The Pro-Torture Right
Though I’ve got my disagreements with them, I’ve got a lot of respect for Roger Simon and Glenn Reynolds, so I’ve got to hope that they didn’t have anything to do with this disgusting, simple-minded defense of torture now playing at Pajamas TV.
And how disturbing that it assumes that only liberals would be anti-torture, and thus require persuading (a particularly weird assumption when, last I checked, Professor Reynolds himself is avowedly anti-torture).
Conor:
Just out of curiosity, since we’re talking about moral outrage, please put this in perspective for us:
We have waterboarded exactly three of the worst human beings on earth. No physical harm actually came to the recipients. They just thought it would. By all accounts, this “torture” worked. We got serious information that prevented further loss of life. Again, that’s THREE of the worst human beings on earth.
And you are outraged about it. You are so outraged, that every time you really want to convince us how outrageous the previous administration was, you tell us what a bunch of torturers they were.
Well, OK. I’m not particularly outraged by it. You are. I’m assuming that’s because you have searched your soul and have found that under no circumstances would you do it. YOU would not participate in it. I’m also assuming then, that’s because you have a much more stringent moral code than me. Your moral standards are higher than those of us who “support torture.” (I reject that characterization, BTW)
In view of the fact, then, that we have waterboarded exactly THREE of the world’s worst, no physical damage occurred, and we saved many lives because of it, AND YOU ARE STILL DEMONIZING THOSE OF US WHO AREN’T OUTRAGED, I must suppose that you are outraged, beyond human comprehension, by the slaughter of 1.5 million babies every year.
Proportionality. Ever heard of it?
— jd · Oct 2, 11:48 AM · #
Here’s the thing. Even if non-invasive torture techniques like waterboarding are useful in the moment, we simply cannot allow torture to be held out as an official policy of the United States government. It must be our public position that torture is illegal and wrong. There is no getting around it: if we are to successfully stand for freedom and decency, saying ‘no’ to officially sanctioned physical violations of the body is simply a pragmatic imperative of the universe.
So you’re left with a reality where torture might be useful, but we cannot openly use it, and we cannot be seen to endorse it. Which, if you still think torture should be done, means you have two options only: 1) an ‘exigent circumstances’ mechanism akin to torture warrants but much much rarer and much harder to get, where, for example, the President using his war powers personally approves each and every instance and technique, hopefully subject to Congressional oversight; or 2) you argue that torture should be done but unofficially, which, if it were my position, would lead this limited government chap into some pretty dark territory of Pandoran angst and cognitive dissonance.
Actually, you probably only have number 2, since number one still has the publicity problem that I mentioned above.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 2, 01:30 PM · #
Reynolds: ugh. I used to be a daily Insta reader back when political blogs were all shiny and new and fun. I stopped for good in part because I got sick of posts — a lot of them — that were just “Heh.” or “Indeed.” and a link. Granted computer speeds are better now and tabbed browsers are all over but it’s still a pain.
But when you say he’s “avowedly anti-torture” — that’s the main reason I stopped reading the guy. Yeah, he avows that. He puts up mildly anti-torture shtick. And then he quite often links to (or at least used to link to) strong defenses of torture or other wonderful nastiness with those “Heh.” or “Indeed.” posts. Good guys like Greg Djerejian called him out on it and he played dumb. It was a wormlike way to have it both ways and still pretend not to be a Neanderthal. So what you’re describing is pretty much in character for ol’ Glenn.
— Sanjay · Oct 2, 01:52 PM · #
I took Reynolds for Con-Law. His teaching is as glib as his politics.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 2, 02:00 PM · #
Lectures must’ve been refreshingly brief.
— Sanjay · Oct 2, 02:11 PM · #
Why do you have respect for Glen Reynolds?
— Steve C · Oct 2, 02:43 PM · #
Kristofer:
I’m good with your analysis. I think most of us “pro-torture” types are probably in your camp. We are not pro-torture. We don’t want the US to stand by and for torture. We are against torture, but we wouldn’t hesitate to use it if it could prevent something horrible. I think many of the most vocal torture scolds are not being honest with themselves.
The problem is that we have been forced to defend something we didn’t really want to. I’m reasonably certain that Bill Clinton would have done the same thing as Bush and Cheney. In fact, Clinton did extraordinary rendition, which subjects prisoners to real torture. But where was the outrage when Clinton did it? Barack Obama has upheld almost all those horrible Bush policies that he promised to abolish. Is it a stretch to think he would have done the same as Bush and Cheney? Well, it’s too late to know. The moral outrage machine found something with which to beat up Bush and Cheney. So Obama can’t use it. (Though as little as he knows about the people surrounding him, maybe ACORN is doing it surreptitiously.) No way in hell Obama gets the same moral outrage had we found out he waterboarded KSM.
It’s actually much like my stance against abortion—only to be used in the most extreme circumstances. That would eliminate almost all of them, making abortion truly safe, legal and rare.
— jd · Oct 2, 04:42 PM · #
jd, that doesn’t hold. It would if Cheney weren’t going ‘round telling us what he’s telling us, it would if Rumsfeld didn’t pooh-pooh the whole thing, it would if some officers (at least) had gotten nailed for Abu Ghraib, it would if you didn’t have a flurry of legal activity in the White House trying to expand and change what as permissible, it would if you didn’t have commentary like you did from e.g. Michel “cry me a river” Goldfarb. But (and granted I don’t even like the KVS position) what the Republicans were defending was not the KVS position. It was the adoption of torture as a broadly applicable technique to be embraced at need by our intelligence services, with certain government personnel, e.g. SERE trainers, in charge of implementing it, and with unquestioning assumption of its usefulness.
— Sanjay · Oct 2, 05:08 PM · #
JD,
What on earth makes you think that torture was confined to three people who weren’t hurt? You are factually mistaken. Waterboarding isn’t the only kind of torture we used. To cite one other example, how about the guy who suffocated and died when handcuffed in a stress position with his hands over a ceiling pipe and left there for hours on end?
— Conor Friedersdorf · Oct 2, 06:13 PM · #
Three people? ~100 detainees have died in custody. Many people have been tortured. This “it’s only the worst of the worst” business is bullshit. They rounded up tons of people, many of whom were innocent, and tortured the shit out of them. “They” being the government of the United States of America, which, even after an election, doesn’t have the balls/decency to come clean, and probably won’t for the foreseable future. Maybe there will be an apology issued in 2045…
— Rob in CT · Oct 2, 07:18 PM · #
Part of the sickness of the torture “debate” – aside from the fact that there’s any debate about it – is that torture’s defenders are allowed to promulgate these falsehoods without challenge.
JD, you’re a monster and a liar. You know that it hasn’t just been “three of the worst human beings on Earth.” You know it hasn’t just been waterboarding. You know that, in fact, that over a hundred human beings have died in American custody as a result of torture, that many of these people had no discernible ties to terrorism (hence the need for torture!).
You know these things because I told you, last time. If you don’t know them, you’re not qualified or sufficiently informed to talk about torture. There’s no “just waterboarding three of the worst human beings on Earth.” In the words of American interrogators:
We’re torturing innocent people, so that they’ll falsely incriminate themselves and justify their detention. Monstrous, and anyone who defends it is a monster. Like you, JD.
— Chet · Oct 2, 08:45 PM · #
JD, let’s say we agree. Personally it’s hard to get excited about some arch-terrorist getting the business. It was either that or a MOAB in the face, you know? — and we were motivated by national security, not (strictly) revenge. Not a problem, I say. I hear it on the news, shrug, pour a beer and try to talk my girlfriend into having sex with me or whomever.
But then American Torture™ becomes an issue. It goes viral first, then bam, it’s bigtime news. The nation — no, the world — watches as the shining city debates whether it should say no to torture once and for all, and maybe even prosecute some dudes, or whether it should double down and endorse torture as a legitimate technique.
Once it gets there, there is no longer any gray shelter. The decision is strictly binary, yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down: will torture be sanctioned, taught, used and abused by agents of the American government; or will torture be shunned as indecent, outlawed, investigated and prosecuted if and when happens?
In the inner sanctum, you can talk openly about les mains sales and the moral price of power. However, once you pass the propylaea and enter the square, even Machiavelli will warn you about the primacy of appearances. The upshot: America must not cannot stand for torture. The survival of our cherished principles depends on it.
That’s as pragmatic as it gets.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 2, 08:51 PM · #
Well, no, stupid. It’s either torture, or a MOAB in the face, or human intelligence techniques that actually work, provide better information than torture, don’t endanger our troops in the field, don’t make our leaders war criminals and the rest of us morally complicit, and doesn’t poisonously erode our hard-earned reputation for legal and aboveboard dealings even during wartime.
That’s the choice. The idea that the only people we ever tortured are “arch-terrorists” is one of the outright falsehoods that torture’s defenders rely upon but are never called out on. The idea that torture could even work is contradicted not only by eons of history of torturers but by the latest neuroscience, as well. Torture-stress shuts down the portions of the brain involved in memory and truth-telling.
— Chet · Oct 2, 09:07 PM · #
I don’t know, Chet. Cauterize my colon with a hot poker and I’ll tell you where the diamonds are.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 2, 09:10 PM · #
Weird, another disappearing post.
If I cauterize your colon you won’t be able to remember where the diamonds are. That kind of stress deactivates the portions of the brain associated with truthful memory recollection. Sure, you’ll tell me something – the portions of the brain associated with fabrication are not similarly affected – but it’s not likely to be the truth.
On the other hand, traditional, time-tested techniques to turn captives, which is so easy to do that we have a famous term for captives who were turned entirely unintentionally, don’t shut down the portions of the brain involved in memory. Plus, if I made a mistake and you don’t have anything at all to do with diamonds, I’m going to find that out – not head out on a wild goose chase because you told me whatever you needed to say to get the pain to stop.
The central conceit of the torturer is that the tortured tell the truth because, under that much stress, it’s too hard to lie. The actual neurological truth is the exact opposite – under conditions of torture it’s much easier for the brain to fabulate than to accurately recollect.
— Chet · Oct 2, 10:06 PM · #
You don’t ask the questions during torture. You ask if they are ready to answer questions.
The real questions come after they catch their breath and dry their eyes, while the threat of another round hangs heavy in the air. The mind can be as clear as you please, then.
What, you’ve never tortured someone? Fag.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 2, 10:39 PM · #
No, it’s not. Again, KVS, there’s a substantial amount of neurological research on this subject. Why don’t you avail yourself of it instead of sounding like an ignoramus?
— Chet · Oct 2, 10:56 PM · #
Conor wrote:
I’m not defending anything like that. I don’t know that anyone connected with Bush and Cheney is defending anything like that. What can I say? If it happened that way it’s a horrible thing and the perps should be punished.
It’s a little surprising that more hasn’t been made of it, if it’s true. Why is that, do you suppose?
— jd · Oct 3, 02:06 AM · #
So are you outraged now, jd? Are you outraged by those who aren’t outraged?
— tgb1000 · Oct 3, 02:32 AM · #
No, of course not. Where’s your sense of “proportionality”? Hundreds have already died, of course, but who cares? Jd thinks anyone the military picks up must be among the “worst human beings on Earth.”
— Chet · Oct 3, 03:01 AM · #
JD,
Why hasn’t more been made of it? I don’t know. It’s been written about in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Andrew Sullivan’s blog — and I’m just naming the outlets where I recall seeing it. Jane Kramer included it in her book The Dark Side.
And the people who write about it are usually some mix of incredulous and outraged. So are many readers, but other readers react to the outrage in a peculiar fashion. They write things like, “you are outraged about it. You are so outraged, that every time you really want to convince us how outrageous the previous administration was, you tell us what a bunch of torturers they were. Well, OK. I’m not particularly outraged by it.”
You’re better equipped than I am to explain why you don’t know about these cases. I don’t mean to be entirely hard on you — I am sure there are outrageous things that someone is harping on that I gloss over for whatever reason. But the torture perpetrated during the tenure of the Bush Administration is well documented, and I can’t believe that anyone who made a good faith effort to read up on it wouldn’t be outraged.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Oct 3, 05:07 AM · #
Um, Mayer, Friedersdorf. OK otherwise, but, Mayer.
— Sanjay · Oct 3, 01:51 PM · #
There is no documentation to suggest that “hanging someone for hours” was policy. I’m certainly not defending it, and I don’t really think most “pro-torture” people are.
I could see myself saying that, because there is no documentation to suggest that “hanging” was policy. As I said before, most of the outrage was simply a way to beat up on Bush. The usual suspects were and are complicit in drumming up moral outrage. The Press’ outrage is almost always one-sided. Again, where was the outrage when Clinton did it? Nowhere to be found.
I guess you and Andrew and Timenewseeknbccbscnnmsnbc is enough outrage for me. I’m satisfied.
I think the biggest question is why hasn’t this gone further? I think there is truly fear that not only will we find out things we don’t want to know, but also that we will do tremendous harm to our ability to fight terrorists (the irresponsibility of the NYTimes notwithstanding). Because like it or not, the biggest weapon we have against terror is not war, it’s not “homeland security”, it’s human intelligence: spies, dirty tricks, dealing with bad people…getting information. The people we’re fighting against are truly the worst enemies we’ve ever had. We are almost entirely at their mercy—they have none—against their weapon of choice. That’s why it took us 20 years and thousands dead before we fought back.
By chance, are you referring to 1.5 million abortions—per year?
Sanjay wrote:
Do you have proof for that? Find a Republican in a position of authority and responsibility defending “torture.”
— jd · Oct 3, 02:03 PM · #
Chet, shit, you’re ability to score own goals never ceases to amaze me. Granted, listening to you say “neurological research” is like watching a poodle dance, so there’s entertainment value there, but, are you seriously getting all up in KVS’s grill because he’s nicely pounding a good strong spike in jd’s coffin, instead of haphazardly beating at every nail he sees? Is there any intelligent reason to do that?
On top of which I’m more comfortable with his argument than yours. For one thing, I’m not really sure that if you try hard enough and with enough monitoring you can’t figure out how to extract good information from torture (and I’ve talked to a lot of folks who’ve done SERE, fwiw.) [sighs, knowing Chet sees this as an invitation to try to talk math/science again: Chet — go entertain yourself with Dawkins saying in the latest Newsweek that one can both know eveolutionary theory and believe in God. Yep, one of us reads him wrong.] But for another — and this is something the “torture isn’t giving you good information” crowd misses — torture isn’t always used to get information. For example it has been used to so brutalize and break a prisoner that you can return him home (say in a prisoner swap) and not worry about him: an “elegant solution” to some, I’d imagine, for Guantanamo. Or perhaps it selects for (God help me, rewards?) a certain type of interrogator. I’m not saying I think torture is a net positive in the absence of moral calculus — in fact I suspect it’s not — but anyone asserting KVS is an “ignoramus” for not seeing it so clearly is, well, an ignoramus. In the end I’m surer of my footing when I ride his argument.
— Sanjay · Oct 3, 02:04 PM · #
KVS wrote:
You don’t get any argument from me on that, in principle. However, doesn’t it occur to you how ironic it is to talk of survival? Because if we don’t fight back using either “enhanced interrogation” or a MOAB in the face, we’ll be dead. And I guess our principles will follow, for all practical purposes.
Sanjay, KVS, and Conor:
Let’s suppose everything you say about Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld is right (I’m not granting that they signed off on hanging someone in cuffs). Is there no point at which you say to yourself, “I’m glad I didn’t have to make those decisions. I wonder if what they did actually saved thousands of lives. I wonder if we expose all of this we’ll endanger thousands more lives. I wonder if I would do the same thing under the circumstances.”
I remember after seeing Apocalypse Now and Platoon, my first reaction was: “I’m not sure how I would react in a war, either. I hope I never have to find out.”
Have you never wondered?
— jd · Oct 3, 02:29 PM · #
No, jd, I don’t have to wonder that. I actually think I’ve done things that hard.
Put it this way, though, about wondering how we’d react. My Dad was a teenager during India’s partition. That was a war, in many ways, that makes our current issues with Islamic extremism look like a playground spat. And he and the Indians of his generation have been thoroughly shocked by the amoral, repulsive behaviour of Cheney and his buds.
And for that matter it’s pretty easy to find US military who’ve faced war and its hard choices and who stand firm and foursquare against torture. In fact it’s much easier to find those than to find military who back it (though, granted, I’ve met quite a few who do). So the, what would you do under those circumstances?, argument will go down in flames, and that’s before I bring Senator McCain on stage.
And Don “I spend all day on my feet” Rumsfeld most certainly did seem to greenlight hanging some dude up all day, no?
— Sanjay · Oct 3, 02:45 PM · #
Truthfully I’ve thought about it, a lot. I have a weak-to-non-existent reaction when bad things happen to sturdy adults outside my circle, and my circle is small (for some reason, women and children get total investment). I suppose I could feign some kind of moral outrage, maybe Chet wouldn’t call me a monster, but I’m not good at feigning anything except maybe sobriety.
All of which means my position on torture — and particularly American Torture™ — precipitates at room temperature. No emotion involved, nothing on the nose, nothing ideal. Lukewarm assumptions only.
But the pragmatics are very complex on this issue. On the one hand you have the very real danger of carnage and mayhem. That’s the first and clearest level of analysis: if we lean on those who know, we might prevent the death of Americans. Pace Chet et al, I buy that argument. I’m pretty sure that torture (plus time and the ability to falsify and reapply) equals a pretty solid way to get good information out of a human being. If that were all there was, and that were our sole priority, then I’d say, sure, go ahead, torture the fuckers. Even if we make mistakes now and then, say killing one or torturing an innocent, I say better innocent them than innocent us. And I say it unapologetically.
For a lot of people, that settles the matter. It’s a simple problem with a simple fix. You need information to stop terrorist attacks, and the information is in the black box of a human. So you do what jewel thieves do: you break into the black box by any means necessary. Simple stuff. Elegant even.
But as Americans we have much more to worry about than violence in the streets. If that were all there was, then fuck it, cameras everywhere, soldiers with guns, GPS dog tags for y’us, round up the usuals and suspicious and anyone who might look strong and able, and lobotomize them. With just one priority, anything and everything is on the table.
That’s a ridiculous hypothetical, of course, because we have many priorities. Freedom, equality, rule of law, sanctity of the body, pursuit of happiness, and on and on. Some of the priorities are consonant with each other, and some dissonant. Pursuing all of them, which we do, creates a great complexity of power rankings and trade-offs that we might call our Great American Utility Function (GAUF).
So when you talk about torture, I don’t think it helps to limit your horizons to the simple and sole priority of preventing carnage and mayhem. Instead, you must analyze it in light of GAUF. Now, that’s no easy task; GAUF is as complicated as you please. That doesn’t mean we should resign ourselves to simplicity; it means that, to manifest the best possible world for America, we have to get sophisticated.
And that’s when all the other stuff comes in, redefining the problem of terrorism as one concern among a great multitude of interests. It’s not just about saving individual American lives, it’s also about preserving and extending the animating idea-myth of ourselves as the shining city on the hill. It’s about game theory and alliances and adverse coalitions and reputation and the ethical revisions of a dominant player. It’s about credibility and memetic fitness and the potentially world-bettering strategy of the straight and narrow. It’s about pride and honor, it’s about right and wrong, and yes, in the end, it’s about the survival of America even if it means the death of some Americans, even — and I say this through clenched teeth — even if it means the death of me and you.
Jayne once said, “If you can’t do something smart, do something right.” Well right now, the smart play — for America — is to do something right.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 04:33 PM · #
What spike? The idea that not torturing is only of practical benefit over torture, even if torture gives good, reliable information?
That’s a softball. “Our good reputation overseas won’t stop a nuke in the middle of Manhattan”, goes the devastating rejoinder, and what reply can KVS make given that he’s ceded the propositions that torture works, saves lives, and is the only alternative to carpet-bombing the Middle East?
There’s no need for recourse to the practicality of the alternatives if we recognize that torture itself doesn’t do what we think it does – provide reliable intelligence from valuable, knowledgeable captives. It just plain doesn’t.
Who gives a shit, Sanjay? Why do you insist on making the terms of every single debate all about yourself? Jesus, is there no end to your conceit?
What the fuck possible relevance can that have to this debate? What on Earth is wrong with you?
Isn’t that the point against it? That it’s useless for getting information, and therefore the point of torture is never for “information”, but to brutalize another human being? That torture is never the means to an end but always an end unto itself?
This is just retarded. The idea that terrorism represents any kind of existential threat to Western culture is absurd. Boogyman thinking, and just as mature.
— Chet · Oct 3, 07:06 PM · #
The idea that not torturing is only of practical benefit over torture, even if torture gives good, reliable information?
There are only two other kinds of benefits. Phenomenological benefits, usually called qualia or subjective experience. The other is some kind of supernatural or metaphysical standard. Given that you’re an atheist, and given that I seriously doubt you’re a Platonist or Moral Realist, if you reject the practical benefit argument you’re left with the idea that we shouldn’t torture simply because it makes you feel bad.
Is that what you’re saying? Chet goes boo-hoo, don’t make Chet go boo-hoo?
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 08:07 PM · #
And before you answer, realize that if your entire argument depends on torture not working ever, you’ve already lost. On that question neither history nor science is on your side.
So, again, you have three arguments: 1) torture might be useful in the moment but it is not smart given the universe in which we find ourselves circa 2000 BCE, 2) torture is capital-w Wrong, or 3) don’t torture because it makes me cry. There are no others.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 08:17 PM · #
2000 CE natch.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 08:26 PM · #
What, I’m an atheist, therefore I don’t believe in right and wrong? Juvenile.
“Not working ever”? I’m wondering, KVS, do you even have an argument here that isn’t entirely based on complete misrepresentations of my argument?
— Chet · Oct 3, 09:33 PM · #
Sanjay wrote:
Is that what is known as proof? He “did seem?” Humor me and show me some proof that hanging people by handcuffs was policy.
— jd · Oct 3, 10:50 PM · #
KVS:
The following is why I never discuss anything with Chet anymore, and why I’m surprised that you and Sanjay or anyone else does:
Chet wrote in a post above:
Chet later wrote in response to you:
First, he said torture didn’t work. You disagreed with him. Then he accused you of misrepresenting what he said.
Now if he had said those things 12 years apart, you could excuse it. But when he writes them only 12 inches apart, there is no good explanation.
He has done that to me. He did it to John Schwenkler, I think he has done it to Sanjay and now he has done it to you.
Now I can understand why you might not call him on it. It is so blatantly stupid that you’re probably sitting there with your mouth hanging open.
But he does it often enough that at least two other people have gotten frustrated with it and called him on it. I know that Jim Manzi has written he will not discuss issues with him anymore because Chet accused Manzi of lying.
He is dishonest.
Or suffering from dementia.
— jd · Oct 4, 12:10 AM · #
On the one hand, “Torture doesn’t work” doesn’t mean “Torture doesn’t ever work”. A policy’s effectiveness has to be judged in the aggregate, right? If torture works one time, but produces misinformation that costs lives in another instance, and there’s no reliable way to decide which instance is which except in hindsight, then you’ve got to weigh those against each other.
On the other hand, if torture always worked, if the government could coercively rip information with 100% accuracy from detainees brains by some horrifying technological black magic, then I would oppose that even more than I oppose torture for reasons too obvious to enumerate here.
— Consumatopia · Oct 4, 04:41 AM · #
What Consumatopia said. Honestly, I’m not speaking gibberish or a foreign language, so it’s impossible to understand how I could be so misrepresented. JD, of course, is a lying choad. KVS seems at least honest enough to have simply been mistaken, but I kind of doubt it.
You “think”, choad? Even when you lie you don’t have the courage to follow through. What a pusillanimous troll.
— Chet · Oct 4, 05:49 AM · #
I’m sure you believe it, the same way you believe that fried chicken is tasty.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 4, 03:53 PM · #
For what it’s worth, I think my position on torture’s effectiveness was close to Sanjay’s—I’m uncertain as to whether torture leaves us, on net, better or worse informed, and I rely mostly on the sort of broad strategic/moral calculus KVS alludes to for my opposition to torture.
And Chet, though I’ll probably regret going here, I have to say that while you often manage to make pretty good points, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you acknowledge when the other side makes a good point. I’m not particularly good at that either. But I don’t think I’ve gone quite as far over the line as you have here and attacked someone full-tilt who agrees with me on the broader issue but disagrees with me on how best to make that case. You’re essentially spending a lot of energy on a “Tastes Great!” “Less Filling!” fight, and I’m not sure what the point of that is supposed to be.
— Consumatopia · Oct 4, 04:32 PM · #
I think I’ve explained why I see a substantial amount of daylight between KVS’s position and mine; why I feel that KVS’s argument is ultimately counterproductive and weaker against the opposition than mine. “Torture works great but we shouldn’t use it” isn’t a compelling argument when potentially, thousands of lives are at stake, and it cedes the most significant point in the debate – torture doesn’t work, it’s not effective at producing reliable intelligence. The only reason to torture is to produce torture. To satisfy a sadistic need to cause suffering to people we hate. JD’s fixation on the “three worst human beings on Earth” – and his complete disregard for the hundred or so innocent people we’ve tortured to death – is the proof of that.
Whether or not you think I’m an asshole doesn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t perceive KVS as an ally in this debate, because the first thing he did was cede the most important and significant ground to the pro-torture opposition.
— Chet · Oct 4, 05:09 PM · #
jd, you’re missing why that stuff gets posted. One doesn’t criticize because the bear can’t dance well; one stands amazed that it dances.
Conor, this is exactly the Glenn Reynolds problem.
— Sanjay · Oct 5, 02:36 AM · #
Sanjay is right. Just follow the link all the way and read what Reynolds linked to. It’s despicable.
— just some guy with an opinion · Oct 5, 03:36 AM · #
Sanjay wrote:
So that means your arguments with the bear are simply for a hoot? You’re writing these incredibly long posts, just to humor yourself, or us? In your mind, encouraging the bear to dance is for our benefit? Why do such a good imitation of taking the dancing bear seriously? Do you just have unlimited patience? or time? Personally, I’ve seen and heard enough, as have quite a few others. Been there, done that. This is one ugly bear. It smells bad and attacks mindlessly. If you were in a room with this bear, you would run.
— jd · Oct 5, 12:07 PM · #
Well, no, jd, I think the point — that, say, torture isn’t just for info and so one needs to appeal to moral, not functional, arguments, and anyway the functional argument isn’t iron-clad — stands and is worth mentioning. But I don’t mind throwing in a line to bait someone ridiculously stupid in the process. Admit it: it’s fun when say Freddie’s insecurities boil over and he goes into meltdown. And I never claimed not to be a bully.
That Reynolds link is great because it really shows the man’s SOP. He knows the thing is racist so he just tosses out the offhand link, then when someone (like Sanchez) calls him on it he’ll puffily deny all support for the argument. That’s happened too often to mistake for anything but what it is. I’d respect Reynolds more if he came out in full-throated support of this crap.
— Sanjay · Oct 5, 12:48 PM · #
Chet, here’s where you are right. If torture doesn’t work, the case against it is iron-clad.
But how vulnerable is that? What if the tapes of Abu Zubaida come out and we see what Kiriakou meant when he said waterboarding the man was like ‘flipping a switch.’ What if we learn that some of the stuff waterboarded out of Abu led to actionable intelligence and saved lives?
As the CIA’s field manual notes, torture is largely inefficient because you get swamped with new info and you have to verify shit. The problem is not lies and truths, but determining which is which. But for high values? Torture, verify, if false then reapply. Most situations are not ticking-time bombs (saying torture is good when “every second counts” is a distraction to the real debate). Statistically speaking, at any given time the majority of terrorist plots are going to be months if not years away from execution. So when you capture someone like KSM, you have quite a bit of time to torture, verify, if false then reapply. It’s at least plausible, and to me it seems likely, that doing this intelligently will help you stop some plots. So you argument is theoretically firmer but in practice much more fragile precisely because your main premise is questionable.
Mine is far more robust. I’m saying, even if torture works the case against it is compelling.
As an aside, in a debate it’s far more effective to concede your opponent’s strongest point arguendo and then show why, even if they are right, they are still wrong.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 5, 03:15 PM · #
“I’m saying, even if torture works the case against it is compelling.”
So, you think a public that is eating itself to death because it can’t deny itself crappy food…will deny itself a useful tool for self-defense for reasons a lot less concrete than heart disease and diabetes?
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 5, 03:25 PM · #
Nah, I’m a misanthrope. I don’t think much of the public at all. I do, however, think highly of my conclusions on torture.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 5, 04:51 PM · #
Primary argument: Torture is wrong, full stop. It’s something that the self-professed “good guys” should not do to prisoners, even if said prisoners are, without a shadow of a doubt, evil men (this is, of course, NOT SO with most of the detainees in US custody). Dropping down to their level harms our society more than 9/11 itself did, IMO, with all due respect to those among us who lost loved ones that day.
Secondary argument: it doesn’t even work well, according to seasoned interrogators. So we’re sacrificing our principles & prestige and risking the moral corrosion of our own forces and/or society at large for… what? Some intel that could plausibly have been gotten w/o torture? Some “intel” that might be a bunch of bull?
The anti-torture crowd has been making the secondary argument because as soon as they made the primary argument, it was rejected by many. It was ripped as weak, naive, etc. Making the 2nd argument does not remove the 1st.
— Rob in CT · Oct 5, 06:39 PM · #
I really don’t think it is, and again I’d invite you to peruse the relevant neuroscience. But I think we’ve made our positions clear, there’s probably no traction for either of us, here.
I really don’t think so, but if you do, there’s probably not much I can do to convince you. Again my suspicion is that if torture works, and lives are at stake, most people aren’t going to be morally troubled by it – for better or worse. But I just don’t think we need to give that ground. Torture really doesn’t work.
But, as long as you recognize you’re giving away that particular point, I guess I’m satisfied.
How do we know it was the waterboarding, and not the traditional interrogations, that produced that info? How do we know what he might have said had we not waterboarded him? These hypothetical wouldn’t redeem the effectiveness in torture.
— Chet · Oct 5, 06:47 PM · #
Fair enough. At least we agree on the larger point.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 5, 08:11 PM · #