On Torture:
Questioning and torture
There seems to be this insistence that people are only being treated humanely if they are afforded every one of the Geneva protections. This is simply not so. There are many things you want to prevent terrorists from doing such as sending and recieving mail which may indicate who has been captured, who is talking and sending other signal messages. Similarly you don't want to allow them to fraternize openly as this will only raise their level of resistance and give them an opportunity to shank the squealers.
It is not only important but vital to remember they are not, in any way, covered by international law. They are literally subject to summary execution. This is a gaping hole in the Conventions. That sort of problem tends to crop up with 19th century documents in the 21st century. US law should be filling in the gaps here and for the most part it is. The Bybee memo notwithstanding there is a real difference between agressive interrogation and torture.
For example: The GC prohibits any technique that would psychologically compel someone to talk. That includes lying and shouting and the like. Is that torture? No. Anyone who watches cop shows knows that this is routine for investigations. (I'm not citing TV as my source here but rather as a frame of reference. In this instance, the TV shows are correct.) I am of the opinion that anything that our Police can do lawfully during interrogations is not torture so that should, by default, be permissible.
Additionally, there are other means of psychological pressure one can use such as good cop/bad cop, playing on love of family, honor/shame stressing and so on.
Physically, there are things you can do to compel someone to talk that are not torture nor maltreatment. Lowering the temperature in the room, repitition of questions, and very long interviews. The Pentagon intially took the view that anything the interviewer endured along with the detainee would not be torture (ie. room temperatures, length of interviews, lighting/sound conditions.)
One interrogator explained that just grabbing someone by the shirt can break him. Not because you threaten to injure him further but rather, because he believes you will not EVER lay a hand on him. Once you do something he has been explicitly told you will never do, he wonders how wrong he was.
Another said he made the guy stand for half an hour. The guy started to panic and when he started to lose his balance, two large Marines put him back on his feet. "Don't fall do that again." the interrogator admonished. He gave up what he knew for fear of the consequences. Keeping the detainee off-balance psychologically is invalueable and precludes the need for actual torture.
Maltreatment vs. torture.
There is a distinct difference between the two. Maltreatment is keeping them naked, wet or cold/hot for long periods of time. Naked blindfolded pyramids count too but let's remember that is common for fraternity pledges. Were the Red Cross to witness fraternity pledging rituals they would by in hysterics. I mean that literally. In many instances the defnition has become so wide as to be meaningless. The US needs to have an open and honest debate about what we are willing to countenance. If we were to explain each practice and put it up for a vote I think many pundits would be surprised how much the average American would be willing to allow in the face of another 9/11 or worse. Waterboarding? Probably. Beatings? Probably provided they are not permenantly damaging. Sleep depravation? Yes. Other psychological pressure like good cop/bad cop. Absolutely.
The trouble with torture.
The main trouble with torture is that it is unreliable. If you hurt a man long enough he tell you anything just to make it stop. The trouble is finding that line. Many interrogators believe you don't want a man to "break" and spill everything because then he's not only going to give you truth but what you want to hear. What you want is for a man to give something away without know he's done so. He'll talk about someone he's related to, or spoke to, or places he's been without realizing that either confirms or conflicts with what is already known. This gives the interrogator a direction to go in. Many of the staff at X Ray were insensed when it was revealed who and how many had been captured and who was talking. That made things much more difficult for them as well as troops in the field. The terrorists would know what sites and were compromised and act accordingly. It is believe that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured months before publicly believed. This was to give time to make use of the information he gave.
Backlash.
The current problem appears to be the overcompensating backlash in the face of the Abu Gharib scandal. Interrogators may not so much as yell at detainees. They cannot poke them in the chest w/ a finger nor pound on the table. They cannot use any of the coercive tricks that police departments use. In short, they are now the ones with their hands tied. This creates a very dangerous situation. As Wretchard pointed out, torture is the substituting of suffering by one for another. That is, you cause the terrorist to suffer to prevent the suffering of bombing victims. How far are we as a nation willing to go on that front? I suspect we're going to have to decide in short order.
The other apparent result is the turning over our prisoners to others to allow them to do our dirty work. Egypt, Jordan (and to a lesser extent Syria) have no prohibitions against torture and have been willing in the past to work these guys over to make them talk. This is far more dangerous as these nations have intersts that conflict with ours. If the detainee knows highly placed members of the Egyptian government sanctioned an attack the torturer might be given instructions from on high to torture this guy to death rather than let him talk. Similarly, we really should be able to handle this ourselves in a civilized manner as possible. I don't remember where I read it but someone pointed out that the USA of 1940 would never have tolerated the nuclear attack on Japan in 1945. The massive loss of life and constant news about death and destruction hardened us so much we were willing to be the first nation to drop nuclear weapons to end the war. If we constrain our troops and interrogators too much we will only serve to embolden our foes and we may over-correct in the opposite direction. That's not something anyone wants to see.
For a rundown of tried and true methods of torture, see here
Questioning and torture
There seems to be this insistence that people are only being treated humanely if they are afforded every one of the Geneva protections. This is simply not so. There are many things you want to prevent terrorists from doing such as sending and recieving mail which may indicate who has been captured, who is talking and sending other signal messages. Similarly you don't want to allow them to fraternize openly as this will only raise their level of resistance and give them an opportunity to shank the squealers.
It is not only important but vital to remember they are not, in any way, covered by international law. They are literally subject to summary execution. This is a gaping hole in the Conventions. That sort of problem tends to crop up with 19th century documents in the 21st century. US law should be filling in the gaps here and for the most part it is. The Bybee memo notwithstanding there is a real difference between agressive interrogation and torture.
For example: The GC prohibits any technique that would psychologically compel someone to talk. That includes lying and shouting and the like. Is that torture? No. Anyone who watches cop shows knows that this is routine for investigations. (I'm not citing TV as my source here but rather as a frame of reference. In this instance, the TV shows are correct.) I am of the opinion that anything that our Police can do lawfully during interrogations is not torture so that should, by default, be permissible.
Additionally, there are other means of psychological pressure one can use such as good cop/bad cop, playing on love of family, honor/shame stressing and so on.
Physically, there are things you can do to compel someone to talk that are not torture nor maltreatment. Lowering the temperature in the room, repitition of questions, and very long interviews. The Pentagon intially took the view that anything the interviewer endured along with the detainee would not be torture (ie. room temperatures, length of interviews, lighting/sound conditions.)
One interrogator explained that just grabbing someone by the shirt can break him. Not because you threaten to injure him further but rather, because he believes you will not EVER lay a hand on him. Once you do something he has been explicitly told you will never do, he wonders how wrong he was.
Another said he made the guy stand for half an hour. The guy started to panic and when he started to lose his balance, two large Marines put him back on his feet. "Don't fall do that again." the interrogator admonished. He gave up what he knew for fear of the consequences. Keeping the detainee off-balance psychologically is invalueable and precludes the need for actual torture.
Maltreatment vs. torture.
There is a distinct difference between the two. Maltreatment is keeping them naked, wet or cold/hot for long periods of time. Naked blindfolded pyramids count too but let's remember that is common for fraternity pledges. Were the Red Cross to witness fraternity pledging rituals they would by in hysterics. I mean that literally. In many instances the defnition has become so wide as to be meaningless. The US needs to have an open and honest debate about what we are willing to countenance. If we were to explain each practice and put it up for a vote I think many pundits would be surprised how much the average American would be willing to allow in the face of another 9/11 or worse. Waterboarding? Probably. Beatings? Probably provided they are not permenantly damaging. Sleep depravation? Yes. Other psychological pressure like good cop/bad cop. Absolutely.
The trouble with torture.
The main trouble with torture is that it is unreliable. If you hurt a man long enough he tell you anything just to make it stop. The trouble is finding that line. Many interrogators believe you don't want a man to "break" and spill everything because then he's not only going to give you truth but what you want to hear. What you want is for a man to give something away without know he's done so. He'll talk about someone he's related to, or spoke to, or places he's been without realizing that either confirms or conflicts with what is already known. This gives the interrogator a direction to go in. Many of the staff at X Ray were insensed when it was revealed who and how many had been captured and who was talking. That made things much more difficult for them as well as troops in the field. The terrorists would know what sites and were compromised and act accordingly. It is believe that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured months before publicly believed. This was to give time to make use of the information he gave.
Backlash.
The current problem appears to be the overcompensating backlash in the face of the Abu Gharib scandal. Interrogators may not so much as yell at detainees. They cannot poke them in the chest w/ a finger nor pound on the table. They cannot use any of the coercive tricks that police departments use. In short, they are now the ones with their hands tied. This creates a very dangerous situation. As Wretchard pointed out, torture is the substituting of suffering by one for another. That is, you cause the terrorist to suffer to prevent the suffering of bombing victims. How far are we as a nation willing to go on that front? I suspect we're going to have to decide in short order.
The other apparent result is the turning over our prisoners to others to allow them to do our dirty work. Egypt, Jordan (and to a lesser extent Syria) have no prohibitions against torture and have been willing in the past to work these guys over to make them talk. This is far more dangerous as these nations have intersts that conflict with ours. If the detainee knows highly placed members of the Egyptian government sanctioned an attack the torturer might be given instructions from on high to torture this guy to death rather than let him talk. Similarly, we really should be able to handle this ourselves in a civilized manner as possible. I don't remember where I read it but someone pointed out that the USA of 1940 would never have tolerated the nuclear attack on Japan in 1945. The massive loss of life and constant news about death and destruction hardened us so much we were willing to be the first nation to drop nuclear weapons to end the war. If we constrain our troops and interrogators too much we will only serve to embolden our foes and we may over-correct in the opposite direction. That's not something anyone wants to see.
For a rundown of tried and true methods of torture, see here
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