All Cretans are liars

A former Bush speechwriter attempts to put our minds at ease about torture.  He tells us that tortured prisoners do not lie, because the lying deceitful terrorists (whom we should never believe) have told us under torture that they don't:

Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence because people will say anything to get the techniques to stop. But the memos note that, "as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, 'brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship." In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can — and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that "Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable." The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely. 

Besides, it's their religious duty not to lie under torture–and we ought to take that at face value.

6 thoughts on “All Cretans are liars”

  1. This is a dumb argument. He should have ended his article after the 1st half of the article. There’s plenty of good argument/proof in there.
    However, he goes into this psychological/theological reasoning of why it works.
    I think he’s missing the point. The question at hand is not why it works or not, but if it does work or not.  After all, he did name his article:  “The CIA’s Questioning Worked“.

  2. The issue of what “works” is already question begging, quite aside from the lame psychological analysis.

    For one, the term is left largely undefined. Even if the claim is asserted that “works” means “gained actionable intelligence” it ignores the fact that such intelligence has been gained from non-aggressive means, and typically proven more reliable. And this narrowly construed version of “works” ignores much larger issues of “working” that equally deserve consideration.

    But perhaps more importantly, it begs the question by taking it for granted that the standard by which such things are to be evaluated is “what works.” To the contrary, regardless of whether it “works” or not, how is torture anything other than wrong?

  3. Completely agree with you, Gary: ” To the contrary, regardless of whether it “works” or not, how is torture anything other than wrong?

    Gary you also stated: ” if the claim is asserted that “works” means “gained actionable intelligence” it ignores the fact that such intelligence has been gained from non-aggressive means, and typically proven more reliable.”
    Now, the article states:
    “Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that “the CIA believes ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.'”
    I’m assuming the quote is specifically about “enhanced techniques” interrogations, sine that’s the subject at hand.  

    The moral question is the real question that should be debated. However, it seems that the authors reply to other objection:
    “Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence …”

    If the real critics are against it on moral grounds rather than “it works” grounds, then the authors are committing both a straw-man and begging the question.

  4. One might also be suspicious of a Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc claim: this is the “reason” why there have been no spectacular attacks against the West? I think we need something a little more substantive than that.

  5. A man is walking down the street.  He stops on a street corner.  There’s another man there, leaning against the light pole, snapping his fingers. 

    First man: “What are you doing?”

    Man on light pole: “Keeping the elephants away.”

    First man: “But there aren’t any elephants around here for a thousand miles!”

    Mon on light pole:  “Exactly.”

  6. This reminds me of a conversation I had with the renowned jurist Judge Smails.  When I asked him why he had condemned so many minors to the electric chair he told me that “I didn’t want to do it, but I felt I owed it to them”

Comments are closed.