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Even Torture Has Its Downsides

By Wil Forbis
4/01/09

If one happens to find themselves strolling down Singel Street in Amsterdam, Netherlands, one would be advised to keep an eye out for the Amsterdam Torture Museum. For if one pays the admission fee and enters the diminutive, dimly lit collection of rooms, one will be treated to an exhibition of some of the most fiendish instruments of human torture and sadism ever created. I myself visited the museum several years ago --- passing up opportunities to view more cultured institutions such as the Van Gogh Museum --- and was alternately tickled and repulsed by what I saw. On one hand, there's something quaint about devices such as the Knee Splitter and the Thumb Crusher. They represent an era of technology and ethics so primitive as to be almost comedic. On the other hand, the mind can't help but wander to the agony suffered by so many thousands throughout history at the hands of such instruments. A visit to the museum is a visit to the darkest corners of the human soul. In fact, I would argue that a viewing of the museum is so essential to reading this article that I advise readers to turn off their computers and hop a flight to Amsterdam this instant! Once you've visited the museum, return to this webpage and we can pick up where we left off.

Not going to do it, eh? Then, as a substitute, let me offer this blog post: 12 of the Most Horrifying Torture Devices in History. It features many of the same devices found in the museum and can be viewed without an entrance fee.

Number 12 on the blog list is a device that stuck in my mind after visiting the Amsterdam Torture Museum: the Spanish Donkey. This mechanism is designed so that the victim is forced to sit atop a giant wooden wedge, one leg on each side. Then, heavy weights are attached to the victim's feet, literally causing him to split in two, ass first. It's the crudeness of the device that struck me. The classic torture devices of Hollywood --- the almost comical instruments of vengeance used in "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" or the eccentric, Rube Goldberg-ian contraptions found in the "Saw" films --- might be ghastly, but they have a certain finesse. The same can be said of many of the real implements of torture found in human history. Even as you shudder at thoughts of the Iron Maiden or the Rack, you find part of your brain marveling at the ingenuity of such devices, even going so far as to respect their artifice. Not so with the Spanish Donkey; it's caveman torture, pure and simple: messy, bloody and grueling.

The topic of torture has taken on renewed interest in recent times because of the discovery that the United States was using "harsh interrogation techniques" against terrorism suspects housed in prisons in Iraq and at the detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Of particular discussion has been the technique of "waterboarding" wherein a prisoner is forced to experience simulated drowning. At some point during this experience a wave of panic radiates across the victim's brain, generating a form of unimaginable terror. (Click here for journalist Christopher Hitchens' account of the experience.) The victim, however, is never in any physical danger --- provided that the technique is applied within a certain timeframe. As a result, there's controversy as to whether or not waterboarding can be described as torture. If it leaves no marks, some would argue, it falls short of such a definition.

My view, largely formed by reading the Christopher Hitchens' article, is that waterboarding is torture. But I've little interest in re-inflaming the debate, rather I bring it up here to raise this thought: someone had to invent waterboarding. They had to sit down with the goal of designing a procedure for interrogating people that would be so horrifying that it would have a good chance at generating confessions (or, at least, exacting punishment), while also inflicting no long-term physical damage on the victim. And that thought --- that every torture technique or device required a process of invention --- is perhaps the most chilling aspect of torture. It's no surprise that man can, in a fit of rage, inflict terrifying physical damage on his fellow man. This may gall us, but on some level, most of us accept it, even going as far as to admit that such a rage could overtake our own faculties. But the idea of someone sitting down, putting flame to their pipe and musing on ways to inflict horrifying pain upon captive, immobile victims should cause even the most jaded of soul to tremble. It's the distance this cool, cerebral act of creation has from the crime that is so disturbing. And how do these demented inventors do it? Did the person who conceived of the Head Crusher specifically contemplate whether the victim's cheekbones would shatter before his jaw? Did the developer of the Crocodile Shears, a metal device which is clamped onto male genitalia, pride himself on the thought that the tool could be heated to the point of being red hot and provide additional agony? Can I, the author of this piece, be accused of sharing some of the sickness of such inventors due to the fact that I am sitting here now ruminating on the horror of their creations? Can you, the reader, be accused of the same for reading this work?

The standard reason for torturing someone is to get them to provide clues or a confession to a crime. And the question that often arises during the debate about torture is: does it work? Can torture elicit reliable facts? Many argue, no; that someone under the duress of torture will admit to anything therefore invalidating torture as an interrogation technique. And that argument makes sense. A person facing the multi-pointed horror of the Iron Maiden, or ghastly demise promised by The Saw would likely confess to whatever act they have been accused of.

And yet I'm reminded of an episode described in the book "Perfect Soldiers" by Terry McDermott. The book is a journalistic investigation into the formation of the teams of hijackers that performed the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. At one point in the book, McDermott describes a pre-9/11 terrorist scheme hatched by a man named Ramzi Yousef. In the mid-90s, Yousef and several compatriots were holed up in the Philippines working on a plot to bomb commercial airliners filled with passengers. After they attracted the attention of police, one of Yousef's collaborators, Abdul Hakim Murad, was captured. Knowledge gained via an interrogation of Murad performed by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Rodolfo Mendoza, led to the ultimate capture of Ramzi Yousef, thus putting an end to this plot to kill hundreds. The book's account of the event reads like a heroic display of police diligence... until McDermott reveals that during the interrogation Mendoza "put a hose in Murad's mouth and force-fed water down his throat, effectively starting to drown him as he sat on a chair in an interview room.1"

1 page 153, Perfect Soldiers.

So what does this reveal? It shows that torture, at least in some instances, does work --- in this case it quite possibly saved hundreds of lives. In fact, a frequent tactic of the pro-torture lobby is to describe ticking time bomb scenario in which authorities have captured an evildoer who has knowledge about the location of a device that could kill thousands, even millions. Such scenarios are highly unlikely, but not impossible, and they become more probable as time goes by and devastating technology becomes more widely available. Perhaps we don't need to wrestle with the ramifications of such scenarios in 2009, but 20, 30, 40 years from now, we may.

I'm prone to argue that debates about the effectiveness of torture miss the point. We shouldn't avoid torture because it may not work, we should avoid torture because it's morally wrong. We should be prepared to sacrifice millions of lives to maintain our moral values --- the same way we sacrifice millions of lives to maintain our right to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, have unsafe sex, own guns, drive cars, eat hamburgers and engage in the numerous other activities that may cause death and take their toll on society but fall under our definition of human freedoms.

But I'm not unaware of the ease with which I can make such pronouncements. It's highly unlikely I'll ever be charged with the decision of whether or not to torture someone. I'll probably never be faced with a suspect who may hold the information that can save the lives of loved ones. And I'm thankful for that.

Wil Forbis is a well known international playboy who lives a fast paced life attending chic parties, performing feats of derring-do and making love to the world's most beautiful women. Together with his partner, Scrotum-Boy, he is making the world safe for democracy. Email - acidlogic@hotmail.com

Visit Wil's web log, The Wil Forbis Blog, and receive complete enlightenment.