I also know something about the criminal justice system that you don’t know. You are imposing an ideal that simply never happens on a very complicated system of which you are largely ignorant (it would seem). From the point of view of the investigating body, there are strategies that must be considered. This happened in Nuremberg. It should happen here.

Do you understand that just because you think torture is wrong and that waterboarding is torture, that you have a chance of prosecuting a CIA field agent who has hundreds of pages of valid documents form higher up explaining how waterboarding a certain prisoner is totally legal if there is a physician present? That would be a very hard case to prosecute. A prosecutor may well prefer to cut a deal with that field operative.

At first it looked to me like Obama’s strategy was a political version of this sort of thing, and I posted the opinion that this could well be a good idea precisely to get this conversation going. And that worked. And it could have been a good idea (potentially) as long as it led to Dick Cheney and George Bush and several dozen others serving time for total fucking up this country, our position in the world, starting two wars, and generally ruining everything for everybody.

If you think this is about you parsing what I’m saying, you need to reorient to what is important. Rather than parsing what you think I said, listen instead to what I have said again and again. And refocus our attention on what is important: Cleaning up this mess the Republicans left us with.

Jeeeshh….

I would think that the fact that they tortured prisoners would be a strong argument in favour of not pardoning them?

I cannot see any situation, bar the ridiculous 24H kind, where it would be OK to torture another human being, but your post makes it sound as if it would be wrong to punish people for comitting atrocities?

You actually state that the only reason not to pardon the torturers is top get at the bigger fish!

Well, the events of the last several hours have obviated this question. Obama has backed off his plan, and things are moving in an entirely, and I thing good, direction. However, in reference to your comment, you do need to understand that your ideal of what happens is very far from the truth of what happens. I’m not advocating a Nuremberg defense, and I’m not advocating torture at all, but I am advocating an effective prosecution. However, what you need to understand is that effective prosecutions always have strategies, and usually, in a complex situation like this, deals are struck.

The ratio of prosecutions for serious crimes in which deals are struck by default or by direct negotiation to those in which no deals are struck at all is something like 10,000 to 1.

The law of the land is that torture is never justified, and any nation that has ratified the convention against torture MUST to the best of its ability try those suspected of involvement with torture.

You actually state that the only reason not to pardon the torturers is top get at the bigger fish! I can only hope that some other nation succesfully kidnaps these criminals from US soil, and take them to another nation were they can get a fair trial, since the the president thinks himself above the law.

That’s not the case at all. Mi Lai? Abu Ghraib? Fallujah massacre? The little guys got fried, not the policy makers, or the covert Ops who called the shots in the field. These guys should definitely be held accountable, because when we grant systemic immunity to criminals who work in the disguise of trusted nationalists, we err on the side of criminal internationalist goals, i.e. unchecked, unprosecuted Mossad bombings, murders, and torture, or Russian FSB poisonings of dissidents.

As much as you detest the “slippery slope” arguments, they are very very valid, and one only need to take the evidence of public opinion polls over seas as a barometer of that–we have lost so much credibility because we have become the exact thing we claimed to stand against.

Rogue agents? That’s a great CIA/FBI urban myth.

and : “I thought “I was only following orders” didn’t count as an excuse anymore?”

Don’t be fooled: the Mi Lai massacre was just an side-show, illusion created to obfuscate the view of bigger more dreadful shows that were going on behind the scenes. It’s just so much easier to find one lesser ranked scapegoat and put on a show trial than it is to address systemic dysfunction.

There is NO excuse for torture, because the definition of torture has not changed, and these CIA guys and gals made the choice to torture–which in theory goes against their training under all existing laws that were on the books when they decided to torture.

Greg put it succinctly enough, you are full of shit and I have wasted enough of my time on you.

And by the way, even though I don’t couch things in absolutes, the people around me are also aware that I wouldn’t torture them.

Unless they fuck with my kids or try to nuke a city…

The only way that we will ever get to that “brave new, care-bear fucking picnic world” is if people refuse to do things that are wrong when everyone around them is telling them that it is necessary because of the “many people who would like nothing more than to kill you and me”. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

As for your claim to support the rule of law – why did you end that passage with an assertion that you do not support the rule of law? The last clause does tend to carry the most weight with a reader….

“Reality is not absolute, there isn’t room for absolutes. When we attempt to force absolutes onto reality, violence is inevitable.”

No. My being devoted to living a life in which everyone is respected and treated considerately is not a life which leads to violence – either physical or mental. And some aspects of reality can be handled a lot better if other people know where you stand. People that know me know I will not (among other things) torture them, or anyone else. Therefore they know that they are safe around me. If I was less absolute about that….they might have cause to wonder….and take precautions….perhaps even preemptive precautions…. [The same pattern applies to nations. Act dangerous because you are concerned about all the dangerous people out there…and pretty soon other countries see you as dangerous and start examining how they can best deal with the growing threat….]

Additionally, you have no complaint with my suggesting that you are “trying to justify fucking torture” because by offering all of the excuses, and the ‘oh-so-level-headed’ and ‘realistic’ rationalities as to why torturers should not be prosecuted, you are, in essence, doing exactly that.

Even in circumstances when my ‘absolutest extremest’ self would say ‘let’s let this slide so that we can do X’ that ‘letting it slide’ is a tacit approval of the crime. Choosing to let an evil prosper because a greater good can be achieved is still an example of allowing an evil to prosper – and it does not matter whether I am the person who is making the ‘Devil’s Bargain’ or someone else is. No amount of good results diminishes any of the bad results, or their burden.

As for Mr. Laden:
“My statement could have been more clear but it never occurred to me that anyone would take seriously the idea that torture is at a very basic level pardonable or OK.”

First: George Bush did, as well as a lot of other people.
Second: Then why did you write a sentence in which you said precisely that?

As a writer you do not have the power to cause people to read your writing the way that you want them to read it. All you can do is attempt to write clearly – which you seem to admit that you did not do in this case. If you were one of my students I would require you to correct the piece so that it does say what you intended it to say, not what it actually did say.

As far as saying that I am “utterly full of shit” – you are the one who was unclear in your writing. If you feel compelled to assert that I am full of shit you are going to have to start being a lot more clear in your writing.

Bullshit Oscar, you have done so in damn near every comment you have made.

Uh, no.

My bad, a slight misreading of Greg on my part, that doesn’t change a godamned thing I said.

That sentence clearly indicates that he is perfectly happy letting tortures go with no legal consequences, the only thing that would cause him to do otherwise is if he would be able to use them to get to their bosses.

And I agree with him entirely. Nor does it change the fact that he wants to see their bosses go to prison. We’ll go back to why that’s important in a minute…

Utter and complete nonsense. Torture does not cease to be torture just because some lawyers claim that it does. And, again, you are ignoring the U.S. obligation under the Convention Against Torture.

Again, definitions are a fuzzy thing, when we are talking about people who are required to skirt the lines to do their job.

And I am not ignoring anything. Because they were told that those rules don’t apply in this situation.

Torture is wrong, no matter whether it is used on ‘non-state actors’ or any other group.

And I fucking agree with you on that. Please stop implying that I am trying to justify fucking torture.

And being told that something is legal does not make it legal.

So you expect intelligence operatives to argue law with the executive branch lawyers? I would like to think that most of the people involved did question and I would tend to assume that they were repeatedly assured that what they had been ordered to do was legal and necessary.

The fact that I unequivocally oppose and condemn torture scares you?

No, the fact that you have couched far more than that belief in absolute terms scares the hell out of me. Absolutism is a very scary thing.

WTF?????? In what way is opposing torture, based in a belief that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, like the kind of destructive idiocy that got us into this mess?

Again, you are couching more than your objections to torture in absolute terms here. You are also absolute in your belief that everything in the justice system must go to trial, that all of it must be public, that any illegal activity, even that which protects us, should be prosecuted publicly.

The same absolutism you are stating here is the absolutism that led our government to attempt to legitimize and demand our intelligence operatives to torture. It is the same absolutism that led Bin Laden to plan the attacks of 9/11. It is the same absolutism that causes a great deal of death and destruction.

A problem that could have been avoided if both sides â?? Bin Laden and Bush â?? had been unwilling to cause others pain in order to further their own goals.

I don’t disagree with you, but we don’t live in the warm fuzzy, care-bear fucking world where that actually happened.

!!!! Now you are against trials too?

Did I say that? Did I even fucking imply it?

No.

I merely mentioned the radical notion that trials aren’t the only criminal justice tool in the box.

Complete and utter nonsense. Governments have no business doing anything that cannot stand the light of day.

Again, we don’t live in a warm and fuzzy, fucking care-bear world. We live in a world that is populated by many people who would like nothing more than to kill you and me. Some of them would even like to torture us first, something you apparently and quite unfortunately have first hand experience with. Because those people are out there, we need people to prevent that from happening – quite often in ways that require those folks not know our plans and what we know.

This means secrets are an unfortunate necessity that also leaves openings for abuse of those authorities. But until our world is a fucking care-bear picnic, we need folks who do things that are secret. Folks who also do things that skirt the line between right and wrong, legal and illegal. Folks who are willing and able to follow orders that are morally and legally dubious. Folks who look at orders to torture, when they are assured that it is actually legal and the methods are not really torture, shove their feelings to the side and fucking do it.

We create these men out of necessity, I am not one to decide that because they function in a manner that they were created to function, we should throw them to the wolves.

Indeed, only a commitment to exposing those things that lurk in the dark is what keeps society from degenerating into vendettas and ‘personal justice’. The more government secrecy there is the more government abuse there is; the connection is so reliable that endorsing government secrecy is tantamount to endorsing government abuses. Like alcohol government secrecy can be useful in moderation, but only in moderation.

I agree with you, but that is a very separate conversation.

Entirely solvable, simply release the records 20, 30, 40, 50, or even 72, years later. My preference of course is for the shorter delays.

Which does nothing to protect victims. And in the case of material witnesses, said delay could well just delay retaliation, whether they are the victim, or the victim is a surviving family member. In many situations, delay is suitable. In cases where the victim is being protected, sorry, but I don’t think that information is pertinent. And in cases where there is a clear expectation of danger, not important enough to outweigh the risk.

And in the context of intelligence issues, that pretty much does come out in the long term.

Telling torturers that they will face no legal repercussions for their crimes is not an example of deferring prosecution in order to achieve a higher goal.

Like I said, I misread him. But that doesn’t change the point – though it put a chink in your absolutism. Because what you were just agreeing with was my response to you – not to anything to do with Greg – you and your statements of absolutes.

Because I am opposed to torture and support the rule of law, with everyone equal before the law, I am a ‘dangerous absolutist and extremist’?

No. Because you are unable to make exceptions or see beyond a very narrow and shortsighted framework. You seem to believe that if we just stop doing anything secret, the threats against us will evaporate and we’ll live in a brave new, care-bear fucking picnic world.

We don’t and it ain’t coming anytime soon.

…it seems that you neither disapprove of torture or support the rule of law, and those attitudes are not safe for those around you.

And it would seem you can’t fucking read. I do not goddamned well approve of fucking torture, you fucking asshole!!!

And I also happen to support the rule of law, in ways you couldn’t possibly comprehend. I have demanded to be taken to jail more than once, because I support the rule of law. I have publicly denounced and disassociated myself from people I care about, because I support the rule of law and they supported fucking terrorists. I have been responsible for some of those same people going to jail, because I support the rule of law. I had people I care about threaten to kill me if they ever saw me again, because I support the rule of law.

Fuck you, I don’t support the rule of law.

That a good person might be tempted to torture under extreme circumstances does not suggest that there are times when torture is acceptable.

While the circumstances in which it would be a reasonable option are exceedingly unlikely, I cannot couch it in terms of absolutes. There exist hypothetical situations where I not only see the potential necessity, but wouldn’t hesitate to engage in it myself.

If someone kidnapped one of my children and I was faced with a person who knew where they were – no hesitation. I would do anything to that person, that would force them to tell me. On a broader scale, the ticking timebomb scenario is another – there, because it’s not as personal, I might hesitate, but given high enough stakes, I would certainly do it.

I am very, very sorry that you were tortured. I won’t disrespect you and pretend to understand – I most certainly can’t. My only experience with torture is second hand, knowing a couple of folks who were tortured in Vietnam. I sincerely wish there was a way that I could take that away from you and make it better – while I don’t like you, I don’t think that anyone should ever have to endure what you did.

But the absolutes that this has driven you to are not healthy. Reality is not absolute, there isn’t room for absolutes. When we attempt to force absolutes onto reality, violence is inevitable. Whether that violence is flying airplanes into buildings, or manifest in one’s personal health (physical and/or mental) – the violence is inevitable.

No, not at all. My statement could have been more clear but it never occurred to me that anyone would take seriously the idea that torture is at a very basic level pardonable or OK. So there is an unstated but utterly obvious context here, that tortue = bad = wrong = don’t do it = if you do it it is wrong and illegal.

My statement was not about that at all. It was about the political and legal strategy.

Continuing on from there, and taking your comment line by line … let’s see….

Oh, right, you are utterly full of shit. Too bad, I don’t think we are very far apart on the basic issue of torture. I’m suggesting that you think a bit more about what might be Obama’s strategy. I am not overwhelmed about the possibility that that may happen, though.