America’s moral high ground
President Obama signed executive orders that may drastically change how the world views America.
First, Obama ordered the CIA’s network of foreign “ghost” prisons and the US Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba closed, where the majority of detainees have been kept for years without being charged with any crime. Second, he ordered all US personnel to follow the Army Field Manual when interrogating detainees to ban any use of torture or harsh interrogation techniques. Third, Obama created a new task force, to be headed by the attorney general and secreatry of defense, which will review all current policies about detention, trial, transfer or release of persons captured in anti-terror activities.
“This is big,” said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel of the National Security Archive. “No president has done so much on the first day in office to make his administration transparent.”
After signing the orders, the President said: “The message we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism, and we are going to do so vigilantly; we are going to do so effectively; and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.”
“We think that it is precisely our ideals that give us the strength and the moral high ground to be able to effectively deal with the unthinking violence that we see emanating from terrorist organizations around the world,” he continued. “We intend to win this fight. We’re going to win it on our terms.”
The world wants America to renew its standing in the world. To his credit, Obama has made an excellent start and is drawing praise from world leaders for his actions.
Update @10:41am EST:
“I think that it’s a wise move,” McCain said about closing Guantanamo Bay. “But I also think that we should have addressed this whole issue completely, because it did not address the issue of those who we have in custody and can’t — and no country will take them back. We should have addressed the issue of those who we know would pose a threat to the United States, but we don’t have sufficient evidence to move forward.”
“So, the easy part, in all due respect, is to say we’re going to close Guantanamo,” McCain said. “Then I think I would have said where they were going to be taken. Because you’re going to run into a NIMBY [not in my backyard] problem here in the United States of America.”
I have to say this, although this was a great PR move, it was a rather bad one for national security.
Many prisoners that are freed are going to be pissed, and are going to redouble their efforts.
Look at the guy heading Yemen’s Al Qaida.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast/23yemen.html
He should’ve been nipped in the bud in prison.
I agree with Jin. It is a nice PR move and gives the Dems what they wanted, but in reality the problem is not resolved as stated by McCain. No one wants to torture people, so thats a no brainer, but we certainly do not want to let terrorists run loose in the USA or anywhere else so they can plan to kill us.
We should have ‘nipped’ (as Jin describes it) these terrorists on the war field, not brought them to Cuba. Anyway, I want to see what Obama decided to do with KSM, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Thats the guy who organized 9/11 with Osama. He is one of Guantanamos residents.
mp
As Jin posted earlier, this broad sweeping change is largely a great “PR” move. While we should be guided by our principles as a country, when the security of the nation is threatened, I believe the only principle that should apply is to have the government perform its core function of defending its citizens. And if in that process, our intelligence community deviates from the Army Field Manual, then so be it. I have a hard time believing that even in an Obama administration that given credible intelligence of a terrorist threat to the US, we’re all going to turn to the same page in a book to follow steps A through Z. We’ll do whatever it takes.
Can it be taken to the “extreme” (e.g. the whole argument about Gitmo, waterboarding, etc.)? Like all things, yes…it can be taken to an extreme form. Not to over-simplify the issues here, but in a pseudo-instance of life imitating art, in the movie “The Seige” there were similar themes being played out– radical Islamic terrorist cells at work, and the detention/torture of detainees…some American citizens…for intelligence gathering. In the end, Hollywood’s version plays out like Nancy Pelosi’s loons would like– those responsible in the military/government are arrested, yadda yadda.
I bring up the film and the current argument over our “guiding principles” to say that life doesn’t play out like a scripted movie. If we could identify a finite ending and find out who the good, the bad, and the ugly are before another city is bombed or poisoned by biological weapons, then of course we don’t want to be “uncivilized” and torture anyone. However, the rest of the world doesn’t operate in such a clean way as we’ve seen time and again.
If it comes down to the question of my country’s…indeed my family’s… safety, I choose the err on the side of caution than wait for proof of guilt in the form of a city of thousands dead.
@Timetheos
I’m not an expert on interrogating prisoners, etc, but can you point me to some information that scientifically proves “torture” never works? I’m not disputing your statement, I’ve heard others say that, but how do we know it doesn’t? I’d just like to see the counterargument.
I also think there are too many who are equating “torture” with the magical buzz word of ‘waterboarding’ or as you said what they watch on TV; however, ‘torture’ means different things to the prisoner I would imagine. Just being in Gitmo would be ‘torture’ to me even if I weren’t being waterboarded. I’m sure some of these terrortists are trained to handle different levels of “interrogation”; my only point again was that when it comes to the security of the United States, you don’t close any options.
Yes…the founding fathers died for all the great principles we espouse today; however, all these Bill of Rights arguments people are making apply when there is no probable cause (”unwarranted” to quote your previous statement). Given the track record of several of these “detainees” being back in the al Qaeda line-up again (and stating their desire to destory us), I’d say the US has ample cause to treat these individuals as enemies to our nation. I think that’s quite different from the Queen’s soliders randomly picking up and detaining colonists or taking their property or what have you. Another key distinction is that the founding fathers never sailed over to England and tried to bomb/destroy Buckingham Palace with the intent of destroying all of that country and its citizens.
Wan,
The issue isn’t whether torture is effective or not but whether it is morally acceptable.
If it’s morally acceptable why would you have a problem with publically codifying torture?
Jacob argues above against codifying interrogation practices because it would mean, “telegraphing how prisoners will be handled, meaning they’ll train to fight against these tactics”.
But I’d say the real reason many of us conservatives don’t want turture codified is because we want the ability to do anything to a prisoner to get information and we don’t want to accord them any human rights at all. Which puts us at the same level as the terrorists.
I want to see a list from one of the pro-torture conservatives among us of the types of torture they think would be acceptable to get information to stop a terrorist attack: Waterboarding? Electroshock? Summary execution of fellow hostages? Genital mutiliation?
The reason I’m asking is because if we leave the area uncodified and wide open, interrogations will devolve into the practices above, Because some interrogator will be able to justify using them by saying it will save thousands of lives, and that the person being interrogated gave up all human rights when they took the side of terrorism.
We can’t just brush this under the rug and let it go unadressed, or say, “I don’t want to know.” If you don’t want to know you have no business being involved with the issue.
So if one of us really is pro-torture, please tell me which of the above techniques you’d sign off on to (for example) try to avert a tactical nuclear strike on a major city: Waterboarding? Electroshock? Summary execution of fellow hostages? Genital mutiliation?
Put your name down and say it loud and proud. Otherwise stop arguing for an unregulated gray area.
This is a plank of insanity that the Republican party has adopted. If anyone really wants to support it I want specifics and I want justifications.
Otherwise, we need to let go of this as a plank and move on as a party.
Well, seems as though the “torture” narrative survives.
The only documented cases of waterboarding occurred in 2003; they resulted in information that saved hundreds of lives. The longest lasted in the 2 1/2 to 3 minute range, the shortest, 35 seconds. KSM was one of the prisoners. It has not happened since. The narrative has demanded a usefully flexible definition of torture. Dogs….on leashes. Prolonged cold. Nakedness. Isolation. Exposure to women. Well, cry me a river. I can imagine the laughter of Iraqis…who know what torture really is (no leashes on the dogs used against them)…as we waste time with such navel gazing. Obama’s executive orders are farcical…PR is being kind. They contain exactly the back doors that the previous administration had in place.
“The only documented cases of waterboarding occurred in 2003; they resulted in information that saved hundreds of lives. ”
Says who? The torturers?
” I can imagine the laughter of Iraqis…”
Oh yeah, since Saddam was a real ass, it’s OK for us to violate our values.
“They contain exactly the back doors that the previous administration had in place. ”
Oh well, since Clinton did it it must be OK. So much for the moral superiority of conservatives.
Again, do you have any peer reviewed sources that shows torture works?
Have you ever thought of the problems with prosecuting people that were tortured?
Did we torture Nazi’s or the Japanese in WWII?
If we want to get into anectdotes, here is Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, U.S. Army (Ret.), was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. He is now the Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary.
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Wilkerson080618.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/wilkerson.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801.wilkerson.html
Brilliant statement by Wilkerson, Tim. Thank you for posting that.
Excellent points Bob.
“First I didn’t say “never”, I said “doesn’t”. I’m sure Interrogation is an odds game. Given psychological and socialogical factors, it’s hard to say what will happen in any given situation.”
OK, now we’re playing word games… “never” v. “doesn’t”. So I’m not a native English speaker…but in the context of the argument the you used the words, they seem equal in meaning to me. That aside, at the end of the day, your point is my point… we don’t know exactly what will happen in any given situation. So why discount this method of interrogation if we don’t know?
And Ted Cooke:
I never made any statement opposing “codifying” torture. I only said I support it as a means for our intelligence gatherers to to extract necessary information from the enemy. If any member of Congress wants to list electrodes, waterboarding, etc. etc. into the lawbooks…I say do it. Maybe that would be deterrent to idiotic behavior like terrorism…
Again, it’s admirable that we like to stand on firm principles and quote Jon Stewart (I forget which previous post did that) about “principles” becoming “hobbies”, but I’m trying to take a worst-case scenario realistic view– we have detained a worthless puke like KSM or something… What if….we have highly reliable evidence that he has planned out some horrific attack. Let’s use Jon Stewart as the example. Assume Stewart is a CIA interrogation officer and not such a respected political theorist and “journalist” of our time…and he knows it’s in his city where his wife and kids are. Will his ‘my principles <> my hobbies’ thought pop into his head (though I doubt he’d feel that way had Gitmo been started Obama rather than Bush)? Or will he extract that information to save lives?
OK…I’m sure it’s not that dramatic; however, if your spouse and children are killed, and we had the guy who knew about it and planned it in custody; but didn’t get the info from him b/c we didn’t want to be “unprincipled”, the argument would be “we need to do something” rather than “we’re doing the wrong thing”. Again, I still say most important principle above all is the preservation and security of the homeland.
Granted, not EVERYONE is a terrorist and some are/were detained by mistake. I don’t think what we’re talking about is just hooking up electrodes to everyone’s genitals when they walk in the door and start zapping until someone talks. Let’s give our intelligence team a little more credit than that considering we haven’t had another major attack since 9/11. Principles work only when the opposing side respects them or if they don’t the other side must suffer consequences. Only one side having the “moral” high ground just will not work in this case.
Someone has to do the unpleasant job of dealing with these people… and I’d rather not hamper the process by having a bunch of suits with their throwing legal briefs at them. Call it unscrupulous, stupid, naive, whatever… it’s fight or flight. And all I’m saying is that when it comes to our home…I choose fight. These are foreign invaders (or citizens who have turned traitorous and sided with the enemy)…. not John Q. Public having to be worried about Homeland Security seeing what book he just checked out or having his phone call to his son’s school listened to.
In the case of the afore-mentioned terrorist act which would result in the death of the innocent mother and child, would it be morally just to scare the suspect into talking by using a bowie knife and carving off the head of one of his fellow terrorists?
If your answer is no, then where EXACTLY on the path from water boarding to mutiliation and execution would you draw the line? Please tell me in graphic detail. I want to hear it.
If your answer to this second question is simply that you just trust the government to do the right thing, why all the cirticism of Obama and the Democrats?
Otherwise, either you’re being intellectually honest (you support all forms of tortue and you admit it) or you’re self decieved (I trust a 20-something year old kid with God-like power over another human being not to abuse that power and to know what the line is between right and wrong in interrogations, even though you don’t know that).
Here’s a great article by David Limbaugh which some of you may find interesting and relevant to this discussion: http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2009/01/27/gitmo_questions_for_press_secretary_robert_gibb?page=full
Beyond the questions that Limbaugh raises, there some other very pointed reasons why shutting down Guantanamo is incredibly short-sighted. Of course the looming question is, where do we put them? If we bring them here to U.S. soil, how can we continue to deny them access to our courts? Further, it would be utterly impossible to try one of these guys in a U.S. federal court. Many (but maybe not all) of these guys were picked up on a battlefield by soldiers in the heat of combat, protecting terrorists Fourth Amendment rights was the last thing on their mind. How do you establish probable cause? On top of that, what crime will charge them with? What about those who have been subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques” and are now “prosecution proof.” Do we just let them go? Do we develop a new legal standard for terrorists? That’s not setting a disastrous precedent or anything…Maybe we should have special tribunal to handle these cases….oh wait that’s what we just shut down. While I understand that Gitmo was a hot button issue for many folks around the world, it’s time we get our heads out of the sand (or out of a certain part of our anatomy) and realize that this is not WWII and alternatively these are not some street hoodlums. These are committed fighters in an unconventional war and thus, some of our methods for dealing with them when we don’t just kill them will have to be unconventional as well.
Ted
Where do you draw the line?
Harsh interrogation methods led to the information which stopped the bombin of the Brooklyn Bridge and saved hundreds of lives. How many lives should be forfeited so a terrorist will not have his “rights” infringed?
Where would I draw the line?
Most postings of the Army Field Manual FM34-42 which can be found online (I can’t download the original from army.mil because it keeps freezing my browser) include verbage equivalent to the following:
“The GWS, GPW, GC and US policy expressly prohibit acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental otrture, threads, insults, or exposure to inhumand treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation.”
The version I’m looking at also says:
“Examples of physical torture include-
* Electric shock.
* Infliction of pain through chemicals or bondage (other than legitimate use of restraints to prevent escape).
* Forcing and individual to stand, sit, or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time.
* Food deprivation.
* Any form of beating.”
It’s true that the previous administration rolled out “Enhanced interrogaton techniques” which go way beyond this into techniques that involve stress positions, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation and water boarding, using as a justification that these techniques are used to prepare aviators for interrogation resistance should they be captured in combat. But compared to the experience of an aviator in training I would say that subjecting a prisoner of war to the techniques with the explicit goal of scaring the hell out of them does constitute torture.
By the way, I apologize for the typos and subject errors in my previous posting. The mistakes are there because I composed the post under duress.
The discussion Republicans should be having in regards to the issue of torture is how can we distance ourselves from a policy of advocating torture.
I believe the core conservative values which impact this issue should be the inherent value of human life, desire for true justice (innocence until proven guilty, abrogation of cruel and unusual punishment) and a basic sense of right and wrong.
I agree with the definitions found in the Army Field Manual FM34-52:
“Examples of physical torture include-
* Electric shock.
* Infliction of pain through chemicals or bondage (other than legitimate use of restraints to prevent escape).
* Forcing and individual to stand, sit, or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time.
* Food deprivation.
* Any form of beating.
Examples of mental torture include-
* Mock executions.
* Abnormal sleep deprvation.
* Chemically induced psychosis
Coercion is defined as actions designed to unlawfully induce another to compel an act against one’s will. Examples of coercion include-
* Threatening or implying physical or mental torture to the subject, his family, or others two whom he owes loyalty.
* Intentionally denying medical assisstance or care in exchange for the information sought or other cooperation.
* Threatening or implying that other rights gauranteed by the GWS, GPW , or GC will not be provided unless cooperation is forthcoming.”
“How many lives would be lost to a NYC dirty bomb?”
I would imagine very few. If I remember what I heard in the news correctly, it’s not immediate radiation that is dangerous, it’s the long term radiation. Thus, the main impact is economic and psychological: a piece of NY become uninhabitable.
I could argue that the chance of single group doing the complete list is very small (they would get caught at sometime), but that is besides the point: this is all hypothetical.
When the perpetrator started the torture, he wouldn’t KNOW that it would lead to something; at best he had a hunch.
You can try to rationalize the torture all you want, but it is still a war crime.
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