www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Spinoff Thread: Define Torture

What is the definition of torture? Most of us know it in our gut, we know it when we see it, but there is no agreed upon definition (yes, I know the UN and Geneva have defined, but that isn't unanimously agreed upon either). It seems each side likes to use the other's extreme "technique" (for lack of a better word) as torture, but refuses to acknowledge the same set of standards to self.

For example, in the original thread it was mentioned that waterboarding as used by the CIA is not necessarily torture, while it was torture when the Japanese used it. In the same mention, it was stated that the CIA's "technique" was mild in comparison to others - and that the since there is no agreed upon definition of torture we shouldn't necessarily call it that. At the same time, the Japanese "technique" was labeled 'torture'.

So, is "torture" defined, is it definable, is it a political tool we and our enemies use to label each other as worse than ourselves, or is it an altogether different thing?

For me, here is my understanding of it.
The willful use of damaging actions upon another to coerce that person to provide information by pushing them beyond their tolerances and/or safety. The intended damage can be mental or physical; it can even be social or spiritual.

Did anyone watch the series 'The Tudors'...

If you did, you will know what I mean when I say that the methods of torture and being put to death depicted were horrific and absolute barbaric torture.

I cringe just thinking of it...Our Lord's death on the cross, though we now look at it as a sign of victory and love, was torture.

Lord have mercy! All Holy Mother of God save us!

Sorry for going off on a historic tangent in response to the thread title....

In any case, my answer would be that it is inflicting horrific pain on a human being to punish him or to extract information from him. Lord have mercy!

Alice

In addition to providing information, there is also the desire to inflict extreme humiliation and degredation. The fact is that many acts of torture are committed for the sake of the pure sadistic pleasure of the jailers or torturers, without any "informational" reasons.

It should also be somewhat prolonged, and done under conditions in which the person being tortured is at the complete mercy and custody of his jailers and torturers. Beating up someone in a fistfight at a bar is not torture; administering the same beating in a police station to a prisoner who is handcuffed is torture.

The worst thing in torture is not so much the pain as the sense of utter helplessness and terror that is inflicted on victims.

There is also another dimension that is, I think, unique to contemporary torture.

When I was in university, I was specifically commissioned by my professor -- who was a somewhat unhinged man who had been tortured during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship -- to write a comprehensive report on torture in the Philippines. One thing that struck me was the unusual fixation of torturers in the Philippines and in Latin America (from which the Philippines had borrowed torture techniques) on the sexual humiliation and degredation of prisoners. Torturers were specifically trained to administer torture to people's most intimate parts, and many of the detailed reports of torture that I read were perverse crosses between sick pornography and the naked use of police power. The same thing marks the tortures in Abu Ghraib and in Iraq under Saddam.

Now, I am not an expert on torture and I don't want to be, but accounts that I've read of actual ancient and medieval torture (and not fanciful reconstructions of these) show that these were not overtly sexual, at least not to the extent of today. I cannot help but ask: is modern torture -- with its strange dimension of sexual perversity -- also a reflection of contemporary society's sexual obsession?

The intention plays a role in what torture is. The CIA were interrogating and extracting information about current plans and future movements of the terrorist networks. The Japanese did many things other than water boarding and were not interrogating to a clear end. They were seeking false confessions and were "having fun" at the prisoner's sake.

There is a contrast between how and why the technique was used in WWII and by the CIA. Most of our soldiers in the special forces have been water boarded. It's a part of their training.

"The fact is that many acts of torture are committed for the sake of the pure sadistic pleasure of the jailers or torturers, without any 'informational' reasons."

All you have to do to understand this is read about the gulag. There were plenty of that sort in the system.

I completely disagree.

Then our own soldiers were tortured because the technique of water boarding was used on them?

Let's use an example other than water boarding (which I believe to be torture, but I know there is not consensus on this). What about slowly cutting off a person's fingers? Would you say that it is not torture when the intent is to gain valuable information, but it is torture when done simply to bring pleasure to a sadist?

Since we don't cut off people's fingers lets not go there. Please use real world examples. One might wish to discuss that the Obama Administration has re-affirmed that water boarding (as done by the CIA) is not torture.

John:

I wasn't suggesting that we cut fingers off. I used that example to illustrate why it is that I see a problem with using the end to justify the means.

Real world examples that I read about while researching Marcos-era torture. I don't want to tell the details here but reading hundreds of pages of testimonies have burned the details into my consciousness.

By the way, many of these techniques were taught to Filipino interrogators by American trainers in Fort Bragg (who apparently trained Latin American torturers as well):

1) Systematic and prolonged electrocution or burning of the nipples and genitals. One of my mother's close friends was tortured with this.

2) Having both of one's ears hit with open palms -- when administered by an expert torturer, this can render someone deaf. Systematic slapping (sometimes for hours on end) was also practiced.

3) "Chili rubdown" -- a prisoner's sensitive parts or whole body are rubbed with large amounts of chilies, sometimes mixed with gasoline. I read an account of a Catholic priest who was tortured with this and he said that this was even worse than electrocution

4) Forcing prisoners to sexually molest each other in front of military or police interrogators

5) Rape-torture (is self-explanatory)

6) putting bullets in between fingers and squeezing the hand until the finger-bones fracture

7) Mock executions

8) Water-boarding and its "less messy" equivalent, suffocating a person by enclosing his head in a tight plastic bag.

The worst torture stories I've read come from Chile, where prisoners were sometimes electrocuted on a large metal table with drawers underneath -- in those drawers, were the mother, daughter or relative or close friend of the person being tortured. Even Filipino torturers were not so cruel.

I understand that. But using extreme examples can invalidate your argument. Best to stick to realistic scenarios. Non-realistic examples don't assist the discussion.

My position here is that torture is wrong. But that water boarding - like we do as part of training on Navy Seals - is not torture. Water boarding can become torture if taken too far, but we are not doing that.

If you are looking for an example to use for comparison, why not use the following situation? Your 16 year old daughter has been kidnapped by a jihadist who was transferred from Gitmo to a Texas prison and then escaped. You caught him and he admits his crime but she is tied up somewhere and left to die, and will die in a day or two if not found. Your relatives drag this terrorist out to the pool and start dunking him to make him speak. How far do you let them go? You are her father. Dunking him until he breaks will save her life. Not dunking him will almost certainly result in the death of your daughter. What do you do and how far to you take it?

"I wasn't suggesting that we cut fingers off. I used that example to illustrate why it is that I see a problem with using the end to justify the means."

My point was rooted in the contrast of how the CIA extracts information and how, for an historical example, how an 'interrogator' in the Gulag administrative system would extract a confession that justifies future punishment of the confessor.

The interrogation we practice has a very different context.

I don't pretend to have the right answer to that. What I do believe is that a desirable end does not justify objectively evil means. That is not to say that I would never resort to morally questionable measures in order to save the lives of those who are innocent. For example, if I were President of the USA and were presented with a situation in which the use of extreme interrogation techniques were required in order to gain information that would save the lives of those who are innocent, I would most likely authorize the use of such techniques. However, I would still seek forgiveness for my actions. BTW, I don't concede that my example of cutting off fingers is extreme. Things as bad or possibly even worse than this have been done, and I don't know that such techniques are not currently used.

Ryan