Waterboarding, Sleep Deprivation, and Hypothermia Banned

John McCain has specifically listed the previously accepted interrogation techniques banned in the compromise between the White House and the Congress.

A Republican senator who played a leading role in drafting new rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects said yesterday that he believes a compromise bill embraced by party leaders and the White House will bar some of the most extreme techniques said to have been used by the CIA.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) named three measures that he said would no longer be allowed under a provision barring techniques that cause serious mental or physical suffering by U.S. detainees: extreme sleep deprivation, forced hypothermia and “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning. He also said other “extreme measures” would be banned.

Good news. These were the most extreme of the techniques used that were in the gray area between outright torture and compliance with the Geneva protocols.

Still, as Bruce McQuain points out, “The question is, whether the CIA will actually obey the new guidelines and, if not, whether anyone will even know.”

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey thinks McCain is aiding the enemy. “Islamists who watch American media will note the exceptions McCain listed and tell their operatives that they will not need to prepare for waterboarding and can prepare for less rigorous techniques.” Because, I’m sure, they’re spending a lot of time practicing being waterboarded now.

FILED UNDER: Congress, Terrorism, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Triumph says:

    Good news. These were the most extreme of the techniques used that were in the gray area between outright torture and compliance with the Geneva protocols.

    There is nothing in the proposed legislation that will insure those techniques can not be used. McCain can wish all he wants, but this so-called “compromise” bill gives Bush the sole authority to determine what constitutes a legal technique.

    The substance of the compromise has been to avoid explicitly “clarifying” the Geneva protocols while giving Bush the green light to continue to torture. Furthermore, Bush will still be able to kidnap people and hold them incommunicado without access to the legal system.

    If this bill passes, it will be tantamount to Congressional approval of torture and the denial of habeas corpus. To see the tentacles of an authoritarian state be embraced by so-called small government conservatives is disgusting.

  2. DaveD says:

    I believe the legislators will be quite comfortable passing legislation that permits them to take the high moral stance but essentially allows them to remain blameless of any mistakes, breeches or “misinterpretations” that occur.

  3. legion says:

    I’m curious – does this bill still leave everything in the CIA’s lap, or are other gov’t folks now expected to take part in this? I recall hearing that FBI and military folk actively refused to participate in earlier interrogations because of misgivings about the consequences (and general morality). Anybody know what their status is now?

  4. Anderson says:

    Where is Ed Morrisey’s brain? That is the stupidest thing I’ve read in quite a while now.

    Balkinization remains the single best source I know on the American adventure in torture, habeas-stripping, etc. (Legion, if you drop that question in comments to one of Marty Lederman’s posts, I bet he’ll answer it, if there is an answer.)

  5. LJD says:

    …and ‘sleep deprivation’ was further defined as asking detainees any questions outside the hours between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

  6. Triumph says:

    I recall hearing that FBI and military folk actively refused to participate in earlier interrogations because of misgivings about the consequences (and general morality). Anybody know what their status is now?

    The Financial Times reported last week that the reason Bush recently acknowledged his secret gulag system and called on Congress to pass legislation was because CIA officers refused to continue to torture kidnapped people because they feared legal liability.

    The pro-torture compromise hashed out by McCain and Bush also has a provision giving any governmental worker RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY for breaking existing anti-torture laws–explicitly the War Crimes Act.

    If this bill passes, Bush, Gonzalez, Rummy, Cheney and all of the other willful violaters of the law will be immune from prosecution for past transgressions of the War Crimes Act.

    It seems that McCain, Warner, and the other supposed “principled” senators were influenced by the provision authored by General Pinochet’s legislative assembly in Chile that gave the former dictator immunity for life.

  7. MrGone says:

    I don’t know about you but I’m getting a little tired of anyone/everyone who disagrees with THIS administration being labeled a traitor or aiding the enemy.

    BTW, if the report on the NIE is correct, it is Bush and Co who are in fact aiding the enemy.

  8. Steven Plunk says:

    Sheesh, you would think a few more reasonable minds would look at this as what it is, a compromise position on interrogation techniques. It satisfies opposing parties and moves the debate forward uniting us in our approach to terrorists.

    Gulags? Kidnappings? Critics as traitors? Pinochet? I think we are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

    The terrorism threat has created new situations that have not been addressed in the past. Working through these and coming to some sort of consensus (I hate that word) takes time. Extracting valuable information from these prisoners is a necessary process in order to save the lives of Americans and our allies. I don’t believe anyone really wants to not extract what we can.

    As with any law or rule you always wonder who will obey them. Sure, some may ignore the rules but that doesn’t mean the President is culpable.

    The whole idea that aggressive techniques are contrary to what it means to be American is nonsense. Maybe it was that way in the movies but when push comes to shove we have always done what it takes to save our comrades lives. It’s a rough world out there so expect a little roughness. If the terrorists don’t like it they should have kept their jihad internal.

  9. LaurenceB says:

    Reading the comments in Morrisey’s post one can’t help but question our Nation’s soul. How did it come to this – where so many people find torture acceptable? Unbelievable.

  10. Anderson says:

    The terrorism threat has created new situations that have not been addressed in the past.

    Mr. Plunk, are you stupid, or are you under the impression that your readers are stupid? Because I can’t tell.

    Extracting valuable information from these prisoners is a necessary process in order to save the lives of Americans and our allies.

    Right, which is why it’s a really good idea to rely on tried and true interrogation techniques, as set forth in the Army Interrogation Manual, rather than macho b.s. that weak-minded Bush-worshippers substitute for reality.

    People used to confess under torture to being witches, flying to black masses, having sex with the Devil. Is torture *really* the best way to get the truth out of people?

    As Matt Yglesias pointed out, torture’s most useful when you know in advance the answers you want to hear. Is that really an instrument you want to provide Dick “Stovepiping” Cheney, for instance?

    If the terrorists don’t like it they should have kept their jihad internal.

    Again, I don’t know whose intelligence you’re insulting, ours or your own. What on earth makes you think that torture, once legalized, will be reserved for proved terrorists?

    Maher Arar could tell you a thing or two about that–the Canadians told the U.S. point-blank “we have no evidence he’s linked to al-Qaeda,” and our response was to tell the Syrians he *did* have such links and send him over there for torture. And damned if he didn’t announce that he was in fact linked to al-Qaeda, and had trained in Afghanistan … despite those being lies, lies that even the Syrians eventually figured out.

    This isn’t even hard. Who here seriously thinks that, after a few weeks of the now-legalized torture techniques, Steven Plunk wouldn’t confess to whatever his interrogators wanted him to? I know *I* sure as hell would.

    What it comes down to is easy: are we going to become the evil empire that the Chomskyites have always said we were? Bush and Cheney want it that way. To hell with them.

  11. legion says:

    Sheesh, you would think a few more reasonable minds would look at this as what it is, a compromise position on interrogation techniques. It satisfies opposing parties and moves the debate forward uniting us in our approach to terrorists.

    Not by a damn sight, Steven. It satisfies opposing blocs within the Republican party, and continues to completely ignore the debate. Name me one Democrat who was consulted on this so-called “compromise”. What public debate has _ever_ occurred regarding the use of torture?

    Moral implications aside, this entire affair has made a complete mockery of the concept of open, transparent government. The whole point is that the gov’t _represents_ us. But we aren’t even allowed to _know_ what our gov’t is doing in our names, let alone voice any opinion of influence about it.

  12. Anderson says:

    Ariel Dorfmann, quoted by Dan Froomkin:

    Chilean novelist and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman writes in The Washington Post’s Outlook section with the story of the first torture victim he ever met: “He confessed to anything and everything they wanted to drag from his hoarse, howling throat; he invented accomplices and addresses and culprits; and then, when it became apparent that all this was imaginary, he was subjected to further ordeals.

    “There was no escape.

    “That is the hideous predicament of the torture victim.”

    And Froomkin cites Charles Kaiser in the LA Times:

    Charles Kaiser writes in the Los Angeles Times about why 43 retired generals and admirals publicly stated their opposition to Bush’s interrogation policies. For instance:

    “Retired Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen was chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. ‘I grew up in an Army where the rules were very clear and where serviceman and women had no question about what their obligations and responsibilities were under both the Geneva Convention and our domestic law,’ he said. ‘When you have a winking-and-nodding policy [as was the case at Abu Ghraib], that just brings about the consequences that we came to view at [the prison].’

    “What further fuels the officers’ outrage is that the policies they believe have undermined the military were mostly formulated by men, like Bush, who have not seen combat.

    “‘[Vice President Dick] Cheney made mention in the days after 9/11 that he wanted to operate sort of on the dark side,’ Cullen said. ‘Here was a guy who never served, and now something terrible had happened, and he wanted to show that he was a tough guy. . . . So he’s going to operate outside the rules of law. Bad message.'”

    That’s my theory about our leaders’ embrace of torture: they want to prove how tough, how non-Democrat they are, by “going to the dark side.” They take pride in their callousness because they mistake it for strength.

  13. Randy says:

    Comment in violation of site policies deleted.

  14. Steven Plunk says:

    Wow, I guess my point has been made by those who responded, no one can be reasonable when discussing this.

    Am I stupid? No. I am a realist who understands things are harsh in this here world. But thanks for asking Anderson, it speaks to your respect of others. By the way, I don’t consider the other readers stupid.

    I certainly am not trying to insult any one’s intelligence just pointing out the shrill nature of the arguments and lack of reasonable tolerance of others ideas. Again proven.

    I also don’t profess to any special knowledge about torture and it’s effectiveness but I doubt many of us do. We should defer those decisions to those who actually know. The word on the street is that useful information has been retrieved using some of these methods.

    As for Maher Arer, we didn’t torture him, we didn’t ask for him to be tortured, and we didn’t get anything out of his being tortured. The Syrians did it for some reason but it wasn’t for us. Sure we deported him, he wasn’t a citizen of the US so we do that sort of thing.

    “Evil empire”? Yeah, we’re evil. You bet. Sure.

    I am curious what sort of public debate Legion would want since any advocacy of “aggressive” techniques turns a person immoral and stupid apparently. This debate is actually being held everyday by people like us. It would be nice if it had rules of debate to keep it civil. I suppose if the Democrats had something to say about this we would have heard it so don’t blame the Republicans for being the ones active in the discussions.

    If Randy would like to be able to tell if I am stupid all he has to do is read my posts. Logic and reason, that’s all it takes. Save emotions for emotional affairs but keep them out of public policy.

  15. Randy says:

    Mr. Plunk, are you stupid, or are you under the impression that your readers are stupid? Because I can’t tell.

    It is not a matter of somone’s stupidity–rather it is a matter of deliberate misleading.

    Take a look at the title of this post, for instance: “Waterboarding, Sleep Deprivation, and Hypothermia Banned.”

    Of course, anyone who has read further than the third paragraph of a news story on the compromise legislation knows that none of these things have been banned.

    To appeal to McCain’s authority on the issue is irrelevant since he is not the one who decides which techniques are banned.

    Framing this post in such a way does nothing but obsfucates the facts.

  16. Anderson says:

    Mr. Plunk, when you treat people as if they were stupid, you’re not in a position to accuse them of incivility.

    You are, after all, the person who just wrote this:

    We should defer those decisions to those who actually know. The word on the street is that useful information has been retrieved using some of these methods.

    “Those who actually know” would seem to be, say, the authors of the Army Interrogation Manual? And yet, your very next sentence suggests we should give greater weight to “word on the street”? What streets have you been hanging out on, pray tell?

    The Syrians did it for some reason but it wasn’t for us.

    Your faith is touching, and I suggest you protect it from the facts for as long as possible. CIA agents have candidly stated that we send people to Syria, Egypt, etc. to be interrogated by methods we cannot, or used to couldn’t, employ legally. –But maybe your “word on the street” is different?

    Apparently, America has a sort of magical moral Teflon, such that whatever evil we do, it doesn’t make us evil? You bet. Sure.

  17. Anderson says:

    Relevantly, here’s an excerpt from an old criminal lawyer wiping the floor with John Cornyn’s b.s., at the habeas hearings.

    It’s quite clear from Mr. Sullivan’s remarks that the basis on which we identify “terrorists” or “enemy combatants,” and thus potential torture victims, leaves a teensy bit to be desired.

    It’s just amazing how the “defenders” of America are willing to take whatever makes us great — our moral values, our democratic institutions, our dedication to the rule of law — and toss it on the burn pile.

  18. legion says:

    I am curious what sort of public debate Legion would want since any advocacy of “aggressive” techniques turns a person immoral and stupid apparently. This debate is actually being held everyday by people like us. It would be nice if it had rules of debate to keep it civil. I suppose if the Democrats had something to say about this we would have heard it so don’t blame the Republicans for being the ones active in the discussions.

    Wow. Steven, your chutzpah is impressive. You know full well that a bunch of us wonks arguing on a blog doesn’t affect a bloody thing outside in the ‘real world’. What I refer to, quite civilly, IMHO, is public debate by our elected representatives such that the public is aware of what the gov’t is doing, or trying to do, in our names.

    “If the Democrats had something to say…” ?!? I’ll try to continue to be civil, but what the hell are you smoking? The Democrats have been trying desparately to discuss this publicly for weeks now, and the “so-called liberal media” has adamantly refused to inform you that a significant chunk of America vehemently disagrees with what Bush and the “compromising” GOP are attempting to pull. Check here to watch the debates the Dems are holding on their own, since the GOP-controlled Congress won’t allow official hearings. Look here to see more details about what the Democrats don’t have to say.

    It’s nice that you can use one or two impolite comments as an excuse to completely dodge any discussion of the total incorrectness of your own statements, but it doesn’t hold water…

  19. Anderson says:

    Legion, where *were* the Dems during the “compromise” negotiations last week?

    I realize the media makes it rather difficult for them to get much out there, but still–they deliberately sat back, and now the Republicans have come out for torture.

    They should’ve been using the moment of Republican debate (?) to educate the public about how poorly torture works, how “torture lite” is indeed torture, and how we’ve already caused innocents to be tortured, as well as wringing false statements from the guilty.

  20. Zelsdorf Ragshaft III says:

    I don,t know which side of this issue some of you are on, but if your moral highground costs me my life, who will extract revenge on you? If any of you have imaginations, imagine enduring what Nick Berg endured before he died. I wonder which of the Geneva conventions protocals those who executed him were following. If you think you can win this fight with anything but the most violent tactics, you show your failure to understand the nature of the enemy. Anderson, if you don’t wise up, you will know through experience just who the enemy is. They will be the ones beheading your sons, and raping your daughters, lest you submit to Islam. Where will your moral high ground be than?

  21. Michael says:

    if your moral highground costs me my life, who will extract revenge on you?

    That pretty much sums up that end of the argument. You life is, evidently, more precious than your nation. There was a time in our history where people like you were not considered “patriots”.

    If you think you can win this fight with anything but the most violent tactics, you show your failure to understand the nature of the enemy.

    I’m trying to figure out just how far you think we should go. Should we start nuking Mecca? If that doesn’t stop them muslims from hating us, maybe we should start nuking entire countries? Entire nations? Entires regions? Perhaps after we kill a few billion (with a B) people we’ll be safe. After all, once the muslims are gone we’ve got to protect ourselves from the communists, and the socialists, and the catholics, and the gypsies and the jews. Tell me where it ends, Zeldorf?

    The fact that an American can actually consider something like that disgusts me. You don’t deserve to be an American.

  22. ken says:

    Can the Nazicons really get away with this? Can they authorize torture and not ever be held accountable?

    I don’t think that is right. Regardless of what Bush, McCain or the rest of the Nazicons do in Congress they cannot make moral that which is immoral nor can they make legal that which is constitutionally illegal.

    The word best go out to the guys in the field that this legislation does not absolve them from prosecution for war crimes.

  23. Jody says:

    Because, I’m sure, they’re spending a lot of time practicing being waterboarded now.

    In all seriousneess, I thought being waterboarded was part of special ops training.

  24. cian says:

    According to this morning’s Washington Post (online) the republican ‘Rebels/moderates/independents’ and administration staff are deep in discussion on redefining the non-combatant designation from those engaged in violent acts against the United States to those who support violent acts against the United States.

    By expressing my disagreement with this step, am I now a non-combatant and thereby liable to be disappeard, tortured, and sentenced without ever seeing the inside of a court?

    Crazy to think that in the America of George W. Bush this is no longer a crazy question.

  25. LJD says:

    ‘The word best go out to the guys in the field that this legislation does not absolve them from prosecution for war crimes.’

    ..but he supports the troops…

  26. Bithead says:

    The mental midgets such as Olbermann… and yes a few self-proclaimed libertarians… claiming that torture never works are trying to claim the moral high road. However; they don’t get to make that choice. Not yet, anyway.

    The sad truth is, that the morality that we live by every day is decided and enforced by the winners of these kinds of battles. We don’t get to declare what is moral and a moral, until such time as we win the war.

    For the record, nobody has even come close to officially suggesting that we can the Geneva convention for people who are actually covered by said convention. This is an important point that many parties to this conversation seem to have utterly missed.

    Perhaps a greater import, is the concept that if we don’t win, the Islamofascists get to decide what is moral and what is not. It’s that simple.

    Priorities, you know.

  27. Bithead says:

    I’m trying to figure out just how far you think we should go. Should we start nuking Mecca? If that doesn’t stop them muslims from hating us, maybe we should start nuking entire countries? Entire nations? Entires regions? Perhaps after we kill a few billion (with a B) people we’ll be safe. After all, once the muslims are gone we’ve got to protect ourselves from the communists, and the socialists, and the catholics, and the gypsies and the jews.

    Ummm… Last I knoew, the Catholics, the Gypsies and the Jews weren’t trying to kill us en masse’.
    Has something changed and we didn’t know about it?

    Pacification, being nice to them, etc. didn’t work. There’s hundreds of years of history to that point.

    But you raise an aspect of this that I have long held to be the case… That this is not about torture per say, rather this is about an overall antiwar stance on the part of the left. It’s just that the antiwar left has a few apologists on the right, and in some libertarian circles, willing to dance with them, these days.

    You’ll pardon me I’ll pass on this dance, thank you.. I’d much rather stay alive, myself.

  28. Michael says:

    I’d much rather stay alive, myself.

    Coward.

  29. ken says:

    We can include Bithead among the Nazicons encouraging the use of terror and torture.

    As long as those in the field dismiss the illegal and immoral advice of people like Bithead they will be ok. No one should risk facing war crimes punishment because they listened to deceitful Nazicons.

  30. Anderson says:

    Those who would trade liberty for security will soon have neither ….

  31. Anderson says:

    And although there’s no terribly good reason for anyone to still be returning to this thread, Crooked Timber’s remarks on an OTB-style commenter at Intel Dump are spot-on:

    The moral progress of the spectacularly ill-named Diogenes, through the thread, is worthy of special attention. He is the first commenter, leaping in with a brash accusation of partisan bias. When it is pointed out this thing he calls ‘a subsidiary of moveon.org’ is a catalogue of facts, he fires back, guns blazing in all manner of directions. Gradually he is reduced to mounting a narrow but determined point defense: we need to be roughing up some terrorists. He’s shining a lantern beam of, like, moral darkness, in the dead of factual night, looking for a bad man. Or, to put it a bit less unkindly, he is bound and determined to find some way to be bloody-mindeder than thou. The last stand of the moral clarity brigade. The fact that Diogenes in effect sidetracks serious discussion of Iraq and national security issues by loudly making the case for torture is a hideous illustration of just how wrong the frame of the national debate is, at the moment.

    And how.

  32. Bithead says:

    Talk to me all day long if you will about principle, and the application thereof. Things that you set down as just, and right, I will likely see some agreement with. But our enemy doesn’t care. Nor does reality. The fact is that regardless of what you and I come up with collectively or individually, it matters naught, in the end, if we don’t have the power to enact that morality.

    I’m not speaking of our morality being enforced, yet. Think; After a loss to totalitarianism on the scale that we see that the last few years from the Islamofacists, what chance do we have to even discuss what you what I find moral, much less see it codified, or even followed?

    No. When they win, they get to decide what is and is not moral.

    So, argue if you will, about that means we have to use to get information from our enemy to save American lives. The fact of the matter is our enemy doesn’t care about our definition of morality. nor, is he bound to it. Our being bound to it at this point, given what we’re up against, is like bringing a knife to a gun fight: a sure fire way to lose.

    And this is a fight we MUST win.
    As Sowell said the other day:

    Squeamishness about how this is done is not a sign of higher morality but of irresponsibility in the face of mortal dangers.

    And what happens to our morality at that point?

    Is there a clearer way I can put this?

  33. Anderson says:

    Bithead makes no sense.

    “Our enemies aren’t moral.” Well, duh. I don’t recall our fighting any particularly moral regimes in WW2 or Vietnam, either.

    But how, exactly, does that support our use of torture–a tactic of proven unreliability, one that’s rejected by professional military interrogators?

    It doesn’t.

    The torture supporters pretend to be tough, when really they’re weak at the core. Too weak to believe in America’s values. Too weak to believe that the good guys can win. Too weak, even, to cope with the facts.

    Take it elsewhere, people. America doesn’t need you.

  34. ken says:

    I think I understand Bithead now. He is a coward.

    He is terrified that his childrens school will become a madrasa, that his church will become a mosque, and that his wife will have to start covering her face in public and no longer be able to pick up the kids for after school soccer practice.

    But not only is he losing sleep over all his fears, he has no faith in America. He actually things we are going to let this happen unless he and his ilk are allowed to terrorize and torture people.

    I think that makes him feel brave.

  35. James Joyner says:

    WARNING: I’ve been lax in policing this thread owing to being otherwise engaged. There are several instances of gratuitous personal attack her in violation of site policies.

    Further instances will be deleted.

  36. Anderson says:

    “Please Be Civil to the Torture Advocates. Thank You.”

    Got it. Mr. Plunk, I withdraw my aspersions on your intelligence, and opt instead for your having assumed that your readers were stupid–recall that I had a hard time telling the difference.

  37. Ray says:

    Waterboarding, Sleep Deprivation, and Hypothermia Banned

    There goes SEAL’s trainng!

  38. Bithead says:

    “Our enemies aren’t moral.” Well, duh. I don’t recall our fighting any particularly moral regimes in WW2 or Vietnam, either.

    If you look closely the history book that has been approved by the Liberal intelligentsia you may notice that we lost the second of those two wars as you mention… and one of the major reasons for that loss was we tried to be too ‘civil’.

  39. Bithead says:

    But not only is he losing sleep over all his fears, he has no faith in America. He actually things we are going to let this happen unless he and his ilk are allowed to terrorize and torture people.

    I would strongly advise you to take a look at what’s going on in Britain and in Canada just now. Tell me about how being civil is not permitting them to take over our society. I submit that the canary in the coal mine in the western hemisphere is Canada. If you look closely you may notice that their “respect and civility” isn’t working out quite so well.

    And not too long ago, they sounded pretty much as you do today. Satisfied that “we’ll never let that happen here”.

  40. Bithead says:

    But how, exactly, does that support our use of torture—a tactic of proven unreliability, one that’s rejected by professional military interrogators?

    Objection, your honor.
    Uses points not yet admitted into evidence.
    I suggest rather the reverse. Torture works, and all too well. Else our enemy would not object.

    Look very closely, if you will, at the people who are bringing the lawsuits against such treatment. CAIR, for one.

  41. Michael says:

    I suggest rather the reverse. Torture works, and all too well. Else our enemy would not object.

    Well of course a witch would say she’s not a witch.

    I do finally understand BitHead though. He’s not afraid of his children’s school becoming a Madrasa, or his church becoming a mosque, or even that his wife may have to wear a headscarf. He’s afraid of losing.

    That’s it.

    Really, it is that simple. Take a look at all of this comments in this thread and any other like it. He would rather be wrong than lose. Time after time he says that being right is only important if you win. And so he will justify anything that he thinks will increase his changes of not losing, including selling out his country, and all the brave men and women that have kept this country great, to feed his need to “win”.

    In short, BitHead has a gambling problem.

  42. Bithead says:

    So, tell me… if we’re acting ‘right’ (by your lights) and yet we lose, as is likely to happen if we follow your advice, what have we won?

    More correctly, what have we left?

  43. Bithead says:

    I do finally understand BitHead though. He’s not afraid of his children’s school becoming a Madrasa, or his church becoming a mosque, or even that his wife may have to wear a headscarf. He’s afraid of losing.

    Whereas you, apparently, would prefer that we DID lose.

    Noted.