What they said
Jul. 26th, 2007 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIt ain't none of it new to any of you. I've said it before, long, loud and at tedious length.
And I've been mocked, insulted, ridiculed berated, praised, lauded, pointed to [good and ill], linked, and, mostly, ignored.
In today's WaPo a pair of guys with more pull than I have are arguing some of my points.
War Crimes and the White House
An excerpt.
This is not just about avoiding "torture." The article expressly prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever" any acts of "violence to life and person" or "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."
Last Friday, the White House issued an executive order attempting to "interpret" Common Article 3 with respect to a controversial CIA interrogation program. The order declares that the CIA program "fully complies with the obligations of the United States under Common Article 3," provided that its interrogation techniques do not violate existing federal statutes (prohibiting such things as torture, mutilation or maiming) and do not constitute "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency."
In other words, as long as the intent of the abuse is to gather intelligence or to prevent future attacks, and the abuse is not "done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual" -- even if that is an inevitable consequence -- the president has given the CIA carte blanche to engage in "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse."
And it's wrong.
There are moral arguments as to why it's wrong. There are utilitarian arguments as to why it's wrong. Either ought to trump the, specious, claims that it can save lives.
Why? Because as I keep saying, using torture as a means of collecting information doesn't work. As a system, it fails. Someone might tell the truth, but the amount of non-truth which enters the system buries it.
There are those who pretend that's not the case. That somehow we can sift the truth from the lies; without having any troubles. That somehow the dedicated bad person, who is willing to plant bombs, bury people alive, whatever fantasy of justification the torture mongers want to trot out, will somehow break when his body is beaten, his flesh is torn, his mind is assaulted with terrors, the electrodes are supplied with current, the water rises past his nose and mouth, his bones broken, his sleep deprived, his environment changed, etc., etc., etc., ad naseum.
They are wrong. The dedicated will hold out until the bomb goes off. The ignorant, when tormented with those things, will lie; just to make it stop.
If the dedicated break, the things they say will go into the pile with all the lies. Worse, the lies will be made to conform to a narrative established by the interrogators, because they will look for confirmation of previous stories (can we say, "Satanic Rituals" and "McMartin Preschool"? I knew we could).
When cops, without the aid of torture can get so much in the way of confessions to things which didn't happen, what will prevent more, vigorous means from getting bad data?
Nothing.
To go back to the column.
To date in the war on terrorism, including the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and all U.S. military personnel killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, America's losses total about 2 percent of the forces we lost in World War II and less than 7 percent of those killed in Vietnam. Yet we did not find it necessary to compromise our honor or abandon our commitment to the rule of law to defeat Nazi Germany or imperial Japan, or to resist communist aggression in Indochina. On the contrary, in Vietnam -- where we both proudly served twice -- America voluntarily extended the protections of the full Geneva Convention on prisoners of war to Viet Cong guerrillas who, like al-Qaeda, did not even arguably qualify for such protections.
The Geneva Conventions provide important protections to our own military forces when we send them into harm's way. Our troops deserve those protections, and we betray their interests when we gratuitously "interpret" key provisions of the conventions in a manner likely to undermine their effectiveness. Policymakers should also keep in mind that violations of Common Article 3 are "war crimes" for which everyone involved -- potentially up to and including the president of the United States -- may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions.
Following orders isn't a defense. It's not even a decent justification.
When the means are something that doesn't work, the ends, no matter how good they look on paper, can't be justified, no matter how clever the sophistries.
And I've been mocked, insulted, ridiculed berated, praised, lauded, pointed to [good and ill], linked, and, mostly, ignored.
In today's WaPo a pair of guys with more pull than I have are arguing some of my points.
War Crimes and the White House
An excerpt.
This is not just about avoiding "torture." The article expressly prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever" any acts of "violence to life and person" or "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."
Last Friday, the White House issued an executive order attempting to "interpret" Common Article 3 with respect to a controversial CIA interrogation program. The order declares that the CIA program "fully complies with the obligations of the United States under Common Article 3," provided that its interrogation techniques do not violate existing federal statutes (prohibiting such things as torture, mutilation or maiming) and do not constitute "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency."
In other words, as long as the intent of the abuse is to gather intelligence or to prevent future attacks, and the abuse is not "done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual" -- even if that is an inevitable consequence -- the president has given the CIA carte blanche to engage in "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse."
And it's wrong.
There are moral arguments as to why it's wrong. There are utilitarian arguments as to why it's wrong. Either ought to trump the, specious, claims that it can save lives.
Why? Because as I keep saying, using torture as a means of collecting information doesn't work. As a system, it fails. Someone might tell the truth, but the amount of non-truth which enters the system buries it.
There are those who pretend that's not the case. That somehow we can sift the truth from the lies; without having any troubles. That somehow the dedicated bad person, who is willing to plant bombs, bury people alive, whatever fantasy of justification the torture mongers want to trot out, will somehow break when his body is beaten, his flesh is torn, his mind is assaulted with terrors, the electrodes are supplied with current, the water rises past his nose and mouth, his bones broken, his sleep deprived, his environment changed, etc., etc., etc., ad naseum.
They are wrong. The dedicated will hold out until the bomb goes off. The ignorant, when tormented with those things, will lie; just to make it stop.
If the dedicated break, the things they say will go into the pile with all the lies. Worse, the lies will be made to conform to a narrative established by the interrogators, because they will look for confirmation of previous stories (can we say, "Satanic Rituals" and "McMartin Preschool"? I knew we could).
When cops, without the aid of torture can get so much in the way of confessions to things which didn't happen, what will prevent more, vigorous means from getting bad data?
Nothing.
To go back to the column.
To date in the war on terrorism, including the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and all U.S. military personnel killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, America's losses total about 2 percent of the forces we lost in World War II and less than 7 percent of those killed in Vietnam. Yet we did not find it necessary to compromise our honor or abandon our commitment to the rule of law to defeat Nazi Germany or imperial Japan, or to resist communist aggression in Indochina. On the contrary, in Vietnam -- where we both proudly served twice -- America voluntarily extended the protections of the full Geneva Convention on prisoners of war to Viet Cong guerrillas who, like al-Qaeda, did not even arguably qualify for such protections.
The Geneva Conventions provide important protections to our own military forces when we send them into harm's way. Our troops deserve those protections, and we betray their interests when we gratuitously "interpret" key provisions of the conventions in a manner likely to undermine their effectiveness. Policymakers should also keep in mind that violations of Common Article 3 are "war crimes" for which everyone involved -- potentially up to and including the president of the United States -- may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions.
Following orders isn't a defense. It's not even a decent justification.
When the means are something that doesn't work, the ends, no matter how good they look on paper, can't be justified, no matter how clever the sophistries.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-26 05:37 pm (UTC)Why?
Because the people who want to torture will trot out the counter-argument that the other side doesn't abide by them, so why should we? They will say, if the other guy agrees to abide by it, then we'll treat them as we want to be be treated, but since they don't treat us that way, they don't want to be treated that way.
It's fatuous, but seductive. It's the problem of the positive formulation in "The Golden Rule of Jesus". I prefer the phrasing of Hillell, "Do not do to others, what you do not wish done to you."
We don't adhere to a moral code because it's convenient; we adhere to one because it's right.
To quote Kennedy, "We do not choose [this} because it is easy, we choose it because it is hard."
If we are going to claim to be better, we have to be better.
East Germany called itself, "The German Democratic Republic". Doesn't mean they were, just that it's what they called themselves.
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-07-26 05:45 pm (UTC)"You can call a dog turd German sausage, but that doesn't mean you'll enjoy it with your breakfast."
no subject
Date: 2007-07-26 07:54 pm (UTC)We agree not to do these things to others because we don't want them done to us. And we don't want them done to us because we think they're wrong.
But it's hard to convince people that "those commie mutant traitor scum" or "despotic overlords" or "drug-pushing godless heathens" or whatever the current hatephrase is, are deserving of human rights and dignities. Especially if the CMTS have been blowing up schools and so on. I don't think anyone ever got elected with a platform of "Rapists Have Rights Too" or "Be Nice To Bombers"
But it's easy to point out that "fair standards" need to apply to everyone, not just "the good guys"--because everyone is the good guys in their own minds.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 01:47 am (UTC)And my immediate response to THAT argument is, "If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?"
Because that's exactly what it is -- the kind of justification used by a 6-year-old on the playground. We're supposed to be the grownups here; we can bloody well ACT like it.