Bush - Torture saves lives

Great Debates
1

*“Three people were waterboarded and I believe that decision saved lives.”
He denied that waterboarding, which simulates drowning, amounted to torture. *

Two things there. First - I know Bush is about as popular as a sausage sandwich in Jerusalem on the Dope, but even so let’s try and be reasonable about this. I’ll address these points in reverse order.

Not to rehash old threads, but I think we can all agree that waterboarding is torture. See the myriad cites from wikipedia’s article on the subject:
“Waterboarding is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,[4][33][34] politicians, war veterans,[35][36] intelligence officials,[37] military judges,[38] and human rights organizations.[21][39]”

I know there’s still some debate on this, but let’s face facts. Drowning someone (‘simulated’ or otherwise) to coerce them fits pretty much any definition of torture you can think of.

However, that’s not the crux. Let’s address his main assertion - that waterboarding was used, and saved lives - Bush mentions three specific incidents where he believes the intelligence gained from waterboarding directly saved lives and hints at more:
*“Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States.” *

So, two and a half things here. Firstly - can we rely on this type of interrogation of terrorist head honchos to provide information that saves lives, and secondly - should we? Also worth questioning is Bush’s assertion that the waterboarding did save any lives at all - assuming he isn’t flat out lying (which is a big stretch for some Dopers, I know) - how far could this technique go towards saving lives?

Again, hope I’m not rehashing old discussions here, but Bush’s comments put the whole torture debate in a renewed light.

For me, it comes down to this - anything to save lives. What I deeply question is whether torture is a reliable means to this end.

However, it seems that Bush might have been on the money with this one, judging by BBC analysis:

On the flip side, the UK is doing everything to distance itself from the unpleasantness to keep its hands clean, while reaping the benefits of a nice unblown-up Canary Wharf:

From the above BBC link.

The bold part its the crux point. It’s easy in hindsight to hold the moral high ground, but at the end of the day if it saves lives, holding this high ground could prove fatal to thousands.

So, what says the Dope? Absolutely abhorrent, and in no circumstances should be used? Useful only in very select circumstances? To be used if there’s the slightest chance of saving lives?

2

First, I don’t believe it. Why trust the word of known liars that their crimes did something that according to them justifies those crimes?

Second, I don’t care. Torturing people to “save lives” just demonstrates that you are on the side that deserves to lose lives. It demonstrates that the people who claim America is evil are correct. It is in fact the same sort of moral reasoning used by the very terrorists we supposedly hate; that the end justifies the means, regardless of how brutal those means are.

3

I would cite this more directly, but the* London Times* search function bites it. The jist of it is that British officials are casting doubt upon Bush’s claim that the “intelligence” puked up by KSM was effective in preventing terrorist attacks in England.

4

Boring nitpick, but I think that should properly be the London Times, if you want to differentiate. London doesn’t appear in the name.

5

The Guardian has a similar article:

Bolding mine.

The whole thing seems very murky from the British perspective. Not known, concealed, doubted - again, to me it seems like the UK is trying to have its cake and eat it, or genuinely didn’t know (or presumably care too much) about KSM’s ‘interrogation techniques’ which produced information of possibly questionable value, in terms of saving lives. Although one could argue that merely disrupting al-Qaeda’s structure could help save lives.

It seems to be the same kind of game Bush confesses that the U.S. played with places like Pakistan; essentially outsourcing torture.

Brackets mine.

Of course, many are calling for Bush to face legal action due to this confession. Torture is illegal under the U.N. Convention on Torture (of which the U.S. is a signatory). To be honest, I’m with this - international law is still law. The only sticky point Bush relies on then and now is whether waterboarding is torture - the justification for it, as with all crimes, is more of a side issue in comparison to the crime itself.

6

How is it possible to trust intel received from an individual being tortured?

The easy justification these days for about anything is… it saves lives.

Yeah, where is the proof?

7

So he’s still in denial over all the torture deaths, still holding to the ‘bad apple’ defense?

At this point, the reasonable thing to do is to send Bush to the world court, and let them decide on his torturing ways.
The word of a guy trying to make a buck off a book polishing his legacy isn’t worth a plugged nickel.

8

If you’re going to torture, own up to it

Bush and his cronies tried to have their cake and eat it too: first they said they didn’t torture, then they said what they did didn’t amount to torture, and finally they rationalized it by saying that it saved lives

I read a conservative rant during the whole torture scandal about how people cheer for Jack Bauer because he tortures and gets the job done. Well Jack Bauer also doesn’t deny his culpability, one liberal columnist responded. Jack Bauer willingly gives himself up at the end of the day to be tried for what he did

So if Bush wanted to use torture at all to defend it, then he and his gang of inquisitors should own up to it. Tell the American people that yes, they tortured, they are proud of it, and that waterboarding KSM hundreds of times saved lives. Then repeat that to a jury and let his fate be decided by a court of justice. Not this hiding behind his cronies crap

9

The thing for me is he is claiming vindication by results that he couldnt have known would be the case when he OKed those acts.

Which means he was willing to do it because it might be helpful, rather than because it would ‘definitely save thousands’ or the like as is claimed with the usual ticking bomb morality scenarios.

Otara

10

And stoning women and converts from Islam is much, much better. :rolleyes: A morally right side can do certain immoral things such as the interment of the Japanese-Americans or the My Lai massacre. Also you would advocate the slaughter of every slave owner after the Civil War which isn’t particularly better either.

11

We just bomb people indiscriminately instead. That’s not morally superior, just higher technology.

And yes by the way; stoning people IS morally superior to torturing them.

We were morally neutral at best in WWII - we weren’t heroes coming to the rescue out of moral reasons, we were just responding to an attack. And we went about it in ways that were anything but moral despite all the “Greatest Generation” whitewashing. And we were just engaging in colonialism in Vietnam, we weren’t in the right there at all.

Why? It’s no different than going after Nazi war criminals.

12

Except we do not bomb indiscrimnately-we could easily have wiped the face of Baghdad or Kabul from the Earth without nukes.

That’s ridiculous bullshit. So would you rather be water-boarded and live another sixty or years after being released from prison or die immediately from being stoned?

We can’t be morally right 100% of the time.

Slave owning does not equal mass murder and the war crime tribunals did not prosecute much less execute every single Nazi which would be the equivalent of killing every slave owner. It would have been mass murder and would have prevented any healing of the divisions in our country. So would you kill slave-owning Unionists, or slave owners who planned to free them in the future or men like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington? Suppose a pro-life advocate decided to kill every abortionist in the country because he believes abortion is murder?

13

I don’t really care if torturing someone saves lives, putting a bullet in the back of the head of our entire prison population would save tons of lives too but it’s still barbaric and wrong. Bush just can’t tell the difference between protecting Americans and protecting America.

14

For a long time I’ve believed that torture under almost any circumstances is wrong, yet after thinking about, I think there are some instances in which I probably would condone it. Lets suppose perhaps, that a group of terriosts got a nuke, took over a plane headed towards the US with the nuke on board, but accidently left a man of theirs behind who is the only one who knows the remote de-activation codes. Lets also, for the sake of arguing, say that we have some way of knowing if the nuke has been disarmed. This is all far-fetched I know, but if it came down to torturing one guy for the sake of millions that are at the moment in immenient danger of being nuked, I think we all would torture the guy.

Of course this is a bit of wild example and so wouldn’t occur very often, but I would say the ethics of torture depends on the situation.

15

You are still laboring under the premise that torture produces useful information. There is great dispute about that.

16

You don’t understand. The argument isn’t that torturers and torture-apologists such as yourself are morally inferior to hardcore Muslims, it’s that they’re morally inferior to those of us that don’t condone torture. Sharia law doesn’t even enter the picture; I can’t imagine why you even mentioned it.

17

He Was Tortured, But He Can't Sue | David Cole | The New York Review of Books Torture fans also operate under the mistake that we will just torture the guilty. Arar a Canadian citizen was beaten and tortured for America and he was innocent. He has mental problems and has other injuries from the mistreatment. If you accept torture, you have to accept that innocents will be tortured too. If you can accept that, your country has diminished itself in many ways. I always liked growing up with the idea that we did not mistreat our prisoners. I knew it was not always true, but it showed we were the kind of nation that still believed it was right and something to strive for. When Bush proudly proclaimed he tortured and liked it, America was damaged ethically ,legally and morally.

18

He said:

19

I don’t think that this sort of situation needs to provide a counter. As you say, it’s far-fetched, but as you also say we might all torture the guy in that situation. But if we’re going to do it in that sort of situation, it’s not going to matter that we’ll be arrested or court martialed or whatever afterwards. Keep it disallowed, and that provides a deterrent - except in those cases such as the one you talk about, in which case I would suspect that most people would weigh up jail time on one hand and thousands of lives on the other and accept the punishment.

Of course, as Icarus says, it may well be that the tortured person will simply play for time until it’s too late.

20

So? What does that have to do with what you said?