Torture … While I’ve been with CVT less than six years, I have been in the human rights or humanitarian field my entire adult life. The U.S. use of torture also alienates partners and puts the United States in the company of human rights violators whose actions we deplore and condemn. Perhaps the worst form of torture is terrorist torture, whose instru-mental function is fulfilled when the mutilated bodies of the victims are They (and in the case of Rahman, his family) were not forced to revisit, personally and in the global media, the excruciating details of the torture they endured: suspension, stress positions, being slammed into walls, crammed and confined in small locked boxes, dietary manipulation, prolonged sleep deprivation, forced nudity, water dousing in freezing temperatures, being strapped to waterboards, death threats and more. Can anyone be sure? Hence my third principle. Torture "replaces the rule of law with terror" (2021a) and defies every ethical theory known to mankind. ... 5 Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong. How many years will it be before terrorists are able to smuggle nuclear-armed suitcase bombs into the United States? Torture is morally wrong because it can affect an individual physically, socially and psychologically. That’s why the Army Field Manual, which governs interrogation standards for all U.S. government agencies and contractors, is unequivocal in its opposition to torture. Torture is one of the most extreme forms of human violence, resulting in both physical and psychological consequences. In August 2002, the Justice Department delivered an opinion to provide legal cover for the interrogations of the CIA and other government officials, the notorious “torture memo.” It limited the definition of torture only to the kind of pain “associated with a sufficiently serious physical condition or injury such as death, organ failure or serious impairment of body functions.” It seemed to permit activities — like burning someone with cigarettes or pulling out his fingernails — that are so clearly torture by anyone’s definition that it reminds us why normal people hate the obfuscatory legalisms of lawyers. In order to demonstrate that my position is incorrect then there must be an argument that categorically repudiates the use of torture at all times. We work in Nairobi, with urban refugee survivors from around the region; in the Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya; and now in the Kakuma refugee camps in northwestern Kenya, where hundreds of thousands have fled and continue to flee the bloodbath in South Sudan. Is torture morally wrong at all times and under all circumstances? We also know that rehabilitative care is critical to rebuild lives of torture survivors. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. So this evening I want to talk about why torture is such a scourge. Thank you again for being here. The threats have such a firm foundation in possibility, and such a harrowing promise of enormous destruction that any responsible executive leader … must assume the worst.” That is to say, torture may not only be part of our past, it may also be part of our future. The Center for Victims of Torture is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization (Tax ID number 36-3383933). Almost five years ago, I wrote a piece for the journal World Affairs that in the current climate of recrimination would no doubt be considered “pro-torture,” though my aim was to look rationally at a subject that tends to elicit emotional outcries rather than careful thinking. It is terribly gruesome reading, but we all need to know how horrific the torture was that our government carried out. Over 35 years now. So out of my personal background and the 30-plus years now that CVT has been working every day with survivors of torture comes a profound sense of the devastating impacts of torture. To show that torture is unjust, unethical, and morally wrong, we will look at some of the ethical theories and the moral conduct they live by. Every day the president was receiving a report called the “threat matrix,” listing every threat to the United States within the past 24 hours, including possible targets and perpetrators, along with assessments of each threat’s credibility. That bipartisan consensus still largely holds today, even in the fact of President Trump’s aggressive promotion of torture. Torture is abhorrent, un-American, and wrong. You hear this in connection with waterboarding. I mention that because, as I read the testimonies of the three individuals in the lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of this state who were tortured at the hands of the US, and particularly the systems of torture designed by Mr. Jessen and Mr. Mitchell, it became clear that what their victims endured—the subject of this lawsuit—was every bit as savage; every bit as brutal, as any testimony I had ever taken from victims and survivors. Thank you again for caring. This is an absolute moral principle. Here’s what he has said: “I’m going to bring back waterboarding and a helluva lot worse.”, “We’re going to have to do things that are unthinkable.”, “Torture works. When they were arrested by the SS and tortured, some of them held out and others broke. Like all absolutist views, this one offers great comfort to its proponents because it absolves them of the necessity of thinking through both the complexities and ambiguities of particular situations and the actual consequences of their positions. I’d like to examine a few of them in the light of the Senate report and the public controversy that has ensued. There is some good news: Ending torture has bi-partisan support. Torture consists of acts that are intrinsically wrong due to their cruelty and abusiveness. At CVT, we work with survivors of torture committed by repressive regimes around the world. The moral high ground is not necessarily occupied by those who would oppose torturing him. In 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order ending the CIA’s use of torture and cruel treatment. Frankly, if I were a member of a resistance group, I’d have more confidence in those colleagues who were unsure how they would respond than those strutting around with barrel-chested confidence that they would never crack. However desperate the countervailing circumstances, torture is always wrong and should never occur. That is also why supporters of the Senate report speak broadly of torture and why the opponents prefer the phrase “harsh interrogations.” The language matters. And why there should be no exceptions. This chapter begins its account of the wrongness of torture negatively, by pondering some of the previous efforts of philosophers to specify why torture is wrong. As an interrogation tool, torture is notoriously unreliable. Critics of the ticking bomb argument contend that the scenario is a fraud, science fiction, because it would never arise in the real world. The UN Convention Against Torture and U.S. law, ban torture explicitly and without exception. And a special thank you to the Washington State Religious Campaign against Torture and all the cosponsors for organizing these really critical series of events on torture. Paul and in Atlanta. As President Obama properly noted back in May 2009, torture also undermines the rule of law, compromises our image abroad, puts our own troops at risk, and helps terrorists recruit. The Torture Debate in America. torture is categorically wrong, but only that it bears an especially high burden of justification, greater in degree and different in kind from even that of killing. Others who condoned torture. In fact, seasoned interrogators such as Secretary of Defense James Mattis forcefully assert that accurate information comes from sophisticated questioning techniques and rapport-building, not torture. Many bear physical evidence, such as scars from being lashed with cables; stabbed or burned with cigarettes; head injuries and broken bones from beatings; musculoskeletal disorders from being hung by their arms or put in other stress positions; paralysis or lost limbs. Of course torture will on occasion produce accurate information. And CVT’s staff met earlier this year with nearly 30 Republican Senate offices. It creates cultures based on apathy and fear. J.M. Others who worked to create loopholes for torture. Goldsmith called the memo a “blank check,” and he rescinded it when he was in a position to do so. hold the rope that contorted her body. 10 Establishing such a special burden of justification may In “The Terror Presidency,” one of the most nuanced insider accounts to emerge from this period, Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel from October 2003 to June 2004, describes the nonstop arguments that were going on within the Bush Administration between those who wanted to take whatever steps they considered necessary against terrorism and those who were concerned about balancing security with legality. We need those who authorized and ordered the torture program to finally be held fully accountable. We also build the capacity of colleague organizations in the U.S. and abroad, and of human rights defenders globally, through technical assistance and training. A different kind of evidence is provided by the French resistance to the Nazis. I thank you. Finally, it’s useful to look at this question from the inside out. And today we have a president who openly, repeatedly and aggressively asserts his support for the use of torture. of wrong that may explain why we find torture to be more morally offen-sive than other ways of inflicting great physical or psychological harm.' The central moral evil in interrogating someone by means of torture is that it overrides the victim's moral agency. There are no exceptions and it is never allowed in a time of war or in the name of national security. It’s sobering that at this point in the evolution of our species—which we like to believe is a world which is becoming increasingly civilized, and that the U.S. is a major positive force in that direction—it’s really sobering that it has become necessary for a series of events to be organized to remind and educate us all about the evil of torture. President Ronald Reagan in 1988 signed the Convention Against Torture. decent people torture is virtually unthinkable as a means of achieving their ends. The contestant claims to have been permanently injured by the experience and has … It occurs in countries with free elections. One of the reasons that this fact is important is that it is abused. First, it closes down all discussion because if torture (or harsh interrogations) never works, then the only people who support it are either deluded or sadistic. And I think it’s pretty clear to many that when there is another terrorist attack in the U.S., President Trump will be back at it with his aggressive calls to bring back "waterboarding and a helluva lot worse.”. Torture: When… Human Rights First, along with dozens of interrogators, intelligence professionals, retired generals, and admirals, know that torture is ineffective at gaining actionable intelligence. Whether psychological or physical, torture is a calculated and systematic assault on and dismantling of a person’s identity, dignity and humanity. But however hamfisted and self-serving the torture memo was, it was wrestling with a question that has tended to get lost in the current commotion. We work with people who have survived the most extreme cruelty the human mind can devise. Yet Gina Haspel, deputy director of the CIA, oversaw the torture of two prisoners at a secret prison in Thailand, and later took part in the destruction of videotapes of that torture. Among anti-torture absolutists, it’s a widely held conviction that torture never works, and that any information a suspect might provide will be worthless. There is a decided consensus that Kantian ethics yields an absolutist case against torture – that torture is morally wrong and absolutely so. No one knows. When a draft executive order was leaked early in the Trump presidency that called for a review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which could have brought back the global network of secret prisons at which the CIA committed systematic torture, the condemnation was swift, strong and firmly bipartisan. We need the Senate to release the Intelligence Committee’s full report on the post-9/11 torture program, not just the Executive Summary. 2005. And we know the profound impacts made on a country’s reputation and standing in the world once leaders make the decision to use torture. So we must be vigilant, and we must fight back against any and every effort to restart a torture program. … Plot lines that I don’t know — I don’t know what’s going on inside the United States.” Fears were at their utmost not only in the days and weeks after 9/11 but also one year later, on the anniversary of the attacks. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates, in unqualified terms, that Some are even “convinced that the use of torture is inevitable” (688). However, torture necessitates the defencelessness of its victim and as such, it cannot be considered under the same moral and normative guidelines. He was invited by the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture to speak on the occasion of settlement of an historic lawsuit filed against two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who designed the CIA torture program after the attacks of 9/11. But we know, and medical experts have proven, that the psychological effects of torture are as devastating and long-lasting as physical effects. The long-term effects of torture can last a lifetime without proper care. Torture is morally unjustified, therefore, because it “dehumanizes people by treating them as pawns to be manipulated through their pain” (xii). Interrogation techniques that respect human rights have a proven track record of success at getting information out of terrorism suspects. Here are some of the things we know about torture. A recent book arguing in favor of torture in limited situations is Bagaric, Mirko, and Julie Clarke. The truth is that in the absence of startling new revelations, we will probably never know. Survivors who receive care at CVT endure chronic pain in muscles and joints, from being bound or hung or confined to small spaces like cages. And we work in Jordan, with Iraqis and Syrians who have endured torture and atrocities committed on a scale that is difficult to comprehend. At the time I was writing my torture article, I happened to be looking at a book about a small group of German opponents to Hitler. Why we must never return to its use. My colleagues are psychologists, social workers, physiotherapists, researchers, international program managers, human rights experts and advocates. Torture is wrong. Survivors—our clients—come to us bringing horrific stories of torture, imprisonment, rape or other forms of sexual and gender based violence. It absolutely works. As the global refugee crisis grows, with over 65 million persons displaced today, the number of refugees who have survived torture is staggering. Amnesty International has reported that over the past year, nearly 100 countries have engaged in the use of torture—that is, the deliberate infliction of severe physical  or mental suffering, carried out by a public official for a specific purpose—a confession, information, to intimidate. The problem with it is that it throws us back to the ticking-bomb scenario and the question of whether torture (however defined) is immoral under all circumstances. And we need to ensure that victims of the torture that was committed in our name receive reparations and access to rehabilitative care. This can be difficult to accept, but the fact is CVT clinicians work in many locations with children who have been tortured or survived war atrocities. Perhaps you’ve heard this one: people who defend the use of torture often claim that there are cases when only torture will extract crucial information quickly enough to stop a deadly attack. Second, it enables the anti-torture absolutists to avoid any moral quandaries by melodramatically, even childishly, lining up all good things on one side of the ledger and all bad things on the other. Therefore, torture aims to completely disregard one of the essential foundations upon which democracy was built. Bush prioritized U.S. ratification of the Convention. It occurs every day, in every region of the world. If the consequences that resulted from torturing someone to retrieve information had a good outcome and the information is useful, then it is possible that people would determine torture to be a good consequence. It occurs in countries that lean to the left. but who ever hate is not of God. Where should the line be drawn? And through our office in Washington, DC, we generate federal funding to heal survivors while working against torture and for transparency, reform and accountability for the post-9/11 torture committed by the United States in the name of counterterrorism. We need the United States to live up to the full promise of the Convention against Torture, which guarantees to survivors “fair and adequate compensation, including as full rehabilitation as possible.”. CVT rebuilds the lives of survivors in the U.S., at projects in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. But just because we may not be able to reach a firm conclusion about the CIA interrogations doesn’t mean we can’t state with confidence that torture does work — not in all cases and with everyone, but in some cases some of the time. We know this from our own work; our clients tell us they said anything they thought the torturers wanted to hear—just to stop the torment and pain. Countries that are democracies. Those members of Congress who learned about it when it was being employed don’t seem to have had their consciences shocked. Some may ask, why is it morally wrong to torture suspected terrorists in order to get crucial information which might save the lives of innocent civilians, but it is perfectly acceptable to kill terrorists with targeted drone strikes? Half of the four most popular moral theories would say that torture is always morally wrong, while the other half may make some exceptions. Throughout most of my years doing this work I learned, frankly, not to be very surprised to be confronted with deaths in custody as a result of torture, if it happened in Iran or Syria or in Chile under Pinochet or in South Africa under apartheid, but tortured to death at the hands of the U.S. interrogators? The prisoners at Guantanamo who are still suffering from the physical and psychological abuses they endured, and on whose cases we’ve consulted, they thank you. No one—no one is above the law. In some cases, perpetrators capture children to force their parents to turn themselves in. There is a straightforward empirical issue here as well. What do we mean when we use the word “torture”? Many of our clients were highly successful in their lives, in business, in professional careers and in their communities. and hate causes torture and torture can also lead to death or murder. We also know that torture leaves deep and long-lasting wounds. This is an assertion that serves two purposes. When a second person is tortured, the community quickly gets the message: you must do whatever the perpetrators want. The right to freedom from torture is a universally recognized human right and one of the foundations of international law. We need to know the whole truth about the torture program that James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen designed. We conduct research on effective approaches to healing torture survivors. Rebuilding a life is a journey, but one that results in success for survivors with the proper care. At CVT Ethiopia, where we see Eritrean survivors, over 40 percent of our clients are under 18 years old. It is important to be clear, as a moral matter, on what boundaries should be accepted in interrogation of human beings. It occurs in countries with no elections. What about solitary confinement? This is as many as 1.3 million people, a number almost 2 times the population of Seattle. © The Center for Victims of Torture, 2021 All rights reserved. It’s a ludicrous thought. But this is a myth that’s perpetuated by torture apologists, and also by movies and television. If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway.”. 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