Salon.com > Darius Rejali

Does torture work?

Mon, 21 Jun 2004 23:37:00 +0000

Torture apologists point to one powerful example to counter all the arguments against torture: the Battle of Algiers. In 1956, the Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front) began a terrorist bombing campaign in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing many innocent civilians. In 1957, Gen. Jacques Massu and the French government began a counterinsurgency campaign in Algiers using torture. As English military theorist Brian Crozier put it, "By such ruthless methods, Massu smashed the FLN organization in Algiers and re-established unchallenged French authority. And he did the job in seven months -- from March to mid-October."

It is hard to argue with success. Here were professional torturers who produced consistently reliable information in a short time. It was a breathtaking military victory against terrorism by a democracy that used torture. Yet the French won by applying overwhelming force in an extremely constrained space, not by superior intelligence gathered through torture. As noted war historian John Keegan said in his recent study of military intelligence ("Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy From Napoleon to Al-Qaeda"), "it is force, not fraud or forethought, that counts" in modern wars.

Of human bondage

Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:54:00 +0000

Three of the torture techniques used at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and in U.S. prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are choking with water, exposure to extremes of heat or cold, and forced standing and other "stress positions." Use of these techniques by the United States in the past two years was approved by military commanders such as Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez at the instigation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and possibly other administration officials. Memos from the Department of Justice and the Pentagon reveal that legal counsel sought justification for breaking the Geneva Conventions that forbid use of such methods, a process that appears to have been driven by the White House. Whatever investigations ultimately reveal about who authorized the use of torture, the history of torture techniques is easy to trace.

Choking with water: For centuries, interrogators used water to cause pain in two ways, "pumping" and "choking." Pumping involves forcibly filling the stomach and intestines with water. A garden hose in the mouth is sufficient. This technique (the "Tormento de Toca" in Spanish) was one of the most fearful tortures of the Inquisition. Choking pushes pumping one step further by preventing breathing.

Torture’s dark allure

Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:06:00 +0000

Few things give a rush quite like having unlimited power over another human being. A sure sign the rush is coming is pasty saliva and a strange taste in one's mouth, according to a French soldier attached to a torture unit in Algeria. That powerful rush can be seen on the faces of some of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib, a rush that undoubtedly changed them forever. The history of slavery tells us that one can't feel such a rush without being corrupted by it. And the history of modern torture tells us that governments can't license this corruption -- even in the cause of spreading democracy -- without reducing the quality of their intelligence, compromising their allies and damaging their military and bureaucratic capabilities.