When the issue of torture comes up, many people think of the way it's portrayed on the screen (especially in '24'), as an effective tool for extracting vital information in a ticking-clock scenario. Hey, it works for Jack Bauer, and he's saved the country, and the world, several times over, right?
In real life, however, torture has proved to be a lousy way of getting anything meaningful out of, uh, "suspects." (And then there's that whole Geneva Convention thing...) To quote Professor Darius Rejali ("Torture and Democracy") in Salon.com:
Aside from its devastating effects and the wasted time and resources, does torture actually work? Organizations can certainly use torture to intimidate prisoners and to produce confessions (many of which turn out to be false). But the real question is whether organizations can apply torture scientifically and professionally to produce true information. Does this method yield better results than others at an army's disposal? The history of torture demonstrates that it does not -- whether it is stealthy or not.Another perspective from a reader's e-mail to Andrew Sullivan:
When Americans think of torture they think of Dirty Harry standing over a serial killer whose next victim is running out of air at a remote location. Americans think of Harry as a hero for doing everything he can to save the victim. But what most people fail to realize is the thing that makes Harry the hero is not the act of torture. It is the choice to torture given he will face consequences for his action. If the consequences are removed then Harry becomes a meter maid.And for the reputation of Senator John McCain, who has once again expediently sold out his alleged principles to satisfy his political ambitions.Once the torture bill passes it won't take long before many, many more terror suspects will be tortured. A time will inevitably come when a detainee is found to contain some information that could have stopped a loss of life or property. At that time interrogators will have to account for not getting the information. Torture will become a cover-your-ass technique.
This is a sad time for morality and accountability.
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Well, to put another cinematic spin to it, it seems funny to me that Tarantino, who only makes movies about movies and is completely detached from reality (and also seemingly out of critical favor at this time) seems to be the only one who, out of his twisted and unrealistic imagination, actually has got this right in his sadistic cinematic fictions, e.g., Nice Guy Eddie's assertion:
"If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so!"
Of course, the entire story arc of Marvin the tortured cop is a testament to how worthless torture is (and again, QT seems to have only intuited this from his imagination, or other movies). The point is best made after Mr. Blonde is dispatched and Marvin turns to Mr. Orange and immediately starts conversing with him in a nonchalant-as-possible fashion (just having had his ear cut off and all), revealing that he knew he was a fellow police officer the whole time.
It's funny that the right hates movies like these, that treat violence as a reality rather than as a subject for pornography.
Again, why torture and its effectiveness are being discussed on a website seemingly devoted to movies, I don't know. But you want to discuss torture? Fine. First, I would be embarrassed to source salon.com on the subject of torture or anything else for that matter. Here is an objective source: Brian Ross, investigative reporter for ABC News. He talked to numerous sources within the CIA, hardly a friend to the Bush administration, and made it clear in a story he did that coercive interrogation methods were effective in preventing 12 major terrorist plots. These plots were prevented through the interrogation of 14 senior Al-Qaeda leaders, several of whom were complicit in and/or responsible for the planning of 9/11. Lives were saved due to these interrogations. What methods did these interrogations include: sleep deprivation, loud music and in extreme circumstances waterboarding. In case you did not know, waterboarding is a technique, the closest thing to torture our brave American agents use, where plastic wrap is placed over a terrorist's mouth and his head put into water. He then will suffer gag reflexes and feel as if he is drowning, when in fact he is not. Many terrorists break simply under sleep deprivation and/or loud music and the waterboarding technique is not utilized. However, those impervious to such basic techniques will face the harsher measures. According to Brian Ross of ABC, who is, again, one of the few objective professionals left in the business of investigative journalism, most CIA agents breakdown after 30-35 seconds of waterboarding in their training sessions which is typically what the toughest of the captured terrorists will be able to endure. However, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, lasted 2 and 1/2 minutes before breaking down. Subsequently he gave the U.S. a vast quantity of information that saved lives and severely damaged Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. That anyone would say torture or coercive measures or whatever you want to call them does not work is a naive person, a very naive person. Futhermore, describing the measures described above as torture certainly grabs headlines and may be auspicious to political expediency for liberals and their apologizers, but it is a very relative thing. After the horrendous mutilations and beheadings captured soldiers in Iraq have suffered, describing loud music from a stereo as torture is ridiculous. Furthermore, in Middle Eastern countries like Pakistan or Yemen or Saudi Arabia calling these measures 'torture' would be laughable. The things intelligence services in these countries do to terrorists or apostates or whomever they please would make even you Mr. Emerson shudder and I will not dare repeat them. And there is little doubt that they work. The recent interrupted plot in Britain, again where thousands of lives were saved, was so successful, in part, because Pakistan arrested several of its sponsors and inflicted unspeakable torture upon them in order to attain information which aided in the arrest of those 20 terrists in Britain. The debate should not center around whether these measures work, for that is a foregone conclusion whether you want to believe it or not. The debate, and it is a legitimate one, is whether we, the United States, whom I and most people living within it believe to be a good and noble country, should exercise such measures in the face of our principles. I believe this war and the brutal islamists who are the object of it require such measures. In spite of an internecine America, I hope people realize its necessity in continuing to prevent another 9/11. If nothing else, '24', which is a great show and I am glad we have that common interest Mr. Emerson, exemplifies the need for such measures. I am a sleepless political science student at UCLA, and while I enjoy politics and foreign policy, I hope to read more movie posts rather than snide political interjections. I enjoy your blog, it is the only one devoted to movies (supposedly) that I read. Thanks, JE. Respectfully ~ Aaron.
JE: But, Aaron, where do you think most people get their ideas about "torture"? From TV and the movies. And this blog has always been about the ways movies reflect larger issues. I saw a clip on "The Daily Show" this week where somebody on a cable news show was claiming the success of "24" (being made into a feature film, BTW) constituted a "national referendum" on torture, and showed that most Americans approve of it.
I think anyone interested in this topic needs to see Gillo Pontecorvo's film The Battle of Algiers and then the conversation on the Criterion DVD between Richard Clarke and Michael Sheehan, the former coordinator of counterterrorism for the State Department.
Both the film and the dialogue between the two experts illustrate that torture might work in the short run, but it will not in the long run. That torture works is not, as the poster above says, "a foregone conclusion." That it breeds more resentment and lessens a country's moral standing in the world, however, is.
JE: Good advice, Tim. "The Battle of Algiers" was screened for Pentagon employees in 2003. There's a primer on the "lessons" of the film here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2087628/
EXCERPT:
The Mideast learned the efficacy of insurgent terror from Algeria. The PLO, Hamas, and other groups are indebted to the Algerian strategy of so-called "people's war." Its lessons are now apparent in Iraq, too. Yet the film treats the Algiers terror campaign as a failure: Its later bombings and shootings are made to appear increasingly desperate and strategically pointless. "Wars aren't won with terrorism," says one key revolutionary. "Neither wars nor revolutions." But that depends at least in part on how the other side reacts to terror, whether the other side is France in Algeria or the United States in Iraq. Wars may not be won with terror, but they can be lost by reacting ineffectively to it.
This is where "The Battle of Algiers" is potentially most valuable and most dangerous as a point of comparison for the U.S. military. While "The Battle of Algiers" has next to nothing to say about overall French strategy in Algeria, its most obvious military lesson—that torture is an efficient countermeasure to terror—is a dangerous one in this particular instance. Aside from its moral horror, torture may not even elicit accurate information, though the film seems to suggest it is foolproof.
The French military view of torture is articulated by Col. Mathieu in the course of a series of exchanges with French journalists. As reports of torture spread, the issue becomes a scandal in France. Mathieu, however, is unwavering in defense of the practice: To him it is a military necessity. Informed that Jean-Paul Sartre is condemning French tactics, for example, Mathieu responds with a question that would warm Ann Coulter's heart: "Why are the liberals always on the other side?"
At one point Mathieu challenges the hostile French reporters with a question of his own: "Should France remain in Algeria? If you answer 'yes,' you must accept all the necessary consequences." Mathieu might as well be addressing the American military and the American public. Is the United States to remain in the Middle East? If so, what are the "necessary consequences"? Do they include working with former members of the Baathist secret police, as recent news stories have suggested? Do they include the night-time invasion of Iraqi homes and the inevitable shooting of innocent civilians?
To raise such issues is not necessarily to condemn the continued presence of troops in Iraq; there would be disastrous "necessary consequences" to an American withdrawal, too. But moral compromise, according to the film, was inherent in France's position in Algeria. The United States is not France, Iraq is not Algeria, and whatever the sources of resistance in Iraq, none is the equivalent of the FLN. But to listen to Mathieu is nevertheless to be challenged on whether moral compromise is also inherent in the American role in Iraq.
"Aaron Brown":
Far be it from me to call into question anything ABC News reports, since they're so objective and unconcerned with reinforcing the beliefs of the lowest common denominator for the sake of ratings, but if you go to the url's below you will see that they have also reported that there is a lot to be said for psychic detectives and that the jury is still out on faith healers who make a godawful amount of money from unsuspecting desperate people with real problems:
http://www.randi.org/jr/051404the.html#12
http://www.randi.org/jr/021805a.html#1
So do I trust a report they put out about the efficacy of torture?
Answer the question yourself.
By the way, there are many other examples of ABC's quality journalism, but I leave that for everyone to look up for themselves.
wow, is the dialogue on torture as obvious as the scene from "Dirty Harry"?
let's remember that the film is probably STILL 20 years ahead of its time, but after multiple viewings I will vehemently argue that Harry Callahan is definitively NOT the hero of the film!! There are a lot of iconic religious images peppered throughout the film (JESUS SAVES sign, giant cross in the park) which attempts to elevate Harry to a mythical figure, the avenging angel.
AND YET . . . the torture scene evolves not as a contrast between Harry and the Scorpio killer, but as a blunt comparison. Their motives and respective sides of the "law" become immaterial. The fact that Callahan executes his "torture" under the pretense of saving a young girl's life is irrelevant.
The scene ends with the dizzying pullback inside Kezar stadium and Harry stomping on the Scorpio killer's wounded leg attempting to extract information, and into the uncaring sky until Harry and the killer become so infinitesimal in the eye of the camera, they become INDISTINGUISHABLE.
and that is the genius of the film that still eludes many proponents of its alleged facism. The film isn't pro or anti torture as much as its intent is to show, through the gradual frustration and de-evolution of Harry's moral center, that he must stare into the abyss and become the enemy he holds in contempt in order to vanquish him. or does he?
The point, then, is not that Harry retains the moral high ground as a result of his actions. He acknowledges his loss of moral superiority when he discards his badge in the end of the film. The point is that Harry willingly succumbs to torture, and thus the vileness of his enemy, in order to obtain what is essentially a temporary "victory".
If the U.S. is playing Dirty Harry with international terrorism, then if we are willing to use torture of our enemies to bring about "justice" and then cast aside our "badge" once the enemy is "defeated", we will follow true to form.
Moral ground or no, I just wonder what kind of mind it takes to intentionally inflict pain on another person? I just can't swallow it. I especially don't see how anyone who believes what they learned in christian church (like most of our elected representatives claim to), can concievably turn that doctrine of peace and love into "torture when necessary". I wrote a blog about it above, which I humbly submit for your viewing.
Eric,
If you have never had the urge to tear the living crap out of some jerk who is making your life miserable . . . I applaud the health and safety of your life. LOL!
In all seriousness, you bring up a valid point, but argue it the wrong way. We are human animals, filled with anger, hate, bloodlust, and an instinct to kill something that threatens our safety and "happiness". Our connection to God (religion in its purest form, humanity at its highest elevation) engages us to reflect on a morality that says those instincts run amok are harmful and "wrong". We rely upon whatever "morality" we decide to believe to keep our more savage nature in check. This conflict is at the heart of almost all fiction, whether it be book or film.
So you rightfully expose the hypocrisy of a religious administration that employees significantly NON-Christian values to fight an enemy that is equally ruthless in their violence and religious hypocrisy.
But EVERY mind is capable of deliberately inflicting pain . . . I am married to a woman who has an ex-husband I'd like to choke on an almost daily basis. And there are times I convince myself that it would be morally just to inflict as much pain as I could on this guy, feeling (wrongly) that it would dissuade him from infringing upon our lives.
As I said about Dirty Harry, we identify with that character because we want to feel comfortable in his righteousness; that torturing a "villainous" person to save lives not only caters to our darker instincts, it is justifiable in our higher mind. I believe the scene plays out to imply Harry is no better than the man he is torturing once he sinks to the level of torture.
With that said, I'm not sure I would be capable of choosing a different path than Harry when confronted with the same set of circumstances. Ideologically, I am with you 100%. But I live in a world of emotion, lapsed judgments, and human error. I cannot say for certain that, despite my moral opposition to torture, I would be capable of avoiding it as a tool when engaging an enemy that would show no such hesitation towards me.
To save American lives from a terrorist attack I truly believe in using any possible method in extracting information from the enemy. If it’s called torture then so be it. My question to the liberals did the Islamic fascist show any compassion before they killed the people in the world Trade Center?
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