Monday, April 27, 2009

A Death Sentence for High Value Targets?

So we're not done with all the torture memo stuff, but something occurred to me the other day. All these legalisms could lead to soldiers killing the captured terrorist leaders rather than handing them over for detainment.

If you happened to capture some global terror leader and you had seen the last several released, wouldn't you be encouraged to just kill them then and there? What's the point of capturing the guy if they're just going to be released again? What if you knew no one behind you was going to get any decent information out of the guy because he was going to be given soft pillows and 3 square meals a day?

Here's a related thought: During World War II, we illegally imprisoned Japanese-Americans, people who were actually American citizens. When will we be starting the trials of the people who OK'd that one? Many of them may still be alive. Isn't that worse than pouring some water on a terrorist scumbag?

6 comments:

nom de plume said...

A summary execution will get you even more grief, even if justified. I can't remember the city in Iraq, but Marines were subject to Courts Martial for chasing down bad guys and killing them.

If captured people-who-cause-people-caused-disasters are simply released, and killing them leads to your own misfortune, I see one result: corruption.

"Hey bad guy -- you know that I can't hurt you, and if we capture you, we won't hurt you. Give me some cash and we'll pretend this never happened."

Kelly the little black dog said...

This pretty much sums up my response.

Tim Eisele said...

A few points:

Our police are forbidden to torture suspects.

The accounts that I have seen from people who have been waterboarded generally agree that "if waterboarding isn't torture, then nothing is torture".

Quote from Saturday: "I'd rather be a hypocrite than jettison fixed standards of behavior."

Isn't, you know, not torturing people a fixed standard of behavior? And just because a terror suspect isn't being partially drowned on a regular basis hardly means that they are being *coddled*.

For that matter, who's getting released? All of the terrorists? Or just the ones where there is no actionable evidence that they actually *are* terrorists?

I don't know about you, but I don't really want the police thinking, "Well, we 'know' this guy is guilty even though we don't have any actual material evidence, so let's just drown him a bit until he confesses and we'll wrap this up."
Sure, maybe you can make a case for doing it in the classic "terrorist knows where the bomb is and we gotta make him tell us *now*", but isn't that just situational ethics? Isn't that giving up a fixed standard of behavior? Isn't that exactly what you said you didn't want to do on Saturday?

I think that if the police arrested me, accused me of being a terrorist, and then waterboarded me until they got what they wanted, I'd probably end up confessing to get them to stop. How about you?

K T Cat said...

Tim, you are an American citizen and as such have certain rights. They are not covered by any treaty anywhere as they are not uniformed combatants. Further, you do not threaten mass destruction. They do.

Finally, there really is some debate as to whether the waterboarding constituted torture as it was then defined. That's why they drew the line at waterboarding and not, say, the rack or the bastianado.

Kelly the little black dog said...

Finally, there really is some debate as to whether the waterboarding constituted torture as it was then defined.The only debate is among those who are trying to justify it after the fact. If you look at it, waterboarding as it was practiced violated even the Bush admin standards on what was torture.

Secular Apostate said...

Well, I don't know whether waterboarding is torture or not. Given the disagreement one hears, it's one of those gray areas because it is apparently one of those things that engages a very basic brain response to smothering. Unlike, say, beheading or burning, reasonable people can, and do, disagree.

However, I want to note a canard that goes around that rarely ever gets called.

Torture doesn't work. (TDW)

Pah. Torture works. The usual comparison involves information-gathering and confession.

The TDW argument (see Tim, above) often relies on historical Leftist government actions (e.g., Soviet "trials") to make the point that anybody will confess to any crime if enough torture is applied. And that's true. So the point of torture qua confessions is not to get the truth, but to short-circuit justice.

However, extracting information is quite different. One can check the revealed information with other sources to confirm its validity. Nobody waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to determine his guilt or innocence. They wanted actionable information about other terrorists, and they got it. I don't live in Los Angeles, but if I did, I'd be delighted to have avoided being murdered because the good Sheikh got water poured in his nose.

And I confidently make one prediction: if we are attacked again because we "didn't connect the dots", and had the opportunity and means to do so with "enhanced interrogations", this debate will be over, politically. Because it's the kind of debate that can only be held in times of relative comfort. Just ask Speaker Pelosi and Sen Rockefeller.