Are Americans Indifferent to Torture?

 

shutterstock_217094626The protests and condemnations of the political Left and mainstream media following the election of Donald Trump have been deafening. To a great extent, many of us may have resorted to simply rolling our eyes and shrugging our shoulders since the complaints and accusations are non-stop.

But lately I’ve noticed a more insidious activity that is intended to influence the public consciousness. Although it is promoted with a veneer of truth, it is intended to continue to tarnish America’s reputation and character. In this case, the vehicle is “proving” that Americans are becoming complacent about torture. Let me show you how subtle and sinister these accusations have become.

Last week the MSM published articles on the 2016 report of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In particular the report highlights the American people as one group that has become inured to torture. They state,

“Forty-six percent of Americans surveyed think that captured enemy combatants may be tortured to obtained important military information, and thirty-three percent think torture is part of war,” according to the ICRC poll, said Heritage fellow Cully Stimson in a statement Monday. “These are disturbing numbers because torture is a crime, and banned under domestic and international law.”

There are a couple of noteworthy points that could lead us to question the report’s validity. The countries at the top of the list that find “torture” 100 percent unacceptable are Yemen and Colombia; since both of these countries have experienced their share of torture, we can consider those experiences drive their views. It’s also interesting to note that “Palestine” is listed as a country in the report. That insertion, I believe, also suggests an inappropriate bias of the Left. To date, I have seen the MSM publish articles on this report, but without any assessment of it. This omission of reviewing the report further contributes to the defamation of the United States.

President-elect Trump’s selection of General Mattis as Defense secretary has indirectly contributed to this negative view of the US with his comments on waterboarding. As James Mitchell, a retired Air Force officer and former CIA contractor reported in his op-ed piece in the WSJ, the general reportedly advised, “Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that.” James Mitchell doesn’t agree.

James Mitchell was contracted by the CIA in 2002 to “help put together what became its enhanced-interrogation program. He spent six years at “black sites” around the world “trying to extract lifesaving information from some of the worst people on the planet.” He also points out, “It is understandable that Gen. Mattis would say he never found waterboarding useful, because no one in the military has been authorized to waterboard a detainee … I respect Gen. Mattis, but he has never employed enhanced-interrogation techniques. I have.”

Mitchell doesn’t support the use of waterboarding except with the most hardened of criminals, especially when a planned terrorist act appears imminent. And yet we have had multiple reports and individuals condemning the use of waterboarding. Mitchell says,

Critics will point to the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report that declared enhanced interrogation didn’t work. The investigation cost $40 million and took five years, yet investigators didn’t even speak to anyone involved in the program. Anyway, a report produced by an extremely partisan congressional committee deserves skepticism to begin with.

Although I respect General Mattis and what he will bring to the Trump White House, I don’t think he realizes that he has been influenced by the mainstream media rather than relying on his own direct experience. He unintentionally has validated the ICRC report, essentially confirming their conclusions — that Americans who support waterboarding are unnecessarily supporting torture.

Most of the leaders of the Congressional armed services or intelligence committees declined to comment on the ICRC report. House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., however, spoke out:

The United States will never go back to waterboarding or any form of torture, something I believe the vast majority of the military, intelligence community and American public would never condone,” Schiff said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Not only is it immoral, but it is also unconstitutional, ineffective and violative of both U.S. and international law.

At a time when we will need every resource available more than ever to protect our country, government officials are determined to tie our hands by eliminating a rarely used but effective tool in information gathering. And when President-elect Trump is trying to restore America’s image and leadership in the world, these types of unchallenged smears, that make no effort to study the nuanced approaches to America’s safety and security, will not be helpful.

We will need to be vigilant concerning these kinds of distortions about the United States and its people. Those who try to undermine our reputation must be called to task. Promoting the assumption that Americans are indifferent to torture is only one way to attack this country; ruling out a reconsideration of waterboarding is foolhardy and shortsighted. My hope is that President-elect Trump will use his platform to continue to call out those who misrepresent the character and values of this country, and who also put us at risk.

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  1. Jason Rudert Inactive
    Jason Rudert
    @JasonRudert

    Susan Quinn:

    Jason Rudert:

    Second, you either think the laws of war should restrain us or you don’t. If you want to deal out total war, you should expect total war. And the other side’s fig leafs aren’t any less legitimate than yours.

    Still don’t know what you’re saying, Jason. Could you try again?

    Look. We’re stuck on the horns of a dilemma. On one side, there’s nothing more satisfying than torturing a Muslim, and, from time to time it does garner evidence that stops other terrorists. On the other, we need to keep up this conceit that we’re morally superior to them.

    How to get out of this? Doublethink, that’s how. The euphemistic phrase “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” is a perfect way to bridge the gap.

     

     

    • #61
  2. Jason Rudert Inactive
    Jason Rudert
    @JasonRudert

    To your original question though, Susan:

    I am willing to take on the additional risk of not torturing terror suspects. The risk of me getting killed or injured by terrorists is so vanishingly small that even if it’s two, or four, or ten times higher without torture, it’s still far less dangerous than my typical day at work.

    • #62
  3. Ryan M(cPherson) Inactive
    Ryan M(cPherson)
    @RyanM

    Aaron Miller:

    Ryan M(cPherson): The reason this is a bad definition is that it attempts to use a single word to describe anything from slow removal of fingernails or bamboo growing through your backside to waterboarding or sleep deprivation.

    So we use modifiers. Rather than simply “interrogation” for both interrogation by conversation alone and interrogation by painful methods like waterboarding, our officials use “enhanced interrogation” to identify the latter. It would be just as easy and accurate to distinguish between malicious torture and interrogative torture.

    It’s just a word game… and it can’t be won. Like the endless replacement of terms meaning retarded or handicapped to counteract misuse, there is no way to restrict how people use words due to confusion or political manipulation. “Enhanced interrogation” techniques will be labeled differently soon enough because of the subject’s inherent controversy.

    I prefer qualifying the word “torture” to “enhanced interrogation” because the latter is deliberately circumspect while the former is brutally honest. If we are going to inflict severe pain and terror in rare circumstances to save lives, then let’s plainly acknowledge it and not hide behind pleasant words like “enhanced” anything.

    I agree that if Americans were asked plainly if waterboarding specifically — rather than “torture” generally — can ever be justified, many more would approve.

    I guess I would just call it waterboarding.  I’d also refer to terrorism as terrorism.  No reason to let the left choose our language for us.

    • #63
  4. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Jason Rudert:To your original question though, Susan:

    I am willing to take on the additional risk of not torturing terror suspects. The risk of me getting killed or injured by terrorists is so vanishingly small that even if it’s two, or four, or ten times higher without torture, it’s still far less dangerous than my typical day at work.

    Would there be a level of risk that would make you change your mind, though? That is, what if being killed or injured by terrorists was akin to your risk of dying in a car accident?

    • #64
  5. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Jason Rudert:To your original question though, Susan:

    I am willing to take on the additional risk of not torturing terror suspects. The risk of me getting killed or injured by terrorists is so vanishingly small that even if it’s two, or four, or ten times higher without torture, it’s still far less dangerous than my typical day at work.

    Thanks for clarifying and for this comment. I guess we differ. I think that because of the choices we make to live good lives and not kill other people because they don’t believe our religion, as well as lots of other reasons, does make us morally superior. And I’m not concerned about being killed by a terrorist; I agree the risks are tiny; I worry about the hundreds, maybe thousands of others who are at risk, not just here, but all over the world.

    • #65
  6. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    You know, Susan, I was thinking that the MSM has begun to emphasize the “Americans are awful” meme lately. Since, oh, November 9th, or thereabouts?

    I keep waiting for someone to explain why eight years of Obama somehow made all of us so much less moral?

    Campus rape epidemic…brutal, racist police officers…Americans all gung-ho for water boarding… internalized misogyny… and now TRUMP!

    • #66
  7. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Kate Braestrup:You know, Susan, I was thinking that the MSM has begun to emphasize the “Americans are awful” meme lately. Since, oh, November 9th, or thereabouts?

    I keep waiting for someone to explain why eight years of Obama somehow made all of us so much less moral?

    Campus rape epidemic…brutal, racist police officers…Americans all gung-ho for water boarding… internalized misogyny… and now TRUMP!

    Hey, Kate, sounds like your next OP to me!!

    • #67
  8. Jason Rudert Inactive
    Jason Rudert
    @JasonRudert

    Kate Braestrup:Would there be a level of risk that would make you change your mind, though? That is, what if being killed or injured by terrorists was akin to your risk of dying in a car accident?

    At some level of risk/cost, anything can be justified on utilitarian grounds. And I think of myself as sort of a “stiff utilitarian” if you will. When the argument is posed as, “would you torture one terrorist to stop an atomic bomb from blowing up San Francisco ” my answer is of course yes. But that’s a morally trivial example and lets us off the hook too easily. If the pattern of terrorism we’re really facing is two or three people being killed every few months, how many innocent or only tangentially involved people are you willing to torture to stop that? Because that is more like what we were doing under Bush.

    I would also turn it around: pick something that kills on the order of ten thousand people per year. Car crashes, suicide, normal murders, prescription drug abuse, hospital-borne infections–which of these would you be willing to use torture (water boarding or other) in order to stop?

    • #68
  9. CM Inactive
    CM
    @CM

    Jason Rudert: I would also turn it around: pick something that kills on the order of ten thousand people per year. Car crashes, suicide, normal murders, prescription drug abuse, hospital-borne infections–which of these would you be willing to use torture (water boarding or other) in order to stop?

    How, exactly, do you think torture would be used to stop those things? Strap teenagers to electrical chairs and zap the naughty dui bug out of them? Take every prisoner arrested for some sort of assault and zap the murderer out of them?

    One of these things isn’t like the other.

    Let me help you out on explaining your previous post: If America wants to use “torture” and excuse it as total war than we don’t get to whine and complain when Terrorists TARGET and obliterate civilian targets like 9/11. Notice I’m not bringing up Pearl Harbor because that was a military assault and NOT a terror attack. Big difference. One is part of war, the other is not.

    Also – the risk of terror attack on your person is slim to none. But the chances of another terror attack is much higher. So because the risk is minimal to you, you have no issue of subjecting a near guaranteed attack on fellow Americans. How heartless of you.

    Sorry, Susan, but his argument was ridiculous.

    • #69
  10. Dean Murphy Member
    Dean Murphy
    @DeanMurphy

    Jason Rudert:To your original question though, Susan:

    I am willing to take on the additional risk of not torturing terror suspects. The risk of me getting killed or injured by terrorists is so vanishingly small that even if it’s two, or four, or ten times higher without torture, it’s still far less dangerous than my typical day at work.

    Granted that in SLC you are much less at risk of dying in a terrorist attack.  Would you feel differently if you worked at the Pentagon, in the World Trade Centers, or at the White House?  Or say as a flight attendant or pilot, or Police/ Fire/ Rescue?

     

    • #70
  11. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Jason Rudert: I would also turn it around: pick something that kills on the order of ten thousand people per year. Car crashes, suicide, normal murders, prescription drug abuse, hospital-borne infections–which of these would you be willing to use torture (water boarding or other) in order to stop?

    I just thought of a question for my global-warming-apocalyptic friends: how many innocent people would you be willing to torture (or kill) to stop global warming?

    Purely theoretical, of course. As CM points out, there isn’t really an application for torture in many of the problems we face. Traditionally, it was used to coerce confessions (law enforcement) extract intelligence (war) and terrify the bajeesus out of anyone who witnessed or knew about it—Hitler, Saddam, ISIS, the Inquisition…

    I think we essentially agree, Jason. There are instances in which I would personally torture someone, but it would be with the understanding that I was risking myself to do it—my job, my mental health, my immortal soul—and it would have to be worth that. I don’t think it is right or reasonable to ask other people to torture—

    —remembering that torture means inflicting pain on a defenseless person—

    as a matter of course or as part of their ordinary, understood duties. As in “hi, I’m a water-boarding specialist…”

    • #71
  12. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Jason Rudert: If the pattern of terrorism we’re really facing is two or three people being killed every few months, how many innocent or only tangentially involved people are you willing to torture to stop that? Because that is more like what we were doing under Bush.

    Jason, this comment is not representative of the conversation we’re having. First of all, torture/waterboarding would only be used if an attack were imminent where a large number of people would be affected and the time element was critical; it’s not for two or people killed every few months. And it would be used on people who are connected to the potential incident itself. Using irrelevant examples is not helpful.

    • #72
  13. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Susan Quinn:

    So do you think we should disregard the Geneva Convention? I’m concerned about how our own people might be treated if we ended up in a war.

    The people we fight don’t abide by the Geneva Conventions, or even basic human decency.  Or anything close to it.  A soldier in uniform is one thing.  A terrorist whose goal is to inflict mass death on civilians is something else.  In the latter case, I am open to moral and ethical arguments about torture, but the Geneva Conventions are not a persuasive argument to me at all.

    • #73
  14. Ryan M(cPherson) Inactive
    Ryan M(cPherson)
    @RyanM

    Kate Braestrup:

    Jason Rudert:To your original question though, Susan:

    I am willing to take on the additional risk of not torturing terror suspects. The risk of me getting killed or injured by terrorists is so vanishingly small that even if it’s two, or four, or ten times higher without torture, it’s still far less dangerous than my typical day at work.

    Would there be a level of risk that would make you change your mind, though? That is, what if being killed or injured by terrorists was akin to your risk of dying in a car accident?

    Also, keep in mind what that risk is. The risk of me getting assassinated is near zero, but I still support the secret service. Our military members have a much higher risk from terrorists, and I’d consider the risk of their lives not worth a non-torture policy.

    • #74
  15. Jason Rudert Inactive
    Jason Rudert
    @JasonRudert

    CM: Let me help you out on explaining your previous post: If America wants to use “torture” and excuse it as total war than we don’t get to whine and complain when Terrorists TARGET and obliterate civilian targets like 9/11.

    I don’t see how you’re “helping me out” here. That is my position, and I thought I made that clear. The arguments for torture satisfy  the old Roman dictum: let them hate so long as they fear. If we miscalculate, and their hate turns out to be stronger than their fear, I refuse to take seriously the hand-wringing that goes along with an attack.

    As for the Japanese, earlier commenters invoked them as one of several Asian enemies whose conduct was beyond the pale, and as a result we would be fools to continue to follow the rules.

    • #75
  16. Jason Rudert Inactive
    Jason Rudert
    @JasonRudert

    Susan Quinn:

    Jason Rudert: If the pattern of terrorism we’re really facing is two or three people being killed every few months, how many innocent or only tangentially involved people are you willing to torture to stop that? Because that is more like what we were doing under Bush.

    Jason, this comment is not representative of the conversation we’re having. First of all, torture/waterboarding would only be used if an attack were imminent where a large number of people would be affected and the time element was critical; it’s not for two or people killed every few months. And it would be used on people who are connected to the potential incident itself. Using irrelevant examples is not helpful.

    Okay. Not how I read your original post, nor how I read Mitchell’s comments or Trump’s. Let me just say then that I have much less faith than you do in our waterboarders’ judgement and self-restraint, and leave it at that.

    • #76
  17. Chris Member
    Chris
    @Chris

    Kate Braestrup:You know, Susan, I was thinking that the MSM has begun to emphasize the “Americans are awful” meme lately. Since, oh, November 9th, or thereabouts?

    I keep waiting for someone to explain why eight years of Obama somehow made all of us so much less moral?

    Campus rape epidemic…brutal, racist police officers…Americans all gung-ho for water boarding… internalized misogyny… and now TRUMP!

    Very well said, Kate, especially the bolded part.  Very curious phenomena indeed.

    Fear not.  The MSM is becoming more “aware” and Instapundit and others are now highlighting the return of our old standby “homelessness” now there has been a republican elected.  Time for preaching about how Obama tried to change America, but they just wouldn’t heed his good words.  If only he had communicated his message better, or given another speech…

    • #77
  18. EHerring Coolidge
    EHerring
    @EHerring

    Geneva is a mutually agreed upon standard of conduct…obey its conventions in your warfighting and treatment of POWs and we will apply them to our warfighting and the treatment of POWs.  The carrot is the promise to reciprocate with good behavior.  The stick is to face brutal warfare if you don’t.  Libs and others offer the carrot but have eliminated the stick so the enemy has no motivation to follow Geneva.

    Our failure to treat military targets as such because the enemy hides in churches and hospitals encourages the enemy to hide in them and use civilians as human shields.  The enemy is responsible for collateral damage and the media should say so.  Ditto for failure to wear a uniform.  We should return to killing combatants on the spot if they are out of uniform.  Cruel?  Yes.  But far better for civilians if the enemy doesn’t hide among them.

    Our new warfare morality sounds good but look what it has wrought.

    • #78
  19. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    There is almost no way to rule one way or the other if waterboarding counts as “torture”. It’s entirely a matter of opinion.

    Try it for yourself. Stand in the shower with a wet facecloth over your face and stick your head into the flow of the shower.

    It really, really sucks. You really cannot breath. It’s agonizing.

    But then, once it’s over, there’s no permanent damage.

    Torture?

    I was subjected to summer camp pranks that were of similar effect. Were they also torture? Maybe. I dunno.

    • #79
  20. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    EHerring: We should return to killing combatants on the spot if they are out of uniform. Cruel? Yes. But far better for civilians if the enemy doesn’t hide among them.

    But, but, they’re poor middle easterners who cannot afford uniforms, you racist!

    • #80
  21. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Misthiocracy: But, but, they’re poor middle easterners who cannot afford uniforms, you racist!

    Ah, Mis, you shouldn’t kid around on such a serious topic. Tsk, tsk. [Thanks for the dark giggle break.]

    • #81
  22. CM Inactive
    CM
    @CM

    Misthiocracy: I was subjected to summer camp pranks that were of similar effect. Were they also torture? Maybe. I dunno.

    High School = Torture. Ban it. Now.

    • #82
  23. MSJL Thatcher
    MSJL
    @MSJL

    EHerring:Geneva is a mutually agreed upon standard of conduct…obey its conventions in your warfighting and treatment of POWs and we will apply them to our warfighting and the treatment of POWs. The carrot is the promise to reciprocate with good behavior. The stick is to face brutal warfare if you don’t. Libs and others offer the carrot but have eliminated the stick so the enemy has no motivation to follow Geneva.

    Our failure to treat military targets as such because the enemy hides in churches and hospitals encourages the enemy to hide in them and use civilians as human shields. The enemy is responsible for collateral damage and the media should say so. Ditto for failure to wear a uniform. We should return to killing combatants on the spot if they are out of uniform. Cruel? Yes. But far better for civilians if the enemy doesn’t hide among them.

    Our new warfare morality sounds good but look what it has wrought.

    It’s been a long time since I last dabbled in this area, but I recall that after WW2 the standards of the Geneva Convention were modified.  Up to that point the requirements were based on reciprocity.  But following the 1949 revisions, the requirements became absolute obligations on signatories.  I would agree with you that the better model is reciprocity; we have tended to be scrupulous in our treatment of the enemy (and yes, you’ll find times when we weren’t), while our POWs are routinely brutalized.

    • #83
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