Clinton joins the chorus of the damned

[pecunium]

This morning I heard him on the radio, when asked about torture he waffled, said it might be needful sometimes.

He bought into the ticking bomb.

1: We have Osama bin Laden's right hand man (would this be the "Number Two Man of Al Qaeda, number "x"?) in custody.

2: We know a bomb is going of, in a major city, within 24-72 hours.

3: We know he knows where it is.

4: Only "coercive" means can extract the info.

Sigh. First, if we know all that, we can find the bomb by other means (because if we know, really know all that) then we got it from other means (because evidence obtained from torture has to be confirmed by other means before we can call it intel).

Second, there's no way to know the answers he gives are true (even if we use, as Clinton included in coercive methods, "lots of drugs,"), so it will take a fair bit of work to check the stories out.

Third, if the evidence we have is off, the answers we get will be wrong (say the bomb is in "Washington" and the interrogator thinks it to be D.C., the torture will be geared to extracting where in D.C. the bomb is. When the guy says it's in the Capitol, much effort will go into searching the Capitol building, and Seattle will blow up).

Fourth, this just doesn't happen.

Fifth (and this is the part which is hardest to get across to people, because seems; somehow, counter-intuitive) torture doesn't work.

Maher Arar confessed to travelling to Afghanistan, to study jihad. Only one problem, he didn't study jihad in Afghanistan, because he never went to Afghanistan in the first place.

Dilawar didn't know anything. His interrogator was convinced he did. Dilawar was therefore beaten to death (that's the charitable spin, the less charitable is that the interrogator just though Dilawar wasn't responding right/disrespectful, and so he was beaten to death).

That's two examples. We don't know how many more there are like that. We don't know how many false leads, blind alleys and wasted efforts are the fruit of people who "confessed" to things they didn't do, or about things they didn't know.

We can't know how may people are dead because of bad info leading to corrupted intel.

As much as good things go, Clinton, at least, wants to limit it to warrants (he said in this case the people who needed to "coerce" the truth out of Al Qaeda's number 2, should be able to go to the FISA Court and get approval), or to a justification defense; when they were tried for it.

Yippee.

If we allow the "ticking bomb" we will come to decide that anyone might be a step in the chain, and so deserves to be at the end of the swinging fist.

Abuse, beatings, and the like, should not be part of the price of being suspected (or accused; think of the possibilties for revenge. Calling the cops and saying someone sells drugs out of the house will get the house tossed, they may even be arrested, but that's [usually] where it stops. Being accused of "terrorism" will be so much more effective, because there isn't need for evidence; a case can be made that lack of evidence is evidence of being a part of a "sleeper cell" because they get trained to avoid leaving signs, then they just disappear).

If these are things we prohibit as punishment, how can we allow them as non-punishment?

For this, Clinton deserves censure.

Comments

[urox.livejournal.com]

Olympia will blow up, not Seattle. :)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Capitol Hill, in Seattle. Has a swell church, see how it works.

TK

[urox.livejournal.com]

Capitol Hill

D'oh! I think I lose all my Seattle cred now for having forgotten there.

[cofax7]

Well, from my hearing, Clinton seemed to be emphasizing the unlikelihood that anyone could actually have all that information up front. That the conditions of the ticking bomb could be met. Which may be a bit offpoint, but I thought it was worth mentioning. He certainly wasn't all on-board with it.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That makes it worse.

Those who quote him won't make that distinction. I heard it, and while he said it was unlikely, he didn't rule it out. He didn't say torture doesn't work. He didn't say that we don't do that, even if it does work.

He was giving aid and comfort to those who support torture.

TK

No he didn't, not in the interview on NPR.

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

He *could* have done that, easily. He could have said - "and you have to ask, how likely is it that we would have all that information, the *exact* person and the *exact event* and not know *when* or *where*? and WHY in God's name are we spending all this time pretending that this ticking time bomb is a plausible scenario, except to scare people into acceptance of torture and secret trials and people getting disappeared like in Chile and El Salvador back in the day?" but he didn't. And either he was too dumb to realize this - him a Rhodes scholar and real president - or he chose not to so as to avoid the *appearance* of "being weak on terror."

He chose to endorse the Ticking Bomb and the idea that it's okay to torture people if you "know" you've got the right guy.

ie, he blew it.

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

Hang on. I listened to that this morning, and I didn't get the idea that Clinton was advocating torture. I just listened again just now, and still don't hear that.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6113357

"As a policy, torture is an error..The Geneva Convention is consistent with our values, and it's consistent with our interests...More often than not, you get people lying to stop the torture, and you run the risk that your own people will be tortured in return...there's a reason that the entire military apparatus is opposed to torture..."

In the ticking bomb scenario, he suggests going to the FISA court for permission if the President feels extreme methods are necessary in an extreme circumstance.

"I don't know whether that scenario is likely or not but you don't make law based on it...we know there have been people who have been held who weren't terrorists at all...I think if you go around passing laws that institutionalize what went on at Abu Ghraib, we're going to be in real trouble."

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

He went on to say that you can't rule it out.

His advocating going to the Court to get permission means he thinks permission can be granted.

That means he accepts the possibility of legal torture.

It's a harsh judgement, from a brief statement, but that's the way it reads.

TK

[pracuel.livejournal.com]

Did Clinton happen to remember or mention this law passed during his administration?

Congress enacted the War Crimes Act in 1996. That act defines violations of Geneva's Common Article 3 as war crimes. Those convicted face life imprisonment or even the death penalty if the victim dies.

(that law, by the way, took the vagueness out of article 3, George)

Another fabulous post! Thanks.

[haineux.livejournal.com]

Torture produces MORE information. Some of it is contradictory. Much of it is unreliable. Without careful analysis, you might end up believing the wrong thing. Add to that the language/culture barriers, or the uncertainty of an interpreter in the mix.

What happens when you mix this highly screwy info in with your hard-researched, carefully checked intel that might not have all the details?

Well, what happens when you add shit to your coffee? You sure don't get better coffee.

[mister-borogove.livejournal.com]

Assume only for sake of argument that the following untrue things are true:
- Ticking time bomb scenarios are likely
- Torture works pretty well

Then we should *still* ban torture and make it a felony in federal criminal law and illegal under the UCMJ, and we *still* have a perfectly good algorithm to follow in ticking time bomb scenarios.

This is the algorithm:
1) Get custody of prisoner X and gain knowledge that there is a ticking time bomb that prisoner X has information on.
2) Have a high ranking officer, Y, go into a sealed room with prisoner X. I think Y should be at least a Major, and he should be a volunteer who trusts the information received in step 1.
3) Y goes to work on X with pliers, blowtorch, honey and ants, whatever.
4) X reveals information about the ticking time bomb.
5) Y comes out of the room, goes to his superior officer, confesses to the crime of torture, and passes on the information.
6) If the information is correct and the bomb is defused in time and lives are saved, you announce this fact to the president and to the press and the president pardons Y.
7) If the information is crap, Y goes to jail for a long long time.

This system prevents torture for the sake of looking tough, because the torturer has to put his own personal ass on the line. This system addresses even the bullshit ticking time bomb scenario. This system is Strong and Muscular. My name is mister_borogove, and I approve of this system.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

The dirty secret to this whole thing is...there is some torture that works.

The left wants you to think that NO torture works. None at all, people will say anything.

The right wants you to think we just slap them around a little bit, no harm, no foul.

It's really somewhere in the middle. And YOU know that, right?

Rip someone's fingernails out, or break their hand one bone at a time with a hammer, they'll tell you anything. Give someone three hots and a cot, they ain't sayin' shit.

Put someone in a cold room --not hypothermia, just fucking cold-- and don't talk to them at all for a few days. Just stick a bottle of water in every 12 hours. They're ready to talk.

That's "torture" though.

I'm all for not torturing people. Every prisoner I ever took, even the most despicable people the human race has ever churned out, I gave a bottle of water out of our cooler to. That's what makes us American, different, and I daresay--better-- than everyone else. But some of the definitions I've seen of torture trotted out are absolute bullshit.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's torture, it's wrong and I won't do it.

You can think that bullshit, but you're wrong.

Somewhere in the middle is still torture, and it still leads to both bad intel, and more torture.

If I give someone decent treatment (and three hots and a cot is what Geneva requires) I can still get him to talk. So the only reason for torture is a mistaken belief in its effecacy, or a desire to brutalise. Both are wrong.

And both are needless.

It's not bullshit, no matter what you call it.

TK

[qp4.livejournal.com]

Dude I've been arrested countless times. I've spent DAYS in interrogation rooms. And I didn't say shit.

I got a laywer with me. You're gonna break my balls all you want, and then you're gonna send me back downstairs, and I'm gonna watch some tv and eat dinner. Suck my cock occifer. And put THAT on your fucking statement. "Two days I'm in front of the judge. I have no idea what you're talking about."

I know about interrogations from the other side.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I got a laywer with me.

Yep, and you aren't a POW, and you will be let go, or charged when the whole thing is done. Odds are you get bail. You aren't going to be subject to any of the things you say aren't torture (and that's because they are, justly, illegal).

I've been there. Felony rap. I've also been on the other side of military interrogation.

It's not the same.

TK

[qp4.livejournal.com]

I've had my ass whipped by cops when I didn't have my lawyer. I've been busted red handed, and my friends got away. Interrogate me all you want. All I have to say is, "I want a lawyer." Slap me around. "I want my lawyer." Make me sit in that room for six hours, come back and drink coffee in front of me, "I want my lawyer."

Start tearing my fingernails out and drowning me. Burn me with fire. "DUDE THE PEOPLE YOU SAW WITH ME WAS MY LAWYER!"

Torture is fucked up.

At the same time though, sweatin' someone isn't torture. A few missed meals ain't hurtin' nobody. A little time in a room that's fifty something degrees, it's uncomfortable, but that's not torture by any means, right? That's what I mean by define torture. I haven't read what got passed today, or agreed upon (was it passed? I was at work). I do know that a lot of what some people call torture to me seems like pretty typical police bullshit. Be it military intelligence, city detectives, or county deputies. I also know that to some degree it is effective, especially with more serious offenses and mid to high level guys that have a whole lot more to lose with going to prison. Sometimes they just need a little coercion before they cooperate.

I've no problem with only offering a Muslim ham and cheese until he says something useful, and then he can have all the sheep he wants to eat.

Let's talk, "fucked up."

[libertango.livejournal.com]

Please explain the difference between,

"Dude I've been arrested countless times. I've spent DAYS in interrogation rooms. And I didn't say shit."

and,

"At the same time though, sweatin' someone isn't torture."

Here's the bad news: You just said that sweatin' didn't result in you saying shit. On the other hand, you also say,

"Put someone in a cold room --not hypothermia, just fucking cold-- and don't talk to them at all for a few days. Just stick a bottle of water in every 12 hours. They're ready to talk."

OK... So, here's the thing. Presumably, this has been done to you. Or else you wouldn't be wasting our time, right? Yet, as you say, you didn't say shit.

So... Do you really believe you're the biggest bad-ass in the world, and even though it didn't work on you, it works on everyone else?

Strangely, I'm of the opinion that someone sufficiently motivated to be a terrorist -- foreign or domestic -- is probably also motivated to be just as contemptuous of "sweatin'" as you are.

Even you agree that balls-out torture doesn't work in getting anything accurate. It's just a question of degree, as far as I can tell from what you're saying.

The whole, "define terrorism," thing you're offering is bullshit. If it wouldn't -- hasn't, right? -- worked on you, regardless of definition, why do you believe it'll work on the next guy?

Or you could grow up, and admit you're either a) not the biggest bad-ass on the planet, or b) that you're contradicting just for the sake of contradicting, and you don't really believe this crap. (Here's a hint: admitting all your time in police rooms helps in the "I alone escaped to tell thee," part, but doesn't do such great things on the honesty and credibility front.)

Re: Let's talk, "fucked up."

[qp4.livejournal.com]

Small time guys have a lot more to lose if they talk. Not only is your credibility gone, but depending on what the crime is, so are a lot of other things, up to and including your life. You're sometimes better off in jail than you would be on the street (be it the 'hood or the Arab Street) if you're a snitch.

OTOH a big time guy, say--Khalid Muhammed-- well he's totally screwed if he goes to jail. He's NEVER getting out. In fact, he might just get executed. So what's the problem with pointing all that out to him, over and over, and then lettin' him think about it while he's cold and hungry? And maybe even piping it over an intercom the whole time.

Is that torture?

I didn't say define terrorism. I said define torture.

It's a slippery slope, on both sides of the hill. Because while we could come up with some real lax definition, and the occaisional growling dog starts off as okay, and then it becomes biting dog, then it becomes getting shocked while a dog bites you while you're having spikes driven into your feet posing naked and losing control of your bowels on the Koran.

The flip side is also a lax definition. One that gets stronger over time because of whatever. Sleeping on a two inch thick mattress is torture. Only one pillow is torture. Not having a thermostat is torture. Wearing a jumpsuiut is torture. No television? Oh it's fucking torture!

Re: Let's talk, "fucked up."

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Here is my definition. You will (because you have already) disagree.

It's very simple.

Any physical or mental coercion.

Full stop. Any.

So the cold room, out of bounds.

The standing up for hours, out of bounds.

Feeding him food against his religion, out of bounds

Slapping him around,just a little, out of bounds

Telling him his family will never know where he is, out of bounds.

Not feeding him as the troops of the detaining power, out of bounds.

It is just that simple.

And it has the advantage of being both morally right, and working.

TK

Let's talk, "coercion."

[karl-lembke.livejournal.com]

How about plea bargains?
Do those count as mental coercion?

Re: Let's talk, "coercion."

[qp4.livejournal.com]

Score!

Re: Let's talk, "fucked up."

[libertango.livejournal.com]

You're ducking the questions.

Everything you just said was just another variation of, "Hey, it wouldn't work on me, but I'm sure it'll work on the next guy."

The question remains: If it doesn't work on you, why should it work on the next guy? And the follow up is, Why waste our time and our honor on methods that don't work?

Re: Let's talk, "fucked up."

[qp4.livejournal.com]

Are you unable to read? Granted the first couple of responses to pecunium I was drunk, and so what I think and what I end up saying don't always work that well. I was totally lucid when I wrote the above comment however. Or do you not know what OTOH means? My bad, that means "On the other hand."

Read it again, slowly, perhaps aloud--often when I'm reading and trying to "get" something I read aloud to make sure it sticks--and then tell me again what you're trying to say.

yeah, I was spitting at the radio at 0600h

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

as I rolled bleary-eyed into the 24hr grocery to get cat food (note to self: don't put empty bag back on shelf next time) and heard some gravel-voiced southern white dude defending the hypothetical and figured him for some Glenn Reynolds type hackademic or think-tanker, and wondered who IS this mealy-mouth boob? and then at the end the NPR interviewer thanked him and re-introduced him (extroduced?) as "former President Clinton" and i wondered if he really *believed* the "Ticking Bomb Scenario" or if he was just pretending to so that The People would not think him "soft on terra" and frankly scarlett i don't give a damn...

Then again, did *anyone* ever really think that Clinton was a Conservative of Conscience, much less a Compassionate Conservative--?

Re: yeah, I was spitting at the radio at 0600h

[dolmena.livejournal.com]

Depends on whom you compare him to, I guess.

[karl-lembke.livejournal.com]

Terry, I'm inclined to grant you a lot of credibility, as you put yourself forward as an expert in these matters. However, I also have to weigh your testimony against what other experts, self-proclaimed or otherwise, say.
For example:

Fifth (and this is the part which is hardest to get across to people, because seems; somehow, counter-intuitive) torture doesn't work.

It doesn't just seem counter-intuitive, it is counter-intuitive. Torture is used throughout the law enforcement field, and is enshrined in police procedure in any number of ways.
In my response to this comment (http://pecunium.livejournal.com/203008.html?thread=1499904#t1499904), I asked if plea bargains would count as mental coercion. This is not smart-assery; it is a serious question.
Plea bargains offer a defendant a reduced sentence if he cops a plea to some lesser offense, against the threat of a harsher sentence if he winds up being convicted "the hard way". Such a threat would weigh heavily even on the completely innocent, as it's impossible to rule out some sort of insane result coming out of the jury room. (Indeed, this would be ture especially for the completely innocent, as they'd have the most to lose.)
I find it hard to believe anyone could define plea-bargaining as non-coercive, especially given the other things you list as coercive. Yet municipalities depend on plea bargains to function. Every defendant who pleads out to a lesser offense is a trial the State doesn't have to pay for. If no one took plea bargains offered to them, the State would be unable to afford to try them all, and most of them would walk.
In addition, here's a link (http://www.foxnews.com/video2/launchPage.html?092106/092106_oreilly_interogate&Squeezing%20the%20Terrorists&OReilly_Factor&How%20does%20the%20CIA%20get%20info%20out%20of%20terrorists%3F%20Veteran%20investigative%20reporter%20joins%20us&US&-1&Squeezing%20the%20Terrorists&Video%20Launch%20Page&News) to an interview with Brian Ross on the subject of "coercive interrogation". In case you don't want to pull up the video, or in case it disappears, I've transcribed (http://karl-lembke.livejournal.com/92748.html) it for easy reference.
Ross said a number of interesting things in the interview, including:
•   Using these techniques, the CIA "broke" 14 high-level Al Qaeda members.
•   The information was accurate and useful, leading to the capture of other Al Qaeda members, and to uncovering plots that would have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
•   This was stated by CIA sources who are opposed to the use of these techniques.

Terry, reasonable people may argue over the ethics of using these techniques, or of using any particular set of techniques. However, to state flat-out that they don't work is to fly in the face of numerous experts who disagree with you.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

Many a sap has gone to prison or been put on probation because it was just easier to take the deal offered by their prosecutors than try to fight it out in court. Not to mention cheaper. The whole, "Plead to this thing," works really good on poor people and minorities.

[karl-lembke.livejournal.com]

You may be interested in the case I mention in this comment (http://pecunium.livejournal.com/203679.html?thread=1504927#t1504927), of my "adopted nephew".

He has a court hearing today, resulting from rape charges. The only evidence of his guilt, or that a crime occurred, is the confession he was badgered into giving after hours of interrogation.

Terry seems to have followed the following logic:
    Torture is not nice.
Therefore     Anything not nice is torture.

In any event, since Terry defines as "torture" and "beyond the pale"

Here is my definition. You will (because you have already) disagree.

It's very simple.

Any physical or mental coercion.

Full stop. Any.

Obviously, he and everyone who agrees with him must agree my "adopted nephew" was "tortured". At the very least, the confession should be thrown out. So, presumably, should the cop who interrogated him. The Glendale Police Department should be held to account for either failing to prevent "torture", or for promoting it.

I have a feeling, though, that Terry and those who agree with him only object to "torture" if President Bush is in charge.