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On Torture & Time Bombs
Having skimmed through the executive summary of the Senate’s report on the CIA’s interrogation techniques — and kept up an amateur interest in the matter over the past six or seven years — I was curious to read the response from former DCIs George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden. Some of their objections regarding the preparation of the report and its (likely) partisan motives strike me as very sound. Others, such as the comments regarding the necessity and importance of statements made by KSM and Abu Zubaydah regarding bin Laden’s courier — whose identification led to the Abbottabad raid — only underscore to me how difficult it will be to resolve whether these techniques were justified and appropriate.
One thing they said, however, gave me pause: “It felt like the classic ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario—every single day.”
The thing about a ticking time bomb scenario is that it almost necessitates the suspension of normal rules: too many lives are at stake and there’s too little time to follow normal, moral procedures. You’re almost certainly going to be sloppy and make mistakes in judgement; if you’ve a conscience, it’s likely you’ll be troubled afterwards, even if you conclude you did the best with what limited time and opportunity you had.
And that’s just one time-bomb. Unless all the DCIs since 9/11 have been competent, courageous, and brilliant beyond normal human bounds, it stands to reason that the circumstances they describe would have led to serious errors of judgement over the years and that this would be totally understandable.
That, however, is not the story the DCIs and their defenders have presented. By their telling, the CIA and the rest of our intelligence agencies got all the big questions right discovering — among other things — methods that quickly extracted essential and otherwise unobtainable intelligence while not crossing any moral or prudential lines. I find that, quite literally, incredible.
Now, amazing things do happen from time to time and there are instances were people have risen to the occasion through brilliance, courage, and luck. But it’s extremely unlikely that such was the case over such an extended period, among so many people, and under such dire circumstances.
If, in fact, we’ve been so fortunate as to have such incredible intelligence officers, that needs to be made clear. If, however, they’re mere humans — as I suspect they are — who were forced to work under a strain that would break most of us, then surely they made some significant mistakes. If so, they have an obligation to make as honest an accounting of their mistakes and errors as humanly possible, in no small part to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated.
We, in turn, would then have an obligation to be extremely forgiving.
Published in General
Time-Bomb is a funny term, like it’s going to blow up time. I wonder if they were originally called Timed-Bombs.
Like.
I can’t imagine how nasty a job intelligence gathering can be…and I don’t want to. I’m just glad that there are people who are willing to do it. With the exception of the domestic spying stuff, I have a great deal of respect for those who gather intel.
Somewhat unrelated:
Until and unless Islamic extremists begin treating hostages with some basic level of decency, I’d prefer we torture a bit more. I’d like them to understand that if they call the tune they are also responsible for paying the piper.
As it so happens, we got my father to write a piece on the matter as well; should be out later this afternoon.
Actually, much like an Atom-Bomb, a Time-Bomb releases the energy bound up in time itself, but instead of bombarding it with neutrons, it bombards it with tedium and banality in the form of countless little tick, tick ticks (or beep, beep, beeps if the timer has red LEDs). Such a bomb can only be disarmed once the timer reaches a certain low number which is specific to the situation at hand — a number low enough to make everyone sweat but not so low that you’d have to be the recipient of a miraculous stroke of luck (such as a drinking straw jamming between the electrical contacts) in order to survive.
And when that bound up energy is released, fruit flies like a banana.
Or something.
I wouldn’t agree that the things described in the Senate report are “torture” or are even immoral given the context in which these things were done and the people whom they were done to.
I am not morally compromised as a result our use of harsh interrogation tactics and in fact, may well have benefited from it as a result of additional information gained. We don’t live in the alternate universe where we didn’t do these things, so it’s pointless to argue about whether or not we would or wouldn’t have gotten that same information using less harsh tactics. We used them. Our opponents are demonstrably more cruel and engage in far more unconscionable actions and we are where we are. We are always going to stand on higher moral ground than these butchers.
What is also demonstrable is that no large scale attacks of the sort we saw on 9/11 have occurred in this country since then, and it seems to me that these tactics are at least partly to credit for that.
There are plenty of actions that we have engaged in throughout the course of several wars which are ghastly, and much, much worse than enhanced interrogation tactics such as the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo but were nonetheless justifiable in the course of prosecuting war. Just as these actions are and were.
It is further demonstrably more justifiable to capture and submit these individuals to enhanced interrogation than it is to either capture them and indefinitely detain or summarily kill them via drone strikes. (Transcribed from Facebook at the request of Tom Meyer.)
Hilarious.
Tom’s making a really important point in this piece, and one that to my knowledge no one in Washington DC has made. Namely, that it’s impossible to get everything right all the time so of course mistakes were made at the CIA. How could it possibly be otherwise. The tragedy is that the atmosphere in Washington is so politically toxic that it just isn’t possible for honorable people to disagree honorably; to acknowledge mistakes, learn from them and move forward.
I’d love to read more stuff about how to change Washington’s toxic atmosphere — if it’s even possible.
This is certainly true:
“If, in fact, we’ve been so fortunate as to have such incredible intelligence officers, that needs to be made clear. If, however, they’re mere humans — as I suspect they are — who were forced to work under a strain that would break most of us, then surely they made some significant mistakes. If so, they have an obligation to make as honest an accounting of their mistakes and errors as humanly possible, in no small part to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated.”
But one major problem with the Senate report is that there were no interviews of key officials. John Yoo in National Review:
“Worse yet, Feinstein and her staff refused to interview the very officials at the CIA, the White House, and other agencies responsible for the interrogation program. This would be like trying a case in a courtroom without allowing anyone to call any witnesses.”
I have no idea how the Senate Dems can explain their moral posturing when those who had the duty to keep the terrorists at bay were not given the opportunity to explain, defend, and clear up misinformation. Had they been interviewed perhaps they would have acknowledged mistakes, but in the context of what was actually going on. And maybe Feinstein and company should do a fact finding tour to where the dirty work has to be done. Until your on the ground it takes a lot of hubris to judge those who had to protect the nation.
That’s not directed at you, Tom, as you make some very good points. And I have never seen you posture. But Feinstein, as Yoo also points out, was much in favor of doing what needed to be done back just after 9/11. Now she is raising a cry of moral outrage without bearing any responsibility. That’s just BS.
Agree here.
I fear it is nearly impossible now, and will be utterly impossible shortly.
While the atmosphere in DC is certainly toxic, the tragedy is that there appears to be a critical shortage of honorable people to disagree with.
I used to put Dianne Feinstein in the “honorable liberal” category, but with this she seems to have gone completely off the rails. There were a thousand ways to deal with whatever wrongs she thought CIA had committed, none of which involved the publication of a 500 page partisan “report” feeding Obama’s “We tortured some folks” narrative.
Had to be. Just as “ice cream” was once “iced cream”, “whip cream” was once “whipped cream”, etc.
Yes. The particle of tedium is the boron.
It might be that it’s toxic because too many issues affecting too many people are being decided in DC for the entire nation. So, the entire nation has to be involved politically, and the stakes for everyone are far higher than they would be if these issues were being decided locally, bringing the political pot to a boil.
This suggests the solution — in a fantastical, alternate universe that is not ours, where going back to the way things once were is possible.
Much the same as how “lightning” used to be “going to light’n”.
Bombard tedium with borons. Where is tedium on the periodic table?