Lifting the lid on America’s torture culture

As US President Barack Obama continues to clear up the mess left to him by his predecessor, more revelations are coming to light by the week. The latest one is the publication by the president’s administration of memos from the Bush-era Justice Department that offered legal justification for what were referred to at the time as ‘extreme interrogation techniques’. Although, in many senses this isn’t really a revelation: it has been common knowledge that such techniques as ‘water-boarding’, or simulated drowning, were unabashedly promoted by the American Central Intelligence Agency head honchos, backed by the White House.

So maybe there’s nothing ground-breaking here, aside from a surprising show of honesty from an American government. However, while releasing these memos, Obama has sparked a greater debate by promising that those CIA operatives related to the use of these techniques will not be prosecuted. His defence of this is that they were acting under assurances from the Justice Department of the time, and fully trusted that their actions are legal. This has incensed some human rights activists, who are looking for a more comprehensive criminal proceeding.

I, for one, agree that these agents should not be prosecuted. However despicable we may consider their actions to be, these memos show that they had been repeatedly reassured by their government that what they were doing was legal. While it is very easy for us to say that they should have flatly refused, none of us knows about the sort of culture in the depths of the CIA or the consequences they might have faced for such insubordination. Psychological tests regularly show that people’s usual inhibitions and often strongly held beliefs can be easily overcome by those in authority. I hate to be clichéd and cite Milgram’s investigation, but I’m going to anyway: this is where volunteers were asked by an authoritative figure to increase the voltage of electric shocks to somebody who answered questions incorrectly and almost all of them did so. All it takes is for the idea that actions are taken for virtuous reasons to be indoctrinated and manipulation becomes simpler.

However, I agree with the Washington Post editorial, which says that “the decision to forgo prosecutions should not prevent – and perhaps should even encourage – further investigation about the circumstances that gave rise to torture.” The interrogation techniques were almost certainly illegal by international law, and it would be hypocritical and profoundly unjust not to find out who should be held accountable, be it low-level staffers we’ve never heard of or former Vice President Dick Cheney.

A thorough independent investigation into the despicable breaches of human rights is necessary, not only in order to establish the events that unfolded, but also to ease the public mind that this administration is truly committed to the cessation and condemnation of those interrogation techniques which have now been deemed torture. President Obama has taken many steps in this direction, by closing Guantanamo Bay and announcing that these methods would henceforth be considered illegal and are to be stopped. In January, the president said that, although he was keen to move forward, he would not rule out bringing criminal action against members of George Bush’s administration, reiterating that those in a position of power are “not above the law”. Now is the time to prove that he wasn’t bluffing.