Fortunately nobody listens to me anyway.
When I first signed on here at Daily Kos, we were all still in shock over 9/11 - even though considerable time had passed. One of the first Diaries that I spent debating one of my many contrarian opinions was about torture. Like many or most of you, I don't necessarily follow the crowd and am willing to express and even argue an opinion, even if it is unpopular as hell.
I enjoy a spirited debate; sometimes I even learn something. I've actually even been known to change my mind.
Like this time.
As you all can imagine, my support for limited use of torture generated considerable reaction - virtually all negative. I have tried to search my comments to review them, but got zero result. I do remember (and it's a credit to all the Kossacks who vehemently disagreed with me) that I was never TRd once, despite a lot of name-calling and animosity. I pretty much ignored (as I remember it) the worst of the name-callers, but did engage in considerable debate with one individual (I believe it was Lithium Cola - who may or may not have also been the Diarist) who could not have disagreed with me more, but answered and countered my arguments respectfully and even defended my right to express those opinions when others wanted to TR me into oblivion.
What I am going to do here is review my thinking at the time and then explain my change of mind. If the next part makes your blood boil, it might be best to skip ahead to the part after.
- Lets face it: I don't consider myself a coward; in fact, I have risked life and limb for others and - given the right situation - might do it again in the future. Still and this is the underlying "common sense" rationale for my former position, it would take about five minutes (or less) of the "bamboo under the fingernails" routine to get me to tell anybody anything they wanted to know.
- The "ticking bomb" or battlefield scenario. Al Quaida makes the former a real possibility - and we are told that they are likely to acquire the means for a weapon of mass destruction, to try to take out at least one American city, within a couple of years. On a battlefield, with attack imminent, an enemy soldier is captured. It's likely that he has knowledge that can save lives; the lives of your comrades and even your own. No time "to play nicey-nice."
- Many (if not most) of the commenters in opposition dismissed any scenario in which immediate intelligence would save innocent lives as, propagandistic, irrational, and wildly improbable. Those arguments,IMO, were naive, emotional and rather silly. There are innumerable occasions in which timely intelligence has foiled or prevented attacks entirely - and the lack of it costs lives in every conflict. I still stand by that position. They were right - about torture - I was wrong; but that particular argument is not valid.
- I was linked to a number of articles in which experts denied the usefulness of torture. But I found equivocation in every article. Essentially that it "usually" didn't work or there was a lack of hard evidence that it did. The guys in a position to use it, supposed experts themselves, said that it did.
Even though I am not a Christian, I'm a "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord," kind of guy. That is, I don't believe that we have a general right to extract revenge, no matter how great the offense; but we do have the right to protect ourselves and our loved ones from aggressors. I would sanction virtually any means necessary against the aggressors to prevent the aggression. How far would you be willing to go to prevent a nuke or bio weapon attack in your hometown? The question is no longer academic.
For the convenience of readers, I'm going to blockquote myself and explain my change of thought.
Still and this is the underlying "common sense" rationale for my former position, it would take about five minutes (or less) of the "bamboo under the fingernails" routine to get me to tell anybody anything they wanted to know.
Well, maybe. But what if some bad guys were trying to find out where my family was - so they could harm them? I would lie my ass off.
The "ticking bomb" or battlefield scenario. Al Quaida makes the former a real possibility - and we are told that they are likely to acquire the means for a weapon of mass destruction, to try to take out at least one American city, within a couple of years. On a battlefield, with attack imminent, an enemy soldier is captured. It's likely that he has knowledge that can save lives; the lives of your comrades and even your own. No time "to play nicey-nice."
True. But if time is of the essence, there is no time at all to run down false leads. Matter of fact, bad intelligence gleaned from torture is just as likely to cost lives as none at all - maybe more so.
I was linked to a number of articles in which experts denied the usefulness of torture. But I found equivocation in every article. Essentially that it "usually" didn't work or there was a lack of hard evidence that it did. The guys in a position to use it, supposed experts themselves, said that it did.
I have heard from a lot more experts since - ones not preselected by the administration. It was more "cooked intelligence" by the Bush administration; part of their carefully orchestrated media campaign. Stupidly, I bought into it.
Another thing: What I supported was limited torture; reserved for the baddest of the bad. Bin Ladin. Zawahiri. A handful of others. Instead we got a no-holds-barred disaster in which the entire culture in the "war on terror" became about torturing and brutalizing anybody who was unfortunate enough to fall in to U.S. hands - because they might know something, or might know someone who did.
There was a culture of torture. No one was more horrified than I about Abu Gharab prison - and we only know about that because of the incredible stupidity of the scapegoats. Anyone who was paying attention also knows that it was the tip of the iceberg. The Bushies claimed that they got tons of "actionable intelligence" from their torture - but they never proved it, and they never attempted to demonstrate why they couldn't have gotten it with standard interrogation techniques.
This administration, more than any other, has been characterized by incompetence, corruption and brutality. It will be a long time before we repair the damage done to our worldwide image. It's a real shame that I bought in to their rationale - however briefly. I should have realized that it is impossible to sanction a little brutality. In for a penny, in for a pound, with these guys.