Abu Ghraib Revisited

Posted by Joshua White on 05.24.2006

This past Monday Sgt. Santos Cardona went on trial for abusing and torturing inmates at Abu Ghraib using his German shepherd. That is not torture. Make these prisoners have a discussion with my wife about the feminist themes of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice ...THAT is torture!

Recently, another member of the United States armed forces went to trial for the alleged abuse and torture of the inmates at Abu Ghraib. Apparently, this soldier used dogs to intimidate and scare the prisoners held by the United States. So, in this PC day and age what is there to do? Well, we take him to court and try him (with the possibility of giving him 16 and a half years in prison). In this column I'll ultimately concede that these members of the military tortured the prisoners (I will do so, not because I actually believe it, but because I'd rather focus on other issues). But my question really is: So what?

Let me first try and convince you, my followers (as I now have followers, I need a name for you...any suggestions?) that most of the practices that were implemented on the prisoners were not torture. Now look, I'm not entirely sure what the definition of "torture" is. Certainly I could give you any number of definitions that could be found in a dictionary, but oftentimes they are lacking in their specificity and problems can be found for each one. For example, Merriam-Websters' online dictionary offers the following definition: anguish of body or mind; the infliction of intense pain to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure. The problem for both of these is that there are words within their definitions that are horribly vague. What does "intense" mean? Under the second definition, wouldn't making a fat man run two miles be considered torture? What do we mean by "anguish"? Well, once again, we look to the dictionary and find: extreme pain, distress, or anxiety. So, a person who is "extremely anxious" about passing the state bar exam is being tortured (not necessarily by someone). I think that this could be done for every definition given in overly simplistic terms by the dictionary.

Maybe it is like pornography where "you'll know it if you see it." So, having a prisoner eat 20 peas a day (assuming he isn't deadly allergic)...not torture. Cutting him with a razor in the junk 4 times an hour...might be torture. Making him cut off his junk while eating peas...torture! But let's look at what the "torturers" at Abu Ghraib are accused of.

We've got a long list of fun stuff (which I found at Wikipedia). Here is just some of it: forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicitly positions for photographing, forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time, forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear, photographing naked male and female detainees, placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture. As far as I'm concerned none of these are tortue. Being treated as a model citizne? No, certainly not. Treating them as you'd treat a friend? No unless your a jerk (or kinky). Humiliation? Yeah, probably. But none of this slaps me in the face of torture. It just doesn't. Before I go on let's just remember that these people are either criminals or people who are suspected of trying to kill our soldiers. Sure, there are probably some of thse detainees that are inncoent, but every punative system makes mistakes. But putting a dog chain around a criminal's neck and having a female pose next to him for a photograph isn't torture. Hell, even by the second defintion that Merriam-Webster gave it would be hard to argue that this is tortue. Is it humiliating? Sure. Do the criminals like it? No, but who cares? They're not supposed to like what is happening to them in jail. They're in jail.

Couldn't the steps we take against some of our criminals on a daily basis be more easily seen as tortue? Think about it. We put some of our worst in an 8 by 5 foot box (which is pretty much what a cell is) for 23 hours a day. We then let them out for one hour to excercise in a cage. People have gone legitamately insane from this type of treatment. And yet very few people call for the end of this method of handling prisoners. But couldn't this be seen as more likely to be torture than any of the actions mentioned above? I mean we're causing serious mental anguish. We're causing intense (mental) pain in order to punish. Torture. Most of the actions done (I say most because there are some that are certainly questionable) at Abu Ghraib were not torture. I can only imagine that about 6 million Jews are looking down right now saying "Torture? We'll tell you about torture!"

Now, on to another question: if these prisoners were tortured so what?

Let's assume that some of the prisonsers were in fact tortured. This isn't too hard to believe. Some of the prisoners were subjected to being positioned naked on a box, with a sandbag on his head while wires were attached to his fingers, toes, and penis in order to simulate electric shock torture. While I'm not saying that I agree that this is torture I could understand why some might think it is. Now, let's say that some of these people were tortured. Ok, so? Why is that such a big deal?

Maybe we should take a look at the different reasons people want to punish. The first theory at which I'll take a brief look is the idea that by punishing criminals we are giving them justice. Normally, if we were to take an innocent person and put him into prison we would think that doing this would be a bad thing. Why? Because we shouldn't harm those that haven't done anything wrong. So the criminals must have done something that makes it acceptable for us to take away some of their rights (the right to be free, leave the prison, exercise outside for more than an hour, etc.). We typically say that because they have doing something wrong they deserve to have some of their rights taken away. This type of thinking goes all the way back to the "eye for an eye" method of punishment present in the bible. And if this is the right way of thinking about punishment, then I see no reason to think that torture can't be included within. Why is it wrong to include torture (of whatever sort) in a system of justice. For example, let's say that a man has been convicted of rape you could him two options for his punishment. The judge conceivably say "Sir, you've been convicted of rape. You're a bad man and I don't like you. So, I'm going to punish you. You can either have spend 27 years in jail or you could spend 10 years in jail, but if you chose the latter option then you'll have to spend two hours a day on the waterboard." This seems to be perfectly reasonable to me. Why must we focus on the amount of time that the criminal spends behind bars and not think about the quality of the punishment. Punish harder in less time. That's my way of doing things.

But there are some of you out there that don't like punishing for justice's sake (I call you "cry babies"). Two wrongs don't make a right you'd say. We can't hurt people because they've hurt us. Waaaa! But maybe, according to these folks, we could punish people as a method of deterrence. If we punish people when they do something illegal or immoral then others will see what we've done to them and they'll be deterred from commiting the same crime. ("I don't want to kill the person. I might go to jail." This is an example of deterrence at work.) But for the believers in deterrence should totally believe in torture (dude!). Let me ask you which would scare you more from committing murder: 25 years in jail or 25 years in jail including daily sessions of toothpicks being shoved under your toe nails? If I can presume that all of you have chosen the second option then torture seems persmissible once again.

I guess a final reason that we may punish is to rehabilitate those who have committed the crimes. But from what I can tell most people don't beileve that this is the only reason that we punish people. This is thought of as just a part of the punishment and is only there as a way of making the person better as they are either recieving their justice or deterring others from committing crimes.

So what is the point of all of this? I hope that I've made myself fairly clear. First, I don't think that most of what the criminals at Abu Ghraib "endured" should even be considered torture. If anything they were bothered. And second, even if they were tortured maybe all the better. Perhpas this is better not only for them but for others, depending on how you view punishment.

So bring out the dogs. Strap on the collars. Climb up on the boxes. And clamp the wires to the testicles because I say keep the torture coming. Hoorah!