A Defense Of Torture

Don't worry, I'm not offering a defense, I'm going to request one.  But first, some context is important. From an article in the WaPo last year:

[I]n 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said.

Sixty years ago, the United States considered waterboarding to be torture - indeed, to be a war crime.  Therefore the beginning of any defense of torture needs to deal with why it should have been a war crime sixty years ago and not today.  Were we, as a nation, wrong?

There is another way to explain this.  A torture advocate could just say that there are different standards.  It's wrong when other nations do it, but correct when we do it.  Perhaps it's only wrong when enemy nations do it, but our allies get a pass.  Maybe we could just limit it to being wrong only when applied to American citizens.  Everyone else can just fend for themselves.

Next in torture's defense, I want to know why we should employ it even though it doesn't work.  No, it doesn't.  We know it doesn't, yet people still think it's a good idea.  From the aforementioned WaPo article:

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. "Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role," the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of "touchless torture" until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

I'm trying to remember when I've ever heard of something so stupid.  Americans were tortured during the Korean War.  They made up a fake plan about biological weapons, and the torture stopped.  What utter fools in our government thought that using techniques proven to provide bogus information would be a good idea?  Seems to me that our interrogators could save themselves quite a bit of time and effort by merely shooting prisoners at the beginning and then making up their own bogus stories that will tie up America's military and police forces.  I could make up some "terrorist plots" right now.  Maybe they'd hire me as a freelancer.

At any rate, I just want to know why we should engage in an activity that not only produces bad results, but produces results that hinder our efforts to protect our soldiers and citizens.  Don't tell me torture works, or what if there was a man in New York City whose wife was killed by Serbians and who has a nuclear weapon hidden.  Say, a piano teacher, and the only way to stop the man in time is for the beautiful White House nuclear weapons expert and the handsome Lt. Colonel to to torture someone.

The reason that sounds like a movie* is because that's the only time those scenarios happen.  So the defense of torture needs to explain why we should torture people for bad information.

Mostly I just want this nation's pundits, politicians and citizens to stand up and explain themselves.  Be honest.  Be proud of your convictions, of being a citizen of a nation that tortures its prisoners.  Pass a resolution, sign a petition, do something that explains how you just want brown people to suffer, or you get a thrill out of the movie-plot-fantasies in your head and seeing them acted out.  Tell the world that American exceptionalism is far more than anyone has ever suspected, that the USA stands for itself and only itself, that it will take any measures it feels like whenever it wants.

Tell us why our parents and grandparents were wrong to condemn torture.  Tell us why politicians of earlier generations were wrong to support and ratify the Geneva Conventions.  Please, I really want to know the reasons - again, not because you have some crazed fantasy about being the torturer that not only gets his rocks off making another person suffer but also gets the accolades and rewards for saving the country.  That's not real, and there are other places on the internet where you can write stories like that.

No, besides being able to identify which of this country's citizens, politicians and pundits are amoral scumbags who deserve the same respect I pay to an insect smear on my windshield, I know that what keeps us from being able to really address the issue of torture is that no one has been required to really talk about it.  Bush smirks, "We don't torture" and then orders our soldiers and agents to torture.  Democratic politicians say "We shouldn't torture" and then secretly ask if the torturing we're doing is enough.  We spend our time splitting hairs and discussing whether or not the things we have always declared to be torture are really torture.

It's all because we're not forcing the torture fetishists to declare themselves openly.  We're not demanding real answers, real reasons.  Well, I'm demanding them now.

*Yeah, I changed the plot a little. 

Comments

[Sir Charles]

Maybe if we could make them feel like they were drowning or caused them pain akin to the experience of organ failure they would answer you.

We could try anyway.

[El Viajero]

We are all better off and much safer with you not in charge

[verplanck colvin]

Ooh, our new troll really addressed every issue in that quick, biting comment. I am totally convinced we need to torture everyone in order to be safe.

*leans back in a reclining position* OK, I'm ready for my 'freedom shower'!

[El Viajero]

I'm sorry.

You are not one of the three that were actually waterboarded.

3

[Wataru Tenga]

Not only were Japanese found guilty of waterboarding, they received severe sentences for such things as making prisoners stand for several hours at a time. These are also procedures used today by the US and its minions. Torture has become, I'm afraid, almost routine. The US has become like its most despised enemies of the past.

[Lisa]

The sad, sickening truth is that most Americans don't care. They don't even want to think about it, let alone object to it. The inanities and outright idiocies that they utter in defense of torture boggle the mind. As long as they have enough gas to pour down the gullets of their multi-ton urban assault vehicles, they're happy.

They yammer on about "values" and "morals" and -- gasp! -- homosexuality and abortion -- oh, and their beloved Christianity, let's not forget that -- but they're more than happy to brutalize other human beings when it suits them. Torture is all about control, humiliation, and revenge fantasy; nothing more.

But then, the U.S. has actively supported regimes in the past where torture was de rigeur, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised now.

What gets me is the complicity of the press in the communal whitewash. The possibility -- nay, likelihood -- of torture BEFORE Abu Ghraib broke, should've been an ongoing, regular story. But that's crazy-talk; there was no "evidence," it wasn't "newsworthy," why talk about a "hypothetical"?

The MSM has just as much blood on its hands as the people who voted for George Bush.

[Tyro]

I just want to know why we should engage in an activity that not only produces bad results, but produces results that hinder our efforts to protect our soldiers and citizens.

From reading comments from supporters of torture, what I gather is that the act of torturing is perceived to be a fate that the victim deserves because they are a terrorist, so there is no perception that torturing the target is somehow "unfair."

Next, from an instinctual point of view, it "makes sense" to people that if you physically punish someone for refusing to do something (reveal information), then eventually they will follow your commands in order to avoid punishment.

There is an idea that we can condition behavior through punishment, and this makes sense to a lot of people, and leading them to think that we can physically harm people to produce an incentive to give us truthful information, while a false belief, isn't much of a stretch.

Combine this with a complete lack of empathy for other human beings and an idea that engaging in such behavior makes one "tough", and they can logically leap to justifying the use of torture.

[Tyro]

I just want to know why we should engage in an activity that not only produces bad results, but produces results that hinder our efforts to protect our soldiers and citizens.

From reading comments from supporters of torture, what I gather is that the act of torturing is perceived to be a fate that the victim deserves because they are a terrorist, so there is no perception that torturing the target is somehow "unfair."

Next, from an instinctual point of view, it "makes sense" to people that if you physically punish someone for refusing to do something (reveal information), then eventually they will follow your commands in order to avoid punishment.

There is an idea that we can condition behavior through punishment, and this makes sense to a lot of people, and leading them to think that we can physically harm people to produce an incentive to give us truthful information, while a false belief, isn't much of a stretch.

Combine this with a complete lack of empathy for other human beings and an idea that engaging in such behavior makes one "tough", and they can logically leap to justifying the use of torture.

[Nate]

Did you mean to miss the obvious to test your readers or do you really not know?

Without reading the details of the case I would assume he was tried for a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. They strictly outline what can and can not be done to prisoners of war. Visits by red cross, feeding everything is outlined. A terrorist who doesn't fight in Uniform is not afforded these protections. If your going to hide in civilian clothes, blow up innocent women and children when you get caught you can't claim these protections. That's like common sense 101.

In regards to your Korea analogy again you miss the simple answer. They wanted US soldiers to admit to doing these bogus horrible acts for propaganda. They would play these “confessions” to the public to maintain support. Knowing this US soldiers refused to make the tapes even when it meant torture to themselves. Instead of proving your point that it doesn’t work it instead proves torture does work, thank you for the own goal there!

Please explain why this is a lie if your so convinced it doesn’t work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7137750.stm

John Kiriakou told US broadcaster ABC that "water-boarding" was used when his CIA team questioned suspected al-Qaeda chief recruiter Abu Zubaydah.

He said it might be torture but that it "broke" the detainee in seconds.

Mr Kiriakou said the day after water-boarding was used on Abu Zubaydah, the detainee told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to co-operate.

"From that day on, he answered every question," the retired agent said.

"The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

Sounds pretty successful to me.

[Nate]

"There is an idea that we can condition behavior through punishment"

Like buy into UHC or the government will punish you? Pay your premium as we mandate or suffer the consiquences. Where do people get the idea that type of behavior works?

[Stephen]

Nate, Kiriaku's statements are entirely unsubstantiated. Were he to come out and say the opposite, you would be vilifying him right now.

The best we can say is that there is no way to actually know whether he's lying or telling the truth.

I wrote something on him earlier, in which I noticed that the sudden willingness of a CIA agent to speak on the record about something which supposedly doesn't happen, the day before Congressional hearings start on the subject, is suspicious to say the very least.

I titled it "Clumsy Propaganda," but it apparently worked on you.

Like buy into UHC or the government will punish you? Pay your premium as we mandate or suffer the consiquences.

That's just dumb. Really, really dumb. If you approach your supposed health-related business the same way, I feel sorry for your clients.

[Nate]

When the CIA leaks off the record it's 100% believable when they come out and comment openly it’s suspicious? If he is telling the truth that would mean water boarding works. It seems like a stretch then to definitively say it doesn’t work.

Doesn’t the Korean use of torture to illicit phony confessions for propaganda also prove it works?

How about another example if you question the last one;

http://people.howstuffworks.com/water-boarding1.htm

When the CIA used the water-boarding technique on al-Qaeda operative and supposed "9/11 mastermind" Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he reportedly lasted more than two minutes before confessing to everything of which he was accused.

Should we be water boarding every prisoner we get, no of course not? It’s not effective on a mass scale. It hasn’t been used on a mass scale either though. It has been used only a handful of times and in at least two of those cases was successful.

I don't follow your last comment, I'm not the Federal government I can't mandate my clients do anything. To what approach do you refer? Tyro made a comment and I replied with a progressive example to counter it, I'm don't see how that applies to my benefit clients or what you find dumb about it.

[paperwight]

Doesn’t the Korean use of torture to illicit phony confessions for propaganda also prove it works?

In which a conservative once again shows that he he can't tell the difference between truth and falsehood, and frankly doesn't give a shit, as long as he can feel tough by imagining the suffering of others.

[Nate]

Where is the falsehood paperwight? And how would American Soldiers being tortured make me feel tough? Way to make your point fit the comment, you obviously had something to say and relevancy be damned you where going to use it.

I don’t for one second think I could tolerate the torture to withhold making false confessions for them to use as propaganda. The fact that American Soldiers suffered as such and even died refusing to be used as such I think is amazing.

[Tyro]

I don’t for one second think I could tolerate the torture to withhold making false confessions for them to use as propaganda.

Apparently you can. The use of torture is to make you feel like America is "doing something." In that sense, the use of it is, in and of itself, propaganda. It an act performed for an audience of "internet tough guys" who believe that their political support of the act makes them more manly than the effete WW2-era interrogators and war-crimes prosecutors.

The point of torture is to extract a confession, not to get information.

It's is funny that your reaction to the NK story was "see! torture produces false confessions! it works!" Well, that was pretty hilarious.

I understand the instinct that causes people to want to use torture. But I also understand that it's a pointless act of lashing-out, when there are effective methods that don't involve torture and are actually not well-documented war crimes.