I grew up seeing movies that showed people refusing to talk until they are slapped around, at which point they give up accurate information. From conversations, I suspect that a lot of the people who think that "torture is bad but sometimes necessary" have that image in their minds, which has been exacerbated by the claims of the torture apologists.
As a result, I decided to send everyone I know a personal statement about torture, including footnotes with links to evidence. I've attached my current draft below the fold. I welcome your comments about anything in it, but especially about the footnotes. E.g., are there better ones, that make the point more quickly or clearly? Are some here weak or otherwise unnecessary? Are there links less prone to accusations of bias?
My goal is not to preach to the choir, but to convince conservative non-wingnuts and people who haven't seriously questioned the pro-torture propoganda. As a result, I want to use either non-partisan or conservative-leaning sources when I can. I got most of these links from DailyKos diaries -- thanks, folks! If anyone wants to re-use this text in some way, feel free -- I'm not concerned with getting credit.
Subject: A Moral Line in the Sand
My friends and acquaintances,
Many people ask the question, "does enhanced interrogation work?" This is the wrong question for three reasons. First, in addition to physical violence and sexual degradation, "enhanced interrogation" includes the procedure called "waterboarding", which is equivalent to the Spanish Inquisition's water torture. As recently as 1983 President Reagan's Department of Justice got a sheriff sent to prison for 10 years for using the water torture on prisoners[1]. After WW2, we tried and sometimes executed US and foreign soldiers who tortured prisoners, including the water torture[2]. These charges were brought because torture is a crime in this country. President Reagan even negotiated an international treaty that requires all signatories, including us, to prosecute all cases of torture[3], to help ensure that other countries abide by our own standards on torture.
The real question they are asking is "does torture work?" We've certainly had a chance to test this. Recently released documents[4] show that our government has been interrogating prisoners using a variety of horrific methods that are unquestionably torture by both US and international legal and ethical standards[5]. But even that's the wrong question, because the people who ask it really mean "does torture produce useful information that protects us?" No such claims have survived scrutiny, especially since there were other effective ways to obtain information[6]. Experienced interrogators at the FBI and CIA, as well as those who interrogated Nazi and Japanese prisoners during and after WW2, say that physical coercion is counter-productive to getting accurate, useful information[7].
But if we take the question at face value, torture has indeed been proven to work -- not for producing useful information, but for terrorizing its victims and forcing false confessions. After 9/11, the administration searched for a link between Sadaam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but the CIA reported that they had no such evidence. Recently revealed documents show that the administration then ordered increasingly brutal torture to be applied to prisoners until such a link was confessed[8]. This false information was a key justification for invading Iraq, which has resulted in about 4,300 American deaths and over 100,000 documented Iraqi deaths (estimated Iraqi deaths range as high as one million)[9], as well as the much larger number of people who are maimed for life. Torture has also limited our help from allies and increased opposition from our enemies[10]. Torture made us less safe, not more safe.
It's still the wrong question, though. As decorated 27-year CIA veteran Ray McGovern put it, torture "inhabits the same category as rape and slavery - intrinsically evil."[11] We might as well ask whether rape or slavery work. In fact, slavery worked very well as a means to economic prosperity for many slave owners and slave merchants. But the three are not wholly separate categories. Slaves are frequently raped and tortured. Rape victims are sometimes tortured in other ways or forced into prostitution. Mass rape is now widely used in political disputes as a terror tactic[12]. Many of our nation's torture victims were raped or treated in sexually humiliating ways[13]. Many of those victims are now known to be innocent or at worst only minor players[14], but innocent or guilty, nobody deserves to be raped, enslaved, or tortured.
I believe that our nation is better than that, so I ask three things of you today. First, whenever anyone makes a statement about torture or "enhanced interrogation", substitute the word "rape" in your mind and consider it in that light. For example, "we need the option to rape prisoners to protect American lives" or "it wouldn't be right to prosecute those who raped in good faith that it was legal", or "for an act to constitute rape as defined in [U.S. Code], it must inflict pain that is difficult to endure... equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" or "though it is cruel, rape is not unusual and leaves no permanent physical scars, so it is legal".[15] Second, please reflect on the prophet Daniel, who though innocent in his own life, humbly prayed to God for forgiveness for the sins of his nation (Daniel 9: 4-19). Daniel felt that when his nation did wrong, he was responsible as well.
Finally, please tell your friends and your political leaders that torture isn't a partisan issue and isn't a policy issue. Tell them that torture is a moral and criminal issue. Tell your leaders to acknowledge the truth that our nation has tortured, and many of those victims have died or disappeared[16]. Tell them that we must seek out and publicize the facts so that everyone knows what was done in our names. Tell them that once we know, we must hold people accountable for performing, ordering, or assisting in torture. Officials who defend these torture methods claim that they aren't torture and want us to keep using them[17]. We must hold those responsible for torture accountable, in justice to the victims and to ensure that we do not torture again[18].
Sincerely,
Larry Seiler
PS: You are welcome to forward this statement in its entirety or to use these words in your own statement. If you don't like having received it, please let me know and I will not write to you again.
PPS: Here are links to support the factual statements made above. Please paste them into the browser of your choice.
[1] Sheriff and deputies prosecuted for "waterboarding" (two articles and the court records)
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.pubrecord.org/...
http://www.2008electionprocon.org/...
[2] Executed foreign soldiers who waterboarded Americans
[### Find links for this]
[3] The "Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"
http://findarticles.com/...
[President G W Bush's statement on torture in 2003]
http://www.america.gov/...
[### Find link specifically on the provisions requiring prosecution of torture]
[4] The torture documents, preceded by commentary
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/...
http://www.sltrib.com/... [Commentery in the Salt Lake Tribune]
[### Get a link to the rest of the torture docs]
http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/... [short Bybee memo]
http://news.findlaw.com/... [long OLC memo]
[5] Legal definitions of torture and ethical commentaries
http://www.law.cornell.edu/... [links to US law on torture]
http://www.fcnl.org/... [US Field Manual on torture]
http://www.amnestyusa.org/...
http://www.bpnews.net/... (a Southern Baptist official's view of waterboarding as torture)
http://thegooddemocrat.wordpress.com/...
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
[6] Debunking claims that torture was necessary to gain information
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://davidswanson.org/... [Bush's Four Anti-Terror Successes All Fictional]
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/...
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/...
http://vyan.blogspot.com/...
[7] Links to statements about non-physical interrogation vs. torture
http://washingtonindependent.com/...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/...
http://www.vanityfair.com/...
http://www.w-z.com/... (a WW2 marine interrogator's advice)
http://judiciary.senate.gov/...
[### Teddy Rooseveldt link on "the water cure" -- move somewhere else?]
http://www.philly.com/...
[8] Documents on using torture to find a Sadaam-Al Qaeda link
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...
http://www.newsweek.com/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://edition.cnn.com/...
[9] Links to estimates of Iraqi deaths
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ [documented civilian deaths by violence]
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/... [Report in Lancet of total excess deaths]
http://www.opinion.co.uk/... [another estimate based on surveys]
[10] Examples of torture making us less safe
http://www.fas.org/...
[### Need more links on this, including allies less willing to help us]
[11] CIA veteran Ray McGovern's statement on torture
http://www.commondreams.org/...
[12] Links about rape as a political weapon
http://newsite.vday.org/...
http://www.miamiherald.com/...
http://foreign.senate.gov/...
[13] Links to sexual and other kinds of mis-treatment of our prisoners
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
[In the video below, a US soldier brags about raping a 15 year old Iraqi prisoner, who later hanged herself.]
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://rawstory.com/...
http://www.uruknet.info/... [a photo collection of abusive and sometimes deadly treatment]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/... ["One of them made cuts in my penis. I was in agony"]
[14] Examples of torture victims later proven innocent of the charges against them
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
[### find a link for the kidnapped German]
http://www.neverinournames.com/...
http://www.commondreams.org/...
http://www.latimes.com/...
http://dysblog.blogspot.com/...
[The Abu Ghraib commander estimated that 90% were innocent and knew nothing.]
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/...
[15] These quotes replace "torture" with "rape" in the statements at the following links
[### Find the links, and fix the text to be exact quotes instead of approximate quotes]
[The three examples are right-wing torture apologia, Obama's statement, and the Bybee memo]
[16] Comments on torture and murder by US officials from top to bottom
http://balkin.blogspot.com/...
http://www.propublica.org/...
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/...
http://leahy.senate.gov/...
http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
[Video of Shep Smith of Fox News: "We are America, we don't torture. The moment that's not true, I want off the train."]
http://www.youtube.com/...
[17] Torture apologists who want to torture again
http://www.latimes.com/...
http://vyan.blogspot.com/...
[### find the best Cheney link for this -- the following link isn't very good]
http://news.yahoo.com/...
[this Cheney link is better, but has a lot of irrelevancies]
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/...
[A better Cheney link]
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
[18] Links for contacting others about torture
http://www.visi.com/... [how to contact your Representative]
http://www.senate.gov/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/... [how to contact the President]
http://www.peaceteam.net/... [call for a Special Prosecutor]