[Water-boarding] is torture... It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
Jesse Ventura is not exactly known for his intellectual firepower, and I didn't comment on his assertion at the time. It seemed pointless. But I noticed that his statement has been picked up and repeated in various venues online, as if it had any meaning in the torture debate. It doesn't.
Everyone concedes that torture is pretty effective at forcing confessions. Jesse Ventura is simply stating the obvious. If you waterboard someone with the intent of getting a certain answer, you are probably going to get it. Many torture opponents seem to think this somehow "proves" torture is ineffective. What it proves is that they haven't taken a few seconds to examine the logic behind their argument. Information is information. The quality of the information you get from an interrogation depends on the interrogator, the interrogatee, and the overall situation. If you ask the wrong questions, ask the right questions in the wrong way, or otherwise screw up, you probably aren't going to get very good information. But the reverse is also true. And once you have obtained information it has to be evaluated. Most torture opponents seem to assume that information gained through torture has to be accepted uncritically. Obviously it doesn't. It can be checked out, and in some cases definitively verified or falsified.
Torture is just an interrogation method. Yes, you can use it to get false confessions. But if you use it to extract information, that information can be evaluated in exactly the same ways as information obtained through other means. Since this is apparently so incredibly difficult for torture opponents to understand, here is a simple example.
Prisoner X belongs to a terrorist organization involved in stealing a weapon system. He's a low-level operative. The only useful thing he knows is the name and location of his immediate superior. When interrogated, if he is asked for things he doesn't know about, such as the terror group's plans, the location of the weapon system, etc., interrogators will get nothing or lies. If he's tortured and talks they will definitely get lies. But what if someone asks him for the name and location of his contact in the organization? That he knows. If he gives up that information it does not matter whether it was extracted by torture or by other methods. In either case, the named individual and location can be investigated by normal police work to determine whether or not the prisoner told the truth.
Sure, torture sometimes works. It is extremely inefficient, but it sometimes works.
ReplyDeleteBut at what cost? We are now one of "those" nations. A nation that tortures.
I think we have to consider the cost of torture. One of the greatest strengths of our country is that we hold the moral high ground. We follow the rule of law. We want the world to emulate our government and the way we do business.
When we torture we lose that moral high ground. We can no longer point at other nations and decry their human rights record without them pointing back and saying, "yeah, but you torture."
Our "But, but, but, it's ok when we do it" will sound pathetic and will be easily countered by our enemies. Our own willingness to torture will be a tool for our enemies. They will use it for propaganda and they will use it as a recruiting tool.
We don't need to torture in order to win a decisive victory. We are better than that.
Dude, what if the "terrorist" is you? The problem with people that justify torture is that they always assume the tortured is guilty and what is at issue is what the guilty person knows. Unfortunately, the people who get tortured are often entirely innocent and are only suspected of being guilty by folks who have incomplete information. Of course torture would be acceptable if we knew who was guilty ahead of time, but we don't, so we shouldn't do it.
ReplyDeleteHepius,
ReplyDelete"I think we have to consider the cost of torture."
True. But sometimes the benefits might outweigh the costs.
"When we torture we lose that moral high ground."
I disagree that we lose the moral high ground by torturing a known terrorist. I don't see torture itself as intrinsically wrong. It depends on who is being tortured and the overall situation.
" We can no longer point at other nations and decry their human rights record"
Sure we can, assuming they aren't restricting their torture activities to a few known terrorists.
"They will use it for propaganda and they will use it as a recruiting tool."
True. That's one of the costs.
"We don't need to torture in order to win a decisive victory."
I would say that depends on the situation. If we have a terrorist leader in custody, who we believe has vital information, and he simply refuses to talk, what then? That's the question Michael Scheuer asked.
braney,
" The problem with people that justify torture is that they always assume the tortured is guilty"
No they don't, or at least I don't. Obviously if you torture suspects some are going to turn out to be innocent. There is a difference between knowing someone is guilty and simply acting as if he is. There are certain individuals we know beyond a shadow of a doubt are terrorist enemies -- people such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"Unfortunately, the people who get tortured are often entirely innocent and are only suspected of being guilty by folks who have incomplete information."
I am not in favor of using torture on that type of suspect. And I'm not defending all the Bush interrogation policies -- only the ones that involved clearly identified terrorists.
" Of course torture would be acceptable if we knew who was guilty ahead of time, but we don't, so we shouldn't do it."
But we do in some cases. Those are the only cases in which I favor torture as a possible option.