The standard response would be "I want the interrogators to get the information, but not if it makes prisoners crap in their pants or pull out their hair." Agreed. I would like them to get the information without any sort of effort whatsoever. "It's a fair cop, guv. Here's where we've stored the fertilizer and here are the names of my associates. Now if you'll show me to my cell, I'd like to get started whiling away the time until most of the networks are compromised and the Iranian government has fallen, after which we can talk about letting me return home. Jolly good!" But I don't think that's going to happen. Conversely, I don't want them to beat the hell out of these people until they spit names and teeth, in no particular order. But I don't care if they make them stay awake most of the day for a month or two. I really don't. I'm sorry. We're talking about people who will not be satisfied until Israel is gone and the United States crippled. I'd like to know what they know, and if they wet themselves in the process, I do not regard this is as the equivalent of uprooting several million people to Alaska to build a canal dressed only in long johns.
That pretty much sums it up for me, too. I know, I know, where do we draw the line between sleep deprivation and kicking teeth out? Let's go with this, for starters: sleep deprivation is okay, kicking teeth out is not. Uncomfortable temperatures are okay, cutting heads off is not. So on and so forth...
1 comment:
Alas, Lileks has obviously never read any of the standard works on torture. He has obviously never thought that false information is a huge part of the process. He has also never met people who were tortured by an unjust regime (I have) and whose lives have been ruined, forever, by that torture. This is why I do not care what journalists have to say. I certainly do not care what people for whom torture is an abstract have to say. All of you should have to talk to someone who was presumed to be guilty, to stare them in the face, to hear how they would have said anything to stop the wretchedness that was happening to them. Lileks is a loudmouth pussy who honestly believes that what he is saying actually has anything to do with the simple invocation of " if I write stridently, I will impress stupid conservatives" . I truly wish some of you guys actually knew any victims of torture. You'd find that sophistry is not the easiest answer. Until then, sophistry it will be.
dc
Post a Comment