January 7th, 2005
Speaking of, Wretchard has the best post I’ve read yet on the torture question. He’s able to make reasonable distinctions unlike, say Andrew Sullivan.
Wretchard also raises what should really be the only (or at least the foremost) question in the debate:
Donald Sensing has a long post on the recent destruction of a 36-ton Bradley in Iraq resulting in the death of all 7 occupants. If a suspect is found, what technique should be used to discover where the other mines are planted? The ridiculous “16 approaches” method reviled by Heather MacDonald’s interviewees, even now watered down? Or the rapes and crucifixion system which by common consent is torture? Is there is nothing in between?
The reason it is important to find a middle ground is because al Qaeda is a different type of warrior. As Heather Mac Donald writes:
. . . the Kandahar prisoners were not playing by the army rule book. They divulged nothing. “Prisoners overcame the [traditional] model almost effortlessly,” writes Chris Mackey in The Interrogators, his gripping account of his interrogation service in Afghanistan. The prisoners confounded their captors “not with clever cover stories but with simple refusal to cooperate. They offered lame stories, pretended not to remember even the most basic of details, and then waited for consequences that never really came.” Some of the al-Qaida fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, the al-Qaida manuals revealed, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture—a sign, gloated the manuals, of American weakness.
I would argue that in the war on terrorism, intelligence is at a greater premium than in any previous American war since there is no given battlefield. In other wars, we needed information from prisoners to help fight the enemy more effectively. In the global war on terror, we need information from prisoners just to find out who the enemy is and where the war is going to be fought. (In addition to all that, the global war on terror is our first confrontation with an enemy whose targets are largely and intentionally civilians.)
So since the value of information has been radically increased, we need to have a serious reevaluation of what we’re willing to do, as a society, to get that information. Should we be willing to commit rape, murder, and mutilation? I would argue no. Should we consider a new set of standards that go beyond the “16 approaches”? I would argue yes.
But instead of having this discussion, we’re fixated on Alberto Gonzalez and hearings and other sideshows. As Wretchard asks,
How did we get to where the only choices are between the impractical and the inadmissible? Possibly by the route of partisan politics; at hearings where you may either recite the Boy Scout Pledge or the Green Lantern Oath; where the failure to supply answers never got in the way of uttering a good platitude; where votive candles burn and still burn before the letter of Geneva and the practice of rendition . . .
None of this is meant to excuse past abuses. People who have committed crimes must be punished to the full extent of the law. But our focus should be on figuring out where, in the future, we’re willing to draw the line. So let’s start that discussion right now. I’d like to know where the blogospher, and you, think the line should be. What kinds of interrogation should be allowed, and what shouldn’t?
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perhaps the best way to ask the question is not to ask what kind of interrogation techniques should be allowable for those captured by the USA, but what kind of techniques do we find acceptable when “the enemy” captures an American? Also, should these techniques be different if the captured individual is in civilian clothing? Or to personalize the question further—lets just say that you are captured by Islamic radicals, who suspect that you have information that they would find of value. Just how far could they go in their attempt to extract information from you personally?
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This is very simple. First….Liberals must stop this crap with Gonzalez. He was paid to give legal advise, not to rip arms off of muslims.As the Militant Islamists are using their religion and our weak, liberal appeasments against us…we should turn it around on them. We can, without inflicting a single ounce of pain on a terrorist, get all the info we need. It goes like this…”Interrogator: “Tell me what I want to know”Terrorist” “Go screw yourself you weak-minded infidel!”Interrogator: “Ok, you know what this is” (holding up a bag if fried pig skins)Terrorist: “OK, OK!! The IED’s are all here, here, and here!!!!” It’s that simple.Now somebody please arrest the traitors on the left and lets get on with it.
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Short of outright torture or the extermination of terrorist families, my suggestion is to study the history of our last war with Moslem terrorists, the Moros in the Pacific at the turn of the last century. Moslems are mor afraid of contact with hog blood, etc. than they are of death. Interrogation consists of threatening to make them walk barefoot across a pig pen and dumping pig blood on them. Other practices included smearing their dead bodies with hog feces and sending them back wrapped in hog entrails. Publicly dipping bullets in hog blood was also an effective deterrent. None of this is any more than psychological warfare, but would drive the Politically Correct Left CRAZY! Let’s do it again.
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Jonathan,Why don’t you do a nice big article on this Pig Blood subject in the Weekly Standard. A section of the article should give an historic point of view and suggest the same as a cure for our current intel dilemma.
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Snopes has a pretty extensive writeup on pigs’ blood and Islam. Shorter version: the Philippine connection is pretty tenuous. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pershing.htm — Klug
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We don’t even have to consider torturing captives. We just handcuff them, dress them like Iraqi Policeman and have them sit on remote controlled APC’s. Then drive those things around the city. They’ll either point some things out to you or you can at least spring the traps,and counterattack without any good guys at risk. Call it Operation Tripwire.
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p.lukasiak:Obviously, we’d want captors of Americans to simply let them go. Don’t think we should do that for our captives.And it doesn’t really matter what we’d want them to do to our people – I think it’s safe to say at this point that, desired information or not, they’re gonna go with the beheading option.
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After having read Snopes’ research, it boils down to the fact that the only proof of the use of pig’s blood,etc., by Pershing’s troops is anecdotal, and it is a valid criticism. However, General Westmoreland would hve preferred that there had only been anecdotal proof of the Mi-Lai’ massacre, as is the case with MANY other allegations of torture and slaughter in that war. The point is that I, as one who heard the screams of torture admisistered by our allies in that war, am totally opposed to it as a policy and seek other means to both solicit information and discourage potential recruits to suicidal martyrdom. More honest research is needed, and Snopes has made a good start. (By the way, Jonathan,I totally agree with you about anonymous comments.)
Seth January 7, 2005 at 4:50 pm
I’m an idiot…I accidentally deleted my post:JVL,Not sure what my answer is, but I’d like to throw something else into the mix. One of the things that’s been bothering me about the torture debate is our society’s (read: MSM, etc) ignorance of what real torture is and how recently Americans were on the receiving end.My point is NOT to say that since we were tortured, then it’s ok for us to torture others. Of course not. But we’ve got at least one and a half generations of Americans who’ve never really lived in a world where they had to confront WAR and the ugliness it brings. So I think we’ve gone soft. Parading prisoners around naked and blaring loud music is not torture. I don’t even know if it’s “abuse”.If you haven’t already…and you probably have…read Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. Or any other book about what went on in the Pacific in WWII (Flyboys is another…if you can get past the moral equivalence, it tells a harrowing tale).Again…it’s not to say that torture is ok…actually, the opposite, because when you read about real torture you realize how silly this whole debate has been.Anyway, my $0.02.