by Katherine
Senator Mitch McConnell, via the Corner:
"For example, I imagine it would be awkward for many of my Democrat colleagues to go home and explain a vote to provide sensitive, classified information to terrorists, to shut down an intelligence program that we know has helped save lives, or to allow international courts to define the meaning of Common Article III—rather than the U.S. Congress—and put our troops at risk.
What we do know for sure, without question — no ambiguity — is that the current program works and has saved us from terrorist attacks and prevented us from being attacked again at home for over five years. The President needs tools to conduct these programs effectively to protect Americans at home. His proposal for terrorist detainees is one of those important tools. We do not all agree at this point, but we will have that discussion on the Senate floor."
This isn’t true. We do not know that the CIA’s "enhanced interrogation techniques" have saved lives. The President claims that they have, but he is not a disinterested or trustworthy source. Although he was able to selectively declassify the intelligence that he thought best supported his argument, his evidence of the program’s "saving lives" was vague and conclusory, and maybe also false.
What we do know for sure, without question — no ambiguity — is that the CIA’s program has led to prisoners being tortured to death.
Newsweek reported yesterday that in negotiations with Congress, the CIA agreed to drop waterboarding, but is still seeking authorization for the following techniques:
(1) induced hypothermia; (2) long periods of forced standing; (3) sleep deprivation; (4) the "attention grab" (the forceful seizing of a suspect’s shirt); (5) the "attention slap"; (6) the "belly slap"; and (7) sound and light manipulation.
Two of these these techniques are implicated in prisoners’ deaths–one directly, one less so.
1. Hypothermia
At least one prisoner in CIA custody has died of "induced hypothermia." As Dana Priest reported in March 2005,
In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.
The Afghan guards–paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit–dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said.
As night fell, so, predictably, did the temperature.
By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.
After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic–"hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death–the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said. The captive’s family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial. He is on no one’s registry of captives, not even as a "ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.
"He just disappeared from the face of the earth," said one U.S. government official with knowledge of the case.
The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said….
The Afghan detainee had been captured in Pakistan along with a group of other Afghans. His connection to al Qaeda or the value of his intelligence was never established before he died. "He was probably associated with people who were associated with al Qaeda," one U.S. government official said.
The CIA referred the case to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, but according to the New York Times DOJ decided not to bring charges.
"Induced hypothermia" seems to have spread from the CIA to the military in Iraq. Tony Lagouranis, a U.S. Army interrogator who served near Mosul, told PBS that the Navy SEALs who used the technique did try to make sure that prisoners wouldn’t freeze to death:
some people, the Navy SEALs, for instance, were using just ice water to lower the body temperature of the prisoner. They would take his rectal temperature to make sure he didn’t die; they would keep him hovering on hypothermia. That was a pretty common technique.
Despite these precautions, forced hypothermia may have contributed to the death of a 27-year-old Iraqi man named Fashad Mohamed. Mohamed died in U.S. custody in Mosul, on April 5, 2004. His autopsy report states on page 1:
This approximately 27 year-old male civilian, presumed Iraqi national, died in US custody approximately 72 hours after being apprehended. By report, physical force was required during his initial apprehension during a raid. During his confinement, he was hooded, sleep deprived, and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and hood.
The autopsy concludes on page 10 that the cause of death is "undetermined." There are bruises and cuts suggesting Mohamed was beaten, but "no definitive evidence of any trauma significant enough to explain the death." The report states that cardiac failure and asphyxia also cannot be ruled out, and that "The decedent was also subject to cold and wet conditions, and hypothermia may have contributed to his death."
According to the Washington Post, Mohamed was captured by members of "Navy SEAL Team 7, which was carrying out clandestine operations in Iraq with the CIA." It is not clear, though, whether he was in the SEALs’ custody when he was "subjected to cold and wet conditions" or when he died.
2. Forced Standing
The CIA is more directly linked to another prisoner death in Iraq. Mandael al-Jamadi, the detainee whose corpse appears packed in ice in the Abu Ghraib photographs, was killed by CIA interrogator Mark Swanner in November of 2003.
Jamadi died because he was suspended from the window bars in his cell by his arms, a form of torture known as "Palestinian hanging." As far as I know, this has never been one of the "tough interrogation techniques" that CIA interrogators were authorized to use. But Jamadi’s death can also be understood as a case of "forced standing" gone wrong–or rather, gone even more wrong. It’s bad enough to begin with:
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
Exhaustion and sleep deprivation may effectively yield confessions, but they also cause muscle failure and physical collapse. What if a prisoner collapses, and an interrogator mistakenly believes that he’s faking it? What if he interprets it as an act of defiance? How does he force the prisoner to stay standing?
General Alberto Mora warned the Pentagon about what would happen:
If a person being forced to stand for hours decided to lie down, it would probably take force to get him to stand up again and stay standing…Once the initial barrier against the use of improper force had been breached, a phenomenon known as "force drift" would almost certainly begin to come into play. This term describes the observed tendency among interrogators who rely on force. If some force is good, these people come to believe, then the application of more force must be better. Thus, the level of force applied against an uncooperative witness tends to escalate such that, if left unchecked, force levels to include torture, could be reached.
This is exactly what happened in Jamadi’s case. As reported by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker:
when the group reached the shower room Swanner told the M.P.s that “he did not want the prisoner to sit and he wanted him shackled to the wall.” (No explanation for this decision is recorded.) There was a barred window on one wall. Kenner and Nagy, using a pair of leg shackles, attached Jamadi’s arms, which had been placed behind his back, to the bars on the window….
The M.P.s’ sworn accounts to investigators suggest that, at least at first, Jamadi was able to stand up, without pain: autopsy records show that he was five feet ten, and, as Diaz explained to me, the window was about five feet off the ground. The accounts concur that, while Jamadi was able to stand without discomfort, he couldn’t kneel or sit without hanging painfully from his arms. Once he was secured, the M.P.s left him alone in the room with Swanner and the translator.
Less than an hour later, Diaz said, he was walking past the shower room when Swanner came out and asked for help, reportedly saying, “This guy doesn’t want to coöperate.” According to the NPR report, one of the C.I.A. men told investigators that he called for medical help, but there is no available record of a doctor having been summoned. When Diaz entered the shower room, he said, he was surprised to see that Jamadi’s knees had buckled, and that he was almost kneeling. Swanner, he said, wanted the soldiers to reposition Jamadi, so that he would have to stand more erectly. Diaz called for additional help from two other soldiers in his company, Sergeant Jeffery Frost and Dennis Stevanus. But after they had succeeded in making Jamadi stand for a moment, as requested, by hitching his handcuffs higher up the window, Jamadi collapsed again. Diaz told me, “At first I was, like, ‘This guy’s drunk.’ He just dropped down to where his hands were, like, coming out of his handcuffs. He looked weird. I was thinking, He’s got to be hurting. All of his weight was on his hands and wrists—it looked like he was about to mess up his sockets.”
Swanner, whom Diaz described as a “kind of shabby-looking, overweight white guy,” who was wearing black clothing, was apparently less concerned. “He was saying, ‘He’s just playing dead,’ ” Diaz recalled. “He thought he was faking. He wasn’t worried at all.” While Jamadi hung from his arms, Diaz told me, Swanner “just kept talking and talking at him. But there was no answer.”
Frost told C.I.A. investigators that the interrogator had said that Jamadi was just “playing possum.” But, as Frost lifted Jamadi upright by his jumpsuit, noticing that it was digging into his crotch, he thought, This prisoner is pretty good at playing possum. When Jamadi’s body went slack again, Frost recalled commenting that he “had never seen anyone’s arms positioned like that, and he was surprised they didn’t just pop out of their sockets.”
Diaz, sensing that something was wrong, lifted Jamadi’s hood. His face was badly bruised. Diaz placed a finger in front of Jamadi’s open eyes, which didn’t move or blink, and deduced that he was dead. When the men lowered Jamadi to the floor, Frost told investigators, “blood came gushing out of his nose and mouth, as if a faucet had been turned on.”
Another prisoner interrogated by the CIA in Iraq, Abdul Jameel, also seems to have died because of injuries suffered when forced into a standing position. You can read a summary of the case by Human Rights First on page 14 of this PDF if interested–I think I am going to spare you another round of graphic quotations from an autopsy.
***
I apologize for all the other graphic blockquotes in this post, but the only way I can think of to cut through all the euphemisms is to be as concrete and specific as possible. They can call it "tough interrogation" or "enhanced interrogation methods" or "an intelligence program that we know has helped save lives", but this is what the Senate is going to be debating for the next few weeks. McConnell thinks I should feel awkard opposing these things? He should feel awkward defending them. I hope there are some Senators who realize this.
There’s a quotation which has been stuck in my head since yesterday, from an essay by Ansel Adams in book of photographs he took of Manzanar:
We are, in the main, protected and established in security considerably above other peoples. We take Americanism for granted; only when civil duties such as military service, jury duty, or the irksome payment of taxes, confront us do we sense the existence of government and authority. We go through conventional gestures of patriotism, discuss the Constitution with casual conviction, contradict our principles with the distortions of race prejudices and class distinctions, and otherwise escape the implications of our civilization. America will take care of us, America is as stable as the mountains, as severely eternal as the ocean and the sky!…Only when our foundations are shaken, our lives distorted by some great catastrophe, do we become aware of the potentionals of our system and our government.
This is not a week to take Americanism for granted. Please call your Senators and Representatives.
I need Charles to tell me again about how the Republicans are the party with all of the ideas, and the Democrats are once again the party of no BY SAYING NO TO TORTURE.
I know Charles has written posts making it clear he condemns this torture nonsense, but its gotten to the point where if you support Republicans, then you are for torture. Sorry — this behavior is too immoral to pretend you can just opt out of supporting the party on this one and still be a good Republican.
“…but its gotten to the point where if you support Republicans, then you are for torture.”
Yeah, yeah, and leftists were responsible for the Soviet gulag.
I have to say that I don’t think it’s right to use Charles as a random stand-in for Evil Republicans, given that he’s not posted to this thread, and that he’s specifically come out against torture many times.
I think it’s perfectly fine to attack Charles for what he says when he says it when he deserves it, and to hold him to his statements.
But I don’t understand the case for bringing him up out of the blue, other than as simply abusing him gratuitiously, simply for convenience, and to feel good about one’s self by abusing someone else’s name randomly.
That’s ugly. And it’s not moral high ground to stand on.
Neither do I think much of people puffing themselves up for their high moral standards by abusing other people.
This is the ugly side of moral debates: un-earned moral righteousness as a justification for acting creepy.
The point is that all of these techniques constitute torture, may be life-threatening, and certainly don’t represent truth, justice and the American way.
No wonder Republicans don’t like Glenn Greenwald… it can’t be nice to be reminded that your party is fundamentally unAmerican.
I have to say that I am astonished that we have come to the point where one must explain why torture is wrong. On TV, on the radio, in conversations I hear people who apparently do not understand that torture is immoral and shameful.
Bush refuses to discuss specifics, yet is asking for general legislation that will allow for these “techniques”. Does anyone else see the danger that this poses? What could the legislation do but allow him to determine, at his exclusive discretion, what is acceptable and what isn’t?
I hope that the rising chorus of denunciation of these disgusting methods of torture will prevent these proposals from becoming law. I fear that political gamesmanship will allow this deeply flawed and anti-American legislation to pass. If it does it will take decades to recover our honor from this stain upon our country. What does it say about a country when it becomes apathetic enough for these abominations to become standard operating procedure? This is a true injury to America, and it is entirely self-inflicted.
This, via Lindsay Beyerstein, is an interview with Stephen Miles, who has written about the complicity of medical personnel in torture. At the bottom of the page, there are a number of other interviews, including a number of lawyers, and they have a number of links that may be of interest.
Katherine, I heard a mention of the Maher Arar case on NPR this morning. I half-expected to hear you mentioned as someone who has written extensively on this subject.
Can anyone clue me in as to what McConnell is talking about? Is it about secret evidence, or is it something else?
American right-wingers scream bloody tyranny when the state organizes medicine to help the poor. However, they are more than willing to hand the state over to paranoid frat boys and scared hillbillies to brutalize and torture all suspicious characters.
Yeah, yeah, and leftists were responsible for the Soviet gulag.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 19, 2006 at 03:10 AM
The Soviet gulags were organized by John Kerry?
Who knew?
Lots of the “evidence” against various detainees is classified. Naturally, we don’t know exactly why, tho the Executive’s mania for classification (not new to Bush) isn’t reassuring.
A theory I’ve seen is that the info is classified b/c of how it was obtained … illegal surveillance, torture, who knows.
CharleyCarp doubtless has something informed to say on the subject.
The Soviet gulags were organized by John Kerry?
Of course! Don’t you watch political commercials?
A theory I’ve seen is that the info is classified b/c of how it was obtained
Of course, it could be that some evidence is classified because of sources and methods, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. It’s practically a certainty that classified evidence has been submitted in courts civilian and martial, but what’s less clear (to me) is how said evidence is presented in these cases.
I’d want testimonial evidence to be treated with a great deal of askance-looking, though. And testimonial evidence gathered in a way that’s, well, involuntary: lots of askance-ness. I’d like to hear from lawyers with experience in cases like this before going one way or the other on the issue of classified evidence.
Yeah, yeah, and leftists were responsible for the Soviet gulag.
*brooop* Wrong answer, Gary. Complicity in torture that took place in a different country before you were born is fundamentally different from torture ordered by officials you voted for when you knew what they would do.
Any Republican who is not absolutely, publically 4-square opposed to torture should be assumed to be in favor of it. They have voted with their votes, and we need to respect that they know what they’re doing.
It’s stuping f**king crap like McConnell’s statement that makes me think of Bob.
And Greenwald has it exactly right:
If they are already “terrorists,” why bother with military commissions at all? What are the commissions supposed to determine? Why not just skip to the execution part?
Bush has all these terrorists and he’s just letting them hang out in the Gittmo sun? Some tough guy he is.
von – the comments link to your post doesn’t work (assuming it isn’t intentional).
I’d want testimonial evidence to be treated with a great deal of askance-looking, though. And testimonial evidence gathered in a way that’s, well, involuntary: lots of askance-ness.
Trouble is, such decisions are left to the discretion of the court, and the kangaroo-tribunals that Bush wants are not the most discretion-prone entities I’ve ever seen. *I’d* be scared to be tried before them.
There might be some leeway for appellate review here, if the tribunals are evaluating record evidence that the appellate court is equally able to evaluate, rather than live testimony which the tribunal would be best able to judge.
“Any Republican who is not absolutely, publically 4-square opposed to torture should be assumed to be in favor of it.”
This morning 🙂 I would not go that far. Support for the bills in Congress might be support for torture. However, I would rephrase it as support for torturers in which class I would put Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. I would ask Republicans (and others) to withdraw their support for these torturers and other torturers to the maximum extent their individual respect for the rule of law would allow. Calling for resignation and/or impeachment would be the minimal moral position.
I would rephrase it as support for torturers
Good point. Let the record show that I now say “Republicans must be assumed to support torturers.”
Incidentally, I wondered last night that if lawyers who advised and aided the Nazis could be tried for war crimes, if Congresspersons who voted for torture could be considered war criminals.
For that matter, you also had propagandists, IIRC. Like Limbaugh and Coulter.
So what is allowable during interrogation?
By not saying these should be disallowed does that mean that these are allowed
(3) sleep deprivation;
(4) the “attention grab” (the forceful seizing of a suspect’s shirt);
(5) the “attention slap”;
(6) the “belly slap”;
(7) sound and light manipulation.
or should they be disallowed as well?
The Congress is going to have to explicitly condone certain methods, and that is being debated. Citizens will determine whether they agree or disagree with their Senators and Representatives.
If you think that induced hypothermia or forced standing is always and forever too rough, then that is your call. As I see it, there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering on terrorists, from records of phone calls, to financial transactions, to surveillance, to human intelligence.
For that matter, you also had propagandists, IIRC. Like Limbaugh and Coulter.
Well, we did hang Julius Streicher for propaganda alone, on the grounds that the Holocaust wouldn’t have been possible without such propaganda. But it seems to me that we might not have, had we nabbed Goebbels (who of course committed suicide, after he & his wife poisoned all their children).
Let the record show that I now say “Republicans must be assumed to support torturers.”
Good idea. Human nature being what it is, that will bring Republicans over to our side in droves. Certainly it won’t cause anyone to dig in their heels and take a bad stand out of pure obstinateness, because human beings are all purely rational beings. Yep, that’s the way to go. We’ll convince the other side in no time with rhetoric like that.
Or am I mistaken? I’m assuming the goal is to convince Congress to get the U.S. out of the business of torture, doing which will probably require actually convincing some people to change their positions. Is that what’s really important?
If you think that induced hypothermia or forced standing is always and forever too rough, then that is your call.
If it were my call, yes, but unfortunately it is not. This piece from the WaPo by Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch (via Mark Kleiman)
As I see it, there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering on terrorists, from records of phone calls, to financial transactions, to surveillance, to human intelligence.
That is because this administration ridiculed the idea of treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue and wants an issue to run on rather than true intelligence.
If you think that induced hypothermia or forced standing is always and forever too rough, then that is your call.
Dave, hypothermia is torture. Obviously. Try doing it to one of your kids, or your wife, & see what they think. Did you read Katherine on how we *killed* one guy with this method?
As for forced standing, I’ve been spreading these tidbits around the web:
Here’s Robert Conquest on Stalin’s torturers:
Even the ostensibly nonphysical methods used in 1936 are described by victims as both mentally and physically devastating. One man arrested briefly told me that the comparatively mild-sounding stoika, when a prisoner was kept standing against a wall for days, was hardly bearable.
But just *standing* isn’t torture, is it? Darius Rejali, a professor who studies torture:
Two experts commissioned by the CIA in 1956, Harold Wolff and Lawrence Hinkle, described the effects of forced standing: The ankles and feet swell to twice their size within 24 hours, and moving becomes agonizing. Large blisters develop. The heart rate increases, and some people faint. The kidneys eventually shut down.
According to Marty Lederman, forced standing for 40 hours at a stretch is one of the tactics the CIA uses and the President is defending.
As for your fantasy about “there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering on terrorists,” well, please tell me who’s been against any *legal* intel gathering?
As I see it, there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering on terrorists
that’s just plain ridiculous.
I understand your point, Andrew, but how long do we wait till they come around? DaveC lives next door to Mitch McConnell, when should we stop worrying about how he digs in his heels?
The Congress is going to have to explicitly condone certain methods, and that is being debated.
Congress has to do no such thing.
As I see it, there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering on terrorists, from records of phone calls, to financial transactions, to surveillance, to human intelligence.
There is a concerted effort to get the administration to abide by the law and the Constitution when its doing any of those things, and if the administration thinks the law is too strict, it can ask Congress to change it. Instead, what we have is an administration that has taken the position that it can do anything it wants in the War on Whatever the F**K We’re Warring On, and only changes it ways when it has exhausted all possible avenues of evasion, cover-up, delay and obfuscation and then only if the freaking Supreme Court has told them they can’t keep doing what they’re doing.
I meant Mitch digging in, not DaveC.
DaveC’s notion about “no” intel gathering tracks Bush’s attitude, and offers some insight into why we torture.
My theory, recently formed, is that Bush and Cheney want us to torture because that proves to them how tough they are, how different from the sissy-ass Democrats.
Tell them they have to stay within legal bounds, and their response is “you’re not letting us do *anything*!” Because they’ve dismissed all the legal methods … the ones that, say, Bill Clinton might authorize … as inadequate by definition, merely because they *are* both legal and bipartisan-approved.
Torture is about the torturer’s building himself up in his mind.
DaveC.: “As I see it, there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering…”
Well, Greg Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch has a pretty good post up regarding the “miserable wretch of a man” who would shut down the CIA’s Interrogation Program completely if he doesn’t get his way.
I think it is the same guy who hated the idea of a Homeland Security Department until he found out it was a good way to neuter public employee unions.
I wonder about this guy’s mother. She must be a tough bird. To have negotiated with and gotten the best of this snot-nosed kid who threatened to blow up the house and lick the frozen well-pump if he didn’t have his way. I hope Osama Bin Laden doesn’t have her level of Will.
Last night, Lawrence Kudlow (through dingy little teeth that capitalism seems at a total loss to fix) was raving about reports that some terrorist or other was broken by being subjected to a few seconds of blaring Red Hot Chili Peppers music.
See, there are more gentle methods. But if Bush loses this fight over the Geneva Conventions he’ll prevent our people from using the music of Cher to save western civilization.
And, Culture Club would be out. They could either completely subdue the Mideast or send it into conflagration.
DaveC: As I see it, there is a concerted effort going on to shut down any type of intelligence gathering on terrorists, from records of phone calls, to financial transactions, to surveillance, to human intelligence.
As we see it, you’re supporting torture.
Not just supporting torturers: supporting torture.
lj,
I’m not suggesting anyone wait. Far from it. I’m suggesting that commentary like “Republicans support torture” and “Republicans are unAmerican” serve only to drive people away from the right position. Like it or not, it’s human nature to defend one’s position and one’s group. People who have been Republicans or who are Republicans can be reasoned into supporting a ban on torture, but it’s a lot less likely they can be berated into doing so.
I understand, for example, the frustration people feel towards DaveC’s comment. But if you think Dave is somehow unique in that belief, you’re wrong. And saying ‘that’s ridiculous’ won’t convince them otherwise. You’ve got to engage and offer an alternative narrative.
I’d argue that what Dave is seeing is inaccurate; we all have the goal of improving our intelligence systems in order to better detect and fight terrorism, but we need to do it the right way. Congress and the President need to sit down and determine what powers the government needs to collect that data, and then develop laws and safeguards that provide that ability while ensuring they are not misused. We need to have a debate on what tactics are and are not permissible in interrogations.
Just ask yourself this: if the Democrats were doing something wrong, and some right-leaning people told you that the Democrats were bad people for supporting their leaders, what would your first reaction be?
It’s quite possible that the only way to end torture is to give Bush-supporters a face-saving way to step away from his torture policies.
But this is not the only thing that’s really important. It’s also important for people to understand to what extent they’ve been complicit in the current set of American atrocities and how the doctrine of American exceptionalism makes us prone to do this sort of thing. It might be necessary to go easy on Bush voters and not talk about their moral responsibility for this mess, but if so, that’s unfortunate.
Lefties are constantly reminded about past leftist support for communist tyrants and though this kind of lefty-bashing is often unfairly directed at lefties who’ve never done anything of the sort, on the whole I think it’s been good for the left to be reminded of it. Apparently, though, the same reasoning doesn’t apply to Bush voters. I think I can say why that is the case. People on the far left don’t have any real power anyway, so there’s no reason to hold back on the criticism. But Bush supporters do have power, so the rules are different. I’m not happy about this, but that’s life.
Dave, hypothermia is torture. Obviously. Try doing it to one of your kids, or your wife, & see what they think.
When I was a kid I went backpacking in the winter in the Smokies without a hat. It rained on me, then my hair froze. During the time that I was cold, but did not have hypothermia, I was uncomfortable and shivering. When I did get hypothermia, I just sat down, and told my friends I would catch up with them in a while. At that point I was not uncomfortable and not shivering or anything, but I probably would have died had my friends not come back for me after about 15 minutes, and coerced me to keep walking. So, from my personal experience, I would say that hypothermia is dangerous but not really torture.
“I’m assuming the goal is to convince Congress to get the U.S. out of the business of torture”
I don’t think the U.S. should ever have been in the business of torture. I think that was a clear and easy call, on any grounds I can imagine. I don’t think we need any new laws, tho old laws were entirely adequate. I think anyone still in the business of torture is clearly criminal.
And I think the idea that we must make compromises to get out of the business of torture…posting rules.
“I’m assuming the goal is to convince Congress to get the U.S. out of the business of torture””
You assume wrong. My goal is to establish the precedent, or better re-establish that the Geneva, Hague, and Torture Conventions are not provisional, conditional, arbitrary, or a matter of whim and will. I am quite willing to sacrifice lives to achieve that goal.
bob,
I’m sorry you seem to think I’m of the opinion we ever should have been in the torture business. That is certainly not the case. Indeed, I concur with that entire paragraph. But since my time machine is on the fritz, the best I can now hope for is to get us out of it as quickly as possible. And doing so means convincing people to stand up and vote the right way. That requires persuasion, not name-calling.
Donald,
Hey, point it out all you want. After we’ve stopped it. First things first.
I would say that hypothermia is dangerous but not really torture.
So…it’s really uncomfortable, dare I say painful, in the state just prior to hypothermia, and dangerous after it sets in, but it’s not torture.
I hear that electrodes don’t hurt either….after you lose consciousness. Still dangerous, though.
I probably would have died had my friends not come back for me after about 15 minutes, and coerced me to keep walking. So, from my personal experience, I would say that hypothermia is dangerous but not really torture.
DaveC, we are obviously not using the same language, appearances notwithstanding. Almost kills you, dangerous, but not torture? WTF?
Would you care to imagine that rather than your friends’ coming to get you, you’d been kept in a cell? And more water poured over you at intervals? And guys offering to dry you off & let you sit by the fire, if you’ll just admit that you performed fellatio on Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan?
How are you using the word “torture,” exactly?
Andrew: I’m suggesting that commentary like “Republicans support torture” and “Republicans are unAmerican” serve only to drive people away from the right position.
No, Andrew. People like DaveC have never been in the “right position”. We are not “driving him away”: he’s voluntarily driven himself away. If DaveC is happy to support torture, that’s where he’s put himself: we should not indulge in euphemisms to try avoiding making him feel bad.
if the Democrats were doing something wrong, and some right-leaning people told you that the Democrats were bad people for supporting their leaders, what would your first reaction be?
Hee. This is a joke, yes? Let’s see: minimum wage, women’s right to choose, access to contraception, same-sex marriage… The idea that I could be persuaded that any of these things were wrong by any means whatsoever, from the sweetest persuasion onwards, is just laughable.
If DaveC feels as strongly as I do about (for example – same-sex marriage) that it’s not wrong to torture and murder prisoners, nothing will persuade him otherwise.
bob,
That’s a great slogan. Help me out in concrete terms. What do you see as the next step in reaching this laudable goal? Whose lives do you feel should be sacrificed? And how will that reestablish the precedents of Geneva?
Dave: Your friends COERCED you to keep walking?
I once ate a popsicle really quickly and gave myself a gigantic ice cream headache. My mother coerced me to stop. Which was too bad, because I was just about to confess to being the second gunman on the grassy knoll. If I recall correctly, she wailed out some Red Hot Chili Pepper lyrics, which was odd, considering that the Peppers weren’t born yet.
Dave, sorry to pile on. Are you O.K. down there? Can you breathe still? May I suggest that confessing that “hypothermia can kill you in another 15 minutes but is NOT really torture” is a bad way to avoid the torture of a pile-on.
O.K. everybody get up. Coerce Dave to walk around. 😉
When I was a kid I went backpacking in the winter in the Smokies without a hat.
which is exactly the same as being tied up in a windowless room where you are alternately beaten and then questioned by three big guys with guns. poor DaveC.
I posted this on the next thread:
GEN. KIMMONS: Let me answer the first question. That’s a good question. I think — I am absolutely convinced the answer to your first question is no. No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that.
And moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress, under — through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility. And additionally, it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can’t afford to go there.
Some of our most significant successes on the battlefield have been — in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically all of them have accrued from expert interrogators using mixtures of authorized, humane interrogation practices, in clever ways that you would hope Americans would use them, to push the envelope within the bookends of legal, moral and ethical, now as further refined by this field manual. So we don’t need abusive practices in there. Nothing good will come from them.
Kimmons is the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. Or was. I’m sure he’s been sacked by now.
So folks, I am asking the question. Which of these is torture and should never be allowed?
(1) induced hypothermia;
(2) long periods of forced standing;
(3) sleep deprivation;
(4) the “attention grab”;
(5) the “attention slap”;
(6) the “belly slap”;
(7) sound and light manipulation.
Depending on how long, how hard, how quiet, how bright, how cold, how hot, etc., any of these could be torture or none of these could be torture.
Is sound over 130 dB torture? Hmm, I don’t know. For how long are you talking about? So then is total sensory deprivation torture? How long would be too long for that. Well, I’m for giving our soldiers and intelligence workers the benefit of the doubt, unless there is some sort of explicit definition.
First, I’d lank to thank you all for coming to this meeting, we’re really excited about the results for the last quarter and even more about excited the future.
Second, I’d like to recognize Joe Smith of the Thumbscrew division. Joe was a real trooper these past few months, powering on with his work despite suffering hearing loss from all the screaming. Also, special reconition should be given to Ann Jones, who produced a 99.999%, that’s right, the mythical “five nines,” confession rate this past quarter. What makes Ann special is her bad-cop worse-cop routine. Just when the suspect thinks things can’t get any worse, Ann pulls out the blow torch. How about a nice round of applause for Ann? Great job Ann, you get the employee of the month parking space.
Next I’d like to announce that the Board has approved expansion into the Cattle Prod market. We see this as a real growth opportunity, as cattle prods are simple to operate and yet very effective.
Last, but certainly not least, thanks to all the hard work we’ve done the past five years I’ve learned that President Bush will be presenting our CEO with the Presidential Medal of Freedom next month. While the CEO will be receiving the award, he asked me to tell you that it wouldn’t have been possible without all of your hard work in the trenches with the butt plugs, pliers, hypothermia, water boards, electrodes, and all the other tools of our trade. As I’m sure you know, our stock price reached an all time high yesterday, making our investors very happy.
Great job folks, and let’s have an even better next fiscal year!
DaveC,
the difference is that you had some control over your actions. Hiking and getting soaked is different than having all of your clothes taken away, having yourself doused with ice water and left in a cell. Joe Theismann having his thighbone emerge from his leg after he was hit by Laurence Taylor is not torture. Having someone do that to you when you are restrained in a chair is.
Andrew,
thanks for the response, but in the face of such comments like McConnell’s, as dissected by Hilzoy with actual examples, I’m hard pressed to understand why I should even care about heels digging in. You suggest that it is more important to get them to stop now, but a package that allows this administration and Republicans to claim even the slightest justification for this is, imo of course, sending the wrong message. What’s really important is to make this position so toxic that no one can conceivably come up with a justification for it. Unfortunately, it seems like it is going to have to take place the way it did over Vietnam, and it will inevitably leave a rump of 20 or 30% convinced that it was Bush derangement syndrome or Communist sympathies or whatever that makes people protest. I’m not happy about this, but I see it coming down the pike, and comments about how we don’t want to have people dig in their heels just increase my sense of dread.
Which of these is torture and should never be allowed?
“…torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
mm k?
DaveC,
I’d outlaw #1 and #2 because they can easily kill.
I’m not comfortable with #3, although I can’t give a reason for banning it right now. I’d still ban it, though, just on my gut feeling.
#4 through #6 are bad because they can too easily lead to escalation.
#7 is too generic to judge.
Also, see this (amateurishly written) book description over at Amazon. The Luftwaffe’s crack interrogator never used torture. Go figure.
This Intelligence Officer gained the reputation as the man who could magically get all the answers he needed from the prisoners of war. In most cases the POWs being interrogated never realized that their words, small talk or otherwise, were important pieces of the mosaic Hanns Scharff was constructing for the benefit of Germany’s war effort. In the words of one erstwhile POW; “What did Scharff get from me? Nothing, yet there is no doubt he got something. If you talked about the weather or anything else he no doubt got some information or confirmation from it. His technique was psychic, not physical.” * * *
The tortures and savagery of the North Koreans and North Vietnamese caused prisoners to resist to the death. Hanns Scharff’s methods broke down barriers so effectively that the USAF invited him to speak about his methods to military audiences in the United States after World War II.
Andrew, one reason for banning sleep deprivation is that it’s particularly liable to yielding false confessions.
Keep somebody awake for 72 hours, and they’ll confess to anything, if you’ll just let them sleep. See Darius Rejali on the subject (annoying Salon click-through ad).
The Soviets got lots of their false confessions through simple sleep deprivation, while the CIA stared in awe, convinced they must be brainwashing their victims or using chemicals. Lots of crazy 1950s-era experimentation went on, until our spooks got wise. (See McCoy, A Question of Torture.)
So folks, I am asking the question. Which of these is torture and should never be allowed?
That would be all of them. Every. Single. Goddamned. One.
Army Field Manual 30-15 and a litany of other research from our own government comes to the same conclusion: this kind of cruel and degrading treatment is illegal (btw, both under our own treaties and statutes and regulatioins AND UNDER CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW, meaning we would be behaving as a pariah nation to even “clarify” this, whether we legislated it or not), it is immoral, it puts our personnel at greater risk when captured and it is ineffective (and worse than ineffective, it leads our limited intelligence resources on wild goose chases, such as happened after the madman Al-Libi was waterboarded so that Dubya “wouldn’t be disappointed”… kind of like Uday or Qusay when you get right down to it).
I hear that electrodes don’t hurt either
If you have back surgery, and the hospital that you go to is any good, you will have electrodes uop and down your spine and on your head. Furthermore, you will have electric stimulation on your wrists and lower legs. And you should want this to be done because it will decrease the chances of being accidentally paralyzed during the operation, but it also might freak you out.
Same deal with lie-detector tests. I don’t think that they objectively prove anything, that is, they don’t work in that the squiggly lines don’t positively identify a lie or rule out a lie. On the other hand, the person that is being tested may be more likely to give useful information – sometimes even when they are trying not to do so. So this is coercive, but is it torture? I’d agree that putting electrodes on genitals is out of bounds, but how about using some freaky looking mad scientist setup – is that torture because there are electrodes involved?
“…torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
That is totally too broad a definition. I mean, if you cannot punish a criminal for a crime that they have committed, what the heck can you do? You can’t intimidate them either. Well then, a whole slew of my teachers were torturers by that definition.
but how about using some freaky looking mad scientist setup – is that torture because there are electrodes involved?
Funny you should ask. The notorious pic of the hooded guy from Abu Ghraib–the one called “the Statue of Liberty” by the Iraqis we’ve been teaching democracy to–shows wires running from his hands.
He was told that if he didn’t keep standing, he’d be electrocuted.
Is that mad-scientist enough for you?
At what point, DaveC, are you going to start paying attention to the Army Interrogation Manual, and the statements by expert interrogators, that torture isn’t just wrong, it’s useless? That professional interrogation, built on creating a relationship with the subject, is more effective?
Instead of acting like you’re the first person to ever think about these things?
I didn’t know jack about torture. But I had strong opinions on the subject. So I looked around to see whether the facts supported or refuted those opinions. And now I know lots of creepy stuff about CIA experiments and NKVD interrogations that I didn’t used to know.
I for one am looking forward to your doing the same. You might start here, with a roundtable including Mark Bowden, who began from the position (not unlike your own) that torture might be necessary, and where he went from there.
Hmmm, mad scientist set up. How about this one?
That is totally too broad a definition. I mean, if you cannot punish a criminal for a crime that they have committed, what the heck can you do?
This failing to read what’s in front of you, DaveC, is not helping you learn anything from this thread.
It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Does that help?
Anderson,
Thanks. I suspected there were good reasons for it, but I’m not an interrogator.
lj,
Yes, there are some people who will dig in their heels regardless. But there are others who are on the bubble, but who will react negatively to the kind of comment we’re discussing. This is politics, which means it’s the art of the possible. It’s possible we can get Congress to pass a bill that establishes that the U.S. does not torture and lives up to its obligations under the Geneva Conventions, but to do so we’ve got to work at the margins and get the votes. Or are you hoping that intransigence can simply prevent any bill from being passed? (Which might be better, I’m not sure.)
Anderson – don’t you know that if the President or someone in the administration thinks you’re a terrorist then you’re a terrorist? They act to create their own reality.
OT: Tanks are rolling through the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, amid rumors of a coup attempt, CNN confirms.
Actually, LJ, I think Dostoevsky posed a similar scenario, and apparently he rejected torturing the child.
(His dichotomy was perpetual utopia vs. small child, rather than horrible apocalypse vs. small child, but I can’t really see that it would change Alyosha’s response.)
I mean, if you cannot punish a criminal for a crime that they have committed, what the heck can you do?
when you read the 8th Amendment…
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
… do you miss the qualifiers there too ?
Anderson – don’t you know that if the President or someone in the administration thinks you’re a terrorist then you’re a terrorist? They act to create their own reality.
That reminds me of the account from one of our prisoners:
The detainee said the soldiers handcuffed him to a bed.
“Do you believe in anything?” he said the soldier asked. “I said to him, ‘I believe in Allah.’ So he said, “But I believe in torture and I will torture you.’ “
Reality-based vs. faith-based? Faith in what, exactly? … That is maybe the single most chilling thing that I recall reading, out of the many chilling things that Bush has created for us to read.
I agree with Andrew’s answer to DaveC’s question. And, as DaveC probably anticipates, with everyone’s response to his claim that there’s an effort to stop intelligence gathering on terrorists: no, just an attempt to get our government to do this within the laws. We are, after all, a government of laws, not of men.
About presuming that Republicans support torture: again, I’m with Andrew. What matters is to get this to stop. That matters more than forcing people to admit that they have supported something evil, and it is probably also a necessary first step en route to the second. We are not likely to get people to actually change their minds by telling them that they are, in fact, the antichrist.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s true that Republicans necessarily support torture. Republicans in Congress who are not working against this bill: sure. Republicans who are working against this bill, but who nonetheless support a Congressional leadership that’s opposed to them on this: a harder call. Republican citizens who are political junkies, and comment on blogs about how all this is necessary: sure. Republicans who don’t follow all this stuff closely, and who are part of the audience for whose sake Bush is describing torture as “alternative techniques” rather than spelling out what he means: not so clear. They are enabling torturers, but they may not at all support torture. (If they did, there would be no need for all this obfuscation.)
There are a lot of ordinary people who really do not know what Bush is talking about. No doubt all of them should, just as we should all be well-informed citizens who take the responsibility of casting our votes really seriously. No doubt, similarly, that I should not recently have found myself in the position of not voting for members of the Democratic State Commission, since I had no clue who any of the candidates were. But it does no good at all to conflate these people with Dr. Mengele, or even Mitch McConnell. Our primary need right now is to educate them, not to vilify them.
Conceded that “Republicans support torture” is less accurate and less useful than “Bush and Cheney support torture.”
For that matter, are the Dems taking an open stand on this? No. They’re hanging back for (mis)perceived political advantage. So do the Democrats support torture? How do we know?
“That’s a great slogan. Help me out in concrete terms.”
I am working on this for a comment. It would be a long story. To be honest, I expect very little concrete progress toward achieving my goal. I consider the bills before Congress to be backward steps and cannot accept or support them in any fashion.
I consider “War Criminals” a description of behavior, not of character. I would not even like to judge Adolf Eichmann’s character, he was kind to his family and dog. He did very bad things. This is the point.
What price was paid for demanding Unconditional Surrender in WWII? If I have my timing and facts right, perhaps the highest price ever, a price Truman perhaps never realized was paid. Why was that price paid? Why was a negotiated surrender unacceptable?
Or are you hoping that intransigence can simply prevent any bill from being passed? (Which might be better, I’m not sure.)
I’m not sure what I am hoping, except that I wake up and this was a bad dream. It seems to me that when the President says that if these measures aren’t approved, then we were not going to go forward, there is an intransigence that has to be met with the good guys saying ‘sorry, here is where we dig our heels in’. It’s possible that we can get a bill, but if it has the effect of immunizing people from the charge that they supported torture, I’m not sure if that’s a worthwhile tradeoff. I personally think that the same resoluteness that Reid is portraying over the wiretap bill. I am very concerned that Dems are sitting this out because they are hoping to watch the Republicans tear each other up. I think they should say ‘I don’t care what compromise you think up, it is not going to pass.’
Anderson,
true, but the point is that there’s actually no way to stop DaveC from proposing a bigger bomb or a greater disaster from which we are forced to derive the benefits of coercion. To simply enter in the discussion is to miss the point.
LJ: To simply enter in the discussion is to miss the point.
Gotcha.
Bob: Why was that price paid? Why was a negotiated surrender unacceptable?
Because there was a widespread feeling that the negotiated armistice in 1918 led to a do-over in 1939, and this time, by god, we were going to make damn sure the Germans knew they’d lost.
I personally am not 100% convinced it was a good idea. The Germans certainly used it as an excuse for continuing to fight on even in the west. OTOH, excuses for wartime conduct are a German cottage industry.
Andrew, it is a sign of a real sickness that the following slogan would be persuasive: if we ban torture, than the liberals will have won.
Mr. Rove is betting on it, and he’s no fool when it comes to understanding what his base thinks.
My own thoughts concerning anyone for whom this slogan is a motivation to support the President cannot be written without violating the posting rules.
“What matters is to get this to stop”
No, hilzoy. What matters is to minimize the odds of it happening again.
We will be attacked again. The post-war conventions were not negotiated with the concept that there would be no more war. We must, I must, do my moral calculations within the framework of a nuke destroying Chicago. This will be a multi-generational war. It is going to get much worse.
How I can keep America sane and decent? The rules of war are hard rules, and will cost lives to enforce and protect. We must be upfront and honest and direct about our priorities.
THEN
CharleyCarp! Help us out! Why is there “classfied evidence” to conceal from our prisoners in the 1st place? Slarti wants to know.
DaveC: Why have you not yet asked what interrogation techniques have been found to produce best results? Don’t you care? You seem awfully interested in how much pain and misery the rest of us might want to allow, but in fact many of us are lots more interested in best practices – if we could allow only a handful of techniques, what would we want them to be? You don’t seem to have any interest in that at all, though.
As has been pointed out here many times, the techniques that actually work aren’t violent at all. Interrogators who establish their authority peacefully get the information that saves lives and changes the course of wars. Good interrogation needs time, and the prisoner’s physical security and basic well-being, in order to break down the barriers between potentially useful information and the interrogator’s knowledge of it. Brutality is only a distraction from this. A list of half a dozen or a dozen best practices in interrogation wouldn’t get anywhere near the “is this torture” list that so fascinates DaveC, as it does Bush and his croneys.
Some of us would actually like to fight a war usefully, if we’re going to fight it at all, and in any event, since there’s always some need for intelligence gathering, prefer to have best practices enshrined as best practices.
Anderson, I think the statement that Dems are not taking a position on torture is borderline calumnous. The statements may not be getting through to you, but they are being made nonetheless.
Apropos of nothing at all, really:
On this day in 1945, Lord Haw-Haw was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. Something to consider when speaking of war crimes, treason and the like.
And, Anderson, to anticipate your response, no, I don’t think making statements audible in Mississippi ought to be the top priority for the congressional Dem leadership in the current political circumstance.
Anderson, I think the statement that Dems are not taking a position on torture is borderline calumnous. The statements may not be getting through to you, but they are being made nonetheless.
Well, I sure hope that’s the case, but the media is doing a great job of stifling them. I admit to getting very frustrated very easily with the Dems.
As for Slarti on Lord Haw-Haw, aka William Joyce, I like to quote A.J.P. Taylor. Joyce was an American who got a British passport by falsely stating he was a British subject. That was how they were able to prosecute him for treason.
Thus, “Technically, Joyce was hanged for making a false statement when applying for a passport, the usual penalty for which is a small fine.” English History 1914-1945, pp. 533-34.
And, Anderson, to anticipate your response, no, I don’t think making statements audible in Mississippi ought to be the top priority for the congressional Dem leadership in the current political circumstance
Pooh. I rely exclusively on the Yankee (online) media, to where I frequently learn about my own state’s news only when I happen to find something in the Washington Post.
Though, who knows, maybe if them anchor-folk would just talk slower …
Charley,
You should know better than that. People don’t think that way. When a Republican hears a comment disparaging Republicans, he doesn’t think it through rationally, weigh the evidence, and come to a conclusion. He hears the slur and reacts to the person making the slur. (Equivalence alert: Democrats do this, too. And Libertarians. It’s part of the human condition.) They’re not going to phrase it as ‘if we can’t torture, the terrorists have won,’ they’re just going to discount the argument because of the slur.
Really, this all comes down to what the goal is. If the consensus here is to preen about how morally superior ‘we’ are, then I’ll leave you to it. I maintain that finding a way to stop torture that is currently taking place.
The past is past. We can’t change what has happened.
The future is out of our control. We don’t know what we’ll do in the future, let alone what anyone else will do.
But we do control right now. And right now, people are being tortured. So I’m all about changing the now.
That was how they were able to prosecute him for treason.
Yeah, I knew that. My point, however, was to (once again) fasten some of the finger-pointing to real-life consequences. And, yes indeedy, I do in fact realize that Republicans have been much more guilty of this than have Democrats.
They’re not going to phrase it as ‘if we can’t torture, the terrorists have won,’
Andrew, sorry, but you are so kidding yourself.
Respectable figures like Bush may not say that, but there’s no other implication conceivable from what he has said. He’s flat-out stated that if the CIA isn’t allowed to use its “alternative” methods, then security will be impaired.
Q at Belgravia was quoting Rush Limbaugh:
So, again, we’ve gone from the Geneva Conventions not even applying to terrorists to having them apply to terrorists, to preventing us from interrogating terrorists effectively. This is going to go down as the event that will result in us getting hit again, and if we do, and if McCain, et al, prevail, I can tell you where fingers are going to be pointed on this program: at every senator, Republican or Democrat, who stood in the way here.
Clear enough, doncha think?
Oh, I didn’t see the question on classified evidence. I can see that it would be critical that criminal defendants not be told who is saying he saw them commit the crime. If they knew, then they might be able to show that they were not in the same place at the same time as the witness,* or maybe that the witness has a personal grudge against the defendant unrelated to the events in question. [/snark]
Everything any prisoner says is classifed. Anything any member of the services says is classified. Anything any witness has ever said is classified. The names of everyone involved are classified. Anything ever learned about the prisoner — where he grew up, the names of his siblings, how he came to be where he was arrested — is classified. What methods were used in the interrogation of the defendant, or of witnesses, is classified. Pretty much the entire factual universe relevant to either a Commission trial or a CSRT is classified, except as the government decides to selectively de-classify it. And guess what, they don’t like to de-classify facts that don’t reflect well.
* This is a huge problem at Guantanamo, where one prisoner has made claims implicating dozens of others, many of which are demonstrably false. (Or would be demonstrably false, if anyone was actually interested in checking them out).
If you have back surgery, and the hospital that you go to is any good, you will have electrodes uop and down your spine and on your head.
Well DaveC, if you have back surgery, or any other type of invasive surgery, and the hospital you go to is any good, the doctors will slice open your body with an extremely sharp knife and poke around the insides of your body.
Furthermore, you should have this done. I’d agree that an extremely sharp knife on the genitals is out of bounds, but i mean, is it really torture just because it’s a knife?
Yeah, I knew that.
Figured you did, but it’s a wonderful quote. And see my just-posted reply to Andrew, quoting Limbaugh, where he actually says “fingers are going to be pointed.”
Better than rifles, I suppose.
For me, one of the key facts of the 20th century was the amazing flips. How did the Nazis or Soviets or Cultural Revolution happen? And what does it mean that the German people were reasonably well behaved citizens after WWII?
It means “Don’t follow leaders”
You will rarely hear me say anything nice about anyone. Certainly not Democratic leaders. I have attacked Obama, hell I don’t need to go there.
What was the point of the post-War consensus, on everything from the various conventions to Bretton Woods to the U.N.
What is America, what is the American project? “Give your loyalty to principle, put your faith in law and process.” Inalienable rights.
I am perhaps monstrous and treasonous. I have little loyalty to the U.S. as a geographical entity or collection of persons.
I place a very conditional value on individual human life, and a near absolute value on the post-war consensus, as ideals.
Nanking, Treblinka, Stalingrad, Iwo Jima. Too many people died because of …well you describe the problem. I define it very broadly.
I would take the country to full civil war over torture.
Pretty much the entire factual universe relevant to either a Commission trial or a CSRT is classified, except as the government decides to selectively de-classify it. And guess what, they don’t like to de-classify facts that don’t reflect well.
Like I suspected, except worse. Slarti?
“We don’t know what we’ll do in the future, let alone what anyone else will do.”
Good grief.
I will not torture. I will die first. You consider that “preening” I suddenly consider you quite dangerous.
Anderson,
Maybe I am kidding myself. If a majority of Americans are willing to support torture because they think it will make them safer, then I guess it really is time to move to Estonia. But I don’t think that people are thinking of it as actual torture. I think that most people hear the insults don’t think about the torture at all.
As for the Limbaugh quote, I read it as conflating torture with other intelligence-gathering techniques. Our goal should be to get the evidence Katherine does such a wonderful job gathering into the public forum so people hear about what is being done in their names. I think if more people heard that, there’d be a lot less support for torture. (At least, I really, really hope so.)
I would take the country to full civil war over torture.
Good luck with that.
bob,
Coming from the guy raising an army, that’s pretty funny. No, I do not consider that preening, for the record.
I’m all about changing the now.
I’m sure you are. I didn’t say or mean to imply that I thought you would go against your principles on this issue because you don’t want domestic opponents to have won. I’m surprised, though, if you are telling me that there are no people on the Administration’s side of the question for whom the domestic politics of this is more important than the principle.
I hope you’ve spoken with your senators on this point. Sen. Brownback might be worth engaging on this.
Not that anyone asked, but the argument to the effect that “thus-and-such has consented to receive essentially the same treatment”, as a defense of [torture, highly coercive questioning, whatever you want to call it], is uncompelling. The difference is consent. There are other, similar kinds of treatments that humans can receive at the hands of other humans that are acceptable (even pleasurable) if consensual, but otherwise traumatic.
And yes, I believe I’ve used some of the same arguments myself, but was wrong to do so. If I, once upon a time, got a rather large splinter embedded under my thumbnail, and then elected to remove it myself (which involved removing part of my own thumbnail, note. Excruciating pain, that), does that make it perfectly ok for me to insert splinters under YOUR thumbnail, and then yank them out, if I can convince myself that you know something important?
This of course ignores questions of efficacy of such techniques, as well as whether such techniques would be justified if there was a chance that the suspect didn’t actually know anything and in fact was an innocent bystander, etc, etc, which seem to get completely ignored by those who are convinced that torture is just another weapon in our arsenal, and that we’re crippling ourselves if we have to give it up.
Andrew: If the consensus here is to preen about how morally superior ‘we’ are, then I’ll leave you to it.
I agree with Bob about this comment.
I maintain that finding a way to stop torture that is currently taking place.
Difficult, if Republicans in Congress and in the White House are determined to make torture legal, and part of that is whitewashing torture and pretending that torture techniques authorized by Congress aren’t “really” torture, and – which follows – when prisoners die because these authorized torture techniques were applied, as they have and will, this is not “really” murder. That’s where DaveC already is: and it appears you’re heading in that direction.
The past is past. We can’t change what has happened.
So, no point prosecuting US soldiers who have committed torture and murder, then? No point even trying? No point even saying that US soldiers who have committed torture and murder – as so many have, and so many will, if this gets through Congress – are committing crimes. That’s the past.
The future is out of our control. We don’t know what we’ll do in the future, let alone what anyone else will do.
I join Bob in saying I will not commit torture. That part of the future is under my control. If you can’t join us in saying that, I agree with Bob.
“Good luck with that.”
Thank you. What I want, what I hope is likely irrelevant. What I expect and predict is an American committed Holocaust.
The momentum to prevent it is not really there.
Andrew: If a majority of Americans are willing to support torture because they think it will make them safer, then I guess it really is time to move to Estonia. But I don’t think that people are thinking of it as actual torture.
Do you really think this a good reason in and of itself not to point out to them that of course it is, and to explain why?
Why have you not yet asked what interrogation techniques have been found to produce best results?
DaveC can speak for himself, but Bush, like a passive-aggressive child, doesn’t care what produces the most effective results, only what he’s permitted or isn’t permitted to do.
George Packer gets it exactly right:
I’m inclined to agree with Bob. The Republican Party–as it is currently constituted–has become a cancer on this country.
Slarti?
Eh? CC’s comment didn’t mean much to me, other than that it underscores the idea that “classified” can mean different things to different people.
To me, it means (or could mean) that intelligence sources and methods may be risked by revealing the information to those who aren’t authorized. So, I can see how it COULD be that an intelligence source might be risked by sharing the intelligence with a prisoner, and then having him share it with two friends, and so on. And of course this brings us back to how this can cause problems in trial. But I’m ignorant of how tribunals are supposed to work.
But we do control right now.
No, we don’t. Change something right now, if you don’t believe me.
Slarti, I think CharleyCarp has experience with the tribunals and CSRT’s or whatever they’re called, so I think his was a pretty good indication of what’s “classified.”
So, no point prosecuting US soldiers who have committed torture and murder, then? No point even trying? No point even saying that US soldiers who have committed torture and murder – as so many have, and so many will, if this gets through Congress – are committing crimes. That’s the past.
We can’t change the past. That’s not an opinion. That is (barring new discoveries in physics and the opinions of certain historians) a fact, not an opinion. If you think that fact means that prosecution of those who have committed crimes is pointless, well, we’ll just have to disagree.
Personally, I’m all in favor of prosecuting those who’ve broken the law, both because it may prevent them from doing so in the future and because it serves as a potential deterrent in preventing others from engaging in such activities. But I am not under the illusion that doing so will alter the past. Is that your contention?
That part of the future is under my control.
No it’s not. It will only be under your control when it becomes the now. Again, this is pretty basic physics. I’m perfectly content to believe that you and bob will not commit torture if the situation ever arises (which seems unlikely), but the only thing you actually control is what you’re doing right now. Really. Give it a try. Resolve that tomorrow you’re going to get up at three in the morning; try to control that from right now. I suspect you’ll find that the only time you can control that will be tomorrow morning at three. Before then, you have an intention. After then, what happened, happened. Your span of control, however, is only that moment.
Change something right now, if you don’t believe me.
Control isn’t change. Bob is controlling himself by electing not to torture you and Andrew. Do not taunt Bob, lest you weaken his self-control.
*nods in regretful agreement with Paul’s last sentence*
Do you really think this a good reason in and of itself not to point out to them that of course it is, and to explain why?
Absolutely. But there are effective ways to change people’s minds, and there are ineffective methods. I am arguing tactics, not goals.
Well, then we should narrow the question down to something more relevant to the issue at hand: what sort of evidence against a prisoner is classified so that the prisoner himself is not allowed to see it? How does the tribunal handle such cases?
I think the answer to those questions might be a bit different, Anderson.
The Republican Party–as it is currently constituted–has become a cancer on this country.
You know why that is not one of my favorite metaphors?
cancer also became an important social metaphor, as the Nazis portrayed Jews and other “enemies of the Volk” as tumors that must be eliminated from the German body politic.
You know why that is not one of my favorite metaphors?
I took it as an allusion to the quote about Nixon, but good point nonetheless.
Ah: control. Pedantry mode on (not that there’s an off switch):
Closed-loop control requires observation, or measurement. Implicit in such observation is measurement delay. Then there’s enactment of control law, or decision, which induces further delay. Then there’s application of the controlling force, followed by the response of the physical system being controlled.
So, it’s a tossup: all control systems enact change that’s only effective in the past tense, yet all change that’s been exerted in the past tense is (still) effective in the present. It might be argued that control is effective ONLY in the past, but only observable in the present.
Pedantry mode off, hopefully.
Andrew,
“Personally, I’m all in favor of prosecuting those who’ve broken the law, both because it may prevent them from doing so in the future and because it serves as a potential deterrent in preventing others from engaging in such activities.”
Isn’t this an argument that we have some amount of control over the future?
” I am arguing tactics, not goals.”
I understand your point. Honest.
I’m just not sure – and I think some of the point others are making is that they’re not sure, either – if the people inclined to agree with the pro-torture frame are reachable in any meaningful way.
Are you suggesting that we concede the DaveC/RS/Bush supporter crowd room in which to redefine torture so that they can commit, support, and indulge torture?
Because, if that’s what you’re suggesting, I’m not sure what’s gained. Redefining what everybody bloody well knows is repugnant… in order to mollify the ones who want to commit the repugnancy… so that they’ll…what, exactly? Maybe not torture *as much*? Maybe not torture *as many*? Maybe only use electricity rather than thumbscrews?
What is the goal here?
Why Does Slarti Think America Has No Future?
(Just a preview of why you, and anyone else who comments here, should never run for office.)
Like many others, I am disturbed by the prevelance of arguments like the one presented by DaveC here. The obsessive focus on various ways of inflicting pain and suffering coupled with demands for others to state why they are opposed to inflicting such pain. But it’s all for the greater good of course. Grotesque.
Another interesting take on interrogation that acutally worked from WWII was discussed in The Atlantic last year.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200506/budiansky
A marine officer who had spent many years in Japan pre-war as a missionary found the most effective technique against fanatical opponents willing to die for their cause was a basic command of the language and a knowledge of cultural touchstones to make intial connections. Everyone (even fanantics willing to die for their cause) has a story to tell.
Just a preview of why you, and anyone else who comments here, should never run for office.
As if I needed more ;P
“Do not taunt Bob, lest you weaken his self-control.”
What self-control? Golly, it’s like nobody ever reads my comments.
I can’t compromise on amnesty, as written. I might consider immunity, after testimony.
DaveC can speak for himself, but Bush, like a passive-aggressive child, doesn’t care what produces the most effective results, only what he’s permitted or isn’t permitted to do.
I don’t disagree with using an effective method of interrogation that is not torture. What I don’t want is US soldiers prosecuted for war crimes because they slapped somebody. Is that clear enough? I don’t think anybody understands what I’m saying.
What I don’t want is US soldiers prosecuted for war crimes because they slapped somebody.
Well, what do you want done to them?
DaveC, I really don’t American soldiers, or CIA field agents prosecuted for war crimes, either.
I will trade you 100 Spec-3’s for one President in Belgium. Deal?
Dan,
Yes and no. My point is that we all only control our own actions at this particular moment. We can influence future actions, but it’s a rough control at best.
Casey,
My point is that I think the Republicans have been effective in disguising the reality of what these tactics are, so our goal should be to publicize the facts: what waterboarding and hypothermia and prolonged standing do to the human mind and body, how many people have already died in our custody, and so on. I think that DaveC is unsure where to draw the line between legitmate interrogation techniques and torture. That’s not an unfair question to ask. So we lay out our argument for where the line should be and why. And hold that line; write to our Representatives and Senators and tell them where the line should be.
I just think that there are a lot of people who can be persuaded to support this view, if we refrain from inflammatory tactics.
What I don’t want is US soldiers prosecuted for war crimes because they slapped somebody
since they aren’t being prosecuted for such things now, why would they be prosecuted for such things in your hypothetical future?
we are already bound by treaties against torture.
There’s no mystery about what is or is not classified in a CSRT. There’s no mystery about what parts of the files on my client that they’ve given me are classified, nor about the things that obviously (or likely) exist but I have not been given, despite being cleared to get everything.
One can read any of the hundereds of CSRT transcripts on the internet and see exactly what the classifiaction issues are. The government says ‘you are accused of x.’ The prisoner say ‘who says that?’ The government says, ‘we’re not saying. How do you respond?’ Judge Green recounted a sequence in her Al Odah opinion where the charge was consorting with AQ types, and the prisoner said ‘who are you talking about? Tell me and I’ll tell you whether I know them.’ The government wouldn’t tell, just wanting a yes or no answer: do you consort with members of AQ.
There’s a current dispute with the government that is related, but not exactly the same. We are not permitted to share news with clients unless it relates to their case. Does the Hamdan decision relate to the cases of prisoners other than Salim Hamdan? To anyone who understands how law works, the answer is yes. People who want to be difficult can construct a bad faith argument for the answer being no.
So we lay out our argument for where the line should be and why.
where’s your line?
me, i’m pretty comfortable with the one we’re already (ostensibly) legally bound to follow.
“I think that DaveC is unsure where to draw the line between legitmate interrogation techniques and torture.”
It is not my call, DaveC’s call, Rumsfeld’s call, or Bush’s call. It was a multilateral treaty, and the decision should be multilateral. If DaveC or Bush cannot accept that, they have withdrawn from the community of civilized nations.
And that should be the message and educational ptoject.
cleek,
My line is drawn at doing harm to the detainees: we shouldn’t do any. No grabbing, no hitting, no slapping. Nothing. I would bar all of DaveC’s listed techniques above.
I concur with bob.
What I don’t want is US soldiers prosecuted for war crimes because they slapped somebody.
Once? Repeatedly? Hard enough to break a cheekbone? Or detach a retina?
If the answer is more or less the same as that for which we would prosecute a Chicago policeman, no one disagrees with you, DaveC. No one is seriously talking about proscecuting anyone for conduct that is not egregious as measured against the standards in the field manual. People who act like frivolous prosecutions are what the debate is about are engaging in misdirection (at the least). And this is the source of the confusion that Andrew points out.
On the subject of which, Andrew, I think there are a lot of people who are intentionally lying to minimize what has been going on. I realize that my insulting them won’t make them stop — and am sorry if my insulting them makes (or might make) other people believe their lies. If you’ve got a suggestion for how to make them stop, I’d love to hear it.
One can read any of the hundereds of CSRT transcripts on the internet and see exactly what the classifiaction issues are.
I google this, and I get lots of references to the transcripts, but no links that I can find. Which seems exactly backward, but there you go.
This seems to be an odd definition of “classified”, I have to say.
Gary: Yeah, yeah, and leftists were responsible for the Soviet gulag.
No. But the Soviet Communists — i.e. the members of the actual party to which Stalin belonged — do indeed bear some responsibility for the gulags, as those who voted for the Nazis (when that actually meant something) bear some responsibility for the Holocaust and so forth. There’s a huge difference between being politically similar to an organization and being politically affiliated with one.
As for permissible interrogation techniques, I’ll add the following data point. It turns out, after several months of testing, that I’ve been chronically sleep-deprived most of my life. Not in a happy-fun “Boy, I’m tired, I should get more sleep” kind of way, in a “If you don’t get more sleep you will be unable to function in normal society and could ruin your life permanently” kind of way. The nickel version: being sleep-deprived when you’re prepared to be sleep-deprived (and especially if you allow yourself stimulants like caffeine) is incredibly easy. [Way too damn easy in my case.] Being sleep-deprived when you’re not prepared and when your brain craves sleep is one of the worst mental experiences there is; in fact, I literally can’t think of anything worse that acts on a purely psychological plane. It’s hard to give the full extent of the mind-melting horror but if, in your “sleep-deprived state”, you weren’t suffering paranoid hallucinations and weren’t reflexively crying from the pressure in your skull, you weren’t seriously sleep-deprived.
[Thankfully, in my case, the latter only happens a few times a year and the former only happened once. But once was enough.]
And I’d assume the true advantage of this as an interrogation technique — if by “interrogation technique” you mean a way of breaking someone into tiny little pieces — is that there isn’t, AFAIK, any way of immunizing yourself to the stress of true sleep deprivation. You can acclimate yourself to a level of physical pain (though I haven’t) and, in fact, our bodies are designed to permit that acclimation with the release of endorphins and the like.* Sleep deprivation isn’t like that. It’s an organic limit: once you go beyond it, your brain snaps. It undermines the very will you need to maintain your resistance. The fact that it’s not overt in its destruction doesn’t make torture by sleep deprivation any less evil, it just makes the evil more insidious.
So long story short? Hell yes, put sleep deprivation on the list of forbidden techniques.
* I’m obviously referring to the ideal here. There are plenty of people for whom that’s not the case and, in particular, who suffer chronic debilitating pain. This is, as 1066 And All That might phrase it, A Very Bad Thing.
You know why that is not one of my favorite metaphors?
I’ll happily substitute “gangrene.”
(It should go without saying–and if it doesn’t, then I’m saying it now, that there are obviously otherwise fine people who’ve voted Republican. Malice toward none and charity for all of them. The Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight and all of their tittering touts of torture, I want held responsible.
Andrew: Just ask yourself this: if the Democrats were doing something wrong, and some right-leaning people told you that the Democrats were bad people for supporting their leaders, what would your first reaction be?
Drop the “if the Democrats were doing something wrong” condition, and you have a succinct description of the political dynamic for the past decade and a half leading up to Republican control of all three branches of government. That this hasn’t persuaded me to vote Republican is kind of beside the point, isn’t it?
I think we should simply make a list of things that people have done, voluntarily, over the course of the last 50 years. We should then say that all those things are acceptable, because people do them by choice! All the time!
Heck, people have sex voluntarily. It’s a pleasurable experience. Being raped in a CIA jail should be considered a perk.
DaveC, if I am not mistaken, the Hague really wanted two people prosecuted for Kosovo. They are not crazy.
“…conduct that is not egregious as measured against the standards in the field manual”
I am actually a softie. I kept looking at Lynnde Englund from abu Ghraib, and I think she sincerely thought she had permission. She was confused and hurt. Probably also not-so-bright, and maybe quite wrong. Undertrained and under-supervised. Just looked her up at Quando, where court-martials for her supervisors were recommended. Old news.
Calley and the guys at Haditha, not so much. I doubt they thought they had permission.
I think the Military does a pretty good job at this*, or tries very hard. I think a lot of the current problem with the Congressional bill is that military understands human frailty and field conditions, and doesn’t want its stds and practices weakened.
*This
I speak out of ignorance and inarticulately, but I would descibe it as the chain-of-command or lines of authority or something. Above everyone giving orders, officer or non-com, is the UCMJ. Maybe unless the UCMJ states otherwise in special circumstances, which I doubt.
The President is not at the top of the chain-of-command, even in times of war, even on the field, no matter what he would like to think. Above the President is the Congress and the Courts, above the Congress and the Courts is the Constitution, above the Constitution (IMO, though they should never come in conflict) are the Conventions, and maybe above the Conventions are the processes that interpret and enforce the conventions. I sure wish we were in the ICC. I am not sure where the UCMJ fits here, and certainly there can be arguments about the top couple layers. I believe there may be even more layers, but they may not be matters of law. If we don’t want the Conventions to trump American Law(Constitution) we should withdraw. We cannot withdraw retroactvely. I would fight withdrawal to my death.
The problem was the President acted as if he were, and is, the top of the chain-of-command. I don’t think it was a mistake but a willful usurpation. He knew better. Certainly a lot of people under him knew better, and a lot fought his interpretation. A lot still are. Too many people went along.
Too many became confused.
I don’t know how many of the people who did, or should have, known better should be prosecuted or punished. At least one. I would personally accept only one, should it be such a shaming and condemnation that the principles became clear. But that is not my call. Watergate was probably adequate, clearly Iran-Contra was not.
I think we (and our Allies) gave up our sovereignty in the “Post War Consensus” after WWII to ensure that the worst of WWII would not happen again. I think it was the greatest, and most gracious act of a military victor in the history of the world. We said that under existential threat, attack, even on the fields of battle what America can do to protect itself is not our call. It was an attempt to make America’s trust in liberal process global, not in domination, but in trust. For fifty years the range of action permitted within the conventions was considered adequate.
Just as the first sacrifice of the sovereign states to the Union in the Constitution was not internalized until The Civil War, I fear that the second sacrifice is not yet internalized. I would fight another civil war for these limits to sovereignty. We are citizens of the world. The world ain’t so bad that we can’t be good citizens. Those who have attempted to subvert the consensus must be punished.
The purpose of the punishment should be to make sure, as much as possible, that every American adequately understands this “chain-of-command” and why it is so bloody important. So that the next Lyndde Englund is not confused.
(Umm sorry. I do go on sometimes. I almost deleted this.)
Will everybody pause for a moment to recognize that we are already now talking about torture as a justifiable practice in itself, regardless of the urgency of the circumstances that might demand it. My impression was that torture was only even under consideration in ticking time bomb cases. But now we’re talking about using torture for just about anything.
Shorter me: All the policy discussion now is focused only around what the government can do, rather than when the government can do it.
Heck, people have sex voluntarily. It’s a pleasurable experience. Being raped in a CIA jail should be considered a perk.
People get mutilated voluntarily too. Nad-piercing for all!
Bob: I would take the country to full civil war over torture.
You’re a tad too eager to take people to war period, for my taste. This is only the latest call to arms.
I’d think that a real commitment to the rule of law would call for exhausting every legal and political option available to end torture and hold the torture-orderers accountable before picking up the gun.
ObWi readers: Today, get in touch with your Senators.
Insist that your Democratic Senators not be stampeded into accepting the slightly lesser of two evils.
Persuade your Republican Senators that both of these bills post intolerable risks to U.S. service members and citizens, as well as making them complicit in the past and future torture of detainees under this administration.
The message to both parties should be: contrary to what Bush says, legislation is not needed this minute. These issues demand a full, considered debate after Congress returns from election recess, or better, in the next Congress.
Andrew: If you think that fact means that prosecution of those who have committed crimes is pointless, well, we’ll just have to disagree.
You, Andrew, not I, were the one who was arguing that moral condemnation of torture is mere “preening” and pointless. Yet the will to prosecute those who have committed torture and murder – and all those above them in the chain of command – begins with the acknowledge that torture and murder are wrong – precisely what you appeared to be unwilling to say, earlier in this thread, for fear of offending DaveC. If you are unwilling to offend the people like DaveC who are pro-torture, and who – as we see DaveC doing – earnestly defining methods of torture as “acceptable” – then you can’t expect me to believe you’re willing to offend DaveC’s sensibilities by having US soldiers actually prosecuted for torture.
DaveC: What I don’t want is US soldiers prosecuted for war crimes because they slapped somebody
Reverse it, then. US soldiers captured by Iranian soldiers, in Iranian prisons, being hit in the face and the belly (that “just a slap” you’re quite willing US soldiers should inflict on their prisoners) by Iranian guards. Some of the US soldiers survive this “just a slap”. Some aren’t permanently injured. Some die. Some are disfigured. Are you saying you don’t want those Iranians who hit US prisoners prosecuted for war crimes “because they slapped somebody”? You’re okay with US soldiers being “slapped” when they’re taken prisoner? All the “interrogation techniques” on your list are “techniques” you think Iranians should be allowed to use on captured US soldiers?
“You’re a tad too eager to take people to war period, for my taste.”
That is a fair criticism, and in variations one I engage every day. To a degree it is brinkmanship and street theater. To a degree it is impatience. It is something I am looking at in myself.
“War is the last refuge of the incompetent” has two interpretations.
You’re a tad too eager to take people to war period, for my taste.
You know, I stopped calling it the McManus thesis to take some of the pressure off of Bob, cause I think I understand where he is coming from. Rather than look at the messenger, one may want to consider that Bob is channelling a bit of the spirit of Cassandra.
A supplement to the excerpts in Katherine’s post, and the HRW op-ed cited in a comment above, is this post by Teresa Nielsen-Hayden which likewise makes the case that all the listed methods are torture.
Educational material for those who need to face what is being done in our names, and to reflect on how they would characterize the same treatment if meted out to members of their family.
Apologies if the TNH post has been cited before; I’m not reading as carefully as I ought these days.
lj: Rather than look at the messenger, one may want to consider that Bob is channelling a bit of the spirit of Cassandra.
I’m sure that my reaction to the message Bob channels is as strong as it is exactly because I wrestle a lot with that same spirit internally.
The idea that it’s one hell of a lot easier to end a war than to start one is as true on the individual, spiritual level as it is on the societal one.
Plus, as opposed as I am to Bob’s line of argument, he’s sincere and engaging, and I very much value his comments — so the last thing I mean to do is personalize the criticism. If there’s side-drawing in the apocalyptic near future he paints, I’m with Bob. I’m just going to have to work in the signal corps instead of the artillery…
Bob, I’m glad you didn’t delete the long post, actually, because you make an important point. There needs to be some accountability for the soldiers on the spot inflicting injury and death on their captives. But the serious culpability is higher up, and is where the hammer really ought to fall hardest. I don’t think it will, but it’s worth thinking what a just outcome would look like, and it would mean harsher sentencing for the people up above the grunts.
Don’t worry about it, Nell. I haven’t killed anybody in like, weeks. 🙂
I spent all day yesterday in a liberal vs leftist, workin-within-the-system vs bringing-the-system-down, hippies vs politicos, 60s ruined everything thread. So I think about my drama-queen political rhetoric a lot.
But then there’s also the smell of napalm in the morning.
one hell of a lot easier to end a war than to start one
Oops. I of course meant ‘easier to start a war than end one.’
If a majority of Americans are willing to support torture because they think it will make them safer, then I guess it really is time to move to Estonia. But I don’t think that people are thinking of it as actual torture.
Time to get your Passport up to date & to start brushing up your Estonian.
Bob McM: a liberal vs leftist, workin-within-the-system vs bringing-the-system-down, hippies vs politicos, 60s ruined everything thread.
Yumbo! I’ve got to go make workin-within-the-system phone calls, but that would be some excellent recreational reading when I get home, if you’d be willing to share the link.
Jes,
An illiterate could understand what I’m saying better than you do. Please spare me your lies about what I’m saying. It’s tiresome.
SomeOtherDude:
I’m glad that you agree with me that such generalizations are absurd and puerile. I’d hate to think that sarcasm were dead, or that people only recognized it when applied to other than their own side.
Speaking of gulags, I’m interested to see your new enthusiasm for moral relativism, DaveC. Have you ever read The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn? If not, have you read much about the topic?
If not, then this line of questioning probably ends, but if so, which of its practices would you say were and weren’t objectionable?
On that point of moral relativism: anyone who doesn’t engage in it believes in a single standard, by definition, right?
So therefore either you believe that practices which are objectionable if performed on our troops are objectionable if performed by us, or you don’t, right?
Now, are you saying that you find sleep deprivation ad infinitum, hypothermia, and forced standing, acceptable treatment of our troops when taken prisoner by anyone?
If so, why was it that we objected to these treatments of our prisoners in the past? Finickyness? Daintyness?
Keeping in mind that these forms of questioning are applied to people who have not gone through due process of a court, if they were applied not to a “terrorist,” but to you wife, and your children, I take it you would — unless you are a believer in moral relativism? — have no objection? If you did have an objection, what would it be?
“What I don’t want is US soldiers prosecuted for war crimes because they slapped somebody. Is that clear enough? I don’t think anybody understands what I’m saying.”
I would prefer that to not happen, either. Are you familiar with the Nuremberg trials? And that “I was following orders” was not an acceptable defense?
What do you think of the principles we established at Nuremberg as regards what is and is not a war crime?
Jes to Andrew:
The first mention of “preening” in this thread is here:
There has been no statement whatever by Andrew in this thread, that I see, in which he labeled anything as “preening.”
Are you referring to some statement elsewhere? If so, please link to it. If not, you are stating untruths.
Incidentally, you’ve not responded with any sort of apology for breaking your word here. I figured I’d give you a day before bringing it up again, but you’ve had much to subsequently say. You were previously warned not to engage in that practice, or be banned. I’m assuming you’ll at least apologize for giving your word and breaking it; I’m not otherwise interested in seeking your being banned, after having been warned, but I would appreciate an apology, and a re-affirmation that you will not do it again, at which time I’ll drop the subject. Thanks.
Gary:
*Ahem*
posted by: Andrew September 19, 2006 at 12:16 PM:
“if you’d be willing to share the link.”
here you go
More Groovy Street Theatre …Valve post by Scott Eric Kaufman about the revival of the SDS, umpteen comments
Andrew: An illiterate could understand what I’m saying better than you do.
Earlier on this thread you accused people who were not name-calling of “name-calling” because they were pointing out that DaveC, who supports torture, supports torture.
Now you’re name-calling? Nice. Not a good way to convince me you’re serious about opposing torture, as you pointed out yourself.
Where I am it’s late. I’m going to sleep. Whatever time it is where you are, I recommend sleep.
“Now you’re name-calling? Nice.”
Says the pot.
“Not a good way to convince me you’re serious about opposing torture, as you pointed out yourself.”
Hint: Andrew is not obligated to convince you. You are not, it turns out, the moral arbiter of such things. I realize this may be obscure from that extremely high horse you’re sitting on.
matttbastard: Ah, Andrew said something *vaguely similar*, which didn’t label anyone, and didn’t use the word “preening,” but which did use the word “preen.” Thanks. That’s close, at least.
Of course, any copyeditor wouldn’t let the claim stand; and a journalist might get fired for putting a paraphrase between quotation marks.
“If the consensus here is to preen about how morally superior ‘we’ are, then I’ll leave you to it.” …Andrew
Such a broad brush, I suspect we are all entitled to take offense, and consider each of our statements indicted.
Might I suggest you look at the truthiness of Andrew’s statement? Is the consensus here…etc? But he uses an “if”, doesn’t he, and puts ‘we’ in inverted commas? Who knows what and who he meant? Hard to pin down, which makes it just fine, I suppose.
And I use “preening” instead of “preen” and you call me a liar. I just suspect I was ever so slighly more specific, accurate, sincere, direct, and open than Andrew’s ambiguity, but that isn’t the point.
I’m interested to see your new enthusiasm for moral relativism, DaveC.
Hmm, let me say right off, I’m a bad person, but since this line of questioning has gotten kind of personal, let me use observations about other people to kind of let you see where I’m coming from. Say for example, there is a person who is a pacifist and is pro-abortion, and is very consistent about both of these issues. (Hi Jes). Now, I can understand her point of view, but I also can understand the point of view of the many, many people who think that abortion is murder.
Now there have been far more abortions, and probably far more late term abortions, in the last 5 years in the United States than there have been incidents of torture, or of extraordinary rendition or detention. If you believe that the aborted children are human, you could make a comparison between the innocence of the babies versus that of, say, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. I happen to believe that unborn children are human, but not necessarily at the time of conception. And I believe that after a certain point, abortion is murder.
So there are two sides in the abortion issue, I’m somewhere in between the extremes. If I accused ObWi commenters of being pro-baby-murder, well then that might be more accurate or more inaccurate depending on who I am talking about, but I don’t think that type of arguing would win many people over.
The history of Obsidian Wings is that the big splashy posts have always been about torture or rendering or something. Commenters that did not or do not agree that Republicans are evil because of torture, well they have been winnowed out by the absolutists. Many in teh community probably think that that’s a good thing.
Most of you agree that slapping should be on the torture list. Now you might can tell me, “Yes, we are going to make slapping a war crime, but most of the slapping we won’t prosecute”, but I’m thinking “How crazy is that?” That’s the flip side of saying ‘Officially anything goes, but we don’t’ condone torture’. Of course the slapping-is-torture law is going to be used to prosecute US soldiers for war crimes, in order to go after Bush. Just like the Koran flushing episodes.
Gary, you forgot to put this Haditha story in your serires of posts, by the way.
“And I use ‘preening’ instead of ‘preen’ and you call me a liar.”
Bob, I did no such thing.
I did a “find” on “preening” and the first mention was by you. That’s all.
I really wish you’d quit accusing me of accusing you of things when I haven’t.
“I will not torture. I will die first. You consider that “preening” I suddenly consider you quite dangerous.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | September 19, 2006 at 12:26 PM
There has been no statement whatever by Andrew in this thread, that I see, in which he labeled anything as “preening.”
Are you referring to some statement elsewhere? If so, please link to it. If not, you are stating untruths.” …Gary, 7:19
“I really wish you’d quit accusing me of accusing you of things when I haven’t.” …8:32
I am not playing your games tonight, Gary. The place is all yours.
Heh
DaveC: “Commenters that did not or do not agree that Republicans are evil because of torture, well they have been winnowed out by the absolutists.”
I was unaware that I had been winnowed out. (What’s the second comment on this thread?)
Or that Hilzoy had been winnowed out.
This is one of your primary problems, DaveC: you repeatedly, endlessly, say things that are demonstrably false, for some reason. (They “feel” right to you, I suspect.)
Then you’re surprised that people don’t seem to be listening to you, and acting as if you have no credibility.
I take it you are uninterested in responding to my questions and points. Oh, well.
That you don’t respond, as a rule, to things said to you, is another reason that communication between you and others tends to fail. Specific comments have to be responded to specficially. Instead, you sail off into your feelings, and your imaginary life.
Bob, I think you were collateral damage.
DaveC, the point is that you are utilizing slippery slope reasoning to get an outcome that you feel comfortable with. It’s not about you as a person, it’s about the fact that you give benign terms to actions and then are horrified that we point out that there are other factors involved and that it is not the act in and of itself, it is the environment that it takes place and the ability of the person who is being punished to act.
I would suggest we all stop taking it up with Andrew, not because I think he is right, but that changes in opinion have to take place over time. The reason why people dig in their heels is not necessarily because what is said, but because of timing and space. At least that is my theory, I hope you’ll give me a chance to test it.
Jes, Gary, there’s no observation that I am going to make that will help here, so I would just ask that you just let it drop. This is just a personal request, feel free to ignore it.
Bob, I was unaware you posted under the name “Jesurgislac.”
Beyond that, I have no idea what I’ve ever done to offend you, or cause you to feel unfriendly. Or why you keep, repeatedly, insisting I’m attacking you when I’m not even speaking to you. It makes me sad and unhappy, though. It’s also rather frustrating.
LJ: “Jes, Gary, there’s no observation that I am going to make that will help here, so I would just ask that you just let it drop. This is just a personal request, feel free to ignore it.”
LJ, your stance is that Jes should be allowed to violate the posting rules, admit to violating the posting rules, promise to never do it again, then violate the posting rules again in precisely the manner she promised to never do so again, but that if I bring it up, I should drop it, and that that would split the difference between us evenly and fairly.
Got it. What could be wrong with seeing it that way?
And now it’s all gotten tangled up. Where’s that sword?
DaveC: “Heh”
Indeed. You’re for Bush’s surveillance programs, even though you don’t know what they are. And you oppose letting Congress and the courts find out. Or do I have it wrong?
And you oppose letting Congress and the courts find out. Or do I have it wrong?
I prefer not to have all the details leaked to the New Yorker
Billmon says
As far as the moral relativism goes, I tried to state how I’m not very parsimonious, but I guess I ramble too much in my comments. Not the great communicator and all that.
DaveC, clue: letting the bad guys know that they won’t be tortured, and that we’ll protect them is good information to have, so as to persuade them to give us information and come over to our side.
As endless professional interrogators could tell you.
I take it from your lack of disagreement that I’m correct, and that you and Glenn are correct to make fun of you: you don’t want to know the what the programs are, you want to just Trust The President, and be for the the programs and the President.
Whatever the facts.
I prefer not to have all the details leaked to the New Yorker
WTF.
if they aren’t leaked, we’ll never know about them, because Bush isn’t going to tell us. and yet here you are saying things like “Citizens will determine whether they agree or disagree with their Senators and Representatives.” fine. great idea. but how in the hell are we supposed to decide if we agree or disagree if we aren’t even permitted to know WTF we’re supposed to be evaluating them on ?
someone explain to me how the “libertarians” got in bed with the “fnck yeah we love unaccountable government powers!” crowd.
Calling Glenn Reynolds a ‘libertarian’ is like labelling David Horowitz a Marxist. Insta-Statist hasn’t disengaged from Dubya’s teat since 9/11.
“Fear is the mind killer.”
LJ, your stance s that Jes should blah blah blah
No, Gary, my stance is that there is nothing that I can say that is going to change the dynamic, so just stepping back would be best. I’ll go join Bob now, the thread is yours.
Nell, here is another link, provided me by Kaufman out of a small unrelated Unfogged thread:Liberal Procedural …this is by Timothy Burke, essentially a defense of process liberalism against radicalism
“Cynically, quietly, my answer to the radical is also, “It wouldn’t work anyway”, that whatever it is that the radical yearns for as a praxis in the contemporary crisis isn’t just morally wrong, it’s beside the point, even more ineffectual and self-defeating than weak defenses of business-as-usual.” …Timothy Burke, he gets a few critical comments, though he also gives his opponents a decent shake in the long post.
Now many of the radicals he discusses have substantive goals(ending poverty) and are dismissive of liberal institutions they feel are in their way. But he also discusses my “project”? of defending liberal institutions thru illiberal, non-institutional means(civil disobedience, street theatre, war). He’s agin it.
I probably have an alienated personality, and in a convocation of Anarchists would be arguing for voter registration and stock options. IOW, a born troll.
That is not meant to dismiss real arguments about tactics. Houston, we have a problem.
But he also discusses my “project”? of defending liberal institutions thru illiberal, non-institutional means(civil disobedience, street theatre, war).
I promise, Bob, I just tagged it with your name as a way of having to avoid constantly restating it and having to deal with pedantry about searches for the truth and the like. If it does break out, you don’t deserve any blame, it will be because the times demand it.
DaveC: Say for example, there is a person who is a pacifist and is pro-abortion, and is very consistent about both of these issues. (Hi Jes)
Oh, crap, Dave. I’m not pro-abortion, any more than Andrew is pro-war. Andrew (as I understand it) supports the concept that some wars are just and necessary, while not being enthusiastic and gung-ho and believing that war is great, wonderful, terrific. If he thought war was painless and ought to happen as often as possible, that would make him pro-war, like you are pro-torture. I am pro-choice.
Farber:
But I don’t understand the case for bringing him up out of the blue, other than as simply abusing him gratuitiously, simply for convenience, and to feel good about one’s self by abusing someone else’s name randomly.
Charles has been a repeated user of the line that the Democrats are the party of NO and the Republicans the party of new ideas. Here the new Republican idea is legitimizing torture. My comment makes explicit use of that point in referencing Charles.
My comment also explicitly notes Charles strong opposition to torture (as opposed to his strong support of Republicans), but makes the point that support for the party implicitly supports torture (or as better put above in other comments, supports the torturers).
Your analysis simply makes no sense and is itself a form of gratuitous attack you purport to loathe.
liberal japonicus: Jes, … there’s no observation that I am going to make that will help here, so I would just ask that you just let it drop.
Actually, I think you’re right. So, well. *drops*
Thanks, Jes. Peripheral to the cage match, there is a post up at TiO about a small matter that was raised here.
Chatting Across the Grand Canyon
What is the purpose of blogging? An overly broad question, naturally, but one I ran into hard yesterday over at Obsidian Wings. In the course of a discussion about the ongoing debate in the Senate about torture, I made what…
Bob, that’s because we’re the good guys. Hurting the good guys is morally wrong, while hurting the bad guys is OK.
Meanwhile, the views of another loser defeatist.
dmbeaster: “Your analysis simply makes no sense and is itself a form of gratuitous attack you purport to loathe.”
The word “gratuitous” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
I replied to your comment.
Charles has not commented here. You brought him up totally out of the blue. That’s what “gratuitous” means.
I know Charles has written posts making it clear he condemns this torture nonsense, but its gotten to the point where if you support Republicans, then you are for torture. Sorry — this behavior is too immoral to pretend you can just opt out of supporting the party on this one and still be a good Republican.
Sheesh. I didn’t realize I was called out until just now, dm, so yes, I would call your comment gratuitous. But to answer, please tell me how McCain is not a good Republican. Or other Republicans who oppose coercive interrogation. Please tell me how working within your party to make changes is wrong. If you agree with other Republicans a majority of the time, then tell how it’s a wise course to take your marbles and go somewhere else. To me, the better solution is tell others that your marbles are the best ones. I see no immorality in that. I know it’s pretty fun and easy to take that broad brush and put a light coat of demonization on the wall, but it does damn little to contributing to a civil discussion. From what I can see, the tone and tenor of this thread went to hell pretty fast, and yours was at the top of the board.
Charles: Please tell me how working within your party to make changes is wrong.
Where are the Republicans working to have George W. Bush impeached for trying to get torture made legal?
That would be indicative of Republicans actively wanting to reverse their party as the party of YES TORTURE.
Come to that, where are the Republicans denouncing George W. Bush for his support of torture, and formally and publicly saying that they will vote with Democratic congresspeople to be certain that the US never makes it legal for US soldiers to torture prisoners?
This is actually a real question, and not merely aimed at Charles (who I don’t expect to answer it, anyway). Now Bush has outed himself as the Republican President who supports torture, and loyal Republican congresspeople are making speeches against Democratic congresspeople who plan to be the “Party of No to Torture” – where are the “good Republicans” who are formally announcing that they have no part in this?
McCain wants to remove the prisoners’ basic legal right to protest unjust imprisonment and torture: which is morally a step better than wanting to make torture legal, which is what Bush wants. But McCain appears to want a system where prisoners can be tortured, and word will never get out, so it doesn’t matter that torture is technically illegal. Supporting McCain is fractionally better than supporting Bush, but is still, effectively, supporting torture.
Charles: Please tell me how working within your party to make changes is wrong.
Where are the Republicans working to have George W. Bush impeached for trying to get torture made legal?
Has anyone seen a middle lately? I think it was wandering around, feeling excluded.
Where is the rest of the world, as individuals and nations, declaring war on George W. Bush? Because if they’re not doing that, my friend, they’re supporting a torturer.
There are parts of my middle that I’d like to exclude, but I don’t think this will work.
Josh: Has anyone seen a middle lately? I think it was wandering around, feeling excluded.
I dunno, Josh. I’m finding it hard to see a “middle” on this. Torture is wrong. Trying to get torture made legal is wrong. Bush tried to get a list of torture techniques made legal. How can anyone who hates torture bear to have the President who tried to do that still President?
Slarti: Where is the rest of the world, as individuals and nations, declaring war on George W. Bush?
You think we should do that, if Republicans in Congress decline to impeach Bush? I’m a pacifist, Slarti: I think the peaceful method is always the best one. You may think that the only acceptable way that the rest of the world can show opposition to torture is to bomb the US, perhaps killing thousands of Americans who had nothing to do with Bush’s decision to make torture legal, nor any power to change it. That would, after all, be the American way – kill Iraqis because of Saddam Hussein.
But I go for the European option, the legal option, the pacifist option – the option Charles Bird himself proposed, at least when it was his own country at stake: if Republicans oppose torture, they should impeach Bush. They can, if enough of them join with the Democratic Party. No one has to die for it.
So, you’re being an enabler.
Really, Charles has his own way, and you’re bashing him over the head for that.
Where is the rest of the world, as individuals and nations, declaring war on George W. Bush? Because if they’re not doing that, my friend, they’re supporting a torturer.
I think you reductio’d a little past absurdem there, Slarti…
Yeah, I was going for really absurd. Absurd had already been taken.
Jes: “I dunno, Josh. I’m finding it hard to see a ‘middle’ on this.”
Who could have imagined?
I guess that’s Jesurgislacing a thread.
“He’s only mostly dead”, is what popped into my mind.
“‘He’s only mostly dead,’ is what popped into my mind.”
Bush as Schrödinger’s cat?
Back to Charles:
Charles has made it clear where he stands. Is it unclear, somehow, or is it that you, Jesurgislac, don’t think he’s doing quite enough?
I suppose one could argue that writing about this sort of thing in blog comments isn’t all that much. By the same token, one could argue that writing blog posts about it isn’t enough. It could even be argued that voting this way or that isn’t enough.
So: what’s “enough”?
Oh dear… Straight from the department of careful what you wish for.
I don’t know about you Slart, but “the rest of the world” seems to be quite a bit farther along this path than what I consider desirable. Would you grant that each individual detention and interrogation via alternative methods correlates on average with one or more additional individuals declaring war on George W. Bush? How many of those individuals are there do you suppose? And overall, is our ratio of friends to enemies higher or lower than it was in 1999? Or 1979 for that matter?
I have no idea what point you think you’re making with me, radish. You might want to examine the context in which I made those remarks that you quoted, while you’re considering that.
People who go out and vote for the pro-torture politicians in this next elelction are, in my opinion, pro-torture, no matter how they rationalize it. This is a more important issue than, say, the estate tax. It ought to be a deal breaker.
This is a more important issue than, say, the estate tax.
Now there you go again, darn it. It’s the death tax, and since death is way more serious than alternative interrogation techniques, the death tax is clearly a more important issue. I mean, the poor people are dead, and now you want to tax them? Whereas alternative interrogation techniques are mostly harmless.
Actually, here’s a compromise idea, people who agree to volunteer as Alternative Interrogation Techniques Test Dummies so our alternative interrogators can be the best alternative interrogators they can be, no longer have to pay the death tax. People can also volunteer to be Terrorist Surveillance Program Test Dummies, where the reward will be that they are no longer subject to the gift tax (or the Christmas Present Tax, as I’m sure it will soon be known).
Ugh wins. *awards gold donut for best comment*
Two comments re Jes.
First, she pledged that she would not speak to me or about me, but I guess it’s just too much ask for her to keep her word. Sad, but not a surprise.
Second, ditto for Gary and for breaking her word to him, derogatorily using “Farber” as a verb. This is not just a posting rules violation, but a repeat offense of a posting rules violation. I expect to Jes to apologize (which I supremely doubt will happen), and if she doesn’t, I recommend some form of banning.
Reconsidering, I think that it’s probably fair to hold those who are opposed to torture to their word, and treat them as if they actually are. That might be a more effective tactic than, for instance, calling them big fat liars.
So if, for instance, my local congresscritter were voting in favor of whaddevayawannacallit, I’d have to penalize him this election.
I think that it’s probably fair to hold those who are opposed to torture to their word, and treat them as if they actually are.
But what if someone said they opposed torture, but then proposed a bill that stripped out habeus rights that would create a de facto acceptance of torture? Or do they have to propose a bill entitled ‘The McCain-Graham Enshrinement of Torture as a Standard Policy’ act? The horse has long left the stable on this one, imho.
Charles, if it is a posting rules violation for using a person’s name in such a manner, we’d also have to ban Gary for his 3:12. The place would be quieter, but both of them would be missed.
If Charles did such a thing, probably you could reach that conclusion.
In the meantime: I suggest that persuasion followed by the visiting of consequences is probably the right course of action.
How can anyone who hates torture bear to have the President who tried to do that still President?
Because there are other considerations than what we’d all like to see in our fondest dreams? You might want to consider that there are plenty of people here on record as being utterly opposed to Bush’s policy on torture who still oppose impeaching him.
Is it really a good idea to allow main-pagers who have personal issues with a particular commentor to make recommendations of banning to said commentor? I gather ‘conflict of interest’ isn’t covered by the posting rules, but this (very one-sided) beef between Jes and Gary seems like a rather trivial issue (to say the least) that has now been blown out of proportion simply because Charles doesn’t like Jes (for good reason, perhaps, but still…)
“Charles, if it is a posting rules violation for using a person’s name in such a manner, we’d also have to ban Gary for his 3:12. The place would be quieter, but both of them would be missed.”
Nice try. I did that because there has been no response to Jes’s repeated violations.
The parallel will come after I use Jes’s name as a verb 5 or so times, then she complains, then I assert my right to ignore her complaint, then a blog-owner reprimands me, then I derogate the blog-owners reprimands me for violating the posting rules, then another blog-owner reprimands me and gives me a warning that I’m violating the posting rules,, then I agree not to do it again, but with no apology, then I do it again, then I’m not even given a warning, but merely requested to be polite to Jes, and thus am left perfectly free to go on repeating the offense.
All in all, we’ve got four months to go, and counting, to reach a parallel, and that’s assuming Jes is well-behaved, and I’m only treated equally.
Alternatively, she could simply apologize. Failing that, the posting rules could be enforced.
My personal preference would be for Jes not to be banned; for all her faults, she does often make a contribution. However, I can’t see having posting rules that have no consequences, and that can be repeatedly violated with no consequences.
Ball’s in Jes’s court. I’m not asking that she dance like a chicken, or humiliate herself, or anything unreasonable. I’m not even asking that she be banned for having violated multiple warnings, and her own word. I’m just asking for an apology for having violated multiple warnings, and her own word, and for having acted abusively towards me.
And only if she won’t take responsibility for her own actions do I ask that there be some enforcement of her having violated previous warnings. I only ask that the house rules be enforced. Nothing more.
(And let me further reiterate that I don’t blame Charles for his antipathy for Jes. But this is really ridiculous. What good is an apology if it’s only brokered under threat of reprimand?)
Oh, and re: “Charles, if it is a posting rules violation for using a person’s name in such a manner, we’d also have to ban Gary for his 3:12.”
There’s no “if.” It’s fact. Kindly don’t mislead people about them.
“What good is an apology if it’s only brokered under threat of reprimand?”
Pretty much nothing. But the only alternative is to seek Jes’ banning, and I’d prefer to avoid that. An apology is simply the equivalent of being made to stand in the corner for five minutes, and admit fault.
If anyone has a suggestion for some alternative appropriate — but real — punishment for repeated violation of the posting rules and one’s own word, I’m open to suggestions.
Well, for starters, a public reprimand from a (neutral) site administrator. Aside from Charles, none of the other main-pagers have commented on this (perhaps because they see it as a personal issue between you and Jes, although as you’ve pointed out, her offhand comment was technically a posting rules violation).
If anyone has a suggestion for some alternative appropriate — but real — punishment for repeated violation of the posting rules and one’s own word, I’m open to suggestions.
Shunning?
none of the other main-pagers have commented on this
I am supportive of Gary’s position, but I cannot be considered an objective observer in this case. I would prefer to have hilzoy or Katherine weigh in.
If anyone has a suggestion for some alternative appropriate — but real — punishment for repeated violation of the posting rules and one’s own word, I’m open to suggestions.
Well we’ve got a handy-dandy list right in Katherine’s post:
(1) induced hypothermia; (2) long periods of forced standing; (3) sleep deprivation; (4) the “attention grab” (the forceful seizing of a suspect’s shirt); (5) the “attention slap”; (6) the “belly slap”; and (7) sound and light manipulation.
I vote for (7) but it has to be a Pink Floyd concert.
If Charles did such a thing, probably you could reach that conclusion.
But Charles is saying that his support of McCain immunizes him. Now, Charles may not realize that McCain’s apparent position has changed, which would mean it is certainly unfair to claim that about Charles, but I specifically referred to McCain-Graham, so one could see this as an attempt at persuasion, though I’m not sure what consequences I could invoke.
As for the current heightening of the contradictions on posting violations, I’ve never thought “I hit him because he hit me” was a good operating principle, and that extends to “I hit him once because he hit me 5 times”, unless you are making spit lines in the back of a wood panelled Ford Station wagon.
But it is a quotation of Charles on posting rule violations, the appeal should be to Charles to have Jes banned. However, my impression is that there has been no formal statement on this, so I think your suggestion that I am being misleading is a bit off. Not that I am offended, as I think that you are just angry at Jes’ offhand remark that you are going after her hammer and tongs. I will reiterate my personal request that you both just drop it, though I won’t ask that you be banned if you refuse.
I vote for (7) but it has to be a Pink Floyd concert.
Aaaaagh.
Ok, no one deserves to be put through the indescribable agony of a Pink Floyd concert.
Have you no dignity, sir?!
Jes = Michael Smerconish???
If I’ve got my timezones right, it’s now past midnight in the UK, where Jes lives, IIRC. May I suggest a moratorium on demands that she repent or whatever at least until she wakes up and has had a chance at some coffee (or her morning beverage of choice – I don’t wish to presume too much)?
Have you no dignity, sir?!
I think you mean ‘decency.’
I believe that by my last comment – written before I had seen Jes’s last (naturally) – I am self-pwned.
That pretty much says it all.
Charles: First, she pledged that she would not speak to me or about me, but I guess it’s just too much ask for her to keep her word.
Yes, I did. But then, you commented to me (or possibly at me) so I figured that the truce was off.
Still, if I was wrong about that, I’m perfectly happy to go back to our mutually ignoring each other. So will everyone else be, I imagine.
As for the Gary thing – look, Gary is long-term pissed at me because, for a long, long time now in blogosphere terms, I’ve just been not responding to anything he says*, not even when he directly insults me or lies about me, both of which he’s done on occasion. If I get permanently banned for my “Farbering the thread” comment I think that would be overkill: if Charles Bird gets to ban me I think that would be ridiculous: if either Hilzoy or Andrew (or indeed any of the ObWing mods except for Charles) decide a temporary ban is in order, I’ll accept their judgement in good temper.
*For reasons which I actively prefer not to outline on ObWing, but will be happy to discuss in e-mail.
It’s actually 23:30 where I am, but Dr Ngo’s right: I’m off to bed, and will find out what the ObWing mods decided to do in the morning.
“her offhand comment was technically a posting rules violation”
It wasn’t an “offhand comment.”
That’s the key point. She’s been on a campaign for close to a year to turn my name into a derogatory verb. She’s more than clever enough to know precisely what she’s doing, and just how derogatory it is to associate someone’s name as a verb with a disreputable practice.
(And if it isn’t, why, then, no one should mind if many of us start frequently referring to “Jesurgislacing” as “translating what someone says into what I say it means” or “always taking the most hostile possible interpretation” or somesuch.)
She did it several times before I finally called her on it, and we went through the process I described above, and quoted the last few go-rounds of here (I’ll document the earlier stages if need be), in which it was pointed out to her that she was violating the posting rules by first Charles, which she disregarded, and then Hilzoy, which she didn’t, at which time she promised to never do it again.
Doing it again was no more an “offhand remark” than the first 6 or so times. Which is why I can’t let it pass. Nor do the rules have any meaning if all you get is warning after warning after warning, ad infinitum.
“Shunning?”
Wouldn’t work. But, really, why would saying “Gary, I shouldn’t have violated the posting rules by repeatedly using your name derogatorily; I know I said before that I wouldn’t do it again, but I really won’t this time, and I apologize to you for having done so” be so hard?
As I said, I’m not asking that Jes be unduly humiliated in any fashion, and I’m not even asking that the posting rules be strictly adhered to and that she should be banned; I’m simply asking for the most minimal acknowledgement from her to me that she wronged me.
I really don’t think that’s too much to ask.
But if it is, there’s always just living up to the posting rules, which is also hardly some unreasonable thing to ask be enforced. They don’t, to my knowledge, say “except for Jesurgislac, in regard to Gary, because he’s exceptionally annoying.”
Oops. Blame the flashback (damn you, Roger Waters.)
Which band, which music? Visit TiO to record your answers.
Sigh. This topic is more torturous than The Final Cut (maybe even The Division Bell).
BTW, if anyone wants to use my (pseudonymous) surname as a pejorative, have at it.
/grin
LJ: “As for the current heightening of the contradictions on posting violations, I’ve never thought ‘I hit him because he hit me’ was a good operating principle,”
Neither do I. I’ve been waiting days for some response, to no avail, despite my requesting such by e-mail.
“However, my impression is that there has been no formal statement on this, so I think your suggestion that I am being misleading is a bit off.”
Which part of this was informal?
“Not that I am offended, as I think that you are just angry at Jes’ offhand remark that you are going after her hammer and tongs.”
Jes said I was going after her hammer and tongs? I didn’t even notice, I’m afraid. In any case, saying I didn’t seek her being banned, even temporarily, is hardly “hammer and tongs.” More like with a pillow.
Jes: “As for the Gary thing – look, Gary is long-term pissed at me because, for a long, long time now in blogosphere terms, I’ve just been not responding to anything he says*”
On the contrary, I’ve been entirely happy with that. It leaves me free to respond to you, and I don’t have to get tangled up in tedious back & forth with you. Please, by all means, keep up that policy.
However, now you’ve called me a liar, which is another unsupported personal attack, and another violation of the posting rules. Oops.
“f I get permanently banned for my ‘Farbering the thread’ comment I think that would be overkill”
I agree. Thus my specifically saying that I didn’t want that, and that all I’ve asked for is a simple minimal apology and a repeat of your promise that you don’t do engage in the verbing again, but this time living up to it.
(And when I’ve discussed this in e-mail with blog owners, the worst alternative I proposed if you werent’ willing to make a simple apology was a short ban, say one month’s time — but I’d very much prefer that not to happen, as I do think, as I said, that you at least sometimes have useful things to contribute, and my only purpose is to attempt to encourage you to act honorably and decently, not to, in fact, punish you.)
“*For reasons which I actively prefer not to outline on ObWing, but will be happy to discuss in e-mail.”
Yes, indeed, far better to slander me behind my back, where I can’t reply, than to make your case where I can.
Well so much for humor, but since I guess it wasn’t funny in the first place, the serious points I was trying to make were:
1) That being funny/sarcastic about “the rest of the world” declaring war on W is not effective because a good portion of the rest of the world has already declared such a war, and very likely more will follow. (i.e. that your statement was ironic, but not, in fact, particularly absurd.)
2) That the aforementioned “war” is largely a consequence of the very policies at issue in this discussion, which are being rejected, both tacitly and explicitly, over a long period of time.
3) That said war may be just beginning, and it may not be quite so funny ten or twelve years hence when you really really really want it to stop.
Now the other part:
That was funny!
Have you no dignity, sir?!
Hey, if I went through one it can’t be too torturous.
Is “I’ve not been responding to anything he says” indicative of slander in the grass?
Anyway. Jes, if you’re not going to respond to him, it’s probably best not to comment about him. Esp. seeing the thread has really been somethinged now.
But then, you commented to me (or possibly at me) so I figured that the truce was off.
It’s not off, Jes, but nor am I unilaterally disarming. I have only responded when you’ve broken your word, usually after you’ve mischaracterized, lied, distorted or smeared, which has been all too disturbingly often. It’s unfortunate that you apparently don’t have sufficient character or self-restraint to live up to your own agreements. Really, if Monty Python’s too much to ask, try Evil Alien Conquerors or something else for crying out loud.
OT – well this is interesting:
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan says the United States threatened to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the 9/11 attacks if he did not help America’s war on terror.
Musharraf says the threat was delivered by Richard Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, to Musharraf’s intelligence director, the Pakistani leader told CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes”.
“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,’ ” Musharraf said in the interview to be shown Sunday on the CBS television network.
…
He is scheduled to meet on Friday at the White House with President Bush and then see Bush again next week in a three-way meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
Musharraf told “60 Minutes” that Armitage’s message was delivered with demands that he turn over Pakistan’s border posts and bases for the U.S. military to use in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some were “ludicrous,” such as a demand he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States.
I predict the President does not get asked about this by the press.
Gary,
I don’t want to drag everything and sundry, but I don’t think that Charles was or is able to unilaterally dictate what is or is not a posting violation, and I would prefer that you not try to draw him in on this, because it would just make matters worse. Of course, this is not a democracy, so if the other mods think that Jes should be banned, that’s their decision.
I should also clear up the assumption that you seem to make when you said “Jes said I was going after her hammer and tongs?” which might indicate that I have some inside info from Jes, which I don’t (which one can suggest has some relation to the implication that Jes is going to slander you via email). I just think this ‘she lied, she gave me her word, I’m just asking that the posting rule (that Charles seems to have made up on the fly) be enforced’ is hammer and tongs. Is the posting violation that jes said she wouldn’t? If that is the case, other people could use the verb ‘to Faber’ without violating the posting rules? Or is the use of someone’s surname as a verb the posting violation? In fact, as I pointed out on the old HoCB, the original comment made by Jes was, imo, an attempt to defuse the problem and should be viewed as such. Of course, my attempt to defuse things is taken by you as calling you a liar. I don’t believe that I have, and I’m not planning on it, even though you have misstated what I say.
I see that Charles has commented, and I think has misread the comments. Gary is arguing that Jes agreed not to mention him. I don’t recall a promise from jes to not talk to you, but if she did, and you feel that by violating that apparently sacred and holy oath, she deserved being sent beyond the pale, I would suggest that you post a discussion piece about why and then you and Jes and Gary could fight it out there and we could give it all the attention that it deserves.
OT – well this is interesting:
Er…yeah. I suppose it’s always been suspected the thumbscrews were applied, but how crude. Good lord.
And why is Musharraf coming out with this now?
Er…yeah. I suppose it’s always been suspected the thumbscrews were applied, but how crude. Good lord.
It’s the Yosemite Sam school of diplomacy at work.
I think a posting rule update is in order. IMHO, any personal beef between commentors should be either taken outside (barring tedium, of course) or to email.
This teapot tempest has garnered far too much attention (to the unfortunate detriment of other discussion threads) than it is worth (again, IMHO).
The 9/11 commission report has the following
Rice chaired a Principals Committee meeting on September 13 in the Situation Room to refine how the fight against al Qaeda would be conducted. The principals agreed that the overall message should be that anyone supporting al Qaeda would risk harm. The United States would need to integrate diplomacy, financial measures, intelligence, and military actions into an overarching strategy. The principals also focused on Pakistan and what it could do to turn the Taliban against al Qaeda. They concluded that if Pakistan decided not to help the United States, it too would be at risk.36
The same day, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi, and the visiting head of Pakistan’s military intelligence service, Mahmud Ahmed. Armitage said that the United States wanted Pakistan to take seven steps:
* to stop al Qaeda operatives at its border and end all logistical support for Bin Ladin;
* to give the United States blanket overflight and landing rights for all necessary military and intelligence operations;
* to provide territorial access to U.S. and allied military intelligence and other personnel to conduct operations against al Qaeda;
* to provide the United States with intelligence information;
* to continue to publicly condemn the terrorist acts;
* to cut off all shipments of fuel to the Taliban and stop recruits from going to Afghanistan; and, if the evidence implicated bin Ladin and al Qaeda and the Taliban continued to harbor them, to break relations with the Taliban government.37
Pakistan made its decision swiftly. That afternoon, Secretary of State Powell announced at the beginning of an NSC meeting that Pakistani President Musharraf had agreed to every U.S. request for support in the war on terrorism. The next day, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad confirmed that Musharraf and his top military commanders had agreed to all seven demands. “Pakistan will need full US support as it proceeds with us,” the embassy noted. “Musharraf said the GOP [government of Pakistan] was making substantial concessions in allowing use of its territory and that he would pay a domestic price. His standing in Pakistan was certain to suffer. To counterbalance that he needed to show that Pakistan was benefiting from his decisions.”38 bold mine
This kind of explains why Pakistan would like to mass produce plutonium.
Tim: I’d say it likely has more to do with regional concerns, although the protection of national sovereignty is always a consideration when it comes to nuclear proliferation.
Or it could be because Musharraf is actually STONE COLD CRAZY!!!1 < /divining future OSP reports if Pakistan goes off the GWOT reservation>
This is an interesting timeline of events that Musharraf was linked to that I found when I was trying to find the 9/11 report. Looks interesting, though one of the timeline titles makes me a little suspicious. However, it gives the newspapers where the items appeared, so it might help with further google searches.
I’d like to come back to a point about political parties.
I am registered as a Democrat, but I am deeply unsatisfied with the Democratic establishment’s responses to the Bush administration and what they do or don’t initiate on their own. And I can measure some degree of my displeasure in the support I provide to alternatives, starting with Dr. Dean’s fine leadership for the Democratic National Committee, candidates taking stances I approve of like Mr. Lamont in Connecticut, and independent organizations of various sorts. I vote for candidates who challenge what I regard as an unacceptably weak-willed collaboration with creeping (sometimes leaping) tyranny, and support groups helping them.
Beyond me as an individual, I can point you at gatherings for other such candidates and their supporters, people putting time, effort, and money into challenging the Democratic establishment as best they can. Sometimes they win, sometimes not, but there are people out there saying that a lot of us would like more responsible, more moral alternatives.
Where is anything like that on the Republican side?
Who is running against incumbents on a policy of firm opposition to torture and firm defense of the rule of law, and of law applied fairly and openly? Where are the Republican groups raising money for such candidates? Who are their representatives and spokesfolks and such?
I’m quite aware that there are many Republican individuals (and many conservative non-Republicans, ex-Republicans, lukewarm Republicans, and so forth) who aren’t in favor of torture and the other apparatus of tyranny. But what exactly are any of them doing to translate that sense of dissatisfaction into practical politics?
It has often been said of starry-eyed liberals (and libertarians, and others) that if you’re not willing to do the nitty-gritty work of practical politics, nobody else has any obligation to give a damn about your dreams. Well, now I say it to conservatives. If you’re as unhappy about this as the rest of us…show us what you’re doing about it. If you’re unable or unwilling to start working against the people who have the power to impose some change but are instead busily capitulating and compromise, how seriously do you expect the rest of us to take your feelings? I’m not talking about bloody revolution here, I’m just talking about using the normal apparatus of politics.
LJ, it is you who is misreading. As it pertains to Gary, I have only commented on Jes’s trying to turn “Farber” into a verb. I don’t have the power to ban, but you don’t have the power to dictate to me what is violation-worthy or not. I called it a posting rules violation, and it was an easy call to make because it’s a repeat offense. Both Hil and I called Jes on it the previous time, and Jes said wouldn’t do it anymore. Alas.
Jes’s agreement with me (the “truce”) is a separate deal.
On Musharraf, it looks to me like “Musharraf said, Armitage said”.
OK. Having read all this stuff, and since we have apparently decided to leave email behind and do this here:
I do not, myself, see the problem with using someone’s name as a verb. Thus, when Slarti (I think it was) once referred to “going all hilzoy” (meaning: giving a long, long reply, with subparagraphs and footnotes), I thought it was funny, and didn’t mind a bit. However, I’ve always felt that it’s not my views on this that matter, but the person whose name it is. Therefore, when Gary has asked, and when I have remembered, I have said so to Jes.
On this occasion, and contra Gary, I did respond. Gary found my response inadequate, as is his right. I, however, do not think that Jes’ use of his name comes close to ban-worthy.
I could be convinced otherwise, if I were convinced that Jes was, indeed, mounting a “campaign” to turn Gary’s name into a verb, as opposed to doing it several times because she forgets that he minds. I can easily imagine doing something like this myself — in my case, it would probably be because I used the person’s name that way in my head, not meaning anything particularly bad by it, and screwed up.
Personally, I am inclined to think that something like this is what happened, in part because turning Gary’s name into a derogatory verb on one website seems like a very peculiar object to mount a campaign for, especially when I reflect that this would have required Jes to have this end in view for a period of months without doing anything about it, biding her time until she could plausibly claim to have forgotten. This just seems like such a peculiar thing to go to so much trouble for.
If Jes has just forgotten, then it seems to me that reminding her is the right course. If she is mounting a campaign of some sort, then that’s different: it would be a kind of calculated spite that would be a lot worse than a mere mistake. I invite Gary, or anyone else, to email me or the other site people any evidence of such a campaign, since, as I’ve said, it would change my view of what’s going on here.
For what it’s worth, iirc, I thought the original violation (the one I agreed with Charles over) was using Gary’s name in a way he minded after he had said so, and, I now need to add, at a time when Jes had to have recalled that he had said so, since it was so recent. I do not, therefore, think that my response to the present instance (reminder) is inconsistent with my response to the last case (posting rules warning.) If Jes uses Gary’s name in the way he doesn’t like now, that would be comparable to then. This is not, because of the absence of any reason to assume she remembered the last time and deliberately set out to disregard Gary’s wishes.
I should also say that I do not, as a rule, search back through the site to discover what my previous reactions were, and whether I’m being consistent. My search capacities aren’t nearly good enough, for one thing. So if I’m inconsistent, that should come as no surprise; I’m happy to be informed of it, and to consider changing what I’ve said accordingly. In this case, however, not.
Since I have no clue what the original problem between Gary and Jes was, it’s perfectly possible that I’m missing some crucial bit of information. In that case, feel free to email. It’s also possible that the other site people will take a different view, in which case, as always, majority rules. This is just my take on it, for what it’s worth.
I do not, myself, see the problem with using someone’s name as a verb.
Just to pick at this, I think the problem is not with the words but the music. When Slart verbed “hilzoy”, it was done with a smile. Jes’s verbing of “Farber” seemed more like a snarl. Of course, that interpretation depends on a knowledge of the existing relationships between the two parties, so it would be a stretch to take any official action over this. Maybe the best we can do is encourage everyone to keep Mom’s advice closer to heart — if you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.
*a hush settles over the occupants of the back seats of the minivan*
kenB: “Just to pick at this, I think the problem is not with the words but the music.”
Nicely put. I had the same sort of sense in making a controversial comment about a comment on CB recently.
I should add that the whole notion of using names as verbs is something quite common in hilzoy’s field. Charles might want to check out the entry for the adjective ‘chomsky’.
Back on topic (I really hate to be the bearer of bad news):
More From Marty Lederman:
F*ck.
“Jes = Michael Smerconish???”
I strongly doubt it. I’ve been in the same room as Michael Smerconish, and my mental image of Jes is absolutely nothing like an mid 40-ish snarling white man with a shaved head.
BTW, Dantheman first caught wind of this here.
LJ-hee.
I have no comment at all on the posting rules aspect…I know I’ve been posting a fair bit, but consider me as a squatter, not one of the admin people.
I would just say, personally: I more than understand by being furious about what’s going on in Congress this week–believe me. I’m sure there are plenty of people as upset by it as I am, but not many who are more upset. But I think it’s often misdirected at the nearest convenient administration supporters (or, if not supporters, non-opposers, or insufficiently-passionate-opposers). It’s understandable, in a way: they’ll read what you write, whereas the people who really deserve it won’t. But from my point of view, it’s not fair, not useful, and really really frustrating to read.
Not that I’ve not done it myself, and lost my temper, by the way. I’ve done it too many times to count. It may be that the only reason I’m not doing it this time is that when you’re mad at the President, the cabinet, the press, and 90% of the House and Senate, there’s not a lot left over for posters here.
As far as the original topic:
please read this post by Marty Lederman. The “rebel Senators”, as doofy headline writers insist on calling them, have reached a “compromise.” It’s awful, awful, awful, awful. The Democrats should filibuster this–I don’t believe they will for a moment, but I think it is important that they be pressured to do so nevertheless.
As far as the specific techniques, it looks to me like it’s written to forbid waterboarding going forward, immunize past waterboarding from prosecution, and allow everything else going forward.
oops. cross posted.
Agreed about the music. And LJ: I didn’t know that that was online. It’s probably a lot funnier if you know who is being referred to; ‘Heidegger’ is presumably clear to most people, but the first name terms, like derek or bernard, are harder. And this:
“dreb(en), n. A function mapping the natural numbers onto the ineffable. Hence, dreb, v. to insist violently that something cannot be said, but to say it anyway. ”
is hysterical, but alas it’s about someone who published almost nothing, and is thus known mostly through legend. (He was still teaching when I was in grad school, though.)
Dantheman,
yeah, it’s just the mention of Pink Floyd drawing an aaaaagh from Jes that made me flash on it.
mb,
One of the key elements of kabuki is the pose, called a mie, to establish the character. In this case, McCain adopts the pose (which I’ve heard began because the actors were trying to get the audience to shut the hell up, an appropriate pose for McCain might be this one) and a member of the audience cries out the name of the character’s house (in McCain’s case ‘anti-torture!’) Also important to note that the kabuki makes no allowances to realism, and everything is just a simulation of reality. As was the case here.
Now, if those who invoke McCain as their get out of jail free card will realize this is the case, but I have a feeling they won’t. As the samurai say “itashigata ja nai” (there is nothing one can do about it)
hilzoy,
Agreed. I know the folks from the linguistics and, though I’ve only seen them from afar, some of them are get them dead to rights, so it’s fun to get a bit of insight into the philosphers I occasionally read and look behind their words.
It was, of course, meant with the utmost admiration.
If I were to invent a meaning for the verb “to Farber”, it too would be highly complementary, and would mean something like: to relentlessly rain down historical correctness and fairness of thought on a discussion until seeds of understanding sprouted up new growth of comprehension.
Or something less nauseatingly sweet than that. But something along those lines. And certainly, never without permission, and never, ever in the face of prior objection.
Oh, and odd that Armitage’s name should crop up in this conversation. I’ve been thinking about the whole frogmarching business of late, and Armitage’s name has come up in that context quite a lot, lately.
Via Digby: Tom Curry of MSNBC on the potential political fallout of the detainee compromise:
To quote Digby:
LJ: Why do the Dems (and the media allow Republican kabuki actors such as McCain and Graham to repeatedly ‘strike a pose’ as it were? This is the (not-so)anti-torture bill all over again.
Fool me once, etc.
Because the Democrats are afraid of their own shadow, and there is almost nothing they won’t agree to if Karl Rove says “psych” enough times?
Katherine: Yeah. And it really doesn’t help with optics when premature chicken-counting Dems say things like this (via Belgravia Dispatch):
Well, I hope Reid and co. are happy with the erasure. ‘Psych’, indeed. I think Digby (unfortunately) nailed it.
I need a drink.
Because they think that the republicans will self destruct and they won’t have to make the hard choices? That is how I interpreted Harry Reid’s comment about sitting back and watching the catfights. (though I like Reid and think he’s not a bad guy)
Slarti, could we say that the oblique mention of Armitage is an attempt to slarti the thread? Or can you present a fuller version of just what it is you are thinking about?
Sigh. Believe me, I find this probably more tedious and unpleasant than anyone. It’s not how I desire to spend my time. Nor do I delude myself that I gain respect points for going through this tedium.
But I feel I need to stand up for myself, I’m afraid.
LJ: you are not helping. You keep leaping in, misreading, misstating, and generally muddying the waters. I now have to again run through one of your statements, tediously correcting all the errors. This is not helpful. Please quit trying to help.
“Is the posting violation that jes said she wouldn’t?”
Jes has violated the posting rules several times in the course of this dreariness, including three different ways: the original usage, the repeat after the original go-round, then calling me a liar.
Recap: first, by repeatedly derogating me by attempting to establish that “Farbering” a post is, well, I won’t dignify her attempt by repeating it, but she’s numerous times tried to establish this derogatory usage through repetition.
Examples:
March 04, 2006 at 03:56 AM:
She succeeded in getting this picked up further down the thread by blogbudsman:
This sort of adoption was her goal. How do I know? Not through mindreading, but because one doesn’t engage in this form of behavior accidentally, nor out of good will. If she didn’t want to see her usage adopted, she wouldn’t keep using it, trying to sell her view of me to others. That is a campaign, by definition.
Note that if you use the term “farbered” in a friendly, non-derogatory way, which Belle Waring did here, I’m just fine with that. It’s not being verbed, it’s the attempt to establish my name and person as a derogation that is offensive, and I’d think that having someone use one’s name as a derogation, rather than a funny or a nice thing isn’t something that should be mysterious as to why it would be bothersome. The point is that one doesn’t engage in such usages if one isn’t trying to get other people to adopt them.
Anarch unfortunately picked upon on using “farbering” here, and I questioned that immediately below.
Then Jes renewed her campaign: May 04, 2006 at 12:26 PM:
Notice that I wasn’t even present in the thread prior to that, and in fact hadn’t posted to this blog for weeks before her comment, nor until sometime later, when I happened to spot it. That’s how gratuitious and uncalled-for this was.
I responded, explaining my complaint, here. Among the things I said were:
I was, of course, correct.
Regarding that comment, Charles then said:
Since he’s a moderator, that was an official declaration that she’d violated the posting rules.
Jes then objected here.
I responded here. Charles further responded here, and then Hilzoy here, saying:
Since Hilzoy said “I agree with Charles” and Charles said “this is a posting violation, Jes,” I naturally understood Hilzoy to be agreeing with Charles that this was a posting violation. “I agree with Charles” was unmodified, and the comment very short, so I don’t see that I misread it. Charles said it was a posting violation, Hilzoy said she agreed.
To finish off that sequence, Jes responded:
I hoped that would be the end of it.
Thus endth the recap of the original offense and its repetitions, including the nature of the posting violation, the fact that it was established and confirmed by two of the blog-owners, and that Jes gave her word that she would never do it again. Moreover, Jes acknowledged that Charles was right.
So there’s no debating any of that, so far as I can see. Those are the facts.. Established.
Then, of course, we come to September 18, 2006 at 04:14 AM and:
Now, if Jes had said, after being reminded of all this by me, with quotations of all of the above here, something like “oops, I forgot that I said I wouldn’t use your name as a verb; apologies,” than that would have been that.
But, of course, she hasn’t. And thus we’ve had this unbelievably tedious regurgitation, several times reiterated now, to the tremendous boredom and irritation of absolutely everyone, me perhaps most of all.
So: Jes violates posting rules, her violation is pointed out to her, she admits her guilt and promises not to do it again, and then does it again. I point it out, leaving it to her to apologize. She refuses, and we go round and round and round.
I’m afraid that I don’t view the fact that I don’t simply accept Jes’s right to violate the posting rules and derogate me as a case of me being unreasonable. There’s a perfectly simple and justified way for Jes to stop this tedium, and that’s to do what she already did once, which is note that she was wrong, behaved badly, and that she won’t do it again. I also ask for a simple “I’m sorry I broke my word and behaved badly towards you,” given that this is the second time round, and there should be some consequence for repeatedly knowingly violating the posting rules and being uncivil.
That’s it, that’s all, end of story.
Except that, of course, Jes then broke the posting rules again here by calling me a liar:
Last I looked, calling someone a “liar” was also a violation of the posting rules, although Jes has called so many people here a “liar” that it may be hard to remember that.
But I’m willing to just lump this in with the rest of Jes’ endless incivility, and otherwise let it go.
Then, to further muddy the waters, LJ, you say:
To the best of my memory and awareness I have not called you a “liar.” If you’d like to point out where I have, I’d welcome that. If not, please withdraw this claim.
As a side note, I think it might be helpful if people were a bit less quick both to accuse other people of being “liars” and to accuse other people of calling them liars, unless they, you know, actually say a variant of “and you are lying,” such as Jes did.
LJ muddies the water yet again with this bizarre claim, which I also have no idea where it comes from:
I have no idea what LJ is talking about.
Hilzoy: “I do not, myself, see the problem with using someone’s name as a verb.”
Have I explained sufficiently the difference between using someone’s name derogatorily and in a friendly manner?
If “farbered” means “wittily explaining with such a tremendous weight of citations and facts that his correctness is inarguable,” great. If someone tries to make it mean something nasty, not great. I assume you’d yourself be happy with a friendly use of “hilzoyed” to mean something flattering, but that you might not welcome it if someone with a vendetta against you went around using “hilzoyed” to mean something creepy and negative. Am I wrong?
If it’s not clear, while this practice could be said to violate other posting rules, as well, is there any argument that it violates this one?:
Here endth the tale, and can we please end the whole darned thing now? Please? (Meaning: could Jes please apologize to me and say she won’t violate the rules again, or if not, could the moderators please enforce the posting rules? Thanks, and I forgod’ssake hope I don’t have to say another word about this ever again.)
Slarti, could we say that the oblique mention of Armitage is an attempt to slarti the thread?
Nah, I just thought that someone more brilliant than I could manufacture some truly fractally complex conspiracy theory putting Armitage behind it all. In another thread, to be sure. Your place? I’ve misplaced the keys to mine.
LJ: Reid may be a nice guy and all, but this has to be the political fumble of the year, one that not only has potentially disasterous consequences for Democratic political fortunes come November, but also for the lives of ‘unlawful detainees’ currently held (in limbo) by the US. Now is the time for Democractic lawmakers to pick up the ball, suck it up and filibuster this bill (yeah, and a blue-ribbon pony, too.)
Picking up on what Slarti said (and yes, I’m putting on my Karnak turban): Armitage, no friend of Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc, will be the all-purpose sacrificial lamb for the (many) sins of the Bush admin. That’s what my (admittedly foggy) crystal ball says.
Work is almost over. Scotch is in my very near future (no need for a crystal ball to make that prediction.)
Work is almost over.
Sadly, I’m back at it after going home for dinner and a shower.
Oh, and Gary? I agree with your account completely. And I agree that Jesurgislac has baited you (among others) inexcusably, and that she owes you an apology. And I don’t blame you for not being willing to pretend that she’s not doing it.
I’ll drink a (bitter) toast to you, Ugh.
😉
“I need a drink”
yep.
I’m hugely disappointed in Durbin, who is my Senator and who I had really trusted until I read the “Dems sitting this one out” AP story today. He lost his nerve with the Guantanamo fiasco last summer.
And Reid, who I count on less as a moral force but do think of as a wily strategist, blew this one on all counts. “Cat fight”? Apart from being inaccurate in a completely foreseeable way, that’s just offensive. I try not to be TOO humorless, but people’s lives are at stake.
Prediction: They’re not going to filibuster. And a large number of them, including almost everyone in a contested race, will vote for it. And then they won’t take back the House or the Senate anyway.
I think the discussion about the torture agreement deserves attention, so Gary, Jes (when she wakes up), whoever else, I’ve given you a thread to play with. Knock yerselves out (he says hopefully)
FWIW Gary, this post doesn’t really make a compelling case against the use of your name as a verb.
I’m curious precisely what options the dems have. Filibuster, of course, is it possible to make sure there is no quorum? What about the rule 21 call that was done previously? Here in Japan, about 10 or so years ago, the opposition did something called ‘the elephant walk’ because they were required to put voting slips in a box at the front, so they basically took a long long time. It got on the news, but the LDP still got their bill, so I’m not recommending that as an option, but I’d be interested to know precisely what the Dems _could_ do.
The Democrats cannot deprive either house of a quorum. I don’t see that having a closed session does anyone any good. There’s no way to vote slowly — a recorded vote typically has a time limit, and if you don’t vote during the time, then you don’t vote. Filibuster is about it, and I think the odds for that aren’t so good.
Still, it’s not over til it’s over. (And even then, we’ll be litigating over whether it’s a Suspension. Citing pp 16 and 17 of Justice Scalia’s Hamdan opinion, most likely).
“a member of the audience cries out the name of the character’s house (in McCain’s case ‘anti-torture!’)”
lj, what does “house” mean here – or why is that the word?
CC, what’s a suspension?
Actors (like a lot of guilds in Japan) get names handed down to them, so even if they aren’t related, they get a “house” name in addition to their stage name. (guild name might be closer, but it would be as if one profession had 5 or 6 guilds and you had to belong to one) The name is supposed to link that person to the tradition they are in. Probably straining too much for a laugh there.
In this case, a violation of Article I section 9: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
In Hamdan, Justice Scalia looked at whether last years DTA would be a Suspension, and said he thought it wouldn’t be. As applied to Salim Hamdan, who’s situation was different from 95% of prisoners in exactly the key way:
Followed this from TiO and thought it worth mentioning that I don’t let kids in my class call things “Gay” in a derogatory way. The fact that they call things “blinging”, “krunk”, etc. and mean good things by it does not mitigate the fact that here it is meant derogatively.
Even if the Democrats can’t stop this tragedy from happening, I’d like to see them try, and to do so as publicly as possible. *sigh*
But at least there are Democratic challengers willing to speak in favor of the rule of law and justice. Where are the Republican challengers doing the same?
This thread is way more interesting than the U.S. federal income tax consequences of sales of Partnership interests, just so’s ya’ knows.
Ta for the answers.
Tick, tick, tick:
The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders for a major “strike group” of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran’s western coast.
Ugh: the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders
Oh [expletive deleted].
You may want to glance up the thread, Jes. TiO is open as well.
So, seriously, how many truck bombs can we expect to go off in the US within three weeks of an attack on Iran? And how many in Europe and the rest of the world? And how many of the self-employed fluffers over at Redstate will be cheering the Administration’s insanity on? And see Billmon for more happy thoughts.
lj: You may want to glance up the thread, Jes.
I did.
Now I’m contemplating whether I get up at 6am tomorrow morning to get on a coach to Manchester to take part in a demo, and this news in the Nation that Ugh just linked to suggests that I probably should. It won’t stop Bush taking the US to war with Iran, but we might just keep the UK out of the US’s crap this time.
And in the meantime, I’m sure someone from the ObWing mod team will let me know if they intend to ban me (temporarily or permanently) for not responding to Gary Farber. Or if they don’t let me know, I’ll find out next time I try to comment here.
Good effin’ lord working all night sucks. Only 10 hours to go.
Well, it’s pretty clear that nothing resembling an apology will be forthcoming anytime soon. What now?
Toga party.
How about those Mets?
President Bush was in Orlando last night, apparently. Traffic was hosed for hours.
And he endorsed Katherine Harris! Perfect!
Oh…here‘s a morsel of goodness, for those who have craving:
“How about those Mets?”
With a perfectly good 3 way race for 2 spots going on, you want to talk about a team that’s already clinched a playoff spot? Let’s at least talk about something with some drama.
Slarti, great news. The post just before that is also worth a look.
Jes: for what it’s worth, I was just responding to the Gary’s name question above. Calling him a liar, absent proof, is a violation of the posting rules.
Well, it’s pretty clear that nothing resembling an apology will be forthcoming anytime soon. What now?
This is moving well beyond tedious at warp factor 9. What’s more, I didn’t ask to be in this pitiful excuse of a thread to begin with (which, BTW, I hold Gary wholly blameless). Since it is evident that no apology will be forthcoming from Jes for for two clear posting rules, I recommend banning and I recommend a sentence of at least a month. The rules don’t mean a damn thing if a commenter can just waltz in and unrepentantly continue to break them whenever the feeling strikes.
What’s more, I didn’t ask to be in this pitiful excuse of a thread to begin with
This is not a snarky question, but Charles, whose fault is it that you got pulled in?
Well, I think the fault lies squarely here. That’s if you haven’t been paying attention, LJ. If you have, well, I don’t know what to say.
Now, if y’all will excuse me, I’m going to go clean the garage. Which has some resonance with the current conversation, but I suspect my day will be a great deal more satisfying for my activities than, for instance, sticking around and re-re-re-explaining just what went wrong, and who it was that steered it in that direction.
Oh, and I really will be cleaning my garage; I wasn’t just making that up for effect.
That effect thing; I’m just no damned good at it.
Charles, you might want to point out where exactly in that comment Jes mentions you or even Gary. And the cracks about not paying attention are just things that increase the temp, making everyone angrier. Why do it unless you are trying to provoke?
And the cracks about not paying attention are just things that increase the temp, making everyone angrier. Why do it unless you are trying to provoke?
If you don’t want to make anyone angrier, LJ, it would help if you addressed your comment to the right person. I didn’t say anything to you about not paying attention. But I do share what I’m guessing are both Gary’s and Slarti’s sentiments, that you’re being less than helpful here.
I didn’t step into this thread until after Gary e-mailed the editors, asking for redress. The only reason I came in here was for administrative reasons, but then I found that dm unceremoniously called me out. As far as I’m concerned, every minute in this thread, dealing with this crap, is a minute fully and completely wasted.
That’s if you haven’t been paying attention, LJ. If you have, well, I don’t know what to say.
Yeah, no implication, no snarkiness. None at all. Couldn’t imagine what I was thinking. Knock yerself out Charles, this thread and you deserve each other.
Um, that was me, LJ.
I mean: Charles and I are distinct individuals, no?
I mean: Charles and I are distinct individuals, no?
Hmm, now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen both of you at the same place at the same time…
Hmmm…neither have I. It could be just an elaborate ruse just to keep y’all off-balance.
Then again, hilzoy knows what IPs we post from, and I’d bet Charles and I resolved to different parts of the country. Although I confess I don’t know for sure.
In other news, apparently torture does work, sometimes. As if that were ever the entirety of the point.
I know I said I was cleaning the garage, but I’m now lunching on smoked chicken and Dunedin Beach Tale Brown Ale (for carbs, y’know).
Aw, crap.
The lost part of the above was:
Apparently torture does work, sometimes, although “doesn’t work” isn’t anywhere near the entirety of the point.
Apparently torture does work, sometimes,
How does that old saying go? You can torture some of the people all of the time, and torture all of the people some of the time, but you can’t torture all of the people all of the time, unless it’s Michael Jackson at the Superbowl Halftime Show.
Are you insinuating anything at all about the famed “wardrobe malfunction”, in relation to MJ’s possibly-manifold bent?
I don’t think so, though, I’m not thinking too clearly. I was mostly thinking of his show when he was launched out of the floor of the stage (after several other “MJs” were launched out of other stages) and then stood there motionless for like a half hour. Pure torture. Not as bad as Howard the Duck though.
Oh, gawd, you would have to bring that up.
Howard put the kibosh on any Leah Thompson fantasies I might have (not saying I did, mind you) had.
Howard put the kibosh on any Leah Thompson fantasies I might have (not saying I did, mind you) had.
Jesus that’s right she was in that. And wasn’t there a scene where she pulled condomn out of his wallet? Blyeah.
“Howard put the kibosh on any Leah Thompson fantasies I might have (not saying I did, mind you) had.”
“Jesus that’s right she was in that. And wasn’t there a scene where she pulled condomn out of his wallet? Blyeah.”
Don’t I have enough nightmares what with the political scene without you two adding to it? It’s like Laurel & Hardy except you want us to vomit instead of laugh.