I’ve been getting into a couple of arguments lately about torture; specifically, whether or not the United States Government should be torturing anybody for any reason. I was told by a classmate yesterday that the only reason I’m opposed to torture is because I’m the type of person who is always looking for any reason to criticize the Bush administration. That’s right, I would have been perfectly comfortable with the secret and summary kidnapping and subsequent beating and torture of humans who haven’t been convicted or even accused of any crime, for the purposes of forcing a false confession of vague ties to terrorism if John Kerry was president. Sure…
A few minutes into these kinds of conversations and it becomes clear to me that so many Americans view torture the way TV portrays it. They see Jack Bauer towering over some sniveling terrorist henchman, expertly manipulating the dirty muslim into revealing the location of the bomb so he can disarm it minutes before it’s set to explode in an elementary school. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine the kinds of situations where the United States might use torture without figuring (hoping) that the most extreme methods of interrogation would be reserved for the most extreme and desperate cases of national security.
But consider Bush’s track record. His largest concern as President of the United States isn’t national security; it isn’t the economy, or education, or the federal budget. I think most of Bush’s strategic energy is spent figuring out how to keep people scared. He needs to keep people believing that we’re fighting a global war on terror. Speeches full of vague references to this threat or that, jumping at the chance to reveal every foiled terrorist plot (even when it’s obvious there was never any real threat), constantly increasing security, Invoking 9/11 at the most irrelevant moments, etc. The man has built his campaign on fear. So, could there be another motive for the use of torture? Maybe because in his desperate search for suspects’ names to fill the newspapers with, he’s coming up empty handed.
Logical solution: Torture someone until they are broken will say anything, then make them say they are a terrorist, then tell the public, “Look, I caught a terrorist”. As long as you keep the evidence against the suspects classified, you can make it look like you’ve got all sorts of terrorists behind bars.
Ok, so I’m starting to sound like a conspiracy nut. But what other conclusion could you come to after reading this. (I linked to the story written by arar himself, but in case you don’t trust that source: here and here are more credible articles) I’ll sum it up. Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen is kidnapped by the INS while on a layover in NYC. He’s flown to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he is held in a dungeon and tortured for a year. As soon as they realize he’s not a bad guy, they force him to lie and say that he’s been to Afghanistan. The Canadian government later cleared Arar of all suspicion of terrorist activity. The guy was completely innocent. Pretty stark contrast from the way Jack Bauer uses torture.
At the end of the article, Maher Arar says that all he wants now is to know why this horrible thing happened to him. Why would they go to so much trouble to distroy this mans life and force him to make false confessions? So that Bush can show the world that he is doing something. So that the administration can continue to justify the war in Iraq by showing that there really is a terrorist threat.
Can you still make an argument for torture knowing this is how it’s being used?
