I think that if you know for a fact and I mean 100% sure that someone is involved in terrorism, then it should be ok, even desirable, to torture him/her irrespective of any credible intelligence or lack thereof that can be obtained.

We are dealing with an enemy whose behavior cannot be categorized as human. In this case it is right and good to employ the most cruel means of torture available simply as a means of punishment. This will hopefully have a deterrent effect on all the little fanatics in training. On the other hand, they may have all been lobotomized into a subhuman existence where they cannot comprehend the terrible fate that will surely find them if they continue in their murderous ways.

The only concern in the matter then is that the right sub-humans are tortured. If a mistake was made in establishing the culpability of a torture subject, then compensation must be made available to that victim. The afore mentioned compensation must be punitive in nature to such an extent that it deters whatever agency/agencies from repeating the same mistakes that led to the terrible error. This would also encourage the said agencies to examine their ranks for incompetence and slipshod work and ruthlessly purge themselves of such elements.

To ondelette:

"Who decides when it is a last resort?" Whoever is in charge of the investigation.
"As for sacrifice of the lives of others, I don't know, because I don't see it as sacrifice of my life, I see it as sacrifice of my security -- the knowledge that my life is safe. That may seem all the same to you but it is not to me."

Well, you realize what the problem is here, don't you? We all carry a certain amount of risk in our everyday life, and the question is how much risk can we tolerate. On the one hand we accept some level of crime in our society because statistically our chances of being a crime victim are small, especially with regard to violent crime. At the other end of the spectrum are calamities that affect everyone. If an all-out war or a deadly plague broke out in our neighborhood, we'd probably flee and look for a safe region. Terror attacks fall somewhere in between. You think about them in the traditional terms of crime prevention. I don't. Those who have attacked us before promise to continue and attack us on a larger scale. I see no reason to doubt them, and I think it's irresponsible not to take special measures to counter that threat. That goes back to my initial point about how attitudes will change again with next big attack.

"Nor do I find it credible that weapons that kill a million people are readily available." Does that mean that if they were readily available your absolute moral standards would not be so absolute any more? A dirty bomb, which is not a big deal to make, could kill 10,000 people in a densely populated area. So the same number of people who carried out the 9/11 attack could kill close to 200,000 people in Manhattan or in London. Is that number acceptable to you?

"I do find it credible that anyone could have made the so-called liquid explosive the British group was going to use, and see it as not something that keeps me off airplanes". I'm glad you feel safe, but you realize that you are thinking as an individual. A government, which is responsible for the safety of all its citizens, cannot think this way.

"The plot was foiled without harsh interrogations." You sound very confident about that. Not everybody is. The Guardian of London for instance (who, by the way, is on your side in this debate) has something different to say:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1844559,00.html

"Reports from Pakistan suggest that much of the intelligence that led to the raids came from that country and that some of it may have been obtained in ways entirely unacceptable here. In particular Rashid Rauf, a British citizen said to be a prime source of information leading to last week's arrests, has been held without access to full consular or legal assistance. Disturbing reports in Pakistani papers that he had "broken" under interrogation have been echoed by local human rights bodies. The Guardian has quoted one, Asma Jehangir, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who has no doubt about the meaning of broken. "I don't deduce, I know - torture," she said. "There is simply no doubt about that, no doubt at all."

That's another proof for you. There are as many proofs as you want. Would you agree with the Guardian that it's better if 5,000 innocent people had been blown up in midair as long as Mr. Rauf's "rights" remained intact?

As to Beghal, sorry, but his case is proof of the first degree. Some of my original timeline was incorrect, so is some of yours, but all that is immaterial:

According to this CNN story (notice that so far I'm the only one here who bothers to substantiate what he says) "By early August, Dutch police had a four-person cell under surveillance in Rotterdam."

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/26/inv.thwarting.cells/index.html

If he was captured on July 28, that means that his singing started to yield results within a few days. Maybe not 24 hours, but close enough. As to your claim "We apparently DO know that just the knowledge that he was in prison in Dubai didn't make him sing like a canary, apparently French Intelligence did that." The CNN story, which is dated Jan. 23, 2002 says he was extradited to France the previous month, i.e. Dec. 2001, so it's clear that his singing was done in Dubai, not in France.

This story does not mention that the attack on the embassy in Paris was planned for December or January, and you do not provide any source to support that. But for the sake of argument let's assume you're correct. So what does that prove? This is a piece of information which we have in retrospect because it was extracted from the suspects. When you're an intelligence officer investigating a terror plot in the making, you have to make a call on how far the plot is from execution. A lot of lives hang on your decision, and terrorists' plans can change at any moment. Whether Beghal and his friends planned to blow up the embassy in December or in September is of no consequence. The only thing that matters is that as a result of his singing the investigators got their information in time to avert the attack. Q.E.D. and case closed.

Jerry R.,

I know Benedict XVI is no Paul the II but I doubt God would have passed him over in favor of a non believer. I must have missed the MSNBC special on George's burning Bush revelation that you referenced. I do remember something on Al-Jazira though about Allah making it open season on the infidels.

Sarcasm is more poignant when it has substance to back it up.

Michael O.

You talk about methods of last resort. Who decides when it is a last resort? As for sacrifice of the lives of others, I don't know, because I don't see it as sacrifice of my life, I see it as sacrifice of my security -- the knowledge that my life is safe. That may seem all the same to you but it is not to me.

Nor do I find it credible that weapons that kill a million people are readily available. I do find it credible that anyone could have made the so-called liquid explosive the British group was going to use, and see it as not something that keeps me off airplanes (I traveled cross country the next day). The plot was foiled without harsh interrogations.

Please read up on Jamal Beghal before you continue using him as an example, I am including his example when I say you offer no proof. He was captured July 28, 2001. The information he gave up that was "days away" from preventing anything was days away from preventing Sept 11, obviously it didn't. The plot on the embassy was due December or January, months away.

He was held in the dark bound and gagged and beaten according to his lawyers. This apparently took from July 28 to Sept 7 to produce results, and they would have had 3 more months to stop the plot he was personally ticking on, the Sept 11 thing was that he knew their names, not clear if he knew what they were planning.

So no one knows if the interrogation methods used were the most effective, or even if a more FBI style interrogation, which you can read the comparison in the book "Inside the Wire", would have produced results in time to stop the Atta cell in Germany. We apparently DO know that just the knowledge that he was in prison in Dubai didn't make him sing like a canary, apparently French Intelligence did that.

The New York Times did a three part series on him right after Sept 11, if you're interested.

Red Stater:

I'm fully aware of the debate, and the arguments over Zubaydah's sanity are not new either. Suskind does not explain how Zubaydah was captured. He does offer alternative accounts to the capturing of Binalshibh and K.S.M. but he ignores the 5 people who, by U.S. News' diagram, were captured thanks to information gleaned from K.S.M. He also ignores the other eight who apparently were captured outside of that chain. The language he uses indicates that he is invested in this subject in a very emotional way, so perhaps it was convenient for him to gloss over certain parts of the story.

Secondly, even if we take everything he said at face value, it does nothing to contradict my point. He claims that the FBI's "good cop" approach was more helpful in obtaining information than the CIA's "bad cop". That's perfectly fine. Whatever works. As I said above, we need good, smart, well-trained and experienced intelligence officers who can build a profile of the suspect and decide what would be the best route to follow with any particular individual. What we should not do is deprive them of alternative options.

Also, notice that in describing the FBI's "preferable" method he says "Patience was rewarded". Patience is good when you have time. The FBI's investigation he refers to was conducted after the first WTC attack in 1990. The CIA investigation was conducted after 9/11. I think it's fair to say that the sense of urgency was entirely different in the two cases.

Michael O.:

There appears to be some debate over whether the "Al-Qaeda 14" described in the U.S. News link you provide really provided the intelligence the link provided gives for them. Thus Ron Suskind's piece in this week's TIME:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533436,00.html

Sure, all of his sources are unnamed. But at least he claims to have sources and thus opens himself up to being potentially falsified. From which "U.S. officials" does the U.S. News article get its information?

To Ondelette:

I don't think the problem is that we don't understand each other, rather that we don't really bother to read each other, or at least one of us doesn't. I assume none of the things you attribute to me. Those are all assumptions of your own making. I said clearly that I hold dear the same values that you do, and I'm not sure on what basis you say I assume "that engaging in torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is a *necessity* for saving lives". I regard it as a means of last resort. In fact, the better and more experienced the interrogator, the lesser the chance he would have to resort to that. However, I believe it would be a folly to tie the interrogator's hands in cases where obtaining information at all costs clearly is a necessity.

As to your claim that I offer no proof, wrong again. I offered proof that torture can save lives in my initial post about the case of Jamal Beghal. That was not proof that torture is always a necessity, it was proof that there are instances where can save lives.

In that particular case, I bet the Dubai authorities did not even have to touch Beghal. The mere knowledge that they were not subject to the same restrictions as Western governments would have been enough to make him talk.

And just in case that's not enough proof for you (though it should be), you are welcome to read the histories of the 14 Qaeda "high-profile" individuals just transferred to Guanatanamo Bay. It's all over the press now. Here's one example:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060910/18terror.b1.htm

I applaud you readiness to sacrifice your own life in order to uphold the Geneva convention. I hope you have really given it some thought and you really mean it. Being that terror attacks usually involve the taking of multiple lives, not just one, I'm still waiting to hear how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice for that purpose altogether, in addition to your own.

The fact is the information obtained via 'interrogation' has led to the capture of many terrorists. Furthermore, what are the forms of torture the US is employing? I heard we keep someone in a cold room and play heavy metal music. Is that the form of tutore which everyone has a problem? There are different degrees of torture. Maybe, it would be helpful if we decided on what we mean by torture. Is it cause discomfort? How much discomfort? Is keeping someone looked up in a cell for 23 hours/day torture? We do this to death row inmates. Clearly, this is not torture. Therefore, we need to get a baseline for the term torture.

Karim,

You are a race trader. You believe that everything is based in racism. I feel sorry for you. Are Mark's coments racist because he is white? If Mark is black, are his comments still racist? Maybe, you are the racist, Karim?

to Michael O.

The facts are the facts. You would be willing to torture to save your own life, I would not be willing to torture to save mine. Your assumption that torture is human nature in response to threats, and that everyone has their price sounds nice, but it is untestable, and provides a convenient excuse for war crimes.

I never said I would sacrifice lives not to "inconvenience a terrorist". You created that straw man, I'm not surprised you found it easy to shoot it down. I said I would accept the reality that I might sacrifice my life, my safety, my security to hold the line against torture, and in favor of the rights in the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

You have assumed many things, among them that civil liberties and the law of war *must* be traded on in order to gain safety from "today's weapons technologies and explosive ideologies." You offer no proof. You have assumed that engaging in torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is a *necessity* for saving lives. Again, you have no proof.

And you have implied that I would act and think as you if I lived where you live. I have been faced already in life with dealing with people, at least one of them not all there, who intended to do great harm or kill me, and I have not done that which should not have been done. It wasn't until recently that anyone ever questioned that I did the right thing. Clearly we don't understand one another.

To Ondelette:

What I was trying to describe was not a moral or a legal position, but an entirely human reaction to potential further terror attacks. The passing of the Patriot Act by congress was a reaction to 9/11. Those who regard the Patriot Act as restrictions placed on our constitutional liberties (and I suspect that you are among them) should recognize that such measures are triggered by mass terror attacks, and should thus be the first to search for effective ways to prevent such attacks.

And as to your comment "Standing up for the values enshrined in our Constitution and in the Geneva Conventions in the face of possible loss of life and personal safety isn't weak, and it isn't unrealistic." Laudable sentiment, to be sure. So to be realistic, Could you tell me how much loss of life would you be willing to sustain in order to stand up for your values? Otherwise put, how many lives would you sacrifice in order not to inconvenience a terrorist? Evidently that number must to be higher than 3,000 because 9/11 did nothing to relax your lofty standards. How about 10,000? 50,000? 100,000? If a million lives could be saved, would a certain amount of torture be acceptable to you? Furthermore, if the potential victims were not some anonymous people in a distant city but your own children or your own parents, your close relatives and friends, would you sacrifice them all so that not a hair would be touched on a terrorist's body? What about if it was your own life on the line?

You may think these questions are unrealistic. I don't. Not with today's combination of weapons technology and explosive ideologies. They certainly are not unrealistic for someone like myself who lives within eyesight of the former World Trade Center site.

And one last observation: Your attempt to portray people who hold your position as having certain values, and people who hold my position as lacking them, is patently false. We all have the same values and none of us wants to see them eroded. It's just that for some of us there is one value which trumps all the others, because in its absence all the other values are meaningless: The value of life.

Michael O. states:

"People would not want to know how we obtain our intelligence, only that we do everything possible to stop the attacks. And those who would still object in the name of international law and human rights and our image abroad would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a pole. The reason we are having this debate to begin with is that it's been 5 years without another 9/11, and we have begun to regain our sense of safety."

No, Michael O., some of us did say such things on September 12, 2001, and were not afraid to say them, tar, feathers, and pole notwithstanding.

Somehow, people who justify these methods always try to portray themselves as strong and realistic because they are willing to take tough measures and make tough decisions to defend the country. And those of us who would uphold international humanitarian law (the law of war) are too comfortable sissies that don't understand what's at stake and are unwilling to do what is necessary.

Standing up for the values enshrined in our Constitution and in the Geneva Conventions in the face of possible loss of life and personal safety isn't weak, and it isn't unrealistic. Being willing to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity the minute you are confronted with real danger and loss of life is. And no, I don't sleep any more soundly in the face of terror than you do, I'm just willing to give up my sound sleep to do what's right.

I really like this guy, who could be waterboarded for 2 minutes, the avarage US tough guy collapses after some seconds, and managed to send the U.S. into Iraq. Clausewitz in Russia. The biggest mistake is to believe in torture, to take torture as a proof. An old fashioned mechanical view of the world... CIA aka the Ugly American, yesterday, today and tomorrow?

It's worth keeping in mind that this whole debate is a function of how safe we feel. If there was another 9/11 style attack tomorrow (not to mention a worse attack) we would not be having this debate. There would be an overwhelming public clamor to prevent further attacks by any means possible, and by that I mean any means possible. People would not want to know how we obtain our intelligence, only that we do everything possible to stop the attacks. And those who would still object in the name of international law and human rights and our image abroad would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a pole. The reason we are having this debate to begin with is that it's been 5 years without another 9/11, and we have begun to regain our sense of safety.

And to all those who ask for "one instance where torture has averted a ticking bomb": There have been plenty of instances of terror plots foiled at the last moment. Being that intelligence services are not in the habit of disclosing how they got the information necessary to foil those plots, you are welcome to assume that the suspects in each case just yielded that information out of the goodness of their hearts, if it helps to calm your conscience.

At the same time, you may wish to consider the case of Jamal Beghal, as one example out of many. Mr. Beghal, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, was arrested in July 2001 as a suspect in a plot to blow up the American embassy in Paris on behalf of Al-Qaeda. The plan was about to be executed in a matter of days, but as soon as he was arrested Mr. Beghal started singing like a canary, and within 24 hours everyone involved in the plot was under arrest.

The reason Mr. Beghal was so cooperative is that he was arrested not in France but in Dubai, a nation who apparently is not so queasy about using certain methods of interrogation on terror suspects. Mr. Beghal was then turned over to French authorities. Upon arriving in France, he immediately recanted his confession, claiming that it was extracted from him under torture. By then, however, the plot had unraveled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djamel_Beghal

Had Mr. Beghal been arrested in a Western country, it's more than likely that he would have held out until his comrades carried out the plot. It's also more than likely that the results would have been similar to what we saw in the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya: Massive destruction and hundreds of people killed. I'm sure, however, that many of the commentators on this forum would have slept soundly, with the knowledge that Mr. Beghal's civil rights had not been violated.

All this logical debate is a waste of time.

We all need to remember that God talks to and guides our President. George has told us this on many occasions.

God told George to attach Iraq and I am sure that God has told him that it is okay for Americas to torture Arabs and Muslims.

Who are we to question what our President does with such devine guidance?

"Yes, torture is immoral. So is killing. But we sometimes choose these paths because an enemy is so implacably focused on visiting harm upon us and our families that we have no choice. In this case, *not* using every tool at our disposal is the greater immorality."

No. The right not to be subject to cruel and unusual punishment is one of our most cherished liberties. You would give it up because of the "threat of harm." To paraphrase Patrick Henry, you would say, "Take my liberty, just don't kill me." Our founding fathers recognized that sentiment very well, it is called cowardice.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a very real sacrifice that each and every one of us must make in the face of the threat of terrorism: We must sacrifice some of our safety to preserve our way of life, even in the face of the ticking time bomb. That, the founding fathers would say, is patriotism.

No to torture is yes to liberty.

It's always surprised me that torture is acceptable in the black and white, "us against them" world of the Bush Administration. You would think that Bush would want to act in a way worthy of the "white hat" that he sees the U.S. as wearing in this war.

You cannot claim the moral high ground in a situation and then act in an immoral manner. To do so is the height of hypocrisy.

Please identify one instance in the last century where torture has prevented a ticking bomb from going off!

Has the detonation of a ticking time bomb ever been averted through the use of torture in the entire history of the world?

If so, it must be such a vanishingly rare occurance that it bears only a cursory, hypothetical footnote in our discussion of the "merits" of torture.

The physical torture is not only ineffective but also logically not allowed to be used for getting information from prisoner as he will confess that he did everything when he is under the pressure.

Now days America uses torture but i am sure it will be not able to extract required information.

The only way to know about someone is to fully investigate about that.

The "ticking bomb" scenario as justification for torture is almost wholy specious. 1. Just how long is the clock set for? Days? Weeks? Months? One of my co-conspirators drops out of sight and I continue with the same plan? Not if I have any sort of smarts as a terrorist operative. I use my identity cutouts and regroup. 2. I am subject to ticking bomb justified torture, I say, "under the viaduct on Avenue B set for 8:00a.m." Of necessity, what does the torturer do? Continue torturing, of course, as I almost certainly have just lied it being my first admission. Send out a squad to check it out, but continue torturing nonetheless. I know that, torturer knows that. Under those circumstances telling the truth is no way out in any case. 3. Given the bomb goes off at 8, all I have to do is hold out, giving false information that will not relieve my torture, until 8. I know that, torturer doesn't.

I think the President has watched too many episodes of '24'.

The ticking bomb scenario is more common in the movies than in real life. In real life it's hard to be sure the guy you've got really knows where the bomb is. Any benefit you get by torturing under those conditions is more than countered by the harm you do to the country's image and ability to build alliances and the help you provide the terrorists' recruiting efforts. Just say no, even if, in very rare and probably largely hypothetical circumstances, you might lose the chance of preventing an attack.

If bin-Laden is captured today thanks to information obtained by torturing a detainee, no one will question the propriety of the interrogation tactics. But the chance of capturing a big shot like bin-Laden is rare, and there is no guarantee that no bin-Laden is in the waiting to replace him, or the insurgency will be stopped or less intense. On the other hand, a certain amount of information obtained through coercion, no matter how suspicious they are, may be regarded as facts if they meet the expectations of the interrogators. Then tremendous human and monetary resources will be used to exploit those "imaginary facts" to obtain other "imaginary facts," and the vicious circle will continue without end. I am not saying that brutal exploitation of the prisoners has no merits. It does. But the gain is minimal on the balance sheet, and the loss is immense.
Will our treatment of prisoners expose our troops being deployed around the world to similar treatment? I think no matter how nice we treat their prisoners, the insurgents will never ask their American prisoners to choose the lethal injection to be used to end their life. They choose it for them: decapitation.

It has been proven that under duress and pressure, almost any "suspect" will tell you whatever you want to hear. When you ask someone if they were the ones that plotted to blow up such-and-such building, then apply 50,000 volts of shock or waterboarding, after a while they'll confess.

In fact, I'm willing to say that if you were to use torture on some 95 year old granny who wasn't even in the country at the time, they would eventually crack under pressure and say what you want to hear. (Assuming that they wouldn't die.)

So how much is your confession worth now? I don't see how that would save "thousands" of lives.

Mark said:

>Yes, torture is immoral. So is killing. But we sometimes choose these paths because an enemy is so implacably focused on visiting harm upon us and our families that we have no choice. In this case, *not* using every tool at our disposal is the greater immorality.

Mark,

Hezbollah could say exactly the same thing. Therefore, you must accept Hezbollah's right to use every tool at their disposal, in the face of an Israeli enemy implacably focused on visiting harm to them.

And that's what your torture leads to.

Mark,

Justifying racism can also be backed up by data points and studies.

Heck, you could probably get scientists to prove that certain races are less "intelligent" than others.

In fact, it was already done by Nazi Germany.

The survival of the allegedly superior white race does, according to your uncivilized immoral neo-Nazi reasoning, call for some elimination of the so-called inferior races on this planet that will eventually "threaten" the superior white race.

What you wrote is disgusting, sick and immoral.

Aristotle said that there are two reasons for doing something: First, because it is right, or second, because it is expedient.

Mark doesn't believe in the first reason, so let's look at the second -- whether torture has been expedient.

I can't remember Bush having made a good point about anything, so I don't know what point Mark is referring to.

I'm glad, however, that unlike Bush, Mark is willing to call it what it is: torture.

One of the big problems with torture is that people tell the torturer whatever he wants to hear. When the Bush Administration was looking for evidence of links between al Qaeda and Iraq, or evidence of Iraqi nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, they used torture to get prisoners to tell them what they wanted to hear.

This was good for the people who wanted to invade Iraq but didn't have a good justification for doing so. They could strengthen their case by telling lies that they had obtained through torture.

However, this was bad for America, because it got us into a bad war. Let's put aside the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis, since the Bush Administration doesn't care about them. Let's put aside the cost of $400 billion, since most of that money is going to Republican affiliates like Halliburton anyway. Let's put aside the 2500 American combatants killed, since rich Republicans don't have to fight themselves -- they get other Americans to fight for them.

Even the Republicans who went to war for the real reason -- to get the oil -- must be concerned about the fact that we've destroyed Iraq as a society, turned it into a training camp for anti-American terrorists, handed the Iranians a Shi'ite ally, and made America unpopular throughout the entire Arab and muslim world. And they won't get any oil.

So torture is good for the Republicans (at least in the short run), because they can torture prisoners into saying anything they need them to say, in order to fix the facts around their policies.

But torture is bad for the citizens of a democracy, because they need truthful information to make intelligent decisions.

I trust that you've made sure that the folks in Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah know this as well?

Seriously, the administration is struggling to gain a clear idea of what is and is not legal. The law isn't a suicide pact.

Yes, torture is immoral. So is killing. But we sometimes choose these paths because an enemy is so implacably focused on visiting harm upon us and our families that we have no choice. In this case, *not* using every tool at our disposal is the greater immorality.

Finally, I think that Bush made a pretty good point that 'rough questioning' - when backed up by multiple data points and corraboration among suspects - is quite effective. We wouldn't be doing it otherwise as we simply have no need as a people to pursue such policies for anything but the most practical of reasons: our survival.