Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-08T19:14:52.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Torturing science

Science, interrogational torture, and public policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2019

Shane O’Mara  and
John Schiemann
Shane O’Mara
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
John Schiemann
Affiliation:
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Get access

Abstract

Contrary to the claims of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that its torture program was scientific, the program was not based on biology or any other science. Instead, the George W. Bush administration veneered the program’s justification with a patina of pseudoscience, ignoring the actual biology of torturing human brains. We reconstruct the Bush administration’s decision-making process to establish that the policy decision to use torture took place in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks without any investigation into its efficacy. We then present the pseudoscientific model of torture sold to the CIA, show why this ad hoc model amounted to pseudoscience, and then catalog what the actual science of torturing human brains—available in 2001—reveals about the practice. We conclude with a discussion of how a process incorporating countervailing evidence might prevent a policy going forward that is contrary to law, ethics, and evidence.

Keywords

tortureinterrogationneurosciencescienceCIA
Type
Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Fall 2019 , pp. 180 - 192
Copyright
© Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Mitchell, J. E. and Harlow, B., Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America (New York: Crown, 2016), p. 46.Google Scholar
, Mitchell and , Harlow, p. 56; see also pp. 153–155, 157–158, 235–236.Google Scholar
O’Mara, S. M., “Interrogating the brain: Torture and the neuroscience of humane interrogation,” in Interrogation and Torture: Research on Efficacy and Its Integration with Morality and Legality, Barela, S. J., Fallon, M., Gaggioli, G., and Ohlin, J. D., eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).Google Scholar
Soufan, A. H., with Freedman, D., The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War against al-Qaeda (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 395.Google Scholar
Bloche, M. G., “Toward a science of torture?,” Texas Law Review, 2017, 95: 1329–1355, at pp. 1331–1337.Google Scholar
Schiemann, J. W. and Pérez-Sales, P., “Torturing without a parachute: On the science of torture’s effectiveness (response),” Texas Law Review Online, 2018, 96: 144–155.Google Scholar
United Nations Convention Against Torture, https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cat.aspx.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, Findings and Conclusions, Executive Summary,” 2014, p. 38, https://web.archive.org/web/20141209165504, accessed October 5, 2019. Page numbers refer to the pages in PDF of the original release of the combined Findings and Executive Summary, rather than the page numbers of the originally separated documents.Google Scholar
McCoy, A. W., A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Henry Holt, 2006).Google Scholar
Otterman, M., American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2007).Google Scholar
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1963), http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm#kubark, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
McCoy, A. W., Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), p. 21.Google Scholar
KUBARK, pp. 41, 90–93.Google Scholar
Robin, M.-M., Escadrons de la mort: L’école française (Paris: Idéale Audience and Canal+, 2003), 18: 01–23: 41, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IaA8rTeQRY, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
KUBARK, pp. 90, 93–94.Google Scholar
FM 34-52: Intelligence Interrogation (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Army, 1992).Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 16.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, “Investigation into the Office of Legal Counsel’s memoranda concerning issues relating to the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on suspected terrorists,” July 29, 2009, pp. 30–31, https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=28555, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 16.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 16.Google Scholar
“Text: Vice President Cheney on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’” Washington Post, September 16, 2001.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 16.Google Scholar
Mayer, J., The Dark Side (New York: Doubleday, 2008), pp. 42–43.Google Scholar
Woodward, B., Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster 2002), p. 76.Google Scholar
Bloche, M. G., The Hippocratic Myth: Why Doctors Are under Pressure to Ration Care, Practice Politics, and Compromise their Promise to Heal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011), pp. 136, 135.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, pp. 45–46.Google Scholar
“Manchester manual,” https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2002/10/08/manualpart1_1.pdf, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
Eichenwald, K., 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), pp. 545–552, 551.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 47n57.Google Scholar
Warrick, J., and Finn, P., “Interviews offer look at roles of CIA contractors during interrogations,” Washington Post, July 19, 2009.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 47n57.Google Scholar
, Bloche, 2011, p. 139.Google Scholar
, Bloche, 2011, pp. 140–141.Google Scholar
Cole, D., ed., Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable (New York: New Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Schiemann, J. W., Does Torture Work? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 3.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190262365.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lightcap, T. and Pfiffner, J. P., Examining Torture: Empirical Studies of State Repression (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 4.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 46.Google Scholar
Bunge, M., Treatise on Basic Philosophy, vol. 6, Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World (Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 1983), p. 203.10.1007/978-94-015-6921-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunge, , pp. 202–203, 223–225.Google Scholar
Bloche, , 2011, pp. 128–131.Google Scholar
Mayer, , p. 164.Google Scholar
Bloche, , 2011, pp. 140–141.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 47n58.Google Scholar
Bloche, , 2011, pp. 1334, 1340, 1349.Google Scholar
Farber, I. E., Harlow, H. F., and West, L. J., “Brainwashing, conditioning, and DDD (debility, dependency, and dread),” Sociometry, 1957, 20(4): 271–285.10.2307/2785980CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KUBARK, pp. 83, 112–113.Google Scholar
Biderman, A. D., “Communist attempts to elicit false confessions from air force prisoners of war,” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 1957, 33(9): 616–625, at pp. 625, 628.Google ScholarPubMed
Biderman, A. D., “Social-psychological needs and “involuntary” behavior as illustrated by compliance in interrogation,” Sociometry, 1960, 23(2): 120–147, at p. 126.10.2307/2785678CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biderman, , 1957, p. 618.Google Scholar
Biderman, , 1957, p. 618.Google Scholar
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2009).Google Scholar
Otte, C.et al., “Major depressive disorder,” Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 2016, 2: 16065.10.1038/nrdp.2016.65CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bortolato, B., Carvalho, A. F., and McIntyre, R. S., “Cognitive dysfunction in major depressive disorder: a state-of-the-art clinical review,” CNS Neurological Disorders and Drug Targets, 2014, 13(10): 1804–1818.10.2174/1871527313666141130203823CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farber, Harlow, and , West, pp. 275–276.Google Scholar
Salim, Suleiman Abdullah, Soud, Mohamed Ahmed Ben, Obaid Ullah (as personal representative of Gul Rahman), v. James Elmer Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, Complaint, Civil Action No. 2:15-CV-286-JLQ, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, October 13, 2015, p. 77, https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/salim-v-mitchell-complaint, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
Vrij, A., Meissner, C. A., Fisher, R. P., Kassin, S. M., Morgan, C. A. III, and Kleinman, S. M., “Psychological perspectives on interrogation,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2017, 12(6): 927–955, at pp. 939–941.10.1177/1745691617706515CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, Mitchell and , Harlow, p. 58.Google Scholar
Vrij, A. A., Detecting Lies and Deceit: Pitfalls and Opportunities (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008).Google Scholar
Hoffman, D. H., Carter, D. J., Lopez, C. R. V., Benziller, H. L., Guo, A. X., Latifi, S. Y., and Craig, D. C., “Report to the Special Committee of the board of directors of the American Psychological Association: Independent review relating to APA ethics guidelines, national security interrogations, and torture,” July 2, 2015, pp. 167–169, https://psychcentral.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/APA-FINAL-Report-7.2.15.pdf, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
, Schiemann, pp. 241–242.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, pp. 459–460.Google Scholar
O’Mara, S. M., “On the imposition of extreme stressor states (torture) to facilitate the release of information from memory: A baleful consequence of folk cognitive neurobiology,” Zeitschrift für Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 2011, 219: 159–167.10.1027/2151-2604/a000063CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Mara, S. M., “Torturing the brain: On the folk psychology and folk neurobiology motivating ‘enhanced and coercive interrogation techniques,’” Trends in Cognitive Science, 2009, 13: 497–500.10.1016/j.tics.2009.09.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Bloche, 2011, p. 140.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 9.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, pp. 9–10, 103, 459.Google Scholar
, Schiemann, pp. 237–238.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, pp. 9, 25.Google Scholar
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, p. 99.Google Scholar
Lea, H. C. and Peters, E., Torture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973).10.9783/9781512803587CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, E., Torture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Langbein, J. H., Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancien Regime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Rejali, D. M., Torture and Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Mialon, H. M., Mialon, S. H., and Stinchcombe, M. B., “Torture in counterterrorism: Agency incentives and slippery slopes,” Journal of Public Economics, 2012, 96: 33–4110.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.07.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baliga, S. and Ely, J. C., “Torture and the commitment problem,” Review of Economic Studies, 2016, 83(4): 1406–1439.10.1093/restud/rdv057CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Mara, S. M., Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).10.4159/9780674915510CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aggleton, J. P., O’Mara, S. M., Vann, S. D., Tsanov, M., Wright, N., and Erichsen, J., “Reciprocal hippocampal-anterior thalamic pathways for memory: A network of direct and indirect actions,” European Journal of Neuroscience, 2010, 12: 2292–2307.10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07251.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roozendaal, B., McEwen, B., and Chattarji, S., “Stress, memory and the amygdala,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2009, 10(6): 423–433.10.1038/nrn2651CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Mara, S. M., “The captive brain: Torture and the neuroscience of humane interrogation,” QJM: Monthly Journal of the Association of Physicians, 2018, 111(2): 73–78.10.1093/qjmed/hcx252CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bull, R., ed., Investigative Interviewing (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2014).10.1007/978-1-4614-9642-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasting, M., The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas, 1939–45 (London: William Collins, 2015).Google Scholar
Meissner, C., Kelly, C., and Woestehoff, S., “Improving the effectiveness of suspect interrogations,” Annual Review of the Law and Social Science, 2015, 11(1): 211–233.10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-120814-121657CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alison, L. and Alison, E., “Revenge versus rapport: Interrogation, terrorism, and torture,” American Psychologist, 2017, 72(3): 266–277.10.1037/amp0000064CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Méndez, J. E., “Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” UN Document A/71/298, 2016, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/839995?ln=en, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
Boal, M., Zero Dark Thirty: An Original Screenplay (Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Corporation, 2011), p. 6, http://flash.sonypictures.com/shared/movies/zerodarkthirty/zdt_script.pdf, accessed September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
, O’Mara, 2015, p. 98.Google Scholar
Zelikow, P., “Codes of conduct for a twilight war,” Houston Law Review, 2012, 49: 1–52.Google Scholar