That's an interesting theory. My gut-check (Blink!) finds it credible.
I'm totally with you that the failure to use the tragedy to inspire a collective reaction is one of Bush's great failures.
That seems like a sound theory to me too but does historical evidence bear this out? What about the jews in WWII? I guess one could argue that perhaps their past and current treatment of palestinians may give weight to your argument. I think Friedman has made this point. Then again, I know holocaust survivors and, at least on the surface, they don't strike me as a "sadistic" group.
I don't know enough about Israel and Palestine to make the comparison, but I think the theory would suggest that its those a few steps removed from the holocaust who are the most vociferous proponents of settlements.
Just like it's not the relatives of the 9/11 victims who are leading the charge for torture. It's the typewriter brigade in relatively safe spots like, say, the red states.
we're all just waiting for the next attack.
Is there evidence to back this up? I'm genuinely curious; how much do people think about this? Knowing generalized personality traits of Repubs/Dems, I would suspect Repubs worry about this more. I wouldn't say that I myself am waiting for the next attack. I know America is quite vulnerable, but this sort of thing just doesn't occupy any of my thoughts.
If this is a good Applebaum op-ed, I'm sure glad that I've been spared the dreck.
OK, I actually have read her stuff a few times before, and this strikes me as a typically muddled and dishonest.
Her spin on the French in Algeria is appalling. The French used torture ... and they lost the war! Well, yes, and they used guns and tanks and jet aircraft, too, so are we to conclude that those things always and indisriminately inneffective, also. And, get this, one researcher failed to find documented evidence of torture helping the French. Well, yes, and we all know how religiously every modern army documents its war crimes.
There is a case to be made here, it's just too bad its polluted by a hack like Apllebaum.
That's not quite fair, aretino. Here's the quote:
...Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway.
The fact that they lost the war isn't her warrant for the claim, and in an op-ed, citing an academic whose work we can look up for ourselves is perfectly acceptable.
Of course a "hack" like Applebaum should know better.
As the author of a book on the gulag, she should have realized that without aggressive interrogation methods and a sophisticated detention system the Soviet authorities would never have learned the full number of plots and conspiracies against their society, their government, and even Stalin himself.
Who knows what could have happened had all of those potential criminals, with potentially useful information, been questioned with the "gloves still on"? Who knows how many signed, and even public, confessions they would have failed to attain? Are not confessions solid evidence that torture must work?
No, Ogged, I do think you had a legitimate point with my original reading of your line, I just thought it should have been more nuanced. The people who are for torture, it's a very real possibility that they are preoccupied, or paralyzed, waiting for the next attack. It could be one of the things that divides people's opinion on the subject. For a related instance, I think I can claim fairly confidently that people who were convinced Iraq would have nuclear bombed us voted for bush last Nov. These same people I could see as pro-torture.
There might be a point there, Michael, it just wasn't the one I was making.
No one's ever accused me of being relentlessly on-topic.
ummm.... We are not "just waiting for the next terrorist attack." We have made the most boldest of moves to stop the next attack. To keep terrorists from attacking us at home, we have put our soldiers into Iraq. While this may seem like a sleight of hand at first (one may say, "What's the difference between killing Americans at home or abroad?") Don't make me laugh. It's not a sleight of hand, it's a classic bait-and-switch. Now attacks on American soldiers continue, but increasingly, the attacks are against the Iraqi interim government. Once we get the terrorists used to killing pro-democracy Iraqis, they will forget all about us. Now that's proaction.
How can you even say that without feeling so slimy that you immediatly need to bathe?
Maybe I just can't believe that someone would seriously make samadams' argument, but the last two sentences make it seem like his comment might be ironic.
Then again, there are probably people who would think that my comment above actually provides support for the argument that torture provides accurate information.
If it's this samadams, it's definitely ironic. I also think somewhere someone has probably made that argument more or less straight up.
And if it's the guy who appears in the beer commercials, I don't think he ever does bathe. Are those commercials totally unconvincing or what? We should be able to do better with a Brewer-Patriot founding father than a goof in a red pageboy.
Also, what's with Brewer-Patriot? One of the most successful franchises of recent times paired with one of the least successful ones, and they don't even play the same sport.
I think I remember hearing somewhere that the real Sam Adams actually almost ran his family's brewery business into the ground.
That revolution went pretty well for his side, though.
Well, that's pretty much how things are going for the Brewers and Patriots, respectively.
Next post: My theories about how Sam Adams used to be made in Pittsburgh, by the company that also does Iron City.
ogged -
Sorry, but you're flat wrong about Applebaum's "they lost that war" comment: it clearly is one of the warrants that Applebaum provides for her contention that torture doesn't work.
And citing the work of a scholar does not excuse Applebaum from an obligation to consider (1) whether that scholar's findings are sound or (2) whether that scholar's findings really support her argument.
I looked up Rejali's work. Here is
his article about the Battle of Algiers. I have three comments.
First, Applebaum mischaracterizes Rejali's sources. He consulted Algerian archives and French memoirs, not French archives. This means that my objection to using French archives is moot, but there are still problems here with the interpretation of evidence. It's not clear to me what evidence he draws from the Algerian archives, but I presume it is the testimony of the FLN torture victims and their account of what they said under torture. If this is the case, it's not evidence one can take without a grain of salt: there would have been good reasons, both personal and political, for victims not to admit betraying their comrades under torture. In any case, how Rejali addressed the problems of using the Algerian archives is even less clear than what he found there.
Second, Applebaum exaggerates what Rejali claimed about his findings. According to Applebaum, Rejali "found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria." Although the thesis of his article is that "torture doesn't work," and more specifically that it didn't work in Algiers, his strongest claim is much less definitive than this: namely, that "no rank-and-file soldier has related a tale of how he personally, through timely interrogation, produced decisive information that stopped a ticking bomb." Leaving aside the look of a straw man in Rejali's contention, it is nevertheless far more qualified that what Applebaum attributes to him.
Finally, Rejali really doesn't demonstrate that torture failed in Algiers, but he does put forth an interesting point about why the same methods that worked in Algiers didn't work elsewhere. Rejali notes that the French were never able to defeat the insurgents in Indochina or the Algerian hinterlands despite the use of torture, so there must have been something special about Algiers. And, following General Massu, he concludes that there were critical differences: the Casbah of Algiers was small and thoroughly monitored, and the French Army was nearly impervious to infiltration. As a result, the French could act quickly on the intelligence gained, there was little chance for the FLN to evade capture once compromised, and French intelligence was itself not likely to be compromised. Now, Rejali proceeds to argue that since close monitoring and control were also necessary for success, that the success can't be attributed to torture at all, which is simply fallacious. Still, it is worth noting that at least two, and perhaps all three, of the conditions that made Algiers unique are not applicable to Iraq or the "War on Terror."
aj -
One who has written about the gulag is always saintly and right, and never a hack.
Applebaum has written about the gulag.
Applebaum is saintly and right, and never a hack.
I, defeated by modus ponens, hereby surrender.
Well, if you're convinced by an argument as poorly drawn as the one you - not I - just made, then I guess I don't have to argue anymore. But honest arguments are usually better.
Having written about the gulag does not make one saintly and right; if so, then both say, Stalin and Applebaum must have been saints as both wrote, at one time or another, about the gulag. Knowledge of the gulag does, however, indicate a familiarity with torture methods, detention systems, and false confessions.
Applebaum may be wrong about torture (I don't think she is, in an overall strategic sense), but she's clearly not a hack in the conventional sense. Compare what she's written about torture to what she's written about the left and the Ukrainian election. She does not fall easily into a hack-like category.
Incidentally, the movie The Battle of Algiers clearly implies that torture helped the French army break the FLN cells within Algiers itself. And this is supposed to be an anti-colonial movie.
On the other hand, the end of the simliarly neo-realistic, but earlier, movie Roma, cittą aperta implies that torture will not work on the people most dedicated to a cause (in this case resistance to the German occupation).
Old movies of course can't prove anything, but they're both worth watching.