Torture Proof

Several conservative pundits have stated that water boarding is not really torture. Well if water boarding (and other questionable techniques the Bush Administration approved) are not really torture, why were they effective at getting information?

You’ve captured a terrorist and believe he has information about an attack that could kill hundreds, thousands or millions of people (the Jack Bauer scenario). What would convince this terrorist to tell you what you want to know? Threat of a wedgie? A water balloon fight? No, according to the Bush Administration, the only thing that would work is some sort of coercion that would force a person to talk. You might need water boarding, thumb screws, nail pulling, the rack or something equally painful.

But wait, if water boarding is not really torture, why would anyone tell you something they otherwise wouldn’t just because of water boarding?

So the proof that water boarding is torture are the very claims by Bush Administration officials that it was effective

Why Not Really Torture?

I’m also bothered and confused by the “the ends justify the means” defense of "enhanced interrogation techniques" being espoused by Bush Administration defenders. How did the Bush Administration decide where to draw the line of acceptable versus unacceptable techniques? If they were really worried about the safety of U.S. citizens and convinced that torture, excuse me, "enhanced interrogation techniques" were required, why weren't they willing to authorize techniques more severe than water boarding?

The line had been drawn for decades with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law. The Bush Administration thought these rules were inadequate to the threat we faced. They decided they needed to move that line, but they only moved it a little.

I'm missing something.

Who Deserves Jail Time?

There are many things that bother me about the Bush Administration torture policies.

The Administration didn’t have the balls to admit what they were doing when they were initially caught. They let U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib go to jail for using techniques that somehow just happened to be many of the same techniques that Bush Administration lawyers had approved in written memos. If soldiers can do jail time for using these techniques, it sure seems logical that people up the chain of command can go to jail for authorizing them.

Ugly Alert!

There is one thing sure about the current controversy over U.S. torture policies under the Bush Administration; it is going to get ugly.

We’ve heard accusations that President Obama has lost control of the torture issue. Of course, he never had control. Too much was already known. He could have tried to prevent release of the torture memos, but the courts would have eventually forced their disclosures and then President Obama would have been accused of being complicit.

Former Vice-President Cheney has not helped. Well maybe he has helped…, helped himself and fellow former administration members. He has positioned himself and them to be vindicated should another attack occur (after 9/11/2009, that is).

Their argument is that the Bush policies kept us safe after 9/11 and that fact justifies whatever they did. Of course, as I’ve previously written (Who Has The Best Record?), Bill Clinton kept us safe after the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and I haven’t heard anyone claim he authorized terrorism (although there may have been renditions). And we have at least one documented case (the planned bombing of the LA airport in 2000) where they thwarted a terrorist attack.

I don’t think we know why the terrorists attacked when they did and why we haven’t been attacked since 9/11. But if water boarding 3 terrorists is the reason we haven’t been attacked in the U.S. since 9/11, we are in trouble. I haven’t heard about any recent high level terrorists we’ve apprehended who we could torture to prevent the next attack.

The Dark Side

Jane Mayer's book "The Dark Side" was more disturbing than Woodward's book. I have to admit I started to read "Hubris" (by David Corn and Michael Isikoff) right after I finished "Cobra II" (by Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor) and had to stop reading because I went into overload. The lies, deceptions and mismanagement were just too much. I was getting sick. So I waited a few month's before tackling Jane Mayer's book. Even with the pause to calm my anger, several times while reading this book I had to pause again for fear I would soon jump up and start screaming. At other points I just became very sad for the things that were done in our name.

Much of the story about torture and the attack on civil liberties had already been documented in the press., but I was struck by several points.

It is clear that the emotion driving the White House after 9/11 was not fear, but panic. The basic policy mandate was not analyze, but act. The extent to which panic overrode everything, even the Constitution, was amazing.

I was also struck by their total disregard for civil liberties, international law, the Constitution of the United States and in many cases, common decency, fairness and common sense. The guidance from the top, particularly the Vice-President, was that we are in a war for our existence and we should do anything and everything to counter this threat. One can understand this rational on 9/11, but that mind set prevailed for several years.

People who were identified as "bad" were no longer human. They no longer had any rights including the right to know what they were accused of or defend their innocence. While there were terrorists in the group of people that were tortured, there were also many innocent people who were tortured for extended periods. The fact that they were innocent didn't really seem to matter. It also sounds like there are still people, dead and possibly alive, that we do not know about. I think the torture program was much broader than I thought and there may still be people imprisoned, tortured and killed that we will never know about.

I was amazed at the lengths people would go to sanction and defend these terrible torture policies.

I was also amazed with how many people had no moral compass or whose compass always pointed up. When legal opinions were needed to justify torture, the question was not what does the law tell us, but how do we twist the law to justify what the people we report to want us to do. The extent of this legal and moral plasticity was at times breathtaking.

I was somewhat surprised, and a little ashamed at my surprise, at how many good people stood up to authority, resisted pressure and took personal risks to do what they thought was right. Much went wrong in the last few years, but even when this administration went to great lengths to surround itself with right thinking, compliant, sycophants, it managed to let in some people who were willing to take risks to do the right thing. There are heroes in this book.

I think it is important that people read Jane Mayer's book. The use of torture was more widespread than I had appreciated. But even more importantly, I came away with the strong feeling that freedom is tenuous and the threat is more internal than external. I can't seem to find the right words to explain how this book has affected me, but it did. Of all the terrible things that happened on 9/11 and since then, I wonder if the Bush descent to the "Dark Side" is the worst.

If you read this book, hang in there and read the entire book. It has a lot of details that get wrapped up into a hell by the end.

The War Within

I recently finished two books, Bob Woodward's "The War Within" and Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side"

Woodward's book was interesting, but most of it was confirmation of information that I already knew. What was particularly interesting was the description of the organizational dysfunction that existed in the White House. I know that this is not unique to the Bush White House. I suppose that when you have that many smart, powerful, egotistical people in close proximity, squabbles and fights are to be expected. I did wonder how useful work or sound policy making was ever accomplished. I also wondered if a less ideological group could have worked together more effectively.

I was taken by President Bush's seeming serenity and resolution in the face of such obvious failures. Obvious even to him, although there were incidents that seemed to indicate he never knew or, at least would never admit to himself, the full extent of the problems. I still think his psychological defense is to refuse to acknowledge failures and "Stay the Course." I don't believe that the Surge was so much a new strategic direction as much as it was the only option available that let him continue on the same path and not have to challenge his basic beliefs or admit fundamental errors.

I'll discuss Jane Mayer's book in a later post.

Acknowledge Sucess and Failures

Opponents of the war in Iraq have a problem. Republicans are making the point that the surge has worked and opponents are intellectually dishonest if they don't accept that fact.

They have a point. For several reasons, one of which is the surge (which I did not support), the situation in Iraq is much better today than it was a year and a half ago. There is certainly more hope that we can leave an Iraq that will become a nation that will not be a source of violence and instability in the world.

The problem, of course, is such an admission would be seen as an endorsement of the war and the policies of the Bush Administration. Even though the surge didn't meet many of its own goals and it is generally agreed the war was a mistake and the Administration bungled badly many major issues during the first 3 or 4 years, any concession of success now would be used by proponents of the war as proof that the opponents were wrong. Wrong about opposing the surge. Wrong about opposing Administration policies and tactics. Wrong about questioning the rationals for going to war. Of course, all such assertions would wrong.

While the adage "Hindsight is 20/20" may seem to be irrefutable, it is merely a statement that it is easier to link a known result to prior actions than to predict which actions will achieve a particular result. Even when we have a result, it may not be possible to tell which actions were instrumental in achieving the result. And such analysis often cannot rule out that other actions might have produced even more favorable results.

That is a complicated way of saying, yes, our situation in Iraq is better today than it was a year and half ago and the surge was one of the actions that got us to this point. It was not the only action. It may or may not have been the most significant action. Finally, there may have been other actions that were not taken that would have put us in an even better position.

Even if you agree that we are in a better position today, it will be a long time before we have the perspective to say whether, given the costs in lives, injuries, dollars, etc., the surge was worth those costs.

Senator McCain says that if Senator Obama's plan from several month's ago had been followed we would now be facing defeat in Iraq. I'm sure he believes that, but he has absolutely no way to prove that or even make a convincing argument. A speedy withdrawal as Senator Obama proposed may have forced the Iraqi's to step up more quickly. It might have eventually resulted in situation similar to today, though possibly more costly for Iraq, but less costly for the United States. Remember, at the time there were reports that the threat of a speedy withdrawal seemed to force the Iraqi government to start planning for an Iraq after a U.S. withdrawal.

Books have and will be written about Iraq successes, failures and missed opportunities, but that doesn't help Democrats acknowledge some obvious success without conceding defeat.

I think Democrats should acknowledge the success of the surge when Republics acknowledge that we should never have invaded Iraq, but that is not going to happen. The next best plan is to closely link an acknowledgment of success to an abbreviated list of the failures and a transition to a defined exit strategy.

Something like, Given that we were misled into a war that was unnecessary and badly managed for four years, the surge has had more success than events up to that time would have predicted. The United States military has once again performed their duties magnificently and rescued this country and this Administration from a precarious situation. Now that the violence in Iraq is down from the high levels at the start of the surge, that the Iraqi's are moving closer to a position where they can govern and defend themselves and that Iraq has expressed a desire for us to withdraw our troops by 2010, it is now time for us to develop a plan and set a timetable to leave Iraq and finally concentrate on the real war on terrorism.

Who Has The Best Record?

President Bush and the Republics, over many years, repeatedly claimed that their policies have kept us safe since 9/11. A gutsy claim since a single attack on the U.S. would have opened their domestic antiterrorism policies to even more questions.

Over and over they've told us we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. Another gutsy move since an attack here would raise questions about how terrorists we are defeating in Iraq managed to get to the U.S..

While their Iraq logic is also less than flimsy, they are correct. Thankfully, we have not been attacked in the United States since 9/11. By my calculations, that is about seven years and five months.

Mitt Romney dropped out of the Republic presidential race because he loves his country so much, he would rather not be president than see this country fall into the inept hands of Democrats and then, eventually, inevitably, to defeat at the hands of terrorists. (Is this not an echo of McCain's I'd rather lose the presidency than lose a war?)

I understand that logic and truth are not bullet points in the Republic platform. Heck, they are never even on their New Year's resolution lists. The lists that are forgotten by January 2nd. I am continually astounded that there aren't some voices in the party who can stand up for reason and logic. There are flakes at both ends of the political spectrum, but Republics like to elect and follow them. If the Democrats are the big tent party, the Republics are the closed room, closed minds party. And yes, sometimes the Democrats' big tent seems like a circus tent, but I'll take a big top with three rings over an ideological dungeon of fear.

But, as usual, I digress. I believe the first attack in the U.S. by Islamic extremists was the first attack on the World Trade Center in February 26, 1993. We didn't have another attack in the U.S. during the remainder of Bill Clinton's term which ended in January, 2001. That was a period of about eight years. Do Republics ever give Bill Clinton credit for having kept us safe for eight years? We weren't attacked again until he left office and George Bush and the Republics were in charge.

This year Republics will once again run a campaign of fear and once again claim that only they can keep us safe. Democrats need to remind the country that after seven years, yes, thankfully, the country has not been attacked again, but Osama bin Laden has not been captured or killed, the justified war in Afghanistan has not resulted in a secure country, Pakistan is even more insecure, Iran has been enabled and emboldened and Iraq is an unnecessary mess that has cost thousands of U.S. lives and casualties, billions of dollars, degraded our military options and cost us diplomatically.

Terrorism is a serious threat that cannot be ignored, but statements that only Republics know how to keep us safe are inane.

A Simple Question For The Vice President

In my previous post I complained that the Vice President was trying to confuse people by equating the war in Iraq with the war on terror and al Qaeda. I also said that this confusion made the war on terror more complicated. I should have added that even worse, his repeated connection of Iraq and al Qaeda trivializes the war on terror by implying that it will be won or lost depending on the outcome of the war in Iraq. With that in mind, I'd like to ask the Vice President another question.

If every member of al Qaeda now in Iraq were killed tomorrow, would we be able to declare victory in Iraq and start bringing home all the troops the next day?


Technorati Tags: Political Iraq Cheney al Qaeda War On Terror

John Boehner - Shut UP

John Boehner, Republican from Ohio and House Majority Leader, was on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday. He stated that al-Qaeda is wreaking havoc in Iraq. He repeated the line often used by Republicans that we have to defeat the terrorists in Iraq or "we'll be fighting them on every street in America."

What would you do if you were a leader of this country and believed that a military loss in Iraq meant we would be fighting terrorists on EVERY street in America? Well, in World War II, when that might have been a possibilty, we geared up a massive response. Every fiber of the country was committed to making sure the enemy never got that close.

If I thought a loss in Iraq meant fighting terrorists on my street, I would reinstate the draft. I would gladly go. I'm 50+, but I can shoot a rifle, or drive a truck or cook and deliver meals. I would expect Homeland Security to be organizing local self-defense units. I would expect my taxes to go up to help pay for whatever resources are needed. I would send an Army of 500,000 to Iraq. Seal the borders and then scour the country.

What kind of sacrifices has John Boehner, the President, the Vice-President and most Republicans asked of the American people? Reinstate the draft? No. Raise taxes? No. Significantly enlarge the armed forces? No. Send more troops to Iraq? Not really. The only sacrifices Republicans have asked from Americans to help win the war in Iraq is to live in a state of fear and give Republicans more power. The main thing they want from you is your vote.

John Boehner's actions do not show that he is really worried about fighting terrorists on every street. He is just trying to scare you into voting for Republicans. To my fellow citizens in Ohio, please vote the jackass out of office!

I've heard many times that Democrats think Repbulicans are stupid. I don't think all Republicans are stupid. But I saw Richard Nixon elected twice. When he was elected the second time it was clear that he was a very bad President to anyone who was paying attention to the news. I saw George W. Bush elected twice. Similarly, it was obvious by 2004, that George Bush was not up to the job of President of the United States. If voters do not throw Republicans out of office in droves next week, I and many Democrats, will once again have reason to wonder what kind of logic Republicans use when they enter the voting booth.

Are you really willing to retain politicians who support an ill conceived and an utterly failed policy in Iraq for a promise of a ban on gay marriage?

Technorati Tags: Political John Boehner Iraq War on Terror

John Boehner - WTHWYT

According to House Majority Leader John Boehner,

"I listen to the questions today and I listen to my Democrat friends, and I wonder if they are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people."

I read your statement and wonder if you are more interested in the welfare of this country or saving your political ass!

And you are a liar. Democrats aren't your friends. A friend wouldn't make such a heinous statement.

Technorati Tags: Political John Boehner Iraq War on Terror WTHWYT