Torture 2

The most often used excuse for torture is the so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario: if law-
enforcement officials manage to capture a terrorist who happens to know the location of a ticking time bomb set to go off and kill many people but refuses to disclose that location, it would then be reasonable to torture him in order to save lives. It’s a bit utilitarian, perhaps, but it seems to have persuaded many, despite the unreliability of information gained under torture.

The problem arises when, as now, we don’t really know who those terrorists are or where (or
even if) any ticking time bombs may be hidden. With an “unseen” enemy whose tactics and
techniques are continually changing and whose only distinguishing characteristic is his desire to
“do harm” and his “evil” and “hatred of our freedom,” everyone, save perhaps a small cadre of the nation’s leaders, become potential suspects. The results are inevitable. Leaders feel justified in doing whatever they feel they need to do to whomever they feel they need to do it whenever they feel the need. In situations like these, the state of the nation becomes paranoia in infinite regression.

That this paranoia without end has so far expressed itself only as illegal wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, aggressive war, and declarations of criticism as unpatriotic and has yet to degenerate into outright Stalinism is perhaps a testament to the gross incompetence of the current administration. Had they really had their act together, they would have opened gulags in Death Valley by 2003 and filled them full of peace activists, Hollywood types, and Al Franken. Michael Moore would have long ago been slated for public execution. But Bush and Co. were far too busy doling out political appointments and making their cronies in the corporate world even more rich. One mustn’t let a little thing like upper-echelon mental illness get in the way of business, after all.

Indeed, the very arrogance and blithering self-confidence bred by those who have never known disempowerment may be more important than their inability to be effective. Stalin had to betray many people to get as far as he got. Unlike George W. Bush, who has never been in any kind of peril not due to the excesses of his own addictive personality, and whose failures were always miraculously fixed by the invisible hand of family money, Stalin actually did have to work very hard and knew full well the consequences of a single misstep: he could have ended up the next Trotsky, felled by the axe of the next up-and-coming Stalin. There’s no need to yield to paranoia when you know you’re going to win no matter what the actual outcome. Daddy’s friends will always fill your empty oil well with cash, your brother will make sure you win Florida, your pal over at Diebold will deliver Ohio unto you.

Within this framework, torture is merely another tool for getting what you want. It is a (only
slightly) more serious form of hazing, and the reactions of the friends and loved ones of the
tortured and the disappeared are just as irrelevant as those of the friends and loved ones of a maid you had to let go; as a member of the empowered class, it simply is not your problem. The “bleeding hearts” like me just don’t understand, of course: it’s only business, and sometimes things are rough in business, especially for those too stupid to negotiate a multi-billion dollar severance package.

Given this mentality, one can only wonder what this administration will be capable of when it feels itself truly threatened. As much as it has hurt us during Katrina and failed to fix the problems with health care, the destruction of the American working class, the national debt, and the trade deficit with China, one can only hope for more incompetence when those in power finally realize that the rest of the world actually is out to get them.

Torture 1

Those who criticize the Bush administration for sanctioning torture often point out that information obtained through torture is generally faulty. Prisoners will say whatever they think the torturer wants to hear in order to end the pain, accurate or not.

One problem with this criticism is that it implies that if torture were effective it would be justified. That sets a dangerous precedent, of course, and greatly misses the point: we should abstain from torture because it’s a human right violation, not because it fails to achieve our aims.

But these critics also mistakenly assume that those in the Bush administration want accurate information from their detainees to begin with, and there is no indication that they do. In fact, torture has the advantage of coercing detainees into saying what the interrogators want to hear, thus allowing them to justify doing what they had already planned to do anyway. Want to move against Iran or Syria? No problem: just waterboard some poor schmuck at Guantanamo into “confessing” that he was encouraged in his lust for Western blood by one of those states.

The problem isn’t that torture makes its sufferers give bad intelligence; the problem is it works all too well for an administration hell-bent on making its delusions real.