Does Torture Work? Does it Matter?

Senator Feinstein said on PBS Newshour that the "big finding of the report is that torture does not work."  More generally, one hears the following: The CIA enhanced interrogation techniques were terrible, immoral, grossly inconsistent with our values and can not be permitted in a civilized society.  And what's more, they don't work.

Huh?  The notation that torture (we'll call it that for simplicity sake) doesn't work undermines the main point, doesn't it?  It implies that if torture did work, then well, maybe, that morality and civilization stuff could be brushed aside.  OR, it's sort of a parting shot at the CIA goons, as if to say they're the gang that couldn't shoot straight, who probably just enjoy doing harmful things to people. 

We should presume that, at the very least, our intelligence officials possess cumulatively a resaonable amount of expertise, and act in the good faith belief that approaches they take will yield useful information.  And to be intellectually, politically and morally honest, the authors of the Report and those who defend it should be conceding, at least for purposes of discussion, that sometimes torture does help accelerate the process of getting useful, important and potentially life-saving information from hardened and despicable terrorists, but declare that despite this, we should never allow it. 

Pollard Is Now a Hostage

The April 2 NY Times lead story reports the breakdown of attempts to extend negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. One sentence in the article should make the stomach of every American turn. The article reports that President Obama authorized John Kerry to discuss the possible early release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Then comes the following apparently innocuous sentence: “Whether, and how, to use Mr. Pollard has been vigorously debated within the administration.”

 

Our government is debating how best to “use” the possible release of a prisoner, not a POW and not a quasi-POW enemy spy captured in the Spy vs Spy world of the Cold War. Pollard is an American citizen convicted of espionage on behalf of a friendly country and sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty under a plea bargain gone bad. Many prominent Americans and more recently, Israelis, have pleaded unsuccessfully for leniency. Regardless of what you may think about the merits of that question, it is abhorrent to see indications that our government regards the decision to hold or release him as a means to the end of inducing our friends in Israel to do what we want them to do.

 

And what do we want them to do? According to The Times, “some officials argue that [Pollard] should be used only to break the logjam on final-status issues – the borders of a new Palestinian state, for example . . . . Mr. Kerry has argued that Mr. Pollard could be more useful now in keeping the talks alive, given the possibility of parole [in 2015] . . . .” Apparently our Secretary of State understands that Pollard’s value will diminish as a parole hearing approaches.

 

Regardless of whether you thought Pollard should be released, most of us were under the impression that in either case the view was based on principles of policy and justice. Now it appears that our government had an additional reason to hold onto Pollard that was based not on policy but on utility. What can we trade him for? This is the sort of thing that thug regimes do, and certainly criminal enterprises do, but not something our government does. As Ruth Marcus wrote in The Washington Post on April 1, “there is something disconcerting – repulsive is only slightly too strong a word – about having justice used as a diplomatic bargaining chip.”

 

And what are the competing “uses” being debated for Jonathan Pollard’s freedom? John Kerry wanted to offer him to the Israelis so that they would release more cold-blooded murderers, itself the price demanded by Mahmoud Abbas to sit with folded arms for another nine months. And if the Israelis went along with this, as they were reportedly inclined to do, it would be a dirty business for them and the Americans, but there would (other than the absence of a concession from Abbas himself) be at least some perverse symmetry in the deal.

 

What is more bewildering, however, is that some of our unnamed officials were counseling the President to hold onto Pollard and throw him into a final status deal. Indeed, it seems to be the dominant view among critics of this deal – including Senator Dianne Feinstein – that Pollard should be saved to be hauled out to get the really big concessions we want from the Israelis down the road. Which issue do these officials think the Israelis would concede in exchange for Pollard’s freedom: Security in the Jordan valley? Palestinians’ right of return? End of hostilities? Jerusalem?

 

We have seen in the Gilad Shalit deal that the Israelis will free hundreds of terrorist murderers from prison to win back one Jew from captivity. We have seen them agree nine months ago to free scores more to win the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. Somehow, time and again, the world views Israel as greedily and stubbornly holding all the high cards, and believes that what’s needed is the right pressures, the right inducements, to persuade Israel to give them up. Keeping Pollard as a trump card for the US is, in this respect, incompetent and amazingly ignorant of Israeli motivations in its negotiations with the Palestinians. Unfortunately, we’ve become used to such incompetence. What is new, and more saddening, about this latest action is that it shames America as well.