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Bob Baer on Torture’s Ineffectiveness

By SusanUnPC on April 23, 2009 at 9:15 AM in Intelligence, Torture

First, here is a graphic scene of torture carried out in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that “shows a member of the country’s royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.” The video and article (WARNING: the article is far more graphic) were featured on ABC’s Nightline. “A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim’s arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man’s wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.”

This is sadism; the torturers’ goals are to destroy the victim and to terrify others that this is their fate should they cross the royal family. This man’s crime? The Sheikh accused him “of short changing on a grain delivery to his royal ranch on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.” Why the video? The Sheikh “liked to watch the torture sessions later in his royal palace.”

But, as Bob Baer points out below, even if torture is supposedly intended to have a constructive purpose, e.g., to extract information, it fails:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

For more from Bob Baer, see the CNN interview below the fold in my earlier piece, “Who’s Running the White House? [Updates].”

H/T American Girl in Italy for the ABC video!

  • Betty

    The deeply bowing Obama needs to exit stage left.

  • lorac

    When I hear people responding to the issue of torture by saying “what would you do to save your own child”, it always reminds me of the “might makes right” argument. There is a difference between what we might, as humans, do in a terrible crisis, to *immediately* save our own life or our child’s, and what we may believe is right or moral. Just because we *want* to do something for our own benefit, doesn’t necessarily make it right.

    (As an example – I don’t believe we have the right to torture and kill animals; I believe we do it without thinking because we have “the might”. So to live my principles the best I can, I haven’t eaten meat or dairy since 1985. Inevitably someone says to me, “yeah, but if you were starving, you would eat some meat to live”. None of us truly knows what we would do if we were literally starving, but these people always think they have won some kind of argument. And yet, again, what we may do for our own benefit in a life-threatening crisis may not be the same as our own ethical principles – I don’t think these extreme hypotheticals should be the driving force for the basis of our ethical beliefs.)

    So what I don’t get about Obama (well, one of many things) is he has continued extraordinary rendition, but he says he’s against torture – but he isn’t going to examine the legality of what Bush people did (oh no he is, oh wait he’s not – wait, I don’t know what the meme is today….)

    I think the people in this video are sadistic. I hate that we do anything that may compare our country to places like this. And then there’s the issue of people giving false info just to stop the torture. And all the people we rounded up in sweeps who didn’t do anything wrong, but we tortured them to determine their innocence or guilt. It’s like we’ve given up our principles of trials over lynching. I believe we should be putting our energies into old-fasioned infiltration and espionage, not into barbaric torture.

    Furthermore, I personally believe our constitution is a statement of our beliefs about human rights – I don’t believe it should only proscribe the way we are to treat our own. It says something about ourselves, the way we treat others. There can be toughness, without sacrificing principles.

    • Peggy Sue

      Well said, Lorac. And do Americans really want to be associated with the flawed and thoroughly immoral techniques used by Pol Pot or the Spanish Inquisition?

      If we sell our souls in the moment what do we have left when the dust clears?

    • oowawa

      I agree with you Lorac and Peggy Sue.

      I hear people offering justifications for torturing someone in order to discover information X which would prevent an attack on X. Would it be okay to torture a suspect’s children in front of him or her in order to prevent the possible attack? Would that be justifiable in the USA? I hope not.

    • elise

      Completely agree with this point of view about torture in relation to our country, lorac. It’s an inconsistency we cannot afford to ignore.

  • Shainzona

    As Shepard Smith (yup, Fox New’s Shepard Smith) said loudly on air last night AMERICA DOESN’T F**KING TORTURE.

    And this video is the best example of why we don’t.

    Unbelievable.

    • lorac

      But was he saying that we can’t continue to do these things because it’s against our principes, or was he saying that what we have done is not torture, in his definition? (I didn’t see it)

      I’ve heard people saying we don’t torture, because they don’t believe the things we have done ARE torture…

      • Shainzona

        Couldn’t tell from the clip – but as it’s Fox, he probably doesn’t think what we did was torture…that part of the equation is conveniently glossed over by everyone in DC. Scream about the forest and ignore the trees.

        • elise

          It was my impression he was sincere and not parsing his words, although I didn’t pay close attention.

  • HARP

    I really wish everyone would spend half the time worrying about domestic violence as they do these scumbags. Within the United States, one out of every four American women will experience violence by an intimate partner sometime during her lifetime. One out of every six women will be raped during her lifetime.

    My concern is for those who give life……not those who wish to take it away.

    http://feminist.org/other/dv/dvfact.html

    • candymarl

      Thank you HARP. Domestic violence is also a form of torture. The fear, pain, nightmares and flashbacks, are just as real and painful.

      I know. Thank you again.

      • lorac

        Yes, most cases of PTSD are found in survivors of rape and DV, way more than in soldiers.

    • rw

      Concur – not to diminish the issue of interrogation techniques of prisoners/combatants of war – but it does seem as if all the abuse, sadism etc. suffered by women, children, pets AND men in this country do not get the same attention, coverage, debate.

      It’s politics, politics, ratings, politics, image, politics, politics.

      And as for that sick video above, which I had to turned away from it is so sick and sadistic, where is the f*ing useless UN and it’s human rights tenets? What, human rights tenets are only applicable to developed nations? UAE is a member of that U(seless)N regime isn’t it? What the hell has been going on since the UDHR was signed in 1948?

      It really does take effort to get up every morning and say, Ah, I’m so proud to be a member of the human race.

  • http://www.sonicninjakitty.wordpress.com Sonic Ninja Kitty

    This is what happens when there is no rule of law.

  • http://N/A breeze

    OT:

    MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suffers big audience loss

    MSNBC show host Rachel Maddow has suffered some steep audience erosion in recent months, down more than 40 percent in viewership from her peak last fall during the election.

    According to the Los Angeles Times, Maddow’s audience has gone from a high of 1.9 million viewers in the fall to just over 1.1 million in March. That’s a big drop.

    Readers of this blog know I am just as troubled by Maddow’s brand of ideologically driven partisan propaganda as I am by that of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity on Fox. Maddow was at her worst last week, falsely minimizing the tea parties held across the country as “the fizzle in the drizzle” and mocking the participants.

    You could hardly have a better example as to how an ideologue distorts an event or facts to fit her or his worldview — the opposite of journalism.

    Maddow was not much better than Hannity, whom I criticized here, for his rabble-rousing on behalf of the tea-bag protesters in Atlanta, whom he was supposed to be covering.

    “I think Rachel is a rock star,” Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, told the Times.

    That’s one of the problems with MSNBC: It’s looking for “rock stars” instead of journalists or analysts to host its shows. If a rock star’s CD sales dropped by 44 percent, believe me, the record company would be worried.

    HTTP://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/04/rachel_maddow_msnbc.html

  • Lisabona

    Whose side America stands for???? better said our President. In which country he lived(Indonezia,Kenya) when the Iraq terrorist(muslim) killer, beheaded American soldiers, civilians? America will never-ever will use this kind of torture.How in the HELL our president(not mine) and our career democrats can forget this. I’m convinsed now, more than ever, 0bama never loved America and never will. What a USURPER president we get.

    • elise

      Lisabona, A friend told me in Bolivia the police would shake up a warm bottle of Coke and with the suspect tied down to a chair, they would hold one nostril and shoot the Coke up his nose. I don’t recall if my friend said any deaths resulted. Well, the police were corrupt and there were probably many innocent people who were treated to this Coke in the nose. Do you think this is torture? The police in cities across our country beat people into confessions not too many years ago and I would imagine it still happens here from time to time. If we claim torture is legal, why would the police departments and the FBI not be allowed to do it here? There are some bad people: Serial killers, abusive husbands and pedophiles. We could save time and the money for trials. You probably don’t think this can happen, but people become desensitized to violence and it is easier than most understand, IMO. After all, the Germans were good people and civilized, but they allowed something horrible to happen.

  • Kelderek

    We are living in science fiction times. We torture American citizens daily with cattle prods okay so maybe a taser has less electricity but it is still an instrument of torture that I thought would never be approved. Great marketing campaign– barely an objection. Also I believe the ultimate torture is isolation. Our super max prisons allow 23 out of 24 hours of isolation. Sad to say but I believe no matter how horrendous and painful physical torture is the recipient is grateful for the human contact and attention. Read Oriana Fallaci’s book A MAN a biography about her past lover who was a freedom fighter/terrorist during Greece upheaval. He was imprisoned and tortured often. One more point–sending people to Syria/Egypt thru rendition may be even more dispicable as we never know if the torture is just punishment or if there is info discovered. At least when we are the actual torturers we have to take responsibility.

    • jbjd

      Several good points, Kelderek. Yes, we tend to cling to our beliefs notwithstanding they may not serve us well: anger does not model reason; cruelty cannot evoke kindness; rationalizing death will never replace life.

  • Kelderek

    One more comment on torture. Slumdog Millionaire won best movie Oscar and there is a torture scene at the police headquarters nary a comment about this. This is India our ally so the Press ignores.

  • Claire

    What amazes me is that we get all moralistic about the scumbags that want to kill us, but don’t give a rats *ss about partial birth abortions or letting a baby die after a failed abortion. I consider sucking the brains out of a baby torture, silly me….

    • Elizabeth

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

      And while acts of degradation may not be routine and systematic in American prisons, average people don’t get too upset about the whole thing because, well gee, they’re criminals aren’t they?
      Even the non-violent drug offenders, many first-timer offenders that have been criminalized and radicalized by the entire system.

      Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals…Iraq or a US Correctional facility ??

  • Doc99

    Democrat Leaders briefed thirty times on interrogations.

    Could this brouhaha be misdirection to pass Junk Science-based Cap and Trade legislation?

  • Mr.Murder

    Bushco.(Cheney was its CEO) knew torture was useless. They used it to shape a narrative for an illegal war.

    Apellate Judges who gave them a pass should face Geneva as well. Opps, there goes the remainder of Bushco.’s legacy!

  • typical.white.person

    Op-Ed by Ali Soufan

    It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

    We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

    There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

  • http://noquarter foxyladi14

    give em lots of brandy..works better.
    quicker too

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