The torture debate in the U.S. has highlighted a key paradox in American ideology: We value human rights, but we also fear outside threats, enough that we’re willing to put the rights issue aside when we want to wring truth out of a suspected Al Qaeda operative.

But what about the medical side of torture? Search magazine has a fascinating article on how doctors are specializing in torture detection, and researching how torture affects the body and mind. Specifically, writer Jina Moore profiles Rajeev Bais and Lars Beattie, two doctors at the Libertas Human Rights Clinic in Queens who provide medical affidavits for U.S. asylum-seekers who claim they were tortured in their home countries.

These affidavits hold a ton of weight with judges, and play a key role in determining whether or not asylum is granted. The reason is that Bai and Beattie can tell with relative certainty if an applicant is telling the truth about being tortured, first by interviewing and observing him, and then doing a physical exam to look for corroborating evidence—in effect, using the patient’s body to check out his story.

And there’s plenty of evidence to look for, such as scar tissue, ligament or muscle tears, popped ear drums, and poorly-healed bones. Some methods, like burning with cigarettes or brands, leave easily identifiable scars, while others are usually mark-free—falanga, a practice in which victims are beaten on the bottoms of their feet with rods, causes excrutiating pain but leaves little to no permanent damage.

The dichotomy, as Moore notes, is interesting: Rather than the methodology of torture, which is to inflict pain on the body in order to wring truth from the mouth, these investigators use the body to corroborate the victim’s already-told story. As Moore puts it:

Bodies, in other words, can expose a lie. One doctor in Manhattan interviewed a man who claimed the scars above his nipples were the result of torture he suffered in Liberia under Charles Taylor’s regime. But the scars were symmetrical and equidistant, implying a precision which raised the doctor’s suspicion. A Liberian culture organization to which he described the markings told him the scars were more likely evidence of a tribal ritual ceremony.

This mix of psychology and forensic medicine can have gray areas, and Beattie admits he makes plenty of judgment calls:

Beattie never doubted his story, but he did wonder about the moral equivalence of pain: Who’s to say, he wondered, that [a tortured patient] never inflicted brutality on someone else?

“I decided, look, I believe him as a human being. I believe he was victimized there,” Beattie says. “And I believe I’m doing the right thing by writing the affidavit. But you know, I’m sure—” He paused. “Other people might feel otherwise.”

Moral judgments aside, the increased doctor attention on torture has led to a necessary ramp-up in research—as well as investigative reporting. Dr. Steven Miles even searched through 35,000 pages of government documents outlining the role medical personnel played in military interrogations in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, resulting in the book, Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror. Among his most alarming findings was this:

Miles also found more than two hundred military studies, by his count, that concluded the intelligence elicited by torture is usually faulty.

Which leads to a different conversation entirely.

Earlier this year, the American Psychological Association voted (at last) to ban its members from participating in interrogations at U.S. detention centers, including the notorious Guantanamo Bay. This marked a major shift from its previous stance, which permitted work with interrogation (some of which is known in certain circles as “torture”) despite the fact that both the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have banned any affiliation with the practice for years.

So what’s different about psychologists, that it took them this long to decide that participation in torture wasn’t something the field should strive for? Stanley Fish at the New York Times blog “Think Again” offers the following explanation:

One answer can be found in the A.M.A.’s explanation of its prohibition: “Physicians must not conduct, directly participate in, or monitor an interrogation with an intent to intervene, because this undermines the physician’s role as healer.” The American Psychiatric Association is even more explicit: “Psychiatrists . . . owe their primary obligation to the well being of their patients.”

Psychology, on the other hand, is not exclusively a healing profession. To be sure, there are psychologists who provide counseling, therapy and other services to patients; but there are many psychologists who think of themselves as behavioral scientists.

It is their task to figure out how the mind processes and responds to stimuli, or how the emotions color and even create reality, or how reasoning and other cognitive activities are affected by changes in the environment. Their product is not mental health, but knowledge; their skills are not diagnostic, but analytic.

Fair point, though it doesn’t really weigh the fact that ethical considerations govern all scientists, psychologists or no. From the Stanford experiment to the controversy surrounding self-experimentation, scientific discovery has never operated on a separate, removed level from human rights. Certain behaviors—such as torture—could very well provide valuable data for psychologists, and maybe even lead to breakthroughs in the field. But do the potential benefits outweigh the ethical landmines of participation (at least through silent concession) in human rights violations? Put another way: Do we really have to condone torture to learn about the human psyche?

Related:
RB: American Political System Prevents Tyranny But May Prolong Use of Torture
RB: And Now for Something Seriously Sick: Torture Game Mocks Real-Life Misery

MSNBC reports that the game “presents players with a low-res gaming experience that uses material culled from [the shooters] Eric Harris’s and Dylan Klebold’s own words, media reports and police documents.” Players are placed in the roles of the shooters and allowed to relive their last two days. No surprise, it’s sparked considerable uproar since its launch, so much so that the creator, 26-year-old Danny Ledonne, made a documentary about the aftermath.

Granted, while the Columbine game may be one of the most politically and emotionally charged, plenty of other games allow players to reenact national and international tragedies, from the JFK assassination to “September 12th,” which lets players send missiles into an Afghan Village. (For a list of these and other controversial games, go here.)

So are games that tackle violent and dangerous subjects merely using technology to exploit national tragedies, and possibly even do more harm? Or are they important sociological art pieces that can educate players about issues like war and murder? Both sides have their vigorous supporters, and there’s no one answer—though one thing science has shown is that there’s no proven link between playing violent video games and committing real-life acts of violence.

But regardless of personal feelings on the matter, what is troublesome is the suggestion, from MSNBC.com commenters and beyond, that we censor these games or, even worse, monitor their use in order to “sniff out” players who might be “dangerous.” Violent, provocative, and arguably exploitative art and entertainment had carved a space in our cultural landscape long before video games hit the scene. Plus, given the government’s track record as far as using surveillance technology, video game monitoring has the potential to do far more harm than good.

Image: Flickr/caribb

The reason, Moore explains, is that a multi-faceted system of government makes it inherently more difficult to effect change:

“Checks on executive authorities are viewed as a positive attribute of liberal democracies,” Moore said. “Unfortunately, they are also associated with the continuation of the status quo. So this liberal democratic institution that at first pass one might expect to be positively associated with the termination of the use of torture is actually a hurdle to be overcome.”

After analyzing nine years of data from the CIRI Human Rights Database, which is based on Amnesty International and U.S. State Department reports, Moore found that other “traditionally democratic” aspects of government such as universal suffrage and a right to free speech increased a country’s chances of terminating the use of torture. They also found that 78 percent of the world’s governments used torture at least once during the last 25 years of the 20th century, and those who used it in a given year had a 93 percent chance of using it the next year.

In the U.S., the debate over what exactly constitutes torture persists, and pro-torture advocates are continually buttressed by the ends-justifies-the-means argument for promoting national security. But somewhat astonishingly, the question that still hasn’t been definitively answered, either by science, military officials, or governments using the practice is: Does it really work?