When
the news broke last week about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s release
of the report on CIA torture of terror suspect detainees, outrage ensued. Politicians
pounded their chests in indignation about how ‘this isn’t who we are as
Americans.’ The words “American people” were uttered numerous times. CNN’s Wolf
Blitzer asked pointed questions of the CIA’s then-counsel, John Rizzo, about
the approval process for enhanced interrogation techniques like water-boarding.
The New York Times reported that the
report’s release put potential presidential candidates “in quiet mode”. Others fretted about what this meant for
American interests and citizens abroad, and whether there would be retaliation
and imprisonment for those involved.
Watching
CNN on the morning of the report’s release, I knew it would be a matter of time
– a day or so – and then the reporting pendulum would swing the other way.
Defenders of foreign policy, including CIA interrogation tactics and black
sites, under then-President George Bush would surface. And sure enough, like
clockwork, out came former Vice President Dick Cheney. The report was “full of
crap”, Cheney told Fox News. He called
it “deeply flawed” and “a terrible piece of work” demonstrating how politicians
– democrats – will get together to “throw the professionals under the bus.”
You
gotta love Dick Cheney. And by “love” I mean marvel at the spectacularly
unapologetic, non-introspective, non-self-doubting force of nature that is the
former Vice President.
If
you watched the Showtime documentary “The World According to Dick Cheney”, then
none of this surprises you. When asked by “The World” filmmakers what he
considered his main faults, Cheney paused for some seconds and then answered, “I
don’t spend much time thinking about my faults.” Indeed, he is a man who would condone
techniques from the CIA’s KUBARK manual and never lose a night’s sleep over it,
if there were a chance that these practices could extract information useful to
protecting the country.
Since
the 9/11 attacks, issues like terrorism, torture and emergency preparedness
have become more common in criminal justice curricula. When I teach Issues in
Criminal Justice, I cover torture in a chapter by Andrew Moher and Elisa
Massimino (“Does the United States have a right to torture suspected
terrorists?”) that discusses the pros and cons of torturing. On the pro side, proponents argue that it’s a necessary evil (injuring and terrorizing individuals
who play a role in killing Americans) that may prevent a greater evil (mass
deaths of Americans). Former CIA investigator Jose Rodriguez notes that the
techniques are designed to make the suspect uncomfortable, and that this is
fair given their intentions and the need to keep the country safe from groups
like Isis and Al-Qaeda. On the con side, torture is immoral and simply breeds
more terrorists plotting against the U.S. Plus, it has been noted, people lie
to make the pain stop. The utility of information obtained through the torture
of suspects is currently a subject of debate.
If
you saw “Zero Dark Thirty”, or even just the beginning of the movie, you have a
sense of the nastiness of these techniques. Being stripped naked and chained
up. Having loud music blasting constantly and bright lights shining at you so
you can’t sleep. Given minimal food and drink. Being locked in a box in which you
can neither sit, stand, or stretch out. The box was the one that got me. The
box would make me crack.
Part
of the problem is possibly that the definition of torture is actually a bit murky. Sure,
it’s illegal under U.S. and international law, as per the Geneva Convention,
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention
against Torture (ratified by the U.S. in 1994), as well as the 8th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But what is it exactly? None of the
techniques shown in “Zero Dark” will kill a suspect, and therein comes the
distinction between torture vs. torture-lite. Traditional torture techniques
like amputation and mutilation cause severe
pain and possibly death. By contrast, torture-lite practices like sleep
deprivation, moderate beatings, and exposing a person to extreme heat or cold
will make them very uncomfortable, but not cause death or even (perhaps) severe
pain. Thus, torture-lite could fall outside the realm of illegal practices. In
other words, torture-lite practices exploit definitional ambiguities.
And
then of course there is the practice of rendition, or shipping terror suspects
to countries with looser policies on torture. The U.S. has shipped terror
suspect detainees to countries known to torture, like Egypt and Pakistan. The
benefit to the U.S. is that we can disavow knowledge of the terrible acts that occur
in dungeon-like rooms, claim that our hands are clean, and still benefit from
any knowledge that may be obtained.
Senator
Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon who serves on the Senate Intelligence
Committee, stated on National Public Radio that “the conduct described in this
[torture] report is not America.” I’m not so sure he’s right. It’s not who we
like to think we are. We’re willing to give up certain things – privacy, a
strong sense of right vs. wrong vs. justifiable conduct – after a terrible
attack like 9/11. From a violent crime perspective, the U.S. also has much
higher homicide rates than similarly developed nations. The torture report’s
release offers the nation a chance to do some soul-searching about its heart of
darkness, long after it is out of news headlines.
This is how I intended to end this blog post, until I read two recent articles in www.nj.com by journalist Paul Mulshine: Two ex-CIA agents weigh in on 13 years of bad leadership under Bush and Obama and Don't believe waterboarding is torture? Watch this radio talker squeal. Mulshine is politically conservative, which made his opposition to torture surprising (to me). He and his ex-CIA acquaintances know more on the subject than I do - indeed, one of them has been tortured - so I'll defer to their wisdom. Among the points that Mulshine makes that are worth considering:
(1) True conservatives would never want to put that much power - to torture - in the hands of the government. Political conservatives favor less government, not more. To quote one of Mulshine's comments (to me), "if there was a justification for torture then Ronald Reagan would not have signed the anti-torture treaty." When I asked Mulshine what he thought of Alan Dershowitz's idea of a torture warrant to make torture legal and safe (relatively speaking), Mulshine referred to Dershowitz as "ultra-liberal".
(2) When the CIA's torture/investigation program began, the CIA had little experience in conducting investigations. The FBI had much more experience. This opinion is from the two former CIA agents.
(3) The torture program was designed by psychologists who didn't know much about the subject. Mulshine refers to the end result as a program of "staggering incompetence."
Inexperienced operatives inflicting pain on captives to extract information. Winging it, essentially. Hoping it would work. Quite a different image than what we saw in "Zero Dark".
October 2001, motherhood day 1. For better or worse, it's been quite the journey. Still is. 
