If you didn’t believe me before about Guantanamo and why it was a remarkably dumb idea, will you believe these guys?

From Politico:

“It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday.

“Some of the fear issues that are being raised in this are really unfortunate. It gets people excited about things they shouldn’t be excited about and impedes doing what is critical to this country. Get that damn symbol off the table,” said retired Gen. David Maddox [pictured above], a former Army commander-in-chief for Europe. “We take a setback every time somebody, whether it’s the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say….We have to get out there again and just keep pounding.”

Also, the following quote in particular is gratifying to hear, especially when people act as if terrorists are somehow the most dangerous criminals in the history of the world and their presence in a community would somehow make it ridiculously unsafe…

“Can you imagine getting a terrorist from Guantanamo convicted and put in a federal penitentiary in your town?” Maddox asked. “Have you ever checked who the hell’s in there already? Have any of them gotten out? The person who we’re putting in is probably a heck of lot less dangerous than most of them who are already in there.”

Agreed. Now it’s time to convince the rest of the US.

Let’s get started…

” I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan. I think that these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq who told me that. I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And so — and I believe that information according to the FBI and others could have been gained through other methods.”
- John McCain on Face The Nation today

Yes folks, torture became a recruitment tool. And it’s apparently yet another reason we got bogged down in Iraq. Again, from McCain…

“Senator Lindsey Graham and I were in Camp Bucca, where there’s the 20,000-prisoner camp. We met with a former high- ranking member of al Qaeda. I said, how did you succeed so well in Iraq after the initial invasions? He said two things. One, the chaos that existed after the initial invasion, there was no order of any kind. Two, he said Abu Ghraib pictures allowed me and helped me to recruit thousands of young men to our cause. Now that’s al Qaeda.”

Does this surprise anybody?

The question now…will we learn?

Everybody’s abuzz about the new Wash Post story today that starts off with the idea that Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) was turned into some type of “terrorist professor” because he was waterboarded.

And away we go…

The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is impossible to know whether less coercive methods would have achieved the same result. But for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general’s report and other documents released this week indicate.

Over a few weeks, he was subjected to an escalating series of coercive methods, culminating in 7 1/2 days of sleep deprivation, while diapered and shackled, and 183 instances of waterboarding. After the month-long torment, he was never waterboarded again.

“What do you think changed KSM’s mind?” one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding. “Of course it began with that.”

Yes, of course it began with that. Why? BECAUSE IT BEGAN WITH THAT.

Also, KSM didn’t start giving these terrorism lectures until a full 2 YEARS LATER. The waterboarding lasted one month. Think maybe building rapport and trust with him over the next couple years did more than making him feel like he was drowning?

Not only that, during this early period KSM gave us a bunch of false information…

Mohammed, in statements to the International Committee of the Red Cross, said some of the information he provided was untrue.

“During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. I later told interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive. I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time,” he said.

When will people begin to understand that there is an inherent paradox in the idea of torture: you don’t know what you don’t know. So somebody can make up ANYTHING to get you stop torturing them and you’ll waste your time.

Of course the vast majority of interrogators will tell you this time and time and time again, but the opposition finds a few people who were able to beat some actionable intelligence out of somebody and that makes it alright for us to do

And that gets me to the real point of this post. Torture works? Again, no. Because it completely undermines the values that we’re fighting to defend. America is not a TV show. Fighting terrorism doesn’t work like that. And if you don’t understand that having policies that allow us to kidnap and torture anybody we want makes us look like the big bullies they accuse of being, makes it easier for more people to hate us and therefore makes us less safe, well, please think on this some more.

Seriously, really dig into the cause and effect of what we’re doing. Because “blowback” is real, and I fear that if we don’t stop what we’re doing we’re in for yet another round of it.

But they promise that detainees won’t be abused. More on why I think that’s nonsense later on in the post.

But first, more from NY Times:

The announcement, by President Obama’s Interrogation and Transfer Policy Task Force, seemed intended in part to offset the impact of the release on Monday of a long-withheld report by the C.I.A. inspector general, written in 2004, that offered new details about the brutal tactics used by the C.I.A. in interrogating terrorism detainees.

Though the Obama administration previously signaled that it would continue the use of renditions, some civil liberties groups were disappointed because, as a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama had strongly suggested he might end the practice. In an article in Foreign Affairs in the summer of 2007, Mr. Obama wrote, “To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people.”

Mr. Obama continued, “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.” In January, the president ordered secret prisons run by the C.I.A. to be shut down.

And here are the changes proposed so people aren’t tortured…

The administration officials, who discussed the changes on condition that they not be identified, said that unlike the Bush administration, they would operate more openly and give the State Department a larger role in assuring that transferred detainees would not be abused.

“The emphasis will be on ensuring that individuals will not face torture if they are sent overseas,” said one administration official, adding that no detainees would be sent to countries known to conduct abusive interrogations.

While these are at least movements in the right direction, we’ve seen how people have been kidnapped from their homes, detained for years and then released because they shouldn’t have been picked up in the first place.

Here’s the thing…stealing people from their lives still constitutes abuse in my book. Perhaps not the classic definition of torture, but think of the mental torment those folks went through. So if it happens again, well, shame on the Obama administration.

Truly disappointing…

Not that it’s a surprise, but are we at the point now where we start talking seriously about prosecutions? Because it’s apparent that Cheney directed the C.I.A. to break the law by concealing information and if the guy can get away with anything as long as it was done for national security reasons, well, what kind of precedent does that set?

And I do believe this is different than warrantless wiretapping, waterboarding, etc. Because while many people were uncomfortable with those programs, at least our elected officials knew about them.

In any event, here’s the story from NY Times:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

And here’s the kicker…apparently the program wasn’t that important…

Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the C.I.A. interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.

“Because this program never went fully operational and hadn’t been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial,” one intelligence official, who would speak about the classified program only on condition of anonymity. “That’s worth remembering amid all the drama.”

Why did Cheney want to keep it so hush hush? Maybe to simply see if he could? A test case to see if the C.I.A. would keep its mouth shut?

Hopefully we’ll find out soon enough.

A bombshell story broke today about the Obama administration drafting an executive order that could be used to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely.

First, here’s the story…

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president’s January deadline.

But the administration denied the report and the Washington Post has since revised it…

An administration official told AFP that no such draft order existed, though internal deliberations were taking place on how to deal with those inmates who could not be released or tried in civilian courts.

The source said that a task force established by the president was not due to present its recommendations until July, and that the administration would then work with Congress to find a solution to the conundrum.

The official was reacting to a report by The Washington Post that said the Obama administration “has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely.”

The newspaper later revised its report to say the administration “is drafting” the executive order, among other changes.

So, seriously, who’s lying?

Listen, I have no doubt that people have at least discussed the idea of keeping indefinite detention on the table because that’s just debate. But that’s a lot different than drafting an executive order. Did Wash Post jump the gun on this one or is the Obama administration actually considering indefinite detention as an option?

Also, after the last 8 years, how is indefinite detention a sticky subject in Congress? I thought it had been long since established that Americans didn’t approve of this practice. Did I miss something in the past 6 months?

This is Mike Fritz and David Murdock from ANP.

Senator Lindsey Graham was a passionate critic of the Bush Justice attorneys during this past summer’s Armed Services Committee hearings on interrogation.

Lately, however, Graham seems to have had second thoughts on the matter. At a recent Judiciary subcommittee hearing investigating the torture memos, Graham mounted a feisty defense of Jay Bybee, John Yoo and the lawyers who provided legal cover for detainee abuse.

This performance sent producer Mike Fritz back to the ANP archives to confirm that this was indeed the same Lindsey Graham we remembered from the summer, and sure enough, it was. As this video reveals, same guy – different message.

Click to view the whole story at Huffington Post.

Question: can the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan be solved or will this be Obama’s Iraq?

Discuss…

Click here to Listen

Some of the posts/pieces we mentioned are linked here:

James’ unique take on torture at pomocon here and here, which acts as a jumping off point for the best parts of the conversation.

James and Daniel Larison’s conversation about empire linked here.

Most of my writing on the subject can be found here at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen. The most relevant of those posts is this one.

The Bacevich Globe piece is here.

And Tyler Cowen’s post opposing prosecution that James mentions can be found here.

There’s a section in the middle of the audio where we discuss the relevance of American interventionism and I turn into a blithering idiot for a few minutes. But Scott and James’ discussion on that issue is well worth the dead air I cause.

Cross-posted.

Just for future reference, what you’re seeing above is considered a “pour.” You’ll need that information to weave your way through the mine field presented here by Fox News.

Let the apologizing begin…

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed’s face — not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of “five sessions of ill-treatment.”

“The water was poured 183 times — there were 183 pours,” the official explained, adding that “each pour was a matter of seconds.”

The Times and dozens of other outlets wrote that the CIA also waterboarded senior Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah 83 times, but Zubayda himself, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, told the Red Cross he was waterboarded no more than 10 times.

The confusion stems from language in the Justice Department legal memos that President Obama released on April 16. They contain the numbers, but they fail to explain exactly what they represent.

So Fox doesn’t believe that a pour is considered being waterboarded.

Does it really matter?

We tried to induce the feeling of drowning in somebody 183 times. Whether or not it was 1 attempt during 183 separate sessions or 10 attempts during 18 sessions is irrelevant.

Torture is torture is torture.

Still, these last two sentences of the story tell you pretty much all you need to know about where Fox is coming at this from…

And the precise number of waterboarding sessions is still not known. What is known is that Mohammed was not waterboarded 183 times.

Ugh.

Moving on…

That said, the posts (and subsequent responsive comment) with which E.D. and Mr. Schwenkler take issue is emblematic of something that has been particularly frustrating to me over the last several days or so. Specifically, I’m frustrated at the certainty with which proponents of waterboarding and various other procedures outlined in the OLC memos proclaim that those procedures were clearly “not torture.”

The fact is, whatever one thinks of the legal acumen demonstrated (or, more accurately, not demonstrated) in the OLC memos, and especially the Bybee memo, they do not provide a basis for concluding that waterboarding, et al – especially when combined in one continuous program – are “clearly” not torture. The Bybee memo itself states quite explicitly that waterboarding in particular is pretty damn close to being torture, going so far as to say that it is a “predicate act” for a finding of torture. So if you’re going to rely on the Bybee memo as an accurate depiction of the law (which it isn’t – seriously, I’ve seen associates fired for less shoddy memos), then at the very least you have to acknowledge that these actions come pretty damn close to being torture, and that there is hardly anything outrageous or unhinged about calling these acts torture.

In other words, if you’re going to rely upon a piece of legal analysis as proof that something is clearly “not torture,” then you probably shouldn’t rely upon a piece of legal analysis that (shoddy as it may be) concludes that said something is pretty damned close to being torture.

Cross-posted at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

[...] imagine if an American operative out of uniform were captured by the Iranians tomorrow. Imagine he were put into a coffin for hours with no light and barely enough air to breathe, imagine if he were then removed and smashed against a plywood wall by a towel tied around his neck thirty times, imagine if he were then kept awake for eleven days in a row, then kept in a cell frozen to hypothermia levels, and then waterboarded multiple times, after which he confessed to being a spy trying to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. Would you believe that intelligence?
- Andrew Sullivan comparing what we did…with what could possibly be

And that’s the question…would this be acceptable for you?

Yes, I know we’re right and they’re wrong, but stop for a moment, take off the partisan shades and consider the question. Because when we legally condone clearly despicable actions, what do you think the fallout will be?

The predicament then becomes a question of whether or not we do what we think is right given the situation. But can’t anything be justified given certain circumstances?

To put it another way, this isn’t a TV show, we’re not facing a ticking clock and to all those who say that Obama’s decision to release the torture memos made us weaker…I say that torturing detainees puts us in a precarious position because we’re adopting the cowardly tactics of our enemies. And since that leads to less freedoms, our credibility suffers as a result.

Does that seem like an intelligent decision to you?

Discuss.

More from AP:

WASHINGTON -Attorney General Eric Holder says the government won’t prosecute CIA officials for using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects.

The decision comes as the Obama administration releases four long-secret legal memos from the Bush administration authorizing a dozen harsh interrogation techniques against high-value terror suspects.

Holder said in a statement Thursday it would be unfair to prosecute CIA employees for following the legal advice given at the time. And he says the government will defend any CIA employee in any court action brought in the U.S. or overseas.

And concerning the memos, no information will be redacted except the names of the CIA interrogators. Which makes sense if you want transparency, but want to protect the soldiers who carried out the Bush’s administration’s orders.

Now, for folks who know the left-wing commentator Glenn Greenwald, you might anticipate quite a backlash from him for this move.

Not necessarily…

One can certainly criticize Obama for vowing that no CIA officials will be prosecuted if they followed DOJ memos (though that vow, notably, does not extend to Bush officials), but — assuming the reports about redactions are correct — there is no grounds for criticizing Obama here and substantial grounds for praising him.

If you want to read the memos, you can find them here. But here’s potentially the most damning passage…

If you don’t think the people who developed these tactics knew what they were doing would be considered torture, well, now you do.

Case closed.

The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Obama still asserts the military’s authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president’s own wartime power as Bush had argued.

This appears to be an attempt by the new administration to rid our nation of some of the gray areas the Bush administration created in the years after September 11th. While many of Bush’s supporters thought the threat of terrorism necessitated the president having the power to operate outside of congressional authority and international laws of war, many felt Bush was overreaching and creating powers that could be too easily abused. In a conflict which could continue for generations, our nation needs to operate under policies more exact than “because the president says so.”

Today, Obama took an important step in reconfiguring how we pursue the war on terror. While the move doesn’t change current realities such as specific incarcerations, the effect of the change is to remove some of the executive branch’s power. For those of us who never felt uncomfortable with the level of presidential power Bush wielded, this is a welcome change.

Look, I understand that Hannity and his ilk make tons of money off of scaring people. But for this Martin Mawyer guy to suggest assert that this Muslim  group has WMDs… without any shred of evidence or specificity, Hannity and Fox News are being utterly irresponsible. Money line:

Mawyer: They have weapons of mass destruction…

Hannity: What kind of weapons of mass destruction?

Mawyer: Well, in some cases I can’t uh, even tell you, Sean.

Completely irresponsible. I know, I know… shocker.

The only thing that I can see this segment accomplishing is prejudice, fear, hatred or violence toward Muslims. Great work Sean.

[cross-posted with video at ThePajamaPundit.com]

"Manny is being Manny" and the "Mideast is just being the Mideast."

Really the only way to guarantee a ceasefire is to wait until your enemy runs out of bullets. So it’s baffling what the nutcake negotiators from Israel and Hamas are trying to achieve with these “temporary” ceasefire proposals.

The latest scoop from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper:

“Hamas’ Gaza spokesman Ayman Taha, meanwhile, has said recently that Israel has offered his Palestinian Islamist group a 10-year cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Egypt is also demanding a truce of a number of years’ duration. But Taha said the group would agree to a cease-fire of anywhere between one year and no more than 18 months. Another Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said a long-term cease-fire “kills” the right to resistance by the Palestinians.”

OK, so Israel wants to sign a 10-year deal, Hamas wants to sign a one year contract with an option for another six months to re-arm. And Egypt wants both sides to go to arbitration?

Sounds like the Manny Ramirez negotiations, although this horrific analogy stops right here, because I don’t think the Red Sox, the Dodgers or the free agent Manny’s next employer deserve to be compared to Hamas.

Haaretz also reports that Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who once dressed like a girl in a daring commando operation, is now ratcheting up his testosterone rhetoric in a way that should send chills to plumbers throughout the Middle East.

“In a bid to gain the vote of the Russian immigrants in the elections, Labor leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will quote Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s statement about killing Chechen terrorists “on the toilet.”

“As you people say, they should be wacked when they’re on the toilet,” Barak will say in a radio election broadcast intended for Russian speakers. Labor, which is launching its campaign among the Russian speakers this afternoon, will ask them to support him, as they did when he last ran for prime minister 10 years ago.

The indirect allusion to Putin is Barak’s way of fashioning his image after that of an aggressive leader whom many Russian immigrants see favorably.”

If Barak does win the election over the favored Netanyahu, look for headline writers worldwide to have a blast with “Barack to meet Barak” headlines.

(For more foreign policy insights, contact Darren Garnick at www.cultureschlock.com)

As we move within 24 hours of inaugurating a new president, most of America’s attention is focused on the future, with a great many Americans hopeful about Barack Obama and his coming presidency. But what about the guy packing up the White House? Does he deserve more than a passing goodbye after eight years?

Bush is leaving office with record low approval ratings. And, realistically, for a president who has mismanaged two wars, incompetently handled the response to Hurricane Katrina and, finally, presided over the largest economic disaster since the Great Depression, it’s surprising as many as 22% of Americans consider his presidency a good one.

What is most fascinating (and disappointing) about Bush is not the trouble he caused so much as his inability to react competently to the trouble caused by others. He had little opportunity to prevent 9/11. He doesn’t control where hurricanes land. And he didn’t sell any subprime mortgages. The triumvirate of crises faced by Bush could and probably would have happened under a President Gore or a President Kerry (or a President McCain, for that matter). And those men may have failed in their own ways. But no president gets to take a pass because the challenges they faced were exceptional or because others may have been equally inept.

Bush leaves office as a perceived failure because he was an average man in an era when we needed a great man. Too often he chose partisanship and cronyism over leadership and experience. Too often he substituted platitudes for solutions. And, most disastrously, he proved too susceptible to the siren songs of ideology, trusting in intractable advisors who thought they knew better than anyone else, the evidence be damned.

The one great positive that can be said of the Bush presidency is that we suffered no attacks on American soil after 9/11. This is no small thing and no coincidence. The problem is, did we overreach in our quest for security? Bush showed, time and again, a predilection towards authoritarianism when dealing with potential threats. That’s not to say he was authoritarian, but that’s the direction he reached, expanding executive powers to new levels while stripping away checks and balances. He may have prevented further attacks, but did the cost to our freedom have to be so great? That is a question for historians, I believe. But from the vantage point of the present, I am disturbed by the new governmental powers implemented under Bush’s watch.

Given the circumstances faced in the last eight years, I believe many a man or woman would have failed as our president. But Bush’s failures are not merely a matter of circumstance. They are a result of his own personal deficiencies and his inability to lead all of us (rather than only some of us) during difficult times. I do not know how history will remember him. But I think it’s appropriate he leaves office with such a low approval rating.

In this hypothetical, the suspect is someone who almost certainly possesses some unknown quantity of information that can be helpful in rooting out terrorism. After the suspect refuses to provide information in response to initial non-coercive questioning, the interrogation moves on to measures that are coercive but perhaps fall in the gray area of what we would call “torture.”

The suspect talks immediately as a result of the coercion, and for purposes of this hypothetical, we will say that the information provided is accurate. After providing that initial information, the suspect refuses to provide anything else. What should the interrogators do next? Do they accept that the suspect has no further information to provide? Not likely – after all, it took some form of coercion to get the suspect to provide the initial information, so there’s no reason to think that the suspect has nothing further to provide. More likely, I think, the interrogators conclude that the only way to get more information is to revisit the methods that got them more information in the first place.

But what if the suspect refuses to provide more information when those methods are used again? Will the interrogators go back to being nice, knowing that the information they got came only after they used more coercive measures? Not likely. Instead, it would seem to me, the natural response is to conclude that the suspect has learned to tolerate the initially successful level of coercion, and so the only way of obtaining more information is to make the interrogation increasingly coercive. Again, the suspect talks and again we will assume that the information provided will eventually prove to be accurate.

But again, the suspect eventually refuses to provide any additional information. Now, the suspect has a track record of withholding information even after coercion is tried, and of providing information when ever-more coercive techniques are used. So what is likely to be the interrogator’s response? If you guessed “stronger coercion,” you guessed right. But this time the suspect continues to refuse to provide information, and so the interrogator adopts even harsher methods until the suspect provides more. At what point does the interrogator conclude that the suspect has nothing more to provide? If the suspect provides more, how does the interrogator distinguish between what is accurate and what is a lie?

And that’s the problem. When coercion fails, it will only result in more coercion, and when it succeeds, it will only result in more coercion. It not only lacks any means of distinguishing between good information and bad information (the basis for utilitarian arguments against torture), but it also cannot distringuish between knowledge and lack of knowledge. And even torture’s most ardent proponents would, I think, acknowledge the immorality of using coercion on someone without useful information. In sum, by engaging in coercive interrogation we obtain unreliable intelligence; because we obtain unreliable intelligence, we will inevitably engage in more coercive – and undeniably immoral – interrogation, which will result in more unreliable intelligence, and so forth.

And that’s what I mean when I say that the moral and utilitarian arguments against torture are intertwined. What legal barriers such as the Army Field Manual or the Geneva Conventions do is to provide a stopping point past which we effectively presume that further intelligence will be unreliable, and at which we must assume that the suspect has no further information to provide that they would be unwilling to provide in the absence of coercion.

Thinking more about this, I suppose the logic of this post doesn’t lend itself well to the hypothetical (but almost entirely non-existent in reality) ticking time-bomb situation where you have intelligence that the suspect has specific information about a specific plot. In such a circumstance, the torture would not beget more torture once successful because the interrogation would be aimed at obtaining a specific piece of information along the lines of “where is the bomb,” or “when is the attack,” or “who is the bomber.” BUT….it’s easy to see how the logic described in this post would lead to imagined ticking time bombs where the suspect provides information about a non-existent plot, leading investigators to interrogate someone else about the details of that non-existent plot under the belief that the plot is a “ticking time bomb.”

Cross-posted at Publius Endures.

“Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.”
- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the limits of the phrase “War on Terror”

Here’s more…

The foreign secretary wrote that since 9/11 the phrase “war on terror” had “defined the terrain” when it came to tackling terrorism and that although it had merit, “ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken”.

Mr Miliband wrote that the phrase was all-encompassing and “gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda” when the situation was far more complex.

Calling for groups to be treated as separate entities with differing motivations, he wrote that it was not a “simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil” and treating them as such was a mistake.

“Historians will judge whether [the notion] has done more harm than good”, he said.

I think it’s clear it has done more harm, and exactly for the reasons Miliband states. All Bush did by framing this struggle as a “war” is, as suggested above, unify disparate terrorist cells and create a situation where we would always be in a “war” so any actions taken by the President were justifiable since they could always be explained away as trying to protect the American people.

My hope is that Obama changes this nomenclature after he gets into office, but we’ll see. That may be too big of a leap for the American people in the short term.