An ethical question

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springmom, glad to be of service. All L&P threads should have quotations from dead French kings, no? :D
 
While I do not agree with torture, I would like to remind people who we are fighitng against. We do need to take the gloves off.

raqi Defense Ministry: Insurgents Kidnapping People for Use in Car Bomb Attacks

Thursday , September 21, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi insurgents are no longer using just volunteers as suicide car bombers but are instead kidnapping drivers, rigging their vehicles with explosives and blowing them up, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

In what appears to be a new tactic for the insurgency, the ministry said the kidnap victims do not know their cars have been loaded with explosives when they are released.

The ministry issued a statement saying that first "a motorist is kidnapped with his car. They then booby trap the car without the driver knowing. Then the kidnapped driver is released and threatened to take a certain road."

The kidnappers follow the car and when the unwitting victim "reaches a checkpoint, a public place, or an army or police patrol, the criminal terrorists following the driver detonate the car from a distance," the Defense Ministry statement said.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military. In the past, U.S. officials have said insurgents often tape or handcuff a suicide driver's hands to a car, or bind his foot to the gas pedal, to ensure that he does not back out at the last minute.

Although roadside bombs are the main weapon used by insurgents, suicide car bombers are designed to maximize casualties and sow fear among the population.

According to the Washington-based Brookings Institution, there have been 343 suicide car bombings causing multiple deaths in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214988,00.html
 
MoW, has that report aired yet? I read your post, but I haven't seen the piece. Thing is, while "waterboarding" may have gotten info that corroborated other info, New Scotland Yard, MI-5 and other spooky types got a whole lot of what they needed by electronic spying as well. I'm not at all clear that they got info that they did not already have or did not get otherwise by this technique.

I suppose the underlying question is, "when does 'forceful interrogation' become 'torture'?" Deep down, I expect that most of us would say "when it becomes something we would never sit still for OUR soldiers being subjected to". Not that they aren't....my middle name is NOT Pollyanna...but as a yardstick by which to measure "acceptable force" in interrogation, it's a pretty good one.
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The piece has NOT aired yet. Mr. Ross was on O'Reilly last night explaing the report due out soon. While info has been obtained by electronic spying---the info obtained here was by captured terrorists. He reports that other techniques--interogation, slapping, verbal threats, cold rooms, loud noise, and sleep deprevation were used FIRST. Only when the water-boarding technique was used, they ALL broke from between 25 seconds to 2 1/2 minutes. No permanent damage is done by water-boarding whatsoever. No eyes taken out, limbs removed. It is simply a physcological ploy where the body has a sort of gag reflex that causes you to believe you are drowning. AGAIN, this is important----this is for the CIA--not the military to use on terrorists and plotters---not simply soldiers who wouldn't know anything.
 
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What's the point of having the moral high ground with an enemy who doesn't appreciate or even understand your morals.The people who do are not the ones trying to kill us.Morals are not universal.Also,If somebody comes out of a "torture" session without a scratch on them,the definition of torture is way to broad.I don't think the CIA is evil or stupid.And,I don't think the NSA gives a crap about any conversation I have ever had.
 
"What's the point of having the moral high ground with an enemy who doesn't appreciate or even understand your morals."

It's the same reason most people don't steal things even when they know they could get away with it.

Tim
 
No.It's not the same thing at all.Would you have a problem stealing drugs from a drug dealer so you could destroy them.That would be a better analogy.
 
The piece has NOT aired yet. Mr. Ross was on O'Reilly last night explaing the report due out soon.
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Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for it. I look forward to seeing it. (By the way, if you edit out the extra bracket in the quote in your post, it'll come out looking right. FWIW.) ;)

I think you are correct in saying that the CIA has different standards than soldiers on the battlefield. Needless to say, accountability and oversight are absolutely essential, to whatever lengths forcible interrogation are taken. Lack thereof, and/or badly- or un-trained personnel, and we screw up. Badly.

What's the point of having the moral high ground with an enemy who doesn't appreciate or even understand your morals.The people who do are not the ones trying to kill us.Morals are not universal.Also,If somebody comes out of a "torture" session without a scratch on them,the definition of torture is way to broad.I don't think the CIA is evil or stupid.And,I don't think the NSA gives a crap about any conversation I have ever had.
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Zerojunk, the point is what I said about moral authority. We generally have quite a lot of it, historically, and because of it, our diplomats are able to do a lot that otherwise somebody's soldiers would have to fix. That is not a small thing, and it should never be squandered for the short term battle victory, because it is our moral authority that enables us, figuratively and literally, to win the war. You and I would disagree absolutely about the question of morals being absolutes.

I don't think the CIA is evil or stupid either. Matter of fact, I came very close to going to work for them a number of years ago. It would have been fun, sort of, although NEVER being able to tell anybody what you did at the office today would have worn thin for me. :cool: And you're probably right that the NSA doesn't care about you...of course, if I were in charge of clandestine operations in spookville somewhere, I would have somebody reading every post on every board like this, on the offchance of finding another Tim McVeigh or some such.... so you may be incorrect.

Springmom, who coulda been a spook...but just isn't spooky enough :D
 
Came across this on Andrew Sullivan's blog... this marine makes some good points...

A reserve soldier who fought in Iraq writes:

I was deployed in my reserve unit (USMCR) as part of operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Marine infantry, and we were on the front lines, supposedly to guard a gunship base, but really, though, the gunships guarded us.

Not too much later, it was time to take prisoners. One of the platoons went north, and when they came back, there were stories about how Iraqi soldiers lined the roads, trying to surrender. I spent a week guarding Iraqi men in a makeshift prison camp, a way-station really, and more than I could count. They didn't look like they were starving or dehydrated. Apparently, once the ground war began, they just pitched their weapons and headed south at first opportunity. The more I've thought about it, the more I realize that they knew bone deep that they'd get fair treatment. We gave them MREs (with the pork entree's removed) but almost immediately some Special Forces guys arrived and set up a real chow line for them. We gave each man a blanket, (I kept an extra as a souvie) and I think I saw a Special Forces doc giving some of them a once over.

Once, only once, one of them got all irritated and tried to get in one of the Corporal's faces, loud. (I was a lance-corporal). He wouldn't back down, so the Corporal gave him an adjustment, a rifle butt-stroke to his gut, not hard, but he went down. The Corporal sent me for the medic. The guy was ok, and now calm (or at least understanding the situation), and hand-signed that he was out of smokes and really, really needed one... Not a bad guy, just stressed-dumb and needing a smoke. None of the others prisoners in the camp even registered it.

We went north to mop up not long after that. I saw the Iraqi weapons: rocket launchers a little smaller than semi-trailers, hidden in buildings, AKs in piles, big Soviet mortars and anti-tank mines, everywhere but unarmed. They had food too. Pasteurized milk to drink, but most gone bad by then. Some of the mortar rounds were still in crates. They had long trenches that were hard to see in the dunes, bunkers with maps, fire-plans laid out, and blankets, all placed with decent vantage for command and control. They even had wire laid for land-line communications. The point is, they could have fought. Not won, no they couldn't have won, but they could have fought. Instead, they chose to surrender.

Looking back, I think that one of the main drivers in these men's heads was that they knew, absolutely, that they'd get fair treatment from us, the Americans. We were the good guys. The Iraqis on the line knew they had an out, they had hope, so they could just walk away. (A few did piss themselves when someone told them we were Marines. Go figure.) Still, they knew Americans would be fair, and we were.

Thinking hard on what I now know of history, psychology, and the meanness of politics, that reputation for fairness was damn near unique in world history. Can you tell me of any major military power that had it? Ever? France? No. Think Algeria. The UK? Sorry, Northern Ireland, the Boxer Rebellion in China... China or Russia. I don't think so. But America had it. If those men had even put up token resistance, some of us would not have come back. But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent. All the way back to George Washington, and from President George H.W. Bush all the way down to a lance-corporal jarhead at the front.

Its gone now, even from me. I can't get past that image of the Iraqi, in the hood with the wires and I'm not what you'd call a sensitive type. You know the picture. And now we have a total bust-out in the White House, and a bunch of rubber-stamps in the House, trying to make it so that half-drowning people isn't torture. That hypothermia isn't torture. That degradation isn't torture. We don't have that reputation for fairness anymore. Just the opposite, I think. And the next real enemy we face will fight like only the cornered and desperate fight. How many Marines' lives will be lost in the war ahead just because of this ******* who never once risked anything for this country?
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Thinking hard on what I now know of history, psychology, and the meanness of politics, that reputation for fairness was damn near unique in world history. Can you tell me of any major military power that had it? Ever? France? No. Think Algeria. The UK? Sorry, Northern Ireland, the Boxer Rebellion in China... China or Russia. I don't think so. But America had it. If those men had even put up token resistance, some of us would not have come back. But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent. All the way back to George Washington, and from President George H.W. Bush all the way down to a lance-corporal jarhead at the front.
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That really does say it all. Moral authority is unique to the United States...unless we dribble it away.

Springmom
 
Hjb,

Perhaps you missed it as well-----they are NOT advocating the use of these tactics by our Military. This is coming in front of the Senate regarding the CIA being able to interogate captured known terrorists including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
 
I did a bit of skimming here, so I'll just get to the original point.

When dealing with an attacker you can fight dirty, but there are still limitations on how far you can go. For an exaggerated example say you are attacked and you knee the attacker in the groin and spray him with pepper spray, he falls on the ground in pain and lays there moaning. At that point you don't want to pull out a knife and cut him up into little pieces, even though you might feel like it.

On the national level, every move we make has the chance of being broadcast around the world. The government has to consider how we are viewed by other countries that we associate with, especially if they want assistance or compliance. For example: Not attacking in Mosques is probably not so much for Iraqs benefit as it is for the other Muslim nations that we are not fighting with.

Also the U.S. has fought diry many times against their enemies. If you don't believe me look at the American Cival War and Reconstruction.
 
Stage2,
You can try to sugar-coat waterboarding all you want. It's simulated execution and that's torture.

Serious question here:
Have you ever considered the notion that torturing prisoners might actually be counter-productive to intelligence gathering? That more people might come forward with information voluntarily if we didn't torture prisoners?
 
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