Editor's Note

On 16 September 2001, US vice-president Dick Cheney declared the approach he thought necessary to deal with the terrorism threat that a few days previously had delivered such a deadly blow against the United States: “We’ll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will.” In retrospect, his words have been seen as the first public indication of how the administration of George W. Bush would fight its “war on terror”—by using “any means at our disposal” (Cheney again), among them, means widely regarded as torture.

The Bush administration’s seeking of legal legitimisations for the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, its approval of practices such as “waterboarding” and “rendition”, the publication of the infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib jail, and the testimony of inmates from the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons, have caused torture to loom large in public consciousness. Torture’s disconcerting new topicality has also seen the reopening of a question long thought to have been settled in countries deeming themselves part of the advanced, civilised world. Today, agreement can no longer simply be assumed that torture is taboo, an absolute evil whose use is never to be tolerated. The practical utility and moral legitimacy of torture are widely urged on security grounds.

This shift in attitudes makes timely a re-examination of the problem of torture, which is undertaken in the present issue of Global Dialogue.

Christopher H. Pyle of Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, begins our discussion by examining the stance of President Barack Obama. The high hopes many had that Obama would overturn his predecessor’s legacy on torture have been disappointed. Obama has perpetuated aspects of Bush’s rendition policy and his use of juryless military commissions to try terror suspects, shielded torturers from prosecution, and ordered that evidence of their crimes be concealed, arguing that America should look forwards, not back. Pyle outlines what needs to be done if the rule of law is to be restored in the United States.

Many societies have resorted to torture, but virtually all have been shamefaced about doing so, either dishonestly denying their use of the practice or claiming it to be a rarely adopted measure forced upon them by emergency circumstances. What is singular about the United States today is the widespread open advocacy and defence of torture. Robert Crawford of the University of Washington, Tacoma, traces the development of this phenomenon in the “deluge of commentary in the mainstream media” since Obama became president. Americans are divided about torture, Crawford writes, but unless they confront the crucial moral, political and legal challenges it poses, the ideology of national security will continue to distort their responses to the issue.

One keenly advocated means for clearing up the torture scandal’s toxic legal and political residue in the United States is an investigative commission, analogous to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that performed a similar socially cleansing function in South Africa after the apartheid era. Stuart Streichler of the Seattle University School of Law examines what such a commission would entail, and whether it really is the best option for the United States in its current predicament over what to do about those who ordered and inflicted torture.

A major feature of torture debate is the “ticking-bomb scenario”, which typically posits that the authorities have in custody a terrorist known to have planted a device that will kill hundreds or even thousands of people if it detonates. The only way of locating and defusing the bomb before it explodes is to torture the terrorist. Is torture justified in these circumstances? This scenario is commonly invoked by defenders of “harsh measures” and “enhanced interrogation”, but does it describe the real world, or is it merely a convenient fiction that serves as a pretext for policies that should never be permitted? That question is addressed from various angles by the four articles that follow.

Melbourne-based philosopher Catherine McDonald considers the moral theory and factual assumptions underpinning the ticking-bomb scenario. Finding that the ticking-bomb case for torture fails, she suggests some reasons why so many people nevertheless find it compelling.

A different perspective is offered by another philosopher, Uwe Steinhoff of the University of Hong Kong. He assesses several of the most common objections to torture in emergency cases such as the ticking-bomb scenario or the kidnapping of a child. Is it really true, he asks, that permitting any act of torture would have the terrible social consequence of encouraging the institutionalisation and proliferation of torture? He concludes that there is a right to self-defensive torture, but stresses that this is an “extremely rare” contingency.

One country that has accepted the ticking-bomb scenario as a real-world possibility that may necessitate and legitimise what are euphemistically referred to as “special interrogation methods” or “moderate physical pressure” is Israel. As Louis Frankenthaler of the Public Committee against Torture in Israel notes, Israel’s High Court of Justice explicitly cited the scenario to this effect in a landmark 1999 ruling. Frankenthaler argues that this was tantamount to a legal embrace of torture, and he describes what it has meant for Israeli society. He also draws a number of suggestive analogies between torture and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Jessica Wolfendale of West Virginia University focuses on what she sees as the insidious role of the ticking-bomb scenario in shaping public attitudes about the nature of torture and torturers. She argues that the scenario promotes the “necessity narrative” of torture, in which the torturer appears as a noble hero reluctantly forced to do what needs to be done to save innocent lives. This misleading picture, she says, contributes significantly to the continuing use of torture and the continuing impunity of torturers.

If ever anyone answered to the description of Wolfendale’s “noble torturer” it is Jack Bauer, the fictional hero of the massively popular US television series, 24. In his ceaseless battles against terrorists plotting to wreak carnage in America, Bauer frequently resorts to torture, but he is portrayed in such a sympathetic and glamorous light that 24 has been accused of purveying “pro-torture propaganda”. Donal P. O’Mathuna of Dublin City University weighs the justice of this charge. He finds that, at least in season seven of the series (which aired in 2009), 24’s stance on torture is more nuanced than its detractors maintain.

As the torture controversy grew in the United States, the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association prohibited their members from participating in interrogations at the various US detention centres. However, the corresponding national representative body for US psychologists, the American Psychological Association, failed to follow suit. Clinical psychologist Bryant L. Welch analyses the reasons for the association’s refusal, and describes the complicity of his profession in the US torture of detainees.

Many illuminating historical parallels with today’s torture scandal are provided by France’s mid-twentieth-century war to retain colonial control of Algeria. As Marnia Lazreg of the City University of New York shows, France’s resort to torture in Algeria, like that of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, became routine and uncontainable, and was shrouded in denials, euphemisms and noble-sounding justifications. Moreover, the French Army developed a well-articulated military doctrine which served as a model for other countries, including the United States. Lazreg’s analysis of the Algerian war’s relevance to events today concludes with a reflection on the meanings of torture and on the prospects for its eradication.

One notorious method used by US interrogators has been the desecration of religious objects and values sacred to Muslim detainees. Liaquat Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law describes the impulses behind this “faith-based” torture, its broad strategic goals, the forms it has taken, and how it has affected the United States’ reputation and interests around the world.

Jonathan Pieslak, a composer and associate professor at the City College of New York, brings our discussion to a close by detailing how US interrogators have used loud music and sound to deprive detainees of sleep and break their resistance to questioning. Pieslak recounts the history of this technique, enquires whether it amounts to torture, and relates how musicians have reacted to the use of their material in this way.

Paul Theodoulou
Winter/Spring 2010