Expletives

[pecunium]

Newsmax, (a right of center, very right, publication, which bills itself as "America's News Source") is trying to spread the meme that torture works.

Nearly forty years ago, however - when McCain was held captive in a North Vietnamese prison camp - some of the same techniques were used on him. And - as McCain has publicly admitted at least twice - the torture worked!

Which isn't what McCain has said. He said that threats to refuse him medical treatment made him talk. He also said that what he gave up was useless (this last is questionable, because absent the reports, and what the Vietnamese did with it we can't really know that; altough I can't really see what benefit his giving them the name of the Packer's offensive line was. We can give him the benefit of the doubt if we want. We could also say Newsmax is right, when they say McCain gave up information because he was tortured, though the specific torture, withholding of medical aid, is the sort of thing the present administration says isn't really torture... knife cuts both ways).

Pain was also used to get him to confess to war crimes. Crimes we don't recognise as crimes, and which (more to the point) he wouldn't have thought of as crimes. In short the torture got him to confess to things he hadn't done.

This is the crux of the "pragmatist" dilemma. It's funny, for thirty years we touted the response of pilots in Vietnamese custody as proof torture didn't work. We claimed none of them broke in ways which gave up intel. We pointed out that they had been forced to confess to things they hadn't done. We used them as teaching points in our schools.

And now, there are people who want to take the same points (that they didn't break, or gave up information which was useless; or out of date, and that they confessed to crimes they didn't commit) as evidence of the efficacy of torture.

Gotta love it, the same data, but now it means the something else.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It's a damn good thing for Newsmax that John McCain believes in the rule of law. Because a .45 ACP also works, and he knows how to use one.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's really good for lots of people that I do, because I am younger, and more spry that McCain.

I also favor things which work at a distance.

Speaking of which, have you seen The Box o' Truth?

The guy does a mythbusters and good ol' boy routine to test various claims about firearms.

Never mess with a 45-70 (then again, I'd not have done it anyway, since the only rifle I've ever had to stop shooting because of recoil was a Marlin carbine in 45-70, though perhaps a narrow stock, a 405gr slug and a muzzle velocity of 1850 after 16" of barrel travel is a bit much, across the board).

TK

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Never looked at The Box o' Truth, but I have shot a Marlin 45-70 carbine. I agree with you that it kicks like a damn mule.

I have entertained the thought of what it would be like to shoot a .460 Weatherby, or a .600 Nitro Express. But I've never had a chance to realize those fantasies. I'm not really in any hurry to do so either.

[joxn.livejournal.com]

When you're not part of the Reality-based Community, all "facts" are mere talking points on their way to spin. Ideology comes first.

And they hate deconstruction!

[sethg]

You don't torture people for information; you torture them for confessions. That implies something about the psychology of the torturer (or the regime that sanctions torture), although I'm not sure what.

Consider the stereotypical "ticking-bomb" thought experiment: we are supposed to assume that we know that the suspect is guilty, so it's OK to put the screws on him. How can we know that? Are we blessed with psychic power? Why can't we just use the same psychic power to find out where the bomb is without touching the suspect? If our power doesn't extend that far, how do we know that we'll be able to tell whether the suspect is telling the truth or leading us on a wild goose chase?

More generally: why was it so important to the NKVD to get Stalin's enemies to confess their "crimes" in open court, or for the North Vietnamese to get signed confessions from the Americans they captured? Did the torturers really believe that the victims were guilty of what they confessed to, and saw the confessions as some sort of retroactive justification for the torture? Or were they simply revelling in their power to make people do absurd things?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Stalin and the N. Vietnamese weren't justifying the torture per se, the confessions justified the regime (which word used to be so much easier to use).

When all those people are confessing to doing so much to overthrow it, then you have enemies, and enemies require stern measures, not only in policing, but in austerity, so the lack of ameneties (like housing, or good clothes, or...) is justified, because they were at war.

Those who confessed to things for Stalin showed that not only was the West an enemy, but that there were enemies within.

The N. Vietnamese had the confessions of the pilots to show what they were fighting. They were for the morale of the people waging the war (many of whom saw loved ones go south, never to return).

TK