Defining acceptable technique

[pecunium]

james_nicoll was talking about Michael Ignatieff (vis-a-vis this NYTM article).

Ignatieff, among other blather, says that we're going to have to accept torturing people. It's a trifle more dressed up, but it's the "ticking bomb" nonsense, clothed in delicate terms of, "Stress," and "disorienting" and the like.

So it occurs to me, as he says none of this is torture, and Alberto Gonzales, and the like, all say we don't use torture, we just use "means of, mild, physical coercion," that I (yes I, the rabid anti-torture hippie-interrogator) can see a way to make it something I won't condemn out of hand.

Those at the top. Those who have to approve the legislation (as well as the hacking authority, so some upper level, Colonels and suchlike will be included) have to test the approved methods.

If waterboarding isn't torture, then let them show it. We'll waterboard them. Someone who has no reason to go easy on them will get to subject them to every method they want to approve. If they say 1 hour of stress-position A is acceptable (say hanging from the bars in handcuffs, stripped naked and doused with cold water) then they get one hour and 15 minutes (to show that we are stopping well short of the point of you know, "actual" torture). The times in question can be kept classified, but some oversight committee will get to see that it's actually done.

Each approved method has to be renewed every year, and prior to renewal it has to be re-administered to all those who would be in position to authorise it.

After all, it isn't as if this was torture.

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

You Da Man.

Also, I'd like proof that this produced reliable information. Not just information, reliable information. Because unreliable information can be worse than no information. I'd also like to know that utilizing these practices wasn't going to damage the interrogators. Yeah, those people.


ALso, a small, additional worry of mine: How many people in the interrogation MoS and related ones are Reserve/NG? How many of the MP troops on Iraq/Afghanistan now are Reserve/NG? How many of those are peace officers in their civilian jobs? Do we want that subgroup to come back to their civilian jobs thinking that such practices, which we have done our best to eradicate from civilian police work over many painful years, are acceptable and reliable? How about those MPs who are regular army now but retire and become civilian peace officers?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Also, I'd like proof that this produced reliable information. Can't be done. Forget my biases, the problem is, the only thing one can test is do they break? If you give someone a safe-word/phrase, etc., which will let them stop the tested method, you've only shown the method gets people to talk.

There's no way to control for that.

Don't get me started (again) on the problems with law enforcement models and interrogation.

And yes, the problem of how this sort of thing damages the doer is heavy on my mind (if you go back to 2003 (sometime in early August, I think... lesseee; nope, was Nov 5th I was pissed off at David Brooks (haven't, by choice, read him since) and vented about it).

Lots of cops (not all, but by no means an insignificant number) see suspects as less than completely worthy of decent treatment. Interrogators are in a position where that can become extreme. The result can lead to atrocities.

As for MPs becoming cops, not so much. The duties aren't really the same. Some do police work, most are glorified traffic cops and security guards.

TK