The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

known by the misnomer 'torture-light'), states could continue to torture while preventing the scars that
acted as evidence of state criminality. Rejali (2008) makes an argument that is in many ways
analogous to Fearon's (1994) notion of audience costs: where the state has some reason to fear the
reaction of some audience (national or international), clean torture offers the state the benefits of
discrete coercion. These techniques (both new and old) should be quite familiar to the reader with a
passing acquaintance of recent history. They include sleep deprivation, forced standing, near-drowning
(also known as 'water boarding'), the falaka (beating on the soles of the feet), and above all electricity
(whether by magneto, TASER, or cattle prod).
While these clean techniques were first adopted on a systematic scale by democracies, the
creation of an international human rights regime in the 1970s led many (and currently, the vast
majority) of autocratic states to cashier the older, scarring methods in favor of torture that leaves no
marks. (Ron, 1997). Similarly, we can see a clear pattern regarding the decision to use scarring versus
non-scarring torture: where audience costs are higher (inside of democratic polities, areas closely
observed by international human rights monitors, against social elites and ethnic majorities) the use of
clean techniques prevails; where the audience costs are lower (in colonial situations, areas close to war-
zones, when the targets are despised social or ethnic minorities) scarring techniques become more
likely. An interesting example of this process is identified by Ron (2000), who compares the use of
state violence by Israel in the West Bank and in occupied Lebanon. In Lebanon, where the Israeli
military had strong controls on the media, the recourse to killing and maiming was strong, while
operations in the West Bank were far more restricted. In interviews with members of the Israeli
Defense Force (IDF), Ron reports responses long these lines:
“In Lebanon, we would just shoot at whomever we saw walking along ravines at night,” while in the West
Bank, “it was really complicated; there were long and detailed 'open-fire rules' and all kinds of orders about
what you could and could not do. You can't just kill an Arab in the West Bank without being able to at least
make up an excuse.” (...) “Why does everyone talk about human rights in the [occupied] territories? If I
had done the same thing in Lebanon, would anyone ask questions?” (Ron, 2000 p.452)
Similarly, at the beginning of the first intifada, Israeli soldiers would use beatings and bone-breakings
that were easily identified after the fact: after the scandal surrounding the incidents at Beita and
Hawara, where Palestinian youths were taken out to a field, their arms and legs systematically broken,
the IDF moved towards 'clean' interrogations. 23
23 For more on this episode, see Conroy (2001)
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