The US government must condemn torture unambiguously. The Pentagon must say loudly and clearly that we're going to respect the Geneva Convention. Period. No hemming and hawing and other qualifications or reservations. Right now, you still have people who either justify it or, like Sen. Inhofe, think it's not so bad. This sort of confusion is the last thing we need right now.
Typical of this mentality, one lieutenant told the BBC "You got to understand - although it seems harsh - the Iraqis, they only understand force."
In other words, treat the Iraqis like animals and then be shocked (SHOCKED!) when the act like animals. This mentality has been repeated throughout history. It pretty much never works in the medium- and long-terms. The moral aspect of torture and its counterproductivity to the PR aspect of the war has already been much discussed.
But I'm not sure I understand torture even from a purely amoral, utilitarian stance. It seems that if you abuse someone, they will likely tell you what they think you want to hear, not necessarily the truth. If tortured long enough, I'd probably admit "George W. Bush is the best president in history" even though I'd never say this while sober. Wouldn't reliance on torture frequently lead to false admissions by captives desperate just to end the torture? And if soldiers go into risky situations based on that false intelligence....
Some people still think torture is a necessary evil, to protect the lives of soldiers or civilians. During the Battle of Algiers, torture was widely used by colonial French forces against the indigenous Algerian FLN nationalist guerillas. It was thought to be necessary to gain important information to break the FLN's organizational structural in the Algerian capital. It worked and yet it didn't.
The French won the Battle of Algiers but the means (torture) had a devastating effect. A classic "won the battle but lost the war" scenario. Not only did the torture turn international opinion against the French, but it galvanized the nationalists and allowed the FLN to portray the Europeans as evil. Sure, the FLN was responsible for more than a few atrocities of their own, but the atrocities made the French seem no better. When given the choice, most people would rather be ruled by their own thugs than foreign thugs.
The head of French military forces during the Battle of Algiers, Gen. Jacques Massu, iniitally defended his and his soldiers' actions. In his 1971, less than a decade after the Algerian War ended, he wrote I am not afraid of the word torture and claimed in the majority of cases, the French soldiers who were obliged to resort to torture to combat terrorism were fortunately choir boys compared to the rebels. Their extreme savagery led us to show a certain ferocity, it is true, but we remained within the limits of the law of the 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth'.
Does this sound at all familiar?
[Before one gets too smug, remember what happened in Algeria. The French were winning the war militarily but the FLN made things as bloody as possible. Eventually, French public opinion thought the human cost was far too high just to keep distant Algeria part of France proper. French public pressure forced Paris to recognize Algerian independence.]
Yet 30 years later, in 2001, the general changed his tune. He declared in a newspaper interview, "Torture is not indispensible in times of you. You can easily skip it." When asked if the French state should admit it authorized torture and apologize for it, Massu answered, "I think that would be a good thing. Morally, torture is inadmissible."
Some people will always insist that torture has a certain utility in extracting information. I will always question the accuracy of information gained in that manner. We may agree to disagree on this. But one thing I hope everyone can concur on is that torture should NEVER be permitted simply so prison guards can get their kicks. The most disgusting sight in the images I saw was not the actual abuse, which was bad enough. It was the sight of American soldiers, with shit-eating grins on their faces, posing next to humiliated captives in the same way a couple of tourists might pose in front of the Washington Monument during a family vacation.
I said yesterday that the torture should disgust us but not surprise us and I was attacked for this. Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars : American Secret History From Hitler to Al-Qaeda summed it up well last year. That which we call a low-intensity war gives rise to frustration and terrible temptations: the frustration of never getting a beat on an enemy that could be anyone anywhere; the temptation of resorting to torture to squeeze from prisoners or suspects the information needed to act effectively. The manner in which the United States reacts to this temptation is one of the unknowns of the war. They tell us that torture is technically illegal and we hope it's true. But as these low intensity conflicts go on forever, the soldiers tell themselves: 'We will defend our life and no one will ever know.'
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