Ok, so how should we define "torture"?
A couple of commenters have challenged my claim that can constitute torture. There is plainly some debate about the definition of torture -- and about whether certain "softening up" techniques constitute torture. According to the UN Convention defines torture as
[A]ny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
Sleep deprivation, sometimes combined with forced standing for days at a time, has been used by various state agencies in order to extract information from suspects.
Aleksander Solzhenitsen has described Soviet interrogations in The Gulag Archipelago, including sleep deprivation. 鈥淪leeplessness", he writes, "befogs the reason, undermines the will, and the human being ceases to be himself, to be his own 鈥業.'" In his account, a prisoner named Anna Skripnikova was subjected to sleep deprivation techniques in 1952: 鈥淸The] Chief of the Investigative Department of the Ordzhonikidze State Security Administration, said to her: 鈥淭he prison doctor reports you have a blood pressure of 240/120. That鈥檚 too low, you bitch! We鈥檙e going to drive it up to 340 so you'll kick the bucket, you viper, and with no black and blue marks; no beatings; no broken bones. We'll just not let you sleep.鈥 And if, back in her cell, after a night spent in interrogation, she closed her eyes during the day, the jailer broke in and shouted: 鈥極pen your eyes or I'll haul you off that cot by the legs and tie you to the wall standing up.鈥欌
Sleep deprivation is not always a form of torture; but there are many testimonies of this kind from various parts of the world suggesting that the mental distress accompanying this technique can constitute a kind of torture. But let's debate this; it's an important issue.
Comments
Hope this post works; my last few haven't.
I agree, let's debate this. I think William has defined torture too widely if he is saying that sleep deprivation itself constitutes torture. It's certainly unpleasant, and certainly constitutes making people uncomfortable in order to gain the information they have. But is that torture?
And here's where the BS begins. Because Western liberals can so easily quote, as Will did here, the threatening words of interrogators, because we are predisposed to be 'turned off' by the unpleasantness of it, because we can score silly points like asking Rudy Giuliani if he'd like to try out these techniques himself, it's all too easy to react against it -to call it 'torture' without dealing with the real issue.
And the very real issue facing those who are charged with protecting us from international terrorism is that we are at war with people who hate and want to kill us, and that we must fight them with regard for the same human rights on which we've built the societies we're protecting.
The most pertinent fact is that this kind of interrogation is VITALLY important if we are to protect ourselves and beat the threat of terrorism. It has become so unfashionable to say that - and anything else George Bush might have a chance of agreeing with - that thinking people in the West wish to throw it out before considering it reasonably and sensibly.
So if all we're going to do is list all the unpleasant techniques used by interrogators and label them 'torture' without offering any effective alternatives, our government will fail in its primary duty of protecting its citizens from aggression.
Thus, the primary question I ask of Will and anyone else who agrees that sleep deprivation is 'torture' is this: what is your effective alternative?
Ever go to a doctor and complain of a pain and he asks you on a scale of one to ten how bad does it hurt? It is assumed pain is a continuum. At what point does discomfort become pain, at what point does it become moderate or severe? I think that's an entirely subjective thing.
Among the many traps the US has fallen into, being in the UN and accepting it as a legitimate restraint on America policy is one of them. At least we haven't recognized the ICC so far. That will be another big mistake when it comes. As I said in my comments on the thread below, there is no such thing as international law because it is applied selectively by people who have a vested political interest and agenda in the way and when it is applied. I think we should forget about all of this, pull out of the UN and all other restrictive conventions, and take whatever actions are required to protect our country regardless of what the consequences are to other people. Call me selfish. Please please call me selfish. (Ayn Rand would be proud.)
Ok, so how should we define "torture"? Sleep deprivation is not always a form of torture; but there are many testimonies of this kind from various parts of the world suggesting that the mental distress accompanying this technique can constitute a kind of torture.
Isn't this what I said in the previous thread??
Torture is like porn - I know it when I see it. Deprive a man of sleep to mock his suffering is torture. Deprive a man of sleep to learn which flight will be bombed is not torture.
Regards,
Michael
ps: Mark, John Wright, and Michael Hull in agreement - wonders will never cease. Someone pass the hot irons!
Yes indeed.
What I'm most interested in is to hear the people who think it's wrong to interrogate in this way explain exactly how, in detail, they would plan to fight Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups. Since there's a significant chance some of them are alive today due to the intelligence our militaries gained through these interrogation techniques I think that's the least they could do while calling it torture.
The US govt have abused all international definitions of torture in order to facilitate the abuse of suspects who are not even allowed to face a fair trial. It's a disgrace.
The US govt have abused all international definitions of torture in order to facilitate the abuse of suspects who are not even allowed to face a fair trial. It's a disgrace.
Freddie: After the US Govt is finished with them they are still alive!
Talk to me about the British Government's role sending a SAS Team to kill IRA terrorists in Gibraltar. And while you are at it, do you know anything about helicopter flights across the Irish Sea with IRA terrorists on board who apparently were 'water boarded' permanently?
Regards,
Michael
Hi JW long time no speak!
Sympathise with your concerns but looking at the past 30 years in NI can I make a few observations?
When informers were used against the IRA by the British they were and still are considered expendable.
They were milked and tossed aside and nobody cared if they were killed by their own side.
This plays right into the hands of the terrorists, who relate how untrustworthy the occupiers were and why it is so wrong to defect.
I say that if you want defectors and information you should strenously work to guarantee your prisoners see you as complete human beings and are treated as human beings, regardless of the information they impart.
One thing is certain, this is not a short term battle and protecting the US reputation in the enemy camp is very important, I think anyway.
PB
Freddie #5- "The US govt have abused all international definitions of torture in order to facilitate the abuse of suspects who are not even allowed to face a fair trial. It's a disgrace."
Sensational, but not related to reality. Fortunately the truth is much more boring: the US government do not have any interest in abusing anyone, merely an interest in fighting a successful war on terrorism. I think they should get a fair trial, but that's not what today's subject is. Make a point, about torture. Help to define it. Make a relevant argument.
PB #7- Good to hear from you.
"I say that if you want defectors and information you should strenously work to guarantee your prisoners see you as complete human beings and are treated as human beings, regardless of the information they impart."
I agree, and that's why I believe it is important to define torture. I also know that 'aggressive interrogation' is a key component of successfully protecting ourselves from the threat of terrorism. As Giuliani said, that's a "delicate line". But we can't do without the information suspects provide, and you don't get it by being nice. But I agree human rights are paramount.... these two aren't incompatible.
What about the American government led by Bill Clinton then and now Bush who peddled their USA hypocrisy by pushing for the terrorists of the IRA to have a part in a artificially engineered political agreement therefore torturing the law abiding people of Northern Ireland to summit to the IRA army council sitting down with the D.U.P.ed party in an inequitable administration at Stormont which wouldn鈥檛 be accepted as a rational form of government on American soil.
John:
I think the American legal definition of torture is 'something that shocks the conscience'.
So applying this to my previous statement
Torture is like porn - I know it when I see it. Deprive a man of sleep to mock his suffering is torture. Deprive a man of sleep to learn which flight will be bombed is not torture.
I think my definition meets this test in that a reasonable person should not be shocked by the action.
On the other hand I can now state:
Put a red-hot poker in a man's eye to mock his suffering is torture. Put a red-hot poker in a man's eye to learn which flight will be bombed is still torture.
since any reasonable person would be shocked on seeing the action.
I'm sure you could now deduce my position on waterboarding.
What say ye?
Regards,
Michael
Michael- So far I agree with every example you've given, and it seems a very reasonable approach to me. Given your definition, then, (that which shocks the conscience) the problem is in attaining objectivity. The conscience is a fairly individual thing.
Let's say that putting a red hot poker in an eye equals torture for perhaps 98% of people who we'd ask. Now let's move closer to the line: perhaps only 83% of people have their conscience shocked by waterboarding. Getting closer and closer to what Rudy Giuliani called the "delicate line" between torture and aggressive interrogation, the percentages of people whose conscience is shocked by an interrogation technique will be less and less, and classifying torture more and more ambiguous.
That said, your definition is the closest I've come to some kind of answer.
Systemmatic sleep deprivation over an extended period is clearly torture. Keeping someone up past their bedtime, questioning them when they're tired - all fine. But preventing someone sleeping for more than two days is torture. It was used by Stalin and that's good enough for me.
As to how to extract information? That's up to intelligence services to figure out. Have they no truth drugs? You can't do a bad thing for a good reason. That's basic morality.
Re #12 Brendan Coyle wrote:
As to how to extract information? That's up to intelligence services to figure out.
Agree! And I have just provided the intelligence officers with some good guidelines on how they should proceed.
So where's the disagreement?
Regards,
Michael
JW
I'm not sure you understand my point.
Looking at the long term, inhuman treatment will make hostility towards the US greater.
Campaigners will blow it up into movies and plays and will further warp your enemies.
Far better to convert your enemies into friends.
If you have a difficulty in defining when the line has been crossed that is because you are trying to get as close to it as possible without breaking the law.
What I am suggesting is obviously in a diametricaly opposed spirit.
As I recall, Eammon Collins, one of the the IRA's greatest defectors, was turned by realsing the inhumanity of what he was doing, by seeing his newborn child and by realising the human toll of his campaign.
Then he told all.
I suggest treating people decently and showing them in graphic detail the human toll of terrorism would be much more effective.
Progammes to do this with minor criminals in jails are having a great impact.
They meet the ordinay victims who explain in detail what effect the crime had.
I am not suggesting this be done in a way that physically or emotionally endangers the victims further though.
PB