The 900 Pound Gorilla in the Room

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Amid all of the reactions to Osama bin Laden's death, there has been a full range from laudatory of the administration to denial that the administration deserves credit to brand new conspiracy theories about the whole thing being faked.

We will almost certainly not know the full story of how this location was found in this administration's tenure -- and probably not for some time to come. Given that the chain of intelligence is probably legitimately sensitive that makes sense, but as the rough story comes out, the narrative strongly suggests that the leads go all the way back to the Bush administration under whose watch intelligence sources learned about bin Laden's couriers from detainees.

The question I have not heard discussed much (although an interview with the CIA's former Osama bin Laden division head on NPR this morning directly addressed it) is whether or not "enhanced interrogation" of detainees can be credited with the intelligence that finally landed that Navy SEAl team on top of him.

I've understood three arguments against the Bush administration's interrogation program that I have largely agreed with:

1) Legality: "Enhanced interrogation" includes techniques that have historically been defined as torture and we have international obligations to not torture. All of the legalistic pretzeling about whether or not it matters that someone is in an official uniform or John Yoo's attempts to redefine the word don't change that techniques we know were used on detainees meet broadly accepted definitions of torture and the rule of law matters.

2) Morality: Our authority as the "good guys" is severely diminished by torture. Think about the nature of the company we keep internationally with regimes that routinely torture and I think it is not remotely a stretch to say that ends do not justify means if you believe that your nation is actually good and should meet a good standard.

3) Practicality: Jack Bauer fantasies aside, there is rarely a ticking bomb that is found via brtualizing a prisoner. Moreover, a lot of perspectives on torture state that torture is best at extracting not true information but desired responses that make the torturer stop. There is a reason why the USSR and Maoist China routinely tortured people into signing statements "confessing" to "crimes against the revolution."

So for discussion: If the chain of information that was eventually followed to Osama bin Laden's hiding place began with a prisoner who was tortured (or "interrogated in an enhanced manner" if you prefer) does that change anything regarding how we evaluate the policies of President Bush?

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

No. Consequentialism is pretty screwy.

[essius.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't change my contempt for President Bush's contempt for the rule of law, signed articles like the Geneva Convention, etc. We still torture, use foreign rendition to let other people do the same, imprison people indefinitely without charges or trials and still like to pretend we're the beacon of liberty.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

What about Obama violating international law to kill bin laden and most likely accrue collateral damage?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not really, as Bush's Administration had seven years to make use of that and never managed to actually do it, where it was a Democratic Administration that finally made things work. Bush's policies are still a failure, if the policy in question is used more effectively by a Democrat that rebounds to the Democrats, not the Republicans. Similarly Democratic ideas if put in greater effect by Republicans should be credited to Republicans, not to Democrats. Bush had some positive legacies, but his wars were not one of them at all.

Bush saddled us with two wars that have continued interminably and have been a geopolitical disaster for everyone in the region except Iran and also for the USA, and the credit for using said torture effectively is exactly to be credited to the Administration which used it thus while being able to actually start ending one of the wars.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The most interesting question I've seen is the question of why the USA went into Afghanistan in October 2001. It did not actually "go" into Afghanistan in the sense of a large ground deployment, it gave the Northern Alliance the final boost over the Taliban and once Mazir-i-sharif collapsed so did the Taliban's conventional forces. US troops started appearing in large numbers in early 2002, for the earliest phase it was Special Forces in limited situations and the Northern Alliance and the US Air Force.

The rapid conventional victory was due to both to Taliban mistakes in underestimating US firepower and to the Northern Alliance providing the big number of ground-pounders. The USA's intervention was at first like the one in Libya, propelling one side in a civil war to victory over the other side, and the Taliban's improved performance is because they've changed their war and the USA finally changed its when Petraeus took charge.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, the question is: Do we care about doing what we preach, and do we preach the rule of law, human rights and being the beacon of freedom and democracy in the world - or not? If we preach that, but don't care about doing it, better stop preaching it and admit being just another empire who does bad things for its purposes. If we don't care about doing what we preach, just repeat after me: "We Do Not Care About The Rule Of Law, Human Rights, Freedom And Democracy", and then - fair enough. Everything else is fucking hypocrisy and I'll keep saying that no matter how many times I'm accused by this or that über-jingo of being US-hater. No I'm not US-hater. I'm two-faceness-hater. Capiche?

/rambleramble

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately there comes a point where criticizing the USA for using White Phosphorous in Fallujah and the deafening silence about both Chechen Wars *does* come across as less principle and more a tactful type of Anti-Americanism. The USA's always had that particular type of smarmily lawful unlawfulness about its global expansion, critiquing the USA for pious treachery is like noting the sea is full of salt water.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The ends never justify the means.

That is the method of accomplishing something cannot be made moral after the fact, their morality always stands on their own merit.

So no this does not change my opinion on Bush's policies one bit.

However, I think people need to keep in mind one important fact. We do not live in a perfect world and therefore sometimes we are not given the choice between Good and evil but rather to choose which path is the least evil and as such there are times when torture, as immoral and abhorent as it is, must remain on the table as a valid method of extracting information.

The key is to recognize that even as we are using it that it is immoral to be doing so and not allow ourselves to become comfortable with it's use.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Yep. The demise of Bin Laden has totally vindicated the practices which Bush introduced. Turns out he did the right thing, his gut feeling was right and torture is a beautiful and awesome way of getting things done, so you guys should keep doing it indiscriminately and probably devise even more elaborate ways of causing pain to fellow homo sapiens with the vague hope to obtain some intel. I say well done and keep up the good work, I'm convinced that history will judge you favorably.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

History seems to have judged Putin favorably for what he did to Grozny. I mean it was much more brutal than what the USA did with Fallujah, which itself seems more the Tacitean type of warfare than the USA's had for a while but Putin gets criticism for putting poison in reporter's coffee cups instead. It's like how Bush is criticized mostly for botching Katrina and lying people into the wars, as opposed to the truly dangerous precedents he set like a long volunteer war and Lysenkoist smokescreens WRT reality now banal parts of US politics (as Obama showed WRT the Gulf Oil Spill).

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

Not even for a second.

Even noting that Junior's team gathered the initial itel here, by what ever means, they had a long and horrid record of detainee malfeasance, a history of questionably moral, ethical and legal behavior, and a history of screwing up their interpretation of the intel even when the agencies providing it questioned the decisions.

They got a nugget or two, but it was in fact this admin that made the good and proper use of the intel and scored the points.

Once the intel is gotten, even if ill gotten, it is still had and still needs to be taken into account.

Bush gets little to no credit on this one - not that it matters.

Waterboarding didn't help capture Bin Laden

[telemann.livejournal.com]

If the chain of information that was eventually followed to Osama bin Laden's hiding place began with a prisoner who was tortured (or "interrogated in an enhanced manner" if you prefer)

But a closer look at prisoner interrogations suggests that the harsh techniques played a small role at most in identifying Bin Laden’s trusted courier and exposing his hide-out. One detainee who apparently was subjected to some tough treatment provided a crucial description of the courier, according to current and former officials briefed on the interrogations. But two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled their interrogators about the courier’s identity.

Glenn L. Carle, a retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002, said in a phone interview Tuesday, that coercive techniques “didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.” He said that while some of his colleagues defended the measures, “everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.”

“The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. “It took years of collection and analysis from many different sources to develop the case that enabled us to identify this compound, and reach a judgment that Bin Laden was likely to be living there.”

Source. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/politics/04torture.html?hp)

Re: Waterboarding didn't help capture Bin Laden

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

correct - these individuals stem from cultural/religious groups where suicide bombing is acceptable and encouraged if/when necessary. why then, would we dare hope to receive any thruthful information when water-boarding? some of these individuals ARE WILLING TO DIE for the cause :S h e l l o

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

does that change anything regarding

Well, morality is circumstantial, so probably does for a lot of people.

The ideal would be, "Being a victim does not absolve us of responsibility for our actions". I see this argued for minorities and such, so why not apply it to the military actions of the USA?

Still, judging by all the gleeful grave dancing that just isn't a popular idea.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

If anything, one moral sticks out of the whole story. There doesn't seem to be any obstacle to quickly shutting the mouths of those who know too much and who, if detained and put in front of a tribunal and given the chance to speak in front of a global audience, could probably tell some very stories very unpleasant to our ears.

Oh I'm sorry, I forgot...bin Laden resisted arrest, with his bare arms I mean, so he had to be shot, there was no other option. You guys just don't understand! He mastered the Dark side of the Force so we had to act quickly! This is not a trigger-happy episode, it's an expected and in fact pre-trained moment of self defense on part of the SEALs, and after all it was all well planned and supervised via satellite from Arlington and DC, remember?

Also, he was such a honorable Muslim that we couldn't afford not respecting his Muslim tradition so we had to quickly bury him (24 hours, remember)...and since no one conveniently wanted him on their soil, we had no other option but to handle him to the plankton. No worry, everybody happy, mission accomplished, let's go home and drink some beer. Or fermented camel milk. Cheers!

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I feel like you're making a lot of implications about the situation when you don't have the knowledge to.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

No.

Means matter. Period. All else is semantic self-justifying crap.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I always thought the saying 'ends justify the means' was so weird, because its literal meaning is the opposite of the implication. The implication is really 'Obtaining a particular end justifies ignoring all other ends'.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If the chain of information that was eventually followed to Osama bin Laden's hiding place began with a prisoner who was tortured (or "interrogated in an enhanced manner" if you prefer) does that change anything regarding how we evaluate the policies of President Bush?

No.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

All the reporting I've read said that the information wasn't obtained with enhanced interrogation techniques. "Got it from detainees" doesn't even mean "got it from enhanced interrogation techniques". No new issue is raised here, really. Interrogation brings intel. That was never a contention anyways.

great idea...

[oportet.livejournal.com]

How about just not letting word get out that you used torture, on anyone, ever? Is keeping something a secret impossible now?

That way those against torture won't be able to complain, and those for it can just assume we do it, and have happy daydreams about it.

It's a win-win-win-lose situation for everyone!

Re: great idea...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Is keeping something a secret impossible now?
For the Bush administration it was.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Fuck no. Even if torture was the only thing that led us to bin Laden, I would still oppose it. I would rather see 100 OBLs go free than see one innocent person tortured (and don't kid yourself, you know that some of the detainees were just people in the wrong place at the wrong time).

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

No. Was Osama a threat to someone? As Pastorlenny said in the first comment, the means do not justify the ends. If you corrupt yourself to do something 'right', you're still corrupt.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

*means are not justified by the ends.

What's wrong with a little hard-ball in the pursuit of enemies and criminals? Plenty.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

The problem with torture is that it is no good as an information gathering tool. How does one know when to stop? If the torturer does not already know what the answer is for which he is supposedly torturing, he has no reason to believe any particular thing the victim may reveal in order to escape torture.

Even in the so-called "Ticking Bomb" ethical scenario, torture is a futile course of action. The scenario is often resorted to by those who wish to establish some sort of ethical "permission" for the torturer to torture, but usually such proponents avoid the question of whether or not their "extreme measures for extreme circumstances" would even produce "good" ends justifying the wicked means, assuming ends justified means in the first place. Suppose that there were a terrorist-deployed atomic weapon, ticking down to a timed detonation in the heart of a large metropolitan city. Further suppose that it is protected with booby-traps and disarmable only with a secret code. The premise is that the torturer tortures the terrorist until he reveals a code, but what then? How does the torturer know that it is the right code anyway, absent trial and error?

Given that torture is a poor tool for gathering information, and this has been affirmed by many analysts, even in the military and intelligence communities, not just fuzzy-headed professors from Amnesty International or Berkeley, then what conceivable end is it for which torture is good? Basically, torture is good for making people confess things, for getting people to say whatever they have to to make the torture stop, or for terrorizing those potentially subject to it. Nothing else. At the end of the day, the proponent of torture cannot escape the problem of separating out what is actually true from what his victim merely thinks the torturer wants to hear.

Notice what has to be presumed in order to endorse and practice torture. A preconceived outcome must be present in the mind of the torturer in order for torture to "make sense" in the first place. It is a great tool for obtaining "confessions." Its use, under such circumstances presumes the guilt of the person tortured. The "authority" to torture is inherently an authority to victimize, without regard for the guilt or innocence of the victim. If the torturer already knows that the victim is guilty, i.e. he has accurate, actionable evidence, then the torture is unnecessary. If the torturer does not know whether or not the victim is guilty then torture will not be any reliable means of establishing the truth of the matter in the first place, and in the second, will involve the deprivation of the victim of rights to life, liberty, or property without due process of law. How is such an authority to be held accountable? An authority to circumvent the rule of law is, in essence, an authority that is above the law. If the authority to torture anyone is granted then how is accountability to be exercised over such an authority? Accountability, a check on the raw power of authority, is the entire purpose of the rule of law. The practice of violating, suspending, or otherwise circumventing the presumption of innocence and the recourse to habeus corpus and the requirements of due process is only useful to the exercise of tyranny, not law, and is thus inherently corrupting and once instituted, devolves into a contest of raw power and terrorism. There is no point in reasoning with an opponent who upholds no universal standard of justice or conflict resolution. A torture regime is an inherent resort to a Reign of Terror. Frequently, such regimes are horrifically unstable and unpredictable and rebound catastrophically upon those who instigate them. Just ask Robespierre and the Jacobins. Only savages endorse undermine the rule of law and only civilizations on the cusp of destruction embrace violations of human rights. It is not primarilly a concern for the "enemy" that should motivate our defense of rights, but a rightful concern for ourselves.

Re: What's wrong with a little hard-ball in the pursuit of enemies and criminals? Plenty.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I'm with this guy.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Now if we were using 900-pound gorillas as torture instruments, that would be a different story...

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

That shit could be on pay per view.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

"does that change anything regarding how we evaluate the policies of President Bush?"

Nope. More importantly, it doesn't change anything regarding how we evaluate the policies of President Obama. Bush was wrong to open Guantanamo, Obama is wrong to keep it open.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

who cares. bin laden is dead. next.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

I actually agree in a way. People are focusing too much on the past and are probably neglecting thinking about the present and future. Even if it has to be the near future for the time being. And there are some pressing issues regarding geopolitics, intelligence and terrorism that need to be addressed. But i guess first all the gleeful cheering has to subside a bit.