When I heard that Sean Hannity had jauntily offered to allow himself to be waterboarded, I confess to a moment’s small, viciously gleeful anticipation. However, archy makes a good case for not doing it. After all, if it really is torture, and torture is wrong, and we argue that we shouldn’t even be doing it to putative terrorists…we also shouldn’t be doing it to the small, weak-minded, and stupid.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Dr. Myers,
I disagree on a very simple premise: If you volunteer for the treatment, and the people administering it allow you to stop any time you cry “uncle,” it’s NOT torture. And anyway, Hitchens went through it, too.
I would personally pay money to see Hannity undergo this stunt, if only to see the look on his face afterward.
As a libertarian… if someone wants to hurt themselves, why not? Especially considering that he would live through it unaltered (except perhaps with his opinion of waterboarding altered). This mentality of treating adults like children (even if they aren’t the most intelligent) really ought to stop.
[W]e also shouldn’t be [torturing] the small, weak-minded, and stupid.
But, PZ, how is Expelled supposed to support a claim that scientists are Nazis if you keep refusing to play along like this?
Perhaps I should hasten to add: waterboarding as an interrogation tactic IS MOST DEFINITELY TORTURE. Period, full stop. But these circumstances are different, and if the paragon of Right-wing stupid is blithe enough to call this upon himself, I say we call his bluff. Hell, let Hitchens supervise. That way we’d know he was gettin the real thing.
Bonus: Line up Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin as a double encore.
Yeah, as stated, Hitch went through it.
I suggest reading archy’s full argument, rather than P.Z.’s one-sentence, before dismissing it. It’s very well-though-out, IMO.
I have a couple of questions. I hope that those who might consider them haven’t learned about warfare whilst sitting in the dark, popcorn in lap.
1) What method of interrogation do you recommend for people who have information of tactical value to us?
2) What method do you propose for determining just who has tactical information of value?
3) What do you think “tactical value” means? You should be thinking “time-sensitive” in my view.
4) What rights do you think apply to a combatant? I recommend that you also consider, as you form an answer, that Congress has not performed its Constitutional duty and declared war. (I consider this abject cowardice and malfeasance of office, allowing Congress to mouth off in various ways and fondle the help while pretending – only pretending – to take care of business.)
If you experiment on animals on the rationale that their suffering is the just price of advances in medicine and risk analysis, you tacitly agree that the suffering of combatants is justified in pursuit of the greater good.
Just in case you’re confused, that means saving the lives of our guys – your neighbors – first.
I disagree as well. I think Hannity will change his tune very quickly. As Paul said, it most definitely is torture. No better way to find out than to try it yourself.
There are two things that make this ‘acceptable’ to me. He is volunteering and, most importantly, it will stop the moment he decides he can’t take it.
Ah, in addition, I forgot to add that Hitch is a neo-con apologist
But that he was doing it to prove that it IS torture
Yeah, I like archy’s argument, but I don’t care so much that Hannity has suckered liberals into playing a game with him.
I think that Hannity’s experience may have an effect like that of Hitch and, if it does totally change his perspective on the issue, then that’ll be great.
Besides, if he does it for a troops charity, then I don’t feel bad at all.
Oh, yes. Live. On TeeVee.
A (moving) picture could be worth a million words.
And it would be memorably entertaining to watch that pious stuffed shirt spit and sputter in actual distress, as apposed the manufactured variety that worries him so much that he thinks everyone else should be afraid, just like he.
Betcha dollar he won’t.
I like the charity angle. Can we set it up like they do walkathons? We could pledge $$ for each second it takes till he admits it’s torture ( and he’s a dumbass ).
Paul @ 4,
I think the fact that it’s NOT torture is as good a reason as any for it not to be done. If Hannity goes through with this, all that will change is that he’ll be able to claim he has personal experience when he states waterboarding isn’t torture. He won’t change his opinion on the subject because he won’t really have been tortured; he’ll have been waterboarded once, under controlled conditions, without the threat of being subjected to it again.
I agree with Paul Lundgren and Davidst — demonstrating a particular putative torture to someone who volunteers to have it demonstrated on him in order to help him decide whether or not it is torture (in a demonstration that will promptly stop the instant the volunteer signals STOP) is not the same as torturing someone, in my (feeble, fallible) opinion.
— Frank
Radwaste, since you sound like a godbot, this is what you use. Christ’s golden rule. You should know it. You treat the enemy combatant the way you would want one of our POWs to be treated. Period. End of story. Everything else is sophistry.
If he volunteers, it’s morally permissible, I think.
However, if he knows that it won’t be done to him repeatedly 200 times over the next month, and that they’re not actually going to let him die, then he won’t be getting the full effect.
So someone should hire a commando team to go deep undercover, kidnap him, *then* waterboard him (getting his reaction on tape, of course) – creating enough doubt in his mind as to whether or not it’s for real to really get the full effect. (Given the way his mind works, that probably means they’ll need to pretend to be foreign terrorists, or at least liberals.) The first dozen or so times would probably be sufficient to establish the pattern in his mind – there would be no point in continuing after that, because we already know he doesn’t know anything useful.
Then, after the fact, they can point out that he volunteered to be waterboarded, and all the surrounding circumstances were a necessary part of the experience.
(P.S. No, I’m not serious – exceeding the scope of his volunteer-ness would put you right back on the wrong side of morality, not to mention law if anyone pays attention to it anymore. I don’t think you can really get the full experience as a volunteer because you can’t avoid being aware that you are a volunteer and trust the people doing it to stay within safe limits – I wonder if SERE had a way of getting around that problem, or if they just did the best they could in spite of it?)
Doing it on TV for charity with Hannity safe in the knowledge that it will be over in a few seconds isn’t torture, it’s reality television. Making a cheap stunt out of something as serious as torture trivializes torture. Worse, by allowing Hannity to make a macho game out of, the stunt will convince more people that it’s NOT torture that that it is. It’s a bad idea all around.
archy
Paul, did you read the linked article? It makes pretty much the same point you do, but comes to a different conclusion. And I’m sure PZ is only joking.
davidst,
I’m sure PZ is only joking. I still don’t really get the libertarians’ point though. It still seems to me like individuals who want society off their backs while reaping the benefits of living in one. I’ve been in this country for a few years now, and I can’t grasp what the libertarians’ point is besides essentially that.
Bingo, PZ. Hannity would know going into it that it’s just a stunt, and as uncomfortable as he might be, he’d know that he was never in any real danger of drowning. Unfortunatly, Olbermann missed that. Grodin/Olbermann’s challenge would be reduced to nothing less sophomoric than something like, “I dare you to eat a bug”. His viewers would obviously miss that, and I believe that he’d be depending on that fact.
The real challenge is whether someone can figure a way in which Hannity can be made grow an actual conscience to match the size of his ego.
Anonymous above is me. The damn thing told me I was signed in!
I have no problem water-boarding a willing volunteer.
But that is not what torture is about. Hannity understands that every precaution will be made to ensure his health and safety. Meaning he would be able to call it off at any point.
Those imprisoned are given every indication that their lives have no value to us. They are not volunteers and do not have any expectation that precautions for the health and safety are being taken.
If Hannity were to volunteer to have those imprisoned in Gunatamamo demonstrate water-boarding on him then I’d see his offer as genuine.
I ay we make him go through with it, but don’t stop when he says he’s had enough. He’ll eventually come up, spitting water, saying “hey! I said when! why didn’t you stop? I was really effing worried!”
To which the response is: do you think the prisoners in gitmo were allowed to decide when the treatment was stopped? Do you think things were predictable for them? Do you think they had a sense of control over the situation? Because *that’s* what makes it torture, and not a publicity stunt.
I have no problem water-boarding a willing volunteer.
But that is not what torture is about. Hannity understands that every precaution will be made to ensure his health and safety. Meaning he would be able to call it off at any point.
Those imprisoned are given every indication that their lives have no value to us. They are not volunteers and do not have any expectation that precautions for the health and safety are being taken.
If Hannity were to volunteer to have those imprisoned in Gunatamamo demonstrate water-boarding on him then I’d see his offer as genuine.
I agree that this is a set-up: a lose-lose situation for anyone thinking they can prove to Hannity that he is wrong and get him to admit as much. I can’t see that he really cares whether he is right or wrong in any objective, factual sense. He can undergo the process under controlled conditions, one time, and then declare that he did just fine and that it isn’t really torture, thank you very much, secure in the knowledge he can go home with his moral certainty and pride intact.
A more realistic test would be to subject him to an authentic interrogation process that involved waterboarding. After being waterboarded in a manner and for a period out of his control, he would then be asked to admit that waterboarding is torture and that he is a deeply immoral person, and whatever else we wanted to admit to (including, preferably, some things that we know to be patently untrue). If he failed to make a full confession, he would be subjected to additional rounds of waterboarding until he either “confessed” these things or he managed to survive a pre-determined number of applications which he would say anything he thought we wanted to hear after very few applications, but that’s because we would, in fact, be torturing him, and therein lies the problem.
The danger here is not that Hannity will come out of the stunt unscathed–I predict that he won’t–the danger is that he won’t admit that he came out unscathed.
As some commenters pointed out, Hitchens did it and fully admitted that it was torture. Another blogger I read (sorry, can’t find the source, but I think it was linked to from Pharyngula) self administered the waterboarding and, if I recall, fully admitted that he’d sell out his entire family to prevent it from happening again.
Hannity will be tortured by this process–I have no doubt about that–but he will nonetheless preen and posture and pretend that it was much ado about nothing.
Two things
1)If you volunteer I dont think there is any moral problem. After all, we use the Sere program for training and education. The caveat is that a large element of the psychological torture is removed (as presumably this is done in a safe environment and the victim can say “Stop”) and thus the individual should acknowledge that they are merely undergoing a sampling of what real torture is like.
2) People like Hannity have boxed themselves into a corner. If Hannity were to go undergo waterboarding he either says that it was no problem, or it is torturous. If the former, then Hannity has to answer what on earth the point of waterboarding is, if it is no big deal. If the latter, then yes America is undergoing torture.
For this to be authentic, hannity would need to be sent to Afghanistan and tortured by the Taliban.
Its not torture if you can say stop or if you know that it is at least going to stop short of your death.
Hannity is a moron. He confuses bigotry and a lack of human compassion with patriotism (which is basically the calling card of right wingers).
If enemies know we will torture them, there is no reason for them not to torture our troops. That alone is reason to not torture. The fact that is has been shown to ineffective seems to have little to no baring on idiots.
My concern is desensitization. If people grow comfortable see Hannity waterboarded, it’s only a small step to using the technique on humans.
Olbermann offered a thousand dollars per second, thus insuring that there will be an independent camera there, and the chicken hawk backing out.
The fear of being forced to say something like, “I lie to the American public on behalf of the GOP.”, also insures that he won’t do it.
I find it amazing that America seems to be having a dialogue on whether the ends justify the means (“But torture works!”) and on whether a rose by any other name would not, in fact, smell as sweet (“Coercing someone with violence and pain isn’t torture, it’s enhanced interrogation!”)
That said, I would suggest that Hannity, having volunteered, be subjected to waterboarding until he confesses to being an agent of Al-Qaida and names his co-conspirators. And he would, too, quickly enough, make something up to satisfy his torturers.
And that, I think, would nicely prove the point.
Hannity will undergo the ordeal and then brag: “See, the islamoterrorist loving liburls are wrong, it’s not torture. I underwent it and didn’t give my ATM PIN to the guys waterboarding me. So there, nyah!”
I don’t think he ought to be waterboarded, even if he gets on his knees, hands clasped, and BEGS.
He doesn’t deserve the publicity.
As far as the whole torture-is-wrong argument:
It has been established that it will not kill you. He is asking to have it done. (In other words, he is a consenting adult.)
It’s no different than when I ask my partner to drip hot candle wax on me, spank me, or “throw me around a little”. It’s an act between two consenting adults which does not harm others.
In other words:
It’s not torture if you ask for it.
Radwaste #7:
If there was even the flimsiest sliver of evidence that torture actually works in providing consistently reliable tactical information in a timely fashion, then you just might have the teeniest kernal of a seed of a hypothetical potential of a remote possibility of a puny modicum of a just ever so slightly arguably valid point.
Since there isn’t, you don’t.
AbdiAshirta #28
“If people grow comfortable see Hannity waterboarded, it’s only a small step to using the technique on humans”
I’m afraid the horse has left the barn on that one already.
@AbdiAshirta – #28
THEY ALREADY USE IT ON HUMANS.
Unless, of course you’re one of those types who don’t consider large sections of the population to be human beings.
I think Keith Obermann has the right idea, a charity fund buy in at $1,000.00 per minute. Then donate this to a real “serious communistic radical organization such as the ACLU ;-) or another anti-torture group – Amnesty International etc.
For being such a dick, Haninny can contribute to he cause.
Hitchens’ account of waterboarding is pretty hair-raising but it doesn’t top this one:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717
First person account of self-waterboarding by an experienced diver.
I have a buddy who used to dive that I sent that link to, and he said he nearly threw up reading it (he’d had a near-drowning experience 3 years ago and hasn’t dived since) Apparently near-drowning (or simulated near drowning) is both memorable and traumatic.
Khalid Mohammed was waterboarded 180 times, or something like that. I think it’s pretty clear that, by that point, it was just “let’s make the bastard pay!” But who gives a shit? He was just a muslim fundamentalist and I’m sure the good christians torturing him took that into account.
I think Archy (and others here) have some good points, but they’re predicated on the experience not being a major paradigm-shifter for Hannity. It certainly traumatised the crap out of Hitch.
If Hannity grimly endures a reasonable (whatever that might be) amount of this torture and emerges smug and unpleasant as ever, then yes – he will have won a nasty propaganda point that he will doubtless exploit in horribly distorted ways forever.
But if he has the living shit scared out of him, it could well adjust his horizons, however temporarily, and defuse his credibility considerably. I don’t know what the odds are, but having nearly drowned as a kid (as Hitch did) I suspect that anything like the blind, panicking terror I experienced* could have quite a sobering effect on him.
He may assume that all he has to do is hold his breath for a minute – as he’s probably able to do – and he’ll emerge victorious. I don’t think it’ll be that easy with water running up his nose and wet cloth clamped to his face. His own optimism may be his worst enemy.
Perhaps it shouldn’t happen; but if it’s going to, it may be a lot less easy than he seem to think.
*I taught myself to swim over the next year, and the following season swam in the school gala.
IF Hannity is an honest man, like Hitchens, and changes his mind about waterboarding and publicly says so afterwards (and other personal experience accounts tend to all agree that even under extremely controlled conditions where an individual intellectually knew he would be guaranteed to be safe and that the procedure would terminate shortly, it was STILL horrendously traumatic and terrifying) then it would be a significant public relations victory for the anti-torture side.
But I guess the question would be: IS Hannity an honest man?
Great!
Torture is okay if Hannity says it is.
I await his verdict with bated breath.
So, when are the Vegas odds-makers going to get in on the act, with wagers on how long Hannity will hold out?
Trivialize a serious issue, turn it into a t.v. circus.
It’s the American way.
Casting aside Hannity’s silliness about holding his breath on reality TV, this is bread and circuses distracting from the national debate about treatment of captured combatants.
The only way I would approve would be if they Waterboarded Hannity until he said something against the beliefs of his “audience”: “I Hate America”, “There is no God”, “Homosexuals deserve marriage rights”
How long would he last then? And would it prove that torture brings “the truth” out of the tortured, or just what they have to say to stop it?
The only way I would approve would be if they Waterboarded Hannity until he said something against the beliefs of his “audience”: “I Hate America”, “There is no God”, “Homosexuals deserve marriage rights”
How long would he last then? And would it prove that torture brings “the truth” out of the tortured, or just what they have to say to stop it?
Well for one thing, torture doesn’t work, whereas animal testing does! The whole “moral” argument about it is irrelevant.
However, if you do want to consider the moral argument, think about this: in a war, or with an intruder attacking you in your house, you have the right to self-defence. You don’t have that right to torture someone in a war or someone who potentially has information on a ticking time bomb like Jack Bauer. Why? Well, for one thing, the other person “potentially” has information, whereas killing someone in self-defence is done because that person “IS” attacking you, not that they’re “potentially” attacking you.
A real test would have Hannity pledging a sliding scale of money to an organization that he really dislikes in inverse proportion to the time he lasts [i.e. $50,000 to the ACLU if he lasts less than 5 seconds, $40k at 10 sec, … and $0 if he can last 30 sec]. To make it more realistic, the torturers will also be paid in inverse proportion to the time Hannity lasts.
His offer is difficult for moral people to deal with, because almost every permutation can be used to lay the foundation for a rhetorical attack on the no-torture position.
I refuse to use the euphemism “waterboard.” Call it what it is: slowly drowning someone, but stopping before they die.
If no one will agree to slowly drown him, Hannity can claim that his opponents are too weak-willed to do “what must be done in these hard times” and that it falls to “patriots like him” to make the hard decisions. He can play the “chest-thumping patriot” card.
If someone will slowly drown him as an artificial “experience” Hannity can point at their flip-flopping as a “deeper” understanding that slow drowning “isn’t really” torture and insinuate that being anti-torture is just a political position without any “true” moral underpinnings. He can play the “moral relativism” card.
If someone slowly drowns him “for real” and actually breaks his will or damages him, that person will be seen as an aggressive monster and will damage the reputation of Hannity’s opposition. He can play the “martyr for the cause” card.
I agree with several previous posts. When one volunteers to be waterboarded, the person applying the technique is a trained & trusted professional, and you can wave your hands to make it stop at any time; it is simulated waterboarding or an approximation of waterboarding.
Amphiox – and others – you haven’t answered the questions.
You have some education, and think highly of your opinions.
Why is it that they do not include alternatives to what is being done?
Why does anyone believe that Americans have never done this before?
Some people think that torture is effective. If you’re going to tell them it isn’t, say so along with the alternative – because otherwise, getting an answer from a prisoner (you’ll notice I’m not going to use that disgusting waffle, “detainee”) is going to take the most direct form.
I find it sick that people can actually say we’ll get humane treatment by setting an example. The religious instructions for many Arabs says killing an infidel is the thing to do.
Are any of you actually suggesting that the same people who behead journalists and stone women are going to say, “Achmed, treat this man kindly. His people provide ours with prayer mats in their jails.”?
No, they’re not. It’s not about you, and it’s not about “their jails” vs. “our jails”. Other people do what the hell they want with ours. Ask a Vietnam vet.
So get to the details. What’s torture? Witholding the direction of Mecca and a mat to kneel on? Given an equivalent for our guys, is it leaving the sugar out of the black coffee?
Of course that’s absurd. It’s absurd so as to point out that you have not fully defined what you want to happen to prisoners with tactical knowledge.
I think some of you are terrified to think there is such a thing as an enemy, or that you don’t believe one exists anywhere.
Get out of the movie theater. It isn’t real.
I’ve been accused of being a “godbot”. I guess there’s no practice at thinking there. God™ is imaginary. It’s always up to us to figure out what to do.
So get figuring. Who has valuable information? How do we get it, quickly? What do we do with that information? What do we do with the prisoner?
If you don’t have the answers, complete through the end of hostilities, you haven’t thought about this thoroughly, and that’s true regardless of what you want to call me.
Think this out. It’s probably not your regular line of work, so you can’t just assume what you think is right.
No-one’s saying that we would get humane treatment in return, but what people are saying is we shouldn’t lower ourselves to their level. Same as the fact that, while terrorists flew two planes in the WTC, we shouldn’t start flying planes into random mosques, or setting off car bombs in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
“Waterboarding is definitely torture”, as are military boot camps. I don’t know why the administration is afraid to use the word. It may not be torture under domestic or international law however, but we can make that distinction without being afraid of the word. Let’s call torture, “torture”, and realize that there are gradations and distinctions. Burns, broken bones, torn flesh and mutilations, time duration, witnessing family members tortured, actual deaths, all up the scale. Waterboarding may be low on the torture scale, perhaps preferable to weeks of bootcamp or sleep deprivation.
We shouldn’t fly planes into random mosques or set off car bombs. We have all of those nuclear weapons just sitting around, collecting dust. Next Muslim terrorist attack. . . goodbye Mecca. Tehran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, wherever.
“If you volunteer for the treatment, and the people administering it allow you to stop any time you cry “uncle,” it’s NOT torture.”
The sessions I’ve seen, the victim was not allowed to cry “uncle”. They get the whole procedure. Still there is a difference between one experience, and the total lack of control over whether it will happen again that those poor terrorist masterminds found themselves in.
Don’t be silly. We need to send Christian missionaries and convert them all.
There are quite a few people who pay people to be tortured. The guy who dies wearing two rubber suits and a dildo up his rectum was torturing himself, had he included a friend he might be here today.
A local girl is working very hard at having hooks inserted into her and then weights applied. Her goal is to increase the size and number of hooks until her weight can be supported. She wants to be suspended by hooks attached to a frame and photographed. Sounds hackneyed to me, it has been done by prettier ladies with sharper aesthetic senses. But it is her goal, her art, her desire. So who am I to object.
If Mr Hannity wishes to be waterboarded, for his art or personal gratification, who am I to object. I think he should have the option.
I also think the session/s should be recorded and should be broadcast live on pay-per-view and betting allowed in suitable facilities. To demonstrate exactly how humane it is he should commit to going for the full 83 sessions.
Being fairly wealthy, should put his money were his mouth is and lay down a deposit of at least $830,000. If he makes it through 83 sessions he doubles his money. If he fails to make it that far he loses $10,000 per round he failed to complete.
It could be made into a real media event. Unfortunately I suspect that it will end up a disappointment like the Evel Knievel jump over the Grand Canyon was. A puff of smoke; a premature parachute deployment; a mumbled excuse as to why he could go through with it.
kill ’em all @ 52
So, the next time we get a Timothy McVey (and there will be a next time), we should nuke Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas, or Salt Lake? After all, we have all of those nuclear weapons just sitting around, collecting dust.
If I strap you down in a chair and apply a couple of hundred volts DC (low amp) to your gonads, it’ll take no time at all to get you to confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, committing the Whitechapel murders, and stealing the Statue of Liberty.
My vote for dumbest comment of the day, but I have a lot left to read.
Since he has asked for it wouldn’t NOT waterboarding him be a form of torture at this point?
Traditional, non-torture interrogation can actually be really, really effective. An experienced interrogator with a good grasp of human psychology can extract more information than a torturer ever could—and as an added bonus, this information would actually be accurate.
Have you ever seen an interrogator at work? They’re brilliant.
Keep in mind, guys, that the prisoners our country has waterboarded weren’t necessarily terrorists—many (if not most) were suspects. So we were torturing innocent people. That is not okay.
“Keep in mind, guys, that the prisoners our country has waterboarded weren’t necessarily terrorists—many (if not most) were suspects. So we were torturing innocent people.”
Weren’t there only three who were waterboarded? You should be able to specifically name the innocent ones.
Hey, maybe it’s part of SH’s normal S & M routine. We shouldn’t judge people too harshly for their odd proclivities.
Let’s go to the experts! The people who actually developed these techniques for use in SERE.
“The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as “torture” in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon’s chief lawyer and warned that it would produce “unreliable information.” ”
Ticking time bomb?
“In essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative to the more time-consuming conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate information. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption.”
In conclusion?
“the application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403171_pf.html
That it’s even gotten this far means those of us who don’t want the Manatee to keep lying are at a disadvantage. Hannity’s the kind of slime who can manipulate this to his advantage no matter what happens. Personally, I’d say we’d all be better off if we forgot this no-win shit and simply had him sent off to prison for his violent, anti-American rhetoric. Of course, nobody’s got the guts to do that – they all scream “FWEE SPEACH” as though it were absolute.
I just love how everyone’s stumping for the far right these days, and those who aren’t aren’t really opposing them, either.
Blue Fielder,
“Hannity’s the kind of slime who can manipulate this to his advantage no matter what happens.”
If you find yourself defeated at every turn bu such as Hannity and calling for imprisonment for speech, perhaps you need to reconsider your precepts.
@34 and @35,
Yes, I know that they already do it to humans, because I live on planet earth. Sigh.
I mean, that if people grow comfortable watching Hannity get waterboarded, then those same people might go on to _grow comfortable_ with the idea of waterboarding humans…
Never mind. This is why we don’t go for the deadpan delivery on the internets.
“Waterboarding is definitely torture”, as are military boot camps. I don’t know why the administration is afraid to use the word. It may not be torture under domestic or international law however, but we can make that distinction without being afraid of the word. Let’s call torture, “torture”, and realize that there are gradations and distinctions. Burns, broken bones, torn flesh and mutilations, time duration, witnessing family members tortured, actual deaths, all up the scale. Waterboarding may be low on the torture scale, perhaps preferable to weeks of bootcamp or sleep deprivation.
Forgive me, but wow, you are using a horrendously loose definition for the word “torture”. In boot camp your life isn’t in danger. Can people die in boot camp? Yes, but such people are not being held as prisoners. You are also taking the context completely away from the torture sscenario, and treating it as if it happens apart from other things like sleep deprivation, use of absurdly loud sounds played in prisoners’ cells, various forms of physical abuse, etc. etc. By your definition of torture a boxer or MMA fighter could seen as “torturing” themselves during training. But we know they are not “torturing themselves, they are voluntarily subjecting themselves to what most would consider heavy physical training mixed with a few activities that might wander into the extreme. But we would not reasonably call that “torture”. As far as the “gradations” argument goes, you also seem to be making this case outside of the fact that all of the things you listed (and many, many more) occur in various mixtures so as to find the recipe that, the torture supporter would say, would generate important information from prisoners.
I warn against totally watering down the word “torture”, as doing so not only debases the word and that which it defines, but also plays right into the hands of those who want to redefine it as some benign thing many humans endure over the course of their lives anyways, rather than the barbarous practice it truly is.
As for RadWaste:
“…Some people think that torture is effective. If you’re going to tell them it isn’t, say so along with the alternative – because otherwise, getting an answer from a prisoner (you’ll notice I’m not going to use that disgusting waffle, “detainee”) is going to take the most direct form…”
Are you honestly telling me you don’t understand that an alternative has been given? You know what the alternative is; don’t play coy. We have evidence that torture doesn’t work, as much as we have evidence that using other means does. We know for a fact that our troops were able to exact information from captured German soldiers without the use of torture. We know that the Nazis didn’t even use waterboarding. We know that we executed Japanese soldiers that waterboarded our men in WW2. We know that waterboarding is a sadistic tool of humanity’s worst side generated from the Inquisition (not exactly a nostalgic people recall fondly). We know where we got the current incarnation of our torture methods (Communist China). You are trying to redefine the word as something that’s not so bad, that a bunch of “terrorist-appeasing pussies” are just all bothered about.
Some people think torture is effective? Sure. A very small minority of people who tend to be the kind of authoritarians that would rather see this country become a fascist dictatorship or right-wing theocracy. I notice you neglected to mention all the people in our government that called these activites torture before BushCo hit the go button. I notice that you ignore Hitchens’ own brief self-inflicted experience and his confirming it as torture (among the various CIA officials that had it tried on themselves and came away with the same conclusion), even though he supports the Iraq war. What I find quite interesting is that all the torture supporters seem to be comfortable with relying on a largely inexperienced group of torture supporters (read: neocon imperialists), rather than all the experienced people on either side of the political divide that classify it as torture. Reagan disagrees with you. McCain disagrees with you. Rad you are so far off the mark you have made me start agreeing with Republicans.
“…I find it sick that people can actually say we’ll get humane treatment by setting an example. The religious instructions for many Arabs says killing an infidel is the thing to do.
Are any of you actually suggesting that the same people who behead journalists and stone women are going to say, “Achmed, treat this man kindly. His people provide ours with prayer mats in their jails.”?…
Please spare me the concern trolling. It’s not about expecting humane treatment in return. But you seem to be missing the fact that the same extremists you are crowing about mistreating our men and women EXPECT to be tortured, and when we do that to them, it confirms everything they were indoctrinated to believe. It’s fuel for them, we know this. Why not rub a little bit of that good ol’ westernism on them for a change, and see how that works? Give a terrorist his 72 virgins (granted I’m being totally facecious on that one); I bet he won’t give 2 shits he’s a prisoner after the 3rd one and tell you everything you want to know, rather than beating and mistreating them physically for days and weeks only to MAYBE get a confession to say, being the guy who offed JFK.
“…I think some of you are terrified to think there is such a thing as an enemy, or that you don’t believe one exists anywhere…”
No, we can define our enemies quite well. The problem is other people who see nothing but enemies, and are more concerned with exacting revenge than with finding ends to conflicts.
“…So get figuring. Who has valuable information? How do we get it, quickly? What do we do with that information? What do we do with the prisoner?
If you don’t have the answers, complete through the end of hostilities, you haven’t thought about this thoroughly, and that’s true regardless of what you want to call me…”
I don’t know, but apparently you think we’re so good that we have exactly every person in the ME who’s ever been a terrorist. We wrongly convict many civilians each year, but by darn we get every single one on the battlefield without a false positive! You are really naive. And I ask you to provide a case where that ever-so-convenient caricature of the last minute information squeeze – 24-style – has ever worked. Oh and btw, the LA plot doesn’t count because our intelligence had a line on the attack a year before the perpetrator was captured. You tell us to get out of the movie theatre, then dare to wax realistic about Jerry Bruckheimer-worthy doomsday scenarios hidden in the head of every single person we capture over there.
I also note your convenient zero-sum game. So according to you, we need to torture the living piss out of every prisoner because each one of them has a piece of the total information picture that will, as you put it, reveal to us the whole plan “complete through the end of hostilities”. Excuse me while I wet myself laughing.
The methods that have been demonstrated to work – rapport-building efforts which have a demonstrated track record of obtaining useful information (multiple Guantanamo prisoners, including I believe Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were determined to have already given all the useful information they had, before they were tortured, though several did make stuff up, to stop the torture, that sent the intelligence community off on wild goose chases). Even putting aside questions of human rights and handing a huge propoganda and, potentially, moral victory to our enemies, the fact is that torture, while it is very effective at convincing people to say what they think you want to hear, does not reliably produce true information – unless you’re prepared to assert that several hundred years ago, hundreds of thousands of women really were flying through the air on broomsticks and having sex with the devil.
I would politely suggest that torturing people until they tell you what you “expect” (read: “want”) to hear and then going out and acting on the information they’ve given you is probably the worst possible way to go about this…
…especially in cases like the above.
Does the phrase “Geneva Conventions” mean anything to you? Any person being held is either a prisoner of war or a civilian and their rights are already established as a matter of international law, the Bush administration’s attempts to conjure a rightless third category out of thin air notwithstanding.
Why should a random person alleged to be a combatant have to pay for Congress’ cowardice?
Since it has already been established that torture does not produce reliable information, this argument is not even wrong.
Blueindependent,
“In boot camp your life isn’t in danger. Can people die in boot camp? Yes, but such people are not being held as prisoners. ”
Yes, they can die in boot camp, usually of dehydration or heart failure on forced marches, sometimes in live fire accidents or menningitis outbreaks (due to crowding and stress related immune systems suppression). And yes they are being held as prisoners especially in the case of conscription, but in the U.S. once you have “volunteered”, you can’t change your mind and just walk off. There is a credible threat of prison. If the alternative is prison, then you are in prison. Since there can be no prior informed consent to boot camp, there should be the option of changing your mind at any time during the course of it. I warn against watering down the term “boot camp”. The sleep deprivation, physical and verbal abuse, condition to follow orders, encouragement of abusive physical peer “discipline” and pressure, desensitization to killing, etc. are “torture”.
AbdiAshirta @ 66 – some of us got it; it wasn’t even that subtle. Others have their irony meters set way too high, which is a necessity for when certain fundi-tards pay Pharyngula a visit.
Radwaste, you pig ignorant fucktard:
Some people think that torture is effective. If you’re going to tell them it isn’t, say so along with the alternative – because otherwise, getting an answer from a prisoner (you’ll notice I’m not going to use that disgusting waffle, “detainee”) is going to take the most direct form.
Name them. You’re making the claim. Name the people who think this, and don’t do the RNC/Faux/AssRocket routine of just slapping “some people” onto a claim that you’re pulling out of your ass to make it sound legit. State their names.
And then explain why the FBI’s own interrogators, past and present specifically state that torture does not work. I’d think these guys in the FBI know a bit more about interrogating people than say any fucking moron bigot like you and Hannity and the rest.
And by the way, “some people” could mean: “only members of the KKK.” Because we don’t know how many “some people is.” We don’t know who makes up the “some. Some is too vague.
But then it’s a typical tactic of a bigoted moron.
That’s no reason not to do it. I’ve wanted to get waterboarded for YEARS now. Originally because I wanted to bring the authority, but now because I want to show that I’m tougher than Christopher Hitchens.
If that idiot Hannity wants to get waterboarded have at it. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him and he’ll finally learn what the word dunk means and that it isn’t remotely related to the process of waterboarding someone.
africangenesis
“There is a credible threat of prison. ”
Show me the evidence. How many people who fail, quit, or go awol from boot camp, basic training go to jail?
“Since there can be no prior informed consent to boot camp”
Ummm what are you talking about? Are you really saying people have no idea what they are getting into, and have no way of finding out before they join?
From the linked page:
No, he hasn’t. If I’m thinking of the right clip, North was dunked a few times in a pool, no cloth over his mouth and nose, not tied down, in order to emerge and claim it was nothing. Well, it was. If Hannity really, really wants to do this, insist he does it properly – in the way Hitchens did. No splashing about in the shallow end of a pool to ensure “victory”.
Let him have the recurring nightmares and panic attacks that come even with the briefest, most controlled waterboarding experience. Maybe those will finally knock some sense into him.
How about we waterboard Hannity until he tells us where Bin Laden is? As awful and disturbing as consensual waterboarding is, I don’t think we get to say that it’s not torture just because a few famous people have tried it (and were released the instant they couldn’t take it anymore).
But yeah, we kind of lose either way. The only way we can show that waterboarding is torture is to administer it to the extent at which it actually becomes torture, at which point we’ve already gone too far. Ideally, we could just talk to someone who’s already been tortured like that, and point to that and say, “hey, look! That was torture!”, but I guess that doesn’t count.
It would definitely have to be associated with some sort of a bet. Something like, “If you put up with it for 5 minutes, we’ll give $X to your charity of choice. If you bail out early, you have to beg for them to stop while being recorded.”
If he can bail at any point and then claim that he could have kept going if he wanted to, it’s just a lame no-lose publicity stunt for him.
WaterboARD ‘EM until they admit they saw DARWIN!!
Timothy writes:
I’ve wanted to get waterboarded for YEARS now
Come on up. I’ll do it.
Or did you want to make conditions? Like, that you’ll survive? Not being sure about survival adds a real extra
“zing” to the experience, I bet.
I think Olbermann has played his cards far better than John McKay is giving him credit (FWI, this is coming from someone who generally considers Olbermann an unctuous blowhard). He has it so that every second Hannity lasts gives another $1000 in charity. If Hannity only lasts a few seconds, one can always ask “Hey, why didn’t you last longer, tough guy? Did you just wanna deprive the troops of money?”
The only way Hannity can win is if he really is a tough guy and can withstand the treatment for a sustained period of time. That is a scenario I rather doubt.
(I’d also recommend that people ignore the torture apologists in this thread. It’s a well established legal precedent that waterboarding is torture, and it’s also a well established legal precedent that torture is a warcrime. Period. End of story. You don’t get to pick and choose which warcrimes you’ll refrain from engaging in, just look at Augusto Pinochet.)
“Or did you want to make conditions? Like, that you’ll survive? Not being sure about survival adds a real extra “zing” to the experience, I bet.”
Waterboarding makes you unsure of your survival even when you are in expert CIA hands and certain that they value you far more alive than dead, otherwise they wouldn’t have reason to be waterboarding you, after all, they aren’t just sadists do it for fun. Waterboarding relies upon reflexive reactions and fears.
Laen#73,
Desertion can result in confinement. Today’s military is more lenient, possibly to preserve the impression that it is voluntary. Here is a link to a law firm, touting its good results of no confinement for the most part, but note that they don’t guarantee they can deliver such results. confinement is a definite possibility that the military threatens. Perhaps it happens so seldom now that it is losing its force, almost like a UN resolution of “serious consequences”.
Yes, I don’t think academic and cinematic knowledge of boot camp is enough for “informed consent”. Bobby Knights reputation as a coach was well known, but Larry Bird quickly found out that actually experiencing it was far more real. Boot camp may be no different than you thought, but you may not have known yourself and your limits as well as you thought.
Whoops#80,
Forgot to include the desertion lawyers link:
http://www.militarylawyers.org/awol-desertion-cases.htm
The guy who dies wearing two rubber suits and a dildo up his rectum was torturing himself, had he included a friend he might be here today.
let’s not forget the man’s name, after all, it was quite an accomplishment:
Gary Aldridge
Are we a nation of torturers?
Hell no. I don’t torture, my kids don’t torture and I don’t know anyone that does and the only one or two that I’ve even heard of were those on TV – the bad apples that we put in prison for what they did in Abu Grebe. We are not a nation of torturers.
When I think of a nation of tortures I think of the Spanish Inquisition. I visited a museum of their implements of torture including a wedge that women were placed on that was just sharp enough to force its way into the woman by her body weight alone but not sharp enough to kill here immediately. She had to suffer to be cleansed I guess. Now that was a nation of torturers. Anyone would agree with that.
I also think of Germany just prior to and during the Second World War. That nation of tortures killed literally millions of men woman and children as fast as they could open the spigots on their gas supplies. Truly a nation completely full of torturers each and every one of them.
Other nations of torturers come to mind like Pol Pot in Cambodia (no that wouldn’t be a good example because the people of Cambodia were the ones tortured to death) but how about Caligula and the Roman Empire. That was when torture was raised to a fine art. We are not like that. There were very few torturers in the US the rest of us are innocent.
I don’t think a future generation looking back on America during the first part of the twenty first century will think of us as a nation of tortures. Do you?
Africangenesis writes:
Waterboarding relies upon reflexive reactions and fears.
It sounds like it’s short-circuitting the conscious brain to invoke physical response loops that are out of conscious control (what Ramachandran calls the “zombie”) – but there’s probably some additional intellectual fear if you know you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t care about your survival. From the little bits I’ve read here and there, there’s also a piece of it that has to do with body image. Tortures that leave the body literally bent, broken, and torn, help produce a long-term despair that might also break the victim. Knowing that (in principle) the torture will stop when you ring the bell or spill your guts – will also have some effect. That’s why I thought it was particularly horrifying to read that Khalid Mohammed was waterboarded 100+ times – that goes beyond practical utility and into sadism.
In other words, going to some random nihilist on the internet to be waterboarded is bad enough, but if you know he doesn’t particularly care if you survive, it’s worse. Maybe slightly – maybe a lot. It probably depends a lot on the victim. The only way to know is find out.
James Brown writes:
the bad apples that we put in prison for what they did in Abu Grebe.
There were a few scapegoats sent up, but the chain of command that encouraged and tolerated it was, basically, exonerated. And the current round of torture looks to be going the same way – if we were seriously not a nation of torturers you’d eventually find Yoo and Gonzales (and possibly more) explaining themselves from the same chair Slobodan Milosevic sat in.
As long as our highest levels of government protect themselves by pushing guys who “just followed orders” in front of the train, we are – from the outside, at least – a nation of torturers. Not to go all Godwin, but – we blame Hitler for a lot of the holocaust even though the dirty work was done by underlings “just following orders.” At Nuremberg we showed that we don’t accept that defense (unless you work for the CIA, apparently) and history places a proportionate amount of blame on Hitler’s shoulders. If we apply our own historical standards to the US’ torture actions since 9/11, we ought to have a bunch of CIA and contractor employees standing trial along with their corrupt chain of command.
Power corrupts but it also protects – itself – very well.
Bobby Knights reputation as a coach was well known, but Larry Bird quickly found out that actually experiencing it was far more real.
Uh, no:
“People naturally think it was trouble between (Bobby) Knight and me, but it wasn’t,” Bird said. “The school was just too big. I was a homesick kid who was lost and broke.”
It was pointed out that he will be able to shout STOP at any time. Well I suppose the arguement would be so can the terrorists. Hmmm. How about Mr Hannity that we make it more realistic. It is only stopped when you sign a confession (properly witnessed and legal) that waterboarding is torture, and those at the highest levels who ordered it should be prosecuted.
Hows he going to retract that? Claim he was co-erced?
Fox Noise is known for flashy video-editing, not non-digital FX, but how hard would it be for them to rig up a low-stress fake waterboarding that would leave their # 2 star his usual suave & debonair self, claiming to have endured worse at frat parties?
I think it’s an excellent idea and he should be taken up on his offer. Just make sure we have genuine torture here – no being pulled out just because he proves he’s such a pussy after only 2 minutes. After his ordeal he can face the world and tell them whether he believes waterboarding is torture or not.
I remember that episode of Myth Busters years ago where Kari agreed to be tortured; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – that had to be the most stupid thing imaginable. You can see how poor Kari was screwed up in almost no time at all and despite being in a controlled environment with friends around and the ability to simply stop things. (I hope she’s since recovered.) People like Hannity really haven’t a clue what the hell they’re talking about, but I say let them find out the hard way; after all, they were so willing to let people suffer; perhaps they wouldn’t be so supportive of torture after that.
@BobH: You got that wrong; Hannity might think he can withstand the treatment for some period. He can even practice all he wants holding his breath and dunking his head in the toilet bowl. That all changes once he has no control. It shouldn’t be friends of his doing this either because they probably wouldn’t do things right – so let’s give Hannity a tour of the Balkans and introduce him to some people who know how to do it right.
I think it would be just to kidnap Hannity, hold him incommunicado for weeks, and give him the full “harsh treatment” experience without giving him any hope of release.
Now that would be a more meaningful simulation of what torture actually is for its victims. It’s not a frat prank.
“Hannity might think he can withstand the treatment for some period”
Hannity’s point is that he is willing to undergo it, not that he can withstand it. Foxnews has shown their war correspondent, Steve Harrigan, being waterboarded. It was frightening to watch as three hooded men held him down while he obviously felt like he was drowning. He was visibly shaken afterwards. Hannity has seen footage of it, I think even on his own show, so he has no illusions.
Guy Incognito#87,
“The school was just too big. I was a homesick kid who was lost and broke.”
You believe that? I’m sure Bird blames himself more than Knight, since so many managed to survive Knight, but Knight’s practices are hardly a warm cacoon for freshmen.
Can anyone imagine if Hannity underwent this, then changed his opinion? And if, afterwards, he went on air and admitted he was wrong?
Me neither.
africangenesis #81
According to his link that lawyer has decent luck I would say…of course it says little to nothing about AWOL during basic training, which was your comment. Now all I have is my personal experience, which is of course just a single source, but no one from my basic training company went to jail for going AWOL or failing. Including the two idiots that got caught having coke, not in a can, sent to them. They all received general discharges, under the cause of failure to adapt.
Laen,
Some who don’t conform in basic training, get what may be worse than prison, they get “rolled back”, “recycled”, “held over”, and have an NSO (“new start over”). If you object to being tortured, the punishment can be having to start the torture over. I agree that today’s voluntary military is easier to get out of, but from boot camp on, the government has rights, and it is clear that you are at its mercy, should it so choose.
Haven’t read the other comments yet, but just wanted to interject (as someone probably has already by now) that Christopher Hitchens already did this, and changed his mind about waterboarding as a result, declaring it is indeed torture.
Would that Hannity has a similar epiphany, though his ideology might not let him. Hitchens still has some human decency, whereas Hannity…
“Yes, they can die in boot camp, usually of dehydration or heart failure on forced marches, sometimes in live fire accidents or menningitis outbreaks (due to crowding and stress related immune systems suppression). And yes they are being held as prisoners especially in the case of conscription, but in the U.S. once you have “volunteered”, you can’t change your mind and just walk off. There is a credible threat of prison. If the alternative is prison, then you are in prison. Since there can be no prior informed consent to boot camp, there should be the option of changing your mind at any time during the course of it…”
First off, how do you explain the differences in boot camp severity? Boot camp for the Air Force is not the same as boot camp for the Army. The more extreme rigors of the Marines and SEALs are fairly well-known. If one wants to try and get into either of those and is foolish enough to ignore and remain ignorant about the process of getting in, that’s not my problem. It’s certainly not torture, because they’re not going to kill you intentionally. Second of all, if people die that regularly in boot camp, do you not think that would deter far more people from signing up? And that’s besides the point that they aren’t trying to kill you intentionally. I honestly do not understand your POV; it makes no sense. You make it sound as if death is a routine occurrence, and that 30% of applicants are lucky to make it out of their 6-8 weeks. Boot camp is a weeding out process, and a very full contact one at that. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I could probably get through BC (if I didn’t have certain kinds of problems with authority); I know people who have that are less physically capable than even I am. And No, you can’t change your mind and walk off; but then, you can’t do that from a marriage either, at least not legally. Is marriage prison? Are National Guardsmen prisoners? The alternative is prison, and anyone that doesn’t know that up front isn’t paying attention. No prior informed consent? Do you mean people getting a “sampler” of the experience before signing? Again I would reiterate that if someone doesn’t know what boot camp is and signs up, that’s their deal. There are plenty of ways to learn about it, especially by talking to a veteran. This isn’t a hard thing to do.
“…I warn against watering down the term “boot camp”. The sleep deprivation, physical and verbal abuse, condition to follow orders, encouragement of abusive physical peer “discipline” and pressure, desensitization to killing, etc. are “torture”.”
So what are soldiers supposed to do with their guns? Look tough? Do you not know that some people train themselves for other professions doing some of the same things? And as far as following orders, desensitization, and the like go, that’s the business of the armed forces. They wouldn’t be called the armed forces if they didn’t bear arms that kill people. I will have a discussion with you about the ever-present lunkhead morons that join the military that like harassing women, having a chance to beat up someone from a minority group, etc. But you do realize you are doing a lot of generalizing right?
You have a serious definition control problem, and I suggest you rethink your positions on this. You’re sounding as bad as the neocons, who would just as soon label a thief as an economic “terrorist” if given the chance. You are seeking to make meaningless things that have meaning for a reason.
If everybody had your understanding of history, then yes. Waterboarders, all of them, man woman and child. Fortunately, there are enough people who don’t believe there is such a thing as a “nation of anything” and can distinguish between the general population and the government.
Really, look at what you’re saying. Pol Pot is a nation of torturers? What?
Every single Spanish person took part in the Inquisition? Every single German committed genocide – and prior to World War II, as well? WTF?
Those sweeping generalizations aside, aren’t you even aware that the examples you’re using pretty much make you say that victims of torture – many, many of them citizens of the countries you’re listing – were torturers as well?
Would you be comfortable with the assertion that every family living in America kept slaves, went about wiping out the native population and is currently stockpiling nuclear weaponry?
Somehow I think you’re not. And yet, according to your reasoning, you should.
Africangenesis:
Actually, there can be… you see, there are civilian camps you can go to in order to get military style training. For a few thousand dollars, you can get an ex-military drill sergeant shouting in your ear, and making you go through the bootcamp experience (including weapons training, if you so wish). People do pay to go through this experience, and are able to quit anytime they want; in every other way, though, it is the same as the bootcamp experience, and it is administered by people who used to do it for the military
Other ways include attending one of those fancy “military academy” high schools. Lots of people attend those through informed consent – their parents, anyway and apparently that counts. A lot of these schools go through the whole boot camp routine as well.
So, yes, it is possible to join the military and enter boot camp with an informed consent.
Wonder if Hannety would like to endure it 189 times.
The only solution is to hold him for up to a week of “enhanced interrogation”, including waterboarding him up to 6 times a day, unless and until he tells the truth about something he did in the past. All he is told is that it’s something that the producers strongly believe that he actually did, but that he would never want to be publicly known. He is guaranteed that the details of the event in question will not be televised, but everything else, all his “wrong answers”, will. Then, let us be amused by his confessions.
Afterwards, we can ask him how reliable he thinks “enhanced techniques” are for getting at the truth.
BlueIndependent,
“And that’s besides the point that they aren’t trying to kill you intentionally.”
If that is the standard for torture, then waterboarding isn’t torture, either.
“they get “rolled back”, “recycled”, “held over”, and have an NSO (“new start over”
I only know the Army so I can’t comment on the other basic training programs.
Recycled is if you don’t cut it, but are still trying.
The thing to remember is that if you refuse to train, and stick to it, they kick you out. No jail, no other punishment other than paying back any bonus money you received for joining. I have never seen or heard of anyone going to jail for trying to get out while in basic training or AIT. Obviously this isn’t proof it doesn’t happen, but as no one has provided evidence of people going to jail, for going awol or quitting while in basic training I think my data is better than none.
Basic training is not torture. I’m not sure what you think it should be, but as bad as you seem to think it is, nothing in basic or AIT prepares soldiers for the reality of Iraq in the summer, so it could be much tougher and still not completely prepare soldiers for their work.
Oh good grief. You can, at any point, leave basic training. Sure, you may be imprisoned for doing so, but they can’t force you to continue basic training if you don’t want to. You can opt out of the torture, in favor of imprisonment, at any time.
That is an option that people who are truly being tortured do not have.
@africangenesis:
I disagree; Hannity is delusional. He thinks you just walk in, have someone pour water over your head for a while, and walk away. He’s too stupid to see that things were bad enough in the televised and controlled cases so he believes he’ll pull the same cheap stunt and at the end of it tell everyone how he supports torture. He’s dead wrong, and I’m all for him submitting to proper torture so he can tell the world how horrible it is afterwards (if he doesn’t kill himself before telling the world about his experience). Personally I think if Hannity rids the world of himself afterwards that’s a little bonus, but at any rate people can see that this is no joke and the cheap stunts that TV shows like to put on are nothing like the real thing.
@africangenesis:
I disagree; Hannity is delusional. He thinks you just walk in, have someone pour water over your head for a while, and walk away. He’s too stupid to see that things were bad enough in the televised and controlled cases so he believes he’ll pull the same cheap stunt and at the end of it tell everyone how he supports torture. He’s dead wrong, and I’m all for him submitting to proper torture so he can tell the world how horrible it is afterwards (if he doesn’t kill himself before telling the world about his experience). Personally I think if Hannity rids the world of himself afterwards that’s a little bonus, but at any rate people can see that this is no joke and the cheap stunts that TV shows like to put on are nothing like the real thing.
Grrr… stupid third world internet link … sorry about the double post.
Being able to stop the procedure at any time, or knowing that it will eventually end and you’ll be allowed to walk free afterwards, would make any voluntary experience of waterboarding as used in interrogation highly unrepresentative of the real psychological effects. It’s not just the direct agony of the experience that breaks people; it’s not knowing whether it will ever stop, not knowing whether you might actually die because of it, not knowing anything about your future, and most definitely not having any control over the situation yourself.
If someone wants to really know what waterboarding torture feels like, and volunteers to undergo it, the experience could be made far more realistic if those administering the treatment ignore the first few requests to stop and give the impression that they intend to keep going all day, maybe tomorrow as well.
Hence my point- a terrorist/suspect can (theoretically) stop it at anytime- all he has to do is give a full confession. SO THATS WHAT WE DO TO HANNITY. “You can stop at any time- just agree that it is torture and Cheney etc should be prosecuted”
@94 (AG):
You believe that?
Are you fucking kidding me?
give me a break.
some one on a previous post asked if it (insert interrogation method here) would be considered cruel and unusual treatment or something along those lines in a criminal case.
How is it that these “bad guys” can be found to be “bad guys” without any more proof of their being “bad guys” than someones word?
what kind of “ticking time bomb” would be still ticking after a few hours? days? weeks? months?
we are not really talking about some armed guy with a remote detonator in his pocket we find after a fire fight and “question” right then and there are we?
It is not about what anyone else does or says or believes it is about who We as a people think We are.
I am reminded of these words from
The Declaration Of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
notice that it says “all men” not us to exclude any them which we determine to be different some how, a them.
Does that not imply that all men have some kind of dignity? That it would wrong not to honor that enemy’s unalienable Rights or not?
Before this stupid debate it was not a question. We did not do these kind things. We condemned the governments that did, didn’t we? We even convicted the “rotten apples”?
so far we are blessed by the fact that we have not had a victorious Julius Caesar so far ….so far
Big deal – Christopher Hitchens beat him to it.
Blue Independent#99,
“And as far as following orders, desensitization, and the like go, that’s the business of the armed forces. They wouldn’t be called the armed forces if they didn’t bear arms that kill people.”
Of course not, the issue is however, whether torture in boot camps is necessary. It is already known that older recruits are less susceptable to the conditioning, and yet can make good soldiers. So, have a less rigorous and injury prone physical conditioning skill, let the recruits get plenty of sleep and more free time. Treat them with respect instead of abuse. Develop leaders instead of order following automatons. They will still learn to shoot guns.
“If that is the standard for torture, then waterboarding isn’t torture, either.”
You’re being deliberately obtuse. The difference between the two should be obvious enough for you not to make thin pleads. Actual torture occurs in an environment where there is a greater level of neglect for the individual being subjected to the act (along with a mixture of others, with base living conditions that are at least as bad and usually worse than the average American prison. If someone dies in boot camp, the government wan’t tacitly trying to kill the person. And your comparison is still nonsensical. People die running marathons or in triathalons; are those torture? You are judging everything from the physical sense, and that is a large part of why your argument is watering everything down.
“Of course not, the issue is however, whether torture in boot camps is necessary. It is already known that older recruits are less susceptable to the conditioning, and yet can make good soldiers. So, have a less rigorous and injury prone physical conditioning skill, let the recruits get plenty of sleep and more free time. Treat them with respect instead of abuse. Develop leaders instead of order following automatons. They will still learn to shoot guns.”
You have no idea what you’re talking about do you? You just accepted your own premise to make your case. Not very deep or objective thinking on your part. “Less susceptible to the conditioning”? Do you mean they are MORE prone to serious physical side effects, or less? Your statement seems counterintuitive when comapred against the following sentence. Your suggestions do not make sense given the job recruits are being asked to do and given the environment in which that job typically takes place. Do you not know that even the most backwater base has doomsday contingencies that it is required to know and drill through on a regular basis? You don’t train for strenuous and mentally draining conditions with a program that is less harsh than the average police training program. But our armed forces continue to be the best in the world regardless of the problems you seem to find with it. The yelling is also partly a function of the firefight scenario and getting people to adhere to a rigid system of practices under pressure that has been proven in the field over countless battles across hundreds of years.
On leadership, the military does already do a pretty damn good job of making leaders. How quickly you forget the many that fought back against BushCo on torture and prison conditions, among other issues like VA benefits. The facts on the books actually show you to be highly assumptive; we know BushCo looked for only the most loyal and obligatory elements in the armed forces to enact their unlawful policies. By those facts we also know who fought them on it, and those brave people, dead or alive, are on the record. You speak as if everyone in the military is a robot. We know this isn’t true, and our military is one of the best if not the best in the world on this issue. Our system is much more accepting of dissent; you want to talk about rifle-toting robots, compare the average NK soldier to one of ours. Please do try and think harder about the issue next time before spouting BS.
And as far as respect and abuse goes, there was a TV news story about exactly the kind of program you’re describing like 9 or 10 years ago. I have no idea what has ever come of that sort of program. Maybe it still exists, maybe it doesn’t. Look it up. At the very least I know it’s been tried before (I believe West Point was the laboratory for that one), although I think it was still more rigorous than what you are suggesting. It was basically boot camp without the yelling if I recall correctly.
I’m sorry, but I don’t get your rationale on almost any of this. Your definitions are too broad, and the historicity of the issue is working against you.
BlueIndependent,
Sorry for the ambiguity, the “conditioning” that the older recruits are less susceptible to is the conditioning to follow orders under these stressfull, sleep deprived conditions. Their personalities are better established, and not as easily brainwashed. Teenagers are the ones scripted for a reason.
“How about Mr Hannity that we make it more realistic. It is only stopped when you sign a confession (properly witnessed and legal) that waterboarding is torture, and those at the highest levels who ordered it should be prosecuted.” As much as that sounds like a good idea I am a little disturbed by the number of people here who want to torture this man. Yes he did consent, but he consented under the assumption that he is able to call uncle at any time. Doing anything beyond that would be torture. Now if he had agreed that he would do it without a code word that would be another thing, but he didn’t. Agreeing to go through with something knowing you can stop it at anytime is way different than being tortured and not having any control over it, or being able to stop it.
That depends on whether the “innocent” rest of us let the “few” torturers get away with it. At the point where we let them get away with it, we stop being innocent. There’s a reason “being an accessory to [crime]” is a crime in itself.
Let’s see now: If you have to torture someone an average of six times daily for a month in order to get what amounted to false information, then lie about that information to justify the need to continue torturing others… sounds like a war crime to me.
Anyone who thinks torture is a good idea needs to hit the history books (or get hit with one once in a while).
On a sort of related subject:
It’s amazing how the Faux News crowd keeps bringing up everyone’s favorite fictional torturer (Jack Bauer) on a semi-regular basis when they want to justify the “effectiveness” of torture. As post #113 notes, the infamous “there’s a ticking time bomb, so we MUST torture!” scenario is a really lousy example, given a few factors:
1. If your captive dies during torture (I hear it happens on occasion), you lose.
2. A well-trained extremist is probably a better-trained martyr. He’d rather get those virgins than spill any beans. Torture away at your own risk.
3. How much torture is actually “necessary?” to get the correct amount of information?
a) Let’s say there IS a ticking time bomb in some US city – you’ll have to find out where it is, what kind it is, when it’s set to blow, and so forth and so on.
b) If it’s a car/truck bomb, your man can’t be tortured at all – he’s driving the damn truck.
If you can torture someone eeeevil, get that information AND stop the bomb before it blows… hell, you deserve your own tee-vee show! On Faux, yet!
I’m guessing that in the Faux world they’d get their other franchises involved. Lesse, now: Bauer tortures the crap out of a suspect, getting the info. Then Nightcrawler teleports around dropping the X-men off at each of the bomb sites just in time for O’Reilly, Hannity and the rest to cover it as the top story (or something similarly childish).
Oh, Hannity should be tortured because he asked for it, so it’s frightfully OK with me… although I wouldn’t watch it (on Faux at least, as it would drive up his ratings). If I’m not mistaken, Olbermann wanted it done not through or only on Faux, but somewhere independent with multiple network cameras rolling. This way, it would actually be “fair & balanced”
I like the idea of the whole “kidnap” treatment mentioned above – Hannity needs to go through the entire experience of being snatched, blindfolded, gagged, etcetera so he’ll really feel terrified.
Note to the folks bringing up S&M/B&D matters – GOOD sex, no matter how “non-traditional”, always (always, ALWAYS) involves proper COMMUNICATION between partners. I have a few friends who work in hospitals and I can’t tell you how many stories I hear about people brought in half-dead or black & blue (& purple, red ‘n green in some cases) because they tried something a bit too twisted without the proper communication and yup, something got twisted, alright. Yes, some people are into pain, but the idea is to survive the experience and possibly want to do it again.
As for Gary Aldridge? I’d heard of the case, but never saw that autopsy report – yikes. Hell, that’s EXACTLY why you don’t do that sort of thing ALONE. Then again, he WAS a “man o’ gawd” and probably had some pretty mighty guilt issues… geez, what a way to go…
He most definitely should do it. the point is not to make him suffer, or talk. The point is for him to live the experience, so he knows (for once) what he’s talking about. If he’s really ready to do it, he’s a courageous man. And all his colleagues who don’t want to should be greeted by shouts of “Chicken! Chicken!” everywhere they go.
Now, things should be well simulated. Beforehand, Hannity should agree with the interrogating team that he may or may not have something (mild stuff) to hide on a specific subject. For instance, has he already said something on TV that he knew was false? Or said something, publicly or in private, that he now regrets? No interviewing, no giving his impressions during the interrogation. Everything should unfold as if he really was a suspect.
The problem is,Hannity will,unlike Hitchens,misrepresent the experience.
Not only will it be not the same for a TV personality with cameras rolling,as it is for your garden variety islamist in the backyard of some CIA camp in Iraq,but i am absulutely sure that Hannity will dismiss and play down the experience as trivial,harmless,not so bad,etc……
Its faux news,and the man is a liar.Its all one big fucking publicity and propaganda stunt.
JBlilie,
“He’s rather like a Dick Cheney calling a Vietnam War vet unpatriotic”
Vietnam War vets were often innocent victims of conscription. It should come as no surprise if they are unpatriotic. Since allegedly conscript was a random process, Vietnam War vets should be just as likely to be unpatriotic as the next guy, unless, perhaps, the sleep deprivation, verbal and physical abuse and conditioning of boot camp is effective in turning them into patriots?
As was pointed out on another blog, getting him to admit it was torture may defeat any victory. He will simply go on TV and say “Yes, it is torture, but it made me tell the truth. We should torture terrorist to save innocent lives- these people don’t deserve rights”
Better would be to force him to admit to something that is false, but he wouldn’t want to admit to- “Yes, I pay rent boys to bugger me”.
Of course there is, as has been pointed out, the moral dilemma. If we are against torture, can we torture someone who volunteers? Perhaps if it is carefully explained to him (use a lawyer – an ‘authority figure’- to stop him sneering at the person) that WE consider this torture, and that the only way we have to prove him wrong is to subject him to the sort of treatment we find reprehensible. Then lay out the ‘win/lose’ conditions very carefully- make it clear we are not interested in the ‘winning lose’ outlined above- we want him to admit to something that is a) a lie, and b) something he would be ashamed of admitting.
He also has to be told he is going to get the SAME treatment as detainees- and do it. Kidnap, blind fold, naked in a cold cell, the full monty.
‘Our side’ has to make it clear that we are opposed to all the actions against him. Unfortunately he has laid a bet that he thinks his opponents won’t carry out- if he thought for one moment that he would get the full treatment, or that we would not baulk at the prospect, he would not have laid it.
“After all, if it really is torture, and torture is wrong, and we argue that we shouldn’t even be doing it to putative terrorists…we also shouldn’t be doing it to the small, weak-minded, and stupid.”
There was another like-minded comment, but I’ve lost it, sorry.
I also don’t understand the contradiction here. In another discussion, I made the point that Hannity did NOT say that waterboarding was nothing; he said it was nothing COMPARED TO what our POWs have suffered. To which my friend replied, two wrongs don’t make a right. I agree with that sentiment. So why is it that Hannity’s wrong – sticking his foot in his mouth on national TV – makes waterboarding him okay? The fact that a ton of people hate Hannity so much that they want to see him cry on national television – and Tivo or Youtube it so they can watch it over and over again – is at least as reprehensible as frightening someone who has plans to kill thousands of Americans. How can people make the “waterboarding is evil and we should not engage in it because it will drag down the moral level of our nation” and then determine that it is okay to support waterboarding of private US citizens who screwed up? Didn’t any of you ever say something stupid? Wanna be waterboarded for it? (For the record, Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded by GRODIN and no one else.)
There is a contradiction here that very few seem able to recognize. I will admit I am a conservative (don’t throw things) but that I have been nodding in agreement with the fact that we should NOT sink down to the level of the terrorists. And yet, here we sink as a nation…