Ordinary rendition
Torture is as the forefront of my mind. I'm reading Naomi Klein's compelling and wide-ranging The Shock Doctrine, as I've mentioned, which I wish was lighter so I could take it out with me on the train - although my "train book" at the moment is Fiasco by Thomas E Ricks, the most detailed book I've read about the Iraq war, which contains a whole section on Abu Ghraib. Last night I caught up with HBO's powerful The Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib, an account of the atrocities that went on at Saddam's old prison and put 12 soldiers in prison, or else they were demoted. This was a clear, unsensational, narration-free documentary, which spoke to a number of soldiers charged with abuse, who tried to describe why they did it. I also saw Rendition on Friday, the first Hollywood blockbuster to directly address America's renamed habit of removing terrorist suspects to other countries, there to interrogate them in what is now a government-sponsored manner. (The definition of "torture" was rewritten after September 11 so that only endangerment of life or acts that might lead to organ failure are now deemed torture: all manner of degradation, psychological tricks and abuse were sanctioned under the signature of Donald Rumsield, about whom I recently read the simply relentless but essential book Rumsfeld: An American Disaster by Andrew Cockburn. One such is making a prisoner stand for four hours at a time, to which Rumsfeld made a footnote: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is there a four hour limit on standing?", missing the point in a way that either suggests pure evil or weapons-grade idiocy, neither of which is very comforting.) And, to add to my current torture-a-thon, last night's Spooks saw Harry cross that particular line, in order to save London from half a million plague fatalities.
In Ghosts, we saw clips of Dr Stanley Milgram's film Obedience, which blew my mind, even though I'd read about the experiments he conducted in 1961. In brief (and I've lifted some of this from Wikipedia to save my typing shoulder, but it tallies with what I already know): the role of the "experimentor" in these tests done at Yale was played by a stern, impassive biology teacher dressed in a technician's coat, and the "victim" was played by an accountant trained to act for the role. The participant and the victim (supposedly another volunteer, but in reality a "confederate" of the experimentor) were told by the experimentor that they would be participating in an experiment helping his study of memory and learning in different situations. The "teacher" and the "learner" (apparently chosen by slips of paper, but both slips said "teacher" to guarantee that the real participant would assume this role) were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. (Read on, if you don't know the tests. It's astonishing.)
The "teacher" was given a 45-volt electric shock from an electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then made to give word tests to the "learner" - if the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing for each wrong answer. In reality, there were no shocks. The "learner" just acted a response, increasingly severe as the voltage increased. If you see the footage, you'll see that the acting was good, and as the screams increase, it's totally macabre. After a number of increases, the actor would bang on the wall and protest about a heart condition. At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment. But most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal encouragements from the man in the white coat, the experiment was halted.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65% (26 out of 40) of participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were being paid. No participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level, despite the screams.
There was, understandably, a lot of ethical criticism of the tests. (Probably from people who wouldn't mind if it was monkeys or mice.) Clearly, this was a very stressful position to put even volunteers into - I'm surprised Balls Of Steel haven't revived it (maybe they have, I only watched it once). The implication was not necessarily that 65% of people would willingly torture, but that they would if they were told to do so by a figure of authority. I wonder if, 46 years on, people would be more, or less likely to comply? Certainly the soldiers on Ghosts, male and female, as we know, blamed their behaviour on the stress of being at war, the need to let off steam, peer pressure, boredom and ignorance. Even though it was later established that 90% of Iraqis being held were innocent, these night-shift military police treated the prisoners as if they were guilty and this abuse, much of it involving nudity and a strangely homoerotic manipulation of bodies, was either punishment for something, or a way of preparing them for interrogation. One soldier, Sabrina Harman, said that she stuck her thumbs in the air and smiled for the camera in the incriminating photos of her with a dead body, and with naked prisoners in a big pile, because that's what she does in photos. She got six months.
I am haunted by the world I live in. So let's stop arguing about the merits of a sitcom for a moment. Anybody else see any of these films or progammes? Anybody else reading Klein, or the other books? Is it just me who's obsessed by all this?
posted by Andrew Collins @ 8:37 AM
81 Comments
81 Comments:
The experiment was recreated by Derren Brown - he was rooting suggestible people from some volunteers. It was actually great TV, certainly not done for laughs.
I should've said 'rooting out'. Not 'rooting'. That would be manipulative.
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Very interesting. The experiments do show that there may be a reflexive willingness to go along with inflicting pain/humiliation, but in the test the "teacher" thought the person suffering was also a volunteer and may have thought "well, they signed up for this, let's see it through". The people that carried the stuff out in Abu Ghraib don't have that get-out. They are knowingly taking advantage of their position to inflict needless suffering. If that's reflective of a widely dispersed characteristic of the human race as a whole, then I'm worried too.
As for Rumsfeld's comments: I normally wouldn't dream of condoning torture but in his case I'd be prepared to make an exception.
Hi Andrew,
first of all I havent' seen any of those films, so can't comment on them, but I too find the area of torture fascinating from a moral/ethical dimension.
There's an interesting book, mainly about religion, called "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris. In it he discusses the ethics of torture over a few pages and it changed my mind about the topic, though not in a comfortable way. I used to be of the "all torture is absolutely morally wrong" opinion, but when you think about it that's such a simplistic view of it that it doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.
There is of course the classic "ticking time bomb" situation whereby a bomb is going to go off that will kill many innocent people. You've caugh the person who planted it red-handed and only they can tell you the code to defuse it. Surely in such a case torture is not only acceptable, but ethically neccesary if it's the only way to save many others.
Now, many would argue that the ticking time bomb is such an unlikely scenario that you shouldn't consider it, but in my opinion the very fact that we can conceive of such a scenario means we need to revisit the absolutist "all torture = wrong" position.
Of course, Abu Ghraib is so far removed from such a scenario that it's easy to see that this was a disgusting abuse of power that in no way could be justified.
Another way to look at the torture issue is to consider collatoral damage. We accept reluctantly that sometime in wars innocent people get killed. Whilst doing everything we can to minimise this there's always the possibility that when dropping bombs on military targets some civilians will be injured or killed. Apart from being a strict pacifist (a position I find morally reprehensible in itself) you accept that wars will sometimes happen (some justified, others not)and innocent people will sometimes die. Now, what is the difference between this, and accepting that using torture (waterboarding, stressed standing etc) in rare cases where absolutely justifiable might occasionally see you torturing the wrong person?
As I said, when you start asking questions like this you start coming up with uncomfortable answers, and it would be so much nicer to be able to stick to the old "all torture wrong" position. Unfortunately the world isn't like that.
Anyway, for a more detailed view have a read of this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html
PS. I've got a friend who need to repair his computer in New York. If only I knew where to find a PC repair specialist there!
The Derren Brown version of the experiment was fascinating.
A great book to read for lots more information about torture weapons and the arms trade in the UK is 'As Used On The Famous Nelson Mandela' by Mark Thomas. Mark is extremely knowledgeable on this topic, as you will know if you have seen his recent stand-up.
Zoe
Also Andrew, when you are reading up on this subject perhaps you would like to listen to 'Rendition' by Manic Street Preachers - on their latest album.
Zoe
Oooh, Rendition opens well but it does rhyme "rendition" with "coalition"...
I could write for hours on this but time doesn't allow. I must therefore limit myself to contesting one of Tristan's point about the 'inevitable neccessity' of torture in certain circumstances.
It has never been shown that use of torture elicits reliable information. Never. So, to be rather reductionist, it doesn't even 'work'.
Oh come one ishouldbeworking that one's easy. "It has never been shown to work" is very different to "It has been shown to never work".
The circumstances I'm talking about might be very rare indeed, with lots at stake. Look at the ticking time bomb scenario again. If the only way to get defuse the bomb is to use torture victim supplied information then I'd rather take my chances with potentially false information than with no information (tick-tick-boom!).
All I'm saying is the absolutist position just doesn't make sense. Like pacifism, nice idea but by sticking to it strictly you could be allowing greater evil to be done.
I must admit, I find moral imperatives comforting. So torture can never be justified in my black-and-white mind. I don't see that torturing one person to save another, or a group of others, can be justified. Otherwise, we lose the moral high ground. That's why I believe that the death penalty is wrong. The moment we stand by while a person is killed for a crime, we become killers ourselves, and can thus no longer deem murder a crime.
As Groucho Marx said, those are my principles, and if you don't like them ... I have some others.
Also, I'm not sure I believe in "evil". Good and bad, yes, but not good and evil. (Wow, this is so much better than having to defend a sitcom I co-wrote against persistent mud-slingers.)
Moral imperatives might be comforting, but that doesn't make them right.
Ok, using the word evil might have been a bit silly, as it implies moral absolutism. Bad is a better word.
I don't see why using torture in rare cases means we automatically lose the moral high ground. Person A wants to kill innocent people B, C, D and E. A can possibly be stopped by using torture, but by no other method. Person F can either:
1) harm A to save 4 innocents
2) allow 4 innocents to die to avoid harm to A.
How can option 2 be morally better than option 1?
The only way is that you personally aren't doing any harm to anyone, but that will be of little comfort to the 4 innocent people. That's why I find pacifism distasteful too. There are bad people out there, and sometimes the only way to stop them is to use violence. Regretable, but true.
Finally, I think there's a difference between torture and capital punishment. Indeed, the clue is in the title. The latter serves no purpose other than retribution. I am not advocating torturing people only because they have done something bad. I am only advocating considering torture to prevent greater harm being done.
The thing is, the 'ticking bomb' scenario is not "unlikely" it is plain impossible.
I cannot conceive of any situation outside of a Bruce Willis film where someone would plant a bomb on such a long time delay that you could apprehend the bomber, torture him, find the bomb and defuse it before it went off.
The scenario is clearly designed to be analagous to the following, more likely, situation:
"We have apprehended someone who we believe to be connected to a group who we believe are planning a bombing attack."
Would it be OK to torture in this situation?
I hope the vast majority of people would say 'of course it f***ing isn't!'
Tristan, Of course you aren't advocating torture as punishment. But it's a slippery slope - you want to use it to prevent greater harm; who decides the greater harm.
Torture one person to save four, OK.
So, torture 1000 people to save one? Is that OK? 999 of those might lack the knowledge you are after (not necessarily innocent, mind you), but if you save the one, fair play?
How about torture to get info about POTENTIAL bad antics? You could argue that if you torture some ne'er-do-well you are preventing the bad stuff occuring in the first place.
But who decides?
Torture, invading countries, holding POWs with charge...
We are perilously close to becoming indistinguishable from the baddies.
Justin:
"We have apprehended someone who we believe to be connected to a group who we believe are planning a bombing attack."
Would it be OK to torture in this situation?
I hope the vast majority of people would say 'of course it f***ing isn't!'
How many people risk death? How certain are we that this is the right person and that they know something?
Sometimes we might get it wrong, but if the benefits of getting it right are high enough (preventing a full skyscraper being destroyed?) then it should be considered as a possibility.
GrahameD:
The US has the death penalty. Now, I personally don't think it's justified, BUT it doesn't seem to have led to a slippery slope. The US don't execute people who punch someone in the street because that person might one day kill someone.
Why then assume that allowing torture in certain rare cases will lead us down a slippery slope?
As to your final line, only the most self-hating western moral relativist could agree with that. I certainly don't.
I obviously agree that torture is a bad thing although I also have some sympathy with the ticking bomb theory. Having said that I think much is driven by fear and ignorance, the Abu Ghraib situation had poorly educated soldiers reading about their colleagues being killed by the 'rag heads' and taking instant revenge. Stupid, wrong and should have been stopped but I can see the link into why they did it. What was wrong was that the senior officers failed to anticipate this and there were no checks and measures in place to stop it.
The only plus side is that this is still seen as wrong and exposed as such. I'd rather hear about these terrible incidents and see the outrage then not hear about them and suspect they were going on but not being exposed!
AnonoNick
ps Spooks is great by the way, thank Gawd for BBC3 so we can see an episode ahead...
The ticking bomb analogy really needs to be consigned to history. It may serve to illustrate a point but its ability to do so is predicated on the fact that it is a practical possibility. But in an age where terrorists - and it's terrorists we're talking about here isn't it - have no regard for their own lives, can you really imagine a scenario whereby you catch someone who has planted a bomb (and a bomb, moreover, that can be defused by punching in a code, James Bond-style) who will give way under torture or threat of death in the presumably short amount of time available before the device goes off? I think it's an example born of another age when the perpetrators weren't quite so willing to accompany their victims into oblivion.
And Tristan - call me a sad old idealist, but I still bridle at phrases like 'the world isn't like that'. Well, maybe it's not like that because a few too many people are happy to accept it the way it currently is rather than finding the moral courage to change it. God, that really does make me sound like an old hippy doesn't it? But it gets me in the same way as people who use the phrase 'that's just human nature' - always to justify something bad rather than good - as if human nature were something that could be defined and easily encapsulated. The world isn't always 'like that' - sometimes it can be quite a nice place.
Now I've got that off my chest I'm going to surprise myself by agreeing with one of Tristan's main points. I do think anyone opposed to torture under any circumstances also has to answer the question as to whether they are also opposed to killing under any circumstances.
Premeditated killing is presumably as bad if not worse from a pure moral perspective as torture. But fighting the Nazis in WW2 involved a great deal of premeditated killing - justified by the fact it was done for the greater good.
If not resorting to torture is what separates the civilised 'us' from the barbaric 'them' does that not also apply to the ultimate form of violence against the person? And the logical extension of that is to make pacifists of all those opposed to torture under any circumstances.
From hippy idealist to hard-nosed pragmatist in the space of 2 paragraphs. Maybe I should consider a career in politics?
Torture is used systematically in practically every country in the world. It's mainly officially denied, but when a government wants to instill fear in the enemy/ convince the general populace that the witch/communist/terrorist problem is particularly pressing, then there'll be a loosening of this denial, as is happening now. If I were to attempt to recruit terrorists, my job would probably be a lot harder if my rookies were going to have to withstand torture in the event of capture.
Just because it's public knowledge now, doesn't mean that torture hasn't always gone on, either at home, through rendition or whatever.
Torture is reprehensible, and can never be justified. We shouldn't have to make apologies for having black and white minds. When the public start thinking that torture is ok in some conditions, then we've lost all hope.
We live in an unstable world, where horror is done in the name of freedom and progress etc; empty terms. People should realise now (there's been enough written about it), that the ideals that we're supposed to be pursuing (which fundamentally translate as wealth and power for the few at the expense of the many, as ever) are illusory. The worlds a mess because of the pursuit of money and power. It's as simple as that.
In other words, there's enough terror and horror in the world, brought about because of the pursuit of wealth and power by the likes of Rumsfeld, Bush, Blair, Brown, Murdoch, whoever, et al, sanctioned by an ignorant and compliant population. We don't need to darken our lives further by accepting governments who will torture us. And when I say us, I mean us. Not Osama Bin Laden.
Anonymous:
Except seeing the BBC3 episode means you have to wait another hour and a half until your next fix the following week. Girlfriend and I went cold turkey last night and will get back to watching just one a week at 9pm next week.
Steve Lake:
Agree that the ticking time bomb is incredibly unlikely, but the point isn't a practical one. It's more of a thought experiment, which when talking about an absolute opposition to something I think is justified.
Now, if you wanted to talk pratically about why we shouldn't use torture because it might not work etc. then fine, the ticking time bomb scenario becomes irrelevant. The main point is that the "shouldn't ever because it's just wrong. full stop" and "shouldn't, for the following reasons..." arguments are different.
Now, regarding the idealism issue, I do think the world can be a better place, and there are ways of working towards that, but I still don't think we'll ever get a perfect world, and I don't think we'll ever have a war free world. One of the reasons that I can see for this (and I might put a few noses out of joint here) is that religion seems to insist on staying alive and kicking and won't die away.
As long as religion exists you will have people who insist on being very religious, and that leads to problems. As far as I can see, the best muslims and christians in the world are those doing most harm, those who insist on persecuting gays, subjugating women, killing people for leaving islam etc. Read the books these religions are based on. Those fundamentalists are those that are sticking to the rules the closest.
Get rid of those silly books, or at least stop believing them, and the world will be a better place.
Where was I?
Oh yeah, on pacifism ,which you mention in your penultimate paragraph. You've hit the nail on the head there. Pacifists would presumably rather have let all Europe's Jews be killed than meet the Nazi threat with force. Indeed, it seems Mohandas Ghandi thought that Europe's Jews should just accept what was coming (essentially mass suicide!)rather than contemplate meeting him with force.
"if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep."
Nice.
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It wouldn't surprise me if somebody, somewhere had a wank over one or more of those pictures you mentioned, Andrew. Despicable
I've just finished "The Shock Doctrine". An excellent, excellent book.
Theres a point half way through where she explains that the IMF/Worldbank were actually deliberately causing crises to promote their neoliberal agenda. And it was all done very nonchalantly.
* * *
"So torture can never be justified in my black-and-white mind. I don't see that torturing one person to save another, or a group of others, can be justified. Otherwise, we lose the moral high ground. That's why I believe that the death penalty is wrong. "
Absolutely right. You should be on Question Time I really do think.
Five-Centres:
Why not? It's not as if I've got an MA in Arguments for torture and a PhD entitled "Why pacifism bad".
anononick: wtf is that supposed to mean?
An excellent debate thus far, although it does seem to be Tristan defending one point of view on his own (not that he's not capable etc.)
I'm afraid I'm sticking to my black and white views. If I say that I won't buy coffee in Starbucks, that's a black and white stance that can easily be queried, intellectually and even practically, but it makes me feel better to turn it into a yes or no question so that I can move on to the next dilemma.
Likewise with torture: it's wrong and shouldn't be employed, in my opinion, for the reasons already stated. Now this is different to the Starbucks question as I have absolutely no control over it. I am unlikely ever to have to make the choice between torturing someone and not torturing them, so it's far easier to uphold my view. Find out about incidence of torture; be appalled. That's me.
In a way, this gets me out of the argument. You won't change my mind with your "what about a little bit of torture?" hypotheticals. There's no such thing. You either believe in it, or you don't.
I wondered when religion would come into it. I'm not being drawn on that one again!
I think what AnonoNick was alluding to was the oddly sexual nature of the Abu Ghraib abuse, and the souvenir photography. It does raise questions, although it's bad enough that one of the reasons nudity/sexual coercion is used against Muslims is because it is the ultimate affront to their honour and dignity. Mind you, it would be an affront to mine too.
Interestingly The West Wing episode on More4 this week was 'We Killed Yamamoto' . Whaer Bartlet agonises over ordering the killing of a 'Qumari' minister who they know is a terrorist.
Leo remarks to Bartlet at one point 'That is the worse part of your liberalism. You think there are motral absolutes.' I am pretty sure they choose to kill him in the end. I think the West Wing does this stuff very well.
I would love to live in a world where moral absolutes are as black and white as we would like them. But the truth is none of us are ever likely to be in the position where we have to make these choices.
The geneva convention is out the window in realtion to the manner in which some terrorists act. ie Kill as many people as possible. Inncoent or not, Muslim or christian, young or old. My daughter, my mother or my friend could have been on those trains on July 7th. They may be in the wrong place in the future. Whatever you may think about our middle east policy (I am not crazy about it myself) but I want the bastards stopped.
If we think race relations are bad in this country now lets see what happens after another few attacks like that.
I have a knee jerk 'Torture unacceptable in every case' response to.I just don't think the answers are that straightforward, or black and white.
Andrew - Tristan's not entirely on his own...
I'd be interested to know yout position on my point that an unequivocal no to torture logically means an unequivocal no to killing, whatever the circumstances.
Would you describe yourself as a pacifist? You may be unlikely to face the dilemma of torturing someone but only a generation ago you'd have had to make a decision about whether you would have been prepared to sign up to kill Nazis (or people fighting and living under Nazi rule).
Or is torture in some ways worse than killing in a 'just cause' (where you can at least be fairly sure that the other side is likely to be intent on killing you)? The torture victim is unlikely to be able to or want to inflict similar pain on his torturers - so does that make it worse....somehow less fair than a good old fashioned war?
Andrew: OK, thanks for your interpretation of Anononick's post. I hope you're right and will give it the benefit of the doubt for now. Just a little sensitive since my last debate on this subject, on CiF, descended into accusations that I obviously fantasise about torturing babies etc etc. all because of the views I've expressed here.
Oh, and sorry to have brought religion into it, though it is often the elephant in the room.
The Mighty Pierre:
I've actually just come full circle with the West Wing. I first started watching it a few years ago when it was on first time around and the first episode I saw is the one they'll be showing next week. "We Killed Yamamoto" was the last one I hadn't seen.
It was a great episode, and though about assasination rather than torture I think it touched on a lot of the issues discussed here.
At what stage do the gloves come off? When do the rules no longer apply? Difficult issues and decisions that must be agonising to make if you have to.
Anyway, I'd really recommend people read that Sam Harris article I linked to before. Here's the click again:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html
"But the truth is none of us are ever likely to be in the position where we have to make these choices".
Not so, Pierre. There are some among 'us' who have already been in the position where they HAVE made those choices. Some of them are not indigenous - I've worked with refugees who have had terrible things done to them, and a few who have in turn done terrible things, during the anomie of war or national chaos. None of the torture that I've ever been told of first hand involved a 'ticking bomb' scenario; most of it is done for far more 'mundane' (and less cinematic) reasons, regardless of the involvement of state forces.
And I've never found 'them' substantially different from 'us'. Never think it couldn't happen ( or isn't happening) here.
ISBW I am not sure if you are referring specifically to me with the 'them' and 'us' thing but I do not think I implied there was a difference between us.I think what most people want is to raise their children and live in peace with food on the table. That is the same for everybody.
Unless you meant terrorists willing to kill themselves and others indiscriminately and then I am happy to make the distinction.
I have also worked with asylum seekers who have suffered torture. That is one of the reasons I would be very keen to sign up to the 'Absolutely not' camp. But I am not a hypocrite (I am in no way suggesting you or anybody else is by the way) and I have to admit that if abuses went on which directly led to a terrorist attack being stopped I really would not lose any sleep over it.
Steve, I would describe myself as a pacifist. To borrow Woody Allen's line, in the event of war, I'm a hostage. Call me a coward if you like - they would have done in 1939, but I ain't putting on no combat fatigues for nobody.
I won't even kill a fly. If one flies into my toilet, I rescue it, put it on a piece of tissue and wait until it flies off.
We may not be facing Hitler today, but we are facing dangers that were brought upon by those we elect (or don't elect) as our leaders, who are acting in their own interests. Unfortunately, it's not a black and white world. Are those who blow themselves up the baddies? Or are we, the pampered Westerners, who think we can march anywhere we like and set up shop?
I've been reading a bit about the Milgram experiments recently and it is truly scary. Ordinary people can do very sadistic things if put in the right circumstances. Very frightening.
Andrew, I don't kill flies either, and I'd like to think of myself as a pacifist - but as nobody has ever tried to seriously hurt me or anyone I love, I've yet to have that theory about myself tested. I reluctantly suspect that, under the right/wrong combination of circumstances, I'd be capable of some fairly surprising behaviour. That's one thing I've learned from working with people who've met their own 'shadow - they're just like the rest of us.
Which is also why, while I wasn't getting at Pierre for suggesting that none of us are likely to ever end up having to make very extreme moral choices, we can never be sure, even here in our lovely safe Western democracies. Climate change alone could easily spawn a whole new breed of terrorist/freedom fighter, most of whom would claim that all they ultimately want to do is live in peace and feed their families.
Meanwhile, let's dance!
AC wrote : "Anybody else reading Klein, or the other books? Is it just me who's obsessed by all this?"
... yeps, I started on Klein's weighty yellow tome yesterday and two chapters in, I'm as enflamed and morally repulsed at the tales of the true Axis-Of-Evil (Freidman + his zealots / US Government / Big Business) as when I read her 'No Logo' a few years hence. The section on what was engineered by this unholy trinity on prosperous post-WW2 South American democracies was new to me, and was truly appaling. And here we are, 50 years later, and the next generation of neo-cons and their military-industrial stooges are trying out the same old tried and tested shock and awe routines in the Middle East..
Can't wait for her take later on in this book on Thatcher and the Falklands, New Orleans, and the current miasma in Iraq.
Incidentally, I had to shop around to actually find a copy - its a conspiracy I tells ya!
BR
Mick S.
I think the religion argument is largely irrelevant. Wars are nearly always purely political at heart. People will always divide up on one basis or another, even if it's just location. And one group is always going to feel hard done by, and resentful of another. And (because of that as much as anything) you won't get rid of religions without a fight, or two. Would that be right, or justified? Or would it be just another crusade by a group that thinks it has right (if not god) on its side?
I just don't buy the ticking bomb scenario. So we'd know - with just the requisite degree of certainty - that there was a bomb? And we'd know - with just the requisite degree of certainty - that it was going to go off before we could find it? But we wouldn't have a clue where it was, even though we'd got someone who we knew - with just the requisite degree of certainty - knew where it was? Then it's ok to torture him? What are those requisite degrees of certainty? Who determines those? And who determines that we've reached them? It seems to me that in practice all of that would simply boil down to: we can torture anyone because, as we all know, there might be a bomb ticking somewhere. Or worse still: he might be a terrorist - shoot him. And of course, the very last kind of reaction a terrorist wants to provoke is one of fear, panic, and paranoia.
I don't want to be blown up on a bus. But equally I don't want to live in a society where the state can torture people in the name of my freedom. Because I was raised in a country that supposedly believed that those kind of states aren't really free at all.
I think one of the main points of Milgram's experiments was not necessarily whether torture was right or wrong but how many of us would torture someone else, even if we believed it to be wrong, because someone in authority told us to (see Nuremberg trials, etc etc.)
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2006fallwinter/francozimbardo.html
you might find this article interesting - the stanford prison experiment is very like milgram's...
Just to make the point, that AnonoNick wasn't me! My occasional crap post are all done as an anonymous entry (because I can't be bothered to register a name) but I always put AnonoNick at the end, coz I'm not trying to hide who I am!
AnonoNick (the real one)
Not entirely off topic Andrew but where do you stand on the much hyped phenomena of 'torture porn' in films of late.
Personally I cannot think of anything worse than going to watch a film where the main plotline is how much pain can inflicted on another person. I find them pretty gratuitous. I enjoyed Seven but that seems to have been the film that provoked this trend and the rest that have followed have been utter trash.
My main objection though is probably that they are bad films rather than being morally offensive
Andrew, at the top of this discussion - and at various times throughout - you say:"torture can never be justified in my black-and-white mind". You then go on to say: "Unfortunately, it's not a black and white world".
Why not try framing your moral stance in the real world? I think you'll find it more of a challenge.
Loser length post alert!
“The Mighty Pierre said...
I have to admit that if abuses went on which directly led to a terrorist attack being stopped I really would not lose any sleep over it.”
And I guess a key point here is that you describe this torture as an abuse, and to be honest maybe it needs to remain illegal, but that’s different to unethical. Perhaps setting up an infra-structure for torture is setting a dangerous precedent and it needs to be a grey area, up to individual commanders. The problem with an absolute ethical ban rather than just a legal ban is it makes no distinction on cases based on their outcome. Perhaps a “nod & wink” situation, whereby if a commander allows torture Abu Ghraib style he knows he can expect to go to jail for a very long time, but if he allows it in cases where it’s pretty clear it will save lives and indeed does save lives he gets a slap on the wrist or a blind eye is turned, is what we need. Harris makes a comparison with trespass signs. Imagine you break into somebody’s yard to have a snoop around – you’re committing trespass and would expect to perhaps be prosecuted if caught. Now, if you saw a kid drowning in a river, and the only way to get to him in time was to run across somebody’s yard would you really expect to be prosecuted? After all you’ve committed the same “crime”.
Andrew Collins said...
“Steve, I would describe myself as a pacifist… I ain't putting on no combat fatigues for nobody”.
The fact that you yourself wouldn’t go off to fight doesn’t necessarily make you a pacifist. Some people might call it cowardly, but in that case I reckon most people would be cowards. Fighting and dying is scary and I don’t think I would like it any more than you would. That’s why we now have a professional army, rather than rely on conscripts. We pay people to do our fighting for us and to protect us so we don’t have to.
As far as I can see real pacifists not only wouldn’t put on combat fatigues themselves, but believe that regardless of the threat we face nobody should put on fatigues. That’s why I find pacifism disturbing. Presumably a pacifist would rather watch a man beat a child to death than use violence against the man to stop him.
”We may not be facing Hitler today, but we are facing dangers that were brought upon by those we elect (or don't elect) as our leaders, who are acting in their own interests. Unfortunately, it's not a black and white world. Are those who blow themselves up the baddies? Or are we, the pampered Westerners, who think we can march anywhere we like and set up shop?”
Dangers brought onto us by our leaders? Sure Middle East policy is a mess, but I don’t think Al-Qaeda can be absolved of all responsibility. If people wanted to blow themselves up well out of the way of everyone else in order to make their point then fine, but they don’t. They want to blow themselves up as near to as many people as possible in order to kill as many as possible. So yes, in my book that does abso-fuckin-lutely make them baddies. That makes them very bad baddies indeed.
Afghanistan was a justified invasion. The Taliban were a vicious regime that needed to be removed. Iraq on the other hand I don’t think was justified and is a bloody mess now, but just take a minute to look at who’s killing who over there. It’s certainly not mainly pampered westerners killing poor downtrodden Iraqis. It mainly seems to be Iraqi killing Iraqi.
dave said...
“I think the religion argument is largely irrelevant. Wars are nearly always purely political at heart. People will always divide up on one basis or another, even if it's just location. And one group is always going to feel hard done by, and resentful of another”.
Possibly true in most cases, but people aren’t blowing themselves up on buses and tube trains right now for political reasons. Whether they’re interpreting it the right way or not a book is telling them that people who aren’t of their religion should be converted or killed and that they have 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven. Now, perhaps they’re doing it for a politicised version of their religion, but none the less religion is at the heart of it.
“And (because of that as much as anything) you won't get rid of religions without a fight, or two. Would that be right, or justified? Or would it be just another crusade by a group that thinks it has right (if not god) on its side?”
No, you can’t get rid of religion by force, nor should you. It’s a shame humanity hasn’t grown out of it yet. My reason for bringing religion up earlier was to point out that I think a utopian world where everyone loves each other and there is never any war is impossible, because it seems we’ll always have the burden of religion to deal with.
”I just don't buy the ticking bomb scenario. So we'd know - with just the requisite degree of certainty - that there was a bomb? And we'd know - with just the requisite degree of certainty - that it was going to go off before we could find it? But we wouldn't have a clue where it was, even though we'd got someone who we knew - with just the requisite degree of certainty - knew where it was? Then it's ok to torture him? What are those requisite degrees of certainty? Who determines those? And who determines that we've reached them? “
I’ve already covered this, but here we go again. I know that scenario is incredibly unlikely. It’s a purely hypothetical one. BUT it still serves to point out that the absolute moral/ethical prohibition of torture doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. It can’t be absolute, because we can conceive of a scenario, however unlikely it is to occur, whereby not to torture could by argued to be more unethical than to torture.
”I don't want to be blown up on a bus. But equally I don't want to live in a society where the state can torture people in the name of my freedom. Because I was raised in a country that supposedly believed that those kind of states aren't really free at all.”
I don’t want to be blown up on a bus either. I want to live in a society where a known bomb won’t be allowed go off on my bus, or anyone else’s, when something could be done to stop it.
We already live in a society where if somebody points a gun at my head and threatens to shoot me we accept that the police has a right to shoot him first. We don’t say “well, maybe he’s only bluffing and he won’t shoot, and maybe it’s a fake gun, so in NO CIRCUMSTANCES can we ever shoot someone pointing a gun at someone else”.
mel starrs said...
“the stanford prison experiment is very like milgram's..”
Stanford is a very interesting one and shows how something like Abu Ghraib can happen.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sorry Tristan but the invsion of Afghanistan only came on the radar after 9/11. Before then America was more than happy to deal with them because they allowed a pipeline through the country.
This horror at what was happening to women only occurred after 9/11 when America had to do something and had a morally justifiable reason to invade.
I would suggest you read Chomsky's Hegemony or survival. A great insight into American foreign policy.
Hmmm, interesting. Sadly we seem to only get involved where there is something in it for us. I don't think Afganistan was invaded because of the way the taliban treated people, it was invaded to get a foothold in the area and to try to put a pro western government in place. If you look at the way some African leaders treat their people it is strange that the West has never invaded isn't it? But then we don't care about having a foothold somewhere in dusty Africa. Of course if they discovered oil, it would be our moral obligation to save them!
With regard to torture I think most of us don't really want to know what is done in our names but are slightly scared of what might be done to us by extremists so we turn a kind of blind eye....
AnonoNick
Anonymous person writes:
"Andrew, at the top of this discussion - and at various times throughout - you say:"torture can never be justified in my black-and-white mind". You then go on to say: "Unfortunately, it's not a black and white world".
Why not try framing your moral stance in the real world? I think you'll find it more of a challenge."
Firstly, thanks for the patronising tone. Second, I'm struggling, like everybody else, to reconcile gut feeling with practical reality. (Incidentally, I haven't read the big long posts above yet, as I'm on a deadline.) I don't need more of a "challenge". It's challenge enough as it is. My instinct tends towards the black and white. The world does not. Otherwise, it'd be a piece of cake wouldn't it?
Tristan - you're losing me again now (although I admire you greatly for writing a really long post and then publishing it twice).
The pacifist point is well made. Not so sure about the Afghan invasion being 'justified'. Justified in your eyes by being a vicious regime that needed removing; and yet Iraq cannot be justified by the same criteria? Was Saddam's regime not equally vicious?
And are we now adopting a policy of invading all countries with vicious regimes? Burma, Zimbabwe, Iran, China, dare I say Israel (probably not)? As someone with a pragmatic approach to world affairs you know that's not going to happen.
You could argue that none of the above were a threat to the West in the way that Afghanistan was by its harbouring of terrorist groups (although Iran might qualify) but that only stands up if the invasion succeeded in neutralising that threat which it clearly hasn't. Quite the opposite in fact. And anyone with a grasp of history (which sadly seems to count out most of the cabinet) should know that the last country on earth you want to get embroiled in is Afghanistan. Very little good ever comes out of it. Philip Hensher's historical novel 'The Mulberry Empire' covers the ground better than I could.
And I don't think you make enough of the political element of current 'religious' terrorism. No doubt there is genuine belief/faith involved but politics is at the heart of the problem, purely because it's a political solution that will put an end to the terrorism not a religious solution.
You're not going to change someone's religious beliefs. What you can change is the political landscape that causes them to express this belief with violence.
Think of Ireland. Not a direct parallel I know but a crisis with religion at its heart that was solved by political action.
I too am loathe to return to the ticking bomb, but as a final word (from my side at least). The power of the ticking bomb scenario is that it is NOT hypothetical...it's the fact that people can easily imagine it happening that gives the argument its force. If you undermine that then it becomes a much less compelling analogy. Not invalid, just less effective.
the mighty pierre:
I know the US was dealing with Afghanistan before 9/11. Don't assume I think US/UK can do no wrong and always comes out smelling of roses.
I'm still glad the Taliban was kicked out, regardless of the reason. They were c*nts who should have been kicked out sooner.
And just to preempt you, yes I know if it weren't for the US the Taliban wouldn't be there. Arming the Mujehadin was spectacularly stupid.
Now, I'm sure Chomsky is a great linguist, but I have little trust in his political writing.
(I removed the repeat post by Tristan, as one post of that length is enough.)
I think this is called setting the world to rights isn't it? Anybody else here have a job to go to?
I have no love for the taliban believe me.
As for Saddam I believe that Phil Donahue said it best in this clip
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctlmholr45c when he said 'Saddam was a bastard, but he was our bastard.'
At Thu Oct 25, 10:52:00 AM , Anonymous said...
Hmmm, interesting. Sadly we seem to only get involved where there is something in it for us. I don't think Afganistan was invaded because of the way the taliban treated people, it was invaded to get a foothold in the area and to try to put a pro western government in place. If you look at the way some African leaders treat their people it is strange that the West has never invaded isn't it? But then we don't care about having a foothold somewhere in dusty Africa. Of course if they discovered oil, it would be our moral obligation to save them!
Agreed. I think we are failing Africa. I don’t think invasion and war is the solution in all cases, though I think it was with Afghanistan given the threat it posed to us as well as to its own people. There are of course other ways to influence countries – diplomacy, trade sanctions, incentives for good governance, supporting pro-democracy groups etc - a mixture of carrot and stick.
At Thu Oct 25, 10:59:00 AM , Andrew Collins said...
I'm struggling, like everybody else, to reconcile gut feeling with practical reality.
There’s a great quote attributed to the late great Carl Sagan when he was asked a question he didn’t know the answer to and he said so. The questioner persisted: 'But what is your gut feeling?' Sagan's response: 'But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.
At Thu Oct 25, 11:00:00 AM , Steve Lake said...
The pacifist point is well made. Not so sure about the Afghan invasion being 'justified'. Justified in your eyes by being a vicious regime that needed removing; and yet Iraq cannot be justified by the same criteria? Was Saddam's regime not equally vicious?
As mentioned above I don’t think invasion is always the only answer, but yes I think Saddam needed to be brought down some way or other. Perhaps the time to do that was 16 years ago?
And are we now adopting a policy of invading all countries with vicious regimes? Burma, Zimbabwe, Iran, China, dare I say Israel (probably not)? As someone with a pragmatic approach to world affairs you know that's not going to happen.
I note you (probably don’t) dare say Israel. I know it’s fashionable to have a go at them, but of all the middle east countries it’s the one I’d be happiest living in, and is also the middle east country where Arabs have the best human rights. Now, that doesn’t really set a particularly high bar to reach, but if you’re going to include Israel on that list you’d need to include pretty much every other middle eastern country on there too.
I think I have solved this whole torture/ticking bomb thing.
Suspected terrorists should be locked in an empty room with Jade Goody until they break. Should only take 10 minutes or so....
I think Andrew has it spot on when he says "You either believe in it, or you don't."
I cannot comprehend how anyone, in any circumstance, could knowingly inflict serious harm on someone who has no chance of fighting back.
Sorry to sound cowardly, naive,or hippy-ish, but it's a fellow human being's life you're taking away, or seriously harming.
No matter how bad that person may be, there is no justifiable reason to torture or kill them, in my opinion.
I do kill flies, though, as they like to stand in dog poo. I also kill spiders and the occasional mosquito. These are insects, not men.
Also, I believe the Jade Goody technique was banned under the terms of the Geneva convention...
FFS Anonymous, I know we're talking about torture etc. but your suggestion is absolutely barbaric! This is JADE GOODY we're talking about. Not something to be taken lightly (pun intended!)
Chris Burgess: the concept of inflicting pain on someone who is innocent with no chance of fighting back isn't what we're arguing for here. There are two issues here:
1) the "greater good" argument. You might be inflicting harm to stop greater harm to others
2) the innocence issue. Whilst in your custody they might not be able to fight back, but the whole point is that you are pretty much certain they are guilty of putting people in harms way or of refusing to stop people coming to harm. They might not be able to fight back there and then, but to all intents and purposes they're fighting you anyway.
The way I see it isn't "is torture OK if it saves lives?", but this:
Would you rather live in a society where the chances of dieing in a terrorist attack are (say) 1 in 5 million, but torture is never used, or in a society where terrorist suspects are routinely tortured and the chance of dieing is 1 in 10 million?
And that's being pretty optimistic about the beneficial effects of torture, and discounting the possibility that a torturing government would result in an increase in terrorist activity.
Would anyone really choose the latter option?
Woah Tristan, I've already said that I can't comprehend it, stop trying to make me!
Seriously though, I still don't see the 'greater good' argument as anything more than an excuse to justify the unjust.
There is no real way of measuring 'the greater good', is there? One man's freedom fighter...and all that.
You said earlier:
"Person A wants to kill innocent people B, C, D and E. A can possibly be stopped by using torture, but by no other method. Person F can either:
1) harm A to save 4 innocents
2) allow 4 innocents to die to avoid harm to A.
How can option 2 be morally better than option 1?"
Firstly, I don't personally believe that there is any circumstance where torture is the only method.
Secondly, option 2 is not morally better or worse, as it doesn't really hold up under scrutiny. They are not going to die just because people want 'to avoid harm' to person A. They will die because of the prior actions of person A, and that seems a very different thing.
Can you provide strong real-life evidence where torture has worked, and was the only solution to the problem? If so, I'll be willing to listen.
Admittedly I haven't had chance to read the Sam Harris article yet, but I understand the man to be in same camp as that Dawkins fellow, so (being honest) I'm not sure I will read it objectively.
Without wanting to bring religion further into this (and I am one of the least religious people in the world), whoever it was that said: "Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself", got it bang on.
Well done that man.
Where iz Geneva and wot iz the convention about? Iz Geneva in Wales?
Jade
No. Its in East Angular
Well, it seems clear the threat of torture was enough in the following case. See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E2DB1F38F933A25757C0A9659C8B63
If the threat works presumably torture itself would have.
Unfortunately the child was already dead.
That's not an argument for it, that's disgusting.
The police knowingly broke their own criminal code, which may have led to a mistrial in the case.
Who is in danger in this case? Without meaning to be flippant the child was already dead, so torture wouldn't have saved anyone's life.
"If the threat works presumably torture itself would have" - there is a world of difference between the threat of torture and the real thing, and both are reprehensible.
Are you seriously saying that you not only condone this, but hold it up as a serious example of when torture 'works'?
Disgraceful.
Also, how was this the only solution the case? Skilled interrogators may have got the answers from him.
A thorough police investigation may have found the child's body.
At no point was torture the only option.
First of all Chris, it seems the police might not have broken their own criminal code. From the article:
"German law clearly forbids torture, though it seems to allow for some instances in which it can be used.
The criminal code and the Constitution explicitly forbid the use of force or the threat of force against a suspect. But there is also a provision to cover what is called ''a life-threatening danger,'' when the police can ''overstep the legally protected interests of the person affected.''
"
In this case the police didn't neccesarily know the child was dead, since they were looking at a kidnap trial. They had grounds to think the child might still be alive but in imminent danger. Again, from the article:
That is what produced the second undisputed fact: imagining that Jakob's life might be in imminent danger, the deputy police chief of Frankfurt, Wolfgang Daschner, ordered subordinates to extract the necessary information from Mr. Gäfgen by threatening to torture him.
Anyway, look at where we are now. We're discussing specific cases. We're discussing whether torture can work or not. Quite a way from the absolutist position we started from. It's that absolutist position I opposed.
I'm afraid I remain, as stated in my original post, haunted by the world I live in. This last case you