Torture in Australia

I have met the SOB and he is us!

To clarify: is it your position that all advocates of the liberation of Iraq from Saddam’s fascist, genocidal regime are pro-torture?

Well, logically, if hundreds of thousands of dead is an acceptable trade-off, what’s wrong with a little torture here and there? For the sake of beautiful liberation from Saddam’s fascist, genocidal regime, you know.

“Well, logically, if hundreds of thousands of dead is an acceptable trade-off, what’s wrong with a little torture here and there? For the sake of beautiful liberation from Saddam’s fascist, genocidal regime, you know.”

abb1, you’ll have to draw this argument, such as it is, out a bit more. I’m not sure “logic” works the way you think it does in this case. But no doubt you’ll have little trouble presenting your audience with a more coherent position.

“is it your position that all advocates of the liberation of Iraq from Saddam’s fascist, genocidal regime are pro-torture?”

Not at all.

But certainly, all those who supported “the liberation of Iraq from Saddam’s fascist, genocidal regime”, which liberation was to be carried out by another regime that itself was in favor of torturing prisoners, must necessarily be either pro-torture or dupes.

The word ‘genocide’ or ‘genocidal’ gets thrown about a lot when talking about Saddam. Is there any evidence that Saddam actually planned to exterminate every last (for example) Kurd on earth? Or even every last Kurd in Iraq? And did he have the mechanisms in place to do this? ‘Cos if he didn’t that ain’t genocide (or even genocidal, whatever that means).

Incidentally, unless you are using the word ‘fascist’ in the sense that Orwell talked about many years ago (he mentions somewhere that ‘fascist’ has now had its meaning stretched to the extent that it now merely means ‘something undesirable’) then Saddam Hussein’s regime was not fascist.

Brendan, re: genocide. See Marsh Arabs. Saddam slaughter hundreds of thousands of others, as well (Kurds in the North and Shias in the South), but, I concede, halted prior to total extermination, presumably because slaves are worth more than corpses.

It was my understanding the Ba’ath party was derived, in part, from WW2 fascist doctrine. I recall Bernard Lewis giving a nice account of this. If your understanding is different, I’m willing to listen.

Rea, I think you and I disagree on basic premises. And I’m not sure John meant what you meant, unless you are speaking for him or he subsequently adopts your position.

First, as John must have learned in the comments to his last post, Karimov is not so much “our SOB” — the Bush administration has cut a good deal of aid to him already. The “our SOB” rhetoric is entirely inappropriate in light of this fact.

Second, must John make the war debate more and more crass with each post? Pro-war does not equal pro-torture. A good many war supporters, myself included, support the war and oppose torture.

Third, claiming that Saddam and war supporters can be lumped into a “pro-torture” side substantially blurs lines in the debate. It’s a step backward. There is a difference between cutting the limbs off of prisoners and depriving them of sleep. Both are wrong, but we must be nevertheless continue to draw lines between the two. I’m sure you would agree that failing to do so can lead to great error. If I were to blur lines as you do, I could claim that all anti-war people were part of a fifth column. Or I could have claimed that Indochinese communists were the same as Stalinists. But both claims are ludicrous. Lets bring some precision back into this debate.

Tad,

I agree that John’s formulation is not ideal, but I think that having this fellow in a position of power in relation to refugees is a bit more directly problematic than you take it to be. One of his responsibilities, I’d guess, is to help administer the Convention Against Torture. Obviously he can’t be taking this responsibility very seriously if he thinks that torture is justified in some cases, since it’s flatly banned by the Convention, to which Australia is a party. The CAT requires a country to refuse to send anyone to a country where they believe torture will take place, regardless of the reason. It seems pretty hard to believe that this fellow will be serious about his responsibilities under the CAT, given that he seems to support torture in at least some cases himself. Given this, it doesn’t seem implausible (though of course I have no evidence directly on the matter) to suppose that he’d be lax in applying the requirements of the CAT if he thought the torture in a particular case was justified, that is, if he thought it was a case of torture he’d accept. (Something like this seems to be the case w/ the US’s program of extraordinary rendition.) If that’s the case, then it doesn’t seem _too_ much of a stretch to me to say that he’s “on the side of torturers” even if not on the side of “_the_ torturers” which, as you say, may be to heterogenous a group.

abb1,

I’m not sure I follow you. Was your previous post a description of your own understanding of the circumstances in Iraq (or elsewhere) or was it a recapitulation of John’s position? If the latter, I would probably want some textual support.

The essence of a good blog post: good information plus gratuitous button-pushing. In that sense, this one’s a masterpiece, so quit complaining; if you want straight info without opinion, read the paper. (Kidding.)

Button number one: the “refuted” ticking bomb scenario. I’ll agree that the term has been much stretched and misused, but it cannot be refuted because it is not theoretical. The term was originally coined to describe cases in which Israeli intelligence learned of the dispatch of a suicide bomber and had a finite amount of time before detonation to figure out who/what/when/where. Frequently, they used aggressive interrogation that almost certainly strayed into the realm of actual torture. So the term is quite apt, and the moral tradeoffs are very real.

Button number two: Uzbekistan. I think I understand John Q’s position on this now, and it’s a fair one, though calling him “our SOB” is preposterous. The US did not install him, and the US cannot (apparently) influence him.

Naturally, Mark, you find it difficult to discuss your support of torture–therefore your refusal to discuss it further is understandable . . .

Mark, I was trying to explain why, IMO, a messianic pro-liberation enthusiast shouldn’t be against torture. And since the current pro-war constituency (if we exclude crude Islamophobes) seems to consist of messianic pro-liberation enthusiasts, this is supposed to demonstrate basic accuracy of the ‘pro-war = pro-torture’ thesis.

abb1,

Ah, I see. Well, good luck with that.

rea,

I don’t find it difficult to discuss torture; or, the difficulty I may experience is secondary to the importance we should place on discussing difficult topics.

I do sometimes have difficulty reconstructing an opponent’s argument, which is why I’m attempting, in good faith, to draw out John’s position. So far you’ve not helped in this regard.

Good comment, rsl. I think your questions are fundamental to the whole WoT, and I’m suspicious of anyone who claims to have easy answers. For instance, you ask when the government has the right to interrogate at all, either its own citizens or anyone else. It wouldn’t be difficult to conclude that the asnwer is “never.” In the US at least, Miranda requires police to apprise suspects of their rights, including to counsel. But counsel invariably tells the suspect not to say anything at all, so in practice police routinely circumvent Miranda (in spirit and often in letter). And as you say, the 5th offers the right to stay silent even in court. There’s an analogous situation in wartime as well; the Geneva Conventions, taken in full, essentially prohibit *all* interrogation, in that POWs or detainees cannot be “coerced” in any way, physical or psychological. Yet interrogation of prisoners, to some degree, is virtually universal. So are all governments acting illegally all the time? Or if a government must subvent a law in order to function (for instance, to provide order), is the law viable?

It’s telling that you mention due process. International law is mostly well-intentioned, but since there is no international state, there is no enforcement (or grossly unequal enforcement), and thus no due process. Without due procss, international law becomes sort of a farce. Example: Country or Group X wages war against Country or Group Y using means that are clearly illegal under international law — terrorism, for instance, or genocide. Yet they cannot be brought to “justice” because there is no working police mechanism that has jurisdiction over the globe. So Country or Group Y resorts to means that are also illegal — torture, eg. Now, both parties are guilty of violations (and we could debate all day about proportionality) but if only one party is held to account for its violations while the other attains its goals, that is just but also unjust.

The only working mechanism we have for dealing with such situations is war. Yet war is hell. Is it possible to be anti-war and pro-justice? I’ve got my owns thoughts on that, but around here I am in the distinct minority.

JQ”s argument is completely incomprehensible.

How does…

“Next time you read one of these guys talking about Saddam and his crimes, remember it’s just a factional brawl within the pro-torture party.”

Lead to…

“If Saddam had stuck to fighting wars against Iran, and torturing Iraqis, instead of invading Kuwait, he’d still be “an SOB, but our SOB”, just like Karimov in Uzbekistan.”

So, there is a “pro-torture party”. Which may or may not be the same as the “pro-war party”, JQ makes the implication but leaves room for denial. And from this concludes that “these guys” would be happy enough with Saddam and Karimov as “our SOBs”. There is no logic to this other than gratuitous insult.

One could with the same logic argue that those who were opposed to the war were quite happy as long as Saddam was not threat to anyone put the Iraqis. He’s not our SOB so let him do what he wants.

If JQ is attempting to say that there are some people who supprted the war who have greater toleerance for torture than others then fine. But that’s about as useful as saying there were some who opposed the war who have a greater tolerance for totalitian states. All true in a trivial sense. But the aim was to tar the pro-war camp with being pro-torture and pro “our SOB” tyrants. Hardly any reasoned contribution to the debate.

The point, it seemed to me, was to suggest a liberation-justifies the war loses validity in proportion to the degree that the person making the argument (the australian judge/”these guys”)resembles (by endorsing torture) the oppressor (Hussein).

I explicitly condemn torture and am critical of the Bush Administration’s equivocation on this issue.

Hi rsl, thanks for responding. I’m not a lawyer either, so I’m probably in over my head already. Nevertheless I’ll hazard an opinion…

I think we’re on the same page, mostly, wrt Constitutional treatment of US citizens — habeas corpus, jury trials, due process and all of that. Though I’m generally a Bush supporter in matters of foreign policy, I think he’s gone way overboard in some cases (such as the uncharged and/or secret detentions of citizens). Even so, gray areas do exist; Jose Padilla, for instance, was arguably engaging in rebellion (though I’d take the other side in that argument).

There’s a lot more gray when you’re talking about noncitizens. Al Qaeda, for instance, did in fact invade the United States, so no habeas for them — at least as far as the Constitution’s concerned. There’s also reason to think that Geneva doesn’t (or shouldn’t) necessarily apply to terrorists. The Conventions were designed to cover state-to-state warfare, yet al Qaeda and other terrorists don’t fight for any state, don’t wear any uniform, don’t recognize the Conventions, or indeed any rule of conduct. Terrorism itself, inasmuch as it represents a return to “total war,” is a dismissal of the Conventions, and therein lies its power. So do they forfeit the protections of the Conventions? I think the “enemy combatant” designation (suspects are to be treated “consistent with” the Conventions but are not legally entitled to its protections) is the Bush Administration’s attempt to navigate this ambiguity.

Your analogy to piracy is useful, and strictly in terms of the moral issues involved is better than the other comparisons sometimes made (the Indian wars of North America in the 19th century, the African colonial wars). Though I’m not saying we must be bound by the precedent, it’s useful to think about.

I’m also not saying that I have the answers to these questions, nor that they justify all that Bush has done. While I think it’s legitimate for the Administration to explore the gray areas, the US has pretty clearly abused its discretion in some cases (it appears a lot of non-terrorists were kept overlong at Guantanamo, for instance). But I’m also not ready to simply call everything “illegal.” There’s a burning need for a rewriting of international law that takes these issues into account.

At this point in the debate, though, I’d say that anyone who actively supports the Bush Administration in its conduct of the war and hasn’t explicitly condemned torture ought to ask themselves why.

Hmm….should anyone who has explicitly condemned torture, and did not actively support the Bush administration’s decision to go to war, ask themselves why?

After all, there’s no question that the American defeat of Saddam Hussein’s regime has significantly reduced the amount of torture in the world–even factoring in Abu Ghraib, and if you like, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, etc. etc.

Of course, one could have opposed the Iraq war for reasons that have nothing to do with torture. But then, one could also have supported the Iraq war for reasons that have nothing to do with torture. One could be, for example, an advocate of democratization. Or of Kurdish ethnic rights. Or of the long-term benefit of removing US troops from their uncomfortable former sentry posts in northeastern Saudi Arabia.

Or one could be generally in favor of reducing the use of torture worldwide, while conceding that it might be legitimate under certain circumstances.

In short, John, I’d say that your above assertion makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

After all, there’s no question that the American defeat of Saddam Hussein’s regime has significantly reduced the amount of torture in the world

Yes! brilliant! genius! Self-evident truths! It’s those still against the war who have to answer for moral support for torture. Sad, but true!

Dan Simon, you deserve the honorary title of guardian of the gates of that parallel universe.

One other quick point: who has the authority to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus? The discussion of suspension comes under Article I, which describes powers of Congress, so you could assume it would be a Congressional power. But the Constitution is ambiguous–and the famous example of the suspension is Lincoln’s suspension during the Civil War.

Dear All,

I am an Australian, and have been horrified by the views of Clarke and Baragic. Instead of concentrating just on a specific jurisprudence, I think it may be more useful to examine the subject on a more general level. Below is a post I made on another forum. I would be glad of people’s thoughts.

There are several problems with the thesis put forward by these academics.

Let’s leave aside the many streams of ethical thought that regard such a stance as self-evidently abhorrent and concentrate instead on thier purely consequentialist (an aggressive for of utilitarian thought) approach.

Their thesis is that I can, by applying torture, even though this is very bad in itself, avoid a greater harm to a greater number of people and end with a net good outcome.

It has the advantage of beguiling simplicity and a pattina of reasonableness that could make it palatable given the scenarios that they provide.

Unfortunately the world is not such a simple place.

To be a consequentialist, let us look at the consequences of thier suggestion:

1) Torture becomes a legitimate tool of the state in the wider global community (note that their are many countries already using torture for political and policing purposes, including Israel, several other Gulf and Asian states and the usual grouping of norotious repressive dictatorships). It is then easy for all maner of disparate and sometimes unsavoury groups to say that torture is an acceptable means of prosecuting your cause. They are easily able to hold up the example of civilised powers for whom this is acceptable. This line of argument has also been used to suggest that he adoption of other methods used by terrorists is acceptable to combat terrorism, and the rebuttal is the same. You cannot argue that the use of the tactics of terror is an abuse of human rights if you are prepared to use them yourself, and by using them yourself then you lend legitimacy to the practice. The terrorists can have a feild day, and in the end have been very successful in prosecuting their intention to destroy our value systems and the freedoms of our society.

2) The victim of your torture has be come completely disenfranchised. They no longer have any rights whatsoever given that you are happy to torture them to the point of death (as stated by the learned professors). To be able to pursue such a course one must provide a significant level of protection to the people who are controlled by your jurisdiction. The information in the scenarios postulated is all time critical. There is no time for the pursuit of the usual processes of justice, so the protection for the accused is poor. The inquisitors will never be omniscient. Innocent people will be tortured to death in error.

3) People who are being tortured provide a poor and degraded source of information. Their main wish is for you to stop torturing them. They are likely to say things that they think you want to hear rather than what may be a truth that you have already rejected as false (in error). This leaves you with inaccurate or incomplete information on which to act, compounding you error with further folly.

If the state accepts torture, then we are all at risk of torture. The risk of a miscarriage (no matter how well-intentioned) of justice and the wrongful use of torture and killing can never be acceptable to the civilised nation.

Under the Geneva Conventions, it is possible terrorist are most accurately classified as spies (non-uniformed enemy combatants). If this is the case, the Conventions provide no protection what so ever. It is unlikely the Geneva conventions intended to classify soldiers as spies when their governments can not afford uniforms. It is obvious that the conventions intended to prevent soldiers (uniform requirement) from using non-combatants as shields.

Rsl raises an interesting point. For the US, the Constitution could require providing terrorist / spies a standard list of rights.

Re: Karimov not being “our SOB” – first, we probably still give him a considerable amount of aid, though not through publically acknowledged channels. I understand this is not a claim that is easily verified, but that’s partly the point. For example, after it publically and loudly cut aid to Uzbekistan by $18M in July 2004, the U.S. quietly upped funds to help Uzbekistan “find bio weapons” by $21M in August. I think a few more such instances are known; probably we still give them at least a hundred million a year through hidden channels.

Also, we have a Strategic Defense Partnership with Uzbekistan, meaning they are a signed ally of ours with preferential economic status. This has not, as far as I know, been repudiated.

There is some evidence that the CIA has been fond of sending people to Uzbekistan to be tortured (“rendition”). This certainly makes him “our SOB”, if true.

Finally, the White House, in comparison to, say, the British government, has not so far roundly condemned the Uzbek government, always very circumspect and asking only for “more openness”, and expressing their “regret” that so many people were killed. (Imagine: “We regret sincerely that Mr. Hussein has invaded Kuwait.”) They have not come out strongly in favor of demands for UN investigation of violence, or other, serious measures to put pressure on Karimov’s government to reform.

This suggests that Karimov is very much, still, our SOB, and we are looking out for him as best we can without coming off like complete assholes.

You cannot argue that the use of the tactics of terror is an abuse of human rights if you are prepared to use them yourself, and by using them yourself then you lend legitimacy to the practice.

Yup… good post, hairyman. I believe once, before the rehabilitation of lawless imperialism through scaremongering, those things were self-evident to all people of sound mind and good faith.

Dan Simon – I don’t know where the exact line should be drawn, but I believe it should be somewhere between these two extremes—and not include, for example, meager-but-sufficient rations, uncomfortable ambient temperatures, reduced sleep hours, and so on.

Hey Dan, why not draw the line to what you would personally comfortable with, should you be arrested as a terrorist supect?

I’d like to see you expand on the harmlessness of reduced sleep hours and uncomfortable temperatures after they’ve been deliberately inflicted on you, while you’re being kept indefinitely in a cell without legal counsel.

But again, you forget, that the lines are drawn clearly in law anyway. So whatever you say on the subject tells us a lot about yourself and your worldview, but it doesn’t tell us anything about what’s permissible and what’s not.

Moni and RSL: The details of defining, permitting and limiting torture are a complicated topic that I’ve discussed at length before–including here on Crooked Timber–and would be happy to discuss again. But that wasn’t the original topic of this thread, nor of my original comments about it. The original topic of this thread was whether an opponent of completely banning all torture, broadly defined, thereby forfeited all credibility when arguing in support of the American campaign in Iraq.

John Quiggin originally so claimed. I responded that on the contrary, even people who do seek the complete abolition of all torture–let alone those who merely want to see the use of torture reduced to a few extreme cases–have good reason to applaud the American military action to topple Saddam Hussein. Moni then mockingly ridiculed that position.

Subsequently, John asked about my general position on torture, and I obliged. John has since been silent, while Moni and RSL have shifted the debate to criticizing my specific opinions on torture. May I infer from this silence and change of subject that all three of you concede my point, and recognize that–everyone’s specific personal views on torture aside–celebrating the effects of the American military action in Iraq on the incidence and severity of torture in the world is quite a reasonable thing for all of us to do?

(True, Saddam is not doing the killing and torturing anymore, but there are still an awful lot of people in Iraq and around the world being killed and tortured—how would you reliably measure and compare?)

I am, to be sure, making a few assumptions here. For one thing, I’m assuming that the amount of torture not involving either the US or Iraq was unaffected by the Iraq conflict. That may be in error, but the outbreaks of democratization that have occurred in several previously very repressive countries since then suggest that if anything, its collateral effect was to reduce the incidence of torture elsewhere, rather than to increase it.

As for Iraq itself, specific cases of torture have been widely propagated in the press, but they have involved at most some dozens of victims–and the attention they have gotten strongly suggests that if there were many more, we’d have heard about them as well. On the other hand, if you’re familiar with the situation in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, you’ll know that torture used to be routine there, with literally thousands of victims tortured in ways that go far beyond the humiliations and discomforts that have been so widely discussed in the last year or two. Again, my assumption that the reports that have reached the public are representative could be wrong. But unfortunately, they’re all we have to go on.

Torture is the emotional issue—but the real important issue is what right does the government have to demand any information at all from me or anyone else, with or without the use of coercive methods?

Well, all I can say is that I hope you arrived at this position after April 15th of this year. I’m given to understand that the IRS is quite unimpressed by such arguments.

Torture has no place in a free society. Hairyman has explained this clearly. But it will require a diverse coalition around the world to stop this barbaric practice. Our leaders need to make it clear that all torture is unacceptable.

I am astounded that reasonable people can defend torture.

Dan, if you’re not aware that methods of interrogation officially allowed under US rules have included such options as the use of savage dogs to terrify naked prisoners, and that unofficially sanctioned methods have gone much further, you haven’t been reading the news.

You mean that dogs are allowed to be let loose to maul prisoners, or that dogs are allowed to be used to intimidate prisoners–say, by keeping them from trying to escape or attack their guards? The latter use is, I would say, pretty common in prisons, and I’m hard pressed to see what’s wrong with it.

Or are you talking about the canine equivalent of the “crazy man” tactic, where the interrogator threatens to do something rash, without actually doing it? Sheesh–that’s not even causing physical harm–it’s a psychological tactic to fool subjects into cooperating. It’s not nice behavior, I grant you–but frankly, I’d be appalled if US interrogators didn’t use it.

As for the methods that have “gone much further”, I’m under the impression that said methods are reserved for a very few, very exceptional cases. If the deliberate infliction of extreme pain, for example, is a routine form of treatment, then I’m inclined to believe that many innocents, or unnecessary victims, are bound to be caught up in it, and that would be a terrible thing. But I’m not aware that that’s happening.

I don’t accept your “less torture than under Saddam” criterion (assuming it’s correct, which isn’t clear, given that both sides in the current war are using torture). The long term damage to civilisation from the reintroduction of legalised torture by supposedly civilised and democratic countries outweighs almost any short term gain.

Well, that’s the kind of unpredictable long-term prognosis on which we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m completely confident that the introduction of democracy to Iraq–even a fledgling, insecure one–far outweighs the “damage” done by the occasional rare resort to torture under extreme circumstances. I’m willing–just barely–to concede that reasonable people might conceivably believe otherwise, but I hope you’ll grant that my position is not, as you previously suggested, completely untenable.

By the way, are you referring here to the supposed long-run damage done to civilization done by US interrogators threatening their subjects with dogs? How did you feel about “mutual assured destruction”? What, exactly, do you think the very existence of, say, bomber squadrons threatens? Isn’t this “damage to civilization” stuff just a tad overwrought, if that’s your definition of torture?

Also, if the “reintroduction of legalised torture by supposedly civilised and democratic countries” is so dangerous, what about increased economic and political traffic with countries that are still habitual users of torture? Are you as upset about, say, the proposals to drop of sanctions against Iran? Or the integration of China with the world economy? If any contamination by any level of torture is disastrous for “civilised and democratic countries”, then what about contamination through relations with countries that practice it routinely?

And, in any case, if you take a short-run consequentialist viewpoint, the massively increased death rates since the invasion outweigh any immediate benefits.

Why on earth would anyone take a short-run consequentialist viewpoint about any of this? Surely one thing we can all agree on is that in an incredibly dynamic situation like the past few years of Iraqi history, long-run effects are going to be far more important than short-term ones–no? Otherwise, why would you be getting so worked up about the “reintroduction of legalised torture”–whose short-term upside potential pretty obviously swamps its short-term risks?