Torture

As Americans we like to pride ourselves that our country was founded on integrity and a firm set of moral and ethical principles. Principles such as the right to free speech, the right to elect our leaders, and all the other good ole' fundamental American values. People in power, however, often neglect and violate these principles, which isn't too surprising. One issue that came up in class and which has been given some attention in the media in the past is the issue of torture. The very word invokes the image of some kind of Stalinist, dystopian, oppressive government where people live in fear rather than in freedom, but the fact is the United States is a nation which practices torture. Aside from it being a fundamentally un-American concept, I don't think it's possible to ever justify torture nor does it make sense from an intelligence gathering perspective.

Ignoring the dozens of moral objections one could raise about torturing people, I see three major issues with the practice. The first is to me there seems to be a serious contradiction with the presumption of innocence, the second is that it is an unreliable and ineffective means of gathering accurate intelligence, and the third is that it creates a sort of sand-trap where once you begin torturing people you can not simply release them based on their innocence or not. I'll elaborate a bit on each of these.

Firstly, one should establish exactly why presumption of innocence exists. It is not to protect terrorists, or murders or any other species of criminal. The concept is to protect us - the innocent. If we believe in this idea of  "innocent until proven guilty", then we must believe in it wholeheartedly, regardless of how severe or revolting the crimes of the accused may be, or how obvious their guilt is. We can not pick and choose when to apply this principle, and to whom, otherwise the entire concept falls apart. No one argues that it is OK to torture innocent people - this is obviously wrong. However, the argument has been made that it is justifiable to torture terrorists and people associated with organizations like Al Qaeda because these are the "worst of the worst", and the idea seems to be that if you're bad enough, then torture is acceptable.

This type of argument is based on the assumption of guilt however, and directly contradicts the concept of presumption of innocence. If one is assumed to be innocent, then how is it justifiable to torture him? Further, if one is only allowed to torture the "bad guys", and we torture people to extract confession of crimes, we are torturing innocent people by definition - because they have not yet been convicted of any wrong doing. This argument goes as far to show that it is illogical and contradictory to torture people in order to extract confessions, so long as we uphold our legal and most fundamental principles and ideals. One may make the case, however, that once someone is convicted of a crime and proven to be a "bad guy", then it is fair to torture him. I think I can provide arguments to show that this too is absurd.

If one is torturing someone to obtain intelligence and information about other people, there is no reason to believe any confession or revelation will be truthful. The person being tortured has but one goal - to say whatever he can to make his tortures stop. This could mean betraying his comrades, or it could mean lying and proving false information - typically either blaming innocent people or inventing stories. There is no motivation for someone being tortured to tell the truth, only to say what he believes will be the quickest route to ending his suffering. This fact makes any information obtained from torture completely suspect and of very little credibility. Essentially torture defeats its own purpose, if that purpose is to obtain information.

The third issue I raise has to do with people who truly are innocent. The American government can never admit it tortures people - not unless it has to. The status quo will always be to deny the use of the torture, especially if they've stated in the past that they no longer torture people. Further, they especially do not want it revealed what methods and means they use to torture people. So what happens when the C.I.A. disappears some innocent Afghan by either mistaken identity or bad intelligence? They subject him to torture, and realize he's not the right guy - then what?

Are they going to just release him so he can run to the nearest media outlet and tell them what he's been through? Are they just going to say "sorry, our mistake"? No, they simply aren't going to release him, despite his innocence. We now have a situation where people - innocent or not - disappear into these black holes and can't ever leave. We are setting up these institutions which essentially are functioning as gulags, and that is a very dangerous thing.

Not only is torture a violation of American principles, the law and of our sense that America is supposed to be better than the rest, but it is an erosion of the rights and freedom of innocent people and it serves no useful purpose, save perhaps to satiate the desire of some to punish their captives - but that is what the legal system is for. There simply is no excuse or justification to be torturing people, even if they "deserve it".