You talk a good game, but tell me. Would you personally attach the electrodes to KSM’s genitals and turn on the current? Would you stay in the same room while someone else did? If not, why not?

I guess after 8 years most people don’t understand this is an unconventional war. Jeez, talk about assymmetric warfare. How many of you think more was accomplished by flying billion dollar bombers from the US to Afghanistan (I’m not even gonna go into the Irag mess) than by slapping KSM a few times? I can already see the answers.

How many remember when this conflict started being all PC (hint the “war” on terror was not even 2 weeks old, think Infinite Justice).

Also, I would recommed some light reading for you. Might shed some light on a few things. Remember that it was published in 1986.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688092187/theagitator-20/

I think we should design the rules for the cases we know exist and for which we have some confidence in the methods (of which torture is not one). Under the worst case scenario, the government would just break the rules anyway. Hell, they break the rules now when the stakes aren’t nearly so severe.

The rules are all we have to make government accountable. They will stretch them as much as they possibly can. To design them for the worse case scenario is like giving government a blank check.

I say no torture period. Of all the methods for gathering intelligence to head off future attacks, I want government focusing on modern refined techniques that are known to be effective and not hoping they can scoop up some bad guys (or good guys) and beat them into giving me a story that supports what I plan to do anyway.

Great points, particularly point 2. The distinction between being judged by citizens rather than a government judge definitely changes the calculus. Every time I go one way on this, something brings me back the other way.

Here’s a terrible story about a U.S. interrogator in Iraq who appears to have killed herself after refusing to engage in coercive interrogation techniques. The story comes complete with all the usual after-the-fact ass-covering by her superiors and higher-ups in the military.

Anyone know what Colonel Jessup was doing at the time Peterson had her “accident”?

I’ll have to think about it more, but my first response is that with criminal justice we:
1) are judged by our peers and not the government (yes there are problems, but this is how it is designed). And I would argue that the reason it is our peers is exactly the reasons we are talking about here – to guard against abuse of power by the government. With torture, it can’t be a jury of peers because it deals with sensitive information and there are no true peers we would be able to get for those being tortured.
2) There are specific guards in criminal justice against “cruel and unusual punishment.” So although it is taking away liberties, which is similar, it stops short of anything that is cruel. I understand that the situations are similar, but in degree they are very different.

I’m not sure where we draw the line, but I do know that some of the stuff we are talking about here – water boarding for example – is over the line. But the point is that a line has to be drawn. If we keep saying, “well, I don’t want to take torture off the table as a possibility,” then I believe that we live in a society that has no moral standard because anything can be justified at some point.

Orwell has become cliche, but this seems to me like a giant leap towards that sort of society. It starts as “the end justifies the means” and quickly turns into “the government justifies the means” because the government is who defines the end goals.

Great questions, and ones to which I don’t have answers. However, I can imagine scenarios where torture would, in theory, be morally acceptable (pulling off toenails to save 1 million children’s lives, e.g.). The morals change, of course, when we move from theory to practice, and whether the practice yields the results is a fair part of the analysis.

But I don’t see why only torture is subject to the same scrutiny. After all, in the abstract, who would you trust to cage someone for committing a crime? The risks we take when it comes to torture are the same ones we take for all punishments (which isn’t to say torture should be used as punishment, just that the risks are the same). We trust due process to take care of those risks as much as we can in an imperfect world when it comes to punishment, and I think the same due process could take care of the risks associated with torture.

Of course, we’re talking about this on Radley’s site, so we all know of the corruption and mistakes associated with what passes for “due process” in the criminal justice system. But we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water because of the potential for abuse of that system, and we shouldn’t make a bright line rule against torture because of the risk of abuse there.

War and punishment for crimes are two things we hope to avoid, but that we recognize are unavoidable. With each comes the potential for abuse, and with each almost certainly comes the possibility of innocent people being hurt or killed (even without abuse). But each is necessary because of the world we live in, and because of that we’ve developed rules to try and minimize the damage associated with mistakes, abuse, etc. We have just war theory and due process, etc. I see torture as another in that list of things we hope to avoid, but that we recognize might – under certain rare circumstances – be unavoidable.

Governments cannot be trusted with the power to torture. It will and has been abused. There is no middle ground here. Allowing governments the ability to torture, no matter how much we try to limit it, will lead to abuse. It did in the case we are now talking about. People were abused in an effort to prove a connection with Iraq to justify war. A connection that did not exist.

Torture is not acceptable ever.

Greg N., I’m with you. I suspect the truth here, like always, is somewhere in the vast middle between the warmongers and the blame America crowd.

Patterico (patterico.com) is on this today.

When it comes to national security stuff, Radley’s quickness to sign on to whatever lunatic left meme Sully does is quite silly. Politically I agree with almost everything on this site (especially compared to the aforementioned Patterico), but Radley’s ability to parse b.s. cop speak is equally matched by his eagerness to uncritically cite Slate, Salon, LA Times, NY Times, etc. hit pieces. Weird dichotomy, really.

However, “almost” non-existence is “existence,” and therefore I can’t say unequivocally that I wouldn’t support torture no matter what. In theory, if we provide for due process (e.g., a torture warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on heightened evidence standards, maybe even higher than “reasonable doubt”), then I would be open to the idea of torture of terror suspects in principle.

That said, I simply don’t know enough to say whether such practices work or not. If not, then the issue is moot (why would anyone want to use an ineffective tactic?). But if it does work, the only question is when, if ever, it should be used. I just don’t think “never” is a responsible answer, but the zeal with which the conservatives seem to approach the issue is at least as irresponsible.

“but this stuff IS torture” on this I agree with you. we both are civilized people and value human life. However, most americans have to realize that there’s other places in the world with values totally different than theirs. whatever methods were listed in the report are totally unpleasant but not what some would call real torture.

Invading someone’s personal space, slapping your palm aganst the desk in front him, might work for little Billy at the downtown police station after he stole a Mars bar from teh convenience store. will probably be totally ineffective against a real enemy.

Ok, we’ll be more respectful of your feelings.

What’s everyone think about American Idol?

if we allow our government to torture people because the government says a threat exists, where does it stop? Is there no limit to the government’s powers if a threat is perceived (a threat that the people will never know about or may not even exist)?

This goes back to that 107 comment SCOTUS post Radley made a couple days ago. If the perception of a threat is all it takes to go outside the bounds of the law, then we’re all, as citizens of the US and the World, screwed. All the government needs to say is “Oh, sorry, we thought that might be dangerous” and there’s no accountability. This is a very poor precedent to set.