What exactly is going on here?

I mean really. Let's engage in some real talk. Why does ANYONE need to broadcast that they will engage in any particular "enhanced interrogation" technique? Does it serve any national security interests? I don't see how giving ANY information to possible adversaries is of any use whatsoever. Do we think people who have signed up for martyrdom will be dissuaded by the possibility they might be waterboarded? Do we believe we will get better information from the technique by publicly admitting it will be used? It resolves to nonsense. Unsurprisingly.

But I'll tell you what purpose is served. A domestic political purpose. Because by broadcasting you will do X technique while your adversary has said they will not do X technique, you get to claim you are somehow tougher. That's it. The facts are that the politicians of either party will look the other way while the CIA does its business, as long as there is not a political price to pay. Let's not kid ourselves. "Enhanced interrogation" has been going on since forever. Is it torture? Let's ask another question to shed some light on it. Is convincing someone in custody that their entire family will be tortured and killed if they do not cooperate torture? Is locking someone in a completely dark cell for days on end torture? Are any of the many techniques that undoubtedly are practiced routinely NOT torture? Is not this whole exercise akin to debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? When have secret police (i.e., the CIA) not resorted to every trick in the book (effective or not) to achieve their ends? Are we really so naive as to think the secret police of the most powerful state the world has ever seen are going to follow the niceties of the Geneva convention?

So what we are really talking about here are intelligence leaks and security leaks.

And candidates posturing about the leaked information to position themselves in public perception. The take-away is that there is little or no real effect of the positioning on what happens on the ground.

As usual, we focus on all the wrong things. If we don't want our secret police doing nasty things, perhaps we should minimize the need for them to be doing anything at all. Of course there is no chance at all of that as long as people are continually distracted by meaningless rhetoric and sweeping fantasy solutions that would require revolution to implement. As long as people do not take full responsibility for their own participation in a very complex set of interconnected systems and institutions that define our world, we have no hope at all.

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justitia omnibus
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"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

---Mark Twain