The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror

[bytor2112]

The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations. MThe President Ties His Own Hands on Terror - WSJ.comore here

[Just_A_Guy]

Volokh's got a link to the actual memos (well, a link-to-a-link to the actual memos, via the ACLU's website), and has hosted a (as of last night) reasonably informative discussion from both sides of the issue, here.

I read the new Bybee memo last night. Frankly, I wasn't that impressed by most of his reasoning. Haven't gotten around to the other three memos yet.

[HEthePrimate]

Torture is still wrong. From a certain perspective, one could "justify" just about anything, but that doesn't make it right.

I applaud President Obama for his efforts to do what is right, despite criticism.

HEP

[bytor2112]

Torture is still wrong. From a certain perspective, one could "justify" just about anything, but that doesn't make it right.

I applaud President Obama for his efforts to do what is right, despite criticism.

HEP

Hardly sounds like torture to me. Obama is a fool and will make our country less safe.

[Just_A_Guy]

This seems to be excessive to me. Edited April 20, 2009 by Just_A_Guy

[bytor2112]

This seems to be excessive to me.

As compared to what? I am sure it is not a pleasant experience. Isn't Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the creep who admitted to beheading Daniel Pearl? I am all for extreme interrogation methods if it will save American lives or innocent lives abroad.

[Just_A_Guy]

Frankly, I don't see a need for one hundred eighty-odd waterboardings on the same person within thirty days. But I'll freely admit to a dearth of familiarity with the issue.

Nevertheless, this is far beyond the scope of what the Bybee memo said was permissible. Even if that amount of waterboarding is morally justifiable, it's a rather egregious instance of the CIA's exceeding its authority (and, now that they have Presidential immunity, setting up someone else--viz Bybee--to take the fall for their excesses).

[HEthePrimate]

Are "harsh interrogation techniques" necessary?

A Top Interrogator Who's Against Torture

[Elgama]

like Benjamin Franklin said They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

personally i want to remain untortured in my life - don't know about you. If we agree to torture it makes us the dictators and i would rather be blown up than give up my freedoms because the moment we sanction torture, lack of a fair trial etc we are the totaliarian state

But then greatest influence in my life was my Gran who faced with that choice took it despite living in the centre of the second most bombed city in the UK never used a bomb shelter and refused to send my Aunty away as an evacuee. She was proved quite right her life went back to normal and my Aunty bore no scars from her war experience. Others were not so lucky

-Charley

[Dravin]

If we agree to torture it makes us the dictators and i would rather be blown up than give up my freedoms because the moment we sanction torture, lack of a fair trial etc we are the totaliarian state

A society can torture and not be a dictatorship (I'll give you no trials and the like being a characteristic of totalitarian regimes though). Not that I'm in favor of torture mind you, but if a democratic society decides it wants to torture people they aren't somehow disqualified as a democracy. Some very liberal (or would that be conservative?) definitions of torture would include a police interrigation (which I have no problem with).

Actually, that's the biggest problem, is coming up with a hard line you can draw in the sand. If its fine to let somebody stew in an interrigation room (causing mental distress and nervousness) and not give them a drink (causing physical discomfort) until they are done talking with you while badgering them with questions and accusations (mental distress/verbal abuse), then the question becomes:

Well, what about a little bit more mental distress, physical discomfort, verbal abuse and what have you? Most people have a, "I'll know it when I see it!" attitude to just what torture is, but just like with pornography what it is can change with the culture. I have to be honest with myself and admit that is my attitude as well. See the police interrogation comment earlier in the post, but if you bust out a choke pear I'm gonna cry foul. I guess its a golden rule thing, I wouldn't mind so much (in the abstract of course) being put through a police interrogation, but other things I would quite mind.

So I guess my rambling post boils down to: Interrogation not bad, torture bad, where exactly is the line?

[BenRaines]

If one of my children or grandchildren were being held hostage and I had someone who I believed knew where they were and I feared that they might be killed and would not hesitate to torture out the information.

Is it ok to torture if it saves 1 life, how about 10, how about 1,000 or 100,000 or 1 million?

This is to me like wanting to debate with a terrorist who is holding a nuclear suitcase bomb and you are trying to make nice with him and ask him to give you the trigger. It is not going to happen by being nice or offering money.

Rip it out of them.

Ben Raines

[Guest]

Anybody here seen the movie "Taken"?

Yeah, if that was my husband, and that was his daughter, he'd clip the guy's ears to the electric box as well... of course, he wouldn't go so far as to kill the guy...

I just want to say that I'm not fond of torture but, reading all the papers on it and talking to every single military person I know, I have concluded that torture is not the standard-operating-procedure of the American military. And that playing "couch judges" on the CIA is a very dangerous game for ordinary civilians to engage in when your freedom is completely dependent on these guys. Playing politics on this issue is just as bad when you got proof of an enemy willing to take every opportunity to wipe you guys out.

I say, do a sanity check on your military to make sure torture is not something they do as a standard practice and leave the people who are protecting your freedoms to do their jobs.

By the way, this "fanfare" on torture is nothing new. The media and the anti-administration activists did this same exact thing in the Philippine insurgency vs. America in the 30's. It is a ploy used by the media and certain political sects to skew the American sentiment out of proportion to achieve their purposes. And, like everytime, the American people are easily led by the nose...

[Jenamarie]

John McCain sums up my feelings on torture pretty eloquantly in this article.

An excerpt:

I've been asked often where did the brave men I was privileged to serve with in North Vietnam draw the strength to resist to the best of their abilities the cruelties inflicted on them by our enemies. They drew strength from their faith in each other, from their faith in God and from their faith in our country. Our enemies didn't adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them unto death. But every one of us--every single one of us--knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of them. That faith was indispensable not only to our survival, but to our attempts to return home with honor. For without our honor, our homecoming would have had little value to us.

The enemies we fight today hold our liberal values in contempt, as they hold in contempt the international conventions that enshrine them. I know that. But we are better than them, and we are stronger for our faith. And we will prevail. It is indispensable to our success in this war that those we ask to fight it know that in the discharge of their dangerous responsibilities to their country they are never expected to forget that they are Americans, and the valiant defenders of a sacred idea of how nations should govern their own affairs and their relations with others--even our enemies.

We *NEED* to be better than our enemies. Why would we want to be in any way identical to them?