Random Thoughts on Waterboarding, Gitmo et al

This past week the House and the Senate both passed a bill and sent to the President's desk that would limit the CIA to interrogation techniques that are found in the Army Field Manual. This is a difficult debate with many shades of gray and no black and white.

The first part of the debate has to do with the Geneva Conventions. Those spell out what can and cannot be done to POW's and waterboarding is one of many techniques that is outlawed. On the other hand, terrorists are not POW's. In fact, the Geneva Conventions also spelled out what exactly constitutes a POW. That is an individual in uniform fighting for a specific country on a battlefield against other soldiers. Terrorists fit none of those descriptions. The Geneva Conventions were created for several purposes. The first is to protect soldiers from torture and other cruel punishment. The second was to define soldiers specifically so that those that acted outside the authority of a soldier would be identified as well. In my mind, it is foolish to give terrorists the rights of soldiers since they make their business specifically outside the guidelines of soldiers.

The second part of the arguement is one known as moral authority. In fact, I get a mass email from Nancy Pelosi today making this arguement.


Failing to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh torture techniques undermines our nation's moral authority, puts American military and diplomatic personnel at-risk, and undermines the quality of intelligence. Military leaders -- including General David Petraeus, Commanding General of U.S. forces in Iraq -- have publicly stated that these techniques are inhumane, un-American and are not necessary to produce results.

To me, this moral authority arguement is a theoretical one. In reality, we have people who have as their one and only mission in life to kill as many Americans as they can. Naysayers can continue to claim that waterboarding doesn't work, but that is counter to what the CIA has said about it when it was done. (which was incidentally three times) Waterboarding is reserved for those special circumstances of so called high value targets that won't break any other way. Waterboarding was used on Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (former number three of AQ and the mastermind of 9/11) Here is what we learned as a result.

We learned about Al Qaeda's interest in flying planes into buildings on September 11, 2001. We knew about Al Qaeda's use of shoe bombs from Richard Reid, captured in December 22, 2001. We knew about Jemaah Islamiyah at least since the Bali Bomb attack on October 12, 2002. The "key al Qaeda operative" and pilot for the plot, Zaini Zakari, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in December 2002.

Critics often say that waterboarding and other techniques that they deem torture is unreliable. This is in fact true. All coercive interrogations should be treated with skepticism...

Coercive interrogation is extremely effective at obtaining confessions. Evidence obtained from coercive interrogation is highly dubious and must be corroborated with reliable sources. The claims of interrogators who coerce their prisoners should be treated with as much skepticism as the claims of the prisoners themselves.

That doesn't mean that what is revealed after their use is necessarily inaccurate. Ultimately, the way I see it is that I believe that the interrogators know best. They are trained professionals and I for one will not accept having their hands tied by limiting what they can and can't do by politicians. I trust their judgement and I trust that they will only use what is necessary. That said, I will not accept a non expert limiting what they can and can't do especially when the reason is our nebulous "moral authority". When we have a suspect, that suspect may know of future plots and the clock is constantly ticking on those future plots. I will not accept American deaths because we treated terrorists humanely. This is a tough war and sometimes we will have to get our hands dirty. The other side can cry human rights but that is a theoretical arguement. In reality, limiting our interrogators to a specified list of techniques will eventually cost us American innocent lives.

The opponents of Gitmo make me furious most times. Gitmo has been demonized by the same folks that want it closed. For all the demonization of Gitmo they can't point to any specific cases of behavior that was out of bounds. That said, if not Gitmo then where do we put these folks. Many of the prisoners come from countries where they will surely be tortured if they are sent back. Is it really worse for these prisoners to be in Gitmo then say Saudi Arabia? For many others, the country doesn't want them. What is the other option? Is it really sensible to put these guys into federal lock up and have them filter through our federal court system. The fiasco that became the Moussaoui trial is great evidence of what a wholesale level of those types of trials will hold. Gitmo may not be perfect however I would really like to know what the alternative is. Anyone that demands we close it down has to have a sensible alternative to it.