TV: 24: THE STATE AND POPULAR CULTURE 24 hours of torture
FIRST LADY: Will he hurt him [the President]?
WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF, MIKE NOVICK: Jack Bauer will do whatever it takes to compel your husband to confess the truth. He is the only one I know who can do this.
From Episode 24, Season 5 of TV’s 24
The graphic images of torture by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Graihb prison in Iraq were a horrifying confirmation of the widespread use of torture in the war. The obvious enjoyment on the faces of the torturers as they posed and smiled for the camera contributed to the unsettling nature of the photographs.
This torture for pleasure was clearly not the face that the Bush administration wished to put forward to the world. Although the US government publicly condemned these abuses and claims to have held more than 250 people “accountable” for what took place at Abu Graihb, it has refused to back away completely from the use of torture. Instead, the Bush administration has publicly justified its use of torture as a grim but necessary task to make the world a safer place.
You could be excused for having thought that there was no debate to be had about the use of torture. After all, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, created in 1984, makes the use of torture in any circumstances a violation of international law. It also outlaws “cruel and unusual treatment.” The United States Senate ratified the Convention in 1994. Canada is also a signatory.
However, in the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing wars in the Middle East, the use of torture has increasingly become a topic for public debate. Although the extent of the use of torture by the US government is unknown, the Bush administration has publicly argued that the use of torture is not only legal, but justified. For example, the US has argued “torture” only applies to acts that result in “organ failure or death.”
While the emerging evidence of the US government’s use of torture and its attempts to justify its use have sparked international debate and condemnation, in the world of popular culture, the use of torture against terrorists is not only common-place, it is often carried out with no significant questioning of the practice on either moral or legal grounds. For example, Sydney Bristow, the CIA agent heroine of TV’s Alias, regularly murders “terrorists” while operating covertly in countries throughout the world.
By far the most noteworthy in this television trend is the Fox network’s 24, a television series that is nothing less than a pop cultural justification for the methods of the United States in its war on terror.
JACK BAUER AND THE “TICKING BOMB”
The hero of 24 is Jack Bauer. Played by Kiefer Sutherland, Bauer is a high ranking agent in the Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU), a fictional agency within the US government that deals with domestic terrorism threats. The shows gimmick is that it takes place in “real time” over the course of 24 hours. A clock ticking by the seconds regularly flashes across the screen as Jack Bauer and his colleagues deal with an extreme terrorist threat on US soil over the course of one day. The constant references to time reinforce the urgency to act (eg. the terrorists will set off nerve gas in 15 minutes if we don’t stop them, etc.).
As his superiors in command well know, Jack Bauer will break any rule in order to stop a terrorist threat. He regularly engages in torture. Over the course of five seasons, Bauer has shot a suspect in the leg while interrogating him; subjected the son of the defense secretary to hightech sensory disorientation; stun-gunned a suspected but innocent colleague; and used a lamp cord to shock information from a businessman. In this season’s finale, Bauer kidnapped the president of the United States and threatened to kill the president if he did not confess to his wrong-doing.
A frequently cited justification for the use of torture is the “ticking bomb” scenario, a scenario in which a major terrorist atrocity could be prevented by using torture to extract information from someone with the knowledge necessary to stop the threat. Canada’s own Prime Ministerial hopeful, Michael Ignatieff, recently published an article in Britain’s Prospect purporting to oppose the use of torture while actually arguing the opposite. Says Ignatieff, torture obviously works or it would not be used so often. He argues that prohibiting torture completely will inevitably allow some “interrogation suspects” to resist divulging information that is necessary to save lives. Ignatieff says he can live with that cost, but he muses that “the majority of fellow citizens is unlikely to concur.”
Joel Surnow, an executive producer for 24 explicitly acknowledged his intent to justify the use of torture. In an interview for the Washington Times, Surnow told the paper that “If there’s a bomb about to hit a major US city and you have a person with information… if you don’t torture that person, that would be one of the most immoral acts you could imagine.”
However, the “ticking bomb” justification is based on the false premise that torture is effective in obtaining reliable information. Information extracted through torture has repeatedly been shown to be unreliable, as “sources” are induced to say whatever they think is most likely to stop the pain. Moreover, a scenario in which it is known with certainty that a bomb threat is imminent and that a particular person is not only available for questioning and has the precise information needed to stop the threat is pure fantasy. Despite what may be shown on 24, torture does not work.
DE-POLITICIZING TERRORISM
Each season of 24 has featured a different terrorist threat. The “terrorists” have been a Kosovar family, an Arab terrorist cell called “Second Wave”, a Mexican crime family, a sleeper cell of middle-class Turkish immigrants, and “Russian separatists.”
These “terrorists”, as they are frequently called on 24, are completely removed from any political context. Their political motivations are murky at best; they appear to follow only a peronal agenda. However, the terrorist threats we face today did not come out of nowhere and cannot be reduced solely to individual pathology. For example, the network of cells associated with Al Qaeda emerged out of legitimate anger and frustration with the imperialist actions of Western governments in the Middle East over the course of at least the last sixty years. By propping up corrupt dictatorships in various Middle Eastern countries, the United States contributed to the crushing of opposition groups. The strongest oppositional forces that have survived have organized themselves around a particular form of Islam. In fact, the United States historically supported many Islamic groups that it now places on its terror lists.
Without this political, economic and historical context it is easier to argue simplistically, as 24 does, that stopping terrorism is about getting the right intelligence (through torture) and using violence to stop terrorists. A more nuanced understanding of global politics suggests that the use of force to fight terrorism will only increase the likelihood of future terrorist attacks and will simply continue a spiralling cycle of death and violence.
GETTING USED TO TORTURE
24’s justification of torture is not a frivolous matter to be dismissed. 24 is an extremely popular show, watched by millions of viewers. The show’s consistent portrayal of torture as necessary and effective accustoms viewers to its use. Jack Bauer is never disciplined for his actions. In fact, he earns the grudging respect of those around him – including the “terrorists”. The complete failure to even acknowledge that torture is a violation of international law assists in getting viewers used to the idea of torture as a legitimate option in the war on terror.
It is easier for viewers to accept the legitimacy of torture when it appears so painless and short-term in effect. The utterly shallow treatment of the causes of terrorism, and the portrayal of terrorists as non-European immigrants within US borders can only contribute to racism, xenophobia and the equation of migration with terrorism.
International laws such as the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Convention are strongly worded defences of the human rights of prisoners. It is true that in practice, these instruments have been enforced only against weaker countries for the benefit of the strong. Notwithstanding the lack of teeth in these documents, the United States has begun an aggressive attempt to push the boundaries of international law to justify its practices. The Bush administration has introduced the concept of a “humanitarian war” (i.e. to bring democracy) and characterized “prisoners of war” as “enemy combattants” thereby avoiding the requirements of the Geneva Convention. Now, with US attempts to create an opening for the permissible use of torture, we are witnessing nothing less than the reworking of the rules of war.
More important than convincing the international community, the US government must garner the support of its own citizens. By normalizing torture and by portraying terrorist threats on American soil by “foreigners” as constantly possible and imminent, television shows like 24 assist in this expansion of state power.
Jackie Esmonde is a member of the Toronto branch of the New Socialist Group and is a New Socialist editorial associate.
