Mr. Hajj cannot bend his knees because of abuse he received soon after his arrest, yet the toilet chair he was prescribed was removed — making it excruciating for him to use the remaining squat toilet. He is allowed a Koran, but his glasses were confiscated so he cannot read it.
All this is inhumane, but also boneheaded. Guantánamo itself does far more damage to American interests than Mr. Hajj could ever do.
To stand against torture and arbitrary detention is not to be squeamish. It is to be civilized.
Torture is a critical issue these days. It has been raised again and again as a question for presidential hopefuls. Though it may be overshadowed now by health care and the economy, no doubt with the media attention that is given to Guatanamo abuses, terrorism have torture have been on people's minds. A poll conducted in December 2006 - January 2007 by Pew Research Center revealed that 12% of respondents think that torture in order to gain vital information is often justified, 31% feel it is sometimes justified, 25% think it is rarely justified, and 29% think that it is never justified (the remaining 3% were unsure--for all of you math geeks). Additionally, a stunning (but oddly not surprising) 40% of respondents feel that in order to curb terrorism, the public must be willing to relinquish some civil liberties.
In September, The Economist had an entire three-part series on civil liberties, terrorism and torture. They ultimately sided with civil liberties:
Take torture, arguably the hardest case (and the subject of the first article in our series). A famous thought experiment asks what you would do with a terrorist who knew the location of a ticking nuclear bomb. Logic says you would torture one man to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and so you would. But this a fictional dilemma. In the real world, policemen are seldom sure whether the many (not one) suspects they want to torture know of any plot, or how many lives might be at stake. All that is certain is that the logic of the ticking bomb leads down a slippery slope where the state is licensed in the name of the greater good to trample on the hard-won rights of any one and therefore all of its citizens.I'm actually not going to go into extensive detail on my thoughts, suffice it to say that I tend to side with The Economist's view. I do want to point out one thing, however. The other night I was out with a friend to whom I made a crack about how Rudy Giuliani was virulently pro-torture. My friend could only laugh and comment on how sad it is that such a phrase would come out of my mouth, and that it is possible that someone could be "pro-torture."
In other words, how sad is it that torture is actually a prominent debate today?
4 comments:
There is the problem. In days of yore the question of torture wasn't even on the table--it was something that was done without debate (and for the most part without public knowledge). While I am also bothered that it is even up for debate, I'd much rather it be in question than unquestionably O.K. to use.
Maybe it's not whether torture is right or wrong. We know it's wrong, but that (to a degree, since overdoing it needless) it's also a necessity.
What happened in the old days? Torture was done when it was "necessary." I think we've gotten to the point that the extremes of the debate have taken over rational behavior. To torture Gitmo detainees that probably don't know anything is a waste of taxpayer money. On US soil, it's even more despicable; we're not a police state, and such actions are questionable in their fruitfulness.
But in the middle of war, the rules change. Torture may yield very important information in quick amounts of time, but overdoing it will often lead to misinformation.
The hypothetical situation is also a very moot point. If someone is willing to lay down his/her life to take down as many people as possible, torturing them will often be needless. What happens if the detainee lies and the authorities end up searching wrong locations? It's of no loss to the criminal, and that person will have succeeded.
And seriously, you're telling me they're not going to use sodium pentathol? Easier to get information from a drunk man than to one scared shitless.
Drug-induced interrogations have had mixed results since what the detainee tells you could be anything. Drugs like that basically guarantee that they'll tell you something, it doesn't have to be the truth.
I agree with Tim that it is better to question the practice rather than to allow it to continue uncontested.
Though I don't necessarily agree with the practice becoming mainstream, there may be times when it is necessary. The question is who is given the discretion to make these decisions? On what basis or grounds would you approve such an action?
At the same time, I'm unsure as to the effectiveness of waterboarding or blasting Metallica to a Middle-Eastern person in releasing information. There's also the question of the degree of torture and which methods are truly the most effective. Torturing just for morale purposes should be frowned upon. I don't exactly think the Japanese tortured American POWs for information as much as for their own "enjoyment."
Steve brings up an interesting point about who has the right to be given the authority to make such decisions. Again, I think this used to be left up to the individual age, which makes sense. But hell if I'd trust a politician, especially some religious nut, to be making these decisions.
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