http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/423c041f-0328-4f23-a9c1-86a4ebc6cfea -- FAQ - Torture! Posted by Dean Barnett | 3:37 PM 1) Let’s get right to it. Do you support torture? Let me say what I do support: When it comes to high value targets in the war on terror, wannabe evil-doers who possess or might possess important information, I support any measures necessary to extract that information. 2) So you support torture! I am gobsmacked and filled with heartache. There you go again, making erroneous conclusions without really knowing what you’re talking about. What is commonly considered torture – the rack, breaking kneecaps, bamboo under the finger-nails - is useless for extracting actionable information. Such techniques can get the victim to confess to anything under the sun but if it’s intelligence you seek, they’re not very helpful. And if you read a book like “Confessions of an Innocent Man” which details the hell a North American went through in a Saudi Arabian prison, you know these techniques spring from deeply sadistic souls, not committed professionals. 3) But I watch Jack Bauer on “24” and see him getting everything he needs by brandishing a pistol and with a judiciously placed blow. What gives? It may have escaped you, but “24” is not a documentary, nor is it a scholarly inquiry on effective interrogation techniques. 4) So what does the actual scholarship say? The key to gathering information is to disorient the subject. If you disorient the subject enough, he lets go of his secrets. Discomfort is actually much more useful than pain. 5) What’s the best way to get information? Unquestionably water-boarding. 6) Gosh, I live in an intellectual broom closet and determinedly try to avoid any enlightenment on this subject. Please, please, please – don’t tell me what water-boarding is. No dice. In water-boarding, the subject is strapped to a board with his feet above his head. A sheet of cellophane is placed over his face. Since the technique has existed and been used successfully for centuries, cellophane wasn’t always the face-covering tool of choice. It used to just be a cloth. The interrogator pours water over the cellophane. This triggers a gag reflex. The prisoner feels like he’s drowning. He feels that way because the combination of everything causes supreme disorientation. If one speaks with intelligence agents who openly used this technique like the French, Germans or Russians, they swear by it. It also works quickly. The rumor is that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad broke in under a minute. 7) But Amnesty International and the left say the information gleaned from this technique is unreliable. Is it? Amnesty International is either confused, dishonest or both. Some people do say it’s unreliable. But the undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool. 8) That’s a very clinical way of putting it. Why don’t you go have yourself water- boarded and see how you like it. No thanks. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it. I’m sure it’s extremely unpleasant. Does it rise to the level of “torture”? That’s for each individual to decide. 9) What do you think? I don’t care. If some body of linguists or semanticists convened a weekend retreat in Cambridge, impartially studied the issue and labeled it torture, I still wouldn’t care. The welfare of terrorists is not my concern. Even if all the Jack Bauer-type crap you see on “24” was the best way to go, I’d still be okay with it. 10) But it’s not just terrorists. It’s suspected terrorists. Surely that bothers you. It does. It’s inevitable that innocent people will be subjected to this kind of treatment. But this is war, and in war we make moral compromises. For example, normally we don’t like to kill people. In war, we try to kill people by the thousands. That Amnesty International guy that I was on TV with last night kept whining that we wouldn’t be having any of this if it weren’t for 9/11. Duh. If we weren’t at war, we could comfortably remain in the moral sphere that we aspire to. But right now, that’s not an option. 11) But we didn’t do stuff like this in World War II, did we? I don’t know. But I do know we fire-bombed Dresden. I know we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I know that in doing these things we knowingly engaged in actions that killed tens of thousands of innocents. When you’re at war, moral compromises are part of the deal. 12) But tell the truth – you and the others who support the measures we’re talking about, including the president, don’t seem particularly broken up about these so called “moral compromises.” With you, I always tell the truth. Look, it’s a grim reality. It stinks that we have to do this. It would be nice if all those Jihadist lunatics would give up on their dreams of a global caliphate and leave us alone. I think what we have to do is clear, so I’m unbothered by the administration’s direction. 13) But wouldn’t you like to have a president who is more bothered by (or at least cognizant of) such things? Definitely not. Bush 41 was so bothered by the ugliness of war that he enshrined the Powell Doctrine and refused to topple Saddam. People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men are ready to do violence on their behalf. I’d rather these rough men not be contemplating their navels and flagellating themselves over doing what needs to be done. 14) Now I know you’re on a little bit of a high because you debated this issue on TV last night. How’d it go? The guy I was debating, the head of the local chapter of Amnesty International, had three points he kept raising. They were Abu Ghraib was bad, Bush is bad, and giving field-agents carte blanche to torture is bad. Since all three of these were irrelevant and just partisan talking points, I didn’t really address them. 15) How do you see the politics of this playing out? The Democrats hate this issue. Abu Ghraib, which truly was a national disgrace, didn’t move public opinion because the public just doesn’t care about the welfare of these people. The fact that a guy like Sherrod Brown, one of the most liberal members of the House who’s running to become one of the most liberal members of the Senate, supported the bill tells you that the smart Democrats don’t like this issue one bit. 16) Smart Democrats? Heh. Heh indeed.
What is torture? I mean, is holding someone in a room for 8 hours under a hot lamp torture? Is the cellophane thing torture? Clearly whipping someone is torture....but where's the line? I mean, the way I see it, as long as someone is not permanently damaged or injured in anyway....(physically or mentally) - then it's not torture. But how does the Geneva Convention define it?
I've always assumed it was something that inflicts physical pain on a person. In other words, pumping Christina Aguilera music really loud into a prisoner's cell don't count.
They don't define it. They generally talk in vague terms like outlawing '...mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture'.
It seems to me that anyone condoning torture, in the common definition, is unworthy to live in this country. As far as defining torture, it gets pretty dicey. This radio guy apparently sees himself as something of an expert in interrogation because he heard that one specific technique worked at some point. This is partisan garbage. The fact that we're even considering allowing torture of any kind is the equivelant to a congressional resolution that recongizes Osama for his success on 9/11.
If that guy is subject to torture because we have to make some "moral compromises" then he will change his stand in a split second. Anyone who supports torture should be tested as subjects first, then they know how stupid they are.
Would it be ok for our troops who are captured to have cellophane wrapped on their head and waterboarding done to them? Is that what you think the standard should be for our troops and agents that are captured?
I think governments would perform unofficial waterboarding with the circumstances provided, let alone extremists. Those who join the military should recognize the possibility of being subjected to far worse. I don't believe or condone in the use of torture, but realistically... A news program showed predator footage of Haliburton contracted drivers being pulled out of a truck, stripped and shot. I don't think that's a hypothetical question upon how far a terrorist would go....
I volunteer to be subjected to water boarding if we can then stop talking about it and have it be a mainstay in our intelligence gathering operations.
Does it really work though? I mean this guy claims that there are plenty of studies that confirm the effectiveness of waterboarding but what most people miss is that the FBI and CIA have had gigantic disagreements on how to interrogate suspects. The FBI, which has the most experience in interrogation, has repeatedly lashed out against the CIA and has asked for traditional interrogation techniques to be used exclusively and has argued that the only way to feter out real, reliable intelligence is to use standard practice. The CIA which has never had any experience in this field has opted to use waterboarding and other humiliation techniques that have little to no backing. I've never seen a study or position paper that has made any sort of definitive statement on waterboarding. It seems, according to many in the FBI, that waterboarding is no different than other types of torture. It will quickly coerce the subject into talking but whether the intel is reliable is entirely different. When KSM cracked from waterboarding, he listed out several terorrist "plots." None of which we ever heard from again. The government didn't even claim to have "stopped" any of these plots. One was a plot to collapse the brooklyn bridge with a freaking blowtorch. Yes you heard me, a blowtorch. Either Al Qaeda is just flat out stupid, or KSM is just making **** up. There's no reliable evidence that indicates that waterboarding works and the one agency that has major experience in interrogation has consistently rejected the use of torture.
If you sink as low as extremists, then you are no different from them... And here we are not talking about just the enemies. Anyone who is suspected or labeled as terrorist will be subject to tortures. And recent bills make it impossible for the innocent to seek legal protection. That is scary.
War is an ugly affair for sure.... but does this water torture actually cause physical harm? Or is it just very unpleasent? I'm all for an effective means of interrogation. Clearly extreme torture is probably not going to be the most effective way of collecting intelligence. But what is the effective means? Are they even known? What are the limits of making someone cooperate? Can you threaten a captured prisoners family to make them talk? That's clearly dispicable - but what if they know information regarding a terrorist plot? Where does one draw the line?
Its a hard line to draw which is why we should take a precautionary approach and just not engage in this stuff. Either way, there's no evidence that indicates that torture of any type works at all. Instead of focusing on the moral ramifications, looking at it from a question of effectiveness indicates that much of the claims of "effectiveness" is just hype from the administration and conservatives. The State Department and FBI have been against this stuff the whole time because history shows it just doesnt work.
Ok I do not know who this guy is, but he is funny. So basically he is saying Yes. But he wants to be political about it. This is funny, so he is saying that 24 is not a documentary?? WOW amazing i never knew that, i always thought it was a program with real people, filming them in their normal life. Thanks for clearing that up I really do not know what you are trying to show here Basso? What is your point?
FB- how many signatories of the geneva conventions have we been at war with? i'm generally not too worried about our soldiers getting captured by, say france, but with your average jihadi i'd have to say i'd probably prefer waterboarding to, oh, beheading, which i'm pretty sure the geneva conventions outlaw.
not really - the prison planet article, while definately pushing an agenda, at least used facts, quotes from law professors and analysis of the bill in question. this article is total garbage w/ no bearing on reality. the strawman democrat the author set himself up arguing against thinks 24 is real. "24" is not real??? thanks for pointing that out dude.
they are terrorists - thats what they do. i would think that americans would want to hold themselves to a better standard, but i guess i thought wrong. the fact that we as a nation are debating this issue at all is just sick and shows how low we have gone since bush took power.
