually were enemy combatants and/or against whom no specific charges have been alleged. Yet they have not had the opportunity to contest their imprisonment. And part of my thoughts about that include the Obama administration’s recent attempt to unilaterally redefine and further restrict their access to counsel. Anybody have any stats in this regard about those still detained at Gitmo?
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okie:
When I included Gitmo, I was thinking less about the physical conditions and more about the number (although I do not know what that currently is and may have a misperception) of detainees about whom it is questionable that they actually were enemy combatants and/or against whom no specific charges have been alleged. Yet they have not had the opportunity to contest their imprisonment.
You were likening Gitmo to WWII Japanese POW camps. It was precisely the physical conditions under which POWs were held and treated that made the Japanese camps deplorable. The fact that POWs were held without being “charged” with anything or having the opportunity to contest their imprisonment was not what distinguished Japanese camps from those of any other nation, including the US, and is certainly not what made them condemnable.
There is no legitimate comparison to be drawn between Japanese POW camps during WWII and Gitmo. They are not even close to being similarly condemnable.
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This is from a year ago:
see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees
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“ScottC, on October 7, 2012 at 10:01 am said:
…
There is no legitimate comparison to be drawn between Japanese POW camps during WWII and Gitmo”
There’s one and it is whether or not techniques such as waterboarding that were performed by the Japanese on Americans and subsequently treated as torture in the war crimes trials following the end of WW II are somehow different when performed by Americans on detainees at Guantanamo.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
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jnc:
There’s one and it is whether or not techniques such as waterboarding that were performed by the Japanese on Americans and subsequently treated as torture in the war crimes trials following the end of WW II are somehow different when performed by Americans on detainees at Guantanamo.
The difference is that both the Japanese and the US were signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and so were obligated to treat prisoners of the other in a manner stipulated by the Geneva Convention. The same is not true of the AQ and the US.
As an aside, I find the moral absolutism that we so often see implied by liberal outrage over the waterboarding of, say, KSM to be rather odd in light of the moral relativism that animates so much of the rest of their worldview.
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Scott, aside from the torture aspect as stated by jnc, were there detainees in the Japanese POW camps who were not actually enemy combatants? I honestly don’t know. It was not portrayed that way in the book.
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okie:
were there detainees in the Japanese POW camps who were not actually enemy combatants?
The Japanese did indeed hold non-combatants in camps, although they were not, strictly speaking, POW camps and the people were treated somewhat better (although I wouldn’t say good) than POWs. For example, a great many British expatriates, including whole families with children, were held as prisoners in camps for the duration of the war when the Japanese invaded and captured Hong Kong.
However, that isn’t really relevant to your original post. There may indeed be reasons to criticize American policy towards who gets placed into Gitmo and why. But to condemn Japanese POW camps during WWII does not, as you suggested in your original, imply that one should also condemn Gitmo. There really is no comparison between the two, and the aspects that made the Japanese camps condemnable are not mirrored at Gitmo.
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There’s one and it is whether or not techniques such as waterboarding that were performed by the Japanese on Americans and subsequently treated as torture in the war crimes trials following the end of WW II are somehow different when performed by Americans on detainees at Guantanamo.
Correct; and they aren’t. I still can’t believe that my country, whose uniform I have worn, tortured prisoners. This is why I will never forgive the Bush administration for their conduct at Gitmo.
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“okiegirl, on October 7, 2012 at 10:51 am said:
Scott, aside from the torture aspect as stated by jnc, were there detainees in the Japanese POW camps who were not actually enemy combatants? “
I believe that there were civilians interned as well, but they were considered non-combatants, not unlawful combatants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Tomas_Internment_Camp
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However, that isn’t really relevant to your original post.
Scott, I am just trying to have a conversation (which you always seem to have a way of killing). Sorry if my comments do not meet your expectations.
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okie:
which you always seem to have a way of killing
Any conversation founded on the assumption that conditions in Gitmo are similar to those in a WWII Japanese POW camp deserves to be killed.
Sorry if my comments do not meet your expectations.
You either have the driest sense of irony I have ever seen, or none at all.
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The same is not true of the AQ and the US.
That doesn’t matter; we shouldn’t lower our standards simply because the situation changes. As a signatory to the Geneva Convention we should adhere to those conventions, period.
As an aside, I find the moral absolutism that we so often see implied by liberal outrage over the waterboarding of, say, KSM to be rather odd in light of the moral relativism that animates so much of the rest of their worldview.
Since I assume you’re including me in this “liberal outrage” I’d like to know what moral relativism you think animates my worldview.
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Mich:
As a signatory to the Geneva Convention we should adhere to those conventions, period.
We do, period.
I’d like to know what moral relativism you think animates my worldview.
I’m pretty sure you reject the notion of an absolute, universal morality.
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Hi Scott –
1] Are you arguing that waterboarding is not as bad as maiming? If so, I agree.
2] Are you arguing that waterboarding should not have been prosecuted as a war crime against Japanese captors? If so, I do not agree.
3] Are you arguing that waterboarding should be permitted for interrogation of AQ by Americans? If so, I do not agree.
4] Are you arguing that the penalty for waterboarding should not be as severe as the penalty for maiming? If so, I generally agree. Would depend on whether the waterboarding was done to cause a heart attack or to elicit emergency intel, for instance, IMO. [moral relativism]
5] Are you arguing that where a treaty does not apply the USA has a free hand to mistreat those under its penal or detention supervision? Surely a moral absolutist would not argue thus.
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mark:
1) No, although I would agree with such an argument.
2) No.
3) Possibly. Context and circumstance matters.
4) No, but I would agree with such an argument. BTW, it is not moral relativism to recognize a distinction in the context compelling two seemingly alike actions. One need not be a moral relativist to understand that pushing a little old lady into the path of an on-coming bus has different moral implications than does pushing a little old lady out of the path of an on-coming bus. They are not simply both instances of pushing little old ladies around.
5) No. I do not conflate what is legal or illegal with what is moral or immoral.
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Thank you, Scott.
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Back to the book. Okie, didn’t you think LZ’s come back from alcoholism was interesting? One aspect that I think was timely to then was how diligently his wife stuck by him.
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“ScottC, on October 7, 2012 at 11:19 am said:
…
The difference is that both the Japanese and the US were signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and so were obligated to treat prisoners of the other in a manner stipulated by the Geneva Convention. The same is not true of the AQ and the US.”
I believe that under the Geneva Conventions even unlawful combatants are protected from torture, leaving aside the fact that the United States is also a signatory to the UN Conventions on Torture which was ratified and it’s directly prohibited by federal statutes as well, hence the debate on whether or not waterboarding was covered.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/15/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-torture-banned-under-us-internationa/
For myself, the test of “do we consider it torture when it’s done to captured U.S. personnel” is a pretty persuasive argument.
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jnc:
I believe that under the Geneva Conventions even unlawful combatants are protected from torture…
I am pretty sure that anyone not wearing a uniform is not protected. I am also fairly certain that the Geneva Conventions regulate behavior between signatories. That is, they do not apply unilaterally to signatories with regard to the treatment of non-signatories. As far as I know, AQ is not a signatory.
…leaving aside the fact that the United States is also a signatory to the UN Conventions on Torture which was ratified and it’s directly prohibited by federal statutes as well, hence the debate on whether or not waterboarding was covered.
I was just addressing the claimed comparison between the US and Imperial Japan, not the propriety of waterboarding in general. However…
For myself, the test of “do we consider it torture when it’s done to captured U.S. personnel” is a pretty persuasive argument.
For me the fact that we do it to our own soldiers without considering it torture is somewhat persuasive. I also think that when people are willing to undergo the process voluntarily just to see what it’s like, it doesn’t rise to quite the same level as pulling out fingernails or pulling arms out of their sockets.
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mark, both his falling into and coming back from alcoholism were interesting. Actually, the part of the book that occurred after LZ’s repatriation seemed to me almost like a separate book. His life certainly took some twists and turns.
A number of the women in the book seemed to be exceptionally strong, although LZ’s wife certainly stood out in that regard. Not sure why, but I found it somewhat surprising that her family stuck by him as well. I wonder if that kind of commitment is as prevalent now.
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surprising that her family stuck by him
VERY.
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Not sure why, but I found it somewhat surprising that her family stuck by him as well.
Good point, Okie. I know my familial experiences have shown that is not always the case and my family has not been through anything quite so trying.
I read the book at least a year ago and, if I’m be honest, did not particularly enjoy the book. I think it was mostly due to the depressing nature of the book. Just beating after beating, followed by alcoholism. I just felt that the book got stuck, too much. It certainly was enlightening to learn about the abuse the soldiers took and obviously I am amazed at what a single human can expand. It certainly brings things into perspective regarding the hardships I have endured. However, I just felt the book moved too slowly.
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However, I just felt the book moved too slowly.
I could barely put it down until the war ended. Then it seemed like wrapping up all the loose ends, which I could read at a more leisurely pace.
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For me the fact that we do it to our own soldiers without considering it torture is somewhat persuasive.
The rapid spread of this talking point has flummoxed me. This is training on how to resist torture. The word ‘Resistance’ is in the very title. It teaches service personnel what to expect if they were tortured by preforming a mock torture.
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yello:
…by preforming a mock torture.
Is there evidence that the waterboarding undergone by our service personnel in training is qualitatively different than that undergone by KSM?
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Scott – rather obviously we don’t repeat waterboarding our own personnel over weeks and until they break. We give them a taste of what it is like, not a continuing effort.
Do you want a link for that?
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mark:
rather obviously we don’t repeat waterboarding our own personnel over weeks and until they break.
Yes, it is my understanding that what they undergo in training is the very same method (ie not “mock” waterboarding, but actual waterboarding), just for a different duration because it is for a different purpose.
So is it your position that it is the amount of waterboarding, not waterboarding in itself, that makes it objectionable?
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So is it your position that it is the amount of waterboarding, not waterboarding in itself, that makes it objectionable
No. Waterboarding as training against torture is good, but waterboarding as torture is bad. A single waterboarding event done to crush a detainee is bad.
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mark:
Waterboarding as training against torture is good, but waterboarding as torture is bad. A single waterboarding event done to crush a detainee is bad.
So, then, it is the reason (context) behind the action that determines whether or not it is bad, not the action in itself. I actually agree with that. But I believe that the reason behind the waterboarding of KSM, for example, was not to “crush” him, but rather was to obtain information from him. I don’t know what information they were after, nor what they got, and so cannot say definitively that I think it was justified, but nor can I say definitively that it was not justified.
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The positions that waterboarding constitutes torture, and that the Japanese prison camps during World War II were a lot worse than Guantanamo are not mutually exclusive. One doesn’t have to argue that Guantanamo makes the United States “just as bad” as Imperial Japan to make a case against it, or the interrogation techniques.
Hyperbole undermines the argument.
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jnc:
The positions that waterboarding constitutes torture, and that the Japanese prison camps during World War II were a lot worse than Guantanamo are not mutually exclusive.
Agreed. And the positions that Japanese prison camps during WWII are condemnable, and that waterboarding KSM was justified are also not mutually exclusive.
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A single waterboarding event done to crush a detainee is bad.
A single anything done in order to torture someone is bad. There is no scenario in which torture is justified, as the “ticking time bomb” has been debunked years ago.
There is no scenario in which torture is justified.
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I don’t know what information they were after, nor what they got, and so cannot say definitively that I think it was justified, but nor can I say definitively say that it was not justified.
I’m with Michigoose here. The ends can never justify the means.
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yello:
The ends can never justify the means
So do you think that waterboarding our own soldiers in order to prepare and train them is not justified?
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So do you think that waterboarding our own soldiers in order to prepare and train them is not justified?
And this is where we go down the semantic rabbit hole. Providing anti-torture training, albeit astoundingly verisimilitudinous (which I know is not a word), is not the same as using torture as an interrogation method. Nobody is actually trying to extract actionable intelligence by demonstrating the techniques on service members. I do wonder if such training is actually effective in preventing captured soldiers from breaking ala Homeland.
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yello:
Providing anti-torture training, albeit astoundingly verisimilitudinous (which I know is not a word), is not the same as using torture as an interrogation method.
Well that’s exactly the question. Is an action, waterboarding someone, the same no matter the ends to which it is being used? Previously you implied that it was always the same, and could never be justified. Now you are saying that it is not the same, and can be justified. If waterboarding is inflicted on someone as “anti-torture training”, then it is apparently different, and more justified, than if it is inflicted on someone as “an interrogation method”. So, then, apparently the ends does justify the means, and therefore the ends must be examined in order to know whether the means were justified.
The trouble here, and the reason for visiting the “semantic rabbit hole”, is that your are simply trying to establish your claim by force of definition rather than rational argument. Your premises are that torture=bad and that waterboarding=torture, therefore water boarding=bad, no more thought needed. I am challenging your premises. I know you hate it when that happens, as you generally do not like to examine your premises, but that’s the way it is.
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So do you think that waterboarding our own soldiers in order to prepare and train them is not justified?
Quit being disingenuous Scott; the end here is completely different than torture. This is, and always has been ever since it was raised (what, ten years ago or so?) a silly argument and not a justification for torture at all.
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“Michigoose, on October 8, 2012 at 10:44 am said:
…
There is no scenario in which torture is justified.”
Then we should cease rendering detainees to foreign intelligence services to get around the pro forma restrictions on interrogations by American personnel.
The whole anti-torture argument by the Obama administration is one big exercise in hypocrisy.
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Then we should cease rendering detainees to foreign intelligence services to get around the pro forma restrictions on interrogations by American personnel.
As I wrote yesterday at 7:14 AM, and reiterate here in support of JNC.
EDIT: Kelley, this really is a reason to vote for GJ.
EDIT by Michi: and I can, since my vote doesn’t count anyway. . .
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The whole anti-torture argument by the Obama administration is one big exercise in hypocrisy.
No argument here. If anything, outsourcing our interrogations is worse.
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Then we should cease rendering detainees to foreign intelligence services to get around the pro forma restrictions on interrogations by American personnel.
I agree. And this administration’s continuation of the rendition policy is one of my biggest disappointments with it.
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I am challenging your premises. I know you hate it when that happens, as you generally do not like to examine your premises, but that’s the way it is.
As you have. Based on your inquiry, I now wonder what the value of waterboarding in a training environment is except as a machismo bonding experience. My father was a fighter pilot yet had never taken any parachute jumps. I asked him why and he said the Air Force was losing too many pilots to accidents. Not everything you are training for has to be experienced first-hand.
If anything, the only point of water-boarding our own troops is to prove to them how horrific the experience is. A lesson that seems to have been reversed by torture apologists.
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yello:
If anything, the only point of water-boarding our own troops is to prove to them how horrific the experience is.
That seems highly unlikely.
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yello:
If anything, the only point of water-boarding our own troops is to prove to them how horrific the experience is
The point is more to have them experience it so that they know what to expect. That’s one of the reasons why repeated torture is counter-productive; the fear of not knowing how bad something is going to hurt or whether or not it will actually kill you is about 95% of the effectiveness of torture. Once you know what’s involved it rapidly loses its fear factor and becomes little more than an exercise in endurance.
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And this administration’s continuation of the rendition policy is one of my biggest disappointments with it.
Interesting choice of words. I guess getting another country to torture for you is more forgivable than doing it yourself.
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Scott:
That wasn’t what I said at all. I don’t know how you got that from my statement.
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“markinaustin, on October 8, 2012 at 11:49 am said:
Then we should cease rendering detainees to foreign intelligence services to get around the pro forma restrictions on interrogations by American personnel.
As I wrote yesterday at 7:14 AM, and reiterate here in support of JNC.
EDIT: Kelley, this really is a reason to vote for GJ.
EDIT by Michi: and I can, since my vote doesn’t count anyway. . .”
Lest there be confusion, let me state my position clearly:
I endorse Alan Dershowitz’s proposal for a FISA like court to issue torture/interrogation warrants along with surveillance (as they do now) and assassination/targeted killing warrants upon review at the request of the executive.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/09/07/the-case-for-torture-warrants/
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Want-to-torture-Get-a-warrant-2880547.php
http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/torturewarrants.html
This should be done by the CIA and not the military as these sorts of interrogations that go outside the Army field manual are in my opinion corrosive to good order and discipline, as demonstrated by Abu Ghraib.
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jnc:
Lest there be confusion, let me state my position clearly
Thanks for clarifying. If I understand you correctly, you are not saying that it can never be justified, but that a legal procedure needs to be put in place to ensure that discretion over its use lay in hands other than simply the executive himself. If that is correct, it seems a reasonable position and you and I are largely on the same page.
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“ScottC, on October 8, 2012 at 1:26 pm said:
jnc:
Lest there be confusion, let me state my position clearly
Thanks for clarifying. If I understand you correctly, you are not saying that it can never be justified, but that a legal procedure needs to be put in place to ensure that discretion over its use lay in hands other than simply the executive himself. If that is correct, it seems a reasonable position and you and I are largely on the same page.”
Correct, except I do consider waterboarding, as practiced by American interrogators, to be torture. It’s important to call things what they are and not try to dodge the debate through the use of semantics and arguments like “pain equilivent to organ failure”, etc to pretend that we aren’t doing what we are doing.
My own expectation is that the pharmaceutical industry should be able to come up with an interrogation drug that doesn’t inflict pain at all, but rather is something like Ecstasy that creates happy feelings of camaraderie, thus making interrogation easier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
Also, as Dershowitz notes the effect of a general prohibition and lack of process will be that it is done at the discretion of lower level interrogators if they feel that circumstances require that they need to go outside of the rules. It’s an argument over transparency and rule of law as well.
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jnc:
Correct, except I do consider waterboarding, as practiced by American interrogators, to be torture. It’s important to call things what they are and not try to dodge the debate through the use of semantics and arguments like “pain equilivent to organ failure”, etc to pretend that we aren’t doing what we are doing.
The problem with this “call things what they are” approach is twofold. First of all, to many the term “torture” (as we have seen here) carries with it automatic and necessary moral opprobrium. It means, to them, wrong/unjustified by definition. Therefore, when discussing whether and when, say, water boarding might be justified, to label it “torture” is the real dodge to the debate, because it then simply becomes a matter of tautology. As we saw with yello….torture=wrong, water boarding=torture, therefore by definition water boarding= wrong. That’s not a particularly fruitful or edifying “debate” to me.
Second, I think relevant distinctions can and should be drawn between various things that might be called “torture”. For example, as I suggested earlier to Mark, I think there is a qualitative difference between water boarding and, say, pulling out someone’s fingernails or breaking their arms out of their sockets. To simply resort to the generic term “torture” as if they are all by their nature equal is to lose this distinction or pretend it does not exist.
For both of these reasons I do not agree with you that a debate about water boarding is advanced by “calling it what it is”, ie torture.
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jnc:
My own expectation is that the pharmaceutical industry should be able to come up with an interrogation drug that doesn’t inflict pain at all, but rather is something like Ecstasy that creates happy feelings of camaraderie, thus making interrogation easier.
Depends on what you want the information for. Administration of “truth serum” (sodium pentathol, benzodiazepines) is coercion in the eyes of SCOTUS (Townsend v. Sain, 1963) and confessions thereby produced are inadmissible.
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It’s for replacing waterboarding and the other “ehanced” interrogation techniques by the CIA, not general police use. Last I checked, none of the existing CIA interrogations are admissible either in Federal court. In any event, prosecution is a secondary priority to intelligence gathering with regards to terrorists.
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In any event, prosecution is a secondary priority to intelligence gathering with regards to terrorists.
I will reiterate: there is no scenario which justifies torture.
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In any event, prosecution is a secondary priority to intelligence gathering with regards to terrorists.
Hence the clusterfuck in Guantanamo on if and where we can actually ever try any of our detainees.
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Scott:
When, if ever, would you be able to justify torturing someone in order to gain information?
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As we saw with yello….torture=wrong, water boarding=torture, therefore by definition water boarding= wrong. That’s not a particularly fruitful or edifying “debate” to me.
I have no problem with that transitive property. Which premise of the syllogism do you dispute?
If it is not torture, than what is waterboarding? And if waterboarding isn’t torture, then what is?
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yello:
Which premise of the syllogism do you dispute?
I can only tell You for sure if you define the terms. But I suspect what I would dispute is that torture is always and necessarily unjustified.
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“yellojkt, on October 8, 2012 at 2:32 pm said:
In any event, prosecution is a secondary priority to intelligence gathering with regards to terrorists.
Hence the clusterfuck in Guantanamo on if and where we can actually ever try any of our detainees.”
Why would it ever be necessary to actually give them trials? Under current (bi-partisan) policy, returning them to their point of capture and giving them a 10 second head start prior to the drone strike should suffice as due process.
Now, if you wanted to seriously consider using the judicial process in these cases, simply eliminate the exclusionary rule.
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“Michigoose, on October 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm said: Edit Comment
In any event, prosecution is a secondary priority to intelligence gathering with regards to terrorists.
I will reiterate: there is no scenario which justifies torture.”
I find Dershowitz’s response to this argument compelling:
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“ScottC, on October 8, 2012 at 2:45 pm said:
…
For both of these reasons I do not agree with you that a debate about water boarding is advanced by “calling it what it is”, ie torture.”
I find it’s more effective to cede the semantic argument (among other reasons, because I believe it’s accurate) and debate the core principle.
Regardless, I don’t think you can coherently argue that if an American is waterboarded then it’s torture, and if it’s an American doing the waterboarding then it’s not.
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jnc:
I find it’s more effective to cede the semantic argument (among other reasons, because I believe it’s accurate) and debate the core principle.
The core principle being…? (BTW, I try not to even engage in the semantic argument.)
I don’t think you can coherently argue that if an American is waterboarded then it’s torture, and if it’s an American doing the waterboarding then it’s not.
I don’t know who argues such a thing. I certainly have not and do not.
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“ScottC, on October 8, 2012 at 3:23 pm said:
jnc:
I find it’s more effective to cede the semantic argument (among other reasons, because I believe it’s accurate) and debate the core principle.
The core principle being…? “
Whether torture is ever justified.
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jnc:
Whether torture is ever justified.
Ah. As I said, I think you and I agree that it can be.
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Whether torture is ever justified.
I hope you get an answer, jnc, because he wouldn’t answer me.
Out for a while, but I’ll check in later tonight.
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I really recommend reading the 2011 Dershowitz piece in full. I think it does justice to both sides of the argument.
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jnc:
I really recommend reading the 2011 Dershowitz piece in full. I think it does justice to both sides of the argument.
Yes, it was a good piece.
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I can only tell You for sure if you define the terms.
How did I think I could ever skip the all important Definition Of Terms phase of the discussion.
I don’t think you can coherently argue that if an American is waterboarded then it’s torture, and if it’s an American doing the waterboarding then it’s not.
It comes down to a variation on The Golden Rule. If we wouldn’t want a captured US serviceman treated that way, we shouldn’t treat our captured combatants that way. Anything else is simple vengeance.
I’ve always argued that we lost the war in Iraq the day the Abu Graib photos were released. Instead of a combination of a Orwellian torture chamber and a Midnight Express-esque prison it should have been Club Med. We should have given them all hot showers and nightly goat roasts with dancing. Then after a week let them go with the warning that the next time they would be shot on sight.
Most of Dershowitz’s
rationalizationsarguments sound like variations on Col. Nathan R. Jessup’s tirade.LikeLike
yello:
How did I think I could ever skip the all important Definition Of Terms phase of the discussion.
Probably because you are not really interested in my answer, that’s how.
If we wouldn’t want a captured US serviceman treated that way, we shouldn’t treat our captured combatants that way.
False equivalence. Members of Al Qaeda are not the functional equivalent to US servicemen, for many, many reasons.
The proper comparison is not between US servicemen and captured Al Qaeda members, but is rather between American members of a terrorist organization captured by a foreign national power and members of Al Qaeda.
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Scott:
Again, When, if ever, would you be able to justify torturing someone in order to gain information?
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“ScottC, on October 8, 2012 at 4:37 pm said:
jnc:
Whether torture is ever justified.
Ah. As I said, I think you and I agree that it can be.”
I do. Even more so, I agree with his argument that the current hypocrisy undermines the rule of law, democratic accountability, and checks and balances.
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“Michigoose, on October 8, 2012 at 6:35 pm said:
Scott:
Again, When, if ever, would you be able to justify torturing someone in order to gain information?”
He answered yes at 4:37 PM.
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“yellojkt, on October 8, 2012 at 6:29 pm said:
It comes down to a variation on The Golden Rule. If we wouldn’t want a captured US serviceman treated that way, we shouldn’t treat our captured combatants that way. Anything else is simple vengeance. “
I don’t think it’s necessarily simple vengeance. More than anything else, it’s expedience. It really is about getting the information, not punishment.
Also, I believe we are having the luxury of this debate due the lack of successful high causality attacks on American soil following 9/11. These tools will be employed again if deemed necessary by a future administration.
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OT (which in this case stands for “on topic”): Scott, have you read this particular book?
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okie:
Scott, have you read this particular book?
Yes.
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Case in point on the rule of law:
“Justice” can now be either an FBI investigation and prosecutions in a court of law, or a drone strike. Apparently they are now equivalent.
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jnc, as always, thanks for that link. I’ll have to check it later (down time is over, it’s canning tonight!). I’ve queued it with the other links you provided this weekend. Many thanks.
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jnc:
He answered yes at 4:37 PM
He still hasn’t answered my question, which is When, if ever, would you be able to justify torturing someone in order to gain information?
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Thanks, scott. What are your thoughts about the book? Did you like it?
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okie:
I did enjoy it. Fascinating to see what one human being can endure.
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