A few weeks ago torture came back into the spotlight when the Senate and the CIA had a small spat and fought over the fact that the CIA spied on Senate aides who were sent over to look over torture reports. Some were, I'd say luckily, leaked. Nevertheless, though this infighting has died down, I want to take another look at torture. One would think that in this day and age there shouldn't be much of a discussion when it comes to torture, but unfortunately there is.

It's one of many legacies of the War on Terror (continued to this day, though without that name, and on different terms, mainly that torture chambers are replaced by drones). One of these legacies has been a complete kowtowing to national security and its polities while democratic institutions get short thrift. Indeed that the CIA thought spying on the Senate was something it could get away with seems like a perfect example. The need for oversight is overlooked and we get people trying to hide things (for our good, of course; it should be noted, as per Chomsky, that people who lie and claim national security care more for their own skins and are merely protecting themselves from their own people) while those trying to shine a light are somehow anit-American. Nevermind the checks and balances that are inherent to our Constitution.

And though it appears that this episode has quieted down (I think people want to forget it), I don't think it has done so through consensus, but rather through an odd need to forget. But given that the basics haven't been brought to light, we cannot walk into the future and assume that a need to torture won't come up again. Indeed, some of the arguments against torture are predicated on the fact that there aren't many attacks. So what happens when there are many attacks? Also, the state of our prison system indicates that levels of torture exist everywhere (especially when isolation is included).

First, a definition of torture (I'm using an international one, rather than national) Article 1 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT): “... 'torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”

The setup: A few months ago, after an handful of interesting chess games with a friend, we discussed a new movie, at the time, Zero Dark Thirty, the movie about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. And from everything that I had heard, it was a movie that justified torture. Now, the director herself had said that she was allowed some artistic license to talk about torture, or better provide a base from which to start the talk, but I heard otherwise from journalists (on my side of the torture argument). And knowing what I know about Hollywood and the general militaristic nature of movies (and the director), I didn’t want to see more of the same.

I said that I didn’t care to see this movie. I was then asked if I was for or against torture. I said I was against it. Why? I paused. I’d thought on this question many times, and time and time again I'd come to the conclusion that to support such an act would be to go against human nature and to go against what our nation stood for. But it would also be wrong because everything I'd read, or at least a few things from a few experts, said that it didn’t work. It doesn’t work I said (I find it interesting that this was my goto explanation). Is that the only reason, it doesn't work? I wasn’t expecting so concise and piercing a question, but there it was. Another pause. Yes, that’s the only reason, I said.

For some reason that felt like a weak reason, this opposition based soley on efficacy (my tormentor was for torture, though I’m sure he wouldn’t phrase it that way, but as something of a last resort in serious times). It may be that I’m too much a product of my time and that I cannot truly trust feelings and so I fall back on: "does it work or not?".

The problem: In other words, I would be for torture if someone can come up with the evidence that it works. And still that was the only argument I offered. I repeated that it didn’t work, not going into the multiple other variables that go into this reasoning: that it may work on any given person, but if you’re trying to paint a full on picture through intelligence, it ends up being a near-useless, horrific and revenge based way of doing things.

Sure, if you grab the right guy he might, under torture, tell you everything. But he might embellish. He might add a few things to satisfy his torturer. And if you grab the wrong man, he might tell you what you want to hear. That too will distort your intelligence picture.

The ones who are tortured, what are you going to do with them? Murder them in cold blood? That might be possible, but are we really trying to walk down the line where we start to mimic the SS or Stalin? Perhaps. But know that once you torture someone and release them (though currently there’s indefinite detention that we seem to be using) into the population, they will not be the same. And to say that they will be extreme, or be most likely to fall into that category is an understatement (the 1984 view that a man becomes docile after torture isn't always the case). It is widely known that the torture chambers of Egypt helped to create the 9-11 terrorists.

And what of turning the population (the one being targeted, as well as the many other agents who would be against such actions) against oneself? This also plays a part into what we want to be as a nation: the SS or a beacon of freedom. We torture and we’re handing over a recruiting tool to others. I will admit that these last two items seem to be weakest (or not wholly proven), though even the advocates of torture seem to understand it as they've tried to keep all this information under wraps.

Ticking Time Bomb: And the ticking time bomb scenario? What happens when you have one person in front of you and they (possibly, of course, remember it’s never 100%) know where a nuclear bomb is, and they don’t want to help, what do you do? The people who love this scenario love it because they never want you to step back and look at the bigger picture. But let’s put aside the fact that you don’t know if this person knows anything (or that torture will bring out the correct information). Let’s assume you’re 100% certain. So what do you do? The biggest argument is that one person is worth less than a million. So what’s his skin to those others? Of course, one should ask where does this calculation stop? If one is nothing compared to one million, then what of two? Surely this person should be tortured to save two lives?

But, you should know that there needs to be more than the morality of numbers. Remember that you would never run a nation by this moral code (usually it ends up being rights that rule the day). And let's not forget that this method can also be used against our own soldiers. After all, shouldn’t a pilot who was carpet bombing civilian cities in North Vietnam, shouldn’t they be tortured to extract as much information to save more lives? This is why a matter of rights works better than a numerical-based morality. Also, think about how we view other nations who use torture.

What is torture, anyways: Another argument is that what we do/did is not torture but rather something more benign, something befitting the word "civilized". We aren’t pulling off nails or raping etc, what we’re doing would be considered training for many of our soldiers. But at the end of the day pain is pain and that people can agree on the types of torture, even if some are less obviously vile than others. I should note here that stress positions are used in North Korean concentration camps. And insofar as our own domestic prisons can be considered, so too is isolation (but for the most part this doesn’t seem to get as much press).

Final conclusion: I’m sure I've not come close to discussing all the angles on this subject—that would take a proper book. And if you have other questions on the matter, or want to point out something that I’m missing, than please do. But I stand by my efficacy argument, whereby torture is not something that works in the short term (for any given individual person it might) and that it tears apart one’s over all intelligence picture, especially as more people are tortured (and you live by the moral calculus of one tortured < 2 lives saved). So my argument can be one of efficacy of the method as well as the morality code of the torturer (allowing them to torture too many with that numbers game, the method never truly working). It turns our country into something that it’s not. Better to gain intelligence the other way. Turn a prisoner and send them back etc.

Some of the other arguments seem to fall into "being good/just" and I'm not sure how properly argue them, though they are strong points that seem to agree with my "gut". Still they seem religious in ways, and I can't agree with that (though I see the weakness of my position here).

Once again, as with all situations (especially when it comes to national security and those who 'defend' or claim to are all too willing to use propaganda for their own purposes) we must see who is trying to subvert the Constitution. Is it those who hide things from the public eye who we need to watch, not those trying to bring things to light. And with the torture debate, as with many others, it's clear which side doesn't want the facts out.

Scifi future: What happens when we can give a pill and gain information, no pain involved? I’m not sure. I would only say that such methods, if they ever come into being, should always be used with discretion and testing. For if they are meant to do something innocuous without doing so, then I’m guessing that they will still cause many of the same residual traces of torture after wards (how could they not? Following the same pathways that other more physical methods did so as well). But I suppose I'd leave that for another day.

Thoughts?

Some other articles that are related to the subject matter here. # How to read the news today (relevant because even an article like this must be read with an eye towards history) # An article about Drone Warfare today. # An article about the fatwa on Rushdie

Also some books on the matter: The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Scharff, Luftwaffe's Master Interrogator Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (Human Rights and Crimes Against Humanity)