There’s been a renewed debate lately over the necessity or efficacy of coercive interrogation. Dick Cheney says these techniques were necessary to obtain information from some high-value terrorists, and–what is more–the information we obtained saved innocent lives. Critics deny his claims.
From what I’ve read, the evidence favors Cheney. However, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Cheney overstated his case.
It’s striking, but not surprising, to see where his critics draw the line. Where they place the burden of proof. According to them, unless you know for sure that these techniques are necessary to obtain such information, and unless you know for sure that this information will save innocent lives, then it is wrong to coercively interrogate a terrorist.
That’s a very revealing position. My question is: when in doubt, why should we be giving the terrorist the benefit of the doubt? Why should we err on the side of the terrorist rather than erring on the side of the American public? Why should the (alleged) right of the terrorist not to be coercively interrogated take precedence over the right of 300 million Americans to be safe and secure?
Counterterrorism will always involves probabilities rather than certainties. A threat assessment based on the best available information at the time.
And in the case of counterintelligence, you start with what you know or think you know, and use that as a platform to try and obtain additional information.
If it’s a choice between putting a terrorist at risk, and putting a nation at risk, the choice is pretty obvious.
Steve -- I don't think it's a choice between putting terrorists at risk vs. putting the nation at risk.
ReplyDeleteOur military, law enforcement and intelligence-gathering capabilities are very fine without the -whatever the percentage of intelligence was gained by using this tactic on the three guys that Cheney said they used it on.
It's more a question of putting the founding principles at risk, by pushing beyond boundaries that the country had adhered to prior to this. For example, they never had this discussion in WWII because nobody ever posited that "waterboarding" was a good way to gain intelligence from Nazis about the next bombing raid over England. (Even though it was a case of "protecting the nation" etc.)
Today, I listened to Rush Limbaugh complaining about this latest judicial appointment. Talking tactically about how the Republicans need to oppose the nomination on principles, etc.
Do you see how the first undermines the second here?
On a broader scale, I can't help but think that Obama's election had a lot of "anti-Bush" in it. Look at what has happened in just four years: Bush was elected with a solid majority and the Republicans had majorities in both houses of Congress. All that has been frittered away in just two congressional elections.
That's not just the popularity of Democratic principles. That's a nation-wide spitting-out of George Bush's policies. If you think that living in a world where there are terrorists is bad, imagine how bad living in a world where governments feel free to inflict torture might be.
Well, John, you're raising a string of stock objections which I've repeatedly addressed at one time or another.
ReplyDeleteTo take one example, I don't think that defending our country against our enemies represents a violation of our "founding principles." To the contrary, I regard that as one of our founding principles. What represents a violation of our founding principles is a refusal to defend our country against our enemies.
ReplyDeleteActually according to some FBI people the waterboarding was not effective. It actually produced worse results. There is a reason why we have tried not to resort to torture in regards to getting good info. Here is a quote about it:
ReplyDelete"WASHINGTON - A former FBI interrogator who questioned al-Qaida prisoners testified Wednesday that the Bush administration falsely boasted of success from extreme techniques like waterboarding, when those methods were slow, unreliable and made an important witness stop talking.
Ali Soufan, testifying to a Senate panel behind a screen to hide his identity, said his team's non-threatening interrogation approach elicited crucial information from al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, including intelligence on "dirty bomb" terrorist Jose Padilla.
Soufan said his team had to step aside when CIA contractors took over. They began using harsh methods that caused Zubaydah to "shut down," Soufan said, and his team had to be recalled the get the prisoner talking again"
Also I heard an interview on NPR (GASP! ;-) )in which some guys that had to perform the torture were really having pschological problems now (I know you can't base arguments on this alone, but it is one thing to think about or consider.)--it dehumanizes the person who is performing the torture.
[Quote] President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.
ReplyDelete“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html
[Quote] Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don't work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense. If coercive interrogation had been administered to obtain confessions, one might understand the argument. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, among others, and who has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl, could eventually have felt pressed to provide a false confession. But confessions aren't the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.
The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.
The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.
Gen. Hayden was director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009. Mr. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993446103128041.html
John Bugay said:
ReplyDelete---
For example, they never had this discussion in WWII because nobody ever posited that "waterboarding" was a good way to gain intelligence from Nazis about the next bombing raid over England.
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Actually, they never had that discussion in WWII because nobody considered the type of "waterboarding" done in Gitmo to be torture. The only waterboarding condemned during WWII was a vastly more brutal form of waterboarding than anything the CIA has ever done (i.e., the Japanese would pump prisoner's stomachs full of water and then kick them in the gut until their organs ruptured--not even in the same planet as Gitmo, which consisted of the same type of waterboarding used on our own special forces when they train for survival after being captured).
Secondly, it's highly doubtful the British ever captured any Nazis who would have had knowledge over the next bombing raid of England. But taking your larger point, it's still true that all the Allies used techniques that certain segments of our population today would call "torture" during war when they had "high value" captures. (However, most captures--just like today--are going to be low level operatives, and it's pointless to interrogate them for information they don't have, which is also why waterboarding was only conducted on three people since 9/11.)
One last point. When 55 million people voted against Obama, it's hardly plausible to say that this election was a referrendum on how our society views Bush. For the past 20 years, America has been almost exactly evenly divided, and the only difference in elections is who does the better "Get Out The Vote" campaign (not counting when libs get election results changed through courts, of course).
Steve -- a line has been crossed [from our side] that is going to make it inconvenient if some day it's decided by those in power that, for example, "Christianity is a danger to the country" -- James White has pointed out instances where speaking as a Christian against homosexuality, for example, is illegal. That doesn't look like a trend that's going to reverse itself any time soon.
ReplyDeletePeter -- if you step back from "waterboarding" to "coercive interrogation" to whatever the technique du jour might become, it is still a matter that the founders of this country prohibited "cruel and unusual punishments" among other things -- and that for known criminals.
We Americans like to think we are "the good guys," -- this is on both sides of the left/right spectrum. I disagree that the election was decided on the "who better got out the votes." The democrats found some principles to run on, not only in the Presidential election, but also in the congressional elections.
Bush was popular with his "tough" response to 9/11, but once people caught on to the idea that his policies involved starting undeclared wars against countries we don't necessarily need to be involved with, that's when the greater "anti-Bush" sentiments started taking hold (and this "waterboarding" thing is just a small but visible portion on which to make a point).
JOHN BUGAY SAID:
ReplyDelete“Steve -- a line has been crossed [from our side] that is going to make it inconvenient if some day it's decided by those in power that, for example, "Christianity is a danger to the country" -- James White has pointed out instances where speaking as a Christian against homosexuality, for example, is illegal. That doesn't look like a trend that's going to reverse itself any time soon.”
You haven’t said what line was crossed.
I’m also less concerned with precedent than doing the right thing at the time. We can deal with various issues as they come up on a case-by-case basis.
“Peter -- if you step back from ‘waterboarding’ to ‘coercive interrogation’ to whatever the technique du jour might become, it is still a matter that the founders of this country prohibited ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ among other things -- and that for known criminals.”
i) You’re jumping categories. This is about counterintelligence, not sentencing for a crime. For that matter, what methods of execution were in vogue at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified? Death by lethal injection–under sedation? I don’t think so.
ii) If your going to bring up the founding fathers, how were captured spies or POWs treated by our side during the Revolutionary War? Were they Mirandized?
iii) Again, if you’re going to bring up historical precedent, what methods of counterespionage did we use to win the Cold War?
“But once people caught on to the idea that his policies involved starting undeclared wars against countries...”
You’re rewriting history. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan initially enjoyed both public support and Congressional support. This was a matter of public debate. There was no hidden agenda.
The public soured on the war effort, not because it was allegedly “undeclared,” but because it went on too long with too little to show for it. That, in addition to hostile coverage from the news media.
“...we don't necessarily need to be involved with.”
Which countries would that be? Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Syria? Iran?
We only waged a public war with Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if you think the former was a make, are you claiming that we should have left Afghanistan alone after it hosted an attack on the mainland?
John said:
ReplyDelete---
Steve -- a line has been crossed [from our side] that is going to make it inconvenient if some day it's decided by those in power that, for example, "Christianity is a danger to the country"
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I don't see how it would be more or less inconvenient for us. If the government decides that Christianity is a danger to the country, the least of our concerns will be whether we get waterboarded.
Besides, this sort of slippery slope argument is disanalogous. It would be like saying, "You can't imprison con artists because someday the government might decide that Christianity is a con."
John said:
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Peter -- if you step back from "waterboarding" to "coercive interrogation" to whatever the technique du jour might become, it is still a matter that the founders of this country prohibited "cruel and unusual punishments" among other things -- and that for known criminals.
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And the fact that you view enemy combatants captured on a battlefield as a judicial matter speaks volumes. The whole concept of "rules of war" is a misnomer in the first place. It only applies to so-called "civilized" countries that engage in warfare with one another. That is, we treated British POWs generally humanely during the Revolution, just as generally they treated Colonial prisoners the same way; but contrast that to the way the Indians were treated in the French and Indian War, as well as those captured by the Indians. This is the historical framework that the Founding Fathers had in mind.
The fact of the matter is that you can only be concerned about the so-called "rights" of an enemy combatant when the enemy combatants are concerned with your rights too. In the case of Indians fighting in the French and Indian War, British soldiers knew that there would be no quarter given to them if they were captured--indeed, they were most often executed on the spot. Likewise, we know that if any of our soldiers are captured by Al Qaeda they will not survive (and if you want to know what real torture is, look at what Al Qaeda did to those prisoners it did take).
In this kind of conflict, the Islamofacists have no moral backing to complain. Beyond that, they are intentionally targeting non-combatants (civilians) and engaging in terrorist activities against the "rules of war" in such thing as the Geneva Convention, etc. The rule of law doesn't work if it's only enforced on one side, anymore than a hockey game would have a genuine score if officials only called penalties against one team.
John said:
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The democrats found some principles to run on
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"Hope" isn't a principle. And if you look at the exit polls, Iraq wasn't a big issue for anyone. It was the economy that was the biggest issue, largely because we won the war in Iraq so it was no longer an issue.
John said:
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but once people caught on to the idea that his policies involved starting undeclared wars
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Undeclared wars that congress approved of...
John said:
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that's when the greater "anti-Bush" sentiments started taking hold (and this "waterboarding" thing is just a small but visible portion on which to make a point).
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Doesn't this mean that you're acknowledging that waterboarding is only used because people are anti-Bush to begin with? In which case, the issue isn't about waterboarding but about the irrational hatred of Bush.
Steve,
ReplyDelete"To take one example, I don't think that defending our country against our enemies represents a violation of our "founding principles." To the contrary, I regard that as one of our founding principles. What represents a violation of our founding principles is a refusal to defend our country against our enemies."
I don't understand that response.
I assume you agree that there are ways to go about defending our country against our enemies that would violate our founding principles. The question is, "What methods do go against our founding principles?"
The only way I can see to interpret your comment is, "Defending our country is a founding principle that overrides the others. If it's for defending our country, then the other founding principles don't apply." But I really doubt that's what you meant.
So I don't know what you did mean.
The question comes down to what Bugay meant. He made some very vague allegations, so I responded at the same level. If and when he wants to get more specific, I can qualify my comments accordingly.
ReplyDeleteSteve -- "You haven’t said what line was crossed."
ReplyDelete"You’re jumping categories. This is about counterintelligence, not sentencing for a crime. For that matter, what methods of execution were in vogue at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified?"
This is one of the problems of looking at a terrorist act and saying, "ok, we're in a state of war." It always has been a very nebulous war. If there were a genuine nation-state with whom we were at war, there would be clear-cut ways to define some of these things.
But I think a real problem occurred when this was classified as a "war on terror," but without defining who the combatants are.
Actually, Bush did make the combatants "any nation that harbored terrorists." This classification for all practical purposes put us in a state of war with, I don't know, how many dozen nation-states? And yet the actual number of those who potentially would harm the US was still in the small handfuls of terrorists.
If classifications are going to get fuzzy, then we do have these individuals in US custody; the category of "counter-intelligence" seems to fit less snugly than the fact that these are individual human beings, as bad as they are, and our whole judicial system was set up to protect the rights of those "in custody," and since we are dealing with "fuzzy lines" again, it should be clear that Bush DID NOT, by law, get these individuals classified into any particular legal category. He just simply said, by executive fiat, "they're enemy combatants," and even the Supreme Court eventually disagreed with this.
Since this post is about "coercive interrogation" techniques, that is one good "line," the line that demarcates "cruel and unusual punishment." So you may find it to be less cruel than some other punishments, and you may find the line to be fuzzy, but once we start crossing it, then there's no reason not to cross it again.
And you said, "I’m also less concerned with precedent than doing the right thing at the time. We can deal with various issues as they come up on a case-by-case basis."
I don't know why you're less concerned with precedent. It already looks like "the deciders" in this "case-by-case basis" are going to be unfriendly to Christians. This is just one small incident, but once there is precedent (and the legal system gives a lot of weight to precedence), then it's much harder to turn back the clock:
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98895
I'm sure you've seen lots of stuff like this.
"You’re rewriting history. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan initially enjoyed both public support and Congressional support."
They enjoyed public support because the President, at a time that seemed like a time of crisis, said, "we have to do this." And he did enjoy a lot of good will. I supported him. But the reason that public support faded, especially surrounding Iraq, is because it occurred to people that we really didn't have to do it. One of the most telling moments of that summer (2003) was when George Bush, in an interview, said, "we found the WMDs; we found the two trailers." Which were nothing of the kind.
The reason I'm bringing this up is for the purpose of locating what went wrong for the Republicans. Again, Republicans suffered an unprecedented number of congressional seats -- this was a very widespread phenomenon.
"We only waged a public war with Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if you think the former was a make, are you claiming that we should have left Afghanistan alone after it hosted an attack on the mainland?"
I did not think the Afghan war was an unjust war. But the decision to divide US forces (into Iraq), diverting resources from Afghanistan, clearly hobbled our ability to see through what we had begun over there.
Peter -- "And the fact that you view enemy combatants captured on a battlefield as a judicial matter speaks volumes."
ReplyDeleteThere were three separate Supreme Court decisions that disagreed with Bush's interpretation of this. As I mentioned above, Bush made these decisions "on the fly," so to speak, and if I recall, some of these court decisions were not even close.
We are not living in the 18th century. I realize that "islamofascists have no moral backing to complain." However, we have established certain ways of treating prisoners of any kind -- a presumption of innocence, trial by jury, freedom from search and seizure, as well as from "cruel and unusual punishment.
I'm certainly not one to say that "America is a righteous nation," but it also speaks volumes that a Christian, Republican president was so quick to move so decisively in what was such a "fuzzy" area.
We can give him good marks for good intentions (wanting to protect Americans from harm), but ultimately, I think he took some bad advice from his closest advisors.
""Hope" isn't a principle."
"Bush's third term" isn't a principle either, but that slogan embodied what Obama was running *against*. And it turned out to have been a successful slogan -- despite all of Obama's weaknesses that were also pointed out during the campaign (and during the primaries as well).
"...irrational hatred of Bush..."
I'm sure there was some of this, but there was also plenty of well-reasoned dislike for Bush. I am one of those people who grew to dislike him, for the very reasons I've been outlining here. I think that Republicans, too, should have a very good reason for disliking him -- he was at the helm, presiding, during one of the fastest "about-faces" that the electorate has ever done, in terms of tossing one party out in favor of another.
John said:
ReplyDelete---
However, we have established certain ways of treating prisoners of any kind -- a presumption of innocence, trial by jury, freedom from search and seizure, as well as from "cruel and unusual punishment.
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The final words of General John Bugay:
Listen up, troops. See those guys shooting at us? Presume they're innocent. And if you capture them, don't you dare search them or seize weapons from them. Wait until we convene a jury and prove they are guilty. And then...hey, Private! Did I tell you to go to sleep? Get up? I said--uh oh... MEDIC! MEDIC! A bullet hit Private Eubanks. I cannot presume where it came from. Perhaps it materialized out of the thin air and shot thr--
General Bugay. He wasn't missed. By either his men, or the sniper.
John Bugay wrote:
ReplyDelete"I'm sure there was some of this [irrational hatred of Bush], but there was also plenty of well-reasoned dislike for Bush. I am one of those people who grew to dislike him, for the very reasons I've been outlining here."
I think highly of you, John, and agree with you about most things. But we have some significant disagreements on political issues, and I think some context ought to be added to your comments above.
Your wife was called into military service under Bush, which you disliked. And you disliked Bush so much that you predicted that he would keep leading the nation into one war after another. You not only predicted that we would go to war with Iran under Bush, but you even suggested that it would happen early in Bush's second term.
Concerning what recent elections supposedly suggest about how people view Bush, Peter is correct in mentioning the prominence of economic issues. And this thread is more about interrogation techniques than Iraq. I doubt that disagreement with Republicans in general, or Bush in particular, about interrogation techniques played much of a role in recent Republican losses. Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise?
JOHN BUGAY SAID:
ReplyDelete“It always has been a very nebulous war. If there were a genuine nation-state with whom we were at war, there would be clear-cut ways to define some of these things.”
We don’t have the luxury of choosing our enemies. They choose us. We must deal with the enemy we have, not the enemy we’d rather to have.
“But I think a real problem occurred when this was classified as a ‘war on terror,’ but without defining who the combatants are.”
Seems to me the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war draw that distinction pretty clearly. The problem is when self-appointed civil libertarians try to redefine who the combatants are.
“Actually, Bush did make the combatants ‘any nation that harbored terrorists.’ This classification for all practical purposes put us in a state of war with, I don't know, how many dozen nation-states?”
i) The capacity of a terrorist network to do harm is vastly magnified by a state that sponsors terrorism. So you can’t arbitrarily isolate one from the other.
ii) You’re also acting as if this is purely a matter of logical consistency. All or nothing. But it isn’t.
It’s also a pragmatic distinction based on the relative threat level posed by this or that regime. They’re not all on a par.
iii) Likewise, our opportunities vary from one situation to the next.
“If classifications are going to get fuzzy, then we do have these individuals in US custody; the category of ‘counter-intelligence’ seems to fit less snugly than the fact that these are individual human beings, as bad as they are, and our whole judicial system was set up to protect the rights of those ‘in custody,’ and since we are dealing with "fuzzy lines" again, it should be clear that Bush DID NOT, by law, get these individuals classified into any particular legal category.”
i) During the Cold War, when we captured a Russian spy, he was taken into custody too. But spies didn’t have the same rights as POWs. Spies were extralegal. And that was the point. Their gov’t could deny complicity.
ii) Our gov’t doesn’t exist to protect the rights of our sworn enemies. It exists to protect the rights of our citizens against our enemies.
“He just simply said, by executive fiat, ‘they're enemy combatants,’ and even the Supreme Court eventually disagreed with this.”
i) First of all, there’s nothing wrong with Executive orders to deal with the immediate challenges which a novel situation like 9/11 poses to the nation.
ii) I also don’t think the judiciary is any more or less responsible than the executive or the legislative branch. The judiciary comes down to the wisdom of 5 votes on SCOTUS. That’s only as good as whoever happens to constitute the 5 votes in any given year.
“Since this post is about ‘coercive interrogation’ techniques, that is one good ‘line,’ the line that demarcates ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ So you may find it to be less cruel than some other punishments, and you may find the line to be fuzzy, but once we start crossing it, then there's no reason not to cross it again.”
The way you approach this issue is irrational. Where interrogation is concerned, the first line of demarcation is to distinguish between effective and ineffective techniques.
After we identify a range of effective techniques, we can then avoid the harsher techniques unless absolutely necessary.
“I don't know why you're less concerned with precedent.”
Because I think actual threats general trump hypothetical threats.
For example, some cancer patients die of complications due to cancer therapy. That’s a calculated risk. It’s possible that the therapy will do long term damage. But if you do nothing, the patient is sure to die.
“It already looks like ‘the deciders’ in this "case-by-case basis" are going to be unfriendly to Christians.”
i) You’re forging an artificial link between two unrelated issues.
ii) Moreover, the courts–precisely because they’re insulated from the democratic process–have done far more to curtail the rights of Christians than the executive or legislative branches.
“This is just one small incident, but once there is precedent (and the legal system gives a lot of weight to precedence), then it's much harder to turn back the clock.”
ReplyDeleteIn principle, it’s quite easy to turn back the clock. In 5/4 decisions, you only have to replace one swing voter on the bench.
“But the reason that public support faded, especially surrounding Iraq, is because it occurred to people that we really didn't have to do it.”
Maybe we didn’t have to do it. Therefore…what?
“The reason I'm bringing this up is for the purpose of locating what went wrong for the Republicans. Again. Again, Republicans suffered an unprecedented number of congressional seats -- this was a very widespread phenomenon.”
That’s in large part because we have a lot of stupid, ignorant voters who are crisis-driven.
“I did not think the Afghan war was an unjust war. But the decision to divide US forces (into Iraq), diverting resources from Afghanistan, clearly hobbled our ability to see through what we had begun over there.”
I’d say the opposite. Bush treated Iraq as too much of a self-contained problem, largely ignoring the contribution of Iran and Syria to instability in Iraq.
“We are not living in the 18th century.”
i) Peter answered you on your own grounds by pointing out the different way in which British POWs and Indian mercenaries were treated. When he answers you on your own grounds, you move the goal post.
ii) And, no, we’re not living in the 18C. We have to adapt to new enemies, to new threats.
“However, we have established certain ways of treating prisoners of any kind.”
Is that how we treated spies we captured during the Cold War?
“A presumption of innocence, trial by jury, freedom from search and seizure…”
What do you think laws are for, John? To protect the guilty from the innocent–or protect the innocent from the guilty?
Terrorists game our system to turn our system against us. If you want bin Laden to play you for the chump, that’s your business. I think your allowing personal issues to skew your judgment on this matter.
“I'm certainly not one to say that ‘America is a righteous nation,’ but it also speaks volumes that a Christian, Republican president was so quick to move so decisively in what was such a ‘fuzzy’ area.”
Bush’s duty was to protect Americans from our enemies. I salute him for taking that duty seriously.
The message you and others are sending is that if a president has to gamble between putting his approval ratings at risk or putting the nation at risk, he should play it safe with his own reputation by risking 300 million Americans. I don’t share your priorities.
One other thing I meant to address earlier is the notion of "cruel and unusual punishment."
ReplyDeleteWaterboarding wasn't punishment--at least, not as the CIA used it. It was never used punitively. It was used as an interrogation technique, not as a judicial punishment.
That's why it was only used on a grand total of three people.
Steve, Jason, Peter -- I have to tell you, I have an extreme amount of respect for the way you guys handle yourselves; your devotion to the Lord, to Scripture and Scriptural principles, to honesty. You guys have knowledge and erudition and thought processes that I can only begin to imagine. Not to mention your passion and energy.
ReplyDeleteJason, it's true that I've disliked Bush for a long time, but my dislike was not caused by my personal issues. Those issues caused me to take a closer look, and I did not like some of the things I was seeing.
As for my "predictions" that he would start multiple wars, I don't think that was a far stretch, if you'd take a look at the commitments he was making in his second inaugural address. If things hadn't gone so badly in Iraq as they did, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch at all. (Near the start of the "war" in Iraq, Rumsfeld was asked, "how long will it last?" It's telling that he said, "could be six days, could be six months." Nobody was even thinking in terms of years. That’s the kind of attitude they had.)
From a personal standpoint, I know I could have handled things a lot better, and I regret some of the things did. But I don't regret having taken the positions I took. Aside from thinking that Bush needed to be opposed on electoral grounds, (because I believed keeping him in power was going to be worse than electing him out -- a prediction that I did seem to get right), I took positions that individuals such as Patrick Buchanan or Robert Novak took. (Scott McConnell, an editor of the "American Conservative Magazine" was one of several other conservatives who endorsed Kerry.)
I'm very happy to say that life has worked out much as I'd hoped it would -- I was able to persuade my wife to ask for a discharge from the military years before her contract was up, and to make enough noise to persuade the military that they should let her go. After that, partly out of a commitment I made to her, and partly because I just wanted to put all of that behind us, I haven't talked about my political thoughts much at all in public.
I brought up Iraq because Steve was talking about the "renewed debate" -- on one issue, but it's all part of some larger developments that we've all seen take place. Economic issues helped to fix the last nails in John McCain's political coffin, but his campaign was in very bad shape before all the bad economic news hit. Economics didn't help, but things were pretty dire already.
Steve said, "Terrorists game our system to turn our system against us."
Bin Laden played Bush for the chump, and Bush went "all in," and then some. As evidence, I just need to point to the quagmire that Iraq almost became, the fall of the Republican party, and the fact that Bin Laden is still out there doing his thing.
Obama is president today because George Bush gave up the moral high ground and decided take Bin Laden's bait. Part of that had to do with starting a war in Iraq that [arguably] didn't need to be started. Part of it had to do with the fact that he didn't do what Obama did, and say, "our enemies may stoop to cowardly tactics, but we never will give up our principles." If that line is echoing around the world with Obama saying it, imagine if George Bush had said it after 9/11.
He gave up the "humble" foreign policy that was promised, and committed the US to costly conflicts without thinking them through. (I don't think it was wrong to invade Afghanistan and go after Bin Laden. But after Tora Bora, why not up the ante, work to secure Afghanistan, put pressure on Pakistan and focus on capturing Bin Laden?)
And I'll be fair. Congress wrote its own ticket, to a large degree. Congressional Republicans also have themselves to blame for the situation they're in. Unfortunately, all of us are now treated to a two trillion dollar deficit, a likely "Justice Sotomayor," and the spectacle of a Rush Limbaugh decrying her nomination, with a voice that has never seemed so lonely and so impotent.
John,
ReplyDeleteHere's the sort of polling data I've seen:
"The economy dominated voters’ concerns at historical levels in the presidential election Tuesday, according to preliminary exit polls conducted by The Associated Press and the major television networks. Fully 62 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue, six times more than cited the war in Iraq (10 percent), health care (9 percent) or terrorism (9 percent). Not since 1980, in the shadow of a gas crisis and stagflation, did the economy dominate voters concerns as it did Tuesday....For Republican John McCain, who maintained his edge in the public’s view as the stronger candidate on national security issues and foreign affairs, the utter dominance of economic issues overwhelmed his campaign." (source)
There was a period, as late as September of last year, when McCain was ahead in the polls. Here's an example. It seems that he lost primarily because of a vague desire for economic change. Issues of national security and foreign affairs were helping McCain, not hurting him.
The Iraq war wasn't much of a factor. I don't remember seeing any polling that would suggest that interrogation techniques were a significant factor either.
You mention Bush's second inaugural address, but I think that much of what we discussed, including your expectation of more wars in a second Bush term, originated prior to the election. One of the reasons why I disagreed with your expectation, aside from what I considered your misjudgment of Bush and his administration, was the lack of support from other sources (Congress, the public, etc.) for such a series of wars. You can't remove such significant contextual factors involved in the Iraq war and expect a series of other wars to occur in such a different context.
Bush was wrong on some points, including in the handling of the Iraq war, but much of the criticism of his administration has been highly unreasonable. Thus, when critics of the Bush administration can be shown to be so wrong (predicting multiple wars that didn't occur), I consider that significant. And you weren't alone. A lot of people were suggesting that there would be such a series of wars, or at least one more. It's an example of how badly many people have been misjudging Bush and his administration for years.
You wrote:
"Bin Laden played Bush for the chump, and Bush went 'all in,' and then some. As evidence, I just need to point to the quagmire that Iraq almost became, the fall of the Republican party, and the fact that Bin Laden is still out there doing his thing."
Bin Laden's "thing" includes hiding after his organization was largely defeated in Afghanistan and watching them lose in Iraq. Multiple administrations, not just Bush's, have failed to capture or kill bin Laden. I don't think that capturing or killing him is as easy as some people suggest. And what Iraq supposedly "almost became" is outweighed by what it is. The Republican party has declined, but remains a major party that has a good chance of regaining some of what it lost in the near future. As the sources I've cited above indicate, the recent Republican losses haven't had much to do with your reasons for criticizing Bush and the Republicans.
Jason said:
ReplyDelete---
Multiple administrations, not just Bush's, have failed to capture or kill bin Laden.
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I find some circumstantial evidence that under Bush Bin Laden probably was killed. Obviously, without a body we don't know for certain. But if he is not dead, then I think he must be horrible disfigured because otherwise there's no reason Al Qaeda would not be posting up-to-date pictures of him all over the place just to stick it in the eye of Bush.
While we get a few tapes released, and we're told they're "genuine," with today's technology that doesn't mean as much as it would have during the Cold War. The only real mitigating factor that keeps me from becoming dogmatic that OBL is dead is the fact that he would be a martyr if he was dead and AQ could exploit that as well. The question boils down to, is OBL more effective in propoganda as a living person (thus thwarting the Great Satan) or as a martyr (thus showing the extent of his "fidelity" to his cause)?
AQ obviously wants us to believe OBL is alive (which is why they release the audio tapes). So they're not going for the martyr aspect right now, which they could do even if OBL was alive--that is, they could try to trick us into thinking he's dead, but they haven't tried that either.
Regardless, for some reason they don't want us to see OBL, because there is no video of him released. Again, this could be because he has been horribly disfigured by a bomb strike or something of that nature; or it could be because he's dead and it's easier to fake audio than it is to fake video (i.e., spliced audio can sound smooth, but spliced video has jump cuts).
So when I see that AQ wants us to believe OBL is alive, yet they do not offer current video of him, I'm incredulous. Not dogmatic, as I said, but I lean toward OBL having been dead for roughly the last 8 years.