All entries for Tuesday 21 April 2009

Saintly Inquisitors

Writing about web page http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/world/middleeast/18zubaydah.html

On April 18, the New York Times reported:

Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said.

By implication, the CIA operatives who first did this were good people who implemented a bad policy reluctantly and against their own better judgement.

That's something I can credit. I don't have a problem with believing it.

But there must be more. I explained why, in a short article I wrote more than seven years ago, back in November 2001 when the policy of torture was still a twinkle in Dick Cheney's eye. I wrote:

The practice of torture also attracts those who find it enjoyable and use it as an instrument of self-gratification rather than investigation.

How else could you explain the fact that, as the New York Times reported on April 19:

The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum ... The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It defies belief that the same inquisitors continued to experience the same distress throughout these 83 episodes, let alone the 183 times (six times on an average day!) that they or others waterboarded Khalid Shaikh Mohamed in the month of March 2003. Either they changed their feelings, or they changed places with others. The CIA officers that initially found the practice of torture "distressing" must either have overcome their scruples and learned to find satisfaction in it, or they would inevitably have given up their place to others that enjoyed it without forcing themselves.

The outcome, I concluded back in 2001, is that:

The process of torture is corrupting ... It gives rise to vested interests in its continuation that do not wish to be held accountable for their actions. These interests are helped by secrecy. Torture takes place in secret. Most people find the subject distasteful and do not wish to know about it, and this further strengthens the wall of secrecy. The result is a part of the state that exercises a cruel and tyrannical power over society, one that grows inevitably with the extension of torture and has the power to resist subsequent attempts to curb it.

It is something of a miracle that today, this cruelest form of corruption has not only been curbed but is being brought to light.

Mark Harrison : 21 Apr 2009 06:01 |  Tags: Politics Torture |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem