I'll See Your 183 Waterboardings and Raise You an Iron Maiden...

This weekend, I visited the reconstruction of a medieval castle in Calistoga, imported by vintner Daryl Sattui brick-by-brick from Europe. It included a dungeon with an anatomically correct rack -- did you know they not only stretched people, there was also a roller bar in the middle of the table with spikes in it? Then there was the spiked chair, which seemed not such a terrible thing until they lit a fire underneath it and all those sharp points also got red hot. And the hanging cages and Iron Maiden, which had nothing remotely ladylike about it.

They really knew how to torture in those days, far less pleasantly even than the excruciating scenes in the great, grim George Clooney movie, Syriana.

Maybe that's the problem I have with the torture discussion, which infested weekend talk shows like some virus: I've seen too many movies where even the good guy plugs the bad guy's fingers into a light socket for the greater good. Then there were the stories in other countries where I worked as a reporter, both from students and oppositionists who underwent some nasty stuff, and from some of the fascinating operatives employed by our very own intel services about their experiences on the giving end.

I just assumed that torture, with few limits, has gone on, is going on, and will continue to go on in the shadows at the Jack Bauer level of day-to-day international intrigue. And I don't just mean rendition subterfuge. Official conduct statements and rules always struck me as enforced and enforceable as jaywalking laws.

While so many people seemed entirely shocked at what Americans were up to in interrogations the last few years -- I thought CNN's Jeffrey Toobin was going to jump right out of his pundit-chair in outrage -- I was on the other end, surprised that there were any limits, directions or practiced prohibitions at all. I mean I do know there's a Convention out of Geneva and official positions all over the place forbidding torture. But the less pleasant side of human nature being what it is (remember the Stanford experiment) I figured there were always enough people who'll take what they think is the shortest course between two points. So serious pain and suffering will just be a part of real life politics.

I'm not saying it should be. Who doesn't want everyone to operate, as Mr. Obama said stealing from Mr. Lincoln, under the influence of "the better angels of our nature." These debates are healthy, however perverse the subject. Is this treatment ever justifiable? If so, for how many lives saved? What does it say and what do we want it to say about us as a country? Does this stuff even work and, depending on your answer to that, should it change your position on torture? And how clear are the lines of definition between hanging upside down for hours or being forced to listen to Nancy Sinatra for a day?

The current administration obviously has a different approach to these questions than the last one. Does that mean people won't get tortured? I doubt it. Though maybe between a tougher line on torture and the explosion of social networking (Abu Ghraib photos), more people will get busted for it.

The real surprise for me was that the only reason this is coming up at all right now is because, unlike previous White Houses, the last one actually decided to memorialize in policy memos not just the fact of this kind of treatment but also the specific prescriptions -- "no more than three dunkings during waterboarding...", etc." It's like someone was just asking to be, uh, nailed for this by leaving their fingerprints in the hot wax. Whatever happened to, "I'll know it when I see it?"

If we like that the curtain has been pulled back, we should be grateful to ex Veep Cheney and the others who put it all in writing. Including former Assistant Attorney General and current Federal Judge right here in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Jay Bybee. He's the author of what's being called the August 1, 2002 "Torture Memo" that stated, "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment was at times allowable under U.S. law.

Now there are calls in the press and moves in legislative bodies to impeach Judge Bybee. But even if he is removed from his judicial seat, he could, like a lot of other judges, go directly into private arbitration judging where, in what are basically secret tribunals with no right of appeal, he has complete authority to impose any sanctions he wants on parties in civil cases where arbitration is mandated. (Think: your credit card company.)

So, theoretically, instead of some economic injunction (you can't work anymore; you can't leave your job, you're powerless to prevent your company from screwing you), if he decided to impose what he called in his memo "enhanced interrogation," there'd be nobody to stop it.

See? I knew that stuff was going to keep going on somewhere.

Comments

[emmacop]

One of the more intelligent articles ever in the HuffPuff.

Highly recommended for all of those who don't believe there are two sides to every story, not just yours...

[MaryscottOConnor]

What the hell are you SAYING here? "Hey, humans will be humans?"

We're supposed to REIN IN those animal instincts. That's the whole reason for the existence of the words "inhuman" and "inhumane."

This has to be one of the coldest and most pointless, purposeless articles I've read on this subject in weeks.

[shades3]

Actually the whole reason for our system of justice is that "Hey, humans will be humans" and that some will succumb to their lower instincts, IF GIVEN LEGAL COVER. The torture memos gave torturers OFFICIAL LEGAL COVER to engage in acts that are against all civilized society abhorrs.
To say that we should not be surprised that people given official permission to torture actually tortured is indeed naive.
The reference made to the STANFORD EXPERIMENT, in which ordinary students were divided into two groups, prisoners and guards, and behaved as "guards" vs. the "prisoners," the one wielding the newly granted power over the helpless group, the prisoners.
That proved, to the experimentor, that humans will indeed be humans.
But, does that mean that the whole, atrocious mess should be brushed aside with an "Oh well. Humans will be humans"?
If we believe that, then the entire legal system is totally unnecessary, isn't it?
We can't bring back people who have been murdered, so why prosecute their murderers? Isn't that LOOKING BACK, NOT LOOKING FORWARD?
WAKE UP!!! Looking back is what courts and juries and prosecutions of crimes do.
What would be the point of them if not to adjudicate and punish, AFTER crimes have been committed??

[boredwell]

That there are so many willing to inflict pain on others still amazes me. At Bagram, the poorly trained interrogators pleaded, "But we were only following orders. We were just doing our job." And when all the gruesome photos surfaced depicting those hells on earth, the chain of command fingered THEM. The doctors and medical personnel in charge of physicals at GITMO are alleged to have used blunt unlubricated instruments during rectal exams. Photos from GITMO, ABU GHRAIB, BAGRAM: Troops laughing, joking at the abuse inflicted. That's the most chilling, and the scariest, picture of all.

[mcantwell]

Quote: "I was on the other end, surprised that there were any limits, directions or practiced prohibitions at all."

You are assuming that specifics and techniques written in the Memos were the worst of it. I tend to believe that the Memos are more of a distraction to prevent the public from finding out the WORST, which I truly believe has yet to be revealed. No one has yet to disclose exactly how many people have actually DIED during the interrogations.

[dsws]

It stands to reason that torture isn't particularly useful. Even moderately unpleasant interrogation can get the subject to say anything the interrogators tell them to say. No interrogation, even with the most horrific torture, can get the subject to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (If you already know the truth and you're just forcing them to recite it, then you're not interrogating.) Long before you twist/burn­/drown/wha­tever their most closely-held secret out of them, you've gotten a copious stream of gobbledygook wherein they confess to crimes that never even happened and implicate random acquaintances in ones that did.

Now, if you can magically recognize the significance of "Shire" and "Baggins" amidst the endless screams and inane babble, then torture is for you. But such magic is fantasy. The reality is that it will just lead to more innocent people being falsely implicated.

[skeptic72]

What is the point of this article? That human nature is cruel so what can we do about it?

For a start, please stop conflating the acts of torture--which are bad enough--and the calculated attempt to make such acts legal.

[ChuckDarwin]

Does the fact that murder happens and will continue to happen mean that we should not prosecute murder?

[Papageno]

Has anyone wondered why the Catholic Church abandoned torture? It was their official policy for centuries and yet they abandoned it. Perhaps because they came to the realization that it doesn't work? Perhaps because they came to the realization that torture and the teachings of Jesus Christ are incompatible? The Catholic Church, like all earthly institutions, is far from perfect, but it does eventually learn from its mistakes. Self-professed Catholics, like Peggy Noonan, should decide whether they want to be a practicing Catholic, opposed to torture, believing in compassion and in mercy, or in the worse aspects of a Republican party, which has been betrayed by the likes of Cheney and his acolytes.

[KillTheMessenger]

The Catholic Church did not invent torture and the death penalty for heretics. It was brought on to it by civil laws that were politically motivated. To carry out brutality against the accused was left to the civil authorities of the time and the Church usually tried everything within its powers to convince the (real or imagined) heretic to return to it, as this was the only safe place to escape prosecution by civil authorities.

The Church has therefor not "abandoned" anything. It has merely lost its authority to influence civil authorities to NOT torture and kill for political reasons. This loss of authority is the result of the political changes in the European world, mostly due to secularization during which the Church was stripped of both its power and most of its earthly belongings. The torture by the state did not stop after they had stripped the Church of its powers, it was simply not necessary any longer to use any religious pretense.

Torture is indeed incompatible with modern Christianity (and not just with Catholicism) as it was certainly incompatible with the teachings of Christ. The history between Christ and Modernity, however, is complicated and filled with atrocities. One can, however, not argue that the Church is the prime originator of these atrocities, even though it did play an important part in them after the 12th century. Dirty hands, indeed, but also an extremely complicated legal history, in which "the law" set preference of words over human blood.

[ctbythec]

PB, you brought up some great points. Waterboarding was a replacement for Watercuring (lethal and nasty!). But the most eye-opening thing out there is not what you see coming from Gitmo, it is what you can find on www.thesmokinggun.com - http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture1.html
This is the playbook for the bad guys. Now, you have to ask yourself, are we to stoop to the level of barbaric torturous practices like our enemies? Are we to physically injure or maim our prisoners in the pursuit of our safety? Can we justify any of the actions that Al-Qaeda sanctions to use on US and Allied service men and women? Beheadings? Then ask yourself, why is all the attention focused on what the US does? Is it that we are better people and therefore held to a higher standard? Or is it that we have put ourselves as the example to be followed and therefore called every attention to what we do? It is time to fix the broken system. we must decide what is right and then hold everyone to the same standard, bar none.

[martinchill]

doesn't it seem fairly straight-forward an issue that if laws were broken then there needs to be accountability?

so - were laws broken?

[KillTheMessenger]

"so - were laws broken?"

Of course. Do you really think that US law condones suffocating a person or slamming them into walls? And even if US law did, international law clearly does not.

[apolloguide]

I can see why Sharon Stone wanted out. Interesting to see the wine country getting up to speed in labor management techniques. So you think that this is just the cost of doing business Phil?

Bloody good job, I say!

[COPerez]

I suppose I take Phil's point: there really wasn't any depth of depravity that BushCo. wouldn't sink to. But I had hoped that those below them would remember who we are, what we stand for. Maybe it was pollyanna-ish of me, but I had hoped.

[emmacop]

What you wrote is ridiculous. They mere fact that they wrote down what was acceptable disputes your point.

The nice part about Obama being elected is we no longer have to hear about Halliburton. Bush money wastage is trivial compared to your new Master's.

[langej]

Prosecuting the CIA torturers and the Department of Justice lawyers whose legal opinions permitted the tortures will send two clear messages.

1) To all government employeees: Each and every one of you are required to be a better lawyer than those in the Justice Department. If you have the slightest doubt about any legal opinion or directive of the Justice Department, you must refuse to follow it, on pain of prosecution.

2) To all Justice Department lawyers: never commit to writing any opinion that you think people might later disagree with, on pain of prosecution.

[Tena]

"in what are basically secret tribunals with no right of appeal, he has complete authority to impose any sanctions he wants on parties in civil cases where arbitration is mandated. (Think: your credit card company.)"

Dude, hate to argue with you but that's not true. Arbitration is subject to appeal. O yes it is. My husband just spent 2 years trying to get Haliburton to conform to a binding arbitration agreement and it took 3 courts, 4 appeals before he finally got the $11 million out of them.

Arbitration is usually pursuant to an agreement and the agreement specifies the remedies.

[COPerez]

I think he was "stretching the truth" to make a point. A funny one, at that.

[James Briant]

I think he was completely and utterly wrong. You don't even have to go to arbitration first.

[CynAnne]

What I didn't see mentioned in Mr. Bronstien's article is the egregious accounting of prisoners records and information by the BushCo DoD and their associates..these prisoners were tortured based on almost routinely incomplete, incorrect and near-felonious mishandling of their dossiers and files, especially at Guantanamo. Compounding that kind of ineptitude with torture goes far 'beyond the pale' of any standard of reasonable justice, and only those with cycloptic tunnel-vision refuse to see otherwise..