Long nights

[pecunium]

I am not sure that reading Whiskey and Water by Elizabeth Bear was the best thing to be doing last night, when I got done with reading, and writing, about the memos the Obama adminstration released yesterday. Strange dreams.

But I read them, all 80 pages of 'em.

I was beginning to wonder at myself. It wasn’t until I was deep into the third memo (which is a detailing of the various “techniques” being used, and the rationalisations for them being legal, that I really started to be disgusted. It was the detailing of how sleep deprivation was to be enforced which got me. I can’t imagine doing that to someone. I just can’t.

Part of that is years of being intimate with torture. There is no way to be a good interrogator and not look into torture. To be a good interrogator one has to be curious, and torture is the uncle we don’t like to talk about, because he’s a little off.

It’s not that I’ve not walked right up to that line. In some example exercises I came right up to it. And I stopped the event. The subject was willing, and I wasn’t going to do anything which caused permanent physical, or mental, harm, but if I’d done it, I’d have been on the other side of the lines I’d drawn. It was tempting, seductively so. If I’d done it, he’d have talked. He was getting ready to cry. I hadn’t touched him. I hadn’t even fixed him to the chair (which probably made it worse, he could move, but he couldn’t get away). I had absolute power over him (insofar as the LT would have let me go, which; it turns out, was further than I was willing to let me go).

Torture has a long history, some of it is as object lesson (Henry VIII didn’t arrange for people to suffer in their dying because it was useful in collecting information. There was the one whom he promised he wouldn’t cut down to draw and quarter until after he was dead, then he put him in a cage, and hanged it from a post; letting him die over the course of days; true to his word, but still a terrible vengeance), some of it was because “higher principles” were at stake (the Inquisition was saving souls; the cost of bodies was a small price to pay).

Some of it was really subtle. The Inquisition has become infamous for its tortures (many of which were recounted in Protestant pamphlets... no ax to grind there). There are a couple of parallels to the present. Only the truly resistant, who the inquisitor was certain were hiding something, were to be tortured (compare this to the third memo which says, "Far from being constitutionally arbitrary the interrogation techniques at issue here are employed by the CIA only as reasonably deemed necessary to protect against grave threats to United States interests, a determination that is made at CIA headquarters, with input from the on scene interrogation team, pursuant to careful screening procedures that ensure the techniques will be used as little as possible on as few detainees as possible. Since they also claimed these techniques are only used on a detainee who, until time of capture, we have reason to believe: (1) is a senior member of al-Qaeda or an al-Qaeda associated terrorist group (Jemaah Islamiyyah, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al Zarqawi Group, etc,); (2) has knowledge of imminent terrorist threats against the USA, its military forces, its citizens and organizations, or its allies; or that has had direct involvement in planning and preparing terrorist actions against the USA or its allies, or assisting the al-Qaeda leadership in planning and preparing such terrorist actions; and (3) if released, constitutes a clear 'and continuing threat to the USA or its allies." i.e. to say they only use these things when they have enough knowledge to know this is a “ticking bomb” situation)

The first torture was showing the instruments. Letting the subject ponder the pains they were to face the next day. That was considered torture. It was, legally, counted as torture. None of this pretending that only things which leave permanent mental scars or are excrutiatingly painful, or which have as their primary intent the causing of pain. Nope. Making someone think about being twisted, burned, half-drowned, all counted at torture. In that the Inquisition was more honest, and fair, than we pretend to be today.

And a confession gained by way of torture wasn’t admissible in the Canon Courts. It had to be repeated in front of the judge. Given that recanting was grounds for more torture it’s interesting how many people did recant. That’s why the church was reluctant to use it.

All of this is known to me. I’ve read of all sorts of tortures. Some of what finally got to me was the clinical nature of the reports. It was banal. It was no different, in the tone, than reading a memo on the best way to arrange for an easement to allow someone to get from the highway to the beach. It was the evil of small minds. They were asked a question (can we find a theory which makes it legal to call this, “not-torture”) and they answered it, and ignored the greater questions (should we find a theory which makes it legal to call it, “not-torture).

The saving grace in this mess is the military lawyers, pretty much, refused to go along. They protested the torture, and when they faced “evidence” collected from torture, they refused to use it.

This shit can’t be allowed to stand. We have to haul it out into the light. In the second memo they admit that not less than 25 prisoners were subjected to those techniques. Sleep dep, “dousing” (where water, as cold as 41°F is sprayed on a naked prisoner, in a room as cold as 64°F), slaps, grabs, being bounced off walls, confinement in small containers, “stress positions” and all the rest, are done for 1-3 hours at time, 2-3 times a day (well, apart from the sleep dep, that could be done for 180 hours; just over a week, in the finally approved forms), and the topper, waterboarding, could be done for up to twelve minutes of total drowning time.

We admit we did it. We know it happened. We know people did those things. We know other people sanctioned them.

And we know they are wrong. The actions of those who did the approving are those of people who know they were wrong. Classifying something Top Secret/NOFORN is not the sort of thing which ends up on legal theories, as a general rule.

I, as someone who did that job for 16 years, who taught it for 14, I want to see prosecutions. I want trials. I hope for convictions. I say this certain that I know people who were involved in interrogations which used these techniques.

I say this knowing that I like some of the people who may have used some of these techniques. I don’t think all of them evil. I think some of them young and misguided. I think the people who drafted these memos are evil. I think the people who asked for these memos are evil. I think they deserve a lot more grief than I think they are going to get.

In a perfect world, they would go to prison, and the folks at the bottom would get a serious evaluation, and sentences reflective of both the limited scope of action they had; the poor guidance should be mitigating (they were told it was legal, and in keeping with the Geneva Conventions). A ton of community service, and a sealed record (or an expungement) is in order for some.

Others... those who did things which led to death... lock ‘em up.

We need to do this. For ourselves, and for those who were wronged. We have a lot of innocent people who were called, “the worst of the worst,” and treated in ways we wouldn’t treat animals. They aren’t going to be so willing to forgive and forget. We have to make amends.

Comments

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Today, an ex-cabinet minister in Newfoundland was sentenced to two years less a day for fraud (involving >$117K in fake constituency expenses, forged documents, and bribery of a civil servant). In his ruling, the judge said, "The crimes of which Ed Byrne has been convicted are very serious ... In his positions of high executive office ... he abused his authority and the trust placed in him."

After the ruling came down, the crown prosecutor in the case said: "We're lucky in this part of the world to have a democratic system. We rely on our public officials to behave honestly and with integrity."

"If we can't uphold that, then where are we? It's very important."

I think that's the kind of attitude that needs to be upheld in the torture cases (which are, of course, much much worse than embezzling money.)

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/04/17/byrne-sentenced-417.html

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

The commission of evil on a large scale is often remarkably banal. Not to Godwin the discussion, but when I was in Berlin and saw the memos ordering the deportations to Auschwitz, I couldn't help but see how banal and bureaucratic they were.

I am all with you on the need to hold those in charge accountable.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I guess "large scale" isn't the case here in numeric terms, but it just seems so ...huge... in how far this is beyond what we believed.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Your voice carries a lot of weight on this.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

From your mouth to God's ear. I wish my voice carried real weight.

Because I don't really think it likely anyone who can do anything about it will give a damn what I have to say on the subject.

[/bitter]

[happymorlock.livejournal.com]

Are there other interrogators who feel as you do that you can contact? A letter to the New York Times signed by a number of people who've done the job is hard to ignore.

If not, you've spoken up. Every voice carries some weight.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

I read quite a lot of this same sort of reasoned, calm, persuasive things from people who were, and still are, interrogators. Reading between the lines the ARE YOU MAD OR JUST EVIL? was loud and clear. It might not have stopped anybody but we don't know, do we?
Of course, I was sold from the start, so I went looking for it. I remember telling an audience during an AI talk that even if torture actually did stop the legendary plot to destroy ten planes over the Pacific (that was before 2001), IT WOULD STILL BE WRONG in a very personal, concrete way.
I'd say lock up the fucking writers for 24 too, who can't claim ignorance because a delegation of people from I think Annapolis went and begged them not to put ideas into their cadets' heads.

[asyouknow-bob.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

*is proud to know you*

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, we need to prosecute, at least the higher-level people responsible for these shameful actions of the United States Government. I venture to say -- bitterly -- that the probability of such a cleansing and future-guidance act is close to zero.

[learath.livejournal.com]

Well, given our current "angel" of a president seems to plan on keeping our "sekrit" prisons open, I hope your righteous fury is bipartisan.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

New, are we?

On this topic pecunium's rage is, and has long been known to the most casual observer to be, large enough to transcend any boundary any human anywhere has ever drawn.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the current administration finally released these documents and hoping that these crimes will be treated as such. Thank you for speaking out about this and for sharing your exceedingly well-informed opinion.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

They did Do Good by releasing the documents.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting on this; I appreciate your expert view enormously much.

I hope the memos weren't triggers for too much unpleasantness (as in, they were for me, and my imagination in this matter is not grounded in much real experience.)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

They were pleasantly distant. That is part of what makes them so horrid, but it also put them at a remove. I meant it when I said nothing in it was new to me, and I've had some years to ponder the idea of just what we might have been doing. It wasn't as bad as it could have been.

But I might have slept better.

Thanks for being concerned.

[thecoughlin.livejournal.com]

Regardless of political party affiliation, airing dirty laundry is the first step to cleaning up a mess.

During the previous administration, my greatest fear was that in ignoring the Geneva convention,we were dooming generations of our soldiers to the same treatment and even worse.

The current administration has group/social behaviorists advising on many levels. Perhaps this is the first step to gaining public support for prosecution and accountability at the right levels. Once the media outrage meter reads high enough, that's when the special prosecuter comes in.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

If they're deliberately looking to trigger sufficient public anger to justify reversing that decision...then I hope it works.

[nenya_kanadka]

The current administration has group/social behaviorists advising on many levels. Perhaps this is the first step to gaining public support for prosecution and accountability at the right levels. Once the media outrage meter reads high enough, that's when the special prosecuter comes in.

This is what I have been hoping. Of course, I don't know that I'm not deluding myself, out of a desire and hope that the new guys do the right thing. But we have known Obama to play chess several moves in advance before.

I am very happy to see some populist outrage, in any case.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting about this; I think informing people and having everyone think about the moral and ethical implications is a necessary first step.

I'm with you in hoping the Untouchables get touched by this; the hands which wield the pens are at least as dirty as those which implemented these inhuman procedures.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I'm surprised you manage to stay so calm. I'm currently in favour of burying Cheney, Yoo, Bybee, Rumsfeld et al, who have betrayed principles established in Anglo-American constitutional law in 1688 (the phrase 'cruel and unusual punishment' appears in the English and Scottish bills of rights enacted in that year), under the shpxvat prison.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

And of course, Bush claimed last week that by declassifying those memos, we've exposed ourselves to our enemies and left ourselves open for another attack.

O-K.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Seems a bit late to accuse Obama of that. The word was already out to some degree already.

[nenya_kanadka]

Sleep dep, “dousing” (where water, as cold as 41°F is sprayed on a naked prisoner, in a room as cold as 64°F), slap, grabs, being bounced off walls, confinement in small containers, “stress positions” and all the rest, are done for 1-3 hours at time, 2-3 times a day (well, apart from the sleep dep, that could be done for 180 hours; just over a week, in the finally approved forms), and the topper, waterboarding, could be done for up to twelve minutes of total drowning time.

The thing that always got me, years ago when people would go, "Oh, what's a little rock music? What's a little shortness of sleep? College students do that all the time!" was that these are EXACTLY the same things I read about in the memoirs of people tortured in gulags in Siberia. I first heard of all of this stuff in the stories of political and religious prisoners in Russia. And yes, yes it was torture. It almost gave me nightmares reading about it as a twelve-year-old, safe in my home thousands of miles and tens of years away.

Anyway, thank you, Terry. I cite you a lot to people who think that the only people objecting to "harsh interrogation tactics" are wimps who know nothing of the manly art of war.