Ace - good post. I don't understand why it is that people always insist on saying "never" - that one word is almost always going to debunk whatever it is you're saying. I more or less stop listening when I hear that word. As far as torture goes: what a touchy subject. Given the situation we're in (who we're fighting and how, etc) I can justify in my mind the use of torture. I know I wouldn't have any qualms about torturing someone if they were witholding information that could be used to save the lives of my family/friends. As far as the statement, "That reduces us to their level" - bullsh*t. That's just a re-packaged version of the old liberal canard that we should always fight with both hands tied behind our backs and blindfolded. If these @ssholes want to pick a fight with us, they should know we are 110% committed to winning. Anything less than that is a chink in our armor, and is a weakness to be exploited.

Fooey.

You definitely win the "Best Use of The Word Latitudinarian" in his year's weblog awards.

I largely agree with you. I think your point about them becoming monsters of their own will has a great deal of merit.

If torture is called for, and in this situation clearly it is, I've never understood why we didn't use water torture: stick Ali's head in a dirty toilet and hold it there awhile, "Rinse and Repeat."

Can anyone venture a guess as to why the Left employs the "coercion never works" argument so adamantly?

Golden Boy,

Because they increasingly resort to canards instead of facts under the assumption that if something is repeated often enough then it will become accepted as truth. This technique has to be used when your position is otherwise rejected by common sense.

Ace,

Your post was right on and I would venture a guess its how most folks feel.

Can anyone venture a guess as to why the Left employs the "coercion never works" argument so adamantly?

Consistent with their "violence never solves anything" and "Amerikkka is always wrong" mantras...

What's that quote about if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, it's a sign of insanity. I think that applies here.

Keep in mind, many of these same folks, I would suggest, have no problem at all with the coercion or torture of Americans.

After all, we are the enemy. We've 'brought it upon ourselves.'

I can only imagine the dreams that men such as John McCain or James Stockdale must suffer. And, anyone who dares to compare what these, and thousands of other Americans have suffered, to that which occurred at Abu Ghraib, needs a reality bitch-slap.

And, remember when "Hanoi Jane" made it acceptable for our guys to be mistreated? How about today's celebrities? Which side do they come down on?

I tell ya, anyone who wants to know what the other guy is capable of, should simply go to google and do a search for American POWs., or Vietnam War.

Of course, shockingly, you will discover, also, many sites, even to this day, that triumph her as 'great American'.

I say...do unto others goes both ways... And, it's the other guy who tends to set the pace.

There's not a mother or father on the planet that wouldn't cut a vicious terrorist to ribbons little by little, if it would save their own child's life.

It goes without saying that a Liberal would do it as well, but they are deluding themselves with this dishonest intellectual stance.

When the rubber hits the road, bad guys have to be compelled to talk.

Frank comments
href="http://www.imao.us/archives/002562.html

As does Michelle
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001168.htm

P.S. Can't insert hyperlinks in comments now.

Saying it doesn't work is bullshit. Here's a movie example, because it's the only real world experience I have.

Pulp Fiction. Vincent and Jules are trying to find Wallace's briefcase. They walk in with their guns. Obviously there is intimidation there. Where is the case?

Now, you can fucking lie about where the case is, but that's pretty idiotic. Vincent is just going to check. When it's not there, he's going to know you're full of shit and ask again.

He will probably shoot your friend on the couch, quote the bible, and then shoot you a few times, just to fuck with your head, and then kill you outright.

But really- Ticking timebomb. "Tell me or I cut off a leg". "It's in the subway at Canal!" Check, it's not. Chop. "Where's the bomb"?

At some point you either get the answer you're looking for, or the guy is dead.

This isn't "Where are the Germans going to attack our lines", where a MASSIVE amount of prep goes into acting on that information. These people can only work in secrecy. So if they lose that, they lose everything. If it's a bum lead, nothing bad happens that wouldn't have happened if we got NO LEAD AT ALL. No troops are out of position, no resources are tied up to speak of.

"Where is Osama?" If he's not there, so what? It's not like he escaped because we weren't watching all the OTHER places we might have been. We don't have, like, one team out there who can only be in one place at one time.

So I say: Torture works. ESPECIALLY in the war on terror.

Simple: Liberalism is a mental disorder, and I am not kidding about this. It is the nature of Liberals to deny reality, especially if it backs up their belief system and makes them feel good. I remember when they had made a fucking disaster out of NYC with decades of catastrophic Liberal policies; they said that "getting tough" wouldn't solve it and fought Rudi Juliani over his agressive policing policies until he defeated them utterly, and was proven right. But that didn't stop the the NYT from its usual Liberal bleating about the Geatapo! Amazing but true! They are deluded, sick and unhappy people who must be defeated and removed from public life if we are to remain free.

Oops - I'd be that "unknown commenter".

Or, as an example, how about like Denzel Washington in Man on Fire? It only took a couple of fingers and some ear and voila! And that guy was one bad actor!

The "harm," I suppose, is that we diminish ourselves by sanctioning such brutal methods.

But this is really not a "fact" that can be proven; this is a gut-level judgment call that each of us have to make. I personally don't feel diminished or barbaric for supporting a bit of, let us say, non-permanent inflicting of pain upon known terrorists who know the names and meeting places of other terrorists. If "waterboarding" can save a few lives, then, as a practical matter, it is all for the utilitarian good.

This is the nub of the argument. Pure torture, in the classic sense of the word, is the infliction of physical and/or psychological discomfort without any limitation. That is, torture is the endpoint of a range of actions against a person starting with a intimidating finger jabbed at the chest or a five minute harangue about the injustices of Amerikkka, which in our case would be designed to extract some critical datum. The argument seems to be that those who engage in actions towards the endpoint become forever like the animals they torture, thus negating any possible gains from an enhanced distress tactic. By this logic, America's use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are clearly endpoints in the use of military force, forever molded America's future force projection strategies and rules of engagement on the battlefield so that maximum force was always used henceforth. Thus, the nuclear devastation wreaked upon North America, Western Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as the United States enshrined first-use into its Cold War deterrence doctrine.

What? That never happened? Judicious application of an endpoint of military force, nuclear weapons, to achieve a particular military goal otherwise unachievable but for much greater cost in munitions and lives didn't persuade the United States that first-use was a viable force option in all political-military confrontations? Well, you learn something new every day.

But my scrawny, freckled ass got kicked every day in middle school by testosterone-primed heteros who could never get into grammar school anyway, so kindly disregard my previous statements; torture is just icky under aaaannnyyyy circumstances.

Nice post, Ace. If I may voice a tiny difference of opinion on word use...

I don't think that the coercive tactics the US employs can even remotely be called 'torture.'

But then, I don't think being licked by kittens can be called an 'attack' when there are pit bulls out there ready to rip my throat out.

Later,
bbeck

Of course, we could just skip torture and go to another great part of the Geneva Convention. The one that states that non-uniformed combatants can be considered spies and summarily executed. I imagine that after a couple of terrorists see their friends immediatly shot after refusing to talk, the other might get the idea that... hmmm... "maybe I'm tough enough to stand torture, and maybe the Americans are too weak to torture me... but I'm not tough enought to stand being dead...." Or if they really want a quick one way trip to see Allah, I say we should be happy enough to oblige. We'll eventuall find some terrorists that want to talk...

And don't think for a minute that if it becomes apparent that these Freedonm Fighters are useless as intelligence sources--for whatever reason--we'll just stop taking prisoners and start shooting these animals right where they stand.

So some good can come from this debate anyway.

Right on, Angus.

And er, the only way to make 100% sure there's NO torture of ANY kind used on prisoners is not to extend quarter. Works for me.

Later,
bbeck

Torture may produce false results, but likely only once per customer. If a terrorist provides false information, his interrogator will find out eventually. Once that happens, the torture begins again. If the terrorist provides false information again, the cycle repeats. Eventually, the terrorist learns, "Tell the truth, end the torture." Most of them will likely learn that very quickly.

One of the reason that so few of these terrorists are not afraid of us is that they know we will not torture them if they are captured. In many cases, their treatment may, in fact, be better than they would have received on their own. Why should they worry about us knowing that we will treat them humanely. They will fight until capture, then go off to "jail." However, if the potential terrorist knows that his life is not worth much to the US, he might think twice before signing up. He may live in poverty, but he isn't being tortured.

I would suspect that many of the anti-torture crowd would applaud if the US foiled another attack similar to 9-11 and could conclusively prove that the attack was stopped through information gleaned by taking a terrorist and stringing up a little electricity to his nether regions. Which is worse? 3000 dead Americans or 1 sterile terrorist?

Steve L. you underestimate the deep seated sickness and insanity of Liberals. Too many of them are totally incapable of rational judgment. When it comes to their deeply held beliefs, nothing short of possible violence to themselves will convince them and even then they'll probably sing Kumbaya until they're hurting, at which point when they finally realize someone means business they'll sing an aria like the Fat Lady sings Mozart! They must be nuetralized from positions of power in this country if we are to survive the 21st century.

I think I'd be remiss if I didn't link to this John Derbyshire article on the subject:

On Torture

I agree with him. It's easy to say that we'll be hurting bad people and it's okay, but as a conservative, I'm more afraid of a government with paid professional torturers than I am of Al Qaeda. If I remember correctly, we went to war with someone who employed torturers and it was universally agreed this made him a bad man. Shouldn't the same standards apply to us?

Torture Produces Lies? Yes, for thousands of years in every courty on earth, humans have tortured each other for information but according to Liberals they've gotten, you guessed it, LIES! You'd think we'd have learned by now that torture produces lies, that Liberals (who are smarter than everyone else) are right, and that the collective experience of humanity over tens of thousands of years is of course, all wrong! And all we had to do to find this out and to save us all the trouble and pain of all the torture ever done was to ask a Liberal!

Virgins, I don't know, I see torture resulting in PLENTY OF LIES from the Left.

Later,
bbeck

Guess we've been to easy on 'em. Perhaps they all need the Rinse and Repeat method I wrote about three times. Nah, just take away their Oprah and Dr. Phil.

I agree. I posted a little chart that liberals ought to look at before categorically brushing aside rough tactics.

Torture or Not to Torture

Tim McNabb

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