On Torture

I am sure by now most of you have heard about the infamous "torture memos" which illuminated "how a pattern in which Bush administration lawyers set about devising arguments to avoid constraints against mistreatment and torture of detainees". I'm sure you're all also familiar with the atrocities of Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay, and the abominable practice of "extraodinary rendition". Our current idiot-in-chief continues to maintain that "The US does not torture", despite the memos, despite the Executive Signing Statement on the McCain sponsored legislation against torture which (at least the administration believes) exempts the Executive branch from the law, despite the testimony-- photographic, verbal (including that of a former US President, and written, to the contrary. Unfortunately, too many of us have accepted this state of affairs in which the words of our governing officials at best obscure, and at worst contradict, their actions-- like the world of 1984, our words are losing their meaning.

Something else is being lost as well. Many arguments have been made about the "ineffectiveness" of torture and the "unreliability" of words spoken under duress, as if the decision whether or not to torture is simply a pragmatic, practical decision. But there is something more at stake-- something far more precious, far more important, than the question of effectiveness. The following passage, from an article in the Washington Post on the military interrogators at Fort Hunt who questioned Nazi POWs during and after WWII:

""We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark... "During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

When it comes to torture, the debate should not be about whether or not it is "effective"; in fact, there should be no debate at all, for, as mankind has known since Plato and Aristotle, violence against another is a violence to oneself-- it is the abnegation of one's very humanity. Those who resort to torture compromise their humanity; it is a self-inflicted attack upon the very principles which make us human. And just as virtue (according to Aristotle, Kant, and others) is acquired by practice, by making such acts habitual, so too is viciousness-- the more we are willing to compromise our humanity, the easier it becomes. Acts of injustice and violence become ingrained into our character. And since, at least at one time, politics is (or should be) ethics writ large, a nation which engages in (or at least, in cases like the practice of "extraordinary rendition", allows) torture is a nation whose humanity is compromised. Such viciousness, once it takes root, is like a cancer that eats away at our society from within. The longer we allow this rot to infect us, the harder it is to extract, to recover-- Aristotle believed that certain societies could become "ruined for virtue"; their viciousness can become so ingrained that it is impossible to extract. Here, Plato seems to differ-- he believes that the cave in which we find ourselves is open along its entire width-- all we need to do to free ourselves is turn around. I prefer to believe that Plato is right-- that we are still able to extract this rot of injustice and viciousness from our society, from ourselves (for even though we may not practice or even agree with the vicious acts perpetrated by our country, if we do not take a stand against them, we are just as guilty-- complacency is complicitness). But we cannot do it alone. In the words of Edmund Burke: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

That's why I'm writing this today. I'm sharing my thoughts not because I pretend to have all the answers (I don't), but because I see the problem, and I know that the solution to the problem is the resolution of us, the citizens of this great nation who do not want to see these blatant abuses of the principles upon which it was founded continue for another second. So I will end this (longer than anticipated) collection of thoughts with a couple of questions-- what do you think we should do to extract this moral rot from within our society? How do we counteract the complacency we find in ourselves and in our fellow citizens? (Especially when this complacency is not from apathy, but simply from being overwhelmed by the day-to-day struggles to live within a system that seems to be designed to keep us concerned with the day-to-day events of our lives, a system which seems designed to keep us apolitical-- which, if such is true, is a system which cannot claim to be a democracy, for in a democracy, it is the duty of each and every citizen to be political).

From the article on the WWII interrogators: "Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the [current Administration's] controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba."

It's good to see that some of those who took a stand for our country in their youth continue to do so to this very day.

Thoughts?