“Elicitation” and the Law of War

Libertyvictimjpg "Powell wrote that he opposed Bush’s proposal to redefine the Geneva Conventions standards that require humane treatment or prisoners. Bush insists this is essential for the CIA to elicit valuable information from "high-value" detainees.

White House spokesman Tony Snow called the former secretary of state "confused" and Bush rejected Powell’s objections as "flawed logic."

Powell declined to address Bush’s comment, The Washington Post said.

"To say that we want to modify, clarify or redefine Common Article 3, which has not been modified for the 57 years of its history, I think adds to the doubt" about U.S. morality, Powell said. "Plus I believe that the legitimate concerns that the administration has can be dealt with in other ways.""  Washpost

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"..essential for the CIA to elicit valuable information from "high-value" detainees."

Elicitation?

"Elicitation."  I know all about that.  This is a standard  technique in the HUMINT business for causing someone to tell you what you want to know without asking him directly.   Stating something incorrectly to elicit a correction, praising someone for a position taken to elicit a comment, feigning ignorance to elicit an explanation, these are all techniques of "elicitation."  This is typical cocktail party business.  It often works.

I doubt if what President Bush wants authorized in American law is elicitation.

The essence of the dispute over the president’s desired law to make the use of "alternative techniques" legal is the nature of the "alternative techniques" themselves.

What exactly are we talking about? 

It is clear that President Bush wants to make actions legal that were illegal to conduct in the US in the past.  That is why these "techniques" were used outside the US in the past.  Will they now be used in our homeland against suspects?  And who will the "suspects" be.  Who will they be?

The administration does not want to tell us what the "alternative techniques" are.  They say that this is because the terrorists will train against the "techniques."

Loud noises?  Deep cold? Talkin’ about yo mama? The rack? What?

Folks, you can’t "train" against "waterboarding."  What are we really talking about? 

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091900038.html

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25 Responses to “Elicitation” and the Law of War

  1. linda says:

    oh, it’s pretty clear what we’re talking about. bush enjoys inflicting pain and humiliation upon people. hell, i’m convinced that he, abu gonzalez and john yoo all have their own private collections of the abu ghraib cd/dvds. what was that quote attributed to bush about the torture of one of those ‘high-value targets’ — oh yeah:
    According to Risen’s source, Tenet told Bush that Abu Zubaydah, badly wounded during his capture, was too groggy from painkillers to talk coherently. In response, Bush asked, ‘Who authorized putting him on pain medication?’
    http://www.cjrdaily.org/magazine_report/torture_spying_bureaucratic_dy.php

  2. Nicholas Weaver says:

    I think the democrats or the liberty minded republicans could end the debate in a hot second:
    Just demonstrate the techniques the administration wants a legal liscence to use on the senate floor. Preferably on volunteer member of the current administration.
    Lets see if it really takes just 10 seconds of waterboarding for a “Waterboarding isn’t torture” member of the administration to say “Waterboarding is torture”

  3. Duncan Kinder says:

    The administration does not want to tell us what the “alternative techniques” are. They say that this is because the terrorists will train against the “techniques.”
    According to the reports I have read, the Bush Administration’s stated goal is to “clarify” the rules so that interrogators will know what they may and may not do?
    How could we possibly “clarify” the rules unless we state what techniques in particular we are talking about?
    Assuming, arguendo, that somehow we could develop abstract language, this language – if we are to take Bush at face value – would have to be “clear.” But how could this “clarification” be sufficiently specific to help interrogators ( and outside observers ) yet – at the same time – fail to alert the terrorists as to what they might expect to encounter?
    Could we even hypothetically develop language that would achieve this? Let us ignore the merits of what such language would entail. Purely as a linguistic exercise, could this be possible?
    Also, let us suppose that the only language that would satisfy such a test might yield the result, “Waterboarding is torture.” Would the Bush administration accept such clarification. If not, why not?
    To recapitulate the above argument, how could we possibly inform the interrogators what they may do without thereby also informing the terrorists as to what they will do?

  4. larry whalen says:

    I remember reading a description of Bush as “an anal-sadist indifferent to the suffering he causes” (Bush on the Couch?) Not quite accurate: he enjoys it. A war criminal in an expensive dark suit, way better hair-cut than, say, Karadzic.

  5. Michael says:

    This brings up a question I have posted in my own blog – Given (for example) that the US has had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for years now – how much more useful information can he provide? I am sure he has no idea what “new” plans are being drawn up, as he has been out of the loop for eons. The question then is, how long can you hold a “high profile” person before they go stale?
    Secondly (largely rhetorical) assume for a moment Bush is able to bend the GC standards giving the CIA wider “Elicitation” range. What would happen if one of the US’s fell into enemy hands and they claimed the same standards? More importantly, how would the Whitehouse react?

  6. arbogast says:

    Colonel, I have a highly specific question. A question whose context is a lot of factual material. Forgive me if the question seems long-winded or, worse, obtuse.
    Context #1: If you recall, there was an open-mike incident with Bush and Tony Blair in which Bush said that Assad, the Syrian dictator, could “stop this shit” if he wanted to, meaning the Hezbollah military activity in South Lebanon.
    Context #2: “Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan — where he never has been — and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.”
    Syria? We ship prisoners to Syria to be tortured, and our President talks about the Syrian dictator in what could be interpreted as an extremely knowing way.
    Easy question first: how do we get the results of the interrogation under torture from Syria? The tooth fairy?
    Hard question: what precisely is the relationship between the Republican Administration and Syria.
    Note: part of the United Nations agreement ending the Israel-Hezbollah war was that the border between Syria and Lebanon would be sealed. Hasn’t happened. Won’t happen.
    And now Israel is really acting like a lamb in lamb’s clothing. Withdrawing its troops, lifting the blockade, and nary a peep about kicking butt and taking names.
    What is going on here? In whose interest was the war between Hezbollah and Israel?
    I am leaning further and further in the direction of oil interests stirring up as much trouble as possible in the Middle East to keep oil prices as high as possible. Fits, doesn’t it.

  7. Peter says:

    Condoning torture. This is the expression of men who have no morality.
    Torture must be the worst thing one could do to another person. In fact, I would say, that to torture someone is to not recognize him as human at all. This is the President of the United States not treating people as humans. There will be a response to this: you will soon see many more people not treating Americans as humans. Anti-US forces who wish to gather support for terrorism will use this to do so.
    I mean, when one of these suspects being water-boarded decides to inhale as hard as he can to kill himself, so that he dies instead of suffering any longer, how will you justify your actions? Suspect, charged with no crime, is tortured to death. How will you ever repent?

  8. W. Patrick Lang says:

    Arbogast
    What you are missing is the fact that Syria offered to “help” after 9/11 and did so in the expectation that this “love” would not be unrequited. They helped the CIA.
    That worked all right until the administration came even more fully under control of the neocon faction than it had been to begin with. As soon as that hapened Syria went into the “dog house” and has been there ever since in spite of their continuin efforts at dialogue.
    This is ideological, not oil driven. pl

  9. Don S. says:

    In Canada we have been watching the Maher Arar case.
    The Christian Science Monitor has an over view of it (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0919/dailyUpdate.html)
    The Mounties gave wrong info about a Canadian Citizen the the US. The US then sent him to Syria to be tortured.
    When a movement developed in Canada to get him back, the mounties tried to smear him so they didn’t look bad.
    In this case the articulate and educated Mr. Arar had good friends in Canada that were able to pressure the Government for an inquirery.
    The results show that mistakes happen, and when they do, no one wants the public to know. And as another person has just written Syria is willing to do the dirsty work for the USA, and the mounties see it as being more inportant to please the USA than protect their own citizens.

  10. jonst says:

    As has been noted many times about this Admin…everything, EVERYTHING is political with them. They are gonna make this argument in the following manner: Dems are bleeding heart liberals who care more about the terrorists’ rights than they do about the security of American. Period. I don’t know how many times we are gonna fall for this but I’m sure we will fall for it at least one more time. Nov 2006. He WANTS us to ridicule “alternative interrogation methods”. He WANTS the elite to write about it. He WANTS the message to get to his base that “you are damn right…we’re gonna torture these MF’s”. That’s what his base WANTS him to do. Let’s face up to it. And many independents silently desire it as well. But they won’t say so at cocktail parties. But make no mistake; they want it inflicted on prisoners.
    And the Democrats will, indeed, are responding in their typical, whiney, pusillanimous, half-ass, and often times, factually ignorant manner. And there-by alienate and demoralize their potential base.
    Seen this farce more often than a Seinfeld episode. We are, I fear, gonna get the government we deserve.

  11. Richard Whitman says:

    Does this mean that the President of the United States is Torturer-in-chief as well as Commander-in-chief?

  12. Michael says:

    I noticed a new poll suggested Bush’s approval is up to 44%.. that just blows me away.

  13. walrus says:

    The effect of Bush’s efforts to legalise torture (which is exactly what he is trying to do however you try to cloke it in fine words) is to make America a Pariah state. If you want evidence of this trend, look at inbound tourism numbers – they have fallen by 35% since 2001, whereas tourism has been booming elsewhere.
    I cannot put into words the disgust people in Australia have for George Bush and his Administration. I won’t be going to America in future and I’ve recently forbidden my son to go either.
    The reality of torture is that it can NOT provide good intelligence provided that the opposition take simple precautions that are as old as the hills, and which they certainly know, and are probably practicing as we speak.
    For the record, these are;
    1. Organise in a cellular structure, preferably in groups of no more than five or so. Each member then recruits and organises his own cell of five, whose members are known only to himself. These new members then organise their own cells the same way and so on and so on. Its not rocket science.
    That way anyone caught can only betray about five or six people.
    2. Put in place tradecraft measures so that the capture of anyone can be immediately detected, this gives people time to scatter and hide.
    3. Tell your people to follow the Vietnam rule: Hold out for 24 hours then sing like a canary. Provided the tradecraft has been working your people will have already vanished and everything else has been changed around.
    It worked for the French in WWII.

  14. Duncan Kinder says:

    Having earlieer posed the question, “…how could we possibly inform the interrogators what they may do without thereby also informing the terrorists as to what they will do?” and having given it some thought, I think I can answer my own question.
    If we were to assume that all interrogation causes blood pressure to rise and futher, that all forms of torture cause it to rise substantially more than non-torture (say more than 20 percent), then we could prescribe the following test:
    “Interrogators may interrogate by any method but only if that method causes a less than 20 percent blood pressure increase.”
    I doubt if my blood pressure hypothetical itself is actually any good, but it illustrates the sort of thing that might work.

  15. kim says:

    what we’re talking about is whatever we can get away with by hiding it behind meaningless words that aren’t necessarily understood by the speaker.
    as shown in earlier comments, bush doesn’t talk sense. but apparently the majority of american voters don’t care if his words make sense, as long as they feel “good”.
    in this, bush is very much heir to reagan. or, ok, maybe just well trained by cheney.
    either way, i can’t see any point in trying to understand them through their words. they’ve been doing the same noisy deeds from the beginning. they want legal sanction to continue those same deeds. when we get caught up in listening to their words we can miss the show going on right in front of our eyes.

  16. Grimgrin says:

    The weblog Electrolite pointed me to this story at ABC news. It describes the current
    “approved techniques” for CIA interrogations. Assuming that Bush is looking to retroactively legalize practices allready in place, this probably gives a reasonable picture of what he’s aiming for.
    http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007974.html#007974
    http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866
    Looking at it, it’s striking how simmilar the list is to the tortures the NKVD are described as using in “The Gulag Archepelago”. Sleep depravation, hypothermia and “stress positions”, were the standard tortures used to break Soviet prisoners down so that they could be made to sign ‘confessions’ of their own guilt.

  17. John Howley says:

    One big objection to torture is strategic. The potential benefit (doubtful intelligence) is small compared to the inevitable public disclosure of the practice that brings political setback.
    Backlash against torture damaged the French cause in Algeria and the U.S. effort in Vietnam (remember the Tiger Cages?)
    Almost everyone agrees that the Abu Ghraib revelations were the big turning point (for the worse) in Iraq.
    So what is the rational basis for a torture policy?
    A small objection is what do you do with folks you torture and find they are innocent or know nothing? Release them so they can hold a press conference or drop ’em from a ‘copter?

  18. Got A Watch says:

    Only a morally and ethically bankrupt government would try to jump thru the verbal hoops that Cheney/Bush attempt every day.
    If America truly stood for the slogans that the President stumbles over in his speeches, it would try to uphold the Geneva Conventions, not seek to pervert them. Every crime the terrorists have and will commit is already illegal under many laws in every country, so Bush and his ridiculous re-definitions are completely superflous.
    When you have to use pretzel logic to defend your position, any shred of credibility is lost. The world recognises this, though ordrinary Americans are seemingly oblivious.
    A great post at Billmon today on this topic called “Orwell Has a Field Day” on the scary similiarity between Bush speeches and Orwellian propaganda – worth a look at
    http://billmon.org/
    scroll down

  19. Geoff says:

    Could you be suggesting that there are things going on that haven’t been disclosed publicly or even proposed as rumor to the public?

  20. ikonoklast says:

    He WANTS the message to get to his base that “you are damn right…we’re gonna torture these MF’s” — jonst
    Yes. Another fix for the apparently insatiable American addiction to pornographic violence. Yet more Mitty-esque retribution fantasies for a voyeuristic public, a dirty secret vicarious thrill, sanitized courtesy of the media, revenge by proxy for all those cringing fears and humiliations.
    I remember a story about W. branding his frat brothers with red-hot coathangers. Nasty little sadist. Apologies for the ad hominem, but the fact that thanks to Mr. Bush and his cronies America is even having a debate about kidnapping and torture says something unsavory about our leadership and our social mores. It shames democracy itself.

  21. taters says:

    I commend Colin Powell’s letter to the president. You can imagine what’s being said about him by the loyalists. Why this is even a topic in today’s world should be beyond astonishing. John Yoo has become the legal cheerleader for the
    ‘we wanna torture” bunch. The AEI crowd may have winced a bit but probably were pretty happy with Yoo’s non plussed response at Notre Dame stating he saw nothing legally wrong with the crushing of a detainee’s child’s testicles if the president deemed it necessary. ??? I recently saw him on c-span, pedding his wares. He has an almost cheerful, boy next door demeanor. He must share that heartbreaking obsession of his like minded colleagues – a return to the times of Torquemada. I assume there was a good reason that Banastre “Bloody Ban” Tarleton was not invited to the officer’s dinner after Cornwallis’ surrender. I don’t believe the likes of Yoo, Gonzales, Addington, Cheney, Bush or anyone else who espouse those sickening views – “alternative techniques” would have been welcome, either.

  22. fasteddiez says:

    Mr Kinder,
    You said: If we were to assume that all interrogation causes blood pressure to rise and futher, that all forms of torture cause it to rise substantially more than non-torture (say more than 20 percent), then we could prescribe the following test: “Interrogators may interrogate by any method but only if that method causes a less than 20 percent blood pressure increase.”
    A scientific formula to be sure, but saddled with the assumption that all prisoners have a similar threshold of stress. As a former interrogator, I can say that captured personnel that have successfully gone through any kind of “security training,” (training in the kinds of interrogations they might encounter by differing agencies), will have a higher level of resistance (using plausible cover stories for one). If the captured person has been living abroad in any kind of “undercover status”, does the Hamburg gang ring a bell? they are in fact living the life of a case officer, and should have a plausible defence for most actions they undertake.
    My Point is the Khaled Sheik Mohammed should not be thrown in with a rural Pashtun Illiterate who was wooed with talk of Jihad to fight in Kunduz (Northern Alliance Territory) in Afghanistan (2002), for the sake of standardized interrogation methodology.
    There are more than enough non physical approaches (not techniques) that can be used to determine the prisoner’s state of resistance posture. I read somewhere that the above mentioned KSM was threatened through possible violence to his family, and replied “go ahead!”
    All I’m saying is that “one size fits all” does not work in all scenarios. Furthermore I am not advocating a violent posture over a humane posture.
    The “Operator community,”
    leaders put Intel personnel under great pressure to get immediate results. this in turn creates all kinds of pathologies that complicates matters.
    Not knowing KSM’s case details, i can still hypothesize that KSM + torture = confession, therefore FBI + Prosecutor = no chance of a conviction. Hence the need for a purely military Kangaroo Court.
    Fasteddiez out…..

  23. fasteddiez says:

    Mr Kinder,
    You said: If we were to assume that all interrogation causes blood pressure to rise and futher, that all forms of torture cause it to rise substantially more than non-torture (say more than 20 percent), then we could prescribe the following test: “Interrogators may interrogate by any method but only if that method causes a less than 20 percent blood pressure increase.”
    A scientific formula to be sure, but saddled with the assumption that all prisoners have a similar threshold of stress. As a former interrogator, I can say that captured personnel that have successfully gone through any kind of “security training,” (training in the kinds of interrogations they might encounter by differing agencies), will have a higher level of resistance (using plausible cover stories for one). If the captured person has been living abroad in any kind of “undercover status”, does the Hamburg gang ring a bell? they are in fact living the life of a case officer, and should have a plausible defence for most actions they undertake.
    My Point is the Khaled Sheik Mohammed should not be thrown in with a rural Pashtun Illiterate who was wooed with talk of Jihad to fight in Kunduz (Northern Alliance Territory) in Afghanistan (2002), for the sake of standardized interrogation methodology.
    There are more than enough non physical approaches (not techniques) that can be used to determine the prisoner’s state of resistance posture. I read somewhere that the above mentioned KSM was threatened through possible violence to his family, and replied “go ahead!”
    All I’m saying is that “one size fits all” does not work in all scenarios. Furthermore I am not advocating a violent posture over a humane posture.
    The “Operator community,”
    leaders put Intel personnel under great pressure to get immediate results. this in turn creates all kinds of pathologies that complicates matters.
    Not knowing KSM’s case details, i can still hypothesize that KSM + torture = confession, therefore FBI + Prosecutor = no chance of a conviction. Hence the need for a purely military Kangaroo Court.
    Fasteddiez out…..

  24. confusedponderer says:

    clearly they are talking about allowing ‘torture’, probably because the mindset is: Hey they are evil terrorists, so what? They get what they deserve.
    Mr. Maher Arar certainly got it.
    The Bueshie’s position is quite emotional on this crucial issue. Sadly, a state can ill afford that. The Bushies consider due process an obstacle to effective executive action(and that on all levels – and only as far as they think it’s ‘right’). They do not understand, or value, the moral considerations behind due process: It’s not to protect criminals but innocents. Maher Arar’s case only underlines that.

  25. Duncan Kinder says:

    “A scientific formula to be sure, but saddled with the assumption that all prisoners have a similar threshold of stress. ”
    You are quite right; that is why I said my blood pressure illustration itself probably would not be very good.
    What I am saying is that, hypothetically, one could treat interrogation as a black box. We might possibly be able to isolate factors preceding and following the interrogation that distinguish “torture” (according to some generally agreed upon, meaningful definition) from other forms of interrogation. Then we could publicly state that we forbid interrogations that give rise to these factors without specifying anything else. This would enable us publicly to communicate interrogation instructions to interrogators without revealing interrogation techniques to terrorists. It also would enable third parties to ascertain that no torture was taking place without specific information about what was being done during the interrogation.
    All of this is abstract, and as you rightly have stated, would be very difficult in practices to achieve.
    If the Bush administration were serious, however, it would be trying to achieve something like this.
    Which gives rise to the question of whether they actually are trying to achieve any such thing.

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