Why do we torture? Ever since the CIA embarked upon its
program of “enhanced interrogation techniques” we’ve had to reckon with that
question. That means we’ve had to reckon with the assertion that it is, at
least occasionally, justified. And in that connection, perhaps the high
watermark was the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, which the CIA has always insisted
was made possible only through its torture-by-another-name.
That claim took
something of a whack this week, when it emerged that a US Senate report has
found torture delivered no key evidence that led ultimately to bin Laden’s
death – and that the torture was worse than the public was ever allowed to
know. Apparently whatever information turned out to be critical was extracted
from standard interrogations, and whatever information came especially via
torture wasn’t terribly important.
In the American context,
it’s a significant finding; one that goes to the heart of the Bush
administration’s legacy rehabilitation project. Presently, Bush’s resort to
torture stands as a kind of moral and political scar. If it can instead be
presented as the key to killing bin Laden, then presumably all is not merely
forgiven, but admired.
So I understand the
fight. And I understand the determination of (mainly Democrat, but also some
Republican) senators to set the record straight. At stake is the legitimacy of
torture, which would undermine the most foundational philosophical assumptions
of open, liberal democratic government. But I can’t escape the feeling that
some steps have been missed here; that the mere fact we’re even witnessing this
argument reveals a remarkable, alarming shift in the public discussion of
torture.
At least until very
recently, even the most brazen, hawkish justifications of torture have
presented it as an emergency measure of last resort. The classic scenario is
that of a ticking time bomb: you know a bomb is about to detonate at any
moment; you know the person you’ve captured has information that will help you
locate and defuse it; you know that the only way to get it out of them in time
is to bring out the thumbscrews or attach electrodes to your detainee’s
genitals. It’s a very carefully constructed setting that proceeds on the
understanding that if there’s no life-threatening emergency there’s simply no
justification because, with time up your sleeve, conventional interrogation
techniques should yield all the information torture will, and probably more
reliably.
But even this highly
concocted set-up has its problems. If the emergency is so pressing, and your
detainee is so committed to his terrorism, he need only hold out for a short
period of time. Or he need only give you enough incorrect information to stop
the torture and send you chasing false leads until it’s too late. Then there’s
the fact that in the real world, you don’t really have any way of knowing for
sure that your detainee has the specific information you need to stop the
explosion. Even if you knew for certain the detainee’s involved, once captured,
you cannot be sure his information is up to date; that the plans haven’t been
changed. It’s for these sorts of reasons (among others) that international law
has long held that torture is never justified, even during national security
emergencies.
But it’s one thing to
argue about ticking bombs. It’s something else altogether to argue the case for
torture in the total absence of any specific emergency. And yet, that is what
the bin Laden case ultimately boils down to. Sure, bin Laden was a dangerous
man. But no one can be, or even is arguing that his killing prevented an
imminent attack. Indeed it’s far from clear that his killing has reduced the
terrorist threat at all. One of the great ironies of the American political
debate is that the same politicians spruiking the benefits of torture seem to
be the same ones warning us that – even in this post-bin Laden era – al-Qaeda
is as dangerous as ever. “Al-Qaeda is in many ways stronger than it was before
9/11” declared New York Republican Peter King last year. It “poses a bigger
threat to attack inside the US right now than it did before 9/11” added
retiring Michigan Republican (and aspiring talk-radio host) Mike Rogers.
The sheer lack of
emergency here is evident even from the information said to have been
unearthed. The most infamous concerns intelligence provided by Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed. This is a megalomaniacal character who confessed ridiculously to more
than 30 terrorist plots including attacks on targets that didn’t exist at the
time he was taken to Guantanamo Bay. This is also a man who was waterboarded a
whopping 183 times – which is not something you can do in an emergency, and
which is curious for the fact that his torturers clearly thought there was something
to be gained on the 183rd occasion that couldn’t be on the 182nd. If torture is
so good for extracting crucial information fast, why didn’t they get what they
needed, say, by waterboarding 150?
Certainly, it’s
useful to know that torture didn’t propel the successful hunt for bin Laden.
But the implicit question this raises is an important one: what if it did?
Would that make torture a legitimate counter-terrorism norm, not in the case of
emergency, but just as a matter of routine intelligence gathering? Do we not
even need to ask any longer whether or not the same information – or even
better information – might have been gathered through traditional methods?
This, after all, is what the FBI has been insisting emphatically all along,
much to the CIA’s annoyance.
Or is it simply
enough for us to say that because these are evil people they somehow deserve to
be tortured? If so, then let’s at least let’s say so explicitly. And let’s
acknowledge that we’re articulating a new doctrine of torture far more suited
to the world’s most brutal autocrats: that we’ll torture for revenge.
Waleed Aly is an Age columnist. He hosts Drive on ABC Radio
National and is a lecturer in politics at Monash University.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/revenge-the-cias-new-doctrine-of-torture-20140403-zqpys.html#ixzz2xrjGtXhZ
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