The whole debate over "torture" vs Torture is ... torturing my brain.
First we hear in no uncertain terms, "We do not use torture."
Then we get, "Ummm yeah, look at these memos. Some of these things are definitely torture."
Note that if your first, absolute statement on a subject is a bald-faced lie, other statements from people in your group are going to be received with more than just a grain of salt. You've already lost credibility.
The replies to the memo release came in stages. First it's "You stupid bastards, you are aiding the enemy! We can no longer use these torture, er, intensive interrogation techniques!"
The reply to which is a roll of the eyeballs and a "umm, yeah, you are right, that's the point." Also, the techniques themselves are not secret; what was hidden was the official permission to USE them, of calling them legal and acceptable.
Floating over the airwaves now is this fun bit -- "those aren't torture because they don't cause long-term psychological harm. Heck, we did that to people during training and they came out just fine!" Or the gem from the peanut gallery, "That's no worse than hazing at a frat."
Where to start with THAT unpolishable gem? Are you saying these activities don't really work? Or they work but don't leave a mark? Or what? More later...
Now we have cries from the wilderness to release MORE memos, the ones that show the good and valuable information we got from using these not-quite-or-perhaps-maybe-is torture-interrogation techniques.
Balanced against, of course, discussions from yet more people saying that we got more bad data than good, that the good data wasn't that great, and that what we DID get, we often got before we dived into the ugly stuff anyway.
There are several threads running through this.
1. Are these activities torture?
It sounds to me that yes, some of them are, or at least we have defined them that way in the past ourselves.
Ask yourself, do you want them used on your sons and daughters? If not then... we must not use them the sons and daughters of other organizations, no matter how misguided we think they are, or how valuable the knowledge between their ears may be.
If they are effective enough to FORCE information out of someone, they are effective enough to be considered torture. If they are not torture, what makes us think they will force out good information? People LIE, especially under duress.
1b. These techniques aren't really so bad. We trained with them! We did them to students!
Consider this. You are in a class, you know the people around you, and you know the goals and limits of what is occurring in that class. Now you are told to (to take a tame example) stand in a dark room, on one foot, not moving. You do so. You know it will end, you know what comes next, and you know you can refuse or quit at any time.
Now. You are in a prison, you don't know the people around you, you don't know their goals and the limits to which they will go, and you have HEARD all kinds of horrible things from your friends and neighbors. You are locked in a dark room, told, FORCED, to stand on one foot, not moving. You do so. You don't know how, or if, it will end; you don't know what comes next, and you are afraid of what may happen if you refuse.
On top of that, the people in charge think it would be worthwhile to one-up the documented guidelines and drop spiders on your head while they are at it, you know, to make it work better (to take an idea I just pulled out of my ass; but it seems that the interrogators were not really going by the book, or the "book" lacked some fundamental guidelines at first, so this seems a reasonable extension).
Yeah, just the same. Gonna have the same long term impact. Right? Somehow I don't think so. Saying they are the same is disingenuous at best.
2. If it gets good data, it is worth it.
No. Ends can not justify the means, for down that path lies madness; and remember, everything we do will be reflected back onto us down the roads of time, and applied to our own sons and daughters, but even more so; and we won't get to complain because we set the standards.
I've talked to people who interrogate, and I've heard other people talk in interviews. The best data comes from bonding with the subject, not beating them up. And being friendly isn't going to land you in international court for war crimes.
3. Moral high ground.
We should take it. If something can be construed as torture, skip it.
Use the techniques that actually WORK, and a hint here: from what I've heard, these techniques have nothing to do with this kind of abuse.
All in all, the defending (torture is good) arguments play out like red herrings. We don't do torture (except when we do). It's not actually torture (except that it is). It's not actually damaging, so really, not torture (except the are comparing apples and kumquats; controlled training versus uncontrolled field conditions). So what if we do this, we get good data (except that we don't, and except that even if we did as a country we reject torture anyway so the point is irrelevant).
In my ears it has been translating to "please don't send me to the Hague."