Admit that torture does not work
To: Keifer Sutherland and Kathryn Bigelow
Admit awareness of the fact that torture does not work in real life. Sign the petition.
Why is this important?
The popularity and acceptability of torture have soared in the United States and around the world. This is not simply
because the United States has tortured. The U.S. government, many of its policies, its wars, and key torture supporters
have not seen similar boosts in popularity.
A major contributor to torture's improved image has been Hollywood, led by two productions that have popularized the
false belief that torture can produce life-saving information. The U.S. Senate report's summary makes clear that torture
has not worked in the real world. In fact, torture has generally not been used to stop an imminent attack, and has been
used in some cases to compel agreement with lies about Iraqi links to al Qaeda -- lies aimed at starting a war.
The fantasy situation in which a torturer knows his victim has life-saving information that cannot be obtained
elsewhere, and that his victim won't lie, and that torture will work better than legal interrogation exists only in
fiction. But belief in it creates acceptance of torture.
Experts agree on this, but people need to hear it from the fictional experts they've heard of for it to seem real to
them. People need to hear Keifer Sutherland, star of "24," and Kathryn Bigelow, director of "Zero Dark Thirty," admit
that torture does not work in real life.
Sutherland and Bigelow don't need to criticize or apologize for their art. They don't need to begin self-censoring. They
just need to admit that they are aware of the facts, that torture did not help find Osama bin Laden, that torture has
not prevented deaths or destruction -- quite the contrary.
U.S. torture has been a recruiting bonanza for anti-U.S. terrorist groups. This fact is trumpted most loudly by
defenders of torture and opponents of releasing reports, photos, or videos of what was done. The open secret that we
need key public figures to acknowledge is that there's no up-side to weigh against the harm done.
On March 1, 2015, the Independent claimed to change everything with this headline: "Revealed: How torture was used to foil al-Qaeda 2010 plot to bomb two
airliners 17 minutes before explosion." The claims in the article are not well documented and quite possibly entirely
false. There is no evidence that questioning without torture wouldn't have worked as well or better than torturing. The
bomb in the story may have been planted in the first place as retaliation for torture. And the serious argument against
torture is not "It's just wrong" but that allowing it creates its widespread use and contributes to other brutal
policies including war that kill and injure countless people driving forward vicious cycles of violence.
Torture creates enemies, causes horrific suffering, and dehumanizes the torturers including those who passively allow
it. A torturer cannot know that someone has lifesaving information and is most likely to reveal it under torture. And
once we pretend that a torturer might know that, we cannot stop the torturers from torturing large numbers of people.
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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.