This is an excerpt from Critical Terrorism Studies: A Dictionary by Lee Jarvis and Alice Martini. Available in all good book stores, and via free download from E-International Relations.
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Torture
The UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as ‘any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person’ for reasons such as obtaining information, intimidation, or punishment by a figure with official capacity of some sort. Torture became very prominent in the war on terror following revelations that the United States and its allies were exacting suffering on prisoners suspected of terrorism in sites around the world. Torture is prohibited under various international treaties, and widely condemned as a violation of human rights.
Given its prohibition, an obvious question to ask is: why do states and their employees continue to torture prisoners? Ruth Blakeley (2007b) identifies three different ways this question is answered. First, some states may use torture in order to increase their security from the threat posed by terrorists and others. Important information about planned attacks, for instance, might be extracted through force. Second, some states may use torture to create fear in the public or to deter or punish opponents in order to shore up their own political stability. Third, states might also use torture under certain, restrictive, circumstances in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of the state and the illegitimacy of its enemies. That is, acting in certain ways that seem to create the right to torture only in very exceptional circumstances makes it appear as though proper procedures, safeguards, and limits are in place to prevent it being used illegitimately.
As many scholars including Blakeley (2007b) have shown, there are major problems with arguments like these. In the first instance, torture is a notoriously ineffective tool for achieving anything of value to the torturer. Prisoners who are subject to violence are likely to speak or act however they believe will end their suffering or pain, irrespective of the truth. Intelligence agencies themselves are ambiguous on its utility, as indeed are the historical examples that get cited by those who would defend its use (Bellamy 2006: 138–139). Second, torture is also morally repugnant to the extent that a rejection of torture is as close to a universal ethical principle as we have in the world today. Torture represents a violation of human rights and undermines principles of non-combatant immunity by causing psychological and bodily harm to captured persons. Torture can also do psychological harm to those who conduct it – who may themselves be acting out of fear of others – including through the trauma that inflicting violence on others can cause.
Beyond normative work on torture’s ethics and effectiveness, critical research has also explored some of the ways in which torture is normalised through popular culture and beyond (e.g. Brereton and Culloty 2012). Other work in this area explores the critical potential of cultural artefacts such as films in bringing subjects like torture into the public domain and forcing acknowledgement of the harms it may cause (e.g. Ives-Allison 2014).
Abu Ghraib
The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was the site of a notorious scandal involving the systematic abuse and torture of detainees by US military personnel during the early 2000s. Revealed in 2004 through leaked photographs – many of which were published in the mainstream news media – the abuses included physical violence and sexual degradation. The scandal highlighted the extent to which the post-9/11 war on terror was responsible for severe violations of international law and the human rights of people around the world. In so doing, it became a symbol of broader failures within the US war on terror, exposing how the dehumanisation of perceived enemies and the normalisation of torture practices were justified and legitimised through counterterrorism discourses (Jackson et al 2011, 81–83; Jackson 2005).
Abu Ghraib serves as a stark reminder of powerful asymmetries in how acts of violence are defined and judged, raising questions about state accountability and the complicity of (global) power structures in perpetuating systemic violence under the guise of counterterrorism. Torture, as we now know, has been commonplace throughout the war on terror, not only in Abu Ghraib but in other sites including Guantanamo Bay (see Bellamy 2006). The efficacy and legitimacy of torture, troublingly, were also widely discussed in academic and other literature, with high-profile public intellectuals exploring the conditions under which torture might be used and perhaps justified (Dershowitz 2003, 277–279). If we contrast this with the blanket condemnation received by acts of non-state terrorism, we get a clear sense of the different ways in which violences are judged and condemned because of the nature of their protagonists, a reflection that is central to work within critical terrorism studies on the issue of state terrorism.
The scandal also contributed to critical work exploring how torture became seen as possible and perhaps even necessary and legitimate in the climate of the post-9/11 war on terror (Jackson 2007b). Images of the abuse, moreover, led to critical scholarship to reflect on how visualisations help make world politics meaningful. The photograph of a hooded prisoner standing on top of a box with outstretched arms, in particular, became iconic of the abuse and was reproduced in multiple ways and places for different purposes. Although it is difficult to trace the direct causal impact of images such as these, Lene Hansen (2015) argues that the ‘hooded man’s’ prominence contributed to criticism of the US-led war on terror, including through evoking historical violences such as the lynching of people of colour.
Critical scholarship has also analysed these torture practices through the prism of gender and sexuality, detailing, for example, how sexualisation served to humiliate and degrade (in many cases, Arab or Muslim) prisoners at Abu Ghraib and beyond. This is important because it helps to highlight different kinds of counterterrorist violence, including those that might be less visible or camouflaged (Jackson et al 2011, 81–83). Work on Abu Ghraib and gender has also highlighted the special attention given to Lynndie England – one of the female guards at the prison who was subsequently convicted for her participation in the scandal. Sjoberg and Gentry (2007, 67–70) document the sensationalist coverage of her involvement, and the demeaning and sexualised way in which her background and actions were described in the media.
Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay came to prominence in the post-9/11 war on terror as the site of the notorious Camp X-Ray – a US facility for the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists. The facility is housed on the island of Cuba under a long-term lease agreement with the United States. This is important because it meant that detainees were not afforded the protections typical of the United States judicial system, such as the right to a trial. Almost 800 prisoners have been detained on Guantanamo Bay since the 9/11 attacks, thirty of which were still there in 2024 (New York Times 2024).
Former US Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden both pledged to close down the facility, but were unable to do so for political reasons including Congress’ refusal to allow the transfer of inmates to the United States, and because of the challenge of offering detainees any form of fair trial given their experiences of physical and other forms of abuse. Critical scholarship on Guantanamo Bay – or ‘Gitmo’ as it is often known – is deeply hostile to the human rights abuses experienced by detainees including the use of torture to extract intelligence information. Beyond the physical suffering inflicted on prisoners and the denial of trials to evaluate their guilt, this treatment included desecrations of the Qu’ran – Islam’s holy book (Qureshi 2009).
Ticking time bomb scenario
The ticking time bomb scenario is a hypothetical construct designed to explore the morality or otherwise of torture. In the context of terrorism, it imagines a scenario where a terrorist suspect who is believed to have knowledge of an impending, and potentially catastrophic, attack has been detained for interrogation by security officials such as the police or intelligence agencies. In order to prevent the attack, and confronted with a recalcitrant suspect, the scenario asks whether it would be legitimate to cause harm to the suspect – through the use of torture – in order to gather the information necessary to stop the bomb from going off. In posing the question this way, the scenario asks us to evaluate our willingness to bring psychological and physical violence against some individuals in order to produce desirable future outcomes for others. Do we, for instance, judge the morality of our actions by the nature of the actions themselves, in which case we might think of torture as inherently wrong? Or, do we judge the morality of our actions by the consequences they have – for instance through saving lives that might otherwise have been harmed?
The drama of the ticking time scenario makes it an engaging feature of film and television depictions of counterterrorist professionals. It is also sometimes invoked explicitly by political leaders, such as by George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and in media coverage of terrorism (Hannah 2006). Away from political and fictional representations, however, there are very few documented examples of such scenarios in ‘real life’, which brings into question its value as a hypothetical construct for exploring questions such as those above. For it to be applied to real-world scenarios, particular conditions would need to be met that are unlikely or unrealistic such as the certainty that a detained suspect has the information required to prevent an attack. On top of this, the scenario also brings about the danger of introducing a ‘slippery slope’ in which legitimising torture under some circumstances – or debating torture’s legitimacy in some circumstances – risks normalising its use in less exacting scenarios (Bellamy 2006, 145–147). Arguments against the ticking time bomb scenario, in this sense, speak to wider arguments against the legitimacy and effectiveness of torture more broadly.
Further Reading
Bellamy, Alex J. 2006. “No Pain, No Gain? Torture and Ethics in the War on Terror”. International Affairs 82 (1): 121–148.
Blakeley, Ruth. 2007. “Why Torture?” Review of International Studies 33 (3): 373–394.
Brereton, Pat, and Eileen Culloty. 2012. “Post-9/11 Counterterrorism in Popular Culture: The Spectacle and Reception of The Bourne Ultimatum and 24”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 5 (3): 483–497.
Hannah, Matthew. 2006. “Torture and the Ticking Bomb: The War on Terrorism as a Geographical Imagination of Power/Knowledge”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96 (3): 622–640.
Hansen, Lene. 2015. “How Images Make World Politics: International Icons and the Case of Abu Ghraib”. Review of International Studies 41 (2): 263–88.
Jackson, Richard. 2007. “Language, Policy and the Construction of a Torture Culture in the War on Terrorism”. Review of International Studies 33 (3): 353– 71.
Kassimeris, George. 2008. “Torture and Terrorism: An Interview with Moazzam Begg”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 1 (3): 405–418.
Kearns, Erin. M. and Joseph Young, J. K. 2020. Tortured Logic: Why Some Americans Support the Use of Torture in Counterterrorism, New York: Columbia University Press.
Lee Jarvis is a Professor of Security and Society at Adelaide University, and holds honorary professorships at the Loughborough University and the University of East Anglia. He is author or editor of 17 books and over 60 articles on the politics of terrorism and security. He is co-editor of Critical Studies on Terrorism, and his research has been funded by the ESRC, the AHRC, the Australian Research Council and NATO among others.
Alice Martini is a Lecturer of International Relations at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and holds an honorary professorship at the Queen Mary, University of London. She is the author of The UN and Counter- Terrorism: Global Hegemonies, Power, and Identities (Routledge 2021), and co-editor of Encountering Extremism: Theoretical Issues and Local Challenges (Manchester University Press 2020) and Contemporary Reflections on Critical Terrorism Studies (Routledge 2023). Her work has been published in journals including Security Dialogue and Third World Quarterly.