Garrido is the one with the blog.

An American CIA interrogator whose techniques yield valuable information is much less reprehensible than a Gestapo torturer whose techniques resulted in the death of Jews or gypsies. Doesn't mean the CIA guy was right, but it's still hard to disagree with that sentence.

Well, how about if *we* take control of the framing of the question then?

How about if we say the issue is not whether torture is effective, or even whether or not torture in some cases might be morally justified. The issue is simply whether torture should be legal.

If torture remains illegal, it would still be available in times of ultimate need.

All it will take is for someone to see the clear, absolute need for the information and take the risk of prosecution by torturing someone to get that crucial, immediately actionable information. We already know these folks would sacrifice their lives for us; going to trial to justify your actions is a trivial sacrifice in comparison, particularly since the President could pardon them afterwards when it was discovered how important the info was.

Oh - wait - you just discovered the info wasn't actually that urgent? You suddenly realized you could get it elsewhere? The information is valuable enough to justify torturing a human being for, but not sufficiently valuable to place yourself in legal jeopardy over? Then sit down and shut the fuck up.

When torture is illegal, torture will be used in direst emergency if the circumstances truly justify it. When we permit torture to be *legal*, torture will be *used because it is legal*.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

The answer in that case would become, by definition, "circumstances important enough to justify risking prison over doing it".

The corollary would become "circumstances not worth risking prison over, and therefore circumstances not worth torturing a man over".

To be clear, that's not intended to be a flippant answer. It is the very point of not permitting torture to be legal.

...that if one isn't going to be an absolutist about torture, it's worthwhile spending some time considering the situations in which one would do it. I came to my peace on that aspect of the issue long ago - it's that process that in large part leads me to have so little patience with those who don't get the "there but for the grace of God [and the effective moral command of one's superiors] go I" aspect of the issue.

My view, the logically consistent view, if one's going to be absolutist about torture, isn't that you can do the crime and be let off by circumstances - it's that you do the crime and the time is worth it. Once one moves off a strict absolutist position, then it's a matter of what can excuse torture and a whole whack of things (belief that one was legally justified among them) come into play. Me, I'm not so much of an absolutist - if I knowingly did it, I think it's appropriate I do the time; other folks, I'm not so sure - there's a number of factors that I could see pertaining, ranging from mistaken intent all the way to mental defect and beyond.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

... threatening a kidnapper with torture if he does not give up the hiding place of the child victim. At the time it was believed the child was still alive but in mortal danger. Turned out the child was already dead. As result of the threat the perp lead the police to the body.

The police inspector had to bear the full legal repercussions i.e. being dismissed from service and standing trial. Something he fully anticipated.

If you feel morally obligated to overstep the legal boundaries you have to accept the consequences. Apparently this is a concept that these soulless CIA girly men can not wrap their head around.

...that they were not overstepping legal boundaries.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

... needed this pseudo legal covering of their sorry asses makes them even more repugnant. If you think it needs to be done do it and face the consequences.

...the law of their land, in the context of a profession that is fundamentally about breaking some of the highest laws of other lands. You want to talk about sorry asses being covered, talk about the pols at the top of the food chain (and one might even want to talk about an electorate that for all its pious hindsight wasn't overly choosy about methodology and aims when events were ongoing).

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

since the Gestapo were doing precisely that: following orders they believed in good faith to be legal at the time, since they'd been transmitted by a legal chain of command in obedience to a government with at least the technical legitimacy of the Bush Administration.

A cursory search didn't turn up any information on the CIA officer's oath, and it seems pretty relevant; are the men involved presumed to be - sworn to be - guardians of the Constitution?

You made my point. Being German this is one that I feel very strongly about.

I agree with JustPlainDave that the once at the top need to be brought to justice but the Nuernberg defense is inexcusable and not acceptable. I am livid that it is making a comeback.

...in that in the case of the CIA they were led item by item through the relevant law and told that the acts they were authorized to commit did not violate that law. The Gestapo maintained that they were simply doing as they were ordered, without the specific "protection" of a finding by their government that what they were doing did not contravene specifically codified international law.

The Gestapo men were left to presume, in comparatively murky legal circumstances, that what they did was legal - the CIA men were assured and re-assured, in a much more concretely codified legal circumstances, that what they were authorized to do had been compared against the specific statutes and found to be legal, so long as they did not deviate from a specific set of practices.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

do you have any information about any oaths CIA men swear upon induction? Do they affirm an oath that's parallel to the military's oaths?

[edited to add - sorry, should have re-read my own previous post, forgot I already asked. I'll keep looking - ES]

When it comes to the array of special interrogators beating people up around the world in the name of freedom, etc., the

FBI Oath of Office is reportedly as follows:

I will support and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies, foreign and
domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely, without
any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that
I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the
office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

"CIA Oath of office" googling isn't at productive.

They apparently take a lifelong "Oath of Secrecy" so, obviously, the first casualty of transparency is the actual wording of the oath itself.

According to Ralph McGhee, author of "Deadly Deceits: Observations on the role of the CIA", the

CIA secrecy oath reads “i do solemnly swear that I will never divulge, Publish or reveal either by word, conduct or any other means such Classified info, intelligence or knowledge, except in the performance of my OffiCIAl duties and in accordance with the law of U.S., unless specifically Authorized in writing in each case by the dci.” technically, it is unlawful For officer to discuss most CIA business even with spouse. McGehee, R.W. (1983).

When it comes to the Gestapo AKA Blackwater, I remembered that they used to have something like this posted at their website in an online application, but no sign of it now.

was more to do with being "read in" to some particular classified info than with becoming a CIA officer.

I was particularly hoping to find a yes/no on whether the officers involved in torture were specifically sworn to uphold the Constitution, in the same way military officers are.

Blackwater/Xe isn't the Gestapo; the Gestapo were accountable to a legal chain of command and generally followed some sort of rules, albeit grotesque ones.

...federal employee (which I think should be the vast majority, at least at some point) will have been required to swear the oath provided for by Title 5, Chapter 33:

“I [name] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

This might be somewhat problematic in the situation of contractors, but what's known of their backgrounds strongly suggests many of them will have sworn similar oaths at various points in their respective careers.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

- eom

You either believe that there are moral guidelines that supersede legal code or you don't.

Germany was very meticulous in making sure that all the killing was done the "proper" way. You can read up for instance how their racism was codified in law. All legally proper. This didn't make any of these laws right in any decent moral code.

The Nuernberg trials precisely broke new legal ground because they based on the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal rather than go with the legal framework as it existed in Germany at the time of the war crimes.

I find it rather frustrating that in this day and age it is still not commonly accepted that governments can not claim the power to abridge basic human rights.

...codified in the United States. The situation is not directly analogous to how it was in Germany, where there was German code/practice and international law as separate entities that were opposed to each other. These guys were told that provided they stayed onside of a number of boundaries, their actions were in keeping with sections of the US Code that were specifically adopted to be in accordance with international law (i.e., the Convention on Torture). They were assured - repeatedly - by what they considered to be competent legal authority that they were on the correct side of the US Code and, by extension, international law.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

ignorantia juris non excusat - ignorance of the law is no excuse, whether that ignorance came from simply not knowing something or whether it came from having been deceived. There have been occasional exceptions to that rule, but in general it's pretty fundamental. I have *never* heard it applied in the case of torturing or killing someone.

If my boss tells me murdering my wife is OK this Tuesday, I still don't get a pass.

It was their duty to see deeper.

...more akin to being told by a superior officer, backed by the legal officer, that a given target was legitimate only to find out later, having hit the target, that it was not.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Say by "targeting" we're dropping a bomb.

Now, the act of dropping a bomb is an inherently neutral act. It might be a 500lb bomb on an enemy position (legal), a 500lb bomb on a busload of nuns (naughty) or a dummy bomb on a target at a bomb range (neutral). It may indeed by a stretch of imagination be a bomb dropped to blow out a forest fire (yay!).

The act itself is neutral, and when we act in assurance the target is valid, and we don't have any corrected idea of the morality of the act until we hear otherwise, we have not transgressed.

(I know, I know - tell that to people who have done it - every modern war leaves some people replaying at least one mistaken act in their head for the rest of their lives; but for the sake of simplicity we'll stay with the objective view).

Torture is not an act whose goodness, badness or neutrality is determined by context or can be recontextualized later. Torture is universally regarded as an objective evil, in and of itself, by every civilized society [OK: I will edit "civilized", since that's unfocused, to "modern, and western", which is the context].

...closely. A pilot is assured that if he or she follows particular procedures closely they're legally and morally in the clear even in ambiguous circumstances and even if another pilot would have decided not to drop on their particular run. When a bomb goes onto a bad target, so long as the proper procedures were followed it's not the pilot that wears the bulk of the blame - it's the guy that cleared him or her hot onto the target.

The notion that the entire set of behaviours wears a scarlet "T" visible to all and sundry when they're down in the weeds is an illusion, and a particularly dangerous one at that. At one end of that spectrum is an episode of Law and Order and at the other is some truly vile shit. The dirty little secret is that it's really easy - and really common - to end up involved in the behaviours on the Law and Order end. One of the biggest points of agreement on the operational aspects of the issue is that if you're going to keep your people from engaging in torture, effective close and moral command of your men is essential. We can't have it both ways - if that effective close and moral command is absent or is actively working against the law (as it was in this case), then the guys under that command are less culpable. Depending on the severity of the acts they commit and how reasonable seeming the orders sound they may even be completely covered. In my judgement based on the evidence available, the latter seems to be more the case.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

... and don't consider it torture that makes you just an ignorant easily misled torturer. Doesn't matter one bit how often they were briefed about the supposed legality.

Obviously their moral compass was either missing or severely bent out of shape. There is no qualitative difference to the Nuernberg defense. The people there stood trial for crimes that were not codified in law that was in effect at the time and place they committed their atrocities. If anything the defendants in Nuernberg had a better case than the CIA torturers. After all the US signed on to all relevant human right standards.

The guys ordering the torture and the ones implementing them should all see their day in court. Not that I expect that to happen anytime soon given the travesties that pass as justice in the US these days.

...that knows that the other guys in one's SERE class (or more likely the guys in the SERE class that they never attended because they weren't quite that hardcore) got waterboarded and it never killed them.

I hate to tell you this, but it isn't that their moral compass was bent out of shape or defective compared to the normal human being, comforting as those notions may be. Most of the people that might plausibly be put in their position, told what they were, would do this.

My view, in this case the extra legal codification worked against them - if I'm out in unknown moral territory without any signposts to use as referents I watch myself a lot more closely, I listen more to the gut and my convictions and that keeps me out of trouble. When I'm in familiar territory I have my customary practice to fall back on and that also generally keeps me out of trouble. Where things are the most dangerous is when I'm in unfamiliar moral territory and somebody else is telling me they know the law and I'm just fine, don't worry about it, I haven't yet crossed any lines. That - right there? - that's the dangerous place and that's exactly what fucked these guys over - they trusted the wrong guy, never dreaming that it was just one rather out there guy rather than the entire, cautious, well reasoned legal braintrust of the USG that was telling them they were okay.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

No pun intended. In the SERE class you know that you will not get killed or seriously harmed. Nevertheless I don't think there are very many people who underwent waterboarding who will not attest that this is indeed torture.

As for the "trusting the wrong guy" argument - I can assure you that Hitler, Pinochet, Mussolini (insert tyrant of your choice) were most trusted by their followers. Still the same old Nuernberg defense in a different guise.

Looks to me that we are in a circular argument here. All said and done this come done to a value judgment and ours simply don't seem to align.

I hope what we can agree on, is that any investigation will shed some light on the committed atrocities and therefore will increase the chance that this moves up the chain of command. When it comes to assigning responsibility we seem to at least be in agreement that at the top is were most of the blame belongs.

It's not the guys that underwent it or did it that don't think it's torture. It's the guys that were exposed to it, but not directly involved as victim or torturer that think "no big deal".

I don't believe we're in a circular argument here. We're in a classic Internet argument where the debate focuses on an issue that someone else has massively over-simplified and slapped a catchy label on (that may or may not apply) and that's surrounded by tons of impassioned language heaped there by largely amateur groups of rhetoricians and political commentators who want nothing more than to believe they are a valuable part of a populist political movement. Read the cases, the law governing them and the law that has arisen over time, evaluate the evidence in detail - if a two word label seems satisfying for something this complex, it's wrong. My view, to accept that sort of simplicity is to be played, and played by not a terribly accomplished group of operators at that. [On the Internet we should always aspire to be played by the highest quality operators possible. ;) ]

I'm afraid that we can't completely agree on your last statement. While I think greater investigation is a good thing, my entire point is that I fear a strategy that seeks to move up the chain of command from the very bottom is precisely the wrong one. My view, that strategy is too easily obstructed and allows the guys at the top of the foodchain to fob things off on the lower level, less morally culpable, operators. My view, start from Yoo and work up - then you've got something. I tend to think that the chances are low, but that's the highest probability of success for something that really matters.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

into something more global. But an experience which desensitizes someone to inflicting torture would be QED a experience which has distorted their moral compass - the fact that it was our own training system that caused the distortion, or the fact that this was not our intention, notwithstanding.

And we should indeed be looking very, very hard at that particular wellspring of this very, very big problem. SERE is a name which has come up a lot in the last few years, and it seems to me that any school which produces shit that stinks this bad - even second hand - might just need an extremely powerful enema.

why we should have any more confidence in legal reasoning that today attempts to shelter the torturers than we do in the legal reasoning that sanctioned the torture in the first place.

...per se (though I think it would be difficult to get a conviction in an honest objective court, provided one could be found given the trend of the times) it's a matter of reasoning on the fringes where strictly legal reasoning breaks down, foundering on the shoals of what is sovereign and what is political.

My view, bottom line, even apart from the practical difficulty of getting a conviction, going after these guys is stupid - there are bigger, more relevant fish to fry. As I've said before, getting people to trim bits off others is the easy bit - steady supply of them and they're never going away. You want to stop this (or at least stop the notion that the state could institutionalize such a thing) the correct target is not the snuffy that thought he was covered, but the folks further up the food chain. Spending the effort on this is to fail Clauswitz 101 - go for the decisive point.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Perhaps someone should be talking about deals. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, maybe about twenty others. Shiny wrapping paper, big bow. You know they covered their ass and kept the stuff that would do it - get it on the table now and we'll talk about leniency afterwards.

Funny thing is - sometimes I wonder if something like that isn't in the wind. It might explain some things rather tidily including the general smell coming from Cheney's vicinity. I wonder how the CIA enjoyed being made "bottoms" in the new hierarchy? They're probably over that already.

Yes, sometimes it's fun to speculate on the question "what if someone brought a tad more Chicago to the White House than people think?".

I'm pragmatist enough myself that I wouldn't turn my nose up at a sufficiently tempting deal - if it were really, really big, and wrapped ready to go as take-out. But until that time, absent a ladder one must pick the fruit one can reach.

...era suggests that the low hanging fruit is a bad idea - when you don't control the time and place of the engagement, refuse battle to the enemy, even if you can cream them tactically. These guys are being dangled by the system for a reason - in a court of law they're the folks that you have the worst chance of convicting and following up the foodchain. One can certainly get some of them for exceeding their guidelines and the political case appears excellent, but at the end of the day all that achieves little and even makes circumstances worse for next time.

Quite apart from all of that, if one wants to really render CIA completely risk averse and ineffective this would be an excellent implement. Half the IC came on since 9/11 - take it to conviction and they'll never risk anything ever again; stop short such that folks are reminded that they can't let the testosterone take them over, then the process might yield something useful.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

would be a worthy target to tackle? Someone who one has a better chance of convicting or following up the food chain?

...and into the elected officials.

And it's not so much that I think they're easier targets - it's more that they're the right targets. Get them and you've achieved something, focus on the low level guys and all you've managed to do is get some implements.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

but what's MPFAO mean?
thanks

My Pretty F***ing Arrogant Opinion.

Figured what the hell, I'd try for truth in advertising at a minimum. MHO - welp, that I'm not so good at.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

a new acronym I can get behind :D

CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

The sample size was very small, though, only 747 people

Nevertheless the findings do suggest that immorality issues don't deter Xians when it comes to torture. Crusades, Inquistion and witch burnings have evidently effectively scarred the DNAs of true believers. The only difference with today's torture may be that the general public no longer has an opportunity to actively participate in stoking the fire under the screaming witch's feet. Torture today is more specialized, much more time consuming and involves much more sexual perversity than your average church going family usually exhibits.

if the 'techniques' we use are okay for others to use on our soldiers.

amen, tina.

for the culture of torture to have been so meticulously created and then unleashed, it had to have come from very high up.

there will always be willing, hireable, conscience free thugs, but if the culture is one of respect, not hatred, then not only will more information be forthcoming, but the thug episodes will be minimalised.

the cog-diss between obama's campaign rhetoric about america's image abroad, and the continuing abuse at baghram etc, is way too big to ignore.

Got carried away and forgot the reason for the post - namely that the Pew report was dated April 30, 2009. Small sample size notwithstanding, those results seem to indicate support for torture is still strong.

I would have thought that the idea would have subsided more than this. In any case, did some digging for some actual data and irritatingly enough it would tend to kill even dearly held preconception (as it commonly does). Number really hops around, but general thought is that the rate of disapproval of torture has remained remarkably consistent since 9/11. Refer here [pdf] for more information.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass