Torture
Torture. The word alone has an immediate negative connotation. If you haven’t been living in a cave for the past month or two, chances are you have heard of the drama unfolding around the Bush administration’s policies on torture. In case you aren’t aware of all this, it is now a fact that the CIA used such torture techniques as waterboarding and various other methods in an effort to extract information from captured militant. The CIA then proceeded to destroy evidence of this practice and try desperately to save face. To many, the issue of torture is simple. NEVER. Many Americans would say that we are too civilized a nation to condone such a barbaric act as that of torture. While I would agree that torture is barbaric and that we should not make it a practice, I believe that he issue is much more complex.
I tend to think that there is a time and a place for torture. Why do I believe this? Because in my mind, the pain and suffering of one person, and one with evil intentions at that, is insignificant in comparison to the pain and suffering of many. I believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Now, before all of you out there condemn me and call me pro-torture (because we have to give a label to everyone in the American political realm), keep in mind that the only time I believe that torture should ever be employed is if it can save countless lives. For instance, if a terrorist possesses information of an imminent attack on a major city. All of you out there saying that torture should never be used, let’s pretend that the target city is YOUR city. Suddenly, torture doesn’t sound like a bad idea right? As long as it’s your life that is being saved, it’s alright.
Don’t think that I don’t see the perils of authorized torture. If you apply it to one situation, it is bound to become applied to another. And another. And another. It will become more liberally applied to scenarios as time wears on, and that is scary. Just as we can see the deterioration of rights under the Patriot Act, we can also see the deterioration of the most sacred human rights under a system that allows torture, even in select scenarios. I also see the chance for mistakes. Innocent men being tortured for information they do not even possess. The only counterpoint to the fear created by these potential pitfalls is the notion that the rights of many are tantamount to the rights of one.
When most of us think of torture, we think of iron maidens, the removal of finger and toe nails, or the stretching of limbs. What we don’t realize is that these are all medieval torture techniques aimed at causing massive amounts of pain. What is used now is a combination of light physical duress and heavily mental “torture”. I found this list of approvd CIA torture techniques at ABCNews.com:
1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
As you can see, they aren’t ripping out limbs or bringing these people near depth. The worst of the techniques above appears to be the cold cell, in which a stubborn prisoner probably could lapse into hypothermia. The waterboarding technique that is so widely talked about in the news, seems like it creates no danger or torture to the prisoner at all. It makes them feel as if they are suffocating or about to die, but this a purely mental feeling experience of fear. They think they are drowning, but they are in no danger. Honestly, I don’t even know if that fits my definition of torture. Scaring a terrorist like this seems no more threatening then pointing a gun at them and telling them you are going to kill them.
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Can’t mental/psychological torture be as cruel as physical torture? Take rape victims or people with PTSD. Physical pain can heal quickly. Usually there’s a known cure for physical ailments. Humiliation, trauma, continuous associations of everyday items and actions with a long-gone event; these can have much longer-lasting effects. I think the mind is much more difficult to fix.
Have we ever prevented an imminent attack (or attacks) through information extracted by torture? I genuinely don’t know, and would like to find out.
I actually asked myself the same question while I was writing this. Honestly, I don’t agree with the way torture is used by the Bush administration. I think that it is not worth violating human rights in order to bring a few terrorists to justice. As far as the cruelty of mental torture, I’m not sure I agree. I think that sleep deprivation wouldn’t have a lasting effect on me. Neither would fear of death. Both would probably crack me though.
Torture is always wrong. It dehumanizes both the recipient and deliverer of this treatment as well as the society that sponsors or condones it. Torture is always wrong.
Water boarding is actual drowning. There’s nothing imaginary or simulated about it. You can’t breathe and water gets into your lungs. Inhalation of air is stopped by a wet cloth and you inhale the water instead. The stress positions and cold rooms, sleep deprivation, etc. also cause deaths and heart failures. The hundreds of death certificates in US torture camps available at ACLU are testament to the deadly nature of US torture technologies and methods. Invariably heart failure and pulmonaries, blood clots are the stated reasons for death. Trying to whitewash US treatments as not torture and describing them in lacking and diminutive ways is fascist cruelty taken to it’s extreme towards the victims.