As a side note, Der Trihs holds a somewhat radical opinion that is not shared by almost anyone else on the boards.
I guess, in that you could apply “fascism” to any authoritarian, nationalistic, collectivist society, but too many people seem to use it to mean “bad.” I think it’s worn out as a descriptor; the connotations with Nazism just make it a slur in most cases IMO.
Well, what is torture, and why is waterboarding not torture in your opinion?
Der Trihs:
Thanks. You provide a perfect example of what I’m trying to get at.
By default, I’m fundamentally against torturing people. (I’m gobsmacked that I even had to write out the previous sentence.) But your response to my post is exactly the attitude I’m trying to address.
It’s entirely possible that Kiriakou is an untrustworthy scum bucket. But I don’t know that and neither do you. I do know the scenario he presents us with is plausible, and the rationale he employs to justify torturing Zubaydah is morally compelling. We don’t refute his argument with an ad hominum dismissal. I’m saying that we on the left are employing numerous rhetorical tricks to avoid squarely facing a dilemma: there can be situations in which it justifiable to torture someone.
Previous to watching the interview, I also thought the ticking bomb scenario was just a crappy excuse to justify “taking off the gloves.” But Kiriakou claims they actually did cull useful information out of Zubaydah after the waterboarding, and used it to save lives. Did they? Maybe, maybe not. We’re still left with the dilemma, and even worse, to my mind: because prior to torturing someone, you don’t know if they know something that might save lives. They might not. But they might. So you’re left making the decision in the dark.
Let’s say you take the moral high road, and don’t torture Zubaydah. A month later, a bomb goes off in a crowded market in Lahore. 20 people dead. You later find out that Z had intimate knowledge of the plans and perpetrators, and had you waterboarded him, you could have stopped the attack before it ever occurred. Waterboard one man, one time, and save 20 lives. That sounds like a bargain to me.
yojimbo:
Hey dude! Long time no see!
Gitmo is inexcusable. Torturing people as a matter of course, as a standard tool for interrogation, for no good reason, is inexcusable.
The administration’s rhetoric on the issue is incoherent.
Cervaise:
It is a very noble view.
But would you be willing to let your next door neighbors kids die, rather than live with the knowledge that torture was keeping them safe? Cause there’s the rub.
Terrific find. However, if I understand it correctly, the journal is Archives of general psychiatry. Is there another scientific journal for torture? If so, that’s just too scary to contemplate.
There is the rub indeed. The only thing is that the idea of western democracy is not meant to be easy it’s just meant to be fairer than the systems that existed before. Totalitarianism is easy, you just walk over people and their rights and if they don’t like it you kill them or oppress them until they shut up. The US is a shining light in the world. The ideals that your country was based on are truly noble ideals and some of the greatest that man has ever put down on paper.
I don’t want to be part of a system that relies on torture for my or my loved ones safety. On a moral level it is inexcusable IMO and from a practical POV I find it unsatisfactory. In a world where the torture yardstick is a movable measure used by governments then I and my loved ones are also at risk. These laws stay on the books even after the immediate threat has retreated.
And hello yourself
Well, the “saving lives” argument implies that saving lives is the highest value. Except in real life, we don’t act that way. Reducing the national speed limit to 40 mph would save lives…thousands of lives every year. Except we don’t do that. We have decided that thousands of people dead every year is just the price we pay to get from place to place quickly.
Every day we routinely run risks much greater than the risk of being killed in a terrorist attack, for benefits much smaller than living in a society where we are not at risk of being tortured by the authorities.
It absolutely is worth 20 lives to live in a society where prisoners can’t be tortured. How many lives could be saved with nationally enforced nutrition standards? How many lives could be saved by banning tobacco and alcohol? How many lives could be saved by mandatory exercise every morning? How many lives could be saved by banning firearms? How many lives could be saved by national health insurance?
And the trouble is, it seems very unlikely to save lives in the long run if we are to be ruled by torturers. The track record of torturers in respecting the life, liberty and property of their subjects is not encouraging.
And if lives can be saved by occasionally torturing certain high-profile terrorists, well, again, the people on the scene can do that. They can torture that terrorist and get the location of the bomb and save those lives, and all that will happen is that they’ll be fired and face prison. If they’re not willing to risk their job to save lives, then they probably aren’t the sort of person who can be trusted with the power to torture. Again, no one can be trusted with the power to torture. If under certain individual circumstances the case for torture becomes morally compelling go ahead and torture, just know that you’re not going to get a free pass on your actions.
An interesting article can be found here. The dispute over the interrogation of Zubaydah is quite heated. Apparently, the FBI was getting intel, including KSM’s role in 9/11 and info. on Jose Padilla, from him by treating him properly. Then the CIA took over and begin their Orwellian-speak “Enhanced Interrogation Techiniques”. The results are then in great dispute, depending if you ask the FBI or the CIA.
Oddly enough, I tend to side with the group that didn’t destroy the evidence that should have, if kept, supported their claims. Sends a message, to me at least, that the stuff Kiriakou was saying wasn’t exactly on the up and up if the CIA felt it had to hide the tape from Congress, the 9/11 Commission, federal judges, and then destroy it.
I do. If placed in a completely transparent situation where I knew everything, I would choose the lesser of two evils and engage in torture. The cost to my principles is something I can handle easier than the death of innocents.
But the entire problem with this torture debate (as you intimated about the ticking time bomb scenario) is that it is NEVER, ever like that in the real world. The best thing you can say for torture is that it MIGHT lead to valuable information (mixed in with a ton of false information) that MIGHT stop a terrorist attack that MIGHT harm or kill other humans. That is the best case scenario you can ever possibly get for advocating torture. And, in my mind, that just isn’t worth it. Hell, it isn’t even close to worth it.
But those out there happily advocating torture refuse to deal with reality, and live in their little world, where Keifer Sutherland is God and torture works demonstratively, quickly, and efficiently. In that world, in that IMAGINARY world, is where the right has to argue from.
Except we’re not talking about a one-time occurance. Doing it once in exceptional circumstance is not justification for making it official policy.
For example, I can easily imagine a scenario where someone might need to smash the window of a pharmacy to get access to life-saving drugs. Does that mean we should make breaking and entering legal?
If extraordinary situations do exist where torture is the only way to save lives, then let the the torturers justify their actions on a case by case basis. As **elucidator ** has pointed out we already have the tools (official pardons and the like) for resolving these cases.
Indeed, and I should have been clearer.
Most people, per Squink’s link, will reply in the abstract regarding their opposition to torture. It is, as you say, the noble view. Most people are perfectly happy to respond, again in the abstract, with what they feel they’re “supposed” to believe (“sure, I’d vote for a black man for President”). But when presented with an actual, practical, real-world situation, those ideals tend to evaporate (how many, in the privacy of the voting booth, will change their mind and refuse to fill in the circle for Barack Obama?).
Further, as you say, it’s a different matter when one is protecting oneself, versus protecting others. Let’s say a majority of the population, per Squink’s link, professes distaste or active opposition to the practice of torture. Two thirds of the population says “no” to some degree, and one third says “yes” to some degree. If this amorphous moral question were encountered as a concrete reality, such that one had the choice of torturing (or sanctioning the torture of) an individual to save one’s own life, I suspect that a not insubstantial fraction of the two thirds would abandon their stated ideal. “You have the choice of putting vise grips on this guy’s testicles, or dying horribly. What do you choose?” I’m willing to accept that the majority opposing the torture is maintained, though narrowly.
But the equation changes completely if it’s not one’s own life at stake, but one’s loved ones. “You have the choice of putting vise grips on this guy’s testicles, or seeing your own child die horribly. What do you choose?”
Given that formulation, I think the moral standards of most of the original two thirds would evaporate in the blink of an eye.
And that is why I say I’m in the minority position.
Well, let’s put it another way, Cervaise. Sure, I imagine I would torture a guy to save my kids life. But I’m certainly not going to torture a guy to reduce the risk of my child dying in a terrorist bombing from one in a million to one in two million.
Of course only a small minority of pacifists would chose for their child to die rather than to torture or kill someone else. That doesn’t mean most people are in favor of torture. I imagine under some circumstances I would kill an innocent person to save my child’s life, does that mean I’m pro-murder? No, and even if I were in circumstances where killing some random guy is the only way to save my child’s life, I still wouldn’t advocate making murder legal. And I see Pocacho makes the same point…even if in rare circumstances you break the window and take the medicine, that doesn’t mean that we should abolish laws against theft.
So even though I might torture and kill to save my child’s life, I’m also willing to spend 20 years in prison afterwards–if that truly is the only way to save my child’s life. What would it say about me if I were willing to torture and kill to save my child, but if I had to go to jail afterwards then I’d let my kid die?
Yeah, sorry that reference is from Archives, I just saw Torture in a PubMed search. It’s not actually like “How to torture” but more on studies of the prevalence and psychological effects. It generally takes the position “Torture is bad” from what little I’ve seen.
Hi. Add me to the list of people who’ve joined this community because of this thread - and can I also join the chorus of those who respect Scylla immensely for having the courage to test his convictions and report in such detail on the results?
The only reason I’ve gone so far as joining to post is that there have been a lot of comments comparing the evil of torture with that of terrorist attacks on a) a poster, b) a poster’s family, c) a poster’s country and d) a poster’s cute widdle bunny wabbit’s babies. And it occurred to me that I do have something to say about that, since I’ve lived all my life in the UK where we have a developed society that likes to think of itself as civilised and a long-running history of terrorist attacks.
From the Cato Street Conspiracy of the mid nineteenth century through the (as it turns out, Special Branch-induced) Walsall Anarchists of the 1890s to the long history of terrorist groups related to Ireland (whose atrocities are listed here ), London has been, if the term has any meaning, waging a ‘war on terror’. If you look down the page on that last link, you can see how small an item Islamic terrorism actually makes, in the context of the blood-spattered history of the city.
(I’m not making any reference to the blitz here because that was a sustained attack endured during a time of real war between sovereign states.)
I’ve only been kicking around on the outskirts of this city for twenty-two and a half years. In that time I’ve been evacuated from a shopping centre more than once, had to leave school early because the area had been sealed off in response to a bomb threat and travelled through King’s Cross on morning of the day after the underground there was attacked (the air was still full of the acrid stench of explosive). The threat has been there for as long as I can remember. I’m sure there are thousands of others who could say the same - and millions living in countries where the reality rather than the threat is part of their everyday lives.
If I made a point of always choosing routes that avoided London as far as possible and stopped travelling by underground (or by public transport at all), it would be a personal inconvenience but it would also hugely reduce the chances of me being caught up in the next terrorist incident. But I don’t see any chance of that happening. The same goes for millions of others who accept that London will be attacked again, that the tube is the big obvious target and that some people will die - but still use the tube every day. I mean, the same was true both before and after the bombings in July 2005 (I remember telling an American friend that there was clearly going to be an attack on the tube at some point, long before it actually happened).
These people are willing to accept a vastly increased risk of being personally involved in a terrorist attack, rather than enduring inconvenience in their daily routine. What makes it so difficult for Americans put up with an increase in their risk of undergroing another attack, rather than torturing suspects?
Because as a nation, we’re young, individualistic, passionate, and impulsive? 
A good friend sent me this link so I could know what this is like. I joined the Straight Dope so I could thank you for this act of courage, not just the experiment, but telling everyone. I am relieved there’s still strong men that stand tall. Thank you for being one of them!
Oh Lord, I’ve just realised how pompous I sounded. Sorry. I’m not a waist-coated, short-tempered, sixty year old wearing tweeds with a fob watch, promise. 
Nor was I trying to come off all ‘we’re better than you’ (which would be nonsense either way, IMO). I suppose I was just trying to get across how bewildering this element of hysteria in the debate is to a non-American.
It’s also puzzling how quickly the argument runs back to the ‘what if the terrorist attacked your teddy bear with a ticking time bomb’ scenario. I mean, isn’t it true that hard cases make bad laws?
It’s bewildering to many of us stateside, also.
This will end badly. We’ll all be standing around a thread, trying to think of nice things to say about Scylla…
“Brave, truly brave.”
“Yeah, and that blimp thing was pretty funny…”
“Brave? Stuffing a rabid badger down your pants? Yeah, I guess, “brave”…”
“Was it alive?”
“Of course it was alive, what would be the point of stuffing a dead rabid badger down your pants?”
“well, really whats the point of…”
“Still, very brave.”
“Yeah. And the blimp thing. That was pretty funny.”
He’s like our own internet Johnny Knoxville.
That was then, this is now. Re-electing Bush stained all of our hands with blood.
As said, that was before. And at any rate, the occasion true innocents are the “other people” that I mentioned who were endangered by our torture. There are two groups of potential victims of retaliation; those who support torture and the war, and are simply getting payback, and those who did not, and are indirectly being killed by the war/torture supporters.
Those who support the Iraq and “war on terror” ARE worse than Al Qaeda. We’ve killed far more people and created far more suffering. And the majority of Americans belong to one “hypocritical sham death cult” or another themselves.
There are more of them. They re-elected Bush, which is supporting torture; as opposed to responding in a poll, which is meaningless in itself. And if you look at that poll, they just oppose certain kinds of torture; they have no problems with others, despite the fact that they can cause insanity or death.
No. If you support torture, then you are NOT a “person of goodwill.”
Why ?
Why ?
The people who have undergone it say it is torture, volunteers and otherwise. And as said, it wouldn’t be used if it wasn’t torture.
Yes, we should. If he was trustworthy, he wouldn’t be allowed to work for Bush. And if he was a decent person, he’d refuse to do so. I’ve heard this argument again and again; by the people who said Colin Powell could be trusted, for example; and it always turns out to be wrong. NO ONE who works for Bush should be considered trustworthy. He doesn’t ALLOW such people to work for him.
And all the other people endangered by that torture ? And what about the far more people than 20 people who have also been tortured in the meantime ? Do they not count because we we the ones doing the torture, or is it only terrorism and brutality when other people do it ?
And I don’t believe for a moment that anything like that happened anyway.
Yes, but bad laws are exactly what the supporters of torture want. And it takes that sort of strained scenario and emotional appeal to “justify” torture.
This may not prove useful, but here goes anyway.
My mom voted for Bush twice, but is regretting it severely at this point. Take my word for it, she’s a very nice lady. She supports the war on terror to some extent, but wishes we were out of Iraq (she initially supported the invasion). She’s never stolen anything, injured someone so severely that they needed hospital care, or killed anyone. She gives to charity regularly. Are you telling me she is a worse human being than, say, Osama Bin Laden?
These are appallingly black-and-white statements. For someone who is so vehemently opposed to George W. Bush, you reason quite similarly to him.
Of course, Bush was never re-elected because he was appointed by the supreme court the first time around. More to the point, there were plenty of folks who voted for Bush in 2004 for his position on taxes and such things, rather than his pro-torture agenda.
Trying to frame the whole election in terms of torture policy seems unduly pessimistic, even for you.