Again from September 2009:
You must have come across some version of the word.
Newspeak: call it “harsh interrogation”, “enhanced interrogation techniques” or any other fancy name you want, (just as plain murderous mercenaries call themselves “security contractors” these days). Call it “the most effective way of getting information”. Call it “lollipop” or “boingboing” or “abracadabra”, it still comes down to the same thing.
Torture.
Ever since the Lord High Bush made it quasi-legit, torture has become the sort of thing hairy-chested freedom-lovin’ terrorist-busters do. It’s become pretty cool to torture, almost sexy. Torture, to coin a phrase, is the new ultimate in terror-fightin’ fashion.
Just one problem with it really.
Torture simply does not work.
Oh yeah, one can beat a confession out of a small-time thief or drug courier, as the Indian police, for one, has always known. But these are small-time thieves and drug couriers, not terrorists, especially hardened terrorists with actual information to hide. For them, torture isn’t just useless; it’s worse than useless.
How is it worse than useless?
Well, for one thing, if the person you’re torturing is innocent, no amount of torture is going to get any usable information out of him. You can beat him till you beat him to death, but all you’ll get from him is whatever you tell him to say, or whatever he can dream up to keep you happy. Nothing more.
If we assume that the person being tortured isn’t innocent, but is an actual terrorist, then what?
Someone tortured will resist to the point of his abilities and training (one can train torture resistance; it’s a standard feature of some training programmes) and then will simply tell the torturer anything that he thinks the torturer will like so that the torture will stop. A really diligent torturer will be aware of this and will keep torturing to get at the actual truth, in which case the suspect will equally keep inventing more fables. Even if the suspect gives out the truth the torturer can't be certain that this is the truth so he will keep torturing the suspect until the suspect is no longer capable of answering - that may be to the point of killing the suspect.
Then again, let’s assume the tortured person isn’t just any terrorist, but a terrorist with actual vital information that can be of some great use in what used to be called, with another bit of inversion of the facts, the Global War On Terror. Unlikely, but let’s assume it’s so. Now, unless we’re talking about some kind of Hollywood action movie kind of brainless Koran-waving foaming-at-the-mouth terrorist, any such boss terrorist will have a support system which will be aware that he has been killed/captured/forced to hide. In any case, he, and the information he has, is compromised. So what do you think happens to the vials of bio-terror ingredients whose location your freedom-lovin’ interrogator is trying to beat out of the terrorist? By the time the interrogator has finally sifted through the red herrings, false trails and wild-goose chases and decided that yes, the vials are actually hidden in a grey van in the underground parking lot of a department store, the vials are not only no longer in that grey van (let alone in that underground parking lot), the actual material isn’t even in the vials any longer, and probably far more ingeniously hidden to boot.
Therefore, all that torture will achieve is the murder of possibly innocent suspects with nothing at all gained from the killing.
Intelligence work, infiltration of suspected terror cells, and police action is infinitely more effective but don't have that red-blooded he-man freedom-lovin' true-blue touch so beloved of popular heroes of a culture that thinks itself to be the Lord of the Universe.
In fact, the insistence upon torture seems to indicate its use not as an investigative tool but as a retributive one – to inflict hurt and pain on possibly innocent foreigners, lower life-forms in other words, as revenge for 11/9 or Pearl Harbor (sic) or whatever. Also, since one of the uses of torture, as the Spanish Inquisition knew so well, is to force the tortured person to say whatever the torturer wants him to say, it’s the perfect tool to invent excuses to invade another strategically-placed and/or oil-producing country.
As we all know, useful tools aren’t discarded.
Oh, and there’s another side to it: if, let’s say, the US tortures (just for the sake of argument; as we know, the US never tortures, it just enhancedly interrogates) so-called enemy combatants as a matter of course, why shouldn't any captured American soldier face the same treatment? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
You do reap what you sow, baby.
You must have come across some version of the word.Newspeak: call it “harsh interrogation”, “enhanced interrogation techniques” or any other fancy name you want, (just as plain murderous mercenaries call themselves “security contractors” these days). Call it “the most effective way of getting information”. Call it “lollipop” or “boingboing” or “abracadabra”, it still comes down to the same thing.
Torture.
Ever since the Lord High Bush made it quasi-legit, torture has become the sort of thing hairy-chested freedom-lovin’ terrorist-busters do. It’s become pretty cool to torture, almost sexy. Torture, to coin a phrase, is the new ultimate in terror-fightin’ fashion.
Just one problem with it really.
Torture simply does not work.
Oh yeah, one can beat a confession out of a small-time thief or drug courier, as the Indian police, for one, has always known. But these are small-time thieves and drug couriers, not terrorists, especially hardened terrorists with actual information to hide. For them, torture isn’t just useless; it’s worse than useless.
How is it worse than useless?
Well, for one thing, if the person you’re torturing is innocent, no amount of torture is going to get any usable information out of him. You can beat him till you beat him to death, but all you’ll get from him is whatever you tell him to say, or whatever he can dream up to keep you happy. Nothing more.
If we assume that the person being tortured isn’t innocent, but is an actual terrorist, then what?
Someone tortured will resist to the point of his abilities and training (one can train torture resistance; it’s a standard feature of some training programmes) and then will simply tell the torturer anything that he thinks the torturer will like so that the torture will stop. A really diligent torturer will be aware of this and will keep torturing to get at the actual truth, in which case the suspect will equally keep inventing more fables. Even if the suspect gives out the truth the torturer can't be certain that this is the truth so he will keep torturing the suspect until the suspect is no longer capable of answering - that may be to the point of killing the suspect.
Then again, let’s assume the tortured person isn’t just any terrorist, but a terrorist with actual vital information that can be of some great use in what used to be called, with another bit of inversion of the facts, the Global War On Terror. Unlikely, but let’s assume it’s so. Now, unless we’re talking about some kind of Hollywood action movie kind of brainless Koran-waving foaming-at-the-mouth terrorist, any such boss terrorist will have a support system which will be aware that he has been killed/captured/forced to hide. In any case, he, and the information he has, is compromised. So what do you think happens to the vials of bio-terror ingredients whose location your freedom-lovin’ interrogator is trying to beat out of the terrorist? By the time the interrogator has finally sifted through the red herrings, false trails and wild-goose chases and decided that yes, the vials are actually hidden in a grey van in the underground parking lot of a department store, the vials are not only no longer in that grey van (let alone in that underground parking lot), the actual material isn’t even in the vials any longer, and probably far more ingeniously hidden to boot.
Therefore, all that torture will achieve is the murder of possibly innocent suspects with nothing at all gained from the killing.
Intelligence work, infiltration of suspected terror cells, and police action is infinitely more effective but don't have that red-blooded he-man freedom-lovin' true-blue touch so beloved of popular heroes of a culture that thinks itself to be the Lord of the Universe.
In fact, the insistence upon torture seems to indicate its use not as an investigative tool but as a retributive one – to inflict hurt and pain on possibly innocent foreigners, lower life-forms in other words, as revenge for 11/9 or Pearl Harbor (sic) or whatever. Also, since one of the uses of torture, as the Spanish Inquisition knew so well, is to force the tortured person to say whatever the torturer wants him to say, it’s the perfect tool to invent excuses to invade another strategically-placed and/or oil-producing country.
As we all know, useful tools aren’t discarded.
Oh, and there’s another side to it: if, let’s say, the US tortures (just for the sake of argument; as we know, the US never tortures, it just enhancedly interrogates) so-called enemy combatants as a matter of course, why shouldn't any captured American soldier face the same treatment? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
You do reap what you sow, baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment