In the Republican debates, we saw certain candidates for the highest office in the land pander to their "bases'" basest instincts by affirming their support for the use of "aggressive interrogation techniques," i.e., torture. Horrifyingly, their affirmations actually drew applause. Because: What would Jack Bauer do? [See, e.g., Andrew Sullivan, Palmetto Punditry (May 15, 2007)].
And now what I really want to know is this: have we as a people really grown that craven, that cowardly? Really? Because make no mistake about it: only bullies and cowards resort to the techniques of bullies and cowards or tacitly or directly authorize the use of such techniques.
Have we reached the point where there is no principle sufficiently sacred---including the principle of upholding our honor in the eyes of the world---that we aren't willing to risk death to preserve it? Are we so spiritually depleted that nothing matters more to us than staying alive at whatever cost? When did courage in the face of danger cease to be a fundamental American value?
Or did the cheering crowd really not understand what it was they were cheering for? I don't believe it for a moment---the scenario presented apparently was based on a hit TV series that routinely features "aggressive interrogation techniques" of a quite aggressive sort--- but perhaps it is so. Either way, it's time for the American public to come to terms with this issue and what it means for us and about us.
In a May 22 blog, Andrew Sullivan stated, "If the U.S. is to continue its evolution into a torturing rogue state, then it must do so with eyes open and the consequences clear". Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish (May 22, 2007), "While America Slept"]. In his note, he quoted from an article by Greg Derjerejian which addresses the Orwellian haze surrounding phrases such as "aggressive interrogation techniques", obscuring the picture of just what is being done to the people who are subjected to them. .
[quote begins from Greg Djerejian, The Belgravia Dispatch (May 22, 2007) The American Way: Induced Hypothermia, Sleep Deprivation, and Waterboarding?]
Look, if we’re going to have this debate, let’s have it, but let’s have it honestly. Let’s not hide behind Orwellian fudging and obfuscatory verbiage... And then let us see whether the Republican Party can win the 2008 election on the basis of fear, on the basis of a platform that allows for freezing people to the point their life is imperiled, or inducing the feeling in detainees they are drowning to death, or depriving them of sleep for such protracted periods that long term deleterious mental health impacts may result. Yes, let us debate these issues, but clearly and out in the open..
To the press corps, I say, the next time a Presidential candidate says “I’m not for torture, only enhanced interrogation techniques”, ask them whether induced hypothermia, sleep deprivation and water-boarding are torture? Then remind them of our treaty obligations under CAT. Ask them whether they think the "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be acceptable pursuant to Article III of the Geneva Convention? Do they wish to repudiate them? Or do they think we can do these things and not run afoul of these standards? Again, how? What will become increasingly clear is that leading Republican candidates are running on a platform that has us repudiating our treaty obligations and watering-down our constitutional standards.
[quote ends]
I agree that these questions need to be asked, not because we don't already know the answers, but because the public needs to understand the ramifications. A person opposed to torture says, "I am opposed to torture or to the use of any process in violation of international law." By responding to a direct question with "carefully parsed phrases"or by using the Orwellian phrase "aggressive interrogation techniques," a person is saying, "I am not opposed to the use of torture or to the use of processes in violation of international law." Let's make their supporters face up to what it is they are endorsing and---by voting for someone who supports such methods---enabling.
I have to admit, this is not a topic I can discuss rationally. When I hear people say, either directly or in effect, "Better to abuse and maltreat one [probably] guilty person who has [or may have] information than to risk one innocent life," my eyes bug out and start to wave around on stalks, blood congests my face, my mouth goes dry (causing froth to form in the corners), and I start to feel as if I am going to die on the spot from sheer rage and disgust.
And this is one thing I know: If I were rescued in a "24" type scenario through the use of methods that make me sick to my stomach to think about, I would die from disgust and shame anyway. The thought of being saved from death at the cost of every principle of decency this country stands for ought to make every American sick to the stomach. And while I am human enough to know I might feel differently if the person at risk were my husband, child, or mother, I was sufficiently well brought up to know that the reason you don't let the end justify the means is because it is wrong.
It is wrong to treat anyone, even a suspected terrorist, as a means rather than an end. It is wrong to behave in selected circumstances in a manner that you wouldn't wish to see become the general rule for everyone, in all circumstances. To remain free, let alone civilized, we must resist the promptings of human nature when they are urging us to dispense with our core values and with the laws applicable to all civilized societies in order to achieve a desired end.
Fundamental to our system is the notion that even an accused criminal is entitled to due process of law, in other words to have his or her case processed and tried by means which protect and affirm the dignity individual and limit the power of the state to infringe his or her autonomy and free will. This is a fundamental American value, a principle embedded in our constitution and the core values of the American system.
What possible rationale can there be for treating an accused terrorist in a manner completely contrary to our values as a freedom-loving people? Have we grown so insulated from democratic values (including a proper value for the courage to stand up for democratic values) that we are prepared to descend to the enemy's level? Have we become so afraid of death and of grief that nothing else, such as respect for decency and pride in behaving decently, matters to us? If so, how in the world can we ever justify Iraq?
I do not believe that the government can, should, or will protect me or mine from every threat to my safety, and terrorism is merely one of many such threats. All I ask is that it do the best it can, operating within the rule of law and the limits allowed by a free society. I can't expect it to make me safe. I can ask that it not make me ashamed.
In a December 2005 article in The New Republic, conservative Andrew Sullivan wrote:
[quote begins from WINNING THE WAR ON TERRORISM WITHOUT SACRIFICING FREEDOM:. The Abolition of Torture]
In this inevitably emotional debate, perhaps the greatest failing of those of us who have been arguing against all torture and "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" of detainees is that we have assumed the reasons why torture is always a moral evil, rather than explicating them....
Torture is the polar opposite of freedom. It is the banishment of all freedom from a human body and soul, insofar as that is possible.... What you see in the relationship between torturer and tortured is the absolute darkness of totalitarianism. You see one individual granted the most complete power he can ever hold over another.... Torture uses a person's body to remove from his own control his conscience, his thoughts, his faith, his selfhood....Before the Bush administration, two documented cases of the U.S. Armed Forces using "waterboarding" resulted in courts-martial for the soldiers implicated. In Donald Rumsfeld's post-September 11 Pentagon, the technique is approved and, we recently learned, has been used on at least eleven detainees, possibly many more....
The very concept of Western liberty sprung in part from an understanding that, if the state has the power to reach that deep into a person's soul and can do that much damage to a human being's person, then the state has extinguished all oxygen necessary for freedom to survive. .... If the point of the U.S. Constitution is the preservation of liberty, the formal incorporation into U.S. law of the state's right to torture...would effectively end the American experiment of a political society based on inalienable human freedom protected not by the good graces of the executive, but by the rule of law.
The founders understood this argument. Its preeminent proponent was George Washington himself. As historian David Hackett Fischer memorably recounts in his 2004 book, Washington's Crossing: "Always some dark spirits wished to visit the same cruelties on the British and Hessians that had been inflicted on American captives. But Washington's example carried growing weight, more so than his written orders and prohibitions. He often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies. ... Even in the most urgent moments of the war, these men were concerned about ethical questions in the Revolution."
[quote ends]
This essay, which I'd recommend to anyone, eloquently argues that the use of torture is incompatible with the existence of a free society and ultimately---and invariably---a cancer on it. My own argument against torture is, as noted, much less eloquent and consists of this: Cowardly. Cowardly. Cowardly. Cowardly.
If this is where we've landed, my fellow Americans, it's time for us to take a long hard look at ourselves and the moral damage we've suffered as a result of our padded, insulated, self-indulgent lives. From being so well protected against the incidents and accidents of life, we have become like nervous children who have never had to face the dark, demanding protection from our leaders with no consciousness of or regard for its cost.
Sullivan's blog, While America Slept, is illustrated by a photograph of, as he puts it, "the single inmate tortured to death by U.S. servicemembers in Abu Ghraib prison under the command of president George W. Bush." Click on the link to see it. Look at it carefully. Realize what it means. Then let the cleansing shame well up from the pain of your wounded pride as a free citizen of the Republic founded and fought for by such men as Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. Consider their courage and the courage of the patriots who fought that war with no certainty of the outcome and at the risk of losing everything. Shame, if it leads to the will to live differently in the future, or to expiate a crime, is a good thing. It's the proper response to the sight of such an affront to American ideals of human dignity and the autonomy of the individual.
Comments