A few comments on the torture debate

Struck by a few points which don’t seem to have made their way into the “dialogue” on enhanced interrogation.

1. There is a gap between “interrogation” and “torture” defined as “coercion.” The techniques at issue are coercive, but not torture.
2. This difference is exemplified by the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques in training our own personnel, where we stop short of actual torture when exposing them to coercive interrogation techniques. Waterboarding thus represents the upper bound of techniques that fall short of torture.
3. The Bush administration authorized the use of waterboarding in 3 special cases, but the request for authorization came from the CIA to the administration. The CIA personnel felt that they needed to use waterboarding in order to extract time-critical information from subjects who were intractable using other methods.

   So when the Obama administration makes vague claims about “other methods would have worked,” perhaps what they really mean is that they know how to do the CIA’s job better than it does; that the CIA is just a pack of morons. If that’s the case, I suggest that Intelligence Director Blair immediately begin teaching classes on proper, effective forms.

In regard to the last point, I imagine the following conversation:

CIA Liaison: Director Blair, we have 3 high-value detainees who have information regarding immediate major attacks against US population centers. Nothing we’ve tried will get them to talk, so we feel we need to try waterboarding.

Intelligence Director Blair: Other methods will work.

CIA Liaison: Other methods?

Intelligence Director Blair: Other. Methods.

CIA Liaison: Uhhh…OK….uhhhh…which ones would those be?

Intelligence Director Blair: You know, the ones that work.

CIA Liaison: But we’ve tried everything else, so I really don’t think…

Intelligence Director Blair: Idiot!! TRY THE ONES THAT AREN’T WATERBOARDING THAT WORK!!!

CIA Liaison: {backing slowly away} Ohhhh. Those techniques. Riiiigght.

The real point being: the CIA didn’t ask for permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques because they enjoyed using them, or because they thought it would be cool. They asked for permission because all of the other things they tried, including everything that every second-guessing pundit has suggested, did not work.

Now we’re finding that without the enhanced interrogation techniques, we’re getting nowhere with detainees. And the Obama administration is considering the CIA’s request to start using some of those techniques again. The fact that they’re even considering reinstating some of them obviates all of the arguments by those who are calling for Bush’s head. If coercive techniques are lawful candidates for use in the current administration, then they were lawful candidates for use under the previous administration.

There is a legitimate question as to whether the moral price of waterboarding a subject for 2 1/2 minutes outweighs the potential tragedy of a 9/11-scale attack. There is a legitimate question as to how far the protections of the Geneva Conventions extend to those who are really international mass murderers, rather than conforming members of a signatory military. But the debate has wandered into hyperbole and hypocrisy, if not outright idiocy.

The CIA and the previous administration deserve better.