Unresolved debate in DOJ memos: Does torture work?

DrFunkenstein

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Tue Apr-21-09 07:31 PM
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Unresolved debate in DOJ memos: Does torture work?

Source: AP

Interrogators have centuries of experience extracting information from the unwilling. Medieval inquisitors hanged heretics from ceilings. Salem magistrates used fire to elicit witchcraft confessions. And CIA officers waterboarded terrorism suspects in clandestine prisons. Yet it has not settled a debate as old as interrogation itself: Does torture work?

Secret Justice Department memos, released last week revealing the CIA's harshest interrogation methods, do little to resolve the question. The memos credit waterboarding, face slapping, sleep deprivation and other techniques for producing the country's best intelligence following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They also note that nonviolent tactics more often were successful than violence.

President Barack Obama, who ordered the memos released, said Tuesday they showed the United States "losing our moral bearings." He did not, however, say whether he believed the tactics worked.

In 2006, a group of scientists and retired intelligence officers set out to settle the matter. They sought to find the most effective interrogation tactics and advise the U.S. government on their use. Their conclusions, laid out in a 372-page report for the director of national intelligence, argued against harsh interrogation.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_does_torture_work;_ylt=AgmHKm6m5eHbSHkBhNjByRVWr7sF

The article seems to contradict the headline. The debate is fairly settled among experts, just not for posturing Republicans. Dick Cheney I would put in another category.

But the most notable thing about the article follows a trend I have noticed: it focuses on the specific results of gathering information, completely ignoring the larger argument of weighing that information (already unreliable) against the potential for recruiting more anti-American forces by al-Qaeda. That is without mentioning the loss of the moral high ground when dealing with the future imprisonment of U.S. soldiers and journalists, who may be subjected to such treatment with a sense of equivalency.

I would add that most articles on torture techniques, like this one, tend to mention each one individually. This goes directly against the findings of the Red Cross, which noted that they were used for cumulative effect. Sleep deprivation, isolation, physical violence, use of dogs, use of sexual humiliation, etc. were piled on top of each other to create an effect much larger than any one alone.

Finally, I want to register a long-standing protest of the use of "tough" in journalism. It is a term with considerable ambivalence and should be avoided to refrain from any suggestion that torture is anything but harsh. Even "harsh" can serve to soften the reality of an event, but it is far more acceptable.