Torture
A debate looms in the government right now of significant national importance. Senator John McCain has sponsored legislation that would ban the use of torture on detainees held by the United States. While most Americans find the idea of torture to be fairly abhorrent, many also argue that it is fully justified in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, where immediate actionable intelligence could save hundreds, thousands, or millions of innocent lives.
First of all, pretty much everyone agrees that the crazy stuff like pulling out fingernails or using thumbscrews is abhorrent, un-American, should never be used. However, that's not what the debate is about. The real debate is about that murky gray area referred to as "cruel, inhumane, and degrading" treatment (referred to here, and in the intelligence community, as "CID"). Should we allow sleep deprivation? What about keeping someone standing for long periods of time? If they have a fear of dogs, can we put a muzzled dog in the room? How far, exactly, can we go?
McCain wants everyone in the government to use only a strict set of interrogation guidelines, which do not include those usually classified under CID. Of course, these guidelines would be classified so the enemies can't prep against them, which makes sense. The administration, particularly Cheney, wants the CIA to be exempted from those guidelines. They feel that actionable intelligence can be gained using these techniques, and that trained CIA interrogators can be trusted to execute on these appropriately (unlike what happened at Abu Ghraib). The Senate clearly agrees with McCain, passing his ammendment by a vote of 90-9.
Despite the murkiness of the debate, it's pretty clear that torture does not provide reliable intelligence. We used these techniques on al-Libi, the Al Qaeda operative who gave us the information for Colin Powell's now infamous UN speech, only to find out it the information he gave up was wrong. Israel, which probably has the most consistent recent experience with this sort of situation, has laws expressly forbidding the use of cruel and inhumane treatment, and officials say they do fine without it. However, it must be noted (as McCain often fails to do) that the Israeli law has a clause that allows "moderate physical pressure" under the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
People under torturous conditions will say anything, true or false. And we can't tell the difference until it's too late. However, what torture does do pretty reliably -and we have seen this today - is drastically erode our moral authority in the conflicts that we engage in.
One of the greatest strengths of our military is that the individuals are well trained, well equipped, and have a strong conviction that they are on the side of freedom, democracy, and morality (for lack of a better term). There are young men and women out there fighting and dying because they believe in what this country stands for, and it is completely irresponsible of this adminstration to ask them to continue to fight while taking away those ideals for which they are fighting. It is even more irresponsible for them, through this negligent behavior, to expose our troops to the increased possibility of being tortured or killed when captured by way of vengeance.
CID treatment might very well have to be used in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, but we have to make sure it's used only in those exceptional circumstances. If, based only on these rare circumstances, we allow ourselves to condone this behavior on a wider scale, it can then get out of hand and become a massive problem (see Abu Ghraib), and also it forms a "black box" of questionable actions which decisively removes us from the moral high-ground we claim to occupy.
McCain's view, as far as I can understand it, is that by outlawing this form of abuse we can make sure that it is not used on a routine or semi-routine basis by anyone. I agree with this, but I do think that the President should be allowed to used CID techniques in rare cases, subject to authorization from some sort of an oversight committee (the senate intelligence comittee comes to mind).
A debate looms in the government right now of significant national importance. Senator John McCain has sponsored legislation that would ban the use of torture on detainees held by the United States. While most Americans find the idea of torture to be fairly abhorrent, many also argue that it is fully justified in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, where immediate actionable intelligence could save hundreds, thousands, or millions of innocent lives.
First of all, pretty much everyone agrees that the crazy stuff like pulling out fingernails or using thumbscrews is abhorrent, un-American, should never be used. However, that's not what the debate is about. The real debate is about that murky gray area referred to as "cruel, inhumane, and degrading" treatment (referred to here, and in the intelligence community, as "CID"). Should we allow sleep deprivation? What about keeping someone standing for long periods of time? If they have a fear of dogs, can we put a muzzled dog in the room? How far, exactly, can we go?
McCain wants everyone in the government to use only a strict set of interrogation guidelines, which do not include those usually classified under CID. Of course, these guidelines would be classified so the enemies can't prep against them, which makes sense. The administration, particularly Cheney, wants the CIA to be exempted from those guidelines. They feel that actionable intelligence can be gained using these techniques, and that trained CIA interrogators can be trusted to execute on these appropriately (unlike what happened at Abu Ghraib). The Senate clearly agrees with McCain, passing his ammendment by a vote of 90-9.
Despite the murkiness of the debate, it's pretty clear that torture does not provide reliable intelligence. We used these techniques on al-Libi, the Al Qaeda operative who gave us the information for Colin Powell's now infamous UN speech, only to find out it the information he gave up was wrong. Israel, which probably has the most consistent recent experience with this sort of situation, has laws expressly forbidding the use of cruel and inhumane treatment, and officials say they do fine without it. However, it must be noted (as McCain often fails to do) that the Israeli law has a clause that allows "moderate physical pressure" under the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
People under torturous conditions will say anything, true or false. And we can't tell the difference until it's too late. However, what torture does do pretty reliably -and we have seen this today - is drastically erode our moral authority in the conflicts that we engage in.
One of the greatest strengths of our military is that the individuals are well trained, well equipped, and have a strong conviction that they are on the side of freedom, democracy, and morality (for lack of a better term). There are young men and women out there fighting and dying because they believe in what this country stands for, and it is completely irresponsible of this adminstration to ask them to continue to fight while taking away those ideals for which they are fighting. It is even more irresponsible for them, through this negligent behavior, to expose our troops to the increased possibility of being tortured or killed when captured by way of vengeance.
CID treatment might very well have to be used in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, but we have to make sure it's used only in those exceptional circumstances. If, based only on these rare circumstances, we allow ourselves to condone this behavior on a wider scale, it can then get out of hand and become a massive problem (see Abu Ghraib), and also it forms a "black box" of questionable actions which decisively removes us from the moral high-ground we claim to occupy.
McCain's view, as far as I can understand it, is that by outlawing this form of abuse we can make sure that it is not used on a routine or semi-routine basis by anyone. I agree with this, but I do think that the President should be allowed to used CID techniques in rare cases, subject to authorization from some sort of an oversight committee (the senate intelligence comittee comes to mind).
posted by slithytoves at 11:27 AM
1 Comments:
Great post.
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