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April 27, 2009

It Does Not Work, But It's Fun!

By: Bernard Chazelle

The indispensable Patrick Cockburn writes:

The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq.

Descartes: "I think therefore I am."

Cheney: "I torture because I can."

— Bernard Chazelle

Posted at April 27, 2009 09:57 PM
Comments

YES WE TORTURE, and as pointed out in an article at This Modern world, WE HAVE KNOWN for sure for 5 years. And yet??? (brings tears of joy and national pride, don't it? No sweat though, a cup-o-karma and a bite-o-crow will help OUR self esteem for ONLY the low, low price of 401k)

Posted by: Mike Meyer at April 28, 2009 12:09 AM

But "that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11" doesn't constitute evidence that "It Does Not Work."

As has been discussed here, and as made explicit in the Armed Services Committee report, the goal of torture isn't to learn new things to help prevent crime and terror, but rather to ratify pre-existing commitments to engage in the perpetration of war and terror.

If our soldiers are dying in part due to our use of torture, that may even be a data point that suggests it's working just like it's supposed to.

Posted by: Earth at April 28, 2009 06:56 AM

My question is but a simple one:

Why were they so willing to fabricate Saddam Hussein's possession of WMDs without solid evidence, but were so unwilling to fabricate confessions linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 without torture?

Posted by: Paul Avery at April 28, 2009 08:57 AM

Here's ABC's Brian Ross, explaining why he accepted without question CIA claims that waterboarding "worked", usually within 30 seconds:

“It didn’t even occur to me that they’d keep doing” the waterboarding, Mr. Ross said last week. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

He added, “I didn’t give enough credit to the fiendishness of the C.I.A.”

Just imagine, those fiendish CIA men lied to him! I'm sure he'll be more skeptical in the future...

Posted by: SteveB at April 28, 2009 10:42 AM

Brian Ross, spokesman for the Beltway Consensus - incurious, ill-informed, casually vicious - the right man for the job.

Posted by: JerseyJeffersonian at April 28, 2009 11:08 AM

I'm George W. Bush, and I approved this torture.

Posted by: shrub at April 28, 2009 12:02 PM

I would recommend Arthur Silber's (continuing) series about torture to anyone willing to listen.

Posted by: Save the Oocytes at April 28, 2009 02:01 PM

You would be very ambitious. But appreciated.

Posted by: Ryan at April 28, 2009 07:22 PM

Your heading, "It does not work, but it's fun!" sums up the psychology behind US use of torture pretty well. The higher-ups that implemented and OKed torture favor it because they're right-wingers who want to coarsen the US population and terrorize the rest of the world. The "troops" that all Americans are supposed to praise were raised on a diet of cops-and-soldiers violence-as-entertainment so they loved having the freedom to express the media-created fantasies in their heads. And the common US expression, "I did it because I can" is apropos here too. Woo-hoo! We're Number One!

Posted by: deang at April 28, 2009 11:51 PM

Paul: I don't know if I understand the question. They lied about the evidence before the war because they thought either they'd find some minor WMD, or the war would go so well that it wouldn't matter.

Posted by: hf at April 29, 2009 01:45 AM

BUSH&CHENEY tortured because the are CRIMINALS.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at April 29, 2009 04:43 PM