Usually called the doctor. Or the caretaker.

ldragoon, go look at this: a collection of pictures of churches displaying anti-torture banners.

From supergee.

Here is the account of a man who tried waterboarding on himself.

Now think about all the people you know who can't even handle sinus irrigation. (If you know me, you know someone who would rather bite her own arm off than ever pour water in her nose intentionally again. And I know I'm not the only one.)

Our government uses this technique. They call it "enhanced interrogation" or "simulated drowning".

Link thanks to themikado.

Every day this week I have posted about torture. I have talked about why I think we should keep the debate alive, a little bit of the history of torture, and possible reasons that people might be continuing to support our government's use of torture.

A lot of people are confining their remarks on the subject to the idea that torture is morally indefensible. It is. It is morally indefensible. Torturing someone is as morally wrong as it gets, and I support the insistence that torture is morally wrong.

However, my morality does not preclude going on to point out further facts about the use of torture and its futility. Clearly, the people who continue to support the use of torture do so because they do not care. It is not that they have not heard that torture is morally wrong--that is the first thing most people say about torture. Hey, torture is morally wrong! They are not wandering around wearing earplugs like staff at a rock concert. They know it is wrong--they just do not care.

And to all those people who know that torture is morally wrong but do not care, I say: do not support torture. Do not support it because it is morally wrong, but also do not support it because it does not work. I quote a paragraph from my first anti-torture post on Monday:

Torture is wrong, and I know that like I know the sun will come up tomorrow. However, for the people who believe that ritualized terror directed at the human body in furtherance of a goal is morally acceptable, we must provide rational answers to cure their irrational mindset. We must show them first that torture does not work; second, that torture is patently against the ideals of this country; and third, that even if it did work and was acceptable, the practice of torture by Americans on the citizens of other countries irreparably harms our standing in the global community, and thus the personal welfare of each and every American.

Torture does not work. Torture does not, cannot, never has, and never will consistently provide timely, valuable, reliable information. Torture produces irrelevant information and lies, and the lies it provides are the lies that the interrogator wants to hear, so they are given credibility. A person can be made to say anything if they are subjected to enough pain--guilty or innocent. Either way, the interrogation session has produced a lot of nonsense, which must then be investigated fully anyway. If all information provided is not followed up, it might look like we know perfectly well that torture does not work, and are doing it anyway.

Torture is against the ideals of our country. We talk an awful lot in America about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." I think most of us believe these three things to be our rights as American citizens. They are also basic human rights; this phrase in its entirety was included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, after a period of institutionalized torture so appalling that the world ripped itself apart to stop it. Torture denies these basic human rights. Torture can kill. It always wounds. Its victims are denied liberty, sometimes for years, or the rest of their lives. And in many cases, those who have been tortured will never again be able to live normal lives. I would direct you to my friend sasha_khan's post on this subject.

Torture irreparably harms our standing in the global community, and our personal safety--your personal safety. Our government has violated Article III of the Geneva Convention. We torture prisoners. No soldier, no journalist, no politician visiting a foreign theater of war, no civilian travelling can ever count him or herself truly safe until we once again adhere to the codes outlining appropriate treatment of prisoners--and probably for a while afterward. In addition, our government has opened the door to legalized torture at home.

The core of the matter is that torture is wrong. But for those people who do not care about the morality of torture, I say, pull out all the stops. There are rational, logical reasons why torture is stupid, and it is important to keep stressing them, because people who do not have morals are not impressed by arguments based on morality, and people who are not humane are not impressed by arguments based on humanity. If someone is ruled by the bottom line, tell them that torture is wasteful and expensive. If someone is ruled by concern about his or her own neck, talk about how torture impairs our ability to keep our own people safe. If someone is ruled by vanity, talk about how our image takes a hit in the global community because we torture people.

There is no shame in using the argument that works. It does not make you a less moral person to show people patiently and rationally that torture is messy, expensive, and ineffective as well as morally indefensible. A rational argument takes more time and effort than simply saying "torture is morally wrong," but it is not an effort that I grudge. It is not an effort anyone should grudge; if there is anything worth convincing people of, surely it is that we should not support torture.

Friday is Blog Anti-Torture Day, and I decided that rather than just blogging anti-torture on the day, I would post every day this week about torture.



We are heading into the homestretch, and today I want to pose a question. Why are there still people who support the use of torture as an interrogation technique? This is going to be a short post, because I honestly don’t know.

In part, I think it’s a mixture of fear and misplaced trust in the ethics of the people in charge. I’ve touched on the fear side of things before: one response to fear is to attempt to exert control, and when you can’t control the thing you fear, you control something that symbolizes it. Like sympathetic magic, power over the symbol gives you power over the whole. The trust issue—well, given that I’m about as far left as you can be, and a member of a couple of groups that the current administration wants to stamp out if at all possible, I’m not sure that I’m capable of understanding that kind of unthinking trust in the people currently in power. I think there’s also an element of vengeance in it—as though people who may or may not (probably not) have been involved in the WTC bombings deserve whatever terrible things we do to them. The culture also promotes beliefs that support the use of torture. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” “We can’t let them think we’re weak.” There is also the idea that at any second, there could be another attack, and torture gets results, gets information.

It’s hard to fight these kinds of beliefs, because they’re not held rationally—they arise out of fear, are supported by instability and lack of confidence, and can only be changed if you can shake the person out of their trance of fear and anxiety long enough to persuade them to consider facts that make them feel more fearful and anxious.

I’m not sure what causes this attitude, but I am certain that the only way to fight it is to keep the discussion alive and to keep pointing out the facts.

Friday is Blog Anti-Torture Day, and I decided that rather than just blogging anti-torture on the day, I would post every day this week about torture.



Today, instead of my own weighty discussion of torture (I hear the sighs of relief), I'm going to link you to a Fresh Air segment from October 11, 2007,in which Terri Gross speaks with TV producer Adam Fierro, intelligence expert Col. Stuart Herrington and human rights advocate David Danzig about depictions of torture in TV and the movies. It is about 25 minutes long, and very worth the time to listen.

Friday is Blog Anti-Torture Day. A couple of you have declared that you will participate, but many more have not. If you are against torture, please consider posting the banner and pledging to post on Friday about torture. It doesn't have to be a boring, long-winded teal deer like mine. My metier, my milieu, my niche, if you will, is long-winded boring logically progressive teal deer, and so I serve in the manner best suited to my nature. ldragoon is cartooning anti-torture. I'm sure other people are doing more creative things than writing long-winded posts, and my entire f-list is immensely talented. Quilt anti-torture. Sing anti-torture. Dance anti-torture. Write a play, write a poem, write your congressman and post the text. Make a voice post. Make an anti-torture LOLcat. Post about torture scenes on tv and in the movies. If you care about this issue, please consider posting the banner and pledging to make a post on Friday.

What do you say?

Sincerely,
Me

Friday is Blog Anti-Torture Day, and I decided that rather than just blogging anti-torture on the day, I would post every day this week about torture.



Today I want to talk a little bit about evidentiary torture and its use in the ancient world. In the fifth century BCE in Athens, legal testimony took a couple of different forms, but the only way that the testimony of a slave could be considered by the court as anything other than part of the diegesis, the narrative (and thus hearsay), was if this testimony was obtained “basanizomenos”—by torture. This torture was called basanos, which is also the word for a touchstone, the stone that determines if gold is real. There has been a fair amount of ink spilled over basanos and its place in the Greek judicial system. It has been variously suggested that basanos was never actually used; that it was used but was decisive in the outcome of a case, such that disputes which involved basanos would not then come before a jury; that it was perhaps a preserved and ritualized form of trial by combat.¹ Regardless, what we do know is that it was the practice of “pressing” the truth from a witness who might have a vested interest in lying to his questioners,² and that basanos was the only thing that could render the testimony of a slave admissible in court. Dicasts often refer to the testimony of a slave under basanos as having the power to end a case, and no legal speech has been preserved which refers to testimony derived from basanos as being part of the argument of prosecution or defense in criminal cases.

I see this practice as being similar to the ways that torture is currently being used on “persons of interest” in American legal matters. ( More )

Friday is Blog Anti-Torture Day, and I decided that rather than just blogging anti-torture on the day, I would post every day this week about torture.



The first topic I want to tackle is why we should be doing this at all. When I announced that I was going to participate, someone remarked that of course I was anti-torture, as I am not a retarded cane toad. While I appreciate this affirmation of my intellect and species, it seems to come from a place that assumes that the war is over—the question has devolved to whether one is or is not a retarded cane toad, and a multitude of opinions can be derived from this information. I do not agree. I think it is important to keep the debate about torture alive.( More )