Detainees Should Be Not Be Tortured
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Breaking News, The War On TerrorismThis is good news and will move us further towards the fair and ethical treament of prisoners.
Forty-six Republicans joined 43 Democrats and one independent in voting to define and limit interrogation techniques that U.S. troops may use against terrorism suspects, the latest sign that alarm over treatment of prisoners in the Middle East and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is widespread in both parties. The White House had fought to prevent the restrictions, with Vice President Cheney visiting key Republicans in July and a spokesman yesterday repeating President Bush’s threat to veto the larger bill that the language is now attached to — a $440 billion military spending measure.Senate GOP leaders had managed to fend off the detainee language this summer, saying Congress should not constrain the executive branch’s options. But last night, 89 senators sided with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who led the fight for the interrogation restrictions. McCain said military officers have implored Congress for guidelines, adding that he mourns “what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget . . . that which is our greatest strength: that we are different and better than our enemies.”
I’ve called for limits before, and I think we need them. If we don’t have any, then the entire world can point to us as a nation of torturers, and that just doesn’t stand when you’re the world power.
McCain is at the forefront of this issue.
But as new allegations of abuse surface, the chorus of McCain supporters is broadening. McCain read a letter on the Senate floor from former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, who endorsed the amendment and said it would help address “the terrible public diplomacy crisis created by Abu Ghraib.” Powell joins a growing group of retired generals and admirals who blame prison abuse on “ambiguous instructions,” as the officers wrote in a recent letter. They urged restricting interrogation methods to those outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, the parameters that McCain’s measure would establish.McCain cited a letter he received from Army Capt. Ian Fishback, who has fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Over 17 months, he struggled to get answers from his chain of command to a basic question: What standards apply to the treatment of enemy detainees?” McCain said. “But he found no answers. . . . The Congress has a responsibility to answer this call.”
Despite his victory last night, McCain has two major obstacles remaining: House GOP leaders object to attaching it to a spending bill, and Bush could veto it. However, senior GOP Senate aides said they believe the differences could be bridged, either by tweaking the measure or by changing the field manual.
I wrote about Captain Ian Fishback earlier, and I think we should give his case heed.
To do less would ignore the realities and passions on the ground. The men and women who fight this war have to deal everyday with the enemy killing their friends, and that can’t be an easy proposition. The very people they capture are those who want to kill them.
Let’s hope the American spirit can maintain in this time of strife.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 6th, 2005 and is filed under Breaking News, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 6th, 2005 at 11:07 am
Justin,
You and I have disagreed on this topic before, but….
I see what happened at Abu Ghraib as prisoner abuse. Wasn’t much
intilligence gathering going on there. Just some stupid antics pulled
by some stupid people. It wasn’t done in order to interrogate,
and was wrong.
However, if an individual is known to have critical information that
could be used to stop an attack, or lead to the rest of someone higher
in the chain, I say “Hand me the jumper cables”. World opinion be
damned. Our own security is far more important than what some
whiney European hippy may think of us.
Does it work? When done properly, by a trained interrogator, it
works wonderfully (or horribly depending on your point of view).
October 6th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Ford,
You seem to see torture as a more effective form of interrogation that we are simply not allowing our soldiers to use. That’s not the case. Torture is no more effective than well used psychological interrogation - in fact torture is often far LESS effective. If you really want to make us more “secure” you should insist on approved interrogation tactics, and not (to steal a phrase) “embolden our enemies” by condoning torture. And your acceptance of torture, seemingly just because the Europeans are against it, is a childish response only made acceptable by that same sort of attitude from this administration.
October 6th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Ford-
You are also forgetting that if we use torture on our prisoners, it condones the actions of others. Would torture be acceptable on our troops if they were captured by enemy combatants to derive intelligence on our troops? Regardless of whether or not they are doing it to our troops, or beheading them, if you say it is not acceptable against us, then it is not acceptable against them. Would you feel that is was just some college pranks or hazing if they ass raped with a broom handle american soldiers and stacked them nude in a pile. Absolutely not! It is wrong against us and for us.
October 6th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
I guess you could say I view it as a necessary evil.
If we could somehow be guaranteed that our troops would not be tortured if captured, I’d probably be a lot more flexible. But it’s ludricrous to even think that way at this point. Some of our troops were captured and treated horribly long before Abu Ghraib.
That’s not to suggest to use it just because the other side does it.
Use it because it is effective, when properly applied.
Our enemies have a pure hatred for us. It’s not going to be any less if we put them up in the Marriott whenever we capture one of them. The one that we capture will be happier, but the opinion of the overall group is unchanged.
I did not imply that we do it because the Europeans are against it.
I was just implying that we spend far too much time (IMO) worrying about what the rest of the world thinks of us. Our own security is more important than their opinion. I will accept, however, that I sometimes act in a childish manner. It helps keeps me sane, and shows I don’t take myself or the problems of the world too seriously.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
Ford-
You couldn’t be more off on this, I grant that our soldiers do not get treated appropriately either. They do get tortured, but we can not say that torture is wrong if we are up to our neck in it. Would you rather see 3 innocent people tortured to get intelligence from 1 man who may know something? Is it worth it. Some things that work just should not be done on moral grounds, torture is one of them.
EX:
Torturing and raping a man’s wife in front of him could get the man to tell you his information, but is it acceptable? What if she too, hated America (which she most likely does). Then what about their America hating children, is it ok to rape and torture them? Remember that this method works. They all hate America, and it works when properly applied.
BTW: If it works, how come so many experienced interogators say that it doesn’t? Have you tortured anyone? Did you get what you wanted?
October 6th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Slippery slope ford, but certainly not childish (really Kris?).
Basically, if we leave the option open, then we’ll start doing it more for information that probably many would find trivial. In short, we’d do it more rather than less.
There’s an inherent paradox in torture, and that’s why I oppose it. You think you know that somebody knows something, but since you don’t KNOW they know, you torture them. However, they may not know. You may have picked up a person who may be involved in an organization but doesn’t know anything or (god forbid) a completely innocent person. And don’t kid yourself. Innocents have been tortured by our government.
That’s why I think this is one of those either/or things.
But be certain, if we actually KNOW somebody has the info, that person will be visited by unofficial operatives who have allegiances to no nation. And the information will come out, one way or another.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Justin, what’s childish is saying that we’re going to make sure we boldly pronounce an acceptance of torture just so we can show the world that we don’t care what they think. That’s how this administration works, and that seems to be how Ford works too.
Throughout this debate, there is this assumption that torture will produce valuable intelligence. That’s probably why Ford calls it a “necessary evil” and why everyone uses the scenario of the one person with knowledge who could save a million lives. The problem with this is that torture is no more effective for getting that information than tried and true tactics that ARE legal. Why abuse when it’s completely unnecessary? And why abuse if it only will increase the prospect that the detainee will say whatever it is you want to hear? That’s not the goal of an interrogation. The goal is to get facts, not an echo chamber.
October 6th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with hypnotizing prisoners, or drugging them, to get information, or trickery (which everyone engages in anyway). Is that classified as “torture”?
October 6th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Kris, we both know you’re twisting my words, and I’ll let it go at that.
I imagine you could produce a study that quotes a few “experienced”
interrogators that say it’s not effective. I could probably produce the same number saying it is effective. That wouldn’t get us anywhere. I base my opinion on my own experiences, and the experiences of family members who have been thru escape and evasion training in the military. No I haven’t tortured anyone, nor have I been tortured, but I learned enough to know that it works very well.
And of course, there should be limits: John’s example is way over the line. If prisoners are properly interrogated, you know who has information and who doesn’t.
October 7th, 2005 at 9:42 am
Kris, I agree with you, and although I don’t have any facts at hand, I am pretty sure you are right about the efficacy of torture. And yes Ford,you could probably find just as much info saying it is effective. I have always said that you can always find a statistic or a study to prove just about any point.
In any event, torture is just unacceptable, and I am ashamed of our country for even considering its allowance. Ford, should we start beheading detainees and make tapes of it like others have done? Did you read the post that Cicero wrote, referring to the article “The Torture Place,” which I think was posted on 9/23? What scares me is that people who think like you may allow torturers in this country to go that far.
October 7th, 2005 at 11:12 am
Allow me to clarify my position one more time….
If, and only if, a detainee is strongly suspected of having information that may lead to the deaths of innocents, then torture is an acceptable method of extracting that information.
I am sure I am just as disgusted as any of you would be by our military doing it for retribution, or just “for the hell of it”, as was done by Saddam and his sons.
October 7th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
Justifications come in all flavors.
Any justifications for us perpetrating the kind of torture our enemies use leaves a rancid taste in my mouth.
Slippery slop ford, slippery slope.
October 7th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Ford - isn’t any terrorist suspect held, held under suspicion that they have knowledge that can save lives? Why do we have 600 or so down in Guantanamo? Could you see the plausablility that there might be one suspect down there that is innocent? You’ve never said whether it would be OK to torture an innocent by accident. I think you’re afraid to admit that that would happen. STRONGLY suspected, is a matter of opinion not fact.