Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Well, I'm not surprised. King seems to always find a way to insert sermons about evil government, corrupt law enforcement and business, and scary nuclear power (among other things) into his stories. "The Stand", for example, is as far as I've been able to tell, one really long sermon (800+ to 1100 pages, depending on version). The Bush Administration's inability to call waterboarding torture (among many other things) would have been pushing King's buttons for years.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at November 28, 2007 06:45 AM

Being a King fan I don't read into his works a lot of political implications. It's just entertainment. I do hate it when a favorite entertainer spouts off though. Linda Rhonstadt is a very versatile singer and one of my favorite female vocalists, but I didn't go to a recent concert because she uses the venue as a bully pulpit for her loopy left rantings.

Posted by Orville at November 28, 2007 07:30 AM

Stephen King is completely correct and it's actually the vindictive, pro- torture faction of the blogosphere that is morally unserious. Because, first, no one in America had any trouble calling waterboarding torture before the Bush Administration said it wasn't. Until 2002, waterboarding was a Communist torture method, and it was in the Army training manual only to help train American soldiers to withstand torture by enemies. It is a form of mock execution and mock execution in general is torture.

For those people who honestly want to prevent torture in the world, the rule is very simple: If it was torture when our enemies such as the Communists did it, then it still is when we do it.

Second, it is just as morally unserious to excuse torture with the false and dishonest hypothetical, "Would you torture people to find this bad guy or expose that evil plot?" Anyone can invent such rationalizations, but the truth, as John McCain knows full well, is the opposite. McCain knows what does and does not save innocent and valorous people from torture or other harm.

The reality is that torture damages the quality of information that you get out of detainees. And when we torture people, repressive countries such as China will torture people more, not less. They will define it down just like we do. They will say, "We didn't torture anyone, we just did the same things they do at Guantanamo." In fact, Burma has taken to waterboarding its protesters for exactly that reason. And waterboarding is not the only torture method that the US is using and that therefore has been cleared for use by despotic regimes.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 28, 2007 08:27 AM

Comparing waterboarding of a terrorist mastermind to extract information for the saving of lives to a modern-day inquisition in China, in which a woman is tortured (yes, really tortured) to get her to renounce her faith, is exactly the kind of moral unseriousness under discussion.

To think that whether or not we waterboard someone is going to change the behavior of our enemies, and somehow make them less atrocious, is fatuous, in the face of history.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 08:44 AM

Comparing waterboarding of a terrorist mastermind

They have also tortured people who have done nothing wrong, not just "terrorist masterminds". Although your phrase reveals the real reason that you endorse torture: as retribution, not investigation.

To think that whether or not we waterboard someone is going to change the behavior of our enemies, and somehow make them less atrocious

John McCain has been tortured by our enemies and he understands the issue. When we torture people, by waterboarding them or by any other mode of felony assault, it will change the behavior of our enemies. It will make them more atrocious, and hand them ready excuses. They will say that it isn't torture as we define it. Burma is already taking that path.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 28, 2007 08:58 AM

They have also tortured people who have done nothing wrong, not just "terrorist masterminds". Although your phrase reveals the real reason that you endorse torture: as retribution, not investigation.

Horseshit. I was referring to KSM.

And sorry, no, the fact that McCain was tortured (and not to extract information--again, it was for a false confession) does not give him any magic insight into this debate, or moral authority. If anything, it makes him less objective about it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 09:10 AM

Oh, and by the way, I do not "endorse torture." And you remain morally unserious.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 09:10 AM

I was referring to KSM.

Whereas Stephen King and I are referring to everyone who the Bush Administration has tortured, not just Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of them and his story is clear-cut. Like a lot of people who have been tortured, he has confessed to anything and everything and his intelligence value has been ruined. They couldn't wait to punish him; even getting reliable information didn't matter.

Oh, and by the way, I do not "endorse torture."

Yes you do, because you endorse waterboarding, and waterboarding is a method of torture. As I said, no one in America had any trouble calling it torture until Republicans said it wasn't. For instance, here is a photograph of waterboarding apparatus in a Cambodian museum of Khmer Rouge atrocities, and here is a painting of its use. Until recently, no American in that museum would have said that it isn't torture.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 28, 2007 09:27 AM

Jim Harris supports torture. Just look above to see what he has done to logic.

Posted by Leland at November 28, 2007 09:35 AM

Right, Jim, that why they called the Waterboarding Fields not the Killing
Fields. That's what Dith Pran was complaining about; not that they slaughtered his whole family; that he was forced to encounter a literal mountain of crushed skulls of women & children, but that he had to swallow some water for a few minutes. Serves him right as you say. You have
to break some eggs to make an omelet right. But of course, your side argued the victims then were all counter-revolutionaries who collaborated with American occupation authority, after the victorious rise of the Year Zero. As Sydney Schamberg of the Times, put pre April 1975; i'm paraphrasing, their will be no cause for conflict after Americans pull out of Cambodia. The same cought have been heard or seen by practically any American reporter about Baghdad , six months ago. Not that I trust KSM's statements in toto; as one can't rely with any interrogation technique. But
that's why we check what they say against available evidence.

Posted by narciso at November 28, 2007 10:41 AM

Rand, in your opinion, is waterboarding torture?

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at November 28, 2007 10:50 AM

Rand, in your opinion, is waterboarding torture?

I don't know. It depends on how you define it. It is no doubt an extremely unpleasant experience. The problem is that it gets hard to draw a line, to the point that one has the feeling that many of its opponents are less opposed to waterboarding per se, than they are opposed to George Bush and all his works, and they are opposed to any coercion whatsoever to get information. They certainly don't seem to be able to get exercised about much worse things that other people do.

I do know that it is different in that there is no permanent (or even temporary) injury (though I'm no sure whether or not that's important). I also know that there are many things worse, far worse, than waterboarding, such as what happened to the Chinese woman described in Instapunk's post.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 11:01 AM

"[...] one has the feeling that many of its opponents are less opposed to waterboarding per se, than they are opposed to George Bush and all his works [...]"

That is depressingly true too often. But if everyone learned to ignore those kinds of feelings, debates would be more worthwhile.

"[...] and they are opposed to any coercion whatsoever to get information."

I think people should ask themselves when is any coercion is ok. "Name, rank, and serial number" is an oddly constrained list of things you can ask an enemy uniformed soldier who you were trying to kill in battle not long beforehand. No coericion is allowed in the case of a lawful combatant. Maybe the rules should be changed. But it is much more civilized to have the present constraints, than to have no constraints at all.

Americans have always rightly feared the power of their state over themselves. Is it worthwhile for American citizens to fear the power of the state over non-citizens? If you are anti-statist, should you seek to limit all overbearing state power to a civilized level, regardless of who that power is inflicted upon?

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 11:28 AM

My understanding is that we have used waterboarding three times during the WOT, and KSM was one of the three. I don't know who the other two were, but with hundreds of prisoners moving through Guantanamo and thousands more in prisons closer to the battlefields, three times does not seem widespread, as Jim Harris has intimated.

Now, Jim could be right, and this activity might be widespread. Maybe the gov't/military have used Waterboarding dozens, or even hundreds of times, but only admit to these three (Why 3 exactly, I don't know). And maybe they're doing more than waterboarding. It's just hard for ordinary citizens, who are not "in the know" to discover what the truth really is.

However, I just don't have a lot of sympathy for these sick, murderous bastards. When the shoe is on the other foot, they don't seem to have any conscience when they're torturing and murdering they're victims.

Just ask the families of the 2500 people murdered in Thailand.

Or the tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands murdered in Darfur.

Or the thousands killed in Israel.

Or the millions terrorized by Jihadis in nations like Indonesia.

Or the thousands killed on 9/11.

Just ask Daniel Pearl.

Oh, that's right. You can't. They cut his head off (slowly) with a sword while he knelt before a video camera.

I think I remember something about that being in violation of the Geneva Conventions. But what do I know?

I tell you what. When the cheiftans of Al Qaeda sign the GC's, and enforce it, I'll be the first to protest our "abuse" of the jihadis.

Posted by kayawanee at November 28, 2007 11:58 AM

Is it worthwhile for American citizens to fear the power of the state over non-citizens?

When the non-citizens are willing to cut the throats of Americans; I think Americans should fear the lack of power of the state over the non-citizens. Geez, can we keep the context? You use the term "non-citizens" as if referring to undocumented workers. The "non-citizens" here are terrorist captured on the battlefield, who violated the Geneva Convention by raging war on unarmed/non-combatant civilians, and waterboarding is being utilized to prevent the unnecessary loss of additional civilian lives. Yes, I want my state to be overbearing to these individuals.

Funny how H-S is concerned about an overbearing state but not concerned about Hillary Clinton's plan to force coercion into her government health care plan via the use of fines and imprisonment. Terrorist shouldn't be waterboarded, but doctor's should be jailed for providing aid and comfort to sick civilians? That's a pretty messed up moral compass.

Posted by Leland at November 28, 2007 12:16 PM

Taking a page from Rand's playbook, I'll just point out that I haven't ever commented on Hillary Clinton's health care plan.

I have commented on difference between us and the barbarians we are fighting.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 12:27 PM

Taking a page from Rand's playbook, I'll just point out that I haven't ever commented on Hillary Clinton's health care plan.

I have commented on the difference between us and the barbarians we are fighting.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 12:27 PM

But, as a Hillary supporter, I'd be interested in hearing more about why she is going to put doctors in jail! Yikes!

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 12:33 PM

But, as a Hillary supporter, I'd be interested in hearing more about why she is going to put doctors in jail!

For a Hillary Supporter, you don't seem to know much about Hillary... ;-)

I don't know what her current health care plans are, but her plan in 1993 was to basically make it illegal to purchase medical services privately, in order to force everyone into her government plan. It (and the "assault weapons" ban) were two key factors in the Republicans taking over the Congress in 1994.

By the way, here's another (more current) book you might want to check out.

And this thread is drifting pretty far off topic.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 12:44 PM

Then again, perhaps the less one knows about Hillary, the more likely one is to support her. This is why it will be tough for her to win. If she's nominated, a lot of people are going to reintroduce her, or perhaps introduce her for the first time, to the American electorate...

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 12:45 PM

It is true - I'm pretty ignorant, and particularly of the sorts of things anti-Clinton people like to bring up! I was distracted with grad school in the 1990s, and I thought all the anti-Clinton fuss was bizarrely hateful rather than interesting. I did think Gingrich was a pretty thoughtful guy, and I couldn't understand anti-Gingrich hatefulness either. I read the newspaper every day, but I was much more interested in foreign policy than domestic policy.

It is always good to argue with people who are smarter and more knowledgeable than you, and it is better still if they win - that way you learn something. I'm learning things here.

About the 1993 plan: this article "A Triumph of Misinformation"
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199501/hillary-clinton-health-plan/3
claims that George Will made up the 15 year jail term claim that I think you are talking about.

Regarding Clinton's current plan: it allows people to keep their current plan. You can read more here:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/

I'm a small business owner, and I'm self-insured by one of the Blue Cross companies. Every year my rates go up, while my confidence in getting a fair deal from the company goes down. I've been quite healthy, while paying regularly. I'm worried that when I do need my insurance, the company will find a way to make health care unaffordable. I think Hillary's current plan will protect me from ever being unfairly priced out of having health insurance, or worse, completely screwed out of my coverage, while at the same time, making health insurance affordable to people much less fortunate than me.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 01:36 PM

My two cents on waterboarding and whether it constitutes torture...

Certainly, we are painting with an somewhat wide brush when we refer to "waterboarding" as a single type of action, implying that all types of "water to the face" are equal.

In the distant past, I think waterboarding involved strapping someone to a board on a fulcrum and dipping their head|upper body|whole body into a lake|pong|etc. The head-in-a-bucket technique is also something developed before any of us were born. Both of those can be called waterboarding, but are not exactly the same.

Recently, when a Fox News reported was waterboarded, he was subjected to three separate techniques that were wholly dissimilar to anything previously mentioned. (Temporary end to abbreviated history lesson.)

So, the case for calling it torture includes:
1) References to criminal torture charges for people who did it.
2) That waterboarding can cause injury and death.

The case against calling it torture includes:
1) It causes no injury, relies upon fear (in a coercive interrogation).
2) Properly done and supervised, there is a near-zero chance of injury or death.
3) Performed very sparingly, not for any criminal conduct, but only to uncover and halt any mass casualty attacks. (Only done three times, and none since KSM sang like a birdy. Or so we are told.)

(My opinion starts)
What people like Stephen King lack in this argument is any sort of perspective. They assume that all waterboarding is equivalent. That there is some sort of moral equivalence whenever anyone applies water to a captive's face.

While this is a good start, let me digress to a different activity that can illustrate the difference. If someone were to be kidnapped by a hostile force, restrained, then tickled for four straight hours, would that constitute torture? It constituted kidnapping, false imprisonment, and battery but set those aside for now. Even though tickling causes no injury (unless you hurt yourself convulsing), death, pain, or even fear (beyond the kidnapping and restraint. I'm only talking about the tickling part.), a sustained, forcible tickling is, by itself, torture. Part of this has to do with the intention of the attacker. They are only doing it to make you suffer.

There is certainly a better way to describe the detrimental psychological and physical consequences of being tickled for hours on end, but any reasonable person will understand that there is a large and significant difference between the scenario described above, and a half second of fun tickling between family/friends/etc which no reasonable person would say constitutes torture.

Ok, so what does this have to do with waterboarding? If you look at waterboarding practiced by ww2-era Imperial Japan, or the Khmer Rouge, clearly, it is torture since they are doing it solely for the sake of torture, and intentionally targeting innocent civilians.

Compare to our waterboarding of KSM. As THE senior planner of the September 11 attacks, he is clearly a combatant and a senior member of an organization whose business involves the annihilation of our civilization, the toppling of all our government structure, and the enslavement or death of all of us. When taken into custody, someone realized that as a senior Al-Queda planner, he probably knew about other active plots of unknown scheduling, that would also potnentially kill several thousand problems each. So, with conventional interrogation techniques exhausted, waterboarding was used upon him. At the end, several high-magnitude terror plots were revealed and destroyed, and KSM was not injured nor killed and will be given a fair chance to defend himself, with a lawyer, in front of a tribunal.

Now, our treatment of KSM and the treatment of civilians at the hands of the Khmer Rouge cannot reasonably be called equivilant. So the answer to "is waterboarding torture?", much like "is tickling torture?" is a big fat "depends on how you use it."

Posted by bloatboy at November 28, 2007 01:48 PM

Well, in some respects the argument is over, since we don't waterboard detainees anymore. We only waterboard trainees. All this fuss over using the letters 'det' instead of 'tr'.

I look forward to mind-reading devices using fMRI. Then we can replace the torture debate with some sort of terrorists have a right to privacy debate.

Yours,
Wince

Posted by Wince and Nod at November 28, 2007 02:04 PM

Well done bloatboy!

H-S, if you want to take a page out of Rand's book, I suggest you start by reading the book he suggested. After all, wasn't your first comments on this blog demanding to know Fred Thompson's plan for Iraq? Don't you think you should know Hillary's plan for her top issue before you vote for her?

Posted by Leland at November 28, 2007 02:47 PM

Today waterboarding, tomorrow Tasers.

<sarcasm>Alas, we will soon have laser guns, and we can just vaporize the brain before it has a chance to know pain. That will make the world a better place. </sarcasm>

Posted by Leland at November 28, 2007 03:06 PM

Rand:

I'm not going to take you up on your latest book recommendation, but I value your opinions and suggestions, so I want to tell you why, for whatever it is worth: it looks too obviously partisan to be credible. I'd much prefer a book that was self-critical, or even just "fair and balanced", rather than openly antagonistic, unless the source has an established reputation.

I used to argue a lot with people about Israel's policy in the West Bank. I found that it was most effective to use sources that my opponents already found credible. When Tom Segev quoted Ben Gurion and other Israeli founding fathers to document his criticisms of the Israeli army, pro-Israeli people believed it. Similarly, when I could find something on Electronic Intifata (God help me) that was critical of a Palestinian policy, pro-Palestinians were much more apt to believe it.

I particularly liked your Christopher Hitchens recommendation because Hitchens isn't afraid to criticized the left, and yet he has leftist sentiments. Similarly, Dick Morris, who might seem like a complete sell-out to some, and a complete slimeball to others, strikes me as someone who shares many of my liberal values, and given his insider access to the Clintons, is at least worth listening to. Sure enough, I read one of his anti-Clinton books, and it was full of praise as well as criticism. Rush Limbaugh, whose name jumps off the page you linked to, doesn't really seem worth listening to, when it comes to criticism of Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 03:21 PM

The book is what it is. As the title says, it is all of the things that you never heard about the Clintons in the nineties because the media didn't want to tell you. Brent Bozell is a media critic who has followed this stuff for years, and the book is well cited. I'm not telling you that you should believe everything in the book (I haven't read it myself). I'm saying that you should read it, and see if it sounds credible to you, based on its contents, particularly after verifying some of the citations. If you don't want to read it merely because of the source, then I would conclude that you really would rather not know.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 03:41 PM

Aw, come on. I do really want to know the truth(1). I just finished an anti-Clinton book and I'm waiting for the other two books to arrive. With almost any project, it saves time if you start with good materials.

I'm just saying fair-minded self-criticism is helpful in political debates, and I think your actions often demonstrate that you agree with this principle.

(1) Even if Sam Dinkin's utility argument convinced me, as it almost does, I would still want to know the truth.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 03:56 PM

By the way, Jim, I missed this:

Stephen King is completely correct and it's actually the vindictive, pro- torture faction of the blogosphere that is morally unserious.

Childish straw-man statements like this are one of the many reasons that we don't take you (or Stephen King) seriously.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 03:57 PM

And I'm saying that Bozell's book is probably the best and most current material available. I'm not sure why you would be willing to read Ambrose's book, and not Brent's, other than the fact that he's a Brit.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 04:21 PM

Hmmmm. I think the difference in tone between the titles and more importantly, the depiction of the Ambrose and Bozell books on Amazon is almost glaring. That the Bozell page highlighted Rush Limbaugh's praise let me know it was being marketed to a different audience than me. Also, I was hoping three anti-Clinton books were enough. After all, how many anti-Thompson books would you want to read? Well, maybe that's not fair. How many anti-Reagan books would you want to read?

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 04:43 PM

I don't think that either Ambrose, or Brent Bozell, have any control over how their books are marketed at Amazon.com.

As far as anti-Thompson books, no one has given me any information that I should read them, based on his personal history, nor am I aware that any exist.

As for anti-Reagan books, I never voted for him, but I don't think that there is anything comparable to the ones on the Clintons that I recommended. Not to mention that fact that, as far as I know, he's not currently running for president...

Slightly off topic (though not completely), but just out of curiosity, have you ever actually listened to Rush Limbaugh?

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 04:49 PM

>Slightly off topic (though not completely),
> but just out of curiosity,
> have you ever actually listened to Rush Limbaugh?

Yes! I deleted the paragraph that explained about me and my experience with Rush, because it seemed too off topic.

From 1991 to 1994, I shared a graduate student housing and then later a ratty two bedroom apartment with a chemical engineering student who happily listened to Rush Limbaugh all day. Not only would I pick it up as am bient noise, but I would get regularly interrupted with "Hey, you've got to listen to this next segment", which I would. I don't think he is stupid, and I'll give him credit - Rush covered a lot of subjects - it wasn't all Clinton hatred. . But it was always the same argument style, which was incredibly one-sided and thus rather unpursuasive.
The chemical engineer was also into homemade fireworks, which was fun.

Time for the CNN debate!

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 05:39 PM

Rush covered a lot of subjects - it wasn't all Clinton hatred. . But it was always the same argument style, which was incredibly one-sided

Unlike the MSM, I don't think that Rush has ever claimed otherwise. At least with him, you know what you're getting...

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 05:52 PM

Also, while I often disagree with him, I've never heard any "Clinton hatred" (or for that matter, hatred at all) from Rush Limbaugh, not that I've listened in a long time (I used to only hear him in the car, and I don't spend that much time there these days). It's basically been reasonably objective analysis of their actual factual behavior.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 05:55 PM

Rush used to have a way of saying Zoe Baird that always made me laugh. His occasional coded racism didn't. But you're right, it was probably rarely "clinton hatred" -- instead, it was usually a strawman explanation of what "liberals" stood for, and then why he was against it.

The following proves nothing, I just think it is funny: the aforementioned chemcal engineer was a chemist at heart, but he felt he had to be a chemical engineer because standard chemistry went against his religious beliefs, starting with the decay rate of Carbon-14, which he suspected was being messed with by divine intervention. If only the Flying Spaghetti Monster had been around back then, because clearly C-14 (and the speed of light, etc) was being altered by His Noodly Appendage! He was a smart guy -- I told him about O'Neil colonies - and it led to a calcuation of how big Noah's Ark must have been. He had the honesty to admit that it would have larger than Massachusetts (due to the large number of species on Earth, and their inability to diversify post-Ark).
I'll stop, but thanks for the opportunity to remember some fun times!

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 06:34 PM

His occasional coded racism didn't.

Consider that if Limbaugh's racism is so subtle and well hidden as to be perceptible only by decoding, and even then only by a minority of the people who listen to him, that he may in fact not be racist. Do you really think he could have enjoyed an almost twenty-year national career and brilliant success, in modern America, if he were really a racist?

I've listened to him a lot, though not much lately. (Though when I do listen these days he sounds about the same as he always did.) He is an excellent political analyst. I find him to be almost always reasonable, even when I disagree with him. He is more courteous to callers with opposing views than most talk-show hosts are. Yet somehow when I hear him described by people on the Left who disagree with him he is transformed into a racist jerk. I don't see it. I do see that the critics have a much different interpretation of the Rush that I hear than I do. That tells me more about the critics than it does about Rush.

Posted by Jonathan at November 28, 2007 09:15 PM

Time for the CNN debate!

Time again for CNN to select another undecided voter to ask important questions. Nothing like upholding good journalistic ethics.

Posted by Leland at November 28, 2007 09:23 PM

But what a great debate!!! They covered every topic recently discussed on this blog. Even my silly story about taking the bible literally was relevant to the debate (and Huckabee's great answers to the bible and Jesus questions may even propel him to victory.) I smiled everytime Huckabee said "punish". There was even a question on space policy -- too bad the answers were so trite (benefit of spinoffs vs wasteful govt spending). And finally, I thought John McCain did a great job of putting Romney in his place on the torture question - in a sane world, he would win the nomination.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 28, 2007 09:45 PM

Consider that if Limbaugh's racism is so subtle and well hidden as to be perceptible only by decoding

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies." Yeah, that's real subtle.

But it's probably true that Limbaugh isn't really a racist, and doesn't really hate or even much mind the Clintons. (There is evidence that he's a racialist, but that's not quite the same thing.) What he really is is a demagogue out to make money. He wants to sell right-wing propaganda for a billion dollars by the time he retires, and it looks like he will make it. A lot of his shtick isn't even sincere, just as with Ann Coulter, even though both Limbaugh and Coulter are generally conservative. His success is a winner-take-all phenomenon. There are thousands of Limbaugh wannabes out there, but only a dozen or two can even make ends meet with right-wing talk radio. Limbaugh is the biggest alpha male on the radio every year, mostly because that's what he also was the previous year.

Actually the Iraq war has put Limbaugh and the entire conservative movement in a bind. It started off as the biggest new stick with which to beat liberals. That is what it still is among about a fourth of the voters. But for the majority, it turned into a fiasco that no one wants to take credit for. Rand Simberg and others like to trot out the argument that liberals aren't actually against torture or the Iraq war, actually they just hate George Bush. But it begs the question: What is it that the liberals supposedly like less about Bush? How do you do worse than Iraq and Guantanamo?

Posted by Jim Harris at November 29, 2007 06:58 AM

How do you do worse than Iraq and Guantanamo?

I have to say that I'm a little astonished at the paucity of your imagination. Yet another reason to consider you unserious.

Posted by Rand Simberg Yet n at November 29, 2007 07:07 AM

Meanwhile the Republican debate repeated the same "question" that appeared here on this blog: Is waterboarding torture? So here is some more sage Q&A for our time:

Q: Is rape torture?
A: It's hard to say. It's like tickling; it can be different things in different situations. It doesn't usually cause any long-term physical damage. Also, we wouldn't want to reveal the specifics of our interrogation methods to our enemies.

Q: Is it armed robbery if you walk into a bank with a sawed-off shotgun?
A: It depends. For one thing, the gun might not be loaded.

Q: Do you have any sympathy for the terrorist masterminds who died in American interrogations?
A: Absolutely not!

Q: How do you know that they are all terrorist masterminds?
A: Why do you ask? Do you have sympathy for them?

Posted by Jim Harris at November 29, 2007 07:14 AM

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies." Yeah, that's real subtle.

Today's NAACP leadership are a narrow interest group devoted to zero-sum racial politics, government subsidies for their cronies and litigation. Criticizing them because their political program is unpopular and they resort to threats of race riots is only racist if you think black Americans are too stupid to think for themselves and need a bunch of hustlers and demagogues to do their thinking for them.

Posted by Jonathan at November 29, 2007 01:22 PM

"When we torture people, by waterboarding them or by any other mode of felony assault, it will change the behavior of our enemies. It will make them more atrocious, and hand them ready excuses."

Personally, I can't imagine much that might be considered more atrocious than sawing someone's head off or piloting airliners into buildings filled with innocent civilians, but I'm no expert. If you can think of a few examples, please let us know.

Posted by J. at November 29, 2007 06:53 PM

I can't imagine much that might be considered more atrocious than sawing someone's head off or piloting airliners into buildings filled with innocent civilians, but I'm no expert.

Then you should imagine many more people doing it, or condoning it, or refusing to help us, because they think that we're torturers.

People here talk as if we'll be safe after we annihilate a fixed set of Islamic terrorists. That is not the case. Consider that in 2000, 52% of Turks had a favorable view of the United States; now it is 9%. In Indonesia it was 75%; now it is 29%. These are the two Islamic countries that have the most democracy and capitalism. As measured by public opinion, Bush has lost far more in the war on terrorism than the entire population of Iraq.
There are a billion Muslims in the world, which is too many to kill or subjugate, and we certainly won't win them over by torturing Muslims.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 30, 2007 08:59 AM

Then you should imagine many more people doing it, or condoning it, or refusing to help us, because they think that we're torturers.

We waterboard, ergo we are torturers.
They saw of heads and kill civilians, ergo they are torturers.

Therefore we = they, so in Jim's world, others then condon them, do more torturing on their behalf, and refuse to help us.

Again, I say Jim tortures logic.

Posted by Leland at November 30, 2007 09:27 AM

Therefore we = they, so in Jim's world

I have never said or believed any such equality. All I said is that a billion Muslims is too many to kill or conquer, and "we" (really, the American government) will only repel them by torturing Muslims. Therefore torture a method to lose the war on Islamic terrorism.

Is waterboarding torture? Until the day that Bush people took the un-American position that it isn't torture, Americans had always said that it was. Is it the only torture method condoned by the Bush Administration? No. Some detainees have been sent to Syria to be tortured, while some detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan have been tortured to death. Some of them have no known connection to terrorism; they were tortured on the basis of suspicions that turned out to be wrong. Some detainees in Guantanamo have also been tortured to end hunger strikes rather than to extract information. All of these government actions are deeply un-American and do nothing to help win any war.

Posted by Jim Harris at December 1, 2007 09:47 AM

Until the day that Bush people took the un-American position that it isn't torture, Americans had always said that it was.

That's a lie. You keep writing it, but it's still not true.

I have never said or believed any such equality.

Yeah you did. I explained how.

Posted by Leland at December 2, 2007 09:38 AM

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