Not only that, but he completely sidesteps the moral core of the torture issue, arguing only in utilitarian terms.

A couple of weeks back we had Lord Cheney himself arguing in favour of the Soviet approach to Middle East diplomacy.

Er, D doesn't defend "torture because it was used by the Nazis."

He offers as evidence that it works the example of the French Resistance giving up their friends and relatives.

Where does he write "use it because the Nazis did?"

I've always despised Dershowitz, a man who's been arguing for legalized torture for years (well before 9/11). But this comment is absurd:

many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.

Any of us could disclose the locations of our closest friends and relatives. That's not the point. The question is whether you can torture an innocent man and get any valuable information out of him. Most of the time, you can't. And of course since the quickest way to get torture to stop is to say anything people start making stories up out of whole cloth.

Yes, but he argues for the effectiveness of torture while completely failing to address the point -- which he brings up in the text -- that the Nazis used it. It seems to me that if you are employing a tactic that the vilest regime of the 20th century used, you ought to address the embedded moral issue there. Dershowitz doesn't. At all.

And he actually has the chutzpah to write, in the middle of his argument in favor of torture: Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture! He's been advocating torture for years, but he's "personally" opposed to it. What a piece of work.

It makes me sort of ill to defend Dershowitz, but this post is missing the point of the example.

Dershowitz was rejecting a particular argument against torture that you hear a lot - viz., that it doesn't work. He was using the Nazi example to demonstrate that torture does, in fact, work. He was NOT using the Nazi example to demonstrate that torture is OK, just that it's effective.

Of course, the effectiveness of torture doesn't settle the issue of whether we should engage in it. But that's a separate argument. Dershowitz at this point in his argument was just disposing of a threshold question. Whether he did so convincingly or not, this particular point in his argument wasn't about the moral qualities of torture, just its instrumental utility.

He's still a fascist, though.

Inventor of the internet (CNN's
Late Edition:"I took the
initiative
in creating the Internet"),
movie producer & global
climatologist
(recipient of secular
progressive Europe's tree
huggers' political
award: Nobel prize), and now, as
an expert on the psychology of
torture, Gore informs the world
that if the U.S. violates the
Geneva
convention, then terrorists can
torture American prisoners of
war.
Of course, the reality is that
terrorists actually ignore the
Geneva
Convention by torturing and
cutting the heads off of
American
soldiers around the world. In
fact, terrorists by definition
also
torture, cut heads off of and
blow up helpless civilian men,
women,
and children. Of course Gore -
and secular progressive - live
in a
theoretical world. Even if
terrorists in reality ignore
the Geneva
convention by torturing and
slaughtering soldiers and
civilian men,
women, and children, Gore - and
secular progressives - will
tell you
with a great deal of pride that
we must nevertheless
take the morale high ground or
the rest of the world (secular
progressive Western & Eastern
Europe, Russia [led by KGB
dictator
Putin who has assassinated 14
reporters and high profile
protesters],
third world and Muslim countries,
and China [butchers of Tienamin
Square] will not like us. Take
for instance China, which has
avoided
the moral high ground by burying
prisoners in prisons for
decades.
China has, indeed, paid a
terrible price for not taking
the high
morale ground and being disliked
by the rest of the world:
raking in
hundreds of billions from
countries around the planet!

From an unemotional, practical
viewpoint, two of El Presidente
Bush's
great accomplishments are that
he stole the Presidency
twice(count
em, 1 & a 2). Second, in his
eight years in office, he
placed two
highly conservative Republicans
on the Supreme Court. And they
will
be around for several decades,
GOD willing. Furthermore, he has
placed over 3,000 federal judges
on the bench. GOD BLESS George
Bush
and burn down all the bath
houses in the Castro district
while
you're at it.

Three things I love about Vice-
President Cheney is 1) Liberals'
visceral hatred of Ann Coulter
is rivaled by their hatred of
Vice-
President(what a sw- e-e-e-e-t
sound) Dick Cheney, 2) Cheney
skewered John Edwards during the
Presidential debates, 3) Cheney
transformed the Vice-presidency
from an impotent institution
into an
institution not only co- equal
to the Presidency but also
separate
and independent of the Executive
office as newly defined by
Cheney.
If absolute power corrupts
absolutely, Cheney is one
depraved e-v- i-
l villain - S-w-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-
e-e- e-e-t!

Boy, we need more apologists who can hold us up among our new historical friends the Nazis, the Soviets, and the NVR. Wow, how this Adminstration is reaching out to show us more creative approaches to democratic rule. What fools are in the WH right now! -Kevo

Dershowitz was rejecting a particular argument against torture that you hear a lot - viz., that it doesn't work.

He was NOT using the Nazi example to demonstrate that torture is OK, just that it's effective.

But again, that's simply not true. Torture is effective if your goal is to extract confessions (often false confessions), to humiliate your captives, and as a warning to the wider population.

This is how its been used throughout history. That's why torture is embraced by repressive regimes. It's a tool for propaganda and intimidation, not an effective counterinsurgency or battlefield intelligence tool.

I'm not in any way committed to the position that torture is effective. It seems weird to suppose that it's never effective - most likely, it's effective to some extent in some range of situations, depending on circumstances, goals, etc. Like anything else.

You admit that "Torture is effective if your goal is to extract confessions." I think that is precisely what torture advocates have in mind. Dershowitz's argument here is basically: if the Nazis could get resistance fighters to give up the location of their comrades by torturing them, the US could get "terrorists" to give up the location of other terrorists or other information by torturing them.

But this is all a red herring anyway. No one can seriously dispute that torture sometimes works, and no one can, I don't think, tenably hold that torture is never, theoretically, justified. The issue is: do we really want to give the BUSH ADMINISTRATION, or any administration for that matter, the discretion to decide when torture will be effective and when it is justified? The answer to me is a clear no.

You admit that "Torture is effective if your goal is to extract confessions."

Maybe the subtlety is lost in text.

I admit that torture is effective if your goal is to extract "confessions".

Take a look at the confessions obtained by the Soviets, the Germans, the Chinese, medieval confessions of witchcraft and heresy, even the confessions signed by captured American soldiers during Vietnam.

These are not credible statements.

We know for a fact that many of the people rounded up through confessions were completely innocent. Why would you assume that it works differently for the U.S. military?

Torture is only "effective" if you are absolutely sure that everyone you round up is guilty, a standard no one could meet. So basically Dershowitz is arguing that it is acceptable to torture a few innocent people in the hopes the guilty will be included.

I admit that torture is effective if your goal is to extract "confessions".

Ah, I didn't catch that first time around.

I agree of course that torture probably produces useless information in a great number of cases, perhaps the vast, vast majority. The only thing I'm saying is that it is surely effective in some cases.

Torture is only "effective" if you are absolutely sure that everyone you round up is guilty, a standard no one could meet.

That's not exactly true, if for whatever reason false positives aren't a real problem. A medical test for a rare disease will often turn up many more false positives than accurate diagnoses. That doesn't mean the test is ineffective, because in that scenario we would probably be more concerned about false negatives. So if a given practice of torture is used in 1000 cases, 999 of which provide useless information and 1 of which provides useful information, depending on other factors (time, budget, manpower), it might be regarded as perfectly effective.

So basically Dershowitz is arguing that it is acceptable to torture a few innocent people in the hopes the guilty will be included.

THIS is the crux of the matter. "Effectiveness" is inherently relative to one's goals. If your goal is to get information about terrorists plots and you don't particularly care if that means innocent people get tortured, then torture may be effective EVEN IF in the vast majority of cases it provides useless or false information. If you've got the resources to check out every lead, that won't really matter to you.

My overarching point is this: the torture issue is an inescapably moral one. The debate will not and cannot be resolved by drawing its effectiveness into question. The crucial question is whether or not torturing innocent people is morally acceptable. That this question even has to be asked is profoundly troubling, but there you have it.

The only thing I'm saying is that it is surely effective in some cases.

But the problem is that you get swamped with garbage very quickly.

If you round up a dozen people 11 of whom are innocent, then torture the names of two co-conspirator out of each of them you end up with 22 new innocent suspects who then give you 44 new innocents, etc.

And if the 1 guilty person is smart enough to lie, you're completely screwed.

Since you're guaranteed to get information regardless of whether a detainee actually knows anything, you have to know that the information you're getting is accurate before torture can be an effective intelligence strategy (at which point it becomes completely unnecessary).

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just do it

The ascension is officially behind schedule