Tired

[pecunium]

I am not, sans peur et sans reproche, but if my strength is as ten, because my heart is pure, I hate to think how weary those who are merely possessed of normal stregnth feel with things like this.

It's about torture. It lists the authorised methods of torture we now have. We say they aren't torture, but they are.

This list isn't what wears at me. It disgusts me, but it disgusts me the way lots of things (corrupt cops, paedophilic preachers, politicians on the take, point shaving in sports; all the forms of everyday evil which the flesh is heir to); with a quiet sense of "As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, world without end." People are people, and possessed of venality.

No, it's the comments. I don't know why the people who argue for it (torture) irk me so. They are merely speaking, affirmatively, of things others have decided are to be done.

I don't know. Maybe I think that experience (mine) will persuade them, and like a shampoo commercial they'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and one of the evils of the world will be removed.

Becuase it doesn't work. Read accounts of witches in Europe, they all confessed to the same things. What, all of them were actually flying through the air, giving the devil blowjobs and the like? No. They were all tortured by people who had read the same playbook of what witches do.

The Inquisition never took evidence extracted with torture at face value; they required that those who had been tortured allocute in open court (this was a false thing, IMO, because to recant was to go back to the red hot irons and the rack). By the 17th century torture wasn't accepted anywhere in Europe, because it doesn't work.

Jack Bauer is a myth, the Ticking Bomb is a joke, and torture is evil.

I'm preaching to the choir. I'm just tired of repeating myself.

Comments

It hurts us all

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

As I was going my short way to my now-excused jury duty, they were talking about this. And the interviewer said something about "Mr. Bush said he never authorized torture..." or some other such bullshit. and the interviewee said something like, "I don't know what he authorized, it was considered how they did business, they didn't think they needed authorization."

I'm not sure, I was distracted by traffic and a lot of other stuff, but I did holler 'bullshit' at least once.

Sigh. I sure wish I didn't hate the adminisitration of my country so much. Did I ever let you know I always disliked Bush because he reminded me of those frat boys I hated in college? They did bad things, they drank until the puked or became comatose, committed misdemeanors and felonies that they got excused from because their daddies could pay them out and were generally considered slimeballs. (The did not usually get good grades at KU, as far as I could tell, they got the grades they worked for. But I'm not positive and I was in first as a pre-med and then as a journalism major, both of which are not a plus effort for frat boy slime.)

My 2cents, ymmv.

PS. If you ever come through KC on a journey, we have a guest room with a full bath on that floor. Or at least call me and we can meet somewhere for a nice aduilt beverage and dinner.

PS2. I come from a family of military men. Army and Air Force, my dad retired a colonel from the Air Force. I too always find it odd what people assume the military think, I know too many people in the service to have assumptions/stereotypes. Like the former stoner/acid-head who retired as a high-rank enlisted because he can translate Farsi etc. (he got a Masters in linguistics at KU, fluent in Russian, Farsi and several other things. Probably Arabic.)

[chris-goodwin.livejournal.com]

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I take great comfort in having spoken to you, and in repeating, "I know a man who did this job, and who says torture doesn't work. I read the book he recommended about another expert, and torture doesn't work." I try to pass on the light you gave me.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

That particular mole over there just kind of baffles me. (Which doesn't mean I won't gently talk to her anyway.)

But you've done a lot of good, over the past few years, in being someone people can point to, specifically, and say, "This is a man who I respect. And he can't be fully open about some specific things, because he's still somewhat part of things. But he has been eloquent about how and why this does not work. Listen to him."

So y'know, thanks.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Making something -- no matter how important -- your whole-life-and-energy Crusade probably isn't a good idea. But neither is "I'm tired of repeating myself" an excuse for stopping that you're likely to find satisfying when something Good and Important is involved. Yeah, I know -- you know that, and & are just griping, without any intention of quitting. As someone indicated, people who read your words take the flame, and carry it to others -- I think that, by citing you, I've convinced at least half-a-dozen people who were inclined towards reluctantly supporting the idea that torture is necessary & helpful. After all, membership in the Net Choir is continually changing. Maybe keeping a few carefully-done write-ups, for cut-&-paste use, would help.

[enname.livejournal.com]

The inquisition was incredibly loathe to use torture because they lost so many convictions that way. There are reams and reams of discussion about it, about what consists of toture and what is punishment - and this is when legally you were guilty until proven innocent, rather than vice versa.

It is all so incredibly wearing because there is always another group of people who just don't seem to get that you won't get the truth, or even close to it out of someone under torture. Endless stupidity.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

All we can do is to keep repeating ourselves.

B

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I know it gets tiring. I have been wanting to write about the latest torture issues for several days, and find myself just asking "what's the use?"

I am glad you write about these things, though. I have referred to your writings when I have written about torture to support the point that it doesn't work. I would think it would be self-evident it wouldn't work, but a lot of people need expert voices, and you're a very articulate one.

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

This member of the choir is (also) still glad you have it in you to repeat yourself. (Apart from the comments that weren't there before I went to sleep last night, I'm pretty read-up on that post over at Making Light. Which means I have yet to see the charmer in question for myself.)

If the tiredness comes from repeating yourself without apparent effect, I'd like to name a few things that does good for me - I'd count myself as one of those "merely possessed of normal stre(ng)th", and man oh man oh man, it's a struggle to even get up some days, and these guys Are Not Helping. But you do. You're still fighting the good fight, thank you. I just lose myself in fury whenever I see someone actually supporting torture, or trying to minimalize this crap by appeals to fear or tribalism or authority... with your constant reminder, at least I can counsel myself not to wish upon those people the very things they would cheerfully employ, justified by their ends like "security".

Crazy(one of the lurkers, but holding her lighter, burning a candle, whatever)Soph

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I've been reading this journal since our mutual friend Bear pointed it out to me... almost two years ago? I almost never say anything, but I listen, I learn and I point other people your way when appropriate.

We all make choices in how to live our life. To paraphrase a quote, we can be the candle or we can be the darkness.

I think you made the right choice.

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

I agree with the chorus that you have to keep plugging away, at the very least so someday people can say "See, not everyone in the American establishment lost their minds after the World Trade Center attacks. We have a CD of collected Internet posts by people in American military intelligence, no less, reminding everyone that coersion is not only wrong but a bad interrogation technique."

I do have a question, though: Why are the CIA engaging in waterboarding, etc? They're not stupid and it's not as if they've never interrogated anyone before. Is it specific information they are after or something else? Is this normally how you 'break' captured spies (pardon me if I've asked this ages ago)?

[moropus.livejournal.com]

Keeping preaching, even if only the choir is listening. We're supposed to be the good guys.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

No, it's the comments. I don't know why the people who argue for it (torture) irk me so. They are merely speaking, affirmatively, of things others have decided are to be done.

I can't see the post linked to, but my guess for why they irk you is this:

It's easy for them to support somehting they will never have to do.

There are people listening to you.

DV

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Thanks for preaching, because the choir gets larger every time you do. The bonehead in question, secure in naivety, and blessed with the obstinacy that only utter ignorance can bestow, may not have seen the point, but I know there were lurkers who were unsure, who have been made to think because of what you've had to say about this. Others, who were already possessed of something that resembled a clue, have had their convictions strengthened because of you.

Shall I tell you about the tiny pears I bought at the orchard stand in Missouri--they're a small variety, about the size of a child's fist, and a rich yellow, shading into hot pink as they ripen. THey are the sweetest pears I've ever eaten--they make everyday pears like Bartletts and Boscs bland, and their flesh is smooth, without the graininess you often get in larger pear varieties. I'd try them with cheese, but I'm eating them by themselves too fast to manage to find out which cheese would be best.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Find some more, pack them gently and send them to me.

:)

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

If they have any left the next time I go through Sikeston I might. However, I'm not sure what the season is for that variety. October might be a bit too late.

Right now I'm regretting the fact that I dodn't go with a half-peck after all, but we might not have eaten them all before they went bad (is it Eddy Izzard who so accurately covered the ripeness period of pears?) so perhaps it's better than I only have five left.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Terry - thank you for all the speaking out on this you've been doing. It's been really, really helpful to me to have someone to point to, to say, "yes, I *do* know someone who's done this work, and says...", in the face of people who claim that only weak-hearted terrorist-coddling libruls think of torture as ineffective.

Take a break if you need it, please come back when you're ready.

And again, thank you.

p.s. it's "sans p*eu*r", not "sans puer". (A 'puer' in Latin, anyway, is a young boy....)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

As others have said, you (like minnehaha B.) are someone I can point to and say, "This person has the knowledge, has the experience, is respected in the field, and this person says..." I have no expertise in these things, only my own rational and moral viewpoint. I can make no argument, really, that will convince someone that what I see as my rational and moral viewpoint is preferable in any way to what they see as their rational and moral viewpoint. But pulling Marshall McLuhan out from behind the signboard sometimes works.

Thank You

[(Anonymous)]

At one time, wasn't one of the signs of a NastyBad Totalitarian/Authoritarian Regime precisely that they used torture on prisoners, political or otherwise?

If I ever yield to the temptation of having a Live Journal (don't hold your breath), there will be a statement to the effect: "Torture is morally and ethically evil, and would be even if it worked, and it doesn't work. Anyone who has a problem with this statement should see pecunium's (http://pecunium.livejournal.com/199646.html?mode=reply) brief explanation (he knows whereof he speaks). Anyone who still has a problem needs to go elsewhere. Evil is not an argument point."

I want to thank you for undertaking this work; I am one of the folks paralyzed and sputtering with horror that the US government was even contemplating, let alone implementing torture as interrogation.

(It isn't even that the men and women wielding power at the moment mostly never served in the military; it's that they seem to regard history as some kind of fable that has no relevance to current situations!)

--
D.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi
I read your comments on Making Light and some other places through Google
it is really helpful you write this stuff
I've never thought torture was a good thing
but my reasons mostly go back to TV shows, which doesn't get very far in serious debate.
Now I have some useful references.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

This member of the choir appreciates you!

The choir needs preaching to _too_, so that we don't let things we know are true and urgent and important slide under the weight of all the OTHER things there are to get wound up about, these days.

It is so easy to stop thinking about this, and go think about something smaller, or easier, or less horrible. You remind us not to do that. And I, for one, love you for it.

And if it would help your weariness at all, I will start another silly word game in my journal or something, so that your poor brain can have a bit of rest and refreshment between rounds. (I'd do something more immediately useful, were I closer. Like offer you soup; I made good soup today)

[doryllis.livejournal.com]

My only comfort is that while the CIA is still doing this immoral, unhealthy (for all of us) behavior, we as members of the military no longer have to fear the "lawful order" to torture someone. The new manual came out on the side of Geneva, on the side of humanity. Now the challenge will be to keep it there.

We need to ensure that our commanders understand what we lose by torturing. We need to keep towing the moral line despite the thoughts of those who believe that "someone needs to do the dirty work" and that these things will always happen and that although they are not right that they are required.

That is the mindset we need to work against. They believe that evil deeds are required to maintain freedom. I say that they sell freedom and safety far short. Evil deeds and lives never maintain the good. They merely give a place for the cancer of cruelty to flourish. I am not saying that we should be pacifists, but rather that a right action always creates saner, more peaceful ripples in society than a wrong one.

Thanks for keeping on.

-Choirmember

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

There's a painful dichotomy: These things (the "stress and duress) methods are present doctrine. They are defined, in the law, as being non-torture, and so compliant with Geneva.

TK

[doryllis.livejournal.com]

All we can do is vote, and vote more. Let us make it clear that torture is not a "necessary" or acceptable evil. The CIA does answer to someone. Right now that someone has clearly stated that non-torture is "okay" but I don't think that he would let himself and his daughters be treated that way.

Of course, I could be wrong. Ultimately we have to keep preaching and voting until the CIA is held accountable and forbidden to use torture.

[doryllis.livejournal.com]

Also, I need to get my hands on the new Army manual, but my understanding (second hand) is that it specifically mentions and forbids some of the approved doctrinal CIA techniques.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

Well, I was already convinced that torture doesn't work, but then my closest friend is an ex-mercenary who knows about such things. I do, really, appreciate having another and quotable source for this fact, though. We do our best to counter the disinformation being spread, and we can only do what we can.
What saddens me most is having to use that argument. Torture is wrong, and that should be sufficient reason not to do it.

[lyorn.livejournal.com]

I'm preaching to the choir. I'm just tired of repeating myself.

Having to repeat oneself all the time may feel soul-numbingly futile, but there are always some new folks lurking in the shadows at the back of the choir who are hearing it for the first time. I did, some years ago on making light.

My aunt has been teaching first graders for 40 years. On the question if she didn't get bored out or her mind by teaching the same simple things forty times, she says, "It's always the same ABC, but never the same kids".

Of course, on the internet, one never sees who is listening and who is learning something, but by sheer statistical likeliness it has to be a number larger than zero.