Why the 'ticking time bomb
scenario' fails as a justification for torture.
Torture and the Fallacy of the 'Ticking Time Bomb' (Le Monde, France)
"On the
screen, a clock counts down. Whether in French Algeria or Bush's America, the purpose
of this fiction is always the same: to establish not only that torture would be
'acceptable,' but also that it would be morally 'required.' … Anti-terrorism
and information professionals, FBI and CIA interrogators and even the
scriptwriters of the TV show 24 recognized
in the 2000s that it is 'a situation that never occurs.' … Having only 'an hour
or two,' interrogators can use other more effective methods."
Reacting to the American report on interrogation methods
used by the CIA in its fight against terrorism, Marine Le Pen (leader of the
right-wing National Front Party) said she "does
not condemn" the use of torture. "There can be cases, let me tell
you, when a bomb - tick, tock, tick, tock tick - will explode in an hour or two
and incidentally, could have 200-300 civilian victims, where it is useful to get
someone to talk." (BFM-TV - RMC TV, Wednesday,
December 10).
Understanding that her spontaneous outburst could harm the air
of normalcy maintained by the National Front, Le
Pen immediately denied having defended torture. Each person will have to judge
the truth of her statement, which happens to be reminiscent of the position of
her father (previous National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen) in
justifying torture in 1957 Algeria: "We tortured because we had to. When someone
is brought to you who has just placed 20 bombs that could explode from one moment
to the next and he doesn't want to talk, one must use exceptional means to
force him to," (Combat,
November 9, 1962)
This familiar argument is a well-known scenario called the "ticking time
bomb." Before being popularized by the TV series 24,
it had already figured in The
Centurions by Jean Lartéguy (Presses de la Cité, 1960), a French novel about the Algerian war that so
inspired the U.S. Army that General Petraeus
personally encouraged its republication in January 2011. In a scene from its
film adaptation (Lost
Command, 1966), Lieutenant-Colonel Raspeguy
holds a rebel leader who knows where in Algiers there are
fifteen bombs programmed to explode over the next 24 hours. On the screen, a
clock counts down. Whether in French Algeria or Bush's America, the purpose of
this fiction is always the same: to establish not only that torture would be "acceptable,"
but also that it would be morally "required."
Ethical debate
This is a stimulating thought experiment that allows
philosophers to take a stand in the ethical debate on the use of torture: professional
ethicists for whom an action is moral if it conforms to a universal rule are
absolutely opposed; whereas consequentialists, for
whom an action is moral if it produces good results for the people involved,
can be persuaded if they think sacrificing someone will effectively
allow thousands to be saved. It is a complex debate that gives rise to an
abundant amount of literature.
The problem is that the hypothetical question on which it
rests, the ticking time bomb scenario, is biased both in the consequential
sense (by the extreme cost of refusing to use torture if the bomb is nuclear)
and above all is unrealistic. Counter-terrorism and information professionals, FBI
and CIA interrogators and even the scriptwriters of 24 recognized in the 2000s that it is "a situation that never
occurs." On December 9 in Washington, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman
of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, confirmed in presenting
the report that "the Committee has never found a single example of this hypothetical
scenario."
In reality the threat is vague: one doesn't know if a bomb "will
explode in an hour or two." As witnessed in a CIA memo from August 6, 2001, the Americans knew that an al-Qaeda attack was
likely, but they didn't know exactly when or where.
Fallacious argument
Having only "an hour or two," interrogators can
use other more effective methods. If Marine Le Pen had only read the first
twenty conclusions of the report, she would have known that the torture used by
the CIA was "not an effective means of obtaining information or the cooperation
of detainees." Neither did it contribute to finding bin Laden.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
To reinforce her image as a straight-talking realist, Le Pen
caricatures opponents of torture as naïve idealists - ethicists with principles inapplicable to the real world - who go "on TV to say "Ou la la! It's wrong." Le Pen and anyone
else sensitive to this fallacious argument should be reminded that there is a
realistic and consequentialist reason for opposing torture: it is counterproductive.
Not only is it unreliable - torture is the surest way to "absolve
the most robust villain and condemn the weakest and most pusillanimous innocent,"
as was already said in 1764 by Beccaria
(Italian criminologist), but it also considerably harms the image of the
country using it. When known - as in Abu Ghraib or
Guantanamo Bay - it has the perverse effect of encouraging terrorism and
maintaining hatred of America. It equally harms relations with allies, who may
be more reticent to share information and detainees. In the end, this policy
makes the state less effective at combating terrorism.
*Jean-BaptisteJeangèneVilmer, a philosopher,
political scientist and lawyer, is a specialist in ethics and the laws of war,
and a professor at Sciences Po, Paris
