Water Torture - a woodcut in Damhoudere's (1556)
Praxis Rerum Criminalium. Antwerp, Flanders.
Water-boarding is one out of the interrogation techniques
approved in 2002 by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and
then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. |
In 2006 the BBC World Service
conducted a global poll of 27,407 respondents
in 25 countries asking whether the torture should be allowed. Italians
were the
most
opposed to the use of torture. The largest support for the use of torture
was in the
United States and Israel. |
Fig. 5.World opinion about he use of
torture: Should torture be allowed?
|
Reemergence of Torture
Paging through the spring 1998 issue of the Life Magazine, I came
across a picture of a black female in chains, delivering baby while in the
United States prison. The caption read
'They wheeled her into a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska,
handcuffs on her wrists and shackles on her ankles.
In this condition the woman agonized through labor.' |
I showed this picture
to a group of subjects and asked them to read the caption, write down
their age, gender, and their reaction to this picture.
The subjects' responses were sorted into four categories. These categories
captured the main points made by the respondents, i.e., that the chaining of the
prisoner during the delivery of her child was [A] Justified, [B] Excessive, [C]
Inhumane, and [D] Barbaric. As opinions are typically distributed normally, I
expected a distribution of responses similar to that suggested in Fig. 1.
|
Fig. 1. Expected Outcome |
However, when I
plotted the obtained categories, the distribution was markedly negatively
skewed, as shown in Fig. 2.
|
Fig. 2. Distribution of opinions (1998, percents) that severe punishment
is justified, excessive, inhumane, or barbaric. (Adapted from Krus, 1999).
|
In 1998 when we plotted the above histogram, the legalization of torture was
unthinkable throughout the world, as legalized torture was associated with
the medieval times of witch trials and confessions forced by instrument of
torture that embodied the most abject cruelties (cf., Fig. 3).
|
|
Fig. 3. Intestinal crank. Among the instruments of torture, used during
the criminal justice investigations to obtain information, was the
intestinal crank. This method of torture involved abdominal incision,
separation of the duodenum from the pylorus, and attachment of the
upper part of the thin intestine to the intestinal crank. The crank then
gastrointestinal cavity of a conscious person (Monestier, 1994). |
However, the
elevated skewness of the obtained histogram suggested that an increase of
punitiveness (associated with religious fundamentalism and right-wing political opinions) was taking place.
|
Fig. 4. Theoretical Model
|
Theoretical model
The majority of responses (as shown in Fig. 2) were clustered on the 'justified'
pole of the scale while opinions that such a treatment is inhumane or barbaric
were in the minority. The fact that this distribution was negatively skewed
indicated the presence of some sort of a barrier at its 'justified' pole,
preventing expression of opinions that such treatment of prisoners is desirable
and perhaps not severe enough (Fig. 4).
Retrospect
At the time we carried on this study (1998) I did not fully
appreciated its significance, which highlighted the existence of
such a barrier and predicted the likely course of events if that barrier would
be removed.
During the
President Reagan administration (1981-1989) commenced a gradual shift in the social climate that
succeeded the niveau of the sixties and seventies. This transformation of
the social climate accelerated during the administrations of President George H.
W. Bush (1989-1993). Voices
demanding increase in severity of punishments were heard with increasing
frequency. Following an execution with a lethal injection, spectators complained
that the prisoner died too peacefully and that he should have suffered
more. An execution with a faulty electrical chair, intensifying the prolonged
death agony, was commented upon approvingly by the governor of Florida as a
welcomed increase in the prevention value of the death penalty. Solitary
confinements were used more often and for longer periods of time. More
adolescents and children were tried and punished as adults. And assignment of
prisoners into chain gangs placed the United States on the Amnesty International
list of countries that violate human rights.
Following the advent of President George W. Bush administration
(2001-present), barrier postulated by the theoretical model outlined in Fig. 4
was removed
and torture was openly advocated and
implemented.
Among the prominent proponents of
torture is Alan Dershowitz, recommending insertion of (sterilized) needles under fingernails in
the course of criminal investigations.
 |
Artist's rendering of insertion of a Sterilized
Needle® under Fingernails.
Trademark
'Sterilized Needle' is the property of Allan Morton Dershowitz,
Felix
Frankfurter Professor of Law
at Harvard University. |
In 2004, the ABC News/Washington Post
poll found that 46 percent of the U.S. adults endorsed
the notion that torture is justified. Following disclosure of
ongoing torture as e.g.,
in the U.S. Abu Ghuraib military prison including crushing of testicles, burning with cigarettes,
beating and choking, setting prisoners on fire, torture by electroshocks,
thirst, sleep deprivation, insertions of a gun barrel to prisoner's rectum, and
other forms of torture, the support for implementation of torture declined by
about 10% (BBC
World Service global poll, 2006, cf. Fig. 5).
Notes
ROTH:
Once you open the door to torture,
once you start legitimizing
it in any way,
you have broken the absolute taboo.
DERSHOWITZ:
Well, I would talk about non-lethal torture,
say,
a
sterilized needle
underneath the nail,
which would violate the
Geneva
Accords, but you know,
countries all over the world
violate the Geneva
Accords.
How a person of such moral turpitude,
using ad populum logically fallacious
arguments
can teach the
law at
the Harvard University ...
Professor of Torture
In an insightful essay Whitney (2004) scrutinizes Dershowitz's precepts advocating
legalization of torture and government-sponsored assassinations. His essay is excerpted as follows:
Dershowitz
undermines the legal barriers that restrict the use of torture. It is a
assault on the fundamental principles of human decency. This is no
exaggeration; Dershowitz is quite forceful in articulating his beliefs on this
matter. "The time has come to revisit the laws of war and to make them
relevant to new realities," Dershowitz insists, invoking the most extreme
scenarios, using them as the rationale for overturning the laws that protect
the individual and failing to mention that in countries where torture is
permitted, its use quickly spreads. Torture has an inherently corrupting
influence on society. It deprives man of his humanity and elevates the state
over the individual.
It is not
merely torture that Dershowitz advocates, but murder; premeditated, state
sponsored murder. There are enormous gaps in Dershowitz's reasoning, the most
prominent of which is his careless manner of excusing the killing of civilians
to achieve the objectives of the state. What Dershowitz blithely refers to as
"proportional force" is in reality the "scattershot" justice practiced by
Israel in their targeted assassination campaigns. This is a policy that is so
detestable, so utterly racist that it eschews any conceivable moral
justification. It is hard to imagine that Israel would
ever fire missiles into populated areas in Tel Aviv to dispatch an "alleged"
terrorist; it fires missiles to assassinate individuals only in the enclaves of the "untermenschen." It is murder, plain and simple.
It's absurd for
Dershowitz to suggest that "democracies must be legally empowered" to
carry out these crimes. Assassination is never the instrument of democracy,
but tyranny. Governments are established as the guarantors of life and
liberty; it is not within their authority to perpetrate illegal attacks on
civilians, let alone to kill them. The extra judicial killing of civilians is
the highest crime government can commit. It is the complete breakdown of the
legal firewall that protects the individual from the vagaries of state power.
The state claim of power to kill its own citizens or foreign nationals represents a total disregard for the most fundamental rights of human
beings.
Dershowitz also
ominously takes aim at those, "In the middle, who applaud the terrorism,
encourage it, but do not actively facilitate it." Does Dershowitz mean those who understand the roots of terror? Does he mean
those who speak of the legitimate grievances of oppressed people, some of whom
fill the ranks of terrorist groups? Does he mean those who oppose the Bush war
on terror or who write for leftist web sites?
Dershowitz's
world view appeals to those who would like to toss our Constitution and morph
our country into Fortress America, the United States of Paranoia; a country
that is no longer guided by institutions and principles, but by fear and
repression. In Dershowitz perspective, violations of human dignity are
acceptable as long as the ultimate purpose suits to those in power. This reasoning does not account for our long held belief that man
is an end in himself, and that his intrinsic value provides him with certain
"inalienable" rights. Dershowitz's apology for torture is not a superficial
disagreement on the fine points of the US judicial system; it is a full blown
assault on the foundational principles of American society.
|
15th Century depiction of the intestinal crank. |
Napalm the witches
Some fundamentalists Christians call for deportations of atheists and
non-Christians from the United States, which they define as a Christian nation
and clamor for reinstitution of the burn them alive executions. Some also regard
other world religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism as forms of
Satanism. Exhortations such as witches should be napalmed have been heard in the
southern United States and signs as Witchcraft is an Abomination and Burn the
Witches have appeared along Texas highways. (Shlachter, 1999).
Satan is a real being ...
In 1972, Pope Paul VI proclaimed that
|
'sin affords a dark, aggressive evildoer, the Devil, an
opportunity to act in us and in our world. Anyone who disputes the existence of
this reality
places himself outside biblical teachings.' |
Over 38% of contemporary Americans believe that Satan is a
real being, and 48% of born-again Christian endorse the same belief.
Talmud notes that there is 7,405,926 demons in existence which number lead some
believe that the number of the beast is not 666, but 6666, as 7,405,926 / 6666
equals 1111. Some better known demons are Amon, Astaroth, Beleth, Sidonai,
Focalor, Haagent, Paimon, and Furfur.
Ex profundis malorum
Eternal Word Television Network based in Irondale, Alabama, is the largest
religious media network in the world, transmitting programming 24 hours a day to
over 100,000,000 homes in 126 countries, building the 'Civilization of Love'
around the world. Its web site provides 'Different Perspective on Burning at the
Stake,' as follows:
'To
those watching someone being burned alive, as well as to the person being
executed, it is clear that such a death was a vivid depicture of people's
beliefs regarding hell, as hell is the eternal fire. Heretics were burned alive,
with their mental faculties intact, to give them one last chance to repent
before being sent into the eternal fire. Burning an individual at the stake was
seen as a merciful death, as a means of giving that person one last chance to
save his or her soul before final damnation. The unchanging teaching of the
Church is that hell is the "the unquenchable fire" and that it is eternal.'
| |
 |
American girl shot
by a wooden
pellet fired by police officers at
April 9, 2003 Oakland Peace Rally. |
|
Secular humanism
The developments alluded to in the preceding paragraphs are viewed with extreme
anxiety by both the secular and religious humanists. Thus the leading proponent
of secular humanism, Paul Kurtz, observes that it is in contemporary America
where it has become impossible to express nonreligious viewpoints and where
irrationality dominates. What is urgent is to keep church and state separate, to
maintain our appeal to evidence and reason, and to reject the Bible, the Qur'an,
and the Book of Mormon as ancient, out-of-date views of human existence.
Hans Kūng in the Declaration of the Religions for a Global Ethic (1999) observes
that
"religions can effect a change in the inner orientation, the whole mentality,
the "hearts," of people and move them to a "conversion" from a false path to a
new orientation for life. Of course religions can act credibly only when they
eliminate those conflicts which spring from the religions themselves."
The elimination of conflicts which spring from the religion themselves would
require revisions of large parts of the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Book of
Mormon. It would also preclude the fundamentalist's claims that the Bible is the
inerrant, factual, and literal word of God that does not allow interpretation.
Bombers ready to deliver a preemptive nuclear strike
on any country that may posses weapons of mass
destruction (Village Voice, September 20, 2005). |
 |
|
|
Qui bono?
The cardinal question remains who ultimately benefits from the
torture. The reason usually given is that to fight the infinite evil of
terrorism one is justified to use cruel methods. However, the more likely reason
is that the torture adds to the atmosphere of horror, this time not generated by
mass burnings but by mass media which turns out to be one of the most effective
tools for maintaining power.
|
Refectory of the St.-Benoît-du-Lac Abbey. |
Hermit of St-Benoît-du-Lac
Primus inter pares of exponents of the religious humanism is Joe Palmer, hermit
at the monastery of St-Benoît-du-Lac who writes (Palmer, 2003) that
People have forgotten
that it is impossible to derive humane ethical principles from theological
premises because reasoning and evidence are necessary to determine what is right
or wrong, and religious dogma does not yield physical evidence or logical
thinking.
and continues
If we do not test
moral values with evidence and reason, we find ourselves falling back on ex
cathedra and superstitious pronouncements, folkways, and fables instead of
modifying our values in the light of consequences in a scientific manner. When
we judge people using old tribal values, as in the Salem Witch Trials, we
perpetuate the degradation of all individuals, taking away their freedom and
dignity.
References
ABC News/Washington Post poll (2004). Conducted by TNS of Horsham, PA, on a
random national sample of 1,005 adults with a three-point error margin.
BBC Press Office. BBC World
Service poll (2006). World citizens reject torture (October 19).
Krus, D.J. (1999) Die Harte des Strafvollzugs: Entbindung in
Ketten. Zeitschrift fur Sozialpsychologie und Gruppendynamik in Wirtschaft
und Gesellschaft, 24Jg/Heft 4, S.12-16.
(Reprint
in English.
Reprint in German.)
Kūng, H. (1999) Declaration of the Religions for a Global
Ethic
(Request reprint).
Monestier, M. (1994) Peines de mort. Paris, France: Le
Cherche Midi Éditeur.
Mǖllendorf, P. (1911) Geschichte der Spanischen Inquisition.
Leipzig, Germany.
Palmer, J. (2003) Viva Papa!; or, humanism betrayed.
Nthposition, October 03.
Shlachter, B. (1999) Bothered and bewildered; Wiccans at Hood
shrug off media hubbub. Fort Worth Star Telegram, August 7.
Whitney, M. (2004) Allan Dershowitz, Professor of Torture. Counterpunch,
June 9.
