Torturing Justice

More than fours years have passed since Sept. 11, but the debate over civil liberties still lingers. From the White House, President Bush continues to justify his policies by reasserting the ideals that United States citizens defend at home and abroad. In his 2003 State of the Union speech Bush publicly pledged his unequivocal commitment to the U.S.’ core values: freedom, democracy, and human rights. Speaking specifically to Iraqi torture atrocities—electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape—he declared, “If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.” Yet, two years later, this commitment is being egregiously compromised.

In the wake of unprecedented political turmoil and facing further criticism about the war in Iraq, gaps in the President’s commitment to uphold U.S. values in the War on Terror are clear. The recent success of Senator John McCain’s, R-Ariz., anti-torture legislation indirectly questioned the administration’s commitment to upholding human rights; the amendment received an overwhelming 90-9 victory in the Senate. But Vice President Dick Cheney threatened to veto the legislation unless altered to exempt the CIA from the amendment, suggesting the measure not be applied to counter-terrorism operations carried out abroad, or “by an element of the United States government” other than the Defense Department. In a disappointing turn of events, the White House is now pressuring McCain to toe the party line in hopes of delaying consideration of detainee treatment until early next year.

By failing to unquestionably support McCain’s amendment, the administration flouts both international treaties and Supreme Court rulings. Even more troubling, it sets a disturbing precedent, that the U.S.’ moral imperative to act against international terrorism can justify a breaking of commitments to human rights. Exempting the CIA from any anti-torture measures effectively legalizes the types of behavior that led to the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, and so scandalized the U.S. public.

Allies of the President argue this is an unfair portrayal of the administration’s position. Such apologists raise a common, but misleading hypothetical. Suppose, they argue, authorities hold a terrorist with information about a ticking time bomb, and if they torture him to get the information they will be able to save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Those who oppose torture are called naïve because they reject the conclusion that torture would be justified in such a case. But the analogy itself demonstrates a misunderstanding about the complexities of intelligence gathering.

Thankfully, the information inconsistencies of coercive interrogation mean that a decision between effective torture and saving lives does not need to be made. The analogy falsely assumes the subject will reliably give true information, thereby underestimating the motives of the captive. If terrorists willingly martyr themselves to a cause, how could authorities be certain a terrorist would give the correct location of this fictitious time bomb rather than providing a false location long enough to allow the bomb to explode anyway?

Realistically, torture consistently fails to yield reliable information from subjects. In a Washington Post article military intelligence expert and interrogator Army Col. Stuart Herrington stated that torture is “not a good way to get information” and when inflicting pain on prisoners, “they’ll just tell you anything to get you to stop.” Captives frequently offer any information to avoid subjection to further inhumane processes; the dangers of working from such unreliable intelligence need not be explained. In the face of inefficiency, inaccuracy, and the danger of torturing innocents, the consideration of torture as a viable method for interrogation is dubious at best. Considering the host of moral and ethical issues which also accompany torture, the prospect of its legalization is absolutely absurd.

But beyond these overwhelming moral and ethical implications, as well as the inefficacy of the practice, the administration’s line directly contradicts U.S. law and its international obligations. The U.S. condemns torture under numerous international agreements: Article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the “Convention against Torture” ratified by the U.S. in 1994. These agreements recognize torture as, “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession…” This means that any adoption of torture practices would indisputably conflict with both domestic and international legal obligations.



Anyone who condones torture simultaneously rejects the ideological values that define the United States. Systematically depriving people of their rights by electrocution, rape, or water-boarding contradicts the principles of this country. The war in Iraq, like the intervention in Kosovo, was supposed to reflect the U.S.’ absolute commitment to freedom, democracy, and human rights. To use Bush’s words, “America is a strong nation and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers. Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation.” By legalizing torture, the government belies these fine words and undermines the moral legitimacy of future humanitarian interventions.



Bede A. Moore ’06, a Crimson editorial editor, is a history concentrator in Winthrop House.