Here we go again…
Only now I’m sure it’ll be even worse. This time around, both Mr Pike and Mr Hayes are on the same blog. Not that I have time for yet another pointless round of trying to explain that ‘24’ is not the real world, and that moral obligations are a bit deeper than ‘the good of the many outweighs the good of the few…or the one’. Or worse, to try to get Hayes to operate with a realistic definition of torture instead of automatically categorizing me as a crackpot liberal who believes our prisoners of war should be given posh hotel room suites and chocolate dipped strawberries.
However, I just cannot ignore this. As Steve mention on their blog, the GOP debated the topic of torture the other night. There were varying reactions to this. First, I want to get to the actual question:
MR. HUME: The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.
Now. I want you to pay attention to the question. What is the actual scenario? Why do I ask? I’m going to jump ahead to Tancredo’s response:
REP. TANCREDO: Well, let me just say that it’s almost unbelievable to listen to this in a way. We’re talking about—we’re talking about it in such a theoretical fashion. You say that—that nuclear devices have gone off in the United States, more are planned, and we’re wondering about whether waterboarding would be a—a bad thing to do? I’m looking for “Jack Bauer” at that time, let me tell you. (Laughter, applause.)
Is that the scenario? Did he say nuclear devices have gone off? How do you set off three nuclear bombs in shopping centers near major cities in the United States and only have “hundreds” dead. Why did he make this leap? Was in on purpose?
I don’t think so. It’s possible he made the change to make McCain or Paul look bad by changing the stakes of the game. But no, I don’t think he did it consciously. Rather I think that like happens so much of the time with tv and movies in our culture ‘24’ has infiltrated his thinking. He heard the scenario like an episode of 24, and as a result he’s looking for the same kind of solution.
Well, again, this is the real world. It’s not an episode of 24. I hate to break it to Mr Tancredo, but Jack Bauer isn’t a real person, he’s a character – played by an actor named Keifer Sutherland. His “solutions” are likewise fictional, and have fictional results. More than that, it’s a short-lived fictional world and his actions as a result do not have the ability to reflect long-term implications of his choices.
I have a problem with this entire line of questioning, because of what it reflects about where we are as a party, and how much things like tv and movies impact us as a culture. It’s mind numbing talking to people sometimes and hearing them claim as factual truth what they have seen in movies or on tv or in books about historical events in known fictional presentations. From early american history and movies like Gang’s of New York all the way to the Left Behind series. I’m interested in picking up on the issue of how ‘24’ seems to have impacted republicans in particular but I’ll have to come back to that.
My own objections to the question itself mirror somewhat Ron Paul’s final comment in this round:
And here you have a hypothetical attack that you’re dealing with; we ought to be dealing with the one we have right now on our hands.
Exactly. We’re currently in a war with Iraq, currently dealing with actual terrorism tactics over there, currently dealing with prisoners in Gitmo. We have actual scenarios that a President faces. Why are we using this hypothetical one?
However, those things aside, I want to contrast Tancredo’s response with John McCain’s before I get back to my problem with Triablogue’s post:
Sen McCain: When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us, as we went—underwent torture ourselves, is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them.It’s not about the terrorists, it’s about us. It’s about what kind of country we are. And a fact: The more physical pain you inflict on someone, the more they’re going to tell you what they think you want to know.
Mr Hume: I may have misunderstood you, but it sounded to me as if you regard those techniques, or from what you know about them, as torture. Do you?
SEN. MCCAIN: Yes, and the interesting thing about that aspect is that during the debate, when we had the detainee treatment act, there was a sharp division between those who had served in the military and those who hadn’t. Virtually every senior officer, retired or active- duty, starting with Colin Powell, General Vessey and everyone else, agreed with my position that we should not torture people.
One of the reasons is, is because if we do it, what happens to our military people when they’re captured? And also, they realize there’s more to war than the battlefield.
This nation was once outraged at the fact that North Korea would torture our people for information. It was something which clearly marked them out as evil. Yet here we are, calling it “enhanced interrogation technique”. Ron Paul hit the nail on the head calling it ‘newspeak’. We’ll just call it something different, and then it’ll be ok. No. Lets call it what it is.
I also find it funny that these men are all about listening to men with ‘mud and blood on their boots’ when they think they support their position. But as soon as they come out against it they are either silenced through policy or disregarded as on the issue of torture here.
And what is this torture they’re referring to? Is it ‘the provision of “cheap, branded, unscented soap”, the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that “hardly bounce”.’ as stated by Kahn in the posting on Triablogue? Well, the debate moderators framed the context themselves, so lets look:
MR. HUME: Water-boarding?
What is water-boarding you may ask? Well, it’s somewhat varied in implementation but the same basic concept underlies it all. You shackle the subject to a board or other (usually) inclined surface – their head is lower than the rest of their body. You then (usually) cover their face with some form of material. Sometimes it is porous, sometimes not. You then pour buckets of water over their face. This causes your brain to think you are drowning which causes the gag and choking reflexes to engage, and induces panic. The panic is serious enough to even sometimes result in broken bones from the subject’s desperate attempts to escape his restraints. Reportedly, CIA operatives who have volunteered to undergo the experience last an average of 14 seconds against it. The toughest detainee in Gitmo is reported to have lasted just over 2 minutes before begging to confess.
Now, it’s not exactly bamboo shoots under the fingernails, thumbscrews, or mild electrocution – but give yourself a chance to think about what it would be like to undergo that kind of treatment. Consider what you would be willing to say, regardless of its truth, just to get it to stop?
I really don’t know what Mr Hayes is trying to accomplish with this bit of misdirection. Imagine with me for a moment that John Kerry were to have been captured and subsequently released w/out ever really having been tortured. That he then complained about his treatment in similar fashion to Mr Kahn here and complained about it as being torture. Does that in any way negate the actual torture experienced by so many of our men that were or are POWs in North Korea? Does it make their use of actual torture a non issue?
Of course it doesn’t.
