The Truth Usually Outs
Jonah Goldberg wonders whether the fallout from the torture memos “merely proves such methods should be kept secret, not that they shouldn’t be used.”
This presumes that it is possible for a modern democracy to keep extremely controversial policies secret for many years, across multiple administrations. Not likely! In fact, even the unusually secretive Bush Administration failed to keep most of its interrogation practices secret — damaging information outed prior to the end of its tenure. So for the sake of argument, say the policies they pursued were advantageous only if never revealed, and disadvantageous otherwise. It remains the fact that pursuing them was wrongheaded, because a halfway competent strategist would have anticipated that of course they couldn’t be kept secret indefinitely.
If it were possible to keep it secret forever would you agree with Jonah?
— Steve C · Apr 23, 01:15 AM · #
Conor, completely off topic: Did you heart talk of the nation today? A story about an up and coming local blog in SD that just broke a pretty good local political corruption case; plus this and that about how they (try to) keep the publishing side from influencing the editorial side. I’m sure it must by on the NPR website if you missed it.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 23, 01:35 AM · #
No, Steve, I wouldn’t. Why you’re unable to absorb the plain fact that I oppose torture is beyond me.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 23, 02:07 AM · #
I just want to chime in to say you’ve been hitting the ball out of the park with each of these torture posts, Conor.
Brilliantly put, and I absolutely agree with you.
— PEG · Apr 23, 05:26 AM · #
I’ve basically understood that separation of powers to be the key check on government. When the Bush administration dreams up some nutbag surveillance program I don’t like it because, well, I don’t like it — but I hate it slightly less if I feel like they’re disclosing everything to the House and Senate intelligence committees and it’s all subect to jusicial oversight by e.g. the FISA court: if all those parties agree something secret needs to be done, it’s done, and that’s how representative democracy is supposed to work. I accept wholeheartedly that the government keeps some secrets from the American people and, contra Friedersdorf, sometimes keeps them secret for a long, long time or at least past much of their sting.
What happened with torture is that it is so viscerally repugnant to much of (most of?) the American people that there’s just no way that the administration, the Congress, and the courts will all let it fly if it’s out in the open between them, but still “secret.” So what Goldberg’s talking about with “secret” isn’t simply secrecy from the American people, which is what Friedersdorf is talking about. It’s the Cheney concept that a handful of practitioners in the White House — wise, knowledgeable men who know better — should seize power to keep this kind of thing from getting whispered to Congress or the courts.
And Goldberg’s worried about what again — fascism?
— Sanjay · Apr 23, 02:34 PM · #
The funny thing is, the argument should really stop a few paces ahead of this – prior to any argument over efficacy, certainly, since consensus on torture’s efficacy was reached decades ago; prior to any discussion of whether the memos should or should not have been released (as this often hinges on efficacy – or as Rove mentioned, now all these tactics are useless!) – the discussion should travel as far as the moral question of whether or not it is right for the United States to use torture on its prisoners. Effectiveness be damned. So I almost hate to even take the argument as far as you have – though I agree with you – because on some level it acknowledges Goldberg’s bullshit argument, even though it then undermines it…
— E.D. Kain · Apr 23, 02:46 PM · #
I think we need to step back a bit and nail down some fundamentals. First, there are no ultimate oughts; the universe doesn’t care about torture. All we have are the proximate oughts of goal-directed behavior. No God’s will, no eternal forms, no supernatural indefinables, no moral ESP. You want to talk about those, have at it, Euthyphro. Follow your bliss. Declaim from a sinking ship. It’s not my concern.
What is my concern is precision, and I see none in these arguments. Torture is “intrinsically evil”? Eureka! — what an epiphanic mind you must have. Torture is wrong? — you don’t know what ‘wrong’ means.
But don’t fret too much, emo-intuitionists and theological narcissists. Most people think like you do, and that makes all the difference (right Jim?).
On the other side are the utilitarian balancers and justifiers, and they’re not exactly tearing it up with tremendous insight. The value of torture is pin-point information; the cost of torture is long-term reputation. The cost hovers around zero so long as the torture remains secret, and then jumps to 11 as soon as it goes public. And it will eventually go public; in our society the incentives all point toward publishing.
Reputation underwrites legitimacy. Legitimacy, an emergent socio-psychological phenomenon, is the critical determiner of a successful state. If you want to talk about existential dangers, talk about that. We cannot afford to get into a situation where our government loses legitimacy, or where foreign governments lose their legitimacy by cooperating with us. Down that path lies the great unraveling, which, you know, should concern us a bit.
— Sargent · Apr 23, 02:54 PM · #
But they’ve kept the true story about who really perpetrated 9/11 suppressed successfully haven’t they?
— BrianF · Apr 23, 08:10 PM · #
Thus, why civil libertarians consider it an important and beneficial quality that democracies cannot keep long secrets, and are continually pushing for transparency in governance.
— Russell · Apr 23, 09:48 PM · #
who the fuck is Sargent?
“Reputation underwrites legitimacy. Legitimacy, an emergent socio-psychological phenomenon, is the critical determiner of a successful state.”
thanks for your insight, jackass.
— raft · Apr 23, 11:42 PM · #
That’s some high-falutin’ po-mo claptrap there, sargent.
— John · Apr 23, 11:56 PM · #
Sargent said “The value of torture is pin-point information.”
Actually, pin-point information is tossed out the window when you torture. That’s the problem with the efficacy of torture, outside of any legal or moral framework.
People being tortured will and do say anything that they believe will stop the torture. Some of that stuff is likely true. A vast majority is probably false. That is because the torture victim is saying what they believe the torturer wants to hear to MAKE THE TORTURE STOP.
So, under torture, you or I or anyone would eventually confess to 9/11, personally handing WMDs to Saddam, being Bin Laden’s gay lover, ANYTHING that you think will stop the torture. “Truth” and “Fact” doesn’t even enter into the equation.
This leads to bad intelligence and chasing down blind alleys. It is an enormous waste of time, as legitimate interrogation techniques done by professionals are incredibly effective. Hell, even the Nazis knew this. They had not issues with morality, yet they did not torture prisoners who had valuable information. They INTERROGATED them.
Torture does not, and has never provided reliable, actionable information. What it DOES provide is false confessions and whatever “information” the torturer wants to hear, whether it is true or not.
Torture belongs to sadists and madmen. Using it to get information is like going grocery shopping with a flame thrower.
— Skipskatte · Apr 24, 12:20 AM · #
Why does Goldberg assume that the Bush administration wanted to keep torture secret from the rest of the world? Given the way in which Bush’s folks employed torture, it’s hard to see that they used it to get intelligence. Rather, given the we-don’t-torture-wink-wink-nudge-nudge nature of the administration’s “denials” — see Cheney’s 2001 bragging about going to the “dark side” — I suggest that the primary purpose of torture is to show that we will act without restraint. “Suck on this,” as Friedman said in a slightly different context.
Cheney et. al. probably knew that if they were totally straightforward about their torture policies, Americans might not like them (although a sizable minority, especially Bush’s “base,” relished torture) so we’re who the secrecy was for. I live in the Detroit area — across a river from Canada. The CBC is a local TV station for us. Canadians have been aware that Americans practiced torture since 2002. Bush’s torture policies may have been national secrets, but they haven’t been international ones.
— cejaxon · Apr 24, 12:33 AM · #
Someone just tell Jonah that Obama actually loves to torture people, but he’s just keeping a secret. Then everything should be cool, right?
— Nylund · Apr 24, 01:24 AM · #
Can we keep Jonah secret? I wouldn’t want to embarrass America. Meanwhile, let’s just keep torturing mentally ill terrorists until they confess to phony plots so our law enforcement agencies can run around pointlessly, as well as trying to drum up information on Saddam/Osama/Sauron connections via waterboarding so Cheney can look better.
— Drew · Apr 24, 05:17 AM · #
And if you want to keep it secret forever, what do you do with the people you torture ?
Yeah.
— Damien B · Apr 24, 05:31 AM · #
Skipskatte, I’m with you until the grocery shopping/flamethrower thing, which I’m still trying to figure out.
— Sanjay · Apr 24, 12:23 PM · #