Is torture really all that bad?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This question seems to be getting continual play. Take Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz: he thinks that if the U.S. is going to torture people no matter what, “it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice.” He even went so far as to recommend a sticking a sterilized needle under fingernails as a good, non-lethal method of torture. And it’s not just Dershowitz taking a soft stance on torture.

The fact that the media has been so slow and reluctant to use the word “torture,” and to publish the nasty truth of the sanctioning of torture readily evident in published military reports reveals a more deeply-seated belief that torture may not be all that bad—especially if we’re talking about torturing “bad” people. People don’t like the word “torture,” so the CIA has tried to come up with something else. Last Thursday, CIA Director Porter Goss was challenged by Sen. John McCain about the CIA’s use of “waterboarding”, in which a prisoner is made to believe that he will drown. Mr. Goss replied only that the approach fell into “an area of what I will call ‘professional interrogation techniques.'”

Unfortunately, it seems we’ve gotten to a point where it’s necessary to point out that having a needle pushed under your nail (yes, even if it’s sterilized) is unacceptable. And, making a prisoner believe he is going to drown, while it may be a “professional interrogation technique,” is still torture. The fact that there is even a discussion about whether or not we should, in times of conflict, consider torture as a viable tactic is absurd.

Dershowitz’s argument that “the government is going to do it anyway, so we might as well give it some legal oversight” could be applied to almost any criminal activity employed in wartime. Perhaps the word “torture” has been so oft-repeated that it has dulled our senses. Let’s replace it with the word “rape”—arguably a much more successful tactic in wartime than torture has proven to be. A colleague of mine at Mother Jones has written about the widespread campaign of rape an efficient war-time tactic: “Rape has been recognized and implemented by its perpetrators as an effective means of breaking down a society and as a strategic means towards achieving military ends.” So just because rape will continue to be used in conflict anyway, and successfully achieves its goals, should a country legally sanction it, or regulate it?

If we’ve gotten to the point where the only way we can obtain intelligence, and prevent future acts of terrorism is through such an unreliable means as torture, we’re in trouble. This administration has often been criticized for trying to reduce complex issues into oversimplified arguments of “right” and “wrong,” “good” and “bad.” But here is a case in which the subtleties of language, and the law, have no place.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate