Those of us who are interested in peace and justice need to know this: "This is torture's true purpose: to terrorise - not only the people in Guant�namo's cages and Syria's isolation cells but also, and more importantly, the broader community that hears about these abuses. Torture is a machine designed to break the will to resist - the individual prisoner's will and the collective will. This is not a controversial claim. In 2001 the US NGO Physicians for Human Rights published a manual on treating torture survivors that noted: 'Perpetrators often attempt to justify their acts of torture and ill-treatment by the need to gather information. Such conceptualisations obscure the purpose of torture ... The aim of torture is to dehumanise the victim, break his/her will, and at the same time set horrific examples for those who come in contact with the victim. In this way, torture can break or damage the will and coherence of entire communities.'"
Torture has a social purpose. The article mentions some interesting insights from places such as military regime Argentina. The point to remember is that even interrogators know that the information they gain from torture is next to useless; the victim will tell them anything they want to hear but they have no way of knowing whether it is true or sim-ply what the victim thinks they want to hear. This is the main clue to torture's true purpose. It is an instrument of terror; truly the legitimate governments that use torture can be accused of being terrorists; literally.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The true purpose of torture:
16 May 2005
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It depends on what you call torture. When I think of torture I think of gasoline in the eyes, bamboo under the finger nails, electrocution, beatings, rape and stuff like that. I don't view sleep deprivation, solitary confinement or even nude photos "torture".
There was programme recently on UK TV, a drama, in which 'mild' torture was depicted along with raising the moral issues around it. I recognise there is a continuum from psychological pressure to outright torture, and somewhere along that continuum a line is crossed. I guess that international agencies have discussed this long and hard and have good ways to handle definitions, I guess I'd want to defer to their expertise.
I would, however, say that if you have experienced sleep deprivation, you will know that to inflict it deliberately on someone is torture! Solitary confinement can lead to emotional and mental illness.
Strapping a bomb to yourself and blowing up a bus full of school children can lead to death. I don't think the people we are inflicting sleep deprivation on are too concerned about their well being. After all, they are terrorists who live in caves. Not exactly a lifestyle for a health or life conscious person.
The people you saw on that show are not people who would blow themselves up in a suicide bombing, so they are a little more dramatic when it comes to their well being.
Not quite sure what the health conscious thing is about ... but anyway the substance of what you are saying seems to be:
there are people doing nasty things so we are entitled to do some nasty things and we are better because our nasty things are not as nasty as theirs.
Note the elisions: the people that 'we' are doing not-so-nasty things to are often innocent; they have not gone through any due process.This makes 'us'no better than the 'enemy' just a little less cruel. Fighting crime with crime ... hmmmm. Not sure I want to build a world on that principle.
Notice too the wider context: ecomonic superiority being hammered home through cultural forms alien and sometimes hateful, military dominance ditto, then add some [admittedly milder] torture ... The point is that when torture -even the mild stuff- is used it has meaning and in this case it amplifies a set of meanings about western hegemony.
I say this not to act as an apologist for murder; but because I believe that after the violence people will still need to talk to one another and get to understand how to defuse the tensions and address the reall issues [cf. what has been haltingly happening in Ulster -with its own prior history of torture on both sides]. If we act properly then it makes peacebuilding easier when the violence proves unsustainable. If we do so now it may actually hasten the day.
The point of the article, don't forget, is that torture is no good as intelligence; it's only possible function is terror and whether it's mild or harsh that function is still carried out and affects a population. Scared people are not easy to build peace with, scared people are more likely to commit violence and less likely to 'be reasonable' ...
Meanwhile, torturing random suspects leaves the real criminals in their caves or more likely in the open unsuspected and hidden by a scared but brutalised population out for revenge [lessons from Ulster again].
Follow up links on torture:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Editorial/Torture-end-does-not-justify-the-means/2005/05/17/1116095958879.html?oneclick=true
http://signon.fairfax.com.au/signon/signonAuth.do?retro=true&z=1&username=andiibowsher&password=dd1381f7d353f3a4a82dff94606f34c8d0902102&site=AGE&retn=%2Flogin.do%3Fsy%3Dage&data=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theage.com.au%2Fnews%2FNational%2FHere-Victim-stumped-by-academics-views%2F2005%2F05%2F17%2F1116095961640.html&server=http%3A%2F%2Freg.theage.com.au%3A80&a=20050518105015&scAccount=f2ntheage
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Torture-is-inhuman-illegal-and-futile/2005/05/17/1116095958897.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Torture-is-inhuman-illegal-and-futile/2005/05/17/1116095958897.html
With thanks to Greenflame for the links. You may need to sign up to see them, but they are interesting and may be worth it.
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