Oneiric Pantograph

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Torture

There is a debate that rages in the news about the idea of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and their efficacy and appropriateness in the face of imminent threat, potential attack, and the idea of safety and security. Some call it torture others call it an appropriate method of information gathering.

There are many small ideas that I have about this topic that I feel it necessary to address for my own sense of sanity. I want compartmentalize these thought into bullet points and then I will expound in greater detail if necessary:

• Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: If you had to waterboard them 80+ times, then waterboarding is not effective. Leaving aside the moral quandary and the definition of torture, if you have to do anything over 50 times to “get results” I question how you can claim that a system is effective. At least one gentleman with some knowledge on the matter seems to agree: Ali Soufan I invite anyone to come up with any scenario where you are allowed to repeat a process over 50 times to get results where your boss would think that it was okay that you failed the majority of the time. Unless of course, information gathering is not the main objective.

• Hey look, it is post 9-11 and you have terrorists. They are responsible for pain and suffering. A little quid pro quo isn’t beyond the pale of response is it? If, by my previous example, waterboarding isn’t efficient or particularly effective then why do it over and over again? To hurt the men responsible for pain and suffering? To make them maybe feel what America feels in an immediate and visceral manner? To break them or hurt them? If you are engaging in an act to hurt someone over and over, isn’t that torture?

• Defining torture: I find it interesting that someone who thought that waterboarding was not torture feels differently now that it has been done to him: Erich “Mancow” Muller. But we like to jockey over definition and words like “enhanced interrogation techniques” to describe what it basically put thus: the use of pain through simulation, threat, or overt action as a means to extract information through the basis of fear. So let us be clear: America hurts people to get information. Whether we know it is real pain or pretend pain is moot, we hurt people so they tell us what we want to know.

• Who doesn’t want pain to stop? I would be happy to tell you that I am the Queen of England if you would stop hurting me so I am not sure how we are ever supposed to trust information from anyone under duress…especially if we are so enthusiastic to use such a technique so many times that the person under said duress may never know if it will just start to be used again on even if we say we will stop.

• Which brings up a counter argument that we might have to use a method so many times because our terrorist friends are trained to “resist” such methods. If they are trained to resist these methods why would we use them? Wouldn’t it be better to hit them with something (so to speak) they aren’t trained to resist? You don’t give resistant viruses the drug they are resistant against do you? Isn’t this about time? Getting the answers before bombs go off and children die in agony and fire? Protecting America? If a guy is resistant to the method or technique why would you waste time pouring water on him over and over again to get him to tell you something when, being a great country and mighty in all ways as we are, we could trick, coerce, cajole, manipulate, and bribe the information out of someone. See earlier link: Ali Soufan

• Is it wrong to hurt people for information? I don’t know. Is it wrong for a cop to slap you if he thinks there is a bomb in your car because someone said that your make and model of car was driving around town with a bomb in it? If he called you names? Locked you in a cell? Threw you on the ground? Attempted to drown you? Does this example change if you are an ex-con or even a current con? If the cop is sure that something bad is going to happen somewhere and you might be involved?

We have this funny notion in the United States that the morality of an action is tied to our perception of events. It is wrong for an officer of the law to use fear and pain and indefinite detention against a well-mannered member of our Republic because we have due process and rights but if something bad was about to happen then we need brave men to break the rules and beat the bad guy to a pulp to protect us. See Die Hard, 24, and other action movies. We have a belief in this country that the perception of morality and action is absolute and tied to our field of perception. Allow me some latitude to explain:

When we believed that the King of England was being tyrannous, we revolted and fought for our freedom. We killed men in the night and under cover of darkness and met them on the field of battle and demanded recognition for our plights and beliefs and sovereignty. We killed many many men to uphold this notion. We probably used methods of fear and intimidation and pain to retrieve information. We fought for freedom and so we were “right” to kill those men who might oppress us and used whatever methods that we did.

If someone else thinks that the United Sates is being arrogant and forceful and occupying places it shouldn’t and making rules that this mystery group thinks is unfair then they are not fighting for freedom they are terrorists and murderers and “bad”. I am pretty sure the British thought we were “bad” back then. But we feel differently about it in this country, right?

See, when we blew up ships and killed men we did it on and in territory that “belonged” to the British. When we realized that we could not fight them the way they would (in large battles on fields) we would attack from the trees and kill their officers (anyone ever see Gibson’s The Patriot?) to do what we felt needed to be done. How is anyone else doing that to us different? The only this different now is we think we are right and so don’t want people attacking us or being mad at use because surely, we are always right, because we are the good guys. Have I read this situation wrong?

Torture morality is interesting to me because it is tied to torture efficacy- the debate currently is “it was okay to do because we got results”. Well I already shared my thoughts on the efficacy part but I want to address the morality part more directly:

We have laws in this country that says it is illegal to do what we have done. Definitions on the books, rubber stamps from Congress, not to mention international law. If what we did was so good or right, then why isn’t it law? Any other situation in which a lawyer says “no no no, in these circumstance that law doesn’t apply” our society would call bullshit and bring up charges and prosecute. Taxes comes to mind. Many a trick has been thrown in front of judges to not pay taxes and every time the result is that what a lawyer thinks is not the same as what the law says or what a judge rules. The DOJ doesn’t get to say what a law means, the Supreme Court does. Where were our Supreme Court hearings on these techniques? The DOJ memos are opinions. People can have wrong opinions.

We have a document that is the basis for law and order in this country. We hold it up as the lighthouse that all stray ships that seek peace and prosperity guide themselves by in the tempest seas of chaos and lawlessness. We assert pretty regularly that our document is better than others. The situation we find ourselves in now with this whole detainee/torture thing is that we are telling the world that our document is fantastic and wonderful for our citizens but it is not the rules we use when doing business with people we don’t like.

Imagine for a moment a young corporal taken from the streets of Baghdad by Iran. Held in a prison where is given no rights to legal counsel except for the lawyer the Iranians chose for him. He is regularly forced to stand for hours on end with little food and no sleep. He is subjected to practices of humiliation and is threatened with harsh words and subjected to physical acts like waterboarding and being slapped in the face. When will the Americans attack next? Where are your leaders? Imagine that Iran determines that they may hold this man indefinitely because they have declared a war against an idea like “terrorism” or “imperialism” that has no borders and is based in a matter of perception (to them this American is a terrorist) Would you be angry? Outraged? Would you want to attack Iran to stop such atrocities? Now remember that this has happened: In Korea, Vietnam, Guantanamo Bay.

We are only able to claim that the Constitution and hence our country is magnificent and wonderful because we uphold it ideals and all times: When a law says something is wrong, we do not do it. When a person is blamed of a crime they are innocent until proven guilty, beyond doubt. We erode the function of that document when we claim it only applies in certain circumstances.

Imagine your own political party. Imagine that an opposing political party becomes so powerful they can make claims that things like a certain religion, lifestyle, mode of dress, or type of music that you like is “bad” and because it is bad they oppose it and want to get rid of it. Imagine that someone uses the events of here and now to justify not using the Constitution and its rights to claim that you do not get the protections afforded by such a document because who you are or what you do is so bad, you aren’t allowed to have the same rights or rules. All men are created equal, it is lauded as a truth that is “self-evident”. I wonder about amending that line with “except when it is inconvenient”.

There are some who, despite all other thoughts I might offer who would say, “We do what we need to do, America is always right, anyone else who is in our way or who would hurt us gets whatever we dish out because we deserve to be safe and we are the strongest there is”. I am not sure what to say and at the same time I have a few thoughts that ring out in my head. Other countries felt the same way, Russia for one. Others will, China comes to mind. As other countries get nuclear weapons and realize that they can use force to get what they want (or die trying) do we want them to look on the US as an enemy or friend? If we are so great and powerful, so empathetic and pure of heart, how could anyone hate us if we showed how compassionate and caring we could be? That doesn’t have to come at the price of being weak in any military sense, someone attacks us, we attack them back, we punish crimes and trespasses against us. We declare war on those countries or groups for the world to see and we process prisoners through our courts as we would any other criminal.

If you think enhanced interrogation is fine, make it a law. If you think that torture is okay, make it a law. If you think it is okay to kidnap people off of the streets of some other country and hold them forever make it a law. Our system is based in laws. We have nothing to fear in our actions if our laws say it is okay or right. But to do things without the rule of law makes us no better than the lawless groups we believe we fight. Our system is the best in the world. So why are we doing something different?