USA Today weighs in today (5/10/11) on the argument that U.S. torture of detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was instrumental to tracking down Osama bin Laden. Like other outlets, the newspaper does a pretty lousy job of summarizing the evidence.
Under the headline “Raid Renews Debate on Interrogations,” reporter Oren Dorell suggests this starting point:
But the revelation that tips prodded from captured Al-Qaeda members subjected to “enhanced interrogations” led to the capture of Osama bin Laden has ignited a debate over whether Obama should revisit the policies he cast aside.
There is no strong evidence that torture “led” to any such thing. But that’s the starting point for the paper’s discussion, with the first quote coming from Bush torture lawyer John Yoo. The piece then quotes National Security Council spokesperson Michael Vietor saying, “There’s no way that information obtained by EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques] was the decisive intelligence that led us directly to bin Laden.” That would seem to undercut the premise of the discussion USA Today has set up. Not to worry–they line up four former Bush officials to endorse the argument that torture worked (Michael Mukasey, Richard Perle, Michael Hayden and former CIA official Jose Rodriguez).
Readers then hear from two former interrogators–Glenn Carle and Matthew Alexander–who do not think torture works. That is quickly countered by former Bush official Marc Theissen. And then readers get a quote from Ken Gude of the liberal Center for American Progress, who is a proponent of both sleep-deprivation and U.S. drones in Pakistan.
That’s not much of a “debate”: a slew of torture proponents, a few critics, and a flawed understanding of the facts that are known.
On the paper’s editorial page, John Yoo gets more space to push for torture. That is supposed to “balance” the paper’s editorial, which isn’t exactly anti-torture:
Opponents of torture responded by trying to downplay the importance of those techniques to the bin Laden raid. They continued to argue that torture doesn’t work and is never justified.
If only the answers were so simple or morally unambiguous. They aren’t.
They add:
It’s clear that torture played some role in piecing together the chain of information that led to bin Laden’s lair in Pakistan. CIA Director Leon Panetta acknowledged as much. But he went on to muddy the waters, leaving unclear whether the information obtained by torture was indispensable or just a small factor in a sea of data investigators were dissecting.
Waiting for the head of the CIA to issue a clear explanation of CIA activities seems rather absurd.
The best case that torture proponents can muster is that some people who were tortured issued misleading denials that, many years later, led in some fashion to obtaining the actually useful information used to track down Osama bin Laden. As one L.A. Times article put it, “none of the three most critical pieces of information–the courier’s name, the area of Pakistan in which he operated and the location of the compound in which Bin Laden was living–came from detainees.” But that doesn’t stop outlets like USA Today from presenting the supposed fact that torture “led” to bin Laden’s killing as a “revelation.”
Actually, torture is morally unambiguous. It’s against the law, and whenever they’re ready, I’m still waiting for the Bush (and Obama) administration to go before a magistrate with their evidence that torture was “worth” doing because it saved lives. Put up, and then take the consequences. I’m guessing I’ll wait forever. Torture works, as does murder, extermination of entire villages, the wholesale destruction of wedding parties, and summary executions. The editors put up a bunch of phony, weasily, self-serving nonsense masquerading as hand-wringing, soul-searching truth-seeking.
Yes torture is/was wrong.So many stories this week on this sight concerning it.Not a word about the massive problems Obama is having with his healthcare,budgets,and pretty much everything else on his agenda..It almost seems that this story (that is really old news) is being pounded into the ground for political leverage against the right.Almost as if you are running” still” against Bush.
I can’t figure out why all the backbiting is going on.
It seems like Obama is doing everything conservatives want (that’s why liberals are upset – Obama betrayed them). But the cons still don’t like him – is it a racial thing? Anyway, Obama’s betrayal did not invalidate liberalism.
I’m sure that Bush must have inadvertently done a couple of things to help the country – and that didn’t invalidate conservatism, did it?
Anyone who in anyway advocates or justifies torture is morally degenerate. In civilized company such freaks are justly looked upon as depraved human beings and those who are in any way sympathetic to mental derangement of this magnitude as weak and pathetic creatures. John McCain, to his credit, made an excellent statement; even though, for political reasons, he chooses to leave the guilty parties off the hook.
Let us try to have a real debate and a few questions. Where does American Law stand? Is torture unambiguously forbidden or is there is loophole which permits the use of torture “in certain cases” ?
The key word here is “justify”. Justification does not exist outside the realm of law. Law is not a natural order. The interdiction of torture is a postulate, like the interdiction to kill: this is both irrational and absolute.
There is no way to justify rationally the interdiction to torture. If you try justifying it, then you’ll come across a case when it may be legally justified to remove the interdiction. And as told me someone who worked on cases involving people knowing terrorists who were about to implement a suicide bomb attack against civilians, such cases do exist. Here you have to be extremely honest: what would YOU do if they refuse to speak out? And of course, even in countries where torture is forbidden, in these cases, torture is used nevertheless. But the interdiction remains.
All this seems contradictory, but it isn’t. And the fact that the interdiction to torture cannot be justified rationally does not diminish its value.
“When the United States ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, it became part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says treaties are the supreme law of the land. The Torture Convention states, â┚¬Ã…“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.â┚¬Ã‚ The prohibition against torture is unequivocal, regardless of the circumstances.” From: http://www.marjoriecohn.com/2011/05/torture-is-never-legal-and-didnt-lead.html
Exactly, Rog J. And waterboarding is torture. Anyone who doesn’t think it is should give it a try. See if it changes their minds.
What in God’s good green earth are you talking about, Leo?
Leo….Im guessing here….are you a philosophy major?