¹ In this paper I focus exclusively on the issue of interrogational torture. However, my argument would also apply to the use of so-called torture lite techniques as forms of punishment.

² Much of what I say about torture lite would apply to these terms as well. One difference, however, is that the distinction between torture and torture lite is generally used to distinguish between kinds of torture, whereas terms like “enhanced interrogation techniques” deny that the interrogation techniques referred to are torture at all.

³ Joseph Lelyveld, “Interrogating Ourselves,” New York Times Magazine, June 12, 2005; available at http:\\www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/magazine/12TORTURE.html; accessed October 22, 2008.

⁴ Mark Bowden, “The Dark Art of Interrogation,” Atlantic Monthly, October 2003; available at http:\\www.theatlantic.com/doc/200310/bowden; accessed October 22, 2008.

⁵ Duncan Campbell, “US Interrogators Turn to ‘Torture Lite, ’” Guardian, January 25, 2003; available at http:\\www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/25/usa.alqaida; accessed October 22, 2008. Some commentators have used the term “torture lite” as a way of criticizing the use of such phrases as “enhanced interrogation.” However, I argue that since the distinction between torture and torture lite is a false distinction, the term “torture lite” should not be used at all in the discourse about torture.

⁶ For the purposes of this paper, I will accept the definition of torture used by the United Nations in the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.” (The full text of the convention is available at http:\\www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html; accessed December 28, 2008.)

⁷ Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 8–11.

⁸ David Luban, “Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb,” Virginia Law Review 91 (2005), p. 1430.

⁹ Luban, “Liberalism,” p. 1425.

¹⁰ A prominent example of the ticking bomb argument can be found in Alan Dershowitz's book Why Terrorism Works(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002). For critiques of the ticking bomb argument, see Jean Maria Arrigo and Vittorio Bufacchi, “Torture, Terrorism and the State: A Refutation of the Ticking-Bomb Argument,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 23 (2006), pp. 339–57; and Jessica Wolfendale, “Training Torturers: A Critique of the ‘Ticking Bomb’ Argument,” Social Theory and Practice 32 (2006), pp. 269–87.

¹¹ The classic dirty hands argument for torture is offered by Michael Walzer, “Political Action: The Problem of ‘Dirty Hands’,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 2 (1973), pp. 60–180.

¹² Luban, “Liberalism,” pp. 1437–38.

¹³ Ibid., p. 1437.

¹⁴ Bowden, “Interrogation.” Unlike Luban, Bowden argues that torture lite methods might be justified in certain cases.

¹⁵ Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib(Melbourne: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 14.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 32.

¹⁷ Luban, “Liberalism,” p. 1430.

¹⁸ Vittorio Bufacchi pointed out to me that supporters of the distinction between torture and torture lite might be implicitly appealing to an understanding of violence as being primarily physical—which would be consistent with the view that torture lite methods are not violent since they do not involve direct physical attacks. However, definitions of violence could include psychological and other nonphysical attacks, and legal definitions of torture, such as the definition used in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and in the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), typically include both physical and psychological suffering in the definition. The Rome Statute defines torture as the “intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused.” (The full text of the statute is available at untreaty.un.org\cod\icc\statute\99_corr\cstatute.htm; accessed December 28, 2008.)

¹⁹ Metin Basoglu, Maria Livanou, and Cvetana Crnobaric, “Torture vs Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment: Is the Distinction Real or Apparent?” Archives of General Psychiatry 64 (2007), p. 284.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 277.

²¹ Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006), p. 45.

²² John Conroy, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), p. 6.

²³ For example, see Stefan Priebe and Michael Bauer, “Inclusion of Psychological Torture in PTSD Criterion A,” American Journal of Psychiatry 152 (1995), pp. 1691–92.

²⁴ Dana Priest, “CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment: Afghan's Death Took Two Years to Come to Light; Agency Says Abuse Claims Are Probed Fully,” Washington Post, March 3, 2005; available at http:\\www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2576-2005Mar2.html; accessed December 20, 2008.

²⁵ For a detailed account of the events leading up to al-Jamadi's death, see Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals(New York: Doubleday, 2008), chap. 10. I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer at Ethics & International Affairs for drawing my attention to these cases.

²⁶ McCoy, A Question of Torture, p. 48. The United States officially authorized only four hours of forced standing at any given time, which would not have such severe effects. However, the United States has used this method in conjunction with other methods (such as sleep deprivation, noise bombardment, and manipulation of heat and cold), a combination that can have devastating effects on the victims.

²⁷ McCoy, A Question of Torture, p. 49. The progress of this research is outlined in detail on pp. 21–59.

²⁸ Quoted in McCoy, A Question of Torture, p. 52. The full text of the KUBARK manual is available from http:\\www.kimsoft.com/2000/kubark.htm.

²⁹ Rejali, Torture and Democracy, p. 2.

³⁰ Ibid., p.3.

³¹ In 2008, Bush continued to deny that torture was being used, instead claiming that the methods (such as waterboarding) used by the CIA and by the military in interrogations of terrorist suspects were forms of “harsh interrogation” (“Bush Vetoes Bill Banning Torture,” CBS News, March 8, 2008; available at http:\\www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/08/national/main3919474.shtml; accessed October 20, 2008).

³² One study found that people become more aggressive if their actions were described in terms of a game than if their actions were described as forms of aggression. (Edward Diener, John Dineen, and Karen Endresen, “Effects of Altered Responsibility, Cognitive Set, and Modeling on Physical Aggression and Deindividuation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31 [1975], pp. 328–37).

³³ David Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society(Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1995), p. 161. See also Daniel Muñoz-Rojas and Jean-Jacques Frésard, The Roots of Behaviour in War: Understanding and Preventing IHL Violations(Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 2004), p. 9.

³⁴ Campbell, “US Interrogators Turn to ‘Torture Lite.’”

³⁵ Conroy, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People, p. 112.

³⁶ Luban, “Liberalism,” p. 1430.

³⁷ Bob Brecher pointed out to me that since the justification for torture in the standard ticking-bomb argument rests partly on the claim that there is no time to pursue other courses of action, it is hard to see how torture lite methods could be justified by this argument since such methods would be ineffective in the short time frame that is a standard feature of the scenario. In which case, we must wonder under what conditions these methods could be justified.

³⁸ Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 180.

³⁹ Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View(New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 34–36. Milgram conducted at least twenty-one versions of the experiment during his research.

⁴⁰ H. A. Tilker, “Socially Responsible Behavior as a Function of Observer Responsibility and Victim Feedback,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 14 (1970), pp. 95–100.

⁴¹ Quoted in Ronald Crelinsten, “In Their Own Words: The World of the Torturer,” in Ronald D. Crelinsten and Alex P. Schmid, eds., The Politics of Pain: Torturers and Their Masters(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993), p. 51.

⁴² For discussions of the training of torturers and their perceptions of their role, see Jessica Wolfendale, Torture and the Military Profession(Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 178–82; Martha Huggins, “Legacies of Authoritarianism: Brazilian Torturers’ and Murderers’ Reformulation of Memory,” Latin American Perspectives 27 (2000), pp. 57–78; and Crelinsten, “In Their Own Words.”

⁴³ Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 29.

⁴⁴ A belief further encouraged by the presence of medical personnel, psychologists, and even lawyers at interrogations. It is also important to note that torture lite methods often do not remain “lite” in practice. In Abu Ghraib, for example, interrogators physically brutalized prisoners as well as using torture lite methods. This suggests that the use of the distinction between torture and torture lite in public discourse on torture encourages the belief that security or military forces using torture lite methods will keep their interrogation practices “lite.” I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer at Ethics & International Affairs for pointing this out.

⁴⁵ McCoy, A Question of Torture, p. 42.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 8.

⁴⁷ Quoted in McCoy, p. 52.

⁴⁸ Scarry, The Body in Pain, p. 48.

⁴⁹ David Sussman, “What's Wrong with Torture?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (2005), p. 4.

⁵⁰ Rejali, Torture and Democracy, p. 30.

⁵¹ John T. Parry, “The Shape of Modern Torture: Extraordinary Rendition and Ghost Detainees,” Melbourne Journal of International Law 6 (2005), pp. 521–22.

⁵² Attempts to prosecute French torturers in Algeria failed partly because of the lack of physical evidence of torture on the victims (Rejali, Torture and Democracy, p. 47).