I just watched Cliff May on The Daily Show and I am so mad I could scream. He clearly learned from the Jim Cramer takedown and kept Jon from landing clean shots by dodging and interrupting. Since its not torture, given an chance I would bind and gag him and make him sit there and listen to this:
We Don't Torture!!
Because its wrong.
We Don't Torture!!
Because we said we wouldn't.
We Don't Torture!!
Because it doesn't work.
We Don't Torture!!
Because it make our enemies fight harder.
We Don't Torture!!
Because it will be done to our forces/people.
We Don't Torture!!
Because we are members of the Profession of Arms and we have honor.
We Don't Torture!!
Its wrong and we signed on to not do it ought to be enough but for Mr. May that doesn't seem to matter. That crosses off the Profession and Honor part to.
"Experts" like Mr. May will recite the talking points on how good intelligence was extracted using these methods but its all crap. Here is the thing - we KNOW that you can get good information by using torture. But you will also get a bunch of stuff that is whatever the subject thinks will make the bad man stop. So you get a haystack of "information" and you are trying to find the needle of intelligence. Ill let you in on a secret....its how we TRAIN our people to deal with it. Mix up as much as you can of real stuff and not real so they are left guessing. If someone brought me "intelligence" extracted using torture I would toss it. Its worthless 99% of the time but it is most worthless in the very scenario they "pro-torture" folks use - the ticking time bomb. If Im in crisis mode I dont have time to cross check and vet intelligence I get. I want solid intelligence to make DECISIONS. The source line on something like this would read "single source. Information extracted under duress. Subject has a history of misinformation. Subject is not under control and is significantly motivated to not tell the truth." Now if I am working on a long term intelligence problem and I can cross check the information through other sources maybe this is useful. but in crisis mode, Im not even wasting my time reading anything past the source line because Im not going to ask ANYONE to make decisions off crap like that. So the next time someone gives you the ticking time bomb, tell them to go to hell and chuckle because it shows their ignorance.
But even that is not enough for some people like Mr. May so here is some more.
War sucks. Killing people sucks. But it happens some times. Ok so soldiers on both sides bear the brunt of the pain. One of the ways we avoid the suck is to get the other guy to give up before we have to kill him. We spent MONTHS working on the Iraqi Army to get them to NOT fight us and you know what? They DIDN'T! Not all of them, but a LOT never fired a shot. They went home - LIKE WE TOLD THEM TO. They gathered in places we told them to and put down their weapons like we told them to. And you know why? Because we said we would treat them well with dignity and respect as Professionals. The US Army has avoided a lot of fighting over the years simply because our enemies knew that once captured, life would either not suck or might even get better! In Desert Storm Iraqi soldiers were surrendering because they were hungry. We fed them. If I can take someone off the battlefield through kindness that is a good thing. But now? What incentive does someone have to quit if we are going to torture them? No they are going to fight to the death. I dont want that. You ALWAYS want to give your enemy an out. Once he becomes desperate and KNOWS he is going to die is when hero stuff happens. Read about the guys, our guys, in Korea who ran out of ammo and proceeded to kill 20 guys with a shovel before being killed. Screw that. When he runs out of ammo I want him to wave the white flag! Even better, wave it before he even fires a shot. We have all heard the stories about buddies in Vietnam promising to kill each other rather than being captured. Thats real stuff. When I was in a similar position I always said the last bullet in my pistol was for me because I wasnt going to have my kids seeing me get beheaded on YouTube. Well guess what, now we are in the same position for the other side.
The Japanese tortured Allied prisoners in WWII. North Korea tortured soldiers during the Korean War. North Vietnam and the VC tortured prisoners in the Vietnam War. Their country and their military are tarred in the stink of dishonor because of it. They can NEVER live that down. NEVER. We have reached a point of normal relations with Vietnam and even military exchanges but there is always an underlying tension when we are together. They have no honor. They committed the worst crime soldiers can commit. They escaped judgement only because they won and they know it. Now we are knee deep in the same pool of stink. I now have to carry the dishonor of what these people did.
We Don't Torture!!
We are better than that.
There is no justification.
There is no qualification.
There is no mitigation.
We Don't Torture!!