It's Still Torture

by Josh Orton, Fri May 22, 2009 at 07:14:40 PM EDT

Another skeptical winger figures it out:

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on tonight's "Countdown" pledged to donate $10,000 to charity after disc jockey Erich "Mancow" Muller was waterboarded today on live radio, in an attempt to prove the technique was "not torture." After six seconds Muller said it was "absolutely torture" and that were he to be interrogated by the use of waterboarding he would "confess to anything."

Muller approached the thing all swagger, but came away humbled. Watch the video here. Realize that just one waterboarding is torture. Then realize that our country, under bad-faith justification from Bush lawyers, waterboarded someone more than 180 times. Ugh.

I'm starting to think we should take up a collection to shame Hannity into keeping his pledge to go through with it.

Tags: torture (all tags)

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Re: It's Still Torture

I don't know about you but I really don't think Khalid Sheikh Muhammad is someone I would shed a tear for if he was waterboarded a 1000 times by our intelligence operatives to save further loss of life in the aftermath of the attacks...

He deserves whatever he gets...

by lori 2009-05-22 09:07PM | 0 recs

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Re: It's Still Torture

Torture is wrong, no matter the target.

by JDF 2009-05-22 10:05PM | 0 recs

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Re: It's Still Torture

Khalid Sheikh Muhammad killed one of my closest friends, the journalist Daniel Pearl. I met Danny at Stanford during our freshman year and remained friends throughout our lifetimes.

Waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammad denigrates the legacy of Daniel Pearl. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad is a butcher. Danny was an exceptional human being. Western values have endured because we live strive to live up to them. We descend into madness when we deviate from them. We do not torture. It is inhumane. I am a human being, not a butcher.

by Charles Lemos 2009-05-22 10:22PM | 0 recs

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torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

Most people who are tortured will tell you anything they think you want to hear to get the torture to stop. It's not effective in terms of getting accurate information. You can get a lot of false confessions, though.

Leaving morality aside for the sake of argument, other interrogation methods are more effective than torture.

by desmoinesdem 2009-05-22 10:41PM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

I don't think there is any conclusive evidence that water boarding doesn't work .

I doubt many Americans would be up all night worrying about the waterboarding of Khaleed Sheik Muhammed , the guy who confessed to the bombing of the world trade center , among other crimes against innocent individuals.

I certainly understand why in the wake of the worst terrorist attack on the homeland , the CIA operative would do what it takes within the legal authority they have been given to seek out where the next threat would be coming from especially after capturing such a high value target .

Look I am not saying that should be the policy but any responsible should have the option of enhanced interrogation techniques in the face of an emergency situation.

The atmosphere in which the CIA operatives were working at that time clearly fit the bill.

There is no conclusive evidence that it works or it doesn't . You can find operatives on both sides of the fence...

These issues outside of the legal opinion they are based on are issues of morality which would vary depending o the person and situation .

I certainly think it was morally the right choice to make to waterboard Khaleed Sheik Mohammed , the confessed mastermind of the attacks , if the aim was to save thousands of innocent lives..

If I was in a position of power and had to make that decision , I know which way I would go...

by lori 2009-05-22 11:34PM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

Morals can vary based on the person and situation. That's why there are things called principles. You don't torture people and you don't kill 3000 civilians. Worldwide you would probably find more people justify the former than the latter but it matters not at all.

by Jess81 2009-05-23 01:12AM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

Worldwide, I'm not so sure. Many people, particularly in Muslim countries, feel that the 9/11 hijackers were selfless heroes. Why is Osama bin Laden so hard to find? Partly, because he is a folk hero and people try to hide him from the Evil Empire (us!).

by antiHyde 2009-05-23 03:59AM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

I actually meant to formulate that the other way around. I think I screwed it up because for the purpose of the morality of it, it matters not one whit.

by Jess81 2009-05-23 07:15AM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

I believe Charles Lemos has already laid out a very personal and sensible case against torture - it is against Western values.

And I might add, it is also against long standing American tradition; a tradition which led the United States to champion the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly is against torture (not to mention case against torture in the fith and 14th amandement of your bills of rights). This was right after the most devastating atrocities the world has ever seen.

Torture seriously harms that tradition and Americas standing in the world. As Bill Clinton said during the convention in Denver: "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power" - and there he didn't even mention the misuse of power.

In the 18th and 19th century, torture was abandoned because it was seen as unjust, immoral, and, pragmatically, as not working (see Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault; see the Cautio Criminalis). Torture is a step back on civilisation.

I'm a firm believer that the end does not justify the means, and so the intention does not count the way it would in consequentialism - esp. since there is no way of knowing or quantifying the outcome. It basically betrays our values for nothing but a hypothetical scenario (the ticking time bomb / the save of thousands of lives).

So even with the efficiency question I come back to the moral question, because for me, that's the predominant case.

by argovia 2009-05-23 04:52AM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

Every person who HAS TALKED ABOUT BEING WATERBOARDED has said they would say ANYTHING to make it stop. That is not any way to elicit useful information.

Of course it doesn't surprise me that you would be an apologist for torture.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/letters/ article995921.ece < CIA analyst says torture elicits unreliable information.

Sorry, Lori. I'm gonna take the opinion of those who have ACTUALLY BEEN WATERBOARDED over yours...any day.

by lojasmo 2009-05-23 07:06AM | 0 recs

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Re: torture doesn't prevent future loss of life

OMG. It's Lori! Where have you been? You shared such wisdom in the primaries, then poof! you were gone.

by mikeinsf 2009-05-23 07:16AM | 0 recs

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Re: It's Still Torture

When John McCain was tortured, he gave up the names of the Green Bay Packers (or was it the Pittsburgh Steelers) to his captors.

A lot of help it did them.

by Khun David 2009-05-22 11:24PM | 0 recs

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Wasn't that in the storyline

of the movie "rendition"

by DTOzone 2009-05-23 07:21AM | 0 recs

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Re: Wasn't that in the storyline

Yes.

by Jess81 2009-05-23 07:41AM | 0 recs

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Inane Strawman

I could care less about Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.

I care about the principles of my nation. Whether or not Khalid Sheikh Muhammad suffers under torture is not my concern. What is my concern is the dangerous precedent it sets, namely the mind-bogglingly juvenile and myopic ends-justify-means nonsense bandied about by people like you. What is my concern is the political damage done to the United States as a result. What is my concern is the moral repugnance of it.

Oh, and as for your laughable downthread comment that you don't think anyone has demonstrated that waterboarding isn't effective, here's a clue - the onus is on its supporters to demonstrate that it IS effective!

And here's another clue - under waterboarding in Egypt, Ibn al-Libi "disclosed" extensive contacts between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Only problem was, he made it up just to stop the waterboarding.

How's that for effective, you ridiculous apologist for neocon wet dreams?

by Collideascope 2009-05-23 09:23AM | 0 recs

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Re: It's Still Torture

Torture does not work to get reliable information. Toruture is used to get confessions (usefull or not) for PR or political reasons, or for dominance/intimidation. I know a few interrogators (not CIA level). Torture DOES NOT WORK for what is stated.

Over time, with the right questions, and patience, you can "pick" someones brain for what information they have, but you loose the creative insight of the "subject" that might give you far better information using other techniques that would be considered morally sound.

Let's just put this out as it is: Cheney (and the Neocons) have the mindset of butchers, to use a thread-related term. They see the world from that viewpoint, and so, torturing the Khalid is seen as almost necessary, not only to get the information they want to hear, but also to dominate the opponent. THEY REALLY BELIEVED WHAT THEY SAID TO THE PUBLIC...they thought Iraq REALLY DID have a connection to Bin Ladin, that they could PROVE ALL OF IT, and that Saddam REALLY HAD WMD's. Because, and this is the important point, if they were in Bin Ladin/Saddam's position IT IS WHAT THEY WOULD HAVE DONE. They don't understand posturing and bluffing...they believe that if you make a threat, you HAVE the threat.

The true problem with Cheny and the Neocons is that they had faith in their enemies to be as bad as they were. They have the mindset of butchers.

by Hammer1001 2009-05-23 07:10AM | 0 recs

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Raising more money...

I like Josh's suggestion. We should start a Coleman-like effort to raise money. Why not start an effort to say...

$1/day for every day until Hannity either goes through waterboarding or just admits it is torture.

Or just flat donations up front

We can call it the:

Prove you're not a coward Hannity fund. OR

Prove you're a patriot Hannity.

Show it every night on Olberman's show, and that it was started by the grassroots. Marriage of blogging and mainstream media.

by passionateprogressive 2009-05-23 07:45AM | 0 recs

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Re: Raising more money...

I like how KO handled it last night - after the other guy went through it, Olbermann donated 10,000 dollars to a veterans cause of the guy's choosing, and then said "Mr. Hannity, you are no longer needed."

by Jess81 2009-05-23 08:01AM | 0 recs

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Re: Raising more money...

Agree, Olbermann was just right on it Friday night, not over the top, but succinct and on-point.

by gak 2009-05-23 08:41AM | 0 recs

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Re: Raising more money...

And then it got bouncy.

by Jess81 2009-05-23 08:48AM | 0 recs