Torture Works: For Its Intended Purpose

I've seen lots of commentary on the revelation that Bush administration torture techniques have been modeled on the work of the ChiComs but not much specific focus on the fact that the main purpose of these Chinese torture techniques was to elicit false confessions. That's not very surprising as the main use of torture in interrogations has always been to elicit false confessions.

But still, to literally rip your techniques off from a study called "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War" requires some level of obliviousness I wasn't aware of. Or else maybe they were looking for false confessions?

Comments

Now that you mention it . . . duh!

Posted by ft | July 2, 2008 1:26 AM

From Kevin Drum's reading of the story, it sounds like we called them "Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War" but the chart had a different name before that.

I wuldn't be surprised if there was a great deal of confusion about this story, and a lot of attempts by conservative pundit to "takedown" liberals who are calling this an intentional use of techniques for coercing false confessions.

If anyone has an analysis of whether this name-change was anti-commie propaganda, or was a military or intelligence assessment of what the Chinese were trying to do using these tachniques, I'm all ears.

Posted by Swan | July 2, 2008 2:29 AM

No one could have predicted this. It was only just recently that anyone realized war could be a threat to a democracy's values.

Posted by chris | July 2, 2008 2:31 AM

2 + 2 = 5

Posted by Winston Smith | July 2, 2008 2:51 AM

It looks like this blogger had the scoop (and perhaps tipped off the NY Times) last week.
http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/nuts-bolts-how-us-organized-their.html

The second PDF link in the Times article has a 63 pages of declassified reports and meeting minutes. Christ, its like something out of Catch-22.

John F. Rankin was the SERES trainer who cribbed from the 1957 Biderman report. I imagine he and his colleague Christopher Ross were Navy civilian employee and not servicemen, otherwise, why don't they use their rank like every other military officer in the documents? I'm guessing they're federal employees-- It would be too perfect (in a horrible way) if they were, in fact, contractors.

On page 50 of 63 (the page before the Biderman Chart), Rankin's "After Action Report on Operation Valiant Return" really brings home the human cost of war:
Issue: Rental Car Availability
Discussion: We were authorized a rental car, however orders did not specify which agency. Most rental agencies located in Jacksonville, FL airport do not afford the convenience of drop off site. Since we were only transiting from the airport to NAS Jacksonville, a drop off capability was needed to avoid the $50.00 cab fare...

Should have called it Operation Rental Car Return.

Posted by beowulf | July 2, 2008 3:22 AM

I wonder if the Bush administration will so discredit the idea of the nation-state that it speeds the formation of a one-world government. So what if the United States of America has no credibility left? Bring on the United Federation of Planets! Speaker Pelosi is from San Francisco. The HQ of the UFP is in San Francisco (at least in the 22th Century).

Coincidence? I think not.

Posted by joejoejoe | July 2, 2008 3:46 AM

It would be better if Bush speeded up the discrediting of the notion of the state altogether, as Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Shea seriously wanted to do with their "Illuminatus" series back in the '70's. They managed to discredit most of the old time "conspiracy theories" - while still proving that everybody conspires - but didn't succeed in the main goal.

I think "V for Vendetta" did it better.

Bush = Chancellor Sutler (even to the screaming and crying, apparently).

Dick Cheney = "Creepy" Creedy.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 2, 2008 4:21 AM

No shit, Sherlock.

Posted by aleks | July 2, 2008 5:47 AM

This is obviously another occasion on which to condemn the entire Democratic Party for insulting John McCain's service record, one which totally authorizes him to be Preznit.

Posted by El Cid | July 2, 2008 6:20 AM

Your missing the point. Confessions true or false were not the objective of the torture lite. The first real purpose was for the sheer enjoyment of doing it. The second and perhaps more important was to find the people who really liked administering it.

Gitmo I've always said was in large part a school for torturers and the administrators for the authoritarian system. The unsuitable soon leave. The willing and talented do their time there and move on to spread their knowledge or at least bide their time until it is needed again.

In years to come just watch as the military comes to be dominated by those who have Gitmo on their resume. Fat chance I know but the Obama administration should take direct action in this regard by actively preventing the promotion of Gitmo associated persons. They won't have the guts I'm sure.

Posted by rapier | July 2, 2008 7:34 AM

I think torture was always an end, not a means. Like Iraq, like Guantanamo itself, torture was an attempt to capitalize on the post-9/11 sense that we should be "doing something." For many Republicans and conservatives, 9/11 was a call to a Samuel Huntington-esque War (yeah, I know it's officially a "Clash", but We Were Attacked) of Civilizations, where simply inflicting pain on "The Enemy" (eg: Muslims generally) was a valid goal of public policy.

In that light, it's clear that the purpose of torture (I'm sorry, "severe stress conditions") is not to elicit testimony. Remember, trials were never the point at Guantanamo -- they're a late addition. The purpose is the pain. The point is to know that somewhere the government is putting some Muslim through agony. Paying "them" (that is, all of "them") back for 9/11. As Toby Keith would put it, we're putting a foot in their ass (it's the American way).

Iraq played on similar sentiment of course. Nobody doubts that we would have been hard pressed to go into Iraq without 9/11. But the connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq never made any sense, and never stood up to even the slightest scrutiny. But that never mattered because for a significant part of this country, the fact both Afghanistan and Iraq were countries full of Muslims and led by easy-to-hate leaders was enough of a connection to support our biggest war since Vietnam.

As time has gone on, the official rationales have shifted steadily from WMD to Reconstruction to humanitarian intervention, but for at least some Americans the underlying purpose has always been the same: kickin' Mo-hammed's brown ass. Of course this motivation never gets much analysis in mainstream media, but anyone who talks to enough Republicans (particularly less educated ones who don't guard their beliefs in allusions to Huntington or Ayaan Hirsi-Ali) knows there's a core of this thought in a lot of the support for the war. There's a reason that, say, Daniel Pipes gets airtime and press coverage in this country. In my mind, our torture policy has to be connected to that worldview.

Posted by NS | July 2, 2008 8:05 AM

"No shit, Sherlock."

Alimentay, my dear Watson.

Posted by Njorl | July 2, 2008 8:36 AM

What rapier and NS said. It's not so much that torture is useful, and arguing over this fact with the Bushite dead-enders is never fruitful. Rather, use of torture is justified by them as being something we do because we can. Like Raskolnikov, they believe that by crossing that threshold of engaging in torture, and getting away with it, then it means they can do anything. This is very reassuring if, like many republicans, you feel alienated and afraid every making day of your life.

It seems bizarre to violate civilized norms merely because it makes one feel better about one's impotence and failures in life, and as something that makes you feel you're "sticking it" to liberals like Al Gore, but that's really what was going on amongst torture advocates.

Posted by Tyro | July 2, 2008 8:36 AM

The other intended effect of torture is to terrorize the people of the country which was invaded without all that unseemly and messy bombing. You think Iraqi knew what was going on in Abu Ghraib? Darn tootin' they did--that was the point.

Posted by ed | July 2, 2008 8:44 AM

Unfortunately the mindset behind adopting torture techniques explicitly described as techniques for obtaining false confessions really isn't that hard to understand. I agree a lot of it is explained simply by understanding that torture is an end in itself for these people. Also, with respect to the confessions specifically, I suspect the thinking was that since we believed the people being tortured were guilty, we were torturing true confessions out of them, not false ones. Of course that sort of thinking is stupid and evil, but nonetheless perfectly understandable.

Also unfortunately, although I am quite confident it will become increasingly clear to the American people that a lot of people deserve to go to jail for a long time over this, a wave of Presidential pardons is in the making.

Posted by DTM | July 2, 2008 8:53 AM

I read that story this morning in my dead-tree version, and literally felt queasy. What will make me even queasier is that, I suspect, this story will have no legs whatsoever. That Bush has so degraded this country into what we once professed to stand against, is so taken for granted now that it is no longer cause for outrage.

Posted by Glenn | July 2, 2008 9:07 AM

Of course false confessions were the point. If torture extracts a false confession of a terrorist plot, then Bush can announce to the world that he's foiled another terrorist plot.

Posted by Ragout | July 2, 2008 9:28 AM

Trotsky is the avatar of neoconservatism. Is any of this surprising?

As for Bush, temperamentally he's a born again torturer anyway (Hey, kids, let's blow up some frogs!) but his political instincts were always How Can I Make More Money. With "Islamofascism" Big Oil meets the Big Hurt. Perfect conjunction.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 2, 2008 9:34 AM

False confessions are a feature not a bug.

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Posted by wetzel | July 2, 2008 10:12 AM

I agree with the comments above that false confessions are important to this administration's goals. One only has to recall the quote we can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions to understand that's true. They need heads to hold up as trophies, and it doesn't matter who those heads belong to as long as they look the part of the scary terrorists.

Posted by LFC | July 2, 2008 10:25 AM

Torture does indeed work for its intended purpose, which is to torture. It's an end in itself. Everything else is just the cover story.

Posted by Roddy McCorley | July 2, 2008 10:27 AM

I agree with the comments above that false confessions are important to this administration's goals. One only has to recall the quote we can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions to understand that's true. They need heads to hold up as trophies, and it doesn't matter who those heads belong to as long as they look the part of the scary terrorists.

Posted by LFC | July 2, 2008 10:38 AM

Like the 1950s era Communists, the Bush Administration and its 25 percent core support believe they are obviously in the right and doing the bidding of History. Anyone who isn't with them is, well, not just against them, but Wrong in a fundamental and historic sense. Since History will vindicate Bush and his supporters, any acts they do in History's service are justified.

In this analysis, then, the captives at Guantanamo have a specific role: to verify the Administration's claims of a pan-Islamic terror network poised to conquer the West unless Bush is allowed unquestioned support and power. The captives are not people, they are historical figures, and by refusing to cooperate (i.e., by not confirming every detail of the Administration's knowledge of their network) the captives are frustrating the workings of History and failing to take their rightful place in the historical narrative.

Torturing the captives, then, is a way to help them. Only when they confirm the Bush Administration's knowledge of the terror network will the captives take on their full historical importance.

So, you see, there are no false confessions. There is only accepting one's proper place in History.

Posted by jlw | July 2, 2008 10:51 AM

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

(staggers off)

Posted by Edward, the mad shirt grinder | July 2, 2008 11:29 AM

Nice reference Edward, and that episode illustrated nicely the case for "we torture because we can" attitude that seemed to have occurred once the Administration crossed the line.

Posted by Morgan | July 2, 2008 11:54 AM

The substance of this story if not this specific detail has been out since 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/opinion/14blochemarks.html

Posted by J Hertzberg | July 2, 2008 11:58 AM

Nice reference Edward, and that episode illustrated nicely the case for "we torture because we can" attitude that seemed to have occurred once the Administration crossed the line.

Posted by Morgan | July 2, 2008 12:02 PM

The substance of this story if not this specific detail has been out since 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/opinion/14blochemarks.html

Posted by J Hertzberg | July 2, 2008 12:44 PM

The substance of this story was known even before that 2005 NYT story and it has been documented extensively on line since then (especially by bloggers like Valtin, who has been writing for at least 2 years about Biderman's studies).

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/29/torture/index.html

What's most surprising about this NYT story is that the NYT thinks it's news that these are the techniques used in NK against US POWs...and so does Carl Levin. Chiz. The damned chart in question, released at Levin's SASC hearings, has the heading "Biderman's Chart of Coercion". Does anybody at NYT or SASC use the Google?

Where the hell did they think SERE got the torture techniques from? The tooth fairy?

Posted by smintheus | July 2, 2008 1:03 PM

Thank you, Morgan.

Posted by Edward, the mad shirt grinder | July 2, 2008 1:22 PM

The substance of this story was known even before that 2005 NYT story and it has been documented extensively on line since then (especially by bloggers like Valtin, who has been writing for at least 2 years about Biderman's studies).

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/29/torture/index.html

What's most surprising about this NYT story is that the NYT thinks it's news that these are the techniques used in NK against US POWs...and so does Carl Levin. Chiz. The damned chart in question, released at Levin's SASC hearings, has the heading "Biderman's Chart of Coercion". Does anybody at NYT or SASC use the Google?

Where the hell did they think SERE got the torture techniques from? The tooth fairy?

Posted by smintheus | July 2, 2008 1:22 PM

Can_we_PLEASE_remove these CRIMINALS from the highest posts in the land now?

Posted by area51 | July 2, 2008 2:13 PM

No, we can't - because if we declare that criminals occupy the highest posts in the land, that makes the US electorate criminals - i.e., criminally stupid.

And nobody can afford to allow that sort of cognitive dissonance to arise.

Bush and Cheney are going to walk - and they're going to profit from the upcoming Iran war.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 2, 2008 5:15 PM

Yes, yes. false confession are what they needed to further their aims, and that everyone should know that they were torturing terrorists of course.

Posted by Chris Dornan | July 2, 2008 6:20 PM