Don’t let the waterboarding distract you
By Thoreau
You know, it just struck me recently that I’ve heard far too many people in too many media outlets and internet forums make the same point:Â Waterboarding has only been used by the US government on 3 individuals under special circumstances.
It would be easy (and fair) to observe that this claim cannot really be trusted, given the lies that have been told to us concerning the “War on Terror.” However, there’s another issue here: Even if waterboarding has only been used on 3 occasions, we have numerous accounts of detainees being beaten during interrogation. The first on that comes to mind is this account in Salon that I’m reading today. Another one that comes to mind is Khaled El-Masri, a man who was kidnapped and held without trial because a government employee had a hunch. (A hunch that turned out to be wrong, as is par for the course with government employees.) And there are numerous others.
So why all the focus on waterboarding? I think it’s a nice distraction. It’s a form of torture that doesn’t leave marks because it works by triggering the gag reflex. Torturers throughout history have been big on “not leaving marks” as a sign of some sort of alleged morality. It’s a classic excuse used by sadistic thugs on government payrolls, and our government continues the tradition.
Also, the accounts we’ve heard from John Kiriakou describe a very controlled, deliberate process, where every slap is supported by explicit orders issued after careful debate. Yes, I’m sure there were a few torture sessions like that. It was still torture, but if it’s done in a controlled environment then people will persuade themselves that it’s “safe”, “rare”, and “not really that bad.”
But you know what? For every (alleged) instance of a carefully controlled torture session, being performed by interrogators with thick manuals, we have numerous accounts of people being beaten by interrogators who were clearly not on any sort of leash.
All this talk about 3 people subjected to a very carefully controlled torture method that leaves no marks is a red herring. It’s a way to paper over the reality, which is that when you release government employees from any sort of ethical standard they are inevitably going to deviate from “controlled” behavior and unleash their inner sadist. They aren’t “a few bad apples”, but rather they are utterly predictable consequences of a decision to abandon human standards.
Finally, let me be clear about something: Even if there were only 3 instances of torture, and they all involved high-ranking Al Qaeda officials being tortured under carefully controlled circumstances, I would still oppose it. There are lots of reasons for that. However, while I would oppose it, I recognize the propaganda value of making it look like 3 rare and special circumstances. A lot of people would find it harder to oppose, or at least harder to view as a matter of significant concern with wider implications. Remember that this isn’t about 3 “special” cases. There are a lot of people being beaten by interrogators in secret prisons. Even if the waterboards are put away, there will still be lots of torturers using lots of methods. John Kiriakou is a distraction.
Comment by Dave Woycechowsky —
December 15, 2007 @ 6:26 pm
Don’t trust the government. Or trust, but verify. Torture is one issue. There are others.
Comment by sine —
December 15, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
Remember when it turned out that the Koran wasn’t actually flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo? It overshadowed a lot of torture that actually did happen there, so for the objectively pro-torture people it was a victory because they were able to cast doubt on the idea that the United States tortures people.
I think the waterboarding debate is essentially the same thing. If everyone is debating whether or not waterboarding is torture, and some random voter decides that it isn’t… well, he/she probably is just going to assume that whatever goes on at secret U.S. prisons is never torture because waterboarding is all anyone talks about. (It doesn’t help the anti-torture cause that it is hard to imagine oneself being waterboarded if it has never happened to you before.)
Of course if you were to read the military’s official reports on abuses in their detention operations, you will find a lot of awful things that happened to prisoners which never got much media attention. But most people are going to be too exhausted with the issue to investigate it to that extent.
Comment by Comment —
December 15, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
Opposition to waterboarding and other forms of ’soft torture’ were once a staple of conservative rhetorice – Since those methods were used to extract false confessions of crimes from Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary in the 50s.
This was coupled with the earlier reports of soft torture and brainwashing that was performed on POWs in Korea.
That was then.
Comment by Chris Bray —
December 15, 2007 @ 9:34 pm
Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush wasn’t waterboarded — he was merely bound in electrical cord and suffocated to death inside a sleeping bag. While being beaten from head to toe.
Big moral and legal difference between that and waterboarding, obviously.
Comment by mullah cimoc —
December 15, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
mullah cimoc say cia agent John Kiriakouusa just the brainwash operation about the waterboard of him muslim.
1. If parse interview careful it obvious this cia agent John Kiriakou not even present when water board done.All information coming from alleged “reports”. This not the reliable. someone “tell” him 35 seconds to confess all. sound like make up lie.
2. John Kiriakou not the present when the interrogation him muslim after the waterboard. Him not know if information reliable. Him just get the “reports”.
3. John Kiriakou him under CIA contract not disclose cia information unless the written consent. Obvious, him leaking this info. with consent of cia.
Conclusion: John Kiriakou just make the lie for cia and not have the first hand knowledge. this cia mind control operation.
This part of mind control op for condition ameriki not the war crime trial for regime leaders.
Comment by Tony P. —
December 15, 2007 @ 11:31 pm
Torture is the moral equivalent of “collateral damage”. The rationale is similar for both:
to protect America, we can’t avoid torturing a few prisoners;
to protect America, we can’t avoid killing a few innocents.
If it can’t be helped, it must be done.
Ostensibly-sane people might argue that torture is intentional, whereas collateral damage is accidental. This is mere sophistry. On a very fundamental level, you make a deliberate decision to kill a few random innocents when you support a military action. That you don’t know their names in advance is beside the point.
Nearly unanimously, Americans believe in their right to fight wars abroad. Thus almost all Americans are willing to countenance killing foreign innocents “by accident”. In light of this mindset, torturing a few prisoners in the same cause seems hardly worth arguing about.
I am not defending the pro-torture wingnuts, here. I merely suggest that to condemn them effectively, we ostensibly-sane people have to examine our own premises, first.
– TP
Comment by Michelle —
December 16, 2007 @ 12:10 am
I’ve posted these two titles on Balloon Juice, but I’ll put them here, too. Though you all might be familiar with them. John Conroy’s “Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People” contains sources about torture cases abroad, but also in the U.S. Needless to say, I can only read it a bit at a time. (I’ve taken a break from this reading topic lately.)
Alfred McCoy’s “A Question of Torture” is six years more current (2006) than Conroy’s.
Off the top of my head, I can’t remember which of the two has a diagram that is almost exactly like the one that is included in the Salon article.
These specific practices — if I can call them that — have been around since the U.S. thought the Soviets were getting ahead in the information extraction business. The ‘beat the Soviets’ mentality was exported to Central and South America. (The anti-Sovirt torturers were train right here in Texas.)
The U.S. has always totured. Sure, we agreed to those nice pronouncements after WWII and procecuted some people, but during the Cold War, we experimented and exported torture — all in the name of security.
This is nothing new — it’s at least, what, 50+ years old. This nonsense that the U.S. doesn’t condone torture is just that — nonsense.
My hope is that now that it’s being talked about openly, we can come to some collective decision — one way or another. Was the Soviet threat worse that the current Islamofascist threat or not? If one was shaking in his/her boots while the ANC and all the other groups in Central and South America were being tortured — with both medical psychiatric professionals on hand to ‘help’ them, are those same people shaking now? If so, why? If not, why not?
Pre-emptive 9-11 changed everything: no it didn’t — not where torture is concerned.
(Sorry for the rant T.)
Comment by Michelle —
December 16, 2007 @ 12:14 am
(Sorry also for all the typos — I blame it on phonics.)
Comment by Doug —
December 16, 2007 @ 1:07 am
Tony P, There may be no known human enterprise that has no risk of accidental death to innocents, it’s just as fair to say “On a very fundamental level, you make a deliberate decision to kill a few random innocents when you support…”…selling space heaters…painting houses…jogging…bookbinding…etc. I assume you have lived or worked in a house made using wood, the logging, saw milling, construction industry has thousands of accidental deaths each year. Your support for wood houses therefore means, it is easier for you to support torture.
You said it.
Comment by LarryM —
December 16, 2007 @ 8:28 am
Oh, please.
(1) Regaring your FBI concern, of COURSE it’s a call for hanging them after a fair trial & due process. As you yourself note, the “war crimes” statement unamiguously implies that. If we REALLY have to worry about the FBI getting upset about that sort of thing, them we might as well give up this blogging thing, or limit ouself to “praise dear leader” kind of posts.
(2) As for the rest, reasonable minds can certainly differ regarding the desirabilty for war crimes*, but banning such opinions from the blog, as you seem to be trying to do, is certainly inconsistant with any reasonably open comment policy. Are you really THAT afraid of opinions which you don’t share?
*I am mostly anti-death penalty, but I do think that there are extreme circumstances where a crime is so horrific that anthing less that execution depracates the seriousness of the crime. Dsiagree if you wish, but that’s hardly a radical or unusual opinion. I mean, would you stop someone from commenting because they advocated the death penalty for “ordinary” murderers? Are you suggesting for a second that the crimes of the Bush administation are less serious?
Comment by LarryM —
December 16, 2007 @ 8:30 am
I need an editor. Obviously, reasonable minds can’t differ about the desireability of war crimes; what I meant to write was that reasonable minds can disagree about the desirability of executing war criminals.
Comment by LarryM —
December 16, 2007 @ 8:37 am
And I posted in the wrong thread. Ugh, But I liked Jim’s response much better.
Comment by Tony P. —
December 16, 2007 @ 10:18 am
Doug:
“The risk of accidental death to innocents” is a different consideration in some contexts than in others. It matters who gets the benefit, who imposes the risk, and who runs the risk.
We Americans have made a national decision to allow private handgun ownership, for instance. To obtain this national benefit, we have accepted the inevitable collateral damage: random mini-massacres of innocents. But they’re AMERICAN innocents.
It’s a different thing altogether for us Americans to assert that “collateral damage” among Afghans, or Iraquis, or god knows who next, while regretable is nevertheless necessary for “our freedom” or “our interests” or “our way of life”.
Ostensibly-sane Americans, by and large, do not get worked up over “collateral damage” but do get worked up over torture. I’m still looking for a coherent justification of this disparity. I’m not looking to justify torture.
– TP
Comment by larrym —
December 16, 2007 @ 11:08 am
TP,
Okay, this time posting int he right thread.
As is apparent from other threads, I think the whole imperial enterprise is obscenely immoral. But if one takes the position, as I do, that defensive wars are justifiable, then some level of “collateral damage” is inevitable in even a just war. The issue, then, isn’t collateral damage per se, but that going to war for the reasons which we are going to war is morally horrifying. I mean, if it’s an unjust war, killing enemy soldiers is no better than killing enemy civilians.
So one of the reasons that there is less of issue with collateral damage than with torture is that most people don’t REALLY consider our ventures in the middle east unjust wars. But torture, unlike civilian casualties, is not a necessary part of modern warfare. So you can get a guy like Sullivan, who (at best) has come to have some doubts about the Iraq venture on prudential grounds, but doesn’t believe for a moment that it was immoral, who is generally horrified by torture.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 16, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
TP, what larrym said. There are some wars that are just wars for one side. (I think that in many wars both sides are wrong.)
In such cases even the “good guys” are almost certainly going to kill civilians accidentally, even if they try very hard not to do so. I doubt that many do try very hard, however, and that’s where I swing over to your side of the argument. For instance, the NYT carried a story a few years back where, in planning the air strikes for the Iraq invasion, it was decided that someone high up (Rumsfeld or Cheney, I forget which) had to decide whether an air strike that would likely kill 30 or more civilians would be worth it. As it happened, whoever it was decided to go forward in every single case.
One other point about moral consistency in general. It might be best not to ask for it in this case–if you ask people to be morally consistent when they feel their own lives are in danger, they might choose to be morally consistent in allowing for both torture and as much collateral damage as is necessary to “save American lives”.
Comment by Doug —
December 16, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
TP, I think you’ll find that folks don’t get as worked up about collateral damage as torture because they understand the difference between intent and fault. If you don’t like the distinction take it up with the Romans. Intent is pretty obvious in torture…it’s hard to accidentally hang somebody up and pull their toenails out. (Not so hard to do it to the wrong fellow though.) However, if the intent is to cause collateral deaths, then by definition they wouldn’t be collateral damage.
Comment by Doug —
December 16, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
T, you wrote:
I think he is more a symptom. A symptom of a our lawmaker’s cowardliness when it comes to defining what is and isn’t torture. Instead, they left it a legal gray area so that they could claim innocence. I think guys like Mr. Kiriakou, now seeing the writing on the wall, will start trying to influence the debate. His argument is: yes it was torture, but I was following controlled and set procedures and it worked really, really well. That defense sounds faintly familiar for some reason…
Comment by Tony P. —
December 16, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
larrym correctly observes that “if it’s an unjust war, killing enemy soldiers is no better than killing enemy civilians.” He is on shakier ground when he says: “But torture, unlike civilian casualties, is not a necessary part of modern warfare.” I’m not sure how “modern” warfare is defined, but I would say it is classical warfare that does not require civilian casualties. Two opposing armies in glittering uniforms, drawn up in ranks and files and facing each other across a soon-to-be-hallowed field, could stab or shoot each other to extinction without killing a lot of civilians. We have become too modern for that sort of war.
Donald Johnson rightly says that “if you ask people to be morally consistent when they feel their own lives are in danger, they might choose to be morally consistent in allowing for both torture and as much collateral damage as is necessary to “save American livesâ€. I agree. But I suggest that Americans might morally profit from a little courage.
For us Americans to act, internationally, as if our lives are in danger from “the terrists” is for us Americans to act like a cowardly nation. Each of us will, individually, die from something other than terrorism, to a practical certainty. The nation as a whole will not be killed by even the most ambitious and successful terrorist. We are not in a life-or-death struggle, however scared our “leaders” wish us to be. We can tell ourselves (some of us, anyway) that we are brave enough to be “moral” about torture. But until we are also brave enough to renounce the kind of “defensive war” that leads inevitably to “collateral damage” among foreign civilians, let us not put on moral airs.
– TP
Comment by Doug —
December 16, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
First, putting on moral airs is wise in winter time.
Second:
These two statements are not in conflict. I think you misread Donald Johnson.
Third, and more to the point, you make a lot of assumptions about the future which we all hope are correct but are not necessarily so. Its always a lot easier to assume hard decisions away. What kind of war would you accept collateral civilian casualties for?
Comment by Tony P. —
December 16, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
Doug:
First, I must be missing a pun or something. I truly don’t get — oooh, I think I just got it! Cute!
Second, how do you define “modern” warfare? In particular, does the Battle of Midway, for example, count as “modern”?
Third, you do ask a hard question. Here’s a partial answer: surely if an enemy army were rolling down the Great Plains and any conceivable measure to stop it would result in the deaths of innocent Dakotans and Kansans, we’d have a slam-dunk case for accepting “collateral damage”. A far-fetched scenario? Sure, but a morally clear one. In all plausible scenarios, on the other hand, the “collateral damage” is very conveniently confined to foreign civilians. Too conveniently, I suggest.
– TP
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 17, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
Those darn oceans and friendly neighbors.
Comment by Andy —
December 19, 2007 @ 12:22 pm
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …