Consequences

Just in case you're still not convinced regarding torture, here is a quote (via Andrew Sullivan's blog) from an American soldier, Matthew Alexander, who interrogated al Qaeda suspects in Iraq.

"The number-one reason foreign fighters gave for coming to Iraq to fight is the torture
and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The majority of suicide bombings are
carried out by foreign fighters who volunteered and came to Iraq with this motivation.
Consequently it is clear that at least hundreds but more likely thousands of American
lives (not to count Iraqi civilian deaths) are linked directly to the policy decision to
introduce the torture and abuse of prisoners as accepted tactics.

Americans have died from terrorist attacks since 9/11; those Americans just happen to be
American soldiers. This is not simply my view – it is widely held among senior officers in
the U.S. military today. Alberto Mora, who served as General Counsel of the Navy under
Donald Rumsfeld, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that “U.S.
flag-rank officers maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat
deaths in Iraq–as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into
combat–are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.” We owe it to our
troops to protect them from terrorist attacks by not conducting torture and we owe it to
our forefathers to uphold the American principles that they passed down to us"

Good News

Abby had her orthopedic appointment yesterday.  She's got a classic clavicle break, and in a little kid like her there is nothing to be worried about.  She'll only need her arm sling for another week (Merry Christmas), and should be able to have full motion of the shoulder around then as well.

Over the next week, she'll develop a bump/bruise on her shoulder as the blood clot forms around the break to close it up.  As she grows, the bone will smooth itself out and become straight again (right now it looks like a really shallow inverted V).  But in another 3 weeks she should be clear to do swimming, ballet, etc.. without a problem. 

As a side note, we realized that Madeline is the only one to make it through (almost all) of 2008 without a serious injury (Kirstin - twisted tube, Me - ribs, Abby - shoulder).  There are two possible conclusions:
1) She's due
2) She's responsible

Vegas has #2 as a 5-1 favorite.

Enough, I know

Just in case you were still thinking there was something honorable in our tactics of torture, consider this Washington Post article from 2003.

"Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: 'If you want your family released, turn yourself in.' Such tactics are justified, he said, because, 'It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info.' They would have been released in due course, he added later. The tactic worked. On Friday, Hogg said, the lieutenant general appeared at the front gate of the U.S. base and surrendered."

So at least by 2003, we were kidnapping innocent wives and children and holding them hostage.

Stay classy, America.

Stupid Examples

When one tries to defend torture as a legitimate tactic, it typically takes the form of the "ticking time bomb" example (see every season of '24').  That is, there is a major (often nuclear) device hidden in a city, and you have in custody someone who knows it whereabouts.  They refuse to talk.  In this case, with potentially millions of lives at stake, aren't we justified in torturing this individual to get the information on where the bomb is located?

The problem with this example is that is pre-supposes three very critical things, none of which are applicable to any real life situation.
1) The individual in custody knows the location   We have police procedures and ultimately we have trials specifically to review the available evidence and make determinations of guilt and innocence. We get this wrong sometimes. It is impossible for us to be 100% sure we have the proper individual in custody, no matter how much evidence we pile up.  Particularly when we do not require (as the Bush administration insisted) on any semblance of due process for the person in custody.  In the real world, we might end up torturing the wrong person.
2) Torture is an effective means of eliciting the truth.  All the evidence shows that tortured individuals will make up any story you'd like in order to make the pain stop. All the literature on torture suggests that it actually *reduces* the veracity of the victims statements.  So even assuming we are torturing the right person, the possibility of actually getting the location of the bomb is far less than 100%.  Think about this, if on September 10th, 2001, we had Khalid Sheik-Mohammed in custody, what would you expect by torturing him? This man helped plan a suicide attack. Do you think he wouldn't lie? Do you think he wouldn't give false information?  Do you honestly think that beating him in the face will convince him to tell the truth?  Wouldn't the torture just convince him of the injustice of the U.S. and give him incentive to lie even more?  Torture is useless in extracting gainful information.
3) The potential damage is big enough to warrant torture.  That is, we suppose that "millions" of people would die, so torturing one person is worthwhile.  What if it was 100,000?  10,000? 1,000? 100?  At what point do we allow torture?  To save one other person?  Two other people?  Are we authorized to torture some more painfully the more people are at risk?  Can I slap someone around to save 5 people, but I can electrocute their testicles to save 1000?  The assumption is that we can make firm determinations of what torture is, when it is authorized, and when to apply it.  We cannot.

There is no situation in which torture is legally warranted.  None. Zero.  If you want to pick one thing that defines "civilization", it is not language, or forks, or art.  Cavemen had language, tools, and cave paintings.  What sets us apart is having set aside physical intimidation and abuse as methods of presuasion.  Torture violates the very nature of civilization.  It is barbaric, in the most perjorative sense of the word.

BUT, you say, wouldn't you torture someone to save Abigail and Madeline?  Let's leave aside the issues in 1) and 2) above, and assume that I have exactly the right person tied to a chair, and I'm garuanteed that if I snip off his fingertips with a metal shears I will get the information to save my little girls.  Would I cut off his fingers?  Would I torture this man to save my girls?

Absolutely.  But that does not make what I did legal, moral, ethical, or right.  After torturing this man and saving my family, I should go to jail.  And I'd go happily.

The *right* question to ask regarding torture is this: do you feel that the chance of obtaining useful information to save an unspecified number of people is worth spending time in jail?   Are you willing to pay the price of torturing people?

Let me amend my post from a couple of days ago to this.  I think that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, John Yoo, and all the other officials that knew about and authorized torture should be put on trial.  They should be required to - publically and openly - explain what they did and why they did it.  They should be forced to acknowledge and take ownership of their actions.  At that point, a jury of their peers might decide that what they did was justified and warranted, in the sense that it saved lives.

But they must be forced to admit they are torturers.  And if they really believe in what they did, they should be *proud* to admit that they tortured people.

You'll notice, though, that at no point did anyone in the administration have the guts to get up and speak directly to the country.  All the torture authorization happened in memos and meetings that they could pretend didn't happen.  They're cowards, flailing out at people that look different in an attempt to protect themselves. They are nothing more than cavemen, using their physical advantage to beat, rape, and kill weaker individuals.

If they want to be proud of that, let them stand up and confront the pictures and accounts of what they did.  But they won't. They'll hide behind executive privledge and let a few poor Marines go to jail.

I repeat, cowards. All of them.

Ugh

Abby and Madeline have Hannah Montana toothbrushes.  They play music. 

I shall now insert a fork into my eye socket.

Zero Interest Rates

So far this recession has been a boon to those of us who teach intermediate macroeconomics.  We're covering all the theoretical possibilities we were only able to speculate about in the past.

For instance, yesterday the Fed lowered their target interest rate to essentially zero.  The idea of this is to lower the cost of borrowing so that banks can borrow cheaply and then lend that money out to firms and people to buy stuff. But the Fed has been lowering the interest rate for months and the economy continues to worsen. And now the Fed has no place left to go - you can't lower the interest rate to less than zero.

So why isn't the lower Fed interest rate working?  And if it isn't working, what is the Fed's next step?  To answer this, let's review something really important, the Fisher equation (thanks Irv!).

Nominal interest rates (the rate you pay on your mortgage is a nominal interest rate) is made up of two parts:
i = r + p
where i is the nominal rate, r is the real interest rate, and p is a measure of inflation.  To understand this definition, think about lending me some money.  If you are going to loan me $1000, you need to be compensated for two things.  First, you need a 'real' return - this refers to the fact that for a year (or however long it takes me to pay you back) you will *not* have $1000.  The real interest rate is the 'charge' for this inconvenience to you.  Let's say that is equivalent to 3%.  That is, the cost of not having your $1000 for a year is $30. 

In addition to paying you the real return, I need to compensate you for the fact that a year from now prices will likely be higher.  So when I pay back the $1000, you can buy less stuff than you could have today.  Thus I have to pay you something in addition to the real return.  That something is the inflation rate.  If inflation were 2%, then the nominal rate would be 3% + 2% = 5%.

The Fed targets the nominal interest rate.  By saying that they have an interest rate target of 0%, they are saying that:
r + p = 0

Now, why might this not stimulate the economy?  Well, if we have that inflation is negative (deflation), then p<0 and it has to be that r>0.  If we expect prices to fall by 3% over the coming year, then the real rate of interest is equal to +3%.  The *real* interest rate is what matters for investment in the economy. So even though nominal rates of interest are zero, because of deflation this might mean that real interest rates are quite large.

Given the recent CPI information, it seems that prices are falling or stagnant, and more importantly, it seems that people are expecting prices to fall in the future.  Therefore the real interest rate is positive and large, and firms don't want to borrow.

So now what does the Fed do, if they can't lower the nominal rate below zero?  Well, they can try and adjust the expected inflation rate. How do they do that?  Fire up the presses.  We are at the point where the Fed will likely need to start printing money, and use this money to buy up financial assets.  The flood of new dollars into the banking system will drive up inflation.  More importantly, the Fed will have to convince everyone that they intend to keep inflation up (say at around 3%) for the foreseeable future.

If inflation is +3%, and the nominal rate of interest is 0%, then the real rate of interest is -3%.  Now we're cooking (we hope).  Negative real interest rates mean that you actually make real money by borrowing. Firms will be better off borrowing to buy new machines and expand production *now*, rather than in the future.

Ultimately, yesterdays setting of the nominal interest rate to zero signals that we are done with interest rate policy for the next year or so.  The Fed will have to move on to adjusting inflation directly to achieve any stimulus at all. 

This is not the end of the world, but it is like the guys at the Alamo running out of ammuntion and chucking rocks and dead cats at the Mexicans.  The Fed is down to dead cat throwing.  Well placed dead cats can still kill a man (I would presume that you need to get the claws to stay out, maybe if rigor sets in you can make this work), so it is not like they are powerless.  But much of the emphasis will likely now shift to the fiscal stimulus plan.

Get Mad

Okay, we're going to bring down the mood a little.  There have been few news reports on the Senate Armed Services Committee report just issued regarding torture.  Before the details, let me make it clear that this report was jointly issued by Carl Levin and John McCain, and that there were zero dissents on the committee made up of 13 Democrats and 12 Republicans.  This is not some Democratic hatchet job.

Remember Abu Gharib? The pictures of the soldiers posing with naked and hooded prisoners who were in torture positions?  That occurred in late 2003 and early 2004, with top brass "officially" reviewing the evidence on May 12th of 2004 before proceeding to court martial several soldiers for their actions.

As noted at that time, the actions that the soldiers took violated the Geneva Conventions, of which the U.S. was an original signatory.  In addition, the War Crimes Act of 1996 made violations of the Geneva Convention a felony under U.S. law.

So read the following outtakes from the Levin/McCain report and ask yourself why Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and Rumsfeld should not be prosecuted.

- "On February 7, 2002 President Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitle to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention."

- "In December 2001...the Dept of Defense General Counsel's Office had already solicited information on detainee 'exploitation' from the JPRA, an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Convention."

- "On August 1, 2002,....the Dept. of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued two legal opinions. The opinions were issued after consultation with senior Admin. attorneys, including then White-House counsel Alberto Gonzales... The memo's conclusions were that 'torture law doesn't apply if you act under the color of presidential authority.'

- "On August 1, 2002....the second memo..responded to a request from the CIA, addressing the legality of specific interrogation tactics. ...a publicly relaeased CIA document indicates that waterboarding was among those analyzed and approved."

- "On December 2, 2002, Secratary Rumsfeld signed Mr. Haynes recommendation [approving 15 different torture techniques], adding a handwritten note that referred to limits proposed in the memo on the use of stress positions: 'I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?'

- "On September 14, 2003 the Commander of CJTF-7, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez issued the first interrogation SOP that authorized interrogators in Iraq to use stress positions, environmental manipulation, sleep management, and military working dogs..."

The reports conclusions can be summarized as:
1. Before Abu Ghraib, The President made a written determination that the U.S. would not abide by the Geneva Conventions
2. Before Abu Ghraib, Members of the Cabinet and other senior officials were in meetings where specific torture techniques were discussed.
3. Rumsfelds authorization of torture led directly to abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay as well as contibuting to the use of the abusive techniques at Abu Ghraib.

Here's the quote to mull over - "The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own."

Congratulations, you live in a country where the most senior officials in the government authorized your country to violate the standards of civilization.  They stripped down human beings, urinated on them, let dogs urinate on them, hung them from their arms, forced them to go without sleep for days, made them stand for hours on end, put bags on their heads and beat them, and deliberately kicked detainees to break their arms.

Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, etc.. made a deliberate decision to torture human beings. For what? Ask any experienced law enforcement official, and they will tell you that no useful information is ever gathered from tortured individuals. They will say anything (i.e. they will make up stories) to make the pain stop.  The information, if any is actually obtained, is useless. 

These are small-minded, disgusting individuals who shredded their own morality in order to satisfy their desire to seem "tough" and to extract some kind of revenge of 9/11. 

I for one don't want revenge.  If there is anything I want, it would be to actually exert some effort to capture the man responsible for 9/11.  That has nothing to do with Iraq, and it is absolutely unnecessary to sacrifice fundamental human rights to achieve this.  After we finally get bin Laden, I want him to go on trial and spend the rest of his life in jail, next door to some crack-dealer from Compton.

If you think this torture was justified to "defend the homeland" or "to keep real Americans safe" or "to defend freedom" or "to get them before they get us" or "because they would torture us", then you have missed the entire point of Western Civilization and the United States of America.  I would suggest that you find a nice home in North Korea, or perhaps Saudi Arabia.

Bush and his cronies and puppet-masters degraded the honor of the U.S.A. with every one of these unspeakable acts. Good riddance to his entire administration.

Now, will we do the right thing and actually put them in jail?