Numbers

Given that most of us agree that one incident of torture is already one too many, what is it about the introduction of raw data to the narrative of the past eight years that adds such additional grotesquery to the already contemptible behaviour of the Bush administration? (See emptywheel’s notes on the 183 instances of waterboarding on Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 83 instances on Abu Zubaydah.)

The difference between an indeterminate number of waterboardings and 183 times, or 266 times, is palpable and profound. In the first world, we know something bad might have happened, we even know we may be indirectly implicated in it, and we struggle with this. But we are free to conjure our own vision of that bad event in our own way. Perhaps we imagine things that don’t make us too uncomfortable, or we fill in the gaps from images presented to us elsewhere. Since we don’t have a name for the CIA agent who was in charge, we put Jack Bauer in the cell with KSM instead, and he threatens his captive for a couple of minutes, shows him how grim his fury is with some steely stares and B-grade dialogue, and this hardened terrorist cracks just in time for the ad break. Fuzziness in the factual background of an event allows us rely on our imagination, which is often spoilt by the garbage we watch and read and listen to. The torture becomes something less than torture: it becomes an unpleasant act taken for necessary purposes against an obscure and opaque bad guy in a darkened room in a country we can’t find on a map by some people we don’t know or really care about ... even if they are Americans.

The biggest trick played by the supporters of the Bush administration’s policy was to shift the debate over torture from the act itself to the effectiveness of the act, since this allowed us not to deal with the reality of the act being committed and instead just think about the consequences of action versus inaction at an abstract level, as if it wasn't already going on. This left us weighing up an imaginary instance of violence perpetrated by our side against an idea, a promise, of a safer nation. Two unknowns, two possibilities, balanced against each other, and our prejudices and fears free to determine which side we take. But the real equation was never an abstract, half of it was already happening. The equation was torture taking place in our name, balanced against the possibility of a safer future: a crime justified by a hope.

So…

183 cases of waterboarding is not Jack Bauer. An indeterminate number of waterboardings allows enough room for Jack Bauer to sneak in through the side door, but once it becomes 183 the fiction of our fiction becomes clear.

183 cases of waterboarding is repeated psychological and physical torture, torture of a single individual, time and again, day after day, whether they provide useful information that day or not, with no prospect of it ending, with the possibility of death perhaps coming to seem like the only release. It is the sort of morally unconscionable act that can only be committed by sane people in the name of a higher power, a higher power which distracts us from the blood and pain of the real world.

183 cases of waterboarding is weeks and months of fear and trembling.

As emptywheel notes, the repetition may suggest that waterboarding was ineffective. But if you continue to argue the toss, this remains perfectly debatable: all the CIA agents involved need to say is that they got lots of good information from KSM or Zubaydah and the debate continues.

183 makes it a tangible event. We find ourselves with information which has not been mediated by our experience of fiction. We can start to build up a real picture of what was taking place in our name.

And that’s why 183 real incidents of torture matter a great deal more than one unconscionable idea.

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