Don't Say This
I was listening to Hannity on the ride in this morning (hey, I gotta get my laughs somewhere), and he and his guest, Minnesota people-hater Representative Michele Bachmann (of "we should investigate all Congressional Democrats for anti-American activity" fame) were discussing the practices of waterboarding and denying prisoners Constitutional rights, and the implications of them. Specifically that because of them, we haven't been attacked by terrorists since Sept., 2001.
There are two purely logical mistakes with this statement (which may or may not be the same depending on your brand of argumentation theory). I've heard friends that are quite bright repeat this argument, so I don't know if they aren't thinking through it or what, so today I begin my one-man campaign to bring the world to its senses.
The first error is causal. While it is possible that treating the prisoners at Gitmo the way we have may have played a role in preventing a future attack, it is equally (or perhaps more) possible that a future attack just wasn't planned in the first place. So the cause of the lack of attack could have been the torture, but in the event that there wasn't ever going to be a future attack, the torture didn't cause anything (except torture). I suspect that if interrogating prisoners at gitmo did prevent an attack, we would have heard about it (edit: in the form of a concrete, specific example), since the amount of political street cred that would have resulted would be the equivalent of winning a dance-off against Robert Muraine. The fancy Latin term for this sort of fallacy is cum hoc ergo propter hoc: just because A and B happen doesn't mean that A caused B.
The second error is effectual. While denying Habeus Corpus may help in preventing attacks, it's logically incorrect to say (without proof) that the lack of an attack was an effect of the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of Gitmo. It's convenient to say that it was an effect of torture, but that doesn't make it correct. It could have been the effect of any number of things, substantial or not. We haven't had an attack since Obama was elected president... could this be an effect of his devilishly handsome good looks? Could it be the result of the literally pope-worthy Reuben I made last night? The Romans called this post hoc ergo propter hoc: just because A happens and then B happens doesn't mean that B was an effect of A.
Anyway, if you hear someone say that Bush may have shredded the Constitution, but at least he kept us safe, just recount the tale of the glorious pastrami-stacked, sauerkraut-stacked goodness I consumed last evening, and how it may or may not be the cause of my impending heart attack.
There are two purely logical mistakes with this statement (which may or may not be the same depending on your brand of argumentation theory). I've heard friends that are quite bright repeat this argument, so I don't know if they aren't thinking through it or what, so today I begin my one-man campaign to bring the world to its senses.
The first error is causal. While it is possible that treating the prisoners at Gitmo the way we have may have played a role in preventing a future attack, it is equally (or perhaps more) possible that a future attack just wasn't planned in the first place. So the cause of the lack of attack could have been the torture, but in the event that there wasn't ever going to be a future attack, the torture didn't cause anything (except torture). I suspect that if interrogating prisoners at gitmo did prevent an attack, we would have heard about it (edit: in the form of a concrete, specific example), since the amount of political street cred that would have resulted would be the equivalent of winning a dance-off against Robert Muraine. The fancy Latin term for this sort of fallacy is cum hoc ergo propter hoc: just because A and B happen doesn't mean that A caused B.
The second error is effectual. While denying Habeus Corpus may help in preventing attacks, it's logically incorrect to say (without proof) that the lack of an attack was an effect of the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of Gitmo. It's convenient to say that it was an effect of torture, but that doesn't make it correct. It could have been the effect of any number of things, substantial or not. We haven't had an attack since Obama was elected president... could this be an effect of his devilishly handsome good looks? Could it be the result of the literally pope-worthy Reuben I made last night? The Romans called this post hoc ergo propter hoc: just because A happens and then B happens doesn't mean that B was an effect of A.
Anyway, if you hear someone say that Bush may have shredded the Constitution, but at least he kept us safe, just recount the tale of the glorious pastrami-stacked, sauerkraut-stacked goodness I consumed last evening, and how it may or may not be the cause of my impending heart attack.
Labels: Grammar Snarks
posted by Toney at 12:58 PM
20 Comments:
pastrami sandwich for dinner? weird
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's spacious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
You think that "it is equally (or perhaps more) possible that a future attack just wasn't planned in the first place."
I don't think I commit a logical fallacy when I say that your assertion fails the smell test. Al Qaeda and its operatives/affiliates had a pattern of attacks that predated 9/11 (first WTC, Nairobi embassay, USS Cole). Other attacks and attempted plots have followed. Night club bombings in Bali; the shoe-bomber; the dirty bomber; bombings in Tunisia; 3/11 in Madrid; 7/7 in London.
You're right that the lack of successful attacks does not prove the efficacy of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies. But I don't think that this prove their inefficacy either. And, assuming that waterboarding KSM got some good intell, I don't think it's a given that it would have been trumpeted about for political purposes. Moreover, many terrorist plots sound foolish and quixotic until they work. See, e.g., 9/11. So maybe publicizing foiled plots really wouldn't make anyone feel safer.
You have taken something of a diametrically opposed position to the clowns you mock, and in so doing, you come across as unpersuasive.
That felt like a Patrick post, until the part about pastrami sandwiches. also, "post hoc ergo propter hoc" = great West Wing episode. I wish I could contribute further to this discussion.
3:37 -
Lol. I took no such diametrically opposed position. Nothing in my post advocates the inefficacy of the Bush administration's torture policies, though my personal biases might have crept in a bit (yours did too... notice I used the term "torture policy", and you used the term "anti-terror policy", but that's just marketing).
Your string of cites to terror plots doesn't prove anything aside from the fact that terror exists. Nothing in there suggests that torture foiled any attacks, or that there were any attacks planned against the US that torture policy could have prevented, or that if there were prevented attacks that it wasn't something else that prevented them.
And you better believe a foiled attack would be politicized. With approval ratings in the low 20's, Bush would have done anything to prove that his near-universally condemned Gitmo antics were necessary. Even my Reuben (Rip) knew that.
There's only one thing here that fails the smell test...
Sorry Toney, but at the very least the tone of your post indicates you feel that you have already concluded that waterboarding etc. did not help prevent terrorist attacks.
Since none of us know that, I think it seems fair to say, at least as argument in favor, that it could be possibly linked to those interrogations.
I personally think that the detaining probably helped---as to specific techniques, how the hell would I know? Only a few people would.
You are absolutely right. I have already concluded that waterboarding didn't prevent terrorist attacks. But that's not the point of the post. 5 separate times between my original post and first comment I conceded that torture may have helped (don't you read?) But the entire point of the post is that it is a logical fallacy to state that it did, with no hard proof indicating so.
The other part of the fallacy is that it isn't true that the torture policy caused a good outcome if the alternative (interrogation without torture) would have produced the same amount of useful information, or more. Interrogation experts I've heard on the talk shows seem to think torture is a particularly bad way to gather information. Partly because they think you have the same or better chance of getting useful information without torture, and partly because the information you get with torture tends to include a lot of surplussage - more made up bits of seemingly juicy information the prisoner frantically throws out there to try to get the torture to stop.
Bush Legacy Project
As my contribution to the ‘Bush Legacy Project’ and in the interest of Truthful and Accurate History; the 2006 book that accounts for all of George W. Bush’s mindless exploits on September 11, is now posted online for free reading.
http://www.bushseptember11legacy.com/
Ron Schalow
Author
Bull$#!@ Artist – The 9/11 Leadership Myth
Was that spam?
Yeah, but it tastes meaty when you cook it.
I think this discussion misses nuances by assuming that anti-terror policies and torture are one and the same. (Toney, I consider this distinction to be more than marketing.) The evidence is that three people were waterboarded at Gitmo. Others have claimed that the cumulative effect of non-torture interrogation amounted to torture for certain detainees. This evidence suggests that much of the interrogation did not amount to terror. We can't prove or disprove that at this time, however.
There's also incapacitation to think of. Regardless of whether we're getting good intell, I think it makes sense to detain people who are likely to plot terrorist actions (and have openly admitted to doing so, in the case of KSM).
Finally, the 'string-cite' of terrorist actions was meant as a counterpoint to the suggestion that no other plots were in the works after 9-11. Do you really believe that nothing was planned, or that nobody is plotting now? It reminds me of Keith Olbermann suggesting that the people detained at Gitmo were all peace-loving goatherds until we turned them into terrorists. Maybe that kind of logic makes sense in the People's Republic of Berkeley or to your sandwich, but it doesn't hold water in my opinion.
Obviously I have thoughts on this, but someone else said it better than I could have.
Good link, Patrick. If there's anything that reasonable people should agree upon, it's that there are very few easy answers to the question, "What now?"
What do you do with this comment from former Bush speech writer Marc Thiessen? His claim is that waterboarding in particular stopped a plot. Seems like a very causal relationship to me. Of course, you can discount the source if you want, but it seems pretty well laid out and not obviously false (unless he's simply a liar or crazy):
In the summer of 2006, I was asked to prepare a speech revealing the details of the CIA program. I sat down with the people who actually ran the program—the people responsible for breaking up the plots—and, over the course of several months, we painstakingly reconstructed how the questioning of these terrorists led to the disruption of plots. Let me give some details on just one example—the West Coast plot.
A few months after 9/11, a terrorist named Abu Zubaydah was captured. He was a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and ran a camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers had trained. And he helped al Qaeda leaders escape from Afghanistan after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, including the future leader of al Qaeda's Iraqi branch, Abu Mussab al Zarqawi.
Zubaydah was captured in a gun battle and severely injured. The CIA arranged medical care, saving his life. After he recovered, Zubaydah provided what he thought was nominal information—including that KSM's alias was "Muktar," something our intelligence community did not know. But he soon ceased all cooperation. It was clear to his interrogators that he had received interrogation resistance training, and the traditional methods were not working. So the CIA employed alternative interrogation techniques. And Zubaydah started talking.
He provided information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh—one of the key plotters of the 9/11 attacks and a close associated of KSM. Bin al Shibh was the mastermind behind a plot for a follow-on attack to hijack airplanes in Europe, and fly them into Heathrow airport. Now he was off the street and the Heathrow plot was setback.
Together, bin al Shibh and Zubaydah provided information that led to the capture of KSM.
Once in custody, KSM refused to cooperate, until enhanced interrogation techniques—including waterboarding—were used. Then he began to talk.
He gave us information about another terrorist in CIA custody named Majid Khan. KSM told us that Khan had been tasked to deliver $50,000 to a Southeast Asian terrorist named Zubair—an operative with the terrorist network Jemmah Islamiyah, or JI.
Confronted with this information, Khan confirmed KSM's account and gave us information that led to the capture of Zubair.
Zubair then provided information that led to the capture of a JI terrorist leader named Hambali—KSM's partner in developing the West Coast plot. Their strategy was to used Southeast Asian operatives, since KSM knew we would be on the lookout for Arab men.
Told of Hambali's capture, KSM identified Hambali's brother "Gun Gun" as his successor and provided information that led to his capture.
Hambali's brother then gave us information that led us to a cell of 17 JI operatives that were going to carry out the West Coast plot.
Of course, according to Froomkin, I just made all that up.
This is just one of the many plots stopped by this program. According to our intelligence community—not, me, not President Bush, but our intelligence community—without this program, al Qaeda would have succeeded in striking the homeland again.
Uh oh. Toney might not like facts getting in the way of his sandwich's fallacies.
It's always surprising to me how Republicans are skeptical of every aspect of government, until the word "terrorist" is thrown in, in which case all cynicism goes out the door.
First of all, while that comment doesn't seem obviously false, it also isn't rich on details of exactly what information gained from torture benefited stopping the West Coast Plot, nor does it contain any info whatsoever on the particular stage the WCP was in, if it ever would have happened, or if it would have been prevented by other intelligence gathering means. Keep in mind reading this that Thiessen clearly has his own interest in mind, and needs to be taken at his word with an even larger grain of salt than usual.
Second, there are only two places where torture is mentioned. First, Zubaydah was tortured, which provided info that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh. What info? Would he have been caught otherwise? Would the info gathered prior to torture have allowed us to do so? Second, KSM was captured, during which he gave info on a task another terrorist (Khan) already in captivity was to perform. Faced with this new info, Khan gave info that led to Zubair. Would he have given this info otherwise? Would we have caught Zubair without the torture?
Given that torture is in consideration here, you damned well better be looking at this with a healthy dose of skepticism. There's all sorts of holes there, and there's very little causation. Now compile that with the fact that Zubair led to Hambali, which led to Gun Gun, which led to the breaking up of a cell that was to perform the West Coast Plot. All of this was without torture. That's a healthy six degrees of causation away from torture to the breaking up of a plot, regardless of how unlikely the plot was to occur, whether it would have been broken up otherwise, etc. Pull your heads out of your asses long enough to see how far fetched this is.
Now this is the last time that I debate the subject with anonymous posters with a complete and utter inability to reason. Call me a damned liberal hippie agitator all you want, but I am apologetically against torture, and given the margin of popular vote victory for the party against torture (the biggest since 1984, though I must say there are also several Republicans against torture), I am not alone. The next eight (optimistic) years you dissenters will be in the extreme minority, and torture won't happen. Deal with it. Or move to Belarus.
unVery good, Toney, when confronted with some contrary facts, go into ad-hominem attack mode. Equate any "enhanced interrogation" with "torture." Accuse others of distorting facts. Get pissy about anonymous postings when you only go by a first name. Claim that you're done debating such unreasonable people. Please, if only rigtheous indignation could keep the nation safe!
The lesson of 9/11 is that putting the pieces together from improbable sources is critical. Maybe the intell would have just fallen into our lap even if we'd never asked a single question. Or maybe saying, "um, pretty please, where is KSM?" would have worked. You are right to be skeptical, sure, but you are wrong to continue assuming that there is no role for enhanced interrogation and you are especially wrong to pretend that any and all forms of enhanced interrogation amount to torture. You exalt labels over substance.
I am NEVER wrong to assume that there is no place for torture. Did you not see where I used the word "unapologetic"? (Or at least, I meant to, but my spell checker decided it knew better than me and put "apologetic", but that makes no sense). And I'm referring to torture when I say torture; I realize there are effective interrogation techniques... I'm against those that amount to torture, such as waterboarding, a technique even our own generals say "amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances"..
I at least can see the benefits to torture, though I think that in absolutely no circumstances do they outweigh the costs. Period. You refuse to see the costs of torture.
There are a few certain things that deserve my "righteous indignation", and one of those is upholding the minimum standard of humanity that we as a country believe in. We're past the days of "well, they do it, we can too" reasoning to justify an action that leads to extremely uncertain benefits. Because you don't dispute any points I've made previously, I'll leave it at that.
Since I already broke my promise once and continued this debate, I'll sign out for real this time, but let me leave you with this. I think the torture has actually made us less safe as a nation, much like the failed management of the iraq war. If during the next four years we aren't attacked by terrorists, are you going to use the same reasoning you've used for the past 7 years? That no longer torturing, and no longer being in Iraq, caused us to be safe from terrorists? Probably not, because it isn't politically convenient.
"you are wrong to continue assuming that there is no role for enhanced interrogation and you are especially wrong to pretend that any and all forms of enhanced interrogation amount to torture"
That is the point of yours that I have disputed and continue to dispute. No matter how many times you use the word "torture" in your latest screed I don't think you're right. I'm not subscribing to the bad logic your post was originally about, so your last paragraph is an irrelevant straw man.
Post a Comment
<< Home