Torture

Interesting discussion on TheBackFence about torture from a group of very bright and knowledgeable people across the political spectrum. Here are some excerpts:

From John Joyce:

My fellow Marines and I always used to comment that the rumors leaking out about the interrogation techniques didn't seem very horrifying to us at all. We would almost uniformly compare it to the SERE training that most of us had undergone . . . It turns out our comparisons were right on. According to this memo the interrogation techniques they were using at Gitmo were directly cloned from the approved SERE school techniques.
--------------
In light of this memo I can't imagine that anyone can continue to call these methods torture. If you honestly believe that then you have to assume the position that the US government is systematically torturing thousands of its own troops every year.
--------------
In closing, it's important for me to say that I am totally opposed to the US torturing anybody under any circumstances, even the ticking-timebomb scenarios, and during this whole ongoing controversy I've felt conflicted about the situation at times. After seeing this memo I feel a lot better about the situation and don't have any problems with the techniques that have been used.

From Carl Manaster:

That doesn't make it OK. SERE techniques were authorized as being in the interest of the Marines who go through it, to better prepare them for circumstances when we are facing a less ethical force than ourselves. . . . Subjecting Marines to [waterboarding] doesn't remove that label or that fact. Torture is unethical and illegal, and it doesn't work. It is unacceptable for us to do it to prisoners. . . . I'm sorry you were subjected to it; I think we are wrong to practice it even for the reasons SERE justifies it. But nothing justifies its use on prisoners, even guilty ones, and I will remind you that many . . . of our tortured prisoners at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and our other facilities were entirely innocent.

From an article in Washington Post:

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."

And from another Post article:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed. . . .

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Torture is illegal, immoral, AND it doesn't work.

Ralph