Yes, we tortured.
March 16, 2009, 7:43 am
Posted by Grant Gallicho
Must read: Mark Danner’s harrowing review of the Red Cross report on the CIA’s treatment of fourteen “high value” detainees.
And so, after a devastating and unprecedented attack, the gloves came off. Guided by the President and his closest advisers, the United States transformed itself from a country that, officially at least, condemned torture to a country that practiced it. And this fateful decision, however much we may want it to, will not go away, any more than the fourteen “high-value detainees,” tortured and thus unprosecutable, will go away. Like the grotesque stories in the ICRC report, the decision sits before us, a toxic fact, polluting our political and moral life.
Thanks for posting the NYRB review, Grant.
Another money quote:
“The political damage to the United States’ reputation, and to the ‘soft power’ of its constitutional and democratic ideals, has been, though difficult to quantify, vast and enduring. In a war that is essentially an insurgency fought on a worldwide scale—which is to say, a political war, in which the attitudes and allegiances of young Muslims are the critical target of opportunity—the United States’ decision to use torture has resulted in an enormous self-administered defeat, undermining liberal sympathizers of the United States and convincing others that the country is exactly as its enemies paint it: a ruthless imperial power determined to suppress and abuse Muslims. By choosing to torture, we freely chose to become the caricature they made of us.”
This is not an insurgency. It is a war against Judeo-Christian civilization, and directed by rich and well educated men consumed by hatred of Christians and and Jews, a hatred that long preceeded 911 and the “torture” you so love to dwell on.
Sorry, I’m not buying what you’re selling. Unless maybe you have coupons…?
A dirty President aided and abetted by dirty underlings at home and abroad…
…a tough stain on the United States…
Where’s the bleach?
God knows, we need it!
It is a war against Judeo-Christian civilization, and directed by rich and well educated men consumed by hatred of Christians and and Jews, a hatred that long preceeded 911 and the “torture” you so love to dwell on.
Bob,
Are you saying that when Judeo-Christian civilization is attacked, torture is justified?
The Catechism says this about torture:
Do you disagree? Or do you feel that in a war, respect for the person and for human dignity must be set aside as impractical?
For you Washingtonians, Virgianians, and Marylanders (is Delaware too far?), here is a conference at CUA Law School this coming Thursday, March 19. 1-9 pm. I plan to be there.
http://law.cua.edu/PDF%20Documents/2009%20PDF%20Docs/Spring/Torture%20Conference%20Agenda%20Revised%20March%2013.pdf
Torture, Conscience and the Catholic Moral Tradition
Walter Slowinski Court Room, Columbus School of Law
Catholic University of America, 3600 McCormack Rd., NE
Washington, DC 20064, March 19, 2009
Purpose: To explore the decisions of conscience by Catholics in the public square regarding the use of torture. In the effort to counter terrorism or other threats to national security, policymakers and those engaged in intelligence work, the military or criminal justice, face difficult decisions of conscience regarding the treatment of prisoners and how to secure helpful intelligence. While military, intelligence, legal and political factors influencing decisions regarding torture have received considerable scrutiny, the ethics and matters of conscience have received less attention. This conference will explore some of these dilemmas of conscience in light of Catholic social teaching about human rights, torture and the ethics of just war and how we as a Catholic community can engage efforts of peacebuilding in light of the actuality of torture.
Audience: Catholic policymakers and Catholics in the military, intelligence, criminal justice and think tanks, Catholic faculty, students and the general public.
When: March 19, 2009, 1 pm – 9 pm
Where: Walter Slowinski Court Room, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University
David Nickol:
I am saying:
1) I have no respect for the Islamo-fascists; and, they have no dignity.
2) My position on what some call “torture” is that I accept that the Church’s position is, by definition, correct, but that I simply cannot, in this war, abide by it.
3) That I will be called out on this at some point, and I am willing to accept the consequences; but I will not back down from this.
Bob, Not that I’m accepting your formula, but just out of curiosity: What about someone mistakenly identified as an actively plotting terrorist, who is, in fact, innocent. Does he have dignity? Is it OK to torture him, too, given the rightness of our cause?
Mollie:
That’s a fair question, and a vital one. If a mistake is made about a detainee’s identification as a terrorist, and if the interrogator mistakenly believes that the detainee has information that would save innocent lives sufficient to warrant waterboarding, then he (the interrogator) would quickly find that out. No one, but no one has ever, to my (admittedly) limited knoledge withstood that kind of fear without telling everything he knows. That’s how powerful the primal fear of drowning is. So, when it is discovered that the person knows nothing, is not a terrorist, then he is owed an apology and a recompense commensurate with what would be awarded in a civil case, his health restored.
Does he have dignity? I believe that we have dignity only as a consequence of the concatenation of all our actions and intentions. So, all things being equal, yes, he has dignity.
I believe that we have dignity only as a consequence of the concatenation of all our actions and intentions.
Bob,
As I understand the Catholic concept of the dignity of the human person, dignity is not something a person earns or forfeits. It is something every person merely because he or she is a person and is thus created in the image and likeness of God.
A ten-day-old embryo has no actions or intentions, but the Church invokes the concept of the dignity of the human person to condemn embryonic stem-cell research. It is called an innocent human life, but it seems to me by granting dignity only based on actions and intentions, the innocence of the unborn is equivalent to the innocence of a stone. It has never performed an “undignified” action or had an “undignified” intention, but that is because it is incapable of action or intention.
Bob: David’s right. If human dignity applies only to some humans, it isn’t what the church means by dignity. Your take on how waterboarding (or any other kind of torture-based interrogation) works doesn’t reflect the facts as I understand them, but more importantly, it doesn’t answer the question of whether the torture itself is right or wrong. If it is indeed a violation of human dignity, it’s not enough to hope that legal proceedings will right the wrong. (Not to mention the appeal to pursuing justice through our legal system strikes me, in this context, as a very broad joke.)
Bob,
By the way, I think your theory that waterboarding is so effective that that everyone who undergoes it instantly spills his guts is deeply flawed. I have heard that people quickly start telling the torturers what they want to hear, but that is not necessarily the truth. I personally don’t believe waterboarding could be more effective than many other torture techniques that I can think of (but am too squeamish to list here).
And many in the intelligence community are against torture because they believe it doesn’t work.
This is a very intricate issue, and the posts above have good points. I am in agreement with Mollie concerning the reliability of torture as an investigative technique. However, for many, it appears, the justification of torture is possible through the actions of our “enemies”. Because they have engaged in acts that are dehumanizing and show a blatant disregard for the types of victims affected, it is okay—in fact, it is necessary—to use whatever means are necessary in combating them. One is certainly free to take this approach, despite the consequence of losing any moral authority. The argument, “we have to be willing to use any means necessary to defeat an enemy that will use any means necessary” holds more validity when those who support it don’t pretentiously hold themselves up as a moral paradigm. Even so, personnel in the military as well as those interrogating suspects are in a difficult position, and I feel for them. The demands of the job, so to speak, would demand one to dehumanize the “enemy” in order to treat other people in this way, whether it is by taking their life in combat or by torturing them to extract information or a confession. It would take a person of extreme moral fiber to stand up for what they believe in spite of pressure from superiors and fear of what may happen. In college, I knew a young woman whose sister stood up for what she believed in and felt compelled to leave a promising career in the FBI after her training as a Guantanamo interrogator began.
The victim of torture, no matter what one may prefer, is made in the image and likeness of God and therefore has unalienable dignity. Torturing this person violates that dignity and does not even guarantee accurate information. If the person had hostility towards the US before, one would anticipate that to increase exponentially, especially in the event of a release from prison. If one is tortured mistakenly—that is, if one was not guilty of planning against the US prior to confinement—one could easily envision the birth of a severe hatred that could lead to future action against the US. Furthermore, operations at Guantanamo and other facilities serve a very useful recruiting function for radicals. Finally, I would like to bring up the other victims (whether they know it or not), and in this case, the other victims are those carrying out the torture. One has to wonder at the net gain of using this method as a tactic. If we are willing to give up a foundation in anything other that pragmatic realism, I believe the consequences would be greater than one could imagine, and it would require a reevaluation of many underpinnings of society and government.
Of course, one may scoff at the above arguments, especially if a scenario was akin to the weekly presentation of Fox’s 24, where the writers have gone to great lengths to demonstrate not only the reliability of torture, but also its permissible use in dire situations. What strikes me as odd, other than the trite theme, is how the characters complain about possible consequences for their morally illicit treatment of prisoners. In other words, if you are so willing to selflessly sacrifice your morality for the sake of thousands of lives, it shouldn’t require much more to own up to your actions, which are illegal by every standard of international ethics.
It seems to me that instead of defining dignity, the writers above have simply reiterated that one has dignity simply because created by God. Fine. But what is “dignity”? Again, I am not arguing that the Church is wrong; I believe She is right, and I simply cannot abide it in certain circumstances. This is probably at least partially due to the fact that either no one defines it (dignity), or those who attempt a definition engage in circular arguments. I would invite anyone who cares to to please, define dignity. Hey, I’m sticking my neck way out here…here’s your chance to take your shot. Fire away.
The weirdest revelation of Danner is that top US officials monitored the torture, minute by minute, while it was going on. Communications technology allows top US officials to live the torture experience in real time. Is there a momentum of evil that quickly takes people to its most extreme degree? And abolishing torture was never a vote-winning issue with the US citizenly — au contraire, advocates of torture were more likelyl to win wotes. Moreover, torture has been intrinsic to US foreign policy and strategy since the beginnings of the cold war (there is a nice waterboarding scene in The Good Shepherd) and is likely to remain a strand in US activity, at least by proxy, despite Pres. Obama’s assurances.
Dignity can be defined theologically, metaphysically or phenomenologically.
Theologically, the human being is made in the divine image, the eupreme reflection of the divine in creation, and is thus infinitely precious in the eyes of the Creator; to sin against that dignity in any way is implicitly blashphemous.
Metaphysically, the human being has qualities that cannot be overriden by lesser qualities. The human being is spirit and cannot be reduced to materialistic terms. The human being enjoys freedom and this cannot be subordinated to enslaving constraints. The human mind is open to truth and cannot be fed on lies.
Phenomenologically the human face imposes an imperative, makes us its ‘hostage’ — inspires respect, sympathy, solidarity, compassion, and to withhold these is to fail to do justice to the phenomenon and to fail to be authentically human oneself. The most pregnant expression of failure is the act of murder — Cain and Abel — and as the Sermon on the Mount elucidates, there are a whole train of violent or disrespectful acts that lead to this.
Torture directly assaults human dignity in all the above senses.
Remember how Sarah Palin mocked Obama for referring to the rights of terrorist suspects. Well, human dignity goes even deeper than human rights; we respect human rights because they are grounded in human dignity. A cynic would say that our reverence for human dignity is only the self-protective loyalty to our own species. War propaganda often characterizes the enemy as animals, as belonging to another species. Bob Schwartz is saying that despite moral teaching it is impossible to remember the dignity of the enemy in time of war — when we must be revved up to kill, debase and annihilate in every way, including torture, rape, etc., even if we ourselves become animals in the process. It is sad that all the thinking that led to the Geneva Conventions etc., which was prompted precisely from the wish to curb these war instincts, have been trampled on by the leader of the free world and by so many American citizens who lent him their support. We need a new education in civics and ethics. I fear that US schools are training patriotic soldiers but not ethical citizens.
Joseph O’Leary: “Moreover, torture has been intrinsic to US foreign policy and strategy since the beginnings of the cold war (there is a nice waterboarding scene in The Good Shepherd) and is likely to remain a strand in US activity, at least by proxy, despite Pres. Obama’s assurances.”
This may well be true, but for my own research purposes I’d wonder what evidence there is (since the beginning of the cold war), apart from a movie (don’t know what “The Good Shepherd” is, presume a movie).
“This may well be true, but for my own research purposes I’d wonder what evidence there is (since the beginning of the cold war), apart from a movie (don’t know what “The Good Shepherd” is, presume a movie).”
Family Jewels was released publicly on June 25, 2007. It is available on the CIA website in the FOIA section. Presidents’ Kennedy and Johnson torture manual KUBARK was released in 1997 I believe. I haven’t looked at that in some time, but I believe the KUBARK 1963 torture manual is available from the Baltimore Sun who filed the original FOIA request.
Regarding “The Good Shepherd”, it was indeed a movie. It seemed to be based on a a fictional account of what appeared to my eyes to be some sort of amalgam of J.J. Angleton and Richard Bissell. Wasn’t very good, IMHO, but I reckon it received some great reviews from professional critics. Of all the Angleton bios I’ve read, I am most partial to Tom Mangold’s biography, “Cold Warrior”, as a non-fictional account of the counter-intelligence chief. Also, for fiction, Robert Littell’s historical-fiction account of the history of the Company from 2002 with like title was very good as was the mini-series based upon it.
There are a lot of references to documentation in:
Paul Surlis, “Torture: Integral to U.S. Foreign Policy or Aberration in Iraq?”, THE JAPAN MISSION JOURNAL, SUMMER 2006 VOL. 60, NO.2
The Japanese Mission Journal may be the talk of the town in ??Tokyo?? but it’s not available where I am. Any link?
Sorry, I do have the files of Voll. 60, 1, 2, and 3 on my computer, but have lost 60.2. You could write to Fr Surlis: Psurlis@aol.com