The Psychological Effect

I've been listening to the torture debates since McCain led the Senate in passing the amendment to the defense spending bill that banned torture, a ban that Cheney opposed. All of the debates, of course, come back to Alan Dershowitz's "ticking clock" scenario where a bomb is set to go off at the Super Bowl, the CIA has the suspect, and, well... I don't think this torture debate is going to end with the McCain amendment. The executive is going to continue to press for policy that will grant amnesty if the executive is caught in a high-profile torture case that people care about. We already know that U.S. torture practices are systemic and historic.

Now, on mainstream TV news, the answer to the ticking clock argument is always the same: 1) Torture is not something an enlightened state does, and 2) Torture doesn't work. Here the "debate" ends. The enlightened state argument is trumped by the magnitude of the imminent explosion, a utilitarian (Enlightenment) appeal. The argument that torture "doesn't work" has a little more weight. But then again, if a bomb is going to go off, who cares if suspects will say darned near anything under torture? The debate ends on the tacit conclusion that torture is better than nothing. Might as well torture the hell out of the guy who is going to ruin the halftime show.

There is one response to the ticking clock argument that I have yet to see. Say a person buys the line that torture "doesn't work." Why would a snarly VP then care about the right to excercise the torture option? I'm dumbfounded that those straw-man lefties on TV don't jump up to fill this gaping logical hole. The answer is that torture DOES WORK very well. Though it may not be good for extracting correct information, it is very good for extracting confessions, a steady stream of which the administration desperately needs to convince the electorate to submit to the plutocracy. Torture has also been quite effective in human history for terrorizing a population into submission - a handy tool for running an empire. Torture works quite well for a number of things, just nothing that will protect the nation from a ticking bomb.

Like the continued U.S. use of banned-by-treaty munitions (depleted uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, napalm, land mines), torture is a handy tool whose effects reach beyond only the bodies of the tortured. Like the napalm used in Fullajah, torture "works."

Col. James Alles, commander of the U.S. Marine Air Group II. "We napalmed both those bridge approaches," he said. "Unfortunately, there were people there … you could see them in the cockpit video. … It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."