From the New York Times:
“In opening arguments here at the court-martial for the soldier, Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr., his lawyers insisted that he was simply following orders and using lessons from his civilian life as a prison guard to try to maintain discipline in a war zone. Using naked and hooded detainees to make a human pyramid was much like what cheerleaders “all over America” do at football games, the lawyer, Guy Womack, argued, and putting naked prisoners on leashes was much like what parents in airports do with their toddlers.
“They’re not being abused,” Mr. Womack told the jury of 10 soldiers, “they’re being kept in control.””
The famous photo of the Hooded Man: just another Halloween costume. Those snarling dogs: children everywhere play with pets. And the photos of Iraqis being forced to masturbate: haven’t you ever heard of circle jerks?
Actually, that last one is wrong: “Asked to explain photos of detainees masturbating, Private Frederick said Specialist Graner “said it was a present for our birthday.”” Well, HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY to you too, Specialist Graner.
“Specialist Graner betrayed little emotion inside the courtroom but smiled and joked outside. Walking in Monday morning, he told reporters: “We’re going to find out what kind of a monster I am today.””
Yup. And we get to find out what an idiot your defense attorney is too. Lucky us.
it’s the Rush Limbaugh defense: nothing to see here – it’s all just the normal kind of stuff that happens in good old-fashioned American pornography, or frat hazing !
Possibly the defense attorney isn’t an idiot: maybe he’s just decided he’d really rather Graner went to jail?
I know, I know: a defense attorney is required to make the best possible case for their client regardless of what their client has done. But when your client is, by photographic evidence which your client does not dispute, guilty of torture… what is the best possible case for such a client going to look like? I can’t imagine.
I always had this silly idea that a defense attorney should make the most convincing case for his or her client, and that part of ‘most convincing’ was that you should not say things that insult the intelligence of the jury, since if you do you will tend to make them think that they will only buy the idea that your client’s conduct is defensible if they are stupid. Apparently, this defense attorney doesn’t agree.
The best defense would be passing the buck up, right? But I thought I heard, a few weeks ago, that they can’t do this, for some reason …
Oh no, I agree with you, Hilzoy. I just admit to not seeing that there’s any real defense for Graner – even “just following orders” takes him only so far, since he ought not to have obeyed illegal orders, and there’s photographic evidence that he obeyed with considerable enthusiasm. Still, yes, obviously his defense attorney ought to be making the best of whatever defense there is – I apologize for being flip about it.
I’d just like to throw in that if what hilzoy quoted from the article constitutes torture as far as Jesurgislac‘s concerned, then so would nearly any kind of physical or mental abuse. And then torture as a description becomes largely devalued.
If I need to heap scorn on the “frat hazing” argument in order to be able to make this point, consider it heaped.
Dictionary definition of torture: 1. a. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion. b. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain. 2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense. 3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.
I am happy to accept that Slartibartfast feels that were he to be taken prisoner by his country’s enemies, stripped naked, hooded, forced to “stack” himself in a pyramid of othter naked hooded prisoners, and led on a leash – aware all the while that his guards held absolute power of life and death over him – that he himself would experience no excruciating mental pain nor any severe anguish.
But I think Slarti must be an unusually mentally and physically tough person to be so sure that he would not consider such experiences to be torture.
Well, regardless of the semantics, coercing people to give up information (or just smacking them around for fun) is, in this context, illegal. As to the semantics, even if each event in isolation is not sufficient to be torture, they weren’t taking place in isolation.
What interrogation techniques are not torture?
SH — probably the only effective technique that even the most extreme pro-detainee lawyer would not denounce as “torture” would be the promise of a lighter sentence for someone who cooperated, which doesn’t seem logical in this context.
Karnak award, and I’m going to request that you retract that and apologize, Jesurgislac. Just because something isn’t torture doesn’t mean it’s not unpleasant. Don’t trivialize torture by having it mean anything and everything unpleasant.
I agree with Slarti. While the things we’re talking about here are an embarassment to me as an American, let’s start from the top. If we can figure out why and under what circumstances prisoners were beaten to death, raped, attacked with dogs, and forced to engage in sexual behavior then we never need worry about whether naked human pyramids do indeed constitute torture. The people responsible can mull that question over while they’re rotting in jail.
Slarti, clearly I’ve offended you, and I apologize for that.
However, it does seem to me that while the “naked human pyramids” appear to be have been the more-or-less photogenic face of torture inside Abu Ghraib (certainly compared to some of the other photographs we have seen) it is wrong to assert that being grossly humiliated – under threat of being killed if you do not cooperate with your own humiliation – is not torture. We may disagree on this, and certainly I feel I could have expressed my disagreement better, but I cannot retract my disagreement, though I do, again, apologize for the offense I gave you in expressing it.
We can agree, surely, that there are degrees of torture. Being grossly humiliated under threat of death is certainly a milder form of torture than attack by guard dog, sleep deprivation, rape, being forced to witness your son being raped, all of which also were inflicted on prisoners in Abu Ghraib by their American guards.
And all of these are milder forms of torture than being castrated, being boiled alive, being fed alive into a plastic-shredding machine, being forced to watch your family being shot in front of you and to dig their graves – none of which were inflicted on prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Because we can agree that there are degrees of torture, does not make the milder degrees of torture not torture.
Is this torture?
“The Army reservist accused of being the ringleader in abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison once jumped on a detainee’s wounded leg, the detainee testified today, so hard that the leg did not heal straight.
The reservist, Specialist Charles A. Graner, watched as another soldier urinated on the detainee, the detainee testified, and made another detainee eat from a prison toilet.”
How would the people defending the Abu Ghraib guards’ behavior feel if American prisoners were subjected to the same kinds of treatment that the Iraqi prisoners were? Would you still be saying that it was not torture?
What interrogation techniques are not torture?
You know, there was a thread that moved to that exact topic, but for some strange reason, it fell apart.
I’d just like to throw in that if what hilzoy quoted from the article constitutes torture as far as Jesurgislac’s concerned, then so would nearly any kind of physical or mental abuse. And then torture as a description becomes largely devalued.
But that’s precisely it, isn’t it? We have no idea exactly what techniques were done. We do however know that some of these techniques resulted in the death of detainees, so it is not fair to cherry pick what was done and try to make arguments on what is or is not torture.
At any rate, the ‘techniques’ hilzoy quotes appear to be simply games to show the detainees who has the power, so seem to serve no particular purpose. As was noted in the Masri thread, part of the interrogation process is to go into the encounter with the appearance of knowing everything about the person to have them give up the information that you need. It appears that we have gone into these encounters with precisely the opposite of that, with no information and then try to humiliate people. Thus, it is not the question of which techniques constitute torture, it is the question of preparation and planning for this. But if someone suggests that it was poor prep that was the cause of this, the reply is no, no one condones these kinds of actions. That is what is devaluing torture, not any kind of haggling over descriptions.
What interrogation techniques are not torture?
Fair question. I’m not an interrogator, so I can’t give a good answer. What interrogation techniques are police typically allowed? What techniques are allowed by various international agreements? Surely some unpleasantness is tolerated.
But having not answered, let me ask a question:
Should prisoners be subjected to humiliating and abusive treatment which neither constitutes torture nor aids interrogation?
An awful lot of the defense of various techniques seems to be “that’s not really torture, etc.” I don’t agree, but so what? Is random mistreatment OK? I don’t agree with that either.
I don’t think random mistreatment of anyone or anything is good. But I also think that some legitimate interrogation techniques would be considered mistreatment if randomly applied. Which is why I asked in the first place.
True, but almost completely disconnected from my point. Call things such as humiliation and infliction of discomfort and embarrassment (even mortification) torture, and you’ve trivialized the definition. I’m not saying no one was actually tortured, just that the human pyramid thing isn’t it. If you think it is, I now understand why Rush said what he did. It’s because torture is now being trivialized.
The dictionary definition of “torture” isn’t very helpful to the discussion — what one person considers “excruciating” or “severe” pain or anguish, another might consider simply an ordinary level of same. Anyway, as long as we all agree that what was done was unconscionable and merits “severe” punishment of those responsible, I don’t think we need to get hung up on the label.
Slarti: Call things such as humiliation and infliction of discomfort and embarrassment (even mortification) torture, and you’ve trivialized the definition
What makes you think that public humiliation and mortification under threat of death and/or rape is not torture? You seem to be very definite that it does not constitute torture to be so treated: why?
Graner is certainly guilty of criminal assault, if not torture.
The most common definition of assault is an unwanted touching. The readers can see the problem with assault in the penological context — lots of things the guards do that are perfectly legitimate in a prison would be assault in the civilian world. Thus, most prisons have extremely explicit codes about the manner in which force can be used against a prisoner.
Absent such codes, what is a guard to do when an inmate throws shit on him? Abu Ghraib had all the elements necessary for out-of-control guards: overpopulation, insufficient guard/inmate ratios, language barriers, primitive sanitation, insufficient oversight by command staff etc.
I’m a solid member of the center-left, but even i know that (a) a society needs prisons and (b) prison guards have a tough gig, especially those who aren’t sadists. Guards have to have a series of tools not available to ordinary law enforcement, or they’re going to get killed. Some of these tools are unpleasant but necessary.
(Please note that i am NOT contending that Graner’s conduct constituted legitimate behavior in a penal environment. He does appear to be a plain old sadist.)
To me, torture has 2 components: extreme pain or humiliation, and a relationship to interrogation. Everything else is aggravated assault. If Graner has a code book which says that building pyramids of naked men is a legitimate way of keeping control of Muslim men in prison, or if he can put on expert testimony which states that such behavior is part of the unwritten code of prison mgmt, then he walks. Otherwise, he does a lot of time for aggravated criminal assault.
I think the question of whether Graner committed torture is, largely, a red herring. The relevant questions on torture are whether torture is EVER legal, and what the Bush admin did (if anything) to promote the use of torture in Afghanistan, Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. To the extent that some of Graner’s conduct was clearly torture (and I don’t know enough about what’s been alleged to tell), that conduct is relevant to the argument that the Bush admin., through a wink and a nod, deliberately created an environment where torture was tolerated (and maybe even approved).
(It would be interesting indeed if there was evidence, as alleged by Sy Hersh, that Graner directed really disgusting behavior — anal rape of boys and the like. The reports i’ve heard to date from NPR suggest that the prosecution testimony has been limited to acts more resembling criminal assault rather than torture. Without screwing on the tinfoil hat too hard, I confess that I would not be surprised if the prosecution had more graphic testimony, but is choosing not to put it on.)
Francis
If you think it is, I now understand why Rush said what he did. It’s because torture is now being trivialized.
I will simply ask what do you think Rush’s motive was in pointing this out? To have his audience undergo some soul searching as to what exactly torture is? Or was it more likely that he wished to minimize the extent of the abuse and so minimized the ‘techniques’ (funny, I’ve never seen any police shows have the suspects do the pyramid) What would NPR have reported?
Aggressive interrogation _requires_ a framework where people interrogated have a strong possibility of being criminals. The possibility that you may be wrong dictates that you cannot cause any longterm harm to them. Assuming the reverse, that as long as I don’t cause longterm harm, it’s not torture, so therefore, I can try these techniques out because there is a possibility that I might get some useful information is an invitation for people who get their kicks off of bullying people to abuse the process.
There is a good article by Heather MacDonald and a post by Jane Galt on the topic of torture and legitimate interrogation techniques. The thing that bothers me about this debate as currently operating is the same thing that bothered me about the “rape is any time a woman subjectively feels any level of coercion” definition (which included cajoling or whining as coercion) that was popularized by some feminists in the late 1980s. Torture is a serious and bad thing. But not all uncomfortable things are torture.
So let me talk off the top of my head.
Hacking off someone’s finger–torture.
Electrocuting someone–torture.
Branding someone–torture.
Whipping someone–torture.
Raping someone–torture.
Beating someone–torture.
Offering someone a cigarette–not torture.
Messing with someone’s sleep cycles–not torture.
Yelling–not typically torture.
Feeding a Muslim pork–let’s talk about this one.
Pretending to transport someone to another place–not torture.
Giving someone chocolate–apparently illegal but not torture.
Attacking someone’s pride–not generally torture but we should talk about the specifics.
This seems like a silly and wrong extreme. But since we aren’t talking about what is and is not acceptable, is this where we are going?
Sebastien: Messing with someone’s sleep cycles–not torture.
From The State Dept’s Human Rights Practices Report on Iran for 2003:
It would seem that we consider “messing with someone’s sleep cycles” to be torture, at least when done by other people.
It would seem that we consider “messing with someone’s sleep cycles” to be torture, at least when done by other people.
Life expectancy for humans undergoing total sleep deprivation is about 11 days, with permanent brain damage occuring sooner. We know this because German experimenters during World War II tried it out on prisoners from the concentration camps.
Of course when it is described as “messing with someone’s sleep cycles” it doesn’t sound as bad. Another one for the Orwell files.
Just to be clear, the original post did not mention torture. That being said, here are some further excerpts from the Time article for everyone to debate:
“But prosecutors called soldiers who testified that Specialist Graner had laughed and joked as detainees moaned, screamed and begged him to stop beating them.”
“”He walked over to the detainee that had ‘I’m a rapist’ written on his leg and punched the detainee in the temple, sir,” Pvt. Jeremy Sivits, who is serving a year in prison for taking photographs of the abuse, testified about Specialist Graner. “And then he kind of shook his hand and said, ‘Ow. Damn, that hurt.’ ”
Private Sivits said the detainees had not posed any threat. “The detainee just kind of shook and lay there on the floor,” he said. “He just kind of moved his feet and lay there.”
Explaining a new video that shows a detainee writhing as Private Sivits tries to cut off a pair of handcuffs, he said Specialist Graner had attached them so tightly, the detainee’s hands were turning purple. “I personally thought he was going to lose his hands,” he said.”
“Describing how Specialist Graner punched a detainee in the temple so hard that it knocked him unconscious, Specialist Wisdom said, “If I was that detainee, I know that would have been very painful.””
Hmm, those who can’t discern a difference between changing someone’s sleep cycles and total sleep deprivation should perhaps think about it a bit more. But I see that we aren’t able to discuss this.
There is a good article by Heather MacDonald and a post by Jane Galt on the topic of torture and legitimate interrogation techniques.
I can’t seem to get the Galt article, but while the McDonald article is good from a ‘thought experiment’ perspective (it’s not torture if the interrogator experiences the same thing), in comparing her article with the Mackey book that she cites, she misrepresents what Mackey says. Mackey (and this is from using the Amazon search this book feature) never talks about how the AQ prisoners were unable to be broken using approaches, rather, he points out that the training the interrogators received (using cold war models and concentrating on getting the interrogees unit, which is pretty stupid if you are thinking about AQ or the Taliban) was inadequate for the kind of interrogation they had to do. As I pointed out in von‘s Challenge post, if the person arguing for an expansion in the ability to conduct these types of activities is is not being honest, the debate is meaningless. If the approaches works, then there should be no need to adopt more severe techniques.
Oh, and to clarify, I was not calling Sebstian dishonest, but McDonald for misrepresenting Mackey
the McDonald article is good from a ‘thought experiment’ perspective (it’s not torture if the interrogator experiences the same thing),
McDonald makes the same silly mistake as Jonah Goldberg, arguing that if something can be doen to a US Army recruit it is not torture.
Sebastian,
I’m generally sympathetic to your desire to have at least a rough distinction between the behavior we describe as “torture” vs lesser forms of “inhumane behavior”. Clarity in language, after all, is useful. I think, however, that your initial breakdown of examples is probably weighted a little too far in favor of obvious physical torture. My personal suspicion is that you’re neglecting the psychological component.
Fair disclosure, my viewpoint is affected by the fact that I’m married to someone suffering from PTSD. I get to see her wake up with nightmares in the middle of the night. I get to see her struggle daily with emotional wounds that were inflicted almost 20 years ago. Most of the treatment which produced these results was not on your “is torture” list. (Some of it was, but I don’t think those incidents were responsible for all the damage.) Anyway, when I’m trying figure out what might qualify as torture, I don’t just limit myself to the amount of immediate physical pain involved. I try to think about whether the subject just might be waking up with nightmares from the memories years from now.
On to more specifics. I’ll have to disagree with you on the sleep cycle thing. Severe sleep deprivation can produce hallucinations, psychosis and even death. As 243 points out, we’ve considered it to count as torture when practiced by others. The naked prisoner pyramid thing also, while certainly not the worst abuse committed, has to qualify as at least some form of sexual assault, with all the psychological ramifications thereof. If rape is generally acknowledged as a torture method, where do you draw the line for lesser forms of sexual assault?
On preview – Sebastian, I see you’re distinguishing between sleep deprivation and “changing someone’s sleep cycles”. Okay, I’ll concede that switching someone to a night shift sleep cycle (while allowing them reasonable sleep time during the day), would not rise to the level of torture. Switching sleep times continuously might possibly qualify, since the prisoner may likely end up unable to sleep at all, thus resulting in sleep deprivation. My impression, however, was that actual sleep deprivation had been a technique used at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and that you were using a more positive wording to describe it. If you were just describing a theoretical, milder form of treatment, than I apologize for misunderstanding.
Yes, and I think the debate should be limited to those who are honest enough, but the observation that whatever the interrogee experienced, the interrogator also has to seems to be a good rule of thumb. You can’t have teams of interrogators who swap off, so sleep deprivation can only be ‘applied’ if there is one person who is there the whole time, awake, questioning. Altering the temperature of the room is only permissible if there is an interrogator sitting there in the same room with the same basic clothing (no dropping the room to minus 20 and the interrogator is in an ice station Zebra outift while the interrogee is in his skivvies)
This is why Graner’s actions of ‘softening them up’ is so problematic.
Hmm, those who can’t discern a difference between changing someone’s sleep cycles and total sleep deprivation should perhaps think about it a bit more. But I see that we aren’t able to discuss this.
Sleep deprivation is a subset of “messing with someone’s sleep cycles”. If you would like to define your terms more clearly, feel free to do so. Until then, it is your argument (the argument that “messing with someone’s sleep cycles” is not torture) that is failing to make the distinction between the two.
More to the point, what is being done here is the same thing Rush does – use the mildest possible form of an interrogation method and ridicule the idea that it is torture (thus implying that no form of the method under question is torture).
Finally got around to reading the linked article. The following quote is the sort of thing that I thought “Messing with someone’s sleep cycles” was a euphemism for.
“Witnesses here testified that commanders and military intelligence soldiers had authorized harsh treatment like keeping detainees chained to railings all night to force them to stay awake. …
Even Specialist Graner asked superiors whether it was right to handcuff detainees to a railing to keep them awake, Private Frederick testified. But the military police were told that if military intelligence asked for ‘sleep management,’ it was fine, he said.”
Note, the similarly euphemistic phrase “sleep management”. Given that such euphemisms are being used, it would probably be a good thing to clearly spell out the exact limitations on the treatments you define as “not torture”.
Felixrayman, torture is a subset of interrogation techniques which is a subset of treatment while under detention. Total sleep deprivation may be a subset of messing with someone’s sleep cycle, but that doesn’t mean I’m unable to make distinctions. In fact this whole discussion is marked by those who seem to think that all possible unpleasentness is torture, which is why I bothered to try to define things in the first place.
No, the discussion is marked by people obsessing over the word ‘torture’, which never appeared in the article, and in particular over the limiting case of gentle torture, which is immaterial in the current environment.
I have no idea why.
Sebastian: Total sleep deprivation may be a subset of messing with someone’s sleep cycle, but that doesn’t mean I’m unable to make distinctions.
Then maybe you should make the distinction? We’re agreed that total sleep deprivation is torture. You’ve got in mind a lesser subset of “messing with someone’s sleep cycle” that isn’t torture, but you have never given any clear specification of exactly how much you think someone’s sleep cycles can be “messed with” before it becomes torture – you’ve just complained that the rest of us have misunderstood you, without trying to make yourself any clearer.
Sidereal: I have no idea why.
For some reason, Slartibartfast took exception to my use of the word torture to describe what Graner did to the prisoners in the photographs. So we stopped talking about Graner and started talking about torture.
But then, what is there to discuss about Graner? He sounds decidedly unpleasant, and it seems likely he’s got a rotten defense attorney, and he’s probably going to jail for a long time. What will be interesting is how far he’s willing to testify about who gave him orders.
Total sleep deprivation may be a subset of messing with someone’s sleep cycle, but that doesn’t mean I’m unable to make distinctions
First of all, you may be capable of making distinctions, but you did not in fact make those distinctions in your argument. Secondly, as noted by tonydismukes above, military intelligence also failed to make those distinctions. The instructions given for “sleep management” were, according to the article’s account of sworn testimony, “I don’t care what you do, just don’t kill him”. Third, your use of the term “messing with someone’s sleep cycles” must be read in the context of that article. You did read it didn’t you?
Again, I think my summary is a fair one. Your argument does precisely what Rush does, which is to take the mildest possible form of a method of interrogation and ridicule the use of the term torture for it when in fact much harsher forms of the method are in use.
It looked like sexual molestation to me.
It sure may not have been torture but it sure was sexual molestation.
Being sexualy molested mat not be as bad as being killed, that does not make sexual molestation humane.
Sebastian: Back in May of 2004, in the immediate aftermath of the Abu Ghraib revelations, there were several threads at the Whiskey Bar (billmon.org) in which frequent commenter Pat, who had been a military interrogator, answered your question about legitimate techniques of interrogation. She was professionally appalled at Abu Ghraib and lots of the other stuff that’s come out since. You’ll need to try some searches once you’ve got AbuG-related posts in hand — back in that period, comment threads there regularly got 300 posts long and more.
I mean, if someone…a kid or adult…tells me that sexual molestation of all sorts were performed on them…I’m not going to scold them and tell them that they should feel blessed that Jeffery Dauhmer didn’t get his hands on them…I mean, it seems that there are classes of people, Rush Limbaugh and frat boys, who have ritualized sexual molestation,…and that is OK?
“Given that such euphemisms are being used, it would probably be a good thing to clearly spell out the exact limitations on the treatments you define as “not torture”.
Sigh. I am trying to clearly discuss out all sorts of limitations on treatment and all I’m getting is attacked with NAZI references about how people in concentration camps died after being kept awake after 11 days.
Thanks. But I’m not interested in discussing it like that.
I tried to raise issues in good faith and got slammed. I’m too tired today to deal with that. You can presume whatever the hell you want from that fact.
Haven,
Yes, it is great that Rush Limbaugh and frat boys have ritualized sexual molestation. I think it’s great… If only we could get the military, the police, School teachers fully on board all would be good in the hood.
Is that what you wanted to hear?
I tried to raise issues in good faith and got slammed.
I apologize if you felt slammed, but the construction of your first question:
What interrogation techniques are not torture?
gives off the implication that somehow, these liberal types who piss and moan about torture won’t let us do anything at all. That implication is underlined by tomsyl‘s post immediately after yours, which says:
probably the only effective technique that even the most extreme pro-detainee lawyer would not denounce as “torture” would be the promise of a lighter sentence for someone who cooperated, which doesn’t seem logical in this context.
You go on to cite the MacDonald article. It asserts that the interrogators at Gitmo were unable to offer Filet-o-fish sandwiches and Twinkies for useful information without a signed authorization from Rummy. In light of what we know, how plausible is that? You obviously think it is, because you accept the claim that it is illegal to give chocolate to prisoners (note that McDonald merely states that interrogators needed an authorization from Rummy, you convert that into it being illegal).
You then parse the issue of sleep cycles and get upset when it is pointed out that it is not as benign as you make it out to be. But ‘disrupting sleep cycles’ like the term ‘sleep management’ leaves me wondering what exactly you are talking about. If you are tired, understood, but when you get back, could you more precisely define ‘disrupting sleep cycles’ when you return?
What, bucking for me for a Karnak award?
Really. Are motives important when judging whether a point is valid or not? I think there’s a logical fallacy in there, somewhere.
Wait…wasn’t it you who started talking about torture, when the topic was Graner?
Sebastian: I tried to raise issues in good faith and got slammed.
At least, on my part (and I think on others) you were misunderstood. Its pretty obvious that there is a continuum of behavior which ranges from acceptable to unacceptable. Personally, I don’t think you can say action X is or isn’t torture. We can agree that keeping someone up past their bedtime doesn’t necessarily constitute torture, but this is tempered by the methods used to keep one awake, and the duration. Additionally, no two people will react the same way to the same stimuli (or lack), and so for one person certain actions will be torture and for others they won’t be. This is really just stating the (painfully) obvious.
So the question you seem to be asking is what levels of abuse can we inflict and not be accused of torture (or actually be torturing someone). I think this is unknowable. If you are going to be abusive, you will in some percentage of the time be torturing the abused. In addition in some percentage of the cases the abused will have no useful information, and may actually not be guilty of anything. Lacking any scientific studies showing the effectiveness of abuse (maybe the Nazis did this too?) and not knowing the quality of the information to be derived, it is sort of difficult to quantify the amount of abuse that should be allowed.
Sebastian – At least on my part there was no attempt to slam. I gave you credit for trying to start a good faith effort to define terms. I expressed an alternate viewpoint on some aspects of your starting points. I’d still love to hear some feedback on that viewpoint. The misunderstanding of your phrase regarding messing with sleep has been fairly well explained, given the context of the discussion. Instead of getting mad at everyone who didn’t understand what you meant, it seems like it would be easier to just explain what you did mean.
Of course, I certainly understand being tired. I’m winding down towards bed myself. Maybe some productive progress in this discussion might be made tomorrow.
What, bucking for me for a Karnak award?
Really. Are motives important when judging whether a point is valid or not? I think there’s a logical fallacy in there, somewhere.
My understanding of the Karnak was that it first was used to head off egregious restatements of a commentors position when the person is on the list or is a member of the group in question. I’ll go out on a limb here and say Rush won’t be joining us anytime soon, it is appropriate to judge motive (especially when we are also in the midst of a multi-post on talk radio) We _know_ the motive of Graner’s lawyer, which is to win an acquittal for his client. Unfortunately, this debate on torture seems to be populated, or at least leavened with, as von points out,
…vociferous portions of the blogosphere who seem, well, eager to defend torture. And, yet, they seem to only define their position in contrast to some lefty-liberal straw man.
The straw-man here seems to be the notion that lefty-liberal types are against any sort of aggressive questioning. I seem to recall one commentator (who shall remain nameless) in an earlier thread suggesting (or at least implying) that providing halaal meals and prayer rugs meant we had succumbed to the lefty-liberal kill em with kindness routine (all artfully implied, mind you) Thus, Abu Grahib gets turned into a frat party and it’s us woolly headed liberals who just don’t know how the world works.
As for
Wait…wasn’t it you who started talking about torture, when the topic was Graner?
Let’s see, scrolling up, and…
nope, you have the wrong guy, officer…
Tomorrow I hope to see Sebastian have a lengthy post up on protecting the sanctity of torture.
Iron L.: Come on. Sebastian is one of the very few conservative bloggers who has been not just kinda sorta against it, a la Instapundit, but really against it. Give credit where it’s due.
Keyword being seems. Since I never mentioned it, this is itself a strawman.
Which should have been obvious, as the quote didn’t come from you. Lemme see…I know it, you know it, and probably the person who actually said it will soon figure it out.
smlook,
According to Graner and many others…it is being done in the hood.
And are YOU arguing that our military was actually hazing these men so that they may join a frat?
They wanted to make these men (and women and children) know that they were no longer worthy of human treatment and beyond that, they themselves were beyond good and evil.
Many predators justify their sexual molestation because “At least it is not rape or murder.” There are fathers who justified the same action and added that they provided their victims (in this case, their own children) with shelter and a family.
Really absurd and terrible sexual positions and actions, all justified because the predator wanted a ssensation only “that act’ could provide and the victim would get over it or manipulated to believe that this was normal and better than death.
God, bless.
Whee. Looks as if both of us can do this misattribution thing.
Which should have been obvious, as the quote didn’t come from you. Lemme see…I know it, you know it, and probably the person who actually said it will soon figure it out.
Sorry, I missed that so bad I didn’t even think I heard something go over my head.
Looks as if both of us can do this misattribution thing.
{snort} That was good.(^^)//
Wait. If we have access, via blog and/or google, to what professional interrogators consider acceptable and useful means of interrogation, why don’t we try discussing those methods, and see how they compare to what was done at Abu Ghraib?
Nell Lancaster mentioned an experienced interrogator who posted on Billmon. I dd a quick search but couldn’t find her comments. Maybe Nell can?
I googled and found some interesting sites. Most are blogs, which tend (like this one) more to discussing torture than analyzing interrogation techniques. One site that offered links to many articles, pro and con, is a May 2004 archive from cosmiciguana: http://www.cosmiciguana.com/archives/002288.html
Here’s a comment from Philip Gold, USMC (courtesy of cosmiciguana):
*******************************************************************************
As for the source, it’s usually a good idea for the source to arrive in a state of fear and disorientation, brought about through a period of isolation and mild sensory deprivation. In many cases, a source can actually be relieved to enter the interrogation. It’s “getting it over with.” And it’s human contact, a chance to interact. Some sources enter interrogation loudly determined to display their bravado. They’re among the easiest to break.
Sources should never be harmed prior to interrogation as a means of “softening up” (an idiot’s phrase). Sources should never be at the mercy of improperly trained or unsupervised guards. And sources should never be humiliated. It stiffens their resistance to the relationship that the interrogator wishes to establish.
And that relationship, hard to believe, should be, as far as possible, one of mutual trust. The interrogator must learn what the source knows, accurately and as fully as possible. The interrogator must also learn what the source doesn’t know: snippets that may be meaningless to the source but fit into larger patterns. The source must know that honest cooperation brings benefits, including the easing of guilt at having cooperated. The source must believe that the interrogation never ends, so long as he or she remains in custody. Proper treatment may not turn enemies into friends. But improper treatment only hardens and embitters. Permanently…
********************************************************************************
What I get from this is that good, successful interrogation is a long-term process that involves establishing a dependent relationship by the subject on the trust and goodwill of the interrogator. Use of reward rather than punishment is advised. Playing on the subject’s emotions is advised. Emotional and psychological manipulation is advised – including adopting an attitude of knowing more than the subject does.
I’m a lefty. That doesn’t mean I ‘like’ terrorists, or terrorism. It doesn’t mean I think terrorist suspects should never be interrogated. I have no objection to using emotional and psychological manipulation, or even deceit, when interrogating suspected terrorists. I’m not out to befriend them, convert them, be converted by them, or validate their existance. But I’d happily pretend all those things, if that’s what it takes to get them to talk.
Abusing terrorist suspects, torturing them, humiliating them… from all I can gather, not only are those ineffective techniques, they’re counterproductive. So why countenance them?
Abusing terrorist suspects, torturing them, humiliating them… from all I can gather, not only are those ineffective techniques, they’re counterproductive. So why countenance them?
If you were convinced that the most brutal torture was effective, would you countenance it?
Well, I wouldn’t (as a matter of policy; if I were a guard, there are some circumstances in which I might consider risking penalties to do it, if the stakes were high enough and I had some reason to think it would work, and also to think that my judgment on this last point was trustworthy.) But surely any of those people who have, on other threads, said ‘well, if that’s what it takes to break a terrorist, I’m for it’ must surely assume that it is effective. Otherwise it’s just sadism.
Nell Lancaster mentioned an experienced interrogator who posted on Billmon.
He’s not the one Nell mentioned, but Terry Karney has posted here in the past, and he’s been an Army interrogator for over 10 years. This comment at Electrolite goes into a bit of detail as to what interrogation is like. It’s illuminating. If you Google a bit, you can find more.
Slarti: Wait…wasn’t it you who started talking about torture, when the topic was Graner?
Nope. I was talking about Graner and his defense attorney, in my comments at 01:38 PM and 02:26 PM. You’re the one who changed the topic from Graner to torture, at 02:36 PM.
But surely any of those people who have, on other threads, said ‘well, if that’s what it takes to break a terrorist, I’m for it’ must surely assume that it is effective. Otherwise it’s just sadism.
There are four groups here: those who believe torture is effective and acceptable (and by acceptable I mean acceptable in a certain, possibly very limited, set of circumstances), those who believe it is ineffective and unacceptable, those who believe it is ineffective and acceptable, and those who believe it is effective and unacceptable.
The first two are not necessarily contradictory nor hard to explain, and the third seems to me (as it does to you) to be unreasonable, but what of the fourth? It is, in fact, the position I take on the matter, so if sadist is the term for the third position, what is the term for the fourth?
great link, Josh, thanks.
felixrayman, I’d like to give a blanket “Hell, no!” to your question, because I believe there are acts no one can commit without irretrievably losing their claim to humanity; and that no knowledge is worth that.
I’m not actually sure why you’re asking the question, since the ineffectiveness of torture is well-established, so the issue of whether I’d ever agree it was effective just doesn’t arise. It’s like asking me, if I knew sacrificing a virgin would really keep earthquakes from happening, would I agree to sacrifice a virgin? Or, if I knew eating Steve Hawking’s brain would give me his brilliance, would I kill him and scoop out his brain and gobble it down? I know none of those things are true; asking me if I’d do them anyway’s kind of silly.
If you’re asking, do I excuse other people who do commit torture, if they’re doing it in the mistaken belief that it works, then the answer is still no. Interrogators have a duty of care, a professional responsibility to know their field, just as much as neurosurgeons have a professional responsibility to know theirs. I don’t think accountants ought to be allowed to perform brain surgery just because they have a profound belief that they know how; nor, for that matter, should neurosurgeons be hired as corporate accountants.
Not to belabor an already overworked point, Jesurgislac, but the first mention of torture on this thread was yours.
Not to belabor an already overworked point, Jesurgislac, but the first mention of torture on this thread was yours.
Likewise, Slarti. The first comment devoted entirely to torture on this thread was yours. My first comments on this thread were, appropriately, about Gruner and his defense attorney.
Hmmm…allllrighty then. Somehow this isn’t bringing the notion of torture into the discussion. Guess I’m just going to have to take your word for it, but when you’re the first person in the thread to refer to something, generally that’s regarded as introduction new material.
Fine, Slarti. Because I mentioned the word “torture” in passing in a comment about how on earth Gruner’s defense attorney could set up a defense for his client, that naturally forced you to write a comment all about how merely threatening extreme humiliation at gunpoint is not, in your view, torture – so the derailment of the discussion into what is and is not torture was clearly entirely my fault, not yours.
Obviously, it’s wrong in your eyes to even mention the word “torture” in connection with Specialist Graner, and anyone who doesn’t agree with your definition of what is and is not torture must be “trivializing torture”.
Thank you.
And now more with the mind-reading? Please, spare me. Look, I suggested that perhaps your usage of the word was inappropriate, and that prompted much discussion. I even got sidereal agreeing with me, which doesn’t happen all that often. Given the rather emotional posts from you in response, I suggest that it’s you who is attempting to foist your ideas on others, and not me.
Slarti: Thank you.
For nothing. I was being heavily sarcastic, which I forgot to signal. Sorry.
Look, I suggested that perhaps your usage of the word was inappropriate, and that prompted much discussion.
Yeah, it did. Thanks for finally acknowledging that you, not I, derailed the thread with your comment. (Derailed it into an interesting direction, I admit.)
You didn’t suggest “your usage of the word was inappropriate”. I mentioned the photographic evidence: you asserted that I was wrong to think that was torture – and I still don’t understand why you think that, because you never bothered to explain why, in your view, being sexually humiliated at gun point by people with the power of life and death over you, (and who may, given what we know went on in Abu Ghraib, have raped other prisoners/threatened them with rape) is somehow not torture.
Yeah, I do get emotional about that: I find denial that threatened rape and sexual humiliation are in fact torture really kind of repellent, frankly.
I recommend that you reread the thread from its inception, Jesurgislac. You’ll know you’ve done so with full comprehension when you the realization that you’ve been a gigantic horse’s ass comes over you.
And then (once again) try to refrain from putting your words in my mouth. It’s boring, repellant, and has no place in debate.
This is my final word in this thread.
Whether or not the pyramid is ‘torture’ I think is a little irrelevant — to me the larger point is that the pyramid is only imaginable within the larger context of the abusive environment at Abu Ghraib — taking each of the practices by itself out of context and trying to decide whether it measures up to the term does not seem productive to me.
felixrayman: the proper term for someone in category 4 is “human”. Or, to be moderately less inflammatory, “ethical”.
Francis
I reread your first comment in the thread, Slartibartfast and it sounds to me like you don’t think that forcing prisoners to assume degrading positions when you have them at gunpoint is a form of torture. Okay, try this analogy. In one case a sexual deviant breaks into a family’s home and points a pistol at them and makes them assume degrading positions with each other. In another case a sexual deviant breaks into a family’s home and applies a non-lethal electrical shock to them. If you were the prosecutor, would you give the first person a shorter prison sentence? I wouldn’t.
From my perspective, there is something weird about this–if you don’t want to call the pyramid scene an example of torture, fine, but it’s something just as bad.
Donald, there are lots of things that aren’t torture that might merit equal or more severe punishment. Murder, for instance. Dealing in slave traffic. Child molestation. There’s a rather long list, and I’m not inclined to do an exhaustive recitation of it.
I’m not claiming that Graner’s not morally reprehensible, here. It’s a near certainty that he’s earned himself a really, really long stint in a military prison, somewhere. No, the point is that doing bad things to people doesn’t automatically constitute torture. Oh, and that claiming I’m some sort of monster because I refuse to label the set of all bad things as torture is just going to get you absolutely nowhere with me.
I know, I said I was done.
“In one case a sexual deviant breaks into a family’s home and points a pistol at them and makes them assume degrading positions with each other.”
This is weak. The sexual deviant breaks into somebody’s home. This guy may be found to be a sexual deviant, but that is yet to be proven.
If it is proven that he is guilty he should go to jail.
Hurray for the Bush Administration and the military for following through on what many here think is a crime.
I’m sure that is how most here feel, right?
SMLook — see my above comment about the context within which Graner got his jollies.
Well, maybe it’s a matter of semantics in your mind, but probably one reason people are jumping on you is that in general, when someone says that this kind of thing isn’t torture they are usually saying it isn’t as bad as torture. Not what you’re saying, I gather, but that’s probably what sets people off. I’d call it torture and then we could, if we cared, break torture down into various reprehensible categories.
If it is proven that he is guilty he should go to jail.
Which is sort of the point, isn’t it?
Anarch,
Yes, that really is the point. But let me give you an example of what isn’t from upthread:
I am happy to accept that Slartibartfast feels that were he to be taken prisoner by his country’s enemies, stripped naked, hooded, forced to “stack” himself in a pyramid of othter naked hooded prisoners, and led on a leash – aware all the while that his guards held absolute power of life and death over him – that he himself would experience no excruciating mental pain nor any severe anguish.
“let’s start from the top. If we can figure out why and under what circumstances prisoners were beaten to death, raped, attacked with dogs, and forced to engage in sexual behavior then we never need worry about whether naked human pyramids do indeed constitute torture.”
I guess its just coincidence this guy didn’t get orders from above:
“Still, Private Frederick and other soldiers testified, commanders did not know about the kind of treatment shown in the photographs and would not have sanctioned it.”
“…I mean, it seems that there are classes of people, Rush Limbaugh and frat boys, who have ritualized sexual molestation,…and that is OK?”
“Tomorrow I hope to see Sebastian have a lengthy post up on protecting the sanctity of torture.”
Anarch
It’s not worth the trouble. Really.
It’s not worth the trouble. Really.
I bow to your superior wisdom.
m(_)m
sorry, a bit late with this but
(*^_^*) (a blushing smile)
Graner was just found guilty on all five counts.
That’s a relief. Talk Left
Graner just got sentenced to 10 years. Paltry, but it will do for now. May he rot in hell.
The kicker, from CNN: