The case against torture

The American government approved the use of several „coercive management techniques” on terrorism suspects captured abroad. I will not scholastically discuss if these methods are equivalent to torture or less than that (the American government states they are not). I will start by assuming that these methods are indeed torture methods, as I believe should be acknowledged by any informed and honest individual.

What I want is to analyze the case for the use of torture by US government on foreign terrorism suspects.

There are some strong arguments supporting the use of torture:

• Terrorists are motivated individuals, many of them accustomed to high levels of violence. They are likely to remain silent under non-violent methods of interrogation.
• Terrorism suspects could hold important information on future attacks. Getting hold on this information will help prevent these attacks.
• Terrorism suspects could hold information on leaders and means (finances, weapons, political connections etc). Again, getting hold on this information will help prevent attacks on a larger scale, or even dismantle terrorist networks altogether.
• The open use of torture will show the determination of government in fighting terrorists. The men and women attracted to terrorism will think twice before entering a terrorist cell.

The attack prevention argument becomes especially strong if we take into account the possibility of terrorists using WMD, or perpetrating other large scale, 9/11-type attacks.

To understand the magnitude of 9/11 attacks, we have to compare them with other threats to American society. Since I cannot found data on organized crime at national level, I chose to use as a convenient benchmark the gang-related murders (using the available Bureau of Justice Statistics). There were 955 gang-related murders in the US in 2005 (1071 in 2001). If we adjust these values by proportionally distributing the unknown murders between the main categories, we came to the figure of 1533 gang-related murders in the US in 2005 (1712 in 2001).

We may now compare the approximately 1700/year gang-related murders to the total of 2974 victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

We may conclude that terrorist attacks have the capacity of producing far more damage than gangs. In this respect, the breaching of a fundamental principle of Western civilization (by using torture on terrorism foreign suspects) seems justified by the magnitude of the danger US has to deal with.

On the other side, there are some strong arguments against the use of torture:

• By using torture, the US government betrays the very way of life it is trying to preserve, the result of thousands of years of civilization. The use of torture on foreign nationals weakens common social standards and may open the way for using torture on American citizens.
• The individuals subjected to torture were not found guilty in a court of law; some of them could be genuinely innocent.
• By allowing the use of torture, the government weakens the international conventions on prisoners of war and so puts the American soldiers at risk in future conflicts.
• The lowering of standards encourages abusive governments to freely use torture on their citizens.
• The leverage provided for the American government by human rights treaties will diminish. America’s power relies heavily on its image as a beacon of democracy. If this image is tainted, America’s enemies’ positions will become stronger.
• The information obtained under torture is unreliable. The tortured individuals are motivated to provide any kind of information in order to escape their ordeal.
• The use of torture diminishes the chances of prosecuting the terrorism suspects by making their declarations inadmissible in a court of law.

As is the case with all political decisions, I believe it is impossible to provide a definitive answer to our question on the basis of principles alone. Before we may arrive to a conclusion, we have to answer some factual questions:

• What was the magnitude of attacks prevented (if any) by the use of torture in 2001-2008 (how many people were at risk of dying in these prevented attacks)? How is it compared to the magnitude of attacks prevented without the use of torture in the same period? American and European police forces were able to uncover some terrorist plots without using torture techniques.
• What was the percentage of innocent individuals subjected to torture and how this is translating in absolute numbers, relative to the people put at risk by the attacks?

While admitting the lack of sufficient information for reaching a definitive conclusion, I have to say that I am against the use of torture. European police forces (and American ones as well) succeeded in preventing significant terrorist attacks, without the use of torture. Conversely, the use of torture did not determine the capture of the Al-Qaeda leaders: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. I think we may conclude that traditional (and civilized) methods are still efficient means for dealing with terrorist threats, while “special methods” are not a guarantee of success.

Two world wars and the threat of Communism did not determine America to use torture. US should have the courage to preserve their moral standing and deny further use of torture on every human being.

Explore posts in the same categories: Politics

Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Guantanamo, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, Terrorism, Torture, War on Terror

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.