Dueling Narratives
Andrew Sullivan (natch) takes note of this.
In November 2007, National Review published a column that has since gone on to be widely disseminated among torture apologists. I swear that I must have seen this blockquote a thousand times in the year after it was published. The premise of the article was that America ought to be proud of water-boarding and that, when done, it was used incredibly sparingly and only in extreme cases.
National Review:
U.S. and Pakistani authorities captured KSM on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. KSM stayed mum for months, often answering questions with Koranic chants. Interrogators eventually waterboarded him — for just 90 seconds. KSM “didn’t resist,” one CIA veteran said in the August 13 issue of The New Yorker. “He sang right away. He cracked real quick.” Another CIA official told ABC News: “KSM lasted the longest under water-boarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again.”
Survey says:
The CIA used the waterboard “at least 83 times during August 2002″ in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.
Now, there are two basic points, in very short form.
1. In terms of prosecutions, Obama and Holder’s statements that they didn’t intend to prosecute every CIA grunt that acted in good faith might not be as blanket as some are taking it. Clearly, even by the OLC’s incredible standards, most of the torture that was done was, EVEN BY THAT STANDARD, illegal.
2. The point of torture, it has been said, is torture. We’ve seen some op-eds in the past few days arguing that we only torture the hard cases, in instances where we need some very specific information immediately or else lives are at risk. The mythology of torture is that you apply it once, judiciously, and the subject breaks and tells you everything you need to know.
So what, praytell, is the point of torturing somebody 183 times in a month (and that’s just the waterboarding)? Did they just keep coming up with new questions? Did they think the first 182 times didn’t work?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. It was malice, plain and simple. It was done because it could be done. The point of torture is indeed torture.