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July 30, 2005
Where is the Public Outrage?
Thursday I wrote about the opposition within the military to what is euphemistically called "harsh interrogation." You will recall that Rear Adm. Lohr asked, "Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?" And I said the answer to his question was apparently, "No."
Anthony Romero Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union asks a related question, "Where is the Public Outrage?" ASCBlog reports on a panel discussion, "Interrogation, Torture, and the War on Terror" in which Romero asked his poignant question.
Professor Eric Posner, Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School gave the beginnings of an answer.
(Posner) . . . noted that most people support torture in a “ticking time-bomb” scenario. From that he concluded that most people believe in some kind of utilitarian balancing to discern when torture should be authorized.
My take on this is as follows. When urgency and fear are combined, many people will favor anything that will take away the fear, even actions that may not be effective but are broadly believed to be so, even actions that are seen as immoral. Others will gladly divert their glance from what they believe to be wrong. The debate over the effectiveness of torture will go on forever. After all, properly controlled, doubly blind experiments on its effectiveness would be universally condemned. And, as a general rule, if you shouldn't do something in an experimental situation, you shouldn't do it in a "clinical" one. Of course, there are exceptions; some unproven therapies with the consent of an otherwise terminal patient are examples. But persons under interrogation are not terminal, and are unlikely to give consent.
I have a very simple rule that is easy to apply in all cases. Would our political or military leaders complain if what we are about to do in the interrogation of a prisoner was done by another country? If the answer is yes, we shouldn't do it.
This is not as hypothetical as it sounds. What follows is a paragraph from the U.S. State Department 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. It comes from the Turkey country report. I cite it because it lists actions that our state department thought were wrong. Turkey is, by the standards of much of the world, rather mild when it comes to prisoner abuse. I have highlighted a few phrases.
Basci said police administered electric shocks to his testicles and squeezed them, and hung him by his arms. Aydin said police hung him by his arms. Prosecutors charged three police officers in the case, which continued at year's end. In July, a 14-year-old claimed that Izmir police officers repeatedly kicked him, struck him with a truncheon, threw him down a staircase, and then released him without charges. In October, an attorney for Sezai Karakus filed a complaint with prosecutors alleging that Istanbul police tortured Karakus during 4 days of detention between late September and early October. Karakus claimed police squeezed his testicles, struck his head against the wall, beat him repeatedly, and forced him to sign a confession. Authorities did not file charges in the case. Karakus committed suicide in prison in November. In November, several persons detained by police during a raid of the Yeniden Ozlem publishing house in Istanbul filed a complaint alleging that police tortured them. They claimed police repeatedly struck them with pistol butts and kicked them.
It is not necessarily claimed that these things actually happened. My claim is that if they did indeed happen our State Department would consider it wrong and might even impose sanctions against Turkey. There is a paragraph like this on nearly every country in the world. Many of the paragraphs are longer, some are shorter, but all represent the kinds of things that our government considers inappropriate behavior in others.
A few more examples from other countries,
- Beating a driver after a high-speed chase - France
- Striking head against the street - France
- Stealing prisoners money - France
- Raping a prostitute - France
- Coerced confessions through beatings and psychological pressure - Belarus
- Beating citizens during a routine identity check - Greece
- Prisoners were reportedly chained or at times flogged in their cells - Greece
- "Bastonnade," where authorities beat the victim on the soles of the feet - Cameroon
- "Balancoire," during which authorities hung victims from a rod with their hands tied behind their backs and beat them, often on the genitals - Cameroon
- Confinement in severely overcrowded cells - Cameroon
- Denial of access to toilets or other sanitation facilities - Cameroon
- Burning with cigarettes - Pakistan
- Denial of food or sleep - Pakistan
- Hanging upside down - Pakistan
- Forced spreading of the legs with bar fetters - Pakistan
You get the idea. This list of specific alleged abuses that concern our State Department involves, for the most part, what others did to their own citizens. It could be greatly extended. It provides very non-hypothetical criteria for what we should avoid as we interrogate people in our custody anywhere in the world.
I agree with Professor Posner, "that these issues not be approached in a legalistic way." Harsh interrogation should be approached from a moral perspective and many of the things we are doing are immoral or at least we would see them as such if others did them.
Where is the Public Outrage?
Posted by Duane Smith at July 30, 2005 7:13 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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