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

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Algerian nationalism. The French army was aware of this potential, as was the FLN: the search for an interlocuteur valable led the French not only to offer support to elements in the MNA to act as a private anti-FLN guerrilla force, but also to orders by Ben Bella in September of 1955 to “liquidate all personalities who want to play [this] role.” (Horne, p. 135) The MNA had suffered a severe blow at Guenzet in the Summer of 1955, after a maquis in Kabylia (eastern Algeria) led by Bellounis had been liquidated by the local FLN commander Amirouche. (ibid) Bellounis after this attempted to reestablish his maquis – this time the FLN responded with violence not only against the MNA fighters, but against the local populace who had supported them. The result was the Mélouza massacre, where 301 men and boys were rounded up and executed by the FLN for supporting Bellounis' fighters. (pp. 221-2) While the massacre did push Bellounis fully into the French camp, it also marked a serious missed opportunity for a French occupation interested in weakening the revolution. What role did torture play in activating these cleavages? We can expect that torture had the effect of strengthening the FLN by casting the French in a highly unfavorable light among the Algerians – but was this counter-balanced by the information retrieved? As it turn out, torture had a profoundly demoralizing effect on the FLN, activating these cleavages and leading to the deaths of thousands of FLN fighters: but crucially it was not French torture but FLN torture that did the trick. As we shall see in the coming pages, the use of torture for information leaves an organization open to stove-piping misinformation, compounding error upon error. The success of the Forces of Order in cracking the FLN organization in Algiers allowed the French to inject misinformation into the FLN leadership, detailing the names of “traitors” who had sold out the Front to the French: and while traitors certainly existed, those named in the documents left on FLN corpses were not. The result was a massive purge of the interior, extending not only into Wilaya 3 (controlled by the brutal Amirouche), but also into Wilaya 4, the democratic-oriented Wilaya surrounding Algiers, leading to the execution of between 5,000 and 10,000 guerrillas. (Boserup, p. 252) Like the spiral we have already examined in Salem Village and in the European witch-hunts, the torturer found in the cries of his victims the evidence he was looking for – evidence that caused the military abilities of the interior to break down sufficiently that the lead role in the revolution once more would be played by the newly reconstituted exterior. 4.4. Torture in the Casbah 85
The Soummam conference in the Summer of 1956 resulted in the coming to leadership of Ramdane Abane, and a new focus on the use of terror as a means of dividing the settler and Muslim populations. In addition, the decision was made to extend the war into the cities, especially the capital of Algiers. That terror could pay dividends to the FLN had been established by the Philippeville massacre – although the FLN had killed 'only' 71 pieds noir (the rest had been moderate Muslims), the French had responded with the deaths of 1,273 Muslims, according to the government – the FLN would claim that 12,000 had been killed. (Rogers, p. 8) The result had been the destruction of the moderate/liberal position among the Muslim leadership, and growing extremism among the settlers themselves. A further casualty had been the proposed reforms announced by Resident Minister Soustelle – a double victory for the FLN, since actual reforms (as represented particularly by the SAS and the Centres Sociaux of Germaine Tillion) would have had the effect of leaching support away from the FLN and towards a more moderate solution. Focusing the FLN's activities on urban terrorism had the concurrent goal of bringing media (and in particular, international) attention on the Algerian question. Abane himself made the point quite explicitly: “Is it preferable for our cause to kill ten enemies in some riverbed in Telergma, which no one will talk about, or rather a single one in Algiers, which the American Press will report the next day? Though we are taking some risks, we must make our struggle known.” 79 Although the terror campaign was settled on at Soummam in 1956, the Autonomous Zone of Algiers (ZAA) had seen considerable violence going back to that June. On the 19 th of that month, the French military had executed by guillotine two captured members of the FLN. In response, the military chief of the ZAA, Saadi Yacef, had been ordered to kill “any European between the ages of eighteen and fifty-four. But no women, no children, no old people.” (Horne, p. 184) The resulting collective violence over the next three days left 49 settlers dead. This indiscriminate violence was in turn answered by a settler bomb exploded at the Rue de Thèbes at a safehouse used by the FLN – along with the suspected FLN, another 70 unconnected Muslims had been killed, including women and children. On the 30 th of September, the bombing campaign began in earnest, with two bombs exploded in the Mil Bar and at a local cafeteria, killing 3 and wounding 50 – a third bomb, set at the Air France terminal, failed to go off. The next several months would see a campaign of bombings and assassinations, culminating in the murder of Amédée Froger, the ultra mayor of Boufarik, by Ali la Pointe on 79 “Directive no. 9” (Fall 1956), as quoted in Connelly, p. 228. 86
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEG
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This work is dedicated to my wife,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT vii 1. T
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ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Se
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judged by their effects. The deonto
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etter than chance on average, no ma
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from fiction, and also in the time
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the cases differ in how well inform
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characterization by method. Torture
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gather such evidence was strong, to
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ineffective. Something must prevent
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The description which it would be n
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powerful themselves. 21 While histo
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known by the misnomer 'torture-ligh
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substitute for intelligence gatheri
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This lack of good data on torture t
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found that the procedure can cause
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captive who has faced torture, and
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state cannot credibly commit to pla
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incentive not to present as favorab
Page 41 and 42: units, those engaged in the applica
Page 43 and 44: of causal mechanisms in a very dire
Page 45 and 46: the threats they face are real, whe
Page 47 and 48: 3.1. Introduction. CHAPTER 3 THE WI
Page 49 and 50: discovered by Sir Thomas Newton and
Page 51 and 52: two, and the execution of the convi
Page 53 and 54: years preceding the outbreak at Sal
Page 55 and 56: these women - non-Church members, p
Page 57 and 58: Hubbard) and four grown and married
Page 59 and 60: innocent, and recalled that when he
Page 61 and 62: crowd was deeply and troublingly mo
Page 63 and 64: it was precisely in these terms tha
Page 65 and 66: came to an end. Misogyny was all to
Page 67 and 68: only the witch-trials that brought
Page 69 and 70: partners in their own (apparent) de
Page 71 and 72: possibility would be to question th
Page 73 and 74: John Bridges (whose own wife and da
Page 75 and 76: she again broke down and named seve
Page 77 and 78: forcing the already convicted to re
Page 79 and 80: We can thus see Tituba's confession
Page 81 and 82: Samuell Parris. 70 The strongest ev
Page 83 and 84: order to purge political dissidents
Page 85 and 86: torture as a failure based on this
Page 87 and 88: torture - the state will apply it e
Page 89 and 90: time, the government in Paris was c
Page 91: for two reasons - first, because Me
Page 95 and 96: one of the primary justifications f
Page 97 and 98: DOP in particular is instructive fo
Page 99 and 100: us stops in the city center. These
Page 101 and 102: one that would turn the dangers of
Page 103 and 104: dismantling of the ZAA organization
Page 105 and 106: found in the literature: the revela
Page 107 and 108: In fact, the use of torture did hav
Page 109 and 110: e.g.), by March (when the DPU had b
Page 111 and 112: Paul Teitgen appears to have been c
Page 113 and 114: the French public. 95 Secondly, the
Page 115 and 116: conditions theoretically necessary
Page 117 and 118: the reasons for holding the detaine
Page 119 and 120: y military interrogators. (Washingt
Page 121 and 122: fact come verbatim from a 1957 jour
Page 123 and 124: ole in the acquisition of intellige
Page 125 and 126: to those believed to have informati
Page 127 and 128: name for metanetwork analysis. 102
Page 129 and 130: other words, the CIA High Value Det
Page 131 and 132: Padilla was accused by KSM of plott
Page 133 and 134: and an enemy of the United States,
Page 135 and 136: alternative mechanism) by Darius Re
Page 137 and 138: York Times, 09/12/2005) Insofar as
Page 139 and 140: these interrogations were conducted
Page 141 and 142: al-Qaeda is structured, names of in
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CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: The Misleadin
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problem by the authorities - and ye
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situations (France in Algeria and V
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Jack Bauer was used as justificatio
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Biderman, Albert D. “Effects of C
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Crelinstein, Ronald and Alex Schmid
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History Teacher. 30:4 (1997): pp. 4
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International Council on Security a
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Lewis, Neil A. “Red Cross Finds D
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Obuchowski, Chester W. “Algeria:
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Schiemann, John W. “Interrogation
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Barack Obama is Inviting the Next A
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United States, Department of Defens
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Patrick Armshaw
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