Of all the morally bankrupt people writing on America's editorial pages, Cohen may be the worst. Not only is he a poor writer, but his leaps of logic and his ignorance suggests that the Washington Post itself lacks the judgment to get rid of him.

I mean, I'm just wondering.

How does keeping someone awake for eleven days help in a "ticking time bomb" situation?

People who argue that torture asbolutely works belive so because they know in their heart of hearts that they themselves would sell out thier own mothers in a heartbeat to avoid enduring any pain.

Pants-pissers the lot of them.

11 days = 2 episodes and 1/2 a nielsen's sweeps period.

It's a waste of time trying to make sense of what Cohen writes. His job is is to pour nonsense into the space on the editorial page that is reserved for liberals. That way the Post doesn't have to have an actual liberal on its op-ed page.

Sometimes murder is in self-defense, and the person I murdered ends up not hurting me, so murder works and shouldn't be illegal.

A few of Cohen's greatest hits:

"Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise."
...
"the Iraq war is not the product of oil avarice, or CIA evil, but of a surfeit of altruism."
...
"so many liberals, myself included, originally supported the war (because it) engaged us emotionally."
...
"The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals."
...
And then, when his epic cluelessness about Iraq was too much to ignore, he took to Slate for his mea culpa (because it would be wrong to contaminate the WaPo with even the hint of culpability):

"I favored the war not for oil or empire (what silliness!) or Israel but for all the reasons that made me regret Bosnia, Rwanda, and every other time when innocents were being killed and nothing was done to stop it."

I guess we should give the man credit -- it takes real talent to stand out as a wanker in the company of George Will and David Broder and Charles Krauthammer and Fred Hiatt.

And now everybody's talking about Richard Cohen, which is the only thing that matters to nitwit celebrity-hounds.

It's entertainment, people. Rush knows it. Malkin knows it. Coulter knows it. Hell, Paddy Chayevfsky knew it. It attracts eyeballs and revs up the heart rate, and that attracts advertisers, and that means profit for the publisher and glamor for the writer.

Who cares if it's self-contradictory? Hell, that probably sells BETTER.

Or Richard Cohen is assuming no one reads his column more than once. That's a fairly understandable assumption.

Richard Cohen's real agenda is to destroy the stereotype that Jews are smart.

You're such a fuckhead Sewer.

On April 28, Cohen stated unequivocally, "[T]he debate over torture has been infected with silly arguments about utility: whether it works or not. Of course it works -- sometimes or rarely, but if a proverbial bomb is ticking, that may just be the one time it works." His argument then was based on emotionalism, not evidence -- he was angry about 9/11, so torture works. He ignored empirical evidence to the contrary.

Can you prove torture never works?

No. And that's not at all what the article you linked to claims, since either you can't read, or you just like to misrepresent articles since dumbass tapped readers won't click.

If we could prove torture never works, the argument would be over.

So if the CIA finds no evidence they helped during the last 8 years, that is still not proof that torture never works.

Have Duncan eats the corn out of your shit Black explain to you, "can't disprove a negative."

Regarding Cohen, your post should be more aptly titled, "hey fellow fuckheads, let's burn Cohen at the stake today, just for our kicks" because it's a pretty stupid post.

Week A) Some dipshit I don't care about says X. X. X motherfuckers, X.

Week B) Some dipshit I don't care about says X? Hmm, X?

Occams razor: dipshit is stupid, or dipshit is learning.

Sewer's razor: dipshit is advancing a conspiracy theory and intentionally taking a tactic whereby later on, dipshit can claim he was right no matter what.

Oh yeah, fuck you.

The question is...what would Dick Cheney have to do for Richard Cohen to stop taking him seriously?

A. Eat Cohen's dog.

B. Have sex with Cohen's dog.

C. Staple wings to Cohen's dog and throw it off of the top of the Washington Monument.

Mike

Anon, you make my head hurt. You're brand of torture works.

Anon, you're actually wrong.
If you're dealing with reliability, you can in fact prove a negative.
If you need reliable information, and torture provides the truth 30% of the time, does it 'work'?
It does not.
In a ticking time bomb scenario, with the right guy, you need to know the location of the bomb NOW. You have only enough time to go to one location. If you torture the guy, and get an answer that has a 30% probability of being correct, have you succeeded?
No. You've failed. Game over, man.
The criterion for reliable information makes it possible top prove a negative.
If it doesn't always work It never works--reliably.

If you need to waterboard somebody 183 times, how can it possibly be useful in a "ticking time bomb" situation?

I can't help but feel that anon learned the completely wrong lesson from the 'You can't prove a negative' lesson at his local elementary school...

The ticking bomb scenario is actually the one where torture is least effective. You need time and near limitless resources to check up the claims made by torture victims. You have neither in a ticking bomb scenario.

The thing about torture is that it corrupts everything that touches it. It twists the souls of those who use it, making them monsters. It unleashes those people into society, where they DO use what they've learned. It drives the non-psychos out of security work, and leaves behind the whackjobs like anon.

So, Richard Cohen is acting much as Nancy Pelosi did, only in reverse.

From the original post:

"[Cohen] was angry about 9/11, so torture works. He ignored empirical evidence to the contrary."

The link takes us to the breathless McLatchy revelation that the OLC memo included an excerpt from the CIA Inspector General report noting that the "there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks".

Apparently there is a market for the belaboring of the obvious, so here we go. The fact that the CIA IG did not consider it proven that enhanced interrogation worked is hardly proof that it does not work.

Of all the morally bankrupt people writing on America's editorial pages, Cohen may be the worst.

The sad thing is that since Charles Krauthammer's column is found in the same newspaper, Cohen is not even the most morally bankrupt columnist at the Washington Post.

Hey, give him a break, his utterly contradicting a column he wrote just two weeks ago was just him being funny, and we know that Richard Cohen is very, very funny, because he told us so.

The thing about torture is that it corrupts everything that touches it. It twists the souls of those who use it, making them monsters. It unleashes those people into society, where they DO use what they've learned. It drives the non-psychos out of security work, and leaves behind the whackjobs like anon.

That's right soullite, that's why you oppose torture. It has nothing to do whether it works or not.

Once you start arguing if it is efficacious and to what degree you lose the argument. Oh, it doesn't satisfy pbg's criteria? Let's have a Ph.D group work on that then. We'll give them some grant money and make an institution out of it.

And all you folks have screamed at republictards over and about not being able to prove a negative. But here, now, when you believe it to be convenient, off the deep end you eagerly go.

By the way, pgb, and red, and even you soullite, there is nothing in my original comment up above indicating I am pro-torture. I am against it. 100% in all circumstances.

But I am also against the sort of gung ho, chant them out, whip them up, dipshit logic and reasoning of Sewer. And this is yet another example of his.

@Anonymous, macho macho man:

”People who argue that torture asbolutely works belive so because they know in their heart of hearts that they themselves would sell out thier own mothers in a heartbeat to avoid enduring any pain. Pants-pissers the lot of them.

Brave words, bro. I’m sure if they wired up your balls and tore your fingernails off etc., you’d just sit there like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and call the torturer’s mother a whore, spit in his eye, and beg him to scratch your balls, wouldn’t you? Sure you would, dude. Sure you would.

@Kenf

Sometimes murder is in self-defense, and the person I murdered ends up not hurting me, so murder works and shouldn't be illegal.

Well, yeah. Not when its self-defense and your life is threatened. Then it is not actually murder; it is justifiable homicide.

@pbg:

If you need reliable information, and torture provides the truth 30% of the time, does it 'work'?
It does not.

2 replies:

1) Even 30% fewer nuclear holocausts is better than having all of them.

2) These epistemological objections fail in the case of verifiable information. In the Ticking Time Bomb case, we want to know the location of the bomb. That is verifiable information. The terrorist says it's at 133 29th St. Apt. 306, we can have agents there in no time checking out the story. If he lies, we increase the intensity of the torture.

In a ticking time bomb scenario, with the right guy, you need to know the location of the bomb NOW. You have only enough time to go to one location.

You don't really want to stake your argument on a weak reply like this one. Of course, it is easy to imagine a different Ticking Time Bomb scenario than the specific one you have laid out here in which you have weeks or months or even years to find the weapon. Think about it for 5 minutes and I'm sure you can come up with a possible scenario all on your own. If you find you are unable to, let me know and I'll spell one out for you.

@john:

If you need to waterboard somebody 183 times, how can it possibly be useful in a "ticking time bomb" situation?

Khalid Sheik Muhammed didn't hae the information Bushco wanted, i.e. a link between Saddam and Bin Laden. No amount of torture can get you what the victim doesn't have.

But in the Ticking Time Bomb scenario, the terrorist does have the info, we know he has the info, and we can verify any story he tells us about the location of the bomb. In that case, waterboarding might work.

@soullite:

The ticking bomb scenario is actually the one where torture is least effective. You need time and near limitless resources to check up the claims made by torture victims. You have neither in a ticking bomb scenario.

I can easily imagine a TTB scenario where you DO have those things. if you find yourself unable to think up such a scenario on your own, let me know and I'll post one. It's actually pretty easy unless you;re determined to fail.

The thing about torture is that it corrupts everything that touches it. It twists the souls of those who use it, making them monsters. It unleashes those people into society, where they DO use what they've learned. It drives the non-psychos out of security work, and leaves behind the whackjobs like anon.

True, but that is inconsequential compared to millions of deaths in a nuclear holocaust.

Alos, the TTB scenario is extremely rare so we don't need to institutionalize a torture bureaucracy that has all the bad eeffects you describe. If and when the TTB scenario arises, it wouldn't be that hard for average people to think up effective ways to torture the guy or to consult experts in other countries

Are bombs still made with clocks that tick??

If he lies, we increase the intensity of the torture.

How about, if he lies, the bomb goes off. Whoops!

@Professor Plum:

That would suck.

But it's not hard to imagine scenarios in which that doesn't happen. The extreme anti-torture absolutists still have to deal with those scenarios.

For me, the thing is this: Whether torture works or not isn't the question.

For me the question is, whom would I prefer to take my chances with? Someone who tortures in my name and has significant external control over my life, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being blown up by a terrorist?

A "no-brainer," as some genius said recently, for me. I don't hold myself up to be courageous at all, but I'd much rather take my chances with the terrorists than someone torturing another in my name.

Odds are higher my own torturing government will abuse me somehow before I get 9-11'd.

Cheney is a 5-Star (star=deferment) phyical coward, with some sadistic tendencies, judging from the way he "hunts."

And THAT'S what this is ultimately about.

WHO ARE YOU?
A)anti-torture
B)100% anti-torture
C) Extreme anti-torture absolutionist.
D)anti-torture, unless ttb scenario.
E)anti-torture, unless it works.
F)pro-torture
I had no idea i had all these options.

The fact that the CIA IG did not consider it proven that enhanced interrogation worked is hardly proof that it does not work.

Goodness, Tom Maguire--you think it's enough to justify torturing people if, although we have no evidence that it works, we can't prove to your complete satisfaction that it doesn't? Torture is your default setting?

[CIA Guy: If you don't answer the question, we'll have to waterboard you.

Prisoner: What question?

CIA Guy: Waterboard him!]
Guy

It's strange to me that Republicans, who are supposed to be for limiting the power and reach of the government, are in favor of making torture legal. Having legal torture is the first big big step to having a government that controls its citizens by force.

These terrorism scenarios are designed to distract from the issue that if a government can justify torturing terrorists it can eventually extend that justification to torturing anyone who it sees as opposition. Moreover, they're all totally false scenarios. How could we possibly KNOW that a captive terrorist actually has the information we want to torture out of him? At what point do we distinguish that a captive has information and is witholding it and needs to be tortured more versus that he simply doesn't have the answer?

The truth is, effective use of intelligence can prevent torture from ever needing to be on the table. If we have the ability to garner enough intelligence to positively know that a suspect has the needed information, then I have the utmost faith that we can also obtain that information without resorting to the tactics of the regimes we are supposedly so morally distinct from. All of the worst kinds of transgressions committed by governments are done in the name of protecting its citizenry.

Cohen used to be sharp; now he is 68.

We used to have mandatory retirement ages. They deprived many people of useful working years, but they also foreclosed many situations like this. And George Will, also 68. And of course David Broder, now 79.

You don't link to Cohen's current article because you are a lying coward Adam Serwer.

Here is the column you refuse to link to:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051102668.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

He does say "I have to wonder" in the column I linked to.

HE DOESN'T SAY the debate over torture is "SILLY" to use your scare quotes. He doesn't say everyone "KNOWS IT WORKS".

That's your bullshit intepretation of his column.

Yes, he listened to Cheney and he comes to the same conclusion and question as many other people, why is Cheney pushing to have the torture investigated when Obama is not?

Instead of your missing the point so you could express your hard on over some Cohen hate, why not take Cohen and Cheney up? INSIST ON A FULL INVESTIGATION.

Serwer, jesus fuck you are an embarrassment to the Prospect. Cliche. Shallow. Knee Jerk. Politically correct.

Go fuck yourself.

Anonymous, your an idiot. Serwer is discussing and comparing two different columns. Try actually reading an article before commenting.

Awkward Silence, he didn't link to one of the columns he was discussing.

Why? Because it disproves the point of Serwer's post.

And even the first column of Cohen's says nothing like what Serwer is claiming.

Why read soullite above, and then read Cohen from that first column:

America should repudiate torture not because it is always ineffective -- nothing is always anything -- or because others loathe it but because it degrades us and runs counter to our national values. It is a statement of principle, somewhat similar to why we do not tap all phones or stop and frisk everyone under the age of 28. Those measures would certainly reduce crime, but they are abhorrent to us. ... Before you can torture anyone, you must first torture the law. When that happens, we are all on the rack.

The two columns read nothing like what Serwer says they do. Serwer's interpretation is totally dishonest.

And it ain't the first time.

@awkward silence

How could we possibly KNOW that a captive terrorist actually has the information we want to torture out of him?

From electronic surveillance or a stolen harddrive or a walk-in informant.

Yikes! That last comment was by me, not to be confused with the "anonymous" who is defending the execrable Richard Cohen.

I think the main point being overlooked by most if not all apologists and defenders of torture is this... It's against U.S. law. period. end of story. These are examples of crimes against humanity and we came out against these pracitces legally in writing and treaties long ago. The reasons we signed onto rejecting torture are just as valid now as they were back then.

It's not my law.. It's just 'THE LAW' you torure apologists and defenders need to deal with that fact!... And deal with this fact too while your pondering... Our government in the previous administration, and, in our names bought into this bullshit, implemented it, and created all the fallout that has come of it.. And have, since, been trying to sweep it all under the rug one way or another until recently.

Apparently they finally figured out they can't get away with sweeping it under the rug (pesky internet and photo documenting by some of the underlings in this travesty) so they are belatedly trying to defend this indefensible thing they did. I submit, the only way we are going to save our nations soul now, is to bring everyone responsible to justice to face and accept their role in it and take whatever punishment our justice system merits they deserve.

The torure apologist out there needs to understand this which they seem incapable of for some reason. This is not going to go away. If we as a nation refuse to do what anyone with two brain cells to rub together fully understands is our only recourse now. We all become complicit in this crime against humanity as accessories after the fact. And that's the goddamend truth of it.

BTW, all this crap mostly from the pentagon indicating the release of additional photos and information regarding torture and how that will put our armed forces in harms way misses the mark as well... It's not the release of this damning information that endangers us, it is the policy of torture put in place by the previous administration that has put our armed forces and the rest of us in danger among a host of other negative consequences... JD

I would go one better Liberal.
ANY executive found to have actively pursued this fraud on the American people will be prosecuted.