Read this article if you don't do anything else today.

[driver]

<p>It’s long, but encyclopedically fascinating and important. The author is one of the best. I’m tired of not being able to find an informed CC discussion of this subject. Mathmom posted it in another thread.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200310/bowden[/url]”>http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200310/bowden&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[berurah]

<p>I haven’t done <em>anything</em> else today ('cept go to the dentist… :eek:), so I read this article. I found it quite interesting. </p>

<p>I’m not in the mood for a bloodbath right now, so I won’t go into detail concerning my personal opinion about the use of coercion and torture, but I was pretty incredulous at the part where Alistair Hodgett and Alexandra Arriaga of Amnesty International condemned the <em>THREAT OF TORTURE</em> in the kidnapping case of little 11-year-old Jakob von Metzler. The little guy had had his nose and mouth duct taped and had then been wrapped in plastic sheeting and hidden in a wooded area. The kidnapper was captured but refused to tell where the little boy was. The location of his body was eventually disclosed when the kidnapper was THREATENED with torture, not TORTURED, but THREATENED with torture. Anyone who would condemn the act of threatening that monster with torture is just plain DEMENTED. :mad:</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>Excellent article. The writing is outstanding. I’m only halfway through and need to stop to do some work, but, will read the rest later.</p>

[driver]

<p>Mark Bowden is the author of “Blackhawk Down” and “Killing Pablo” [Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord]–he has the access to special operations personnel that Sy Hersh pretends to have, and would die for. It’s a very intelligent non-judgemental article.</p>

[berurah]

<p>

@driver

It’s a very intelligent non-judgemental article.

It truly is.</p>

[kluge]

<p>It is an excellent article - to the point where I suspect that everyone will find something in it to reaffirm their pre-existing opinions. For me, I found the following to be noteworthy:

Weeks after the sheikh’s capture Bush Administration officials and intelligence experts told The Washington Post that the al-Qaeda deputy’s “cooperation under interrogation” had given them hopes of arresting or killing the rest of the organization’s top leadership.</p>

<p>How much of this can be believed? Are such reports wishful thinking, or deliberate misinformation? There is no doubt that intelligence agencies have scored big victories over al-Qaeda in the past two years, but there is no way to corroborate these stories. … It would make sense to claim that top al-Qaeda leaders had caved under questioning even if they had not. Hard men like Abu Zubaydah, bin al-Shibh, and Sheikh Mohammed are widely admired in parts of the world. Word that they had been broken would demoralize their followers, and would encourage lower-ranking members of their organization to talk; if their leaders had given in, why should they hold out?

and

Even if severe pain does elicit information, it can be false, which is particularly troublesome to interrogators seeking intelligence rather than a confession. Much useful information is time-sensitive, and running down false leads or arresting innocents wastes time.

and, perhaps most telling of all:

In 1987 a commission led by the retired Israeli Supreme Court justice Moshe Landau wrote a series of recommendations for Michael Koubi and his agents, allowing them to use “moderate physical pressure” and “nonviolent psychological pressure” in interrogating prisoners who had information that could prevent impending terror attacks. The commission sought to allow such coercion only in "ticking-bomb scenarios"—that is, in cases like the kidnapping of Jakob von Metzler, when the information withheld by the suspect could save lives.</p>

<p>Twelve years later the Israeli Supreme Court effectively revoked this permission, banning the use of any and all forms of torture. In the years following the Landau Commission recommendations, the use of coercive methods had become widespread in the Occupied Territories. It was estimated that more than two thirds of the Palestinians taken into custody were subjected to them.
…
In the abstract it was easy to imagine a ticking-bomb situation, and a suspect who clearly warranted rough treatment. But in real life where was the line to be drawn? Should coercive methods be applied only to someone who knows of an immediately pending attack? What about one who might know of attacks planned for months or years in the future?</p>

<p>“Assuming you get useful information from torture, then why not always use torture?” asks Jessica Montell, the executive director of B’Tselem, a human-rights advocacy group in Jerusalem. “Why stop at the bomb that’s already been planted and at people who know where the explosives are? Why not people who are building the explosives, or people who are donating money, or transferring the funds for the explosives? Why stop at the victim himself? Why not torture the victims’ families, their relatives, their neighbors? If the end justifies the means, then where would you draw the line?”

I’m sure others found nuggets which resonated with their predispositions as well.</p>

[driver]

<p>The point of this comprehensive article is to not be predisposed, and to not focus on nuggetry. It’s way too long and thorough to be reduced to a few gray boxes, which is why I didn’t.</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>I’m sure you could be forced to grey box your favorite parts though, Driver, and it’s doubtful that they would intersect with Kluge’s.</p>

[driver]

<p>Does that mean you’ve read it, AM?</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>My menopausal brain can’t handle “encyclopedic” at 4:30 p.m. Even Kluge’s grey boxes were too long.</p>

<p>I’ll read it in the a.m., if you seriously think there is something there for me.</p>

[driver]

<p>In all seriousness, it’s profoundly well done, and agnostic. Even I learned something from it.</p>

[kluge]

<p>

The point of this comprehensive article is to not be predisposed, and to not focus on nuggetry. It’s way too long and thorough to be reduced to a few gray boxes, which is why I didn’t.

Actually, you did:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=257448&page=3&message=44[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=257448&page=3&message=44&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>But I agree that the entire article is worth reading and mulling over. I think that in the final analysis your position on this issue comes down to your basic values, priorities, and view of the world.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>I don’t understand why you started another thread on the same topic?
It really wasn’t * that *long</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=257448[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=257448&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So just so I can’t be accused of shutting down another thread- heres my post

<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110101644.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110101644.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>how much sympathy will victims of “clean” torture get from the public?</p>

<p>How long will it take before these techniques are used on US soil?
<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2152268/[/url]”>http://www.slate.com/id/2152268/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Quote:
It is only a matter of time before new rot sets into the U.S. military, thanks to the new MCA. This is inevitable when you codify a two-track interrogation system. In the 1970s, the Brazilian military had a similar two-track system, and the state had to eliminate its torturers in order to preserve itself. As Brazilian journalist Elio Gaspari observed at the time: “Unless everyone in the army participates in torture, you very quickly develop two kinds of soldiers.” He called them “the combatants,” who fight the terrorists with torture, and the “bureaucrats,” who are committed to preserving the military’s everyday functioning and discipline. In Brazil, the day came when the combatant-torturers refused to accept the orders of the bureaucrats and regarded with contempt their peers who were committed to army discipline. The generals eventually concluded that “[t]he torturers were going to have to be isolated, marginalized and eliminated, so as to save the Army.”</p>

<p>And this corruption will not be limited to the military. Two-track interrogation systems have similar corrupting influences in domestic policing, particularly as former interrogators and MPs seek jobs as police officers after being decommissioned. The military tortures in the Franco-Algerian War soon seeped into French policing in the 1960s. And in the United States, this kind of slippage has happened twice: initially, as the water tortures of the Spanish-American War began appearing in police stations in the 1920s, and again as electrical techniques used during the Vietnam War appeared in Chicago policing in the 1970s. These torturers-turned-policemen-turned-torturers were especially attracted to techniques that were clean, and there is every reason to believe that the clean techniques now approved in the Iraq war will, sooner or later, appear in a neighborhood near you.</p>

<p>Is this what we want?</p>

<p>Quote:
The Mayor of Cincinnati proposes to arm police with tasers and stun guns. He believes if police had such weapons, they would have detained Nathaniel Jones without causing his death. Instead, TV audiences across the country saw police clubbing Jones on the squad car video camera.</p>

<p>But before Cincinnati turns to stun guns and tasers, we should ask in whose interest it would be to have violence that cannot be easily seen or documented, no matter how nonlethal it is.
We may be outraged by violence we can see, but how likely is it that we will get outraged about violence that may or may not leave traces, violence that we can hardly be sure took place at all? A victim with scars to show to the media will get sympathy or at least attention, but victims without scars do not have much to authorize their complaints to a skeptical public. A trial can focus on the specific damages of a beating - where did the blows allegedly fall? Were the strikes professional, necessary or neither? - but what precisely can a trial focus on with electric shocks that leave few marks?</p>

<p>Let me remind you of a different event.</p>

<p>On March 3, 1991, police pulled over Rodney King and two other passengers in Los Angeles. Most Americans saw how that incident ended.</p>

<p>LAPD officers beat King senseless with metal batons. Many will remember that police fractured King’s face and legs. But how many remember how many times police fired electric stun weapons at King during the incident? And how many can say how much shock passed through King’s body as he lay on the ground?</p>

<p>From the start, the King incident was about the sudden remarkable visibility of police violence captured, by happenstance, on amateur video. The Christopher Commission observed that without the video, it is doubtful there would have been an investigation.
…</p>

<p>What would the police camera have shown if the police had used stun weapons on Nathaniel Jones instead of clubs? Nothing, perhaps; out of sight is out of mind. Niccolo Machiavelli once advised princes to use stealthy violence because people will get less alarmed. He said, “in general, men judge more by sight than by touch. Everyone sees what is happening but not everyone feels its consequences.” Before American citizens let princes decide for them, they better think about the consequences of using violence they can’t see.
<a href=“http://www.collegenews.org/x3015.xml[/url]”>http://www.collegenews.org/x3015.xml&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/5207.htmlThe”>http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/5207.htmlThe&lt;/a&gt; Question of Torture
Mark Bowden, Mark Danner, Darius Rejali, Elaine Scarry, Aryeh Neier, Joel H. Rosenthal-panel discussion</p>

[driver]

<p>Oh, you! Will you stop googling me, Kluge, you little stalker. I gray boxed a couple of paragraphs in that thread to point out to Mathmom that the article–which she had posted (good for her for finding it, btw)–didn’t support her POV.</p>

<p>But in all seriousness, I’m glad that you appreciate the article for what it is. Everyone should read it. It is <em>not</em> an opinion piece.</p>

[rorosen]

<p>perhaps driver if you would simply get into your heels and leather skirt and crack that whip, there might be a greater number willing to consent to the concept of torture,…</p>

[dmd77]

<p>This article was published in the fall of 2003, three years ago. Much of what’s discussed in the article is only now being discussed openly. I take note in rereading it (I’ve been an Atlantic subscribed since 1977) that the speculation–that in fact even torture is not garnering much useful information–has turned out to be correct.</p>

<p>"Bill Cowan, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, says, “I don’t see the proof in the pudding. If you had a top leader like Mohammed talking, someone who could presumably lay out the whole organization for you, I think we’d be seeing sweeping arrests in several different countries at the same time. Instead what we see is an arrest here, then a few months later an arrest there.” "</p>

[berurah]

<p>

@rorosen

perhaps driver if you would simply get into your heels and leather skirt and crack that whip, there might be a greater number willing to consent to the concept of torture,…

Awwwwww, but rorosen, that’s the beauty of the “anonymous internet.” None of us knows what driver does with her…ummmm…personal time, but obviously YOU have been letting your imagination run a bit wild! :o</p>

[driver]

<p>context, dmd, context. That’s why this article really isn’t good grist for gray-boxing

[quote]
To some, all this jailhouse cooperation smells concocted. “I doubt we’re getting very much out of them, despite what you read in the press,” says a former CIA agent with experience in South America. “Everybody in the world knows that if you are arrested by the United States, nothing bad will happen to you.”</p>

<p>Bill Cowan, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, says, “I don’t see the proof in the pudding. If you had a top leader like Mohammed talking, someone who could presumably lay out the whole organization for you, I think we’d be seeing sweeping arrests in several different countries at the same time. Instead what we see is an arrest here, then a few months later an arrest there.”</p>

<p>These complaints are all from people who have no qualms about using torture to get information from men like Sheikh Mohammed. Their concern is that merely using coercion amounts to handling terrorists with kid gloves. But the busts of al-Qaeda cells worldwide, and the continuing roundup of al-Qaeda leaders, suggest that some of those in custody are being made to talk. This worries people who campaign against all forms of torture. They believe that the rules are being ignored. Responding to rumors of mistreatment at Bagram and Guant</p>

[rorosen]

<p>er, I didn’t say nuthin,…although republican woman do seem to hold men in greater esteem than their counterparts.</p>

<p>not to generalize,…</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>Oh, that could open up an entirely new thrust to this conversation.</p>