Hell, if she's doing the interrogating.....

"The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death."

Hmmm. So Sully supports the death penalty for those who use torture - clearly he therefore wants us to make every conceivable effort to enforce this on all those using that recently discovered (and so colorfully illustrated) middle eastern torture manual? Or is it only US citizens who have to follow laws -- the rest of the world clearly having evolved beyond the need for such a crude concept?

All kidding aside, I could at least sympathize with Sully if he were spouting this one sided and self destructive pap in the name of some religion - after all, (some) religions do place principal above all, on grounds that (religiously sanctioned) suffering in the now will result in a greater reward in the afterlife.

But this isn't driven by religious principal - it's a purely secular principal, and which therefore advocates suffering without any sort of recompense other than presumably the clearing of one's own conscience; a conscience in Andy's case that writes off the slowly-being-killed kind of suffering happening to captured servicemen and random civilians in Iraq as "all Bush's fault" in order to free up more quality time for flagellating himself over the (non-lethal) discomfort being inflicted on those in US custody who not only want him dead, but killed by way of either a live burial or having a wall toppled over on him.

Andrew Sullivan is a mindless bitch who will never get around Bush's- and conservatives'- resistance to gay marriage, no matter what size of clue by four reality beats him over the head with. This is the true Andy, the one who lay (semi) dormant prior to the gay marriage thing, until the veneer was torn away exposing him as a silly, immature, posing, over educated dolt.

Scott, Andrew didnt say he supports the death penalty for torturers. He is stating an empirical fact. When the Nazis did what we do now, they were executed.

'Or is it only US citizens who have to follow laws -- the rest of the world clearly having evolved beyond the need for such a crude concept?'

Try it the other way - the US is evolved to a point further than the terrorists. We rely on law - that's what makes us better than them, and we must preserve it.

The rest of your post was kind of gibberish, unfortunately, but that's the way it goes!

There is only one name for an American that, when faced with an enemy that hates the concept of a nation based on humane principals and the rule of law, immediately sacrifices those principals and rule of law for a temporary (and false) sense of security: "COWARD"

Mick,
Sadly your version of "evolution" would still have planes being used as weapons against our innocent citizens.

A quick question for you.

Hypothetically you have a terrorist in custody and know he has knowledge of an attack that will take place within the next twenty-four hours would you rather:

A) Use what Saint Andie calls torture and leave a terrorist with recurring nightmares of a woman seeing him naked. or
B) Have another attack against our citizens.

We've already determined, from the article Andie sited, that these guys aren't giving up the information when being asked nicely. You're under a deadline. Its A or B, nightmares or thousands of American Kids who won't see their mom or dad ever again.

I don't know why the Republicans are so keen on torture that every one of the candidates except the one who knows the most about the subject, McCain, played quien es mas macho during the debates.

The truth is, torture doesn't work.

If you don't believe me, Google Marine Major Sherwood F. Moran's piece on interrogation, the paper that is required reading for all Marine interrogators.

If the classics don't move you, read Mark Bowden's article in last month's Atlantic on how Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s inner circle—without resorting to torture—and took out al-Qaeda’s main man in Iraq.

If you don't have time to read both articles, let me summarize: Torture does not work. Being a decent human being does work.

With torture we sacrifice the moral high ground, our founding principles and the humanity of the interrogator and what do we get in return? Bupkiss.

So why are all these GOP candidates so eager to endorse a tactic that doesn't work? My guess is it's because it's an easy and cheap way to look tough, especially if you've never served.

But that's just a guess.

'Enhanced Interrogation' sure got those Fort Dix six caught. Oh wait, it was all those super duper provisions of the patriot (sic) act. No? Wait, it was some dude at Wal-Mart who thought there was something odd about the 'training videos'. I'm sure glad the constitution was trampled to find those Fort Dix Six! oh wait...

Would it be worth waterboarding someone to stop NYC from being vaporized by a nuclear bomb? I think so.

"The truth is, torture doesn't work."

"If you don't have time to read both articles, let me summarize: Torture does not work. Being a decent human being does work."

Let me get this straight, asking a terrorist really nicely will work better than torture? Does it work when time is of the essence? Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't we water-board Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Then didnt he spill the beans about a whole bunch of stuff?

jbiccum,

Hey, like I said, don't believe me. Believe guys who have been there and done that.

I tend to trust people with real, hands-on experience and results.

But if you think the blow-dried Mitt Romney knows more about torture than John McCain, I guess we'll just have to disagree.

"'Enhanced Interrogation' sure got those Fort Dix six caught. Oh wait, it was all those super duper provisions of the patriot (sic) act. No? Wait, it was some dude at Wal-Mart who thought there was something odd about the 'training videos'. I'm sure glad the constitution was trampled to find those Fort Dix Six! oh wait..."

Clearly it isnt the answer in every situation, but it does have its place. What if your mother or someone else close to you was saved because some low life jihadist was water-boarded, would you still be sarcastic about it?

Understand this is the most dangerous foe I think we have ever faced. They dont have a country of origin. They dont wear uniforms. They will kill anyone in any number to further their cause.

Honestly, I dont think waterboarding is torture. Nor do I think underwear on the head is torture. To me torture is a blow torch and a pair of pliers, or maybe cutting someones genitals off. That stuff is just plain wrong, and our enemies do it everyday.

"But if you think the blow-dried Mitt Romney knows more about torture than John McCain, I guess we'll just have to disagree."

No man, I agree with you completely. I just don't think underwear on the head or waterboarding is anything close to what John McCain went through. Do you agree with that?

jbiccum,

Yes, I agree with you on that. But this torture lite doesn't get us anything except the disgust of the rest of the world.

I did a quick search on KSM to see if maybe I'm wrong and waterboarding really worked in his case. I found a lot of sources you would probably dismiss that said it didn't and the most objective source I could find was Newsweek. Here's part of what they said:

"In recent interviews with NEWSWEEK reporters, U.S. intelligence officers say they have little—if any—evidence that useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally understood to be torture. It is clear, for instance, that Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. His interrogators even threatened, à la Jack Bauer, to go after his family. (KSM reportedly shrugged off the threat to his family—he would meet them in heaven, he said.) KSM did reveal some names and plots. But they haven’t panned out as all that threatening: one such plot was a plan by an Al Qaeda operative to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge—with a blow torch. Intelligence officials could never be sure if KSM was holding back on more serious threats, or just didn’t know of any.

So I still don't see why we should give up the moral high ground and our principles for a technique that doesn't work. Don't get me wrong. I'm no bleeding heart, and I have more than passing acquaintance with the intelligence community, and if I thought it did work I'd give it the green light.

But all the evidence I've seen says it doesn't. I know an MI officer in Iraq right now and he should be home soon. We've talked about this before and he's tougher than I am (hell, he's tougher than 100 men I know) but he wasn't convinced either, and this was right after Abu Ghraib, a place he was very familiar with. His bottom line? He wanted his men to have the license to use harsh interrogation techniques, but he saw that the blowback from Abu Ghraib probably wasn't worth it.

I still have an open mind on this, but I'm disgusted by the macho posturing of guys who've never walked the walk.

jbiccum -

Yes, waterboarding is torture. So is not being allowed to sleep for weeks on end and being nearly frozen to death. These are all techniques created and tested by our most brutal enemies (Stalin's Gulag, Nazi Germany, North Vietnam, etc), and is now being endorsed by the Republican party and our President.

The choice you give of "ask nicely", or tortue, is a false choice. As suggested to you by another individual, try doing a little research about interrogation by the people that actually do it for a living. Nearly every single one will tell you that these "enhanced interrogation techniques" either fail, or send you down the wrong path.

I would much rather die free in a nation of principals, rule of law and a higher moral code than our barbaric enemies, than sacrifice the basic principals this country was founded on.

Now we're back to if you have never been a torturer you have no right to talk about torture.

davod,

Now we're back to if you have never been a torturer you have no right to talk about torture.

No, not at all.

But you can listen to people who are interrogators, and read about cases where a technique either worked or it didn't.

It's too easy to swagger and talk tough, that's all I'm saying.

I want to play!

Hypothetically you have a prisoner in custody and know he has knowledge of an attack that will take place within the next twenty-four hours. You decide to torture him to get this information. In the course of employing your favorite enhanced interrogation techniques, the prisoner gives up his information, but dies shortly thereafter.

You alert your security forces to stop the attack. They report back that there was no attack planned after all.

Do you:

A) Explain to his Widow and kids that "in order to make omelettes, sometimes you have to break a few eggs," give them a few hundred bucks for their trouble and send them on their way.

B) Figure the idiot had it coming. He wouldn't have been in detention if he wasn't guilty.

C) Say to yourself, "the only good sand ------ is a dead sand ------."

"The rest of your post was kind of gibberish, unfortunately, but that's the way it goes!"

Mick, I do feel badly for you, but please don't blame your lack of reading comprehension on me - Ritalin will do wonders for your ADHD, just ask your mum to run you down to the doctor's for a prescription (service provided pro bono, BTW - no need to thank me).

(Although from the entirety of your post it looks like you'll also need to graduate from high school to understand the words with more than two syllables now that you're able to maintain attention span for longer than a paragraph, but that's the way it goes!)

Phin,

Sure I've heard similar versions of that story.

And even though that horrific little scenario never actually occurs in, um, reality, for the sake of arguement I'll accept your hypothetical
construct here provided you allow me to pick the method of tortu ... interrogation.

Fair enough?

So instead of underwear and waterboarding--this would be an attack that endangered the lives of thousands, who knows, maybe millions of innocent American lives--let's just posit that we are certain we can break this terrorist by raping his child in front of him. Sure, that's brutal, but weighed up against the lives of millions, why not?

We could drill his teeth without anesthetic. Have him drawn and quartered. Pour molten lead onto various parts of his body.

Honestly, I can't think of any action toward this terrorist scum whatsoever, however vile, unthinkable, or un-American, that couldn't easily be justified by this scenario. Can you?

But wait, that couldn't be why this scenario is being offered up? Could it?

Big K,
I haven't seen any of the torture techniques used by Americans that cause harm to anyone other than the terrorist.

As a parent I'd never go along with the raping of anyone's child or punishing and innocent to get information from someone else. There are lines that can never be crossed. As for the other methods that would inflict harm on said terrorist and in return save the lives of innocents, or even just one, you're damned skippy.

I have no problem with it at all and wouldn't have a problem sleeping at night.

How can I justify such actions? I also support the death penalty and have no problem with it being proactive enforcement.

As I'd mentioned, some lines should never be crossed. Yet if it takes killing a terrorist to prevent them from killing others I have trouble differentiating between that and a police officer killing someone who has brandished a weapon and is seriously threatening to kill a hostage.

Given the choice between one of the victims of 9/11 and Mohamed Atta being maimed or killed, I'd choose the wellbeing of the victim every time.

The choice of sacrificing an innocent person isn't at play, nor was it ever discussed. However, sacrificing a terrorist, to save the lives of innocents was. And to be blunt, No I can't think of any action against a terrorist's person that that would be off limits if they pose an imminent threat.

Call me uncivilized if you want, but at least I'm honest about it.

phin,

You say this isn't about the choice of sacrificing an innocent person, but it is. Last year we released two Afghanis from Gitmo who were guilty of nothing more than telling a joke about Clinton, a joke that was misunderstood by our interrogators as being a threat on the a president.

I won't make a joke about certain intel ops being absent a sense of humor, but I could.

So, indeed, we are talking about innocent people being swept up and tortured, for information they don't have. If you have any sense of empathy, put yourself in that Afghani jokester's sandals. Wouldn't you tell them anything to stop the waterboarding? Thank God, I've never been in that position, but I'm not sure how long I could hold out. I'd tell them something. Anything. I'd make stuff up.

Have you ever been jolted by a field phone? I have. Every GI who has been bored, with a field phone, has put their fingers on the terminals and given it a twist, just to feel what it feels like. I don't know how I could hold up if those terminals were attached to my huevos and there was an eager phin on the crank, ready to give it a whirl. And don't tell me we haven't done that because I know better.

I know we've stood kids on hand grenades, on the spoon, the pin pulled, and questioned their familes. Their mothers and fathers knowing that if the kid gets tired, which she will, she'll slip off that frag and Ka-Boom, she's toast, and they don't give it up because they don't know. That's real world, phin, not hypotheticals like a suitcase nuke and Jack Bauer has 24 to get 'er done. That's what we, the USA, have done in Central America.

So, there are those in intel who have gone on record, with results, saying that torture doesn't work.

Do you feel so confident now about our use of waterboarding? Are you so sure that as a nation we should be doing these things in your name and my name?

Because I'm not. I'm not.

Have any of you guys done any serious research into how waterboarding is done and why it's been used since at least the Inquisition? Why are you convinced it's just "torture lite"?

I'll repeat an offer -- I'll pay $10K to anyone here who will endure 60 minutes of this at my hands.

before anyone talks about whether or not waterboarding is torture, I suggest they see a video of it here.

This reporter is an ex-Navy SEAL and as such had endured waterboarding before as part of his training in resistance to torture techniques. I think all the Keyboard Kommandos need to watch this before they try to claim that it isn't 'torture'.

And it's only about 7 minutes, not 60, before he has to tell them to stop.

I agree 100% waterboarding is torture. I've seen the videos / done the research and watched men way better than me crack just a couple of minutes into it. I'm not saying it isn't.

I am however, and will go to my grave, with the opinion that we shouldn't take the methods we've currently improved off the table if they're being used on someone who has information and is a member of a terrorist organization.

I too David remember the guys we released from Gitmo and its a shame and hopefully they weren't tortured. Now if they were joking while they were setting an IDE it's one thing. But yeah, I'd be in a world of trouble if a Clinton joke earned a trip to Gitmo.

As I've stated, I'm not for the blanket approval of torture techniques. However, if we catch someone sneaking across the border with half the fixings of a bomb to wipe out a couple of hundred people I don't think we should tie the hands of our interrogators.

Now the same goes in Iraq. If we catch someone in the process of planting an IDE we can be 99% certain that they're not trying to improve traffic flow and there's a good chance they'll have information that could lead to other bombs or terrorists.

Granted they may not crack, however there is a chance they will.

Yes, if somebody is getting ready to light up my 'nads I'll tell them I'm the Queen of England if thats what they want, but a pop or two I'd probably tell them if I knew were the other IDE's were planted and I damned sure wouldn't lie if they were going to get popped for giving wrong information.

Sorry, I'm a pig headed bastard, admittedly. But if there's a chance we'll get information from somebody who is a KNOWN terrorist that will save the lives of one innocent Iraqi we should go for it. I don't give a damn if the guy has nightmares and pees on himself every time it thunders.

Terrorists, from all organizations IRA, FARC, Militant White Supremacists, Islamic, I don't care. They're human only by birth, other than that they're animals. I won't place value on someone's life who is willing to kill a room full of toddlers to advance their cause. Okay maybe they're worth the bullet and power it'd take to send them to hell, but that's about it.

How can waterboarding someone be considered "sacrificing" them? I'm pretty sure nobody has ever died or even had any lasting damage from it. I could be wrong, but I think when it is done there are trained medical staff standing by at all times.

I'm pretty sure nobody has ever died or even had any lasting damage from it.

On what do you base that? Wishful thinking? Why wouldn't someone have lasting psychological damage from being tortured?

but I think when it is done there are trained medical staff standing by at all times.

jbiccum,

What do you think this is, summer camp? Trained medical people standing by? You have got to be kidding. What? Do you think this is some kind of frat prank? I have news for you, when the CIA swoops in and hauls your butt to Yemen in an extraordinary rendition, you can give up all thoughts of civilized behavior. Trained medical staff. Sure. And then they give you milk and cookies and a Batman band-aid.

And phinn,

That's my point here. We're not talking about a squad taking a guy who caught burying an IED. That s**t's going down no matter what the ROE say.

No, I'm talking about the President of the United States saying that these techniques are legal. Do you comprehend the can of worms that opens up? Do you fully understand what that means about our adherence to the Geneva Accords?

This makes us a lawless nation, a rogue among the civilized nations. It's one thing to turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate, let the chips fall, it's a whole other ball game when you codify these techniques. Because when you do that, we cross into some mighty dark territory.

Front line, stuff happens. With POWs, there are rules. McCain understands that. The other GOP candidates don't. Now ask yourself what's different between McCain and the other candidates.

Yeah, that's right.

If that doesn't make you second guess your admittedly understandable impulses, then I don't know what will.

It's one thing to turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate, let the chips fall, it's a whole other ball game when you codify these techniques.

This is the key point, and thank you David for making it. All of the Jack Bauer scenarios that people trot out are irrelevant. The truth is that in 99.9999% of the cases there's very little reason to believe that this guy who you picked up, who probably is a bad character by any standard, is about to kill a million people, or a thousand, or a hundred, or even 10 people. And even if he is, how do you know that he knows anything at all? And if he doesn't, what of your morality when you torture him for 72 hours? The difference is an official policy vs an extreme, and entirely hypothetical, scenario.

I don't draw parallels with Nazis lightly, believe me. But I can assure you that the "good German" working for the SD in the Third Reich was making the exact calculation the apologists for American torture are making today.

On a last point, I believe that when you claim that you're working on the side of the good guys, that you actually ACT on the side of the good guys. If you don't understand this point then I probably should take my business elsewhere. (Which you might actually appreciate!)

Sometimes I like to cover myself in cheese-whiz and sing I'm a little tea pot.

-- comment edited by phin, because Rasaposa has potty mouth and can't be civil.

This reporter is an ex-Navy SEAL and as such had endured waterboarding before as part of his training in resistance to torture techniques.

If its OK to use on our own people in training, why is it not OK to use elsewhere?

Jimmy Carter gassed me with chemical weapons at Ft. Dix back in the 70's!

"Andie would hope you'd skip the part about only applying "sharpened interrogation" to terrorists who "it has been ascertained that the prisoner can give information about facts, connections or plans hostile to the state or legal system, but does not want to reveal his knowledge and the latter cannot be obtained by way of inquiries" and follow along in his inference that Bush, his Administration and those questioning terrorists are war criminals." - Phin

Actually Phin, Sulivan specifically highlights the part of the memo that you suggest he doesn't want the readers to notice:

"As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan."