24's Torture Methods Criticized by Military

Military officials have confirmed that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan visited the set of the FOX show, 24, to voice concerns over the depiction of torture in the hit series. More specifically, the military is criticizing the use of torture, which is illegal, to gather information from captives, claiming that no good information comes from torture, and more importantly, that the torture is having detrimental effects on young troops.

According to both the Center for American Progress and IMDB, General Finnegan met with 24 producers to express concerns over the series' depiction of harsh torture methods and what effects those depictions are having on young troops. Also, torture is illegal, and the use of torture is denounced in the military, and it should not be portrayed as an effective method of interrogating prisoners. The Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John Kimmons told the Center for American Progress that torture is extremely ineffective, and added that he is "absolutely convinced...no good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that."

The main character of 24, Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, often has to employ harsh tactics to gather intelligence from other characters, and in the case of this season, as well as past seasons, the other characters are often Muslim terrorists. The torture has included beatings, stabbings, threats, as well as chemical means of extracting information. In an interview, Sutherland conceded that information garnered from torture is often suspect. He said, "You torture someone and they'll basically tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether its true or not, if you put someone in enough pain."

General Finnegan told the New Yorker that he expressed to the producers that, "I'd like them to stop. They should do a show where torture backfires. The kids see it and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about 24?' The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do." In the series, Jack always knows when to stop the torture, but it is a fictionalized account, and the depiction itself gives credence to the issue of continued use of torture in the military. 24 is said to be extremely popular among troops, especially those in Iraq, and the show's use of torture on Islamic terrorists is not helping the tense situation overseas.

Human Rights First spokesman David Danzig says, "I think there is no question (that torture scenes are having an effect). We have spoken to soldiers with experience in Iraq who say, for young soldiers, there is a direct relationship between what they are doing in their jobs and what they see on TV. The image of the US and its military is being affirmed." And unfortunately, cases in which the US military has been found to use torture does not help the matter, and neither does comments from Vice President Dick Cheney on a radio show in which he says that holding suspected terrorists under water in order to gather information is a "no brainer", as reported on ThinkProgress.com.

To be fair to 24 and its writers, there was recently a torture scene on Jack Bauer's brother that did not result in correct and useful information, and also last week's episode showed Muslim terrorists torturing a CTU (the fictional Counter-Terrorism Unit on the show) agent in order to get the agent to program the triggering mechanism on a nuclear bomb. So, despite the series' use of torture on Islamic characters, the show does use torture on other, non-terrorist characters.