Torture

"They say this is a different kind of war," Tony Lagouranis says. "Different rules for terrorists. Total crap."

Lagouranis was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq until he was honorably discharged due to "adjustment disorder." That seems to be a military psychologist's euphemism for still having his conscience and humanity mostly intact.

I've written before about the toll our nation's embrace of torture takes on the men and women ordered to carry it out. Laura Blumenfeld of The Washington Post puts a human face on this toll in "The Tortured Lives of Interrogators."

Blumenfeld tells Lagouranis' story alongside the stories of two other former interrogators. The other two, "James" and "Sheriff," worked for the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland and for Shin Bet, the Israeli security service. Unlike Lagouranis, James and Sheriff convey a cocky bravado, insisting that they have no qualms about the "verschärfte vernehmung"* they employed. James and Sheriff doth protest too much. They come across as deeply troubled, haunted, FUBAR.

"I've got a clean conscience because I rarely use it," Sheriff says. It comes across like a man in a wheelchair boasting that that his legs are not suffering from overuse.

Lagouranis may have gotten out in time to keep his own conscience from atrophying the way Sheriff's has. He realizes that he, like the people he was ordered to interrogate, has come away damaged:

Not the things I saw, but the things I did. You keep saying 'torturing the innocent,' but the two brothers I tortured were guilty. It doesn't mean you should torture them.

That word "should" denotes a moral imperative: You should not torture. Or in the familiar language of the King James Bible, Thou shalt not torture.

Such moral language strikes some as irrelevant. The question for them is not whether or not one should employ torture, but whether or not one needs to. This appeal to necessity is precisely what Sheriff relies on as an opiate to numb his fading conscience. "You leave us no choice," he would say to his victims.

The problem with this, of course, is that torture does not work. It produces misinformation. Practitioners of torture end up knowing less than they knew before. Worse, they can end up thinking they know all sorts of things that are not true. This "works" only if their only goal is to produce false confessions** or to serve as a deterrent, intimidating (i.e. terrorizing) others.

Members of the Intelligence Science Board underscored this point in their recent testimony to Congress. (Their (long) full report is available as a .pdf: "Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art.") From the article linked above:

President Bush has insisted that those secret “enhanced” techniques are crucial, and he is far from alone. The notion that turning up pressure and pain on a prisoner will produce valuable intelligence is a staple of popular culture from the television series “24” to the recent Republican presidential debate, where some candidates tried to outdo one another in vowing to get tough on captured terrorists. ...

But some of the experts involved in the interrogation review, called “Educing Information,” say that during World War II, German and Japanese prisoners were effectively questioned without coercion.

“It far outclassed what we’ve done,” said Steven M. Kleinman, a former Air Force interrogator and trainer, who has studied the World War II program of interrogating Germans. ... Mr. Kleinman, who worked as an interrogator in Iraq in 2003, called the post-Sept. 11 efforts “amateurish” by comparison.

I'm inclined to side with Kleinman on the value of looking to America's World War II program as a model. After all, America won that war. Instead, we've been taking as our models the interrogation programs of the Soviet Union and the methods people like Sheriff have employed in the West Bank. Just think about that for a moment: the "Evil Empire" and the poster-child for neverending hostility have become our models for freedom and security. Somewhere in the White House or the Pentagon, someone actually said, "Let's copy what they're doing in the West Bank, because that sure seems to be working."

So torture is morally corrosive and ineffective and, as the example of the West Bank illustrates, it leads to your own military defeat.

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar make all of these points in their op-ed, "It's Our Cage, Too: Torture Betrays Us and Breeds New Enemies." Krulak is a former commandant of the Marine Corps. Hoar is a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command. They write of the "disastrous consequences" of the Bush administration's embrace of torture, saying it has:

... nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

So torture is ineffective and corrosive, and a certain path to military defeat. On the other hand ...

There is no other hand. Torture is ineffective and corrosive, and a certain path to military defeat. Everyone knows this.

So given that, why on earth does anyone pretend that this is something we should accept or approve? What's the attraction? Why are Republican presidential candidates so desperate "to outdo one another" in embracing despicable and counterproductive measures? What is it about "ineffective and corrosive" that people like Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani fail to understand? What is it they find so attractive about certain defeat?

Here are the fools on parade in a recent Republican presidential debate:

What is wrong with these people?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* Or "enhanced interrogations." This is the Bush administration's preferred phrase. The name comes from the Gestapo. The tactics come from the Soviet Union.

** If the goal is a false confession, of course, torture is still an inefficient and unnecessary step. Simple forgery will produce a result that is just as credible as a signed confession produced under coercion and duress. This leads me to suspect, again, that the real reason for this use of torture -- for any use of torture -- is that those who order it enjoy it. Are George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo really such fools that they do not know that torture is ineffective and self-defeating? Or are they simply monsters?

Comments

[cjmr]

I don't think they're fools. But I think they think we are.

[85% Duane]

Are George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo really such8 fools that they do not know that torture is ineffective and self-defeating? Or are they simply monsters?

I think they are fools and so are the 28% of "Americans" that still claim to support these fools. We know many many of the 28% (probably the majority) are the PMD/God-Is-Talking-To-Me-In-My-Head/I-Said-Magic-Words-And-Now-Jesus-Lives-In-My-Main-Circulatory-Organ nutcases so it sorta just all gibes, huh?

If this is what Jesus died for, whoops.

[Jesurgislac]

Judging by the only consistent regular commenter to defend torture on this blog, they are fools who believe what they've seen on TV: they've talked themselves into believing that torture "works", that a torturer is not affected by what he does, that the people who are tortured are all guilty, and that in any case what's being done to these prisoners isn't really "torture". It's "harsh interrogation", or some such.

[Bugmaster]

Are there still any hearts and minds to be won in the Middle East ? I was under the impression that the weight of history, combined with our recent conduct there, has pretty much cemented the hatred of us to the point where the number of "potential supporters" is in the single digits. But maybe I'm just a pessimist.

[cjmr's husband]

I can't help but think this is all tied in to Mel Gibson's Jesus Chainsaw Massacre movie a few years ago. "They tortured Him, and He turned out perfect!"

Not a shred of logic there. So it must make sense to a PMDer...

[cjmr's husband]

@Bugmaster, is that "single digits" a percentage, or just plain "single digits"?

(I'm thinking the latter; probably in octal)

[Cary Bleasdale]

What was it Nietzsche said? He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." I often think that that is one of the most rational explanations for the US support of torture. While toads like Bush, Gonzales and the others are actually such deluded, vicious men that they willingly support torture, they have managed to con many others into believing that the monsters we are hunting are worth any cost. And like greyhounds after a rabbit, many people have never stopped to think about exactly what they are doing, and never watched out lest they actually become no better than Osama Bin Laden.

Either that, or every person who supports this is not simply deluded, or rationalizing, but actually decided in cold blood that the prospect of torturing prisoners did not trouble them. Which is a far more terrifying prospect.

[85% Duane]

I don't think they're fools. But I think they think we are.

You'll spend the rest of yer life trying to outdo that "St. Peter is Catholic" line.

[Geds]

Now, to be fair, McCain did come out of it looking, um, not horrible. I'm not going to say "good," as he didn't exactly make a coherent point and undercut his, "Hey, I was a prisoner in Vietnam and I know firsthand torture doesn't work," method by not finishing his sentences. But he did seem to take a stand on calling for using the techniques that are in the Army's handbook and nothing else. That, of course, requires us to find out what's in the Army's handbook...

But it disturbs me the way it's just glibly tossed about that "enhanced techniques" are somehow different from "torture" and not only is it asserted as such, it's assumed to be the case. When we're at the point where everyone has to screw around with the language and the screwing around obviously obfuscates and redirects, we've lost the battle.

I got chills when everyone in the audience applauded Romney's call to "double Guantanamo." Then I swore at my monitor. It was then that I decided Fred's question at the end of the post was absolutely necessary.

What IS wrong with these people?

[JPL]

Screw what happens to the people who torture and the trouble they have sleeping at night.

What happens to the people they tortured?

[Bugmaster]

Just to inject my typically contrarian point of view into the debate (or lack thereof): do we really have a goal of being "better than Osama Bin Laden" ? I am under the impression that many people believe that there's nothing wrong with the way Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. are/were run, per se; the problem is that they were run by the wrong people, in the name of the wrong god, and not by us; and that they harbored people who attacked us, and must therefore all die.

My point is that the "torture is wrong" argument only applies if we have a goal of becoming morally superior to other nations. If we have no such goal, then it doesn't matter whether torture is wrong or not, unfortunately.

[Rosina]

From the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the Inquisition during the Middle Ages: Curiously enough, torture was not regarded as a mode of punishment, but purely as a means of eliciting the truth. It was not of ecclesiastical origin, and was long prohibited in the ecclesiastical courts. Nor was it originally an important factor in the inquisitional procedure, being unauthorized until twenty years after the Inquisition had begun. It was first authorized by Innocent IV in his Bull "Ad exstirpanda" of 15 May, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV on 30 November, 1259, and by Clement IV on 3 November, 1265. The limit placed upon torture was citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum -- i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life. Torture was to applied only once, and not then unless the accused were uncertain in his statements, and seemed already virtually convicted by manifold and weighty proofs. In general, this violent testimony (quaestio) was to be deferred as long as possible, and recourse to it was permitted in only when all other expedients were exhausted. Conscientious and sensible judges quite properly attached no great importance to confessions extracted by torture. After long experience Eymeric* declared: Quaestiones sunt fallaces et inefficaces -- i.e the torture is deceptive and ineffectual.

*Eymeric was grand inquisitor for Aragon at the end of the 14th century. That's 600 years ago, and the feared and hated Spanish Inquisition - um feared, hated and ruthlessly efficient - or do I mean feared, hated, ruthless efficient and fanatically devoted to the Pope... Well, the Spanish Inquisition had already realized that torture didn't work!

I suspect that they carried on using it, burning heretics and organizing autos da fe. But even these fanatical Christians living 600 years before Bush, alive a century before Columbus set foot on American soil, who were rooting out heresies and enemies and backsliders, had grasped the thing that Bush and his advisors, and the next load of candidates still don't understand Quaestiones sunt fallaces et inefficaces

[nieciedo]

I'm not sure why we should be surprised that the government uses and advocates torture. These people are scum, hateful, inhuman scum. Of course they're going to torture people! They get off on it! That's the whole point of government!

People do not reach the highest echelons of power in our society because they want to serve others. They attain that power because they want to use it to dominate and control others. If you've risen to the height of President of the United States, that very fact is evidence of a lust for power over others. Bush and Gonzales et al. are just not hiding the orgasmic joy that dominating and humiliating and torturing others gives them. Other presidents and other regimes have just been more discreet about their extreme BDSM fetishes.

Bugmaster is right. There is no goal to be morally superior to OBL or Saddam. Morality is just a smokescreen you use to hide your true nature from the sheep who might scare easily. In government, there is no morality, no good or evil. There is only power and those to weak to use it.

[nieciedo]

I'm not sure why we should be surprised that the government uses and advocates torture. These people are scum, hateful, inhuman scum. Of course they're going to torture people! They get off on it! That's the whole point of government!

People do not reach the highest echelons of power in our society because they want to serve others. They attain that power because they want to use it to dominate and control others. If you've risen to the height of President of the United States, that very fact is evidence of a lust for power over others. Bush and Gonzales et al. are just not hiding the orgasmic joy that dominating and humiliating and torturing others gives them. Other presidents and other regimes have just been more discreet about their extreme BDSM fetishes.

Bugmaster is right. There is no goal to be morally superior to OBL or Saddam. Morality is just a smokescreen you use to hide your true nature from the sheep who might scare easily. In government, there is no morality, no good or evil. There is only power and those to weak to use it.

[nieciedo]

double post. Sorry.

[Bugmaster]

Hmm, I think the above might have been posted by nieciedo Jr., the love-child of nieciedo and Scott :-)

While I do believe that the only true goal of people in power is to stay in power, the beauty of democratic governments (and, of course, it could be argued that the US government is no longer a democracy) is that the only way for a politician to stay in power is to serve the will of the people. Thus, I don't think you can lay all the blame for torture at the politicians' feet.

In other words, if the American people truly want torture, they'll keep electing torturers, and I don't think you can stop them.

[Geds]

My point is that the "torture is wrong" argument only applies if we have a goal of becoming morally superior to other nations. If we have no such goal, then it doesn't matter whether torture is wrong or not, unfortunately.

...Yeah...

(Imagine me sighing that out with my head hung low.)

I'm told there was a time when, "I'm proud to be an American," was a statement that actually meant something and wasn't flag-waving propaganda or the hook from a crappy, melodramatic country song. These days it seems like the only way to be proud of being an American is to also be delusional or to throw as many modifiers as possible in front of and behind that phrase that it becomes absolutely useless.

The moral imperative stopped being "we're a shining light of Democracy" and started being "we're not as bad as _______" at some point in the past couple decades.

You're right. Torture being bad doesn't matter any more. And I'm not proud to be an American.

I haven't been for a while now.

[gramina]

I think that Closetland has some interesting things to say about the consequences of torture for both the torturer and the tortured.

[mcc]

In other words, if the American people truly want torture, they'll keep electing torturers, and I don't think you can stop them.

The flaw in this point lies in the assumption that "what the American people want" is something that cannot be changed.

[Bugmaster]

It can be changed, of course, but such changes take time, effort, and (perhaps most importantly) tons and tons of money :-(

[Dahne]

I want to know what the Democratic candidates say about this. I've got the sinking feeling that a lot of people I want to have faith in are gonna pull the, "We-e-e-ell, if we reeeaaallly need to..." bullshit.

I really want to know something. What the hell is it with Democrats being too afraid to really oppose the right? Is there some imaginary world where they're going to win people away from them by acting sort of like them? Whatever happened to liberal Democrats? 28% of the country is delusional, and 72% is pissed. They've got the majority behind them. What else will it take before they grow some balls?

Phew. Sorry for the language. Really, I just wanted to ask more about the interrogation techniques in WWII that actually proved effectual. Then I watched that video again and started frothing.

What kind of world is it where "Torture is bad" gets a cricket chirp, and "The problem with our gulag is it's not big enough!" gets thunderous applause?

[Steve]

I don't think you folks watched the video. They aren't talking about torture, but rather enhanced interrogation techniques. They repeated that several times.

Bastards.

Wow...its like the kid from high school with all sorts of authority issues that goes on to be a cop so he can bully people with a badge and uniform is now running for president (looking to replace one of his own kind). Its amazing that McCain's mostly sensible response got nothing while the tough sounding but makes no sense and is totally morally bankrupt responses got applause. Scary time we live in.

I'm starting to think that our only hope is that the current crop of Republicans is so utterly defeated and humiliated that we can get to a point where more sensible Republicans try to reclaim their legacy by running by differientiating themselves against the legacy of Bush/Cheney/Rove, and sometime down the road the memory of Bush/Cheney/Rove can be viewed upon much like the leaders who tried to preserve Jim Crow laws: sure a small minority still thinks they were right, but the overarching sense is one of celebrating their defeat and even wondering how our ancestors could have supported them.

[nieciedo]

The love child of me and Scott? Ewwwww!

@Bugmaster
While I do believe that the only true goal of people in power is to stay in power, the beauty of democratic governments (and, of course, it could be argued that the US government is no longer a democracy) is that the only way for a politician to stay in power is to serve the will of the people. Thus, I don't think you can lay all the blame for torture at the politicians' feet.

That's just it. The US is today as much of a "democracy" as Great Britain is a "monarchy." Yes, Betty Windsor is still the Queen and she has to get dressed up to open Parliament and the PM has to ask her permission to form a government and brief her on policies, etc. But she is little more than a symbol, necessary perhaps within the constitutional framework to legitimate government, but she has lost any real power: she is simply an accessory, her symbolic "assent" to acts of government nothing more than a formality, a relic of a bygone age that some people still think important to making the British system of ruling its subjects distinctive.

The American people are in the same position as she is. We don't have any real power, the annual ritual of voting nothing more than a symbolic ritual that the majority of the population doesn't even bother with. Term limits and elections and the formalities of the democratic process are all very important sources of legitimation that none of the ruling elite dares dispense with for propaganda purposes, but they no longer have any real impact on how this country is ruled. We still get to "choose" but the corporate ruling class dictates what our choices are -- just like in the Soviet Union. The media makes sure that most of us are conditioned to think in the officially approved thought patterns and that those who dissent are marginalized and stripped of influence. Sovereign power theoretically lies with us, but custom of fell deeds has made it so that we "reign but do not rule" very much like the Queen.

The Powers That Be do "serve" us -- they serve us by keeping us distracted and entertained and bloated with consumer goods so that the majority of us are unable or unwilling to question their actions so long as we think they are taking care of us.

In other words, if the American people truly want torture, they'll keep electing torturers, and I don't think you can stop them.

I don't think the American people actually want torture. They just do not NOT want torture bad enough, do not have any unified political conscious or will to take any action to end torture, and do not have any real means of changing matters if they did.

We have countless poll results of how a majority of people are so pissed off with the war and the other policies of the present regime. But what did they do? Did they arms themselves and overthrow the bastards and give them the due that traitors deserve? No. They just voted in an election that accomplished nothing but to shift control of one branch of the government from one faction of the ruling elite to another.

Too many people still believe in the lie of American democracy, and that is our rulers' greatest strength.

[nieciedo]

Whatever happened to liberal Democrats?

They never really existed.

28% of the country is delusional, and 72% is pissed. They've got the majority behind them. What else will it take before they grow some balls?

Perhaps the reason they don't active oppose the right is because they're really both on the same side, as in both the right and the left together allied against us, the people? Is that really hard to believe?

[hf]

I assure you, the guy who calls himself The Left has no interest in torturing you.

[Ray]

Can't believe I haven't already, but I have to recommend The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe. Science fiction, religion, wonderful writing - and the hero is a torturer. (Raised as an apprentice in the guild of torturers, who torture not for information, but to provide an alternative to incarceration and execution). The first book is The Shadow of the Torturer, though you might see it in an omnibus edition, Shadow and Claw. Really, brilliant books, just what you need to rinse your mind out after Left Behind.

[iflurry]

Romney's call for not giving alleged terrorists lawyers by shipping them to Guantanamo is such a disgrace. Had the Virgina Tech shooter been taken alive, he would have gotten a lawyer, as well he should have. If someone is suspected of terrorism, they go in Club Fed for as long as They want him to stay there.

[Jos]

My point is that the "torture is wrong" argument only applies if we have a goal of becoming morally superior to other nations. If we have no such goal, then it doesn't matter whether torture is wrong or not, unfortunately.

Dude, you already claim that you are morally superior. The whole "Leader of the Free West" thing. The "Home of the Brave and the Free" and all that jazz.

Yeah...

You don't get to claim that any more.

[interloper]

Anyway, you don't need all that much moral superiority not to torture, do you? I'd think a sort of medium level of morality would do. You could even lowball it a bit.

[telesilla]

Are George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo really such fools that they do not know that torture is ineffective and self-defeating? Or are they simply monsters?

Both. And while that's a flippant answer, I really do think these guys embody a certain stupid monstrosity that's done a huge amount of spiritual and political damage to both the US and the whole world.

[Mark Foxwell]

The purpose of torture is to project power. In any dominator society, the fundamental value is to be on the winning team, ideally to run it. Someone who can arbitrarily inflict pain and suffering with impunity is the winner by definition.

As side benefits, of course it makes a gratifying punishment of rivals, and the threat of being tortured is a broadcast terrorist threat against anyone who might potentially fall afoul of your minions. And by no means should we overlook that there are people who just plain enjoy it. But a dominator society is fundamentally about _cultivating_ those kinds of people.

That's what Lagouranis refused to allow to happen to himself.

[Scott]

The American people are in the same position as she is. We don't have any real power, the annual ritual of voting nothing more than a symbolic ritual that the majority of the population doesn't even bother with. Term limits and elections and the formalities of the democratic process are all very important sources of legitimation that none of the ruling elite dares dispense with for propaganda purposes, but they no longer have any real impact on how this country is ruled. We still get to "choose" but the corporate ruling class dictates what our choices are -- just like in the Soviet Union. The media makes sure that most of us are conditioned to think in the officially approved thought patterns and that those who dissent are marginalized and stripped of influence. Sovereign power theoretically lies with us, but custom of fell deeds has made it so that we "reign but do not rule" very much like the Queen.

Of course, if someone you actually like ever gets elected, this gets tossed out the window and election results are "the will of the people" which give your guy a 'mandate' to do whatever leftist thing he wants. Any process, no matter how illegitimate, will legitimize what you want. Torture? The election process is corrupt. Socialized medicine? Elections are the collective will of The People.

[Robert the Red]

This leads me to suspect, again, that the real reason for this use of torture -- for any use of torture -- is that those who order it enjoy it.

Pretty close to the way I'd put it. They want to be mean to those who are mean to us, or might have been, or might be in the future. Perfectly natural. And wrong.

[Nenya]

I've always thought the rush to advocate torture was simply anger at the enemy and the high of watching them "get theirs". When people who feel that way come down off that high and realize that they were advocating something that might be kinda bad, then they start to rationalize it: it wasn't really actually torture, or the enemy was evil enough that even if it was torture they deserved it. And it gets spun from there.

And people don't stop to think what it would be like to have certain things done to you, or what effect even not-so-scary-sounding things would actually have on a person. Reading about something in the abstract, especially with euphemisms, is a lot easier to ignore than if you really think about it (or, God forbid, have it happen in front of you). The first thing that made me instinctively side with the anti-torture side was, I think, being exposed young to stories of people in the gulags in Soviet Russia. When your protagonist is the torturee, you suddenly have a lot less sympathy for the idea that it's just dandy.

[Nenya]

Or, what Robert the Red said.

[Mark Foxwell]

"Torture? The election process is corrupt. Socialized medicine? Elections are the collective will of The People."

Am I crazy to think that if I observe that one nation routinely and openly practices torture, and another has universal health care, that that alone is a good indication the former nation probably has a severely hiearchial society that systematically devalues large numbers of its own populace and the latter is probably democratic, both politically and socially?

And that a rational, humane person would greatly prefer to live in the latter and favor it over the former in every context?

This is why I account for the general persistence of human misery by supposing there must be some robust social mechanism that favors hierarchy, domination, and cruelty, because such a society is not one that people would freely choose, if all people had roughly equal weight in social policy deliberations. What I call a "dominator society" is one that is built around fundamentally militaristic priorities. The social system has evolved to produce the kind of populace well adapted to waging war on its neighbors, and thus internalizes competition as a paramount value, and controls this fundamentally divisive and destructive principle by creating and reinforcing a command hierarchy. It is robust in the sense that neighboring societies will tend to adopt its values in self-defense against its aggression; that accounts for why such societies have become the norm since the rise of civilization.

But it is in conflict with the basic fact that on the average, people are indeed roughly equal in overall abilities, and that we evolved as gatherer-hunters who had no such hierarchy in place, no imperative toward intra-species competition (not even with neighboring bands--there is no evidence that gatherer-hunter societies ever waged war on each other and lots of evidence against it)--a species whose major survival trick was a revolutionary ability to share knowledge and skill, to pool their individual abilities in cooperative enterprises, and whose primordial societies consciously recognized the mutual interdependence of all band members and deliberately checked divisive tendencies, as the testimony of anthropologists reports.

This is why dominator societies are not merely content to exercise the power of the social hierarchy in directly rational measures of self-maintence, by simply killing or exiling deviants and defeated rival claimants to higher position. Because both our evolutionary heritage and contemplative rationality argue against hierarchy and war, it is necessary to frequently make punitive, exemplary demonstrations of the power of the regime to inflict misery on scapegoats, so that its power outshouts the truth indicated by both reason and emotion, and takes on the appearance of truth in their place. Torture is reaction's answer to progressive reason.

"Shut up or else."

[nieciedo]

Scott, poor, silly, sweet, deluded Scott:

Of course, if someone you actually like ever gets elected, this gets tossed out the window and election results are "the will of the people" which give your guy a 'mandate' to do whatever leftist thing he wants. Any process, no matter how illegitimate, will legitimize what you want. Torture? The election process is corrupt. Socialized medicine? Elections are the collective will of The People.

You might conceivable have a point if the very structure of American "democracy" did not prevent such a thing from ever occuring. Most people would tolerate a dictatorship so long as they agreed with the dictator's policies. I do not deny that if we ever had a Leader with a capital L who had the charisma and force of character to project his will and lead others to believe in it and also articulated a policy agenda that I could agree with that I might be inclinded to follow him. Especially if there's a snazzy uniform with leather boots and a striking flag with a cool symbol on it. It would be even better if by some bizarre fluke of fate I happened to be that dictator.

But that will never happen. As for your notion of what might happen if someone I liked actually got elected, that will never happen either. For "someone I like" to get elected, he or she would have to play be the rules of the game -- and the ruling elite has crafted those rules so that the deck is always stacked in their favor.

True reform can never be achieved by "democratic" means. Those in power control the media and t he education system, and the media controls the minds of the electorate while the education system exists to reduce everyone to the average intelligence of well-behaved cattle. Therefore, the electorate is pre-conditioned to do whatever the ruling class tells them to do and cannot do anything else. Perhaps a major shock to the system might force enough people out of complacency to take action, but the Powers That Be make that very difficult as well.

No, the future is just as Orwell described it: a boot stamping on a human face. Forever.

[nieciedo]

@Mark Foxwell:

But it is in conflict with the basic fact...that we evolved as gatherer-hunters who had no such hierarchy in place, no imperative toward intra-species competition

Are not our nearest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, organized in hierarchical bands ruled by a dominanant alpha to whom all other members of the band are subordinate unless they can challenge him by combat?

[aunursa]

Judging by the only consistent regular commenter to defend torture on this blog, they are fools who believe what they've seen on TV

In general I follow only the LB portion of this blog, so alas I don't know the identity of the one regular commentator who supports torture.

That being said, I read recently that former CIA director George Tenet indicated that interrogation techniques used on Guantanamo and other detainees were invaluable in providing information that saved lives. I'm searching for the link -- hope to provide one by tonight. Obviously Tenet must be one of those fools who believes everything he sees on TV ... and that harsh interrogation = torture.

[Geds]

I don't think the American people actually want torture. They just do not NOT want torture bad enough, do not have any unified political conscious or will to take any action to end torture, and do not have any real means of changing matters if they did.

It's part and parcel with the whole politics of fear concept. Bushco got in to the White House in 2004 on a platform that I refer to as, "If you vote for Kerry, gay terrorists will break in to your house and force you to have an abortion."

Those are their issues. If the terrorists don't get you, the gays will make you have sex with other men (it's always man on man that's the issue. It's almost like lesbians don't exist or they think its fun to watch or something. Strange...) and dead babies will be piled on streetcorners because abortions will be mandatory.

The logical extension is, then, ignore all issues that don't have to do with this and give ground on the ancillary issues. Illegal government wiretaps? It's okay, they're using them against terrorists. Torture of terrorists? It's okay, they're not really human, anyway, and it's either us or them.

And as for the 2/3 to 1/3 split in the anti-Bush to pro-Bush camps, the speechwriters just start screwing around with the language. If you emphatically insist that "enhanced techniques" are okay and they're better than "torture," which we don't do, you can confuse enough people in that majority and keep from tripping the mental switches in the few supporters you have left and keep doing the same crap you've been doing all along.

[Jeff]

That being said, I read recently that former CIA director George Tenet indicated that interrogation techniques used on Guantanamo and other detainees were invaluable in providing information that saved lives. I'm searching for the link -- hope to provide one by tonight. Obviously Tenet must be one of those fools who believes everything he sees on TV ... and that harsh interrogation = torture.

No, Tenet was lying, something he's gotten very good at over the last 6 years (see "cake walk"). BushCo was wrong, and they lied about what he said, but he thoroughly deserves the Medal of Freedom they gave him. Hypocritical cow.

[aunursa]

Here it is...

George Tenet: 'Aggressive interrogation' saved lives

[Mark Foxwell]

nieciedo,

the trouble with arriving at general principles about how humans should live based on examples from the animals is that there really aren't any general principles. Each species adapts to some specific niche with some particular survival strategy, and the result is that social organization patterns are all over the map.

There are many different species of great apes for instance, and at least two I know of lumped together as "chimpanzees." Bonobos, which are also called "chimpanzees," have a very different band structure than the chimps you are talking about.

I put far more reliance on what anthropologists observe in human gatherer-hunter bands they were able to visit, and the archeological record of our own species and its precursors. Whatever our nearest surviving relatives may do, there is nothing like this "dominant alpha" organization among people like the Mbuti of the Ituri rainforest, whom Colin Turnbull studied, for instance. Men and women form monogamous marriages, young children stay with the women who scatter around the camp gathering most of the food they rely on, men and older boys hunt farther afield. There is no patriarch (or matriarch, for that matter) to dictate. Surviving elderly people are respected for their lore, but they don't rule either. The way of life is fairly simple and known to everyone; no one has a monopoly on skills and techniques so there is not any basis for hoarding goods and much to be gained by sharing them freely.

It is the universal consensus of all anthropolgists I've heard of, no matter what else their differences, that in most climates, even ones we find difficult, it is rarely if ever necessary for either men or women to work more than an average of 4-5 hours a day to meet all their material needs as they are accustomed to do. This is because, of course, such societies have very low population densities--each band draws from a very large territory, in which they are effectively on top of the food chain. So there was a great deal of leisure time, and just because the primary economic activities of men and women separated them didn't mean they didn't still spend a great deal of time all together in the central camp area.

People, men especially, did become assertive and competitive, but they were subject to criticism and shaming and the ultimate threat of exile, which threat when carried out was generally rescinded after a few days--because permanant exile would eventually amount to a death sentence. Malcontents could also join a neighboring band.

One thing that really strikes me from Turnbull's _The Forest People_ is that periodically, dissent and griping would indeed build up in Mbuti bands, but that in times when there was a lot of this kind of social turmoil, the elders would instruct the older children--teenagers, basically, though the diet and exercise of their way of life tended to delay puberty somewhat--to attack the entire camp at night. Symbolically, they were supposed to be like a herd of rampaging elephants. The adults would hide in their huts while the kids roamed around kicking things around and generally messing things up, not singling out any particular wrongdoer but making the point that the band had better get its act together.

Nowhere in this social organization, then, were there any signs of the modern "standard" of men order women around, and men being organized into hierarchies of privilege and power, and the systematic brutalization of all by all which we are so accustomed to. None of that stuff is imposed by our evolutionary heritage; if it were, every human society would have to exhibit it without exception, and we would not question it.

Archeology hasn't uncovered any evidence that our immediate pre-human ancestors lived much differently, and has failed to uncover evidence of such typical modern human activities as systematic warfare. Post GH humans typically devote a lot of effort to weaponry to use against other humans and a lot of symbolism and physical organization of villages, etc that shows the signs of both some form of systematic warfare and social polarization, but these signs are not visible in GH communities. Modern surviving GH peoples were not observed to have any lore or organization for systematic warfare. When others (typically post GH peoples) invaded their territory, they did not issue challenges or any of that stuff, did not open negotiations--they would either withdraw, or attack the invaders from hiding, just as they would attack a dangerous animal. But neighboring GH peoples would respect the boundaries of each other's territory, and typically intermarry.

And Turnbull reported that the Mbuti had never heard of any of their people ever murdering another.

I conclude that the militarization, polarization of the genders and subordination of women, general violence, and social stratification we all take for basic human nature today is all derived from a later set of social institutions, which must be analyzed not in terms of instincts but the underlying rationality of the institutions.

[Jesurgislac]

Aunursa: In general I follow only the LB portion of this blog, so alas I don't know the identity of the one regular commentator who supports torture.

Someone using your pseud, I'm afraid. And on a Left Behind thread, so you might have noticed sooner. Still, better late that never.

[Geds]

Um, I'm going to second Jeff on that whole Tenet is a liar thing.

Also, Newsmax doesn't strike me as being a particularly reliable source for information about anything political, what with its obvious anti-Liberal bias.

Jesu: Someone using your pseud, I'm afraid. And on a Left Behind thread, so you might have noticed sooner. Still, better late that never.

Does that fall under the category of, "If you can't figure out who that one person is, it's probably you?"

[nieciedo]

Mark:

Thank you for the information. Of course I blame most of the injustices in our society on the evolution of the capitalist mode of production, but my loathing for the species Homo sapiens -- which only seems to increase as time goes on -- made me question whether there was something more primal and pre-human that conditions us to act so abominably toward one another.

[Mark Foxwell]

Well, we sure are animals, and we sure are material, aren't we?

It's just that if we were rigidily programmed to do things, we probably wouldn't regret doing them or seeing them done.

[85% Duane]

LOL!

Quoting George Tenet and referencing Newsmax - that's like a double whammy of stoopid.

[Geds]

Quoting George Tenet and referencing Newsmax - that's like a double whammy of stoopid

aunursa projects one of the major tendencies of people who buy in to an authoritarian system of thinking. Republicans listen to O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Fox News, etc. and what they say is right. Anything that seems to agree must also be right and anything that disagrees is wrong and objectively evil.

You get the same thing dealing with a fundie literalist. Everything is, "Well, the Bible says..." or, "James Dobson says," and it's taken to be self-evident and anyone who can't see it is obviously bereft of the crazy gnosis of the movement.

The place it's most obvious that I've noticed, though, is with Scientologists. As a rule, they are completely incapable of making an argument that doesn't come from the CoS canon and anything that disagrees is completely wrong and in disagreeing you are evil and trying to destroy them, their beliefs and, I suppose, Xenu.

Three belief systems, same root of crazy.

[nieciedo]

Xenu is the one out to destroy them and their beliefs, so if you oppose the Co$ you are effectively acting as one of Xenu's agents. No doubt, your thetan was probably one of the henchman that flew the DC-10 space planes or loaded the frozen aliens into the volcanoes.

I had to pass by the Co$ near Times Square one afternoon a few weeks ago. A young man offered me a leaflet asking if I was interested in a Dianetics course. I smiled and said, "No thank you. I've already accepted Xenu as my personal galactic overlord."