Torturing Prisons
Torturing Prisoners in the War on Terror Is Never Justified
"Torturing Prisoners in the War on Terror Is Never Justified."At Issue: How Should the United States Treat Prisoners in the War on Terror?. Lauri S. Friedman. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale.
Kenneth Roth, "Time to 'Stop Stress and Duress,'" Washington Post, May 13, 2004, p. A29. Copyright © 2004 by the Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group. Reproduced by permission of the author.
Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending human rights around the world.
Torture should never be used to extract information from terrorist suspects. The United …show more content…
States is bound to international treaties and conventions that explicitly prohibit any form of torture. Moreover, suspects who are tortured do not tend to yield accurate or reliable information, as they are likely to say anything simply to make the interrogation end. In addition, because attempts to regulate torture tacitly encourage its use, they only contribute to more mistreatment. Ultimately, the use of torture is morally wrong.
The sexual humiliation of [Iraqi] prisoners [by U.S. soldiers] at Abu Ghraib prison [in Iraq] is so shocking that it risks overshadowing other U.S. interrogation practices that are also reprehensible. And unlike the sexual abuse, these other practices have been sanctioned by the highest levels of government and are probably more widespread.
The Abu Ghraib outrages are not simply the product of a small group of sick and misguided soldiers. They are the predictable result of the Bush administration's policy of permitting "stress and duress" interrogation techniques. The sexual abuse of prisoners, despicable as it is, is a logical consequence of a system put in place after [the terrorist attacks of] Sept. 11, 2001, to ratchet up the pain, discomfort and humiliation of prisoners under interrogation.
"None of These Techniques Is Legal"
The Defense Department has adopted a 72-point "matrix" of types of stress to which detainees can be subjected. These include stripping detainees naked, depriving them of sleep, subjecting them to bright lights or blaring noise, hooding them, exposing them to heat and cold, and binding them in uncomfortable positions. The more stressful techniques must be approved by senior commanders, but all are permitted. And nearly all are being used, according to testimony taken by [the human rights organization] Human Rights Watch from post- Sept. 11 detainees released from U.S. custody.
None of these techniques is legal. Treaties ratified by the United States, including the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, prohibit not only torture but also "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." In ratifying the Convention Against Torture, the U.S. government interpreted this provision to prohibit the same practices as those proscribed by the U.S. Constitution. The Bush administration reiterated that understanding [in] June [2003].
In other words, just as U.S. courts repeatedly have found it unconstitutional for interrogators in American police stations to use these third-degree methods, it is illegal under international law for U.S. interrogators in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay [Cuba, where terror suspects are held] or elsewhere to employ them. U.S. military manuals ban these "stress and duress" techniques, and federal law condemns them as war crimes. Yet the Bush administration has authorized them.
Torture Is Always Wrong
But doesn't the extraordinary threat of terrorism demand this extraordinary response? No. The prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment is absolute and unconditional, in peace or in war. This dehumanizing practice is always wrong.
Moreover, resorting to abusive interrogation is counterproductive. People under torture will say anything, true or not. And whatever marginal advantage interrogators might gain by applying these techniques is vastly outweighed by the global disgust at American use of them. Coupled with anger at other lawless practices, such as the Bush administration's refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to the Guantanamo detainees,1 that revulsion has contributed to America's plummeting esteem. Allies are less willing to cooperate in combating terrorism, and terrorist recruiters must be having a field day.
But can't torture at least be used on someone who might know of an imminent terrorist act? Not without opening the door to pervasive torture. The problem with this "ticking bomb" scenario is that it is infinitely elastic. Why stop with the terrorist suspect himself? Why not torture his neighbor or friend who might know something about an attack? And why stop with an imminent attack? Aren't the potential victims of possible future attacks just as worthy of protection by torture? The slope is very slippery.
Regulating Torture Only Encourages It
It has been argued that because some interrogators will inevitably resort to coercion, torture should be regulated. But by signaling that torture and mistreatment are sometimes justified, regulation ends up encouraging more Abu Ghraibs.
Government officials are also notoriously poor at regulating coercive interrogation techniques. For example, Israel's effort to regulate the application of "moderate physical pressure" led to deaths in custody and ultimately a decision by Israel's Supreme Court to outlaw it. Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly reported abusive techniques on the part of U.S. interrogators, but the Bush administration did nothing to address them until the photographs of Abu Ghraib became public. Indeed, to this day, no one has been prosecuted for two deaths of detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan; medical examiners declared those deaths "homicides" a year and a half ago.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller announced last week [May 2004] that certain stress interrogation techniques will no longer be used in Iraq. That's a useful first step. President Bush should now ban all forms of "stress and duress" interrogation, in Iraq and elsewhere. Various noncoercive methods, from inducements to trickery, can still be used, as able interrogators have done for decades. And no one contends that detention centers should be country clubs. But the deliberate ratcheting up of pain, suffering and humiliation as an interrogation technique must be stopped. It is wrong itself, and it leads to further atrocities.
Footnotes
1. The author refers to the controversy over status of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush administration argues that the detainees should be designated as "enemy combatants" because they fought for no particular country; this exempts them from the rights of prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Convention.
FURTHER READINGS
Books • Amnesty International. United States of America—the Threat of a Bad Example: Undermining International Standards as "War on Terror" Detentions Continue. London: International Secretariat, 2003. • Reed Brody. The Road to Abu Ghraib. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004. • Cynthia Brown.
Lost Liberties: Ashcroft and the Assault on Personal Freedom. New York: New Press, 2003. • Richard A. Clarke. Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004. • John Conroy. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. • Mark Danner. Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror. New York: New York Review Books, 2004. • Alan M. Dershowitz. America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation—from the Salem Witches to the Guantanamo Detainees. New York: Warner Books, 2004. • Seymour M. Hersh. Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. • Michael Ignatieff. The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. • Chalmers Johnson. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project]. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004. • Charles W. Kegley Jr. The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controls. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002. • Bernard Lewis. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press,
2003. • Gus Martin. Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003. • Michael Ratner. America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror." New York: Seven Stories, 2004. • Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray. Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004. • David Rose. Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights. New York: New Press, 2004. • Pamela M. Von Ness. Guantanamo Bay Detainees: National Security or Civil Liberty? Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2003.
Periodicals • Gordon Bishop. "America Owes No Apologies for Fighting Terrorists," EtherZone.com, May 19, 2004. • Mark Bowden. "The Dark Art of Interrogation," Atlantic Monthly, October 2003. • Lincoln Caplan. "War's Conventions," Legal Affairs, July/August 2004. • Tom Englehardt. "Welcome to Guantanamo World," Alternet.org, April 5, 2004. • Thomas Fleming. "Loyal Opposition," Chronicles, August 2003. • Ilana Freedman. "Another Look at Abu Ghraib," Metro West Daily News, June 18, 2004. • Nancy Gibbs. "Their Humiliation, and Ours," Time, May 17, 2004. • Jonah Goldberg. "The World According to Me: Why Torture Is Sometimes Good, and Democracy Is Bad," National Review, October 12, 2001. • Scott Higham, Joe Stephens, and Margot Williams. "Guantanamo—a Holding Cell in War on Terror," Washington Post, May 2, 2004. • Henry Mark Holzer. "In Defense of Torture," FrontPageMagazine.com, November 29, 2002. • Nicholas M. Horrock and Anwar Iqbal. "Waiting for Gitmo," Mother Jones, January/February 2004. • Tom Malinowski. "The Logic of Torture," Washington Post, June 27, 2004. • Elisa Massimino. "Alien Justice: What's Wrong with Military Trials of Terrorist Suspects?" Human Rights, Winter 2002. • George Monbiot. "One Rule for Them ...," Alternet.org, March 26, 2003. • Kate O'Beirne. "It's a War, Stupid: Understanding and Misunderstanding the Detainees," National Review, September 16, 2002. • Alasdair Palmer. "The U.S. May Use Torture Against Terrorism," Daily Telegraph, December 15, 2002. • Eyal Press. "In Torture We Trust?" Nation, March 31, 2003. • Jeremy Rabkin. "After Guantanamo: The War over the Geneva Convention," National Interest, Summer 2002. • Chitra Ragavan and Carol Hook. "Law in a New Sort of War," U.S. News & World Report, April 26, 2004. • Amanda Ripley. "The Rules of Interrogation: It's a Murky Business, but Some Methods Work Better than Others," Time, May 17, 2004. • Bruce Shapiro. "POWs in Legal Limbo," Nation, February 25, 2002. • Harvey A. Silverglate. "Torture Warrants?" Boston Phoenix, December 6, 2001. • Alisa Solomon. "The Case Against Torture," Village Voice, December 4, 2001. • David Tell. "Civil Hysteria," Weekly Standard, July 29, 2002. • Jonathan Turley. "Appetite for Authoritarianism Spawns an American Gulag," Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2003.
"Torturing Prisoners in the War on Terror Is Never Justified."At Issue: How Should the United States Treat Prisoners in the War on Terror?. Lauri S. Friedman. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale.
Kenneth Roth, "Time to 'Stop Stress and Duress,'" Washington Post, May 13, 2004, p. A29. Copyright © 2004 by the Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group. Reproduced by permission of the author.
Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending human rights around the world.
Torture should never be used to extract information from terrorist suspects. The United …show more content…
States is bound to international treaties and conventions that explicitly prohibit any form of torture. Moreover, suspects who are tortured do not tend to yield accurate or reliable information, as they are likely to say anything simply to make the interrogation end. In addition, because attempts to regulate torture tacitly encourage its use, they only contribute to more mistreatment. Ultimately, the use of torture is morally wrong.
The sexual humiliation of [Iraqi] prisoners [by U.S. soldiers] at Abu Ghraib prison [in Iraq] is so shocking that it risks overshadowing other U.S. interrogation practices that are also reprehensible. And unlike the sexual abuse, these other practices have been sanctioned by the highest levels of government and are probably more widespread.
The Abu Ghraib outrages are not simply the product of a small group of sick and misguided soldiers. They are the predictable result of the Bush administration's policy of permitting "stress and duress" interrogation techniques. The sexual abuse of prisoners, despicable as it is, is a logical consequence of a system put in place after [the terrorist attacks of] Sept. 11, 2001, to ratchet up the pain, discomfort and humiliation of prisoners under interrogation.
"None of These Techniques Is Legal"
The Defense Department has adopted a 72-point "matrix" of types of stress to which detainees can be subjected. These include stripping detainees naked, depriving them of sleep, subjecting them to bright lights or blaring noise, hooding them, exposing them to heat and cold, and binding them in uncomfortable positions. The more stressful techniques must be approved by senior commanders, but all are permitted. And nearly all are being used, according to testimony taken by [the human rights organization] Human Rights Watch from post- Sept. 11 detainees released from U.S. custody.
None of these techniques is legal. Treaties ratified by the United States, including the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, prohibit not only torture but also "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." In ratifying the Convention Against Torture, the U.S. government interpreted this provision to prohibit the same practices as those proscribed by the U.S. Constitution. The Bush administration reiterated that understanding [in] June [2003].
In other words, just as U.S. courts repeatedly have found it unconstitutional for interrogators in American police stations to use these third-degree methods, it is illegal under international law for U.S. interrogators in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay [Cuba, where terror suspects are held] or elsewhere to employ them. U.S. military manuals ban these "stress and duress" techniques, and federal law condemns them as war crimes. Yet the Bush administration has authorized them.
Torture Is Always Wrong
But doesn't the extraordinary threat of terrorism demand this extraordinary response? No. The prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment is absolute and unconditional, in peace or in war. This dehumanizing practice is always wrong.
Moreover, resorting to abusive interrogation is counterproductive. People under torture will say anything, true or not. And whatever marginal advantage interrogators might gain by applying these techniques is vastly outweighed by the global disgust at American use of them. Coupled with anger at other lawless practices, such as the Bush administration's refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to the Guantanamo detainees,1 that revulsion has contributed to America's plummeting esteem. Allies are less willing to cooperate in combating terrorism, and terrorist recruiters must be having a field day.
But can't torture at least be used on someone who might know of an imminent terrorist act? Not without opening the door to pervasive torture. The problem with this "ticking bomb" scenario is that it is infinitely elastic. Why stop with the terrorist suspect himself? Why not torture his neighbor or friend who might know something about an attack? And why stop with an imminent attack? Aren't the potential victims of possible future attacks just as worthy of protection by torture? The slope is very slippery.
Regulating Torture Only Encourages It
It has been argued that because some interrogators will inevitably resort to coercion, torture should be regulated. But by signaling that torture and mistreatment are sometimes justified, regulation ends up encouraging more Abu Ghraibs.
Government officials are also notoriously poor at regulating coercive interrogation techniques. For example, Israel's effort to regulate the application of "moderate physical pressure" led to deaths in custody and ultimately a decision by Israel's Supreme Court to outlaw it. Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly reported abusive techniques on the part of U.S. interrogators, but the Bush administration did nothing to address them until the photographs of Abu Ghraib became public. Indeed, to this day, no one has been prosecuted for two deaths of detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan; medical examiners declared those deaths "homicides" a year and a half ago.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller announced last week [May 2004] that certain stress interrogation techniques will no longer be used in Iraq. That's a useful first step. President Bush should now ban all forms of "stress and duress" interrogation, in Iraq and elsewhere. Various noncoercive methods, from inducements to trickery, can still be used, as able interrogators have done for decades. And no one contends that detention centers should be country clubs. But the deliberate ratcheting up of pain, suffering and humiliation as an interrogation technique must be stopped. It is wrong itself, and it leads to further atrocities.
Footnotes
1. The author refers to the controversy over status of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush administration argues that the detainees should be designated as "enemy combatants" because they fought for no particular country; this exempts them from the rights of prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Convention.
FURTHER READINGS
Books • Amnesty International. United States of America—the Threat of a Bad Example: Undermining International Standards as "War on Terror" Detentions Continue. London: International Secretariat, 2003. • Reed Brody. The Road to Abu Ghraib. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004. • Cynthia Brown.
Lost Liberties: Ashcroft and the Assault on Personal Freedom. New York: New Press, 2003. • Richard A. Clarke. Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004. • John Conroy. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. • Mark Danner. Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror. New York: New York Review Books, 2004. • Alan M. Dershowitz. America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation—from the Salem Witches to the Guantanamo Detainees. New York: Warner Books, 2004. • Seymour M. Hersh. Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. • Michael Ignatieff. The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. • Chalmers Johnson. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project]. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004. • Charles W. Kegley Jr. The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controls. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002. • Bernard Lewis. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press,
2003. • Gus Martin. Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003. • Michael Ratner. America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror." New York: Seven Stories, 2004. • Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray. Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004. • David Rose. Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights. New York: New Press, 2004. • Pamela M. Von Ness. Guantanamo Bay Detainees: National Security or Civil Liberty? Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2003.
Periodicals • Gordon Bishop. "America Owes No Apologies for Fighting Terrorists," EtherZone.com, May 19, 2004. • Mark Bowden. "The Dark Art of Interrogation," Atlantic Monthly, October 2003. • Lincoln Caplan. "War's Conventions," Legal Affairs, July/August 2004. • Tom Englehardt. "Welcome to Guantanamo World," Alternet.org, April 5, 2004. • Thomas Fleming. "Loyal Opposition," Chronicles, August 2003. • Ilana Freedman. "Another Look at Abu Ghraib," Metro West Daily News, June 18, 2004. • Nancy Gibbs. "Their Humiliation, and Ours," Time, May 17, 2004. • Jonah Goldberg. "The World According to Me: Why Torture Is Sometimes Good, and Democracy Is Bad," National Review, October 12, 2001. • Scott Higham, Joe Stephens, and Margot Williams. "Guantanamo—a Holding Cell in War on Terror," Washington Post, May 2, 2004. • Henry Mark Holzer. "In Defense of Torture," FrontPageMagazine.com, November 29, 2002. • Nicholas M. Horrock and Anwar Iqbal. "Waiting for Gitmo," Mother Jones, January/February 2004. • Tom Malinowski. "The Logic of Torture," Washington Post, June 27, 2004. • Elisa Massimino. "Alien Justice: What's Wrong with Military Trials of Terrorist Suspects?" Human Rights, Winter 2002. • George Monbiot. "One Rule for Them ...," Alternet.org, March 26, 2003. • Kate O'Beirne. "It's a War, Stupid: Understanding and Misunderstanding the Detainees," National Review, September 16, 2002. • Alasdair Palmer. "The U.S. May Use Torture Against Terrorism," Daily Telegraph, December 15, 2002. • Eyal Press. "In Torture We Trust?" Nation, March 31, 2003. • Jeremy Rabkin. "After Guantanamo: The War over the Geneva Convention," National Interest, Summer 2002. • Chitra Ragavan and Carol Hook. "Law in a New Sort of War," U.S. News & World Report, April 26, 2004. • Amanda Ripley. "The Rules of Interrogation: It's a Murky Business, but Some Methods Work Better than Others," Time, May 17, 2004. • Bruce Shapiro. "POWs in Legal Limbo," Nation, February 25, 2002. • Harvey A. Silverglate. "Torture Warrants?" Boston Phoenix, December 6, 2001. • Alisa Solomon. "The Case Against Torture," Village Voice, December 4, 2001. • David Tell. "Civil Hysteria," Weekly Standard, July 29, 2002. • Jonathan Turley. "Appetite for Authoritarianism Spawns an American Gulag," Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2003.