The Atlantic - Latest Comments in For those who missed it...

Re: For those who missed it...

Paul — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 12:00:40 -0000

The equivalency does not hold. The quote from Richard Clarke is from p 144; on the previous page he defines what he means by it: apprehending terrorists abroad, "usually without the knowledge, and almost always without the approval of the host government." While Clarke mentions that some terrorists will be imprisoned in other countries, it is clear he is writing chiefly of bringing them to New York and putting them on trial.

As a moral question, this is on the level of trespassing on your neighbor's lawn: It's an offense if your neighbor minds; whether it is wise depends on what your neighbor is likely to do about it.

Confounding this with crimes about humanity is about as thoughtful as Rod Blagojevich's lawyers proclaiming his innocence. It requires a lot of cogitation, but no actual reasoning. If Ross Douthat means what he says, he is an unprincipled scoundrel, and you should have said so.

Re: For those who missed it...

Kaykuri — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:59:30 -0000

Extraordinary rendition follow-up:

Okay, I think it was Michael F. Scheuer, "chief of the CIA's Bin Laden unit under former President Bill Clinton and creator of the CIA's rendition policy" whose description of the differences between rendition under Clinton and Bush I had read. Sounds like he oughta know, and there does see to me to be a significant difference - so I don't think folks like Douthat should be free to equate the two.

Here is the gist as I get it. Clinton's rendition program was designed to operate like a secret global unlicensed bounty hunter. E.g. terrorist A is wanted in country B but is hiding out in country C (probably in Europe where they won't extradite someone who is likely to be ill-treated). So the CIA covertly snatches the terrorist and delivers him or her to country C where they will be prosecuted and meet their fate.

Now obviously the destination countries may not have legal or incarceration systems that live up to the high bar we set around here, but clearly Mr. Scheuer and, I would argue, many Americans wouldn't lose much sleep over that. If you don't want to get caned in Singapore, don't throw your gum on the sidewalk, or whatever.

For my part I see a pretty sizable gap between that and abducting folks on the thinnest of bases, and exporting them into extrajudicial limbo like GTMO or black sites purely for the purpose of torture to extract intelligence.

So I don't think the equivalency holds.

And for the record: Clinton and his staff may claim in all truth that they asked the destination countries to treat the prisoners by US standards and that they received assurances that it would be so. But really, I doubt they believe it happened and I wouldn't really buy that.

Re: For those who missed it...

Brian — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:29:47 -0000

Maybe someone can help me.

If it's ok for Cheney et al. to authorize torture, then why are those people who were convicted of it in jail/ were in jail (don't know if they still are)? Seems to me that if it's ok for one to authorize it, that those who committed it based on that authorization should if nothing else be pardoned.

Or is it only ok for the people at the top?

Re: For those who missed it...

Balanthalus — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:53:52 -0000

Ross' next to last paragraph, conceding that there might have been less "testosterone charged bungling" under Gore, indirectly struck at something I've been struggling to put into words for some time. Ross goes on to say that this really doesn't matter, because the question of whether torture is done in a professional manner doesn't affect its morality. And he is absolutely correct - saying that torture is OK when carried out by an experienced CIA operative but not OK when carried out by a green Army private is like saying rape is not as morally objectionable if the rapist uses a condom and doesn't leave too many bruises.

And yet, though just thinking it makes me feel like I need a hot shower, deep down I think the bungling is where a lot of my outrage at the Bush-era torture comes from. Bungling, combined with routinization. I remember watching the first season of 24, and not being bothered by the first instance, or maybe even the first couple instances, where Bauer roughed up some slimeball. It was just a somewhat harsher version of the treatment that badguys get as a staple of many police procedurals - nothing new to see here, folks. It wasn't until the formula of each season became "torture someone for the location of someone higher up in the conspiracy" repeated 30 times in a row that I stopped watching.

I think on some level the idea of an experienced interrogator using "torture lite," who knows torture to be generally unreliable but has a handle on those rare occasions (if any) where it may be necessary, who is a real pro in other words, is the kind of evil I might be willing to turn a blind eye to. And that admission makes me feel filthy.

But on some level what separates free societies from thugocracies is not the evil that happens but the evil that is institutionalized. Sometimes differences in degree become so great that they are indistinguishable from differences in kind. Even though it is morally incoherent, my gut tells me that there is something just different between the CIA operative and the Army private, and I think it has something to do with the fact that because we expect spies to do illegal things, tolerating their actions doesn't do the same damage to our democracy.

The above is somewhat rambling and incoherent partially because it's an attempt to find a post-hoc rational basis for an emotional response (though mostly because I'm not a very good writer). Intellectually, I know that torture is always evil and should always be illegal. But I've been grappling with limited success for some time over why more of my rage over the past few years is over the bungling and institutionalization rather than the act itself, and this is my first (rather badly flawed) attempt to express it.

Re: For those who missed it...

Kaykuri — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:45:02 -0000

I am going to have to go back and look this up now, because it is being repeatedly mentioned. But I distinctly remember reading comments from some high level ex-CIA/counter terrorism type that there was a significant qualitative difference between extraordinary rendition as practiced under Clinton and the enhanced model under Bush after 9/11 (don't think it was Clarke, but can't remember...)

I post this now, without having done my homework, because I'm busy this week and might not get to it. Perhaps some other well-read poster recalls the same?

Anyway, my point is that I am not sure you can equate Clinton's rendition policy with Bush's quite so simply.

Re: For those who missed it...

hrf — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:55:56 -0000

I thought that Ross is once again missing the main point. From his point of view, the impulse to torture seems natural - he struggles with condemning it because he sympathizes (or at least sympathized post 9/11) with the impulse. And thus he finds the whole torture-lite exploration by the U.S. less an outgrowth of the Bush administration per se and more a feature of the times.

For myself, I find these arguments unconvincing and ultimately extremely weak. When you resort to saying, well, any other President would have done the same thing, this masks the fundamental immorality of the act. I don't know whether Gore, had he been President, would have tortured. I'd like to think not, but no one can really know. But if he had, he would be just as guilty as Bush and Cheney are today of sanctioning things that never should have been sanctioned.

While I'm not naive enough to think that the U.S. has never tortured anyone in the past, there surely has never been an official policy to do so. And to make things worse, to make every attempt to hide this policy from the American people, to pass off Abu Graib as an aberration, to obstruct every attempt at a national conversation on the subject, and to obscure the meaning of the word "torture" - this is a fundamental break from our country's history. Hiding behind "another President would have done the same thing" shouldn't prevent us from condemning such actions in the first place. Slavery was the rule of the land for many years, but that doesn't make its immorality any less. Torture has never been legal.

I'd also like to remind Ross that not everyone finds the impulse towards torture-lite so understandable. I remember my own immediate reactions on 9/11 - I was worried about my mom who works in NYC, I was devastated regarding the loss of life and damage done, and I was worried about how the U.S. would respond and whether it would go too far. People do stupid things, people in power do stupider things, and fear makes everything worse. I see our entire governmental structure, from the Constitution to the Bill of Rights, as an effort to mitigate such stupidity. It's why we have checks and balances. And the fact that Bush and Cheney saw fit to sidestep this process through the concept of the unitary executive - this is inexcusable.

Re: For those who missed it...

Tony Comstock — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:30:24 -0000

WWGHD? A new sub-genre of speculative fan-fic! Count me in!

Gore would have listened to the people who told him in early 2001 something was coming. The 9/1.. attack would have been prevented. Some or all of the high-jackers would have been captured. They would have been professionally interrogated. Information from these interrogations would have been used to further disrupt AQ activities with a minimal loss of American lives.

Wow! This is fricken great. Not only do you get to set the needle down where ever you want in the record, you get to write whatever music you want from that point forward. Awesome! Let's play another round!

Re: For those who missed it...

Rajesh — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:23:15 -0000

Interesting post by Ross.

When you posted your point about Gore I thought that you had game, set & match but Ross's points about Clinton's introduction of extraordinary rendition and Gore's approval has made me reconsider.

On a side note, I think this is one of the few issues where Andrew Sullivan's British background shines through. The almost total concensus amongst the British is that the sort of ugly compromises Ross describes should not be allowed and this is part of the reason, IMO, for Sullivan's total repudiation of 'soft torture'.