Monday, September 11, 2006
The Philosophy of Torture
Five years since 9/11, and my contribution is to post an article about torture in the U.S., and the philosophical and legal underpinnings thereof, at http://logictutorial.com/torture entitled: “A Modest Contribution to the Philosophy of Torture”. I regret the necessity, it would be better if we had decided either to be honest or not to torture; perhaps then I would have published today an essay concerning only the horrors of extreme Wahabism.
A couple of other notes on the five-year anniversity:
1) The woman who checked the terrorists through security in Boston has committed suicide according to the Oprah Winfrey show, today. A pity, since security was a deliberated joke everywhere at that time. Like the aimless Ack-Ack the Brits threw up at German bombers at night during the Blitz in 1940, it was only ever intended to reassure passengers, for business reasons.
2)Apparently some torture techniques have now been dropped by the U.S., mostly as unhelpful, such as waterboarding: “Death threats, waterboarding, profound deprivation issues, heat, cold, denial of medical attention -- those are now abandoned. ....One of the dark moments in the so-called war on terror, as I disclosed in the book, along with all the other stuff, is that we threatened Khalid Sheik Mohammed's children to get him to talk. According to those involved in that incident, he pretty much looked them straight in the eye and said, "Fine, they'll be in a better place with Allah." Once you threaten someone's children there's pretty much nowhere else to go in terms of building the kind of relationship where they at some point tell you things that you really need to hear.” - Salon, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/07/suskind/
A couple of other notes on the five-year anniversity:
1) The woman who checked the terrorists through security in Boston has committed suicide according to the Oprah Winfrey show, today. A pity, since security was a deliberated joke everywhere at that time. Like the aimless Ack-Ack the Brits threw up at German bombers at night during the Blitz in 1940, it was only ever intended to reassure passengers, for business reasons.
2)Apparently some torture techniques have now been dropped by the U.S., mostly as unhelpful, such as waterboarding: “Death threats, waterboarding, profound deprivation issues, heat, cold, denial of medical attention -- those are now abandoned. ....One of the dark moments in the so-called war on terror, as I disclosed in the book, along with all the other stuff, is that we threatened Khalid Sheik Mohammed's children to get him to talk. According to those involved in that incident, he pretty much looked them straight in the eye and said, "Fine, they'll be in a better place with Allah." Once you threaten someone's children there's pretty much nowhere else to go in terms of building the kind of relationship where they at some point tell you things that you really need to hear.” - Salon, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/07/suskind/
Comments:
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"Once you threaten someone's children there's pretty much nowhere else to go in terms of building the kind of relationship where they at some point tell you things that you really need to hear.” - Salon"
Building a relationship? With a man hell-bent on the destruction of civilization? Yeah, that could work. If only we had started a camp fire and sang songs together, then he would be our best friend and tell us everything we want to know.
Building a relationship? With a man hell-bent on the destruction of civilization? Yeah, that could work. If only we had started a camp fire and sang songs together, then he would be our best friend and tell us everything we want to know.
# posted by 
: 6:55 PM
: 6:55 PM
I'm flattered that the above commentator has lumped me in with the Pope - well, sort of flattered - since he's being ragged at the moment for quoting an ancient Empororer as if he were that Empororer; and now, according to the above comment, I've become Salon magazine, apparently. (I'm less flattered by that, since their opinions are partly predictable, but still...)
It's often necessary, ethically, to quote a bit more of someone's speech than one strictly agrees with in order to fairly represent the context from which you're snipping that quote. This is just intellectual honesty at work. Those who don't ever practise intellectual honesty - such as, for example, xenophobic fanatical adherents to extreme religious views and delight in attacking the heads of "rival" religions may completely overlook this possibility. Since performing such an act of fairness during an argument would never have occurred to them, they simply don't know what you're doing. This kind of "misunderstanding" is better served by advocating intellectual honesty rather than closely worded "false-front" apologies that only appease fanaticism. (Cool, I've now schooled the Pope... it's lucky I'm not, like, arrogant or anything.)
So now that we've established that I'm not a very different online media outlet with a clear position on the political spectrum; on to the point stated against Salon (in fact only against Salon.)
I'll get around to writing a squib more directly on torture, whether it works. But whether we should lie about it to ourselves is a very different matter. The commentator above was admirably frank, but Mr. Bush II hasn't been, to say the least.
Interrogation technique varies, and if you've even heard of "good cop, bad cop" you know that relationships and hard interrogation actually can go together quite well... and very often do.
Interestingly, in Vietnam, it turned out (for cultural reasons that don't apply to Wahabism, etc. in any obvious way) that Americans sharing milk and cookies actually worked like gangbusters, almost instantly; but torture (which the South Vietnamese were fond of) didn't. Uniform surrender to group values was a cultural rule that Communism was built on top of, in that historical case. So if you made your prisoner a valued part of your group, he would feel honor bound to tell you anything you wanted to know about his previous group. This is now forgotten, as both Left and Right have adopted rigid, simple, and historically uninformed positions of torture.
If you read what I've said about the Philosophy of Torture, it should be apparent that I revile the dishonesty and violations of reason - the bodyguard of lies. The merits, techniques, benefits, or amusements torture might provide are quite another topic.
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It's often necessary, ethically, to quote a bit more of someone's speech than one strictly agrees with in order to fairly represent the context from which you're snipping that quote. This is just intellectual honesty at work. Those who don't ever practise intellectual honesty - such as, for example, xenophobic fanatical adherents to extreme religious views and delight in attacking the heads of "rival" religions may completely overlook this possibility. Since performing such an act of fairness during an argument would never have occurred to them, they simply don't know what you're doing. This kind of "misunderstanding" is better served by advocating intellectual honesty rather than closely worded "false-front" apologies that only appease fanaticism. (Cool, I've now schooled the Pope... it's lucky I'm not, like, arrogant or anything.)
So now that we've established that I'm not a very different online media outlet with a clear position on the political spectrum; on to the point stated against Salon (in fact only against Salon.)
I'll get around to writing a squib more directly on torture, whether it works. But whether we should lie about it to ourselves is a very different matter. The commentator above was admirably frank, but Mr. Bush II hasn't been, to say the least.
Interrogation technique varies, and if you've even heard of "good cop, bad cop" you know that relationships and hard interrogation actually can go together quite well... and very often do.
Interestingly, in Vietnam, it turned out (for cultural reasons that don't apply to Wahabism, etc. in any obvious way) that Americans sharing milk and cookies actually worked like gangbusters, almost instantly; but torture (which the South Vietnamese were fond of) didn't. Uniform surrender to group values was a cultural rule that Communism was built on top of, in that historical case. So if you made your prisoner a valued part of your group, he would feel honor bound to tell you anything you wanted to know about his previous group. This is now forgotten, as both Left and Right have adopted rigid, simple, and historically uninformed positions of torture.
If you read what I've said about the Philosophy of Torture, it should be apparent that I revile the dishonesty and violations of reason - the bodyguard of lies. The merits, techniques, benefits, or amusements torture might provide are quite another topic.
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