C.I.A. destroyed interrogation videotapes
The New York Times reports that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed tapes of "severe interrogation techniques" conducted on two Al Qaeda operatives in its custody "in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy."
Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.LinkIf tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.
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This is pretty scary. What's even more scary is that revelations like this can come to light without any danger of large scale civil revolts, work stoppages, civil disobedience, etc.
If this was Civilization, Bush's production would have dropped to 0 due having so many little red citizens in revolt. Where are the RL red citizens? Why aren't you one?
Because this isn't a videogame.
Clearly we need to aggressively question anyone who might have destroyed these tapes. And by aggressively question I mean, well, that's what they've been calling it, so how can they object?
Yeah, unfortunately it's easier to run a repressive regime in real life than in Civilization :( At least we haven't had the same god-like dictator since the stone age though!
Still, I think if real citizens reacted the way those little civvies do - by preventing all production and taxation in the city until placated - we'd get much better response from government...
Against whom do you revolt, exactly? This is the central problem for people who actually do want to revolt. But what do you do?
Shoot a cop? That's not very nice, or productive. Furthermore, people would (rightly) condemn you for taking out your aggressions on an innocent public servant.
Blow up an armory? Full of weekend reservists who just wanted to go to college, and may very well agree with your anger? That's counterproductive and pretty mean, too.
Hold a massive demonstration? Where? In a "free speech zone?" Even if it was out in the streets of Washington, D.C., these asshats would refer to you as a "focus group."
Snap elections? We don't have those, and besides the only way we'd get such a thing was if our representatives weren't completely complicit, which they are.
Impeachment of key leaders? See above.
Whining into the comment fields of blogs? Well, at least it doesn't hurt anyone, and might turn a few people to your way of thinking, but that still leaves you with a wholly corrupt government that doesn't give two shits--or maybe not even a singl, solitary shit!--about what you or I or anyone thinks. So we do this. It doesn't help, but at least it doesn't lead to arrest or being shipped off to Gitmo.
...Yet.
The idea that central intelligence uses torture to extract intel from individuals is not new.
Of course torture is likely among the worst ways of gathering valid intel - what strikes me as odd is the leak.
Who benefits?
IOW, who will most likely respond most forcefully to this information coming to light?
And again, who benefits?
@2: The blunt answer is, because the average citizen will reduce his quality of life more by starting a revolt or work stoppage than he will by ignoring the thing and continuing to do as he normally does.
Shouldnt the REAL headline be "C.I.A. destroyed interrogation videotapes AND THEN TELLS US ABOUT IT" I mean, they probably destroy evidence all the time. Hardly ever do they admit it.
@6: My favorite is work stoppage combined with civil disobedience - sort of Ghandi-style i guess. If even a relatively small part of the population refuses to work and uses civil disobedience to make it difficult for everyone else to work (for example by peacefully blocking railroad tracks, highways, mass transit), it doesn't take long for the economy to start suffering. Economics and money are something the people in power can understand and will bend to, no matter their personal opinions.
Plus, assuming one's doing it for a popular cause, it's likely that sympathetic but less principled people will join in once it's started, it just takes a some brave souls to start the trend. Bandwagons and all...
@10: That style of work stoppage tends to be polarizing-- you're protesting the government, but wind up targetting those people who are just trying to go to work, etc. Their anger is, I think, more likely to be turned against the protestors than it is to be turned on the government.
Also, it takes just one guy on a blocked road to think "I'll just tap the bastard and see if he moves" to start things getting ugly.
who cares ?
what's on colbert tonite ?
@11: True, we wouldn't want things to get ugly or polarized. Let's just stick with an abusive government and wars of aggression to make sure everyone's safe and friendly. ;)
I kid, really. Over the internet these arguments might sound self-righteous, but it's just kind of thinking out loud. It is striking how quickly any possibility of effecting change is discounted, though. Maybe because if we acknowledged our own power to change these types of policy, it would saddle us with the responsibility of actually doing so?
@11: I deeply hope I never live to see the day that everyone actually does become mobilized to change policy. Otherwise I suspect that society and government would become exactly as civil as the internet can be.
We avoid civil unrest and its extreme variety, civil war, only because large portions of the population are willing to just put up with situations they don't like. You personally might be too nice a guy to shoot someone over politics, but there are plenty of people who will if they're sufficiently politicized. Best they just stay on the sofa and let the tides of politics move slowly and gently around them.
@13:
Yeah, there's just no easy way of doing it, and people are all about easy.
I think we've perhaps cried wolf too many times. We get angry about government abuses, but do nothing but write some editorials. The government has figured out we aren't really going to do anything. That's not such a bad thing when the government isn't headed up by a pack of raving maniacs, but once you let a maniac in the door, it really causes problems.
The whole system kinda hinges on the assumption that the vast majority of people aren't batshit insane, and that people will be good enough at spotting and weeding out the ones who are. Once those assumptions are proven wrong, it gets a lot more complicated.
@15
You're right about the crying wolf part. For over 40 years the most vocal activists have thrown the word "fascist" around at everything. It just became part of the standard litany of name calling (e.g. "Racist fascist sexist corporatist lying murdering regime! How dare you expand your hospital!") It became an empty word. Now when confronted with a group that actually does have fascist tendencies (e.g. concentration of unchecked power, support for torture, militant foreign policy, questioning the loyalty of those that disagree, promoting the idea a vague unseen perpetual threat, a conflation of private and public interests), the word is meaningless. To use the word, no matter how appropriate, is to immediately look like raving lunatic, since only raving lunatics have used that word.
You're also right about people wanting things easy. People are lazy. As long as they have all the creature comforts, they don't care. It's not a commentary on Americans, but rather just people in general. Bread and circuses, have become Big Macs and iPods.
Gandhi found non-cooperation with unjust laws to be quite an effective strategy.
@17: No problem, but which laws do you plan on not complying with, and how, and how much would it cost you personally?
I'm so old I remember when destruction of evidence was a crime....and the lame excuse the CIA is giving about "wanting to protect the identities" of the thugs doing the torture is a crock because those f@ckers wear black ski masks when they waterboard you. Don't ask me how I know this.
-Civilization is an awesome game, but the systems of government assume that people have some power (if we rose up and protested by the hundreds of thousands in our streets what would happen? Nothing - unless a democrat was in office).
-Americans are traditionally wary of anarchy and mob rule (at least per Bernard Bailyn), hence they can be slow to react.
-This administration has dramatically changed the bar on what is considered a minimal standard of conduct. The gulf between what Republicans get away with and what Democrats get away with is mind-boggling. Myself and most of my friends have just decided that 1) Republicans are much better at politics and the parochial manner of governance; and 2) democrats really are total wimps and too often succumb to the "guilt manipulation" used by the right.
-Destroying evidence is still a crime; civil law violation for individuals is called "spoliation."
-The real reason the tapes were destroyed is because the horrible, gut-wrenching screams of two humans being tortured would shock the American conscience, maybe almost as much as watching a human having his head sawed off with a dull knife. I can't even fathom the political effects of listening to two men being tortured by CIA agents . . .
@14 I understand your misgivings about political engagement, and the fear it could lead to war and mindless aggression. It's certainly true that if you work a bunch of desperate people into a belligerent political frenzy, violence is likely to erupt.
But the idea that the only way to avoid chaos and civil war is to keep people ignorant and apathetic...that seems completely counter to the concept of democracy. I mean, if the only way to save democracy is to have people not participate in it, what's the point, right? It just smacks too much of the argument of a despot - the false choice of repressive patriarchal government vs. chaos and mass murder.
Surely people can be engaged and principled about politics without committing murder?
@14
Maybe a little violence aimed at the overthrow of a corrupt political order and a complacent public is what the US needs. It certainly would be in keeping with our best traditions.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson
Not sure I'm willing to see that blood run in the streets personally. But I don't see much changing without it. The direction we're headed in will pretty mandate it eventually, real dictators don't give up power because they're voted out, and while we don't have a real dictator yet we are heading that way.
Bread, Circuses, Emperors. Welfare, Football, President-for-life. I could see it happening.
-abs
abs...good luck with that violent overthrow when you have thugs like blackwater in place to the highest bidder.
I don't think it'll happen Elysian. Not even sure it could happen, mobs don't do well against Apache helicopters unless you arm them with weapons more powerful than rifles and handguns.
Nor am I suggesting we should revolt yet. Not only am I far too soft-hearted to be willing to deal with the responsibility for all that blood that advocating it would require, I also think it would be massively over-reacting given the current situation.
I just fear it could become inevitable if the US keeps going in the same direction it currently is.
Which I desperately hope it does not.
-abs
Kyle:
Against whom do you revolt, exactly? This is the central problem for people who actually do want to revolt. But what do you do?
Voting would help. Most Americans do not vote. Contacting your senator or congressperson helps too. They really do respond to that. Do you even know who your local reps (city, county, state) are? If not, get to know them and let them know what your issues are. Volunteer locally, attend caucuses or however it is set up in your state. Campaigns always need people to do things like stuff envelopes or to canvas a neighborhood. And yes, these things really do make a difference.
Don't panic. Violence will not solve anyone's problems and we are not anywhere close to a situation calling for it. Perhaps as a very last resort but like I said, we are nowhere near that. Don't forget that the internet has a way of distorting things. This is not 1933, and remember that Naomi Wolf is selling books. She tends to exaggerate a bit. Though I think she is correct in general, I have my doubts about just how dire things really are. There are signs that things are improving.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Isaac Asimov
Think about that.
I will agree with Noen that we are not near the state where violence in the streets is an acceptable solution. But I must disagree about signs pointing to things improving, in fact I read the auguries as pointing towards things worsening. I hope Noen's right, and I'm wrong.
I will also second Noen in suggesting that we should vote more as a nation. While I have said that no dictator is going to leave power just because of a vote we are not, yet, living in a dictatorship. We're just heading towards one. I find it terribly frustrating when I try to convince my friends to vote and simply can't seem to get them to agree to it, even when they strongly disagree with our government or one of it's decisions. Just makes me weep, metaphorically.
I like Asimov, but like Heinlen he's a great science fiction author and a rather crappy political analyst. Violence has done a lot of good AND a lot of bad, probably more bad than good if history is allowed to be read into the court's proceedings. In the end violence is that last refuge of everyone, competant and incompetant alike. And sometimes that refuge should be used, WWII comes to mind, as does the American Civil War or the American Revolution, sometimes a violent solution is the right one.
The danger is in humanity's willingness to resort to violence when it isn't the right answer, a willingness that we've proved is ever so human time and time again. Lots of primates make war, it's just who we are, whether african chimp, baboon, or human. You can decry it, you can try to fight against it, but violence is in our nature.
-abs
Let me know how the revolution turns out. As for me, I'm reminded that it's almost time to renew my membership to the ACLU.
I'd rather at least give peaceful opposition a CHANCE to run its course before taking up arms. But I suppose there are those that would rather face off against guns than lawyers, so who is to say which is really more humane...
Let's all hope there's no need for a revolution.
Anyhow, let me know how your peaceful opposition works out. The current administration doesn't seem terribly impressed.
For now I'll go home and have a drink, vote in my elections, talk to my representatives, and hope something changes. The drink is for my expectation that nothing will change.
-abs
absimiliard, the sign that I see is the latest NIE that was released this past week. It has derailed Dick Cheney's jonesing for nuclear war with Iran. Why did it happen? Well, there is considerable opposition coming from within the government. I take that as a good sign.
Other good signs that I see are the recent implosion of Mike Huckabee and the still swirling controversies surrounding Giuliani and his mistress. Mitt Romney will never be elected president. In general, the GOP is going down in flames and the Dems look to be picking up perhaps 20 seats.
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Yes, the Dems suck but we in the base have been working hard to correct that and rid ourselves of corporate patsies Like Rahm Emanuele
We are not out of danger though:
Hannah Arendt
"The stubbornness with which totalitarian dictators have clung to their original lies in the face of absurdity is more than superstitious gratitude to what turned the trick.... Once these propaganda slogans are integrated into a "living organization," they cannot be safely eliminated without wrecking the whole structure."
This is why Bush has tried to spin the NIE report showing that Iran had given up it's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons into a "The fact that they tried only proves we should bomb them now" argument.
Knowledge is power. Knowing what is going on and why gives you the power to make difference choices than you would otherwise.
Actually Noen, you make a good point about the NIE. I'd not thought of that when I made my statement about the auguries being bad. That is a very encouraging sign.
Alas, I think the trend towards greater government opaqueness is increasing and this is just an exception.
I'm also very discouraged that the Democrats who were largely given Congress in the most recent elections in order to try to change things the Executive has done have pretty much proven all they care about is preserving the increased Executive powers so that they can have them in '08 if they win.
I'll cross my fingers though. You are right the NIE is pretty encouraging. Though I am stumped as to why Bush didn't at least delay it, or alter his rhetoric about it. Makes me wonder what he has behind his back . . .. .
-abs
Pardon the sarcasm, but all this talk about revolution, resistance, and civil disobedience makes me laugh, considering the number of Americans who don't even vote.
Has anybody called their Congressperson lately? Signed a petition? Sent an e-mail, even? How about voted?
To those who have done any of these things lately: thank you! To those of you who have not, might I respectfully suggest that you get off your ass? :)
Cynicism that is not the result of having already beaten your head against the wall over and over and over, and gotten few if any results, is unearned, and we should be wary of it. IMHO.
PS: Impeach Bush!
http://www.impeachbush.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush
Absimiliard:
To be fair, there's a lot the Democrats can't get done without pissing off the centrist independent who holds the key to their Senate majority- Joe Lieberman.
If the Dems had even one more seat, they wouldn't have to kowtow to the esteemed gentleman from Connecticut (who was far enough from the Dem mainstream to get the boot in the 2006 primary) and we'd see Dems acting like Dems- instead of like Lieberman.
Prufrock451, you might want to read Glen Greenwald's post on Salon about this.
And Marty Lederman at Balkinazation
The Democrats are complicit.
Oh MY, how the worm turns.
The Politico has a letter from Reyes and Hoekstra to Hayden. In his message to CIA employees, Hayden has said that: "The leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency’s intention to dispose of the material." This seems to be false.
Reyes and Hoekstra claim:
"Based upon available records and our best recollection, this simply is not true," said a joint letter from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) and the committee's ranking member and former chairman, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.).
Ron Suskind (who has sources in the CIA) has claimed that Abu Zubaydah was tortured on Bush's orders, and over CIA protests. We also know that typically Bush has claimed he was not informed in past scandals. This time however Bush is playing the Alberto Gonzales gambit and says he can't remember.
I bet Bush is consulting daily with those criminal defense lawyers he hired just recently.
@21: Okay...but bear in mind that for every politically-engaged Cesar Chavez or the like, you may well wind up a new Karl Rove or two.
The current system of apathy in the US ensures that people who are big believers in the democratic process can get involved in politics. If you start getting other people in politics, you run the risk of engaging people who have no interest in democracy in the political process.
@22: The last time that happened, we wound up killing about two percent of the US population. (US population in 1860 being about 30 million, and 600,000 deaths during the Civil War.) Assuming we're no better at killing each other now than then, ask yourself if what you want is worth perhaps six million people dying over it.
@35: Yeah, that's the idea. I'd far rather people across the board became more politically engaged, because I'm very confident that the overall result would be an increase in support for issues I care about and agree with. More importantly, though, a vocal opposition to any movement, regardless how well intentioned, is a valuable thing which prevents group-think, and some of the worse symptoms of abstract ideology.
I'm sure things wouldn't go all exactly how I feel they should, but I have enough faith in the power of an enthusiastic, engaged crowd that I'm willing to submit to their will when it contradicts my own - that's the essence of democracy.
What I'm not willing to submit to though, is the will of a nation of apathetic people, who have not asserted anything other than their willingness to go along with whoever demonstrates the most convincing claim to power.
@36: There's your big gamble-- you assume that most people agree with you, more or less, on enough issues important to you that you can stand the result.
Imagine that crowd of folks who are willing to passively go along with whoever's in authority. I'd wager that if you made them politically active, all you'd do is create people who actively go along with whoever's in authority-- basic dynamics of a primate tribe. That worries me far more than apathetic support with no real political drive behind it. An enthusiastic, engaged crowd just as easily describes a lynch mob as it does a grassroots political effort.
Cicada:
Huh? You're worrying about people becoming actively passive? Politically apolitical? I don't get it.
I think your argument is a tad elitist, if you don't mind my saying so.
After Bush won re-election, someone said to me, "I bet you wish even fewer people had voted, huh?"
My answer was, "No!"
The more people are politically engaged, the more marginalized the lunatic fringe becomes. It's a numbers game. Or at least it seems that way to me.
Nobody really knows how large groups of people behave or why.
Some think humans in aggregate are smarter, and that's why stock markets make better decisions than individual investors. Some people think the more people are involved, the more stupid the thinking is, because of the lowering of the average. IQ. Who knows?
For Cicada @35
At the moment. Nope, definitely not worth 6 million dead Americans. Not worth 6 million dead anybodies.
But that's based on the US as it stands right now. My statement could easily change.
For example: Estimates of the casualties Stalin inflicted on the Russian people during his reign of terror run from 20 million to as high as 50 million dead.
If I thought the US was in danger of putting a Stalin in power (and at the moment I do NOT think that) I'd sacrifice 6 million of us in a heartbeat to stop it. And before you ask, yes, I would happily take my place in that 6 million.
So sure, you're right, 6 million deaths don't justify a revolution over copyright laws, or even the current abuses of the War on Some Drugs, they wouldn't even be worth stopping the Iraq war. But you're also wrong, 6 million is a trivial price to pay if that's what it takes to save 20-50 million.
And for what it's worth, I'd sacrifice 6 million to stop a secession by slave-holding states too if that was happening today.
Did you have a point beyond trying to scare me into slavish agreement that revolution is never justified in the modern world with a high body count? Try harder.
-abs
Um, really, abs? You'd sacrfice 6 million, if the cause was good enough? Have I got that right? Just checking. 'Cause to me you sound stark raving mad...but I'm hoping I misinterpreted you.
Nick:
I believe Absimiliard was saying that there are, theoretically speaking, causes that would be worth going to war for, even if the death toll would be six million US lives, particularly if it were the only way to save millions more. Like, "Dr. Xanadu is going to destroy the earth with his black hole machine! We have to stop him!" "Well, okay, but casualty estimates are six million." What do you say to that? I think that position is hard to call "stark raving mad", unless you're a hard-core pacifist. (I am, actually, but never mind that — I'm just trying to clarify the point here.)
Is that what he's saying? Should I amend my statement to "patially mad" then? I'm not comfortable with the kind of thinking that does sums with lives. It's a little "mad" sounding to me.
In other words, the very idea that there is any legitimate cause for war beyond the most basic self-defense is wrong in my opinion. Does that make me a hardcore pacifist? I don't think so.
Also, I'll just point out that the event that abs posited would be worth a war that killed 6 million would be Stalin taking power. In other words, a political event.
Maybe it's just the phrasing and I'm misreading it, but that puts up red flags for me. It's violence in the cause of a political position. I.e., mad.
And anyway, no, I'm sorry, but the end does not justify the means. I don't subscribe to that philosophy.
Nick: I'd call a pacifistic philosophy as strong as yours (and mine) hardcore pacifism, yes, but I don't want to quibble over labels. If you're saying that justifications for war always sound a little mad to you, then I can get behind that, but there are so many people who aren't pacifists that I can't get up to "stark raving mad" just for advocating war in a particular fantasy circumstance.
Jere7my: Fair enough.
But listen, I didn't say he was stark raving mad, just that he sounded like he was. So lay off already!!
Just kidding. :)
Hi Nick,
Not sure if you're still reading this thread, sorry, didn't check in over the weekend.
What I'm saying is that if I were in Stalin's Russia before the purges began and someone said, "Sure, we could revolt and put Stalin out of power but the civil war could cost us 6 million people, but if we succeed in deposing him it might save 20 - 50 million lives" I'd sign up for that revolt in a heartbeat.
I'm also saying that if someone said, "Because we believe that slavery is evil, and we believe that secession from the United States is wrong, and we have been attacked at Fort Sumter, we will be going to war, but the cost in human lives could be terrible, possibly even incalculable" I would approve that war and I would go sign up with the Federal Army.
I would also have signed up for World War II, and approved of it, when the cause was stopping a crazy man committing genocide and bent on the conquest of much of the civilized world, even as a Russian I would've signed up and they lost most of the young men of military age that they had and then a chunk of the younger and older men as well.
Does that make me stark raving mad? Maybe.
But sometimes violence is justifiable. Usually it's not. The fact that I need to reach to find even three truly just wars shows that I don't think the vast majority of wars qualify. But there are times when I feel a body count in the millions is justifiable if the wrong that is to be righted is hideous enough.
And if the US became a true dictatorship and looked like it would be going through a Stalinist style purge, then yes, that would be enough.
Thank whatever gods you will that it doesn't look anywhere near that at the moment. (Personally I'll thank the Spaghetti Monster for it, but who knows what gods you would prefer) I dearly hope we never reach that stage, but if the US doesn't start voting soon and stops responding to fear tactics by those who believe in a unitary executive we could be headed in the direction that in 20-30 years could take us there. For now, political action and vigilance are the answer. But in Stalin's Russian . . . well, those weren't options any more than they were in Mao's China or Hitler's Germany.
Hopefully that clarifies my position. Whether or not it leaves you thinking I'm mad, or stark-raving mad, is another issue entirely. I am a veteran of the military and although I am personally a pacifist by nature I'm also quite willing to employ lethal force in self-defense or in a just enough cause.
Maybe that does make me a raving looney, but it's very human. We are a violent species, and denying that is just denying human nature.
-abs