While admitting a certain MacBeth-ish quality to the Speaker’s fate, I have to admit that I’ve already grown tired of this whole “torture” discussion. No one’s mind will be changed at this point, not the minds of those convinced that Bu$hCheney were evil incarnate, nor those who only pretended to do so because it offered them a chance to grasp at the ring. It certainly hasn’t changed my mind a jot, neither on the instant necessity to understand the scope and nature of the threat we faced while New York still smoldered, nor of the nature of the political class inside the Capital beltway, fully willing at a reptilian-brain level to wound themselves if it potentially yields a transitory opportunity for personal gain or, even better, retribution.
On the other hand, Leon Panetta is clearly concerned about morale at CIA, a place that has previously gone through cycles of passionate activity in the defense of the Republic to bovine, bureaucratic inertia when politicians build their résumés upon lurid exposés. Whether the CIA director succeeds at encouraging the spooks to keep their heads down and their backs in the harness is of serious concern to us all.
Or it should be: There are those of course who like their personal chances in the event of another terrorist attack, and who are willing to risk the sacrifice of n number of fellow citizens on the altar of their own self-regard and the condescending and conditionally granted approval of Evropa.
Still, former deputy attorney general Victoria Toensing asks that critics actually read the memos that the White House released. Dick Cheney keeps talking, with critics and admirers unable to agree even on the ontological nature of his speech.
This is Washington, all eyes turned inward and increasingly ignorant and careless of the world abroad.
Safe, for the moment, on the Isle of Narcissus.
Update: The AG ties himself in knots.
I’d call that “self-torture,” but I supposed it depends upon his specific intent.
“Evropa” Nice touch, that.
“Safe, for the moment, on the Isle of Narcissus” is a nicely turned phrase also. Don’t know if Lex was consciously intending to do so, but it conveniently does double duty; being equally capable of standing as a metaphor for America as a sociocultural construct in this “New Age” of ours in the early 21st Century–or more narrowly as that land currently under the rule of the by now quite obvious reincarnate of Narcissus himself.
[...] Everyone loves a dark classic, but Neptunus Lex is getting a little tired of watching The Scottish Play. [...]
I’ve been watching Eric Holder ever since he hove upon the scene with his [to say the least] tactless comment about ours being a “nation of cowards,” and I’ve about decided that he’s a pretty boy frozen in 1960s attitudes. All of his reference points and discussion statements are straight from the 1960s and 70s. He’s fighting battles that are already won, and he keeps on doing it because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. Rather like Obama, and the Chattering Left.
Marianne
Jeff@ Protein Wisdom yesterday also had an excellent post referencing the same link on Holder and his attempts to “re-frame” the issue and definitions via word manipulation with the aim of controlling “The Discourse.”
Sorry, but does that mean you can inflict any horror on a person as long as your intent is to gather information? Damm the consequences? The court may have ruled torture is a specific intent crime but that makes no sense to me. That requirement could justify any action I choose to take (I warned him I would cut off his balls if he didn’t answer my question so I did what I had to do so he would know that I was dead serious with the next thing I threatened. I had get that information).
And I can’t see whypeople tie themselves up in conceptual knots around the SERE training issue. No, B2, I am not at all minimizing what they go through but in my mind there are 3 clear differences. First, they know that chances are 99% that the military ain’t going to allow them to die; your detainee doesn’t have that confidence. Second, the purpose is prepare them for what could happen if they were to be captured; its part of training and see No. 1 above. And third, as I said before, the number of times it would be done in training versus a detainee in the field. Which also ties back into No. 1 above.
Well, as for my own part – and I believe we’ve had this conversation before – anything to do with pliers or blow torches is beyond my personal pale. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation and head slapping I could live with.
In terms of legal definitions, there are many things that the courts rule upon that make no sense to me as well. Still, when you’ve lost nearly 3000 citizens on an otherwise bright, pleasant day, when anthrax is delivered in the mail (all of which happened before the word “waterboarding” came into general use), when the understanding of a great vulnerability and hatred has been suddenly delivered unto you, your public servants need to know what is permissible and what is not to determine what can be done to get to the bottom of it. The courts, legal precedent and the determination of lawyers based upon them are what we have to rely on for that determination.
And anyone who thinks that SERE students know anything to a 99% certainty by the end of their time “in the lab” doesn’t know anything about SERE.
I suppose I should try to be more apologetic about this, but I simply refuse to do so.
Why would you apologize, Lex? I think that your position is moral and easily defensible and I agree with you about what trainees “know” when they go through “stress training.” That’s why it’s done – because it works.
Now, in my case – I suppose I should apologize in advance because I’m in favor of Mitch Rapp-style interrogation techniques (i.e., bullet to knee / elbow / wrist, followed by application of boot to affected area) of the people who we absolutely KNOW to be the bad guys who have information we need. I don’t need to know about it, but I want to believe that we will do what we need to do when it’s really, really necessary to have some information and there is really no other option. That stuff about “we’re all light and happiness and we should set examples” is BS. The people who oppose us today could care less. Heck, some of our “friends” in WWII did worse to our guys they got ahold of (Russia kept our people when they got ahold of them in eastern Russia). It’s a difficult world and 2nd place is not acceptable when it comes to security.
SteveC & Curtis:
You’re my kind of guys. The “all dead” option would rank right up there as #1 for me..
And SteveC, you’re right about 2nd place. When dealing with these sorts, 2nd place usually means you’re dead.
I can live with the sleep deprivation, head slapping and various other things; I’m just not so sure where I would put waterboarding. And although I will certainly defer to your comments about SERE training, I think that leaves my other two points still standing.
Apologetic? What do you have to be apologetic about?
“Defending the indefensible,” is what someone said a week or so back.
Haven’t heard back from him since.
Michelle, ” Torture under that law means “severe physical or mental pain or suffering,” which in turn means “prolonged mental harm,” . I’m not sure which form, physical or mental, you qualify waterbording as torture under. I think you would have a hard time using the physical pain as a reason so that leaves the mental.
I would think the a dedicted jihadist, willing to sacrifice his life for the cause, would be absolutely orgasmic in delight at the potential of dieing while being waterborded and collecting his 39 virgins, or how ever many there are left. How can you possibly call that torture?
Just so long as there’s no Kipling being read.
“Boots, Boots, Boots…”
Oh the humanity!
They’re all still alive and not a mark on them. I’m OK with that although I’d prefer them all dead.
There our enemies stand, armed with submachine guns, rocket launchers, poison gas, explosive homicide vests, car bombs, hijacked airplanes, biological agents, and are, BTW< attemptinf to obtain nuclear weapons.
In the meantime, we stand protected by ranks of lawyers.
What do they expect to do, suffocate our enemies in piles of briefs and motions? Bleed them to death with a thousand paper cuts? Make them depressed by delivering volumes of strongly worded letters?
Napoleon once remarked that “God is always on the side of the strongest battalions”.
Given the choice between a rank of laws and a rank of bayonets, I’ll take the bayonets.
AW1Tim/
As I read along, I thought your single sentence second para. was going to read: “And the only thing we have between all that and us to protect us are guys wearing boxer shorts covered in pink hearts.”
heh,
yeah…. probably would have been a good editing..
My son is headed over there in a few months. I intend to remind him of this incident.
I’m as happy as anyone to hear and see a few bars played of “Ding Dong The Wicked Witch is Dead”–it’s a catchy tune, you can dance to it, and I’d give it a “7″ as they used to say on American Bandstand.
Like our host I’d draw the line at plyers and blowtorchs, and the whole host of Saddam henchmen equipment. Waterboarding at the time, and for the purposes intended, doesn’t bother me. There may be a time in the future when waterboarding is required again. If so, I hope our folks use it. I won’t lose a minute’s sleep at night agonizing about it.
But this whole political Kabuki theater in Washington over the “evil Bushitler/Cheney/Halliburton lied” and “I’m more politically holier than thou” stuff has to stop. As a country we don’t deserve having our political class inflicted upon us.
Michelle,
If waterboarding would provide information to prevent an event identical to what had occurred in 1917 in Halifax Harbor, would you allow it? No pliars or cigarettes or blowtorches.
Dust
If I could have prevented the Halifax Explosion? Or prevented 9/11? In all honesty, I likely would have been okay with pliars, cigarettes and blowtorches too. None of which would change the fact that all those things would still be considered torture.
I don’t think (but I’m sure if I’m misremembering somebody will point it out) I’ve ever come out and clearly said that I consider waterboarding to be torture, just that I’m not sure exactly where the line should be drawn and on which side it should fall. Let’s just say that I consider it debatable. The answer to which, for me at least, would be influenced by the number of times it was done to the same person, I suppose.
And we all respect you for your decision in the matter.
Thanks for that, xairboss.
I must admit that it can feel like a bit of a tough room at times.
Michelle,
Yes, our problem today seems to be one of definitions. The poor Bush OLC tried to toss the matter of defining torture to lawyers and I enjoyed the comment that they attempted the impossible task using their starting point as one taken by lawyers rather than as human beings. Remember sharks, lawyers and professional courtesy?
A few of us, a tiny few, have a contempt for those that come after and attempt to define a difference of legal opinion as some sort of crime. That’s not good for society where the rule of law prevails or should prevail. Totalitarian states use the “law” to sweep up deviants and others who have committed acts that demonstrate that they are enemies of the state.
There are those who wonder why solving the simple matter of 3rd world pirates is so intractable today since it was so easy for the last 1000 years. Can you imagine a single lawyer advancing the case that anybody caught on the high seas in an act of piracy has no rights and should be hung from the yard arm? Who wants to pay to bring the scum back to the first world, try them, pay for years of appeals and finally end up housing the pirates for 20 years to life at $115,000/year?
von Clausewitz said that in war even the simplest things are hard due to friction. I’m beginning to believe that friction is out of control.
We have a gulag for terrorists on a tropical island. Let’s build a gulag for lawyers in Shemya and send them all there.
According to the lawyers half the men in my old outfit are war criminals. After a couple of tough nights in the bush in -1967 and 1968 we put insurance shots into dead and wounded NVA/VC. We had neither the time or the manpower to make sure they weren’t playing possum or boobietrapped. Since we were more interested in coming home in the passenger compartment instead of the cargo hold of the Freedom Birds we paid the insurance, one round at a time. Just like our fathers did in Europe and the Pacific, that greatest generation bunch.
Forward the clock, I don’t much care about me, I’d like to see at least some of my grandchildren to grow up but it is most important that they do grow up. In order to see that they have the best chance to do so, I’ll be glad to waterboard, gouge out an eye or two, grab gonads with red hot pincers, whatever it would take. I would cheerfully trade all the Jihadis in Islam to save just one skinned knee of my grandchildren.
Nor do I think I’m anywhere near unique. Oh, most people won’t say it aloud for fear of being Olby’s “worst person in the world”. I don’t watch TV so I don’t care about Olby. Don’t say it aloud but answer, your child, your husband or wife, your grandchild, your brothers, sisters and friends or some “Allahu Akbar” hollering nutcase?
That’s really what we are talking about.
Michelle,
I appreciate your honest answer. I am inclined to think that waterboarding is just over the “ok” side of the line. There are other ways to get what you want without injuring. Or so I have been told.
Best,
Dust
Dust
It was a really hard question.
Which I figured was what made it a fair one.