I am, it seems, among the few who think that torture is justified at a theoretical level. If the CIA has a terrorist involved in 9/11 in custody, and can prevent another 9/11 if and only if they torture said terrorist, I am inclined to believe that torture is justified. However, it might very well be the case that the theoretically permissible case would/could never actually happen in the real world.
In any case, the question at hand is not a theoretical one. We are being confronted with the real acts of our intelligence agency and have a chance to be part of the change, going forward.
The most disturbing thing I have read about the report so far is:
The report found that at least 26 detainees âwere wrongfully held,â including an âintellectually challengedâ man who was used as âleverageâ to obtain information from a family member, two former intelligence sources and two individuals identified as threats by a detainee subjected to torture. Agency records were often incomplete and, in some cases, lacked sufficient information to justify keeping detainees in custody.
Even if torture is permissible in some cases, it must never be used against innocent people, especially in cases like this.
There will undoubtedly be debate about whether actionable intelligence was uncovered via torture. The report seems to disagree with the CIAâs (and Zero Dark Thirtyâs) claim that such intelligence exists. Regardless, I donât think that the existence or non-existence of such intelligence is relevant to the justification of torture. According to the report, the CIA itself determined that torture had âproven to be ineffectiveâ (19). Part of the problem is that physically and psychologically devastating measures âresult in false answersâ (19). This is illustrated in 1984, where prisoners will confess anything and implicate anyone to make the torture suffered in âRoom 101â cease. In other words, the CIA tortured detainees without reason.
What I find interesting about what you wrote is that at first you say that there are cases that torture is justified, and then later you say that torture shouldn't be conducted on innocent people. I think you have forgotten that most of these people were only suspected of being terrorist and the ones who probably are terrorist never had their day in court to plead their case. We are a nation of laws that purports that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You are suggesting that it is ok to torture innocent people that happen to be terrorist or your saying that we need to make sure that these people are guilty before we torture them, both seem to me to be strange concepts at best so am I a little lost in what youâre saying.Â













