Now we know a lot more about the role of torture in
America. A summary
of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s Detention and
Interrogation Program is now available for all to read. The full Committee
study is more than 6700 pages long and is still classified. It is the result of
5 years of study by the Committee. Even the summary is not easy reading. It
covers hundreds of pages. The full report is actually two reports: the majority
Democrats wrote and passed the report, while the minority Republicans objected
to parts or all of it, and some voted against releasing even the summary.
In fact, many Republicans on the Committee chose not
to participate in the investigation at all. When the final report came up for a
vote, the 7 Democrats, one independent, and one Republican voted for it, and 6
Republicans against.
The report details the following treatment of
prisoners in American custody: prisoners were force fed; one prisoner showed
medical signs of a violent anal rape; one prisoner froze to death
after being chained naked to the floor of his unheated cell overnight;
waterboarding was frequently used, and several prisoners nearly died from this
treatment; threats were made to rape or kill family members, including
children, of the prisoners; one prisoner was put in ice-water baths and forced
to stand for 66 hours (he was arrested because of mistaken identity); one
prisoner was placed in a coffin-sized box for 11 days, and also in a box 2' by
2.5' by 2.5' for more than a day.
Of a total of 119 prisoners, 39 were tortured, 6 of
them before any attempt was made to see if they would cooperate without
torture. At least 26 innocent prisoners were improperly detained, but some of
them were tortured, too.
The CIA provided misleading testimony to Congress and
the President about a variety of issues, including the total number of
prisoners and the methods of interrogation. Private contractors developed the
torture techniques, employed them on prisoners, and evaluated their
effectiveness. They earned millions of dollars for their work.
The major objection of the Republican Senators to the
Committee report is over the issue of effectiveness. While the official report
written by Democrats says that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were “not an
effective means of acquiring intelligence”, the minority Republicans disagree,
and have written dozens of pages of detailed objections. But the most
significant assessment of the effectiveness of CIA torture was provided by CIA
chief John Brennan, who
said after the report was released that, “the cause-and-effect relationship
between the application of those EITs and the ultimate provision of information
is unknown and unknowable.”
The question of effectiveness cannot be answered. I
think it’s more important for our national self-respect to ask whether torture
ought to be used by the American government whether or not it is effective. The
minority Republican report does not address the morality of torture. One
Republican on the Committee, Susan Collins of Maine, stated at the beginning of
her own minority report that “the use of torture is deplorable and is
completely contrary to our values as Americans.” She notes that the US ratified
the international Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1994, and thereby promised that “no
exceptional circumstances whatsoever”, including war, could be used as a
justification of torture. Another Republican with personal knowledge of torture,
Senator John McCain, praised
the report on the floor of the Senate, and said “the use of torture
compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that
all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights”.
The partisan division in the Senate Committee is
mirrored in the general public. A poll
by the Pew Research Center found that 76% of Republicans thought the torture
methods were justified, and 64% thought the release of the report was wrong.
Only 37% of Democrats justified torture, but 56% said the report’s release was
correct. More liberal Democrats were less likely to justify torture, but more
likely to approve the release. Republicans say that torture helped prevent
terrorist attacks, while Democrats are split on that issue.
The founders of the United States were Enlightenment
thinkers who eagerly put into practice the ideas of their philosophical peers.
One of the foundations of Enlightenment thought was the rejection
of torture. That belief was written into our Constitution’s Eighth
Amendment, which bans “cruel and unusual punishment”.
It is noteworthy that those conservative Americans who
insist most loudly that we should follow the founding documents literally, and
who also insist that the US is an exceptional nation because of its moral
virtue, defend torture because they believe it is effective. The rejection of
torture as immoral has now become a “liberal” idea, just as it was in the 18th
century, when the most liberal political leaders in the world founded our
nation.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier,
December 23, 2014
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