But I will say that every American should be following this and related stories. The human rights "community" is following it very closely. The Red Cross has, uncharacteristically, criticized a sovereign government for past and ongoing abuses. The CIA calls it "extraordinary rendition" -- the act of turning over a suspect to a country (usually the home country) for detention with the almost certain expectation that the person will be tortured.
The human rights community calls it "disappearing" because of the subsequent lack of access to the accused by anyone outside the host country or the one doing the disappearing.
While it's naive to think anything but that these are probably very bad men, there have been cases in the recent news of people falsely accused being subjected to torture tactics in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere) on the strength of accusations of being terrorists.
If the US is taking charge of prisoners and then sending them into situations where they will be tortured, how is that any different from if we commit the crimes of torture ourselves.
From what has been said so far, it is not like our people would not know that any assurance of legal treatment would be worthless. It is well known how prisoners are treated in the countries where we sent the suspects.
From what perspective is this possibly a good thing?
1) Our own conventional wisdom says that torture doesn't work. Or so it was said during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal -- that the US officially eschews torture in part because it doesn't work anyway.
2) We are trying to win hearts and minds, and show that our way is the best way. So how could disappearing a suspected terrorist demonstrate our moral and ethical superiority?
3) When the truth comes out, and it usually does, the damage to the US' reputation among Arabs, and the rest of the civilized world, suffers major damage. So, it can't be that we feel like this will somehow help us in the future, or that the trade of in intelligence gathering is somehow worth it.
Is this just cynical and bitter reprisals?
Is it a tactic to "scare" potential terrorists, hoping they'll so fear the possibility of torture that they'll back down?
I don't understand the logic. It is brutal. And it is being done in my name and your name, and in the name of every American.
I think it should stop.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:1) Our own conventional wisdom says that torture doesn't work. Or so it was said during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal -- that the US officially eschews torture in part because it doesn't work anyway.
This isn't quite true, or maybe sort of true in a limited way. You can actually break anyone with torture. No one can stand up to months and years of psychological and physical torture.
What is perhaps more true is that torture, as limited by the Geneva Convention, does not work. But if you can beat the prisoners with hoses and ropes, feed them so little that they are constantly weak and hallucinating, inject various drugs into them, deprive them of sleep for long periods of time, drill into teeth, etc., you can break them. It just takes time. For evidence of this, just read some of the accounts of POWs from the Vietnam war. It's pretty horrifying. And it wouldn't matter if you told them everything anyway - they'd torture you just to make sure.
Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Torture is ineffective cuz you can get folks to say anything whatsoever, with none of it necessarily having any bearing on reality.
eg The Saudi's useta regularly bomb Western workers in SaudiArabia. And just as regularly extract confessions for those bombings out of other Western workers.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Jonny, torture's end result depends on the aims of the torturers.
If the torturers are aiming for the truth, and want to know what the suspects or guilty parties know, yes, people can be broken, given a lack of time and moral restraints.
As aspectre points out, if the aim is a confession, to close a case no matter what (whether the charges are true or not), for political or other reasons, that can be wrung out of a broken torture victim just as easily as the truth.
Which is why coerced confessions are unreliable and ineffective.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
The Saudis, in particular, are apparently known for their "extract a confession" methodology. Most recently in the news, 5 released Brits came back alleging torture and forced confessions.
Or rather, one of them has come forward with allegations.
Since at least some of the people our CIA is making disappear are ending up in Saudi hands, I suspect we're not really all that concerned with getting the truth out of them.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I'm sickened by this, but I understand why it is happening. It goes back to the hallmark of modern American government and civil service: plausible deniability.
The CIA can give someone over to torture without sullying their hands. And they can absolve themselves by saying "Hey, all we did was deport the person to their home country rather than throw them in one of our jails. We just sent them home."
But it does reek of some backroom collusion, even between supposed enemies. There was one case of someone being sent back to Syria, a country we don't have a very good relationship. Why send a suspected terrorist back there rather than keep them here and interrogate them ourself?
And why would the Syrians want to torture and interrogate a suspected terrorist that may work for an organization that their country is openly sympathetic with?
Because, well, the information they can get out of that person may be of interest to Syria (or whichever country they are sent back to) in addition to being of interest to the CIA. A terrorist group that your country supports is still an armed group within your borders, one that can turn on you in an instant, no matter what the overt allegiance is. Syria, Iran or whoever would like the chance to find out some info "off the record" since we don't notify the terrorist groups that their wonderboy is being sent home under suspicion. And chances are that the Syrian secret service doesn't call that person's parents up to know that they've got him down at the station house for a bit of questioning and light snacks.
And we're doing it because someone, somewhere in our government has decided that the ends will justify whatever means are taken.
What's sickening about this is that's always one of the most important steps in going from being the good guy to becoming the bad guy. Especially when we do it knowing that we've established plausible deniability, or if you will, have set our alibi up ahead of time.
It's the same thing as "break into their headquarters at the Watergate and see what you can find" , or we allowed Noriega to run drugs because we needed a bulwark against Communism in Latin America, or we sold parts to Iran to fund the Contras, or even, in the end "I did not have Sex with that woman - &- Could you define "sex"."
Plausible deniability in using any means to reach an end. It just gives that slow, cool, ache of a deep down sickness of the bowels, that precludes a, excuse my language, a crapstorm of incredible proportions.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Unless your goal is to completely break a person, it doesn't work for one reason alone....
If you are really hurting them that badly, then they will say anything you want to get them to stop, true of not. They don't care about truth or logic...they just want ti to stop, so they tell your everything and anything to get you to stop, even if it isn't true.
So as far as gathering information, it is useless, for the most part.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote: I'm sorry about the requirement to register for the site.
I reccomend Pookmail as a great place to get a temporary email account so that you can register for for various sites without having to worry about spam.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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