The debate over water boarding has come back into the headlines with the erasure of certain CIA interrogation tapes, and so I feel compelled to write about it again.
Facts on Torture
The Methods Under Scrutiny
Water Boarding: From the BBC, "Water-boarding involves a prisoner being stretched on his back or hung upside down, having a cloth pushed into his mouth and/or plastic film placed over his face and having water poured onto his face. He gags almost immediately."
additionally from ABC news, "Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in."
Belly Slaps: From ABC news, "A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage."
Long Time Standing: From ABC news, "This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions."
The Cold Cell: From ABC news, "The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water."
Is this against international law?
Yes. The UN definition of torture states that,
"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."
As for the American legal code, it defines torture as:
"an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;(2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;(C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality."
These "enhanced interrogation techniques" are absolutely banned by international law, the U.S. government does not consider them torture. However, it is illegal for the U.S. military to use water boarding, but this is not the case for the CIA. In an executive order, President Bush declared that the CIA must adhere to Geneva conventions and listed many different torture methods that were to be banned. There was an addendum to the order listing the allowed techniques, but not all of these were made public.
Effectiveness
Former CIA agent John Kirikau opposes the decision to erase CIA interrogation tapes and while he agrees that water boarding does indeed work, he no longer supports its use. Interestingly, he was subjected to the method during his training. He tells the story of breaking Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubayda, who had been uncooperative for weeks. Minutes after the technique was used, Zubayda started giving information that led to the arrest of another suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in Pakistan in 2003. Zubayda also gave the interrogators information on the organizational structure within Al Qaeda.
"Now after all these years, time has passed, and we're more on our feet in this fight against al Qaeda, and I think it's unnecessary," he said.
In a separate CNN interview, Kiriakou said the Justice Department and National Security Council reportedly approved waterboarding and other "alternative" interrogation techniques in June 2002.
"It was a policy decision that came down from the White House," he said.
Despite the executive blessing, Kiriakou and other agents were conflicted over whether to learn the technique, he said.
"One senior officer said to me that this is something you really have to think deeply about," the former agent said, adding he "struggled with it morally."
Kiriakou conceded his position might be hypocritical and said that the technique was useful -- even if he wanted to distance himself from it.
"Waterboarding was an important technique, and some of these other techniques were important in collecting the information," he said. "But I personally didn't want to do it. I didn't think it was right in the long run, and I didn't want to be associated with it."
My conclusions
I found Kiriakou's testinmony to be very compelling. Enhanced interrogation techniques may very well be unnecessary. Currently, CIA director Michael Hayden has declared that the CIA no longer uses water boarding, also suggesting that it's unnecessary. A good question to ask, and I doubt if it could ever really be answered, is whether the technique has helped the CIA in fighting terrorism in the long run, or harmed it. We all know the case for weapons in Iraq was faulty, whether it was due to executive pressure of just poor gathering of information, is this the same for counter terrorism?
While you're pondering that, please enjoy a musing from one of the 21st century's greatest thinkers, Eddie Izzard, with some leggo animation. I couldn't find his full bit on the spanish inquisition, but this one should do just fine.
3 comments:
Hi there. Very interesting stuff. I'll have to remember some of those techniques. Though it might be more important to learn how to resist them. As a serious consideration, is there any concern over how an individual might be trained to resist methods like these? On a (more realistic) tangent regarding the effectiveness of torture, I recall something from my studies on compellence (which torture seems like a clear variation of); basically, that it was much more effective when there was a point of compliance clear to the party being compelled that, if met, would bring an end to their pain. Specific to this, that the subject of torture would know that if they gave the correct information, that their torture would end. Given the difficulties of properly applying (assumedly correct) information to the general frustration of enemy (vague on purpose) plans, it doesn't seem like the average torture victim has much reason to comply. If the operations based on their confession are bungled, the torturing party might take it the wrong way and continue the treatment, expecting a different result. Further, a long time may pass between an actual confession and its operational confirmation. A tortured prisoner doesn't seem to have much to look forward to in that time, unless the torturing party is so credulous as to let them be until such time that their initial confession can be disproven (assuming it is false). So we end up back with a long chain of plausible but incorrect confessions. I've not studied this area particularly, though I gather you have. Is this somewhat on the right track by other authors?
There isn't as much scholarly material on this stuff, or at least not in the context of the current issue in the American legal system. I'm sure within departments learned resistance to the technique would be a concern. But according to the director of the CIA, the water boarding technique has only been used 3 times. You seem to know a bit more about interrogation processes, and you raise some very good points about using these "enhanced interrogation techniques". There are certainly plenty of questions to ask, and you ask some very good ones. Maybe you should pitch your own prime time CIA drama to the networks.
I appreciate the compliment, but we both know I never was the sales pitch kind of guy, and that the real-world mechanics of this aren't as sexy as "24" even though they're more interesting.
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