Originally posted by: BMW540I6speed
Some of this is definitely political. The last thing Obama wants to answer is the question "If torturing a suspect would get information that might save a few lives, would you do it?". Torture is only useful in obtaining "confessions" not "facts". The analysis suggest torture is a rather lousy means to get information and can even be counter productive (eg person being tortured makes shit up hoping it'll be what the torturer wants to hear and the'll stop).
The ends don't justify the means. It doesn't matter if Cheney can point to a specific torture session that yielded valid information, because there's no telling if we could have gotten that information without torturing.
So if we torture 100 people and 5 of them give us good information that does saves lives does that justify it? Does that justify the innocents that are tortured? The very same principles and liberties that we claim our troops are defending with their lives must be lived up to if they mean anything at all. We can't commit the same acts and justify them with rhetoric about being the good guys.
It would be a stupid move to essentially brag to the world how well our torture techniques work. If an armed force fighting the US captures a senior US military officer, and they know that torturing him will save the lives of hundreds of their soldiers, they should go ahead and do it? And, when brought before an international court for war crimes, they can just say, "Dick Cheney, a former Vice President of the US, said it was morally justified, so we did it."
Showing that we actually got useful information after torturing someone fails to defend the torture because we do not know that we would have failed to get the information without torture. It also fails to take into account the number of recruits that we promoted for the enemy who might have stayed neutral had their family or friends not been tortured and locked up indefinetly and the numbers of civilians and our troops who could be tortured and murdered in retaliation.
It is always possible that any given torture of an individual provided some reliable information, but even that information remains suspect in the fog of false statements made by those who are attempting to escape pain. The only thing that Cheney's call could do would be to provide a clear example of confirmation bias. Look! We got these three pieces of useful information among the 20,000 false leads from several hundred tortured prisoners! It works!
Bush and Cheney lied to claim we did not use torture. - "We don't torture" they said
Dick Cheney had several years to argue for the importance of torture, since Congress had been debating torture and Guantanamo as a hot topic since probably 2005. He showed no reticence in declassifying information if it suited his political ends (e.g., Valerie Plame). For him to come out now and say that certain documents ought to be declassified to support his view of waterboarding is simply beyond the pale.
I cannot think of a major public figure who has less credibility when talking about national security, and yet, he is deluded into thinking that his views are beyond reproach. He is the Republican version of Lyndon LaRouche.
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