[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:45:42 -0700
Eric wrote:
Ask yourself why the US would want to use torture on a handful of
al-Qaeda? Because it often works, or it works often enough to make it
potentially useful.
And by parity of reasoning it doesn't work often enough to make it
misleading.
There is absolutely no evidence that torture 'works,' and plenty of
evidence from people who actually study torture that it doesn't. And to
use torture on 'a handful of al Qaeda,' you'd have to determine that
they were al-Qaeda (which in some cases one could only try to learn
through torture). How many is 'a handful'? It hardly matters: the
Administration would like the right to seize anyone, hold them in
secret, possibly Learjet them to Egypt, etc., if it believes that
they're a menace. It could happen to you. But when it comes to knowing
how many people have been spirited off and/or tortured there are no
records.
There wouldn't have been a push to expand harsh interrogation techniques
if they weren't useful. Why take the Propaganda War hit for torture if
it doesn't work?
Why would the US want to use (come on, Eric!) 'harsh interrogation
techniques'? Well, why would it want to use them in secret, deny it use
them, and farm them out to such despotic allies as Uzbekistan? The
Administration denies it tortures anyone yet wants the authority to do
it—? I mean, we don't do it, so why should we take any propaganda hits?
In any event, our torture is mostly done for us by our thuggish allies
in faraway countries of which we know nothing. Why use it if it doesn't
work? Because torturers have big egos and seldom, I'm sure, report their
failures.
Your statement that, "The US now has several thousand CIA and military
persons who have learned how to torture" is factually untrue. Only a
small number of people are certified for harsh interrogation techniques.
The rest, if caught, get the slammer.
Yes, we've seen that in the case of Abu Ghraib and, reportedly,
Guantanamo. Has anybody above the rank of sergeant even been brought to
trial? The slammer? Private English, right. General ----- ? That's what
I thought. In the case of secret renditions we know nothing.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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