Torture Works In Iraq

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Interesting article which poses some hard questions (pdf version of article here)

“The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.”

The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The stripes on the detainee’s back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture.

To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.

“I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.”

As American and Iraqi troops set up these outposts in dangerous neighborhoods to take on the insurgents block by block, they find themselves continually facing lethal attacks. In practice, the Americans and Iraqis seem to have different answers about what tactics are acceptable in response.

Beatings like this, which are usually hard to verify but appear to be widespread given the fears about the Iraqi security forces frequently expressed by ordinary Iraqis, present the Americans with a largely undiscussed dilemma.

Of course the Times produces no evidence that this kind of questioning is "widespread" but be that it may this kind of thing puts us in a quandary.  The information supplied by this terrorist shut down a large terrorist operation which most certainly saved many many lives, but at what cost? 

If the information supplied saved, lets say 1000 lives, since the bomb maker and his supplies was captured would the fact that they used electrical cord to beat the information out of  him be ok?  How about 10,000 lives?  A million?

I will not say that torture is NEVER justified, but it most certainly is a slippery slope which can lead down a dark path.  One in which Saddam took to the finish line.  Of course whipping them with a cord is a little better then dipping them into acid just for fun as Saddam did but if this becomes common practice and innocent people are tortured then the people will end up hating the government, as they did Saddam’s, and then we’re back to square one. 

Ed Morrissey asks what should be done about it?

And even if we object, how do we impose our objections and values on the Iraqis? After all, it’s their country and their values that will run it. If the answer is withdrawal, then we will only force the Iraqis to rely on these methods more and more as the security situation deteriorates. We can’t just pull out and leave the Iraqis to that kind of fate.

No, we can’t.  So what should be done?  The thing is that we are not in Iraq to colonize the country.  This is their country to run as they see fit, with their own moral code. 

See-Dubya at Hot Air:

If we stay, we may be able to influence the Iraqi army in a more humane and professional direction. But if we leave, and the Mahdi army or some similar faction takes over, the worst torturers win.

Tough questions with no easy answers and I won’t pretend to know them.

Finally I have to point to a sentence from this article which you might be interested in:

The use of torture by American soldiers and contractors at Abu Ghraib

Oh, I forgot, according to the liberal nimrods putting panties on a persons head and sleep deprivation is torture……

Cough.

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If the war effort isn’t vital or urgent enough to scuttle the “business as usual” mindset on the homefront (indeed encouraged from the beginning by President Bush) and demand substantial sacrifices from the American people, I don’t see how in the world one can argue that the war effort is vital or urgent enough to justify torture.

I can’t believe anyone actually gives a crap about this.

I have read a lot of discussion about this incident on the usual military and anti-idiotarian blogs that I read and most of them, in my opinion, seem to be falling into the usual liberal mindset of moral equivalence. I don’t understand why people keep equating senseless torture done by Saddam’s regime to political opponents and such, and senseless torture done by terrorists to kidnapped civilians and kidnapped soldiers before killing them… To so-called torture done for the purposes of extracting information to prevent violence and killings. What you and others seem to be doing is saying, torture is torture and it is bad, no matter its purpose. This is like saying murder is murder, no matter the purpose and saying that someone who murders someone in self defense is the same as someone who murders someone for the sake of murdering. It’s equating a woman who murders her rapist to a rapist who murders his victim. Just as all murders are not bad, all torture is not bad, in my opinion. And I really wish the military and Conservatives would stop being so sensitive about the subject. Torturing criminals and terrorists to prevent more crime and violence and mass murder is not the same as senseless torturing of political prisoners or senseless torturing of kidnapped civilians and soldiers by terrorists.

Western society does not become the enemy if we decide to torture for the sake of saving lives and preventing mass murder and violence. Just as there is a difference between soldiers fighting and killing to protect freedom and liberty and terrorists fighting and killing simply to create chaos and terrorize a population into fear, there is also a difference betweeen purposeful torture and senseless torture. I really wish you all would focus on that instead of going off the deep end, in my opinion, saying this a slippery slope and what does this say about us and yadda yadda yadda.

If torture does not work, then it should not be used. If it does work, then it should be used. Period. And it should be defended as such as well. We do not indiscriminately kill and we do not senselessly torture. Just as we defend the use of killing enemies, so should we defend the use of torturing bad guys to prevent mass murder and mass violence. In a war of survival, every single *effective* tool should be at our disposal. Period. Not using effective tools is not going to make us better or more moral or enlightened, it will simply make us get killed.

all torture is not bad, in my opinion.

I said the same thing Mike. BUT….it needs to be used sparingly. And in my opinion it most certainly can lead down a slippery slope if not used only under the most extreme reasons.

Actually, it was Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba who used the term “torture” with respect to the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison.

Of course, you wouldn’t want to let a little thing like facts get in the way of bashing the “liberal nimrods” to the giddy delight of a bunch of mildly retarded sycophants.

Hey look, a nimrod showed up….whippeeeeeee!

Funny how you write that the Gen used the term torture but not in what context. Kinda of important since he used it to describe the actions the soldiers took to SIMULATE torture.

Just a bit different huh?

I’m guessing your the type who believes panties on a guys head is torture….

You nimrods always make me laugh.