Torture as a societal option

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I know that there was a thread devoted to torture a while back, but I searcherd for it and could not find it, so I'm opening this one -- my apologies if I missed something right under my nose. I'm also placing this in Angles because I feel it goes beyond politics to the underlying fabric of society and humanity.

I frequently teach "The Crucible" to my students. For those unfamiliar with the play, it tells of the Salem Witch Trials and the vicious methods of coercion used to force people to confess to "being a witch". The story has allegorical connections to the McCarthy Communist hunts of the late 40s and early 50s.

They whip people, beat them, and in one memorable scene, they "press" a man to death, which means they place a plywood plank on his chest and then load on the rocks until he can't breathe anymore, all in the effort to get him to enter a plea in their court -- he refuses, and because he didn't enter a plea, he cannot be found guilty, dies a free man under the law, and his lands go to his sons (if he had entered a plea, even one of not guilty, they would have found him guilty and his lands would have been forfeited to the state.)

OK, enough preamble. I can readily see that using torture to extract a confession for something that the torturers already believe to be true is a waste of time. HOWEVER, what if it is for more immediate purposes? The standard example that was batted around in the last thread was that of a bomb placed in a major urban center. One of the conspirators (Bud) is captured by the FBI. If the bomb is not found in, oh, let's say 12 hours, thousands of people will die. Should torture be used?

Now, I look at this little scenario and see it this way -- it is not like the FBI is torturing this fellow to force him to give them forgone concluded data "say the bomb is in the White House laundry or I'll cut off your next toe!" If they already know the bomb is in the laundry, they can go, deactivate it (or at least evacuate, whatever) and then use the legal system to try to convict the suspect later on. I'm going on the assumption that they have NO idea where the bomb is. So, they torture Bud. He tells them "it's hidden in a van parked by the Lincoln Memorial." Now, many people say that the information gained by this sort of thing is "unreliable". Fair enough -- if it turns out he lied, it's back to the drawing board and the electrodes until he coughs up a new location. The crux of my argument is that NO ONE can stand up to prolonged torture, no matter how devoted, strong-willed or tough they are. If it will save the lives of thousands of people, I really can't see how someone can argue that it would deeply damage our society to save those lives by whatever means necessary. I agree that human life has value, even infinite value, but 1000 innocents x infinity outweighs 1 conspirator x infinity, if you get my drift despite the bad math.

Of course, this is highly limited in scope -- and I realize that we are assuming that Bud KNOWS where the bomb is. OK, flaw noted. Also, in terms of knowledge, such knowledge rapidly becomes outdated -- once Osama knows that Bud has been captured, he's going to move somewhere else, so zapping Bud to get Osama's location is counterproductive and somewhat sadistic. So the supposed torture camps being run by the U.S. are not helpful -- any info they get from these guys is not likely to be much help. But within the framework I described above, I honestly can't see why the public service would not use EVERY tool at their disposal, however vile, to get the data they need to save lives.

Thoughts, my friends?

 

Beating the bomb location out of Bud if he is the one who has planted the bomb or claims to know the location? I'm not sure how I would behave and I couldn't condemn either option off the bat.

What I know is that it's always wrong to rape bud's wife and/or daughter on his eyes until he starts talking. I'd really rather die than be saved by such means.

 

The "a bomb will blow up in 12 hours if we don't torture the info out of this guy" scenario is quite unlikely, in fact unlikley enough not to give the police any special rights with torture. Also torture is an unrealiable method and even though the guy might eventually give in when do you suppose that will happen. After he has revealed about 500 other locations for the bomb? And naturally they were all checked out?

Torture is flawed an unreliable at best to be of any significant gain.

 

I suppose they would only send torture-resistant people on bombing missions... self-proclaimed fighters for a cause aren't exactly mentally stable people, so who knows if they are going to react in a normal way... Still, I can't stop thinking of an ideal situation where you have someone who knows the location of a bomb or of prisoners/hostages to be executed.

 

I'm little torn here. Tortures are agains human rights, democracy and so on, but sometimes it's nesesry to sacrifice rights of a single person for a greater good.

 

Even taking into account a ticking bomb scenario, torture should be not legalized.

So what to do if the interrogating officer really has reason to think that the terrorist knows were the bomb is, and that information might save lives? I would say then: torture him. It would be breaking the law, and the officer ordering this will be/should be relieved of duty afterwards. So he would suffer; but on the other hand, he would have saved the lives of many people (or not, depending on how successful the interrogation went). So it's a trade-off; but then one should not put one's career above the lives of other people.

So, what I am saying is we should not use the law to hide behind when we contemplate something as abhorent as torture. If you really think torture is the way to go in a particular case, then go ahead, do it, and then take the fall. Freedom requires sacrifices; and this should not hold only for the average people, who are being asked to give up their civil liberties, but also for those in charge.

 

There's this writer called Foucault (french one and bisexual too) that says that torture has a disciplinary effect on society. It doesn't serve a specific purpose like the one you brought up (finding a bomb in X hours). I don't know much about it, but if you feel like it, check out "Discipline and punish", which, I think, clearly explains how prison and punishment work and have evolutioned from middle ages to this day. It's a great book.
I mention this, because I fully agree with him. Torture is a tool of discipline. It 's somehow similar to the laws: you won't do this if you know that can happen that. It also states that it's goal it's to break a person's morals, more than inflict physical pain. Don't ask me more about it.
As for a single use, I don't think it'll be very helpful either, and certainly it's a step back for democracy (uh, I hate to say that). Besides, it's an extremely hypothetical example.

 

I think people shouldnt allow distraction by these nonsensical scenarios that, in all likelihood, will never come up in such a way that torture of all things might help avert the disaster. Even idle games of thought open up doors that should be closed in a civilized nation. Personally, I wont give torture even the slightest appearance of legitimacy by speculating about its uses in some fictional setting.

Rather there should be concern over torture and human rights violations already in the news. Concern over the real thing. Would make for a far better use of time and attention.

[ December 27, 2005, 23:48: Message edited by: Dendri ]

 

Khaavern's post brilliantly summed up my view. Torture should NEVER be made legal in any way. However, there are some times that people must step above the law in order to do what's good. In these situations, they should be punished as the law dictates.

If they save millions of people via torture, slap a medal on their chest, slap the back of their hand, tell them they've been a very naughty boy/girl, add the criminal record to their file, and prehaps a year or so of community service. Or what ever the law dictates is allowed.

 

The way I figure it in this scenario, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

But it just seems like an academic question. Torture is already being used for less, uh, admirable purposes.

 

The problem is that you dont know if you have a conspirator or if he knows the location or if his information is up to date or if he lies or if he just says whatever to get rid of torture.

Torture is only reliable if you already know the answer you seek.