No legacy is so rich as honesty - William Shakespeare

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Para, in the comments to the post below:

I have mentioned several times that I was cadre at the S.E.R.E. school referenced in the article. Our training for the students included all but the waterboarding,( they never did that while I was there).

The training did include some other methods to “prepare” the potential POW’s for what they might face if captured including mock executions, and requiring them to work in the garden, raising thier own food, serving them fish heads which they cooked into soup to eat.

We also kept bags over thier heads most of the time.

Of course these were all done under very controlled conditions. But never did I feel like I was torturing our students. By today’s definition, I guess I’m a criminal.

This is the kind of ridiculous emotional non sequitur argument that you usually hear from liberals.  Lately you hear it from conservatives who are desperate to defend the Bush administration against any and all criticism.

Para, a question.  You state, correctly, that SERE is a school where cadets are put through a rigorous mock torture program to prepare them for what would happen to them if they were shot down over enemy territory or otherwise captured by foreign forces.  Exactly what nations did you have in mind when you were simulating torture?  Were you preparing them for what might happen if they were shot down over Canada?  England?  Australia?  Continental Europe?  New Zealand? 

Call me crazy, but I doubt you were preparing US soldiers for the treatment they’d receive if they were to fall into the hands of the forces of one of these countries.  I’ve never gone through SERE, but my guess is you were telling the recruits that this is what they would expect if they fell into the hands of the Chinese or Russians or Libyans or Iraqis or Sudanese or Syrians or North Koreans, right?  And why was that?

Simple.  The civilized nations of the world, previously mentioned, don’t torture people.  In 1949 a whole set of rules and treaties was written up by the civilized nations of the world, who ratified it and agreed to be beholden to them.  These treaties concerned all sorts of matters, such as the treatment of POWS, general human rights, the treatment of prisoners, the prohibition of torture, and all sorts of related activities.  You didn’t train recruits to resist the torture they would receive at the hands of the English because the English would never do such a thing.

The uncivilized nations of the world torture people.  They engage in SERE-level activities all the way up to medieval-era activities like branding.  These activities engaged in by the uncivilized nations of the world have been expressly prohibited by the civilized nations of the world for six decades.  Somehow we managed to fight every war since then while following these rules.  Sure there have been examples where they were not followed, but this is par for any human undertaking.  Generally speaking, though, every president since Truman has followed these laws and rules.  We even managed to win the Cold War.

Then along comes Bush.  Now we can add the United States to the list of countries who practice SERE-level torture techniques on their prisoners, along with the Chinese, Libyans, Sudanese, North Koreans, and Syrians and Iranians.  Yes, these other nations do much worse as well, but that’s not the point.  The point is that, because of the Bush administration, we have weakened ourselves.  We have weakened our honor and integrity as a nation.  We have decreased our civility because of these activities, taking one baby step closer to the type of totalitarian regime we’re fighting against. 

Now, perhaps you don’t mind that the US is on this list.  But it sure as shit bothers me greatly.

As far as your comparison between SERE training and SERE-type torture of detainees, that’s one of the most asinine things you’ve ever said.  Every person who goes through SERE school is a volunteer.  The list of acceptable activities is stringently detailed.  The cadets are undertaking this activity because, in some small way, they need to experience what torture is like in case they someday find themselves being tortured.  In other words, the torture is administered TO SAVE THE CADET’S LIFE in the event that he falls captive to a brutal, uncivilized regime. 

If we follow your logic, the doctor who administered my smallpox vaccine is no different than the terrorist who releases smallpox into the NY subway system.  After all, both were responsible for unleashing a deadly biological agent, right?

We never, ever harmed our students, but through these techniques, many of them eventually talked to the interrogators. It often worked.

Para, there has never been any doubt whatsoever that the recruits would talk.  If you want to get someone to talk, torture will cause gums to flap.  The question is (a) whether this is accurate information, (b) whether this is actionable information, or (c) whether the poor bastard is just saying whatever the hell you want him to say so the torture will stop.

Perhaps the thinking that is if we do this to our own troops with no negative effect on them, but positive results from the techniques, maybe this kind of thing would work on terrorists.

Once again I will issue my standard challenge, one which so far you have refused to accept.  I have posted numerous articles, interviews with professional interrogators, scholarly studies, and the like, all of which confirm that torture, even SERE-level stuff, is less likely to produce good, actionable intelligence than torture will.  The challenge, which you will no doubt be unable to meet, is to find a comparable article or study which states that torture is a superior interrogation method.

Interrogation without torture:  Superior intelligence product.
Interrogation with torture:  Inferior intelligence product, but patriotic Amurkans get to know that A-rab terrists is screaming in pain fer what they done did.

I agree that torture doesn’t work and is immoral, but I guess I have a different definition of the word torture.

Try this on for size.  Or ask Petraeus.

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk”; however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.