Torture: The Strategy of Fools and Sadists

I am struggling not to choke on the decision of Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Feinstein (D-CA) to support the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. The resistance to Mukasey as a replacement for Gonzales has focused on his unwillingness to denounce waterboarding as torture and illegal.

"Extreme interrogation" is a euphemism for torture. There is no debate possible that waterboarding is not torture. It has been torture since the Spanish Inquisition, and nothing has changed to modify its status. It is approved by the Bush administration as an acceptable technique. Reportedly, it has only been used three times. However, I find that doubtful as we don't even know the number of people that have been "disappeared" in Bush's "war on terrorism."

Torture is anathema to humanity. What is worse, is that torture does not work. Sure, those being tortured will eventually tell you whatever you want to know. Even the CIA tells its trainees that "everyone breaks" at some point. The issue isn't that people won't tell "interrogators" things. The issue is that they will tell them anything to get the torture to stop. That is why the credibility of information gotten via torture is questionable.

I believe that I speak from some point of personal experience of this. Probably many of us do. I was physically abused as a child. If being beaten and having your fingers broken until you "confess" counts as torture, then I have been tortured many times. I certainly told my foster mother whatever she wanted to hear. I confessed to things I never did to get the beatings to stop.

Torture has been popularized as an "effective" technique by programs such as "24" where Jack Bauer seems to be an "expert" interrogator willing to use torture at the drop of a hat to get critical and timely information. The message is clearly that not only is torture effective in getting the "truth," but that it is also very quick. It is not on both counts.

The continued obstinance of the Bush administration and its appointees on the issue of torture is both foolish and sadistic, and those who support torture are fools at the very least. While those being tortured will break and "spill their guts," they will say whatever they think the torturer wants to hear. This was true in the Spanish Inquisition where people admitted to outrageous things of which they had no knowledge, and gave lists of names of others who were "in league with the devil." It is true now when people give names of terrorists, and weave imaginary plots to satisfy their torturers. The belief in the effectiveness of torture is therefore foolish.

However, these are not stupid people. They know the intelligence pitfalls of torture. Why then do they continue to try to paint a picture of it as a "not so awful" way to get valuable information?

Well, it generates fear and fear makes people more controllable (up to a point) and certainly easier to manipulate. It is pitched to the public as a "tough guy's" approach to intelligence, but most of the public are increasingly questioning torture as a policy. It is pitched as "not that bad" a thing to go through, though there are enough people who have been tortured or abused as children to see through that lie.

Torture is also sadistic. It requires a depersonalization and disassociation that is virtually psychotic. Torture is personal - particularly for the torturer. One is directly and deliberately causing avoidable harm on another. Those who so enthusiastically support torture (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Gonzales to name a few), get at least vicarious "gain" from it. In my opinion, that gain is sadistic. They are powerful - even at a distance - from the destruction they support.

Now we have a candidate for Attorney General who refuses to state that waterboarding is torture, and refuses to state that he believes it to be illegal. Why would he stand by such a position? Well, regardless of his personal feelings (or legal opinions) on the matter, he is a Bush appointee. If he admits that waterboarding is torture and torture is illegal, then he is also committing himself to investigating and prosecuting the very people who are appointing him. The fact that he seems willing to sacrifice integrity, humanity, and the rule of law to attain a position of power would be enough for me (personally) to disqualify him from being the "top cop" of the United States.

In this calculus of whether to vote for or against the Mukasey, I imagine that Schumer and Feinstein, feel that his refusal to take a stand against torture is "political." Perhaps they feel that Mukasey is otherwise a good candidate. I just can't go there, and I think it speaks volumes about Schumer and Feinstein that they are going there. It says that they, along with Mukasey, are willing to do what will be personally advantageous to them - even at the expense of their responsibility to the Constitution and the people of the United States.

I truly don't care how qualified Mukasey might be beyond the issue of torture. His willingness to support it for his own gain shows him totally unqualified to hold the position of Attorney General, or any other governmental position.

I am sure that my foster mother thought that torture was good for me, and that she was holding me accountable for my actions - or that was surely her rationalization for her actions. However, as the tortured, I saw her eyes and the expression on her face; heard her breathing; saw her pulse beating in her neck. It was clear to me then, as it is clear to me today, that she enjoyed what she was doing. She enjoyed the power; enjoyed the sound of fingers break; enjoyed my screams for her to stop and my ultimate admissions of "guilt." Her actions were not for "my own good," or even a larger good of "truth." Neither are the actions of those who torture, or those who tell others to do so.

Posted by rowan at November 3, 2007 8:27 AM | [eMail this article!] |