"How Can I Break His Reliance On God?"

Katherine linked to this AP story in a comment on an earlier thread. It concerns allegations in a manuscript written by a former translator at Guantanamo. I post excerpts without comment.

Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account. (...)

In another case, Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could "cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer.'"

The man closed his eyes and began to pray, Saar writes.

The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.

The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.

The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.

Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.

"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret."

The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.

"She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.

"She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" — so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.

"He began to cry like a baby," the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."

About the manuscript's author:

"Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an Arabic translator at the U.S. camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002 to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from prisoners, including alleged al-Qaida members caught in Afghanistan (...)

Saar said he volunteered to go to Guantanamo because "I really believed in the mission," but then he became disillusioned during his six months at the prison."

Comments

[cmas]

While I think that's really hideous, wretched, and horrible on so many levels, and the obvious issue in this instance is torture/abuse, I'm compelled to point out that the menstruation taboo and the marking of women as unclean in numerous cultures and religions across the world, including Christianity and Judaism, is deeply f*cked up and has led to an apalling amount of casual atrocities.

[cmas]

That should be "apalling *number* of casual atrocities," to pre-empt grammar-types.

[fdl]

if memory serves, there was an extremely ugly thread on tacitus when this story first broke. the author's credibility was doubted, and the methodology approved.

i'm so profoundly sorry that this kind of thing goes on under american authority. i can say that it's Not In My Name, but it is. this is happening in the name of all americans -- this is what the Global War on Terror has made us.

we seek to damn people's souls. how could we have fallen so low.

i wonder if, in 50 years from now, world leaders will gather at Camp X-Ray and renew their vows never to let such a thing happen again.

god bless america.

Francis

[votermom]

How degrading to all involved. If we had set the rules and enforced the rules we could have protected our own soldiers from debasing themselves like this.

[Chuchundra]

I wouldn't worry about it. It was probably just a few bad apples.

[Jesurgislac]

Cmas: I'm compelled to point out that the menstruation taboo and the marking of women as unclean in numerous cultures and religions across the world, including Christianity and Judaism, is deeply f*cked up and has led to an apalling amount of casual atrocities.

I'm in complete agreement with you on this.

But I still think that deliberately violating someone's religious beliefs to attempt to "break the prisoner's reliance on God" is a hideous thing in itself, whatever I personally think of those beliefs.

[NeoDude]

BUT HUSSEIN WAS A MANIAC KILLER!!!!

[mc_masterchef]

Ok, while I believe this is pretty clearly not an instance of torture, it is certainly disturbing and degrading. Evidently that was the point, but honestly, I don't understand, why would anyone possibly believe that that would work as an effective interrogation tactic? I mean, seriously, WTF were they thinking?

[Catsy]

A compare and contrast may be in order here--for those who aren't bothered by this, how would you feel about someone on the other side interrogating a devout Jew by feeding him pork products?

[mc_masterchef]

Being areligious myself, perhaps I do not sufficiently respect the importance of taboo, but I would say my answer would be the same - degrading and mean-spirited, as well as pointlessly stupid and completely counterproductive. But it's certainly not torture, is it?

[hilzoy]

mcm: From the Convention Against Torture:

"For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

I normally define things like emotional abuse quite narrowly, but I think this would qualify.

[mc_masterchef]

Hmm, ok, you may be right - I honestly don't know. I initially read it more as being abusive and the prisoner's reaction being (understandable) anger and outrage, not so much suffering or pain. But as I suggested before that sense of violation is somewhat foreign to me except in the abstract, so perhaps I can't really judge it here.

I find it extremely disconcerting that anyone in this position could possibly think doing something like this would be helpful to extracting information from someone.

[hilzoy]

I know -- it's all wrong on so many levels. Add to that that according to the AP piece all we knew about the suspect was that he was Saudi and took flying lessons before 9/11. That torture is generally ineffective. That this in particular seems designed to make someone think that truly he'd rather die than tell you anything, ever. That he will hate us for the rest of his life, perfectly understandably. That if he has friends and family, and they ever learn about this, they will hate us too. And so on, and so on...

And somewhere down the list of awfulnesses I also think: we have a responsibility to the men and women we ask to serve, not just to protect them from physical harm but also to protect them from doing things they might spend the rest of their lives regretting. I don't say this to let the interrogators off the hook at all -- they are responsible for what they do -- but I keep wondering: what were their commanding officers thinking? Aren't we, for heavens sake, supposed to be looking out for the people we ask to serve? And is that consistent with letting stuff like this go on?

[mc_masterchef]

Absolutely - I've only met one professional interrogator in my life (a professor of mine who used to work for the CIA) but he's been very adamant that torture, physical abuse, does not work -- and as anyone who's studied the history of top Al Qaeda militants could tell you, often only further radicalizes the victims. Interrogation should not be about sadism or humiliation or some sense of frustrated revenge - it's about attaining information from your subject. So what's particularly concerning is how this incident bespeaks a serious lack of oversight, training, professionalism, and even basic education on the subject at work here. Nadezhda made a related point to your last I believe, here, about the importance of the rule of law in government in preventing (or at least lessening the frequency) of these sorts of ugly incidents. I think the quoted article from Robert Keohane and Anne Marie Slaughter does much to illustrate the failings of the Bush administration in appreciating the need for effective checks and balances, so I can only hope a core of professionals remains within the military establishment willing to work towards ending these sorts of practices.

[Anarch]

A compare and contrast may be in order here--for those who aren't bothered by this, how would you feel about someone on the other side interrogating a devout Jew by feeding him pork products?

Or a devout Christian being forced to defecate on a cross.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

A compare and contrast may be in order here--for those who aren't bothered by this, how would you feel about someone on the other side interrogating a devout Jew by feeding him pork products?

Or a devout Christian being forced to defecate on a cross.

Hmm, all of those things would be bad but I wouldn't think of any of them as torture. They all sound highly ineffective and likely to just make people really angry.

[Catsy]

Hmm, all of those things would be bad but I wouldn't think of any of them as torture. They all sound highly ineffective and likely to just make people really angry.

Pin pon. Not to mention (to be charitable) highly counterproductive when the greater part of the global struggle on which you're embarked involves winning over moderate Muslims and convincing them you're not against their religion, just against the extremists who misuse it to promote violence.

I would think this would be self-evident to any thinking person.

[Anarch]

They all sound highly ineffective and likely to just make people really angry.

Is the effectiveness of the technique relevant? I'm never quite sure, either on the left or the right; in some conversations they're considered inextricable, in others they're orthogonal.

I happen to agree with your point, btw, so this isn't snark: to me the sheer pointlessness of the act shifts the valence from "legitimate action" to the realms of sadism and, potentially, psychological torture. I'm curious as to what others think, though.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

For me at least, this isn't obviously TORTURE. One of the defining characteristics of torture in our society is (ought to be) that you don't ask about the effectiveness--you just don't do it. But since this doesn't strike me as torture, the question of effectiveness comes in. It doesn't seem likely to be effective and it seems particularly nasty therefore we shouldn't do it. It strikes me that if you were sure that some high percentage of Al Qaeda agents would give useful information when we faked smearing menstrual blood on their faces by using a red pen, I would be ok with that. But it seems unlikely to be a good tactic, so it is just being vicious.

And that may make me cold-hearted. But there you are.

[Anarch]

A related question, then: if someone had an irrational fear -- say arachnophobia -- would it be legitimate to use those fears against them -- by, say, covering them with fake spiders? More precisely, would such an act constitute "TORTURE" to you [why the all-caps, btw?] or would it simply constitute pointless sadism?

[If you want a particularly vicious example of this, I'm thinking of Winston Smith's adventures in room 101...]

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian: . One of the defining characteristics of torture in our society is (ought to be) that you don't ask about the effectiveness--you just don't do it.

Yes, but you have an extremely limited definition of torture: you appear to want to exclude any techniques used by American torturers on their victims from your definition of torture. (Or TORTURE. An acronym?)

Or so I gathered from your last post on the subject.

[liberal japonicus]

I think this returns us to the idea of human dignity, which is often cited by those defending interrogation practices as a case of the IRC and the Geneva Convention being out of step with the real situation. This article details the pragmatic case against this, but the moral case against this is that if we aim to take away their dignity, we have really done nothing but surrender our own.

[Dianne]

hilzoy: "we have a responsibility to the men and women we ask to serve, not just to protect them from physical harm but also to protect them from doing things they might spend the rest of their lives regretting"

It's a good point and one not often discussed in this debate. One of the few life events more likely to cause PTSD than surviving an atrocity, such as being tortured, is committing an atrocity, such as torturing a helpless prisoner. If we as a society allow or compell people to use torture, physical or psychological, then we should not be surprised if many of them develop severe psychological illnesses as a result.

[Katherine]

1) it is not clear to me that it either is or is not torture. I don't want to say it's not too quickly because that sort of intense religious feeling is foreign to me...I do remember reading that feelings of guilt or shame are high PTSD risk factors.

2) it is quite clear to me that it is "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

3) I doubt it's effective in the short run and it's surely stupid in the long run when we're trying to convey that we're not at war with Islam. Does anyone here think we'd force a Christian suspect to desecrate a crucifix?

4) one of the reason I've found this so upsetting is that a day before, I'd been reading stories like this, and I had not believed them.

Habib was rendered to Egypt and has made allegations that he was severely tortured there and that afterwards when he was sent Guantanamo he was, among other things, denied medical care for the injuries he suffered in Egypt. The stories about prostitutes menstruating him I thought were probably false, and bizarre enough to cast doubt on the rest of his allegations (though some of the other allegations have been independently corroborated). The very next day I read this story.

[hilzoy]

As I said above, I tend to come down on the 'it is torture' side. But this question seems to me much less important than the question, what on earth are we doing? How is it possible that my country, which I love, has somehow ended up here?

[mike p]

Not torture. Not inappropriate. Not ashamed as an American to hear of it. It may or may not be effective, and if were never effective, then the practice ought to be stopped. Though as it was done in order to gain information, rather than as entertainment, not only won't I condemn them, I'd like to congratulate the interrogators on their ingenuity.

Why don't we ask the families of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg or Margaret Hassan if they'd have prefered boobies rubbed into their backs and ink on their face rather than beheading? Perspective here seems sorely lacking, at least to me.

[Jesurgislac]

mike p: Though as it was done in order to gain information, rather than as entertainment, not only won't I condemn them, I'd like to congratulate the interrogators on their ingenuity.

So, mikep, why haven't you signed up to debate von as a representative of the pro-torture wing?

Perspective here seems sorely lacking, at least to me.

The ambition to be just a little bit better than terrorists/murderers, but not more than a little bit better, has always seemed fundamentally alien to me.

[Anarch]

The ambition to be just a little bit better than terrorists/murderers, but not more than a little bit better, has always seemed fundamentally alien to me.

There's a fairly virulent strain of binarism floating around nowadays. I'm not saying that this is what motivates mike p -- he's more than capable of explaining his own actions -- but I really do get the sense that for a lot of people "Good" and "Evil" are the only two moral categories (which are usually considered synonymous with "American" and "Anti-American", although for some people it's the other way around) and that by not being in one category you're automatically in the other. I'm not really sure what's to be done about that except to hammer the point home that a) the enemy of my enemy can sometimes be a great big dick and my enemy besides, and b) I have higher standards for my country and my allies than "Not as bad as Saddam Hussein".

[Phil]

Why don't we ask the families of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg or Margaret Hassan if they'd have prefered boobies rubbed into their backs and ink on their face rather than beheading? Perspective here seems sorely lacking, at least to me.

You know what I did today? I woke up, and I said to myself, "I'm a better human being than Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Speck, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson." Then I punched an old lady in the face, kicked a kitten, punctured my neighbor's tires and urinated in the water cooler at the office. All the while, I felt pretty damned good about myself, because I never, ever have killed anyone, and am a better person than people who have. Hey, it's all relative!

[kenB]

Thanks, Phil, I'm going to use that story on my kids (or an expurgated version, anyway) whenever they try to defend a bad grade by saying that some other kids did even worse.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Phil,

Terrific.

[rilkefan]

"I'm a better human being than Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Speck, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson."

Individually or summed? Maybe you want "I'm better than A, B, C, D, or E"...

[Gromit]

No, Phil has it right. "Or" would only require that he be better than one of them.

[mike p]

Fair question Jes. I haven't the time, the expertise, or the desire to argue with von. His job is to make arguments professionally. It'd be about as much fun as my challenging Manny Ortiz to a Home Run Derby match.

That being said, I also don't see myself as "pro-torture." I do think there is, to put it mildly, a bit of a rush to include anything that's at all unpleasant to detainees as part of a pattern of torture and abuse.

[Jesurgislac]

mikep: That being said, I also don't see myself as "pro-torture."

I imagine that much of the difficulty Von has had in finding someone to debate with him is that most people who are pro-torture don't think of themselves as pro-torture: they just redefine torture so that it doesn't include any of the abuses they think are perfectly fine for American soldiers to use on terrorist suspects.

One of my favorite Ovid quotes, as true now as it was a couple of thousand years ago:

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

I haven't the time, the expertise, or the desire to argue with von. His job is to make arguments professionally.

A fair answer. But if you're willing to defend the practices American soldiers have used on terrorist suspects - most of whom have since turned out to be innocent - then I don't think it would really matter that you don't want to call such practices torture.

[rilkefan]

"they just redefine torture so that it doesn't include any of the abuses they think are perfectly fine"

Begging the question.

[Jesurgislac]

How so?

I don't wish to put words in either MikeP or Von's mouth - a most unhygienic practice - so let's say Quetzel and Coatl both say they're not pro-torture.

But Quetzel thinks that what American soldiers have done and are doing to prisoners in Bagram Airbase, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, is perfectly fine; rape and other sexual abuse, beatings, sleep deprivation, and other documented practices are not torture.

Coatl thinks that such documented practices are torture - and so does the Red Cross, incidentally.

It seems to me that although Quetzel and Coatl would both call themselves anti-torture, if they could agree on a word to call the practices that Quetzel says are just acceptable interrogation techniques and Coatl says are torture, they could have a discussion about why Quetzel is pro-[word] and Coatl is anti-[word]... and if Quetzel's viewpoint changes if those documented practices of Bagram Airbase, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, are being practiced on American soldiers, not by them.

[rilkefan]

"most people who are pro-torture don't think of themselves as pro-torture"

You are (afaict) assuming a platonic def of torture and beating the other guys over the head with it.

[Phil]

I disagreee, rilkefan. It appears to me -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that people have tried to restrict themselves to the ways in which our soldiers have apparently treated prisoners are torture under the anti-torture conventions to which we are signatory. I don't think they've resorted to an abstract definition or a platonic ideal -- Jes and hilzoy in particular have even quoted the relevant sections of those conventions.

[Catsy]

"most people who are pro-torture don't think of themselves as pro-torture"

Of course not, they think of themselves as "pro-toture".

Sorry, von. *runs*

[rilkefan]

Ok, shouldn't argue when I'm busy at work - but there's the issue of disagreeing over what torture is, that of disagreeing over what has happened, and that of people hypocritically changing their def to suit the facts. Jes seems to be putting most of the other side in the third category.

[Anarch]

and that of people hypocritically changing their def to suit the facts.

A simple test, as elucidated by Jes, would be: what would one's opinion be if such practices were committed on American soldiers, rather than by them? Would we be reluctant to describe them as torture and, if not, why not?

[rilkefan]

Re "on" vs "by", that's not a sufficient test given different cultural norms. Some of what strikes me as dumb in the Limbaugh response is not to recognize that.

Also note the importance of who's doing the doing and to what degree it's authorized etc.

For the record, as a (mostly) prescriptivist I want to keep as sharp an edge on words as possible...

[Anarch]

You're right, rilkefan. I forgot my two favorite weasel words: mutatis mutandis. Let the moral equivalencies commence!

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: You are (afaict) assuming a platonic def of torture and beating the other guys over the head with it.

No, I'm really not. I'm pointing to actual things that have actually been done to real human beings by real human beings. I call those practices torture. Other people don't.

But that is the real issue - without getting into a dictionary definition of torture, we can in fact point at things that have actually been done by American soldiers to Afghan and Iraqi prisoners (and others), and discuss "Are you for or against that"?

That's really about as far as you can get from trying to set up a "Platonic ideal" of torture.

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: Re "on" vs "by", that's not a sufficient test given different cultural norms.

Why? Do you feel that American soldiers are more okay with being raped by their captors, or less? What cultural norm, exactly, are you pointing to?

[rilkefan]

"we can in fact point at things that have actually been done by American soldiers to Afghan and Iraqi prisoners (and others), and discuss "Are you for or against that"?"

Sure, fine. I don't think that is consistent with:

"most people who are pro-torture don't think of themselves as pro-torture: they just redefine torture so that it doesn't include any of the abuses they think are perfectly fine for American soldiers to use on terrorist suspects."

"Why? Do you feel that American soldiers are more okay with being raped by their captors, or less? What cultural norm, exactly, are you pointing to?"

You would have a better chance of convincing me if you chose an example more likely to test your contention - for example, the subject of the post.

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: Sure, fine. I don't think that is consistent with: "most people who are pro-torture don't think of themselves as pro-torture: they just redefine torture so that it doesn't include any of the abuses they think are perfectly fine for American soldiers to use on terrorist suspects."

What makes you say that? It seems perfectly consistent to me. I'm sitting here as someone who does see the documented practices carried out in Bagram Airbase, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib as torture: and I see people who are pro those practices, therefore, in my eyes, they are pro-torture. They would disagree, because they see themselves as anti-torture, because they don't include those practices in their definition of torture.

Rather than get into a massive discussion of what is and isn't torture, it seems to me to cut through all of that (which can go on forever, or perhaps it just seems that way) if we just agree that we are pointing a specific set of rather well-documented practices and argue whether we are pro- or anti- that.

What inconsistency do you see there?

You would have a better chance of convincing me if you chose an example more likely to test your contention - for example, the subject of the post.

As you would have a better chance of convincing me if you chose an example more likely to test your contention - as, for example, whether an American is more or less likely than an Iraqi to find it upsetting to see his son raped in front of him. Cultural norms?

[rilkefan]

I think it's rhetorically unfair to categorize people based on a term in dispute (which is why I agree with your "real issue") esp. since you say most of those people are hypocrites (possibly tarring commenters here).

Re rapes, I don't have any idea how to measure relative pain at such a level. My guess is that a non-homophobic American would find your example less horrific than a chauvinistic Iraqi. If you want to take the Limbaugh position I'm not going to argue with you, but I think most Western readers of hilzoy's post above will find the cultural norms position is strong.

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: esp. since you say most of those people are hypocrites

No, I don't. Don't put words in my mouth.

My guess is that a non-homophobic American would find your example less horrific than a chauvinistic Iraqi.

...I'm kind of stunned. No, really, I am. I can't imagine that homophobia or the lack of it has anything to do with how horrific a parent would find it to see their son raped in front of them.

[rilkefan]

See my January 28, 2005 05:39 PM re "hypocrisy" - that's how I interpreted it. I guess you didn't read my January 28, 2005 07:26 PM.

Re rapes, see the preceding sentence. I can come up with guesses that run the other way too - but, again, there's a simple test case at the top of the column.

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: that's how I interpreted it.

Fine: that's how you interpret it. I, on the other hand, can see a whole multitudinous complex of reasons why some Americans might perceive the practices of Bagram Airbase, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay rather differently were they reading about them being inflicted on American soldiers instead of by American soldiers - which is why I choose not to label those people hypocrites. I really don't think it's helpful to do that, and I kind of resent your telling me that I am doing it, when I'm not.

but, again, there's a simple test case at the top of the column.

And as seen in the thread on Sponge Bob Square Pants, there exist Americans who are extremely religious - despite being brought up in an entirely different culture from an Iraqi. Should they be forced by their captors to violate their deeply-felt religious taboos, I think they would feel it, too. Agreed, those taboos would vary with the religion and with the culture attached to that religion. But the idea that it can't be torture if it's just a violation of a religious prohibition, or that it's something that can't be imagined in reverse because American soldiers aren't religious enough to care if someone violates their religious/cultural taboos... I'm not sure where you're coming from on this one. Are you arguing that there are no American soldiers with deeply-felt religious beliefs?

[rilkefan]

Seems to me if people redefine something inconsistently based on new data that's hypocrisy. Plus I don't know who's doing this so it's hard to check against cases.

Note I started with "seems", you didn't object, so... And really, I don't see how you can resent me for being wrong. Anyway...

Re taboos, I think that's a good argument, and as long as you talk about classes of acts instead of acts I'll probably agree with you - but then you're going to lose the specificity you're seeking to make the argument clear.

[liberal japonicus]

Getting back to the topic of the post, the question was dealt with in Shusaku Endo's Chinmoku (沈黙 (Silence)). The story revolves around a fumie, which was an image of Mary and the Christ child that Japanese were ordered to tread on to prove that they were apostates. Those who are willing to write this off as non-torture should read the book.

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: Re taboos, I think that's a good argument, and as long as you talk about classes of acts instead of acts I'll probably agree with you - but then you're going to lose the specificity you're seeking to make the argument clear.

Well, we could simply stick to "is an act deliberately intended to violate a Muslim religious taboo torture", sure. There are Muslim soldiers in the US army, to whom that would also apply.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Debating whether this constitutes torture or not may be an interesting exercise, but I find it irrelevant to the case hilzoy describes.

Like many others here I cannot believe that this is an effective interrogation technique. Therefore it is simply degrading treatment of prisoners for its own sake. Torture or not, it is vicious and inhumane. It ought to be stopped and those who engage in it ought to be punished.

The first hurdle for any proposed unpleasant interrogation method is not whether it is torture but whether it is effective. Only if it is effective can we move on to the torture question. Otherwise we simply don't do it.

[Jesurgislac]

Bernard Yomtov: The first hurdle for any proposed unpleasant interrogation method is not whether it is torture but whether it is effective. Only if it is effective can we move on to the torture question. Otherwise we simply don't do it.

I'd say the hurdles ought to be the other way round, but in a United States where it looks as if Gonzales will be confirmed Attorney General, your way round is probably the best anyone can hope for.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Jes,

I think you misunderstood, or perhaps I was not clear. I am suggesting that the first question to ask about any unpleasant interrogation technique is whether it is effective. If the answer is no then it should not be allowed. If the answer is yes then we move on to the question of whether it is torture. If so, it is prohibited.

My point was that abuse that does not rise (or sink) to the level of torture ought not be allowed either if it is not effective. On reflection, perhaps it doesn't matter what order we ask the questions in, as long as both get asked. My comment was a reaction to the idea that anyone could consider the described treatment as a way of obtaining information.

Should we allow some abusive treatment? Yes, but very cautiously. We should, as I suggested in another thread, "build a fence" around the law, establishing regulations that prohibit treatment that falls short of any legal definition of torture.

[noone]

first of all i know alot of women and men who worked at Guantanamo Bay . i now they would not do any of the things that people say. it is crazy how some people would belive everything people say or even write i don't belive any of it .people belive this saar person there is no way all of these things happened. saar is a liar in my mind. but IF these thing that he is say were true i say GOOD these people cut the heads off of our americans and all we do is a littel strip tease for them !!!big deal!! they fly planes into the twin towers and killed our people they need to be interrogated so we can get each and every person who had any thing to do with that and put them in prison or kill them .also think about this if we were prisoners for them would they have a pretty gril touching herself for you or would they just cut your fingers off and your toes and then kill you when they got what they wanted from you or if they didn't get what they wanted they would kill you. at Guantanamo Bay they do not kill people who don't talk they just put them back in there cells . also at Guantanamo Bay the Muslim detainees were throwing urin and fecies at the guards but do people care about that i know if i was in the guards place i would be mad .

[Brian]

WoW what an interesting story. I do not what is more sad, the fact that someone actually wrote it or that many of you will just read and believe it without any proof whatsoever. I compare you to lemmings that that just follow each other over a cliff despite that that you see each one plunging to its death. This story like many other printed by a majority liberal media with an agenda of just to embarass our President. I wonder if you all remember the time magazine story about the koran being flushed down the toilet at guantanimo. IT was later proven a lie, but not before the damage was done. You know increased violence to our troops abroad, but even though it was proven wrong not much said about it. Why because our irresponsible American Media is more interested in embarrassing our President then Printing the truth. And unfortunate the ones who suffer are the very ones who protect your way of living. THe same ones who help you sleep in peace at night. Never forget the lessons of 9/11 or the 93 world trade center bombing, or the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. So keep on reading little lemmings, just next time take it with a grain of salt and consider the source, and just perhaps get a second opinion, not everything in print is true. The vast majority of our military is doing an outstanding job. Thank You to all my fellow soliders who protect our freedom.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"The vast majority of our military is doing an outstanding job. Thank You to all my fellow soliders who protect our freedom."

I believe this statement to be true, but its truth doesn't disprove any particular charge about specific members of our military.

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian, that's cogent, splendid, and true. Well said.

[Phil]

Brian, you do know those lemmings were thrown off that cliff, right? Kinda lends a certain poignancy to your otherwise retarded comment.

[Brian]

Of course I know mr disney expert phil I applaude your knowledge of "retarded" meaningless facts. I will make sure I call you if I ever need a lifeline. It was a figure of speech. Perhaps you didn't notice the hint of sarcasim. Perhaps it you with the retardism. Phil your comments are codswallop and you are a poltroon, and sebastian while you are right it doesn't disprove any particular charge, all I am saying is that just because it is printed it doesn't prove it either. remember we are supposed to innocent until proven guilty