Psyche, Science, and Society

The CIA’s “not torture” torture

July 23rd, 2007

The Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell was interviewed on Meet the Press yesterday. Part of the interview concerned Friday’s Executive Order allowing the resumption of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation, known to all English speakers as “torture.” Of course, Admiral McConnell denied that they were “torture.” When asked to define torture, the Admiral said

“an attempt to define torture in the executive order gives examples of mutilation or murder or rape or physical pain.”

So we know that, at least officially, they don’t murder, mutilate, or rape the detainees. Of course, like every member of the Bush administration, the Admiral shows a woeful lack of knowledge of international or American law. After, all, you can’t be expected to understand what you spend your whole career avoiding.

After all, the US has a long history of trying to exclude the dominant forms of torture, namely the SERE-based techniques that constitute psychological torture. The Admiral does that here:

Let me just leave it by saying the techniques work. It’s not torture, you’re not subjected to heat or cold, but it is effective, and it’s a psychological approach to causing someone to have uncertainty and, in a situation where they will feel compelled to talk to you about what you’re asking on that.

In their Report Summary released Friday, Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First demonstrate that the CIA’s techniques clearly meet the legal definition of forbidden behavior, either “torture” or “cruel, inhuman, or degrading behavior.” Of course, a civilized society or a civilized government wouldn’t need NGO reports to make clear something this obvious.

But the best sense of what is involved  in the CIA “techniques” came when he was asked about the smell test: If an American soldier was subjected to these techniques, would the US cry “foul!”:

I would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process, but it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen.

If its too harsh for us, its too harsh for everyone. That’s the Golden Rule. Some of us learned that in kindergarten.

The relevant section of the interview:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about the executive order the president issued about enhanced interrogation measures. What does that allow a CIA-held target? What kind of measures can you use to get information from them?

MR. MCCONNELL: Well, Tim, as you know, I can’t discuss specific measures. There’s a variety of reasons for that. One, if I announce what the specific measures are, it would aid those who want to resist those measures to train, to understand it, and so on, so I won’t be too specific.

Let me go back to a higher calling in this context. The United States does not engage in torture. The president has been very clear about that. The executive order spells it out. There are means and methods to conduct interrogation that will result in information that we need, and what I would highlight — I was concerned and worried and, quite frankly, appalled by Abu Ghraib. My view is America risked losing the moral high ground, and so I focused on this when I came back.

What I can report to you is that was an aberration. The people who were responsible for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib have been held accountable, and they’re serving a sentence for that. That is not the program the CIA was administering. It is not the program that the president approved in the recent executive order.

MR. RUSSERT: But by use of the term “enhanced interrogation measures,” there clearly are things that are used to elicit information. Have we eliminated water-boarding? Can you confirm that?

MR. MCCONNELL: I would rather not be specific on eliminating exactly what the techniques are with regard to any specific. When I was in a situation where I had to sign off, as a member of the process, my name to this executive order, I sat down with those who have been trained to do it, doctors who monitor it, understanding that no one is subjected to torture. They are treated in a way that they have adequate diet and not exposed to heat or cold, they are not abused in any way, but I did understand when exposed to the techniques how they work and why they work — all under medical supervision, and one of the things that’s very important, I think, for the American public to know — in the history of this program it’s been fewer than 100 people.

And so this is a program where we capture someone known to be a terrorist, we need information that they possess, and it has saved countless lives because they believe these techniques might involve torture, and they don’t understand them, they tend to speak to us, talk to us in a very candid way.

MR. RUSSERT: Does this new executive order allow measures that if were used against a U.S. citizen who was apprehended by the enemy would be troubling to the American people?

MR. MCCONNELL: I can report to you that it’s not torture.

MR. RUSSERT: How do you define torture?

MR. MCCONNELL: Well, torture is — an attempt to define torture in the executive order gives examples of mutilation or murder or rape or physical pain, those kinds of things.

Let me just leave it by saying the techniques work. It’s not torture, you’re not subjected to heat or cold, but it is effective, and it’s a psychological approach to causing someone to have uncertainty and, in a situation where they will feel compelled to talk to you about what you’re asking on that.

MR. RUSSERT: Then you would find it acceptable if a U.S. citizen experienced the same kind of enhanced interrogation measures?

MR. MCCONNELL: Tim, it’s not torture. I would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process, but it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen.

While the American Psychological Association plays semantics with what is and is not “torture” and “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,”  just so long as they can keep psychologists in there abusing detainees, why don’t they take an ethical stand and unequivocally condemn the CIA’s “enhanced techniques” and the President’s Executive Order? Such an action might actually have an effect. Oh, yeah, now I understand why they won’t do it.

Entry Filed under: APA, International Law, Interrogation, Law, Media, Psychological Torture, Psychology, Torture, Uncategorized, War Crimes