I encourage everyone to take the time to more thoroughly investigate such an important matter. To decide this policy is right after merely reading a few news reports and blogs about the success of the US’s use of torture doesn’t recognize how significant having one’s government legalize torture really is.

There are three major things to consider:
1) What are the benefits of using torture?
2) What are the trade offs?
3) How likely are the soldiers and CIA operatives going to follow the rules? Because you cannot evaluate a program by looking at the planning alone, you have to see what happens in practice.

Here are a couple discussions by those with expertise or thorough investigation of this issues.

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html
Part one: Torture’s dark allure; It gives its practitioners a drug-like rush. But it leaves a legacy of destruction that takes generations to undo.

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/06/21/torture_algiers/index.html
Part 2 Does torture work? ;The French military’s use of torture in Algeria is often cited as a success story. But the real story is more complex.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/justify/
Is Torture Ever Justified, Frontline Roundtable Discussion

With that background, the followiong opinion piece presents what I think is the most profound drawback in using torture. It is why so many of us have a gut reaction that we can’t even believe we need to have a debate on using torture. As a moral human being, torture is unacceptable.

But more than just a personal conviction, it has been the official US position as long as I’ve been alive. Not that the US never engaged in torture, because during the civil rights movement many people in the country in official positions like police officers certainly did. And there have always been individual cases of police abuse that amounted to state torture. But it has never been something this country officially condoned.

http://vlal.bol.ucla.edu/Vinay/Torture.pdf#search=%22success%20of%20torture%22
Torture: An American Success Story; now that torture has been condoned by people in the highest positions in the US, one can be certain that many nations will feel encouraged to ignore whatever little constraints they may have had.

Before drawing your conclusion, take a look at the following articles which provide a glimpse of what this policy ends up being in practice beyond the abduction and torture of innocent people.

http://www.rense.com/general69/fail.htm
Fear Of Failure Drives Torture Train; Terrell E. Arnold; retired Career Foreign Service Officer who served in senior diplomatic posts abroad, including Economic/Commercial Counselor in Manila and Consul General in Sao Paulo. In Washington he served as Deputy Director of the Office of Counterterrorism and as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National War College. He is author, co-author and editor of five books, including a collection of essays titled _A World Less Safe

http://hrw.org/reports/2005/us0905/
Human Right Watch, Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/
The Abu Ghraib files; 279 photographs and 19 videos from the Army’s internal investigation record a harrowing three months of detainee abuse inside the notorious prison — and make clear that many of those responsible have yet to be held accountable.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060227fa_fact
How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted.
by JANE MAYER, The New yorker

And finally, here’s a report which calls into question, has the torture resulted in success or merely lies about successes. This is the point I was making before. If as many plots were thwarted as claimed, why hasn’t Bush plastered those facts all over the place the same way they plastered the FL terrorist wannabes and the plot to mix liquids on planes?

You (or someone) in this blog mentioned the need for secrecy, but that is long past and not a credible reason this long after the fact. If they had kept the FL case secret, the claim would be more credible. And in the British case, there were reports the Brits were annoyed because they weren’t ready to reveal the plot but Bush wanted it public for his political advantage.

http://www.martinirepublic.com/item/bush-speech-brags-of-success-in-torture-of-insane-man/

It’s not like this administration has established a reputation for honesty.

Oops, he meant “stop the mild discomfort”.

O: In fact, you say in your report that more than a dozen plots — a dozen Al Qaeda plots to kill people were stopped because of the information they got from coerced interrogation.

R: That’s what we’re told by our sources.

O: Do you believe that?

R: I do believe that.

Actually, you reminded me to use them. It would be nice if you could preview or edit, though. We’ll see how this works…

I said a couple of times now, actually capture someone on a battlefield, fine, call them an enemy combatant. Pick up some poor sap changing planes in a US airport or abducted in Macedonia and you have a different picture. The legislation by many people’s opinion is unconstitutional. But in the meantime, Bush gets to wkeep on using tactics which violate the human rights of a variety of people.

Okay, fair point. But KSM, Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, Abu Zubaydah weren’t captured on battlefields. They were caught in Pakistan and then turned over to the US. Should they be tried as criminals?

If you can’t see the distinction between rounding up people all over the world on the flimsiest of charges and capturing German infiltrators during a declared war with Germany then you have a problem.

I see the distinction (I still have problems). But these guys, including one who claimed US citizenship, tried the Milligan defense. Which I thought was the point of your posts citing the decision. Their argument was shot down, and they fried. Which means current infiltrators (terrorists) should get the same treatment. Short of frying them, I mean. And Quirin holds that the military commissions apply regardless of the citizenship status of the combatant, if Congress has so authorized.

As for rounding up people all over the world, I agree that is a gray area. I don’t have a problem with it, but your mileage may vary.

Re: O’Reilly: Sorry, I just kind of lost track of that argument, but I get it now. And you’re grasping at straws. From an unofficial transcript I found here:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/09/22/oreilly-factor-coerced-interrogations/
(I have no idea what the heck “mens news daily” is, so don’t hold that against me! It seems accurate, though.) What I think are the most relevant passages:

O: So in all 14 cases, coerced interrogation methods being debated in the SEnate right now were used and in all 14 cases according to your report they gave it up. Now, the opposition — you just heard it — Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, they say it’s garbage. They told them what they wanted to hear, it wasn’t truthful. Is that true?

R: That has happened in some cases, where the material that’s been given has not been accurate, has been essentially to stop the torture, in the case of KSM, the information was very valuable, particularly names and addresses of people who were involved with Al Qaeda in this country and in Europe, and one particular plot that would involve an airline attack on the tallest building in Los Angeles known as the library tower.

R: I do believe that.

You think the part I highlighted is outweighed by “they gave it up” and “Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, they say it’s garbage?” You’re dismissing this report with the laughable claim that it’s propaganda (you mischaracterized what O’Reilly said). You can say that “torture” gives bad intel and does more harm than good, but breaking up those plots is a pretty powerful counterpoint.

The case I presented excepted the party because he was not military and not in a state that had seceded. These guys were soldiers in a time of declared war.

I said a couple of times now, actually capture someone on a battlefield, fine, call them an enemy combatant. Pick up some poor sap changing planes in a US airport or abducted in Macedonia and you have a different picture. The legislation by many people’s opinion is unconstitutional. But in the meantime, Bush gets to wkeep on using tactics which violate the human rights of a variety of people.

If you can’t see the distinction between rounding up people all over the world on the flimsiest of charges and capturing German infiltrators during a declared war with Germany then you have a problem.

Even with two Bush appointees on the Supreme Court Bush was ruled out of line. And while the court said maybe you could so something if the legislature passes specific law, that is no guarantee this law is Constitutional.

I know people hear what they want to hear but how you could ignore the key thing I said about O’Reilly’s distortion is still curious.

Can I be more clear? I’ll try.

Ross said the torture techniques were [b]used on 14 top Al Qaeda operatives and “they all broke”.[/b]
O’Reilly repeated the torture techniques were used on 14 top Al Qaeda operatives [b]and they all gave up useful information.”[/b]

What is difference in those sentences? All 14 did not give up real information. Ross said some gave up bad information that led to wasted goose chases.

O’Reilly said the liberals say torture [b]NEVER[/b] works. This proved it does.
That’s a lie. Liberals do not say torture NEVER works. We say it yields more bad than good. O’Reilly sets up a straw man argument and then claims victory over it.

That is a common propaganda technique. O’Reilly distorted Ross’s version. If you can’t see it, look again.

Regarding the Milligan decision, from
http://www.crf-usa.org/terror/military_tribunals.htm

it’s hardly as clear cut a matter of settled law as you’re making it out to be. On Ex Parte Quirin:

“Military tribunals were again used during the Second World War. In 1942, a U-boat landed eight German soldiers on Long Island, New York, under the cover of darkness. Dressed as civilians, their mission was to sabotage U.S. defense factories. The operation failed when two of the men defected and informed authorities. The FBI arrested the saboteurs and turned them over to the U.S. military for trial. Shortly after the arrest, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the use of military tribunals for trying those who entered the country to commit sabotage.

Within one month of capture, the eight Germans were tried by a military tribunal of army officers. The prosecution team consisted of 10 military lawyers. A single military lawyer, Colonel Kenneth Royall, represented the defendants. The tribunal found all eight guilty. Six were sentenced to death by electrocution, and the two defectors were sentenced to prison terms.

The defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that under the Milligan decision, they should have been tried in a U.S. civilian criminal court. Meeting in a special summer session, the court heard arguments and issued a unanimous opinion. Writing for the court in Ex Parte Quirin, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone denied the appeal. The court noted that Congress had authorized the use of military tribunals for offenses against the law of war. (The law of war is based on international treaties and, among other things, it forbids a country’s military personnel from operating in another country out of uniform.) The court went on to distinguish the Milligan case. It ruled that the saboteurs were belligerents (enemy soldiers at war), who because they had entered the country out of uniform to conduct sabotage, had violated the law of war. They therefore were not entitled to the status of prisoners of war. Nor were they entitled to the protections under the Milligan case, which only applied to non-belligerents not associated with the enemy. This was true even for one German saboteur who claimed U.S. citizenship. “Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent,” wrote the court, “does not relieve him from the consequences of a belligerency which is unlawful because it is a violation of the law of war.” ”

Unanimously. This decision is obviously more recent (1942), and seems to me more applicable, becuase instead of having US citizens agitating on behalf of the Confederacy, the current situation is closer to un-uniformed enemy saboteurs infiltrating our country.

Now in the Hamdan decision, the court ruled that Bush did not have the legislative authority to try these guys in a military tribunal. Which this legislation reverses. There was also concern that the makeup of the tribunals violated the GCs and the UCMJ. I’ll have to research that more when I get the time, I’m not sure how the legislation addresses those issues.

As to the O’Reilly report – how can O’Reilly misrepresent Ross’ story when Ross was there talking to him? That story you linked to was almost a year old. It seems Ross has had more info from his CIA contacts since then, and has apparently come to a different conclusion.

I want to try to summarize my thoughts rather than indivually quote and respond to things. As much as I can.

Extremist language on both sides of this debate is counterproductive. All it does is make you look like a raving lunatic.

Insults from both sides of the debate are not only counterproductuve, but rude, annoying, and disruptive. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if all you can do is call someone an asshat or a moonbat, GO AWAY! You don’t have to agree. You can think of the others how ever you want. You can call ideas and positions any number of descriptive terms to show your contempt for them. But keep the contempt aimed at the ideas. PLEASE. Nastiness is not corrected by more nastiness. Hate breeds hate. Insults only deepen people in their entrenched ideas, breed contempt for the insulter, and detract from whatever argument you are trying to make.

I recognize that the issues are murky when trying to evaluate how to proceed to make us safer, how to address terrorism and terrorists, how to protect information and methods used to allow us to capture or prevent more terrorists. I don’t think anyone here is advocating the position that we should just let the terrorists run free, or that they aren’t truly a danger to our population, society, and the very essence of goodness.

There does seem to be a fundamental difference in attitudes upon one point, the relative value of Principles vs. Practicality. One side appears to feel that Practicality in defence of the nation and the populace is most important. How do we protect ourselves? What can we do to stop them, find out more about them, prevent them from hurting and killing us? Their rights don’t matter, because they don’t care about our rights. The other side feels that Principles do matter, that the Principles they are defending are the key principles that make us better in the first place. Without those principles, our society is no better morally than the one the terrorists would replace is with.

It is right to fear the terrorists – they are hate-filled, malicious, immoral thugs perpetrating indescriminate violence. But in our efforts to stop them, we must take care that our methods do not mirror theirs, or we will find that the hate-filled, malicious, immoral thugs perpetrating indescriminate violence are us.

Here’s what stands out to me. President Bush has very black and white views. He is ready and eager to divide the world up on moral grounds. He quickly assigns the likes of Saddam Hussein, Il Kim Jong, Iran, etc as “the Axis of Evil” – there it is in black and white. They are Evil and we are Good. Yet what is the basis for the determination of Evil vs Good? Is it based upon a moral footing of behavior, or is it merely us vs them? Is it based upon his righteous sense of being God’s chosen, or is it rooted in his Christian sense of Right and Wrong? I would argue that his actions speak very loud. Bush is adamantly advocating and sanctioning torture. I find it very hypocritical for Bush to claim the moral high ground while demanding that he have the authority to sanction brutal, abusive tactics to fulfill his goals. And I’m not talking just about this latest set of policies, where the most extreme thing is “water boarding” (as if that is benign). Bush and Rumsfeld have advocated and employed torture at Guantanamo. The activities at Abu Graib that they blamed on a few late shift soldiers getting out of hand? Those were first employed at Gitmo. It’s documented. There have been deaths from the treatments at Gitmo.

It seems to me that Bush is failing in one key principle that Christians advocate. You’ve all heard the slogan: What Would Jesus Do? I ask you Christians to consider if Jesus would sanction water boarding, or any other form of abuse? (Yes, this is a directed argument. It doesn’t apply to you non-Christians. But since the President is an averred Christian and many of the vocal supporters for the President’s policy are Christians, I think it relevant to ask them to consider their own convictions.)

…Two following sections limited the authority in certain respects….

The third section enacts, in case lists of persons other than prisoners of war then held in confinement or thereafter arrested, should not be furnished within twenty days after the passage of the act, or, in cases of subsequent arrest, within twenty days after the time of arrest, that any citizen, after the termination of a session of the grand jury without indictment or presentment, might, by petition alleging the facts and verified by oath, obtain the judge’s order of discharge in favor of any person so imprisoned, on the terms and conditions prescribed in the second section.”

I think it is especially noteworthy that in order to have one’s writ of Habeas Corpus suspended, one had to have been in one of the states that seceded or one had to be actually in the military to have military law apply to you. If not, then citizens were still under civilian court jurisdiction.

Prisoners of war are excepted. I assume a prisoner of war is arrested while either carrying out acts of war or planning to. That might apply to some of the terrorists but it didn’t apply to the citizen arrested here on whatever he was suspected of. This is the crux of the issue, labeling such a broad swath of people as enemy combatants goes beyond what the Constitution allows.

As to arresting non-citizens, those in the country legally would certainly seem to be under the same civilian court jurisdiction. Except for those with Diplomatic status, legal aliens in the US are subject to civilian court jurisdiction.

For anyone arrested in another country, what legal right does the US have violating the sovereignty of another country?

For those picked up in Afghanistan or Iraq, the US never officially declared war on those countries. That leaves a lot of gray in the law and the Constitution. For an argument against this bill in these cases, I go back to the premise, the action of denying basic human rights sanctioned in this bill makes terrorism expand at a far greater rate than the denial of those rights decreases the risks.

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0071_0002_ZS.html

“7. Military commissions organized during the late civil war, in a State not invaded and not engaged in rebellion, in which the Federal courts were open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their judicial functions, had no jurisdiction to try, convict, or sentence for any criminal offence, a citizen who was neither a resident of a rebellious State nor a prisoner of war, nor a person in the military or naval service. And Congress could not invest them with any such power.

14. A person who is a resident of a loyal State, where he was arrested, who was never resident in any State engaged in rebellion, nor connected with the military or naval service, cannot be regarded as a prisoner of war.

Continued in next post (hopefully)

In Phil’s follow up blog entry (01/03/06), Xennady Says: …Abraham Lincoln also suspended habeas.He then imprisoned thousands without trial or charges,closed newpapers,defied the supreme court,sent troops to diperse the Maryland legislature so it could not vote to secede from the union,imposed an income tax-which much later was discovered to be unconstitutiona…
I respectfully note that others including myself and many judges have a different opinion about the constutionality of this measure and its ultimate effects.Now since you are apparantly a lawyer as well as an astronomer I would appreciate reading your skeptical assessment of the constutionality of campus speech codes,government property seizures for private purposes,and of course the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and its considerable restriction of free speech everywhere.As a conservative Republican I believe these are far more serious threats to our Constitutional liberties than a law passed by congress,signed by the president, all in response to a 5-4 supreme court decision and intended to bring the law into compliance with that decision.

John followed with: Xennady – You forgot 2 things:…
2) Suspending Habeas Corpus is in the Constitution!

Not wanting to continue arguing this subject under that blog entry as it would be easy to do, I’ll reply here and make a note to that effect there.

I didn’t see the relevance of John’s first “thing” so I left it out.

Xennady claimed expertise in the legal issues and implied only lawyers could be knowledgeable in this matter, (sarcasm that the BA was now a lawyer and challenging the BA to give a knowledgeable opinion on a number of Constitutional questions). John again pointed out some ‘fact’ without taking the time to investigate the full implication or ramification of that bit of information.

While I am not a lawyer, I do know how to find information and how to evaluate its importance and validity. It seems to me from evaluating the following information pertaining to the above comments that the interpretation John and Xennady have drawn are not the interpretation the Supreme Court drew after a case involving Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus when arresting a US citizen during the Civil War. While there may be some cases when suspending the right is Constitutional, it is under very narrow circumstances and with a number of restrictions.

If that were not the case then the wording, “invasion of the public safety may require it,” would imply the President could invoke this clause for all sorts of public safety issues. Arsonists, for example, could certainly be argued to “invade public safety”.

I also draw your attention to bolded text in the Supreme Court ruling in Lincoln’s case below. (Bolding is mine)

I’ll let the readers decide for themselves if the recent bill passed by this legislature still seems Constitutional. The links are there for those wishing to read the entire comments and documents.

http://www.crf-usa.org/terror/Lincoln.htm
The actual right of habeas corpus is not stated anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The authors of these documents apparently believed that habeas corpus was such a fundamental liberty that it needed no further guarantee in writing. The only mention of the writ of habeas corpus in the Constitution relates to when it can be taken away from judges. In a section limiting the powers of Congress (Art. I, Sec. 9), the Constitution states: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in causes of rebellion or invasion of the public safety may require it.”

Find out what the Supreme Court decided in Ex Parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866). IN the next post.

I wonder if the spam filter takes out certain command verbs suggesting people do things? I left them out of this post.

I agree with the substance of the quote, and admire the Founding Fathers to no end, but they did live in a much, well, not *simpler* time (forging a nation is never simple), but a less advanced era. We have threats to liberty today that they probably could not have even imagined. A box that one man can carry that can destroy a city? They’d accuse you of being delusional. Or maybe a witch, and they’d build a bridge out of you.

For the record, I don’t support the bill that started this hub bub, but I have to admit I sympathize with the feelings that led to it.

But I added a certain reference (no link) to an upcoming PBS special by Bill Moyers that was related to the former comment and I guess the spam filter or Phil deleted the post. We’ll see if this is muted enough to get through.

Skeptigirl – Sorry, I don’t have the time to respond in the detail your well argued posts deserve. I’ve enjoyed the exchange. But I have a fence to build, and we’re really busy at work, so I’ll concede the argument. And even vote Democratic in November.

Just kidding!

Actually, I think I’m the one you’re thinking of there, where I said “I’d also like to ask you this: Would you be complaining if his viewpoint matched your own? If the answer is no, then I’ll ask you to leave, check your hypocrisy at the door, and return so we can have a civilized discussion.”

Though to be fair, I can see where you’d make that mistake in this thread. The vast majority of reasoned arguments here have come from Skeptigirl, so guessing her is a safe bet in any case. She’s been doing so well that all I’ve been able to contribute are a few random things. Kudos to you, Skeptigirl.

Speaking of random things, let’s describe a few aspects of witchcraft trials, and see if they sound familiar (most taken from Wikipedia). Things that could be used to convict someone of witchcraft:

-Denouncement by another witch. This was common, since the accused could often avoid execution by naming accomplices.
-Relationship with other convicted witch/witches.
-Possession of elements necessary for the practice of black magic.

Other notes on witch trials:

-Confessions had to be tortured out of the victims.
-Victims were often not told the specific crimes they were accused of, so they were forced to guess if they wished to confess to get out of torture.
-If victims confessed under torture, they then had to swear that their confession was valid when they weren’t being tortured. If they went back on their confession, they were tortured again.
-Victims were never allowed legal representation.
-No appeals were allowed.

With a few word modifications, a lot of that sounds eerily similar to what’s happening to accused terrorists today.

The Romans didn’t have one man one vote and term limits, though. So there’s that, at least.

Just remember to vote this fall, and if you ever get a chance to vote out gerrymandering, do so. The folks in California passed up on that chance last election for reasons incomprehensible. Maybe the replacement system wasn’t ideal, but, for pity’s sake it couldn’t be worse than what’s there now (legislators can basically carve out their own districts). For all practical purposes, the vote was taken away from citizens in California.

I don’t undertand this comment. Misquoting who? As usual? I never posted here before. What? Huh?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/opinion/30harris.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The short version: the U.S. is heading down a path pioneered by the Romans in 68 BC, and it didn’t turn out too well for them…

Lorne

My point was: This is Phil’s blog. You’re getting it free-of-charge. You don’t have ANY say over what he puts in it. So just P off and don’t waste bandwidth whining about it first.

And as (I think) SkepticGirl already said, most of you are probably hypocrites, anyway.

Thank you for your post. I absolutely believe that God holds us responsible for actions we take and that we are to act in the best interests of others and of the planet.

I prefer not to comment on the substance of the debate regarding this bill in this forum, I was responding to what I saw as an attack on by beliefs by a previous poster.

Thanks again, take it easy

People, this is not just a political decision in the same way that more tax vs. less taxes is a political decision. There are NOT good points to be made on both sides of the argument. And it is definitely NOT something that should only be discussed on official, certified, licenced Politics blogs.

This law is morally WRONG, plain and simple.

The last time I heard people saying “It’s just politics” when it was really a moral issue, they were talking about a quaint policy of my country. The policy was Apartheid.