Torture--It Won't Go Away

Every time I think this is the last post I'm going to write on torture, I change my mind. What our government did is unconscionable, and until justice is served, I'll keep bringing up the subject here, particularly since it is increasingly clear that some people would love for the subject to go away, and they are doing their darnedest to walk away; others are using their power in the public sphere to justify and to support the use of torture--Dick Cheney just can't shut up about how wonderful torture is; and others are just trying to obfuscate the issue as best they can.

Then there are those that continue to make the stupidest comments on record. Several bloggers have discussed the hearing on torture today before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (See “What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration”). Think Progress has a post, with a video clip of Lindsey Graham saying:

The Vice President is suggesting that there was good information obtained, and I’d like the committee to get that information. Let’s have both sides of the story here. I mean, one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work. (Think Progress: ""Graham: Since torture techniques have ’survived for about 500 years,’ ‘apparently they work.’"

"Both sides of the story"? What sides, exactly? That torture works or doesn't work? That we should torture or not torture? If it works, does that justify our torturing people? If it doesn't work, should we still do it? That because something "has survived for about 500 years" it's necessarily successful and justifiable? Does Lindsey Graham read? does he know his history? Does he have any moral backbone? Here are just a few thoughts that come to my mind (and, how lucky, I've research notes right here):

• Torture has historically been used to get people to confess to what the torturers want to hear, not particularly because the torturers want the truth. Just read the story of the Frenchman Jean Calas in 1762. Calas was tortured by authorities because they wanted him to confess to killing his son--even though there was no proof. And when Voltaire sought information about procedures of the case, the authorities would not release that information; the procedures were kept secret. The man died without confessing, a niggling little detail that worried the authorities; had the man confessed--no matter whether the confession was "true" or not--they could rest easy.
  
  Oh, lo and behold, the Bush Administration wanted to increase the use of "coercive techniques" because the prisoners associated with Al Qaeda were not providing a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq during questioning. More "coercive techniques" (some stressful positions, several days without sleep, some slapping around, a little waterboarding) might establish the link the government so desired in order to justify going to war against Iraq. (See Ron Suskind's The One-Percent Doctrine, specifically, chapter 3, from which this quote is taken: "Early doubts voiced by the CIA about any connection between [Saddam and Al Qaeda] were duly noted and largely ignored by the Vice President, Don Rumsfeld, and their respective staffs" p. 123)

• Does torture provide good information? According to an article on ProPublica that recounts the findings of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on detainee treatment, Major Paul Burney, from the Behavioral Science Consultation Team who "help[ed] ramp up intelligence collection at Guantanamo, "there was 'a lot of pressure to use more coercive techniques' because prisoners were resisting interrogators and 'we were not being successful at establishing a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.'" That same article discusses how in a memo of Oct., 2, 2002, these psychologists "versed in the military's 'SERE' program" (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) warned government officials "that these methods were likely to result in inaccurate tips and could harm detainees. Those warnings disappeared as the memo moved up the chain of command. 

Col. Larry C. James, then psychology chief at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, also warned that

 the use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects. . . When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, i. e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain. . . it usually decreases the reliability of the information...Because of the danger involved, very few SERE instructors are allowed to actually use physical pressures. . . everything that is occurring [in SERE school] is very carefully monitored and paced. . . Even with all these safeguards, injuries and accidents do happen. The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially...(quoted in "Tortured Profession: Psychologists Warned of Abusive Interrogations, Then Helped Craft Them, by Sheri Fink, ProPublia, May 5, 2009).

• And just what is an "acceptable" level of torture? Well, according to CIA lawyer Jonathan Freedman, torture techniques that the Behavioral Science Consultation Team described were legal, and the signatory agreement to the United Nations Torture Convention could be disregarded because the wording was too vague. In short, he argued, the convention was "'basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong.'" (quoted in Finks' article) Oops! I guess that was too much torture. The detainee died. My bad.

I could go on and on, but I'll just end with this note: I am disappointed with Barack Obama's refusal to release the remaining photos that record interrogation (and torture) of detainees at Abu Ghraib and other military installations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think there should be a full accounting of the consequences of torture. Otherwise, it won't go away.

Other Voices:

Mark Benjamin, "Soufan: CIA torture actually hindered our intelligence gathering," Salon, May 14, 2009.

Scott Horton, "A Convenient Death," posted on his blog No Comment, at Harper's Magazine, May 12, 2009.

Juan Cole, "The Hidden Hand of Dick Cheney," in Salon, May 13, 2009.

Nick Baumann, "The Torture Dissidents' Tale," Mother Jones, May 13, 2009.

Mike Webb, "Mark Danner and ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer Talk Torture," on ProPublica, May 13, 2009.

David Rittgers, "Former FBI Agent: Torture Sucks; Don't Do It," Cato @ Liberty, posted May 13, 2009.

Andrew Sullivan, "The President Explains," on his blog, The Daily Dish, at The Atlantic," May 13, 2009.

Clint Hendler, "Transparency Interview: Jameel Jaffer," Columbia Journalism Review, May 4, 2009.

David Crisp, "Torture Revisited" and "Thursday Talk Radio Update II," on Billings Blog, May 1, 2009.

Mark Danner, "The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means," The New York Review of Books, April 30, 2009.

Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, "In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Look at Past Use," The New York Times, April 21, 2009.