[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Should we waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Should we waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1195230926.shtml


   At Winds of Change, Armed Liberal discusses the issue of
   waterboarding:

     Patterico is a friend, and a smart guy, and someone who would make
     me cringe in fear if he were ever to prosecute me. And a wonderful
     husband and dad, I'm sure. I'm saying this in no small part because
     he took on a challenging hypothetical about torture, and I don't
     think he's a bad guy for asking the question.

     His hypothetical is this:

     His hypothetical is this:

     Letâs assume the following hypothetical facts are true. U.S.
     officials have KSM in custody. They know he planned 9/11 and
     therefore have a solid basis to believe he has other deadly plots
     in the works. They try various noncoercive techniques to learn the
     details of those plots. Nothing works.

     They then waterboard him for two and one half minutes.

     During this session KSM feels panicky and unable to breathe. Even
     though he can breathe, he has the sensation that he is drowning. So
     he gives up information - reliable information - that stops a plot
     involving people flying planes into buildings.

     My simple question is this: based on these hypothetical facts, was
     the waterboarding session worth it?

   A.L. says:

     I'll reply that a Chinese Wall (as we used to say in banking)
     between what we do to foreign terrorists and our own citizens is
     certainly going to get breached when we confront equally serious
     domestic ones. And we have the pesky problem of defining who,
     exactly is a terrorist, and who is a political opponent.

     So we're back to the idea that the foundation of our society isn't
     loyalty freely given, but fear of transgressing, and fear not of
     social ostracism, but of the torturer and the bullet in the back of
     the head.

     There are societies built like that.

     We're fighting them...

     ...Not treating KSM with kid gloves isn't torture. Reacting to
     abuse or bad behavior from him - even sometimes violence - isn't
     torture.

     Calmly sitting him down and saying you'll put him into excruciating
     pain unless he talks to you is. Because you are denying him his
     ownership of himself, in some moral way.

     A society that readily accepts torture reduces those who live in it
     to meat. It dehumanizes them. It dehumanizes those who do it. And
     it makes the societies in which those nonhumans live something
     other than the kind of human society we want to live in.

   I agree, mostly.

   KSM isn't a part of our society, he's an enemy combatant. If we made a
   reasonable evaluation of what makes up our enemies' military
   infrastructure, KSM, the organization he represents, the bankers and
   politicians who pay his bills, and the people who are employed by them
   are enemies, not subject to any protection under any civil law, no
   matter what citizenship they hold.

   However, since terrorism's military/political infrastructure includes
   many of our most trusted allies in the war against terrorism, our
   government is not willing to make a reasonable evaluation. We hold
   hands with the leaders of "the societies in which those nonhumans
   live". We arm them. We send them [1]billions of dollars. We're not
   fighting them.

   In standard warfare, the troops are easily identified. They wear
   uniforms, they're out in the battlefield. Their job is to protect the
   politicians and the financiers who direct them. But the
   politicians/financiers are also, legally, 'the enemy'. In a standard
   war, harming the enemy's economy, countering their propaganda and
   destroying their military forces are all equally important.

   Terrorist 'troops' are not easily identified. Their identities are
   protected by their politicians and the financiers, who are in turn
   protected by nothing but implausible deniability, smoke and mirrors.
   These politicans and financiers are also 'the enemy'.

   Right now, our government refuses to harm the enemy's economy, partly
   because they're profiting from it. The most important part of the
   enemy's propaganda is their implausible deniability. We never counter
   that. We don't treat the financiers of terrorism as enemy combatants,
   we give them the full protection of our civil laws. We give the Saudi
   sponsors of terror [2]diplomatic immunity.

   When our government is willing to legitimize, empower and tiptoe
   through the tulips with the leaders of terror supporting nations, the
   issue of torture is relatively small. We might be able to prevent one
   terrorist attack by waterboarding KSM. We could probably prevent
   hundreds of attacks by imprisoning the politicians and financiers who
   support him. For those politicians and financiers, one day without
   room service is torture. They're easier to deal with and easier to
   catch.

   In related news, [3]10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and
   militants since 9/11 occurred. These attacks are responsible for
   approximately 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured. How many of those
   attacks can be traced to the petrodollar-fueled [4]Muslim Brotherhood,
   or to Saudi financed madrassas? I'd guess close to 75%.

   If our govenrment stopped empowering terror supporting states, if we
   enforced our own laws, they could prevent tens of thousands of
   attacks.

   So, should we torture? Of course we shouldn't. We didn't need to use
   torture during WWII because we were directly and honestly confronting
   the enemy. This time, we're fighting a very small percentage of the
   enemy. The rest of the enemy forces out there are being appeased. Or
   we call them allies. Torture is a symptom, a sign that our entire
   strategy in this war is diseased. You can't win a war when you're
   allied with the enemy.

References

   1. http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2007/11/boker-tov-same-.html
   2. http://www.unknownnews.net/031022911.html
   3. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=453D47F2-EA57-43CD-8DF8-403A77F960BB
   4. http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.102/pub_detail.asp