Torture Debate: Can It Ever Be Justified?

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Can torture be justified?
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Beginning from the year 2002, it has become common knowledge that abuse of prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq has been taking place in American military prisons while the American government has also been sending prisoners to the countries that practice torture. The Bush administration for example supported a policy that had a very narrow definition of torture and this permitted abusive behavior on enemy combatants, suspected terrorists and others categorized under the war on terror. Greenberg states that “The debate over the United States’ Post-September 11^th endorsement of torture as a policy in aid of interrogation has been curious indeed.

Official U.S. government memoranda defined torture so narrowly, in contravention of U.S. law and treaties, and interrogators and jailers engaged in abusive acts undoubtedly consisting torture under U.S. and international law, yet the United States has neither admitted such policy existed, nor formally defended the mistreatment of detainees.” Various pictures of abuse have appeared on the print media and television and several government reports and documents have revealed an existing use of torturous methods. The U.S public however continues to have an indifferent response towards the debate, not because Americans care less about introduction of torture to their national identity or language, but because majority of them remain confused about how this issue can be addressed. For many Americans however, the use of torture stands as a threat to the American systems of values as well as national identity (Greenberg 1-8, 111).

Can torture be justified?

In the history of America, torture has always remained incompatible with the nation’s values as evident in the Bill of Rights which forbids all unusual and cruel forms of punishment but only permits corporal punishment through painless methods. The American government and its people condemn the nations that practice torture and have been granting asylum to those who are afraid and wish to run away from it. Anti-torture legislation has been enacted by congress and judicial opinions have described the process as totally inhuman. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration and American in general however abandoned their reluctance to the use of torture (Greenberg 35-38, 52). The Bush administration permitted the use of torture techniques such as sleep deprivation, forced nudity, waterboarding and forced standing against terrorist detainees. At Abu Ghraib however, CIA interrogators and U.S military personnel went overboard to implement torturous methods that caused sexual humiliation, lasting physical damage and even death.

But such use of torture does not guarantee that the information given by the victim is correct and he may only be revealing what the interrogators want to hear in order to escape pain. Head in his article ‘Is Torture Justified’ goes ahead to argue that “When the Bush administration used torture against Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they didn’t simply spill the beans; instead, they told interrogators what they thought the interrogators wanted to hear. And this drives at the heart of the argument against torture: Someone who is being tortured will happily say that grass is blue and the sky is green if he believes it’ll end the torture, which makes it an unreliable interrogation method to say the least.” The use of torture therefore remains a very unreliable method of interrogation and should not be legalized for various reasons namely; legalization would lead to large scale implementation of torture techniques as used in Abu Ghraib which are nevertheless inflicted on suspected detainees who may not be the real culprits. Furthermore, use of torture by the U.S against its prisoners will encourage other nations to use it with greater impunity. Evidence derived from torture through confessions cannot be reliably used in legal proceedings and false lead generated through torture can derail ongoing investigation (Head, ¶ 2, 8-9).

Torture is conducted under four illiberal motives namely punishment, torture, victor’s pleasure and extracting of confessions. Most liberals find it acceptable to use torture for intelligence-gathering purposes if captives are unwilling to talk. This is because unlike using torture for confession purposes which dwells on past events, intelligence gathering is quite forward-looking and information gathered is mainly geared towards forestalling future atrocities like terrorist attacks. By rejecting torture as a form of punishment, terror or method of extracting confessions and allowing it only for intelligence purposes, torture becomes a last resort for people who are deeply reluctant to use it. After all, torture could help to gather intelligence that could save lives. However, this raises a question as to whether torturers should be professionally trained so that they are familiar with the techniques and are able to overcome their personal instincts against causing pain to the captives (Fletcher 124-125; Greenberg 43-47).

Two key prisoners, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed have been subjected to the near-drowning technique of waterboarding for 266 times; 83 times against Zubaydah and 183 times against Mohammed. The use of such a torturous method of interrogation that the Obama administration has declared illegal so many times on the same person highlights the unreliability of such form of interrogation. According to information gathered by Shane “The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.” Though declared legal by the Bush administration, the use of torture repeatedly for so many times not only raises questions about the effectiveness of such methods but also the assertions that made by the administration officials that such methods were used following strict guidelines. Reports indicate that Zubaydah had revealed considerable amount of information before waterboarding and none after the waterboarding incidents. This is a clear indication that orders to repeatedly subject him to waterboarding were uncalled for (Shane ¶ 1-6, 15 &16).

Although the Bush administration allowed torture of suspected terrorists at CIA detention centers overseas or through rendition to friendly states, the same doctrine maintains that terrorists have no right to reciprocate. The same administration even gave room for government officials to inflict torture on detainees as a defensive method against terrorist attacks. But arguments for torture irrespective of how justifiable they may appear suffer from a similar defect in that terrorists are denied the right to live free of torture and yet those inflicting it are themselves unwilling to forego this same right.

If American soldiers for example were to be captured and tortured abroad, such an action would raise a lot of flare. Using torture against enemy detainees gives their countries a right to use torture as well. Although terrorists kill innocent civilians in their bid to seek political objectives, they do not contend that their families or the innocent civilians should be killed in reciprocation. According to Fletcher and Ohlin, “Reciprocity is so misunderstood in our current environment that it leads to a totally asymmetrical view of warfare.” Terrorists believe that infidels do not deserve to live but a similar act of desperation carried out against them would attract a lot of criticism from them and indeed would be an open display of the moral fallings of the U.S as a nation. Although the torturer and the terrorist cannot be entailed as equally guilty, both parties’ lack of reciprocity causes them to depart from normal conduct (Fletcher & Ohlin 170-171).

Although torture has been described as a deliberate infliction of pain and suffering, the abuses inflicted on detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Baghram is a pale reflection of pain compared to the suffering, maiming, death and collateral damage that was caused during the Iraq and Afghan wars. The crushing of people’s limbs and burning from the bombs used in these wars is far beyond what has been subsequently reported in the abuse of American prisoners. Yet, Americans and the world at large fail to regard the wartime suffering of innocent civilians with the same special abhorrence that they regard torture. Such an approach appears hypocritical and leaves one wondering why torture should be considered more evil than bombing and killing. But torture in the real sense is inhuman, tyrannical and reduces human dignity. The victim of torture is isolated, terrified and humiliated and whatever information he or she gives may be a result of external pressure. Besides, the aspects of mistaken identity whereby an innocent person may fall victim to torture, there is also a growing fear that tyrannical rulers may take advantage of this form of punishment and pleasurably degrade those that have unfortunately become subject to their will (Greenberg 38 – 40).

Conclusion

The appropriateness of torture is not only a political, professional or law oriented question but also one that touches on the aspect of morality and values. The use of torture today has several loopholes. Experts argue that information acquired through torturous methods is quite unreliable and therefore dismisses the use of torture as a competent method of achieving certainty. As methods of conquering the threat of international terrorism are implemented, care should also be taken that those implementing them are easily differentiated from the terrorists, and that the principles differentiating them are safeguarded not only verbally but also in action (Greenberg 8, 116).

Works Cited

Fletcher, P. George and Ohlin D. Jens. Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2008. 124, 170-171.

Greenberg, J. Karen. The Torture Debate in America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 1-8, 35-52 & 111-117.

Head, Tom. “Is Torture Justified?”. 2009. Web.

Shane, Scott. “Waterboarding used 266 Times on 2 Suspects”. The New York Times, 2009. Web.

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Torture Debate: Can It Ever Be Justified?

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