Torture

Torture is the act of causing physical or mental anguish, pain and/or harm, sometimes in order to achieve a specific result, such as obtaining information ("enhanced interrogation" for the politically correct), or sometimes as revenge or to satisfy the sadistic nature of the torturer. During the Inquisition, torture was specifically and formally approved by Pope Innocent IV with his 1252 law, the papal bull Ad Extirpanda.[2]

It's a
Crime
Articles on illegal behaviour
v - t - e
“”The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.
—Napoleon Bonaparte.[1]

In spite of a long history of the use of torture by governments, religions and individuals, research has shown that information obtained by torture is notoriously unreliable, particularly for three reasons:[3][4]

  1. Under torture a person may say whatever the torturer wants to hear. He may incriminate innocent people or confess to crimes he knows nothing about.[5][6][7]
  2. A person under torture has no real interest in helping the torturer — he or she is not a willing ally. Assuming that he has not been coerced into simply saying whatever his interrogator wants to hear then his information is likely to be ambiguous, dangerous or simply wrong.[8]
  3. People undergoing torture aren't exactly in the best state of mind to give accurate information, even if they wanted to in the first place. Neuroscience has shown strong evidence that torture degrades the subject's memory and impairs their ability to think and reason.[9][10]

More problems

In addition to those three problems of not getting accurate information, torture hurts your overall policy effectiveness in several ways. This is more applicable for governments than for, say, bank robbers but all the same:

  • False information gained from torture will likely harm the nation's overall interests. For instance, Japan tortured an American POW during World War Two after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to find out how many more atom bombs the Americans might have. The POW was coerced into claiming that the Americans had about 100 such weapons when in fact the project had been kept secret from the military and the Americans had no more.[11] It is almost certain that this alarming but false information helped convince the Japanese to surrender. The US Senate also found that torture of suspects by the CIA generated significant false data on critical areas of counter-terrorism intelligence and harmed American national security.[8]
  • Torture makes allies and neutral parties less friendly towards your side. The American torture program has harmed the US' image across the Middle East and is used by dictators to justify their own crimes.[12] General Paul Eaton, who was responsible for training Iraqi soldiers, said, "The ... United States’ national interests in the future—and I’m talking about generations to come—have been undermined by the awareness, by the clear truth, ground truth that the United States is going to torture people."[13]
  • Torture makes other avenues of negotiation/information-gathering ineffective. Even if contacts are otherwise inclined to help the information-seekers the possibility of being tortured as well for information makes them clam up and feign ignorance; after all, any organization brutal enough to torture people for information can't exactly be trusted to keep promises or play fairly. If Gestapo agents were offering 100,000 marks for primo information on the underground Communist party, what makes you think that they wouldn't just torture you for the information when you come forward to collect the reward?
  • If torture comes to light, it can be used by your adversary as proof of how brutal and inhumane you are, which will increase popular support and make whatever cause the victim fought for stronger. The world saw this effect in action during the War on Terror.[14]
  • If a combatant thinks they will be tortured, they will fight harder and be less likely to surrender or co-operate.
  • Government-sanctioned torture creates a breeding ground for further atrocities. As dodgy as capital punishment is, most countries go out of their way to make the process as transparent as possible. However, to avoid the previous problem most torture is done (even in the most brutal of regimes) with a heavy dose of secrecy. This cocktail of opaqueness and necessarily dehumanized torture candidates inevitably leads to further human rights abuses.
  • Torture also creates the problem of needing to do something with the captive once they do give up the information. Even if you otherwise have no interest in whether they live or die, you can't exactly let them go because they're a witness to what happened and will probably oppose you. You could just imprison them indefinitely, give them a (probably show) trial, and/or execute them -- at the cost of hurting your international standing even further.

Current events

Although outlawed by most countries, torture is still practiced by some, particularly dictatorships and other tyrannical or authoritarian governments. The United States has a prohibition against it, but recently circumvented this by outsourcing its torture to private contractors, ensuring that no one was actually tortured on U.S. soil, and, as a last resort, redefining the Geneva Conventions to suit.[15] Ain't obeying the law grand, Republicans? There is increasing evidence that the US, in many cases, directly engaged in torture. They just made sure to do it in gray areas, like Guantanamo.[16][17][18]

Effectiveness

An example of the unreliability of torture can, surprisingly, be gleaned from the Larry Craig affair. Apparently just the thought of the damage to his reputation and position in society made him plead guilty to a sex-related disorderly conduct charge, even though he now claims he was not guilty. Imagine what he would wrongly plead guilty to if torture, rather than shame, were in the offing? And this man was a tough conservative, not a librul weakling.

The military (and, formerly, the CIA) claimed that torture is a worthless tactic, as the victim will admit anything to stop the torture. For gathering useful intelligence, gaining trust, bribery or undercover operations are far more useful tactics, and don't result in the physical or mental destruction of anyone.

Terrorist propaganda tool

With regard to terrorism, also, torture can also serve as a catalyst to increase terrorist activity. A terrorist organization needs to play to prejudices or other malcontent on the part of its potential recruits; beating, arresting and especially torturing or killing people gives terrorists propaganda fuel.[19] Treating them like human beings and entering into legitimate, fair political negotiation (even when abstaining from appeasing them) does not.

Most recently, the 2014 Senate report detailing how the US tortured prisoners during the War on Terror was a propaganda goldmine for overseas terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and DAESH.[20] The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released a joint statement saying: "The FBI, DHS, and [National Counterterrorism Center] assess the most likely impact of the report will be attempts by foreign terrorist organizations … and their online supporters to exploit the report’s findings by claiming they confirm the U.S. government’s perceived hypocrisy and oppression of Muslims."[20] The international intelligence community has also noted that DAESH dresses its Western beheading victims in orange jumpsuits to deliberately evoke similarities to prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.[20]

Tick, tick, bullshit

Those who advocate the use of torture frequently invoke the "ticking bomb" scenario: the need to extract from someone the location of a bomb, usually specified as nuclear, set to go off at an unknown (to the torturers) location at some time in the immediate future.[21] This is stupid because such a scenario has never happened, will never happen, and torture will be used regardless of whether there is a "ticking bomb" or not.[22][23]

Besides, even if this kind of situation did occur, the person being tortured knows that he is in the position of power, and need only resist for a finite period of time. In this situation, resistance to torture becomes easier, and delaying tactics such as feigning confusion (if it's necessary to feign it), easily produced disinformation, or prolonged silence will achieve the aim of running out the clock. It isn't hard to figure this out. It's already been observed that torture tends to piss the victim off and make them more fanatical and more determined to either resist or mislead their torturers.[24] Your enemy's enemy might be your friend, but your torturer certainly isn't.

Guantanamo

It has been admitted the US military engaged in torture, including waterboarding, at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (In fact, many of the methods later used at Abu Ghraib apparently came from Guantanamo.[25]) The detention facility (Camp Delta, formerly Camp X-Ray) is an interesting study into the follies of America's current policies regarding detainees. Despite the inhumane treatment of detainees, clear violations of the Geneva Convention (And the Vienna Convention on Treaties, which allows the camp to exist in the first place) Camp Delta and X-Ray have gathered little workable intelligence. While some high ranking al-Qaeda members have been captured or killed, the organization (which is, in reality, more a philosophy than an actual organization) still remains active worldwide. The insurgency in Afghanistan is as strong as ever, and al-Qaeda retains significant influence throughout the Middle East and Africa. Camp Delta is still operational to this day, despite Barack Obama's promise to close it.

Karl Rove, also known as "Bush's brain," said he "was proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists."[26] Exactly what Imperial Japan said.

Extraordinary rendition
See main article Extraordinary rendition.

Extraordinary rendition is when the United States, determined to break someone without dirtying its own hands, sends a suspect to a state that engages in the worst kind of torture. For example, despite all the heated rhetoric the US promulgates about Syria, some of the people the US has captured have been sent there to be tortured.

Ashcroft-Gonzales hospital incident

When then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital (and under sedation), his deputy found that many of the programs of the Bush administration (possibly including torture) were illegal. Alberto Gonzales, then White House Counsel, went to visit Ashcroft in the hospital to try to get him to sign off on the programs. Ashcroft refused, rightfully understanding that he was in no position to sign off on anything, and told Gonzalez to talk to his deputy, who was currently the acting Attorney General. Then, after getting out of the hospital, Ashcroft signed off anyway.[27]

World public rejects torture, mostly

A June 2008 international survey of public attitudes to torture is rather depressing for the reality-based community: only 53% think that "All torture should be prohibited." This contrasts with the UK where the figure is 82%. Oddly enough, most of the current techniques used by Americans were developed by the British.[28]

The US falls below states like Ukraine, Poland and Egypt and 13% "think "Torture should generally be allowed."[29]

History

An historical aside: In ancient Greece and Rome, and possibly elsewhere, the testimony of a slave could only be accepted by an official tribunal or court after the slave had been tortured. Surprisingly, Greece and Rome were considered at the time to be civilized countries. Of course, pretty much all and every society throughout history has considered itself to be the most advanced civilization ever...

Notes
    gollark: The shipping.
    gollark: Done.
    gollark: I'll ship you some.
    gollark: It uses nonlinear apionic recursion.
    gollark: The idea-generator-powered one.

    References
    1. Napoleon I of France. Wikiquote.
    2. Ad extirpanda. Revolvy.
    3. The Legal Prohibition Against Torture, Human Rights Watch.
    4. Wanted: Interrogation that works and isn't torture, New Scientist.
    5. Cautio Criminalis, or a Book on Witch Trials. Friedrich Spee. Translated by Marcus Hellyer. Introduction by Marcus Hellyer. The University of Virginia Press.
    6. See the Wikipedia article on Forced confession.
    7. I Was Tortured into Giving a False Confession to Chicago Police. By Nicholas Cannariato. Vice.
    8. Page:US Senate Report on CIA Detention Interrogation Program.pdf/9. WikiSource. Quote: "While being subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and afterwards, multiple CIA detainees fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence. Detainees provided fabricated information on critical intelligence issues, including the terrorist threats which the CIA identified as its highest priorities."
    9. The neuroscience of interrogation: Why torture doesn’t work. New Scientist. 11 November 2015.
    10. Science Shows That Torture Doesn't Work and Is Counterproductive. Rupert Stone. Newsweek.
    11. Jerome T. Hagen (1996). War in the Pacific, Chapter 25 "The Lie of Marcus McDilda". Hawaii Pacific University. ISBN 978-0-9653927-0-9.
    12. The Strategic Cost of Torture, Racism, and Bigotry. Center for Strategic and International Studies.
    13. Addressing America’s Trip to the “Dark Side”: The Cost of Torture. Human Rights First.
    14. Blowback: how torture fuels terrorism rather than reduces it. The Intercept.
    15. The U.S. Is Still Violating the Anti-Torture Treaty It Signed 20 Years Ago. The New Republic.
    16. How the CIA tortured its detainees. The Guardian.
    17. U.N. expert says torture persists at Guantanamo Bay; U.S. denies. Reuters.
    18. Ex-Gitmo detainee on torture: "They broke me". CBS News.
    19. Guantanamo Bay: A Terrorist Propaganda Tool. Human Rights First.
    20. Senate Torture Report Is Propaganda Bonanza for Islamic Militants, Feds Say. ABC News.
    21. Tick, Tick, Bull, Shit. Foreign Policy.
    22. The Case for Bringing Back Torture Is a Ticking Time-Bomb. The Atlantic.
    23. Law Professors: Only Jack Bauer Believes In The ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ Scenario For Torture. Think Progress.
    24. Statement of National Security, Intelligence, and Interrogation Professionals. Human Rights First.
    25. Torture at Abu Ghraib. The New Yorker.
    26. Rove 'proud' of US waterboarding terror suspects, BBC
    27. What Did Bush Tell Gonzales?, The Atlantic
    28. UK forces taught torture methods The Guardian
    29. Source of poll data
    This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.