When push comes to torture By Jonah Goldberg Wednesday, September 27, 2006 When confronted with the assertion that the Soviet Union and the United States were moral equivalents, William F. Buckley responded that if one man pushes an old lady into an oncoming bus and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, we should not denounce them both as men who push old ladies around. In other words, context matters. Not according to some. Led by Time magazine's Andrew Sullivan, opponents of the CIA's harsh treatment of high-value terrorists have grown comfortable comparing Bush's America to, among other evils, Stalin's Russia. The tactic hasn't worked, partly because many decent Americans understand that abuse intended to foil a murder plot is not the same as torturing political dissidents, religious minorities and other prisoners of conscience. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was not asked to renounce his faith or sign a false confession when he was reportedly waterboarded. His suffering wasn't intended as a form of punishment. The sole aim was to stop an ongoing murder conspiracy, which is what al-Qaida is. If accounts from such unbiased sources as ABC News' Brian Ross are to be believed, his suffering saved American lives. Comparing CIA facilities to Stalin's gulag may sound righteous, but it is a species of the same moral relativism that denounces all pushers of old ladies equally. Consider killing. In every society in the world, murder is punished more harshly than non-lethal torture. If I waterboard you, or lock you in my basement with Duran Duran blasting at you 24/7, even if I beat you for hours with a rubber hose, my punishment will be less severe than if I murder you, simply because it is worse to take a life deliberately than to cause pain, even sadistically. We all understand this. Would you rather take some lumps in a dungeon for a month, or take a dirt nap forever? Yet, according to the torture prohibitionists, there must be a complete ban on anything that even looks like torture, regardless of context, even though we'd never dream of a blanket ban on killing. One reason for this disconnect is that we've thought a lot about killing and barely at all about torture. Almost no one opposes killing in all circumstances; wars sometimes need to be fought, the hopelessly suffering may require relief, we reserve the right to self-defense. Indeed, the law recognizes a host of nuances when it comes to homicide, and the place where everybody draws an unambiguous line on killing is at something we call "murder." But there is no equivalent word for murder when it comes to torture. It's always evil. Yet that's not our universal reaction. In movies and on TV, good men force evil men to give up information via methods no nicer than what the CIA is allegedly employing. If torture is a categorical evil, shouldn't we boo Jack Bauer on Fox's "24"? There's a reason we keep hearing about the ticking time bomb scenario in the torture debate: Is abuse justified in getting a prisoner to reveal the location of a bomb that would kill many when detonated? We understand that in such a situation, Americans would expect to be protected. That's why human-rights activists have tried to declare this scenario a red herring. Sullivan complains that calling torture "aggressive interrogation techniques" doesn't make torture any better. Fair enough. But calling aggressive interrogation techniques "torture" when they're not doesn't make such techniques any worse. Still, there is a danger that over time we may not be able to tell the difference. Taboos are the glue of civilization because they define what is beyond the pale in ways mere reason cannot. A nation that frets about violating the rights of murder-plotters when the bomb is ticking is unlikely to violate the rights of decent citizens when the bomb is defused. I suspect this is what motivates so many human-rights activists to exaggerate the abuses and minimize their effectiveness. Slippery-slope arguments aren't as powerful as moral bullying. Still, their fears aren't unfounded. Once taboos have been broken, a chaotic search ensues for where to draw the new line, and that line, burdened with precedent and manufactured by politics, rarely holds as firmly as the last. But that is where history has brought us. In the recent debate over torture, everybody decided to kick the can down the road on what torture is and isn't. This argument will be forced on us again, no matter how much we try to avoid it. We'll be sorry we didn't take the debate more seriously when we had the chance.
Oh yeah, the "we do evil things in the name of goodness to keep goodness alive" rap. Where has that been suggested before.... Doh!
everything that cld be leaked has been leaked, we've got Clarke's declassified papers, the 911 Commission report etc... how come nobody's giving us an account of the detailed anti-terrorist action points taken, material achievements etc made by Bush, Condi etc in the lead up to 9/11? CAUSE THERE AIN'T ANY... in this area as in many others this administration has proven to be patently incompetent separate issue but just out of curiosity, what wld be Bush's greatest legacy / achievements on the domestic front? no more than 3 plse, if there are that many
Thursday, September, 28, 2006 12:39 AM Brian R writes: It's interesting that a lot of the libs think Oregon's new assisted suicide law is just grand, but worry that some poor terrorist a-hole is going to be forced to listen to Britney Spears. We can poke a hole in the skull of a partially-born baby and suck out its brains, but you'd better make sure Hassan has his three hots and a cot, and a prayer rug, with the direction of Mecca painted on the floor, OR ELSE! Y'know, it must be hell to be a liberal; I can't begin to imagine what it must sound like inside their heads. _____________________________ Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade Iustus ignarus troll
Sugarfoot writes: Thursday, September, 28, 2006 11:18 AM JLeo is right on the money... Waterboarding to save innocents from being brutally murdered by terrorists is completely justified. Whatever means are needed to pry information from terrorists is justified. Having said that, please note that I'm speaking about murdering brain-dead terrorists and not legitimate soldiers captured in battle. Of course, the American people would not tolerate torturing a soldier who was simply fighting for his country but was captured. That's the point of the Geneva Convention. It does not cover ununiformed murders (aka terrorists). I see nothing wrong with waterboarding a terrorist that could get information to save six year old Susie and her family's lives while driving through the Holland Tunnel. Do you? _________________________ Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade Iustus ignarus troll
Brain R, Sugarfoot who, what? ahhh, yr new pen pals? mmhhh, they don't seem too bright do they... but then again neither do u... Bush's top 3 domestic achievements, anyone?
hapaboy interesting questions. but i think very dangerous ones as well. within most civilised countries lethal punishment is a thing of the past. the United States area rare exception. and, if i may say so though this is out of context, this is probably rather due to "out of my dead hands"-mentality than anything rational. so it is not the thing: we kill people anyways, now let us not overemphasise the question of hurting them a little here and there. and the rest of the civilised world is much more reluctant to go to war than the US. maybe our experience here in old Europe was a little more severe than anything the americans ever (and i mean ever) had on their homeland. - i know this last sentence could inspire controversy and i just wrote it to counter the argumnet of european cowards versus US heroes. having said that Europe indeed has security problems. and it is indeed a shame that the US had to come to yugoslavia. no doubt about that. a lengthy discussion on its own ... in my opinion to ban torture is a very important thing. just consider the reaction of the US crowd when their own soldiers are in the hand of opoonents. banning torture is like: we as human beings agree on a very rudmentary respect of human existence even in the case of military conflict. even in the case of murder. if you will this is the difference between old testament and new testament. that was just a sideline, i don't want to make this debate a religious thing. the act of civilisation is to say: you did something wrong, but i let not shake you my own conviction of what is right and what is wrong. you may torture and kill, but i do not allow you to take away my identity by doing the same. in fact the US loses tons of credibility by showing that once they are concerned themselves all talks on human rights suddenly become obsolete. protesting against china's treatment of political opponents? forget it. china will say: we are in war with the enemies of our country. we are allowed to treat them as ... this is what follows out of the US example. in the very moment when it is opportune the people in charge can do whatever they want. and THIS is the borderline that crucifies not only the US government but civilised countries as such. what is the difference to some southamerican dictator? and now, to inspire more controversy, the next step is to say that the opponent is not only not a person with the same basic human rights as myself, but (s)he is not human at all. it is not so much of a big step as you might think. the results are well known ... nevertheless your argument with the old woman is correct. different circumstances, different judgement. but, no BUT, we are talking here about the very values of what the world thought is sacred within the western world. those things we thought belong to former USSR, Nazi-germany, China, Southamerica are now entering the public mind set of the average american. and, if i dare to ask this, when will this "war" ever end? who will declare its end and therefore return "back to normal" treatment of other people? the pandora box has swung wide wide open ... the US population handed all rights, all values into the hand of a government that was willing to walk on a very thin line. And you believe all this "we have to do it and everybody disagreeing is a coward". the US government did too many mistakes to justify the amount of credit they are given by the US population. sorry. i am very convinced you trust the wrong people and this torture justification debate here is truly shocking me, i have to say. i was really not aware of how far all this has already gone.
I had the misfortune not to be logged in and thus saw your post. This has happened a couple of times, to my utter horror. Having to read your drivel is about as intellectually stimulating as watching the resident troll nowadays try to slither out of another direct question, or watching fecal matter decompose on an iceberg. So I was at first just going to ignore you as I have been, but instead will bless you with a response: Any moron who not only lives in Japan, but IS MARRIED TO A JAPANESE WOMAN yet refers to the populace of that country as "Japs" is not worth speaking to, let alone debate. Get it? Obviously you have no respect for your wife, or her family, or her race. If you were married to a black woman you'd be calling her and her race niggers; were she Chinese, chinks. Etc., etc. You're a disrespectful, arrogant, Eurotrash gaijin prick with low self-esteem who went to Japan because you couldn't get laid in your own country, then married the first unfortunate woman (schoolgirl?) there who smiled and gave you the time of day - something you had never experienced back on the Continent. And now, basking in the attention any Caucasian over 5' 5 who doesn't slobber and can minimally operate a set of chopsticks receives over there, you suddenly consider yourself to be "special" to the point where you can now look down upon the adoring masses - including your wife - and refer to them as "Japs." RACIST IGNORANT MOONBAT Go peddle your discounted intellectual wares where they belong. The Huffington Post awaits your poignant observations with bated breath, I'm sure.
man, I do not advocate the torture of captured soldiers, although the opposition never seems to feel the same. Just ask John McCain... However, I have no problem with the torture of captured terrorists for information, who are not uniformed soldiers of any country and not bound by the Geneva Convention. Torturing just for the sake of torturing? I don't agree with it, as that is pure sadism. Of course, our enemies, as noted every day in the headlines, think and act otherwise. If some waterboarding, loud Britney Spears music, and sleep deprivation assists in retrieving information that ends up saving lives - American and otherwise - I'm all for it. Worse things happen at frat house hazings anyway....