Life and Liberty » On waterboarding
This is an expansion of a blog entry originally published on Peter’s other blog here.
It is not normally in the nature of this blog for me to upload a post without any of my own input into the discussion. However, there are several things that have prompted me to make an exception on this occasion.
A piece on the Times Online earlier this week, saying that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, was waterboarded 183 times has redrawn the debate surrounding this form of “harsh interrogation” to the surface.
Two pieces particularly caught my attention this morning. On the BBC, Condoleezza Rice approved the technique of waterboarding back in 2002, saying that it produced results. Secondly, Ben Macintyre’s outstanding piece in The Times this morning on why tortue doesn’t work, making excellent use of the oft-quoted 24 example.
I was also slightly concerned by James Delingpole’s blog entry that seems almost to make light of waterboarding in order to emphasise his point.
Many people know remarkably little about waterboarding, and what it entails. I feel therefore that I must upload this video of journalist Christopher Hitchens undergoing waterboarding for a Vanity Fair feature. You can read his written account here. I believe this is a video that should be as widely circulated as possible, made by a man for whom I have the utmost journalistic respect:
26 responses below. Comments are open.
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I’ve always been suspicious of this video’s admissibility as evidence. It seems to me that directly comparing the mental and physical tolerance levels of Christopher Hitchens and an insurgent who is, presumably; younger, fitter and hardier makes for potential fallacy. I feel that Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s 183 round performance undermines this video somewhat.
It strikes me that the phrase “unless you have any better ideas…” could be usefully employed here, and also that I’d judge the acceptability of interrogation techniques on their attendant risk of permanent damage – whether physical or psychological. I have to admit that, though I’m without direct experience of waterboarding, I find this pretty tame.
Is there any way I can subscribe only to actual Nouse ‘news’ feeds, rather than these opinion/blog pieces?
http://www.nouse.co.uk/archives/news/feed/
Basically, append /feed to any archive page listed in the sitemap to get the feed just for that category.
Gideon you can’t necessarily assume that all insurgents or alleged insurgents subjected to waterboarding will indeed be younger and hardier, particularly if they had been imprisoned for a significant period and/or subjected to other interrogaration techniques before being waterboarded. And I don’t see how the example of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed supports your point at all; I imagine he suffered immensely, the mere fact that it was possible to repeat this so many times on him shows nothing.
I also don’t agree that the risk of permanent damage should be the only criterion for evaluating interrogation techniques. Why focus only on duration and not on intensity? Surely you can agree that causing intense suffering is morally relevant however long it is for. In any case, as you say, you have no direct experience of waterboarding so your suggestion that it is tame is rather unpersuasive. Hitchens fully changed his opinion on waterboarding after experiencing it for himself and perhaps you should show a little more humility. The testimony and assertions of Hitchens and others who have experienced waterboarding is more relevant and reliable than that of those who have not.
“It seems to me that directly comparing the mental and physical tolerance levels of Christopher Hitchens and an insurgent who is, presumably; younger, fitter and hardier makes for potential fallacy.”
Are you volunteering?
I’m quite disturbed by this video, particularly the calculated build-up to it almost as much as the action itself. Like Hitchens, I have been a supporter of using harsh(er) methods of interrogation against terror suspects, I guess from a utilitarian standpoint of support: damage to one individual to save the lives of others is a beneficial evil.
However, this video does make one think again. It appears extremely sinister at the very least and in an ideal world no western or any nation would advocate such techniques. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to not emotionally involve ourselves *too* much in this process. I think we have to fully understand the threat we face from terrorism in order to understand why these techniques are being used. The threat faced is very real; who’s to say how much valuable, life-saving intelligence has been gained from this method?
This is not to say that it is not an extremely unpleasant way of conducting anti-terror interrogation and even harder to stomach when witnessed first-hand, though I still believe it’s probably a necessary evil in the war we are fighting.
Gideon,
“It strikes me that the phrase “unless you have any better ideas…” could be usefully employed here, and also that I’d judge the acceptability of interrogation techniques on their attendant risk of permanent damage – whether physical or psychological. ”
So, the end justifies the screams (s colbert).
Or by your reasoning the end, and the absence of any better interrogation technique other than waterboarding, justifies the screams.
I’d be interested to know why you think that waterboarding (WB) is so far the best technique for interrogation. Or more importantly why you seem to think that WB is the only option…
You say that this is “tame”, but tame in comparison to what? Disembowelling? Or rape? Of course this is the case – frankly this was a rather silly comment to make. But here ‘x is tamer than y’ in no way whatsoever justifies the claim ‘x is better than y’. Of course you might prefer x, if you were given an ultimatum between x and y. But this does not mean that whichever you choose is better; it just means that you preferred it. And more to the point you really should never be, or should never have been, put in such a situation.
One of the glaringly obvious fallacies you commit is that you assume that torture works. You appear to claim that that interrogation technique which has less physical or psychological ‘permanent’ damage will be the best option. Even if the conditions of minimal, or even no, psychological and physical permanent damage are satisfied, there is still a gap between this and the technique being successful.
‘Successful’ here surely has to mean the attainment of accurate and reliable data, information, and (possibly) knowledge concerning either:
1) Pending extreme and serious organised criminal activity (‘terrorism’);
2) Key opponents’ military strategies; not excluding espionage, key communications ability, and political health.
The trouble is that when your guilty-until proven-innocent-suspect, who you probably just know is a terrorist, or a spy-masquerading-as-a-journalist, gives you what appears to be something that fits into these vague categories; ask yourself: how can you be sure that this, possibly key, piece of information is not really only the outcome of a human being’s desperate attempt to remove his or her self from a situation in which they are being tortured? This is even if this is only a ‘tame’ technique: ‘after all no limbs are lost!’.
You might think ‘well yes there is an epistemic issue here, but this is no different to, say, the problem of knowing whether a friend’s anecdote is truth or falsehood’. This is different because in the torture case, the torturer is giving the torturee/ed an incentive to lie: give information and the pain will stop. This is a pretty major shortcoming.
Surely you must think that a first condition for whether an interrogation technique is ‘acceptable’ is its proven record of actually working and its being reliable?
Let’s clear up this assumption that the video is not realistic because Hitchens is an unfit desk-sitting journalist.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866
CIA officers, who Gideon might consider more physically and mentally prepared for this kind of thing, lasted an average of 14 seconds. Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s performance was so unusual that he gained the admiration of his interrogators. Also, as David has highlighted, we cannot assume that all insurgents are fit athletes – many of them might be very similar to Hitchens.
But does this really matter? I’m sure CIA officers and Al-Qaeda members would cope with being savagely beaten than I would. Does it mean the action is any less unacceptable when performed towards them?
Surprised as I am to say it, I agree with much of what Dan’s saying. The argument in favour of such treatments is not that waterboarding is a lovely technique – it’s commonly accepted as the most horrific torture technique and is known and acknowledged as a heinous human rights abuse. There isn’t anyone who suggests it isn’t torture. The point is that it’s the torture of one for the lives of thousands.
The difference comes in when it seems that the vast majority of information gained through waterboarding is unreliable. Much of the information about WMDs in Iraq and also the links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq came through waterboarding. Very little information, and that’s assuming that we believe the US government – others suggest that it is NO information, has been taken from waterboarding techniques.
It’s absolutely horrible, and we know that. If information came from it, I would say it’s a case of whether you believe that the ends can justify the means… but as it doesn’t appear that information comes from it, it really just looks like the worst form of revenge imaginable. Worse than the techniques used by Saddam Hussein et al, anyway!
“it really just looks like the worst form of revenge imaginable. Worse than the techniques used by Saddam Hussein et al, anyway.”
This simply isn’t correct and shows you have absolutely zero idea of interrogation techniques used by Saddam. I think you’d get a shock if you saw some. Forcing prisoners to eat their own faeces, attaching an electric generator to testicles, chopping off digits, inverting eyelashes (etc., etc.) are just some techniques that were used by Saddam. Comparing waterboarding to this does make it seem rather tame.
Also, let’s look at the reasons behind interrogating with this method. In your post, Jason, you said that the “vast majority of information gained through waterboarding is unreliable.” How do you KNOW this? There is no way of supporting such an assertion because of the very arena in which this act is conducted- the realms of intelligence. For all we know, use of this technique has prevented many terror-attacks in the US/UK and many other areas as well as limit insurgent attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and other arenas of the war.
I will finish by reiterating my point. I do not find this pleasant by any means. However, if this technique produces results that are positive for national security (let’s face it, it wouldn’t be used if it was useless, would it), then it is a necessary evil in this war on terror.
I find the use of ‘war on terror’ terminology here quite depressing.
If you call those persons, held in guantanamo, or in whatever other still-secret prisons that may exist, ‘insurgents’, then, you are claiming that they are in fact insurgents.
Let’s be clear, most ‘insurgents’ held in guantanamo were never tried, never had the opportunity to counter charges brought against them; indeed no charges were brought against many them (and for many none ever will). They may well NOT be insurgents.
Whether actual ‘insurgents’ or otherwise, most people subject to WB are prisoners of war. Well, at least that WB carried out by the US, and there is evidence that Britain had more than trivial involvement. The same cannot be said for China and N Korea, where prisoners are often political, or even social detainees. These ordinary citizens (surely?) will be waterboarded, if not amongst other techniques, to give up their friends and other members of social and political groups.
WB is not just used for the purposes of interrogating the prisoners from the two current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. And those that are prisoners of these campaigns, or prisoners as a result of these campaigns, are protected by strict international legal rules that govern the treatment POWs. We have prosecuted the likes of Saddam Hussein under such laws.
I find it puzzling why people often perceive torture used against the targets of the ‘war on terror’ as being different from torture used in any other context. The IRA were constantly threatening the UK on a daily basis in 70s and 80s in particular ; yet we still didn’t use this as a basis for justifying torture. Well, not executively, or officially, anyway… And hopefully only a few did privately. And hopefully the executive did not do so secretly (even though they probably did).
So on the one hand you can think generally that torturing people in any context is wrong or unacceptable.
On the other, you can think, as Dan Taylor and maybe Gideon do, that torturing ‘insurgents’ is ok; possibly because of what is at stake. (Or because the severity of the torture isn’t so bad. But by what standard?)
The difference is between saying ‘all torture is bad’ and ‘only some torture is bad, some is a “beneficial evil”‘.
Frankly because I believe that WB is torture,
and because I find any torture completely unacceptable in any circumstances, I find WB unacceptable. Not just against supposedly radically-lethal muslims, but anyone.
I am VERY sceptical about any claims that torture works, let alone any claims that it has some higher ‘utilitarian’ purpose.
“who’s to say how much valuable, life-saving intelligence has been gained from this method?”
This question is one of fact and can have a definite answer. Any answer however is greatly undermined by an obvious desire of those answering to justify or legitimate what they have done.
What if it was one of my loved ones in danger? Well, this is my position from reason; I cannot say what I would do in unreasonable circumstances. I dare say that such reactions, that is unreasonable ones, of this kind are precisely what motivate most conflicts in the first place.
Let us try to put things into perspective please.
‘Enforced interrogation techniques’ (how very Orwellian) are not reserved exclusively for the hypothetical ticking time-bomb scenario, where authorities need to extract crucial information from a confirmed terrorist, in order to save the lives of thousands from a bomb that will soon be exploding. I get the feeling that this is the assumption that some are making here.
The real issue however behind approving such interrogation techniques (i.e. behind legitimising torture) is very different to that abstract philosophical dilemma. Let’s look at the facts: 75% of the prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay have already been released with no charges being filed against them. This effectively means that at least 3 OUT OF 4 of the prisoners being held in Guantanamo, people who were denied their most basic rights and were routinely tortured in various such ways, were in fact found to be innocent.
Dan, it is true that Jason does not have access to statistics to prove his assertion that “the vast majority of information gained through waterboarding is unreliable”, but this is actually what most psychologists would argue. Torture is not effective simply because, no matter if you are guilty or innocent of something, if you are being tortured you will be admitting anything you’d think will please your torturer.
As a retired USA Air Force Colonel said, “if you take a Bunsen burner to a guy’s genitals, he’s going to tell you just about anything” – which is arguably quite useless. Read the full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html
Jason brought up another very interesting point – the fact that the ‘confession’ a tortured prisoner was forced to make was used by the US government as proof (as the single most persuasive piece of evidence in fact) that Saddam was creating weapons of mass destruction and had relations with Al-Qaeda. As we all know, this was utter bollocks and only goes to show how effective those techniques really are and what kind of purpose they really serve.
I think you mean ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.
True.
“This simply isn’t correct and shows you have absolutely zero idea of interrogation techniques used by Saddam. I think you’d get a shock if you saw some. Forcing prisoners to eat their own faeces, attaching an electric generator to testicles, chopping off digits, inverting eyelashes (etc., etc.) are just some techniques that were used by Saddam. Comparing waterboarding to this does make it seem rather tame.”
Not according to human rights agencies who consider waterboarding the most horrific of torture methods. It simulates DYING and then after a day of recovery happens AGAIN. The feeling is so horrible that the individual admits to anything just to get out of feeling the sensation again. Unlike chopping bits off, there’s no mid-point to say “No! I’ll talk!” because you’re drowning and can’t speak. When you’re waterboarded 100 times you’ll admit to anything and this includes WMDs in Iraq, Al-Qaeda or taliban links with any country under the sun, whatever.
And though George is right by saying ‘psychologically’, the actually point is that important members of the US government (not sure if they’re still in government) have admitted that over half of the information gained through waterboarding is incorrect. I haven’t got torture information at hand, of course, so I’m just trusting their statements.
People who are diehard will not admit where their base is. They will lie, they will say whatever they think the other person wants to hear. “Osama Bin Laden was with me in Pakistan” or “we’re planning to bomb Wembley Stadium at the olympics”… “We’re funded by Saudi Arabia” or “North Korea gave us nukes”. Who knows what lies will be ‘revealed’ through the technique that puts us all in unnecessary danger simply as a result of the inaccuracies of waterboarding. What they should be doing is showing why we’re better than the Bin Laden lot (i.e. by not torturing) and bring enough compassion into their lives that they stop planning to kill everyone.
Jason, can you provide evidence of the link to the particular human-rights document that specifically says what you do in your comment, please.
Many thanks.
Dan, the wikipedia article on WB does reference a number of human rights agencies’ concerns and condemnations of the torture method. Whether this was Justin’s point I do not know…
It seems to me that there are broadly two kinds of WB. First, is where victims are tied upside-down to a board, and then water is poured over their face for significantly long enough time so that water does get into the lungs; through the nose and mouth. Second, victims are still tied to a board upside-down and water is poured over their face; their face is however covered by cling film or other plastic material.
In the first case, this is not simulated drowning; this is drowning. Do this for long enough and the victim will drown.
Possibly the second case is the origin of the ’simulation’ claim; yet besides the suffocation and the being covered in water there is little else in common with drowning itself. It is still a particularly bad instance of torture by suffocation. And I would argue that even this method is still torture by Geneva Convention and other standards; and therefore unacceptable.
I do not think this distinction is made clearly enough in the discussion. Optimistically, I’d wager that it is the second, supposedly CIA-WB, that gets touted as not so bad. The first kind is unquestionably as bad as many of Saddam Hussein’s methods of torture driven interrogation; if not one of them.
Nick, I didn’t say that it was not an extremely unpaletable method of torture. What I questioned was what agencies said it was worse than the methods of some of the worlds worst despots and when they said it. A fundamental part of any discussion is not making unqualified statements by saying that ‘this group said it’ (when in reality, and in the world outside Mr. Rose’s head, the didn’t).
Call me a cynic, but I think it’s yet another example of saying something ridiculous without any qualification to say it. That is, unless he provides me with the link to say otherwise. I ask again, can I see it please, Jason?
I looked at a few forums to see what average people said recently in response to “what is the worst form of torture?”… here are a few examples:
“All the Hitler’s one”
“Drawn, hanged and quartered”
“Tickling”
“Life”
“Burned at stakes”
“Listening to George Bush speak”
“Being stared at by a crowd after falling down in the street”
But no, I can’t find any of the few main worldwide Human Rights Agencies that have said it on the internet. Likewise I can’t see them saying any similar comments about other torture methods, though, so there isn’t any evidence against. I’m sure I read the comment from Amnesty but it might have either been spoken or in Big Issue or something. Not exactly sure. Interesting to see if you can find any quotes for any torture forms being named as “one of the worst” by any major human rights group? There’s a chance that I missed something obvious.
The big difference, Jason, is that I didn’t say that a big human rights group said they were as you did in your post. You completely manufactured an idea and said a specific group of so-called ‘experts’ supported your assertion. When comparing the two sources/types of torture, I said, “this does make it seem rather tame.” I stand by that statement.
The fact is, and I keep re-iterating this point, that not for one moment do I ‘enjoy’ the contents of this video. On the contrary, they disturb me greatly. However, what I find more disturbing (and this is an idea further brought home for me by this video) is that there really are individuals out there that seek to blow themselves and as many civilians up as possible to force their evil so-called ‘religious’ aims on many peaceful and (relatively) free countries around the world.
If this is what it has come to in order to prevent such eventualities, as I am in no doubt it has (as I also said before, they would not use it if it wasn’t a successful technique of interrogation), then this is a necessary price we must pay for the threats of global terrorism that we face today. I’m afraid the world’s a bit of a f****d up place.
Links:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/22/US-didnt-research-waterboarding/UPI-89381240402087/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/29/politics/washingtonpost/main4901154.shtml
Quotes from the New York Times:
“The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines.”
“The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.”
“He revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been unnecessary.”
Finally, the fact that after WWII the US prosecuted Japanese interrogators who used waterboarding, on the accusation of torture, is quite telling. Incidentally, they were sentenced to 15 years in U.S. prison for committing a war crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26pubed.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=waterboarding&st=cse
Lastly, do you honestly think Dan that one can effectively fight terrorists by giving the world a basis on which it can justify aggression against the West? The use of torture is not only inhumane and potentially ineffective, it is also undeniably counter productive in the ‘fight against terror’.
So do you honestly think that we should drop at the same level with totalitarian regimes, such as that of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, North Korea, Iraq, the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, all of whom used wateboarding as one of their ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’?
In fairness, at least they didn’t use doublespeak and they all described it more accurately as ‘water torture’.
There is some evidence that the waterboarding used by the Khmer Rouge is not the same as that that was sanctioned by the CIA.
The key difference is that in the latter cling film is placed over the victim’s face; this is significant because it prevents actual drowning. ‘Water torture’ is just as ambiguous because it also refers to the historical chinese method of slowly dripping water on the head. It also includes any form of torture that involves water.
What we can conclude from this is if the CIA manual definition of WB is accurate, and their agents carry this out to the letter, then this method is not the same as that WB used by the khmer rouge and co. Whether this makes it any better is another matter.
The claim that the CIA method’s use puts us in bad company is correct not in virtue of the specific method, but because we torture at all. The significant differences between the methods of waterboarding makes this the case.
George, thanks for the links, but they still don
” It *is* useful because it is still used. Unlike terrorists who have no concept of moral high ground, the US is and has been extremely keen to keep public opinion onside. It wouldn’t use such hostile methods of interrogation if this werent the case.”
Dan, the Obama Administration has banned the use of WaterBoarding. However, the Pentagon has not confirmed whether it will stop WB military trainees.
Surely, this undermines your claim that because it is used it is useful? Looks as though if it *was* useful, and yet they stopped using it; there’s something wrong with it. And its use value wasn’t enough to overcome whatever it was.
Also, a major tenet of Al Qaeda’s (just for example) criticism of the the US is based on their claim to a moral high ground. It’s just that their higher ground is home to burkhas, halal, and sharia law.
I also think that the kinds of things that the US now officially counts in its moral higher ground is substantially different from the slightly outmoded (dare I say Cheney-style) view of American values and foreign policy you imply. But of course the US is a big place probably with lots of crazy views.
Even if you think that the US will still continue using WB secretly, where’s the evidence?
Your position is that if real life is like ‘24′, then torture is justified. That is in ticking bomb situations, utilitarianism justifies torture. This looks like the same argument used by the Bush Administration. I’d again like to see some evidence that the world is like ‘24′.
”Surely, this undermines your claim that because it is used it is useful? Looks as though if it *was* useful, and yet they stopped using it; there’s something wrong with it. And its use value wasn’t enough to overcome whatever it was.”
Just because something has its faults in method, doesn’t mean that it’s not useful. I think WB-ing has many faults and I find it pretty disturbing. However, I’m not naive enough to think that it’s not at times a necessary evil to have in our armoury when fighting a war as we are at this current time. This has gone on for years and think that Obama’s ‘rise’ will halt it is yet more naivety.
OK Dan, but your claim before was not that WB has *some* use value or some instrumental value. It was that it was useful because it is used. I was merely denying the causal part of your claim; though I recognise that this still might leave it open that WB is useful even if it is not used.
My point was though that other considerations must have outweighed its use value, I think its clear this includes heightened public awareness that WB is torture. So that it is torture is more important than its being useful. This is contrary to your claim that its being useful is more important than its being torture.
I think we’ve well established that you don’t like WB. You do though think that there are certain situations which dictate its use. So if these situations exist, then your position stands. I again ask for evidence of these situations.
I also ask for evidence that the US will continue using WB. That you don’t believe that the Obama Administration is squeaky clean is not good evidence in itself.