Torture (Stop the Presses!)

Ok, I'll admit it--we are torturing the detainees at Gitmo. The WSJ has details, in an article by Heather Mac Donald:

Some al Qaeda fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, they had learned, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture -- a sign, al Qaeda said, of American weakness. Even if a prisoner had not previously studied U.S. detention policies, he soon figured them out. "It became very clear very early on to the detainees that the Americans were just going to have them sit there," explains an Afghanistan interrogator. "They realized: 'The Americans will give us our Holy Book, they'll draw lines on the floor showing us where to pray, we'll get three meals a day with fresh fruit . . . we can wait them out.'" Traditional appeals to a prisoner's emotions, such as playing on his love of family or life, had little effect. "The jihadists would tell you, 'I've divorced this life, I don't care about my family,'" recalls an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Frustrated interrogators across the globe concluded that their best hope for getting information was to recreate the "shock of capture" -- that vulnerable mental state when a prisoner is most uncertain and most likely to respond to questioning. Many argued for a calibrated use of "stress techniques" -- prolonged questioning that would cut into a detainee's sleep schedule, for example, or making a prisoner kneel or stand.

A crack interrogator from Afghanistan explains the psychological effect of stress: "Let's say a detainee comes into the interrogation booth and he's had resistance training. He knows that I'm completely handcuffed and that I can't do anything to him. If I throw a temper tantrum, lift him onto his knees, and walk out, you can feel his uncertainty level rise dramatically. He's been told: 'They won't physically touch you,' and now you have. The point is not to beat him up but to introduce the reality into his mind that he doesn't know where your limit is." Grabbing someone by the top of the collar has had a more profound effect on the outcome of questioning than any actual torture could have, this Army reservist maintains. "The guy knows: You just broke your own rules, and that's scary."

So, American interrorgators are manhandling detainees. So what? As I've demonstrated before, the Geneva Convention (specifically Geneva III) classifies Iraqi terrorists as "'unlawful combatants":

Such treatment, though far short of torture, probably violates the Geneva Convention's norms for lawful prisoners of war, who must be protected from "any form of coercion." But terrorists fail every test for coverage under the Geneva Conventions: They seek to massacre civilians, they conceal their status as warriors, and they treat their own prisoners to such niceties as beheadings. President Bush properly found that terrorists do not qualify as Geneva-protected prisoners of war.

And the term "unlawful combatants" is effectively identical to "war criminal"--who can be shot on sight. Simply put, we would have been justified in killing the current detainees. Contrary to liberals' unsupported claims, Cuba's Camp X-Ray is tangible evidence of America's humanity and morals. The only unlawful torture today is what the Dems are doing in the Gonzalas hearings.

Heh:

Scott Ott's a genius:

Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's Attorney General nominee, told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that he would state only his name, rank, date of birth and Air Force serial number, which is all that is required under the terms of the Geneva Conventions.

Mr. Gonzales, who faces criticism from Democrat senators over a memo he wrote seeking to clarify whether the Geneva Conventions apply to terror suspects, refused to answer further questions from committee members at his confirmation hearing. . .

Mr. Gonzales' refusal to answer Senators' questions did not affect the committee's inquiry, which consists primarily of speeches to a gathering of journalists.

More:

MacDonald's WSJ piece is adapted from this longer article in City Journal.

(via Inkwell)

Still More:

Gonzales' memo that started the fuss. Cf. the current DOJ torture opinion letter, which "supersedes the August 2002 Memorandum in its entirety."

More and More:

The dialogue continues between Andrew Sullivan and Heather Mac Donald. Heather's still winning.