News Highlights

Wartime torture doesnt achieve goals, speakers say

2006-04-09

By Tom Lawrence, Free Press Regional Reporter [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN]

NORTH MANKATO — Both men were named Jim, and both had the same position on torture during war - it's far too common, it's inhuman and, even worse, it doesn't work.

Fifth Judicial District Chief Public Defender Jim Fleming and Minnesota State University speech communications instructor Jim Dimock were the speakers at Thursday night's North Mankato Community Forum. They agreed that historically and during the current American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture is an ineffective way of securing information.

"We couldn't find anybody in favor of torture," moderator Ann Christenson said at the outset.

Instead, it was a contrast in styles, as Dimock, the teacher, offered a lecture on the language of war and violence, using lofty terms, biting humor and information taken from news reports and human rights studies.

Fleming, the lawyer, presented his case as if he was in a courtroom, pacing the front of the room and gesturing as he strove to convince the audience of his points.

Dimock said people's initial reaction to reports of prisoner abuse is to accept it. "What we see when we look at those photos is a kind of frat boy prank gone wrong," he said. "The fact of the matter is, as a public, we're not interested in talking about it."

He said aside from the Abu Ghraib prison photos that shocked the world, other reports of the dozens of Iraqis and Afghanis who have died in American custody and atrocities at other prisons and military installations haven't made the front page of most newspapers or the lead of TV news.

The bigger point is that we shouldn't be surprised that soldiers trained to go to war and destroy the enemy are doing so. "What if it's not a break from the norm," Dimock said. "What if it is the norm?"

Fleming said what's particularly puzzling is why the military employs terror, since it doesn't seem to work. People being tortured will give information to stop the pain, he said.

"There is no study generated by the military that indicates torture produces good information," Fleming said. "They're not connected."

As an example, he described a case in North Dakota in the 1930s, when a man was arrested and accused of raping a young girl. One of his arms was tied to a tree and the other to a truck.

He was told he would be torn apart if he didn't start talking. Unsurprisingly, he confessed and the judge allowed it to be used in the trial and he was found guilty. The state Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.

That's an extreme example, Fleming said, but it shows the extremes people will go to if they want information.

"War is a brutal proposition," he said. "Life is a brutal proposition."

Both men and most members of the audience agreed the soldiers performing the torture during the American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan shouldn't be blamed. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials are the ones ordering such activity, they felt.

Rich O'Brien of North Mankato, a retired educator who served in the military, said he found it laughable to suggest that officers and senior administrative figures were not informed of what was happening. "It's incredible," he said. "You mean all this was going on and no officer knew it was going on. Come on."

Bruce Birkemeyer of Mankato had a different take. A retired teacher, Birkemeyer said during his 37 years in education he observed that A and B students didn't enter the military or go into police work. Instead, it was D students, most of them schoolyard bullies, who wanted to perform tasks that allowed them to continue to push people around.

"It's those types of personalities, the mindset," he said.

Edwin Forst, who served two-and-a-half years in action during World War II and observed interrogations then, said he differed with that view. Forst, who said he attended Killer College at Fort Hood and learned a variety of fatal methods, said soldiers become desensitized to death and pain.

That's exactly the point, Dimock and Fleming said in another point of agreement.

"War, when you release your military, the point is to kill your enemy," Fleming said. "This is war and we don't like it."

Email this article | Permanent link | Topstories news | Topstories news archives