Clinton joins the chorus of the damned
Sep. 21st, 2006 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThis 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 09:41 pm (UTC)For example:
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.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 04:06 pm (UTC)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"
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.