Torture ineffective, undemocratic

Matt Struhar

According to an affidavit released by the Center of Constitutional Rights on behalf of Ali Khan, whose son is an enemy combatant detained at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's sons were denied food and water and subjected to having insects placed upon them in Pakistan. This was an interrogation tactic used against the al-Qaida leader who has confessed to plotting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. In addition, he has been subjected to stressful positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding. As a result, anything he said under these circumstances is inadmissible in the court of law.

The radical and regrettable American torture regime is the result of the government misunderstanding the difference between evidence and intelligence. Intelligence is information gathered from nearly any source that is filtered through an analytical process; it is based on expertise and probabilities. Evidence is a set of facts that helps lead to an undoubtedly true conclusion. In The Lantern Feb. 15, Ben Schwarzwalder wrote that "some of the evidence used against (the al-Qaida suspects) was admitted during their waterboarding interrogations." That is impossible because any admission under torture is dubious and is therefore disqualified as evidence.

When the first al-Qaida terrorists were apprehended after Sept. 11, the job of interrogating them fell to the CIA. Ron Suskind's seminal exploration of the Bush administration's national security policy in practice, "The One Percent Doctrine," explained how FBI interrogators believed they should have been the ones handling the interrogations, as that would have been the case under normal circumstances. The apprehended individuals were suspects involved with a crime and there are specific rules when it comes to extracting evidence from them. However, the CIA is not a criminal investigation organization but an intelligence-gathering one, so it lacks sufficient knowledge about the rules of evidence.

The use of torture has not stopped a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Any such instance has been the result of standard police work and not an insignificant amount of luck. There was a proposed bombing of a New York City subway station at 34th Street-Herald Square during the Republican National Convention in 2004 but an undercover FBI agent thwarted it. Another al-Qaida plot involving the New York City subway system simply never happened. Suskind said the organization's leaders called off the attack, believing it to be relatively ineffective compared to Sept. 11.

Torture's uselessness and ineffectiveness aside, any act of torture is inherently undemocratic, illiberal and evil. Vengeful retribution and unchecked violence against prisoners is in opposition to democracy and liberty. A free and democratic society has to allow for avenues through which truth emerges: freedom of speech, press, transparent government and a fair jury trial system. Torture is not in concert with these ideals. Rather than producing truth, torture clouds it, as somebody subjected to torture will say anything to stop the pain or to ensure the safety of his or her children. Torture is a tool of the bad guys. Who are we?

Matt Struhar is a junior in political science and history. He can be reached at struhar.1@osu.edu.