EIT2: Was it Effective?

Fact: since September 11, 2001, the United States government has engaged in the capture, detention (without charge) and/or interrogation of hundreds of people--including at least one citizen of the United States. Some of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed on these detainees are believed by many people--myself included--to constitute torture. Look past this. Forget about whether it was technically torture, whether it was necessary or just or even right. Don't even consider the actual vs. alleged severity of these methods. Just put on your cold, rational thinking caps and answer:

Was it Effective?

• Yes, this interrogation program is the very reason that we have not seen terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. Dick Cheney and former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen have told us that there are specific cases (such as the attack planned on the Library Tower in L.A.) where these interrogations led to critical information--information that ultimately saved American lives. In fact, we know that these techniques work from a captured al-Qaeda member, Abu Zubaydah, who told us that members are premitted to tell interrogators everything once they reach the limits of their endurance. And--perhaps most importantly--these techniques send a message to would-be terrorists: If you would be our enemy and seek to harm us, expect the gloves to come off once we grab you.
• No, for starters because we can point to numerous studies and reports explaining that we really don't gain much by getting information via duress. It doesn't follow that people who really have the information we seek will give it up due to these techniques. Moreover, if the incentive is to keep talking, both those who do and those who do not have valuable intel are likely to...well, just keep talking. Which will yield a lot of extraneous information and false leads, with no way to determine which items are worth pursuing. The CIA has wasted plenty of time and money chasing its tail in foreign countries due to the "intel" garnered from this program. We also have trouble believing that these techniques were effective every time they were used--if they were even effective in the first place. How "effective" can your 81st waterboarding be, seriously? Or even your 20th? We can go so far as to say that torture (even the appearance of it) is indeed effective--at making Americans less safe. Our treatment of detainees has been the top al-Qaeda recruiting tool for years, and our standing on the world stage has been eroded. This is a huge foreign policy black-eye for us. Our allies are now less likely to help us protect our interests. Do we really want to go it alone?

This question is not clear: It asks if torture (or "torture-like" or "enhanced non-torture techniques, because we have a good lawyer") techniques are effective. It's up to the respondent to determine what "effective" means--effective at what? There are in fact at least two "whats" that I deliberately confound in the above; I use "Was it effective?" to mean:

1. "Was it effective in procuring timely and accurate intelligence that directly saved the lives of American citizens?", as well as the more general
2. "Was it effective at reducing the risk of lethal attacks against Americans?"
   

This lack of clarity about an apparently simply question illustrates a recurring and critical fault of most contemporary political debate.

End notes: We still lack the information we need to really make an assessment of the efficacy of these techniques. Again, I'm talking about this as a subject divorced from the other questions--whether it was "right" or not, whether the ends justify the means, and so on. I'm not aware of any declassified info right now about specific cases where these techniques gave us actionable information that directly resulted in American lives saved. However, I do think that any claim in the family of "this is why we haven't been attacked since 9/11" is outrageous on its face. How can you possibly know that for certain? Did you visit the parallel universes where Gore won in 2000, the 9/11 attacks still happened, we failed to drown intel out of some guys, AND we were attacked again and again? Okay, sure, maybe you did, but can you honestly tell me--really--that you check on all of those parallel universes?

As a side note, the Thiessen/Cheney claims feel incredibly disingenuous. At least one of them may have had access to the details of real-life "ticking time-bomb" scenarios that were defused with the aid of "enhanced interrogation". But we've yet to get any real reporting on this--we simply don't know. And because their credibility and biases are known quantities, I feel it's reasonable to suspect that may have been no such situations. The classified "memos" that support their argument may not even exist. Or the rest of the intel in these documents may actually be incredibly sensitive--so that it really would be a security risk for the Obama administration to declassify them. Basically, I don't feel these guys should be allowed to defend a position based on information that no one else published (or perhaps even possesses) for the exact same reason that they were allowed to proceed without public scrutiny in the first place: the shroud of secrecy surrounding the Bush administration.

I do generally have trouble with this one. I know in my heart of hearts that if I found myself tied to a chair in some CIA black site, my first words would be something like: "Please list any topic of interest and I will rattle off every damn thing I know about it. You can put the pliers away." But this situation is different. I have no information worth even tying me up for; also, I am a coward.

Not the face!
NFK