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Human
Rights in International Law |
On November 2, 2005, Dana Priest exposed a national secret for
the world to view in the Washington Post. In her article, Priest revealed, Òthe CIA has been
hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a
Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign
officials familiar with the arrangement. The secret facility is part of a
covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various
times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan
and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the
Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence
officials and diplomats from three continents.Ó á The existence of these facilities were
only known to a handful of officials before the article was printed and
extensive steps were taken to keep any knowledge of these facilities from the
public. á ÒHost countries [of the so-called
Ôblack sitesÕ] have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United
States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the
CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which
are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include
tactics such as Ôwaterboarding,Õ in which a prisoner is made to believe he or
she is drowning.Ó á ÒThe agency set up prisons under its
covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a
covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and
are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal
advisers. Six days after the
Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA
broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to
kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world. It could not be determined whether
Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the
consensus among current and former intelligence and other government
officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to. Rather, they believe that the CIA
general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding.
The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and
Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and
current U.S. government and intelligence officials.Ó á "I remember asking: What are we
going to do with these people?" said a senior CIA officer. "I kept
saying, where's the help? We've got to bring in some help. We can't be
jailers -- our job is to find Osama." Then came grisly reports, in the winter of 2001, that
prisoners kept by allied Afghan generals in cargo containers had died of
asphyxiation.Ó á In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA
case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young
detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight
without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government
officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death. As appalling as these prisons seem, some would argue that they
are necessary evils. As Michael
Levin once said, ÒThere are situations in which torture is not merely
permissible but morally mandatory. Ò
In her article, Priest cites officials who would agree with Levin. á The CIA and the White House, citing
national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded
Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony
about the conditions under which captives are held. á To [investigate the sites], say
officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal
challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of
political condemnation at home and abroad. á Although the CIA will not acknowledge
details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach,
arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency
be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as
necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even
by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. á The Washington Post is not publishing
the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program,
at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure
might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and
could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation. From a
certain point of view, the argument that torture is necessary for national
security is a valid argument.
First and foremost, a state must protect itself, its populace, and its
power. If torture facilitates
such protection, so be it.
Displays of might can be quite handy. While torture might help a state protect its populace and
itself, torture does not help protect a stateÕs power. Might is a part of a stateÕs power,
but more important is the political aspect of a stateÕs power, the ability of
the state to persuade others.
The very definition of politics is the art and practice of causing
others into doing what one wishes.
Although torture inspires fear, torture also inspires contempt and
outrage, which decreases oneÕs ability to persuade. To utilize Joseph NyeÕs idea from The Paradox of
American Power,
torture decreases a stateÕs Òsoft power,Ó the stateÕs power to influence
others because of the principles for which it stands. Over all, torture is not an effective
tool for increasing American power.
Torture may secure some information from a detainee, but the act of
torture diminishes the reputation of the United States and, therefore, its
international influence. Nye, Joseph
S., The Paradox of American Power. Why The World's Only Superpower Can't
Go It Alone. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Copyright ©
2006 by Camille G. Silliman.
Last revision 18 May 2006 |
