If you believe in torture because it "might" give you some "security", than you are a piss-stained, unmoral coward.

Did anybody ask St. McCain if the NVA "Did what they had to" as they brutally tortured him?

Torture is wrong, you fucking barbarian. (Cue the whining about my incivility.)

Yes, sometimes you must perform fellatio to be elected. Glad you agree.

Contrarian schtick or amoral coward? You decide!

Wow, just wow.

Just curious, if the ends (getting elected) justifies the means (promoting torture) in this case shouldn't it also justify it in other cases?

Kidnapped child? Torture the perp to find out where she is!

If it's ok with you I've seen enough democrats forsaking principles to save their political hide.

I'd argue that it isn't required to gain a majority in congress or the white house in 2008. But if it is, then I certainly hope the dems fail in that goal.

You have lost my vote. I will support either the Green or Social Equality parties. The Menendez's of your Party are no different than the Kyl's.

Do you think for a passing moment that Democrats would -fail- to do "what you have to"?

You've internalized Karl Rove. If Democrats _had_ to nuke Iran, guess what? Then we'd HAVE TO NUKE IRAN!

We're not now arguing, and never have been arguing --unless one accepts, as you do, a rightwing frame--about what one -has to do-. We're arguing about what these people have -CHOSEN- to do.

If you -have to break the law- to ensure the safety of your family, then by all means break the law. And serve your time proudly. But don't pretend that you're some noble knight when, in anticiption of some remote possibility that you might, in the future, possibly -need- to break the law to save your family, you recommend that the law be changed to accept previously-illegal and still-heinous acts.

I don't know if this means anything, but how come you ever see this kind of advice from Republicans? Like I've never read a righty blog that thought maybe it would be a good idea to compromise on abortion, or tax cuts and gay marriage.

At any rate, I respectfully disagree that this would be wise strategy. As soon as Democrats came out in favor of torture in extreme cases, Republicans would come up with a bill that allowed the President torture willy-nilly, and if the Democrats opposed it, they'd be called flip floppers who don't stand for anything, and since we don't believe in torture but said we did, it would have the unfortunate reality of being true. The media would never mention the details of the bill, the Republicans would look strong, the Democrats would look weak, the bill would pass, our country would suffer.

So this really doesn't seem like the way to go. Better to be strong and stick to your values and fight for them. It's better for our party, it's better for our country.

My God.

What makes a "rare case?"

Would it be all right then if we use the cigarettes we no longer smoke to put out in the eyes of possible terrorists?

Is Martin Peretz looking for a co-blogger?

I'm not going to go off my rocker and accuse anybody of being a coward or a barbarian for confessing they believe torture is necessary at times. But I do have another problem with this; the qualifications.

The problem is that if configure the scenario appropriately, you could force just about every American to admit that torture is necessary at some point. To me, arguing that Democrats should admit torture is necessary when the country is in "real and imminent danger of attack" is the same thing as admitting there's no need for torture at all; after all, when are we going to ever know that such a scenario exists, where torture is absolutely necesssary?

And of course I have a problem with stipulating that the American people won't give any credibility to Democrats for opposing the torture bill. For one, opposing that craven piece of legislation is not the same thing as opposing torture. But far more importantly, agreeing to admit that torture is sometimes necessary is playing into the hands of the GOP; if Dems admit they're willingness to torture, the GOP will merely say they're not willing to torture enough! You can never out-GOP the GOP on this issue; you won't get your national security chops by trying to say you're more willing to torture than the party that passes a bill that would strip Americans of habeas rights.

Anyway, such an approach is unnatural for Democrats, which leads to being vulnerable to charges of acting without principle, not only from the right, but from the center and especially from the left, which opposes torture almost utterly.

Again, the correct response to the GOP trying to use national security and especially torture as a vote-getting weapon against the Dems, is to come out fighting just as hard for your approach. Leadership is not about trying to carefully follow public opinion; that's just politics. Leadership is about shaping public opinion, and it's in that realm where the Democrats true deficit lies.

Usually I agree with the Democrats who believe that concern for national security must be balanced and often outweighed by concern for civil liberties.

No, you don't, because you don't even understand the position. The position is that our "national security" is exactly the security of our civil liberties. America is defined by our freedom, it is what we fought our Revolution and established a new nation for. There is nothing else: lose our liberties, and we are lost. Period.

Nonetheless, in my heart, I know the Democrats could lose this election – and almost certainly will lose the next presidential race – unless they make absolutely clear that in the rare cases when the country is in real and imminent danger of attack, Democratic leaders will favor doing whatever has to be done to defend the American people.

Sure, that's something the Democrats need to communicate better; part of that is that Democrats need to communicate better why this means protecting our liberties at all times, not selectively sacrificing them. Liberty is security, they are not opposed.

At these times, they need for the people to know that they believe, as even John McCain put it to Newsweek, “You do what you have to.”

Does this mean torture? The answer in those rare cases, and only in them, is yes.

That's completely boneheaded. In the situation you describe, where the "country is in real and imminent danger of attack", we don't need torture: if we know there is a "real and imminent danger", it can only be because we have a pretty good idea of the source and nature of the threat, in which case we don't need torture to reveal that.

If the country is in real and imminent danger of attack, we deal with the source of that danger directly, we don't adopt torture.

"Democrats" making arguments like this serve only to provide legitimacy to the Republican attacks on liberty that undermine freedom, democracy, and national security.

This bullshit "whatever it takes" argument is for morons (like Alan Dershowitz) who get their counter-terrorism knowledge straight from a TV show, "24". You know the plot, they have a terrorist locked in a room that they "know" has knowledge of a bomb planted in the Statue of Liberty.

Only by "taking the gloves off" does Jack Bauer save us all! It's pure rightist authoritarian fantasy and it belongs in Stalinist Russia, not the US of A.

As for whether or not I'm "off my rocker", Xanthippas, I woke up in a country with legalized torture the other day. I woke up in a country where a room full of pedophile-protecting toadies, commissars if you will, voted to create the first King this country has ever had. If you're not off your rocker, you're not paying attention.

I grew up in world that was one system failure or one insane missle silo operator away from ending. But now we're supposed to trade away our humanity because a few thousand cave-dwelling assholes want to kill us?

Not me.

Oh, for heavens' sake-- sure, sometimes there are ugly, dangerous situations that warrant (or at least that reasonable-- i.e., non-GOP-- people would believe warranted) taking otherwise reprehensible action in order to avert a worse catastrophe (see Time Bombs, Ticking- itself a silly scenario, but people love to cite it). But that does not mean that extreme actions should be made generally acceptable. I'll willingly drive 100 mph to get an injured person to a hospital, for example, but that neither means that the speed limit should be raised to accommodate such an unusual situation nor that I shouldn't be ticketed for doing so after the fact.

No one who isn't willing to face judgment within the context of accepted norms should ever be in a position of leadership, because sometimes morally complex choices have to be made... and later defended. IOW, if you're not confident enough in your own judgment to feel able to defend questionable actions that may be necessary, don't seek positions that may require it. And don't pretend that taking morally reprehensible actions, even in the service of a greater good (or a lesser evil) isn't still a blight on one's character. Learn to deal.

Welcome to the Internet, Mr Peters.

Sorry, latts, but speeding never, ever, ever equals torture. One is a misdemeanor, payable through the mail. The other is a "Crime Against Humanity", payable through The Hague.

We have to say as moral human beings that some things are off limits.

"Does this mean torture? The answer in those rare cases, and only in them, is yes."

Mr. Peters, the question isn't whether torture and the removal of habeas corpus rights -- rights which go back to Runnymede -- should apply to terrorists, and in cases when "You do what you have to," but whether you are willing to let your own daughter and family members be tortured, on suspicion, with no due process in a court of law, and on the say so of a government official unanswerable to any court, and in secret.

If you are comfortable with doing this for political gain -- or for any reason -- then you are not the man I've long admired.

For 20 years TWM has been the periodical whose monthly arrival I’ve anticipated most eagerly, and the one I’ve most often read cover to cover. One of the TWM features I’ve most admired has been Charles Peters’s “Tilting at Windmills”.

So my surprise and disappointment at Mr. Peters’s closing line, “Does this mean torture? The answer in those rare cases, and only in them, is yes” is especially acute.

If Mr. Peters really believes there could be “rare cases when the country is in real and imminent danger of attack” in which “whatever has to be done to defend the American people” includes torture, I challenge him to name one. When it comes to extracting information from unwilling captives, I’m no expert (my main technique is final exams). According to folks with actual professional experience, however, a victim of torture will say whatever he thinks will stop the pain. For getting information that’s worth anything, the experts (claim to) have methods that are far more effective than torture.

It’s hard for me to believe that Mr. Peters is anything but fully aware of this conventional wisdom. In that case, his advice to Democrats that “they need for the people to know that they believe, … ‘You do what you have to.’” betrays a deep contempt for the voters— it’s thoroughly Rovian. The intended effect is to convince the still-panicked electorate that Democrats are willing to do anything —even torture prisoners— to defend the American people. The actual effect would be to convince the not-so-gullible electorate that Democrats are willing to say anything —even to endorse torture— in order to get elected.

When voters (and non-voters) complain that there’s no difference between the two major parties, they’re often referring to the way political ambition seems to trump principle. John McCain's popularity even among people who disagree with him on most issues stems from his reputation (not all that deserved) for sticking to his principles.

Democrats will succeed by treating voters not as panicked half-wits but as intelligent adults. They should point out that if the British didn’t torture prisoners during the darkest days of World War II, and the US didn’t torture prisoners when faced with the existential threat from the Soviet nuclear arsenal, we certainly don’t need to employ torture now, when the threat is comparatively miniscule.

Democrats should also recall how, in the days following the 9/11 attacks, most of the world rallied to our side, and ask them how they think the world would react if we were attacked again, now that we’ve given up the moral high ground by revoking habeas corpus and instituting torture of prisoners. I would expect something like, “Well, they had it coming, didn’t they?”

Instead of endorsing torture, Democrats should endorse measures that would actually improve our security— inspecting 100% of shipping containers and air cargo, beefing up protection of chemical plants, reducing our dependence on imported oil, working worldwide to undermine the appeal of jihadism, and so on.

This is one of those not-so-rare cases where what’s right morally and ethically also looks right pragmatically.

Oh, for heavens' sake-- sure, sometimes there are ugly, dangerous situations that warrant (or at least that reasonable-- i.e., non-GOP-- people would believe warranted) taking otherwise reprehensible action in order to avert a worse catastrophe (see Time Bombs, Ticking- itself a silly scenario, but people love to cite it).

Its a silly scenario because a little thought shows that it doesn't even make sense to consider torture justified in a "ticking time bomb" scenario": torture is good at getting people to say something, but unless you have huge amounts of time to verify misinformation and get to the truth, it won't get you the truth very likely.

And a ticking time bomb scenario is one of the few where a wrongdoer will no they just have to hold out a set period of time (or provide misinformation), and what they know will become stale and their mission will be accomplished.

So, while there might be some extreme actions justified by a ticking time bomb scenario, torture clearly isn't going to be one of them.

Oh, please. Have you ever bothered to read the voluminous discussions on this topic?

To give you the very short version:

a) doesn't work - at least as a method of extracting information in a hurry.
b) Puts American soldiers at greater risk of being tortured themselves.

Would you stop wasting our time with this nonsense and post something useful?

Why is it that professionals involved with getting information understand the need for no torture but the political hacks don't.

Torture is useful for one purpose only - gaining false confessions (no fantasies of ticking time bombs, please).

As for defending the country, if you torture, you have nothing left to defend.

And I want no part of any alliances with a country that tortures. America can go fuck itself (though when ideas like Charles Peters' become acceptable apparently it already has).

Charles Peters, concern troll?

Our country is truly going down the shitter if we're hearing unsupported justifications of ineffective, illegal and immoral behavior from the founder of the Washington Monthly. Have you watched too many episodes of 24? I have no desire to follow you down that slippery slope, sir.

If I ever found myself in the "ticking bomb" scenario, I would do whatever I had to do to a prisoner to get the information I needed. But... I would never want it to be legally sanctioned. It would still be wrong no matter what the circumstances and I would expect to have to plead my case before a jury of my peers.

trublu

I agree with this too (though I find the scenario a highly unlikely one).

Democrats will do anything to defend this country? Mr. Peters has lost touched with the radicals who inhabit that wretched party nowadays. Peters remembers what Democrats were like in the days of FDR and Truman and Kennedy because defending American is what those great Democrats did first. The drugged out, peace-loving flower people who rioted in the streets and insulted cops and welcomed veterans returning from Vietnam by spitting in their faces and calling them baby-killers have left their mark on the Democrats of today. The country these ratty folk hate is their own country. And with few exceptions the more "education" they have, the rattier they are.

Hey mhr, I volunteer to spit in your disgusting face, you piss-stained coward.

The Geneva Accords were signed into law by Truman, and all of those Democrats you cite were able to fight major wars without using torture.

Unlike your beloved Bush cult who are so incompetent they can't even lose a war without selling their souls to the devil. You and your party are the radicals now, you pathetic sell-out fuck.

Unless Charlie Peters has solved the false positive problem from torture, this is a dreadful suggestion. The Republican love of torture has nothing, repeat nothing, to do with obtaining intelligence to thwart terrorist acts. It's about seeing how transgressive we can be under the excuse of fighting Judeobolshevism. Oh, I mean Islamofascism. Except I don't, because the Germans' fight against so-called Judeobolshevism tells us where we end up when we spend out time justifying barbarism instead of fighting it.