Several of the United States presidential candidates have made statements endorsing the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and yesterday, Donald Trump put his support in writing.
There are many things troubling about endorsing practices that amount to torture – the rousing applause candidates get when voicing support for them is just one. More troubling is how comfortable the candidates seem embracing inhumane acts like forcing detainees into painful positions for days with no sleep, pouring water through their nose and mouth until they nearly asphyxiate, and chaining them to a wall or ceiling in their cell.
Some blame for this situation rests with the Obama administration. Though President Barack Obama ended the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” his administration has refused to prosecute anyone responsible for authorizing, implementing, or carrying out the program – or even going beyond what was authorized.
Current and former CIA officials shoulder some of the blame as well for refusing to repudiate the practices and taking every opportunity to defend them. Though Obama’s current CIA Director John Brennan admitted mistakes were made, the agency’s response to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s scathing study of the CIA program attempted to refute its main finding – that use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” was not an effective means of gathering useful intelligence. Trump may have had the CIA’s response in mind when he wrote in his recent op-ed that, “Depending on the source, these techniques allowed officials to glean significant information about operations hostile to the United States.”
Though the Senate study did an excellent job refuting claims the CIA had been publicly making for years – that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were effective – the study’s focus on whether the program “worked” continues to dominate today’s debate about torture. Overwhelmingly, experts agree torture does not work, that it produces unreliable information, and that it undermines attempts to get detainees to cooperate. But that’s not why torture should not be used. It should not be used because it is cruel and inhumane to abuse someone in a government’s custody and control. That is also why it is illegal.
Trump’s argument that “we are too politically correct to respond in kind” to the brutal tactics of the Islamic State misses the point. It’s not about responding in kind – it’s about responding in a way that respects inherent human dignity, including of one’s enemies. The use of torture has done enormous damage to the US reputation, destroyed the lives of detainees, and undermined the ability of the US to advocate against abusive detention practices and other rights violations around the world. Though US law bans torture, until the US makes clear that it used illegal interrogation methods and CIA officials stop defending the practices, candidates will continue to play the torture card for political advantage. And that will leave the public wondering whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” maybe should be used again.
