Outsourcing Torture
Ever heard of a program called “Extraordinary Rendition?” I certainly hadn’t until Bill Couch forwarded me a recent New Yorker article about it. Extraordinary Rendition is a U.S. program that has been recently expanded to meet the needs of President Bush’s War on Terror. The program has been used as a means to extradite terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation, prosecution and torture. You may be skeptical of the program’s existence at first, but it the article goes to great lengths to convince you that it’s alive and well. How it’s done is amazing. The use of private jets signed off to fake corporations for the use of transporting suspects to places like Syria and Egypt for interrogation and sometimes torture sounds like something out of a movie.
I urge everyone to read this. It really challenges our view of international law, revisits the role of the Geneva Conventions for suspected terrorists, examines the effectiveness of physical torture on individuals, and provides excellent insight from members of the intelligence community on policies related to interrogation, human rights, and torture.
The article starts with this quote in the New York Times (guess who said it):
“Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.”
Something doesn’t add up. I don’t get it. Am I missing something? Is he lying? Does he not know of the program? Is he being very loose with the definition of “we?”
I’d like to say more on the topic, but I’d like to leave it up for people to read for a bit first.
posted by The Decider @ 12:07 AM
3 Comments:
This is a difficult topic to write about. I’ve tried sitting down to type up a comment several times without success. Each time, I find myself writing about our reaction to programs like this and the impact it has on our national identity and our sense of humanity. I extracted two points from the article: 1) torture is not an effective tool (a point I find somewhat irrelevant in a philosophical discussion, but, unfortunately, very relevant in policy making) and 2) the method being used should be debated publicly. In both cases, the answer, to me, is quite simple. Torture is wrong. Period.
Bethany and Bill: I share your thoughts completely. Bill, you’ve touched on something that is really important. Our national tolerance for torture stems from the fact that we aren’t the ones being tortured. In fact, we don’t associate ourselves with the population in danger at all. Because we don’t, it’s easy to overlook—and sometimes justify—these heinous acts. If they were white, western and Christian, things would be different. They just would.
Stephanie, I’m ecstatic that you watch the West Wing. Maybe we can have a WW marathon sometime. I’m a West Wing nut (well, was one until they ruined the show this year). One of the things I love about the show is that it manages to be clear about why we think the US is so special. I’m ashamed to think that our country has institutionalized a practice that was used by a dictatorship that inspired my family to come here in the first place. The worst part about seeing ourselves among ordinary nations is that it is otherwise so easy to see exactly why the US has the potential to be so extraordinary. And with one, misguided, unchecked, and immoral policy, we’re reminded that we suffer from the same cognitive illness that terrorists, insurgents, criminals, dictators suffer from: we don’t think of all human beings as human beings. Torture is unnecessarily cruel, forcing the human mind to collapse into pathological and irrational cognition. There is nothing human about it. Those who are tortured, as the author says, lose their souls. This is why it’s immoral. It’s killing someone without dignity or reason.
Torture is symptomatic of many things, but it will always be tolerated among US policy makers and the public as long as we continue to discriminate between those who we consider human and those whose humanity we allow ourselves to question. All humans are worthy of humane treatment because they’re humans. If we value ourselves—a nation that allows institutionalized torture—as human beings, then how is it that we’re not valuing foreigners in danger of being tortured as human beings? Even if they support terrorism and the enemy—setting those who are innocently detained aside—are they no less human than we are?
Thank you for the comment, Guille/Dad. I thought of another thing regarding the usefullness of torturing.
When we implement diagnostic procedures in psychiatric studies or clinical practice, we go through great pain to be extremely careful with our information extraction practices. We do this because the mind is tricky and delicate in certain situations, so we know that gathering reliable information is really difficult. Why are we so CARELESS with our methods when it comes to intelligence gathering that we ignore the need to be delicate with people we're hoping learn from? It amazes me how some scientifically-based practices, like psychology, use one reasonable standard and another policy-based practice, like intelligence, uses the opposite.
Also, the Dept. of Defense came out with a report that said we're not communicating effectively in terms of foreign policies, especially those we see as potential enemies. Why not learn from the individuals that we're detaining by trying to understand why they're suspected criminals to begin with? Why not try to gather useful information about their motives so we can use that information to form or alter policy?
“The Administration argues that Al Qaeda members and supporters, who are not part of a state-sponsored military, are not covered by the Conventions.”
I agree that measures must be taken to stem the tide of terrorism and pointless deaths by radicals of all forms but it is sad day when we stoop to the very same tactics as those that we fight. It’s almost like sacrificing our freedoms to remain free. Doesn’t make a lot logical sense but then again I’m not in the Bush Administration.
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