State Secrets, State Secrets Are No Fun
Despite Barack Obama’s frequent paeans to the value of transparency during the presidential campaign, his Justice Department has incensed civil liberties advocates by parroting the Bush administration’s broad invocations of the “state secrets privilege” in an effort to torpedo lawsuits challenging controversial interrogation and surveillance policies. Though in many cases the underlying facts have already been widely reported, DOJ lawyers implausibly claimed, not merely that particular classified information should not be aired in open court, but that any discussion of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” of detainees to torture-friendly regimes, or of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping, would imperil national security.
That may—emphasis on may—finally begin to change as of October 1st, when new guidelines for the invocation of the privilege issued by Attorney General Eric Holder kick in. Part of the change is procedural: state secrets claims will need to go through a review board and secure the personal approval of the Attorney General. Substantively, the new rules raise the bar for assertions of privilege by requiring attorneys to provide courts with specific evidence showing reason to expect disclosure would result in “significant harm” to national security. Moreover, those assertions would have to be narrowly tailored so as to allow cases to proceed on the basis of as much information as can safely be disclosed.
That’s the theory, at any rate. The ACLU is skeptical, and argues that relying on AG guidelines to curb state secrets overreach is like relying on the fox to guard the hen house. And indeed, hours after the announcement of the new guidelines—admittedly not yet in effect—government attorneys were singing the state secrets song in a continuing effort to get a suit over allegations of illegal wiretapping tossed. The cynical read here is that the new guidelines are meant to mollify legislators contemplating statutory limits on state secrets claims while preserving executive discretion to continue making precisely the same arguments, so long as they add the word “significant” and jump through a few extra hoops. Presumably we’ll start to see how serious they are come October. And as for those proposed statutory limits, if the new administration’s commitment to greater accountability is genuine, they should now have no objection to formal rules that simply reinforce the procedures and principles they’ve voluntarily embraced.
How Much for a Schlub?
Over at The Corner, Rich Lowry put up a post on detainee interrogations that I responded to. Follow-up posts are available here and here.
Jay Nordlinger steps in to offer the view that, with terrorists, the difference between a “schlub” and a “monster” isn’t much. A pathetic radical can cause a lot of damage with just a little bit of luck.
This may be true, but there is a valuable ends-means calculation that must be considered (also addressed in Julian Sanchez’s post here).
How many times must we use coercive interrogation and get nothing, suffering the inevitable backlash in public opinion and enemy recruiting, for each intelligence success? If you are willing to torture a dozen/hundred/thousand men for each schlub, you will motivate a sufficient number of monsters to make a small tactical victory a pyrrhic one at best, and a strategic debacle at worst.
The big picture trends against torture, or any use of force that crosses the line between mutual combat and violating human rights, or the use of indiscriminate force. The attack on September 11, 2001 crossed that line, and we justifiably responded with military action. The use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EIT’s) crossed that line, and the enemy used it as propaganda fodder.
The British faced a parallel situation in Northern Ireland in 1971. After employing mass arrests that stoked the fires behind the IRA, the Brits employed “special interrogation techniques.” Former FBI Special Agent and successful terrorist group infiltrator Mike German covers this in his book, Thinking Like a Terrorist (citing Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA):
Among the methods used on the internees were the “five techniques”: placing a hood over the head; forcing the internee to stand spreadeagled against a wall for long periods; denying regular sleep patterns; providing irregular and limited food and water; and subjecting people to white noise in the form of a constant humming sound.
Sound familiar? Violence in Northern Ireland increased as a result of these practices. The Brits crossed the line again on Bloody Sunday when they fired into a crowd of peaceful protestors (possibly a response to IRA gunfire at British paratroopers). The tide shifted in favor of the IRA until they broke the unwritten rules of the game on Bloody Friday, detonating twenty-two bombs in Belfast that killed nine people. Tactically masterful, but a political disaster.
The Bush administration changed tactics in its second term in office, discarding EIT’s and moving away from physical coercion of detainees. This was a sensible decision, and there is no reason for the Obama administration to change course.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Lowry and Interrogation
Veronique de Rugy put up a post at The Corner referencing Rich Lowry’s defense of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and my response. Rich has since responded.
With regard to the apprehension of Uzair Paracha, an Al Qaeda facilitator in New York, it seems likely that the apprehension of Majid Khan in Pakistan four days after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM) apprehension came from material picked up with KSM and not from interrogation. The key here is that when Majid Khan was in Pakistan, Paracha was pretending to be Majid Khan in communications with immigration officials. Detective work was probably what brought this guy under the microscope.
However, I’m willing to lay that aside because, as Rich points out, there is probably more to the story that shouldn’t be declassified. As I said on Bill O’Reilly’s show, we cannot end this argument until we have declassified all of the dead ends we pursued, which has some serious strategic drawbacks. The CIA recently asserted in court that it cannot reveal any more without compromising sources and methods.
Rich also says that my preferred method of interrogation is “dangling the promise of reduced sentences.”
This is not my preferred method, but it is one that ought to be available to interrogators. Under the Army Field Manual, an interrogator cannot promise anything in the court system. As Matthew Alexander points out in his book, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court has the death penalty attached to almost all of what we consider “material support of terrorism.” I am saying that the Prisoner’s Dilemma is an effective tool if a lesser included offense is on the table so that the first to squeal gets a few years and the others get the noose.
But let’s not discount the lawful interrogation techniques. When I attended SERE, the psychological techniques were far more compelling than the physical ones. We were all young and tough, but the mind tricks that turned brothers in arms against each other were downright disturbing.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
A Transparent Inquiry: The Only Way Forward
How could a country that claims to abide by principles like constitutional government and the rule of law do anything other than investigate credible claims of official abuse?
News that Attorney General Holder will appoint a prosecutor to investigate such claims will only surprise or upset people who have lost track of our national values.
CIA Director Leon Panetta doesn’t help the cause by issuing a statement to the CIA staff saying, “America is a nation at war.” Whether we are or not, that lullaby-in-reverse — reassuring CIA staff with a poke at the panic button — would seem to ratify expediency over professionalism.
A Terrorist We Should Have Prosecuted
Andy McCarthy makes a good point over at The Corner about Laith al-Khazali, a member of a Shiite militant group responsible for the deaths of American troops in Iraq. Al-Khazali has been released, allegedly as part of negotiations with terrorists holding British hostages. Senators Sessions and Kyl have questioned this action in a letter to President Obama.
McCarthy lays out the facts on al-Khazali here. Al-Khazali participated in a sophisticated attack on American troops in Karbala. The militants wore American uniforms and took American soldiers hostage. After leaving the site of the attack, the militants executed their prisoners.
Though I have disagreed with McCarthy on other issues, he makes a valid point here.
Al-Khazali is guilty of honest-to-goodness war crimes.
Wearing an enemy’s uniform for infiltration is permissible. Wearing an enemy’s uniform while shooting at them is perfidy, a prosecutable war crime.
Otto Skorzeny, head Nazi commando, was acquitted of perfidy after World War II. Skorzeny’s men had infiltrated American lines during the Battle of the Bulge while wearing American uniforms. They avoided firing at American troops while in our uniforms, though in two instances fired at American troops in self-defense. British commando Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas testified for the defense, saying that he had infiltrated German lines in a German uniform. W. Hays Parks provides an excellent discussion of special operations soldiers’ use of non-standard uniform and the legal boundaries of this issue here. Al-Khazali crossed the line by wearing an American uniform while firing at our soldiers.
Killing enemy soldiers after they are in your custody is also a prosecutable war crime. We prosecuted German soldiers for doing this in the Malmedy Massacre, and have prosecuted our own soldiers for killing prisoners. We have even prosecuted contractors for killing prisoners on the battlefield and during interrogation.
Al-Khazali deserves to be brought to justice. It is a shame we did not provide it.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Bierfeldt v. Napolitano Roundup
Back on March 29th, Campaign for Liberty employee Steven Bierfeldt was leaving the Campaign’s regional conference in St. Louis, Missouri. He was carrying $4700 in cash donations and Campaign for Liberty and Ron Paul literature. TSA personnel at the St. Louis airport felt that carrying this amount of cash was “suspicious” and detained him for interrogation. The TSA personnel intended to take Bierfeldt to the local police station for further questioning after he refused to answer the questions associated with their fishing expedition. Luckily, a plainclothes officer arrived and spoke briefly with one of the TSA officers, who told Bierfeldt that he was free to go.
Bierfeldt is now filing suit against Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. The ACLU Blog of Rights has more on the suit, including a digital copy of the complaint. Filing suit to prove that “[c]arrying $4700 in cash poses no conceivable threat to flight safety” is a sign that airport screening is going too far.
Bierfeldt was right to be wary of airport screening while carrying Ron Paul and Campaign for Liberty literature. The Missouri Information Analysis Center, one of 70+ “fusion centers” in the nation, had just released its report on domestic terrorism and the militia movement. Libertarians are expressly targeted as potential domestic terrorists:
Cato recently held a forum on this phenomenon, Fusion Centers: Domestic Spying or Sensible Surveillance? My colleague Tim Lynch hosted, and panelists included Bruce Fein, Constitutional Attorney, The Lichfield Group; Harvey Eisenberg, Chief, National Security Section, Office of United States Attorney, District of Maryland; and Michael German, Policy Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union. Audio and video are available at the link.
Mike German has written extensively on this topic. Read his November 2007 report, What’s Wrong with Fusion Centers and July 2008 update. Mike is a former FBI agent and author of the excellent book, Thinking Like a Terrorist.
You can watch Mr. Bierfeldt giving his side of the story to Judge Andrew Napolitano (no relation to Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano) on Fox’s Freedom Watch.
Judge Napolitano recently spoke at the Cato book forum, Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America. Co-panelists included my colleague Jason Kuznicki and Reason’s Damon Root.
Cheney vs. Obama: Tale of the Tape
In case you missed it, President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke separately today on terrorism and national security. Like two boxers at a pre-fight press conference, they each touted their strength over their opponent. They espoused deep differences in their views on national counterterrorism strategy.
The Thrilla in Manilla it ain’t. As Gene Healy has pointed out, they agree on a lot more than they admit to. Harvard Law professor and former Bush Office of Legal Counsel head Jack Goldsmith makes the same point at the New Republic. Glenn Greenwald made a similar observation.
However, the areas where they differ are important: torture, closing Guantanamo, criminal prosecution, and messaging. In these key areas, Obama edges out Cheney.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Former FBI Agent: Torture Sucks. Don’t Do It.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings produced an ugly picture of the role torture played in interrogating Al Qaeda leaders. The testimony of former FBI agent Ali Soufan shows how traditional intelligence techniques worked on Abu Zubaydah and “enhanced” techniques did nothing to advance national security interests:
Immediately after Abu Zubaydah was captured, a fellow FBI agent and I were flown to meet him at an undisclosed location. We were both very familiar with Abu Zubaydah and have successfully interrogated al-Qaeda terrorists. We started interrogating him, supported by CIA officials who were stationed at the location, and within the first hour of the interrogation, using the Informed Interrogation Approach, we gained important actionable intelligence.
We were once again very successful and elicited information regarding the role of KSM as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and lots of other information that remains classified. (It is important to remember that before this we had no idea of KSM’s role in 9/11 or his importance in the al Qaeda leadership structure.)
Soufan then recounts a tug-of-war between the interrogators and the contractors brought in to apply the third degree. The intelligence and law enforcement professionals struggled to reestablish rapport with Zubaydah after each iteration of harsh interrogation tactics.
The new techniques did not produce results as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking. At that time nudity and low-level sleep deprivation (between 24 and 48 hours) was being used. After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from DC asking why all of sudden no information was being transmitted (when before there had been a steady stream), we again were given control of the interrogation.
We then returned to using the Informed Interrogation Approach. Within a few hours, Abu Zubaydah again started talking and gave us important actionable intelligence.
The enhanced interrogation techniques were not only inferior to traditional interrogation techniques, they proved counterproductive. The use of illegal techniques resurrected the “wall” between the CIA and the FBI with regard to these detainees. This prevented FBI experts who knew more about Al Qaeda than anyone else in the government from questioning them. Plus, as Soufan recounts, coercive techniques make detainees tell you what you want to hear, whether it is true or not. As Jesse Ventura says, “you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney, and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
Torture did not advance the work of picking apart Al Qaeda, it disrupted it.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Torture? No.
Charles Krauthammer’s recent column tells us that the wisdom of torture is undeniable. According to Krauthammer, there are two situations where torture is justified: the ticking time bomb scenario and when we capture high-ranking terrorists and conclude that giving them the third degree may save lives. Furthermore, it would be “imprudent” for anyone who would not use torture to be named the commander of Central Command (CENTCOM), the military organization in charge of American forces in the Middle East.
The generals who have been in charge of CENTCOM and other national security officials disagree.
Here is a video of General Petraeus, current commander of Central Command, saying that American forces cannot resort to torturing prisoners:
The open letter Petraeus mentions in the video is available here. He admonishes our troops to treat prisoners humanely. “Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemies.”
Former CENTCOM commanders Anthony Zinni and Joseph Hoar don’t endorse torture either, evidenced by their open letter (along with dozens of other former general officers) to Congress asking that the CIA abide by the Army interrogation manual.
Hoar and former Commandant of the Marine Corps Charles Krulak wrote separately to denounce torture:
As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture — only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works — the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb.
So, once we sign off on the ticking time bomb scenario, the rationalization spreads to whenever we think it may save lives. Sound familiar?
These former commanders are not alone. Colonel Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, also had some words on the subject. “We can never retake the moral high ground when we claim the right to do unto others that which we would vehemently condemn if done to us.”
Malcolm Nance, former head of the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape course (where sailors are trained in resisting interrogation techniques, including waterboarding), seems to know a thing or two about the topic. “I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people.” He roundly denounces the use of waterboarding as wrong, ineffective, and counterproductive. Just for the record, water actually enters the lungs of a waterboarding victim. This is not simulated drowning, but controlled drowning. Read the whole thing.
Krauthammer’s column gives the impression that all national security experts support making torture our national policy. Wrong.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Does Transparency Inspire Terrorism?
The debate over the Obama administration’s release of the torture memos took an important turn during the past week, as reflected in discussions on the Sunday morning shows.
The economy was the lead story on Fox News Sunday, but in the second segment Chris Wallace led his questioning of Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) as follows:
The Pentagon now says that it’s going to release hundreds of photos of alleged abuse of detainees by U.S. personnel – this, after, of course, the release of the interrogation memos. Senator Bond, how serious is the threat of a backlash in the Middle East and the recruitment of more terrorists, possibly endangering U.S. soldiers in that part of the world?
Revelation! The idea that abusive practices on the part of the United States would draw people to the side of its enemies.
In the media, most of the debate up to now has centered on the tactical question of whether torture works, and to some degree the moral dimension. (Here’s David Rittgers on the former and Chris Preble on the latter.)
There’s an ineluctable conclusion from understanding that torture drives recruitment which endangers our soldiers: It is strategic error to engage in abusive practices. Abuse on the part of the United States adds heads to the hydra.
But wait. Wallace’s question may imply that it is release of the photos – not commission of the underlying offenses – that risks causing a backlash. This cannot be.
Given the governments they’ve long experienced, people in the Muslim and Arab worlds will generally assume the worst from what they know – and assume that even more than what they know is being hidden. Transparency about U.S. abuses cuts against that narrative and confuses the story that the United States is an abuser akin to the governments Arabs and Muslims have known.
Abusive practices create backlash against the United States. Transparency about abuses after the fact will dispel backlash and muddy the terrorist narrative about the United States and its role in the Middle East.
As the question turns to prosecution of wrongdoing by U.S. officials, such as lawyers who warped the law beyond recognition to justify torture, transparent application of the rule of law in this area would further disrupt a terrorist narrative about the United States.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Regrets over Bush Administration Torture?
Chris Preble has nicely detailed the reasons we should not torture. The practice offers no guarantee of good information, harms America’s international reputation, and sacrifices the values that set this nation apart.
Now comes a report that Judge Jay S. Bybee, the head of the Bush adminsitration Office of Legal Counsel who signed off on the infamous torture memos, regrets his role in the matter. According to the Washington Post:
“I’ve heard him express regret at the contents of the memo,” said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as “piling on.” “I’ve heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I’ve heard him express regret at the lack of context — of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety.”
That notoriety worsened this week as the documents — detailing the acceptable application of waterboarding, “walling,” sleep deprivation and other procedures the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation methods” — prompted calls from human rights advocates and other critics for criminal investigations of the government lawyers who generated them.
This regret could reflect convenient timing — after all, the torture stories have not exactly enhanced Bybee’s reputation. But it might also demonstrate a sobering realization as to how his opinions were used or misused. As a believer in human redemption, I’m going to play the optimist and go with the latter for now.
“Soft” Interrogation Yields the Best Results
My colleague Chris Preble sketches out some of the moral pitfalls that come with authorizing torture in his post. Beyond that, history shows that utilitarian claims that torture has enhanced our safety are also mistaken.
While torture can in some instances provide valid intelligence, it can also produce false information motivated only by a desire to end suffering. Successful interrogators from World War II to the modern day have used rapport and psychology, not brutality, to get inside the heads of their enemies.
The Air Force interrogator who helped bag Abu Musab al Zarqawi, writing under the pseudonym Matthew Alexander, says that the difference between an interrogator and a used car salesman is that the interrogator has to abide by the Geneva Conventions. No torture there, and a good read to boot.
This theme is echoed in Kyndra Rotunda’s book Honor Bound:
I knew one CITF agent and one FBI agent who were Muslims, and both knew how to coax the truth from detainees’ lips. One word captures their effective, secret ingredient to successful interrogations – patience. They each spent hours visiting with the detainee, sharing tea, bringing gifts of dried fruits, and talking endlessly about family, Allah, and the Quran.
This should come as no surprise, since it is a repackaging of the techniques of World War II interrogator Hanns Scharff, “Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe.” Scharff treated downed Allied pilots humanely, gaining their trust and sympathy while gleaning significant information about Allied air power and advance warning of the D-Day landing. The Allies wanted to prosecute him after the war for interrogating their pilots so effectively, but dropped the charges when they couldn’t substantiate him so much as raising his voice. He came to the United States after the war and did mosaic art work at Walt Disney World.
So color me unsurprised when a former FBI supervisory agent says that we gained actionable intelligence by traditional interrogation techniques, and that torture backfired on us.
The release of memoranda authorizing torture will help prevent the U.S. from ever traveling this dark path again. The U.S. has consistently taken the moral high ground in armed conflicts, contrasting our behavior with the savagery our enemies engaged in for decades. The historical record shows that mercy, not might, is the key to successful interrogation.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Counterterrorism, Torture, and the Law
Over at The Wall Street Journal, Cong. Peter Hoekstra calls for an investigation into “what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.” Hoekstra implies, or at least clearly believes, that Obama’s renunciation of torture has made the country less safe. Rest assured, when the next attack occurs (and there will be another attack), Hoekstra and other supporters of torture will claim vindication, even though they won’t be able to point to direct evidence that torture would have averted the attack. It is equally impossible to prove a negative — why something does not occur — as it is to prove that an action not taken in the past would have prevented something in the present.
Similarly, former Vice President Cheney claims that the use of techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and cramped confinement enabled the U.S. government to stop future terrorist attacks, and he has asked the Obama administration to declassify the documents that supposedly prove it. Cheney has previously said that President Obama’s renunciation of torture increases the likelihood that future attacks will be successful.
Of course, Cheney has not asked for the declassification of all information obtained by torture. He presumably doesn’t want the American people to know the countless false positives, the fake leads, the purely bogus information offered up by those being tortured in a vain attempt to halt — or merely postpone — their severe discomfort. (Gene Healy documents a few of these in his recent column.)
Nor can Cheney or Hoekstra prove that the few kernels of useful information obtained under torture could only have been acquired under torture, and not by other techniques, techniques that were consistent with our laws, and that we employed in past conflicts. They can’t prove such claims, because they aren’t true.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
The CIA Is Not the Nation’s Security
Michael Hayden went on Fox News Sunday this week, fiercely objecting to the Obama administration’s release of Bush-era memos regarding “enhanced interrogation techniques.” He and three other former CIA directors objected to the release.
That common front might draw the memo release into doubt if it wasn’t a given that CIA directors are always going to defend the interests of the CIA.
Hayden trotted out the tired “war” on terror metaphor. This framing may be exciting to him and his colleagues, but it is strategic error to address terrorism this way, and the American public chose a presidential candidate last November who campaigned to emphasize hope over fear. Intoning about war did not help Hayden’s case.
The heart of his argument was that release of the memos would allow our enemies to train for “enhanced interrogation techniques” and that we would lose the benefits of those techniques. But a telling moment came when he shifted his argument:
There’s another point, too, that I have to make, and it’s just not the tactical effect of this technique or that. It’s the broader effect on CIA officers. I mean, if you’re a current CIA officer today – in fact, I know this has happened at the agency after the release of these documents – officers are saying, “The things I’m doing now – will this happen to me in five years because of the things I am doing now?”
Moving from tactical considerations to the “broader effect,” Hayden spoke of how the memo release would chill CIA activity. That’s not irrelevant, but it’s not the broader effect that matters: the strategic effect of using torture in counterterrorism activity. Like the myopic critic I wrote about in my post last week, Hayden is not focused on countering the strategic logic of terrorism, but on defending the interests of the agency he headed.
Chris Wallace showed a brief clip of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs criticizing “enhanced interrogation techniques” on a strategic level: “It is the use of those techniques . . . in the view of the world that [has] made us less safe.” Being a secretive torturer drives allies away from the United States.
Hayden didn’t get it, answering, “Most of the people who oppose these techniques want to be able to say, ‘I don’t want my nation doing this,’ which is a purely honorable position, ‘and they didn’t work anyway.’ That back half of the sentence isn’t true.”
Against the argument that the use of torture is strategic error, Hayden responded, “But it works!” Arguing its tactical utility does not meet the strategic case against torture.
And Hayden was well back on his heels when asked whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month.
Hayden is a fierce defender of the CIA. The CIA provides some elements of the nation’s security. But the CIA is not the nation’s security.
Obama and the Interrogation Memos: The Right Decision
President Obama’s decision to release Bush-era memos discussing “enhanced interrogation techniques” is the right decision. Critics, such as the one featured in this Politico article, fail to comprehend terrorism as a strategy. Thus, they are locked into counterproductive policies like secrecy and torture.
Let’s start with the strategic logic of terrorism: By goading strong powers into overreaction and error, terrorism weakens those powers and strengthens itself. Among other things, overreaction and misdirection on the part of the strong power draw sympathy and support to terrorists as it confirms the terrorist narrative that they are in a struggle against evil powers.
Torture or credible accounts of torture provide confirmation of a suspicion among relatively unsophisticated observers in the Middle East (once known as the “street“) that the United States is a colonist and an oppressor of Muslims and Arabs. Secrecy is a way in which such stories grow and multiply. The results of torture and secrecy are millions of people who believe, suspect, or worry that they and their culture are on the losing end of a battle for supremacy in the world. (We have some of those on the American street, too.)
From these millions emerge individuals and groups — eventually perhaps networks — who devote their creativity to developing and eventually mounting attacks on the United States and the West. (The path to terrorism is not simple or well-understood. Several panels in our January counterterrorism conference explored dimensions of this question.)
Just as important, non-participants in terrorism who are ideologically or physically nearby to inchoate terrorists decline opportunities to undermine the terrorism brewing around them. Terrorists are bad people with ugly ideologies, and their neighbors know it, but these neighbors will overlook all that if they see the United States as a wrongdoer. Because of secrecy and torture, the United States loses these natural allies and the security they would otherwise provide.
But what about the loss of enhanced interrogation techniques? “Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again,” says a critic, “even in a ticking-time-bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake.”
The ticking-time-bomb scenario is a movie plot that evidently thrills some in the counter-terrorism community. But the chance of a significant weapon being acquired and used by terrorists is very small. The chance that U.S. authorities will know about it and know who to interrogate at just the right moment: pure fantasy. Such a moment would only arrive as the result of many, many failures on the part of U.S. intelligence and security organizations to protect our interests.
Even assuming that torture actually works, which is very much in dispute, the security given by having the sympathy of millions of people in the Muslim and Arab worlds is much, much greater than the security of having legal authorization to torture. The security of having world goodwill helps ensure that we never arrive at the ticking time-bomb moment.
If that’s frustrating to torture hawks, there are video games where they can avenge the 9/11 attacks over and over again. The rest of us will rue the failings that allowed 9/11 to happen while we work on sophisticated, strategic counter-terrorism that actually secures the country. Many in the intelligence and security communities have sophisticated views on counter-terrorism and are eager to get on with policies that aren’t counterproductive.
President Obama has made the right decision in releasing the memos — and not just right in some abstract legal or moral sense. It is the correct strategic decision for countering terrorism.
His critics’ focus on one or two trees — saplings like the “ticking time-bomb” fantasy — obscures the forest that would grow higher still should the United States persist in being a secretive torturer.
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