Torture Again

In one way, at least, we live in a very strange time. Many Americans obviously believe that someone, somewhere, should be tortured. It doesn't seem to matter a great deal who exactly the victims are, or what exactly they've done. There seems to be a preference to keep their numbers quite small, if only so that one can maintain the reassuring belief that there are very few truly evil people in the world. But whoever they are, it is torture, apparently, that they need.

I don't watch 24, but everyone has been struck by it there. I'm hooked on Law and Order, and it came up recently there. (If only we could torture the guy who kidnapped that little girl--then we could save her). Even Mickey Kaus has argued that torture probably works.

The Bush Administration has obviously given voice to the anger over 9/11, among other ways by defending torture. It makes me think part of the reaction to 9/11 was: everyone is basically supposed to love us. OK, we understand, that's a bit much to expect, but at least at crucial moments we expect real affection, and we think it is reasonable that we don't face out and out hatred from anyone except evil people. 9/11 was, from a certain point of view, an expression of raw hatred, in a way more infuriating than a regular war.

I've been assuming that part of the inspiration for torture among the Bushies was Israel. Now Kevin Drum has this:

The Israelis, Baer said, have learned that they can gain valuable information by establishing personal relationships with the inmates and gaining their trust.

"They found that torture, abusive tactics, made things overall worse for them politically," Baer said. "The Israelis are friendly with their prisoners. They play cards with them and allow them to contact their families. They are getting in their minds to determine what makes up a suicide bomber."

.... Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations and analysis in the CIA Counterterrorist Center, said detainees would say virtually anything to end their torment.

Baer agreed, citing intelligence reports from Arab security services that yielded useless information. "The Saudis and Egyptians torture people all the time, but I have yet to see anything that helped us on the jihad movement and (Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al) Zawahri," he said.

UPDATE Nov. 14: I thought McCain's view was that torture won't work, but on the weekend he is quoted as saying:

"If we are viewed as a country that engages in torture ... any possible information we might be able to gain is far counterbalanced by (the negative) effect of public opinion," McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Meanwhile, new evidence that the U.S. military adopted methods that Commies had used on Americans, and used them on "detainees." (Doesn't that sound nice and Victorian? I've just bound you up with that nice soft necktie. I'll probably let you go soon). Surely the most amazing passage:

Yet the Pentagon cannot point to any intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished America's image. That's because the techniques designed by communist interrogators were created to control a prisoner's will rather than to extract useful intelligence.

Of course it has already been revealed that the U.S. is using former camps in former Communist countries to, what's the word? abuse people. Gulags, anyone?
Via Julian Sanchez on Hit and Run, which also gives a link to Arthur Silber on SERE and Communist methods.

Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:41 am MST by robertll | Email Article |

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Torture Again

Torture Again

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