George W Bush: 'waterboarding' terrorists saved British lives - Telegraph

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In an interview publicising his new book “Decision Points”, Mr Bush vigorously defended waterboarding, a kind of simulated drowning that was known as an “enhanced interrogation technique” by the Bush administration but regarded as “torture” by many opponents, some allies and a few internal dissenters. “Three people were waterboarded and I believe that decision saved lives,” said Mr Bush, who denied that the practice amounted to torture. When asked if he authorised waterboarding to gain information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the captured al-Qaeda leader, he responded: “Damn right!” In his book, Mr Bush writes: “Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States.” He writes that although the procedure was "tough", it was legal. The British Government has long viewed waterboarding as torture. Last month, Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a speech that Britain had "nothing whatsoever" to do with torture. The former president told NBC that he was unmoved by international criticism of his administration's waterboarding of terrorist suspects. Asked why he did not agree with many other countries that it was illegal, Mr Bush said: "Because the lawyers said it was legal". He said he was advised it did not "fall under the anti-torture act", adding: "I'm not a lawyer". In an interview with The Times, Mr Bush hailed Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, as a modern-day Winston Churchill but was dismissive of the significance of British public opinion during the run-up to the Iraq war and subsequently. Mr Bush recalled that when Mr Blair faced a possible Parliamentary vote of no confidence in on the eve of the Iraq invasion he gave him the chance to decide not to send British troops to Iraq because “rather than lose the Government, I would much rather have Tony and his wisdom and his strategic thinking as the prime minister of a strong and important ally”. According to Mr Bush, Mr Blair responded: “I’m in. If it costs the Government, fine.” In the book, Mr Bush also: • Recounts his reaction after a third hijacked plane hit its target, the Pentagon, on September 11th 2001. He writes: “My blood was boiling. We were going to find out who did this, and kick their ass." • Discloses that he ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. • Describes how he considered a covert attack on Syrian nuclear facilities but decided against it when the CIA judged it too risky. Israel carried out a similar attack instead. • Acknowledges he took "too long" to act over the Hurricane Katrina disaster that engulfed New Orleans in 2005, killing more than 1,800 people, but describes being accused of racism (many victims were black) as the lowest point of his presidency.

Wisdom and strategic thinking:

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Young George W. Bush Traumatized By Barbara Bush’s Fetus Jar

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Some people give lame reasons to be pro-life, but George W. Bush really has a pretty good excuse. While on his current “Say Anything To Get People To Buy My Book Nobody Would Read Otherwise” tour, Bush revealed to Matt Lauer the reason he dislikes abortion: His mother had a miscarriage when he was a teenager and liked to parade around her dead offspring in a jar. Holy hell, this family. “Junior, please pass sister fetus jar the mashed potatoes.” “Junior, please drive your brother the fetus jar to school.” “Junior, doesn’t your sister the fetus jar look beautiful in her prom dress? Pull her out of the goo and pin that corsage on her, wouldn’t you? Then give her a kiss goodbye. She’d best be going or she’ll be late!” “She said to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s the fetus,’ ” the shockingly candid Bush told NBC’s Matt Lauer, gesturing as if he were holding the jar during the TV chat, a DVD of which The Post exclusively obtained. “There’s no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life,” said the former president [...] But “the purpose of the story wasn’t to try show the evolution of a pro-life point of view,” Bush insisted to Lauer. It was to scare children on Halloween? “It was really to show how my mom and I developed a relationship.” Oh Lord, did the two of them have sex? This almost excuses the whole torture thing. [NYP]

Suddenly I kind of understand how a Commander in Chief could respond to an armed attack on his own territory with, "My blood was boiling. We were going to find out who did this, and kick their ass."

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Poor GWB. I am not going to forgive Iraq or random, pointless torture or wanting to impose his religious credo on everyone else but I will say that it explains a lot about his drinking and then his conversion to an absolutist branch of christianity.

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We can't afford moral certainty about torture - Telegraph

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As a diversion from remonstrating with his Chinese hosts over their lapses on human rights, David Cameron took a moment last week to bring the subject closer to home. Responding to George Bush’s claim that the practice of waterboarding was justified because it had averted major terrorist attacks on British targets, Mr Cameron said that he thought torture was wrong and that “we ought to be very clear about that”. Then he added, “And I think we should also be clear that [the information you get from torture] is likely to be unreliable.” He elaborated on these points by explaining that “there is both a moral reason for being opposed to torture – and Britain doesn’t sanction torture – but secondly, I think there’s also an effectiveness thing…” So Mr Cameron’s repudiation of Mr Bush rested on two propositions: that a) the British government was unequivocally opposed to torture (of which waterboarding was a form), and that b) torture didn’t produce anything useful. But why, if you maintain the first part as an inviolable principle (“Torture is never acceptable”), should there be any need to argue for the second? What point is there in discussing what Mr Cameron calls the “effectiveness thing” at all? It is not only the Prime Minister who has issued this peculiar, two-pronged rejection of the Bush claims. Official British spokesmen have been jamming up television studios over the past week to reiterate the message that, in the words of Sir John Sawers, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service: “Torture is abhorrent and illegal under any circumstances and we have nothing to do with it.” But these forthright moral assertions were inevitably followed by an insistence that no terrorist plots against London were ever proved to have been prevented by evidence derived from such techniques. (Note in passing: it would be almost impossible to prove that an attack had been averted in this way. Even the confession by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, that he had planned attacks on Big Ben and Canary Wharf of exactly the kind that Mr Bush described, is dismissed as unreliable by those who espouse this position.) Related Articles The West is turning against big government - but what comes next?13 Nov 2010 Midterm elections 2010: Prepare for a new American revolution13 Nov 2010 Middle England is sacrificed for symbolism13 Nov 2010 David Cameron must stand firm against Ed Miliband's unprincipled assault13 Nov 2010 Afghanistan election: Would you risk your life to cast a vote?13 Nov 2010 Here's a Tory war cry ? power to the people13 Nov 2010 There is a fairly simple logical problem here: if torture is unfailingly immoral, then it would be wrong to employ it even if it did produce information that averted attacks and saved lives. But that, you will appreciate, is a rather more uncomfortable case to have to make to the folks watching television at home. Few security spokesmen or political leaders would want to take to the airwaves with the message: “We are so wedded to our principle that we are prepared to risk the lives of innocent people to maintain it.” But if you categorically reject the use of torture (even its psychological forms) then you must be prepared to say that you would not use it even if it did give you valuable evidence that could prevent mass murder. And, as is the way with these things, the people whose lives had been risked (or, in the worst case, lost) would not have had any say at all in this matter. So what about the human rights dimension here? Who exactly has the right to decide that dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of lives (or, for that matter, just one life) should be sacrificed for an unwavering moral dictum? Is the most basic human right of all – the right to life – to be disregarded when weighed in the balance against the right of a prisoner to be treated humanely? There is nothing new about this dilemma, even if the present world circumstances seem to present peculiarly urgent instances of it. Questions of this kind – of whose right prevails when there is a conflict of rights – are the most difficult for a free society to resolve. Even John Stuart Mill, the great architect of the philosophy of liberty, recognised the need to make exceptions in difficult cases. “To save a life,” he wrote, “it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap and compel to officiate, the only qualified medical practitioner.” Mill accepts – as do most people in an intuitive way – that life itself must take precedence over what would ordinarily be fundamental liberties, that remaining alive is the precondition for having any rights at all. To preserve even one life may license the taking of another’s freedom (“to kidnap and compel to officiate…”). There are no civil liberties in the grave. The great difficulty with absolute principles is that they are more suitable for the seminar than the human condition. Philosophy undergraduates gain a quite extraordinary degree of intellectual agility arguing over the weaknesses in Kant’s moral doctrine of the “categorical imperative”. Is lying always categorically wrong? What about the kind lie that spares another’s feelings, or (more pertinent to our present discussion) the lie that saves a life, perhaps by enabling a victim to escape? But then, if lying is allowed under some circumstances, how can we ever be sure that anyone is telling the truth? Doesn’t this undermine the whole concept of truth and falsehood? Good fun this, in a lecture room. But scarcely any help at all when you are faced with a captured terrorist who knows where a bomb is hidden. I must make clear that I am not arguing the case for torture, or even that it might sometimes be necessary. I am simply pointing out that in real life, absolutist ethical positions are likely to sound hollow, if not positively inhuman. In the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, when the whole political culture of rights and liberties is under threat from an enemy which specifically loathes it, categorical moral statements that rely on a belief in the value of liberty are not going to be an automatic solution to our problems. Reality has always been a matter of hard choices, but the ones we are likely to be faced with over the next generation will be deliberately designed to challenge every assumption on which our society prides itself. So I do understand those who say that we must – even under the threat of death – defend those assumptions. The protection of life, and even the responsibility for other lives, must always be measured against the values which make it worth living. But it is no good pretending that the most difficult ethical questions imaginable can be settled by fiat, or that the application of a strict, no-exceptions policy on the treatment of terrorists is unproblematic. Indeed, it is precisely the impossibility of that pretence that forces people into the rather absurd position of claiming that torture is always absolutely wrong – and besides, it is of no use anyway.

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So Mr Cameron’s repudiation of Mr Bush rested on two propositions: that a) the British government was unequivocally opposed to torture (of which waterboarding was a form), and that b) torture didn’t produce anything useful. But why, if you maintain the first part as an inviolable principle (“Torture is never acceptable”), should there be any need to argue for the second? What point is there in discussing what Mr Cameron calls the “effectiveness thing” at all?

It's obviously true that a² = b² + c², so why bother mentioning that Δ = b² - 4ac?

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(Note in passing: it would be almost impossible to prove that an attack had been averted in this way. Even the confession by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, that he had planned attacks on Big Ben and Canary Wharf of exactly the kind that Mr Bush described, is dismissed as unreliable by those who espouse this position.)

Should be easy enough to povide evidence. You don't plan a terrorist attack in your head.

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Few security spokesmen or political leaders would want to take to the airwaves with the message: “We are so wedded to our principle that we are prepared to risk the lives of innocent people to maintain it.”

"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be."

- Winston Churchill, 1940

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But if you categorically reject the use of torture (even its psychological forms) then you must be prepared to say that you would not use it even if it did give you valuable evidence that could prevent mass murder.

*Yawn* Nice try Mr Bauer.

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And, as is the way with these things, the people whose lives had been risked (or, in the worst case, lost) would not have had any say at all in this matter. So what about the human rights dimension here? Who exactly has the right to decide that dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of lives (or, for that matter, just one life) should be sacrificed for an unwavering moral dictum? Is the most basic human right of all – the right to life – to be disregarded when weighed in the balance against the right of a prisoner to be treated humanely?

The people you elected as being the most fitted to decide what is best for the nation as a whole.

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There is nothing new about this dilemma, even if the present world circumstances seem to present peculiarly urgent instances of it. Questions of this kind – of whose right prevails when there is a conflict of rights – are the most difficult for a free society to resolve. Even John Stuart Mill, the great architect of the philosophy of liberty, recognised the need to make exceptions in difficult cases. “To save a life,” he wrote, “it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap and compel to officiate, the only qualified medical practitioner.”

"... or to waterboard some random stranger turned in by Pakistani bandits for the reward money that we stupidly offered just for the hell of it. America, fuck yeah!"

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There are no civil liberties in the grave.

Or, indeed, prior to it, if we go down your road.

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The great difficulty with absolute principles is that they are more suitable for the seminar than the human condition. Philosophy undergraduates gain a quite extraordinary degree of intellectual agility arguing over the weaknesses in Kant’s moral doctrine of the “categorical imperative”. Is lying always categorically wrong? What about the kind lie that spares another’s feelings, or (more pertinent to our present discussion) the lie that saves a life, perhaps by enabling a victim to escape? But then, if lying is allowed under some circumstances, how can we ever be sure that anyone is telling the truth? Doesn’t this undermine the whole concept of truth and falsehood? Good fun this, in a lecture room.

Euh... You don't actually know what the categorical imperative (no quote marks) is, do you?

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But scarcely any help at all when you are faced with a captured terrorist who knows where a bomb is hidden.

Yeah, that happens to me all the time.

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I must make clear that I am not arguing the case for torture, or even that it might sometimes be necessary.

"I'm not a racist, but..."

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I am simply pointing out that in real life, absolutist ethical positions are likely to sound hollow, if not positively inhuman. In the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, when the whole political culture of rights and liberties is under threat from an enemy which specifically loathes it

Helped enthusiastically by you.

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categorical moral statements that rely on a belief in the value of liberty are not going to be an automatic solution to our problems.

I'm pretty sure that torture won't be either.

Reality has always been a matter of hard choices, but the ones we are likely to be faced with over the next generation will be deliberately designed to challenge every assumption on which our society prides itself. [/QUOTE]

Just like every other generation, then.

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It's not like Winston Churchill didn't use covert operations to get things done... or like the Allies never tortured German soldiers or executed captured soldiers. It was just a more ad-hoc arrangement... No one was reporting it upward and there was thus no need to issue policies about it...

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There is nothing new about this dilemma, even if the present world circumstances seem to present peculiarly urgent instances of it. Questions of this kind – of whose right prevails when there is a conflict of rights – are the most difficult for a free society to resolve. Even John Stuart Mill, the great architect of the philosophy of liberty, recognised the need to make exceptions in difficult cases. “To save a life,” he wrote, “it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap and compel to officiate, the only qualified medical practitioner.”

Follow your gut instincts. You have been given a wonderful moral compass by evolution with fairness as its north star. It is rather reliable, for a biological tool.

This will lead you to a more balanced and flexible solution than a series of rules, whether absolute or listinh a long serie of exceptions...

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Possibly, but I was making the point that Churchill acknowledged openly that people would have to take risks and, in some cases, die for their freedoms.

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I think people are willing to die for their freedoms... if given a chance to fight back. Dying in a terrorist attack from an enemy you cannot reach is rather annoying.

You cant even lash out at the community the terrorist posits to come from. That'd only make the terrorist stronger. That sucks.

At least, WWII, you could join up and, if you werent fit/young enough/whatever, you could at least hope to see Germans killed and, one day, Germany destroyed. This kind of thing sustains people. No such hope with terrorism...

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Refusing to abandon our freedoms is how we fight back.

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