Saturday, December 08, 2007
Another Reason Torture-tape-gate is Abhorent
The CIA now claims it no longer videotapes its torture sessions. If this is true, it piles hypocrisy on top of inhumanity.
Here's my thinking. If we take at face value that these CIA agents, or their contractors, willingly suspend their human empathy to inflict humiliation, powerlessness and hopelessness, as well as pain, panic and fear of death, on a prisoner for the utilitarian purpose of extracting information, you'd think they'd use any means to capture whatever information was extracted.
I'm giving the torturers the benefit of the doubt here. I am assuming that torture might, occasionally, cause the extraction of information that is actually useful, even though we know that's not often the case.
Suppose the torture victim says something useful, but mumbles, or uses disjointed syntax, or uses a language that the torturers don't know. Maybe the victim has a moment of weakness and then clams up again. Or maybe the victim utters the valuable information and dies. Or maybe the information needs to be translated by somebody who's not present. Or maybe it only gains value as it is subject to further analysis.
To NOT RECORD torture is to risk losing the very utility the perpetrators claim makes torture necessary. If they're risking loss of information to keep their own asses out of the fire, it's even worse. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Here's my thinking. If we take at face value that these CIA agents, or their contractors, willingly suspend their human empathy to inflict humiliation, powerlessness and hopelessness, as well as pain, panic and fear of death, on a prisoner for the utilitarian purpose of extracting information, you'd think they'd use any means to capture whatever information was extracted.
I'm giving the torturers the benefit of the doubt here. I am assuming that torture might, occasionally, cause the extraction of information that is actually useful, even though we know that's not often the case.
Suppose the torture victim says something useful, but mumbles, or uses disjointed syntax, or uses a language that the torturers don't know. Maybe the victim has a moment of weakness and then clams up again. Or maybe the victim utters the valuable information and dies. Or maybe the information needs to be translated by somebody who's not present. Or maybe it only gains value as it is subject to further analysis.
To NOT RECORD torture is to risk losing the very utility the perpetrators claim makes torture necessary. If they're risking loss of information to keep their own asses out of the fire, it's even worse. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Technorati Tags: Bushco, Eighth Amendment, Torture
Comments:
The thing is that in most instances, empathy can't be suspended because it is that same empathy (in some forms) which enables the torturers to know what will cause pain and harm to the victim...
# posted by 
: 12/15/2007 2:13 AM
: 12/15/2007 2:13 AM
Sam, empathy means, "I feel your pain." I'd be very hesitant to describe torturers as empathetic in ANY sense. From what I've read, torturers do what they do either because they're very specifically NOT empathetic, e.g., because they've objectified their victim, or because they're following a procedure. If torturers felt their victim's pain, they'd simply stop. Empathy is just not the right word.
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