"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country." - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775
George Washington wrote those words the day that he received word that 20 of the 31 American prisoners taken at the battle of Bunker Hill had died since the battle less than three months earlier. It was unknown if the dead had simply succumbed to wounds received in the battle or if they had been the victims of maltreatment at their captors' hands. However, suspicion of the latter case was strong because the crown refused to recognize the American army's right of belligerence, instead declaring that its soldiers were nothing but criminals, in effect, the illegal enemy combatants of an earlier age.
The nation had not yet declared independence, but sentiment for such a step was growing. Part of the reason that feeling in the colonies was moving toward independence was the constant stream of reports of British atrocities against American civilians and POWs. Thus there was doubtless a political calculation behind Washington's order. He would have understood that the American population was bitterly divided on the question of independence and that those who were still undecided would be deeply impressed by the contrast in the conduct of the two armies. More than that, however, Washington understood that the cause he served mandated the just treatment of prisoners. The idea that all men were born free and equal demanded that the human rights of all men be treasured, even those of enemies. (Unfortunately, it would be some time before Washington found both the imagination and the courage to extend that logic to his slaves -- but that is another story). In effect, Washington understood that he would have betrayed the Revolution he served if he had allowed a captured enemy to be treated cruelly.
Unfortunately for American servicemen, often their country's enemies have not subscribed to the same ideology. The North Vietnamese, for example, whatever their nationalist and anti-colonialist aspirations, did not base their movement on a foundation of universal human rights. Accordingly, they saw no need to afford decent treatment to their captives. The result, as John McCain reminded us at every opportunity during the last election, was that American captives were subjected to every variety of maltreatment and abuse. This ordeal was particularly harrowing for one these captives, Commander James Stockdale.
Most who have heard of James Stockdale will remember him from his somewhat bumbling performance as Ross Perot's running mate in the 1992 Vice Presidential debate, which is both unfortunate and somewhat unfair to the man (he had agreed only to serve as a stand-in on the ticket until Perot found someone more suitable and after Perot's in-again out-again performance on the trail, was left without adequate time to prepare once it was clear that he would have to debate as Perot's actual running mate). It is Stockdale's history as a POW, however, that should interest us more when it comes to the torture debate. Stockdale was very likely the most valuable captive the North Vietnamese ever took because he knew something that no other POW, and very few other living men at the time did. He knew that America's entire war effort was based, at best, on overactive imaginations, and at worst on outright lies.
A year before he was captured he was one of the pilots flying over the scene at the time of the alleged second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. And so he
had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.
In response to this attack by "phantom targets" the United States passed H.J. Res 1145, better known as the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which gave the president the authority "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom." In effect, congress agreed to remove any barriers to full scale war in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia in response to a provocation which never occurred.
Stockdale knew this.
The propaganda bonanza for the North Vietnamese regime this admission would have yielded is hard to imagine. Stockdale was, in short, the very definition of a high value prisoner, the type of man which Cheney and company would have declared a perfect candidate for "enhanced interrogation". Of course, Stockdale's captors were in total agreement and they proceeded to beat and torture him regularly. They did so for the duration of his captivity -- seven years.
And he never told them.
For seven years they subjected this man, this man who arguably knew the single piece of information most valuable to their regime, to every cruelty and indignity of which corrupted humanity can conceive and yet, he never told them what he knew. No doubt part of this was because of the character of Stockdale himself. He was a devotee of Stoic philosophy and was singled out by the North Vietnamese regime as a particularly hard case. On one occasion, he beat himself in the face with a stool until it was swollen beyond recognition in order to prevent the Vietnamese from parading him for propaganda purposes. Eventually he received the Medal of Honor for his conduct and leadership during his time as a POW. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the North Vietnamese regime tortured Stockdale for seven years and he never gave up the most significant piece of information any of their prisoners likely held.
Torturing Stockdale did nothing for the North Vietnamese. On the other hand, when he returned home, he became a hero to a defeated people starved for one. He also gave supporters of the war and critics of the North Vietnamese, and later just Vietnamese regime plenty of propaganda material. The treatment of Stockdale and other POWs was one of the factors that led people to believe that the Vietnamese government still held American prisoners and that they were still mistreating them years after the war had ended. The shameful conduct of the North Vietnamese regime delayed rapprochement with their former enemies and thus the recognition of the most powerful and richest nation in the world. That delayed their economic development. That kept their people in poverty longer than was necessary. In short, the North Vietnamese policy of prisoner torture yielded nearly nothing of use to them and resulted in profound negative consequences. It was a disastrous failure.
It did nothing but bring shame disgrace and ruin to their country.
Pro-torture conservatives ignore such object lessons of history and tout the effectiveness of their methods by claiming that they broke Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in under three minutes and had him begging to talk. No doubt he was begging to talk, but as Stockdale's example shows, it is what a subject says, not simply the fact that he "talked" that is important. Among experienced interrogators even those who assert that torture can be effective know that it only works when one is trying to extract a specific piece of information from a subject known to possess it. It is useless during fishing expeditions like the ones the CIA-hired mercenaries went on with Mohammed and other "high value prisoners".
Moreover, it is now clear that even as they were torturing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the most valuable information came from interrogations employing traditional methods. In this case, a mild-mannered man named Deuce Martinez was the most effective in extracting useful information from his captive.
In the Hollywood cliché of Fox’s "24," a torturer shouts questions at a bound terrorist while inflicting excruciating pain. The C.I.A. program worked differently. A paramilitary team put on the pressure, using cold temperatures, sleeplessness, pain and fear to force a prisoner to talk. When the prisoner signaled assent, the tormenters stepped aside. After a break that could be a day or even longer, Mr. Martinez or another interrogator took up the questioning.
Mr. Martinez’s success at building a rapport with the most ruthless of terrorists goes to the heart of the interrogation debate. Did it suggest that traditional methods alone might have obtained the same information or more? Or did Mr. Mohammed talk so expansively because he feared more of the brutal treatment he had already endured?
Pro-torture conservatives will no doubt insist it was the latter so long as they have the breath in their lungs to give voice to their pernicious lies, and every time they do so, "they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country." The reason that the US method had two phases was that good interrogators such as Deuce Martinez, the man who got the most cooperation from Mohammed, refused to be trained in methods of torture. While those who did train, were not skilled as interrogators. That should make one wonder about the effectiveness of torture as a means of interrogation.
This much was confirmed by US Army interrogator Matthew Alexander's op-ed in the Washington Post.
He summed up the effects of the torture policy of the Bush adiministration thus:
What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.
According to Alexander, it was worse than useless. It was positively detrimental to our war effort.
I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.
Torture does not keep us safe. It jeopardizes our safety. It alienates potential allies and makes rapprochement with enemies more difficult. It destroys our relationship with the inhabitants of places occupied by our armed forces. It does so at the cost of building a rapport with prisoners that has been demonstrated to be more effective in extracting information.
Torture, those who practice it, those who advocate it, and those who helped clear the way for its use have succeeded in doing only one thing.
They have brought shame, disgrace, and ruin to our country.
They continue to do so every time they open their mouths.
As to what we should do about this disgrace, I believe that this would be a good time to look to the words of the father of our country for advice:
"I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require."