Ticking Bombast
Let’s say you’ve caught a suspect and you’re sure that he’s a terrorist, and you’re sure there’s a nuclear bomb planted somewhere in Manhattan, and you’re sure that he knows where the nuclear device has been planted in Manhattan, and you’re sure that this particular terrorist has been trained to resist torture just long enough that you could never get the true location of the bomb out of him in time. But you’re also sure that this particular terrorist is a pervert! And he tells you that if you’ll let him watch you rape your own child in front of him, he’ll tell you exactly where the bomb is and how to disarm it. And you’re sure that he will, because your intelligence is that good in exactly that way.
Wow! What a fascinating hypothetical, huh? And really, no less unlikely than the ticking bomb scenario you’re more familiar with, when you consider just how precisely the foundation of that dilemma has to be laid. So how come we hear so much about the other one and nothing about mine?
The answer is simple: State agents don’t have any ambition to rape their own children.
In the preceding sentence is the clue to the real misdirection of the ticking bomb scenario as endorsed most recently by right-wing America’s (and my own) bete noire, Hillary Clinton. The ticking bomb scenario is presented as “What would YOU do?” but it’s not, in truth, got anything to do with you. The proper question is, “What should we prudently allow officials embedded in the security bureaucracy to do with impunity?”
You could construct a hundred hypotheticals involving utilitarian tradeoffs and terrorism before breakfast, none less (im)plausible than the first. You only hear about the one because only one serves the purpose of validating the State’s desire for more power.
Comment by Nell —
October 18, 2006 @ 9:42 am
Thanks very much for spotting this. For year’s I’ve been a ‘Hilary? over my dead body’ Democrat, but I was pleasantly surprised by her floor speech. Pure theater, then.
I’d begun thinking recently about what cabinet position she might take in a deal to keep her from running… I’d settled on Attorney General. Well, that’s right out.
Comment by jlw —
October 18, 2006 @ 10:11 am
Hmmmm. I suppose there’s a joke somewhere to be had in this about extraordinary rendition to Vatican City, but I cetainly wouldn’t want to tell it.
Comment by matthew hogan —
October 18, 2006 @ 11:09 am
I’m still wating for the atrocity in that Iraqi village to be dismissed as merely a collateral rape.
Comment by Doctor Memory —
October 18, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Since when did you become such an optimist, Henley?
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
October 18, 2006 @ 11:55 am
The other night I sat up late and watched the old Clint Eastwood movie, Sudden Impact. The film celebrates summary justice and torture to a terrible degree. (Amazing how some folk think of Eastwood as a paragon of libertarianism. Not in that film, for sure).
In the movies, of course, we “know” that the bad guys are bad and therefore cheer when Eastwood gets out the gun to waste the bad guys. But that is the point: it is a movie. In real life no-one is going to have such assurance that the person being questioned is guilty.
The ticking-bomb excuse is also crap anyway becaus a suspect might just give false info. Most of the utilitarian defences I have seen for torture can be pulled apart in seconds.
Comment by Avram —
October 18, 2006 @ 12:10 pm
And in real life we “know” that the bad guys are bad because they’ve got dark skin or funny names or read the wrong books or worship with the wrong rituals.
Comment by bbartlog —
October 18, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
This does nicely expose the defenders of the ticking bomb rationale as cryptosadists.
I still think the stronger argument against the ticking bomb scenario (as a justification for legalizing torture) is that there already exist legal loopholes that a torturer could use if such an unlikely scenario were to play out. There is such a thing as a necessity defense, after all; or else a presidential pardon could be sought. But I think the lowest appropriate bar is that in order to torture someone to hypothetically save lives you should also be willing to gladly suffer whatever legal penalty you faced as a consequence. If thousands of lives are really on the line your own legal culpability really shouldn’t be a big concern of yours.
As for Eastwood, yeah. I think you can argue that ‘Unforgiven’ is a partial apology for some of the simpleminded earlier movies he starred in, but it’s a compicated movie and my take on it may be off.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 18, 2006 @ 2:29 pm
Sorry, but you are utterly wrong. That scenario, with a lesser amount of potential damage, occurs daily in theaters of war. An enemy is captured who has knowledge of impending operations against our troops. Disclosure of that information will save our guys. It is the same thing, unless I am missing something.
Comment by jlw —
October 18, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
Bill Kaplan:
Say the tables were turned, and you knew information vital to the well-being of American troops (with an sell-by date of, say, 36 hours). Are you saying that some amount of torture would cause you to tell the enemy accurate information, as opposed to disinformation or misinformation? Is that how little cherish the well-being of American troops?
For shame.
Comment by bbartlog —
October 18, 2006 @ 2:56 pm
Perhaps you can provide us with an example, then? Surely if it occurs daily there have been hundreds of such incidents and it wouldn’t be hard for you to provide us with one.
Comment by Jennifer —
October 18, 2006 @ 5:16 pm
Something I’ve always wondered about the ticking-bomb scenario: how is it possible to have a situation where your intel is good enough to know there’s a bomb, know it’ll go off at X o’clock, and know the guy you’ve captured has the exact info you want, but you don’t know where the bomb is?
Comment by Doctor Slack —
October 18, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
Brilliant post.
That scenario, with a lesser amount of potential damage, occurs daily in theaters of war.
I’ll buy that American troops torturing the locals because they actually have some version of the “ticking bomb” scenario in their heads could well be happening daily in theaters of war. (Though somehow I doubt it’s the predominant dynamic.) Even if true, this would say nothing whatsoever for the “ticking bomb” scenario, since all evidence strongly suggests that American attempts to get decent on-the-ground intel have been clearly and comprehensively stymied at every turn in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The new enthusiasm for torture doesn’t, IOW, appear to be paying off.
Comment by Thomas Nephew —
October 18, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
I’ll take a slightly different view and suggest that maybe the “ticking time bomb” question ought to disqualify the questioner, not the answerer, at least for the time being. Possibly some kind of new (and more justifiable) Godwin’s Law — the game’s over once the question’s asked.
Hillary Clinton really should have known better, and she earns a demerit for this, but at the end of the day what happened is that she flunked a trick, “gotcha” type question — as we keep pointing out ourselves — framed in a very particular way.
By contrast, when push came to actual shove for her, she voted against the MCA bill and its expansions of State-desired power, as opposed to getting tripped up by an editorial board question.
Reading Sanchez, for example, I think he takes a great approach to the “ticking bomb” question, but I also think he takes maybe a thousand more words to get where he’s going than the average pol has in the average sitdown with an editorial staff.
I think if Clinton hews to this line after due consideration, that will partly undo the vote she cast and the speech she gave. But it’s hard to ‘get around’ the ticking bomb rhetorically, once you’ve made the mistake of accepting the premise. I’m more interested in what she actually does, which was good, in this case at least.
I think there’s an echo here of the Dukakis-Shaw incident (”would you want the death penalty for some guy who raped your wife?”). I think the right answer is something like “I’m not sure what I’d want, but what might tempt me personally isn’t the same thing as what we ought to write into law.” But it’s easy for that to be seen as evasive or aloof, too.
Comment by Thomas Nephew —
October 18, 2006 @ 6:07 pm
I’d also recommend Jennifer’s counterquestion.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
October 18, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
I really, really, really like Jim’s counter-question: it makes it obvious how stupid, loaded and insulting that scenario is. I’m going to adopt it as my standard ticking-time-bomb counter-response from now on. I might use Jennifer’s question if I basically respect the person who asked it and think they brain-farted, but in general the sorts of people who seriously advance the ticking time bomb are really looking for excuses rather than reasons.
Comment by Hesiod —
October 18, 2006 @ 6:25 pm
Or, the terrorist says: “If you gouge your own eyes out with a knitting needle, I’ll tell you where the bomb is.”
Or…he says: “You you bring me your President’s head on a platter, I’ll tell you where the bombe is,” or…
“You torture Alan Dershowitz to within an inch of his life and I’ll tell you where the bombs is,” and so on.
Hey…this is fun.
Comment by Glaivester —
October 18, 2006 @ 6:39 pm
“You torture Alan Dershowitz to within an inch of his life and I’ll tell you where the bombs is,†and so on.
This wouldn’t be a hard decision even if there weren’t a bomb.
Comment by John Emerson —
October 18, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
Probably they should hire state agents more carefully in the future, and weed out the ones with a phobia about raping their own children. It’s a good thing you caught this one — someday a lot might depend on having a baby-raper on the job at a given place and time.
Comment by John Emerson —
October 18, 2006 @ 7:44 pm
Nephew: I think that the Dukakis wife-rape question was a macho test, not a policy test. Quite a range of violent answers would be OK, regardless of policy, and no reasonable, controlled answer would be acceptable. What I’ve wondered is whether ignoring the question and getting mad at the questioner wouldn’t be good enough. “You SOB, keep my wife out of this!”
I blame the stupid ticking time bomb clishe on 1.) movies, TV, and I suppose video games — which strategy people confuse with reality, and 2.) analytic philosophy and its stupid hypotheticals.
Comment by David —
October 18, 2006 @ 7:55 pm
This is what has always bugged me about that scenerio (similar to Jennifer’s comment): Mr. X terrorist, never shows up on your doorstep wearing a sign that says “Lose weight now, ask me how. Also, I’m a terrorist with vital nuke bomb info!”.
Intel is gathered (for the most part) in a piecemeal fashion. You got to Mr X via means that either involved non torture methods or you used torture. If the latter, then you have lost your morals and crossed that Rubicon, so the scenerio is pointless: you will torture him. But, if the former, why can’t you continue in that manner and still use non torture methods to gather intel.
Yes, the opponents will say, but the “BOMB IS TICKING”. Well, life is not like 24 and no one in this admin is Jack Bauer, regardless what they think of themselves.
In gathering info to protect your country, you do this w/in a framework of morals that you believe sets you apart from the “bad” guys. Now that we have said torture is okey-dokey, what really sets us apart from the “bad” guys?
Anyway, slightly off topic, now that we have signed this and said we have a right to deny access to space to anyone “hostile to U.S. interests.”, we can look forward to the torture argument involving Martians and the ticking Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space.
Comment by DonBoy —
October 18, 2006 @ 8:29 pm
Or, the terrorist says: “If you gouge your own eyes out with a knitting needle, I’ll tell you where the bomb is.â€
Congratulations, you’ve just won the right to pitch Saw IV for release next year.
Comment by Barry —
October 18, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
“Sorry, but you are utterly wrong. That scenario, with a lesser amount of potential damage, occurs daily in theaters of war. An enemy is captured who has knowledge of impending operations against our troops. Disclosure of that information will save our guys. It is the same thing, unless I am missing something.”
Bullshit. What happens is that US troops round up a whole bunch of guys, because they don’t know who knows what. Remember Abu Ghraib? (sp?) It turned out that US troops, who didn’t know what was going on, rounded up guys and sent them there.
Guantanamo? The US government paid Pakistani/Afghani bounty hunters $5,000 on up for each ‘Taliban’ or ‘Al Qaida’ fighter. The bounty hunters, of course, brought in as many bodies as the US had payments for.
Comment by Alex —
October 18, 2006 @ 10:09 pm
Great comments by just about everybody. And great post, Jim. I don’t have much to add, but I will say that I liked this one:
in general the sorts of people who seriously advance the ticking time bomb are really looking for excuses rather than reasons.
Bingo. I figure that if we ever do face that scenario, the agents will torture and then be pardoned, acquitted, or maybe never even be prosecuted. There’s no need to legalize something that will never be prosecuted. The point of banning torture is to have the power to prosecute in the far more likely scenario where there is no ticking time bomb.
Comment by BruceR —
October 18, 2006 @ 11:32 pm
Here and elsewhere, I have asked for one solid example where torture-derived information was successfully obtained in time to change the course of an actual military operation for the better. I’ve never received a response on point.
Comment by Blar —
October 18, 2006 @ 11:41 pm
I figure that if we ever do face that scenario, the agents will torture and then be pardoned, acquitted, or maybe never even be prosecuted. There’s no need to legalize something that will never be prosecuted.
I hate to come in here against an anti-torture argument, but this doesn’t sound right to me. The question is not just whether torture should be legal in our country, but also whether our country should be studying torture techniques and training torturers. If we’re not (and I think that almost everyone here agrees that we shouldn’t be) then we’ll be relatively unprepared to torture effectively in the unlikely event that a ticking bomb scenario arises. (Maybe torturing ability doesn’t matter in cartoonish ticking bomb scenarios, but it will in any real-life analogue.) You can’t have your torture and ban it too.
There’s also a problem with Jim’s rape-your-child example, which is probably fixable. In that case the terrorist is giving in because you’re doing what he wants you to do (raping your child), while the torture in the classic ticking bomb case gets the terrorist to give in because you’re doing something that he doesn’t want you to do (torturing him). So instead of being tough and manly, the torture advocate could just say that it’s appeasement or negotiating with terrorists or what have you. Maybe instead of being a pervert who wants you to rape your baby, the terrorist could be sickened by the incestuous rape and give up in order to get you to stop. Then I think the argument goes through a lot more smoothly.
Comment by Michael —
October 19, 2006 @ 7:42 am
My take on “ticking bomb” is that it’s an excuse, as Neel suggests.
My answer is “Of course it should be against the law, and if that loaded hypothetical that can’t happen were to ever happen and you made the right choice and saved the city from the terrorist nuke, then the cops wouldn’t arrest you, the prosecutor wouldn’t bring it to a grand jury, the grand jury would no-bill it, a trial jury wouldn’t convict, the governor or the president would pardon you, and you’d be elected Mayor of New York from your jail-cell. Probably any of these that were necessary would happen before your parade. And if they didn’t, maybe the situation wasn’t what you described. Jeez, don’t you trust the people not to do something stupid without a law to force them to?”
Comment by Rabia —
October 19, 2006 @ 7:55 am
“In that case the terrorist is giving in because you’re doing what he wants you to do (raping your child), while the torture in the classic ticking bomb case gets the terrorist to give in because you’re doing something that he doesn’t want you to do (torturing him)”
I don’t think that problem in the argument is fixable. Not because it will come across as giving in to a terrorist but because doing what someone wants is simply not as effective a strategy for getting them to do what *you* want than something like torturing them. The whole argument hinges on the guy being trained to resist torture for a certain amount of time. But torture isn’t exactly a discrete quantity, that’s why it’s so useful, I would imagine.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 19, 2006 @ 10:05 am
In theaters of war the truth or falsity of the information given by the enemy can be confirmed and the enemy remains under the control of the torturer, giving the enemy plenty of reason to tell the truth.
And Barry,two points. Abu Graib has been given back to the Iraqi government. I have heard that the prisoners want the Americans back.
Second, if Guantanamo is full of unfortunates rather than jihadis, then why is the recidivism rate high? We always seem to be killing releasees with guns and ieds in their hands.
Comment by Anodyne —
October 19, 2006 @ 10:13 am
“…but in general the sorts of people who seriously advance the ticking time bomb are really looking for excuses rather than reasons.”
Do you really believe this, Neel? What’s the difference between an excuse and a reason in this context?
Comment by Avram —
October 19, 2006 @ 11:24 am
Bill, what is the Gitmo recidivism rate?
Comment by Jennifer —
October 19, 2006 @ 11:46 am
if Guantanamo is full of unfortunates rather than jihadis, then why is the recidivism rate high
Assuming this is true, do you not think it’s possible that a guy who originally had nothing against Americans might develop a lower opinion of us after we locked his innocent self in a hellhole prison camp for several years? Surely you’re not bigoted enough to suggest that Americans are the only ones allowed to get pissed off at people who inflict injustice upon them.
Comment by Walt —
October 19, 2006 @ 12:20 pm
Of course it’s not true. If it were true, we would have heard about it long before some dude on some comment thread. Bill is a practitioner of the from-his-ass school of fact production. Don’t fall for this.
Comment by Walt —
October 19, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
Bill, we shouldn’t torture people because, as our host put it, we are the fucking United States of America. If you don’t like it, I’m sure there are many torture-friendly countries out there who’d like your allegiance. I suggest Syria.
Comment by Barry Freed —
October 19, 2006 @ 12:50 pm
“Aw, crap! Just mmy luck. I don’t have any kids. Hmm…tell you what though – make it Rummy’s grandkids and we got a deal.”
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 19, 2006 @ 1:24 pm
Bill, the ticking bomb scenario has extra conditions on it that don’t obtain in garden-variety “Here’s some prisoners. Shall we torture them?” situations. Your “Here’s some prisoners. Torturing them may save the lives of some of our troops. Shall we do it?” is entirely different in ground conditions than the ticking-bomb scenario. Yours is actually easy to answer: No. All armies in hostile action end up taking prisoners who could theoretically be tortured into providing information that would save the lives of members of the torturers’ army. International law is very clear on the matter: There is no exigency which may be invoked to excuse torture. The fact that we might save some American soldiers’ lives by torturing Iraqis gives doesn’t matter. It’s still a war crime. This is as true for, say, Baathists torturing Kurds to save Baathist soldiers’ lives, Serbs torturing Bosniaks to save Serb soldiers’ lives or Brits torturing Ulster catholics to save the lives of British soldiers.
Like I say, there’s not a word of the above that is not settled international law. There’s not a principle contained therein that the US has not invoked to justify war crimes prosecutions from 1945 to 2005. That’s the very set of truths the ticking bomb scenario exists to distract us from.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 19, 2006 @ 2:51 pm
Avram — Impossible to know. However, I have tracked 7 cases of release and either reimprisonment or death on a battlefield.
Jim Henley–Your analysis leaves out the most important part — the so-called Geneva conventions apply only to uniformed personel of nations involved in war. In our current predicament, those conventions DO NOT APPLY.
To All — Yes, we are Americans. We do not torture, in accordance with our constitution, FOR PUNISHMENT. However, if it is not for punishment, but rather for information, the jury is out.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 19, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
Bill your distinction is absurd. It is certainly not one we nor the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague have allowed other nations to invoke. You will find that, in practice, torture is considered a crime against humanity regardless of circumstance. The Convention Against Torture is very clearly constructed with no escape clause.
The jury is not out. It sounds like you want to justify torturing people, like you approve it. If that is so, let me just say that you are a vicious, diseased little ratfucker unfit for polite company. If I’ve mistaken your meaning and you actually oppose torturing people, then you’re not.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 19, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
Jim,
Polite company never interested me, but I am more of a man than a rat could satisfy.
I am extremely disturbed by torture, as I am by death, mayhem, chaos and peace and security through submission to powerful unjust governments. Somewhat further down on the list of disturbance are intellectuals unrestrained by common sense like those in the Hague.
But my vision is clear. We are better than our enemies (radical Islam)in this conflict and their winning would be an unpardonable sin if we had the chance to win. To the extent torture is necessary for us to win, I endorse it with precisely the same vigor as I “endorse” the death of one of our good men in the fight they are in. I hate it, like I hate all wars, all famines, all gross injustices. But we do not have a choice sometimes.
I would love to hear an argument that I believed that torture was universally ineffective. It would end the question for me. But I have not heard that, so I strive to limit the context when it could be used. BTW, things like sleep deprivation and 40 degree holding cells are not torture in my book.
Comment by Anodyne —
October 19, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
I know that the TTB scenario has been discussed here before in a variety of different ways. I also acknowledge a little bit of free form digression can go a long way when trying to flesh out several arguments simultaneously. Nevertheless, Jim, I’m really confused about the point you’re trying to make here.
Here’s what I thought you were saying as I read in the original post. The TTB scenario is so precise as to be of little practical or, for that matter, abstract relevance. I’ll begin to demonstrate its irrelevance by producing an equally irrelevant hypothetical.
At this point I’m sort of confused about what the post is supposed to be about, but I’m thinking it has something to do with why you think TTB hypothetical appears to get more play from some (nebulous to me at this stage) group than other possible too-finely parsed alternatives.
Next, you say the reason why your particular hypothetical gets ignored, i.e., State agents don’t have any ambition to rape their own children. So, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, I think that you are implying that one the reason the nebulous group brings up the TTB is because they do have an ambition to torture people for torture’s sake. Then you go on to offer an additional argument for why the misguided TTB scenario is the “go to†hypothetical for the nebulous group. For some reason, presumably having nothing to do with the real issue at hand, it captures our interest and misdirects our attention away from the relevant issue, which you argue is: What do we allow state agents to do in our name.
So in the end I think the claim I’m being invited to ponder is this: Anytime someone uses the TTB I should be aware of the fact that it is too contrived to be useful and is being wielded by someone who is trying to cover up his real desire to see people tortured (sadism?) and simultaneously further the interest of State power. Please straighten me up on what I’ve misconstrued.
BTW, aren’t prohibitions on torture in international law (as you understand them) binding on both the situations Bill brings up as well as TTB scenario? If so, how do these prohibitions on all torture, regardless of the situation, further your argument that the TTB is intended to be a distraction foisted on us by people interested in advancing State power? I’ll hang up the phone now and listen to your answers
Comment by Barry —
October 19, 2006 @ 5:45 pm
Bill Kaplan:
“In theaters of war the truth or falsity of the information given by the enemy can be confirmed and the enemy remains under the control of the torturer, giving the enemy plenty of reason to tell the truth.”
Starting at the end of this paragaph, and working backwards: I envy you, Bill. You’ve obviously never been in enough pain that ending the pain *right now*, *for now* is reason for saying anything that you think might work. I’ve had some drug-induced migraines that put me almost there, with absolutely no voltage being applied to my genitals. Before that – Joe says that he’s a guerrilla, and that his friends and neighbors are. They, under torture, confess. Nice chain reaction.
“And Barry,two points. Abu Graib has been given back to the Iraqi government. I have heard that the prisoners want the Americans back.”
Not as Bad as Saddam rears its ugly head! D’oh! Got it wrong – Not as Bad as Our Liberated Iraqi Government of Freedom. Which, of course, is even worse, since we did that.
To Godwin like mad here, moving from Hitler to Stalin was a step up for quite a number of people in ‘44 and ‘45. I, for one, prefer neither.
“Second, if Guantanamo is full of unfortunates rather than jihadis, then why is the recidivism rate high? We always seem to be killing releasees with guns and ieds in their hands.”
See above.
Comment by washerdreyer —
October 19, 2006 @ 6:02 pm
We are better than our enemies isn’t a claim about our essential goodness (if so, it’s false). It’s a claim that we don’t do things like torture our enemies to avoid casualties to our troops. When you followup by saying torture is necessary to win, I don’t know what you mean by “win,” because what is this thing which there are literally no alternative ways to win then torturing our enemies? There are no other costs we could choose to pay?
Comment by Glaivester —
October 19, 2006 @ 6:25 pm
I operate under the Red Dawn principle: I would not have a problem with torturing enemy combatants if they invaded and occupied the U.S. I would have a problem with doing so on foreign soil that we have invaded and occupied, no matter the justification.
Why? Because we live here!
Comment by Hesiod —
October 19, 2006 @ 7:45 pm
Bill, sorry, the burden’s on you to produce evidence that torture is effective. Not on us to prove it isn’t.
But first you have to define “effective.”
Comment by stiggywigget —
October 19, 2006 @ 8:44 pm
TTB is difficult to refute because it is so incredibly asinine. I think your point is that state actors are enthusiastic about coercive power for its own sake. If torture is justifiable then why wouldn’t appeasement be justifiable if the same end is served? It would be. It just wouldn’t be as much fun. The point really is to HURT the bad guy.
Your post is absurd and offensive but really insightful still. Nice job.
Comment by Doctor Memory —
October 19, 2006 @ 9:12 pm
Quote Bill: “I have tracked 7 cases of release and either reimprisonment or death on a battlefield.”
Name them. (While you’re at it, some justification for their imprisonment in the first place would be nice, since being randomly deported and tortured is certainly known to radicalize people.)
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 19, 2006 @ 9:25 pm
Washerdreyer:
“We are better than our enemies isn’t a claim about our essential goodness (if so, it’s false). It’s a claim that we don’t do things like torture our enemies to avoid casualties to our troops.”
So self-sacrifice is your standard of ethics? Then give yourself to some hungry cannibal and be done with it! You will prove that you are better than the cannibal.
Glaivester — No matter the justification? So if US troops entered Darfur …
Hesiod– The practicality of any measure can only be determined by doing it. Only after experimentation can a proposition be proved or disproved. Accordingly, the burden would be on you to prove it impractical a priori.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 19, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
Oh and Barry, stay away from those drugs.
Comment by Michael Sullivan —
October 19, 2006 @ 9:58 pm
These comments bring up an interesting question: How does one discuss torture with torture advocates like Bill Kaplan, to best effect?
It’s broadly evident that he himself is not susceptible to having his position changed, so one must attempt to reach a hypothetical less entrenched third party — someone who is either undecided on torture, or who advocates it with less than a religious fervor.
What’s the strategy? Any approach will be some mixture of dissecting the logical flaws in the position and repeatedly pointing out the utter evil of the stance. Both are basically easy arguments to make, because the logic is pathetically bad and the morality of torture is not in question.
Personally, I think that getting too involved in cutting down the rational support for the idea is a trap. I don’t think that our hypothetical third party is probably very interested in the minutia of a tertiary point like “Does the uniformed/non-uniformed status of POW’s meaningfully change how much a battlefield scenario is like/unlike the ticking bomb scenario,” and if you discuss it, you give the impression that you are broadly agreed with the torture advocates, disagreeing only in fiddly details that are uninteresting to them.
I think also that people like Kaplan know this: he’s thrown out, what, like five pathetically flimsy arguments in the course of about four posts, and fiercely pursues any discussion which seems like it’s heading down the path of some minor detail, while broadly shrinking back from more general points.
My impression is that the best course of argument for one of the sane position is a strongly principles-based moral argument, only occaisionally touching on a few of the broadest pragmatic matters, flavored with little outright name calling, but maybe two or three unmistakeable breaks to point out the awful depravity of the other side, and that this is not a topic on which reasonable human beings can politely disagree.
But I’m not sure, and this is a subject I’d dearly like to really get right — just have a really strong rhetorical base argument or two that I can whip out, tune to fit, and slap into place when it comes up. It’s an important subject, and not one where you want to use less than your most persuasive arguments. There are some pretty good rhetoric people here: anyone have any ideas?
One big question I’ve got within the framework that I’m tentatively aiming towards is how much to push the cowardice issue: torture advocates like to set themselves up as Dirty Harry types — you see Kaplan doing it upthread — tough, unflinching guys who have an unpleasant job but do it because it’s necessary, not because they take any joy in it. The truth is that torture is the tactic of cowards and sadists — but I wonder if that actually doesn’t play. Is there a significant audience out there who feel like they really are afraid of terrorists, and really would like to make “them” suffer, and so would — not admitting it, of course — be appealed to by characterization of torture as cowardly and sadistic? Would it be better to emphasize “evil and socially depraved” (ie, not only are you bad, but decent people ostracize you)?
Seriously, what does everyone think?
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 19, 2006 @ 10:16 pm
Michael, the last is an excellent question: the pragmatics of calling people out on the corrupt combination of cowardice and bullyhood in people like Kaplan. In school you ran into teachers and parents who argued that “All bullies are cowards underneath.” I don’t know if it’s true that all bullies are cowards. Some bullies may be simple sadists. Clearly SOME bullies are cowards, as Kaplan illustrates: His talk is all fear fear fear – a relative handful of scary foreigners somehow pose an existential threat to the mightiest nation in history. He’s practically wetting his pants. Underneath, of course, he knows perfectly well who holds the whip hand – us, not them – which is where the bully aspect comes in. It’s the very fact of our vast advantage in power that gives us the ability to drag random people out of wherever they live to wherever we feel like putting them and commence to inflict pain and suffering on them while they are helpless in our grasp. It’s our vast advantage in power that assures that the leaders who play to Kaplan’s cowardice that they have little practical worry about some foreign prosecutor pulling a Pinochet on their ass.
As you say, the question is, does it do any practical good to point out that torture advocates are vicious little cowards? I don’t know the answer. All I know is that I saw what a huge component the coward/bully dynamic played in selling the Iraq War in the first place, but I was very gingerly about pointing it out – the closest I came was my “Million Mom War” piece, where I tried to be really polite and discreet about broaching the cowardice issue. I was still trying to reach hawks with sweetness and reason.
I now regret that politesse. It was just vanity, really. I was too concerned with preserving my status – long gone! of every warblogger’s favorite dove.
There’s certainly a real risk in turning some people off by calling them, or people they identify with, on their cowardice. My hope is that some other people will respond to clarity and conviction. As you say, we can’t win over someone like Kaplan – call it, someone who goes out of his way to support torture in a public forum – but we can help observers remember why people like him are pathetic.
We don’t NEED everybody, just a critical mass.
Comment by Walt —
October 19, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
Bill, don’t be a big, fat pussy. I know that the word honor is foreign to you, but pusillanimous cowardice never looks attractive, even when draped in an American flag.
Comment by Michael —
October 19, 2006 @ 11:05 pm
So, I want to re-frame the question. I’ve used the “it’s not effective” argument, and I’m not happy with it, because it suggests that if one could find an effective torture, it would be justifiable. Torture apologists have lists in the pockets of 150 known successful interrogations and take you down the garden path.
I’m opposed to torture even if it works. So far my best approach seems to be “What could you look your seven year old in the eye and explain you’d done to a person who you had complete control over and who it turned out was innocent?”
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:01 am
Forget it. You can’t change people’s minds on this issue. Either you think torture is wrong, always and forever, or not. If you don’t think it’s wrong, there’s no reason not to do it. Like Churchill said, you’re only haggling over the price.
If Jim’s argument (we’re the U.S. of F’n A.) doesn’t sway you, nothing will.
Comment by KCinDC —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:45 am
Michael, I think the “complete control” is an important point, but there are plenty of “normal” killings that are an accepted part of war that the killers probably wouldn’t want to look into their 7-year-olds’ eyes and explain. So I’m not sure that argument will work that well with people who aren’t pacificists, and pacificist torture apologists are scarce.
Comment by Leonard —
October 20, 2006 @ 1:22 am
I’m not buying the parallel of “rape your own child” to “torture a random prisoner”. They are both dirty and despicable acts, yes. In that sense they are similar. But they feel different to the torturer; and whose power do you think we’re talking about here? People love their children. They don’t love random other people. Therefore people will do things to random other people that they will not do to their children.
It’s nothing about a will to power per se. Just evolved preference. Any system that tried to make people do something they are evolved to resist will collapse; but obviously tormenting others is not something we are particularly averse to.
As for the broader picture of the torture debate, I think the reason the ticking bomb scenario has power is that most of us, rightly, fear being tortured (to the extent we think about it). I don’t know how I would perform; but I do know that I like my fingers and toes and internal organs as they are. I might crack. (I might not, but I don’t know that.) Given that I think torture might “work” against me, it’s easy to think that torture may well be “effective”, in the sense of getting people to give up true information they wouldn’t otherwise.
In fact this seems rather clear to me. For any given individual, maybe, maybe not. But if you torture enough, some percentage will break.
The reason not to do it is that it is morally abhorrent, not that it won’t “work”. Not to mention the whole bit about knocking down all the laws then when they’re flat… nowhere to hide. If “we” set the precedent now, maybe it’s me being kicked and waterboarded and raped by Americans in 20 years.
And note again that the parallel collapses. I know that I’d die rather than rape my own child. And because I know how I feel about him, I have a pretty fair idea how other parents feel about their children. It’s just not going to happen, regardless of any alleged benefits you hold out.
Comment by Belle —
October 20, 2006 @ 2:14 am
you know what this post needs? a he-man reference.
Comment by dsquared —
October 20, 2006 @ 4:27 am
the so-called Geneva conventions apply only to uniformed personel of nations involved in war
I can understand why people might be ignorant about whether the Geneva conventions apply to irregular and guerrilla forces (they do) and to terrorists (they do), but why in the name of God would anyone refer to them as “the so-called Geneva Conventions”. They are the Geneva Conventions. There is no doubt about this matter.
Comment by Barry —
October 20, 2006 @ 7:04 am
Bill Kaplan —
“Oh and Barry, stay away from those drugs.”
That made me laugh. I haven’t had such a pathetic comeback since a neo-nazi called me a Catholic. His code name for Jew, which gives, well, not you, but normal people, an idea of how strange he was.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 20, 2006 @ 7:20 am
Now see, I was most amused by his assumption that, on this site of all the ones on the internet, invoking “Darfur” constituted a zinger.
Comment by Kip W —
October 20, 2006 @ 7:26 am
The usual TTB argument, as it is always framed, reminds me of the classic detection puzzles of the form, “We know the following about these five people. Mrs. Burgoyne went to college with the murderer. Mr. Gluefactory is sitting two people away from the brother of the girlfriend of the murderer. The milkman and the gorilla don’t know each other…”
I always read these and say “How the hell do you know all that without knowing the murderer’s name and address?” These things are a total fabrication, and so is the situation where we know with absolute certainty that by putting this little brown guy in a vise he’ll tell us where the ticking nuke is.
I’d say more, but from here on I’d just be recapping what’s already been said better. An excellent post, with many great comments and good responses to the torture troll.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:09 am
About two years ago I made the case for a moral absolute on another blog. The case I made was that slavery (involuntary servitude to be precise) was always and everywhere wrong. The moral relativists I was dealing with presented arguments against my case, all of which I deemed weak.
Then hurricane Katrina came and I saw an interesting piece about how in a hurricane earlier in the century Americans were forced, at the point of a gun, to remove decaying bodies of nature’s victims. Had those bodies not been removed, there would have been typhoid and other contagions spread. No one would have removed the bodies but for the use of force. Was this case of involuntary servitude wrong?
Different cases require different solutions.
Was it evil for Churchhill to leave his populace defenseless and in harms way just so he would not signal to the Germans that the enigma code was broken? I don’t know, just like I don’t know whether torture is ever helpful. But the option should not be taken off the table if it is helpful to a recognized and important goal.
Comment by David —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:21 am
I fail to see how toturing someone is helpful if the goal is to end terrorism.
The bigger question for me is: just how does leaving toture on the table as a useful tool help spread democracy?
Comment by David —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:28 am
Sorry, thats supposed to be torture.
But, I’m sure that toture doesn’t work either.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:45 am
“I fail to see how toturing someone is helpful if the goal is to end terrorism.”
Wrong goal — torture might well be used to prevent AN ACT of terrorism, not terrorism itself.
Comment by Anodyne —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:50 am
For the sake of discussion I’ll stipulate that there is some percentage (individuals can supply their own guess about what that percentage is) of people who are both sadists and talk about the TTB scenario. I’ll also stipulate that there is some percentage of people who talk about the TTB scenario to advance the use of torture for reasons that have nothing to do with getting vital information in time to save lives. That said, I my own guess is that a very high percentage of people who contemplate (and ask others to contemplate) the TTB hypothetical are in fact examining their own views on torture, albeit within a pointed and unlikely scenario. The alternative hypothetical Jim advanced is similarly pointed and unlikely, but in my opinion serves the same purpose as the TTB hypothetical. These two Hypotheticals roughly correspond to two possible strategies for how to acquire information that would prevent an unwanted outcome; i.e. force and appeasement. There is no guarantee that either of the general strategies would work in practice (and there are of course other strategies available that can be approached by means of different Hypothicals), but I don’t find either Hypothetical irrelevant to the issue of how one would contemplate how they would personally respond to a threat.
I’ve stated my impression of what Jim was saying in his original post and asked for verification or clarification. Neither appears to be forthcoming. So, venturing ahead with my perhaps mistaken initial impressions intact, I’ll ask some questions of anyone who wishes to field them. If a (not the only) relevant question is “What should we prudently allow officials embedded in the security bureaucracy to do with impunity?†then how do you go about answering that question without first asking yourself what would You do? If you believe that asking yourself what you would do is an antecedent to what you would allow others to do in your name, why would you dismiss the TTB scenario out of hand? To push the envelop a little further, why would you dismiss the TTB scenario even if you knew with certainty the majority of people promoting it were sadists looking to further the interest of the State?
Comment by Hesiod —
October 20, 2006 @ 10:22 am
Hesiod– The practicality of any measure can only be determined by doing it. Only after experimentation can a proposition be proved or disproved. Accordingly, the burden would be on you to prove it impractical a priori.
So nobody’s ever tortured a suspect to gain information before? Is that what you are saying?
Comment by Michael Sullivan —
October 20, 2006 @ 11:15 am
No, Hesiod, he’s saying that the practicality of vivisecting, say, John Q. Public over there as a method to create a new oil reserve in southern Nevada can’t be determined without trying it. You just don’t know what kind of magical results you can get out of pointless sadism until you’ve really experimented.
Not just once, mind you. That wouldn’t be scientific. No, we’re gonna have to torture a whole mess of people before we can come to any conclusions.
Comment by Avram —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
Bill Kaplan: “However, I have tracked 7 cases of release and either reimprisonment or death on a battlefield.”
Seven cases? A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that more than 40 prisoners have been released from Gitmo, and you’re telling me that a 17% recidivism rate justifies torture? That’s lower than the recidivism rate for the ordinary US penal system.
Comment by Avram —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:06 pm
My version of the ticking bomb scenario doesn’t even involve a ticking bomb:
I am a Gitmo interrogator. You are an innocent person, falsely accused of being part of a terrorist network. You’ve told me that you’re innocent, but that’s the same thing you’d say if you really were a terrorist. How long should I torture you before believing your claims of innocence?
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:17 pm
Anodyne: The answer is that pretty much all your questions are irrelevant.
Thanks to many decades of experience on the part of many nations’ armed forces, and to many decades of medical, psychological, and social research outside combat on the part of many nations’ scholars and scientists, we know very well indeed what gets people to tell truths they’d rather not share. So there’s literally no need to speculate, because the answers are right out there for all to see.
Military manuals for interrogators, trials in which claims extracted various ways are subject to cross-examination and analysis, controlled studies of the behavior of examiners and examinees, and a lot more, it’s all out there. If you want to know what are ideal practices and what harm various forms of shortcutting and approximation do, you can.
Just so there’s no ambiguity:
The ticking-bomb story is bullshit, because it has nothing to do with real interrogation at all.
If you want to find fascinating, challenging, hair-raising tales of the circumstances under which real interrogators have to work, you can. Their work is very, very unlike this piece of bullshit. So for God’s sake, set the bullshit aside and turn to reality, which is waiting ot teach you many things that (if you’re like most of us) will surprise, fascinate, and otherwise hold your attention.
You may wish to start with , and the ensuing discussion.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:23 pm
Damn, not sure what happened to the link.
Here it is again.
And just to clarify…when I say that the ticking-bomb situation is irrelevant, I should provide some context. I’ll do it by examples.
I have a very clever cat. From time to time I have to go get info fromv ets and experienced cat owners about what to do when he’s getting into food that isn’t good for him, or find out whether it’s okay for him to be chawing on this or that, or whatever. I have never had to go get advice on what to do if he starts regularly sending messages in my name via e-mail or instant message. I did have to deal with the issue of him standing on keyboards when I’m away, and that I solved partly through conditioning (spray bottle of water, yay) and partly through software keyboard locking.
As a father, our host has to deal with all kinds of challenges concerning his kids. But it’s a good bet that he will never, ever have to deal with his daughter wanting to be president of the local chapter of the national association of serial killers, except that they only want men in leadership positions. There is no such association, and his daughter is not likely to become a serial killer. The time he might spend worrying about that is time that could be better spent thinking how to support and guide her development as a woman who’ll possess the classic virtues thoroughly – honesty, integrity, courage, kindness, and so on.
Yes, the ticking bomb is that irrelevant to how interrogation really works.
Comment by Anodyne —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
Well, Bruce, if there is an ensuing discussion, perhaps we will both be in for a few surprises.
Comment by IOZ —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
What I want to know, Bill, is how you eat off that table when you won’t remove any of the options cluttering it up?
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 20, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
Anodyne, I’m thoroughly confident that I don’t know everything worth knowing on the subject. The more I learn about how real interrogation works, though, the more I find it fascinating, and illuminating – both in how it’s unlike other social interactions, and how much it’s like them.
Comment by Madeline F —
October 20, 2006 @ 1:43 pm
Michael Sullivan: Good questions, and good points. Seems to me that the most effective combo is personal attacks and making your group look more noble and attractive to any potential listeners. So the best anti-TTB arguments are along the lines of “This guy wants to think he’s Dirty Harry, but he’s a snivelling little coward who wouldn’t save people if it meant he might go to jail… He can’t stomach doing what is right if he has to do it alone. He has to drag the whole country down into the gutter where he’s hiding, pretend that torture is something that decent people might accept. And it’s clear that anyone who wants a license to torture is disgusting…”
Taking and holding the larger-looking arguments “all good people think torture is sick” and “courageous men can go it alone” looks more impressive than “but they weren’t in uniforms”, and obviously reframing the argument every time it drifts to something other than your points is necessary. Well-done personal attacks and mockery carry the rest. Eh, this all basic flame war stuff; I guess the question is which points to make your base. Anyone think we ought to jigger, or add or subtract from, the above two?
Comment by Hesiod —
October 20, 2006 @ 1:54 pm
There is an argument in favor of keeping the torture option, at least publicly, “oin the table, while not actually employing it.
That is, the threat of torture might actually be more effective than actually comiting torture. ONce you started torturing somebody,m tehy have nothing to lose.
But the antcipation or threat of tirture might have a more powerful psychological effect than the orture itself.
But for that to happpen, the threat of tirture has to be “credible.” And if the Coingress outlaws it, you give the suspect reason to doubt your sincerity andyou lose the psychological benefits of the threat.
Now, I’m not suggesting that’s why Bush has fought against making “harsh interrogation” illegal. But I am saying that, as a devil’s advocate, there may be a pragmatic basis for not criminalizing it in this context.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 20, 2006 @ 2:31 pm
Avram,
“A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that more than 40 prisoners have been released from Gitmo, and you’re telling me that a 17% recidivism rate justifies torture?”
Stop believing Wikipedia! Hundreds have been released, which, in fairness lowers the recidivism rate the way you conceive it. However, I don’t do this full time and I’m sure there must be plenty more. Moreover, recidism rates in US prisons include bad check writers and dubbie rollers. Hopefully it includes few murderers, which is the more appropriate category for jihadis.
Comment by Barry Freed —
October 20, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
Jim, upon further reflection I must conclude that your version of the TTB™ scenario is grossly irresponsible in its lackadaisacal portrayal of unsafe sex. Do I really have to remind you, of all people, that “actions have consequences”?
I also believe that the performance of the abovementioned operation sans condom constitutes a grievious violation of OSHA regulations (with the caveat that this might not apply should the child rapist be an employee of DHS rather than DOD).
I trust that you’ll do the right thing and adjust your scenario accordingly.
Best,
BF
Comment by David —
October 20, 2006 @ 4:41 pm
One third of the world (out of 27000 people polled) support torture to combat terrorism, according to this BBC survey.
I’ve got nothin’ to add except to paraphrase Lincoln “If torture is not wrong, Then nothing is wrong”.
Comment by Doctor Memory —
October 20, 2006 @ 4:47 pm
Bill: “I don’t do this full time and I’m sure there must be plenty more.”
More? We’re still waiting for you to give us the names and citations on the first 7 recidivists you claim to know of.
A citation for your assertion that “hundreds” of prisoners have been released from Gitmo would also be nice, seeing as how you’re making it up.
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
October 20, 2006 @ 5:58 pm
Please don’t feed the troll.
Sorry, I got that wrong.
Please don’t feed the morally repugnant troll.
Comment by Avram —
October 20, 2006 @ 7:09 pm
Bill Kaplan: “Moreover, recidism rates in US prisons include bad check writers and dubbie rollers. Hopefully it includes few murderers, which is the more appropriate category for jihadis.”
According to the US Dep’t of Justice:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf
Recidivism rates within 3 years of release:
Homicide: 41%
Rape: 46%
Burglery: 74%
Possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons: 70%
Undermining my argument, “recidivism” in this case means being rearrested for some crime, not necessarily the one they had committed the first time ’round. Sometimes it was just a parole violation, like failing a drug test or missing an appointment with a parole officer. So it’s probably not fair to compare these statistics. The Justice Dep’t does say that only 1.2% of those convicted of homicide were arrested for another homicide.
On the other hand, your original standards — “either reimprisonment or death on a battlefield” — were pretty vague.
Comment by Jesurgislac —
October 20, 2006 @ 7:33 pm
Bill Kaplan: Wrong goal — torture might well be used to prevent AN ACT of terrorism, not terrorism itself.
Wrong. Torture is itself an act of terrorism. Torture is not used to obtain information – useful or otherwise – but to terrorise a people whom the torturers wish to subjugate. Torture can never be used to prevent an act of terrorism: it is itself an act of terrorism, and the use of torture creates more terrorists.
Comment by Bill Kaplan —
October 20, 2006 @ 8:35 pm
For all you self-righteous moral absolutists, I leave you this:
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/20/bombshell-abc-independently-confirms-success-of-cia-torture-tactics/
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:02 pm
Uh huh. Sure. I’m willing to stake a small wager that this will work out precisely as well as all the claims of vast WMD stores found.
Let’s see it hold up to a more thorough investigation, first. Any of these people willing to talk under oath?
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:03 pm
By the way, I’m deeply amused to be accused of being a moral absolutist as though it were a bad thing. When I grew up, the left wing was always tarred as the party of relativism. Any port in a storm, I guess.
Comment by Doctor Memory —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:33 pm
Once last time, “Bill”: name the seven. Provide a source for the “hundreds.”
Oh wait, you’re “leaving” before doing so? Color me shocked. Coward.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:43 pm
Worth noting, for people less easily impressed by anecdotes than Bill, a crucial moral distinction in the “forced at gunpoint to remove dead bodies” example. (Which I’m taking on faith, which is probably a bad idea.)
That particular instance of “slavery,” as Bill put it was local and sharply delimited in time. What’s more, the people dragooned stood to directly benefit themselves from the compulsion. They were after all in a disaster area and would have suffered from any disease outbreaks. Though one of the fascinating things I learned during the Katrina business was that the “unburied dead bodies are sources of disease” thing is actually a myth. Nevertheless, granting that Bill’s unnamed gun-wielders believed it, the highly temporary servitude they inflicted on the locals was, in their minds, to the immediate benefit of everyone involved.
Now, the way Bill’s mind works, we’d better state explicitly: while it can be considered to be Not Completely Bad to have forced those people at that time at gunpoint to bury bodies they didn’t want to bury, it would Not Be Okay to force those people at gunpoint to travel around the country burying bodies for the rest of their lives.
Comment by Don Fitch —
October 20, 2006 @ 9:47 pm
Re: #8: I have to doubt that we often capture people who know Important Plans. If the Chinese had captured me (in Korea, c.1951) I couldn’t have given them any useful information even if I wanted to. (Yeah, I knew the name of the mountain we were on, but the Enemy also had maps.) Maybe someone in the CoC above Capitan would’ve been able to, but such Officers rarely get captured. All we Troops knew about the Plans for the next day was that we probably wouldn’t like them. And, actually, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Insurgents (or whatever) were actaully smart enough to change their plans and Hq location if there were the slightest possibility that one of their members had been captured.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 21, 2006 @ 9:14 am
Don, the history of espionage actually suggests that while people may well have plans to change crucial stuff immediately if there’s reason to suspect secrets have gotten out, there’s also inertia. People get comfortable with their desk, their cubicle, their niche in the cave, whatever. The human impulse to not get uncomfortable if it’s not really necessary makes a lot of intelligence coups possible.
But your point about who knows what is very important, and I’m glad you made it.
Comment by Alex —
October 21, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Your argument from Churchill, if the reference is the one I think it is (the allegation that the ENIGMA decrypt warned of the German air-raid on Coventry, but the ASPIRIN radio nav jammers were shut off to prevent the decrypt from being compromised) , is factually incorrect. The relevant jammer was switched on, but was ineffective as the RAF Y Service elint people had chosen the wrong frequency.
Comment by Avram —
October 21, 2006 @ 2:08 pm
That video Bill linked to doesn’t provide much actual evidence that torture did any good. The only plot mentioned that was supposedly stopped due to information gained by torture was the Library Tower plot, which (1) couldn’t have succeeded anyway because it relied upon hijacking airplanes, and (2) was blown by Richard Reid’s bungled shoe-bomb attempt more than a year previous.
Comment by Andrew —
October 22, 2006 @ 1:29 am
It is 1944. A family of “high-value” Jews – husband, wife, and 11 year old daughter – are being flown by SS plane back to the Reich to almost certain doom.
But. The plane crashes. The family survives. So does a single SS officer…although badly injured. They are behind German lines, but near enough for an allied rescue. If the family waits, they will certainly be recaptured. If they can radio a message, they may be able to be rescued.
At first, the SS officer contends that he does not know how to use the radio. No one in the family can get it to work after repeated attempts.
Later the SS officer tauntingly offers to make a transmission…if he can first enjoy the young Jewess.
Father says “No…we have suffered enough indignities already! But I will beat that son of a bitch till he dies, or makes the radio work!”
Guess Dad isn’t a pure libertarian, huh?
Comment by Andrew —
October 22, 2006 @ 1:45 am
I mean Jim…would you say that YOU – or a true American – would have to make a different choice? To be moral? To be logically consistent?
In my example, it isn’t clear that the SS officer DOES know how the radio works, or that beating him would get it out of him.
But if he is innocent of knowing how the radio works, he isn’t innocent of being in the SS, or being on that plane.
It may be useless to try beating him, but under the circumstances, you MAY have a right to TRY.
You may also have the right to refuse him the services of your daughter…even if you were willing to beat him.
Your daughter is innocent. Is the SS officer innocent?
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 22, 2006 @ 6:00 am
Andrew, to me that has a strong reek of what I call “The Book of Questions style”. It’s such a rigged situation. They’re behind enemy lines, but close enough that they could be rescued, for instance? That’s awfully precarious. Did prisoner transfers ever happen that way, in circumstances that could produce one basically complete family of survivors and a single SS officer?
There’s a point to all this, and here it is:
I learned a lot from good fundamentalist and pentacostalist ministers over the years, and one of the most important lessons was that extreme cases are a very, very bad foundation for ethical or moral consideration. The earnest young Christian may wonder what he would have done if, like Simon Peter, tempted to deny Christ, but the odds of him ever having to deal with it are small. He’s going to have to deal with his bratty younger siblings, his well-meaning but not always understanding parents, his boring teachers, and so on. And in many ways, those are harder burdens to carry, day in and day out, than any single dramatic moment.
So it is with torture.
We have by now evidence of the paradigmatic case of torture of men and women in US custody. The victim was perhaps captured by US forces, but as often (or even more often, I’m not sure of the exact numbers available to us so far) taken by agents of other governments, bounty hunters, and others who aren’t in the US chain of command. The quality of evidence against the victim is highly variable, and often extremely low, and generally not investigated thoroughly before torture begins. Statements made under torture are seldom subjected to rigorous examination and cross-checking, and often not subject to validation of any kind. Nor are they used as evidence in hearings, because for many of these women and men, no hearing ever takes place. Prisoners and their treatment are poorly enough supervised that amateur photos of the whole thing are common souveniers.
This is what we have to deal with as a practical issue. Never mind the goddamn ticking bomb and never mind your von Trapp family armed for a rumble. This is what torture as conducted by the US means now, and if you’re in favor of granting the power to torture as a formal thing to this administration, this is what you’re in favor of. Let’s deal with what’s actually happening this moment by people claiming the power to do it for our sakes before we get too carried away with The Sound Of West Side Story Music.
Comment by clarke —
October 22, 2006 @ 9:02 am
Little late to the game here, but the Abu Ghraib recidivism tangent is just stupid.
To wit: I don’t have anything against, say, Yanni; I mean, I hate his shit and wish he’d stop, but his success doesn’t keep me up nights. But say Yanni somehow got it into his head that I posed a threat to his collection of billowy shirts and decided to pre-empt that threat by keeping me tied up in his basement and feeding me mustache wax until I fessed up–well, eventually he might see the error of his ways and let me go, but because I’m a rather rudderless individual with no real career prospects (just like a young Iraqi!), believe me when I say I would henceforth make it my FUCKING MISSION IN LIFE to destroy Yanni’s career. But just because I would spend my days planning how best to crush his piano-playing fingerbones to dust, that doesn’t mean he was right in his initial perception.
Sorry, I figured a really tortured analogy would be apropos.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 22, 2006 @ 10:56 am
That certainly was an analogy rich in torture. For some, or all.
Comment by Anodyne —
October 22, 2006 @ 12:47 pm
Bruce,
I appreciate you response to my earlier post, even though it was terse and your attempt to prove torture never works by internet link had me scratching my head in the same way Bill’s efforts to prove that torture can work did. FWIW, I think you’re locked into a mode of persuasion that presupposes a method analysis that doesn’t describe or even adequately summarize the way people really think about and arrive at conclusions on this subject. Respectfully, I think you are being too dismissive of what some people are saying and the various digressions the comments in this thread have taken.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
October 22, 2006 @ 1:04 pm
Andrew, here’s a different question.
Suppose we have a bunch of American soldiers in Iraq, none of whom speak any significant amount of Arabic. An IED goes off, and they sight some people with radios or cellphones fleeing the scene after the explosion. Our soldiers chase these people back into a village.
There, they call out the villagers, and try to find someone who knows a little English so that they can find out who their attackers were, and take them prisoner. They find an old man who knows a little English, and after some halting, broken communication, eventually some fighting-age men are produced. The soldiers take these men prisoner, and take them back to base.
Back at base, the Arabic-speaking Army interrogator questions the prisoners, who deny being terrorists. They claim that the guy who knew English just didn’t like them, and was trying to get the US Army to settle a score for him. However, their body language seems a bit shifty and untrustworthy.
1. If the US Army interrogator ordered their torture, do you think it would be justified?
2. Do you think this hypothetical is more or less typical of the circumstances in the real, actual War on Terror, than your hypothetical?
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
October 22, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
Anodyne, I’m not trying to prove things to you. I am hoping to point you at good sources of information about successful interrogation, to provide a more useful context. Part of what frustrates me about this debate-like thingie is that so many advocates of torture act as though nobody actually has much experience with how to gather information from unwilling captives, or has ever successfully deal with that task in a stressful crisis, or anything like that. And lots of well-meaning people with doubts about torture don’t realize they’re being snowed.
Hence pointers.
Comment by Anodyne —
October 22, 2006 @ 1:24 pm
Bruce,
I’m pretty sure I’d torture someone to get information in some hypothetical cases. In each case, however, the slightest variation in a premise or an unwanted outcome assumed to be known with certainty can change my position. Adding the slightest amount of uncertainty about a detail or outcome can also cause me to change my position. I’ve tried to get a handle on the question by gathering anecdotes and referring to statistical studies on topics ranging from mistaken identities to the effectiveness of given interrogation methods. I’ve also read a few tomes on morality and ethics and talked to a few professional preachers in my time. Still, I believe I would be compelled to torture someone under certain circumstances. However, there are very few circumstances under which I would feel comfortable delegating the choice to even a trusted friend or relative. In fact, in this time and this place I strongly prefer a legal prohibition against the use of torture by anyone, whether an individual, private group or government agency. This preference is based in large part on having compared my choices under different hypothetical cases (including the TTB) to the choices of other people and examining their reasoning. While there is substantial overlap there are also frequent and glaring differences. I’ll leave it to your imagination to infer how the exercise described could lead me to the personal conclusion that I’m both capable of torturing someone but in favor of a prohibition against anyone using torture – however you imagine I define torture. But if you think I’m misguided in my approach, I would ask you to look over the thread again, if only to take in the last exchange of thought provoking Hypotheticals by Andrew and Neel.
I’m skeptical when someone suggests I should ignore information or avoid thinking in a particular way, regardless of the reason I’m supposed to do it. Perhaps I’m still reading Jim’s original post incorrectly here, but if he really is inviting me to avoid thinking hypothetically or to throw out a particular hypothetical because only a sadist seeking to further the interest of the State would suggest it, then I’ll have to decline. In this particular case the attribution of sadism to the preponderance of people who propose the TTB scenario for my consideration doesn’t square with my observation of the world. The fact that his critique linked torture to a deliberate attempt by those who raise the TTB scenario to further the power of the State struck me also left me unmoved for reasons that can be left for another day. Similarly, your method of urging me to ignore my personal observations of torture succeeding (e.g., twisting the arm of a sibling to get his candy, or a cop beating an accurate, albeit illegally obtained, confession from a suspect) and put my faith in an internet link, which didn’t actually contain the cornucopia of information intimated in your comment, didn’t move me either.
Comment by clarke —
October 22, 2006 @ 1:44 pm
And remember, kids, the cowardly scumfucks who’ve stolen our country don’t have to convince us that torture’s acceptable, they just have to get us to stop rejecting it outright. I mean, who knows? Anesthesia-free dentistry in pursuit of actionable intel is so crazy it JUST MIGHT WORK.
Enjoying your bath, Mr. Frog?
Comment by Alex —
October 22, 2006 @ 3:29 pm
Anesthesia-free dentistry in pursuit of actionable intel is so crazy it JUST MIGHT WORK.
Look, here we are, bringing them modern Western dentistry, something most of them would never experience in their native countries, and you’re whining that they didn’t get every single accoutrement of a normal dentist office. A lot of Americans don’t even have dental insurance and you’re whining that a terrorist, somebody who WANTS TO KILL YOUR CHILDREN, got FREE DENTAL CARE?
OK, how was my impersonation of a Bushbot?
Comment by Andrew —
October 22, 2006 @ 7:31 pm
In response, I thought that my analogy was more apropos than some might think. There is no question that the officer is in the SS. There is no question that he previously held the family prisoner, with the worst intentions toward them And it is highly likely that he yet wishes them ill.
The analogy would apply to a high-level AQ like KSM, or OBL himself. They MIGHT not have useful information…but the position they have placed themselves in has attenuated a good measure of the dignity and rights that a random “suspect” should be assumed to posess.
I believe this is the way most Americans who give a qualified endorsement to SOME “rough interrogation techniques” view the issue. They are NOT focused on the thousands of dubious suspects in Iraqi holding facilities, or GITMO. They are thinking of the much smaller subset of “high-value” Rendition detainees, whose identity as AQ operatives is incontestable.
I think the Abu Gharib references are off point. The prisoners there were simply abused – they were not being interrogated, nor was anyone gathering evidence or “confessions”. The abuse was not sanctioned, wouldn’t be legal under any of the proposed legislation, and was in fact punished.
This thread began with a hypothetical, and hypotheticals can aid analysis. Jim seemed to believe torturing an SS man who only hours before was threatening and harming your family is – not merely wrong – but MORALLY EQUIVALENT to sacrificing the rights of a person (your own child) you KNOW to be innocent, because both means might serve the same end…and this is non-sense!
Torture may be wrong under ANY circumstances, …but it isn’t THAT wrong – and this is a distinction worth making.
The 60% of Americans who support some torture legislation in principle are not moral monsters…even if they fall on the wrong side of this issue.
Comment by Mr. Frog —
October 22, 2006 @ 11:28 pm
I think it’s getting warm. But I lack the moral compass to be sure.
Comment by Happy Jack —
October 22, 2006 @ 11:39 pm
Apparently, Khalid Sheik Muhammed cracked while under torture.
I don’t think the info he gave up on Faris would fall under TTB, or a plausible plot, for that matter.
At the time, I’m not sure if you wouldn’t wonder if it wasn’t a misdirection, or giving up a small fish to protect a larger one.
Comment by huxley —
October 23, 2006 @ 3:54 pm
@Andrew:
Wow. So was it the fact that the guy was an SS officer that made it alright? How about this scenario:
So, is your example a genuine moral dilemma or were the identities of the players a way of stacking your argument? If it is a genuine moral dilemma, then you should agree that the father (who we haven’t determined is actually innocent or guilty) has just as much moral right to torture the CIA agent as the father in your scenario had to torture the SS officer.But that would be moral equivalence … saying that a jewish man torturing a Nazi is no better than an Afghani torturing a CIA agent. Would it make it okay for the Afghani to torture the CIA agent if you knew that the Afghani was framed by Al Qaeda? Sure it’s wrong, but is it THAT wrong? What if you knew that the CIA agent was a neo-nazi and was conspiring to overthrow the American government? That would surely be a bit better, wouldn’t it?
How many stupid qualifications would it take for torture to be justifiable? How stupid is your analogy for it to be able to justify torturing anyone?
Comment by Andrew —
October 23, 2006 @ 6:57 pm
huxley
I think you mistake my point on torture being “not THAT wrong” – I meant to say it is not as wrong to torture an incontestably guilty party, as it would be to subject an innocent girl to a rape. That is a merited distinction, I believe…and that “stupid” qualification was introduced by Henley in his original post.
I do believe identity, and incontestable guilt are important considerations. There IS a big difference between a suspected terrorist, and an indisputable name figure like KSM or OBL…or even an obscure member of the SS, who you nevertheless know to be an SS-man. Many qualms about torture revolve around the possibility of making a mistake…as with the death penalty. What about cases where a mistake is impossible?
A related consideration has to do with values. To torture a member of the Iraqi Army during the three-week (or previous Gulf) War – even to get life-saving information – is quite a bit different from torturing a member of one of Saddam’s odious private militias, or AQ, or the SS. Where the CIA falls in this continuum I will leave for you to decide – but your counter-example does have the merit of stipulating that the Afghan suspect KNOWS that the CIA-man was his previous captor…he certainly can’t be making a mistake.
Last, you have introduced a dilemma that arises in death penalty arguments (although, really, it applies to ANY case of wrongful punishment) – can an innocent man kill a guard (or take a hostage) to escape execution?
A real dilemma…but it wouldn’t apply to OBL. He isn’t innocent, and has no moral right to escape punishment by any means.
Considerations of guilt or innocence – and certainty and uncertainty – are relevant here…not stupid at all.
A real dilemma would pit uncertainty against urgency. You have a suspected terrorist, who may not be, and a deadline on a catastrophic terror event. THAT’S a problem.
But when it comes to torturing KSM, I don’t think it much matters whether his information is urgent or not. It may be legitmate to torture simply because you KNOW he is guilty.
Comment by BigHank53 —
October 23, 2006 @ 8:19 pm
And there we come to it–it’s okay to torture people if you KNOW they’re guilty.
It’s okay if they’re union organizers, members of the wrong political party, corrupters of youth, secret Jews, whatever. Power will accept no challenges, even from the meekest of the meek.
Thank you for bringing the thread full circle, and reiterating Mr. Henley’s original point: give the State the power to torture, and it shall. Aided and abetted by witless fools like yourself.
Comment by anodyne —
October 23, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
Hank,
The conclusion: if you give the State power to torture, it shall, does not follow from the premise a) the State will accept no challenge, and b) whatever implicit assumptions you’re making about the list of potential torture victims and their relation to the State. Even if you took the time to make a valid argument, you would still have to engage in some acrobatics to make it a sound argument. And even if you managed to shore it up, there’s a good chance you end up with a valid and sound but nevertheless vacuous claim. Your argument strikes me as instinctive and emotional – precisely the type of argument that has appears to have made a majority of Americans accepting of the MCA at least for the moment. Even so, that doesn’t make you a witless fool.
Comment by Andrew —
October 23, 2006 @ 11:28 pm
“It’s okay if they’re union organizers, members of the wrong political party, corrupters of youth, secret Jews, whatever…”
Um…no. These aren’t any of the people on my list. None of the proposed legislation authorizes arresting people like that, much less torturing them.
And “The State” isn’t really the point here. In arguing the morality of coercion and torture, the same considerations would apply, just as much or as little, in pretty much the same way, to individuals in a stateless society.
Comment by Mr. Frog —
October 24, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
Andrew,
It doesn’t matter who’s on your list, it only matters who’s on George Bush’s.
And there is no “list” in the MCA, there are only enemy combatants, an arbitrary designation to be determined by … George Bush.
Comment by Kevin Carson —
October 24, 2006 @ 1:54 pm
“State agents don’t have any ambition to rape their own children.”
Change that to “rape their own mothers,” and you’ll probably see the hypothetical in Jonah Goldberg’s next column.
Comment by I. Liberatus —
October 24, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
The TTB (ticking time bomb) scenario strikes me as woefully misguided. Who cares if a few hundred thousand New Yorkers fry? I propose a Future of The Human Race (FTHR, pronounced “father”) scenario.
Forget about Manhattan. Let’s say you live in a small town in central Illinois. And you have a mad scientist neighbor, kind of swarthy, who
calls himself Jor-El Kent. You suspect he’s changed his name from Jor-Al Qaeda, but no matter.
Dr. Kent has spent the last few months building a rocketship in his backyard. It’s big enough just to hold one child, because even though he is a billionaire and can afford to build this rocket that we KNOW will work, he has been unable to get government funding for his bigger plan, which is to build hundreds of rockets because he KNOWS the Sun is about to go supernova and annihilate the Earth and all its inhabitants.
Now let’s say further that this nice Hispanic girl, Maria, and her new baby, Jesus, are your neighbors on the other side. You asked Maria why she had a baby without being married, and she told you some crazy story about how she is still a virgin and has no idea.
Now let’s say one night in your prayers God tells you — so you KNOW, you’re not just guessing — that Dr. Kent is right and the Sun will go supernova within the next 48 hours. And that the baby Jesus is in fact the Second Coming of Christ.
So you march next door and try to reason with Dr. Kent, explaining about the Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen, but he just won’t listen. In fact, his baby, Clark, is already strapped in and the countdown has begun. You don’t have time to go home and get your copy of Revelations. Instead, you explain to him that he has to tell you the top-secret code that only he knows in order to stop the countdown, and that if he doesn’t, SEVEN BILLION SOULS will perish and THE FUTURE OF THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE will be at stake.
So how much torture of this Arab-y guy is appropriate to save the human race? Gouging out one eye? How about chopping off three of his wife’s fingers while you hold a gun to her head? What if he’s a big crybaby and all you need to do is pull out three of his fingernails? Two?
You say you wouldn’t torture him at all? Liar. Of course you would. Charles Krauthammer says you are MORALLY OBLIGATED to do so.