“Torture” (Updated)

It’s probably not all that surprising that I most strongly identify with this reaction, from Abe Greenwald, about the “torture” memos:

Try not to weep for your country’s lost ideals as you read this:

“The memos show that Justice Department lawyers authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to use such techniques as sleep deprivation, facial slaps and placing one high-ranking al-Qaeda suspect in a cramped box with what he was told was a stinging insect.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what supposedly made America the moral equivalent of al Qaeda.

The stinging insect bit is the thing I find most interesting about this whole hubub. People seem really upset that one guy — a guy who was involved with al Qaeda for a very long time and has spent much of his life coming up with ways to kill innocent civilians — was placed into a confined space and told that an insect was poisonous. It wasn’t actually poisonous, mind you. He just thought it was. So putting a creepy crawly in a box and creating mental duress to procure information to avert the murder of civilians is now torture. (Query: Is a detective lying to an interrogation suspect about the well-being of a family member in order to gain information in a murder case torture? Because I imagine that causes quite a bit of mental stress. And if mental stress is torture, well, police in this country torture all the time to solve any myriad number of crimes.)

Yes, yes, I know, the description above wasn’t the totality. There was some waterboarding, some stress positions, etc. I’m still unimpressed. Interrogators who lost their cool and beat suspects to death should be prosecuted. Interrogators who caused serious harm to their subjects should be prosecuted. But I’ve seen nothing in the literature or the highlights of these memos to warrant getting too upset about the overarching program outlined by the administration.

Update: I think this pretty accurately sums up why I have real trouble getting worked up about this whole mess. Kori Schake, over at the NY Times:

What struck me most about the memos was that as late as August 2002, C.I.A. officials believed they were hearing “chatter” of the level and kind that proceeded the September 11th attacks. At that time, the country was still reeling from those attacks. The agency believed it had in custody enemies planning catastrophic terrorist attacks against our country and were urgently seeking information. The C.I.A. sought legal counsel and complied with the advice. Subjecting people to prosecution under those circumstances would be a dangerous politicization of difficult choices made by those serving our country.

I think it’s easy to forget just how freaked out people were even a year after 9/11. I’m just not going to judge too harshly an administration concerned with keeping Americans safe. Frankly, I’m surprised the hardliners in the administration didn’t try to push things further. Again: The worst things in that Bybee memo are DOJ approval of the CIA’s pretending to drown people for 30 seconds in order to get intel on (believed-to-be-) imminent attacks and allowing interrogators to pretend that a caterpillar is a poisonous bug. Perhaps not America’s brightest moment, but considering the circumstances it strikes me as pretty darn restrained.