Expletives
Dec. 1st, 2005 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumNewsmax, (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there are people who want to take the same points (that they didn't break, or gave up information which was useless; or out of date, and that they confessed to crimes they didn't commit) as evidence of the efficacy of torture.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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-01 09:46 pm (UTC)And they hate deconstruction!