Torture as a tool for manufacturing evidence
McClatchy has now found a most intriguing (and, in retrospect, a most predictable) connection.
The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
Read more about it at Koz. And also check out the new disclosure that the Bush Administration did its damndest to destroy a memorandum highly critical of the legality of its decision to torture prisoners.
And now we know that Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney personally approved waterboarding.
Finally, consider this conversation involving FOX’s Shepard Smith and Judith Miller (the Judith Miller), who unrelentingly attack the memos for trying to justify torture. Maybe Miller is in a redemptive phase . . .
THEN, listen carefully at exactly 5:07 of the video to hear a walloping Freudian slip by the conservative think-tanker, Cliff May, a guy who claims that waterboarding is fun and games, who accidentally admits that the Bush-approved techniques WERE torture (listen for the critical word is “it”). Yes, Cliff, it was torture and you (and everyone else in the country) know it. Miller raises the point that even Israel, which knows a thing or two about interrogating prisoners, outlawed waterboarding long ago because it is torture.
But there’s still more. Consider Republican strategist and Cheney-admirer Phil Lusser’s “magic eyeballs” in a conversation with Lawrence O’Donnell and Norah O’Donnell. Go to the end of this video and you’ll hear Lawrence O’Donnell clean Lusser’s clock.
It’s all falling apart like a house of cards. After years and years of insanity, it’s finally happening. Yes, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Mindy: Many of the people who want to retain torture as a tool for national security propose a scenario that is analogous to my example regarding a kidnapped child. The hypothetical goes something like this. A captured terrorist credibly announces that he has planted an atomic bomb that is timed to explode in X hours and that it will kill millions of people. But he refuses to say where it is. Is torture acceptable? If presented with this scenario, would you do “whatever it takes” to get the guy to disclose where the bomb is? To be frank, if I really found the terrorist to be credible about planting the nuclear bomb in the first place, I’d be tempted to do whatever it takes to obtain the information I need to save millions of people.
None of the torture that has been done in our name has been done for such an alleged purpose, however, or for anything similar. If such a situation really and truly arose, I would suspect that many of us anti-torture people would carve out this situation as an (an extremely narrow) exception to a general prohibition of torture.
Erich, even in the situation you describe, torture is not likely to work. If the bomber is not upset about his capture, then either he is lying, or he believes his cause is just and he death in necessary. What kind of people are suicide bombers? those with nothing to live for and those with everything to die for.
In reality, the best way to get intel is through deception, observsation and detailed knowlege of psychology. In hacker circles this is known as “Social Engineering”.
Agreed, Erich. And you’re right -that is the kind of hypothetical that is used to make torture sound like a viable option.
I would say that a rule is not a rule unless it has exceptions, and agree that this would be one of those very few exceptions that I, too, would probably make.
Our head of school wisely included this quote from sociologist Cheryl Carpenter in his most recent parent letter: “”The answer to most adult questions is: ‘It depends.’”
Because the world is not black and white, and because rules always do have exceptions.
Think Progress has a link-rich article on the myths of torture apologists.
The myths covered are:
1. We didn’t torture.
2. Harsh interrogation worked, and
3. There’s no need for accountabilty.
Mark Danner reminds us that we’ve known about the problem for five years.
This delay in understanding and dealing with that which we already know reminds us that real-world knowledge is not just about evidence. It’s also about political power.
Mindy, Erich:
I still don’t see the value of torture. I may feel viscerally tempted to pursue torture in the personal scenario - but that would be more from the perspective of ‘lashing out’ than from ’soliciting information’. I don’t think the situations are necessarily equivalent. I do think torture has been proven to be useless at getting reliable information. Why rely on a useless tool (other than from visceral satisfaction at causing the instigator pain and suffering)?
Torture has been multiply disproven as a source of reliable information. In your (or Danny’s) ‘doomsday’ scenario, the culprit need only survive for ‘X’ hours (however long that may be). During that time, it is expected that (s)he will provide disinformation during torture interrogation (as our own airmen have been trained to provide, using SERE techniques).
But regardless of expectation, every lead proffered needs to be pursued. Every single one. Not even the US has enough agents to chase down disinformation to ‘de-qualify’ it in such short time-frames.
Again - life is not ‘24′.
Torture has no place in a human (not simply humane) society.
Tony: I know that you can sense my ambivalence. My hypothetical involved lots of vagueness. In real life, there are often options that hypotheticals downplay.
I would suspect that torture would almost never be justified in real life, though Hollywood has given us some vivid cases where some degenerate is punched and threatened until he blurts out a bit of information that saves lives. I could imagine a situation, but that doesn’t mean that torture has ever yet been justified in the real world. So much so that I would never trust the government to engage in torture, especially given its track record in employing torture. I would take it totally off the books and outlaw it in plain language. If some well-intentioned agent tortures someone to save many lives, let him/her do it at substantial risk of going to prison. If they did it to spare us a Hollywood-type disaster, they can tell the story to the judge and plead for mercy, just as I would if I beat the shit out of someone, allegedly to save a child’s life.
What Erich said, Tony. In the parental hypothetical, I admit that my motivation would come as much from a need to hurt someone who would dare hurt my child as anything else. Hence my “he had it coming” comment.
Honestly, I can’t really imagine what I would do in such an entirely unimaginable situation. Should someone really bury one of my children in a box to die, I would most likely be rendered almost immediately insane. Torture would be exercised not by a rational woman but by a completely psychotic mother bear, out to save her cub at any cost or die trying.
Do I ever want my government behaving that way? No. I do not.
Erich: you said
It’s already part of a UN accord that all signatory nations have agreed to accept and uphold.
The United States ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 1994. Article 12 of the CAT provides:
IANAL, but I think that means that torture is already illegal in the US and it’s territories.
Tony: I was unclear. I know that torture is already prohibited by law and treaty binding the US. To the extent that the Bush Administration has tried to create legal authority via legal memos or through court decisions, I would undo all of that nonsense. Make it as clear as possible: no torture is allowed in the U.S.
Mindy, Erich: I do agree with you - beating the shit out of someone in such heart-rending circumstances would likely happen - and would be the behavior of someone ‘not in their right mind’.
That is the key factor against torture as a usable protocol in my book - you need to be ‘not in your right mind’ for it to become an acceptable choice.
Kudos to everyone, this is a great example of a productive discussion… I’m learning a lot.
Tony, I get what you are saying. I could not create a nuanced enough scenario. I figured that no matter what the conditions are, it always boils down to a binary “to torture or not to torture.”
I’m glad many of you brought up the scenario of someone holding my child ransom and how I would respond. That is what I was really concerned about, what I would do if someone had my child. Would I torture if I thought it could get them back? Well, I imagined it… prodding and slicing parts, talking about unspeakable things to someone… and I couldn’t imagine myself going through it. If I was in an interrogation room with this fictitious person, I may make an earnest plea followed up with some gut-checks and groin kicks… but not the kind of torture that is under discussion.
Finally, I researched this topic a bit tonight on wikipedia. I was pleasantly surprised to read a quote by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, “a rapport-based interrogation that recognizes respect and dignity, and having very well-trained interrogators, is the basis by which you develop intelligence rapidly and increase the validity of that intelligence.”
Also, reading about the torture methods anew and imagining myself either in the place or torturer or torture victim, it made me sick to my stomach. I just say this to make the point that it’s easy for me to intellectualize and theorize about these things, but I need to go to the source and empathize with all sides to get a well rounded view.
Thanks!
P.S. Thank you all for allowing my views. I’ve already notice some of my thought processes maturing a bit as a result of having them held up against the scrutiny of those older (*wink) and wiser than I.
Danny - you’ve picked up on something that is often a source of friction.
As an aging curmudgeon, I’ve already had the same discussion many, many, many, …, many times. As such, my side of the discussion can sometimes go from “hi there” to “you’re an idiot” faster than the other side expects*!
I do try to step back, and think before setting off the incendiary, but is is really challenging sometimes - especially when the presented argument is as old as Zeno’s ‘paradox’, or is a simple rehash of Pascal’s wager.
What I’m trying to say, is that I really appreciate a dialog that engages me and makes me think outside those ingrained channels. Your conversations here do that job admirably. So kudos to you.
* this is exactly why I’m not a grade school teacher!
From Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish:
What is clear is that the core British apparatus for interrogating Nazi spies and captives suspected of having actionable intelligence during the war used no coercion of any kind; and that the clear and stated policy of the British in interrogation during the war banned all forms of torture.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/churchill-vs-cheney-ctd.html
When we start the criminal prosecutions for the torture, let’s not forget Condoleeza Rice.
According to Dan Froomkin, writing in the Washington Post, there is no real-world justification for torture, not even the hypothetical most often offered:
For the whole story, see the Washington Post.
Andrew Sullivan recounts in detail the way in which Americans handled prisoner John Walker Lindh. Truly not something to be proud of. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/the-first-victim-of-abuse.html
Kevin Drum explains the practical reason (as opposed to legalistic reasons) for barring torture: “When a group of combatants are badly outnumbered, or surrounded, or otherwise very, very unlikely to win a conflict, they have a considerable incentive to surrender — but only if they believe they will subsequently be treated with mercy. That is why individuals, and nations, surrender.”
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/04/torture-and-civilization
From DemocracyNow.org:
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, President Obama said at his last news conference that waterboarding is torture. Does he then have an obligation to prosecute those who were involved with it, either authorizing it or doing it themselves to prisoners?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, the President did say clearly at his press conference that waterboarding is torture. I say, “Therefore, it’s against the law. And therefore, those who formulated the policy, at a minimum, should be held accountable.”
Now, I think it’s appropriate that he’s letting the Attorney General, Mr. Holder, take a look at this and determine if that is in fact their conclusion. But I do not believe people can say, “Well, they were just offering their valid legal opinions.” They are not valid legal opinions. They are not reasonable legal opinions. They are outrageous legal opinions. And I certainly, for one, hope that there’s serious consideration of prosecution in some of those cases.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think Jay Bybee should be impeached?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: I don’t believe he should be in the office he’s in. I’d prefer to see him resign. I would not rule out impeachment.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/5/senator_russ_feingold_on_obamas_escalation