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How Torture Helped Win WWII
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Fretting over waterboarding, writes British historian Andrew Roberts, obscures the fact that "enhanced interrogation techniques" have saved thousands of lives in every war. Plus, read Michael Korda's review of Roberts' book Masters and Commanders: How Churchill, Roosevelt, Alanbrooke and Marshall Won the War in the West, 1941-45.
A slight air of unreality has permeated the debate over “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war against terror, with historians embarrassedly studying their toecaps over the issue. For the truth is that there has not been a war in history in which torture has not been employed in some form or another, and sometimes to excellent effect. When troops need information about enemy capabilities and intentions—and they usually need it fast—moral and ethical conventions (especially the one signed in Geneva in 1929) have repeatedly been ignored in the bid to save lives.
In the conflict generally regarded today as the most ethical in history, World War II, enhanced interrogation techniques were regularly used by the Allies, and senior politicians knew it perfectly well, just as we now discover that Nancy Pelosi did in the early stages of the war against terror. The very success of the D-Day landings themselves can largely be put down to the enhanced interrogation techniques that were visited upon several of the 19 Nazi agents who were infiltrated into Great Britain and “turned” by the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) between 1939 and 1945. Operation Fortitude—the deception plan that fooled the Germans into stationing 450,000 Wehrmacht troops 130 miles north of the Normandy beaches—entirely depended upon German intelligence (the Abwehr) believing that the real attack was going to take place at the Pas de Calais instead. The reason that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, was utterly convinced of this, was because every single one of his 19 agents, who he did not know had been turned, told him so.
If anyone believes that SIS persuaded each of these 19 hard-bitten Nazi spies to fall in with Operation Fortitude by merely offering them tea, biscuits, and lectures in democracy, they’re being profoundly naïve.
If anyone believes that SIS persuaded each of these 19 hard-bitten Nazi spies to fall in with Operation Fortitude by merely offering them tea, biscuits, and lectures in democracy, they’re being profoundly naïve. An SIS secret house located in Ham Common near Richmond on the outskirts of London was the location where the will of those agents was broken, using advanced interrogation techniques that reportedly started with sleep deprivation but went on to gross mental and physical abuse. The result? Many thousands of Allied servicemens’ lives were saved because the German 15th Army stayed well away from beaches such as Omaha, Utah, and Sword. And another 100,000 others were stationed in Norway for another attack that never came.
The wartime SIS being what it was, full firsthand details of the enhanced interrogation techniques have not emerged, either from the British or the German side since the war. In a country where the very existence of the wartime decryption operation known as Ultra was successfully kept secret until 1971, it was never likely that former SIS officers would have revealed precisely how the Abwehr agents were turned, but the talk and gossip in the intelligence community is another matter. Ham Common undoubtedly saw gross violations of the Geneva Conventions, as every means was used—fair and foul—to ensure the safety of Great Britain. Today Fortitude is generally considered to be the most successful strategic deception operation in the history of warfare.
Elsewhere, one only has to read George MacDonald Fraser’s excellent autobiography, Quartered Safe Out Here, with its description of the ill treatment of Japanese POWs by Indian soldiers of the 17th Division, to recognize that not all torture was committed by the Axis in WWII.
Did Winston Churchill know what was going on in the cellar-dungeons of the house in Ham? Of course he did, but like Nancy Pelosi and other politicians he understandably preferred not to dwell on this less auspicious side of the defense of freedom. As I show in my recently published book, Masters and Commanders—reviewed here yesterday by Michael Korda—Churchill always advocated the toughest option in any issue that came before his War Cabinet, be it over the bombing of German cities, allowing Mahatma Gandhi to die in his hunger strike, retaliating over the destruction of the Czech village of Lidice, and so on. The idea that he would have balked on ethical grounds over the breaking and turning of Abwehr agents—knowing how vitally necessary that was for the liberation of Europe—is ludicrous.
So, when we wring our hands about the waterboarding that took place at the hands of the CIA and their proxies in secret locations around the world, let us not pretend that such techniques are in any way historically exceptional, for in fact they constitute the norm. The only surprising thing is the extent of the information that we have been given about such unpleasant but ultimately necessary practices. Sometimes the defense of liberty requires making some pretty unpalatable decisions, but it was ever thus.
Historian Andrew Roberts' latest book, Masters and Commanders, was published in the U.K. in September. His previous books include Napoleon and Wellington, Hitler and Churchill, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.
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Historian Andrew Roberts' latest book, Masters and Commanders, was published in the UK in September. His previous books include Napoleon and Wellington, Hitler and Churchill, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.
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kare74
Dick, Dick....is that you? Oh, wait, even Cheney exonerated Pelosi and said she was informed of potential techniques, so it must not be the Dick I was thinking about.
Congrats, Daily Beast, you just lost my readership.
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Maezeppa
There's no evidence Pelosi was lawfully informed of the torture.
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ShovelReady
Bullcrap kare74. You won't stop reading DB, because 90% of the articles are written to please your progressive bent. One article that says something different than what you want to hear has you running for the exits...see ya.
BTW - did you forget that your man Obama was the one who chose to use Churchhill as an example? What was DB thinking when they posted a fact-driven response to Obama's misunderstanding?
Andrew Roberts can certainly look forward to personal smears after this...fire up the liberal distruction machine...another author who failed to fall in line with the MSM mantra.
BasPos
I cannot say I read as much history as Mr. Roberts; however, I do believe that the SIS had a far more potent weapon in their arsenal than torture. Spies could be shot, virtually summarily. I suppose we could do the same with Al Qaeda. The problem is that the Bushies imprisoned hundreds of Muslims after 9/11; none of whom were proved disloyal. Cheney's defense of torture is pure cowardice. Anyone who says different is merely an enabler of his lifetime of cowardice.
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BasPos
Cheney tries to excuse his behavior because of "fear" of further attacks. CIA documents have already indicated that expert interrogators had already cleaned both of the Al Qaeda members. We all experience fear; those who give into are cowards. I can think of no example of personal bravery by Cheney. He has spent his entire life afraid of Vietnam, welfare mothers, and terrorists. To defend him is to enable this cowardice.
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majormoderate
jdavxc- To knowingly use torture is CRIMINAL. Absolutely.
roger37
Agree completely. To use torture is criminal.
If you have to have another reason, it opens up our troops to the same thing. But that's still not a good reason. Torture in not acceptable in ANY circumstance.
sallyma
BasPosSaid Cheney is
afraid of Vietnam, welfare mothers, and terrorists.
hell, who is not afraid of Vietnam, welfare mothers and terrorists. The best thing that can happen to a person is to not have to fight in Vietnam, not be raised by a welfare mother, and to not tango with terrorists.
benbishop
The German spies caught in Britain had the tools and tradecraft of spies. They could be summarily shot, which motivated many (19 or 20) to provide the info the British needed to feed disinformation back to the German command. Some refused to co-operate and were killed. If you are caught behind enemy lines out of uniform attempting sabotage, or trying to get information and pass it back then your life is in jeopardy. This was true in the US Civil War and has been true for a long time. They did not have to be tortured; they had to understand they could be executed, and that others in their situation already had been. That's not torture. That's being offered a 'plea' deal. Some took it, others died. Tricycle and others showed the British their tradecraft so they could survive to the end of war.
AnteBragd
Torture is still not morally acceptable. It is these methods and ill-advised foreign interentions that creates anti-americanism, it is this that will make the American Empire fall. Your sins will eat you up.
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BasPos
Torture elicits FALSE testimony. That's why the Spanish Inquisition and Red China (among other notables) used it. The balance is useful information against useful propaganda. If we had been willing to simply destroy Al Qaeda no torture would have been necessary. In order to justify destroying Saddam Hussein, we needed to torture those criminals.
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majormoderate
Thats easy... There is no "weighing of whose well-being is greater". You have a core belief that torture is wrong and you stick to it, absolutely. Otherwise, who is responsible for making the decisions of what is acceptable and what is not. Thats not even a question that should be up to elected leaders.
And the whole "ticking time bomb" scenario never happens.
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sharke
If the Japanese had limited their practice of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to just waterboarding then we would never have prosecuted them for it. Seriously, let's just nip this tedious meme in the bud right here and now. It is disingenuous and misleading to proclaim that we're using techniques that we prosecuted others for. The Japanese were prosecuted for a plethora of *real* torture methods, including: hanging people by the thumbs for days at a time, nailing them to trees and baking them slowly in the searing heat, setting dogs on prisoners, tying them down over rapidly growing bamboo shoots the sharpened tips of which would grow right through them over days, cutting off genitals and stuffing in the prisoners' mouths (which were then sewn shut), forcing massive and lethal amounts of water down a prisoner's throat....I could go on and on detailing the prolific catalog of torture techniques the Japanese used which were sadistic, barbaric and to be quite frank made waterboarding look like a child's tree house game.
STOP trying to make ridiculous claims of equivalence between our conduct in the war against terrorism and the conduct of the Japanese in World War II. You know fine well that had the Japanese only used water torture - a mild form of "harsh interrogation" - and limited its use to the extraction of information from terrorists, then they would never have been prosecuted for it. I don't know where these stupid left wing memes originate from (probably the Daily Kos or somewhere) but they really should stop.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/IMTFE/index.html
picasso5
Ahhh, so the torture that we use isn't as bad as their torture?
citivas
You have no idea what you're talking about.
But, BTW, to quote your own words, one of your justifications was "... and limited its use to the extraction of information from terrorists" Right there, you just condemned the recent U.S. techniques since its has been proven they did not limit it to terrorists and used it on a wide range of people some of whom were eventually released after having been proven to have no links to terrorism or crime of any kind.
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JackBlack5
sharke
if any of these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used on you you would sue and whine so quickly it's not funny.
The biggest supporters of Bush's law breaking are the same fearful cowards who supported his illegal war and torturing.
As for this article to compare Britain in WW2 to Bush and Cheney's ideological desires to control oil in the middle east is not a comparison. Whether one is arguing to use or abstain from using torture "to save lives" let's not leave out the obvious:
9/11 was a criminal and terrorist act-- not an action taken by one country against another
Most of the people the US tortured had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and most of the German spies the Brits captured spying were actually working for the Germans.
So Mr. Roberts please do not take your post-WW2 enthusiasm for having won that war and apply it to Bush-Cheney grabbing people up, kidnapping them from a variety of countries and brokering deals to have foreign governments torture these-- usually innocent-- people for us. The comparison is absurd.
majormoderate
You know what the problem with this debate is? Its that people like Andrew Roberts try to change the issue from "Is torture right?" to "Does it work?" With ethics, and morality, the ends do not justify the means. I need money, therefore I rob someone. Did it work? Yes, I got the money I needed. Was it right? Of course not.
There is no article you can write, sir, that will make torture right. There is no evidence in history that justifies the use of torture because the argument cannot be "Does it work". The argument is "IS IT MORAL?" and the answer is a firm NO.
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majormoderate
His argument is that torture has saved thousands of lives in the past, and therefore can be justified. And he cited British use of these methods. My point is, regardless of its use in the past, torture is immoral. That's the end of the argument.
Some people can have the opinion that the means of torture justifies the ends. Thats fine. Its immoral, but people are allowed their opinions.The debate about whether these techniques work or not is pointless. These methods are illegal, and forbidden in the Geneva Conventions, the US cannot torture.
BasPos
Torture in the examples he cites are bogus. The choice for the spies was "cooperate or die." This is far more effective than any torture.
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majormoderate
The article is titled "How Torture Helped win WWII". It may be historical, but its not objective. This is an obvious attempt to justify torture if it saves lives, as it did in WWII. To say this article was written just to tell us that torture has always been there is a pretty naive way to look at it.
Holland
The author's dismissive tone and voice imply that torture was acceptable and preferred because it achieved it's goals in, for instance, Calais. But the fact that SIS refused to ever acknowledge their torture suggests that England's citizens would have likely been ashamed of their government if the torture had made headlines. It wouldn't have been "cricket", as the Brits would say (Even if shooting the spies would have been, odd no?). Do governments carry on with the dirty work we'd like to remain blind to, sure. But that's because citizens can't very well police every nook and cranny of their governments. There's a faith that our politicians will maintain the high road.
And yes, our government has tortured in the past. And in doing so, then as now, it has broken the law. Will there be understandable brutalities in the heat of battle, of course, but a self-admitted government policy that openly promotes torture is not, and has never been, a norm. What's clearly changed since World War Two, and because of war in the 20th century, is international law and the expectation that governments must now walk the righteous walk of democratic nations. That's a norm people demand. When it comes to ratified international treaties that lay out what is and is not torture (waterboardring clearly being torture) there is no legal room for just a little bit torture in the comparable light of, say, Japan's extreme sadism. That's like arguing it's okay to date rape in the light of mass murder. Further, if at the start the Bush Administration bothered learning a thing about fighting terrorism, they would have relied on classic intelligence and police work. Not invading Iraq and torture. In Peru, which fought a brutal terrorist organization called Shinning Path in war war shockingly similar to our fight with al-Qaeda, it was literally old fashioned police work (aided by CIA funding and training) that led to the capture of all the SP leaders and ended the terrorism.
Finally, I'd just like to respectfully point out to majormoderate that war is also immoral, but under the Geneva Conventions and other treaties, perfectly legal with certain rules of engagement. Let's keep the torture debate inside the legal box if only to win the argument against apologists who misunderstand the deeper debate.
jessieabby
"The real crime is not in waterboarding but a new society who truly believes nothing is to be learned from history."
Seriously? I'd say BOTH are crimes.
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roger37
But Roberts implies that since torture has been used in the past (a premise he has not proved in this piece), it's okay to use now.
I wonder what the historians are going to say 50 years from now about this national discussion.
brooksie
I don't think it's a matter of "does torture work" versus "is torture an acceptable practice" - it's been shown time and again in the testimony of those who actually practice interrogation techniques that, over time, the use of torture is far more damaging and dangerous to the interests of those who practice it - the value of the intel is disproportional to the cost of the crime
DexterVanDango
To argue whether torture works or not is beside the point.
Cannibalism "works", too if you have a tasty recipe and a young cut of meat.
The rule should be, torture or eat your neighbor only if you have no other choice. We still have millions of choices.
hithere3
Some of us believe there are more important things than safety and security.
Since when did America become a nation of pussies, anyway?
kobyashimaru
So the argument hear is only supported by rumor and innuendo?
"it was never likely that former SIS officers would have revealed precisely how the Abwehr agents were turned, but the talk and gossip in the intelligence community is another matter. Ham Common undoubtedly saw gross violations of the Geneva Convention, as every means was used-fair and foul-to ensure the safety of Great Britain."
Doesn't sound like any proof and it sertainly isn't corroborated by the actual memoirs of those involved including the records from Camp 020 where most of the captured Axis spies were housed.
This is a ridiculous argument. The fact is that, even iftorture was used, it was never condoned on a large scale nor endorsed by the British gov't publicly.
Why is the Beast publishing this?
roger37
Indeed. Why IS Beast publishing this? I, for one, would like an explanation.
Dreamer4Ever
We have to know what we're up against in order to fight it effectively.
I for one applaud Tina for this. It's gutsy.
roger37
This article by this polemic Brit provides zero information to help us fight it. It's simply a screed--unproven, at that--that says torture has been used all through the past, so it's OK now.
Disgusting.
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jimors
I must agree. Roberts does not offer any citations outside of another speculative work. Merely because he opines that accepting Churchill would not torture is"profoundly naive" does not establish his omniscience. It is just his opinionated best guess. Nice try though Andy.
drmarkklein
If the airheads have their way, all we'll be able to do with a suspected terrorist who we believe knows the details of a nuclear attack on America is mirandize and lawyer him up!
BasPos
This is simply stupid. You insult our intelligence with such utter vacuousness.
BasPos
I hardly think that The United States Armed Forces, the FBI, and the CIA hardly qualify as "airheads." They all knew it was illegal - the political hacks of the Bush administration (unfortunately) succeeded in subverting them AND then blaming "a few bad apples" for its own criminal policy. Cheney's cowardice continues as he (and now a daughter) attempt to excuse the crimes he promoted in our name.
Dreamer4Ever
There's a little invention...called a book. This one is called "How to Break a Terrorist" by Mathew Alexander, the guy who caught Zarquawi.
Read it and then get back to us. Right now your as bad as any other chickenhawk.
Abdiel
First, almost no one is arguing these methods are historically exceptional. The author's premise is a straw man that uses selective history to tacitly condone the use of techniques deemed unacceptable by the world.
Perhaps Roberts believes we should go back to the rack and public stoning, since they were so effective in producing "confessions" throughout history.
Second, citing the few examples of torture's effectiveness ignores the evidence for the vast majority of cases in which it is NOT effective, and produces only misleading information.
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