Torture me Softly

I am against any forms of torture as defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as signed and ratified by the United States and 144 other countries. It says torture is:

"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 main reason that I'm against torture is because I find it morally reprehensible. When the Abu Ghraib scandal hit I was disgusted with what my country was doing and was shocked at how low we would stoop to try to get confessions and information out of prisoners. Even worse was the fact that in many cases the torture wasn't even to gain material information; it was simply to harm and humiliate.

A secondary reason why I'm against torture is because it's ineffective. Here's what Lt. Gen. John Kimmons had to say about this subject in a Pentagon press conference:

The new manual was presented by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence in a press conference that aired live Wednesday morning on the limited-circulation Pentagon Channel. During the press conference, Kimmons expressed a view about the effectiveness of "tough" interrogation techniques utterly different from the president's.

"No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices," Kimmons said. "I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the past five years, hard years, tells us that." He argued that "any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility." And Kimmons conceded that bad P.R. about abuse could work against the United States in the war on terror. "It would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used," Kimmons said. "We can't afford to go there."

Kimmons added that "our most significant successes on the battlefield -- in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically, all of them" -- came from interrogators that stuck to the kinds of humane techniques framed in the new Army manual. "We don't need abusive practices in there," Kimmons said. "Nothing good will come from them."

Salon.com, September 7, 2006

But why ask a Lieutenant General about torture's effectiveness when we've got a Presidential candidate who was tortured? During the Republican National Convention, Fred Thompson took great pride in recalling John McCain's unwavering perseverance under extreme torture (I've bolded the parts that are torture):

An angry mob got to him when he fell to the ground. A rifle butt broke his shoulder. A bayonet pierced his ankle and his groin. They took him to the Hanoi Hilton, where he lapsed in and out of consciousness for days. He was offered medical care for his injuries if he would give up military information in return.

John McCain said, "No".

After days of neglect, covered in grime, lying in his own waste in a filthy room, a doctor attempted to set John's right arm without success and without anesthesia. His other broken bones and injuries were not treated. John developed a high fever and dysentery. He weighed barely a hundred pounds. Expecting him to die, his captors placed him in a cell with two other POWs who also expected him to die.

But with their help, John McCain fought on. He persevered. So then they put him in solitary confinement for over two years -- isolation, incredible heat beating on a tin roof, a light bulb in his cell burning 24 hours a day, boarded-up cell windows blocking any breath of fresh air, the oppressive heat causing boils the size of baseballs under his arms, the outside world limited to what he could see through a crack in the door.

We hear a lot of talk about hope these days. John McCain knows about hope. That's all he had.

For propaganda purposes, his captors offered to let him go home. John McCain refused. He refused to leave ahead of men who had been there longer. He refused to abandon his conscience and his honor, even for his freedom. He refused, even though his captors warned him, "It will be very bad for you."

They were right; it was. The guards cracked ribs, broke teeth off at their gums. They cinched a rope around his arms and painfully drew back his shoulders. Over four days, every two to three hours, the beatings resumed. During one especially fierce beating, he fell, again breaking his arm.

John was beaten for communicating with other prisoners. He was beating -- beaten for NOT communicating with so-called peace delegations. He was beaten for not giving information during interrogation.

When his captors wanted the names of other pilots in the squadron, John gave them the name of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

Hm. Makes me wonder if we are running around Iraq with a list of "confirmed" terrorists that is in fact the cast of some Iraqi soap opera.

But given the fact that he himself was tortured, I find it mind boggling how John McCain can't out with a stronger statement against torture. When given the opportunity of doing the right thing and voting in support of the Senate interrogation bill that would make harsh interrogation tactics illegal and force all American interrogators to use interrogation techniques defined in the Army Field Manual, what did John McCain do? He voted against it.

This is from John McCain's official statement on why he opposed the bill:

The conference report would go beyond any of the recent laws that I just mentioned – laws that were extensively debated and considered – by bringing the CIA under the Army Field Manual, extinguishing thereby the ability of that agency to employ any interrogation technique beyond those publicly listed and formulated for military use. I cannot support such a step because I have not been convinced that the Congress erred by deliberately excluding the CIA. I believe that our energies are better directed at ensuring that all techniques, whether used by the military or the CIA, are in full compliance with our international obligations and in accordance with our deepest values. What we need is not to tie the CIA to the Army Field Manual, but rather to have a good faith interpretation of the statutes that guide what is permissible [italics are mine] in the CIA program.

Let's back up a minute...did he just say good faith interpretation of what is permissible? Is this your first day John? How quaint. Any good faith a sane person might've had in our government's interpretation of what is permissible went out the window with Abu Ghraib and the CIA extraditions. What we need to restore our morality on this subject is a clear, unequivocal statement of what we will and will not tolerate in our interrogation techniques and, when this isn't adhered to, there are consequences up the chain of command.

But let's not let Obama off the hook on this one. He didn't even bother to show up and vote on this bill. While I find this inexcusable, Obama does is on record of having an unequivocal statements against torture and renditions:

In the 21st century, we cannot stand up before the world and say that there's one set of rules for America and another for everyone else. To lead the world, we must lead by example. We must be willing to acknowledge our failings, not just trumpet our victories. And when I'm President, we'll reject torture - without exception or equivocation; we'll close Guantanamo; we'll be the country that credibly tells the dissidents in the prison camps around the world that America is your voice, America is your dream, America is your light of justice. We cannot - we must not - let the promotion of our values be a casualty of the Iraq War.

Speech by Barack Obama, October 2nd, 2007

When McCain inserted an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill at the end of 2005 that would categorically prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees by all U.S. personnel, anywhere in the world President Bush inserted a signing statement that, after stripping out the lawyer-speak, basically said "Yeah, we are still going to do whatever we want if we think we need to do so."

What did the Maverick who knows no party lines do? He issued a statement:

We believe the President understands Congress's intent in passing by very large majorities legislation governing the treatment of detainees included in the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations and Authorization bills. The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation. Our Committee intends through strict oversight to monitor the Administration's implementation of the new law.

He then quietly let the matter drop and jumped lockstep back into the party lines. Over the course of this election season we will fully see how much the Maverick running against George Bush for the Republican nomination has sold his soul by drastically sacrificing his values so that he could finally get the Republican nod.

We don't torture accused criminals here in America (well, usually) but somehow we still generally believe in the effectiveness of our justice system and get confessions out of people. So how can we explain this? It's impossible to reconcile the apparently mutually exclusive view of thinking that torture is a useful tactic for getting confessions out of people suspected of terrorism with the fact that we don't torture accused criminals in America. If it's so useful, wouldn't it be an incredibly handy tool for getting confessions out of domestic criminals? Or, let's look at it another way. If American troops fall into enemy hands, how can they say that the enemy isn't allowed to use the same "tough" interrogation tactics that we use?

The answer is that believing in torture for accused terrorists but not for domestic accused criminals is a moral double standard. Apparently Americans being tortured repulses us, as it should. But is it because it's torture? Or is because they are Americans? Or because they aren't accused of terrorism? Did we torture Tim McVeigh? The only conclusion that we can arrive at with this line of questioning is that we as Americans think that torture is morally wrong, ineffective, or both. We are halfway to solving this problem with the fact that torture is not a legal method of obtaining confessions or information from accused criminals in the United States. But now we need to send a clear message to the rest of the world that we view torture as a reprehensible practice and neither we nor our allies will practice it.

With a blatantly immoral policy like this, we can't possibly blame anyone but ourselves for losing a grip on being a beacon of freedom and democracy around the world. It's essential to our role as a world leader that we get this right. And the only way to get it right is to have transparency into how America handles those accused of terrorism. This is just one of many things that we have gotten wrong in the war on terror. Don't even get me started on due process.

So, here are is a question that I would like to hear in the Presidental debate for both candidates:

Are you willing to commit all American interrogators to upholding the ban on torture as defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture? If so, how will you handle violations of this policy? Will you make the process of interrogating prisoners more transparent than it currently is? If so, how?

The answers to these questions will speak loudly as to the moral character of the candidates. We don't need some legalese that allows loopholes for certain groups or certain situations. We need an explicitly categorical ban on torturing people.