The Weak Arguments Offered by Waterboarding Apologists
Over at The Corner, Andy McCarthy and Marc Thiessen are engaged in a tag-team effort to defend Bush Administration interrogation practices. Several of their arguments are severely flawed.
Mr. McCarthy writes:
Officers of the executive branch have a solemn obligation to protect the American people. It is their highest responsibility. They are not good Samaritans. If there is a serious threat of a mass-murder attack, they are obligated to take all reasonable steps to stop it — and what is reasonable depends on the circumstances and the exigency. It is immoral to assume that obligation and then fail to carry it out.
In fact, the highest responsibility of executive branch officers is “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That is the oath every president swears, and the obligation he assumes. Since Mr. McCarthy served as a highly esteemed federal prosecutor he must know as much, so what explains the factually incorrect language he uses? He should revisit the prudence of the Founders, who understood that charging the president with protecting the Constitution implies delineated limits on his power.
In contrast, imposing on the office an open-ended moral obligation “to protect the American people” affords an abusive executive all the justification he needs to claim powers that scarcely have limits.
Beyond this fundamental misunderstanding of the executive branch and its obligations, Mr. McCarthy persists in the simplistic assumption that if “harsh interrogation techniques” elicit useful information from some detainees on certain occasions, they’re proven to keep us safe. Nowhere does he attempt to measure the benefits the information affords against the costs using these controversial techniques impose. How much time is spent following up on false leads elicited under coercion? How many fewer people surrender into American custody? How many talented interrogators uncomfortable with these methods left the CIA? Are terrorist recruiters helped by using the specter of torture in American as a tool to enrage their audiences? How many countries are less cooperative with our War on Terrorism efforts? What is the cost of American citizens who deplore these techniques so passionately that they lose faith in their own country’s moral standing?
These unanswered questions and many others are never grappled with by advocates of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. It’s as if the War on Terrorism is a chess tournament and they’re arm wrestling coaches.
“Take their pawns!”
“Wait, let me think about whether that’s the right move here.”
“Take their pawns you pussy!”
It isn’t that Mr. McCarthy thought five steps ahead, did due diligence, and demonstrated that taking the pawn is the right move. You see, he’s seen pawns get captured before. They were swept right off the board. Some of them were even in positions where if they hadn’t have been taken, they could’ve attacked. Is that what you want? To lose pieces? Mr. McCarthy talks a lot about the War on Terrorism, but his interrogation analysis is almost wholly concerned with battle tactics. Questions about unintended consequences are dismissed out of hand, as if determining e.g. whether waterboarding helps radicalize Muslims is a question to be determined by generalized ideological arguments, rather than urgent empirical research.
Also see Jim Manzi’s characteristically excellent thoughts on this topic, written long before this particular dust-up.
Moving on to Mr. Thiessen, see the post where he writes:
In traditional war, when you capture an enemy soldier, once he is disarmed and taken off the battlefield he has been “rendered unable to cause harm.” But that is not true of senior terrorist leaders like KSM. They retain the power to kill many thousands by withholding information about planned attacks.
As E.D. Kain points out:
If a German soldier or intelligence officer in WWII had been captured that soldier may have possessed knowledge of planned German offensives. Getting that information may indeed have saved thousands of American or Allied lives. A captured SS officer may have had information regarding death camps or other atrocities which would have led to increased support for the war effort. Countless scenarios, whether ticking-time-bomb or not, could be conceived wherein during the course of traditional warfare intelligence garnered from captured soldiers would lead to saving the lives of many on our side.
Mr. Thiessen seldom writes a post without asserting that if everyone would only read his book, Courting Disaster, the strengths of his argument would be apparent. I am certainly amenable to reading books written by folks with whom I disagree, but time is limited. And every time I see an argument this weak — Mr. Thiessen obliviously asserting that captured soldiers in traditional wars can’t withhold information about planned attacks, whereas terrorists can — I think to myself, “No, his doesn’t seem to be a book length effort worth my time, no matter how many occasions he plugs it on The Corner.”
More devastating rebuttals of Mr. Thiessen are rounded up here.
Another post at The Corner by Mike Potemra ignited this conversation. He is substantially correct in his analysis.
Are you arguing that the “highest responsibility” of an executive branch officer is contained within his oath of office? Might it be that his highest responsibilities are contained within the text of the Constitution itself? What about federal statutes? Those might have some interesting insights about executive responsibility. You know, now that I think about it, the US Supreme Court might have weighed in on the responsibilities of executive officers too.
— Lasorda · Feb 20, 08:50 PM · #
My point, Conor, is that the oath of office calls upon the President to protect and defend a document that confers certain powers on the Chief Executive, namely as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and as the chief diplomat of the United States. He is given those powers, in part, to “provide for the common defence,” and I am sure Mr. McCarthy is not the first to suggest that those enumerated powers and that general mandate elevate the responsibility of “protecting the American people” to somewhat lofty heights. To attribute ignorance or bad faith to McCarthy is fatuous, at best.
— Lasorda · Feb 20, 09:03 PM · #
What do you consider the strongest argument for coercive interrogation on the other side? Is there one you find persuasive at a lower level than waterboarding – say – isolation, lack of sensory stimulus, or sleep-deprivation?
There are two general kinds of position here:
1. The interrogation of any detainee must never be more coercive or discomforting than that permitted by the Constitution and our treaties for the questioning of criminals or regular-forces prisoners of war – regardless of the circumstances related to the detention.
2. The interrogation of illegal enemy combatants, especially when their unlawful status is clear, and in certain exigent circumstances involving continuing threats, can proceed in a manner to some degree more coercive than the standards of position 1.
I disagree with position 1, but it seems at least a self-consistent opinion, and in that degree it can warrant respect. What I do now respect is a rejection of 1 and a hate of some extreme position of 2, but without any effort to explain what 2 should look like.
So there are two primary questions for anyone trying to take a position in a thoughtful debate – as opposed to calling people who disagree with you evil or naive or some other derogatory term.
Which type of position do you prefer?
If it is #2, then what is your conception of the permissible limits, both the nature of the coercion, and the legal or moral argument that leads you to judge them permissible?
Most of my experience talking to people on both sides of this topic is that almost all of them swear they aren’t “absolutists” who take position 1, but while most find it very difficult to articulate a coherent exposition of position 2, their gut tells half of them that waterboarding is very harsh, but barely on this side of the limit, and the other half that its simple un-allowable torture and they simply know in their heart that people who believe otherwise are not just wrong, but cruel and immoral.
Well, the way we make intellectual progress then is to temporarily set aside mere intuitions and gut-checks and try to express a comprehensible standard of judgment where people can analyze the logical implications or criticize the contradictions of our thought process in public without being held to an unknowable personal gut-standard of good and evil.
Is it any wonder that the sides can’t talk to each other persuasively? It’s time to print our secret scripts and avoid pretending to self-righteousness while we hide in comfortable ambiguity.
— Indy · Feb 21, 06:31 PM · #
Indy: Pretty good commentary, there. I think you are dead right about how people talk past each other. I’m a Catholic, and so I must come down against water boarding. (my opposition stems from asking myself “What would the Virgin Mary think about this practice?”) However, and this is a big however, I am deeply sympathetic to the arguments for water boarding and some of these other techniques. In other words, I think its wrong, but I get it. I don’t want to tsk-tsk the people who come down on the other side as young Conor seems to insist on doing. The high handed judgments from Andrew Sullivan and his humorless, fresh-faced minions makes it almost impossible do discuss this rationally. Anyhow, that’s my secret script. No water boarding, but don’t worry I’m not going to threaten you with jail time for doing in after 9-11. I might have done the same thing. There but by the grace of God . . .
— Lasorda · Feb 22, 07:50 AM · #
“I am deeply sympathetic to the arguments for water boarding and some of these other techniques.”
Sympathetic is exactly the right word, given that support for water boarding seems based in irrational emotionality and not cold reason.
Mike
— MBunge · Feb 22, 05:10 PM · #
Mr. Thiessen seldom writes a post without asserting that if everyone would only read his book, Courting Disaster, the strengths of his argument would be apparent. I am certainly amenable to reading books written by folks with whom I disagree, but time is limited.
I’ve been tempted to read it simply for the privilege of expressing righteous indignation when Theissen refused to address follow-up questions.
Like other members of the the Bush Administration, Theissen is — rightfully! — quick to defend its actions by pointing to the tremendous pressures they were under during the early years after 9/11. I’m deeply sympathetic to that argument and, under those circumstances, mistakes in judgment are to be expected, should be entirely forgivable, and probably quite illuminating. In all I have seen of Theissen I have never once heard him acknowledge one such error in policy that we can learn from. The closest he comes are statements that essentially boil down to “We should have done exactly what we did, only with more awesome.” That’s not much in the way of introspection or analysis.
— Tom · Feb 22, 08:02 PM · #
Mike, as I said, I am opposed to water-boarding, but do you really think it is totally ineffective as a means of extracting information? I think that if someone wanted me to give up the pin number for my savings account, water-boarding me would probably be a decent approach. Again, I’m not saying it would be the morally appropriate means,but it would probably be fast and effective. I read a piece in the Atlantic several years ago by Mark Bowden, I think, that convinced me fairly effectively that “enhanced interrogation” or “torture” have had a good deal of efficacy in extracting information from all sorts of people. Look how effective it has been for our enemies. In my adult life I’ve seen Somali warlords, etc. dealing the United States tremendous PR defeats by parading frightened, beaten helicopter pilots in front of a video camera. Saying “it doesn’t work” is the weakest argument of them all. I think if you want to convice people to stop water boarding, you might have to admit, “yeah, it works, sometimes. But you know what, it my not be worth it for reasons x, y, and z.” And when you make that argument, you should step down from the high pulpit of cocksure moral authority and recognize that many good people disagree that water boarding a terrorist to extract intelligence is equal to cutting off someone’s ear to extract a confession.
— Lasorda · Feb 22, 10:50 PM · #
Conor Friedersdorf changed my life. Not only did he loosen TAS’s vice grip on my balls (also known as my otherwise productive time), he also made me laugh three times. Rarely has intellectual contempt been more fun. Thanks! — and goodbye forever. I can now get rich in peace.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Feb 22, 11:31 PM · #
“Mike, as I said, I am opposed to water-boarding, but do you really think it is totally ineffective as a means of extracting information?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Virtually every authority in interrogation and intelligence gathering that’s been quoted in the media on the subject has firmly stated that water boarding is unreliable as a means of learning the truth about anything.
For double fuck’s sake, YOUR OWN EXAMPLE DEMONSTRATES THAT! Do you think those pilots were telling the truth were they were paraded in front of a video camera by Somali warlords? Do you think the U.S. soldiers tortured by the North Koreans or North Vietnamese until they went along with propaganda films were telling the truth?
For triple fuck’s sake, WE DO NOT NEED TO IMITATE THE TACTICS OF OUR ENEMIES BECAUSE WE BEAT THEIR ASSES WITHOUT HAVING TO DO ANY OF THAT SHIT! What advantage have our enemies every really gotten through the use of torture?
Look, if you’re a pussy and are so terrified of terrorist attack that you irrationally believe anonymous brown people being tortured somewhere will keep you safe, that’s your problem. Stop making it everybody else’s problem with bullshit justifications for “enhanced interrogation”.
Mike
— MBunge · Feb 22, 11:51 PM · #
During moments of intense stress, the areas of the brain associated with truthful recollection become inactivated. The areas of the brain associated with fabrication become overstimulated.
What do you think that implies about the ability of “stress positions”, waterboarding, and other torture to produce truthful information?
Sure, they gain tremendous PR by being able to record and distribute these types of false confessions. Is that what we want from our interrogations? False confessions, fabricated “plots”, an a great deal of other completely made-up “information” that we have to waste time and resources corroborating? What your brutal warlords typically don’t get is accurate intelligence.
Sure, we could waterboard you for your bank card pin number. The result of that, most likely, would be the first 4 numbers you could think of, not your real pin number. You wouldn’t be able to remember it.
— Chet · Feb 23, 04:45 AM · #
Lasorda writes that attempts to extract information through water torture are not the equivalent of similar attempts made through physical maiming.
I agree, but that doesn’t mean investigations and possible prosecutions are not warranted for those who sanctioned water torture.
Water torture defenders, especially ambivalent ones like Lasorda, suggest that yes, a line was crossed, but the situation was really scary and the crime was smaller than it might have been, so we shouldn’t treat it like a crime at all. It wouldn’t be until we went medieval— chopping limbs and gouging eyes— that Lasorda would lose sympathy and agree that prosecutions should be considered.
Lasorda’s implication is that the powerful deserve sympathy for their criminal mistakes where ordinary citizens do not. If a guy commits a battery, giving his victim a black eye, would he expect the state to grant the perpetrator clemency just because he had a stressful week and stopped short of stabbing his victim with a screwdriver? No. He would expect a prosecution to move forward. The circumstances/severity of the crime would be considered at sentencing.
Even if Cheney and his lawyers didn’t authorize the maiming of captives, they are not therefore absolved of lesser brutalities. If the evidence merits it, an investigation/prosecution should move forward. If prosecutions were secured, it would be the sentencing stage in which the level/severity of the criminal conduct could be weighed. At this point, the legal system could make distinctions between merely bad, dehumanizing treatment and over-the-top medieval shit.
— turnbuckle · Feb 23, 03:50 PM · #
You can go further on Kain’s point — treatment of officers (as opposed to rank-and-file) taken as prisoners of war is particularly well regulated because of the temptation to torture tactical information out of them. The rules don’t exist because torture is bad, but because torturing to gain tactical advantage is particularly bad. War crimes prosecutions on torture are generally against commanders who complicit in torture and permitted or ordered it for this reason. It is actually less forgivable than something like Abu Gharaib where soldiers act out in ways not reflecting their orders (I realize Abu Gharaib’s not a great example here).
— zach · Feb 23, 05:33 PM · #
The sad thing is that no matter how many time their arguments are completely destroyed by empirical evidence, historical experience, moral reasoning AND logic, the torture apologists stick to their guns because, in the end, their point of view is grounded in irrational fear. The terrorists have already won, in their case. Theissen, Cheney, Yoo and their “sympathizers” like Lasorda are utterly and completely terrorized. It’s pathetic, unmanly and unAmerican to see them cowering, ready to abandon all principle and the Constitution in a misguided attempt to be “safe.”
On the battlefield safety lies in being steadfast and keeping faith with your fellows. Fear leads to rout and disaster for all and much heavier losses. Flight may save the individual’s life, but it always costs him his honor. If the War on Terror is really a worldwide battlefield, then terror-stricken torture apologists are not the steadfast troopers we need.
— Seth Owen · Feb 23, 05:57 PM · #
The real tragedy of Abu Gharaib is that those soldiers were following orders, but were prosecuted and sentenced anyway. It’s a sick injustice that Liddie England was punished more than Dick Cheney ever will be.
— Chet · Feb 23, 06:20 PM · #
Actually, the oath taken by the President is different that the oath taken by other Executive Branch officials. Only the President swears to “preserve” the Constitution, other Exec. branch officials swear to “protect and defend” the Constitution, and to “defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
But the Preamble to the Constitution itself says “We the people… in order to … provide for a common defense…”
So, one purpose of the Constitution that is to be “protected and defended” is to provide for a “common defense” of “we the people.”
Think before you write next time, and get your facts straight.
— shipwreckedcrew · Feb 23, 06:42 PM · #
Lasorda, is there anything short of waterboarding that might get you to give up your PIN?
— andrew · Feb 24, 04:10 PM · #