A quick update on torture

Everything I know about torture I learned from reading, much of it fiction. Still, there seems to be an awfully strong argument that enough torture will make anyone talk – and they’ll say exactly what they think you want to hear.

As such, this passage from the Times story you link is very disturbing:

Armed with Mr. Ghul’s account of the courier’s significance, interrogators asked Mr. [Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed again about Mr. Kuwaiti. He stuck to his story, according to the official.
After Mr. Libi was captured in May 2005 and turned over to the C.I.A., he too was asked. He denied knowing Mr. Kuwaiti and gave a different name for Bin Laden’s courier, whom he called Maulawi Jan. C.I.A. analysts would never find such a person and eventually concluded that the name was Mr. Libi’s invention, the official recalled.

According to that passage, they asked KSM – under torture – about Mr. Kuwaiti; and at least when interrogating Mr Libi (allegedly not under torture) they not only asked about Mr. Kuwaiti, but did so specifically in terms of asking for confirmation that he was Bin Laden’s courier.

Let’s say KSM had confirmed their story under torture – why would anyone believe it? You’re basically telling the guy “this torment will stop when you agree that Mr. Kuwaiti is Bin Laden’s courier”. Surely the only way torture could be remotely reliable (and even so still not normally excusable) would be if its perpetrators tried very hard not to tell their victim just what it is they want to hear.

I am interested to see that we are now giving very serious consideration to the “ticking semi-retired terrorist argument”

Note that the torture being justified here is not of the catastrophe-imminent “ticking time-bomb” variety, but rather of the “do it routinely to people who we think of as ‘bad guys’ and maybe some snippet we glean will prove useful eventually” kind.

they were in fact misled, deluded by the ancient belief that evidence extracted under torture is the most reliable kind

I doubt they were misled. I’m sure they belived that evidence produced under torture has precisely the features tactical critics of torture allege: it gets you the answers the victim thinks you want to hear. Useless as intelligence, but great for show trials and propaganda, which was the point of it.

Phil, “I would imagine … Hence” is an argument-schema with very low added value indeed.

I find this whole “torture is wrong and anyway it doesn’t work” argument unsettling. Why not stick with “torture is wrong”?
Because it usually come up in a context like warfare, where we clearly do lots of other things that are wrong. Like killing foreign conscripts whose only crime was being 18 when the war started.

Yet there are good arguments (even if not good enough to convince everybody) to do those things anyway, because they are indeed effective. And it would suck to let people the people win who have no qualms about the effective-yet-wrong things. Nasty situation, and it can quickly turn well-menaing people into bad guys. But that’s a real and sometimes unavoidable dilemma of war.

That’s why the “not very effective” part matters. If torture was truly, clearly very effective, it would be a standard unavoidable part of warfare. The argument against toruture is that doesn’ t do much, is still bad, and that it has a devious, revenge-like attraction that makes people believe in its effectiveness even in the lack of evidence.

What’s also terrible (and I don’t say that fixing this would make torture a bit more palatable) is how amateurish all this torture is. In the Middle Ages people used to be more honest and thus were able to think more clearly about what they were doing. And of course, thinking about it, they knew very well how to torture well. And if the current tortures tried to take a look at that literature, they could find out that actually after hundreds of years long discussion the conclusion was that torture doesn’t work.

This is not to say that more professional torture would make the practice acceptable, just how sleazy and dishonest our public life now is.

From other point of view, it could be also interesting to ask what actually is purpose of torturing people. I don’t believe that Syrians, Northern Koreans, Iranians, Libyans, Chinese, and Americans (to list counties which officially allow torture) are really after finding the truth. I don’t believe even politicians are that stupid. So what they are after? An interesting question, I would say.

True. Chemical weapons are very effective in certain circumstances, as are expanding or explosive bullets and blinding/dazzling weapons, but they’re banned none the less because they’re barbaric.
There’s another class of illegal weapon that aren’t particularly barbaric but are banned because they’re unacceptably indiscriminate, which I suppose is a slightly different issue – cluster munitions, landmines, nuclear weapons, some biological weapons like crop blights and rusts.

The problem with international law on warfare is that it is full of things that countries are only willing to abstain from if the other side does so too. It’s to some extent a proposal for a mutual voluntary deal to limit the worst excesses of war, but only to the extent that it will not greatly change the outcome of war if both sides stick to the rules. Most countries do not accept international law if it hurts them strategically, or if potential opponents would get a noticable advatage from ignoring it.

When the effectiveness of a practice is perceived as high, either for them or for an opponent, those practices either do no make it into law at all, or the law gets ignored without much moral qualms. The Korean DMZ is still filled to the brim with land mines. And having a nuclear arsenal aimed at civilian cities is rather common among the civilized people of this world, it’s the barbarians who have to do without. Those same very civilized countries have stockpiles of the other crap too, just in case it becomes too useful to ignore again.

No matter what you personally think of this, there are clearly many people who have no moral objection to having ready-to-lauch nuclear missiles for second-strike purposes, but who do strongly object to torture even against a torturing opponent. And others who could be convinced to become such persons.

Those are the people that need to be convinced against torture, especially in cases where the opponent is willing to torture. And that’s why arguments won’t work if they are based solely on the inherent wrongness of torture or on reference to international law . People who think those arguments on their own are enough are not really the target group of anti-torture arguments, the target group are people who need to be convinced that the potential gains from torture really do not outweigh the wrongness, not for us and also not for the other side.

The problem with international law on warfare is that it is full of things that countries are only willing to abstain from if the other side does so too.

I don’t think this is actually the case for anything except chemical weapons; IIRC the Hague Convention had a no-first-use proviso. (It’s out of date now anyway, superseded by the CWC which is an outright ban). But you couldn’t get away with using blinding weapons, for example, by arguing that the other side had used them as well.

As for land mines in the DMZ, the US has not signed up to the relevant convention for pretty much exactly this reason – that land mines are too useful to discard. (Neither has North Korea, which has also laid a huge number in the DMZ).

Those same very civilized countries have stockpiles of the other crap too, just in case it becomes too useful to ignore again.

I don’t think this is true. To pick three, the UK, France and the USA have got rid of all their biological weapons, and the first two have also got rid of all their chemical weapons (as required by treaties like the CWC); the US is in the process of doing the same.

the USA have got rid of all their biological weapons

That would be a lot more believable a statement if the US had actually agreed to any kind of verification scheme, and wasn’t actively engaged in ‘biological defence’ research. Quite handy, that.

The US first learned of the courier in 2002-2003 via CIA interrogations of detainees – the methods of which are not specified.

In 2003 KSM was asked about the courier, and replied that the courier was not important and was retired.

In 2004 Hassan Ghul, while being interrogated, gave a fuller picture of the courier. al-Libi, also in 2004 under interrogation, denied that al-Kuwaiti was an alias of the courier, and gave a different name, later concluded to be unused by the courier.

The Times article then states:

Because Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Libi had both steered interrogators away from Mr. Kuwaiti, C.I.A. officials concluded that they must be protecting him for an important reason.

This supports the conclusion that intelligence gathered during the Bush Administration, as well as the Obama Administration, ultimately led the US to bin Laden.

It does NOT support the conclusion that the US was misled by KSM or al-Libi – quite the contrary, in fact.

As to the harsh techniques described in the article generally, the theory proponents give for its usefulness is NOT that it always induces those subjected to give truthful answers. There is no “truth serum,” either in substance or technique. Remember that the interrogation program was designed by people who trained the US military in methods of resisting harsh interrogation. They would expect a person still carrying the torch to use similar techniques in resisting – and would evaluate their words, and emotional reactions, with that expectation in mind.

Given what information we have, it is impossible to tell whether enhanced interrogation techniques were helpful or not.

We can conclude that the final location of bin Laden was discovered using intelligence gathered over several years, from many sources, with a variety of methods. Nothing more.

Well, somebody in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 had access to weaponized anthrax, and most of the main suspects are Americans working in the defence industry.

I thought the details pretty conclusively stated that torture didn’t work….
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=13512344&page=1

If I interrogate you for several years and you don’t give up the name of your own protege, nor does anyone else who knew this and was waterboarded, that’s a pretty conclusive result, no ?

One problem I’ve had with the confident assertion that torture must be ineffective is its use in the Battle of Algiers. My understanding is that the French pretty regularly used to torture captives to get information (in some cases probably in the ticking time bomb scenario.) And they were in fact able to get intelligence on insurgent networks and ultimately were able to break them up and pretty much eliminate the FLN from the Algiers area.

Without knowing much of the details, this seems to be a case study where torture was used to gain intelligence and the intelligence did have value. However, my dangerously little knowledge about the situation is pretty much just from reading a Savage War of Peace, so I’m open to correction. Maybe the French were able to win the battle because of other factors, with the torture being an irrelevant sidelight.

But this makes me hesitant to stake too much on the argument that torture doesn’t work, preferring to stick to the moral argument against it, with the utilitarian concerns as a secondary back-up.

No problems Ajay, I’ll try to make it more careful. The ‘clearly’ was intended for the first part of the sentence, and you are right that the rest of the sentence undeservedly hides in its shadow.

Normal, ‘legal’, accepted warfare does not accept intended blinding or maiming, and in particularly not weapons designed with that aim. But it does accept intended killing, and it accepts maiming and blinding as likely side effects of intended killing.

I do not think this situation can be explained by seeing maiming and blinding as intrinsically worse things than death. Sometimes they might be, but it is not how treat them in general in other contexts. And even in warfare, maimed and blinded people are treated, not left to die.

From there we get my, conjectural, explanation for this (in my opinion) somewhat paradoxical situation: People would prefer a mutual situation where wars are unlikely to be lethal, just as they prefer wars with less maiming and blinding.

But they will not give up the right to intentionally kill in warfare, partially because killing is an effective tactical and strategic method in itself, and partially because weapons that are designed to have only temporary incapacity as result are not effective enough to rely on. Such weapons are easily defended against and unlikely to destroy weapons, machinery or buildings. A war without killing would be so much different from a war with killing that a losing side will inevitably return to killing. This makes a ban on lethal weapons powerless from the start, and is therefore not even attempted.

On the other hand, people are willing to give up the right to intentionally maim and blind, not because these things are worse than death, but because it will not greatly change the balance of power. The winning side in such a war would be with high certainty the same party as in a war without such restriction. When this likely equality of outcome does not apply, people no longer accept the restriction. Such as with land mines in Korea, or how guerillas do not accept the restriction to wear clearly identifiable uniforms.

I hope this made my argument clearer, without overly rhetorical abuses?

One problem I’ve had with the confident assertion that torture must be ineffective is its use in the Battle of Algiers.

Even without the Battle of Algiers, I think it’s just obvious that torture can be effective, at least in the case where the information you’re trying to extract is immediately verifiable, like, say, the password for a document that is right here, in front of you. I think people understands this, and they probably take the line “we shouldn’t torture because torture doesn’t work” as an insult to their intelligence.

ajay @25: the 2001 attacks did not use weaponised anthrax.

Depends. If you go by first responses from experts with no obvious axe to grind, you will probably conclude that it was weaponised.

If you rely on unsubstantiated claims from unqualified officials and consultants, and on spurious retractions from scientists who have been summoned to the White House to discuss the matter, then you will probably conclude that it was not.

the torturing in Algiers wasn’t effective.
From which,
“Torture not only failed to repress the yearnings for independence among Algerians; it increased popular support for the FLN, contributing to the transformation of a small vanguard into a revolutionary party with mass support, and rendering impossible the emergence of the interlocuteur valable with which the French government claimed to be seeking a dialogue. Indeed. France’s tactics helped the FLN to win over Algerian moderates like Ferhat Abbas, who became the president of the FLN ‘s government-in-exile. If torture inspires widespread condemnation in France today, as it did not during the war, it is partly because one can no longer defend it as an unfortunate necessity. France’s defeat made a mockery of that argument. ”
The drawing of parallels is left as an exercise for the reader.

Anyone in the intelligence community will tell you this: torture is about revenge, not about intelligence. It has never worked anywhere it’s been tried. Never. Anywhere. Really, this isn’t difficult. Desperately rooting in the historical middens for examples to prove it does, usually brings up either Algiers or Israel; neither of which example demonstrates quite what torture’s proponents think it does.

In an interview with Brian Williams Leon Panetta confirmed it: Waterboarding got them the first bits of information that ultimately led to Bin Laden.

“WILLIAMS: Turned around the other way, are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?

PANETTA: No, I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I’m also saying that, you know, the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.”

By speculating that they might have gotten “the same information through other approaches” CIA Director Leon Panetta has admitted precisely how they did get it. Waterboarding gave them their first leads.

Of course, now that Bush is gone it’s probably OK to downgrade the status of waterboarding from torture to duress.

You don’t really need mass support if you’ve got a well-organised cadre of ruthless murderers. All you need is mass acquiescence, and you’ll get it.

Not necessarily – see ETA. I think mass support for the cause championed by the ruthless murderers is a separate variable.

“Someone needs to start asking conservative pundits how they’d feel about Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff being tortured for information about their dealings,”

Quite. Or asking anyone this: so, the government, or these employees of the government, or these plausibly deniable such, think you know something about something or other.

So Mr Worstall, are you happy to be tortured so that they can ascertain that you don’t?

Am I buggery. I want my constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment and I want them right damn now. I want due process, the whole damn thing, lawyers, courtrooms a jury and all the rest.

And that I want, indeed demand, such things for myself means that I want and demand them for everyone else.

Another way of putting the same point: the Common Law has indeed advanced over the centuries. Let’s not rewind that advancement, eh?

And, in fact, there is an example going on right now of one side – Libya – using cluster munitions and mines, and the other side – NATO – still sticking to its commitments not to do so.

NATO’s problem isn’t firepower. It is targeting. In fact NATO forces are effectively not fired upon.
You might notice that no NATO power is ready to give up its ultimate unconventional option.

Andrew: “Remember that the interrogation program was designed by people who trained the US military in methods of resisting harsh interrogation. ”

IIRC, those methods of ‘harsh interrrogation’ were designed to produce confessions; information was a by-product.

People should really read the chapter on torture in ‘The Gulag Archipelago’.

strike-throughs in my previous post unintentional

Maybe you could get all the benefits you want by just hiring an actor and pretending to torture him. He tells you this. He tells you that. He’s basing some of it on whatever he happens to know, which isn’t much, and the rest he’s just making up. Then you start running down the leads, processing the information, checking everything out. In the process, you discover stuff that you can actually trust, rely upon and use.

If that seems silly, note that it’s more or less what happens with real torture. Nobody believes that torture subjects tell you the truth and you just go out and plan operations with it. Whatever they say gets checked out, and mostly discarded or bypassed. Only a little bit is found to be reliable, found by independent research, note, and only that gets used.

What you’ve really got is a research program looking for topics to explore. Torturing people is one way to generate topics. It would be interesting to see someone try to prove that works better than other stuff you could do, including actors.

ajay: thanks for that. The Greenwald link was one I happened to remember which made the general point about selective release of information. (And rather than ‘government lab’, I should have said ‘government programme’ – and that was being cautious – I don’t know if one can come up with some reason for silicone-riddled and extremely pure strains of anthrax to be developed for other purposes.)

I agree that after all this tidying up time, the issue is left in a state in which it is not possible to say with high confidence that the stuff was weaponised. My point is that your categorical claim that it wasn’t is not borne out – and is cast into doubt – by the NRC study, despite the committee presumably being unwilling to go out of its way to criticise the FBI, and more importantly the report’s ambit being heavily circumscribed. (The brief was basically: going only on the information we have supplied, can you deduce the existence of errors in the specific scientific testing techniques used?)

Look at p77, bottom half about the NY sample. (It’s unusually resistant to my quick methods of OCRing such stuff, or I would paste the text.)

Just as a general background, the idea that the stuff could have come from a domestic weapons lab is obviously going to have been an unacceptable one to the FBI – and ‘read-ahead’ to the conclusion that it was is likely to have been enough to deflect courses of investigation, conclude that samples are unrepresentative and should be replaced, etc., if only by an innocent though improper process of cognitive bias.

Agree about derailing (also time-cost/informational-benefit). I don’t suppose you will be convinced either, but here are responses – in outline only, in an attempt to taper off without capitulating:

para 1: the ‘failed’ business – AFAICT the c’tee (at least one of the hands on the glass) can only have derived that from the section on particle size (pp64-5), which is undermined by missing info, has an immediately-discarded caveat at top p65, and btw doesn’t mention the NY sample(!).
para 2: not recognised as a weapons lab
para 3: but criticism is buried and very understated – point was that much, much more should be expected in any putative gloves-off adversarial treatment given full disclosure.

In general, the number of complaints about failure to provide info – not publishing unfavourable (or by read-ahead, implausible) results? – undermines the whole thing really (‘devastating critique’ objection not appropriate here even if applicable given the forensic context).

(Sorry, didn’t do too well on the mutual bowing out front.)

Torture is terrible, killing is worse. While I’m generally glad that so much attention is paid to the evils of torture, it seems to me that killing is too often simply accepted as part of “war”, which is a terrible state of affairs when you think about it in ethical terms. The reason is probably that the dead are dead and cannot tell horrifying stories anymore, thus making it easier for us to reduce them to mere numbers.