The Real Reason Governments Torture
There have been a lot of articles lately detailing America's use of "interrogation techniques" (*cough* *cough* TORTURE *cough*). If you've read any of my previous posts regarding the subject, you know how I feel about it (it is never justified, period).
There is, however, a large percentage of Americans who feel torture is justified ("America's Regression" by Glenn Greenwald). I believe this is because most people fail to realize the true goal of torture.
The goal of torture is never to get information. Any information specialist will tell you that. Information obtained via torture is sketchy at best. People will say whatever they think you want to hear when they are being tortured. So, really, the information side of it is moot.
So why do governments torture? To send a message to any other would be criminals--"Break the law and this is what happens." But that is only the first layer. How many folks at Guantanamo were "harshly interrogated" not because they were guilty (or even suspected of some crime) but were instead merely known associates of someone suspected of a crime?
So what message does that send? Not only shouldn't you break the law, but you also shouldn't hang around with anyone who is breaking the law. What if you don't know if your friend is breaking the law? Tough, you better find out or quit hanging around with them.
Now you are starting to see the real goal of torture. Torture isn't used to break criminals, but rather it is used to intimidate and scare the general populous. The message now is, "mind your own business or you'll get black-bagged off to Syria/Jordan/Egypt/Liberia/Lithuania/Poland/etc. to be "interrogated".
But that only applies to bad people, you know, terrorists.
That is what our government would like to have you believe. The truth, however, is that this application of law now applies to citizens as well. Anyone suspected of consorting with someone suspected of terrorist ties can be designated as an enemy combatant, have their rights to habeas corpus suspended, and be held, without access to legal council, family or friends, for as long as the government sees fit.
In fact, in such a case, the government is not even required to verify to ANYONE that you have been apprehended (let alone where you may be held or what interrogators may be doing to you).
Let that sink in a bit. Now tell me again what it was that America, the last great Democracy, was supposed to represent? What rights are we supposed to protect?
We criticize China, Russia, North Korea, and a host of other dictators and despots for imprisoning and torturing political activists, revolutionaries, health care workers, and people in general.
We, however, not only do this, but we also kidnap (in utter secrecy) and torture those same victims, all while giving them no recourse to any legal defense whatsoever--no way to allow them to prove their innocence. Even worse, in many cases, we don't even tell them why they were apprehended.
What kind of hell is it where a government can torture, abuse, confine and kill an individual (a human being) without that person ever knowing why it is happening? What horrific dictator can you name that has ever done such a thing? Idi Amin? Saddam Hussein? China? Russia?
Most of these leaders/countries are all too happy to tell their prisoners why they are being incarcerated. And they are also all to happy to tell the families of said individuals why their loved one has been imprisoned (usually they do this so that it will dissuade others from stepping out of line).
Only America (that I know of) has gone to the psychological extreme of imprisoning and torturing (and possibly killing--face it, if they don't have to admit they have you, they can kill you without penalty) individuals all while denying them the basic right of knowing for what they are being punished. To be tortured and not know why is by far the greatest torture of all. The sense of helplessness such a situation would cause is almost unimaginable.
And yet we continue.
Why? Do we really think it will deter people who come from countries where they have been subjected to such hideous and illogical systems of "justice" for their entire lives (indeed their entire cultural history)? Does getting your kneecaps power-drilled by a Jordanian interrogator inspire any more fear than getting your kneecaps drilled by an Iraqi interrogator?
No, we do not torture to scare the criminals. We torture to scare the citizens. Obey the law or else.
Why would anyone want to scare the common citizen in such a way?
Well, as a government gains power and begins to strip away the rights of its citizens, it needs to do something to prevent that citizenry from rising up in protest and anger.
Fear works.
Why do you think social/political organizations are constantly being put on terrorist watch lists? Because, should any one group or individual get too powerful, the government can "disappear" them.
"But not Americans!" you may try and claim... but if the government doesn't have to say who it has apprehended, where they are being held, or what is being done to them, how can you say they haven't done this to Americans? You have no way of knowing anything about who is in this system of torture except what you are told by the government.
And they don't have to tell you anything.
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