Yesterday, President Dmitry Medvedev declared the Chechen War to be officially over, bringing end to the ten year Second Chechen War. As many point out open conflict has all but ceased since 2007, as Moscow’s Chechenization policy placed the republic in the hands of its proxy Ramzan Kadyrov, who gradually replaced Russian security operations with his own forces.
Still a lot of questions remain. Many wonder what the ending of the so-called “zone of counter terrorist operations” will exactly mean on the ground. Will it mean an end to the all the pretexts of the operations: restricted civilian movement, the limitations on journalists and human rights workers, the restrictions on Internet and cell phone use by the secret services, and most importantly the arbitrary “anti-terrorist” raids of households? One wonders if Russia’s final relinquishing of “anti-terror” operations to Kadyrov means exchanging one form of state terror for another. As Dmitry Babich notes,
Kadyrov’s police force, made up exclusively of Chechens, took upon itself the full responsibility for law and order in the republic. And this police force defacto has all the powers provided by the status of the counter-terrorist operation. However, these powers are given to it not by Russian laws, but by the unwritten laws of Chechen customs and traditions. Consisting mostly of former separatist fighters who switched to the Kadyrovs’ side lured by security guarantees and high salaries, provided personally by Akhmat and later Ramzan, these police became the dominant force in the republic, gradually sidelining the Russian forces and the separatist underground.
True, Kadyrov has effectively consolidated his power by incorporating former separatists into his government. But Babich’s statement that these forces are governed by “unwritten laws of Chechen customs and traditions” certainly means that state terror will surely not end–only that Russia’s role will be further mediated by its proxy in Grozny. After all, yesterday’s announcement was preempted by the cleansing of Kadyrov’s external enemies beginning in Fall last year. The list includes: Gaji Edilsultanov, Ruslan Yamadayev, Islam Zhanibekov, Umar Ismailov, Musa Atayev, and Sulim Yamadayev.
To get an insight into what kind of customs and traditions that drive Kadyrov’s forces, consider the following.
In a recent interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Kadyrov explained the Chechen tradition of polygamy:
“We have, in Chechnya, more women than men. But all of them must be settled in life. Polygamy is allowed by our customs, our religion. On the other hand, if a young woman or a divorced woman goes out with someone, then her brother kills both her and the man. We have very stern customs. Better for a woman to be a second or third wife than to be killed. So that I’m convinced [that] today we need polygamy. There is no such law, but I tell everyone: if someone has the desire and opportunity, take a second wife.”
Or when a journalist asked Kadyrov about Yamadayev’s murder, he viewed it as unfortunate, a kind of missed opportunity. “We needed Yamadayev alive, so that he could stand trial, and then… punish him according to our traditions, according to Chechen traditions.” The journalist asked if he was referring to a blood feud. “I mean blood feud. I officially state this,” Kadyrov said.
The question is, a blood feud with who? Given Kadyrov’s supporters have been in a low level gang war with Yamadayev’s clan, the “who” is most likely Kadyrov himself. A further indication that the killing was connected to a Kadyrov-Yamadayev blood feud is that Dubai’s authorities suspect that Adam Delimkhanov, Kadyrov’s cousin, Chechen deputy prime minister, and Russian Duma deputy, to be the mastermind behind Yamadayev’s murder.
Kadyrov is now a power of one–in name and authority. His internal rivals are subordinated. His external ones eliminated. And now the Russians are extending his leash, perhaps even beyond their control. “The end of the operations leaves Chechnya totally under Ramzan’s control,” said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center told the Moscow Times. “There will be nobody left to control him there.” Stanislav Belkovsky said the same thing to Newsru.com on April 7.
“All serious competitors in the fight for power” in Chechnya have now been eliminated, “not only with the connivance, but sometimes with the assistance of the federal authorities,” Belkovsky said, adding: “Therefore we can speak of the actual legalization of the region’s independence.”
Interestingly, there is a certain irony to the end of the Second Chechen War, if it is indeed the end. By kowtowing to Moscow rather than opposing it, Razman Kadyrov has secured a defacto Chechen independence not unlike that desired by Chechen leaders in the 1990s. True, full sovereignty is still an illusion but Moscow will certainly allow Kadyrov to run things as long as his loyalty remains.
The real question, however, is not just what Kadyrov will do now. It’s also whether Moscow’s Caucasian woes haven’t simply shifted to neighboring Dagestan. In this sense, the end of “anti-terrorist operations” in one border region might just signal its intensification in another.
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No, Tim. Of course mild sleep deprivation is not torture. What I wrote is that you knew what I meant.
Then in return, you know full well what I meant when I said:
“If you want to know why people are not as concerned about allegations of torture as they should be, and are willing to pontificate on waterboarding, it is because those doing the complaining have for the past few years been crying wolf.”
Instead, you said:
That’s bullshit, Tim. Before 9/11 waterboarding was considered torture. There was no ambivalence about it. And the same with sleep deprivation.
There is ambivalence with sleep deprivation, but instead of offering up details you insist that others should already know what you mean. Actually, we should. But too many have cried wolf, so details are what are required. If they are not provided, you will not be taken seriously.
Tim, I don’t think that there has been too much crying wolf with respect to torture. Actually, Americans have been much too complacent about it. Anyway, far more common is for people avoiding the issue by demanding stuff such as “where EXACTLY do you draw the line?”. People who demand a clear line know such debates can be interminable because they are like the heap argument: we all know what a heap is, but can anyone say exactly how many grains are needed to make a heap?
To use sleep deprivation as an example. Can anyone honestly say that to force someone to be sleepless for X hours is not torture, but that X hours +10 minutes is indeed torture? Moreover, it all depends on the particular circumstances of the individual (state of health, age, etc, etc.) Some people require less sleep than others. A healthy jet fighter pilot who just hours ago was sleeping on an aircraft carrier more than likely would last much longer than a man who has already experienced days of relentless interrogation under severe psychological stress.
If we are indeed against torture we should err on the safe side. For example, I don’t know where to draw the line, but I would be surprised if people would not consider that 72 hours of sleeplessness under harsh and coercive conditions do not qualify as torture. But then how about the cumulative effect of various methods. Is sleep deprivation combined with exposure to cold? or stress positions? or forced standing? Once a person is allowed to sleep, for how long would they let him sleep? And on and on….
Once again, on the issue of torture, the unsentimental right-winger Bukovsky has it right.
I’m too weak-willed. I keep on replying back when I really should have quit.
Tim, I don’t think that there has been too much crying wolf with respect to torture. Actually, Americans have been much too complacent about it.
IMO, both have been the case. You have some saying torture should be allowed, others saying no torture took place, and still others claiming torture took place in cases when it clearly did not. To me it’s not much different from the abortion debate, when people are black or white on whether abortion is murder and argue for decades as to the precise moment when life begins.
If we are indeed against torture we should err on the safe side. For example, I don’t know where to draw the line, but I would be surprised if people would not consider that 72 hours of sleeplessness under harsh and coercive conditions do not qualify as torture. But then how about the cumulative effect of various methods. Is sleep deprivation combined with exposure to cold? or stress positions? or forced standing? Once a person is allowed to sleep, for how long would they let him sleep? And on and on….
How do you think a doctor administers a dose of medicine? Do you think he knows “where the line is drawn” with each individual and does not take into consideration the combined effects of additional medicines and other factors? No, he administers a medicine in a dose which does the job without harming the patient, or even come within a mile of harming the patient. As it is with interrogators who happen to know the law and are forbidden from administering torture.
One thing that justifies the blood feud is the effect it takes on the potential outlaw, as Chechens told me. The murderer knows always that he won’t evade the punishment. And every person knows that he can’t kill — if he doesn’t want to become a victim himself. Therefore, normally the murder rate in Chechnya is lower than it’s in other regions of Russia.
What’s also good in this respect is that Chechens do not take alcohol — but that’s other part of the story.
I.e., paradoxially, the goal of the blood feud is not to murder more, but to murder less — it just comes out so statistically.
Apparently US’ allies were none to happy.
Clearly not torture then!
From The Times itself:
“AT the height of the American-led war on terror, George W Bush began to encounter an unexpected problem. The use of harsh interrogation techniques on captured Al-Qaeda terrorists caused a damaging rift with leading US allies, among them Britain and Israel, according to a former State Department official.
Philip Zelikow, a senior adviser to Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, revealed last week that “some of Europe’s best allies found it increasingly difficult to assist us in counterterrorism, because they feared becoming complicit in a programme their governments abhorred”….”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6169041.ece
For real fans of torture and how to get information out of people, this report (if it is to be believed) by The Times (again) on how the Russians delt with (amongst others )female chechen suicide bombers:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6168959.ece
Whether 100% true. 50% true or less, indeed why actually talk to The Times at all, especially by someone who is not overcome with guilt? It appears if anything, is that this story is to give a ‘message’ that crimes by rebel chechens will be delt with, gloveless.
The timing of the story also leads me further to believe that it is no mere accident as it can conveniently piggy-back the US torture stories for hopefully more media exposure and would make it obvious hypocrisy for the US administration to condemn it…
It looks like the Kremlin (sic) is steadily improving its understanding and manipulation of MSM, though clearly not as good as the real pros futher west….
“In their most savage act, the rebels took hundreds of school-children and their relatives hostage in Beslan”
In their most savage act, the rebels smashed to atoms Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
What a shamelessly lying reporting.
You guys are probably tired of the torture debate, but for those who are curious, I just found out about a conservative writer of the National Review writing a post against waterboarding. Here is the link:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWZhNjg4MTQzZjUxNjBiNjczNzVmNmMxMTMzOGI2YWY=
And here is how he ends the post:
“But consider, not a theoretical scenario of repeated nuclear strikes on the United States, or a tactical “ticking time bomb” scenario, but the real situation we face as a nation. We have suffered several thousand casualties from 9/11 through today. Suppose we had a 9/11-level attack with 3,000 casualties per year every year. Each person reading this would face a probability of death from this source of about 0.001% each year. A Republic demands courage — not foolhardy and unsustainable “principle at all costs,” but reasoned courage — from its citizens. The American response should be to find some other solution to this problem if the casualty rate is unacceptable. To demand that the government “keep us safe” by doing things out of our sight that we have refused to do in much more serious situations so that we can avoid such a risk is weak and pathetic. It is the demand of spoiled children, or the cosseted residents of the imperial city. In the actual situation we face, to demand that our government waterboard detainees in dark cells is cowardice.”
Hear, hear!
Good article Koyla. His reduction of the arguments from both sides at the beginning of the article was spot on.
Expecting the interrogator to take the blame and consequences for using the technique in a ticking time bomb scenario, so we can feel good about ourselves is cowardice too, though. Asking others to fight wars for us is cowardice too. We are all cowards in one way or another, as we all have to rely on someone else for our security both here and abroad.
I’ll admit that maybe I am being a bit flippant about all this. I have a tendency to consider most complaints about American foreign policy, military, etc. to be the same old worn out Chomsky/Zinn/Gramsci pabulum that has been force fed to me since I can remember. I just simply don’t care anymore what America’s critics have to say about American policy, since is almost always only for political theatre or advancement of political power. Beat up on America, everyone will love you and respect you, and think you are smart. I know I am sounding like a Russian here, but we all agree that they have a point about Kasparov. So, the argument that using waterboarding will sully America’s reputation around the world just doesn’t hold any water for me, as our reputation has always been sullied around the world.
To try to end this comment thread on amenable level, I will be happy to see the US give up waterboarding as a technique, if there are other techniques that are agreeable to others and still get results.
Back to the UAE, looks like torture is also a bit o’ fun (via The Times again):
Video: UAE torture recording threatens to derail nuclear deal with United States
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6201333.ece
“A videotape showing a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family brutally torturing a man is threatening a multibillion-dollar nuclear power deal between the US and the Gulf kingdom.
The 45-minute tape shows a man that the Government of Abu Dhabi has acknowledged is Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan — one of 22 royal brothers of the UAE president and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince — mercilessly and repeatedly beating a man with a cattle prod and a nailed board, burning his genitals and driving his Mercedes over him several times. He is assisted by a uniformed policeman…”
Me thinks they doth protest too much. Kind of backs up my earlier point about the UAE playing to the gallery and trying to protect their modern image.
I just simply don’t care anymore what America’s critics have to say about American policy, since is almost always only for political theatre or advancement of political power. Beat up on America, everyone will love you and respect you, and think you are smart.
Very unfortunate, you really do sound like a Russian Ura-Putin type with that rhetoric. Dig a little deeper and try to realize that those shades you prefer to see as stark black and white contain lots of gray.
Jason, the danger is to conflate predictable anti-American propaganda with valid critiques. It goes without saying that the usual crowd will exploit any valid critique for their own propaganda reasons. That’s not a good reason, though, for dismissing valid critiques. And in the debate about torture/harsh techniques many of the critics consider themselves patriotic Americans. And among them you will find rather hawkish Americans who served in the armed forces.
So the issue is how the US should treats its prisoners/enemy combatants (even if they are the “worse of the worst”), and not whether those who dislike the US are exaggerating (yes, they are.)
I liked this comment I found in Andrew Sullivan’s blog today:
“I was an interrogator for 7 years and taught interrogation for 3 of those years. The distinction that people are trying to grasp is a simple and fundamental one. During warfare, both sides are fighting each other. If you don’t do unto him, he’ll do unto you. When you capture a prisoner, they are your ward. You are responsible for them. How you treat them does not depend on what kind of person they are, it depends on what kind of person you are.”
As I wrote a few days ago, I don’t take civilization for granted. I’m perfectly aware that cultures can regress. Kevin Drum today said it simply but much more powerfully:
///Moral progress comes slowly and very, very tenuously. In the United States alone, it took centuries to decide that slavery was evil, that children shouldn’t be allowed to work 12-hour days on power looms, and that police shouldn’t be allowed to beat confessions out of suspects. On other things there’s no consensus yet. Like it or not, we still make war, and so does the rest of the world. But at least until recently, there was a consensus that torture is wrong. Full stop. It was the practice of tyrants and barbarians. But like all moral progress, the consensus on torture is tenuous, and the only way to hold on to it — the only way to expand it — is by insisting absolutely and without exception that we not allow ourselves to backslide. Human nature being what it is — savage, vengeful, and tribal — the temptations are just too great. Small exceptions will inevitably grow into big ones, big ones into routine ones, and the progress of centuries is undone in an eyeblink. Somebody else could explain this better than me. But the consensus against torture is one of our civilization’s few unqualified moral advances, and it’s a consensus won only after centuries of horror and brutality. We just can’t lose it.///
Kolya,
I really worry about you. You seem to have swallowed the latest Lib-Dem propaganda campaign hook, line and sinker.
Can’t you see the only purpose of this continuing rehashing of torture debate is to perpetuate the Dems’ hold on power?
Don’t you realize that all this talk about unacceptibility of torture developed gradually during safety from terror provided by Bush measures?
Don’t you remember that back in 2002 nobody was concerned about acceptability of torture, but everybody was concerned “to prevent the next 9-11″?
Always remember Orwell’s, “He who controls the present controls the past, and He who controls the past controls the future”.
That’s what this ‘anti-torture’ campaign is all about: to control the future. To assure the destruction of Republican party and protect the political future of Obama and his Lib-Dem supporters.
You lost your head completely. You talk about “our lost ideals” and Bush officials violating those “ideals” for no other reason but so they can satisfy their sadistical cravings.
Those “ideals” were never put into Law and they were violated again and again by every administration of both parties. And they will be violated again by Obama administration as soon as they feel threatened in their powers.
Remember, it’s all about power.
Terrorists commit acts of terror primarily not because they are sadistic maniacs, but because they decide this is the best way to undermine the power of the existing states. And existing states crack down on terrorists to preserve their powers, because the state that can’t safeguard its subjects becomes weak and unstable.
To be absolutely clear, I fully support passing any law necessary to prohibit the use of torture under any circumstaces, and when such laws are passed all those who violate them should be punished to the full extent of those laws. But notice, no such laws have been passed and are not proposed now. Even those who castigate Bush about use of torture are always careful to say that there may be grave occasions when “extreme measures” might be unavoidable. You say that too, Kolya. So you (and Obama) leave yourself a way out. It’s just that you can’t forgive Bush and Cheney.
Obama will change his stand on torture the moment his power will be seriously threatened by terrorists. Do you really think that people who violated their pledge on the campaign finances will hold their pledge on torture when their power is seriously threatened?
All this talk about “ideals” and “consensus” makes me extremely uneasy. You and I both know very well what horrors Russia had to go through in the name of impossible ideals. Give me slow gradual change codified by laws. Don’t talk to me about chimeras composed by political oratory.
Candide, you are full of crap. And considering that the Bush administration was probably the most Orwellian the US have ever seen, your use of Orwell is deeply ironic.
And Candide, you might as well include the right-winger Bukovsky as part of the Lib-Dem propaganda machine. And also add Alberto Mora to the list. You know, as the the general counsel to the United States Navy he was in his Pentagon office the moment that airliner slammed on the Pentagon on 9/11. Later, though, he strongly objected to the Yoo memo and the newly authorized “coercive interrogation techniques.” But what else to expect from a Republican lawyer who fled Cuba when he was a child and whose grandparents fled Hungary in 1941?
“Don’t you remember that back in 2002 nobody was concerned about acceptability of torture”
I doubt that back in 2002 people thought that US officials will end up condoning torture (or whatever euphemism you prefer.) I have to admit, though, that my current view of Americans as a people (of which I’m one) is much less sanguine than it was ten years ago.
Candide, as if quoting me, you write:
“You talk about “our lost ideals” and Bush officials violating those “ideals” for no other reason but so they can satisfy their sadistical cravings.”
Where did I say “our lost ideals”? And where did I make the claim that the Bushies were “violating those “ideals” for no other reason but so they can satisfy their sadistical cravings”? Heck, I don’t even believe that about either the Nazis or the Stalinists.
One more thing: it was the Bushies that watered down the standards–often to the great discomfort of long time members of the Departments of Justice and State as well as the armed forces.
Frankly, Candide you distortions and unwarranted assumptions are on the par with Chris’s dishonest debating style.
Kolya,
I distinctly remember you saying something to the effect that Bush & Co. were exploiting the post 9-11 atmosphere so they can torture people at will.
I also distinctly remember you saying that waterboarding 3 terror masterminds caused more damage to the US than the 9-11, with all the deaths and destruction of that day.
To say things like these, Kolya, you must take a complete leave of your senses.
I remember those things because I was appalled both times to the point of actually composing a long rebuke to your nonsense, but decided not to submit it, hoping you’d recover from your delusions.
“I distinctly remember you saying something to the effect that Bush & Co. were exploiting the post 9-11 atmosphere so they can torture people at will.”
That’s complete bullshit, Candide. I NEVER said that. I challenge you (and anyone else) to find the place where I explicitly (or even implicitly) wrote such a thing. (I think with Google you can find all the comments written by me in Sean’s blog. You can even narrow it down with search terms such as Bush, torture, or whatever.)
I do think that Bush, Cheney & Co. exploited 9/11, but that’s a far cry from what I supposedly said according to you.
“I also distinctly remember you saying that waterboarding 3 terror masterminds caused more damage to the US than the 9-11, with all the deaths and destruction of that day.”
Candide you are a liar. How can you say that you “distinctly remember” that when I never actually wrote it? That’s dishonorable and dishonest behavior on your part.
What I did write a few days ago was the following:
“And who is responsible for the fact that truly bad regimes can now point to the US as a torturing nation? Certainly not those who opposed the Bush and Cheney policies on this. The responsibility rest squarely on the shoulders on Bush, Cheney and their minions and apologists. They have brought plenty of damage to the US–much more harm that whatever benefit the got from intelligence obtained thanks to “enhanced interrogation techniques.””
Candide, you may agree or disagree with the above, but if you are going to challenge what I have written, have the decency to challenge what I have written and not a gross and misleading distortion of it.
And once again, Candide, where did I claim that the Bushies were “violating those “ideals” for no other reason but so they can satisfy their sadistical cravings”?
Strong opinions, Candide, does not excuse you from lying. And “the other side does it too” is a piss poor excuse. Actually, it’s not an excuse at all.
Kolya,
I stick to what I remember. Next time you post something so surreal, I’ll point it to you right away.
Talking about Obama’s “principles” and “ideals” you put your faith in, this just in,
“Obama has embraced many of the same positions that liberals and Obama himself criticized. For example:
* Obama and members of his administration have embraced the use of rendition. Many of Obama’s most ardent defenders blasted progressives who criticized Obama on rendition as jumping the gun. Today, their arguments look even more problematic than in the past.
* Obama has invoked the maligned “state secrets” defense as a complete bar to lawsuits challenging potential human rights and constitutional law violations.
* Obama has argued that detainees at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan do not qualify for habeas corpus rights, even though many of the detainees at the facility were not captured in the war or in Afghanistan.
* Even though it no longer uses the phrase “enemy combatants,” the Obama administration has taken the position that the government can indefinitely detain individuals, whether or not they engaged in torture and whether or not they fought the United States on the “battlefield.” This logic combined with the denial of habeas to detainees in Afghanistan could make Bagram the functional equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.
If the New York Times article is accurate, then the use of military tribunals issue will join the list of policies that Obama has endorsed, despite the loud liberal criticism that Bush received when he did the same things.”
As on cue, I come home yesterday and see “Doctor No” is on TV.
As I start watching, Bond is beating the crap out of some guy, then stops and says, “Now talk!”. The guy pretends to get a smoke but swallows a poison capsule instead and croaks on the spot. The implication is clear: the guy didn’t have much choice between talking or killing himself.
Come to think of it, that “poison pill” was omnipresent in the spy movies until just recently. It was common understanding that people who have important secrets to conceal will be made to talk by any means necessary, to the point that killing oneself was preferable. And general public was OK with that.
That is our real recent past and our true heritage. Not what Obamabots are trying to construct out of the whole cloth, so they can continue to trash their Republican opponents, so Obamabots could “control the future”.
Candide, you are a liar. I didn’t say what you claimed I did and you know it. This makes you a bad faith and dishonest commenter. (Next time you try to falsely attribute words to someone remember that at least in this blog it’s easy to make a search and find out exactly what commenters wrote–even if it goes a while back.)
And the fact that you didn’t have the decency to face up and apologize for your gross and misleading distortions is another example of lowness.
Yes, things can get testy and heated at times. Nonetheless, I’ve came to respect many fellow online personas who (like myself) comment here. I even miss them when they drift away. Interestingly, often it’s not so much about whether I agree or disagree with them (with some I almost always disagree), but it’s about their intellectual honesty and sense of integrity. In these last few posts, it became all too obvious that you sense of honesty and integrity are sorely lacking. I will not waste any more time with you.
Kolya,
Get off your high moral horse, please. I am not going to bother to look for the quotes, so feel free to assume you won the argument. Maybe I confused you with some other Obamabot. But I promise next time you allow yourself a reckless expression I’ll grind into your face but good.
“This is Smith&Wesson, and you had your six.”
Kolya,
On a second thought, check your own post in this thread above,
Kolya on April 23, 2009 9:31 am
“In my opinion the treatment of “enemy combatants” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” (aka torture) caused considerably more damaged to the US than what the terrorist and other enemy combatants have done.”
Exactly right, Candide, I did write:
“In my opinion the treatment of “enemy combatants” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” (aka torture) caused considerably more damaged to the US than what the terrorist and other enemy combatants have done.”
That’s very different from what you claimed I wrote:
“I also distinctly remember you saying that waterboarding 3 terror masterminds caused more damage to the US than the 9-11, with all the deaths and destruction of that day.”
As I keep on saying, what you wrote is a gross distortion of what I’ve said. I stand by the words I wrote, but not by your distortions of them. You keep on attacking straw men of your creation–misrepresentations of what I have said.
In essence, I said (more than once here and elsewhere) that the US did itself more damage by the way it treated captured “enemy combatants” and the “enhanced interrogation techniques” it used on them, than by the damage done by the terrorists to the US. (And, no, I never limited myself to the “waterboarding of 3 terror masterminds.”)
Remember that very very few of these enemy combatants were terrorist masterminds, and remember that too many of these prisoners turned out to be innocent. Moreover, there were several professionals (interrogators, jurists and military personnel) that objected to the “techniques” and procedures being used–these principled Americans were not naive softies.
Kolya,
You must know by now that only 3 (three) people were waterboarded, the worst of the worst.
Candide, I don’t know whether only three people were waterboarded. Frankly, I doubt it. But even if that was the case, what of it? That’s another straw man. It is you who preposterously claimed that I was comparing the damage the terrorists have done to the waterboarding of only three terrorists.
I didn’t limit myself to either only those three or to only waterboarding. I was talking about the way the US chose to treat those it detained and interrogated in places such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, and so on.
Kolya,
Once again, you are seriously comparing the imaginary “damage” done to the US by harsh treatments of its enemies (unquantified and unquantifiable) to the real physical death and destruction (recorded in thousands of human lives and billions of dollars) done to the US by its enemies.
This is the clinical definition of delusion.
I’m leaving for a few days. The following excerpts from a piece is my parting note on this issue (link at the bottom.)
///
Alberto Mora says it’s “politically unthinkable” to criminally prosecute the top Bush administration officials who sanctioned torture. He also says it’s “legally unthinkable” not to hold them accountable.
Few Americans better understand the precarious stakes of looking into what role torture played in the “war on terror” than Mr. Mora, a once-staunch political conservative whom President George W. Bush appointed as general counsel of the U.S. Navy in 2001. Mr. Mora was horrified at the legal justifications for the “enhanced interrogation” techniques like waterboarding. After he left, he became an outspoken critic.
He argues passionately and persuasively that the Bush-Cheney practices broke international law, hurt the United States’ standing in the world and fundamentally violated American values.
Mr. Mora, a Republican, has no desire to see former Vice President Dick Cheney or the authors of the secret legal opinions tried for war crimes. That would tear the country apart and set a dreadful precedent. Yet the issue is so bitter that leaving it to the ordinary congressional and legal processes is untenable. …
This, then, is one of those rare occasions that necessitate a special commission of prestigious members with full authority to issue subpoenas. … Transparency and accountability are the objectives, not criminalization. … The political right will go ballistic over any serious inquiry, while the political left will reject immunity. … Others suggest that this is a partisan witch hunt. That ignores that many top Republican officials, at the time and since then, vehemently opposed these practices. The infamous legal justifications for the policy crafted by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, then headed by Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, and John Yoo, were ridiculed and overturned by subsequent Bush appointees to that office. Ali Soufan, a Federal Bureau of Investigation expert on Al Qaeda, revealed that he got more information from one of the captured terrorists using conventional methods. He was so appalled when Central Intelligence Agency contractors started using torture that he objected and reported it back to F.B.I. headquarters. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, ordered him to return to Washington, and the bureau refused to participate in any more of these rogue operations. The policy was anathema to military people, starting with Colin Powell, a retired general and secretary of state in the first Bush term. Says Mr. Mora: “I never met a senior military officer that didn’t object to these policies. They caused the senior military to hold the Bush administration in contempt.”
…
“Torture is antithetical to our values, the rule of law and our national security interests,” Mr. Mora says. Nevertheless, as he realizes, selective prosecution is dangerous. What is the rationale for prosecuting a John Yoo or a Jay Bybee while excusing those they sought to please, like the former vice president and his staff, who ordered or implemented the practices? (Congress can impeach Judge Bybee if it wishes.) Given the ill will, reconciliation will take a long time, and may never come. Nothing will be possible, though, without first arriving at the truth.
///
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/03iht-letter04web.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Incidentally, my roommate got back from Chechnya day before yesterday. I wonder when the last time was that an obviously foreign young woman could wander around Grozny unaccompanied and unmolested.
My tolerance for the “Chechens all live in fear of Kadyrov, which is why they support him” total bullshit narrative has reached, nay exceeded, its limit.
“This is the clinical definition of delusion.”
No it isn’t.
Is, too!!!!!!!!
I am reticent about joining the fray on this again, my better judgment should be to just let it go. But here’s to poor judgment.
The US, in time of war, has nuked 220,000 Japanese and firebombed at least 24,000 Germans during WWII. In the Philippines campaign, it was said that Moro tribal warriors were buried with pig entrails. In the Indian wars, women and children were killed. The list goes on. I state all that not to condemn the US, but to put the latest kerfuffel in perspective.
You could say that past wrongs don’t make a future right, but I would say you are missing the point. Humans are human. If there is a threat, especially one that seems somewhat existential, any sane human will use all resources at his disposal to eliminate that threat. It’s called natural selection. If a life of a family member is being threatened, you don’t reason to yourself about the legality of attacking the perpetrator. You rip his f*cking throat out and worry about the consequences later. Once the threat is gone, then you can wallow in self doubt, yada yada yada.
After 9/11, the threat of jihadism seem potentially existential to many. Maybe not to you, Kolya. That’s fine, but it doesn’t change the fact. I feel the gov’t at the time was extremely controlled in its response. Many were calling for Afghanistan, or all of the Middle East for that matter, to be nuked. Granted, that would have been overkill, but the fact that the US waited three months to go in to Afghanistan, and then only with a small SF contingent, seems pretty humane to me. If only three bad guys were “tortured” through this whole affair, that seems really humane to me.
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