New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | December 27, 2004

Matt Welch finds out whether conservative torture apologetics is systemic or the work of a few bad apples.

Comments

|12.27.04 @ 5:14PM|#

Good article. Something at the end brought to mind a subject I've thought about here and there:

Do these three examples prove a conservative trend? No.

I wonder, how would somebody "prove" the existence of a trend in reporting? Whether the topic is the general notion of alleged bias in reporting overall, or bias with regard to a particular subject, how would one go about establishing a trend? People can point to their favorite anecdotes all day long, and then somebody else can point to counter-anecdotes. And so what if 3 big pundits are making excuses? There's lots of other pundits who aren't.

I'm not decrying the article at all, because it isn't claiming that there's necessarily a trend. But I do wonder how one would address the issue. Or maybe it's completely unaddressable, at least in a quantitative manner that would satisfy a physicist.

Warren|12.27.04 @ 5:26PM|#

Thank you Matt. I hope your article is part of a trend.

|12.27.04 @ 5:44PM|#

Oh, come on! This is no different from college journalists writing about fraternity pranks.

Tim Cavanaugh|12.27.04 @ 6:02PM|#

I wonder, how would somebody "prove" the existence of a trend in reporting?

The old hack's rule is that three of anything is enough to constitute a trend. I can tell you from experience that the rule, like Colt 45, works every time.

|12.27.04 @ 6:37PM|#

Oh, come on! This is no different from college journalists writing about fraternity pranks.

I mean, really, I've seen worse writing than that in student newspapers! So what's the big deal? ;->

|12.27.04 @ 7:33PM|#

"I must admit in the last week or two, because of the hysteria over Abu Ghraib, I felt like I had to defend Rumsfeld a little because I just don't think it's at all fair to hold him responsible for this."

I guess it's too bad for Rumsfeld that Kristol wasn't on the Schlesinger Commission.

...am I the only H&R commenter who reads the Schlesinger Report as an indictment of Rumsfeld's leadership?

|12.27.04 @ 7:45PM|#

I like Tim's blurb.

|12.27.04 @ 10:14PM|#

If war is hell, I'm not to blame...

Al Barger|12.27.04 @ 11:32PM|#

At the risk of being called a libertarian torture apologist, I question the apparent basic premise of this article. Welch seems to be assuming that anyone who isn't worked up into high outrage over these scattered reports of prisoner abuse is somehow commiting an offense themselves.

Perhaps you lack perspective. We're fighting a WAR. In a war, bad things happen. We're sending soldiers over to kill people and blow things up. That's what they do. It's near impossible to just turn that off, and say that they should be nice to the enemy.

We struggle to keep our soldiers on a short leash, but they're only human. If, say, you've just captured someone who was trying to kill you, there's going to be a chance that even the good guys will get rough from time to time.

Best I can read from the tea leaves though, our troops have largely been well disciplined and appropriate with prisoners and detainees. Most of the world, specifically including many Americans, want US to fail or be brought down. If there was much serious abuse, there'd be eyewitness testimony and specific dates and acts all over CBS and Al Jazeera, rather than mere broad hints and allegations.

I'm less concerned with great outrage over any American violation of the Marquee of Queensberry rules than I am with stopping people from KILLING US.

I object to the broad sweeping lumping together of any and every whiff of anything stressful as "torture." A lot obviously depends on the exact individual circumstances, but I'm not real distraught over a little sleep deprivation for an Al Qaeda member. Nor do I automatically give credence to every passing whiff of an allegation.

When there is specific evidence of truly egregious abuse, then discipline the soldiers through the regular channels of the military justice system. The End. Other than that, we ought to be supporting our troops and giving them every reasonable benefit of the doubt.

I strongly suspect that most of the outrage comes from people who are much more opposed to our war effort entirely, rather than being concerned with human rights abuses. If human rights were your main concern, I would think you'd be mostly talking about the truly BAD people that we're fighting, and supporting our efforts to stop them.

America, F*&% Yeah!!!

|12.28.04 @ 1:29AM|#

Conservatives can be saved some embarrassment because the neocons, William Kristol and Norman Podhoretz aren't really conservatives, which follows since neo-conservatism is far more statist, even in domestic matters, than conservatism.


Note that Kristol said: "If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me," to the New York Times. The Weekly Standard editor added that the neo-conservatives may just abandon the Right altogether and convert to neo-liberalism!

|12.28.04 @ 1:52AM|#

Al Barger:

I'm less concerned with great outrage over any American violation of the Marquee of Queensberry rules than I am with stopping people from KILLING US.

What?? If you or someone you care for had endured the criminal savagry that went on at Gitmo, you wouldn't be so cavalier as to compare it to a violation of boxing rules. Also, if you really want to stop people from killing us, you should advocate bringing our troops home from Iraq, and also advocate that our government stop the foreign interventions in the Mid-east that motivated 9/11.

|12.28.04 @ 2:18AM|#

"When there is specific evidence of truly egregious abuse, then discipline the soldiers through the regular channels of the military justice system. The End. Other than that, we ought to be supporting our troops and giving them every reasonable benefit of the doubt.

The Bush Administration tried to enshrine torture in policy--deal with it.

"I strongly suspect that most of the outrage comes from people who are much more opposed to our war effort entirely, rather than being concerned with human rights abuses. If human rights were your main concern, I would think you'd be mostly talking about the truly BAD people that we're fighting, and supporting our efforts to stop them."

Many Americans were willing to support the War because the Bush Administration told them that invading and occupying Iraq would protect us from WMD and Iraqi/Al Qaeda collaboration. It's now clear that there was no WMD and there was no Iraqi/Al Qaeda collaboration, so many of those same Americans are no longer willing to support the War. Isn't this as it should be?

...Some might question the loyalty of Americans who think that Iraqi freedom is sufficient justification for the sacrificing the lives of more than a thousand American soldiers.

Matt|12.28.04 @ 5:32AM|#

It amazes me how many people seem to think this stuff is somehow new or unique. There are no reports of anything happening in American-run prisons in Guantanamo Bay or the Middle East that do not parallel what happens in prisons here in the United States.

Do I think it's wrong? Of course I do. But let's not pretend that prisons were nice places where one might choose to spend a relaxing weekend, until Bush came along and turned them into hell. They were always hell.

Matt Welch|12.28.04 @ 7:17AM|#

Al -- Wait, we're at WAR???!!! I take everything back. You better spread the news to John McCain; shame you weren't around to give a pep-talk to George Washington.

In New York, Washington had wept while watching through a spyglass as the British massacred Americans who had surrendered. But Washington, Fischer writes, "often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies." To the American officer in charge of 221 prisoners taken at Princeton, Washington said, "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren."

Matt -- Sorry, I must have missed the part where anyone here was pretending that prisons "were nice places where one might choose to spend a relaxing weekend."

|12.28.04 @ 7:54AM|#

The first George W. is still my favorite presidente. He resisted the urge to lower himself to the enemy's standards. I am trying not to wish that a coalition soldier will hacksaw Zarqawi's throat on video, but I can feel the pull of the dark side of the Force.

Warren|12.28.04 @ 9:24AM|#

Matt,
Amen

|12.28.04 @ 9:39AM|#

Al Barger, RTFA.

"...scattered reports of prisoner abuse..." This isn't about scattered reports of prisoner abuse, it's about the President of the United States issuing an Executive Order directing that such abuse take place.

"We struggle to keep our soldiers on a short leash"

No, "we," via the President of the United States, ORDERED THESE EVENTS TO TAKE PLACE.

"Best I can read from the tea leaves though, our troops have largely been well disciplined and appropriate with prisoners and detainees." Yes, most of them followed orders to the letter. That's the problem, you see.

"Other than that, we ought to be supporting our troops and giving them every reasonable benefit of the doubt." Yes, we should support the troops, not use them as scapegoats for their superiors' failings. When troops are systematically committing abuse, using the same techniques across a number of facilities, and when evidence comes out that these events were carried out under an Executive Order from the President, we should support the troops. We should not conclude that there is a conspiracy among the frontline troops to commit crimes, or a widespread lack of discipline and human decency. Instead, we should conclude that the troops are acting under orders.

The White Anglo Saxon Protesta|12.28.04 @ 9:46AM|#

thoreau - "I wonder, how would somebody "prove" the existence of a trend in reporting?"

I have a suggestion for Step One: Define your terms and stick to them. None of these guys, neither Kristol nor NPod, are "reporters" by any objective definition of the term, at least not anymore. There are very few actual reporters these days whose names we know, or who ever get in front of a camera, or even get a by-line in a major newspaper. By the time we know their names, they have ceased being "reporters" entirely. These guys are pundits, spinners, opinion-meisters, common-taters, take your pick, but they are not � I repeat NOT � reporters. Kristol may do some editing now and then, although reading the Standard one wonders, the thing is about as well edited as my posts, but you can't, by any rational standard, refer to what he does as reportage.

|12.28.04 @ 10:08AM|#

"We struggle to keep our soldiers on a short leash, but they're only human. If, say, you've just captured someone who was trying to kill you, there's going to be a chance that even the good guys will get rough from time to time."

Those being abused at Guantanamo weren't "just captured," so the excuse of the hot blood of battle just doesn't work. This was cold-blooded and deliberate, and we'd be screaming bloody murder if it were being done to our soldiers. Hell, the New York Post screamed at the beginning of the Iraq war when some American Pow's were displayed on Iraqi television. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

|12.28.04 @ 10:10AM|#

Matt Welch,

The next sentence in the Will piece you linked reads:

"...At the end of the war, 3,194 of the 13,988 Hessians who survived the fighting chose to stay in the country whose birth they had resisted."

George Washington, apparently, knew something about winning hearts and minds--not that that was the point. I suspect, rather, that it just wasn't in his character to allow defenseless prisoners to be mistreated by soldiers under his command.

gaius marius|12.28.04 @ 10:32AM|#

We're fighting a WAR. In a war, bad things happen.

i'm afraid mr barger's stupid sentiment -- which, in plainly excusing mortifying behavior despite consideration, is yet more appalling than the acts themselves -- is so endemic to the times that it clearly cannot be refuted by any dose of reason. it is part of a nation in the thrall of the romantic impulse, the cult of the noble, the ethics of heroism -- where there is no amount of destruction and suffering which is too great to endure (and force others to endure) for the achievement of the noble goal.

bertrand russell:

locke, as we saw, believed pleasure to be the good, and this was the prevalent view among empiricists throughout the 18th and 19th c. their opponents, on the contrary, despised pleasure as ignoble, and had various systems of ethics which seemed more exalted. ... kant's ethic is important, because it is anti-utilitarian, a priori, and what is called "noble".

kant says that if you are kind to your brother because you are fond of him, you have no moral merit: an act only has moral merit when it is performed because the moral law enjoins it.

... kant himself was a man whose outlook on practical affairs was kindly and humanitarian, but the same cannot be said of most of those who rejected happiness as the good. the sort of ethic which is called "noble" is less associated with attempts to improve the world than is the more mundane view that we should seek to make men happier. this is not surprising. contempt for happiness is easier when the happiness is other people's than when it is our own.

usually the substitute for happiness is some sort of heroism. this affords unconscious outlets for the impulse to power, and abundant excuses for cruelty. or, again, what is valued may be strong emotion; this was the case with the romantics. this led to a toleration of such passions as hatred and revenge; byron's heroes are typical, and are never persons of exemplary behavior. the men who did most to promote human happiness were -- as might have been expected -- those who thought happiness important, not those who despised it in comparison with something more "sublime".

heroism as we understand it is a horrifying moral flaw, ladies and gentlemen -- and yet it is the ruling passion of this decayed society, dominating our foreign policy and our behavior toward one another. is there anything we can do to defuse it? one would hope that an education w/r/t western history and philosophical development including the romantics could cure such silliness.

Mike H.|12.28.04 @ 10:41AM|#

Sure, but then aside from the Hessians, a full 5% of the US population was either killed or driven into exile as traitors to the new democracy.

|12.28.04 @ 10:43AM|#

Hey, gaius, you sound like the kinda guy that could use a good punch in the mouf.

|12.28.04 @ 10:47AM|#

Last time I checked, we haven't been in a legitimate war since WWII. If the Congress (and I faltered at capitizing congress)doesn't have the gonads to declare perpetual war on a virtually invisible enemy, somebody should be calling it what it is: an excuse for abuse of prisoners, power, and the American people themselves.

As long as there is a "War on Drugs," a "War on Terror," or a "War on Liberty," we will never be given freedom again. We must struggle to keep what we have left beside regaining what was lost or never possessed.

G Hamid|12.28.04 @ 10:52AM|#

Al Barger,

Your point that most of the outrage comes from people who are opposed to our war effort entirely, is beautifully demonstrated by Rick Barton's response to you.

Then Matt Welch clearly displays his agenda and unseriousness by comparing the British massacre of unarmed prisoners with Abu Graib and the alleged Gitmo offenses.

The only thing being tortured here is the word torture.

|12.28.04 @ 11:00AM|#

I find all of your writer's high minded intellectualism to be so many farts in the wind.Do any of you think that any more than a handful of Americans give a shit about what goes on at Abu Ghrab or Guantanamo.

|12.28.04 @ 11:14AM|#

Bill-
Apparently, treading the moral high ground gives most Americans nosebleeds. The gutter is so much safer.

|12.28.04 @ 12:01PM|#

bill brennan is absolutely correct when he observes the inverse relationship between acceptance of the government torturing people, and fancy book larnin'.

Please, tell me more about Red America's strong moral values. The ones that don't actually have anything to do with how you treat other human beings.*

*Exempting, of course, embryos.

|12.28.04 @ 12:04PM|#

G Hamid:

Al Barger, Your point that most of the outrage comes from people who are opposed to our war effort entirely, is beautifully demonstrated by Rick Barton's response to you.

I'm outraged because I believe in the founding principles of our republic. These principles revere the sanctity of the individual. The government criminals who are responsible for these crimes must be brought to face justice in US courts.

G Hamid:

The only thing being tortured here is the word torture.

What in the Hell?? From Matt's piece:

"The FBI memos, which included more graphic descriptions of detainee abuse (including "strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings"), bore an uncanny resemblance to previous accusations made by 10 Gitmo prisoners."

drf|12.28.04 @ 12:11PM|#

bill - we'll count you in the handfull.

hamid - your intellect is staggering. only vizzini rivals you.

as said before: all bullies here: fuck yourselves. might doesn't make right.

Kevin Carson|12.28.04 @ 12:43PM|#

Al Barger,

You characterize the evidence of prisoner abuse as "scattered reports," or even "a whiff."

Perhaps that's because what little we do manage to find out is what's leaked through the military's system of information control, from an area to which the press and legislative oversight bodies have only tightly restricted (if any) access. Of course, that's the main appeal of Gitmo--an enclave under the sole control of the (sound imperial fanfare) "Commander-in-Chief," where the rules of the U.S. Constitution don't apply.

A few years back, we learned about the Louima abuse case by the NYPD only because the perpetrator, Justin Volpe, was so fucking stupid and flagrant about it that the normal police "code of silence" didn't work. It makes you wonder how many cases of prisoner abuse are regularly committed in police basements that DON'T get reported, because the perpetrators are more discreet and nothing leaks out from the "band of brothers."

And the FBI documents produced by the ACLU are only the latest evidence that there is a systematic pattern of detainee abuse carried out with at least some encouragement by the highest levels of the U.S. government. Are you seriously saying that those desk jockeys are acting in hot blood against anyone who tried to kill them?

I don't give ANYONE in the government the slightest "benefit of the doubt," because that's a good recipe for slavery. Our country was founded and kept free by people who DISTRUSTED the government, not by good Germans who suspend their critical faculties every time "our leaders" wrap themselves in the flag and use the magic words "we're at war."

"A patriot is one who defends his country against its government."

|12.28.04 @ 12:49PM|#

As Thomas Nephew rightly points out, "Even if dogs, sexual humiliation, or sleep deprivation don't rise to one's particular uninformed definition of torture, I assume we can all agree that being dropped on barbed wire or having a lit Marlboro jammed in your ear does." (http://pages.prodigy.net/thomasn528/blog/2004_12_19_newsarcv.html#110366267252277724, hat tip to Eve Tushnet: http://eve-tushnet.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_eve-tushnet_archive.html#110404995471568813)

Nephew also makes the good point that "stress positions," which many are claiming isn't really torture, was among the ways that John McCain was, uh, tortured by the North Vietnamese. If it's torture when the bad guys do it, then it's no less torture when the good guys do it. And if the good guys get into the habit of doing it, and claiming it's OK, and arguing that you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, then the good guys turn into bad guys.

G Hamid|12.28.04 @ 5:14PM|#

Rick Barton,

I have taken the time to read all the FBI memos. The only reference to "strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings" is by an unnamed source, not an FBI Agent as the ACLU claimed in their press release. Matt Welch at least did not make such a misrepresentation. I certainly would consider such actions as torture, but to accept that statement as fact is niave at best.

My statement "The only thing being tortured here is the word torture" refers to what was proven to have occured at Abu Graib. As far as I can see those FBI memos prove nothing other than the FBI was trying to cover it's own ass.

My point with regards to your response to Al Barger's comment still stands. I wonder how often you believe FBI memos when they contradict your positions.

And, finally, my response to drf is

drf|12.28.04 @ 5:54PM|#

repeat.

hamid - your intellect is staggering. only vizzini rivals you.

as said before: all bullies here: fuck yourselves. might doesn't make right.

Comment by: drf at December 28, 2004 12:11 PM

|12.28.04 @ 6:13PM|#

Hamid-
You know, IF there is any actual torture going on right now, it's unlikely (possible, but unlikely) that the perpetrators will be dumb enough to pull another Abu Ghraib and photograph their actions. If none of them suffer an attack of conscience and report the torture, the only 'evidence' of such happenings would be the word of the inmates.

Is there any situation wherein you could be convinced of the existence of torture without actual photographs and/or signed statements from the American torturers? Or do you just automatically assume that Americans tell the truth?

|12.28.04 @ 8:54PM|#

"Then Matt Welch clearly displays his agenda and unseriousness by comparing the British massacre of unarmed prisoners with Abu Graib and the alleged Gitmo offenses."

G Hamid,

So it's acceptable to sodomize people and tie electrodes to their genitals (among other things) as long as we don't kill them?

"The only thing being tortured here is the word torture"

Torture could also be used to define your defense of barbarity.

|12.28.04 @ 10:52PM|#

Jennifer,

I assume no one is telling the truth, and there are plenty of things I consider torture. Let me ask you a question. In an effort to gain life or death information, what would you NOT consider torture?

|12.28.04 @ 11:11PM|#

"The only thing being tortured here is the word torture."

Three words: Gonzales Torture Memo.

...So long as you're talking about the Gonzales Torture Memo, you're absolutely right; the Bush Administration has tortured the word "torture" in an attempt to convince lawyers and the gullible public that cruel, inhuman and degrading acts are somehow not torturous.

|12.29.04 @ 2:58AM|#

G Hamid,

I read the FBI memos as well:

http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/fbi.html

Unnamed (REDACTED) sources are standard fare in FBI reports, and in law enforcement reports in general. Note that it was not just names that were redacted. These shocking memos seem quite credible since, as Matt points out, they "bore an uncanny resemblance to previous accusations made by 10 Gitmo prisoners."

G Hamid:

As far as I can see those FBI memos prove nothing other than the FBI was trying to cover it's own ass.

What?? How could that be? The DOD interrogators were impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI!

G Hamid:

My statement "The only thing being tortured here is the word torture" refers to what was proven to have occured at Abu Graib.

What?? Look at these photos! Scroll down to the May 19 photo. The guy was beaten to death!

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444

My point with regards to your response to Al Barger's comment still stands.

It doesn't stand so well since you didn't even address, let alone refute, my response.

I wonder how often you believe FBI memos when they contradict your positions.

I believe that truth is where we find it, regardless of what positions we hold.

In those FBI memos, there is much to indicate that hideous criminal activity went on, and that criminal prosecution is called for.

raymond|12.29.04 @ 6:12AM|#

lib·er·tar·i·an n
1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
2. One who believes in free will.

At the risk of being called a libertarian torture apologist...

I think you're pretty safe from any accusation of libertarianism.

We struggle to keep our soldiers on a short leash, but they're only human.

An unfortunate metaphor.

I strongly suspect that most of the outrage comes from people who are much more opposed to our war effort entirely, rather than being concerned with human rights abuses.

And why would you think that these two concerns are mutually exclusive?

The only thing being tortured here is the word torture.

I've detected a trend here. Anti-fundamental-individual-rights-ers will always nitpick when it comes to defining the word "torture". Shown this photo, they will say: "What's so horrible about having to stand on a box?" And, "If we can save American lives by making an al Qaeda terrorist stand on a box, only a left-wing loon would object."