Index: Consequences

The laws of nature operate with indifference to our opinions and preferences. Like billiard-balls on a table, all actions have consequences, whether we think they are fair or not, whether we want to believe in them or not. So when we choose a course of action, we must do so with our eyes wide open. Ignorance might protect us from moral accountability, but nature always collects its debts.

These are the consequences of torture.

Receiving false confessions and poor intelligence:

• 03-2005: Pentagon censors embarrassing information: that torture ineffectual
• 09-2004: Evidence against prisoners at GTMO obtained by torturing other prisoners
• 02-2003: Powell's presentation to the UN
• 09-2002: GTMO detainee: Fabricates evidence to avoid torture
• 04-2002: Benyam Mohammed renditioned, tortured
• 03-2002: Incident: Kiyemba
• 12-2001: Incident: Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi gives bad intelligence
• 11-2001: Tipton Three detained

Providing justification for violent retaliation against one's self:

• 02-2006: Grievances fuelling insurgency
• 02-2006: Torture strengthens insurgency
• 02-2006: Creating terrorists
• 01-2006: German hostages in orange overalls
• 11-2005: Hamra bombing retaliation against Interior Ministry torture
• 01-2006: Osama tape mentions US torture
• 01-2006: Suicide bombing of Interior Ministry retaliation for torture
• 01-2006: Carroll killed unless female Iraqi prisoners released
• 12-2005: US detentions fuelling terrorism in Iraq
• 12-2005: CPT hostages killed unless detainees freed
• 12-2005: Schulz taken hostage, murdered for detainees and compensation
• 12-2005: Saddam's defence uses comparison to US Abu Ghraib abuses as rhetorical device
• 09-2005: London bomber says invasion, torture motivated him
• 05-2005: Rioting in Afghanistan after Quran desecration in GTMO
• 04-2005: Abu Ghraib prison attacked
• 09-2004: Hostages, release of women from prisons demanded
• 05-2004: Nick Berg Video - orange jumpsuit
• 05-2004: Media: Abu Ghraib prisoner tells story, joins militants
• 12-2003: Letter from Noor

Brutalising one's own soldiers and one's self:

• 12-2005: Marine tells of US torturing Afghans, commits murder-suicide
• 12-2005: Troops don't want to be made into torturers
• 11-2005: CIA vets warn of psychological consequences to torturers
• 11-2005: Psychology of US torturers at Bagram
• See also Public Support Index

Undermining one's own professed objectives, proving one's own hypocrisy, and humiliating one's self:

• 04-2006: Stolen US military flash drives includes torture photographs
• 02-2006: Iran's Minister of Defence scores rhetorical points against US
• 11-2005: Allawi: "same as Saddam's time"
• 06-2005: Incident: American contractor abused by Marines in Iraq
• 11-2002: Habibullah's defiance
• 11-2001: Tipton three: "fuck you"
• See also The "new" Iraq Index