Like any complex situation, the end of the Cold War will demand a complex solution. I'm certain that the CIA played its part in this explanation. So, I have to answer that I just don't know the answer—unlike you, who are so sure of your answers.
ED Kain: It's fantastic that you have the definitive answer to such a complex question as, How did we win the Cold War? We all should sit at your feet and learn.
Bill:
I find it ironic that the Democratic Party, which preaches morality over all other considerations, is as guilty as the Republicans when it came to authorizing the government's program for torturing high-value captives.
Stephen: George Friedman, whom I've excerpted above, provides the best picture of the "basic fact situation" that I've seen: we lacked basic information about al Qaeda after 9/11; using torture was a fast way to get it; torturing KSM, for example, allowed us to arrive at a cleared picture of the enemy; after we did have a clearer picture, torture was not needed, or even probably used, as a program. This is really something one can call "analysis," as opposed to the moral posturing that passes for analysis here and almost everywhere else.
The Soviet spy network was so vastly superior to anything the West had in place - despite their continued practice of offing “westernized” agents - that it makes the CIA look truly laughable. Bumble along is right….
And yet… we won.
Also @ Bob: Ackerman's comment echoes George Friedman's analysis, which I posted in another thread here. He says that the torture program was because of our intelligence failures after the Cold War. He says that
Sept. 11 was terrifying for one main reason: We had little idea about al Qaeda’s capabilities. It was a very reasonable assumption that other al Qaeda cells were operating in the United States and that any day might bring follow-on attacks. (Especially given the group’s reputation for one-two attacks.) We still remember our first flight after 9/11, looking at our fellow passengers, planning what we would do if one of them moved. Every time a passenger visited the lavatory, one could see the tensions soar.[…] This lack of intelligence led directly to the most extreme fears, which in turn led to extreme measures. Washington simply did not know very much about al Qaeda and its capabilities and intentions in the United States. A lack of knowledge forces people to think of worst-case scenarios. In the absence of intelligence to the contrary after 9/11, the only reasonable assumption was that al Qaeda was planning more — and perhaps worse — attacks.
Collecting intelligence rapidly became the highest national priority. Given the genuine and reasonable fears, no action in pursuit of intelligence was out of the question, so long as it promised quick answers. This led to the authorization of torture, among other things. Torture offered a rapid means to accumulate intelligence, or at least — given the time lag on other means — it was something that had to be tried.
He concludes,
The United States turned to torture because it has experienced a massive intelligence failure reaching back a decade. The U.S. intelligence community simply failed to gather sufficient information on al Qaeda’s intentions, capability, organization and personnel. The use of torture was not part of a competent intelligence effort, but a response to a massive intelligence failure.
‘Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply,’ wrote Gen. Jimmy Doolittle in a secret 1954 report for Dwight D. Eisenhower about revamping the CIA’s covert actions. ‘We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.’”
This only takes account of Soviet espionage and subversion against us—even during the years of alliance in WWII. We had no spy agency until after the war; the Soviet spy agency was founded at the same time as the October "revolution."
Read the work of Christopher Andrews on the Soviets to be "fair and balanced." The Cold War was a war, after all.
So: what white hot truths did Sullivan discover that made him turn 180º on the war in Iraq and support of Israel? What lies? What new evidence?
I wouldn't care about anyone's staunch support for Obama if it was based on anything rational. I defy you to find anything in Sullivan's Atlantic love-letter to Obama that fits that criteria and can't be boiled down to Obama's face—as Sullivan himself puts it—plus Hope n'Change.
The most intelligent thing I've read so far about this issue, by : George Friedman
The endless argument over torture, the posturing of both critics and defenders, misses the crucial point. The United States turned to torture because it has experienced a massive intelligence failure reaching back a decade. The U.S. intelligence community simply failed to gather sufficient information on al Qaeda’s intentions, capability, organization and personnel. The use of torture was not part of a competent intelligence effort, but a response to a massive intelligence failure.
That failure was rooted in a range of miscalculations over time. There was the public belief that the end of the Cold War meant the United States didn’t need a major intelligence effort, a point made by the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan. There were the intelligence people who regarded Afghanistan as old news. There was the Torricelli amendment that made recruiting people with ties to terrorist groups illegal without special approval. There were the Middle East experts who could not understand that al Qaeda was fundamentally different from anything seen before. The list of the guilty is endless, and ultimately includes the American people, who always seem to believe that the view of the world as a dangerous place is something made up by contractors and bureaucrats.
Bush was handed an impossible situation on Sept. 11, after just nine months in office. The country demanded protection, and given the intelligence shambles he inherited, he reacted about as well or badly as anyone else might have in the situation. He used the tools he had, and hoped they were good enough.
The problem with torture — as with other exceptional measures — is that it is useful, at best, in extraordinary situations. The problem with all such techniques in the hands of bureaucracies is that the extraordinary in due course becomes the routine, and torture as a desperate stopgap measure becomes a routine part of the intelligence interrogator’s tool kit.
At a certain point, the emergency was over. U.S. intelligence had focused itself and had developed an increasingly coherent picture of al Qaeda, with the aid of allied Muslim intelligence agencies, and was able to start taking a toll on al Qaeda. The war had become routinized, and extraordinary measures were no longer essential. But the routinization of the extraordinary is the built-in danger of bureaucracy, and what began as a response to unprecedented dangers became part of the process. Bush had an opportunity to move beyond the emergency. He didn’t.
jshubbub:
1. I can't believe you're actually reading my stuff. You must have a lot of better things to do, so... Thanks again!
2. Your summary of my opinion is only wrong in emphasis at some points and in others you characterize me incorrectly, while in general you are correct. All in all, it was a pretty fair summary—except for your conclusion: "Therefore, we were justified to declare war on Mexico in 1847 based on subsequent positive outcomes." I'm fully aware that the rest of what you say is true. There was a strong anti-war faction in the Congress at the time and for me it's significant that JQ Adams (he ended his life as a Representative) voted "no." I believe that this was his last public act and that he died soon afterward. Adams was the architect of the Monroe Doctrine and so many other of our "empire-building" and national security policies that I imagine that if I had been alive at the time I would have followed his lead. He knew what he was doing. So no, I don't think our actions then were justified. However, in contrast to European powers at the time, our conduct was still more moral: we never annexed the rest of the country, even though we had conquered it, much like Cortés had before and we paid them for the land—$25 million in gold. It wasn't so much stealing as it was extortion. I do not justify extortion, although I can understand Polk's urgency to get the territory because of the geopolitics of the age. I wouldn't put him on a "truth commission" trial for it because, well... he did what he had to do.
As for the Mexicans, I'm sorry my rhetoric (thanks again for the compliment!) went way overboard. I do not believe that they were "idiots." I just believe that they were Mexicans and they were caught up in something a lot bigger than they were (the USA!) and had no way to understand it based on their own history and culture.
Part of this history and culture explains why the never exploited California: they already had a great port on the Pacific (Acapulco) and a centuries-old trade route to Asia. But like everything else at the time—and even today to a great extent—this port and trade route was someone's property and that "someone" (in reality groups of people) had paid good money to the government for the ownership rights. Therefore, nobody had any reason to exploit other ports since what we call competition they called treason. Also, I see some validity in Weber's thesis about the capitalist mentality in Mexico: they were just happy to stay where they were. They lacked the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans. This is part of what I mean when I say they were caught up in something bigger than they were: the industrial revolution/capitalism.
I don't really know why they failed to defend California. They had a sea route there. We marched across the worst desert on the continent from Saint Louis without even having any good maps and found San Diego practically undefended. The reasons must have to do with the internal politics of Mexico, where at the same time the war was going on factions were fighting for power in Mexico City.
As for the military, the Mexicans had a huge army of Indian conscripts and we had a volunteer army of American hicks. American hicks know how to use their heads in a fight and that's what they did. Indian conscripts didn't stand a chance, really, especially if you consider the leadership (or lack of it) that they had. Everyone wanted to be the hero and nobody wanted to do the dirty work. A classic case of "too many chiefs...". That's just Mexican culture.
As a side note, the war was the definitive defeat of this social class in Mexico—called the criollos—and the beginning of today's Mestizo Mexico. Therefore, our conquest of their country had unintended benefits even for them because they got rid of a parasitical social class that had maintained its grip on power through the ages. Plus, they got the $25 million, which they used, of course, to fight their civil wars instead of investing it in something useful.
I have to make this clear: I don't think the Mexicans were or are idiots. They did the best they could with what they had but it wasn't good enough. The smart thing for them to do would have been to bow to destiny like the Japanese did a few years later and adapt their country to superior power and wealth. But that would be too much to expect them because their history is completely different.
3. Your numbers 4 & 5 are correct. I can't see how anyone could argue with them, least of all the Mexicans! They're the ones flooding our borders. If you get a group of ten Mexicans together, a cross section of social classes and regional identities, at least half will say they'd go to the US if they could. That goes double for students, who are mainly well-off. All ten will want to go. Maybe we don't realize it fully, but America is still the land of opportunity for most of the world, in spite of our torturing a few fanatic Muslims who want to kill us for no reason except their own impotent rage at being left behind by history.
4. One last point about Mexico: As bad as the Mexican war was, and as bad as our other interventions in their country were (and there have been many), none equals the wanton death and destruction we have unleashed on them in the war on drugs. Beginning with the criminalization of drugs and the idea that they are bad for you, which is an American idea from the beginning, and ending with the police/military power being used to enforce this Puritan morality, Mexico has been bulldozed and extorted by us. Mexico is full of drugs and has been since ancient times. The Aztecs were big drug users, like everyone else. Even today, some Indians out there in the desert will use peyote routinely just to get through the day, which consists of carrying water up the hill and taking their clothes down to the creek to wash them and so forth. They would ask you that if they can find a plant that allows them to enjoy carrying water and beating their clothes against a rock, then what the Hell is wrong with that? They still don't know that drugs are wrong and that God wants us to be sober 24/7.
I don't know if you remember when the drug war began, back in the early '70s—another of Nixon's great ideas designed by Gordon Liddy. We wanted Mexico's cooperation to stem the flow of drugs across the border and they told us to take a walk. Then Liddy came up with "Operation Intercept" which created impossible bottlenecks at the border crossings and with this an unacceptable loss of revenue for the Mexicans. They lasted only a few days under this kind of pressure. The rest is history, as they say. I'm still waiting for the Mexicans to tell us to get off their backs about it, but fat chance!
5. I really object to your calling the US an "empire." The only way to justify that is to define the word in a way that it has never been used before. In other words, you'd have to define the word in an ad hoc way so as to fit US foreign policy. That's not fair! It's even unconstitutional—the Constitution prohibits bills of attainder and calling the US an empire is a rhetorical bill of attainder!
6. You say, "If we truly wish to regain our moral stature in the world–that is, if we wish to become truly morally superior to the enemies we fight–then we must hold accountable those who broke the law." I disagree. For one, our use of torture does not make us equivalent to our enemies, who are much worse. In fact, our enemies hold our moral standards up to ridicule in themselves. They are not Islamic. For another, we do and are holding those who broke the law to account. Even if their punishment is not what you'd demand, it's an utterly different world from that of our enemies. Even this debate is enough to prove my point: can you seriously imagine this debate happening in any Arab/Islamic country?
7. I believe that members of the Bush administration have already stood up and defended their practices and justified them. That's one reason why Cheney is suing to get the blacked-out portions of the torture memos published.
As for the consequences, I'll leave that to the lawyers to debate. From what I've read so far, this is far from an obvious conclusion. Most people can't even say with any precision what law was broken, let alone what punishment they deserve. Also, it will be opening a Pandora's box to prosecute the former administration for their political decisions, let alone the Pandora's box that would be opened up by a "truth commission." But for politicians, having their names dragged through the mud like this is punishment in itself (I'm not saying it's enough punishment). This relatively minor punishment is just light-years more than anything that could ever happen to torturers in the Arab/Islamic world—one reason why the spectacle of the Palestinian doctor challenging Libya at the UN anti "racism" conference had so much impact. If someone had stood up at a UN conference and accused the US of torture, the reaction would have been... ho...hum... so what else is new? You don't need to be brave, like the Palestinian doctor, to do that! It's the world's best parlor game at the moment.
PS: "The Life of Brian" is probably the funniest movie ever made. I missed three fourths of it because I was laughing so hard. So I had to see it again. And again.
jshubbub: Thanks for writing. I learned something. And thanks for saying that my rant about Mexico was "rhetorically compelling." You're correct that it's all speculation but I think it's well-informed. For example, California was part of Mexico since the beginning and they did absolutely nothing to develop it. In fact, they did nothing to even defend it once the US Army started its march over there. The Mexicans just left their countrymen to hang in there alone. And remember that probably the main reason Polk wanted the Western territories was for the port of San Diego. This had been in Mexican possession and before that a Spanish possession only to remain a backwater. The reason is that Mexico, for the Mexicans, consists of the altiplano. That's where all the action is and has ever been. If San Diego was treated this way, with its evident importance as one of the world's greatest natural harbors, then what would the Mexicans have done with Santa Fe and so on? What about Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix? Tucson was just a hole in the wall and it undoubtedly would have stayed that way instead of becoming what it is today: a thriving metropolis and a hub of our own drug trade! Just compare Hermosillo. There's practically no difference in geography or even in population today. But Hermosillo continues to be a hell-hole to live in. The difference is that Tucson is the USA.
Aside from that, Mexico lost the war because it's Mexico. They had the stronger army and the stronger military tradition but they lost because of how they acted. For example, Taylor's army in the north, at the beginning of the war, was utterly defeated by the Mexicans and his soldiers were just waiting to die the following day—since they knew that the Mexicans took no prisoners. Dawn broke to find the Mexicans gone to Mexico City to declare victory and give the general (Santa Ana) a political boost. Again, Scott should never have even gotten close to Mexico City, let alone occupied it, if it weren't for Mexican idiocy. Generals refused to man their posts so as not to let the other guy get the best position for heroics and in the process let us outflank them. In sum, they would have had to have been a stronger player on the continent way before the war to have made any difference. Instead, they assumed that God and the Virgin had granted them some kind of supremacy and to this day can't understand how the gringos have bested them, which is why third world dependency theories and even Nazism has such appeal for them. It offers them an excuse.
NDP405:
1. I said that Bush was fulfilling his duty as CIC by trying to stretch the limits on the definitions of torture, so as to get information to thwart future attacks on America. As far as I know, he never authorized anything that had been defined as torture at the time.
2. Keep in mind that we're not discussing "torturing people" in general. According to the memos, we're talking about torturing only some captives thought to be in possession of high-value information. And, again, at the time, the techniques that were inflicted on them had not been defined as torture yet.
3. As for the link you threw up at me, well... if it's true, then I put that in the category of Polk's "American blood was spilled on American soil" speech that got us to declare war on Mexico. In other words, if true, Bush was pushing a lie to justify the invasion of Iraq. Note that the article you link to does not accuse Bush of fabricating a link between Saddam and 9/11 but only a link between him and al Qaeda in general.
However, this wasn't the only justification for the invasion of Iraq or even the most important one. Besides, I can't see how they would need to fabricate evidence of Saddam's links with al Qaeda when al Zarqawi was already in Iraq after the invasion of Afghanistan. Wikipedia:
In the summer of 2002, Zarqawi settled in northern Iraq, where he joined the Islamist Ansar al-Islam group that fought against the Kurdish-nationalist forces in the region. He became a leader in the group, although the extent of his authority has not been established. According to Perspectives on World History and Current Events (PWHCE), a not-for-profit project based in Melbourne, Australia, "Zarqawi was well positioned to lead the Islamic wing of the insurgency when the March 2003 invasion took place. Whether he remained in Ansar al-Islam camps until April 2003 or laid the preparations for the war during extensive visits to Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle is uncertain, but clearly he emerged as an important figure in the insurgency soon after the Coalition invasion."
Ansar al-Islam, of course, was an al Qaeda affiliate. Whether or not Zarqawi was under bin Laden's orders in 2002 or not, he was an adherent of the same fanatic ideology. Therefore, I say that Bush would have been justified in seeing his presence in Iraq as a growing threat to us.
Mark: I think you have a lot of fair points to make. On one thing, though, I still say you're wrong: the Eighth amendment does not protect enemy combatants in a foreign war. And in spite of everything, waterboarding had not been ruled as torture by US courts at the time Bush authorized it. Maybe he should have known, maybe not. But the pressure was on to get info out of KSM. What would you have him do then, especially if it's true that the torture of KSM worked and we got information to thwart future attacks?
The conclusion seems to call for a drastic rethinking of our institutions. I hope so. This is exactly what I've been saying here for a while.
By the way, In the Penal Colony was based on the so-called enlightened efforts of one of the commanders of the penal colony in Australia early in the nineteenth century to mold the so-called criminals to society's moral standards. It was an Enlightenment approach to prisons at the time, so there goes (once again) the slippery-slope argument along with the "efficacy of the Enlightenment project." This project has only become clearer as time goes by. For the Australian history, read Bob Hughes, The Fatal Shore.
jshubbub: Thanks for reading my stuff and for giving me such a thoughtful response. You're a mensch.
You're right that I was being sarcastic in talking about the "soul." But I thought it meant something like "moral compass," not "the essence of what makes us human." Maybe it's more or less the same thing. My point is that—whether it means what you say or not—Bush's authorization of torture does not imply that we're doing anything like that. The reason I say so is that presidents have done worse before Bush and the result is a narrower moral compass or more fidelity to our human essence.
What I see is that Bush was attempting to stay within the law, while still using what people here are calling torture. Whether these practices are torture or not is a judgment for the courts to make and they have made it in some cases. But Bush's actions were what brought on that ruling. They hadn't been ruled as torture before. He didn't authorize breaking people's kneecaps. He authorized waterboarding. By now this has been ruled as torture, so that's why I admit he authorized torture. But at the time, he had a case that it wasn't.
Thanks for catching my inconsistencies. I guess I was confusing "duties" with "morals." However, my above point still stands: the practices authorized by Bush had not been ruled as torture when he authorized them, so he has a legitimate case that he was not openly flouting the law, like you say.
You say, "subsequent desirable consequences do not legitimize the commission of a wrongful act. The ends, in a more familiar turn, do not justify the means." Maybe and maybe not. Did the acquisition of California justify a bogus causus belli against the Mexicans? Polk plainly lied to Congress to get his declaration of war and the war caused untold damage to Mexico, not to mention the Americans who died. Would you have voted against the war in 1847? I would have. But then, I would have been wrong since California today would resemble Baja California and San Diego would be just another little shit Mexican town with dead dogs and garbage strewn all over the streets and the people living in ignorance and fear.
Mark:
Your death penalty example is just one more reason why ED Kain's "we're losing our soul" argument is so bogus. The tendency today is for the death penalty to disappear. If ED Kain were correct, we'd be murdering more and more people in our prisons every year, but the opposite is true. Some states have gone many years without an execution, even if it's still legal there. More states have outlawed it. A hundred years ago we were lynching people in public. Where, exactly, is the slippery slope?
Another analogy is abortion. Who can really deny that abortion kills a human life? What's in the mother's belly otherwise, no matter how far along she is in her pregnancy? But people will accept the fact that the state permits abortion, just like it permits the death penalty, because the state has the right to do so, i.e., permit murder, if it has a good reason for it.
On the whole, I don't see anything different about this than the hundreds and thousands of other published opinions on our use of torture. I agree with a lot of it. But I'm not all that interested in deciding whether a certain practice is torture or not, and therefore immoral or not, and therefore reason to form some idiot "truth commission" or not. My point isn't deciding whether we're going down some black hole and a police state is just around the corner—i.e., the slippery-slope, "we're losing our soul" argument—which I have yet to see ED Kain defend. All these things to me are only political wedge issues—maybe entertaining to debate but irrelevant to political analysis. I can't see how one can deny that a lot of people are just using the controversy to admire their own approach to morality and this frankly disgusts me. I hate to be lectured to on morality.
The point of view I've been trying to promote is centered on the decision-making process that led to our use of torture, where all of what you say comes into play. This is where the idea that "it's lonely at the top" acquires a terrible reality. I refuse to believe that Bush is some monster who "went into a psycho rage of hatred toward Muslim’s [sic] and their countries Chris WWW dixit after 9/11. I believe that Bush's moral framework is just as in-line with what people here want to promote as anyone's. But he had the responsibility of making a decision and nobody else.
This is why I'll continue to defend him. Not exactly because I think he did the right thing (i.e., the "efficacy" argument). We could argue about that if Obama hadn't blacked-out the relevant information from the memos he published. Maybe soon we'll known what was in there and then I'll find out that he did the wrong thing.
If torturing a handful of people is going to save a few thousand lives, the government’s immoral actions are well justified (to the average person) by the .00001% increase in the likelihood that they’ll be able to continue feeding their family until they retire or die of old age. On the other hand, this isn’t going to be the case if it’s only going to save one or two or a handful of live[s]; and it’s definitely not going to be the case if it actually costs more lives than it saves.
This is exactly the calculation that Bush is forced to make. Except your ".00001%" idea is bogus. It should be ".00001% less chance that Americans will die in the war." It has to come down to thinking that even saving one American life would be worth it. How could he face the family of even that one dead American knowing he could have prevented it? And, of course, it never comes down to this. It's about getting an advantage in the war. Bush was CIC. His job is to get an advantage in the war. He thought that by using torture is a limited and safe way would get us an advantage. Maybe it did and maybe it didn't. Like I say, this has not been established yet, largely because the information is still classified. If we get an advantage and defeat the jihadists, then Americans are safer. That's the president's responsibility.
The president is CIC. His job is to save American lives. Nobody says that this "overrides" his oath of office, to "preserve and protect the Constitution" but if it conflicts with it, then what? Does he do the right thing and "preserve and protect the Constitution" or does he do the right thing by saving American lives? How will history judge his decision? Will his decision lead to his reelection, or his party's enhanced hold on power or not? Etc etc. Keep in mind that if Bush did violate his oath to "preserve and protect" he wasn't the first president to do so nor will he be the last. The first was Jefferson when he authorized the Louisiana Purchase. Roosevelt was operating the Lend/Lease program outside the margins of the law for years before WWII. These two are ranked among our greatest presidents. James K. Polk trumped up a bogus causus beli against Mexico, which was a startling model for Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1965, and declared war against them and later annexed half their territory. Do you (or ED Kain) want to give it back to them because his actions were immoral?
Still, I can't see that Bush even broke the law in such an egregious way as Jefferson, Polk, Roosevelt, and Johnson did. What I see is that he was trying to expand the limits of the law. That was the whole purpose of the memos. At the time, even waterboarding hadn't been ruled as torture. He had a case that it wasn't even if you and everyone else here disagree. Maybe in doing so he actually went outside it. Most people here think he did. I really don't know. But expanding the limits of the law is how the law is used, isn't it? Aren't we always trying to see just how far we can get? That's the American way, isn't it? At least, that's the basis of the "checks and balances" theory that Madison invented in 1787.
This is one reason why I say that the "truth commission" idea is idiotic. Another reason is that it would uncover worse abuses under Clinton (there goes ED Kain's "slippery-slope-we're-losing-our-souls" argument). Another reason is that Congress was informed all along about what we were doing and raised no objections until it became politically correct to do so. Another reason is that a "truth commission" puts us on the same level of some tinpot thirdworld dictatorship and we'd be making a spectacle of ourselves once again for nothing. Whatever Bush authorized is not even in the same ballpark as the atrocities committed in El Salvador, for example. To say that it is is simply Andrew-Sullivan-style panties-in-a-wad moral posturing.
NDP405: I just love how you are allowed to dictate the rules of the argument.
How can you get from "I hope your post doesn't mention..." to "dictating rules?" Only by relying on straw men to win arguments. I said the above because it's getting tedious reading so much moral righteousness. I enjoy Mark's posts, but if he's going to be writing the umpteenth "soul and honor" post, then I just won't be reading it. Which is why I said, "I hope..."
the fact of the matter is, the President is elected to uphold and enforce the laws of the land (enacted by Congress)
True, but he's also elected to be CIC, which means keeping Americans safe. That's exactly what he did.
ED Kain:
I think that the idea that we're losing our soul by condoning torture is just another wedge issue used by politicians to get votes. For one thing, there is no such thing as a soul, so we can't ever lose it. But if you mean something like "we're losing our moral compass," then it's just wrong because it's ahistorical. Do you think we'll now be judged by god when we die and sent to Hell if we condoned torture? If so, then your opinion is irrelevant to me. Do you think that we're losing our moral compass? Then, how do you explain the fact that we have condoned less and less of this kind of conduct by our government as time goes by? You yourself mentioned the internment of Japanese Americans. Earlier, Wilson had authorized mass deportations of the Wobblies, jailed people for pacifism, and jailed even more during the Red Scare. Today, he's known as Meester Idealist, which is probably making a lot of people alive at the time turn over in their graves. I could go on, but the point is that our moral compass is narrowing its bead on the magnetic north of ethical behavior, not the opposite, which would be true if we were "losing our souls." The very fact that we're even having this discussion proves my point.
The larger point is that our moral compass will never run a true bead because we have so many morals. We can't possibly ever live up to them all since in the real world they come into direct conflict so much. In the case of authorizing torture, the president is torn between his duties of upholding the law and keeping the people safe. That's the essence of the "ticking bomb" scenario. In Bush's case, although I know everyone here disagrees, he was not even breaking the law. He was trying to stretch the limits of the law. A legitimate case can be made for his side of the argument, even if you disagree with it.
Bush's case might be enhanced if we really knew what information we got by torturing KSM. But we don't because Obama blacked it out.
dsimon:I thought the oath was to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. At least that’s what the Constitution says. Yes, but the president is also CIC, which means protecting American lives.
First, there are no specifics. We don’t know how important the “actionable intelligence” was, nor how serious the plots allegedly uncovered were.
This is true, but only because the relevant information was blacked out by Obama. If it hadn't been, then we could discuss your questions.
I'd also like to know where this "recruiting tool" meme comes from. I just don't see the logic in it. Logically, the best recruiting tool is success. Therefore, if we defeat the jihadists their recruiting will go way down, like what happened to the Nazis after WWII. So far, the evidence is that al Qaeda-style jihadism is struggling even within the world of radical Islam. Recruiting was way up in the aftermath of 9/11—the jihadists' greatest triumph.
You say, "Thiessen seems to imply that anything goes as long as it improves our security." Of course he doesn't say or even imply such a thing. Just the opposite. He says that we can use torture in a selective and safe way to enhance our security. If you disagree with this, then, fine. Go ahead and do it. But don't distort his words to prove your point because that just won't work.
AC: I'd draw the line where people are US citizens, which means that I wouldn't support torturing McVeigh or anyone else you mention. Therefore, I hereby denounce Padilla's torture. Happy now?
Mark: I just hope that your post doesn't mention anything about losing our souls or honor. These are arguments suitable for political campaigns. One has to appreciate that the president is faced with moral choices that most people are not capable of making. In other words, he might have to lose his "honor" or his "soul" to do his job as he sees it.
I think any parent should be able to imagine this situation somehow. How many times are we forced to eat sh%t (not "fulfill our duty to honor") to support our children? Am I alone in thinking that a souless corporation had me by the balls for years only because I couldn't afford to be unemployed because of my children?
Mark: Do attacks on our embassies and Naval vessels count as attacks on US soil? How about the '93 WTC bombing? But there weren't any foreign attacks on US soil in the Nixon admin either, or indeed since the war of 1812. What does this have to do with anything? There was a horrendous attack on 9/11 and that's what Bush had to deal with. If I had been in his shoes, I'd have to assume that 9/11 was only the beginning. Most people did at the time. So, yes, it's an acomplishment that there have been none since. If torture played a role in this, then I can accept it if only because I can try and imagine the terrible moral choices the president faces and support him if he fulfills his responsiblity. If he had refused to torture and then there had been more attacks that could have been prevented, I can't imagine how he could have explained this to the people.
You want to discount Thiessen’s claims because he challenges your position, not because of anything substantive. Your objections only amount to "the road not taken" and this will usually be a better road than the one we're on today. You're saying that intelligence info can be manipulated for political ends. This is undoubtedly true. But it's just one more argument in my favor. If we had the information, then we could debate whether it was manipulated or not. How would you describe the blacking-out of the the pertinent info in the torture memos? Could this have a political end? I say it does, since it could show that Bush did the right thing.
Obama has blacked-out the parts of the torture memos that deal with Thiessen’s claims, so, in this limited sense they are unverifiable. But I say that his claims are verifiable, if Obama had released the information. Then we could debate the points you raise. But even then, we'd be using hindsight. The point is to judge the decisions the Bush admin made using the info they had available at the time. The fact that Omaba declined to release the info makes me suspect that they were correct, but I don't know. Of course. I reserve the right to change my opinions when the information does come out and so should you.
"The whole due process thing" and the "innocent until proven guilty thing" are about the fourteenth amendment. This applies to US citizens. Obviously. We're under no obligation to give enemy combatants the rights we have as US citizens and to suggest that we do is just pandering to the grandstand.
I object to the idea that "we’ve created what amounts to perpetual war." Perhaps war is perpetual. It certainly seems like it, if we simply glance at history. But we haven't created the human race and its unquenchable desire for power and resources. As long as we're a world power, there will be enemies who want what we have and are willing to fight for it. We have to fight back, don't we?
The jihadists declared war on us, not the other way around. So how, exactly, have we created this situation? If it were up to us, we'd simply be doing business with whoever wanted to buy and sell--who the Hell cares if they're Muslim or whatever? Or is doing business with Muslims somehow a provocation? Are we really to blame because they declared war on us? How do you figure that?
Thanks for mentioning me here, Mark. In fact, you showed me how difficult it is to speculate about the law for a non-lawyer and therefore made me admit my ignorance.
Given my ignorance, I'm willing to accept the judgement of the courts on these things and since waterboarding as been ruled as torture (I think), to me, then, it's torture, no question about it.
However, I still haven't seen you address the question of the efficacy of the waterboarding (for example). Former Bush admin officials have said that waterboarding KSM allowed us to thwart further attacks on America. The torture memos were redacted so as to keep the information obtained by using torture a secret. Why?
I think most people would agree that it's correct to authorize the selective and safe torture to get critical information, even if it repulses them to think about it.
You showed me that I can't argue coherently about the legality of torture but I can accept your argument and still support our use of torture. I say that the president must violate the human rights of enemy combatants when he thinks that we need to so as to keep Americans safe. It's when he has to do the wrong thing to get the right results. I can't say he did the right thing, but I can still support him for being there and getting the right results and accepting responsibility for it, good or bad. It's not a moral choice I'd be capable of making, but I'm not president. This kind of thing is part of the president's job and I will support him as long as he produces results.
ChrisWWW: How does the Thiessen article change anything? Thiessen is hardly a unbiased observer, and all he can do is make vague assertions about the effectiveness of torture. But let’s assume for a second that it was effective at getting information, does that really change the moral calculation?
It changes the moral calculation because, if he's right, we were using torture selectively and safely--i.e., on "high-value" targets and with no danger of maiming or killing--to get information that saved American lives. Saving American lives is what we elect the president for. It's his job, not making sure that our enemies are comfortable. It's the same moral calculation involved in dropping the A-bomb: we killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese but ended the war so no more Americans would have to die. Are the human rights of our captive enemy combatants worth less than our human rights are? Plainly, no. Human rights belong to every human, no matter what. Should the president consider violating the human rights of our declared enemies so as to save American lives? For sure he should and I say that if he didn't he'd be a goner politically, along with anyone who supported him. Is this a "moral calculation?" I don't know. You tell me.
I mentioned before, on another thread, that--historically--Americans will tolerate conduct in foreign affairs that they would never even consider tolerating at home. This of course bears on your argument that "we now abandon the Geneva Conventions as well as authorize local police forces to use tactics...".
You worry about "twisting" Thiessen's argument and yet you proceed to do so in the most exaggerated and puerile way I can imagine: "If you murdered me, would you be helping me do my religious duty by sending me God?" Of course not. Are you serious? Why exaggerate in such a flimsy way? The situation you describe is not even in the same ballpark with the topic under discussion. For example, we haven't killed anyone under torture--just the opposite: we made sure that they were safe and only made them believe that they'd die to get information to save American lives. If I murder you only to send you to what you believe is your Maker, I have no legitimate motive. If I murder you, and thereby send you to your maker, because you were threatening someone I love with death, then, yes, I have a legitimate reason to do so.
Nobody says that Thiessen is unbaiased. But to attack his argument on that basis is simply a juvenile ad hominem fallacy. One has to consider the content of what he's saying and refute that. I haven't seen you do that at all. I haven't seen anyone here do that at all.
People here limit themselves to condemning torture and the people who authorized it without even trying to put themselves in their shoes. They had the responsibility of saving American lives and they evidently fulfilled it because there were no further attacks on American during their watch. If waterboarding, slapping, and putting them in cages with caterpillars played a part in this seven-year record, then I say they did the right thing.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “all the president’s spies”
ED Kain:
Like any complex situation, the end of the Cold War will demand a complex solution. I'm certain that the CIA played its part in this explanation. So, I have to answer that I just don't know the answer—unlike you, who are so sure of your answers.
"
ED Kain: It's fantastic that you have the definitive answer to such a complex question as, How did we win the Cold War? We all should sit at your feet and learn.
On “stating the obvious”
Bill:
I find it ironic that the Democratic Party, which preaches morality over all other considerations, is as guilty as the Republicans when it came to authorizing the government's program for torturing high-value captives.
"
Stephen: George Friedman, whom I've excerpted above, provides the best picture of the "basic fact situation" that I've seen: we lacked basic information about al Qaeda after 9/11; using torture was a fast way to get it; torturing KSM, for example, allowed us to arrive at a cleared picture of the enemy; after we did have a clearer picture, torture was not needed, or even probably used, as a program. This is really something one can call "analysis," as opposed to the moral posturing that passes for analysis here and almost everywhere else.
On “all the president’s spies”
The Soviet spy network was so vastly superior to anything the West had in place - despite their continued practice of offing “westernized” agents - that it makes the CIA look truly laughable. Bumble along is right….
And yet… we won.
Also @ Bob: Ackerman's comment echoes George Friedman's analysis, which I posted in another thread here. He says that the torture program was because of our intelligence failures after the Cold War. He says that
He concludes,
"
This only takes account of Soviet espionage and subversion against us—even during the years of alliance in WWII. We had no spy agency until after the war; the Soviet spy agency was founded at the same time as the October "revolution."
Read the work of Christopher Andrews on the Soviets to be "fair and balanced." The Cold War was a war, after all.
On “a quote for saturday”
So: what white hot truths did Sullivan discover that made him turn 180º on the war in Iraq and support of Israel? What lies? What new evidence?
I wouldn't care about anyone's staunch support for Obama if it was based on anything rational. I defy you to find anything in Sullivan's Atlantic love-letter to Obama that fits that criteria and can't be boiled down to Obama's face—as Sullivan himself puts it—plus Hope n'Change.
On “Certainty About the Law”
I’ve enjoyed our exchange and hope we can have another in the future. Same here.
On “stating the obvious”
The most intelligent thing I've read so far about this issue, by : George Friedman
Top that if you can.
On “Certainty About the Law”
jshubbub:
1. I can't believe you're actually reading my stuff. You must have a lot of better things to do, so... Thanks again!
2. Your summary of my opinion is only wrong in emphasis at some points and in others you characterize me incorrectly, while in general you are correct. All in all, it was a pretty fair summary—except for your conclusion: "Therefore, we were justified to declare war on Mexico in 1847 based on subsequent positive outcomes." I'm fully aware that the rest of what you say is true. There was a strong anti-war faction in the Congress at the time and for me it's significant that JQ Adams (he ended his life as a Representative) voted "no." I believe that this was his last public act and that he died soon afterward. Adams was the architect of the Monroe Doctrine and so many other of our "empire-building" and national security policies that I imagine that if I had been alive at the time I would have followed his lead. He knew what he was doing. So no, I don't think our actions then were justified. However, in contrast to European powers at the time, our conduct was still more moral: we never annexed the rest of the country, even though we had conquered it, much like Cortés had before and we paid them for the land—$25 million in gold. It wasn't so much stealing as it was extortion. I do not justify extortion, although I can understand Polk's urgency to get the territory because of the geopolitics of the age. I wouldn't put him on a "truth commission" trial for it because, well... he did what he had to do.
As for the Mexicans, I'm sorry my rhetoric (thanks again for the compliment!) went way overboard. I do not believe that they were "idiots." I just believe that they were Mexicans and they were caught up in something a lot bigger than they were (the USA!) and had no way to understand it based on their own history and culture.
Part of this history and culture explains why the never exploited California: they already had a great port on the Pacific (Acapulco) and a centuries-old trade route to Asia. But like everything else at the time—and even today to a great extent—this port and trade route was someone's property and that "someone" (in reality groups of people) had paid good money to the government for the ownership rights. Therefore, nobody had any reason to exploit other ports since what we call competition they called treason. Also, I see some validity in Weber's thesis about the capitalist mentality in Mexico: they were just happy to stay where they were. They lacked the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans. This is part of what I mean when I say they were caught up in something bigger than they were: the industrial revolution/capitalism.
I don't really know why they failed to defend California. They had a sea route there. We marched across the worst desert on the continent from Saint Louis without even having any good maps and found San Diego practically undefended. The reasons must have to do with the internal politics of Mexico, where at the same time the war was going on factions were fighting for power in Mexico City.
As for the military, the Mexicans had a huge army of Indian conscripts and we had a volunteer army of American hicks. American hicks know how to use their heads in a fight and that's what they did. Indian conscripts didn't stand a chance, really, especially if you consider the leadership (or lack of it) that they had. Everyone wanted to be the hero and nobody wanted to do the dirty work. A classic case of "too many chiefs...". That's just Mexican culture.
As a side note, the war was the definitive defeat of this social class in Mexico—called the criollos—and the beginning of today's Mestizo Mexico. Therefore, our conquest of their country had unintended benefits even for them because they got rid of a parasitical social class that had maintained its grip on power through the ages. Plus, they got the $25 million, which they used, of course, to fight their civil wars instead of investing it in something useful.
I have to make this clear: I don't think the Mexicans were or are idiots. They did the best they could with what they had but it wasn't good enough. The smart thing for them to do would have been to bow to destiny like the Japanese did a few years later and adapt their country to superior power and wealth. But that would be too much to expect them because their history is completely different.
3. Your numbers 4 & 5 are correct. I can't see how anyone could argue with them, least of all the Mexicans! They're the ones flooding our borders. If you get a group of ten Mexicans together, a cross section of social classes and regional identities, at least half will say they'd go to the US if they could. That goes double for students, who are mainly well-off. All ten will want to go. Maybe we don't realize it fully, but America is still the land of opportunity for most of the world, in spite of our torturing a few fanatic Muslims who want to kill us for no reason except their own impotent rage at being left behind by history.
4. One last point about Mexico: As bad as the Mexican war was, and as bad as our other interventions in their country were (and there have been many), none equals the wanton death and destruction we have unleashed on them in the war on drugs. Beginning with the criminalization of drugs and the idea that they are bad for you, which is an American idea from the beginning, and ending with the police/military power being used to enforce this Puritan morality, Mexico has been bulldozed and extorted by us. Mexico is full of drugs and has been since ancient times. The Aztecs were big drug users, like everyone else. Even today, some Indians out there in the desert will use peyote routinely just to get through the day, which consists of carrying water up the hill and taking their clothes down to the creek to wash them and so forth. They would ask you that if they can find a plant that allows them to enjoy carrying water and beating their clothes against a rock, then what the Hell is wrong with that? They still don't know that drugs are wrong and that God wants us to be sober 24/7.
I don't know if you remember when the drug war began, back in the early '70s—another of Nixon's great ideas designed by Gordon Liddy. We wanted Mexico's cooperation to stem the flow of drugs across the border and they told us to take a walk. Then Liddy came up with "Operation Intercept" which created impossible bottlenecks at the border crossings and with this an unacceptable loss of revenue for the Mexicans. They lasted only a few days under this kind of pressure. The rest is history, as they say. I'm still waiting for the Mexicans to tell us to get off their backs about it, but fat chance!
5. I really object to your calling the US an "empire." The only way to justify that is to define the word in a way that it has never been used before. In other words, you'd have to define the word in an ad hoc way so as to fit US foreign policy. That's not fair! It's even unconstitutional—the Constitution prohibits bills of attainder and calling the US an empire is a rhetorical bill of attainder!
6. You say, "If we truly wish to regain our moral stature in the world–that is, if we wish to become truly morally superior to the enemies we fight–then we must hold accountable those who broke the law." I disagree. For one, our use of torture does not make us equivalent to our enemies, who are much worse. In fact, our enemies hold our moral standards up to ridicule in themselves. They are not Islamic. For another, we do and are holding those who broke the law to account. Even if their punishment is not what you'd demand, it's an utterly different world from that of our enemies. Even this debate is enough to prove my point: can you seriously imagine this debate happening in any Arab/Islamic country?
7. I believe that members of the Bush administration have already stood up and defended their practices and justified them. That's one reason why Cheney is suing to get the blacked-out portions of the torture memos published.
As for the consequences, I'll leave that to the lawyers to debate. From what I've read so far, this is far from an obvious conclusion. Most people can't even say with any precision what law was broken, let alone what punishment they deserve. Also, it will be opening a Pandora's box to prosecute the former administration for their political decisions, let alone the Pandora's box that would be opened up by a "truth commission." But for politicians, having their names dragged through the mud like this is punishment in itself (I'm not saying it's enough punishment). This relatively minor punishment is just light-years more than anything that could ever happen to torturers in the Arab/Islamic world—one reason why the spectacle of the Palestinian doctor challenging Libya at the UN anti "racism" conference had so much impact. If someone had stood up at a UN conference and accused the US of torture, the reaction would have been... ho...hum... so what else is new? You don't need to be brave, like the Palestinian doctor, to do that! It's the world's best parlor game at the moment.
PS: "The Life of Brian" is probably the funniest movie ever made. I missed three fourths of it because I was laughing so hard. So I had to see it again. And again.
"
jshubbub: Thanks for writing. I learned something. And thanks for saying that my rant about Mexico was "rhetorically compelling." You're correct that it's all speculation but I think it's well-informed. For example, California was part of Mexico since the beginning and they did absolutely nothing to develop it. In fact, they did nothing to even defend it once the US Army started its march over there. The Mexicans just left their countrymen to hang in there alone. And remember that probably the main reason Polk wanted the Western territories was for the port of San Diego. This had been in Mexican possession and before that a Spanish possession only to remain a backwater. The reason is that Mexico, for the Mexicans, consists of the altiplano. That's where all the action is and has ever been. If San Diego was treated this way, with its evident importance as one of the world's greatest natural harbors, then what would the Mexicans have done with Santa Fe and so on? What about Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix? Tucson was just a hole in the wall and it undoubtedly would have stayed that way instead of becoming what it is today: a thriving metropolis and a hub of our own drug trade! Just compare Hermosillo. There's practically no difference in geography or even in population today. But Hermosillo continues to be a hell-hole to live in. The difference is that Tucson is the USA.
Aside from that, Mexico lost the war because it's Mexico. They had the stronger army and the stronger military tradition but they lost because of how they acted. For example, Taylor's army in the north, at the beginning of the war, was utterly defeated by the Mexicans and his soldiers were just waiting to die the following day—since they knew that the Mexicans took no prisoners. Dawn broke to find the Mexicans gone to Mexico City to declare victory and give the general (Santa Ana) a political boost. Again, Scott should never have even gotten close to Mexico City, let alone occupied it, if it weren't for Mexican idiocy. Generals refused to man their posts so as not to let the other guy get the best position for heroics and in the process let us outflank them. In sum, they would have had to have been a stronger player on the continent way before the war to have made any difference. Instead, they assumed that God and the Virgin had granted them some kind of supremacy and to this day can't understand how the gringos have bested them, which is why third world dependency theories and even Nazism has such appeal for them. It offers them an excuse.
On “Taking the Wrong Approach”
NDP405:
1. I said that Bush was fulfilling his duty as CIC by trying to stretch the limits on the definitions of torture, so as to get information to thwart future attacks on America. As far as I know, he never authorized anything that had been defined as torture at the time.
2. Keep in mind that we're not discussing "torturing people" in general. According to the memos, we're talking about torturing only some captives thought to be in possession of high-value information. And, again, at the time, the techniques that were inflicted on them had not been defined as torture yet.
3. As for the link you threw up at me, well... if it's true, then I put that in the category of Polk's "American blood was spilled on American soil" speech that got us to declare war on Mexico. In other words, if true, Bush was pushing a lie to justify the invasion of Iraq. Note that the article you link to does not accuse Bush of fabricating a link between Saddam and 9/11 but only a link between him and al Qaeda in general.
However, this wasn't the only justification for the invasion of Iraq or even the most important one. Besides, I can't see how they would need to fabricate evidence of Saddam's links with al Qaeda when al Zarqawi was already in Iraq after the invasion of Afghanistan. Wikipedia:
Ansar al-Islam, of course, was an al Qaeda affiliate. Whether or not Zarqawi was under bin Laden's orders in 2002 or not, he was an adherent of the same fanatic ideology. Therefore, I say that Bush would have been justified in seeing his presence in Iraq as a growing threat to us.
"
Mark: I think you have a lot of fair points to make. On one thing, though, I still say you're wrong: the Eighth amendment does not protect enemy combatants in a foreign war. And in spite of everything, waterboarding had not been ruled as torture by US courts at the time Bush authorized it. Maybe he should have known, maybe not. But the pressure was on to get info out of KSM. What would you have him do then, especially if it's true that the torture of KSM worked and we got information to thwart future attacks?
"
The conclusion seems to call for a drastic rethinking of our institutions. I hope so. This is exactly what I've been saying here for a while.
By the way, In the Penal Colony was based on the so-called enlightened efforts of one of the commanders of the penal colony in Australia early in the nineteenth century to mold the so-called criminals to society's moral standards. It was an Enlightenment approach to prisons at the time, so there goes (once again) the slippery-slope argument along with the "efficacy of the Enlightenment project." This project has only become clearer as time goes by. For the Australian history, read Bob Hughes, The Fatal Shore.
On “Certainty About the Law”
jshubbub: Thanks for reading my stuff and for giving me such a thoughtful response. You're a mensch.
You're right that I was being sarcastic in talking about the "soul." But I thought it meant something like "moral compass," not "the essence of what makes us human." Maybe it's more or less the same thing. My point is that—whether it means what you say or not—Bush's authorization of torture does not imply that we're doing anything like that. The reason I say so is that presidents have done worse before Bush and the result is a narrower moral compass or more fidelity to our human essence.
What I see is that Bush was attempting to stay within the law, while still using what people here are calling torture. Whether these practices are torture or not is a judgment for the courts to make and they have made it in some cases. But Bush's actions were what brought on that ruling. They hadn't been ruled as torture before. He didn't authorize breaking people's kneecaps. He authorized waterboarding. By now this has been ruled as torture, so that's why I admit he authorized torture. But at the time, he had a case that it wasn't.
Thanks for catching my inconsistencies. I guess I was confusing "duties" with "morals." However, my above point still stands: the practices authorized by Bush had not been ruled as torture when he authorized them, so he has a legitimate case that he was not openly flouting the law, like you say.
You say, "subsequent desirable consequences do not legitimize the commission of a wrongful act. The ends, in a more familiar turn, do not justify the means." Maybe and maybe not. Did the acquisition of California justify a bogus causus belli against the Mexicans? Polk plainly lied to Congress to get his declaration of war and the war caused untold damage to Mexico, not to mention the Americans who died. Would you have voted against the war in 1847? I would have. But then, I would have been wrong since California today would resemble Baja California and San Diego would be just another little shit Mexican town with dead dogs and garbage strewn all over the streets and the people living in ignorance and fear.
On “Taking the Wrong Approach”
Mark:
Your death penalty example is just one more reason why ED Kain's "we're losing our soul" argument is so bogus. The tendency today is for the death penalty to disappear. If ED Kain were correct, we'd be murdering more and more people in our prisons every year, but the opposite is true. Some states have gone many years without an execution, even if it's still legal there. More states have outlawed it. A hundred years ago we were lynching people in public. Where, exactly, is the slippery slope?
Another analogy is abortion. Who can really deny that abortion kills a human life? What's in the mother's belly otherwise, no matter how far along she is in her pregnancy? But people will accept the fact that the state permits abortion, just like it permits the death penalty, because the state has the right to do so, i.e., permit murder, if it has a good reason for it.
"
On the whole, I don't see anything different about this than the hundreds and thousands of other published opinions on our use of torture. I agree with a lot of it. But I'm not all that interested in deciding whether a certain practice is torture or not, and therefore immoral or not, and therefore reason to form some idiot "truth commission" or not. My point isn't deciding whether we're going down some black hole and a police state is just around the corner—i.e., the slippery-slope, "we're losing our soul" argument—which I have yet to see ED Kain defend. All these things to me are only political wedge issues—maybe entertaining to debate but irrelevant to political analysis. I can't see how one can deny that a lot of people are just using the controversy to admire their own approach to morality and this frankly disgusts me. I hate to be lectured to on morality.
The point of view I've been trying to promote is centered on the decision-making process that led to our use of torture, where all of what you say comes into play. This is where the idea that "it's lonely at the top" acquires a terrible reality. I refuse to believe that Bush is some monster who "went into a psycho rage of hatred toward Muslim’s [sic] and their countries Chris WWW dixit after 9/11. I believe that Bush's moral framework is just as in-line with what people here want to promote as anyone's. But he had the responsibility of making a decision and nobody else.
This is why I'll continue to defend him. Not exactly because I think he did the right thing (i.e., the "efficacy" argument). We could argue about that if Obama hadn't blacked-out the relevant information from the memos he published. Maybe soon we'll known what was in there and then I'll find out that he did the wrong thing.
This is exactly the calculation that Bush is forced to make. Except your ".00001%" idea is bogus. It should be ".00001% less chance that Americans will die in the war." It has to come down to thinking that even saving one American life would be worth it. How could he face the family of even that one dead American knowing he could have prevented it? And, of course, it never comes down to this. It's about getting an advantage in the war. Bush was CIC. His job is to get an advantage in the war. He thought that by using torture is a limited and safe way would get us an advantage. Maybe it did and maybe it didn't. Like I say, this has not been established yet, largely because the information is still classified. If we get an advantage and defeat the jihadists, then Americans are safer. That's the president's responsibility.
The president is CIC. His job is to save American lives. Nobody says that this "overrides" his oath of office, to "preserve and protect the Constitution" but if it conflicts with it, then what? Does he do the right thing and "preserve and protect the Constitution" or does he do the right thing by saving American lives? How will history judge his decision? Will his decision lead to his reelection, or his party's enhanced hold on power or not? Etc etc. Keep in mind that if Bush did violate his oath to "preserve and protect" he wasn't the first president to do so nor will he be the last. The first was Jefferson when he authorized the Louisiana Purchase. Roosevelt was operating the Lend/Lease program outside the margins of the law for years before WWII. These two are ranked among our greatest presidents. James K. Polk trumped up a bogus causus beli against Mexico, which was a startling model for Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1965, and declared war against them and later annexed half their territory. Do you (or ED Kain) want to give it back to them because his actions were immoral?
Still, I can't see that Bush even broke the law in such an egregious way as Jefferson, Polk, Roosevelt, and Johnson did. What I see is that he was trying to expand the limits of the law. That was the whole purpose of the memos. At the time, even waterboarding hadn't been ruled as torture. He had a case that it wasn't even if you and everyone else here disagree. Maybe in doing so he actually went outside it. Most people here think he did. I really don't know. But expanding the limits of the law is how the law is used, isn't it? Aren't we always trying to see just how far we can get? That's the American way, isn't it? At least, that's the basis of the "checks and balances" theory that Madison invented in 1787.
This is one reason why I say that the "truth commission" idea is idiotic. Another reason is that it would uncover worse abuses under Clinton (there goes ED Kain's "slippery-slope-we're-losing-our-souls" argument). Another reason is that Congress was informed all along about what we were doing and raised no objections until it became politically correct to do so. Another reason is that a "truth commission" puts us on the same level of some tinpot thirdworld dictatorship and we'd be making a spectacle of ourselves once again for nothing. Whatever Bush authorized is not even in the same ballpark as the atrocities committed in El Salvador, for example. To say that it is is simply Andrew-Sullivan-style panties-in-a-wad moral posturing.
On “Where are you Congress?”
This is just what I've been saying for a long time. I'm happy to be able to agree with you. Just so you know...
On “Certainty About the Law”
NDP405:
I just love how you are allowed to dictate the rules of the argument.
How can you get from "I hope your post doesn't mention..." to "dictating rules?" Only by relying on straw men to win arguments. I said the above because it's getting tedious reading so much moral righteousness. I enjoy Mark's posts, but if he's going to be writing the umpteenth "soul and honor" post, then I just won't be reading it. Which is why I said, "I hope..."
True, but he's also elected to be CIC, which means keeping Americans safe. That's exactly what he did.
ED Kain:
I think that the idea that we're losing our soul by condoning torture is just another wedge issue used by politicians to get votes. For one thing, there is no such thing as a soul, so we can't ever lose it. But if you mean something like "we're losing our moral compass," then it's just wrong because it's ahistorical. Do you think we'll now be judged by god when we die and sent to Hell if we condoned torture? If so, then your opinion is irrelevant to me. Do you think that we're losing our moral compass? Then, how do you explain the fact that we have condoned less and less of this kind of conduct by our government as time goes by? You yourself mentioned the internment of Japanese Americans. Earlier, Wilson had authorized mass deportations of the Wobblies, jailed people for pacifism, and jailed even more during the Red Scare. Today, he's known as Meester Idealist, which is probably making a lot of people alive at the time turn over in their graves. I could go on, but the point is that our moral compass is narrowing its bead on the magnetic north of ethical behavior, not the opposite, which would be true if we were "losing our souls." The very fact that we're even having this discussion proves my point.
The larger point is that our moral compass will never run a true bead because we have so many morals. We can't possibly ever live up to them all since in the real world they come into direct conflict so much. In the case of authorizing torture, the president is torn between his duties of upholding the law and keeping the people safe. That's the essence of the "ticking bomb" scenario. In Bush's case, although I know everyone here disagrees, he was not even breaking the law. He was trying to stretch the limits of the law. A legitimate case can be made for his side of the argument, even if you disagree with it.
Bush's case might be enhanced if we really knew what information we got by torturing KSM. But we don't because Obama blacked it out.
On “a quote for the middle of the afternoon”
dsimon:I thought the oath was to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. At least that’s what the Constitution says. Yes, but the president is also CIC, which means protecting American lives.
This is true, but only because the relevant information was blacked out by Obama. If it hadn't been, then we could discuss your questions.
I'd also like to know where this "recruiting tool" meme comes from. I just don't see the logic in it. Logically, the best recruiting tool is success. Therefore, if we defeat the jihadists their recruiting will go way down, like what happened to the Nazis after WWII. So far, the evidence is that al Qaeda-style jihadism is struggling even within the world of radical Islam. Recruiting was way up in the aftermath of 9/11—the jihadists' greatest triumph.
You say, "Thiessen seems to imply that anything goes as long as it improves our security." Of course he doesn't say or even imply such a thing. Just the opposite. He says that we can use torture in a selective and safe way to enhance our security. If you disagree with this, then, fine. Go ahead and do it. But don't distort his words to prove your point because that just won't work.
AC: I'd draw the line where people are US citizens, which means that I wouldn't support torturing McVeigh or anyone else you mention. Therefore, I hereby denounce Padilla's torture. Happy now?
On “Certainty About the Law”
Mark: I just hope that your post doesn't mention anything about losing our souls or honor. These are arguments suitable for political campaigns. One has to appreciate that the president is faced with moral choices that most people are not capable of making. In other words, he might have to lose his "honor" or his "soul" to do his job as he sees it.
I think any parent should be able to imagine this situation somehow. How many times are we forced to eat sh%t (not "fulfill our duty to honor") to support our children? Am I alone in thinking that a souless corporation had me by the balls for years only because I couldn't afford to be unemployed because of my children?
On “a quote for the middle of the afternoon”
Mark: Do attacks on our embassies and Naval vessels count as attacks on US soil? How about the '93 WTC bombing? But there weren't any foreign attacks on US soil in the Nixon admin either, or indeed since the war of 1812. What does this have to do with anything? There was a horrendous attack on 9/11 and that's what Bush had to deal with. If I had been in his shoes, I'd have to assume that 9/11 was only the beginning. Most people did at the time. So, yes, it's an acomplishment that there have been none since. If torture played a role in this, then I can accept it if only because I can try and imagine the terrible moral choices the president faces and support him if he fulfills his responsiblity. If he had refused to torture and then there had been more attacks that could have been prevented, I can't imagine how he could have explained this to the people.
You want to discount Thiessen’s claims because he challenges your position, not because of anything substantive. Your objections only amount to "the road not taken" and this will usually be a better road than the one we're on today. You're saying that intelligence info can be manipulated for political ends. This is undoubtedly true. But it's just one more argument in my favor. If we had the information, then we could debate whether it was manipulated or not. How would you describe the blacking-out of the the pertinent info in the torture memos? Could this have a political end? I say it does, since it could show that Bush did the right thing.
Obama has blacked-out the parts of the torture memos that deal with Thiessen’s claims, so, in this limited sense they are unverifiable. But I say that his claims are verifiable, if Obama had released the information. Then we could debate the points you raise. But even then, we'd be using hindsight. The point is to judge the decisions the Bush admin made using the info they had available at the time. The fact that Omaba declined to release the info makes me suspect that they were correct, but I don't know. Of course. I reserve the right to change my opinions when the information does come out and so should you.
On “Certainty About the Law”
ED Kain:
"The whole due process thing" and the "innocent until proven guilty thing" are about the fourteenth amendment. This applies to US citizens. Obviously. We're under no obligation to give enemy combatants the rights we have as US citizens and to suggest that we do is just pandering to the grandstand.
I object to the idea that "we’ve created what amounts to perpetual war." Perhaps war is perpetual. It certainly seems like it, if we simply glance at history. But we haven't created the human race and its unquenchable desire for power and resources. As long as we're a world power, there will be enemies who want what we have and are willing to fight for it. We have to fight back, don't we?
The jihadists declared war on us, not the other way around. So how, exactly, have we created this situation? If it were up to us, we'd simply be doing business with whoever wanted to buy and sell--who the Hell cares if they're Muslim or whatever? Or is doing business with Muslims somehow a provocation? Are we really to blame because they declared war on us? How do you figure that?
"
Thanks for mentioning me here, Mark. In fact, you showed me how difficult it is to speculate about the law for a non-lawyer and therefore made me admit my ignorance.
Given my ignorance, I'm willing to accept the judgement of the courts on these things and since waterboarding as been ruled as torture (I think), to me, then, it's torture, no question about it.
However, I still haven't seen you address the question of the efficacy of the waterboarding (for example). Former Bush admin officials have said that waterboarding KSM allowed us to thwart further attacks on America. The torture memos were redacted so as to keep the information obtained by using torture a secret. Why?
I think most people would agree that it's correct to authorize the selective and safe torture to get critical information, even if it repulses them to think about it.
You showed me that I can't argue coherently about the legality of torture but I can accept your argument and still support our use of torture. I say that the president must violate the human rights of enemy combatants when he thinks that we need to so as to keep Americans safe. It's when he has to do the wrong thing to get the right results. I can't say he did the right thing, but I can still support him for being there and getting the right results and accepting responsibility for it, good or bad. It's not a moral choice I'd be capable of making, but I'm not president. This kind of thing is part of the president's job and I will support him as long as he produces results.
On “a quote for the middle of the afternoon”
ChrisWWW:
How does the Thiessen article change anything? Thiessen is hardly a unbiased observer, and all he can do is make vague assertions about the effectiveness of torture. But let’s assume for a second that it was effective at getting information, does that really change the moral calculation?
It changes the moral calculation because, if he's right, we were using torture selectively and safely--i.e., on "high-value" targets and with no danger of maiming or killing--to get information that saved American lives. Saving American lives is what we elect the president for. It's his job, not making sure that our enemies are comfortable. It's the same moral calculation involved in dropping the A-bomb: we killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese but ended the war so no more Americans would have to die. Are the human rights of our captive enemy combatants worth less than our human rights are? Plainly, no. Human rights belong to every human, no matter what. Should the president consider violating the human rights of our declared enemies so as to save American lives? For sure he should and I say that if he didn't he'd be a goner politically, along with anyone who supported him. Is this a "moral calculation?" I don't know. You tell me.
I mentioned before, on another thread, that--historically--Americans will tolerate conduct in foreign affairs that they would never even consider tolerating at home. This of course bears on your argument that "we now abandon the Geneva Conventions as well as authorize local police forces to use tactics...".
You worry about "twisting" Thiessen's argument and yet you proceed to do so in the most exaggerated and puerile way I can imagine: "If you murdered me, would you be helping me do my religious duty by sending me God?" Of course not. Are you serious? Why exaggerate in such a flimsy way? The situation you describe is not even in the same ballpark with the topic under discussion. For example, we haven't killed anyone under torture--just the opposite: we made sure that they were safe and only made them believe that they'd die to get information to save American lives. If I murder you only to send you to what you believe is your Maker, I have no legitimate motive. If I murder you, and thereby send you to your maker, because you were threatening someone I love with death, then, yes, I have a legitimate reason to do so.
Nobody says that Thiessen is unbaiased. But to attack his argument on that basis is simply a juvenile ad hominem fallacy. One has to consider the content of what he's saying and refute that. I haven't seen you do that at all. I haven't seen anyone here do that at all.
People here limit themselves to condemning torture and the people who authorized it without even trying to put themselves in their shoes. They had the responsibility of saving American lives and they evidently fulfilled it because there were no further attacks on American during their watch. If waterboarding, slapping, and putting them in cages with caterpillars played a part in this seven-year record, then I say they did the right thing.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.