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Question: Why doesn’t the USA generally fear torture and it’s effectiveness against America abroad?
Answer: Because we know our enemies will do it and we have trained our soldiers to deal with it. We also keep information distribution down to a need-to-know basis.
Enhanced Interrogation by the CIA might have yielded some results during our struggle with Terror. If so, I submit techniques employed brought truths to fruition only because our enemies did not believe we’d do it. They were ill prepared. Now they will adapt and be prepared.
How long before we move on to cutting off toes or scorching genitals because our enemies have learned to tolerate this less than torturous thing called water boarding? If it isn't "torture" how hard can it be to adapt to?
When did the best we can do become brutality leading to fear of the innocuous water board? Our enemies are willing to cut your head off slowly in front of someone else to make them talk. How can waterboarding compare to that? It's like taking a thumb tack to a gun fight. It's like answering a nuclear bomb with severe name calling.
If torture is our best bet for gathering intel, we clearly have a problem. I'd rather rest assured I live in the smartest country on Earth with the greatest and most creative surveillance and information gathering techniques.
I hope we can do better!
If torture was effective, we’ve spent our last chance for it to be so. I hope the information gleaned from it was worth the effort.
20 comments:
We're teaching our enemies how to hide their secrets!
My great uncle was subjected to horrifc torture at the hands of the NVA at the Hanoi Hilton. If he were alive today I'd bet that waterboarding would seem like a day at the beach to him.
Probably 7,
That's part of my point. If waterboarding ain't shit, then how hard will it be for our next set of enemies to prepare for it?
Dude, you lost me at "viruses want us dead."
I get the analogy, but viruses don't want us dead. Viruses want what all living organisms want — to survive long enough to eat and reproduce.
As to your larger point, I believe our arrogance is our primary shortcoming in this "war on terror."
The enemy we fight knows all about us, knows what ticks us off and knows where they can gain leverage.
That is the whole point of terrorism — to provoke an overreaction. Cut off the head of an Oklahoma contractor and put it on the web? Ka-Ching! Here come 3,000 paratroopers.
It is not that they are smarter per se, but more desperate. More desperation means more motivation and resourcefullness.
They cant hope to stand up to us militarily, and they know it. Ergo, they get us where they can using small, yet tactically significant, actions.
If we want to horrify these religious zealots, do it smarter. Get a pig's head and make them wear it around their necks. Force them to wear dresses and paint their cell walls in pig blood. Shame them in front of their compatriots.
None of these would be considered "torture" by any standard, international or domestic. In the religious culture that fuels Muslim fundamentalists, however, these things have eternal consequences and scare the Sheik right out of them.
Unlike us, they don't fear death. Certainly they don't fear death in the service of their God. Quite the opposite.
If we were not so arrogant, we would learn what would motivate these men to talk, using their chief insurgent motivation for ammo.
We need to use Allah against these religious fanatics. That is their currency for action at all. That is fighting terror smarter, not harder.
Instead, we go ahead and do it OUR way, not THEIR way. And that is classic Yankee ethno-centric ignorance and arrogance.
Blowhard Toe Bolder,
Viruses really don't WANT anything. They don't really think. But if you don your analytical hat for a second and remove the "antagonize Bluto's communication skills" skull cap, a virus is in a fight to the death with each host it invades. It's either you or it in the end which of course in the end means you or both you and it. Of course it survives by jumping from host to host but ultimately the intelligence of Human technology, strategy and adaptation prevails .... sooo the Virus adapts by mutating and re-invading.
I don't think you've picked up my "larger point' at all. I think you've made a completely different one of your own.
My point is:
What's the goal of torture or enhanced interrogation or whatever you want to call it?
Presumably it's to glean intelligence. It's not to prove ourselves mighty. Because our enemies will simply adapt to our tactics, the notion of coercing confessions of useful information makes little sense whether the tactics involve swine, Alah or your Mom.
The enemies adapt. Their tactics simply change. They might plant false information or they might simply kill themselves before being captured if the fear you speak of becomes great enough.
It's interesting, from the proponents of Enhanced Interrogation we hear only about the supposed successes. We hear about stymied attempts on LA or the Brooklyn bridge without any real informative confirmation on these claims. The proponents don't need to/can't share the details that prove what they say is true so the Hannity's take the ball and run with it.
We never hear about the failures of waterboarding. Like for instance those who were tortured and said whatever the torturers wanted to hear yielding no real results. Or that information gleaned was outdated as plans changed once the informed captive was detained. Or wild-goose chases inspired by clever detainees. Or repeated attempts at gaining information from captives who honestly had none to offer.
Ok, put that other hat on again...thanks for your time.
correction:
"IT or both YOU and IT'
No, in fact I believe I was addressing your larger point directly, inspired by your statement:
"I'd rather rest assured I live in the smartest country on Earth with ... most creative ... gathering techniques. I hope we can do better!"
AND
"our enemies did not believe we’d do it. ... Now they will adapt and be prepared."
Sure, I took the ball you offered and ran with it, but isn't that the point of this free exchange? I was offering a solution/commentary on your reference to "the smartest country on Earth."
Next time I will make sure to stick to HJ protocol, and either call you schoolyard names or slap you on the back.
Who better to know what MY 'larger point' is than you.
"If we want to horrify these religious zealots, do it smarter. Get a pig's head and make them wear it around their necks.'
Clearly you were not addressing my point at all with that. You were making one of your own. Fine.
I addressed that.
"What's the goal of torture or enhanced interrogation or whatever you want to call it?
Presumably it's to glean intelligence. It's not to prove ourselves mighty.
Because our enemies will simply adapt to our tactics, the notion of coercing confessions of useful information makes little sense whether the tactics involve swine, Alah or your Mom."
Actually you've done a fine job of sinking to "HJ protocol". You led with "you lost me at...[your lead]..." then you wasted an entire post without addressing the issue at hand. Now the issue is what you think my point is and what I think your point is. Keep it out of the sandbox if you want to do battle on the field skull-cap.
To be clear...the 'wasted post' to which I referred was that last one of yours that addressed nothing on topic.
... addressing further your reference to 'hj protocol', another oft used tactic there is to disagree with everything your favorite targets type or to at least mask your agreement. You'd fit right in ... I'm glad actually.
As I recall, you have gotten ticked off when before on this blog when I go off on some tangent related to your subject.
I guess that is the kind of exchange I am used to with you - a verbal one where ideas are bounced around, expanded on, tangentalized, redirected, etc.
I figured you had said it all on the subject of torture effectiveness, posing a what I believed to be an interesting implied question.
In this case, the implied question was, in short - "This can't work, so what's next?"
In long
"We have used this torture resource up and can't compete with the lawless, so what's next for US intel?
How do we stay ahead without lowering our standards of interrogation?
I took that to be a challenge to consider solutions to the question. My solution was to use their own religious motivation against them.
We're not even arguing about the subject. We are arguing about perceptions of disrespect who is not getting who.
I guess I am just not down with the blog format. Or maybe my post was too long to be effective. Or maybe you are just a Dick!
hehe...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBPWxtuBjaU&feature=related
Aloha Mr.Hand ... !
Nice 7!
Hey Jerk, (Yaaaa, you know who you are)
Here's another angle:
I don't think the left should be chanting for war crimes against our own leadership.
If there were war crimes committed by US leadership, why is it up to US leadership to prosecute?
Says something about MSNBC and the extreme left that is trying very hard to push our President in that direction.
Tobold Blowhorner here:
No, I get the impression old B.O. is too politically savvy to bite on that rabble rousing hook.
At least I hope so. Party affiliation notwithstanding, he ain't gonna let the tail wag the Bo.
Isn't it curious in the Obama family that the dog is "Bo" and the dad is "BO?" Hmmm. Get that family some talcum powder.o
Or get 'em some Obsession for Men and Dogs. Pew ...
So I keep hearing/seeing the question, "Do you feel safer."
"Safer?" Why a comparative analysis? Safer than I did before 9/11? On 9/11? Since? Since Obama took Office? Now that Bush is gone?
Why is it on Obama to make me feel "safer" than I did 102 days ago? Were we less than safe then?
Frankly I've never really feared any foreign invasion and still do not. Maybe for a second on 9/11 but even then I don't think I felt less than safe. After watching Red Dawn as a teenager I probably welcomed an invasion somewhere deep down inside.
No, when it comes to safe, I'd bet most would agree that domestic threats are more taxing on the ole confidence quotient. Hell they just arrested two kids for plotting a blood bath at my old High School (Covina High).
"Do you feel safer" is a rhetorical ploy to target Obama for any future attack and to make the assertion that YOU are NOT SAFE now that he's in charge. It's another 'failure' for which Limbaugh hopes and prays/preys.
..and surely I'll call you 'Frankly' whenever I damn well please!
dude, post your "safer" whatnot as its own post.
currently it is a merely a great point buried beneath a fuss bubble on this string.
One of my best friends was captured in the early onset of the first Iraqi war and released in the prisoner exchange at the end of the war. He told me they were taught to give name, service id and ranks if captured. But he said no training works when you're tortured. Its only a matter of time until you break down and sing like a canary when you have electrodes placed to your testicles and you are dying of thirst and starvation. Even John McCain who is praised as a Viet Nam war hero said he gave in to torture. He said they all did because when it comes down to it they didn't know anything important enough to die for. They only cared about there own survival and helping each other survive. Torture works and thats why every military uses it. The US turns over high priority captures to other nations or secret CIA types for deniability because no human can withstand torture after it reaches a point. The human brain is wired to survive. If you believe you will die while being placed on a water board then you will talk. Doesn't matter who you believe your god is or your cause. In the bigger picture probably enemies learn very little from captured prisoners because few have any great knowledge or big picture of state secrets or there groups future intentions on them. Torture of your enemies is sad but a reality of what will happen when captured. Its not needed for 99 percent becasuse they don't know anything the enemy or US does not know already. That is how I believe.
An,
You said, "He said they all [gave in to torture] because when it comes down to it they didn't know anything important enough to die for."
Then you claimed 'torture works'. It sounds like it doesn't work at all to me. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. Your friend had nothing sensitive to reveal. That's my point. People on the front lines of terror will be given LESS to go on as they now know we will squeeze the turnip whether it bleeds or not.
Also, I am certain everyone has his or her breaking point. The military trains people to enhance and conceal that breaking point. They also offer info on a need-to-know basis in sensitive situations.
The true inspiration for this Blog entry was whether or not water boarding IS torture. It seems it is if it 'works'. But it can only work to the extent the person being boarded has information to offer. Even then torture can really only be effectively used to get a perp to say what you want him to say.
Thanks for you comment, btw!
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