I get frustrated with the frequency with which people write about the treatment of detainees without getting their facts straight. But let me just make a little aside here. I am not one of the people that utilized the argument that torture doesn’t work. Torture can work, in certain limited circumstances. If your subject has the information that you are seeking, torturing them may hasten the divulgence of that information. Think about a bully on the playground. If he threatens to beat you up unless you tell him where you hid something, you may very well tell him what he wants to know to avoid a beating. Or, you may tell him to get him to stop beating you. So, yeah, threats and torture and other forms of coercion can work.
When knowledgeable people say that torture doesn’t work, they mean something different. If you don’t know what information your subject has, you are likely to ask questions that they don’t know the answers to. When you subject them to torture or the threat of torture they will make things up that they think will make the pain or the threat of pain go away. This creates false leads.
Experienced interrogators are fairly united in their opinion that torture is not an effective means of obtaining good information. They are mainly in agreement that it is more effective to establish some rapport with the subject and to use a lot of patience. If speed is your only consideration and you know exactly what you want to ask and you know that your subject has the information you are seeking, then torture can be the speediest way to learn what you need to know. But, in the real world, those situations are exceedingly rare.
So, setting aside momentarily the moral issues with torturing detainees, the idea that some good information was obtained through torture (if true) would not be all that surprising. In order for a prosector to show discretion in the face of prima facie evidence of lawbreaking, they’d need to see evidence that the torture was effective in yielding time-sensitive information that resulted in averting some disaster. The same would be true for a jury if they were considering nullifying the charges.
But the Bush administration has around 100 dead detainees’ blood on their hands. As of early 2006 (PDF), there were forty-five cases of suspected homicide or mistreatment that led to death. There were eight cases of people who were tortured to death. I don’t know why these facts are so consistently ignored, but they are central to the historical record. When will Dick Cheney write an opinion piece explaining why these 45 people were killed and what intelligence was gained by killing them?
The national media, in collusion with this government and the last government, have created a false narrative where all we debate is the mistreatment of a small number of high-value prisoners. Even when we stick to those limited cases, the record warrants prosecution. But at least there is the semblance of a legitimate debate on those cases. The real records shows, however, that people were tortured to death. Lots of them.
Well said.
And remember – the 45 people are killed are only the ones we know about. How many more died without our hearing a thing?
I’m sorry, BooMan. I get what you’re saying, but all of those arguments are moot. Torture is notorious for producing unreliable information. And yes, there are the cases where some operatives went right on past torture to murder. All of that, every bit of it, is moot.
Torture is not only immoral by the standards of every civilized nation on the planet, it is illegal by the laws of every civilized nation on the planet, and by treaty obligation, illegal for all nations and all peoples on the planet.
Some fairly significant number of people in the Bush administration, almost certainly beginning with Cheney and quite possibly Bush as well, right down the chain of command to some of the grunts who actually got their hands dirty following orders, by their own public statements are guilty of a host of international war crimes, as well as US laws and the USCMJ. And they should be vigorously investigated and, where warranted, prosecuted as such. Whether they did or didn’t obtain useful information as a result of their crimes is absolutely beside the point.
Well, it’s not quite as cut and dried as that. If they could convincingly show that torture prevented imminent attacks they’d get away with it no matter what the law said. I don’t think they could show any such thing, but theoretically speaking, the illegality of torture seems unlikely to result in convictions in every imaginable case. The “imminent danger” defense will be a strong one in the real world.
The imminent danger defense I think will fail just because the material facts will show that the torture did not occur promptly after capture and that by the time the torture occurred many “imminent” events had already happened.
Take for example, the care and delay with which John Rizzo set up the black sites in Europe after the US had detainees that were destined for those sites. There was a lot of negotiation with foreign governments that sorta removed the “imminent” nature of the information.
While torture might work in some specific instances to gather a smidgen of information, providing you know what you are looking for, torture is an excellent means of producing false information for propaganda purposes. One needs look no farther than the statements of US POWs in the Korean War or John McCain’s statement during the Vietnam War (yeah, I know some folks think he was telling the God’s truth). And the false positives, according to experienced interrogators, significantly outweigh the true positives. I’m sure there is a statement by one of the detainees somewhere that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
But as others said here, that is beside the point. Torture is illegal under a treaty that the US pushed for, signed, and got the Senate to reluctantly ratify (American exceptionalism, national sovereignty and all that rot). In addition, there is a federal law criminalizing torture.
So the question comes down to, as it does so often in this Post-Bush world, are we a nation of laws or are we not.
Torture is effective for three main purposes: 1) To obtain “confessions” and statements that can be used for propaganda purposes, 2) to control a population by creating a fear of torture. As a tool to obtain reliable information it completely sucks, 3) punishment.
And then there is the little matter of the fact that it is illegal, immoral, and inhuman.
Does anyone think of stopping this discussion to go arrest those responsible for the deaths of possibly over one hundred prisoners, who died during the commission of a war crime, & which is punishable by death.
Why are investigations not already ongoing.
There should be raucous clamoring in the streets, for those responsible, to be strung up from the nearest light pole, or closest yard arm.
Is it so hard to remember that most of those murdered, were humans, not yet charged with any crime, let alone appearing before a jury of peers.
The deaths are really sickening, but the, so far, lack of accountability, makes me think that not one of us is immune from the same fate, either here or abroad.
I’d be willing to concede that torture works more often than not in getting information which, who knows, saves lives. So What? The reason why it is wrong as well as illegal has nothing to do with utility. Cannibalism is not an answer to nutritional requirements and rape is not an answer to procreation purposes. Torture is not an answer to preserving a civil society. I’d sooner let those ticking bombs (so many of them you know) explode.
If just ONE person was tortured and DID give up some kind of truly valuable information, would you support that?
It’s either wrong ALL the time or it isn’t, and if it’s wrong it’s not because of how in/effective it is.
Pax
Wow, Boo! It’s been a while but your more virulent right-wingy side keeps seeping out, kinda like the aroma of a rotted onion when those first few crisp, white layers are peeled away. “Torture can work”? Of course you throw in that absurd qualifier, but you had to do that so as not to look like the ultimate monster. But beneath that blush the black heart beats. And then you do that other right-wingy thing when you equate this horror show with children or sports. (“Let’s not Tuesday morning quarterback, everyone!”) Is being kidnapped from your family and being shipped in a box with no air and no rudamentary facilities 5,000 miles away from your home akin to being a bullied child? Really?! What child did you know was waterboarded, or attacked with dogs, or had to watch his mother be raped, or were chained to the ceiling only by his arms? And you call yourself “progressive”? OMG!
I couldn’t dare to read the rest of that drivel because I fear that I will live in shame like you. Quelle horreur!
I love comments where people admit at the END that they didn’t actually read the piece. It’s kind of necessary to understand a piece of writing that you read most of it.
You know, if you get in a bit of a legal jam, sometimes it can work to murder a key witness or too, if the work you want done is staying out of prison. That doesn’t mean it’s a moral thing to do. It’d be nice if the Bush administration hadn’t reduced us to debating the efficacy of torture, but they insist on debating on that level and the press goes along with it. Would you yield the floor to them?
I could also be high-minded enough to read through Mein Kampf but my emotions would get in the way. I won’t apologize for my squeamishness. Anyone blogging from the comfort of his relatively fabulous home with a fantastic computer can be an armchair general. Torture can work. Just like opening a tin can with your teeth can work. It’s possible but extremely highly unlikely. I won’t blame Bush for bringing out the barbarian in some of us. Bush only did what the masses expected of him. At least he stood for something, unlike Shufflin’ Tom in the WH now. I blame you for allowing Bush to let you believe that torture can work. Torture can only confirm your preconceived notions. The torture game is rigged. Pardon me for not being able to digest the rancid suggestion that torture can work. I’m simply more empathetic to brown people being tortured and murdered by “Xtian” thugs than you are for some odd reason. Hmmmmm…
When Jews were being tortured and murdered, it was beyond the pale. (“we will never forget!” they’d say.)But when Muslims and other “swarthy” peoples are treated that way by our Gawd-Fearin’ populace, it suddenly can work and that kangaroo court called Nuremburg Trials is suddenly forgotten, er, I mean rendered “quaint.” Am I the only one who finds that absolutely disturbing?
You might benefit from reading what I wrote because your comment is impertinent.
I have been writing about the horror of torture for years now. I have been demanding accountability for years now. I don’t need a lecture on the immorality of mistreatment human beings, brown or otherwise.
If you have been following this debate, you know that the Washington Post recently printed an article on A1 claiming that all that torture worked wonders and saved lives. My article doesn’t accept the validity of those claims (I wrote ‘if true’), but it addresses the possibility that torture did get some valuable information.
One reason why I never liked the mantra that torture doesn’t work is because there is a narrow sense in which it does. If you put all your eggs in that rhetorical basket, your argument is destroyed when it is demonstrated that useful information was gained by torture. I never said that torture never works. I said it is immoral and illegal and should be prosecuted. I said that it creates false leads and is usually used to create false confessions for propaganda purposes.
That it can work in a very limited sense doesn’t even mean it is worth it. After all, you pay a very heavy price when the world learns that you’ve tortured and that, in itself, makes you less safe.
Amen to that. Torture is a war crime. There is no statute of limitations on that.
The wingers always argue that there was (sigh) attack after 9/11 and it’s because (sigh) of torture. You can’t ever win the opposite side of that argument.
The point is that the US has lost any moral standing it ever had. US citizens abroad are indeed less safe than before Reagan.
I can’t stand the idiots who even consider torture to be okay in this country.
Bush kept these crimes secret because he knew it was not legal.
It should be about what are we anyway as a nation?
But for whom does it work? I’m sure many evil things have saved some lives. But at what cost? When is enough enough? Governments lie. That’s as simple as this debate gets. Just because a government organ like the WaPo tells you that “torture works,” does that suddenly mean that we get to check our morals at the door and do whatever. And then, who decides how far to go. Murder works, too; which is why that practice will never end, regardless how advanced we go in civilized society. Many things “work.” Such as theft, bombing villages from 10,000 ft, kidnapping, rape, etc. All thuggeries “work,” which is why they will never cease. Do you not get that? And there is no honor among thugs. So, if torture is so beneficial to society as a whole, when will you submit yourself to those horrors? I know that you’ve written ad nauseum on this subject for many years, as I have read some of your writings about this subject. I’ve been reading your site at least since 2006. I’ve gathered how you think. Sometimes I agree but many times I find you very willing to go the easy way out (“Torture can work” everybody! Woo-hoooo! Who let the dogs out?) for extremely narrow political purposes. When we can dismiss morals as merely abstract dogma of a “pre-9/11” world, then when does it end?
I apologize for my “uncivilized” writing style and impertinence. I simply find the act of torture impertinent from the word “GO!” So there is no civilized debate on torture. When we can sip tea with pinkies extended and discuss forced hypothermia and forced rape while eating scones, what kind of people are we?
Your argument in that comment is no different from my argument.
The problem is that you are not putting what I wrote in context.
You seem to think that granting the premise that torture can sometimes get you good information fast means that I condone it. Every error you are making flows from that basic misunderstanding.
I do misunderstand, all right. I guess I don’t understand the concept of “good information” when it comes by smashing someone’s testicles or maiming a probably-innocent man forever. You don’t condone it but you feel that it can be beneficial in limited circumstances? WTF! I am so bewildered with and by that rhetorical sleight of hand that I will leave you alone to your cold rationales. It was enlightening, though.
beneficial only if you ignore the counterbalancing fallout which is going to exceed your benefit.
I call Bullshit, they work so rarely that apart from the moral angle, they are a criminal waste of government resources, that could be much better spent in almost any way.
In Rejalis Torture and democracy he says on page 24