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Torture as in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Works? Army Intel Officer Answers
In Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer’s review of Zero Dark Thirty, he discusses Americans’ growing support for turture and needed public debate regarding torture, although human rights advocates affirm that while education is needed, there is no debate: torture is never acceptable, justifiable or morally right and that the film was pro-torture propaganda.
In light of political prisoner Pfc. Bradley Manning’s torture, along with some 100,000 other inmates being tortured in United States prisons, and in light of Barack Obama’s NDAA officializing indefinite detention of Americans suspected of “terrorist” activities that could include activities against high-level corruption such as as Manning’s, Pryer’s review is worth considering.
“Does torture work?,” Pryer asks. “And, even if it does work, is torture something Americans ought to be using on ‘hardened’ terrorists (or on anyone else for that matter)?”
Torture does not work, however, as Pryer admits, and it is always unacceptable, as rights defenders globally say.
“This debate is sorely needed since most opinion polls show Americans’ support for torture steadily climbing,” Pryer says.
He cites a 2011 Pew Research Center survey reporting 53 percent of Americans believe torture should often (19 percent) or sometimes (34 percent) be used against terrorism suspects to gain information, marking a steady 10 percent climb from 2004.
He also cites a recent YouGov poll commissioned by a Stanford University professor indicating over a five-year period, the number of Americans approving of torture climbed 14 percent to 41 percent in 2012.
Pryer says this pro-torture trend is something those against “torture as American policy” should be watching carefully.
The Zero Dark Thirty film has been lambasted by human rights defenders, journalists and critics for its Hollywood-style attempt to whitewash history and reinforce United States official propaganda regarding CIA torture as a key investigation tool leading to Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan and the SEAL Team Six’s assassinating him in a President Barack Obama-authorized targeted killing.
Sony’s Zero Dark Thirty ”shows torture as central to the discovery of bin Laden’s location, and this departs from what is publicly known about the raid on Abbottabad,” reported Mother Jones.
“This new movie, rumored to be on the Oscar list, is just another trick, folks, designed to get you to condone your “leaders” (Bush-Cheney-Obama-Hillary et al’s) killing and torture!” asserted journalist Colleen Rowley on Facebook.
The U.S. Army Field Manual, however, according to Pryer, “enshrines” torture as an act “in keeping with international standards and national values.”
“U.S. legislation, military regulations, and Army doctrine — most notably the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and U.S. Army Field Manual 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations – now enshrine prisoner treatment that is in keeping with international standards and the national values expressed by such principled American leaders as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In our republic, though, all laws are subject to change — even those in the Constitution — if enough Americans support this change,” Pryer notes.
“There is no question which side of the torture debate I fall on,” Pryer said. “First and foremost, it is clear to me that torture fails as a tactic within the most important domain of war, the moral one.”
“It is thus something that we Americans simply ought not to do.”
Not only that. Torture does not reveal credible information. Nor does it help curb terrorism. In fact, research has show it does the opposite. It increases terrorism and turns foreign nationals against Americans, putting Americans more at risk of terrorist acts against thm. Pryer provides an example of this.
“For example,” Pryer highlights, “Kyle Teamey, the S2X (senior human intelligence officer) for 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, in Ramadi at the time, said:
‘The folks at Abu Ghraib not only failed to provide any intel of value, they turned the entire Sunni population against us.’” (Author emphasis)
“Meanwhile, we were getting actionable intel by giving detainees Skittles and a cup of coffee,” Teamey said.
Pryer also notes that interrogators learn doctrine and conventional wisdom at the military intelligence schoolhouse that teach torture is an ineffective intelligence tool.
He says, “This conventional wisdom included the proverb, ‘The longest list of lies in the world is that given by the tortured.’”
Reprieve estimates 80,000 people have been through the U.S. war on terror “rendition” system, kidnapped and taken to secret prisons. According to specialists, such as U.S. Air Force reservist, Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, the American public has only seen the “tip of the iceberg” of torture horrors secretly practiced in their name. (See: Obama rebuked on Bradley Manning Torture as Clinton condemns China human rights abuses, D. Dupré)
The torture debate needs to focus not only on foreign nationals, but also on Americans on U.S. soil, now subject to indefinite detention and torture in solitary confinement, as Obama’s National Defence Authorization Act of 2013 (NDAA 2013) allows.
Already, America’s widespread torture of 100,000 people in solitary confinement in prisons in the U.S. is one of the nation’s most pressing and ignored domestic human rights issues, according to veteran human rights defenders, James Ridgeway, Jean Casella and Andy Worthington.
(Photo Credit: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’)
Copyright 2013 Deborah Dupré
Please seek permission from this author before copying this article for email or website reposting. Copyright violation is not a victimless crime.
Human Rights news reporter Deborah Dupré is author of “Vampire of Macondo, Life, crimes and curses in south Louisiana that Powerful Forces Don’t want you to know,” packed with censored stories about the BP-wrecked Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico’s catastrophic human and environmental devastation.
Follow Dupré on Twitter @DeborahDupre. For interviews, email [email protected].
Judging from comments under my BIN article, “Holocaust Deny No More: Six Times More Nazi Camps, Ghettos Found, Shocks Researchers” published Saturday (/international/2013/03/holocaust-deny-no-more-six-times-more-nazi-camps-ghettos-found-shocks-researchers-2453010.html) we dang well better discuss and debate torture. Those comments suggest that some of the most aggressive Holocaust deniers have no problem with Hitler-style torture. Even worse, I’ve heard people who call themselves Christians say that torture is OK and even needed sometimes – despite ample evidence showing torture breads more violence against Americans. By the way, did Jesus torture people, or teach it’s OK? If so, I missed that in the Bible.
hey debbie ! jesus did say go and “sin” no more ! though ! , war is hell deal with it ! and if the scum in prisons would behave like most people who do their best to “OBEY” the law they would not be there ! . i have no sympathy for anyone in prison and as far as I am concerned the death penalty should be used more often !
Deborah, I’m confused. How can you favorably or uncritically site Pryer’s view on the Army Field Manual (“prisoner treatment that is in keeping with international standards and the national values”), and at the same time talk about the torture of thousands in US prisons via solitary confinement.
In fact, the Army Field Manual does allow for solitary confinement as a method of interrogation (not just segregation for security purposes). Furthermore it does this in conjunction of other methods of torture, including sleep deprivation, use of “Fear Up,” emotional degradation, environmental and dietary “manipulation” and use of drugs.
I won’t bother to put a link here as anyone who Googles “Army Field Manual” and especially its “Appendix M” will find the requisite information, including a number of articles by legal and human rights agencies (CCR, Amnesty, PHR, etc.).
I hope you will do more research before propagating mainstream narratives that in fact to harm to the very causes you espouse, e.g., ridding the world of the torture that is Isolation/Solitary Confinement.
Thank you, Jeff. Had hoped socially responsible people like you would respond. I am regretful, however, that the message I’d hoped to convey in this article failed. I reported it as news – not commentary. Perhaps that’s the problem. Yes, the Army Field Manual includes that torture is acceptable, so to speak, which I abhor. But, so does Pryer, according to his statements quoted above. His perhaps confusing piece also encourages debate. Since so many Americans favor torture, that debate is sorely needed, no? Have a look at the comment by Spartacus above. He seemed to get a different meaning from this article – one unfortunately becoming more typical of Americans.
the problem with americans is they cant tell fact from fiction, they think the bible is real and that zero dark thirty is a historical account rather than cia manufactured propaganda and all the lies that go along with it.
the bible is the biggest mess of contradictions ever put to print.. you think a debate about torture is important all the while your country is illegally immorally invading countries based on lies that were never a threat resulting in the deaths of millions..
lol… talk about torture all you want, wont make a scrap off difference to the fact that the president has given himself the authority to kill any citizen he wants without even any charge, or evidence, purely his personal dislike is enough..
yeah., you talk about torture all you want, and ask your ridiculous god to bless amerika dont forget.
I agree that “Zero Dark Thirty” AND “Argo” are propaganda glorifying the CIA. Had I been able to vote for an Oscar, The Lady would have been my first choice.
via LinkedIn:
Deborah, thanks for the timely article. One commenter claims that the Army Field Manual condones torture; the opposite is true. The Army Field Manual describes authorized interrogation techniques that are not torture.
The issue of solitary confinement is a separate and difficult issue. I agree that as it is most often used it is a from of torture.
It is more than unfortunate that the U.S. to date has not held anyone except a few lower level soldiers in Abu Ghraib accountable for the program of renditions, secret detentions and torture. The U.S. and all countries need to be held accountable for violations against international law or the rule of law is meaningless and outcome-based.
By James Roth