I don't think we should torture prisoners out of a desire to hold true to our ideals and because torture does not work.
Nor do I think we should render prisoners to other states in a way that subcontracts torture to those governments. Not that we shouldn't extradite prisoners to other countries whose presidents cannot say they don't torture. Go down that road and you have European countries who won't extradite terrorists to America because we have the death penalty.
I don't buy the idea that we must leave an option to torture in case we need to find out where the ticking nuke is. First, that exact situation won't happen. Will we ever really have a guy that we know for sure knows where a nuke is about to explode? If not, we are on a slippery slope. Torture me and I'll name all the people involved in building a nuclear bomb. People will say anything to stop the pain.
Second, if it does happen that way and we do know for sure that one stubborn guy knows where the nuke is, does anybody doubt a president won't authorize torture and think that somebody will raise a stink if he does? Even if torture is illegal?
I also don't buy the idea that we need to keep terrorists guessing about what we'll do. They think the worst of us and if we pass a law banning torture, the jihadis and their sick fans will still think we torture and wrap Moslem prisoners in bacon before burning their bodies and giving the residue to Sharon to mix in with matzah dough. After all, our president says we don't torture and our public manuals show just what is allowable, yet some of our own illustrious senators think we torture.
So with these statements, you'd assume I support the McCain amendment to ban torture.
Despite what I said above, I do not support the McCain amendment because it does not, in fact, ban torture. If it did just ban torture, I'd support it despite my belief that our current laws and regulations are sufficient to ban torture today. This is part of what the amendment proposes:
No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Further:
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT DEFINED.--In this section, the term ''cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment'' means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.
I'm sorry, but degrading treatment such as putting panties on somebody's head is not the same as torture. And depending on who is doing the putting, we might be talking about a really good frat party. Even hitting somebody is not torture. Otherwise we would not have the crime of battery in our statutes.
And given that some of our people think the humiliations inflicted by a few at Abu Ghraib were torture, some senators and human rights people think Gitmo is a gulag, and when NPR mentions that five Rangers were arrested for abusing prisoners who were just captured in the same breath as the reporter mentions the torture amendment (implying the need for the latter to stop the former), I have no confidence that "torture" as McCain and other American POWs endured for years at the hands of the North Vietnamese won't be defined down to panties on heads and a little rough treatment.
I'm going to look for the relevant 1984 document, but right now I have little confidence that it will allay my worries that amendment proponents are trying to make being mean to terrorists illegal.
UPDATE: Let me clarify my statement that torture does not work. Thus states Strategypage:
Basically torture is interrogation carried to extremes. The ultimate extreme is killing the subject, which is usually avoided, at least until you get the information. Advocates for the abolition of torture believe that torture doesn’t work. Obviously, it does work. Just check out the history of espionage during World War II, or any other major conflict. Torture was accepted, if not much talked about. Information was regularly extracted from unwilling captives, and much damage done as a result. Everyone used torture, even if there were regulations against it. To this day, spies and soldiers are trained to deal with torture. It is acknowledged, in the espionage world, that if one of your people is caught by someone who has torture experts, your guy is likely to talk eventually. Thus there are often provisions for suicide pills.
OK, I was being lazy. If you read my statements about the nuke guy and the hypothetical torture of myself, I think you get the idea that while torture works against people who know something you need to know, if applied to people who know nothing, they will confess to anything at all to stop the pain. Too easily, I believe, torture could be used routinely against people swept up in a dragnet. Some may know something. The vast majority will not. And most would confess to crimes that obscure the true extracted facts with lots of extracted noise.
I should have been clear on this.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I found the 1984 UN convention on "torture." I'm not reassured.
The definition of "torture" in Article 1 seems fine:
For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
But go down to Article 16 for the rest:
Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article 1, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture or references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
There. This convention bans actions "which do not amount to torture as defined in article 1."
I cannot possibly back the McCain amendment. It does not, in fact, just ban torture.
One question: how is it possible to degrade somebody who slaughters civilians and thinks his God is smiling about it?
UPDATE: Ok, part of my analysis regarding the 1984 treaty is based on sheer ignorance. Read this for a good discussion of why the McCain amendment is bad.
