h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"West was so happy to ban it". The US authorities and both CSIS and the RCMP have colluded to send people to places like Syria. They seem to be more than willing to use the "information" garnered, useful or otherwise. While governments have banned the use of torture and condemn other nations for using it, they seem to be unwilling or unable to stop their security agencies from getting around the bans.

"Like Arar, Abdullah Almalki says he was tortured by Syrians acting on unfounded allegations that Canadian intelligence agencies made about him.

"They told me multiple times they were getting their information from Canada," the 34-year-old Syrian-Canadian told the CBC Radio's The Current in an interview broadcast Tuesday morning." http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/10/18/almalki-current051018.html

"ON each stage of his journey, as he descended further and further into the gulags and torture chambers of the war on terror, Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi was shadowed by British intelligence. The British were there in Karachi when Americans interrogated him and Pakistanis tortured him; they were feeding questions to the Moroccan torturers who took a scalpel to his penis; they stood back and watched as he was dragged to an American torture chamber in Afghanistan and then to the gulag of Guantanamo, where he languishes to this day.

Al-Habashi is a perfect example of what happens to a person who has been subjected to "extraordinary rendition". This process sees someone suspected of involvement in terrorism snatched off the streets, usually in a third world country, then flown around the world by the CIA to regimes which indulge in torture, to be questioned on behalf of the US.

Hundreds of these "rendition flights" come through the UK, and the payback for the UK is that British intelligence gets to question some of the suspects by proxy – the proxy usually being a Middle Eastern torturer."
http://www.sundayherald.com/52304

Fundamentally, torture *is* pretty useless at extracting confessions, or getting the victim to say other things they know the torturer wants to hear (like implicating other people), since innocent peopel are likely to confess. Much of the time it seems to be used as a discouragement to dissent rather than a means of actually obtaining accurate information.

I don't think torture is a worse thing than killing someone, especially if the definition includes sleep deprivation or a few punches.
Killing people can be justified sometimes, so I can see circumstances where torture *might* be.

However, killing is generally justified in self-defence, usually when there is time pressure, and where one is confident by simple observaion that the person being killed is about to harm innocent people if not killed.

In the case of torture, there isn't the same sense of immediate danger which might excuse some overreaction or impulsiveness in self-defence killings. When the perpetrator of torture isn't in immediate danger, they seem to have a greater duty to think about what they are going to do in a way that someone might not be obliged to in the case of self-defence.

Fundamentally, the cases where I think it might be justifiable to some degree, (where one had real proof that the victim was guilty of serious crimes, and strong confidence that they knew something that might save lives if divulged) are probably so rare that they wouldn't be enough to keep one professional torturer in employment.

Given the likelihood of abuse, the rarity of knowing with real confidence whan people actually are guilty and in posession of information, and the likely escalation to involve numerous innocent victims for each one who could possibly say anything useful, I do think torture should be discouraged.

However, I'd still find it hard to ignore information I though had been (or might have been) obtained by torture if the information could potentially save suffering.

There's also an issue of where one does draw the line regarding torture.

Is threatening someone with a long sentence in a brutal prison system if they don't give you information psychological torture, or just a plea bargain?

What about countries where the police aren't averse to the odd punch, or where someone may be interviewed for what we would consider an excessively long time - would we consider any evidence from them to be too tainted to use?

I can see that we should campaign against serious brutality (the classic image of the sadistic torturer), but it can be hard to draw a line at the lower end between torture and borderline-acceptable behaviour.

But surely all ethics is about context... Just look at killing - it's apparently okay when we are at war, some countries think it is still a fitting punishment for certain crimes. They may be unlikely and possibly distasteful, but surely there are some scenarios where you think it might be the last resort?
And (maybe a bit pernickety)where do you draw the line - i'm sure many prisoners think being confined in a small cell as tortuous, but that's routine pre-interrogation - and punishment procedure.
I don't think we should bring back the rack or condone other countries who routinely torture - but if i thought that this person in front of me knew the details of some attack, i'm not sure i could guarantee that i wouldn't be tempted to try and scare it out of them. It doesn't please me to think it - but honestly? i might....

"it's apparently okay when we are at war, some countries think it is still a fitting punishment for certain crimes. They may be unlikely and possibly distasteful, but surely there are some scenarios where you think it might be the last resort?"

Sigh.... No. Unequivically, unreservedly... No.

Again we get back to is it "okay" under some circumstances and not in others.... Who has the "right" to torture.... The usual response by people such as yourself is something like "Well it is okay because we are the "good guy". It is wrong if "the bad guy" does it. Who, exactly is "the good guy"? Pinochet saw himself as "the good guy" and used torture to get the information he wanted in order to weed out communists and thos who would overthrow him. The problem was that the the people he tortured gave him whatever he wanted to hear, not necessarily the truth. Thousands.... THOUSANDS died as a result of someone wanting the "truth".... most of them a result not of the a truth told under torture but of what someone wanted to hear, as a result of torture.

"I don't think we should bring back the rack or condone other countries who routinely torture - but if i thought that this person in front of me knew the details of some attack, i'm not sure i could guarantee that i wouldn't be tempted to try and scare it out of them. It doesn't please me to think it - but honestly? i might.... "

"...condone other countries who routinely torture...."

So, what you are saying is.... it is alright if some torture as long as we deny the right to others.....

Sorry.... if we hold that torture is wrong it is wrong no matter who does it, no matter what it is for, no matter who is tortured, no matter how it is done, no matter who is tortued, no matter the importance of the information "needed", no matter what. It is a crime against humanity.... that's all there is to it.

Perhaps you ought to do a little research about torture and its use:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture#Aspects_of_torture
http://haw.yachana.org/resources/torture/
http://www.irct.org/usr/irct/home.nsf
http://www.amnestyusa.org/stoptorture/index.do
http://samvak.tripod.com/brief-torture01.html
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/

Excuses:
Torture may extract vital information
"In some circumstances, perhaps. However, in reality the ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario featured in thrillers is vanishingly rare; very few detainees have information which is valuable enough, and needed urgently enough, to justify using torture. In any case, under torture most people will rapidly say whatever the torturer wants to hear. Ironically, torture may appear to be most successful when it is most worthless."

It’s an emergency
"According to the UN Convention Against Torture, ‘no exceptional circumstances whatsoever’ justify torture. Alone in Europe, the British government has declared that a state of emergency exists, allowing it to detain terrorist suspects without trial (although not to torture them). The Egyptian government declared a state of emergency in 1981, against the threat of Islamist militancy; it is still in force, and torture is common." WARNING! GRAPHIC IMAGES OF TORTURE: http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/excuses.html

Louise Arbour* on the "commonplace" use of torture in the World:

"It is appalling that even now we are entering an era where we are even revisiting this [legal and moral] terrain," the former Canadian jurist said in an interview yesterday. "There are no circumstances where recourse to torture can ever be justified. End of debate." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051021/ARBOUR21/TPNational/Canada


* http://www.ohchr.org/english/about/hc/arbour.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arbour/

I *do* understand people being absolutely opposed to torture, but I'm not sure if it's practical to have an absolutist positon (torture is never acceptable) and simultaneously have a definition as broad as some [other?] people might like, covering practically any kind of physical or psychological actions designed to make someone hand over information when they'd rather not do so.

What is the definition of torture at the milder end of the spectrum?

It seems to me there is always going to be some kind of boundary, which must have a subjective element, and which may vary depending on circumstances.

I'd have thought that a genuine campaign against systematic torture and a refusal to supply people to torturing countries, whilst honestly acknowledging that sometimes dirty or potentially-dirty information might be accepted would be both productive and honest.

When it comes to facilitating someone's transport to a country where torture will be used, that seems to me to be morally the same thing as carrying out the actual torture. If someone *does* consider it justified in a particular case, it would be at least more honest if they did the job themselves.

In practical terms, a country could make a pronouncement that it would never use information it thought *might* have been obtained by torture, but I'd very much doubt that the pronouncement would really be followed in practice. Even stating that the country would avoid using information it *knew* had been obtained by torture could be a rather empty promise, since it'd be incredibly easy for an information source to be dishonest or vague, or launder information through another source, and if the information was thought likely to be valuable, it's highly unlikely for people to ask too many questions, and for security issues, few people will know what information has been provided, and by whom.

"I *do* understand people being absolutely opposed to torture, but I'm not sure if it's practical to have an absolutist positon (torture is never acceptable) and simultaneously have a definition as broad as some [other?] people might like, covering practically any kind of physical or psychological actions designed to make someone hand over information when they'd rather not do so.

What is the definition of torture at the milder end of the spectrum?"

I think killing is worse than torture but I understand why sometimes killing needs to be done or is inevitable. I can't say the same for torture.

Of recent examples I've heard of torture being used, such as against dissidents in China it's plainly being used for the purposes of punishment. The idea that torture is something needed to extract information is something that happens in films rather than real life. There are other, far more effective, ways of extracting information from someone unwilling to give you it including the use of so-called truth drugs or psychology. "Information" extracted under torture tends to be unreliable because the victim will simply say what the torturer wants to hear.

"What is the definition of torture at the milder end of the spectrum?"

I think things like sleep-deprivation are often used to "weaken" a suspect being questioned. I think, legally, this isn't regarded as torture but it could be argued that it is a "mild" form of torture.

I think sleep deprivation is considered as torture in certain circumstances.

Presumably, 'psychology' blends into 'psychological torture' at some point, and i'd guess the use of pharmaceuticals against someone's will could end up blending into abuse. I imagine there are more things than truth drugs that could be used.

It's kind of odd in that in principle, I reckon there are circumstances where torture of some kind might be justifiable in advance, but in practice, I imagine the likelihood of suitable circumstances to be very small. In fact, given the general misuse of torture, I do think it's best to consider it unacceptable in practice, but if rare circumstances actually arose, I couldn't be sure I might not make an exception.

Given there will be a little wooliness at the mild end, (as with all definitions), exactly *where* the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour might get drawn could depend on circumstances.

I think that torture is wrong, in all circumstances, but I think the "it doesn't work, anyway" argument is a dangerous one to use, if there are people out there who know from practical experience that it can work to extract important information.

To narrow down the circumstances, forget about any cases of extracting a confession--it's been fairly clear since the days of the witch-trials that people will confess to anything under torture. What I'm wondering about is the specific limited case where a subject of torture knows something important to the questioners. Everything I remember reading about the French Resistance during the 2nd World War is that it was believed by both sides that those tortured by the Gestapo would give up useful information, to the extent that resistance members would consider killing themselves rather than letting themselves be questioned. Do modern historians say that this was only a myth?

Azara

In a legal context, (as in, 'should evidence be admissible in court?') the "It doesn't work" argument is one worth considering *in addition to* moral arguments, since in the case of torture, any confessions would be unreliable, and I'd suspect that a fairly common opinion of the kids of people who practice torture these days would be that they may not be particularly trustworthy.

Don't think you can trust anything that is extracted under duress. If it was a burning prong in the eye or say what they wanted, then I'm a coward, I'd say anything they wanted ti hear, truth or lie.

I don't think that makes you a coward. Most people would.

Just to throw something else into the mix here, given that it seems to have been established that people will say whatever their torturers want to hear and that the information derived from torturing someone isn't reliable ... states which sanction torture on a regular basis know this full well.

>>Torture tends to be something dictators use to frighten people or extract false "confessions"<< (Zagreb)

Spot on: and among those being frightened (whether they're aware of it or not) are the people doing the frightening themselves. Torture, where its use is widespread in a particular state, isn't a method of obtaining *good* information or of securing convictions - it's a way of brutalising and ensuring the loyalty of those doing the torturing.

That is the way police states and repressive dictatorships work: the idea that 'anyone will do' when they're looking for a confession of guilt is an effective way of keeping the populace down, while the actual use of torture is an equally effective way of making sure your own police don't start asking questions or doubting what they're doing, because they've been sufficiently brutalised by the process to carry out torture (or anything else they're asked to do) without thinking about it too hard or questioning its correctness.

I mentioned this on another discussion about torture.

A former boyfriend admitted to me that he had, a few years after we dated in Canada, when he was a member of the British South Africa Police in the former Rhodesia, tortured people "suspected" of being terrorists or supporting terrorists. He said that he felt at the time that he was defending "Democracy" from Communists and powers that wanted to overthrow the government in Rhodesia and who wanted to spread their hatred of freedom (gee, does this sound familiar???) to neighbouring countries (in other words, South Africa). When I say torture, I mean the standard torture techniques used by the world's best practitioners of the art.... electrical current applied to various mody parts including genitals, beating with telephone books, beating the soles of the feet, drowning techniques..... the list was pretty comprehensive.

He didn't think beyond the fact that he was acting "for the good" and preventing further killing, etc. (sound familiar???).

Eventually, he was wounded in combat and was invalided out of the BSAP. He went back to South Africa and eventually became a journalist with a "major" South African newspaper. While he was there, he began working side-by-side with Black South Africans for the first time in his life. It was then that he had an awakening to the fact that everything he had grown up believing about Blacks and the struggle of Blacks against Apartheid and the reality of life for those whoi suffered under Apartheid. He then began to learn more about the actions in Rhodesia and came to the realization that most of the people he encountered had no ties to any terrorists whatsoever and most of what they extracted was probably neither of value or the truth.

His feelings of guilt over what he did caused him to go to the UN and offer to do anti-Apartheid broadcasts.

It was when he was in the US to meet with certain people interested in his services that he handed me his "resume" which was a fairly complete story of his life, including a graphic and detailed reporting of the torture he participated in. In this case, we aren't talking about someone simply present when this was going on.... we are talking about an officer directing and actively employing torture on civilians and supposed "enemy insurgents" (sound familiar?).

I can't say to what extent he was "damaged" by this. I know he told me that he was deeply, deeply affected by the epiphany about what he had participated in.

It was certainly a rude awakening for me. One expects people like this to be monsters.... for it to be apparent that they are evil.... In fact, the people who torture are, for the most part, people like you and I. It brought it home to me that anyone is capable of anything, whether they accept it or not.

The fact is, that allowing the employment torture "only in restricted circumstances", only by certain people, and only using "certain techniques" opens the door to abuse and to misuse.

The fact is, we already know that those in power can and do step over the bounds of already sanctioned methods of interrogation (I am speaking of police personnel) in criminal investigations. If people can overstep the bounds in simple police investigations, we cannot trust that, in the case of supposed national security or military investigations where secrecy is total and where those who investigate can do so with impunity, despite their assertions to the contrary, that they won't overstop the bounds and infringe on human rights.

my objections to the use of torture is on several levels.

Firstly, it is wrong. It shounld never be employed

Secondly, it one cannot trust that even if "appropriate" methods were permitted to be used (there is no such thing to my mind) that these rules would not be routinely ignored.

Thirdly, if we, as a society, abhor the use of torture when used by other people, we cannot, then turn around and say... "...but we can, if the need is great", etc. If it is wrong for others, it is wrong for us.

Fourthly, it is a slippery slope... deny a little right here and a little right there and it makes it so much easier to deny a larger right here and a larger right there until there are no rights....

"A former boyfriend admitted to me that he had, a few years after we dated in Canada, when he was a member of the British South Africa Police in the former Rhodesia, tortured people "suspected" of being terrorists or supporting terrorists. He said that he felt at the time that he was defending "Democracy" from Communists"

Hang on, how old is he? British authority in Rhodesia pretty much ended in the 1960s following Ian Smith's declaration of independence (we never recognised it until 1980 but Rhodesia was effectively independent after it's declaration) and Britain fell-out with Rhodesia over the issue of black majority rule (we wanted it, the Rhodesian whites didn't). At the time Rhodesia was nothing to do with South Africa which was an entirely different state and one that had cut it's government with Britain back in the 1940s. Certainly, "British" South African police would have been a thing of the past more than fifty years ago and certainly wouldn't have been operating in Rhodesia, which itself became a thing of the past in 1979.

Being amoral, on the purely practical issue of whether it might work, I'd assume it depends to some extent on how it is done.
If someone is being asked to admit something, torture seems likely to be worthless.
If someone isn't asked leading questions and doesn't think that making things up will make things any better for them, they might tell something useful, if they know it.

In a paranoid state, where an accusation made under torture is likely to be considered as reliable (unless it concerns someone regarded as beyond suspicion), and is likely to be considered as proven by a confession obtained from the newly accused person, there may be little limit to the escalation possibilities even where no-one is actually guilty (like medieval witch-trials, or purges in Stalinist Russia.

Regarding pure information-gathering, though I think that in some cases it could be considered as justifiable in retrospect, I'm not sure how a state could calmly justify significant torture in advance.

As an analogy - if a trigger-happy policeman fired at someone in a crowd on the basis of a vague suspicion, and they turned out to be a suicide bomber about to detonate their bomb, one might say afterwards that they had done something that turned out well, and it would be difficult to blame them.
However, it wouldn't be possible to suggest that shooting into a crowd on the basis of vague suspicion was anything other than an act to be discouraged.

Possibly the lack of accountability of torturers is an element in the moral distaste.
As a though-experiment, if it could be the case that torturers were freelance agents whose actions were guaranteed to become known to a higher authority who seriously disaproved of torture, who could analyse the information they produced, and who would punish them severely if they ever tortured a person innocent of horrific deeds, it might be a slightly different issue.

In the case where someone comes and says "I've kidnapped your loved one, hidden them where they can't be found, and they won't last long", I think many people, *even if given some time for reflection*, might be willing to attempt torture to find out the information in the full knowledge that they may end up being punished afterwards, especially if they somehow picked the wrong person (such as some attention-seeking disturbed individual).
Even in the case where such a person succeded in their goal, I think many people would be disturbed if they thought the individual concerned had lowered their threshold for future behaviour, in the same way they'd be disturbed by a soldier becoming less reluctant to kill people.