Osama found using Gitmo torture info

[Lowpro]

Not sure your final conclusion is anywhere near correct. Many skilled interrogators... FBI and CIA ... have argued that they could have and did get far more significant results with interrogation techniques that did not include torutre, fear of death, bodilly harm, etc.

No one is arguing that you do nothing. The question is can the same or even better results...if results are all you are interested in, as opposed to protecting human rights and our Constitituion...without torture. The argument is that you can. So, if torture isn't "necessary" for practical reasons (and thus allowing morality and legality and the contitution to be tossed over the side), than lets get to the moral/ethical arguments.

The moral/ethical arguments are a given though and I already said that it's morally reprehensible, I think it's hard to argue that. But moral reprehensibility factors little into effectiveness of a method. So we get back to whether torturing works at all, if it works better, if it holds you back more.

The ethical/moral argument is moot on that subject which is why I don't care about it.

 

[TraneWreck]

First, it is not true that intelligence gained from torture was used to track down Bin Laden:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2...n-laden-trail-shows-waterboarding-didnt-work/

Interestingly, it turns out that the 100,000 times we waterboarded KSM didn't get us the information we needed:

From these dates we can conclude that either KSM shielded the courier’s identity entirely until close to 2007, or he told his interrogators that there was a courier who might be protecting bin Laden early in his detention but they were never able to force him to give the courier’s true name or his location, at least not until three or four years after the waterboarding of KSM ended. That’s either a sign of the rank incompetence of KSM’s interrogators (that is, that they missed the significance of a courier protecting OBL), or a sign he was able to withstand whatever treatment they used with him.

So no, torture did not help. As the following Greenwald piece points out, and others on the thread have mentioned, so what if it did? Just because it worked once doesn't mean it's generally effective (setting aside the moral issues).

This highlights what has long been a glaring fallacy in many debates over War on Terror policies: that Information X was obtained after using Policy A does not prove that Policy A was necessary or effective. That's just basic logic. This fallacy asserted itself constantly in the debate over warrantless surveillance. Proponents of the Bush NSA program would point to some piece of intelligence allegedly obtained during warrantless eavesdropping as proof that the illegal program was necessary and effective; obviously, though, that fact said nothing about whether the same information would also have been discovered through legal eavesdropping, i.e., eavesdropping approved in advance by the FISA court (and indeed, legal eavesdropping [like legal interrogation tactics] is typically more effective than the illegal version because, by necessity, it is far more focused on actual suspected Terrorism plots; warrantless eavesdropping entails the unconstrained power to listen in on any communications the Government wants without having to establish its connection to Terrorism). But in all cases, the fact that some piece of intelligence was obtained by some lawless Bush/Cheney War on Terror policy (whether it be torture or warrantless eavesdropping) proves nothing about whether that policy was effective or necessary.

People win the lottery, that doesn't make playing it responsible retirement planning.

 

[johnny karate]

Moral reprehensibility plays no role in the effectiveness of the method which is why I'm largely ignoring that for the argument itself.

Your argument presumes there's no interrogation technique that can be both efficacious and morally acceptable. This presumption is incorrect.

I've already said torturing is evil, but I tolerate the evil if it means it gets the information I need.

And this is where you and I part ways, my friend. Just watch your footing. That slope looks awfully slippery.

 

[TheAnachronism]

I'm not saying waterboarding yields higher results in reliable information, but you should also admit that nothing else does either as far as we can tell.

If torture can't be shown to yield higher results or more reliable information, then what possible justification could be made for torture? I'm somewhat dumbfounded at the suggestion that advocating torture should just be our default position, and that the institution shouldn't even be abandoned after it has failed to produce results of better or more reliable quality than other methods (which, if I understand you correctly, you concede).

Do you feel that it's okay because you feel that the lives of the people on which it is being implemented are somehow less valuable than your own life, or the lives of others in different geographical areas or from other cultures?

 

[Lowpro]

Besides, if you remover morality and ethical behavior from the equation and assert its ok if it gets me the information I want/need (regardless of whether it is true), how is what you're doing any better than Stalin's GPU, the Nazis or Kim Jung Il's North Korea?

I'm not looking for information regardless of whether it's true, in fact I want it to be true. However I don't have the ability to read minds and determine truth from a statement unless I compare it to what I do know, and get to know over time (that's why torture is part of a lengthy regimen, it's not just a hot poker in the eye until I get the first statement).

So if we're dealing with a lengthy regimen we have to determine if torture does more for the regimen than without it.

EDIT: hopefully it won't get lost in the sea of posts that's comin' in

We again aren't dealing with a "dunk his head and water till we get a name" it's part of a whole regimen which takes a long time. TraneWreck just posted something that conflicts with what I've posted (CNN and Time Magazine) but I feel the conflict has to do with the fact people don't get that there is a whole regimen to it. We torture, rest him, repeat blah de blah. We tortured ANOTHER person (Al-Libbi) and he gave up info that agreed with KSM info and that's how we found the courier. Seems that MAYBE the torture of Al-Libbi was more effective but who knows it's kinda hard to verify.

And Johnny Karate, torture is as morally reprehensible as killing someone, and yet we blew off Osama's head so the slippery slope is part of a game we all play, it just matters on how dirty you feel like getting.

 

[Shadowdweller]

The whole idea is just dumb though. If you didn't torture him, and you gave him cake, ice cream, and presents he could STILL lie and give false intel. I'm not saying waterboarding yields higher results in reliable information, but you should also admit that nothing else does either as far as we can tell.

You could. There are in fact quite a lot of things one could do that still might result in a lie...such as throwing tulips at him. The difference is that nobody is seriously proposing and/or evaluating giving cake or throwing tulips as an interrogative technique.

The assumption, however, that all other interrogation techniques must be similarly unsubstantiated merely because data on the effectiveness of waterboarding is conspicuously absent is....shall we say, not evidence based Notwithstanding that many possible techniques may have significantly fewer adverse side effects or opportunity costs than others even where there is no distinguishable difference in accuracy.

 

[Lowpro]

If torture can't be shown to yield higher results or more reliable information, then what possible justification could be made for torture? I'm somewhat dumbfounded at the suggestion that advocating torture should just be our default position, and that the institution shouldn't even be abandoned after it has failed to produce results of better or more reliable quality than other methods (which, if I understand you correctly, you concede).

Do you feel that it's okay because you feel that the lives of the people on which it is being implemented are somehow less valuable than your own life, or the lives of others in different geographical areas or from other cultures?

If I'm in a position to have to make decisions that eliminate value of anyone's life, home or abroad (ie I don't have to pander to people) then the decision becomes much easier. I'm not in that position luckily, because that's a tough one to be in. Culture, geography, how much I love/hate you is irrelevant if that's part of what I needed to do. People in Al-Qaeda probably have information ON Al-Qaeda, that's hard to argue against. I need the information. Suddenly the value of that information becomes wholly more important, which is why oversight is to be expected (I'm all for oversight)

 

[TmoonII]

Until tried, innocent.

Here ...... the detainees are being processed in accordance with the law applicable to enemy combatants; that the right to counsel ..... inapplicable at this time given the circumstances of the war against terrorism; and that a general regard for the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of captives in war satisfies American constitutional standards.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020307_chander.html

 

[MuDPhuD]

You could. There are in fact quite a lot of things one could do that still might result in a lie...such as throwing tulips at him. The difference is that nobody is seriously proposing and/or evaluating giving cake or throwing tulips as an interrogative technique.

The assumption, however, that all other interrogation techniques must be similarly unsubstantiated merely because data on the effectiveness of waterboarding is conspicuously absent is....shall we say, not evidence based Notwithstanding that many possible techniques may have significantly fewer adverse side effects or opportunity costs than others even where there is no distinguishable difference in accuracy.

Is there no readily available reliable "evidence base" for interrogation techniques?
It's seems obvious that torture can be used to successfully extract erroneous confessions from innocent people, but surely the worlds' intelligence services have made some objective studies of how to get the accurate information from a subject??
I recall reading interviews with American military personnel who interrogated captured U boat crews in WWII suggesting that they did not torture because they believed it would not reveal the most accurate information. Instead they claimed to "befriend" the captives and extract information slowly over many months.
Anyway I thought there must be some objective data, somewhere.

 

[Howie Felterbush]

With Oliver North's opinion on something you pretty much still know nothing about it.

How about Bootsy Collins' opinion?

 

[blutoski]

Yes it is possibly the stupidest post of the day. That's why I wrote it. The notion that torture (in this case waterboarding) is somehow ok overall because the victim is a) a bad guy (leaving out how that is determined) and b). it leaves no permanent physical damage is mind blowing to me.

We don't lesson the charge of Rape or its penalty for a criminal who doesn't permanently, phyiscally harm the victim. I am NOT trying to make an analogy between rape and waterboarding or between a terrorist syspect and a rape victim. What I am trying to suggest, if ham-handedly, that the notion that its ok so long as it doesn't physically scar is wrong.

It's a better analogy than you're giving it credit for. In many conflicts, rape is a type of torture. In particular because the damage is almost entirely psychological.

I'm pretty sure that waterboarding carries a greater risk of killing the prisoner than rape, so it's not clear why anybody who approved of waterboarding would not also approve of rape.

 

[johnny karate]

And Johnny Karate, torture is as morally reprehensible as killing someone, and yet we blew off Osama's head so the slippery slope is part of a game we all play, it just matters on how dirty you feel like getting.

Executing an established mass murderer as a punitive measure, and torturing someone merely suspected of having ties to that mass murderer for information are not even remotely morally equivalent.

 

[blutoski]

Anyway I thought there must be some objective data, somewhere.

I think the problem is that publication of the results is going to be heavily controlled by invested parties, so the available body of literature may not be very reliable.

Not about torture specifically, but related - we had a sociologist do a presentation at one of last year's Vancouver SkeptiCamps and her focus of study was criminal profiling. She explained that research might as well be proprietary.

If there's evidence behind the technique, they don't want to divulge too many details lest future suspects defeat the technique (consider the Boston Strangler); alternatively, if there's no evidence behind the technique, nobody wants to admit they're being paid huge sums to basically be Sylvia Browne with a badge.


Given the situation, we may have to depend on reasoning alone to estimate efficacy.

But this may be letting advocates frame the question: efficacy may be a distraction from moral objections based on rights.

Concentrating on efficacy sounds like a utilitarian argument, and carries the usual baggage.

 

[BenBurch]

...

The ethical/moral argument is moot on that subject which is why I don't care about it.

The ends always justify the means?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, do you think the ends justified the means?....

You are assuming the claim is true. The truth of the claim is disputed.

 

[BenBurch]

You are assuming the claim is true. The truth of the claim is disputed.

Even if the claim were true, ends NEVER justify the means. Not Ever.

If the means are justified, they stand on their own.

If they are not, no goal or result can make them so.

I would rather Osama were still alive than that we got him by committing a war crime. And I loathe him rather a lot.

 

[Cavemonster]

Even if the claim were true, ends NEVER justify the means. Not Ever.

If the means are justified, they stand on their own.

If they are not, no goal or result can make them so.

I would rather Osama were still alive than that we got him by committing a war crime. And I loathe him rather a lot.

I disagree.

Stealing, by itself is very hard to justify.
But if I steal bread to feed my kids, if I'm in a situation where no other options exist, the end of feeding my starving kids makes the action my best choice.

We absolutely measure actions by the goals they serve. We measure as best we can the entirety of the situation to choose the action with the best consequences, the lowest risks and a good overall long term outcome.

Now I for one think that torture isn't justified by any "ticking bomb" ends because the consequence is a meaningful degradation in rule of law, a meaninful escalation in worldwide animosity, a decrease in safety for US troops and our allies, all far into the future.

But I don't believe it has any abstract quality of "wrongness" that takes it off the table, it's just that almost no gains justify the attendant losses.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Even if the claim were true, ends NEVER justify the means. Not Ever.

If the means are justified, they stand on their own.

If they are not, no goal or result can make them so.

I would rather Osama were still alive than that we got him by committing a war crime. And I loathe him rather a lot.

Torture aside, your statement on its face, "ends NEVER justify the means" is easily refuted. There are many things which justify various means that other things would not justify.

For example, I would do many things if my son was in danger that I might not do if you were in danger.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

For the record, I looked at the evidence in depth when this torture crap came up in the first place. It wastes resources chasing false answers and doesn't result in any benefit that outweighs the other multiple drawbacks. Claims by Rumsfeld that volumes of actionable information was obtained has never ever been substantiated. It's been years, surely they could reveal by now some of this information and the results. But it's a BIG LIE. There is no such evidence because no such actionable intelligence was elicited from torture except resource wasting wild goose chases.

 

[Lowpro]

Executing an established mass murderer as a punitive measure, and torturing someone merely suspected of having ties to that mass murderer for information are not even remotely morally equivalent.

I disagree wholeheartedly. The torture of KSM is FAR from "merely suspect of having ties" he's so far up in Al-Qaeda's ass. it is to our benefit we know what he knows (probably)

Remember he isn't being tortured for punitive reasons, he (probably) has information we could use and it's important enough to warrant regimens that seem(ed) to include waterboarding.