Strange Weather

It's not everyday that you get "blowing sand" on your weather report. It's also a rather cool 104 degrees F today, as opposed to the 120 degrees F last week. Ahh... life in Saudi.

The Continual Justification for Torture

I continue to be mystified by the Americans that continue to argue that torture makes us more safe, when the experts and evidence seem to indicate otherwise.

Matthew Alexander via Harper's Magazine writes:

In Iraq, we lived the “ticking time bomb” scenario every day. Numerous Al Qaeda members that we captured and interrogated were directly involved in coordinating suicide bombing attacks.
...
Torture is counterproductive to keeping America safe and it doesn’t matter if we do it or if we pass it off to another government. The result is the same. And morally, I believe, there is an even stronger argument. Torture is simply incompatible with American principles. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both forbade their troops from torturing prisoners of war. They realized, as the recent bipartisan Senate report echoes, that this is about who we are. We cannot become our enemy in trying to defeat him.

Perhaps the people that defend torture are only high-minded, moral people when it comes to their tax bill, or when homosexual couples are fighting for the ability to have their medical wishes obeyed. Maybe they are just frightened by the thought of having more Americans killed in attacks similar to, or worse than, 9/11. But the truth of the matter is Americans are dying directly because of the US policy to use torture.

Alexander continues:

Consequently it is clear that at least hundreds but more likely thousands of American lives (not to count Iraqi civilian deaths) are linked directly to the policy decision to introduce the torture and abuse of prisoners as accepted tactics. Americans have died from terrorist attacks since 9/11; those Americans just happen to be American soldiers.

This must be part of that whole, "let's fight them over there, rather than over here" philosophy. I guess that is the philosophy that is most prevalent when the woolen illusion of safety and security is warmly wrapped around yourself. However, the odds of the American men and women, directly in the line of fire, as a result of the increased influx of violence, are directly impacted. The policy of torture does them a grave disservice, and only increases the likelihood of injury or death.

I support efforts (legal wire-tapping, increased budget for information gathering and analysis) to increase the security of the American people. I just do not think it should come at the expense of our nation's morality, laws, and some American's safety, at the expense of other's. Increased security should come about using techniques and methods that work, rather than (what are now the obviously known) deficiencies of using torture.

Steven Kleinman writes:

In contrast, considerable evidence -- along with the many years of operational experience by the nation's most accomplished interrogators -- strongly suggested that coercive methods not only failed to consistently obtain reliable intelligence, but that such tactics are largely counterproductive in that they stiffen the resolve of detainees under questioning and undermine the stature of the U.S. on the world stage.

What number of actual experts, those whom are responsible for extracting reliable information from detainees, must pound the networks and the blogosphere before people stop trying to equate torture with increased safety? Especially as it is becoming more clear that the White House (Cheney in particular) wanted to use torture as a means of connecting Al Qaeda with Iraq, thus providing another line of motive reasoning to invade. Similarly, as the false claims that Iraq posed an immenent threat to the world, due to their large piles of WMDs, the connections between Al Qaeda and high levels of the Iraqi government have never been proven. Perhaps they too are hidden in the shifting desert sands.