pecunium

try it now

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jonquil.livejournal.com

Thanks!

I wrote a bitter letter to the Times ombudsman today pointing out that they'd referred to American torture as "harsh questioning". The assistant said he'd forward the mail to the appropriate parties. Ah, well.

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Tell him to call me, I'll talk to him, on deep background.

TK

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sethg

You can call yourself "Deep Tagine".

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red-silk-robe.livejournal.com

Thank the gods for both of you. Good minds and contientious efforts in a delicate job that would make most Ethics majors dissolve in puddle.

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Only because they come at it ab intitio and we don't.

There isn't a whole lot of institutional knowledge in the field; those of us who do it hold it all in our heads (which is a great failing on the part of both ourselves, and the Army).

But we went to school for this. We have the distilled wisdom and practice of 60 years (since the most recent real building of the present system). We have books ( The Interrogator by Scharff, and {though it is less useful, it has it's moments} The Interrogators by Mackey [n.b. Mackey is an acquaintance of mine, were we on the same side of the country I'd say friend, so my recommendation of his book may be biased... and I've not seen him since he came back from Afghanistan] both detail some of the nuts and bolts of how it works best)), and we have folks who've done it to show the way.

From the outside, without a system, it seems insurmountable, the task of getting someone to talk; and about things he doesn't want to talk about, and has no requirement to discuss.

So those who look at it from the point of view of figuring out how to do it, without the understanding of how to do it, they get dragged into dark, and twisted, alleys of the soul.

TK

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Only because they come at it ab intitio and we don't.

I'm not entirely clear on how you mean ab initio in this context, but I don't think that's really the problem. To the extent that the problem of torture is a problem at all in discussions of philosophical ethics, it is because the abstract discussion assumes, arguendo, that torture works. Once you eliminate that possibility, there's nowhere for the discussion to go. So once you have a practical understanding of what does and doesn't produce good humint, you've already stalled that conversation.

But really, any abstract ethicist worth their salt isn't going to get very stuck on the justifiability of torture even if you are allowed the assumption that torture reliably produced good information in a timely fashion. Because as ginmar rightly points out, the only remotely compelling case for the justifiability of torture is one in which you 1)know that there is a time-sensitive threat to innocent lives already in motion and 2)you have in custody someone you know to have sufficient knowledge to prevent the threat from being actualized if the information can be extracted fast enough. But here's the trick: even if torture were justified in that one (highly unlikely) circumstance, that doesn't justify torture under circumstances where 1) and 2) don't hold. Because the only thing that makes the permissibility of torture even an issue is your certainty of saving lives from known imminent danger. Once you eliminate certainty, imminence, and established danger, you have no justification at all. So the competent ethicist will conclude that in actual practical cases, torture isn't justified.

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I saw it as a question not of torture (which is black and white, IMO) but rather that of gaining information from the less than willing source.

Honestly, most of the things we teach people to do can be constued as violations of Geneva, since what we do with them involves some implications of negative effects from non-co-operation.

Since any coercion is against the rules, all such attempts at persuasion can be considered war crimes.

There are some grey areas (where in fact clearing up some things willl avoid negative results which are pretty much a given) but then we tend to exploit the fact of them talking to get more from them than they need to tell us, and the idea that not talking will once again trigger the unpleasant results.

Me, I don't have much problem with it, because I'm not likely to threaten someone with something which isn't actual.

The milder stuff, playing on ego and situational fear, well... I'm not always a nice person.

TK

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I'm sorry, I know you feel like a lone voice in the wilderness at times, but it really isn't in me to be very impressed that ginmar can manage to arrive at the totally bleeding obvious.

But I did like this line: Democracy is the principle that all people are crated equal.

Wotta maroon. I mean, infelicities of typing aside, democracy was created in Hellenistic Greece, where slave-keeping was commonplace and neither women nor foreigners had the vote. And even once you discount that democracy had nothing whatsoever to do with all people being created equal, you are left with the fact that it's a political system, not a principle.

But that aside, I'm sure it was a lovely play.

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On the same hand, I am preaching the totally bleeding obvious.

So, when someone else says it, even with infelicitations, I'm going to poin to it.

We can discuss the ideal of democracy (which I confess, I didn't catch, being a tad tunnel visioned on the parent subject), and agree that equality of all isn't really part of the idea (since in all of Athen's polity there were what, 5,000 citizens, and tens, if not hundreds (certainly by the latter part of the Pelleponessian War, there were hundreds of thousands who had to jump at the beck and call of Athens, and had no say in what that beck and call might be) but the present incarnation of it certainly has that as a trope.

Me, I'm not so sure everyone should get the franchise who has it, but I can't see a better way to apportion it, so I'll take some semblance of what we have now.

TK

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So, when someone else says it, even with infelicitations, I'm going to poin to it.

But, given that it is obvious, I would wish for someone making better points in a more coherent way. If you read ginmar's piece without the subject-idealization glasses on, it's really a pretty crap essay. Time and again, the bodies of paragraphs have nothing whatever to do with the nominal topic sentence, let alone supporting it. The piece makes all sorts of random assertions which, while I believe them to be true, aren't actually supported by anything she says. And while she has the opportunity to tie her own concrete and specific experience to the larger polemical points she's attempting, she doesn't actually make the connection, merely laying things out higgelty piggelty and hoping her readers will suss out the relationships.

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Well, on re-reading it, there is a lack of flow. And, as you say, the structure is weak. I am guilty of seeking fellow travellers (and the moreso, fellow travellers who are hard to impeach).

TK

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ginmar.livejournal.com

The poster you're responding to has been banned from my LJ for demanding I set it up to her conveniance. She's also been banned elsewhere for similiar behavior. Just FYI. I doubt very much she'd give me credit if I called water wet.

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The fact that the founders mentioned equality (for men) in the same breath as democracy (and that only applies to American democracy after all) doesn't equate to equality being an inherent *part* of democracy, even in the US. That's Bushco thinking. Juxtaposition as argument. You have only to look to the history of the U.S. constitution to notice that equality has had to be shoehorned in by force of main, after the fact, time and again, into this longstanding democracy. Equality under the law only entered the document in 1868. Women only got the franchise less than a century ago, and their equality under the law still isn't explicitly documented in the constitution.

Look, I think ginmar is right that torture undermines our moral credibility, has no positive effect, and doesn't work, but I think the case can and ought to be made a good deal better.

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So make the case then...

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But it has already been done ably elsewhere. Do you need pointers? Naturally you don't mean its incumbent on me to do it better also because I have noted that ginmar has done it badly, because I'm sure you realize that that argument is fundamentally fallacious.

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So if it's so totally bleeding obvious, why exactly are people still arguing about it?

I think it might be fair to say that democracy has expanded in meaning since the time of the greeks (for one thing it seems to have expanded to encompass America's political system which I believe is actually a republic).

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They are still arguing it because too many people have been influenced by Hollywood's version of interrogation - both on the big and small screens. This includes the guy on the ground. Many believe that the techniques shown in a movie or a TV show that obtain instantaneous results are preferable to the amount of time that it takes to do a good real interrogation. Not once in the fantasy of film does it show that the torture is NOT effective or the reasons why.
I - like our host and gimnar - am an interrogator and have spent ample time in the sand. I watched my guys disprove the hollywood theory by doing it right and being very effective. But I also saw those north of us and to the south do it wrong and get in trouble by being young nad without back up and bowing to the pressures of those appointed over them. I will never say that is reason for them not to get in trouble. They know the law and they know they must say no. Unfortunately we are a young MOS and there are not many with experience left.

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I'm not sure what you mean by, "young MOS," since it goes back to the sixties (at least) and Camp Holabird, before Devens and now Huachuca. I know that we built the doctrine around the debriefings (not quite the same, for those not in the know, as interrogations) he gave US Army Intelligence, because of the reports from the pilots he interrogated (and by telling them up front he was doing it).

The real problem is the lack of (and I used to think this a strength, but no more) of officers doing the work. The problem is that it's work, and so seen as outside the officers' purview.

With a lack of institutional knowledge (there is a written body to which a young officer can refer when trying to plan an airborne assault. He need look no further than Operation Market (part of the dual operations which made up Market-Garden, famous as, "a bridge too far") to see what is to be done, and what to be avoided.

But, since interrogation is a skill, like marksmanship, or truck-driving, not an art, like operational planning, there is no corpus of work to which one can refer. I can go to my SFC, or a Chief (or, as it more common; but that because I am old [with 13 years in the MOS] and an instructor, they come to me, but the officers, who want results have to either trust us to do the work, ir interfere.

The Captains and Majors, they will usuall defer to the SFC and SSG on the ground. The Colonels, and Generals, the guys making policy, they get to demand results and then say the policy needs to change if those results aren't forthcoming.

Add a command environment where the leadership (and the charges levelled at Hussein could be used against the present Administration, but I digress) is making tortuous practice allowable, and where non-interrogators are being allowed to practice OJT in high-stress environments, with a premium on results and you get the sorts of things we see at Abu Ghraib, and in Afghanistan.

And the people, all the way up the chain, who committed the crimes, or who contrived to make them possible; or protected those who had committed them, need to be held to account.

TK

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By young MOS - I mean the experience of the soldiers themselves. Since the majority of our MOS seems to leave the military before the ten year mark or is a recent reclass - there is very little operational experience. Add to that the fact that we are one of the hottest promoting right now, we have soldiers with the rank to be in leadership positions and are making decisions with no one to turn to for advice or are sometimes young in age and are easily manuevered into making the wrong decision. Many commanders will see the rank on the collar but will not know that the SSG in front of them has only been in the MOS for two years and a year and half of that was at language school. You and I are unfortunately oddities in the world of HUMINT. Many of our contemporaries left, having been wooed away by better paying civilian companies.
All of your points I am in agreement with. The officer point especially. Unfortunately our officer counterparts seem to be more interested in the special programs than in being the voice of the daily work that can smooth the road for the guy on the ground who providing support to a unit...

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The promotions bother me.

I made SSG in 9, which was in the Guard, but not that much different from my classmates who stayed in the AC. The guys who were good at it tended to stay in, and that slowed things, a lot. The only time I can recall (until the present) when points fell below 798 was back in late '93 when they offered an early out, and about 45 guys (SFC and SSG)took it. For one cycle there was a lot of movement.

If we have easy promotion right now 1: my rank seems diminished (because the weak examples will tarnish the lot of us) and 2: it's because the experience (which is where the repository of both knowledge and culture reside) has fled.

I was worried about this when I saw people on the active side telling me they were hanging it up (one with 18 years in) when they got back from Iraq. They'd been used up.

TK

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Points to SGT are 350 and to SSG are 450. We are also on the autopromote to SGT. It is a lousy program that will automatically promote any SPC who has been in for four years to SGT whether their supervisors agree or not. The supervisors are supposed to be able to state that they do not want the autopromote to happen, however with as short as we are - it is being overridden.... and yes we will reap what we sow and the reasons the soldier was not sent to the board will be readily apparent later...

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That is so wrong (don't get me started on SGT becoming an advancement).

Esp. with the change (in response to recent problems) making CI a second tour MOS. The thought of some jumped up private with stripes getting police powers, a badge and the right to call himself, "special agent," scares the piss out of me.

We know the supervisors aren't going to do good NCOER counselling, we know the commanders aren't going to know enough to ride herd on the NCOERs, and we know screw-ups aren't going to lose rank because of screwing up.

Ye Gods and little fishes.

TK

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sethg

They are still arguing it because too many people have been influenced by Hollywood's version of interrogation - both on the big and small screens.

Amen, amen, amen.

Is there a way to portray an authentic, by-the-books interrogation session on TV that doesn't put the audience to sleep or make the person being interrogated seem like a wuss?

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Nope. Unfortunately the best interrogations seem to the detainee to be nothing more than a conversation. Waaayyyyyy boring to watch. In fact watching paint dry is much more exciting.

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It sounds (to a civilian from a very different country mind you) like those further up the chain of command need to take some responsibility for this state of affairs.

I guess it all comes back to the (badly misquoted) idea that
"For every question there is an answer which is simple beguiling and utterly wrong".

Which is why I tend to feel that even the bleedingly obvious should be shouted from the rooftops whenever possible.

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kate-schaefer.livejournal.com

What does MOS mean in this context?

Thanks.

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Military Occupational Specialty or in english - job.

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So if it's so totally bleeding obvious, why exactly are people still arguing about it?

Because the human capacity for ignorance, self-delusion, and jingoism is, as far as has ever been discovered, bottomless? People argue about a lot of stupid shit, that doesn't turn a bad argument into a good one.

I think it might be fair to say that democracy has expanded in meaning since the time of the greeks

It doesn't work like that. The meaning hasn't 'expanded' to exclude the original meaning. If Hellenistic democracy is democracy, then clearly it is possible to have democracy without presupposing equality under the law. If 19th century American democracy is democracy, then clearly it is possible to have without presupposing equality under the law. And if that's the case, then clearly democracy and equality under the law are not one and the same thing, since it's possible to have one without the other.

Now, I think that the concept of equality for all and the system of democracy almost certainly do have some sort of relationship, and I think there are probably very interesting things to be said about that relationship. Possibly the two tend, over time, to foster and reinforce each other. Certainly the two go well together. But just because ham and swiss go well together doesn't mean that pork is cheese.

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Yes but a bad argument is infinitely better than staying silent especially on a subject where a citizen as a member of a democracy (or possibly a republic) is morally responsible for the actions of their leaders and their military.

Um yes it kind of has, if the Greek political system existed now then we would no longer refer to it as a democracy, the majority of people do not call Saudi Arabia a democracy despite having enfrachised men because women are not allowed to vote.

Words have context in terms of place and time (or do you consider someone who mainly prays to gods and attempts to sort out the humours of your body a doctor?)

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No, a bad argument isn't better than silence if it does more damage to the cause it espouses. Which bad arguments can do, when they undermine the credibility of the viewpoint. More to the point, if you're going to bother to point to a thing, it ought to be a worthwhile example, in its own right, not merely an instance of a dog walking on its hind legs, otherwise it's just another form of bigotry: it isn't that she does it well, it's just amazing that she does it at all.

And the reason we do not call The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a democracy is because it isn't one. Men have no more power to determine their form of government or their rulers than women do. They don't have elections, or political parties. It is about as close to an absolute monarchy as anybody gets these days.

Look, I'm not likely to change my opinion that ginmar is vastly overrated as a writer and as a thinker, and certainly these efforts of yours aren't helping. Or, see paragraph one.

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Actually I'm going to disagree with you there, silence is infinitely worse.

Well no, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has just started having elections, they're only municipal ones mind you (although technically democracy comes from a city state anyway so by your argument municipal voting is the most "true" form of democracy). Women of course are not able to vote.

No but well, let's face it, you're not really making a great argument for your viewpoint. Of course if you believe your point of view is important I don't any reason why you shouldn't keep arguing.

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ginmar.livejournal.com

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that th eposter you're arguing with was banned from my LJ for dermanding that I set it up to her conveniance---cut tags, etc., etc., She's also been banned elsewhere for demanding others pick tags that she agrees with. Just FYI.

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She also makes a pretty sloppy argument (which hey, usually I couldn't really care less about, but if you're using a sloppy argument to assert that someone's argument is sloppy then well...)

I'm still waiting for her to explain why it is that we don't call leach appliers doctors...

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It's easy to tell you don't normally care about sloppy arguments, since you obviously can't actually identify one with both hands and a text on logic.

Note, for instance, that at the time you appear to be alluding to (one where prayer to multiple gods and medicinal use of leeches were both simultaneously current medical practice), it's unlikely that a healer was called a "doctor". Note, also that medicinal use of leeches, and studies on the efficacy of prayer in speeding healing are both engaged in by legitimate medical professionals to this day, so in fact whether or not I would refer someone as a doctor would probably not be influenced by whether or not they used leeches or prayer. But, golly, I bet you thought you were pretty darn clever there for a minute. How very sad for you then that I didn't answer that bit because I thought it not quite up to the sheer stupidity of the "Saudi Arabia is not a democracy because women can't vote rather than because it doesn't have a democratic form of government" argument, and because time for answering stupid arguments is finite so one must be selective.

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"It's easy to tell you don't normally care about sloppy arguments, since you obviously can't actually identify one with both hands and a text on logic."

Um a little hostile there? I said your arguments were sloppy, I didn't say anything about you.
Do you think we could perhaps tone down the language just a little?
It seems impolite to be doing this in someone else's live journal.

The modern use of leeches and maggots is really really cool(although the last I heard at least one of the prayer studies had its methods called into question), however they don't tend to be prescribed willy nilly and someone who did so would not be described as a doctor.

The meaning of the word doctor has changed to the point where you can use it in one instance and completely exclude its traditional meaning (while being able to use it in another instance to mean what it traditionally did).

I would tend to argue that democracy has done the same (certainly I could use democracy instead of "liberal democracy" and be understood by most people).

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I said your arguments were sloppy, I didn't say anything about you.

And I said your skillset in detecting sloppy arguments was indicative of the degree of interest you had in them; I didn't say anything about *you*. And please, if you have something you want from me, ask on your own behalf, rather than using Terry as a beard. If he feels I have been impolite to him, he's perfectly capable of telling me so, and doesn't need you to tell me how to behave toward someone I have known for twenty years.

The meaning of the word doctor has changed to the point where you can use it in one instance and completely exclude its traditional meaning (while being able to use it in another instance to mean what it traditionally did).

Ah, okay, so the new meaning of doctor both excludes its "traditional meaning" and doesn't, simultaneously? Hum. Somehow that doesn't work for me.

Look, the lexical meaning of the term "doctor" was never "a person who attempts healing by prayer and leeches". Any more than the meaning of "auto mechanic" was ever "a person who uses only hand-tools" or a mural-painter was "a person who uses egg tempera on wet plaster" even though there were historical periods when those descriptions would have fit auto mechanics and muralists. Any more than the definition of "President of the United States" includes "white male non-Jew," even though every President of the United States has thus far been a white male non-Jew. You're confusing accidental properties of entities that a definition has been applied to with the definition itself.

A doctor is and was, approximately, a person trained in the art and practice of healing according to the best information, methods, and practices available, and has been certified in that training by whatever means of accreditation locally prevails. The methods and practices of doctors have changed, not the meaning of the word. Someone today whose only recourse in healing was prayer and leeches wouldn't be a doctor, because those are not exclusively the best methods and practices available.

Democracy, meanwhile, is that system of government wherein legislation and rule are determined by the vote of its citizens. What has changed over time is the conception what might constitute a citizen.

But even if you're right at meaning is somehow purely determined by context, that doesn't actually help the case for ginmar's competence as an essayist. If a word is ambiguous between meanings, it is incumbent on the writer to disambiguate. Which ginmar manifestly did not do. So I don't see that this line gets you anywhere.

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Well on my own behalf then, insults really don't advance any kind of a discussion.

"Ah, okay, so the new meaning of doctor both excludes its "traditional meaning" and doesn't, simultaneously? Hum. Somehow that doesn't work for me."

Well it does in practice, in fact you just confirmed it for me
"A doctor is and was, approximately, a person trained in the art and practice of healing according to the best information, methods, and practices available, and has been certified in that training by whatever means of accreditation locally prevails."

Is absolutely correct as a definition but excludes the traditional meaning of the word doctor (which I had forgotten about) which is simply that one has obtained a doctorate, not all medical doctors have obtained a doctorate and not all doctors are trained in the art and practice of healing.

In fact bizarrely of my two grandfathers one is a doctor as he has an academic doctorate, the other is a technically a Mr as he was a surgeon( although mostly he was just called doctor).

Having said that I think your definition is perfectly correct and in the context in which you're using it, it makes perfect sense.

"But even if you're right at meaning is somehow purely determined by context, that doesn't actually help the case for ginmar's competence as an essayist. If a word is ambiguous between meanings, it is incumbent on the writer to disambiguate. Which ginmar manifestly did not do. So I don't see that this line gets you anywhere."

If most reasonable people understand the meaning behind an ambigous usage and if the doccument isn't one where absolute precision matters (like a legal filing) then such a demand seems a little unreasonable (not to mention unwieldly).

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I'll toss my two-cents in on the subject of what is and isn't acceptable here, because I can't see anyplace better.

I know it might not be obvious from the outside, but I've been watching the interplay between the three of you; and not been quite certain what to do about it.

On the one hand, I am not fond of bickering and all three of you have done some. Yet again I can't say that any of it has been abusive, at least not so much so that I have to step in and tell y'all to knock it off.

Some of this is because I know

akirlu pretty well. Which means I trust her not to give more offense than she's willing to get in return.

On the other hand, I know that she can be abrupt, curt and seem dismissive.

Would I like things to be more like my writing, sure, but that's just me. I don't see anyone calling anyone stupid (the charges of gormlessness notwithstanding... and it seems theres a bit of backstory there).

I'm not addressing this as well as I would like... I'll blame my broken finger :).

If, and when, someone appeals to me because they feel specifically abused, I'll step in. At present I don't see that happening (unless I misread your appeal to being nice because it was my salon as a plea for help).

Some rough and tumble, acceptable, even if it isn't always comfortable. Having her tell me I'd linked to something she thought showed a lack of judgement wasn't comfortable. I also know she wasn't being offensive, merely critical.

I like to think that, were it to get out of hand, by my lights, that I'm capable of stepping in to correct it without needing to be told.

TK

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"Dermanding." Jesus Christ on a crutch, you couldn't get a fact straight if required by the UCMJ, could you? And if you could, you couldn't be arsed to type it correctly. I asked you a question. You found it insulting. But then, you kinda appear to have a hairtrigger for what's insulting to your Most Holy Person. You then stopped me from arguing with you on your journal, but had to come whining over to mine to get the last ill-tempered uninformed word in, rather than carry on the discussion where it began. You behaved like a hypocrite and a whiny baby, and now you have to come try to justify yourself again.

And there was no "etc, etc" you amazingly self-deluded bimbo. I asked you about using cut tags. Period. I had the temerity to allude to polite behavior as dictated by the larger community. And this gets exploded into my being demanding, and of many things, yet. I'd hate to see what happens to someone who asks you to pass the salt.

And yes, actually, it is essentially coincidental to my remarks here that you banned me from your journal. I concluded that you were an overrated writer and thinker long before I finally got sick enough of your maunderings to unsub you. The idiotic listing of every Congressional phone number was merely the nudge that prompted me that I didn't need to waste my precious scrolling time on your typing efforts any more.

And I am wholly unsurprised that you, like the equally gormless Yonmei, completely failed to notice that I never once asked her to change her tags, or suggested that she ought to, I merely argued that they were revelatory of anti-American bigotry, a bigotry you will notice (in this case, I'm using the objective 'you' meaning an ordinarily competent reader of English, not you personally ginmar) that she never denies, and which, in fact, mutual acquaintances (hers and mine, I mean) will confirm. Oh, and I said that the bigotry was ugly. Which, you know, I think bigotry generally is.

Just FYI.

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ginmar.livejournal.com

Gee, would you look at that? The entitlement queen rants and rages. Go ahead, sweetie. It's not like anyone gives a shit. If someone doesn't like your demands, they're gormless. What a shock.

So, anyway, people were talking....

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No, no. Absolutely no one gives a shit. That's why you can't resist trying to reassert your views at every opportunity. Because you don't care. Uh huh. Yeah. Sell it on a different street corner, honey bun. I don't think anyone here is desperate enough to buy it.

If someone doesn't like your demands, they're gormless.

No, if someone can't understand simple declarative sentences in languages they're nominally literate in, they're gormless. If they put their own delusions into the mouths of others without supporting evidence, they're gormless. If their response to a litany of facts is repetition of debunked claims, they're gormless. If they have so little faith in their own argumentative skills that they silence all critics, they're cowards, and probably gormless. You, my dear, are gormless.

Here, a simple task for you. If I have made so many demands, they should be easy enough to document. Please quote them to me. I'll settle in here for a long wait.

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