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Let’s be realistic about torture
Legitimising the practice would allow it to be used more honestly and effectively, says ASH Smyth
Torture is, unequivocally, bad news. It inflicts lasting physical and mental damage. It dehumanises the victim, and also the torturer. It stiffens enemy resolve. It is illegal under 'international law'. And the use of torture, as Philippe Sands QC discusses in his new book, The Torture Team, is rot in the very roots of a democratic nation.
What's more, information gathered is often dubious. Some suspects hold out; some will say anything. In short, torture doesn't work.
Except that it does. Sometimes.
With characteristic forthrightness, the French used torture to win the battle for Algiers in 1957. In the mid-1960s, the British tortured insurgents in Aden, in the process uncovering arms caches and arresting terrorists. Even now former US Defence Intelligence Agency staff are on record (in Sands's book, no less) as saying that threatening to throw someone off a roof can yield results.
Any moral justification for torture is, of course, highly dependent on its efficacy. (After all, torture has a long enough history to suggest it might have been known to serve its purpose on occasion.) So sensitive souls are hugely consoled by the simplistic mantra that torture 'doesn't work': it saves them from confronting reality.
In 'intelligence wars' - where information is paramount and the enemy hides among civilians - torture is inevitable. There is no nation, however democratic, that will not resort to it. But because the political repercussions of torture so increase the risk of winning the battle (Algiers in 1957) and losing the war (Algeria gained independence in 1962), its use must be strictly limited.
Torture is a short-term option, only for use in the most extreme circumstances. Furthermore, it must be reserved as a police method of interrogation; once it becomes a military tactic the war is already lost.
The head of French intelligence in Algiers, General Paul Aussaresses, justified the widespread use of torture on the grounds that the law wasn't up to the task: "The judicial system was not suited for such drastic situations". Cue Alan Dershowitz, the chief proponent of judicial torture today.
In Dershowitz's 'ticking bomb scenario', judges would grant domestic (and only domestic) 'torture warrants' to extract 'preventive intelligence' concerning imminent attacks. The subsequent torture, it is suggested, could involve needles pushed under the fingernails: excruciating, but clearly non-lethal.
Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, is held to be one of America's foremost civil libertarians. Though he has no wish to see torture employed, he is aware that it may sometimes be necessary. Moreover, he says, entrenched squeamishness on the part of an out-dated legal system is actually facilitating the creation of places precisely like Guantanamo, and processes such as 'extraordinary rendition'.
By legalising Dershowitz's solution, the "deception, cruelty and compromise of law" that concern Sands would be avoided, and instances of torture possibly reduced.
Judicial torture is politically honest, too. Despite signatures on countless Human Rights conventions, it is quite clear that torture happens anyway in the West. It is totally hypocritical to accept the benefits of torture while pretending it doesn't occur (or, worse, dissembling about the terminology).
Morally and legally, it is essential that we learn to call a spade a spade - no doubt precisely the reason this particular idea has never been put to the vote.
"It's never happened," says Sands of the hypothetical ticking bomb. But he misses the point that this is no reason not to prepare for it - ethically, legally and tactically. Furthermore, Sands and the rest of the 'moral high ground' brigade would have us believe that they wouldn't resort to torturing a terrorist suspect even if their own children were attached to the aforementioned ticking bomb.
I doubt this is true, but it doesn't really matter. If that's their idea of morality, I'm glad to discover I simply can't agree. ·
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May I ask if any of the 4 people who have commented opposing the use of torture will offer explanation for their position? "Decent", "fair", "morally bancrupt", "barbaric" are all weasel words. They explain nothing. One of the posts seemed like a bit of a rant. It seems to me to be utterly absurd to argue there could be absolutely no circumstances in which one would feel justified in using torture...so, I think, there must be circumstances in which the use of torture could be justified. I would happily torture anyone convicted of terrorism *if* I thought it would save further atrocities. I would happily torture any criminal who witheld evidence (e.g. Ronnie Biggs et al may well have known who coshed the driver. Some of them did. Omerta is probably responsible for many crimes.). I invite explanations why I am wrong.
Great Britain is rapidly becoming less and less democratic and increasingly subjugated under non-democratic EU law, whilst being invaded and culturally destroyed by mostly unwanted mass immigration, which is now predictably leading to civil unrest. This contemptuous anti-democratic refusal of the government to acknowledge or listen to the wishes of the masses, instead accelerating this third world invasion, is posssibly deliberately designed as an agente provocateur tactic and precursor to the authorities imposing even more of a physical 'hate' control over people, perhaps eventually leading to the systematic and routine use of torture of the state's enemies (ie the people).
I would be very surprised, given that psycholgical experiments have consistently shown that around two thirds of people will administer extreme electric shocks to innocent others simply by obeying orders, if Westminster didn't have at least an equal share of, as yet, undeclared fans of physical torture for their political enemies, given that supposedly right wingers indulging in incorrect dissent against this communist style regime can now be attacked by fascists posing as anti-fascists, with not only their legal right to self defence denied, but they are now being blamed for the violence of others. This Government has already financially humiliated and sociologically ruined Great Britain, demonstrating to me all the hallmarks of psychological
torture. Stepping up to its physical maifestation is maybe only a matter of time. But to the would be torturer, what goes around comes around.
Morally bancrupt little piece of no merit whatsoever. Pathetically argued - a first year philosophy student could demolish it easily - it might appeal to Burma's generals, Israel's nazi government and any other fascistic regime around the world, but we have moved way beyond this and now respect human rights, if not animal rights. Quite why this rubbish was written is a mystery, why it was thought fit to publish in First Post is best known by the editors. Perhaps for the sensation value?
Judicial torture is no where near an acceptable solution.
The war on terror was sold to us as being about about protecting freedom, protecting our values (which would include observance of laws that prohibit torture, inhumane and degrading treatment.)
Even if we could get around the barbaric nature of torture, because "sometimes" it could result in useful information, judicial torture relies on the premise that those who are currently breaking laws by utulizing torture, will somehow be willing to comply with the procedures involved in acquiring legal consent.
Yeah, right.
"Despite signatures on countless Human Rights conventions, it is quite clear that torture happens anyway in the West."
So, despite convention signatures and laws, do assassinations, genocide, murder, rape, etc etc. Are we to condone these, too, in the same way?
And just who will police all of this? Will we have inspectors on hand to ensure that there's actually a ticking bomb ("Okay. I hear it. Go ahead and hurt him")? Or that the needles have not been dipped in arsenic?
Smyth's argument is sadly and desperately cynical. The whole point of most laws and conventions in decent, fair, societies is to make those societies yet more decent and fair.
That laws and agreements are not always adhered to, and that torture sometimes yields results useful to the torturers can in no way be used to condone it. Isn't there enough nastiness in the world already without institutionalising more of it?
Smyth's argument opens the door to all sorts of other nastiness. I'll bet if you asked Slobodan Milosevic whether he believes that in some circumstances ethnic cleansing saved Serbian lives, he'd answer with an unequivocal yes.
Non-lethal ethnic cleansing, of course, with an inspector on hand.
I wonder whether Smyth really believes this? Or is it a case of "he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases'?