Torture: Does it work?

Another minor thing for the apologists to consider, has any of the special attention given detainees in Gitmo, Iraq, Afghanistan, anywhere actually produced results? Or is the whole "get tough" mantra primarily a psychological process to purge the nagging fear that America is "soft?"

Special bonus section for the Wall Street Journal op-ed page: Compare and contrast water-boarding and high marginal income tax rates as government policies which fail to produce the intended results.

Comments

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 2:04pm | #

"Another minor thing for the apologists to consider, has any of the special attention given detainees in Gitmo, Iraq, Afghanistan, anywhere actually produced results?"

I doubt it.

It seems to me that a torturer, even in the tickin' time-bomb scenario, has to make some pretty big assumptions; he has to assume that the victim in question has useful information and that the information the victim divulges is accurate.

If the victim divulges false information, do you keep torturing him until he gives you accurate information? What if he just doesn't know anything? Do you keep torturing a victim who doesn't know anything until he gives you accurate information?

How many victims would you have to go through before you got good information? Chasing all those false leads seems like it would quickly become a counter-productive wild-goose chase to me.

Ted B. | January 7, 2005, 2:24pm | #

That's the real flaw of interrogational "pressure", it rarely produces worthwhile results, and 'taints the interrogator. Plus there's the issue of gratuitous torment thats really about the interrogators having "fun". Lois McMaster Bujold gave a clear definition of the paradox in her scifi novel "Barrayar" (1991);

"Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do neccesary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity."

Abu Graib is a perfect example of the failure of this precept....those buffoons where enjoying themsleves at the expense of their charges; a clear breakdown of both militray discipline, and of gratuitous sadism. There might be a small handful out of the thousands detained where "pressure" might be useful, but the balance shoudl have been strictly professional "hands-off" detainees with strict accountability.

At the same time, I think that there shoudl be a narrowly-written definitin of "torture" that has a threshold way above the casual definitin that seems to be being tossed-about. "Torture" is an emotionally-laden term like "genocide" that should be only used very carefully and concisely. Just like when a tradename becomes a common noun or verb; the careless use of such emotional-charged words like "torture" and "genocide" cheapens their impact when used incorrectly.

raymond | January 7, 2005, 2:28pm | #

It's not signed. It sounds a lot like things a couple people here have written, though. Same arguments. Same split infinitives.

Remember, this was not long after the 9/11 and anthrax attacks...

How's that going, btw? Has torture produced a lot of leads on that anthrax thing?

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 2:29pm | #

Ken Shultz,

Your comments are only underscored by the fact that American personnel (CIA, military, etc.) have generally very little experience with the subject. We don't have special cadres of torturers like Egypt does. Not that I would want such of course, since its never been clear that Egypt's security services get much from the folks that that chop off fingers, apply electrical shocks to genitalia, etc.

Only on crap-ass TV shows like 24 is torture a device that leads to generally worthwhile results.

Mark Borok | January 7, 2005, 2:45pm | #

I am reminded of a case in Jordan that I read about; they captured some terrorists, but instead of torturing the terrorists they threatened to either torture or kill their families. That produced results (and they didn't have to follow through on their threat).

Aren't there ways to break down someone's resistance psychologically without causing them real harm in the process?

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 2:53pm | #

Mark Borok,

Aren't there ways to break down someone's resistance psychologically without causing them real harm in the process?

No. Breaking someone down psychologically causes real harm; indeed, breaking someone in this way will generally change someone forever (and not in a good way). CIA agents who have been broken psychologically are useless after the experience for years or lifetimes. So no, there is no way to break someone psychologically without causing "real harm." Indeed, that's the entire point of the process, to cause such psychological harm that the individual gives up the information.

_______________________________________

I feel like people who agree that torture is sometimes neccessary want to pussyfoot around the subject and act like there is some way to mitigate its impact or act like some techniques are available that look like torture but really aren't. Be fucking honest and just admit that torture doesn't bother you that fucking much.

Junyo | January 7, 2005, 2:58pm | #

I'd like to point out that I've commented several times that the lack of effectiveness should be the primary objection to torture. If it were effective the moral, social, and/or world opinion issues become quibbles. Currently the torture is just ad hoc punishment and terrorizing of other potential prisoners rather than an organized, measured effort to obtain useable data.

And as has been stated, it's unclear how ineffective torture in general actually is, as opposed to the torture methodology we're using and the net cost when public opinion is factored against the value of the info obtained. The French claimed that it worked for them in Algeria, and you could probably use it very effectively in limited circumstances, or at minimum use the threat of it to complicate your opponents operations. So "Tell me what you know!" followed by a jolt is hit or miss; however "I know that you know where the bomb is Khaled." accompanied by a thick dossier of confirmed data, and specific questions with verifiable answers, and a jolt every time Khaled lies, probably would be more effective. I think a lot of this conversation goes away if someone could hold up a bomb/IED/vial of anthrax who's location was obtained by kicking the crap out of someone.

Brian | January 7, 2005, 3:07pm | #

Or is the whole "get tough" mantra primarily a psychological process to purge the nagging fear that America is "soft?"

That pretty much covers it. I'm sure there's all kinds of examples of torture producing results, but, alas, they're classified. That's the ticket.

thoreau | January 7, 2005, 3:09pm | #

If we put enough qualifiers on it, and specify enough special circumstances, we can undoubtedly find some limited cases where torture might be effective and, maybe not justified, but at least acceptable (depending on how one wants to play with words). However, (1) those circumstances are far rarer than the administration has apparently argued for and (2) regardless of circumstances, people involved with torture should not be promoted to Attorney General!

And, to defend 24 for a moment, the good guys rarely got any useful information by inflicting physical pain. They broke a few bad guys by threatening to kill their children. One villain (Marie, the rich blond bridezilla terrorist) was physically tortured, but she lied. The only way Jack got any useful info from her was that she lied so badly that he was able to see through it. ("Where's the bomb?" "It's downtown. Take your entire team downtown right now, and make sure none of them stay behind at the airport." "Why do you want us to leave the airport? Ah, I see...")

The only time I can think of where physical pain yielded useful info was in one scene at the beginning of the second season, where some guy in Korea (an example of outsourced torture) cracked, but it was not a major plot point.

So overall the show's take on torture has been ambiguous.

bill brennan | January 7, 2005, 3:10pm | #

Mr. Gunnels,what would you have done with Mohamed Atta if you captured him on Sept.6 and suspected he was up to something?

gaius marius | January 7, 2005, 3:11pm | #

inded, sy hersh made a point of debunking the utility of torture with the testimony of several intelligence sources -- it actually excels at yielding terrible non-information. the subject says whatever he thinks the prosecutor wants to hear.

Or is the whole "get tough" mantra primarily a psychological process to purge the nagging fear that America is "soft?"

this begs the question: is america "soft", or is it merely being perceived that way relatively by a shift in the underlying morality of thse observers?

i would submit that there is a reason that the same people on this board who regularly excuse torture also cannot exhibit common human sympathy on most any other question. there is a building undercurrent of ethical philosophy i can only describe at nietzschean paranoia in the united states which views sympathy, compromise and kindness as weak. these people are holders of that ethic -- antiethic, really -- to some degree or another.

and it's appalling.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 3:12pm | #

Junyo,

The problem with the "ticking time bomb" scenario is that its unlikely to occur; its at one extreme end of a spectrum of use too.

gaius marius | January 7, 2005, 3:15pm | #

Currently the torture is just ad hoc punishment and terrorizing of other potential prisoners rather than an organized, measured effort to obtain useable data.

which would be unethical, mr junyo, even if they were guilty of something.

of course, most of them are not -- most of them haven't even been accused of anything -- which makes the policy psychopathic and sadistic.

thoreau | January 7, 2005, 3:16pm | #

The even bigger problem with the ticking time bomb scenario is "how do you know?"

If we postulate that under extreme circumstances torture is acceptable, how do we know when those extreme circumstances are present? Hopefully with more than a hunch. And even if we know that the clock is ticking, how confident are we that the guy in custody knows what we need? Hopefully there's more than a hunch.

I have suggested on this forum that in case of a ticking time bomb, the people who authorize torture should be held accountable afterwards with full 20/20 hindsight. "But it sure seemed like he knew..." shouldn't be acceptable.

gaius marius | January 7, 2005, 3:19pm | #

I think a lot of this conversation goes away if someone could hold up a bomb/IED/vial of anthrax who's location was obtained by kicking the crap out of someone.

amazing. it's perfectly okay to be a savage if it shows occasional utility. ends justify the means!

this is below argument.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 3:24pm | #

bill brennan,

It depends on what I thought he was up to and what independent evidence I had at hand about such efforts. If, I had sound evidence that he was part of a plot to kill thousands, I would have used some sleep deprivation and loud music to break him (it works in most cases). However, I'm not going to advocate such techniques just because I think he's "up to no good," and that's exactly what America's amateur and neophyte torturers have been up to. Furthermore, I'm also not going to argue that such actions aren't torture, because they clearly are. If you are going to use them, be clear that what you are doing is torture and don't pussyfoot around the issue. Don't be like the limpdick bastards at NRO, etc., and try to Orwellianize the issue.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 3:28pm | #

thoreau,

You have to have very good information which is verified independently (by multiple sources) before you can contemplate its use. And its use must be used for the worst-case scenarios. And the individual has to have due process. And information on the matter must be open to public scrutiny. If we are going to break a two hundred and thirty some odd year policy we better do it with adequate protection to the party we want to stick in the hot seat.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 3:33pm | #

What illustrates my point about the amateur hour nature of America's torturers is their use of physical violence.

thoreau | January 7, 2005, 3:38pm | #

Oh, I just recalled another use of torture on 24: They used a knife on a guy just so they'd have an excuse to bandage him up and slip a tracking device into the bandage. Then they made it really easy for him to escape so they could follow him to his boss.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 3:40pm | #

thoreau,

Its a crap show. Get used to it. :)

John | January 7, 2005, 3:42pm | #

What ever happened to sodium pentothal and the like? Or do those type of drugs just work in the movies.

SixSigma | January 7, 2005, 3:54pm | #

The techniques used such as monstering were fairly effective, and when the military went way beyond that, the reports are they were even more effective. Some interesting information is laid out here:

Bound by Convention

This isn't to say I condone torture at all, just adding a few facts.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 3:55pm | #

John,

That IMHO is largely an urban legend. Note that you are as likely to get the truth out of someone with that agent as you are with alcohol. Indeed, the KGB in the Cold War considered themselves to be quite adept at the use of alcohol as a truth agent. However I've never found their claims to be all that believeable because all these truth agents - be they general anesthetics or what have you - make one as likely prone to confabulation as to tell the truth; they allow one to mix fantasy and reality together, and one is as likely to come up with garbage as useful knowledge.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 4:00pm | #

John,

Also note that the U.S. government during the 50s and 60s applied considerable resources to a project whose design was to create a truth agent: its popularly referred to as the MK-ULTRA Project (which shows like the X-Files use as a plot device on many occassions). The project came up with zilch as far as the classified documents that have been released have revealed. I don't discount the notion that the U.S. government isn't working on some sort of truth serum today, but there is nothing that I know of out there in the world that readily fits the bill.

Crusader Rabbit | January 7, 2005, 4:31pm | #

Iss it ssafe?

Junyo | January 7, 2005, 4:39pm | #

amazing. it's perfectly okay to be a savage if it shows occasional utility. ends justify the means!

this is below argument.

And that statement is beyond idiocy. If we accept that war is an acceptable solution under any circumstance, then we accept that savagery is sometimes justified, or at least mitigated. Warfare consists of acts that in any other context would be unspeakable, yet are accepted as a matter of course because of a label and general acceptance. Think about how many of the "rules" of such circumstances are incredibly pragmatic, choosing to inflict pain or suffering for practical purposes. The world's militaries use the least effective ammunition, because it wounds and maims rather than kill efficiently and creates enemy casualties that tie up resources. What's strange is that it's morally acceptable to use weapons we know will inflict lingering, agonizing deaths on a certain percentage of their targets, plus a certain percentage of collateral damage; in fact we calculate the psychological value of that usage into the yield of the weapon. But in a situation where we can precisely pick the target, precisely meter out the pain and damage we're willing and/or need to inflict, and directly measure the tactical impact of those actions, it's morally reprehensible. Ends do justify means, for the simple reason that good intentions get very little accmplished. The only real questions are the validity of the ends and the effectiveness of the means.

The problem with the "ticking time bomb" scenario is that its unlikely to occur; its at one extreme end of a spectrum of use too.
Which is why blanket statements of almost any sort are a bad thing. It's one thing to believe that torture is a very bad idea, but also recognize that in some very limited circumstances it might be useful, or even justified. And there's nothing wrong with believing that and castigating people, not for simply using or endorsing torture, but for using or endorsing it's ineffective or inappropriate use. But to say this tool is off the table, period, is childish.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 5:03pm | #

As thoreau noted, the ticking time bomb scenario doesn't really play out. You're unlikely to know the bomb is ticking until after the fact.

The major effective use of torture an an interrogation tool is in extracting information from a group of people you know to be enemies and strongly suspect of sharing similar knowledge. Torture makes people talk -- sure, they'll say anything to make the pain stop, but some of the things they say will be the truth. Multiple subjects lets you filter out the lies.

Say you bust IED bomb factory in Iraq and catch five people there. You separate them and begin torturing them for the names of the people they gave or sold bombs to, pick out the names of the people they all named, and start keeping tabs on those people. Your odds of striking paydirt are very high.

gaius marius | January 7, 2005, 5:04pm | #

Ends do justify means, for the simple reason that good intentions get very little accmplished. The only real questions are the validity of the ends and the effectiveness of the means.

in other words, mr junyo, life is a perpetual state of war, and we live only in degrees of it. THAT is a statement beyond both idiocy and morality. literally anything it excused. congratulations, sir -- you managed to set yourself against a decency that stretches back to hammurabi.

anyone here want to question why i fear for continued western civility?

Rimfax | January 7, 2005, 5:06pm | #

"...Americans wouldn't respond to a dirty bomb explosion in a major city with mass detentions of men with Islamic surnames, closed borders, or worse? This civil-liberties catastrophe is precisely what "water-boarding" is trying to prevent."

Is this a direct quote from Michelle Malkin?

Or maybe from the fictional Alexander de Large?

Alex:
Bit of a pain in my gulliver, Mum. Leave us be, and I'll try and sleep it off. And then I'll be as right as dodgers for this after.

Mum:
But you've not been at school all week, son.

Alex:
Got to rest, Mum. Got to get fit, otherwise I'm liable to miss a lot more school.

He's basically saying with a straight keyboard that we've got to do this immoral thing so that folks won't be compelled to do a more immoral thing later. What nonsense.


Regarding "does torture change people", emphatically yes. Essentially, you are deliberately traumatizing people which alters their brain patterns. Just ask anyone who has PTSD.

Does it change people for the worse? Consider that most of the seminal thinkers of modern radical Islamism are graduates of the dark rooms of the Egyptian penal system.

gaius marius | January 7, 2005, 5:07pm | #

Your odds of striking paydirt are very high.

and your odds of remaining a people worthy of defending from IEDs diminishes to near zero.

Rimfax | January 7, 2005, 5:14pm | #

I will now write something that I never expected to write: Sic 'em, gaius!

I still don't buy your decline of Western Civilization or the "[un]worthy of defending from IEDs" shinola, especially since Western Civilization is the only major culture that even considers that torture might not be moral, but I'm with you on the ends not justifying the means.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 5:32pm | #

Dan,

Your odds of striking paydirt are very high.

Not really, since you have no real way to tell the difference between varying commonalities. What? Did you expect there to be only one set of commonalities? It doesn't work that way. Its not remotely as simple as you try to portray it in other words.

raymond | January 7, 2005, 5:34pm | #

imo, You're being too hard on Junyo. He has, in fact, made a very strong case for abolishing war.

If he has done so in a way that appears to justify terrorist attacks on the US well... That's only a rhetorical device, I'm sure.

Gary Gunnels | January 7, 2005, 5:38pm | #

Rimfax,

The notion that torture can't be ethically justified didn't start in the West nor has it been an exclusively Western idea since then. For example, Indian and Chinese texts (thousands of years ago) were the first to actually condemn the practice as I recall.

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 5:50pm | #

Dan-
SO here's a serious question I have for people who are willing to justify torture in certain discrete situations such as the bomb-factory scenario you presented:

Say you're torturing these guys, and one of them honestly doesn't know anything and has nothing to do with any crimes; maybe he's the bomb-factory janitor, or something. What can he say or do to convince his torturers that he's telling the truth when he says "I know nothing?" Or is he just another one of those eggs that you can't make an omelet without breaking?

SM | January 7, 2005, 5:52pm | #

"especially since Western Civilization is the only major culture that even considers that torture might not be moral"

Not accurate. Scroll down to "1st Separate Edict (Dhauli and Jaugada)". Keep in mind that this is 2 BC.

http://www.tphta.ws/TPH_ASK1.HTM

thoreau | January 7, 2005, 5:55pm | #

Jennifer, that is an excellent question. I'll have to reconsider some of my stances.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 6:38pm | #

Not really, since you have no real way to tell the difference between varying commonalities.

Define how you're using "commonalities", please.

If you mean that the terrorists might coincidentally all name the same innocent guy for different reasons then, sure, that's a possibility. Out of the suspects named by all five terrorists it wouldn't be surprising if a portion of them are innocent. Information gathered from interrogation, regardless of whether or not it was gained by torture, always needs to be checked.

raymond | January 7, 2005, 6:41pm | #

Here's a slightly different version of the question.

Dan. Say you have been caught up in an anti-terrorist sweep. What can you say or do to convince your torturers that you're telling the truth when you say "I know nothing?" Or are you just another one of those eggs that one can't make an omelet without breaking?

SixSigma | January 7, 2005, 7:00pm | #

I'm not on the torture is necessary argument, but it does work.

I agree with Dan in the respect that any word of mouth information whether paid or tortured can be verified from different sources. Not necessarily just the people in puplic, but documents siezed around the world, computer hard drives, intercepted communications, etc, etc, etc.

And a very effective way to get information quick is to torture, at least pshychologically, and the more persistent and the more heinous, the faster the information.

Again, this is not to say I condone or agree with torture, but it does work.

Similarlly I don't condone killing people during rush hour because they cut you off, but it will definitely stop that person from doing it again.

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 7:11pm | #

In that situation, Raymond, they'll torture Dan until he gives them some information. If the information Dan gives them is false, then they'll have to keep torturing him until he gives them accurate information. If Dan really doesn't know anything, well, there's no way for the torturers to know for certain that he really doesn't know anything, so they'll have to keep torturing him until he gives them accurate information.

"Information gathered from interrogation, regardless of whether or not it was gained by torture, always needs to be checked."

I'm afraid Dan's got us here; for all we know, the torturer might be in cahoots with the victim by way of some weird reverse Stockholm Syndrome. The only way to be certain is to torture the torturer.

...Of course, we'll run into the same dilemma; how do we know for certain that the torturer didn't find out something that he didn't tell us? We could use web-cams, but then we'd have to trust the guys watchin' the cameras--or maybe we could just torture them!

Dan | January 7, 2005, 7:18pm | #

Jennifer, you've lived in the South, I believe.

What would be your response to some redneck who pointed to the countless innocent Southern civilians killed during the Civil War as proof that the Union's invasion was morally wrong? How would you feel if he responded to any attempt to defend that invasion with sarcastic sneers about "ends justifying the means" and "breaking eggs"?

Yes, innocent people suffer in wars. All the more reason to hate the people who make them necessary, whether they are slaveowners, fascists, or fundamentalist Muslims.

thoreau | January 7, 2005, 7:21pm | #

Dan-

Let's say, at least for the sake of argument, that in certain cases (e.g. ticking time bomb) torture is justified. How do you feel about holding responsible the people who made the decision after the fact? With full 20/20 hindsight?

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 7:24pm | #

Dan-
I'm not interested here in discussing the innocent Southern or Iraqi civilians who were killed; I'm talking about the ones who were tortured. Show me examples of innocent Southern civilians herded into Yankee jails and tortured there, and I'll buy your comparison.

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 7:31pm | #

Something else just occured to me: even if you are going to justify torture DESPITE knowing full well that some innocent people will be tortured as well, what's an acceptable guilty-to-innocent torture ratio? Five criminals tortured to one innocent guy? Five innocents to one criminal? Will there be a cap on the absolute number of innocents it is acceptable to torture, or will all accounting be done on a strict per-capita basis? Or will numbers not matter so long as attacks are prevented?

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 7:32pm | #

"What would be your response to some redneck who pointed to the countless innocent Southern civilians killed during the Civil War as proof that the Union's invasion was morally wrong?"

Ruthless? Somebody call Ruthless!

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 7:37pm | #

Ken-
No, not yet. I don't want to use the Confederacy as an excuse to divert Dan off the subject of deliberate torture as opposed to war in general.

No offense, Ruthless.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 7:38pm | #

Let's say, at least for the sake of argument, that in certain cases (e.g. ticking time bomb) torture is justified. How do you feel about holding responsible the people who made the decision after the fact? With full 20/20 hindsight?

I think that if they broke the law in torturing the people they tortured that they should, indeed, be prosecuted (although I expect the jury will nullify the charges if it turns out that their action did, indeed, prevent an attack).

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 7:44pm | #

I'm not buying the argument that anyone is going to verify information gained by torture with secondary sources.

What sort of questions are you likely to ask a torture victim? Won't it be questions like: Where is the bomb? Where are they making bombs? Where is al-Zarqawi?

There aren't any secondary sources for that information. If you already had information about where bombs are built, you have already bombed the factory. If you already have information about where al-Zaraqawi is, you wouldn't wait around for a torture victim to verify it.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 7:45pm | #

I'm not interested here in discussing the innocent Southern or Iraqi civilians who were killed; I'm talking about the ones who were tortured.

Either stop evading my quesiton or go fuck yourself; the choice is yours.

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 7:48pm | #

Dan-
Christ, don't forget to mention that I'm the blackest kettle you ever did see. Is the topic of this thread "Torture and whether it should be justified," or am I just stoned?

Not a false dichotomy--it really is an either/or question.

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 7:49pm | #

All right, it's actually "torture: does it work." My bad.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 7:50pm | #

What sort of questions are you likely to ask a torture victim? Won't it be questions like: Where is the bomb? Where are they making bombs? Where is al-Zarqawi? There aren't any secondary sources for that information

Those are certainly some of the possible questions, and the way of independently verifying the information is to go and look to see if the bomb, factory, or terrorist is where the people said it was.

There are other possible questions (such as "who else is planting bombs?") that also lend themselves to independent verification -- if your interrogation indicates that Mohammed Al-Fuckhead is also planting bombs, you start keeping tabs on Mohammed Al-Fuckhead. Etc, etc.

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 7:51pm | #

"Either stop evading my quesiton or go fuck yourself; the choice is yours."

That's way out of line Dan. Coming from someone who seems to have steadfastly defended the use of torture, that doesn't surprise me. Still, you should be ashamed of yourself, but not for the usual reasons.

...just for posting that.

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 7:58pm | #

Evading the question of torture, and then projecting the evasion-of-questions bit onto me, making a comment mixing sex and hostility. . .Dan is being so Freudian here I am embarrassed for him.

But seriously, Dan, saying "Torture is bad even if it's done by our guys" is NOT the same thing as saying "America is evil and deserves to be destroyed by terrorists, or destroyed by Iraqi WMDs, or whatever the hell catastrophe you're expecting as a result."

Dan | January 7, 2005, 8:04pm | #

My point, Jennifer, is that only a moral idiot would think that torturing a person is worse than killing them. Since you accept the fact that war means killing innocent people, it makes no sense for you to get all morally self-righteous at the idea that it might involve torturing people, too.

Since you apparently accept that it is possible for the ends of a war to justify the "means" of innocent civilian deaths, and accept the fact that war is very much a "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" situation where civilian deaths are concerned -- what, exactly, is your moral objection to the use of torture in war?

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 8:09pm | #

"Those are certainly some of the possible questions, and the way of independently verifying the information is to go and look to see if the bomb, factory, or terrorist is where the people said it was."

I was under the impression that when we were talking about "independently verifying" information, we were talking about doing so before we acted on the information. Am I alone here?

I wouldn't want to be the guy whose job it is to personally verify every claim of every tortured insurgent.

"There are other possible questions (such as "who else is planting bombs?") that also lend themselves to independent verification -- if your interrogation indicates that Mohammed Al-Fuckhead is also planting bombs, you start keeping tabs on Mohammed Al-Fuckhead. Etc, etc."

You're not keeping tabs on him, you're looking to find him and kill him. If it's al-Zaraqawi, you're probably gonna drop a bomb on him.

...Once again, Dan, you're talking about acting on information as if it were the same as verifying information and then acting on it.

Jennifer | January 7, 2005, 8:11pm | #

Dan-

I think you are one of the people who has in the past pointed out, or at least agreed with, the premise that our government and military are the good guys, and doing their best to avoid killing civilians in this war; therefore, when they kill civilians it is an accident (and if you say otherwise you're accusing the military of lying to us, and killing civilians on purpose, which they would never do 'cause we're the good guys). Torturing prisoners, on the other hand, is not done by accident.

However, let's say that I've decided to consider that you're right about it being okay to torture innocent people. I'd still like to know just how many innocent people we can torture before we're no longer the good guys.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 8:14pm | #

I was under the impression that when we were talking about "independently verifying" information, we were talking about doing so before we acted on the information. Am I alone here?

I would think that "acting on the information" that there is (for example) a bomb factory in a building would involve a great deal more than confirming that it was there, Ken. You know -- like, say, blowing it up?

My point is that after you torture the terrorists into telling you who their accomplices are, or where the factory is, or what have you, you don't just go out and shoot the "accomplices" or blow up the "factory" until you double-check to see that you're not gunning down a bunch of schoolkids or blowing up an baby-food factory.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 8:22pm | #

Torturing prisoners, on the other hand, is not done by accident

It is an accident that innocent people get tortured along with the guilty, though. The moral problem with torture isn't that murderers and terrorists get tortured, but that innocent people are wrongly tortured because of bad information.

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 8:33pm | #

"My point is that after you torture the terrorists into telling you who their accomplices are, or where the factory is, or what have you, you don't just go out and shoot the "accomplices" or blow up the "factory" until you double-check to see that you're not gunning down a bunch of schoolkids or blowing up an baby-food factory"

That's not exactly secondary verification then, is it? It's not exactly what you were talking about when you wrote:

"Information gathered from interrogation, regardless of whether or not it was gained by torture, always needs to be checked."

thoreau | January 7, 2005, 8:43pm | #

Why are we asking Dan about verifying info after it's obtained? He clearly agrees that info obtained by torture needs to be verified, as would any reasonable person.

The bigger questions are:

1) When, if ever, is it justified to torture a person?
2) (related) If torture is justified, how stringent should the burden of proof be before concluding that the conditions have been met?

I might not agree with all of Dan's answers to these questions, but he's offering answers, and they're certainly more interesting than "Do we verify the info that torture victims give?"

Dan | January 7, 2005, 8:45pm | #

I never used the term "secondary verification".

And if you don't think looking to see if the building you were told is a bomb factory actually IS a bomb factory counts as "checking the information gathered from interrogation", well, I don't know what language you're using, but it sure isn't English. That's what "checking your information" means -- it means you check if it's true or not. Sheesh.

It's For the Children | January 7, 2005, 8:56pm | #

Hmm. If we determine through careful research that by far the most effective way to get reliable information from our detainees is to grab an Iraqi child off the street and torture that child in front of the detainees, is that OK too? I mean, we already recognize that innocent children are a casualty of war, so we're not REALLY making the problem worse in any stastical way, right? And the information we get that way might allow us to actually SAVE more innocent children than it costs, so how could it not be the right thing to do?

I note in passing that the discussion has mostly veered from whether torture "works" to whether it's "right" which is, I think, exactly as it should be.

It's For the Children | January 7, 2005, 8:57pm | #

stastical -> statistical, of course

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 9:10pm | #

"I might not agree with all of Dan's answers to these questions, but he's offering answers, and they're certainly more interesting than "Do we verify the info that torture victims give?"

Initially, Dan admitted that information had to be "checked" in order to be useful--now he's suggesting that we should just send in Rambo on the word of tortured insurgents alone.

...Whether or not information obtained by way of torture needs a secondary source in order to be useful speaks to the heart of the debate.

I still maintain that in secondary sources won't exist in practice per my comment at 7:44.

Dan | January 7, 2005, 9:47pm | #

now he's suggesting that we should just send in Rambo on the word of tortured insurgents alone.

No, Ken, I'm still saying we should confirm the information before we start killing and blowing stuff up. I made that point at 6:38, again at 7:50, yet again at 8:14, and yet again at 8:45.

I'm not sure why you're confused. Apparently you have some special definition of "checked" that doesn't match the English one and which you cannot be bothered to share. This would go easier if you'd restrict yourself to colloquial English.

Ruthless | January 7, 2005, 10:14pm | #

"Ken-
No, not yet. I don't want to use the Confederacy as an excuse to divert Dan off the subject of deliberate torture as opposed to war in general.

No offense, Ruthless."

Thanks Jennifer, for giving me a reprieve.
I am temporarily incompacitized, but I'll be rough and ready tomorrow eve.

As Scarlet O'Hara woud phrase it, "I'll ponder that there termorry."

Ken Shultz | January 7, 2005, 10:33pm | #

I suspect we're talking past each other here, so let's see if we can clear this up a bit.

Let's say you're torturing an insurgent, and he tells you, "al-Zaraqawi is eating lunch in a restaurant at the corner of 20th & Main."

If you're saying that we need to verify that information before we act on it, I'm going to say that's baloney because if we had a second source with the same information, we already would have acted on it.

If you're saying that we don't need to verify anything, that we should just send a squad to see if al-Zaraqawi is where the insurgent said he is, then I'm going to point out, once again, that if your men report that al-Zaraqawi isn't there, you still have no idea whether the insurgent you're torturing has any useful information.

...Indeed, you're making the same assumptions about the insurgent that I already pointed out, at the very top of this thread, don't work. Before you torture any insurgent, you're assuming, at the very least, that each insurgent you torture has useful information.

If you plan to send a squad, without independent verification, to investigate every piece of information obtained by way of torture, then, at best, you're on a wild goose chase.

So what am I missing?

gaius marius | January 7, 2005, 10:52pm | #

Yes, innocent people suffer in wars. All the more reason to hate the people who make them necessary, whether they are slaveowners, fascists, or fundamentalist Muslims.

or americans.

did you consider even tangentially that 9/11 was preceded my a century of western meddling, including many thousands of muslims killed, sacrificed for the western expedient -- and yes, by american actions too? indeed, because that truth is inconvenient, i suspect you dismiss even the possibility entirely.

It is an accident that innocent people get tortured along with the guilty, though. The moral problem with torture isn't that murderers and terrorists get tortured, but that innocent people are wrongly tortured because of bad information.

the moral problem is that one is capable of inflicting pure sadism on anyone for any reason. it's nothing whatever to do with who is being tortured; it's what it does to you, what it says about you.

it's sickening to watch you try to tease a logically maintainable position out of this, mr dan, breaking other people's eggs to make omelets -- and not only because it takes a profoundly disturbed man to advocate a method decried by virtually all expert military opinion as useless -- simply because it is sadistic and one takes carnal pleasure in pointless revenge.

more profoundly, it is sickening because the justification is purely directional -- you would disavow it in its entirely the moment it were turned round. the logical and moral construction, even if achieved or achievable, means nothing. it is only a convenience to your fascist jingoism and conviction of American Superiority.

that makes you particularly pathetic degenerate, you and your lot.

go ahead and deny it; i'd be surprised if anyone believed you, having read what you've written here over time. it's incrimination enough.

Rick Barton | January 7, 2005, 11:38pm | #

Even in the rare ticking bomb scenario, we can't make torture legal. I admit that we can imagine some pretty compelling nightmares but beside the transgression against justice that is committed when torture occurs, there is just too much room for the government to use that type of a scenario as an excuse. Now, if the president issues an emergency executive order to torture in this type of scenario and the ticking bomb turns out to be real, and the victim of the torture is found to have been able to reveal critical information, that's one thing. If both of these conditions do not obtain, then it's impeachment time.

The way to maintain a civil society that is faithful to the central idea behind our republic, the sanctity of the individual, is to make sure that all those who engaged in torture and all those who authorized it are prosecuted.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:03am | #

Dan,

Obviously "commonalities" refer to common themes, etc. in a group's statement. Quit being purposefully obtuse. What are you are arguing for is largely a waste of time and resources.

Ken,

You fisked Dan hard this time.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:21am | #

As to the actual question at hand, it does seem certain that under some circumstances, with some individuals, torture may indeed work. But it has nothing of the universal quality that some try to apply to it, and in many (if not most) instances all it may produce is useless information and certainly nothing like the "actionable intelligence" that we would perfer to get. Furthermore, and this is only to stress my comments above, it cannot be amateur-hour when these types of acts are committed; yet so far that is ALL that we've seen out of the Bush administration, is amateur-hour.

Thus one has to differentiate between the types of information one might want before one would even begin to put together a torture regime. Furthermore, there must be specific timelines for use. For the most part, torture is simply going to be useless after a short period of time.

What many would have us do is of course pick targets indiscriminately, and thus unwisely, and torture for any question under the sun. And we've already seen the results of such stupidity (note my comments about the ameteurish nature of the U.S. regarding folks at Gitmo, etc.) over past few years, where much time, resources, etc., were wasted on individuals with no actionable knowledge whatsoever; where it became apparent that folks were tortured for "kicks."

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:35am | #

Dan,

Obviously torturing a person could be worse than merely killing them. Only a moral idiot would say that death is neccessarily worse than having one's limbs disable (or dismembered) for life; indeed, since this is the slippery issue of morality, which is very subjective, its quite clear that an individual could intelligently and rationally argue that in some instances at least that torture is worse than mere murder/death.

For example, if I were a woman I would much rather be shot in the head (and thus quickly die) than face the torture of having chiles and chili powder stuffed into my vagina (this has been a common form of torture in parts of Asia and Africa) daily for weeks on end (I've read that its quite excruciating and that for the survivors they live a life of fully horrific pain unless some significant surgery is performed on them). Yes, some forms of torture are far worse (morally and physically) than mere death.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:37am | #

In the end the Bush administration's amateurish use of torture should demonstrate what clueless fucktards that they are.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:43am | #

Dan,

You wrote the following in the other thread on this issue:

I think that some of the acts would probably qualify as torture under the treaties we've signed, while others would not.

I asked you to delineate which was which. Care to do so here on this thread?

thoreau | January 8, 2005, 12:51am | #

Now, if the president issues an emergency executive order to torture in this type of scenario and the ticking bomb turns out to be real, and the victim of the torture is found to have been able to reveal critical information, that's one thing. If both of these conditions do not obtain, then it's impeachment time.

That's basically a slightly more extreme version of my suggestion that any official who authorizes torture should be forced to defend his actions with full hindsight. It shouldn't be enough to say "Well, it sure seemed like he knew..."

I would go even further and stipulate that even if the torture did yield crucial info, and even if that info did save a lot of lives, if an investigation concludes that there were other ways to save lives with a high probability of success, the officials who decided to torture should still lose their jobs. What I'm thinking of is a case where there were other leads in front of them but they chose to go the torture route. Rare? Maybe. But how common are ticking time bombs and prisoners who know enough to stop them?

As to Rick's suggestion that:
Even in the rare ticking bomb scenario, we can't make torture legal. I admit that we can imagine some pretty compelling nightmares but beside the transgression against justice that is committed when torture occurs, there is just too much room for the government to use that type of a scenario as an excuse.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, Rick's point is an excellent one that at first glance I would agree with. But if we're going to qualify it with something about ticking time bombs, as Rick did, we're basically saying that in exceptional circumstances the law can be ignored. I wonder if it might not be safer to spell those circumstances out in advance rather than play it by ear. My inclination is to agree with Rick, but I want to think it through further.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:54am | #

Maybe Kerry should have run some ads about torture.

Imagine a shot of slowly waving American flag; you can hear the slight crack of the flag as it moves along with Ray Charles singing "America ... America..."; then the shot dissolves to a goofy looking picture of Bush with John Kerry speaking the following in the background:

~President Bush has been ineffective, Wasteful and Amateurish in his Administration's use of torture. Its time we used torture properly and get the children out of the White House. I'm John Kerry, and I approve this message.~

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 12:59am | #

thoreau,

If you are going to use torture, you better codify its use and bring it out into the daylight. Pretending that it is not used just gets one into a lot of trouble and proves to be terribly embarressing.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 4:26am | #

thoreau,

Advocates of the "ticking time bomb" scenario know that torture will rarely if ever be used in such circumstances, which is why it is such a cock and bull example. Indeed, torture is not only to undercover much in the way immediate operational or tactical knowledge. You use torture primarily to get your hands on organizational knowledge. Accordingly we should stop talking about "ticking time bombs."

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 4:27am | #

only = going

Jennifer | January 8, 2005, 5:51am | #

Dan-
I would still like to know the acceptable number of innocent people we can torture before we stop being good guys. Can you answer this, or does your mind sit easier if you continue to ignore it?

SixSigma | January 8, 2005, 6:00am | #

As to the actual question at hand, it does seem certain that under some circumstances, with some individuals, torture may indeed work. But it has nothing of the universal quality that some try to apply to it, and in many (if not most) instances all it may produce is useless information and certainly nothing like the "actionable intelligence" that we would perfer to get.

According to a book and several interviews, officials that used methods such as monstering, stress positions, and other psychological forms of torture got good verifiable and acitonable intelligence. This is actually not in dispute. There are several sources where you can find this out, to include your own knowledge of human beings. Once a person is broken they will tell you anything they have.

And lastly you don't ask direct questions like "Where's the bomb." You use benign questions about their unit structure and such until you start getting information we already know is true and then push further to get new information. You can even play prisoners off each other by making sure they're isolated and saying things like, "Your friend over there already told us X, Y, and Z. He's talking right now about you." (This works especially well against different nationalites that tend to trust each other less and of course X, Y, and Z are usually easily verified pieces of information known whether the other one talked or not)

Again, this is not to say I condone torture, but to say it doesn't work seems to be a wish more than a fact.

Jennifer | January 8, 2005, 6:18am | #

SixSigma-
I saw a documentary on the type of torture you refer to--it was a British military group, I believe, who 'abducted' certain volunteers and used psychological stress techniques to find out details the volunteers were determined to keep hidden. I'm not certain how I feel about that, but I did get ONE impression--whatever its moral failings might be, such techniques at least make it pretty clear to a trained interrogator who among his prisoners is actually innocent, or at least clueless and useless toward achieving the interrogator's ends. (Of course, that's assuming we actually used trained, psychologically sophisticated interrogators as opposed to low-on-the-totem-pole hillbillies with a mean streak.)

Yet here's the irony--because this, the one type of torture which actually can work toward achieving the interrogators' information goals, has almost nothing in common with the grisly, graphic tortures we've read about concerning witch hunts, the Inquisition, and the purges of Stalin, apologists like Dan are most likely to insist that it's not really torture.

Bumper sticker of the future: "America: Our Torturers are Easier to Explain Away." I weep for my dying country.

raymond | January 8, 2005, 7:35am | #

I still want an answer to this:

Dan. Say you have been caught up in an anti-terrorist sweep. What can you say or do to convince your torturers that you're telling the truth when you say "I know nothing?" Or are you just another one of those eggs that one can't make an omelet without breaking?

A long time ago there was a tv series (or a movie?) about the Holocaust. (Was it Bent? Was it Holocaust?) In one scene, one of the camp inmates was being tortured. He gave up his friend. I don't know how much pain I could take before I gave up my friend. Probably very little. And then I'd kill myself.

Imagine. "If you don't tell us X, we're going to start raping members of your family. Starting with your mother and working down to your 2-year-old son."

I'm pretty sure that would work. It would be effective. 100%.

But I don't think whether torture works or not is relevant. What's relevant is how far we are willing to deny our own humanity and violate the very concept of human dignity.

Some people here seem very willing. It's sickening, but they're not the first people to embrace evil means; nor will they be the last.

And to those who defend torture because hey what the heck war is worse... War IS evil. It is barbaric and uncivilised and vile and wicked and stupid. So. STOP IT!

Ken Shultz | January 8, 2005, 10:34am | #

A few brief random thoughts, thumbed from the phone:

1) There's a flaw in the British experiment mentioned above; namely, the torturer already knows that one of the victims has useful information. In the real world, that will remain an assumption.

The problems associated with acting on information obtained by way of torture based on that assumption don't go away just because you're torturing a victim's family either--once again, what if your victim just doesn't know anything?

I would challenge Dan to invent a realistic scenario in which a torturer obtains actionable information--a scenario that doesn't suffer from the symptoms I described above.

drf | January 8, 2005, 10:34am | #

anti torture people:

you have forgotten in the ticking time bomb scenario and the other foaming, bullying "justifications" that one of the fairy-footed thug-wanna-be's (probably internet tough guys) were touting is some sort of independent verification.

HOW WILL YOU HAVE TIME TO GET INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION UNDER TICKING TIME BOMB.

survey says:

FUCK YOU PRO TORTURE SHITS.

Ken Shultz | January 8, 2005, 11:16am | #

" I weep for my dying country."

2) Don't cry for the United States. The overwealming majority of these people are party hacks--there were dyed in the wool Democrats who would go to the wall for Clinton no matter what he did. It doesn't surprise me that there are Republicans who will do the same for Bush. People are sheep--it's in the Bible.

Most people are disgusted and horrified by torture, that's why the Bush Administration abandoned the practice. A lot of Republican torture apologists invested a lot of hot air in defending the practice--they're clutching at straws now. It's their watergate moment.--don't judge the state of the nation by the silly things they say.

I could have been one of these people. I like to ask Republican support monkeys: "What would the President have to do in order to make you withdraw your support?" Whatever the thing on that line is isn't as important as the recognition that there should be a line. I didn't support the war, but I supported the President. Shortly before the photographs of Abu Gharib came out, Bush made a speech in which he bragged of having shut down the torture chambers at Abu Gharib. He either knew or should have known that we were torturing people at the time...for me,that was the straw that broke the Camel's back. He crossed my line.

When most people look back on their support of the Administration on this, they'll look back and be ashamed.

People used to support segregation--their children are ashamed of them.

Jennifer | January 8, 2005, 12:29pm | #

Ken-
I hope you're right about my pessimism being unfounded, but I fear you're wrong. Here's why: the torture apologists aren't just average guys like Dan posting on Internet comment boards; one of them's about to be made Attorney General of these United States.

And the Watergate comparison doesn't cheer me, either. When news of Watergate came out, the perpetrators got in trouble, whereas the perpetrators (save a few, generally low-ranking, scapegoats) of various Iraqgates and Gitmogates and otherwise are getting medals pinned on them by the President.

Because of human nature, every country will always have a few nationalistic apologists for evil to be found among its rank-and-file, I suppose. What really poisons a society is when such people reside in the halls of power, and craft the laws to reflect their prejudices.

Jennifer | January 8, 2005, 12:30pm | #

And, lest I forget to add: that's what's happening here.

Ken Shultz | January 8, 2005, 1:42pm | #

Jennifer,

Yeah, I was just talkin' about guys like Dan.

I had an uncle who went door to door for Nixon; when watergate happened, there came a moment when he first realized he'd been taken. I imagine that's how people like Dan feel after Gonzo's testimony. The Bush Administration needed them to apologize for the use of torture through the election, and now that they're no longer useful, they're being thrown away like so many used pampers.

You're right, of course, if Gonzaales is confirmed in spite of it all, it doesn't auger well.

Gary Gunnels | January 8, 2005, 4:44pm | #

SixSigma,

Once a person is broken they will tell you anything they have.

And they will also tell you anything you want them to tell you. I've not denied the efficacy of torture in some circumstances, but there is often as much wheat as their is chaff. And yes, I've read books on the subject myself. P

Ruthless | January 8, 2005, 9:34pm | #

Torture is traffic signals:
Big Brother's Peepers.

Torture is big bro's peeps.

Would you buy a used car from this dude?

Jennifer | January 9, 2005, 10:15am | #

Ken-
Here's a question I forgot to ask, assuming you're still here: after the Watergate scandal broke, how long did it take for your Nixon-supporting uncle to change his view on Nixon? Did he first go through a phase wherein he invented the most outlandish reasons why what Nixon did wasn't so bad, or at any rate our enemies were far worse? Did he run around asking, "Why do Woodward and Bernstein hate America?" Did he flat-out deny the evidence and say that Nixon's detractors were liars, or invent Orwellian redefinitions of terms like "burglary?"

Somehow I doubt it. The torture apologists have gone beyond mere partisanship, here; I'm reminded more of the medieval Catholic Church, digging in its heels and refusing to look into Galileo's telescope which would tell them Earth is NOT the center of the universe. Let's not let mere FACTS get in the way of our monopoly on power, shall we?

Jennifer | January 9, 2005, 10:45am | #

"It's not burglary until you actually sell your stolen goods to a fence, see, and since Liddy and pals made no actual money off of Watergate they didn't really burgle anything, and besides the Viet Cong is some REALLY nasty dudes and do you want to see them take over America? Get a haircut, you goddam hippie."

Junyo | January 10, 2005, 12:11am | #

So many words for suprisingly little thought. The strongest objections to torture seem to break down into the It's Immoral and What About The Innocent/Slippery Slope camps.

The It's Immoral argument holds less than no water. Gaius would have us invoke the long chain of subjective moral "decency" stretching back to a Babylonian king who based his moral authority upon his diety, believed in capital punishment for theft, and mutilation for uppity slaves. Libertarians have a long history of discounting subjective morality as a basis for policy, so the real question is how does this fit into an objective moral structure. Very well, since any valid objective moral structure holds as moral those things that are conducive to the building or preservation of a society or are in the best interests of the members thereof. It's been widely acknowledged a scenerio could exist in which it could potentially be a lifesaving tactic, which would mean that in at least some rare instances it could fit within an objectively moral framework. Further, and to my earlier point, the acceptance of the concept of moral war is the acceptance of the idea that even fundamentally ammoral actions can have an aggregate moral outcome. If you can morally kill someone in self defense, even morally and legally kill someone that posed no actual threat towards you because of your reasonable perception that a threat existed, how can the simple infliction of pain be worse than that? I find very little substantive distinction between the intentional infliction of pain suffering and death labelled "war", and intentional infliction of pain suffering and death labelled "torture". Unless you are an absolute pacifist, accepting possibility of war and absolutely decrying torture is logically inconsistent.

As to the What About The Innocents question, while the most compelling argument, it's simply not overwhelming since it doesn't really address the heart of the matter; the rightness, wrongness, or utility of the use of torture. It merely questions what happens when it's poorly implemented. That can be factored in as a cost, as well as the risk of error and that can make a particular situation a good or bad one. But that an idea is hard to implement well makes it impractical, it doesn't invalidate the basic concept. The implementation of many things are flawed; drugs, cars, guns kill and maim the innocent daily, directly or indirectly. I don't see anyone calling for absolute ban, regardless of application on any of those things.

Jennifer | January 10, 2005, 6:53am | #

Actually, Junyo, the people who want to legalize torture are the same ones who HAVE called on an absolutel ban on drugs, regardless of who is hurt by these laws. I figure the Founding Fathers were on to something when they outlawed "cruel and unusual punishment," and while I don't want to start a round of gratuitous Bush-bashing here, somehow I DON'T think he and Al Gonzales are deeper or more nuanced thinkers than Jefferson, Madison et. al.

R C Dean | January 10, 2005, 9:45am | #

Sigh. As always, we have nearly a hundred posts on "torture", and no commonly accepted definition of WTF "torture" is (and, more importantly, what not torture).

As a result, everyone is talking past each other, and the whole thread is a waste of time.

raymond | January 10, 2005, 11:23am | #

We've given the "commonly accepted definition" of torture numerous times in numerous other threads. Pay attention.

raymond | January 10, 2005, 11:39am | #

Below - once again - is the definition of "torture" as it appears in the United States Code.

Title 18, 2340


(1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from -


(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) "United States" includes all areas under the jurisdiction of the United States including any of the places described in sections 5 and 7 of this title and section 46501 (2) of title 49.



Title 28,1350, sec. 3. DEFINITIONS.


(b) Torture. - For the purposes of this Act -
"(1) the term "torture" means any act, directed against an individual in the offender's custody or physical control, by which severe pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering arising only from or inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions), whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on that individual for such purposes as obtaining from that individual or a third person information or a confession, punishing that individual for an act that individual or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, intimidating or coercing that individual or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind; and
"(2) mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from -


"(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
"(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
"(C) the threat of imminent death; or
"(D) the threat that another individual will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality."

R C Dean | January 10, 2005, 12:01pm | #

We've given the "commonly accepted definition" of torture numerous times in numerous other threads. Pay attention.

I do pay attention, and I see both sides going forward on the basis of very different understandings of what the word "torture" means. The legal definition doesn't help, BTW - people interpret it differently. I submit that there is no longer a commonly accepted definition of torture.

For example, many people refer to what happened on that one day at Abu Ghraib as "torture", but I don't think that the vast majority of what was photographed and disseminated meets the legal definitions. Humiliation is not torture.

Of course, it gets even worse when you have people talking, as I believe the Red Cross did re Gitmo, about activities that are "tantamount to torture" (whatever that is supposed to mean).

Arguing about whether specific interrogation techniques are effective is utterly pointless without specifying what techniques you mean. There is a seamless continuum of pressure that may be applied to extract information, ranging from a polite "you don't have anything you want to tell us" over coffed and donuts, to the most horrific mutilations and barbarisms. Talking about torture without specifying where on this spectrum you are is pointless.

raymond | January 10, 2005, 1:40pm | #

Talking about torture without specifying where on this spectrum you are is pointless.

I'm going to quote Agammamon (January 9, 2005 04:46 PM):

"If we as a nation didn't like it when this stuff was done to us, then why would we consider it ok to do to others?"

And I'm going to modify it a bit: If YOU were being "interrogated vigorously", at what point on your spectrum would YOU find the treatment unacceptable?

Determining that should give you a hint.

gaius marius | January 10, 2005, 2:17pm | #

Here's why: the torture apologists aren't just average guys like Dan posting on Internet comment boards; one of them's about to be made Attorney General of these United States.

precisely, ms jennifer.

I find very little substantive distinction between the intentional infliction of pain suffering and death labelled "war", and intentional infliction of pain suffering and death labelled "torture".

in other words, mr junyo, it's all perfectly acceptable, as would be much much worse activity, because the ends justify the means.

you'll find logical consistency is a bitch when americans are tortured for these same logical reasons in the war on drugs.

logical consistency has nothing to do with anything here. you are making the case that, if utility is *possible*, the action is justifiable -- if we might get information that saves lives, we should torture whoever we need to. i beg you to really think throu