There's No Good Argument for Torture

In the days after 9/11, it was argued that we had to have the PATRIOT ACT, because if we'd had it already, it would've prevented 9/11. Leaving aside the fact that we already had info on the coming catastrophe and that Bush ignored it, it was never a particularly good argument. A lot of measures would've prevented 9/11, including putting every single civilian -- native-born or immigrant -- in the United States in prison. Had everyone been in prison that day, the World Trade Center would still be standing.

Clearly, there is a line. There's a point at which we can go too far in protecting ourselves. Despite even former Bush administration officials' rhetoric, no one -- not even themselves -- would really argue that the government gets to go to any length to protect Americans. We all accept that there is a limit. That's why the reaction to 9/11 wasn't to outlaw aircraft.

Still, the "it would've prevented 9/11" argument ignored the fact that less drastic measures than those in the PATRIOT ACT probably would've done the same. When you've got people in flight schools who aren't interested in learning how to land, you don't really need to build a giant database to arrange randomly collected recorded conversations into statistical data sets. What you do is check out those guys in the flight schools and see what's up with that whole "I don't want to land" thing. When you've got people you suspect of criminal activity, you do police work. You don't need a jackhammer to drive a nail and it's ridiculous to argue otherwise.

Ditto for torture. President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, former Admiral Dennis Blair, wrote a memo to his staff that the right is diving on to justify the Bush administration's torture policy. In doing so, they're being extremely selective, quoting the memo as saying, "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country."

See? Torture works. If we didn't torture people, there would've been another terrorist attack. Liberals have egg on their faces -- hating torture is the same as hating America.

But the truth is that the memo doesn't say that torture was justified. In fact, it argues that it was unnecessary. Blair wrote that he "also strongly supported the president when he declared that we would no longer use enhanced interrogation techniques. We do not need these techniques to keep America safe.

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

This take backs up FBI Director Robert Mueller's assessment of torture. In December of 2008, Mueller was interviewed by Vanity Fair:


I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls "enhanced techniques"?

"I'm really reluctant to answer that," Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: "I don't believe that has been the case."


So, when Blair says that torture sessions resulted in "a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization," it's important to note that he doesn't say anything about it stopping a terrorist attack. And it's also important to note that what information we did get might "have been obtained through other means."

It's at this point that the pro-torture argument stops being logic and devolves into magic or religion. Let me draw a parallel. Say you had a chance to talk to a shaman from an ancient culture that practiced human sacrifice. You find out that, on a certain date, when the sun and the stars are just right, this guy sacrifices a virgin to make sure winter ends and all the plants come back. You tell him that killing virgins is immoral and unnecessary.

"Are you crazy?" he asks. "It works every, single time! What more proof do you need?"

Even on those occasions that torture actually works, there's no reason to believe that other methods wouldn't have. The argument for torture is an argument from the position of ignorance; unless you've tried literally everything else, you can't argue that it was necessary.

In fact, we're finding out that torture was used unnecessarily. McClatchy Newspapers reported that people were tortured to give up the link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda -- despite the fact that there wasn't a link. "Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003," wrote Jonathan Landay. "No evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime."

And even if there were, how would this information have made us safer? The Bush administration was basically resorting to torture to dig themselves out of a hole. "[T]he Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link," commented the NYT's Paul Krugman. "There’s a word for this: it’s evil."

And that's all torture is: evil. There's no good argument to be made in its favor.


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News Roundup for 4/22/09

John McCain, being forced by the media to act like a jackass

-Headline of the day-
"Former online campaign chief says media 'screwed' McCain."

Remember Michael Palmer? Yeah, neither did I. Turns out he was John McCain's "eCampaign" chief -- which means he was probably the marketing genius behind McCain's blog and a campaign of rewarding Republican diehards for spamming the comment threads on lefty blogs. In other words, he wasn't awfully good at his job.

Anyway, despite the above bad ideas and the choice of the extremely unpopular Sarah Palin as his running mate, it was the media that killed McCain. I guess by running 14 hours of Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright every day.

At a conference held by the George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, Palmer debated Joe Rospars, Obama's "New Media" director. I guess he'd be the guy behind Obama's interactive website and email list building. You know, the good ideas on how to use the interwebs -- the ones that actually worked.

"John McCain had a very healthy and respectful relationship with the press and then they screwed him," said Palmer. Like the time the media made him make a completely horrendous campaign speech, in front of a weird green backdrop, in New Orleans. Or the time the media forced him to show a photo of Walter Reed middle school when he was discussing Walter Reed Army Medical Center at the Republican National Convention. Or the time the media made him spend insane amounts of money on Sarah Palin's wardrobe and make up. Or the time the media twisted his arm and made him offer his wife up for an amateur stripper contest.

Damned media... (Agence France-Presse)


-Your obligatory Earth Day news-
Whoo-hoo! It's Earth Day! And CNN has some handy tips on how to save the whole damned big planet and save money. Oh boy!

Among the items is Good riddance to bad rubbish. "Go paperless. Read your favorite newspapers and magazines online. Publications are increasingly relying on advertising instead of subscriptions for revenue, meaning you can discover the latest buzz and even save some money."

Yay! Except, newspapers are going under because no one's buying them anymore and not buying newspapers would just be making a bad situation worse. Besides, newspapers are about 99.99% recycled paper products, so the greenness of this move is a little questionable.

And, if all the newspapers go belly up, where would we get all of our news?

Oh, that's right. CNN. Now there's a coincidence, huh? (CNN)


-Bonus HotD-
"Scientists 'disappointed, upset,' and 'consternated' that Bush officials misused their work to justify torture."

And who can blame them? Still, I didn't know that "consternated" was a word. But it turns out that three researchers aren't happy to find out that their studies on sleep deprivation were used as a guideline by CIA torturers. You think sleep deprivation isn't torture? Well, you're not alone. Neither did the Bush administration. In fact, they wanted to make sure that being an exhausted wreck didn't interfere with all the torture.

According to the report, the CIA used the research because it showed that missing sleep causes "at most only relatively moderate decreases in pain tolerance." So you can torture someone who's been kept awake for days and not have any of all that pain be lost on them.

Isn't that just freakin' awesome? The CIA needed a scientific study to tell them that people aren't likely to sleep through torture. What a breakthrough...

Further, the study was conducted on volunteers who were never deprived of sleep "for more than one day without allowing them to recover." The CIA set their limit at "180 hours, or seven and a half days."

Just make you proud to be from the same species as these guys, doesn't it? (Think Progress)

He Was For It Before He Was Against It

I want you think back. Way back. So far back, you might have trouble remembering it. It was, after all, more than a year ago. Way back in those heady days of our youth, there was a presidential campaign going on. And one candidate had a plan for saving the planet. This Earth Day, it pays to go back and look at that plan, which was originally printed in the Financial Times on March 18, 2008:


International responsibility also means preserving our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. Americans and Europeans need to get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand over a much-diminished world to our grandchildren. We need to reinvigorate the US-European partnership on climate change where we have so many common interests at stake. The US and Europe must lead together to encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India.

I have introduced legislation that would require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but that is just a start. We need a successor to Kyoto, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. New technologies hold great promise. We need to unleash the power and innovation of the marketplace in order to meet our environmental challenges. Right now safe, climate-friendly nuclear energy is a critical way both to improve the quality of our air and to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources.


So, to recap, US-European partnership on reducing emissions, a new international treaty, new technology, nuclear power, and cap and trade. I'm not a big fan of the nuclear part -- mostly because it's not really clean and it's stupid-expensive -- but the rest sounds good, right?

This plan to save the world was put forward by John McCain. But that was a long, long time ago -- going on 400 days ago now -- and McCain's saying different things about cap and trade now. Why? Because he's a Republican. Republicans now define what they stand for as "everything Democrats want is wrong." So McCain -- a good little mavericky GOP footsoldier -- jumped right on that bandwagon. He put cap and trade to the rigorous test of seeing if dems liked it and determined that it was just the worst thing ever. Where cap and trade was once a common sense solution to global warming that relied on markets to reduce emission, CaT is now a commie plot to ruin corporations and raise revenues for the federal government. Democrats are for it, President Obama's for it, so it must be bad. Good Republicans are guided by their jerking knees.

Any doubt that McCain had done a complete 180 on cap and trade was dispelled yesterday, when RealClearPolitics.com ran the headline, "McCain Slams 'Cap And Tax' Energy Plan."


As Congress opens hearings on new energy policies, John McCain said President Obama is pursuing a strategy that is a "revenue generator for the federal government," not a solution to the threat of climate change.

[...]

"At this time of economic hardship, it is beyond irresponsible to further raise costs of operation for our country's businesses," he said at an energy forum hosted by the Reform Institute in Washington today. "I still believe that it is the time to address this critical domestic and international issue. But my vision for a cap and trade system is mechanism to lower greenhouse gases in our hemisphere, not as a revenue generator for the federal government."


I know what you're thinking, "He says right there he's for his 'vision of cap and trade.' He's just got a problem with the Democrats' version." Here's the thing, John McCain doesn't really have any idea what the hell cap and trade actually is. This was a problem during the campaign -- he said he was for cap and trade, only without that whole "cap" part.

Now would probably be a good time to explain how cap and trade works. The government sets a limit on how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a plant or shop or whatever can emit. But you can buy what would basically be an allowance to exceed that by going to a facility that's below their cap or some sort of carbon mitigation service and buying credits. Now you can pollute more, because you've added the other facilities deficit to your polluting capacity. Initially, these credits would be auctioned by the government. Afterward, the credits would be traded in an open market, with more credits issued as needed -- i.e., as total emissions go down and polluting capacity increases.

McCain's "vision of cap and trade" is trade and no cap. Companies would basically buy pollution from each other -- if they wanted to, because it'd be a nice thing to do. And we all know that global corporations are all about being nice. If they make a little money, that's great, but all they're really interested in is making the world a better place.

McCain made his misunderstanding of the entire mechanism of cap and trade clear at a June 2008 press conference, where he was asked, "The European Union has set mandatory targets on renewable energy. Is that something you would consider in a McCain administration?"

"Sure. I believe in the cap-and-trade system, as you know," he answered. "I would not at this time make those -- impose a mandatory cap at this time. But I do believe that we have to establish targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions over time, and I think those can be met."

Writing about it at the time, I posted, "Let me see if I've got this straight, McCain's for cap and trade -- so long as we get rid of that whole 'cap' part. Without a mandatory cap on emissions, there's no reason for anyone to do any carbon trading. It'd be a completely profit-free market, which doesn't make it extremely attractive for investors. Who's going to buy pollution?"

In fact, in an interview with Greenwire, McCain made his misunderstanding of cap and trade clear, saying -- with his trademark testiness -- "It's not quote mandatory caps. It's cap-and-trade, OK. It's not mandatory caps to start with. It's cap-and-trade. That's very different. OK, because that's a gradual reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. So please portray it as cap-and-trade. That's the way I call it."

"The way you call it" isn't exactly right, John. You don't get to run around redefining terms to your liking. Especially in cases like this, where the redefinition doesn't make any damned sense and clearly wouldn't work. What you're calling "cap and trade" isn't actually cap and trade at all, it's just pollute, trade, or not trade as you see fit.

Sound familiar? Yeah, that's because it's pretty much what we have now. Anyone can buy carbon credits. You can resell them if you want. But there's no real market for them because you're not required to have them. Since companies don't actually need them, guess what? They don't buy them. McCain might as well be selling leprechaun farts -- McCain's carbon market would trade in something that has no value because it isn't actually real.

But the core idea behind all of this is that Democrats are wrong -- always. If they propose one thiing, as a good Republican, McCain is required to advocate for the opposite. It doesn't have to make any sense, it doesn't have to have a hope in hell of ever working, it just has to be different.

That's what being a maverick is all about -- doing exactly what the rest of your party does. If this seems indistinguishable from your typical partisan ass, then that's what "maverick" must mean.

Because that's the way McCain calls it.

-Wisco


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The Problem of the Community College

Community colleges are often looked at as the redheaded stepchild of higher education, and for good reason. Their retention rate is fairly low, among those who do stay academic achievement is lukewarm, and the graduation rate is nothing to write home about, according to this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In the article, author Kay McClenney argues that the primary failing of community colleges lies with the institutions themselves and that if the powers that are would just rise to the occasion and expect more of the students, the students would follow.

However, Ms. McClenney fails to address that this problem with community colleges represents a problem with the students as well as the faculty. As a community college graduate, I can attest to how much of a difference the students make in how well the college succeeds. The students I met who were dedicated and committed—not even necessarily brilliant—tended to stick out hard classes, graduate on schedule, transfer to four-year schools and graduate in a timely manner. Unfortunately, they were in the minority. Many of my classes halved in size from the first day to the final exam. Several students that I knew simply dropped out of school and went God-knows-where. Others remained at this two-year college for three, maybe even four, years. From the statistics Ms. McClenney cited, this seems a nationwide phenomenon. Is it any wonder the professors at community colleges don’t expect much of their students?

Professors can offer. From my experience as a community college student, professors do offer. But if the students aren’t receiving, offering does little good. The problem of community colleges is a symptom of problems throughout all of education—a lack of learning and focus rather on diversity, indoctrination, and self-esteem. 10 years of this is impossible to undo overnight. If we want students at community colleges to succeed, we’ll have to fix the school system from the bottom up.

News Roundup for 4/21/09

History's greatest monster

-Headline of the day-
"Why the GOP is devouring one book."

Let's make this one a quiz. Is it:


A. Because that's about all they can handle in any given year.

B. Because this one takes a real long time to burn.

C. Because it's revisionist horseshit.


If you guessed "C," you're right -- although, to tell the truth, I would've accepted "A."

Turns out that Republicans are taking to Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man like ants to a glob of gum on the sidewalk. Why? Because it argues that FDR's New Deal might have been the worst thing ever.

According to the report, the book "looks at the Great Depression with particular sympathy upon the plight of those who were burdened with supporting the 'weak members of society' during the New Deal and endeavors to give a voice to those 'forgotten men.'" When you paint people unemployed by depression as "weak members of society," you know you're heading straight for any GOPer's heart -- for people who don't believe in evolution, they're big fans of social Darwinism.

You can tell the worth of the book by who are giving it rave reviews. For instance, Iowa Rep. Steve King said, "I think it's conclusive when you read the book... that the New Deal was actually a bad deal, and today we have a president who believes that the New Deal was a good deal, and would have been a far better deal if FDR would have spent a lot more money." For the record, Steve King is certifiably insane.

Said Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), "[I]t had good pictures when you get to the middle."

No really, he did. (Politico)


-A Republican fad comes back-
Kansas Rep. Rep. Todd Tiahrt has become the latest GOP member to apologize to Rush Limbaugh. After telling the Kansas City Star that Limbaugh was "just an entertainer" and not really the leader of the Republican party, Tiahrt had to apologize to the leader of the Republican party.

"The congressman believes Rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in America -- not a party leader responsible for election losses," says Tiarht spokesperson Sam Sackett. "Nothing the congressman said diminished the role Rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement."

Tiarht joins Georgia's Phil Gingrey, South Carolina's Mark Sanford, New York congressional candidate Jim Tedisco, and the guy pretending to lead the party -- RNC Chairman Michael Steele -- in apologizing to Rush Limbaugh.

Kids these days and their crazy fads... I can't say I approve, though. Kissing Rush's ass is like using drugs -- you're messing around with crack. (Washington Monthly)


-Bonus HotD-
"Bush Memos Suggest Abuse Isn’t Torture If a Doctor Is There."

Meet Dr. Payne, Ph.D. Torturology. (ProPublica)