Torture and the Ticking Bomb

[pasithea]

Drove the car today for guitar lessons tonight. On the way to work, I listened to a discussion on the radio about torture. One of the callers brought in the tired old trope: But say you know there's a nuclear bomb planted in New York and it's going to go off in an hour and you know this guy knows where it is. Isn't torture justified then?

The guy on the radio hemmed and hawed around just saying 'NO', saying that torture wasn't proven to get information and such a scenario had never happened, but his answers were all sort of wishy washy. It wouldn't convince me if I were a redneck with the IQ lower than the measurement of my waistband.

You know what does convince me though? Just thinking about the situation from the view of the one being tortured. Now... Perhaps my perspective on the situation is a bit clearer than that of the average person because I've had many hours of oral surgery, and three-hour sessions of electrolisys (which definitely qualifies as torture) but really, anyone who's ever stood in line at the DMV or had a crappy day at work where they just wanted to go home can probably understand this..

In the head of the one being tortured, here's how things go: In 1 hour, I WIN. I only have to withstand whatever they do for 1hr.. 60 minutes. About .300 breaths, a few thousand heartbeats. Then you'd start playing games with yourself: Actually, I only have to hang on for half an hour because by the time they get to the location and get a bomb crew in there, it's going to eat most of that time. Plus they'll torture me a bit more to make 'sure' I gave them the right spot and not a wild goose chase. (This is a lie to yourself and you'll fix it later of course, but for the moment, you've mentally halved your torture time) You tell yourself that they made a clock that deliberately runs slow to make you think time is passing more slowly. You analyze each new piece of pain, feeling it out, comparing it against the next piece of pain, start thinking about which hurts more and how little it really hurt and what areas hurt most and how to turn off thinking about them. You probably only have 5 minutes left, you keep telling yourself. Anyone can survive anything for 5 minutes.

And that, right there, is exactly why torture DOES NOT WORK on anyone who's committed to what they're doing. I didn't want to have a partial denture and a lisp for the rest of my life so I simply endured the hours of oral surgery and the painful recoveries. I wanted to get rid of unpleasant hair, so I tolerated the biting, stinging, burning pain of needles being driven into my flesh and current run through them over and over and over again. I got beat up by bullies as a kid. One holding me, the other beating me, and I withstood it and *laughed out of sheer spite. I don't think any of those reasons are nearly as strong as the certainty of religious nutters. To them, torture's probably a complete joke.

So. I hope that this finally defuses the stupid 'ticking bomb' argument. It's stupid and I'm sick of seeing it.

*laughed: I have a nervous laugh, and being in a situation like that triggered it. So I wasn't laughing at how puny the other kids were, but the laugh did really freak them out and they stopped hitting me and sort of avoided me afterwards. And yet, at the same time, the laugh was at how puny they were. The nervous laugh.. Part of what was going on in my head was along the lines of, "Ow! Gee. This is what life is? This is stupid. What is wrong with these people anyhow? Why don't they like me?" So in some sense, I was laughing at how puny they were.

Comments

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

I think what you've illustrated here is the '1 hour to doomsday' scenario just isn't a good example, precisely because it represents a finite period of captivity. I suppose in this example, one could threaten the captive with years of torture as retribution for the bomb going off, but you, as the interrogator, still lose. And it's really hard to envision exactly what you could do to a person in under an hour which would make them fully and accurately divulge their secret information. I've never heard of any real-life interrogator or technique which has that ability. I'm sure the people who write television shows would like to believe there's some magic interrogator who can save the world instantly... wouldn't that be nice?

So I guess what I'm saying is that you've made a successful argument against a bad and overused example, rather than one against torture generally, although I'm inclined to agree that as a method of successful interrogation it's questionable at best.

Um, not that I know anything about the subject...

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

The problem with your logic is the belief that one has the choice to wait out that hour. That's not always the case. I've read a few first-person reports from people who had themselves voluntarily waterboarded (yes, there are such people), and they all say the same thing: Within 30 seconds, they had no control whatsoever. They would have done anything, ANYTHING, to end it. Usually, within five seconds.

Those reports may have been bogus, but I doubt it. And certainly waterboarding isn't the only torture that destroys rational thought in under a minute. According to these reports, the comparison between such tortures and what you experienced is like that between a pebble and the planet Earth.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

That's a fair point. I actually asked a friend if they'd waterboard me because I was curious to see if it hit those kinds of buttons for me and also, I feel like I'd learn sharing some of the suffering of the people tortured by our government would be meaningful to me in driving me on to continue fighting our barbarism.

Still. I'm skeptical it'd really work for extracting information. You have to stop waterboarding someone for them to give you information and that moment of recovery might be enough for you to regain your control. If it sends you into such a complete and wild panic that you'd give up anything, it probably also sends you into a state where making words is challenging.

I'm certain it's an incredibly horrible experience, but I'm unconvinced it will extract useful information, particularly from someone who has a religious conviction. Put it in a personal context. In the deepest darkest part of your heart, is there anything that could make you turn on the ones you love, kill them, and defile their corpses, then perform ritual to bind them to their graves and forbid them whatever afterlife/renewal they might seek?

Even I, who loves no other more than herself, could not be motivated by torture to take the life of another. Even destroying an attacker would be very difficult for me to commit. Though, just as honestly, I'm torn whether I'd do it for amnesty, anonymity, and a massive amount of money. If I couldn't trust the deal-maker, then I almost certainly would not. If I did believe I could trust them, things become much more gray and I don't believe I could give an honest answer unless I were really in said situation.

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

I believe that waterboarding -- and likely other tortures -- breaks the human will completely and consistently. Whether that leads to "useful information" is another matter: What if the victim *has* no useful information?

I've now seen three first-person reports online, but the only one I can find now is the weakest, summarized (and linked here), of writer Christopher Hitchens getting waterboarded.

Even I... could not be motivated by torture to take the life of another.

You have far more faith in yourself than I have in any organic being that has ever lived.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Made a comment but put it somewhere else (http://dv-girl.livejournal.com/802311.html) for locking/headspace reasons.

[centauress.livejournal.com]

Anything that works on your involuntary musculature, I'm sure.

But the thing is, even if you're broken, that doesn't mean that what is said next is useful. It needs to be what meets the expectations of the interrogator, which is basically nothing of what may or may not be useful from what's in your head. Studies show that sure you can break people, but the results are then worse than just guessing. Kinda like employing a hedge fund.

Another thing is that we talk from the point of view of being tortured, whereas most of the support from torture is the point of view of the torturer.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

I've always contemplated the similarities between BDSM and torture and wondered how a really good bottom would handle torture. Obviously, it's not safe, sane, and consensual, but it is certainly still a form of inflicted pain. I suspect the skills and mental states used for BDSM scenes could be useful in torture.