Judging by the recent comments of Senator and fine upstanding American patriot Kit Bond I now declare that the debate about waterboarding and torture has gotten officially Ridiculous. There's nothing the Beltway and the media do better than conducting loud, asinine, and irrelevant Red Herring moral debates. "Oh, the morality! Is it right? Is it wrong? What if it can save millions of lives?" Let's leave morality off the table for a minute. Let's pretend that torture is entirely moral, endorsed by a committee of the Pope,** Walter Cronkite, and Miss America. OK? Once you've immersed yourself in the scenario, answer one very simple yet completely overlooked question for me:
Does torture work?
Better yet, has anyone bothered asking? It's classic American Media c.2007 horseshit – throw the mouthbreathers a shiny colored ball in the form of an overwrought moral dilemma (ooh, look at the debate! look at the screaming pundits! this sure is contentious!) while completely ignoring the fact that torture doesn't actually work. It's all hand-wringing, moral puffery, and feigned pensiveness. Is it asking too much to have one Pundit Debate begin with "Well, is this actually accomplishing anything beyond making us look like neanderthals?" Because it would be swell to think that something so horrible is at least, you know, working.
In typical Beltway Bobblehead fashion the debate proceeds from the assumption that the farthest-right position is a obviously correct (and all the "realistic" "liberals" like David Brooks agree, noting that only the Lunatic Fringe Left disagrees). I dare – beg, actually – anyone to cite a single documented instance of a life being saved thanks to torture. No, Our Leader's utterly non-sequitur, no-supporting-evidence-provided statements that waterboarding "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks" do not constitute a documented instance. I guess we'll just take your word for it, George!
I further beg someone to support an argument that torture increases the value or amount of human intelligence obtained. The Army's own findings indicate that they obtained almost half again as much information by switching from "coercive" to "rapport-based" techniques. To quote Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn, may his coke-addled soul rest in peace) in Reservoir Dogs, "Listen, if you beat this prick long enough he'll tell he started the goddamn Chicago Fire. Now that don't neccessarily make it fucking so! Come on!"
Physical torture is an excellent way to get people to make some shit up so you will stop torturing them. It is not an excellent way of getting valid, actionable intelligence. It's only an effective technique in the minds of lard-assed suburban white guys glued to the couch while Jack Bauer fantasies of "ticking time bomb" scenarios do for them what Cialis can't.
**Fun morality fact: 74% of Catholics support the use of torture compared to only 45% of godless heathen atheists. Man, I wonder why so many people no longer see traditional religious values as relevant?
politico says:
Amen to that!
peggy says:
I'm not sure why anyone's surprised that the organized religion that brought you the Inquisition has followers that are more likely to support torture. Ahahhaha.
NOBODY EXPECTS… WATERBOARDING!!!
Christina says:
If we RCC folks have to put up with the misery visited upon us by our religion, why shouldn't other people have misery visited upon them as well? What makes them so special?
Wonder why I'm a 'lapsed' Catholic?
I'm not sure 100% that it's the Catholic that causes that, though. The RCC is a conservative church. Anyone who once was liberal or even moderate has long since left that church and become atheist or Wiccan or Unitarian. So the ones left who still identify as Catholic are going to be the right-wing authoritarian followers.
Keith Olbermann had someone on last night (former CIA) who said this very thing about waterboarding and torture in general. Something like, "Completely setting aside the moral issues, torture doesn't work."
J. Dryden says:
Shaw's St. Joan said it best (well, second-best–gotta love Nice Guy Eddie): "If you hurt me I will say anything you like to stop the pain. But I will take it all back afterwards; so what is the use of it?" Besides which, am I the only one who recognizes the fact that the people being tortured in this particular situation are individuals who have, generally speaking, given themselves so completely over to their faith that they probably welcome torture as a means of proving it to The Big Guy, racking up points towards salvation?
Christina says:
Oh, and Naomi Wolff made the point that torture isn't about getting information anyway. It's about cowing the population and making sure the people are too scared to protest.